Fiddling around with some old words

 

The flight was ugly and painful, but they always are.  It's just twilight as the descent goes on; seems to take hours, approaching this city.  This woman.  There are lights, there are people leaning and looking out windows, both at the ghost of a landscape disappearing in the dark, and at the twinkling glimmers in the gloaming.  Everything itches somehow; physically, mentally.  His stomach twitches and quivers.

 

There's nothing recognizable to him outside the windows, and so he doesn't look.  Just the music in the iPod and the sensations of deceleration, of approaching the ground again.

He carried on almost nothing, but everyone else has, so disembarkation takes forever.  Lurching, imbalanced, get off.  Get off.  Don't you people have loved ones to get to?  Just escape.  Only escape from this hideous capsule of farts and frustration and canned air.

 

Rickety tube of a gangway.  Smells disgusting.  Then, release - not escape, but expulsion now, into the milling murmuration, all off to the right, must go to the right.  He goes to the right, follows the exodus, sees plexi walls and now-disused ribbon-barriers into a security area all but dead and done.  Windows along the gates are black and blank.  It is night time now.

 

The walk toward the center of the airport, small as it is - is not a hurried one.  He's far too aware of the composite pattern of the grey floor, the white floor, the blue floor.  How polished it all is.  The metallic demarcations in terrazzo. 

 

He realizes he's looking down because he's *felt* that she's there. Not even letting his brain realize that he has seen her.  She is there.

How can she be there?  How can he?  It's ridiculous, and not at all passionate, poetic, or right.  So much hideous fear, uncertainty, stupidity.  How could he have done this?  No matter what she said.

 

The path between the gateway from security and gates and the ugly collection of seating and flourescents isn't even fifty yards. In crossing it, he ages seventy years; every creak of the flight now in his bones.  She's wearing an extraordinarily plain black dress with a wide scooped neck - so much severe fabric, so much white skin - and boots, though it is summer.  Her hair is down, and - she's curled it?  Somehow, his mind flashes to an airport in the ten years ago.  He remembers the pained girl he saw then, the almost brutal sensation of reunion. Gods, they had been so young.

 

Of every curve of her, it's the arch at her side, hinting at her back, that finally arrests his attention.  There is nothing else in the world for just a second; that luscious place, promising her back, all of her back - and suddenly she is there, really *there*, and so is he.

 

Sent: Mon, Sep 6, 2021 12:36 am
Subject: Witness to history

Here is a bit of first-hand history I just posted in response to someone else's re-post of some bullshit put out by the city manager. Feel free to share:

 
Dispatch from Olympia on the events of August (sic) 4, 2021.

I drove through as the city hall protest was dispersing. I was on 4th Avenue, a block south of the transit hub, and witnessed large numbers of people running. Many had clubs and masks (including gas masks) and helmets. A few of these appeared to be Black Bloc (based on clothing, hair, gender diversity, and all those other signals an anthropologist can recognize).

These people were running west and north from city hall, many of them ducking into stores or alleys.

They were being chased by a group of almost all men, mostly in black and yellow, many with insignia and flags we’ve come to recognize as the signs of right wing extremists. Many with military style haircuts, and a lot of body armor and more military-looking helmets and masks. Almost all had clubs. I yelled out the window for them to get their Nazi asses out of here.

I suppose that was a risk, but they were more interested in chasing and yelling at the “antifa” people, who continued to run away, not engaging. As I passed through the block between Franklin and Adam’s, some of the fascists were regrouping.

I got to Plum street, looped back on 5th, and as I passed south of City hall and the police station, I saw two OPD uniformed officers riding bicycles AWAY from the riot on 5th. I stopped and frantically told them that armed fascists were chasing people through downtown and asked what they were doing about it. One shrugged and the other completely ignored me, and then the continued riding away.

I kept west on 5th, then looped back east on 4th. When I got to Franklin, I looked north and saw a group of maybe 20-25 fascists running in formation toward transit center on or near State Street. All armored, all armed with clubs.

Just after that, I heard 5 gunshots. One, a slight pause, and then 4 more. So I got the hell out of there.

On returning home, I was pretty shaky, but I called 911 and reported what I had seen. I also reported that I had told police and they shrugged and went in the opposite direction.

This may have begun as a standoff or argument, but as a witness, I can tell you that it turned into fascists hunting their enemies. Reports are already making seem like “there are bad people on both sides.” Notice how the “official” statement insinuates that a fascist only recently out of jail on assault charges was shot by the opposition. That remains to be seen, and is a departure from standard no comment during investigation procedure. The gaslighting is already begun.

As we have discussed, the small amount of coverage thus far is already slanting right. Yes, some "antifa" types planned to counter-protest an anti-mask protest at the city hall. That is their right. There are no credible reports of violence by antifa or black bloc prior to their being chased and attacked by proud boys and whatever other fascists were involved. Proud boys incite violence as a strategy, and then play victim. It is bullshit.

Acting like we need to give both sides the benefit of the doubt when one side are Nazis is bullshit, and functions as a social ratchet to secure fascism.

Toese was probably shot by his own people, and friends who have followed proud boy forums today say it appear to have been planned. Reichstag moment.

Pig art is some of the BEST art!

I’d be really interested to hear an art historian with a deep understanding of pigment and process look at this oldest known artistic depiction of the animal world and deconstruct why there are two slightly different shades of red.

Most of the figure is done in a dark burgundy, but then there is a warmer ochre tone which looks like it expanded on the original image perhaps (*) – and one (left!) hand print in the darker color, then a right hand print in the warmer color. And even the darker burgundy color – there are many more “brush strokes” along the back of the animal in that color, where the body is much less saturated. Was there more “coloring” as the artist got the shape and size just the way they wanted it?

* Was this image complete, and the second “hand” added to it, made the pig larger and more fearsome? Were two artists working together, and the second color representing something – an aura of the spirit of the animal, a ridge of hair raised as the pig encountered the other pigs (do pigs “ridge back” as other animals do? They are mammals after all, and even humans’ hair stands on end on our necks when we are on alert)? Is it possible one color was laid down, and long after, the second color was added by a prehistoric critic? Or are there two tones because one pot of mixed pigment simply ran out?

I am prompted to recall: many of these “hand print” paintings were studied several years ago, and a new conclusion was reached that researchers had never come to before: that they were women’s hands.