interview with a sock puppet

A year or so ago when I had the opportunity to work on an indie zine called SCOOP!, I lucked into an interview with an actual celebrity, a beloved figure from American pop culture. Here is an excerpt from my conversation with Mr. A. Psock (the "p" is silent):

"I've been living Brooklyn and summering in France. I hang with a pack of ex-pats to watch the Tour de France. Funny story: one of my buds wanted to run with the tour and accidentally caused a spectacular crash with a cyclist... Spot was shaken, but OK, and the rider went on to win the stage"..... [about fame] "the pets.com bubble burst and I felt lost. I got deep into Ketamine and Metacam, it was a dark time... [after recovery] I'm working with DJ MeowyMew setting my poetry to some nastastic beats, a rap/flow/fusion thing I call Dog Hop...the time is right for a new canine-influenced pop song." His parting words: "Remember to stop and smell the hydrants!"

all about kids lately

So this is Booker, the youngster I babysit, during his first birthday party and before his very first sugar rush from birthday cake, so he is mellow and being the gracious host saying hello to every guest. Little did he know that soon he would be rudely acquainted with his first jack-in-the-box (which some kids found cute, since it was a friendly furry monkey that popped out and not some horrible clown like the nightmarish ones from my all too distant, yet vivid, childhood).

Anyhow, much fun and food and cake was had that day.

It was a big birthday month, I was gleeful to have kazzoed Happy Birthday for a friend at the Sidecar Bar in BK later in the week, plus performed a kazoo accompaniment to "I put a Spell on You" with Screaming Jay Hawkins on the jukebox--to favorable reviews!

Yesterday was the Puppetry Arts Family Carnival where lots of us volunteers helped kids make puppets of all kinds, whether we knew how or not--we improvised. At our table we made many a paper bag puppet--it's amazing what kids will like! Low budget, but still fun! Especially when our puppets sang. Puppets seem real, it's weird. Kids are genuinely sweet, too; some kids made puppets to give as gifts to some of the costumed performers! Ahh, compassion is alive and well! The yoga kids this week have been loving their yoga class--one kid yelled out "I love yoga!" during a stretch. Cool, best week ever.

glacial pace

Just finished reading this from yahoo news: Warmer temperatures have reduced the number of named glaciers in the northwestern Montana park to 25, said Dan Fagre, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. He warned the rest of the glaciers may be gone by the end of the decade.

We'll now be able to use "glacier" as a metaphor for disappear. Why won't this cat glacier already?

Park Slope canyon

when the sky is a certain opaque* cloudless blue and I see it against red brick, the natural canyons of Arizona appear to my mind. It seems incongruous, but no, the 2 opposing color schemes stir the mind's eye in the way they do out west: orange, blue, orange, blue, orange, blue; the rods and cones shudder in their little retinal homes. Brooklyn is canyon country.

*[see Wittgenstein's Remarks on Colour]