Playing with my name

My name again. I think it makes me look taller.

deep-cheeks

I was standing on the grounds where a great building once stood when all of a sudden I heard something peculiar.

Two men walked by me to my right and stopped to gawk at a large ass that was stately rolling along behind an even larger woman. The man closest to me tucked his chin under his friend's ear and said, "That's deep-cheeks right there."

Objectively, I examined the woman's rather plump buttocks and learned of what the gentleman referred to; that was deep-cheeks alright. I continued on my walk but found that I couldn't get the phrase out of my head. For the rest of my day I kept calling everything around me deep-cheeks. When I went home to my apartment, I informed my roommate of what I had witnessed and introduced him to the phrase. We both found a humor in the vulgarity and started using it on a regular basis.

Days turned into weeks and weeks into months, and still, deep-cheeks did not cease to leave my speech. I even called the turkey my dad purchased for thanksgiving deep-cheeks; I don't think he understood what I said. I wasn't worried about this new phrase of mine until a recent incident at my local grocer.

I was looking in the "ethnic" isle to purchase a jar of chutney for my pork chops when I discovered a whole section devoted to Goya products. Considering my love for latin food and ginger beer, I was thrilled with my new find. I let my arms fly open and I vocalized my favorite phrase, "That's deep-cheeks right there!". Unbeknownst to me, a young woman was standing around the corner of the aisle next to the Goya section. She turned to me with a startled look in her eyes. Fuck! I was caught; a very non deep-cheeks moment. I tried to avoid her glance by staring back at the arroz amarillo but it didn't help. My excitement and uncouth statement got me in trouble. Deftly, I hopped away from the confused and possibly offended girl and gave up on the chutney. I was disappointed with myself for such carelessness. I realized that deep-cheeks has a power that I may not be able to control. I must learn from the man who taught me the phrase, and be weary of letting the words leave my mouth as anything more than a soft, surrendering whisper.

Red Hot Jazz

Sometimes friends can be helpful. This past Saturday I was fortunate enough to have my good friend Kristen drag me out to see some jazz.

I ended up seeing the best live jazz in my life. I was 8 feet from a man on saxophone, whistling away under blue lights, and I could feel a revolution stir inside me. The sweet harmonies of the the quartet made my blood boil with glee. I started blushing at the thought of what it must have been like to see someone like Charlie Parker play live. I decided that other than architects, jazz musicians are the people I idol the most.

The jazz musician sees the city as an oceanic orchestra, with every step and building an act of rhythm and sustain. I'm jealous of this underlying pattern they seem to have the ability to evoke. I'm not saying that everything in the world fits together in a sweet harmony (in fact I resent people that believe this). But it's the improvisation they can capture; somehow it all seems to fit together. I don't know how they do it but I know it's good and I like it.

Thanksgiving was a bore

Me, Father, Step-Mother, Step-Aunt, Step-Uncle, Step-Grandfather, Step-Grandmother. Too many steps, not enough pie.

Graphic Identity

I was fooling around at work last week and started looking for a typeface that describes me. I settled with this:

I'm a PC

I was able to infiltrate Microsoft's campaign to create a community of "PC's". They did this by creating a site where users could post videos of themselves with a prompted script starting with "I'm a PC and I..." I opted to call myself a gamer, I thought it would be a safe bet. Little do they know I recorded the video on my Macbook. I found it odd that the computer company that does not include a camera on their laptops has a site about posting videos of yourself. Regardless, I'm the wrench in the system. All those years of corrupt files and animated paperclips... Suck it, Windows.

Check out my video here.

Songs I could die to

1. The Whale - J.B. Lenoir  Biblical story with a tinge of despair
2. The Many and the Few -  Woody Guthrie  Another biblical story chronicling mankind, makes me feel small
3. Embraceable You - Charlie Parker I remember sitting on a rug as a little boy and trying to imagine what Charlie Parker might look like
4. You're Mine, You - Art Tatum This is one of those songs that I can listen to on repeat and hear something different every time
5. Turn Your Money Green - Furry Lewis & Frank Stokes Some of the best lines of the blues are in here

Craigslist Date

My assignment for writing this week is to document an experience and come up with some kind of idea. I was thinking about what I should do tomorrow after work and I found out that the Ritz theater is playing a classic film by Jean-Luc Godard, Vivre se Vie.  I was thinking about how it would be nice to go on a date and see the movie and then it hit me, I should find a date on craigslist. I used the service once before to sell my old pickup truck and I got my full asking price. I did receive some amount of spam, but I knew to stay clear of the gimmicks.

Maybe she will be a soccermom or a snarky paralegal, I don't really care as long as I don't get knifed or poisoned. Let be known that if I die, I have died for the sake of journalism. I would like my epitaph to be a haiku written by Nick Virgilio.

after the bell

within the silence

within myself

Check out my post on craigslist here.

I'm attracted to Mother Maybelle

I think I'm starting to fall for Maybelle Carter, better known as "Mother Maybelle" in the famous folk group, The Carter Family.

Just look at her... she can be my wildwood flower any day.

Spoonfuls and Jellyrolls

I was listening to some blues the other night and there was one verse that shined above the others: "A hand full of gimme and a mouth full of much obliged". The lyric comes from a song by axe-murderer/musician, Jimmie Strothers. No joke, this guy really was an axe-murderer and all the recordings of him were made in a prison in Richmond, Virginia.

I don't know what it was exactly about the verse that struck me so, but I couldn't get it out of my head the whole day. I kept guessing at what the metaphor might mean and nothing occurred to me until I wrote it down. I realized that it might stand for something a little less poignant and a little more sexual. The image is in fact quite pornographic.

Now one might accuse me of just having a sick mind, but this is not the first time sex and/or its fruits have appeared in blues music. Have a listen to Mississippi John Hurt's "Lovin' Spoonful" or Charley Patton's "Shake it and Break it".  Patton moans about missing the taste of his sweet jellyroll, and I'll let you guess what he might referring to.  Even the Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith, mentions how the rusty springs in her bed could use a good pushin'.

Similar to the spirituals sung by their ancestors, blues musicians had to use metaphor to get across their ideas about love and sex. One could argue that all genres of music follow this implicit rule of self-censorship, but none are as creative with it as the Delta blues musicians. If you pay close enough attention to what they are singing, you'll start to pick up on these deviant references.

Romanesque

I ride my bike for eight blocks and pass 3 Parthenons. I look around and ask myself, where am I? I am not in Greece or dancing in a bath with Romans. I am a Philadelphia man enjoying his city. But I am confused about the age and history of my city because of such contradictory architecture.
An array of colonialist red brick buildings are dotted along the one side of the street but on the other lies an ancient bank with six marble columns. Just look for example at this creation by William Strickland, the Merchants Exchange built in the early 1800's. The architect based the building off of a monument he saw while studying in Athens. I don't know what to make of this fangled history, but it sure does make for a delightful afternoon bike ride.

Divorce: a personal essay

I remember crying in my bed. I felt sorry for myself and there was nothing my mother or father could do about it. I knew it and they knew it. They were getting divorced and it was the best thing to do at the time. Being 12 years old is complicated, and having to realize divorce is the only suitable solution to keep your parents from going insane is a tough thing to do.

After witnessing the constant strife between my parents an idea started to grow inside me, and soon enough I was sitting on a couch sandwiched between Mom and Dad. I knew exactly what they were both patiently waiting to tell me. But it didn’t unfold the way I expected, they were so clinical about it, using words like “separate” and “different”. What they were saying to me was not making sense like the way I thought it would. I said to myself it wasn’t them that was getting separated, but we. I started to cry and instinctively both my parents reached out to me. I could feel them groping at my arms and torso as I moaned and the harder they hugged the more it hurt inside. There I was, in the center of a nuclear family, being split in half like an atomic particle.

It took a few weeks to adjust to this new idea of my parents living “separately.” The plan was for my mother to renovate the studio in the backyard where my father had his office and she would live there. My mother did a good job at cleaning the place up and it really started to feel like home. Space was limited, so we decided to keep my dresser in the main house. This meant on the weeks I was to stay at my mom’s house I would pack up a suitcase with enough clothes for the week and walk the 40 yards up the driveway to my mother’s. I was 12 years old and every other week I would walk through my backyard with a suitcase full of clothes.

The separation grew to become a permanent divorce and my parents agreed to have my mother take back the house and my father would find an apartment. This became a problem because now I had to start seriously packing. My suitcases got bigger and I found a rhythm in packing my clothes. Monday’s were moving day for me and Mom or Dad would cart me and my stuff over to the parent that had me that week. It was hard saying goodbye each week but I got used to it. The benefit to this was that Monday nights were like a celebration for my return and I was guaranteed to have a specially prepared meal. I began to spend quality time with one parent at a time and I didn’t have to deal with them fighting anymore, at least not in front of me.

When I was 13 I started feeling depressed about my social life and school. All of my friends seemed to turn on me at the same time and I stopped spending much time with them. In this period of distress I found that I shared a similar bond to both of my parents: they too were recently rejected and alone. They were just like me but without the acne and bad hair.

On the weeks with my mom we would spend time listening to music and dancing. It was something we could both enjoy doing together, as a mother and son. I was a confused eighth grader who couldn’t talk to girls and my mom was a pioneering woman freed from having to talk to her husband. Dancing was a great way for the both of us to relieve stress and it made me feel better about myself. Soon I was going to my middle school dances and would be the only guy on the dance floor, surrounded by pretty girls asking me to dance with them. My mom taught me how to dance, and although I was still that quiet kid, I earned their respect and I too learned to respect myself.

Just like Mom, Dad too was lonely. With all his free time open to spend with me my father started showing me everything he enjoyed as a young man. Most nights after I finished homework we would drive out to the nearest strip mall and rent a movie. Each night was a new movie of a different genre. I was starting to develop a vocabulary of film. From Eisenstein to Scorcese my father was slowly introducing me to an art form I grew to love. Had it not been for this quality time I spent with my father, I may never have decided to pursue an education in art.

By the time I left for college I had spent one third of my life living separately with both of my parents. Granted, I was not able to spend every minute of my adolescence with my parents together, but the time I spent with each parent individually was an experience of much higher quality. My memories are not of one parent being absent at a time but are instead filled with enjoyable moments spent with one parent at a time. Sure it was tough having to move every week but I was fortunate to have the chance to see my parents equally. Had it not been for my parents divorce I would not be as grounded and resourceful as I am today. So thanks Mom and Dad, getting divorced was a pretty good idea.

Last Meal

For my last meal I would like to have the following:

One bottle of wine, Côtes du Rhône
Mixed Arugula Salad, prepared with dried fruit, nuts and cheese
Steak Frites, medium-rare
Crème brûlée, with blueberries
One Cigarette, no filter

I saw a giant woman

I saw a giant woman who was as big as the sidewalk
roll toward me in an electric chair
I had to step to the side
to let her pass
and I looked at her when she went by

I said to myself-
Where is this giant woman going, she looks too big to fit anywhere.

The Caterer

I've been living in South Philadelphia for three months now, and I'm getting tired of it. Here is a picture of where I live, on Broad & Tasker Streets. My apartment is inside one of the brick row homes. The place I have is pretty nice. It has a great view from my bedroom and it's cheap. But its the surrounding area outside of my apartment that is starting to irk me.
I like to walk a lot, but for some reason every time I take a walk around my place I feel like I am following a path. Everything starts to look the same, row home after row home. I have been trying to find the beauty in the simplicity but I can't seem to find it. I miss the open and decrepit neighborhood I lived in previously, the 500 block of Girard Avenue.

When I lived on Girard I had the opportunity to walk behind old wood shops and empty warehouses. I could go 4 blocks without passing anyone and it always seemed to be an adventure. But no longer do I have this convenience. Now I am forced to navigate around seemingly endless cubes of brick filled with italian-americans. The ones with plastic covers on furniture. Fortunately, there is a large population of Vietnamese residing a few blocks west of where I live, so I can get a little variety. There are plenty of corner stores I would like to call bodegas but I think they are called something different.
I don't plan on staying here after my lease is up in July, so I am going to try and make the most of it while I am here. Maybe I'll find this beauty I've yet to see.

Four Topics

Here are four themes I will be ruminating on in my blog.

Architecture & Interfaces

Experiencing the City (day to day interactions)

Romancing the Blues (blues music and history and how I relate to it)

Ideas For Paintings

My name is...

I've tried learning Spanish before, and at one point I was half-way decent.

I wanted to take French but my parents said it wasn't practical outside of going to nice restaurants. So off I went learning the basics of any language being taught to uninterested youths. Soon enough I was able to tell people my name and that I liked soccer or I could travel by boat to buy pantalones. It felt strange to me having to make up sentences that didn't have any meaning or context. The teacher would ask me what hora Juan went to the discoteca but I was more interested in where Juan came from why he was in the discoteca with Maria and Pilar. Did they have a history? Was Juan seeing both women?

Evidently, I have a tough time taking something out of context. So with this blog of mine I am going to attempt to take my life and bring it to the web. I invite you to learn a little about my life and how I think. I've always enjoyed reading blogs because it makes me think differently about people, people I've never met exposing just enough to me so I have the chance to imagine what they might really be like. I hope you do the same for me.

Cordially,
Hunter