fieldnotes62: Recent Episodes
fieldnotes62
Lost cats, stolen laptops, runaway kids, missing parents, bicycles vandalized and then abandoned. Baby blankets, epileptic dogs, and chimps on the lamb. New Year's from the roof, election results from the television, the sound of rain outside the tent. Hip contemporary novels, religious texts, pulp westerns, and epic poetry. Supplications of the unconsoled. A person opens a book and looks for what? Can you judge a book by its reader? Can you gauge the depths of longing from the Xeroxed sign taped to a light pole? What lies between the effect of loss and the affect of moving on?
Groundhog or fox. Monday, July 4, 2016. Valley under the highway overpass. Hit by a car. Does death make us malleable or indistinct? Is it the great equalizer? A waiting room in Hell. Where have you been my bonnie young one? The ass end of modern infrastructure in decay. Who would choose to build a world in this image? What you do for the least of these. We go through this world with a pretty shaky understanding of various animal genus and families. A sound recording isn't like a photograph any more than a beaver is like a sparrow, but still the desire to see the universal in the individual is persistent. But there’s no point in arguing with what people like. You can’t convince anyone to pay attention and love something. All the time you’ve wasted on those who weren't worth the bother. Addition and subtraction don’t mean anything until you finish the equation. You call this hair? Is it any wonder we wrap ourselves in clothes? It’s hard to keep looking. It’s difficult to balance the notion that I’m no different than any of these creatures, with the awareness that I’m not them- I don’t know what the world looked like to them, what their consciousness of the world felt like; what they would have seen when they looked at me. I have an animal stubbornness. I am a nervous animal. I’m getting tired. Stay focused- that’s a lesson you used to learn in the days of film photography. You’d have a roll of film and develop it and realize nothing was in focus. None of the pictures you had were the ones you thought you were taking. Is that the allure of a photograph? It’s an answer without the limitations of a question. A garbled hypothesis before the benediction. I can hear those church bells ringing. I can hear that lonesome train a crying. I can hear the highway roaring. All up and down the line it’s Independence Day.
Possum. Monday, July 4th, 2016. Valley in front of the wooded cloverleaf with the drainage stream. Deadly transitions. The wilderness is closed down. Spiteful congratulations. Detective work is logic-based. Honest mood assessment and a frank aesthetic pronouncement. All in a day’s work. I don’t take holidays, ma’am. The failings of a naturalist and city planner. The highway sounds like an ocean of sand endlessly roiling our contentment. Tide’s coming in- take to the hills. Crime scene photos of a vandalized museum exhibit. More nautical metaphors. Little picture/big picture. There are questions with no answers, and questions with answers- the ones without answers are the ones that need you the most. This is where the need for prioritization becomes critical. Short-term survival mechanisms. A wish as a promise.
Sparrow. Monday, July 4, 2016. Outside the train station/parking garage at the university. Flew into glass? Everything’s locked up but the machines keep humming. There’s death in falling, life in flight. Imagine being a pretty, little thing. A brief accounting of my ignorance. Conjectures are made in an attempt to fight off the topor of an oppressive summer day. What does it mean to be a witness? What are the costs and benefits? What do I have to offer? How is a universe built? Have I ever enjoyed holidays? Negative space and the modern temperament. Is the world our shadow? Are we its? The infrastructure of brutalism. Alliances are formed; allegiances acknowledged- victory awaits. Trying to imagine what the landscape looked like seen through those two small seed-sized eyes. What would my brain look like next to a sparrow’s brain? The brain of a horse? An elephant? A whale? A polar bear? Where are our memories kept? Condolences, apologies, and farewells as we grab hold the canoe’s gunnels and push off from shore.
Blue Jay. Sunday, June 26, 2016. North Mountain in front of the run down Victorian house with the porch. Hit by a car. Wild manicures. At the count of three you will forget any of this happened. We are robbed daily. Cosmology and the foundations of the scientific process. Who notices us? What would I have made of life and death 500 years ago? Would I have thought about these animals at all? The constant breeze through the trees makes it sound like a cassette recording of scratchy LP. All our attempts at preservation add up to a confusing, obsolete and noisy loss. The libraries are burned. The texts are placed inside clay jars and hidden in forgotten caves. What is it like to know so much and to wait, and wait, and wonder if you’ll ever get to tell anyone? Will you ever find anyone who even speaks your language? Nobody will ever know what it’s like to fly. Is this why we’ve given up? Is it why we feel different than the world around us? We plod the earth knowing it’s our grave. Give thanks to the Blue Jays, after the last glacial period they helped spread oak trees. What have you done?
Squirrel. Sunday, June 26, 2016. Valley by the concrete stairs to the house that doesn’t exist anymore. Hit by a car. Timelines of decay. Lost arts, dead languages and the burning of the Library of Alexandria. Does anyone else but me think about these long vanished landmarks? What animal wouldn’t lose its mind listening to the constant undertow of cars and airplanes and motorcycles and lawnmowers whirlpooling around their head? Halfway thru another harsh year. A camera has an intention. Thumbing my nose at the winners. Have I given up on trying to make something pretty? A near death experience. The importance of raising one’s voice when necessary; so much depends upon. Too many subtractions make the equation impossible to solve. They say an animal has no sense of shame, but have you seen someone riding a motorcycle lately? The melancholy of arriving too late to the party. Miss Dickinson regrets her absence. Something else to think about and hold in my mind on the bike ride home. A curse and a tender farewell.
Squirrel. Sunday, June 19, 2016. Upper Mountain near the old Telly Savalas house. Hit by a car. Infrastructure priorities and consequences thereof. A neighborhood where people have the money to live in houses that don’t all look the same. Down to the cities in trains. A strangely oppressive environment. Some rudimentary notes on flora and fauna. Do little kids still look for 4 leaf clovers? Do they still rub dandelion heads under their chins? Summers before air-conditioning- the windows all open as people play Rummy 500 on the screened-in porch. Nobody eats until father gets home. All those people are gone. Nothing survives once you leave. I’ll never know what worlds this little grey and white squirrel took along with him. I’m burying these nuts in the hopes that someone in some other season will dig them up. I wish I had more to offer this perfect little animal.
Squirrel. Sunday, June 19,2016. That private road that runs up between the highway and what used to be a quarry. Hit by a car. Nature, Art, then Commerce- a timeless triptych. Observations and apologies. There are hundreds of different types of animals that you’ve never seen sleeping. Who designed our Sunday routines? Family, God, and commerce. Fun in the sun. I feel like I dropped out of society somewhere around the age of 6. As a kid I remember watching on the news and reading in Mad Magazine about “tune in, turn on, and drop out.” Only one of those appealed to me. What did Walt Whitman do on a Sunday? Did Emily Dickinson take a solitary walks around Amherst, killing time until supper? Did she outlive her father? Did she ever go swimming? Trying to describe the built world is a tedious battle. Where are all the skeletons of all the animals that have died? Why aren’t we constantly stumbling over little ribs and skulls and femurs no bigger than parts in a model kit? I wasn’t made for the summer- by the beginning of April I’m already longing for October. Like a big, clumsy, lumbering, depressed corallary to a butterfly, my season is short- who knows how I get through to another year. Oh, well, not much to do but feed the rabbits and listen to the wind.
Earthworm. Sunday, May 29, 2016. Laurel near the old train station. Eaten by a robin. A scene a child could have painted. It’s reassuring to have a purpose in this world. Tools for living. Do worms have a social life? What’s it like under there surrounded by all that dirt and dark and damp? Could a worm dream? Do they know another worm when they meet? In death the worm ascends. How did we become such strangers in this world? Have we gained anything in our forgetting? Less than 10 miles from here the remains of Thomas Alva Edison lay buried under a big stone slab- I wonder if the worms have gotten to him yet? Come walk down to the river’s edge with me; watch as the birch canoes slip away towards the marshes and the swamp. Climb alongside as we reach the mountain escarpment. We lay low in the sun on the warm rocks and look out over the valley. Beneath us a figure travels the road into town. At our backs a footpath cuts through the meadow and into the woods; offering the promise of refuge and renewal. The unseen falls awaiting our arrival. No need to hurry.
Little orange tabby cat. Sunday, May 29, 2016. Day before Memorial Day. Route 46 near the diner where they’re doing construction. Hit by a car. The shape a life takes. Don’t believe the television cop and detective shows featuring troubled geniuses and super-computers- there is no algorithm for violence and destruction. Oppressive thoughts in anticipation of the heat and the light and the people. Science and folklore. The flattened affect of a weary observer. By the end of this I’m confused and slow and lost. What if Nick had gotten shot, and Gatsby had lived on? Would that book ever have been written? Who would want to read it? Am I the Nick for all these little Gatsbys? How many books did Fitzgerald have in him? Sometimes when I’m doing these I feel like I’m waiting around keeping them company until the ambulance shows up. It never does, and, on a certain level, I’m the only one there all along. Imagine if you were a little tabby cat and could see yourself in a mirror- wouldn’t you love how beautiful you are? I feel like I let this cat down. I’ll try to do better next time.
Little squirrel. Sunday, May 22, 2016. Grove near the round sparrow. Hit by car. The avenue of heroes. Violence is a confusing and ugly addition to any vista. I don’t think I like the sun. Garbage is strewn across the landscape like lines of poetry. People are a disappointment. All hail the little guys, the young ones, the old ones. Quitters never win, and winners never learn. Do elephants really go to the same place to die? I sound depressed.There are no answers in graveyards, only questions. Is this what Alan Lomax would’ve sounded like if he was only given a microphone and a Ouija board? The constant swirl and swell of noise is an undertow pulling us into a panicked numbness. Lightly, up above, as if seen from the bottom of a lake, the birds offer tiny, distinct, starlight specks of sound to help you navigate to a better world- an older world. LinkedIn profiles of the saints; references upon request. Another one you probably need earphones for, not that they will help.
Sparrow. Sunday, May 22, 2016. Grove in front of the cemetery, across from the pool club. Hit by a car. The nomenclature of affluence. The challenges of accurate dating and classifcation. Nature is fluid, and we are but stubborn phonograph needles and hand-held cameras. There's a lot of noise in the air. Migratory patterns of temporal conditions. Holidays for the dead. Flowers, flags, granite, grass, and concrete. Dreams begin in memories. Another goodbye, another summer. Can any of these animals hear me?
Squirrel. Sunday, February 28, 2016. Carlyle by the railroad tracks. Hit by a car. Lying on his back. Iconic images from the Golden Age of comic books. Baby Superman leaves his collapsing planet. The distance between the tall grass and the woods, and the paved suburban street, was first mapped by Thomas Cole in 1836. The Iron Horse was once a marvel-a machine with an animal spirit. I was wrong on both accounts-it is Rachel Whiteread. The necessity of a job well done. Or done at all. Questions and exclamation points. Setting suns, great American pastimes, and a reason to carry on. The signposts remain, but the ground they were anchored in is gone, gone, gone. Left alone on the American continent. Go East, old man.
Skunk. Sunday, February 28, 2016. Glenwood near the little Sir Walter Raleigh house. Hit by a car. Middle of the road. Violent senses. You know it when you see it. Why does the uncaged bird sing? I want to be up when everyone else is asleep. Killers and gatherers. Sometimes a heay load is too much to carry. Gin a body meets a body. My needs versus Nature's zeitgeist. General musings on climate, planetary orbits, the singularity of the individual, and where to drop the needle on the record. Distractions and defense mechanisms. Whitman walks among the marvels of a new America. Mr. Skunk, he dead. Odious odors. A sentence is passed, and the world moves on as we make our final farewells.
Cat. Saturday, January 16, 2016. Valley in front of origninal site of 19th century Dutch farmhouse. Hit by a car. A cartographic record of heartbreak. Sponsored content, hip celebrities, and taking over bird sanctuaries. Bitter rambles on a bitter cold day. Our ancestors revered animals to the point that they crawled into dark caves and taught themselves how to draw and paint. Violence creates confusion. Your podcast listener is reassured by a familiar name. The totemic power of a well-designed website. Drop-down menus and cross-platform, scalable art are the Ariadne's thread to safeguard our passage thru these chaotic times. How many deaths are too many? Three seems innumerable. The hierarchy of innocence. Do animals subscribe to the "great man" theory? Self-pity in the built world. Shovels, excavations, and the relative safety of a long gone landscape.
Cat. Valley in wooded hill behind college. Sunday, January 3rd, 2016. Cause of death unknown. Black and white cat in a gray sad world. it sounds like there are jets flying in my head. Ishi ponders who to turn his jantiorial keys over to as the museum at UC Berkeley is converted into condos. Some blurbs for your RSS feed. Dreams and nightmares are things we fall into. Our final resting place. Priorities and speculations. A curated curse upon all our houses. (insert music bed here)
Have You Seen This Cat? November 15, 2015. Cooper and Valley. A terrible world to love. Please help. Typography and graphic design as formalized anguished echoes of loss.
Cat. Friday, January 1, 2016. Valley in front of old Victorian house. Hit by car. A plump little belly and a sad equation. The road to Calgary is paved with gold intentions. A disappointed world. Straight talking PSA's. The seven secrets of successful people. The magical thinking of a doomed year and unspoken fears.
Squirrel. November 15, 2015. Valley in front of opera place. Hit by car. Confusion, murder, and nostalgia for a time when people used to go out dancing for fun. A reading from the John Muir police blotter. The comfort of metaphors. End of season, everything must go. Wishful thinking amid a dry, cold wind.
Shiba Inu- Lost. October 18, 2015. Bedford and N.9th. Orange fur. Scuttling leaves, chirping birds, the search for a lost epoch, and the brutal indiference of Moloch the Developer.
Franchesca/Chica-Missing Person. Lorimer and Metropolitan. October 18, 2015. Repost Me! Take a picture. An hourglass you can never flip over.
Squirrel. Sunday, November 1, 2015. Valley in front of the bus stop by the cemetery. Hit by car. Sometimes you just have to let the wind say what it wants to say. Things I learned from New Jersey.
Skunk. Wednesday, October 14, 2015. Valley in front of where the big, fancy white house used to be. Hit by a car. It always sounds like it's raining. Widows, ghosts, and lonesome train whistles. When there are no more answers, the only thing left is questions. Natty Bumpo stuffed and whimsically mounted for your mild, knowing bemusement. The sheer pleasure of terror and transience. Don't hide your candle under a bushel, use it to burn their playhouse down.
Calico Cat. Wednesday, October 14, 2015. Valley across from woods. Hit by car. 7 months to a year old. Exquisite, indiscriminate, singular. Lost in the maelstrom. After the deluge, what? Winter approaches and a sweetheart departs. No literary device is going to soften the punch.
Starling or Blackbird. Valley in front of cemetery. Sunday, October 11. 2015. Hit by a car. A violent death. A resting spot in the valley of death. Brutalistic headstones and Gilded Age statuary. The infinite possiblities in a finite world. Raise high your battle flags.
$ Reward $. Stolen Guitars. September 7, 2015. Train station near cul-de-sac. Reverse engineering heartbreak. Our spirit animals manifest, enthrall, and then disappear into the miasma of the built world. All roads lead to impermanence.
Groundhog. September 7, 2015. Upper Mountain between Iris gardens and the Badlands house. Hit by car. Sad greeting cards for bad jobs. Fun times at summer's end. A quarterly meeting of a local chapter of Ethnographers and Antisocial "New Documentarians Collective." Papers and powerpoint presentations are given covering diverse topics such as masking, ritual and celebration, and "the other."
Skunk. August 30, 2015. Valley across from banquet hall. Hit by car. Born in spring, died in summer. The inability of maps, legends, XY graphs, or basic geometry to hold your hand at 3 o'clock in the morning. The promise of colder days. Frankenstein terrorizing the countryside in his SUV. What can a microphone catch when words fail? Our workshop held amid the splendor of Big Sur will teach you the skills you need to transform tragedy and pain into an Instagram worthy career. Or join us for our special three day conference on diversity in public media held this year in St-Tropez, France. For those on a budget, be sure to reserve your pass early and qualify for the "Difference Makers" 3% discount.
Northern short-tailed shrew. August 24, 2015. Norton near pretty yellow house. Hit by a car. It wasn't a mouse-I'm no Charles Darwin. I'm being beat down by the summer and the noise of man. Listening with headphones is suggested to make sense of my drowning whispers.
Sparrow. August 10, 2015. Valley near Glenwood. Hit by a car. An American pastoral landscape. Bones strong enough to lift you off the ground. Bible quotes, tote bag rewards, a journey round the sun, a litany of dissappointments and a sad goodbye.
Little dead bird. Saturday, July 4th, 2015. The road thru the college past the power lines. Hit by a car? A victim of gravity? The ever shifting state of Linnaean taxonomy. A brief description of two competing powers. Fossils, geographic records, and the destructive footprint. Perhaps it all went to hell the minute we stopped worshipping the animals we painted on cave walls, and replaced them with outsized avatars of ourselves.
Goldfinch. On the road in the nice cemetery. June 21, 2015. Hit by car. Art imitates death. Mysteries real and manufactured. So much depends upon a small goldfinch. An axe is ground and futures are assessed. The world is robbed daily, but the puzzle and triumph of the goldfinch remains constant.
Missing- Petey. Aug, 25, 2015. Upper Mountain and Laurel. Missing- August 24. 17 years old, indoor cat. Friendly with strangers. Sick with worry. Does something have value if it doesn't have a focus sentence? If every story has a twist, no story has a surprise. All I want to do is scream, but it sounds like my voice is getting quieter and quieter. Where are you, Petey?
Juvenile Robin. Sunday, June, 21, 2015. Valley near Macopin. Hit by a car. It's Fathers Day in the networked universe. Is the only way out, in? Or is it the other way around? Are the dead orphans? What did Herman Melville do for fun on a Sunday?
Robin. Mt. Hebron near railroad crossing. May 31, 2015. Hit by car. A storm and summer approach. The Flying Dutchman creek and the unspoken realization that the whole hip taxidermy/Morbid Anantomy thing is dumb and sad. A bird is missed.
Irridescent Blackbird. Saturday, May 30, 2015. Valley in front of chained off driveway. Hit by car. The ghost of Wallace Stevens wanders a spoiled American landscape.
Robin. Tuesday, May 19. 2015. Hit by a car? The private road above the pond near the old quarry. The days are too long and too hot. Does a spiral jetty arc towards the shore or away from it? The failure of modernism versus natural decay. Things we learned from New Jersey.
Sparrow. Norwood Ave in front of house with big white dog. Sunday, May 17, 2015. A little guy hit by car and wet from the rain. Optical illusions. Icons, archetypes, confusions, and profound mysteries.
Squirrel. Norwood and Alexander. Sunday, May 17, 2015. Hit by a car. Abraham Lincoln swims the Potomac. Maybe what this country needs is more ugly, clinically depressed Presidents- ones that would walk in solitude through the captial's streets at dusk; past poets, nurses, peddlers, and folk heading home from work.
3 bird eggs. Sunday, May 10, 2015. Underneath the stairs of pedestrian overpass on highway. The uncertain remains of life or death. Understanding the natural world in an Age of Digital Reproduction.
Deep black bird Sunday, April 26, 2015. Laying in the stream by the railroad station. Cause of death unknown. Finding your place in the circle. Life lived in the thickets. Gestures-empty and otherwise.
Sparrow- either attacked by a hawk or cat, or hit by a train. April 13, 2015. Train platform near Laurel Pl. The things we leave behind. Hank Williams and the unbearable lightness of daylight. Trigger Warning: There is no mention of Miranda July in this posting.
Sparrow. April 7, 2015. Valley Rd in front of convent. Hit by car. T.S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams wrestle to the death under an indifferent downpour.
Raccoon. April 4th, 2015. Hit by car on road behind the resevoir. Twigs, leaves, trash and plosives. Roads without names. The wind in the pines. Confessions of a crime scene witness. The problems of cultural reassignment surgery. The teacup is slowly emptied, yet we grow more and more thirsty. How can you light out for the territory when it's the most populated state in the country? Always finish up on a satisfactory high note; everything is temporary except loss.
Possum. April 3, 2015. Upper Mountain Ave between train station and Iris garden. Hit by car. The living Bible in an age of post-mechanical reproduction.
Squirrel. Hit by car. Notch Rd in front of non-descript ranch-style house. March 29, 2015. Major trends in 20th century art. Ce ne est pas un écureuil. Ce est un écureuil.
Rat. Hit by car. Highway in front of Ford/Kia dealership. March 29, 2015. Stiff, brittle, dead. The twin lenses of location and context. Humanity a virus that spreads in an ever widening gyre.
Squirrel. Hit by car. Upper Mountain Ave in front of ramshackle Victorian. March 22, 2015. A death with no entertainment value. Defiled but not degraded. Like trivial gods we recreate the natural world in our own diminished image.
Deer. Valley Rd in front of cemetry. March 25, 2015. Covered with blue vinyl tarp. Cold and raining. All paths lead to a burning Rome. Don't believe the movies, all of the monsters are outside of the graveyard. A geological time scale as slow, gravitational descent into the glittering, white hot center of the cultural black hole. Why aren't the planets in constant revolt? The Golden Age of Podcasting a galaxy of ever diminishing suns that throw only shadows disguised as light. Come to our listening parties in the nearest citadel of the Creator Class. Like us on Facebook and rate us on iTunes. This one's for my sizzle reel.
Either a deer or a groundhog or a raccoon or an opossum. Febuary 12, 2015. Valley Rd in front of Greek Orthodox Church. Too far away to see exactly what it is. The bureaucracy of loss. The complex calculation of distance, scale, and animal gut instinct. The persistence of place.
Deer. Feb. 12, 2015. Valley Rd in front of Dutch farmhouse. Hit by car. Honey and cinnamon fur. Every little piece adds up like snowflakes, but nothing melts away. Car tires on brined roads sound like cannonballs rolling home to Sebastopol.
Lost Kitty "Ghost" Bowery and E. Houston. Feb. 8, 2015. Harness, leash, black sweater vest. Bald spot. 5 pounds of love and heartbreak. I hope they find her. I'm never going to get over this world.
Blue Free Spirit Brittany Bike Stolen. Bowery and E. Houston. Feb,8, 2015. Outside Crunch gym. Green sticker. A lot of sentimental value!!! Well cared for bicycle. If you buy a bicycle on the street, it's a stolen bicycle and you're probably a secret creep- oh, and watch your back because there's a sentimental avenging angel coming to take back what's hers. Rock beats scissors and fur beats chromoly steel. Lots of typographic variety but the loss remains the same. Do not name your cat "Ghost", it's like burying a time bomb of regret in your gut. A damp, cold February Sunday who's thoughts turn to Thorstein Veblen, poorly locked bicycles, and staying up all night making lists of things you'll get over vs things you'll never get over.
Two deer. February 1, 2015. Valley Rd by the woods behind the college. Opposite sides of the road. One golden brown like tall grass, the other more dark like warm tree bark. A crow does what a crow does. Poor audio quality due to lousy headphones and depressed affect. The persistence of vision. Distance and the myth of Castor and Pollux. Human awareness, animal cognition, and the religious impulse. Where is your home? When is your home? As a young man, Walt Whitman was known to ice skate from Fulton Street in Brooklyn across a frozen East River to Wall Street-young boys would charge 5 cents to use their ladders to get up and down the river bank. In his later years, he would watch the skaters out on the Delaware River from the bedroom window of his house on Mickle St in Camden, New Jersey. If you never pay attention, you can never lose anything. A curriculum vitae, an apology, an offering, a farewell.
Pigeon. January 31, 2015. Valley Rd in the highway underpass. More ugliness and decay. Cause of death undetermined. William Carlos Williams as post-apocalyptic road warrior. There's no green light for Jay Gatsby at the Joseph Campbell National Wildlife Refuge.
Squirrel. January 29, 2015. Valley Rd in front of ritzy elementary school academy. A little guy. Hit by car. After a storm, the transitory property of beauty. Secrets to a successful party. Mammalian vs avian gender signifiers. A curse upon the land. When you dig a grave for your enemy, dig two. Le Rayon vert.
Squirrel. Friday, January 23, 2015. Valley Rd near the old time pharmacy/deli. Hit by car. Storm is coming. A brief history of commercial real estate. The act of fitting in. Plus or minus 1. An unseen hand attempts to soothe-an unknown force declines.
Missing Cat Roy. Alexander and Park. Sunday, January 4, 2015. Reward-No Questions Asked. Medium sized, shy male. Raccoon tail. Case Study Heartbreak No. 25. Our love for this world crucifies us to it.
Squirrel. December 31, 2014. Stony Hill in front of the house where Susan Curtiin used to live. It's really cold and I have a cold and no earphones. This world a fallen fruit, these memories seeds-but where is the way side, the rocky ground, the thorns, the good earth?
Blue/Bluer Pigeon. Monday, December 29.2014. Valley Rd near highway underpass. A purposeful observer. A micro-ecosystem as keyhole to a more pastoral America. Still life with internal combustion engine.
Squirrel. Saturday, December 27, 2014. Broad Street across from parkway. Hit by car. A hurried goodbye. Used to be a highway, now it's a park no one plays in. Used to be a dead end, not it's a cul de sac. The management regrets an inferior report. An unexpected interloper gestures towards an unknown future.
Raccoon. Saturday, December 27, 2014. Hit by car. Valley Rd in front of dentist house/office. Who named the animals? Who named the clouds? Beauty leaves an unsettled wake. Keep your cairns piled high. Every dead pixel adds up and subtracts.
Pigeon-white and black. December 24,2014. Valley Road, near the entrance to the highway. In the underpass. Hit by car. Cave paintings and migratory patterns of indigenous peoples. Far from the waterfront. The secret to a good "pitch" is having "good tape." The secret to good tape is setting your levels.
Robin. Hit by car. December 24,2014. Rain and fog. To the east, trees, fog, and the invisible city. The evolution of fruit. Salutation, lamentation, and farewell.
December 22, 2014. Valley Rd in front of Mid-century modern wannabe dentist. Sparrow, run over by car. A modern fossil's transition from 3D to 2D. As the world slid into darkness people huddled in caves and dreamed of gods and animals. Do not go gently into that new year.
Tuesday Dec 16, 2014. Park between Alexander and the cemetary. Skunk, but it's hard to tell. Social structures, aesthetics, the impinging unthinkable, and a plea to be remembered. Absolutely zero mentions of cell tower "pings."
Winter Squirrel. Saturday, December 14, 2014. Valley Rd in front of torn down lot near power lines. Hit, and run over by car. A young guy. Migratory habits of planets and species. I don't trust the architects of the built world.
Raccoon. Mountain Ave near the little train station. November 6, 2014. The wind comes and the wind goes. Of what use are the living to the dead? Loman in furs.
Gizmo-Lost Dog. Bellevue Ave and N.Mountain. Reward. 11 weeks. November 17, 2013. What were that woman's intentions? My mother and the Great Emancipator. The hopefulness of desperation.
Skunk. Lorraine Ave near the water department thing. Sunday, November 2, 2014. A windy fall day of blue skies and quick white clouds. This is much too long. Perhaps it's much too short. The topic of invasive species is broached obliquely. A crisis of confidence. In the end, you trust your instinct and proceed.
Mouse. October 31, 2014. Valley Rd. Terrible recording while I was rushing to catch train. Do not attempt to do a field recording 25 minutes into your powerwalk. The only thing perfect here was that little mouse.
Squirrel. A sad mess. October 29, 2014. Valley Rd in front of Greek Church. It gets dark when the sun goes down. Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field one Night.
Memorial Squirrel. A little guy. Wednesday, October 22, 2014. Valley Rd across from the park with the little pond, fountains, and obelisk. A wet, cold day. "Drop by drop upon the heart."
Little Sparrow. Tuesday, October 21, 2014. Sidewalk near the train station by the movie theater. Mysteries, puzzles, and questions. The high pitched hum of the overhead electrical wires. There's nothing to dontate to; no really cool t-shirts to recieve for your pledge. Perfection viewed thru an imperfect eye.
Small Possum. Hit by car. Saturday, October 18, 2014. Elm St. near the vestiges of the old dairy. Is it an ugly world or did we make it that way? The Month of the Dead. Tags by "Yun." A long time ago the Leni Lenape lived in this region- when I was a kid you could still find arrowheads in fields and woods and along the banks of streams. That seems like ancient history now.
I Lost My Cat Zonia. October 18, 2014. Clifton Ave-Hot Bagels Abroad/Hunan Wok parking lot. The universal language of loss vs. the mechanical language of indifference. It's hard to think about other people's pain.
Samson-Lost Dog. $1.000 Reward. Heartbroken Family!! Bleeker and Mercer. Mid-November, 2001. Irving and Park is a desperate ways away. Nothing left to hold but questions. Coping strategies for the chronic sufferer.
Lucy-Small Greyhound. Hit By Car. Bedford and N.5th. Late November, 2001. Salad would be perfect. I hear America wailing. Dressing for success.
Squirrel. Valley Rd near the abandoned steps leading down thru the trees. Monday, October 13, 2014-not the 12th. An elegy and an apology-both poorly miked.
Young Possum. The color of smoke and charcoal. Valley Rd in front of house with Christmas lights. October 12, 2014. Fruitlessly retracing steps to the constant sound of the universe being torn apart.
Huang, Ming Zhu. Missing. Houston and Christie. October 20, 2002. Some books have bad endings.
My Name Is Fred. Help Me Find My Way Home. Black Lab puppy. Diapers? Greene and Prince. Mid October 2002. Thumbs up for Freds. Thumbs down for rock stars. Time to go.
Snoopy. Lost Dog. Must Get His Medicine. Lorimer and Meeker. Dec 26, 2005. Grey and wet. 10 lbs of sadness. What fades and what remains. It takes a worried man.
Robin. Hit by car. Oct 6, 2014. Valley Rd in front of Mary covering the globe like Sherwin-Williams. The Descent of Winter.
Gray Squirrel, white belly. Park St in front of a big house. October 5, 2014. Do squirrels fall? 3 creatures. Don't record without using headphones, that's Radio 101.
Lost Cat Sammy Shy and Sweet. Call Ken. Cheever and Degraw. July 29, 2013. How much does a missing cat weigh?
Tanzer-Jack Russell Terrier. $$$$$REWARD$$$$. Brown Coach Collar. Valley Rd. Early November, 2001. Portrait courtesy of the J.Vermeer Estate. Chattering birds as Greek chorus.
Sasha, Our Kitty. Grey Tabby Female. Belly Shaved. Bleeker and Carmine. This one goes out to Josh and Christina. Sometime during February 2000. Some things are just terrible to think about.
Autumn Squirrel. Run over by a car. Grove St across from a school, a park, a tree. October 1, 2014. The art of the pitch.
Missing-Remi. Black Cat With White Spot. Help. Leave Answer. 6th Ave and 16th St. September, 2002. Prayers and loss.
Lost Cat-Rusty. Jumped From WIndow. Sweet Disposition. 4th Ave and E 10th St. September 6, 2002. The Pequod meets the Rachel.
Lost Cat-Anais. Very Friendly. Last Seen 8.31.02. Sullivan Street and Bleeker. Precious vs Too Precious. What people need.
Stolen Bike-Taken By Force. Bianchi Track Bike. Williamsburg Bridge. Mid-August, 2001. Affection is constructed from particulars. A view from the bridge-a sad walk home.
Graham Is Missing!!! Berry and N.1st. Grey and White. Mid July, 2001. Probably a cat. Disappointment and the approaching ill wind.
A Happy Mistake, Dutifully Noted. Rode my bike past what I thought was a thrush-turned out I was wrong. Tuesday September 23, 2014. Valley Rd in front of the old house that used to have an upright piano on porch.
Chipmunk. Highland Ave below the reservation. September 20, 2014. I'm no Walt Whitman. What's left behind vs what to leave in.
Saturday, September 13, 2013. Sparrow. Valley Rd. Rainy day. The just and the unjust...
Please Help Me-Gentle Black Cat. September 9, 2014. Van Houten in front of kindergarten and yoga place. Frightened.
Earthworm. Valley Road in front of the tall retaining wall where the power lines are. Aug 31, 2014. A question mark with no period.
Grey Tabby Cat. Colfax Ave between the high school and recycling place. Aug 31, 2014. An ugly day and stupid hopes.
Blue Jay. Aug 30, 2014. Valley Road, across from development entrance. Hit by car. A beautiful bird.
Possum. Valley Rd across from the 55+ development. Aug.23, 2014. Very breezy-the wind through the leaves sounds like a river.
Lost Cat-Female Calico-Answers To Uli. Devoe and Olive. Feb 27, 2005. New Testament vs Old Testament.
Jasper-Still Missing! The second Jasper notice I recorded. Where does hope come from? Poor recording-bad mic cable.
Missing Dog-Reward-$$$ - Driggs and N.4th. April 14, 2013. A difference of opinion. A fatalistic wind blows.
Please Help-Little White Dog, Marley. We Miss Him. Poplar and N. 2nd. April 4, 2004. A crummy, inscrutable world.
Lost Dog Fred. Running Towards DUMBO. Very Scared. Call Mary/Carol/Josephine/Deborah. Plymouth and Adams. September 29, 2002.
Missing Cat-Donkey Lee. Berry and N.5th. Female. Small. Last Seen Friday, July 19th- 4 pm. July 28, 2002. So much depends on a black, white, and orange cat in the rain.
Lost Zippo Lighter. Please Call Nez. Bleeker and Sullivan. July, 2002. Past, Present, Beyond.
Lost Tuxedo Cat. Name Max. Friendly. 12th Ave and 22nd St. July, 2002. Pushed out, left behind, lost.
Lost Cat. E N C. Loose In Neighborhood. Carroll St and Columbia. June 23, 2002. Everything. Everything.
Handsome birds, a voice soft as feathers, an unexpected gift. Look up into the night sky at 4 a.m. and watch your memories coalesce into bright, distant constellations. Then set your course.
Name: Elizabeth. Missing SInces Wednesday, 7/3/02. Nickname "Baby Boo." Broadway and 13th St.
Gidget. Tiger/Calico Color Cat. (Indoor Cat) Please Call Joan. Missing 7/9/02. 9th St between 5th and University Place.
Have You Seen This Dog? Very Shy. Kent and Metropolitan. February, 16th, 2003. May be hiding, may be injured. Crappy day.
Brass Ring Lost with Emblem. Stuyvesant St and 3rd Ave. High Sentimental Value. Cash Reward!!!
Adrift between two shores. Night owl? Forget it. Party never stops? Move on. Early riser? Keep moving. Lost? Pull up a chair.
Lost Cat- Resonds to "Kidney". Brown with orange Tortoiseshell. Graham and Metropolitan. 9.21.2003. Also, minutes later, a different version at Metropolitan and Humbolt. Very friendly. A big meow, no teeth and a thousand cuts. How do people go on?
Dr. Sneha Anne Philip. Last seen exiting Century 21 on September, 10, 2001, 7:18 pm. Multiple large shopping bags. Union Square, 9.14.2001. Another broken puzzle. Either/Or.
Have You Seen Sam? Huge black and white striped cat. Wythe and Metropolitan. Time to move.
Large Brown Friendly Cat- Kenmare near Mott. Please call Vishna. March 15, 2003. Nice handwriting. A cat, a bed, and a person. The toll rings for thee.
Lost Dog Female. Black Lab Mix Puppy. Heading north. Very friendly. East 85th St and 5th Ave. July 6th, 2014. Misery Mile. Not much to say.
Arbithus Stooks. Have You Seen Her? 30th St. Station, Philadelphia, PA. Good Friday. Sometimes it's better to head outside.
Lost Dog Ajax. Polish Sheepdog. 9th St near 6th Ave. October 25th, 2002. Perfection breaks.
Cat-Minka. Tyler-out of here. Ainslie and Graham. January 24, 2001. It's so cold. Everything will be lost. An allowance is made.
Missing Dog Lola. Washington Square dog park. Last seen Feb.24th. Black French Bulldog. Looks like a bat. See/Find. 02.27.2001.
Missing Joe (Francis) Trombino. Parking garage, Tower One, Brinks truck. 9.11.2001. Houston and MacDougal. 9.16.2001. Dr. T.J. Eckleburg has gotten his Chanel on.
Sonia Ortiz. Local 32B. WTC. 6th Ave and Houston St. 9.16.2001. Blue pants, white shirt, blue sweater, bow tie.
Craig Silverstein. WTC disaster. Sunday, Sept. 16, 2001. Broome and Mercer. From a tape I had labeled "WISCONSIN".
Lost Dog Ken Epileptic. Berry and S.5th. A pretty Sunday in May, 2002. I was telling someone about this and they thought it was funny-it isn't-none of them are.
Missing Black Cat with White Paws. Berry and N.1st. Lost while visiting Williamsburg. On a Sunday in late April/early May of 2002. Two questions I don't know the answer to.
Black Cat Missing. Lorimer and Richardson. Pure black short hair. Early November, 2002. It's raining the way it does in November in this part of the world.
Lost Dog Winston. Kent and S.4th. Sometime in December of 2001. Handsome and scared. Alert and sad. A desolate place. The bridge, the river, the cold, the factory.
Lost Notebook. Broome St. and Grand. Late April, 2002. Letters, notes, and pages from other books. Three languages. And then what happened?
Lost Cat-Tiger/Persian/Tabby mix. Fluffy tail. Tops supermarket on N.6th between Berry and Wythe. September 18, 2003. Maybe Alan Watts would've been better suited to this endeavor.
Lost-Framed Picture Of My Father. 1st Ave and E.3rd St. All bridges back have been burned. A Saturday night in September of 2003.
Wythe and S.1st. Lost Kitty. Very Sweet Petite female. In front of fancy junk store. Ran away from home. Weep for us.
Lost Dog- York and Pearl St. Down under the Manhattan Bridge overpass. Yellow Lab mix, ran from fire. May answer to "Fred". September 24th, 2003.
Lost Cat. Bandit. 19 years old. Holland Terrace. September 8th, 2013. Mousie died today.