A few moments

A few moments in the life of a travelling mind was more than enough to reveal a basic truth. This is not something you'd wanna spend too much time reading.
Invited to a Thanksgiving Dinner, refusal was obvious, so not wanting to cook nor eat a turkey, he decided to make some sauerkraut with beef and pork ribs. Living alone, he already knew that cooking for one person was not so much impossible as it was difficult so he ended up eating the kraut and ribs well into December. Almost to his birthday, actually. Three four times a day he'd eat and eat. He'd eat it cold mostly, surprised at how good it tasted anyway, but after a week he began to fear eating cuz it was still sauerkraut and there was an awful lot of it still. That was the basic problem of cooking for one person. Big pots make a lot of food. You can't really cook a few tablespoons of sauerkraut and one rib. About this time he noticed that his stool, his fecal material, yup, his shit, to put it plainly, had changed color. Drastically. It was now black. He checked again the next day to see if really? Black? And yup, black as soot. No biggie he thought. At least it doesn't stink to high heaven. Weeks later it is still black as soot.
So, when he was looking at a site on the computer that was advertising t-shirts and he saw one that caught his eye, he immediately bought it. The thing of it was was that it too was black. By now black had somehow become important. Plus, not only was the color in line with his shit, but the statement too had an appeal. It simply said "Life is short and so is your Penis". So of course he wore it when he went to meet her.
As expected, she made a face. Then said "and what exactly is that supposed to mean?". He smiled crookedly and said yeah, I know, it would've been better if it said "life is short and so is MY penis", but you know, and he slid off into a still smiling silence. Her eyebrows went up, as did her hands, meaning, well, what? What does that mean? You gonna give it to me? That kind of a gesture...
He frowned, so she continued. "I don't get it.", still frowning, so she said "what, you don't wanna have anything to do with me?" which stabbed him right in the heart because they were closer together than two peas in a pod, it was crazy he often thought, nobody wants to get that close to me and she not only seems to enjoy it but seems to be just as happy being totally off her rocker eccentric wildly unconventional herownself.
Her hands were still up. In front of her heart. Palms up.
He hated it. No way of getting out of this one, so he said, no, you know, it doesn't have anything to do with you, it's all about me, you know, one time I was on my hands and knees looking down into a mirror, (here he glanced up as he was studiously looking at the tabletop) you know, my dad liked mirrors, he was always studying his face, different expressions, you know? So he could draw them better, so I think I picked up his habit. Mirrors are strange. Anyway, I was looking at my face like that, on my hands and knees, and what I saw was you won't believe this but my face was so ugly grotesque all distorted so much I didn't recognize my self, you know, all my facial skin was hanging down like deflated balloons or condoms really sick, but I couldn't stop looking, it was that weird, I'd never seen anything like that. Could've never imagined anything that strange. I moved my head from side to side and the skin just swayed back and forth, not totally deflated balloons, you know? They had some liquid in them, just a little bit, enough to make them sway back and forth with some weight, like yeah, the condoms had some gush in 'em, and right then I knew I could never again in my life have intimate relationships with any woman anymore. Out of the question, you know? No way could I subject anyone to that sight. Seemed lurid even to think about it, imagining my self as the girl, looking up, and seeing THAT, it'd be enough to make me shriek. He was still looking at her and the whole time her eyes never left his and she was now smiling back at him at which he frowned a bit.
She said, don't be silly, so he said I'm not. Being silly. Pretty serious, if you ask me. Laughing now she said you know it'd be like fucking a Sharpei? You know, the Chinese dog with all the wrinkles?
Can you imagine how much better it'd be than fucking a Doberman?
I had to laugh! I couldn't believe it she was crazier than I and it felt so good.
We ended up with her being pregnant. Of course. Even though I had no idea who she really was what she did where she lived. Anything. I knew nothing. She didn't know about me either as far as that goes. We were simply so much in love and somehow it seemed to work out that when we wanted to see each other there we'd be, as if by some mysterious magic, swimming in each others eye of wonder. A day before she was to have the baby we met like that and she told me that as the baby girl is being born she'll die, and that I shouldn't freak out or anything cuz she was in fact giving birth to herself, the baby was going to be her and so I shouldn't change her name or anything just help her grow, and I'll see that what she's saying is true, it's gonna be her.
The next day, I was there how could I not be, she did, she birthed the baby while dying . Everybody freaked, and I said ok Joseph(ina), here we are, let's go home.
A very unusual child she was. Barely born, she acted as if she'd been alive for centuries. She didn't talk, but I knew what she wanted to eat which was mostly some rice with sliced tomatoes and raisins and not very often as far as that goes and carrot juice to drink. At two weeks she was walking and combing her hair which seemed pretty unusual to me, but that was nothing compared to what she did when she was three months old. I had a habit of having small fires outside which she loved, and one day she sat down real close to the flames and stuck her hand in. I wanted to jerk her away, out of my mind with what she was doing but she looked at me so happy with no fear no sign of pain no nothing that would show me that what was happening is normal she just held her hand in the fire and smiled at me so serenely that my mouth fell open and she said Sharpei? And slowly turned her hand as if she was roasting a wiener on a stick or a marshmallow, and after an hour or so she brought her hand up to her mouth and with a huge sigh of happiness and relief bit off a piece of flesh like she'd been waiting for this piece of meat for so long. Her face melted with satisfaction, and she broke off her thumb with the biggest piece of meat that made it look like a small drumstick, all nice and brownly crispy, and gives it to me like it's the most natural thing in the world sharing a meal like this with her dad, saying Sharpei? Eyes twinkling, no Doberman, right

the vast
cold
silent
darkness.
it's my
home

da

Ja. I've been thinking about trans-formations lately. A very obvious thing that I never pay too much attention to. Night changes into day. Big deal. Happens so often, that to think about it seems unnecessary. I just get out of bed and as quickly as old age allows go to make coffee. At least.
But when you think about it, it's really magical. So smoothly natural. Every instant a change is occurring. Imperceptible, you could say. Until it's so obvious that you go "oh! Time to get up!". Actually, this is only partly true. Living in the New Mexico dessert I've come to getting up way earlier than sunrise, so my routine's adjusted accordingly. Since it's dark and cold, I start a fire outside. Sit around and gaze at the sky for a while. Then, put the water on for coffee. That's also a transformation of sorts, a change from a city routine.
So this thinKING about changes, it jumped over to my work. All of a sudden I'm changing a sculpture that for all practical purposes didn't need to be changed. But I went, ja, this one too can go, will go, through how many changes before it becomes dust? So why not see some of them? And it wanted to be really strange. Way different than it was. I was surprised. Alarmed. Tried to understand what happened. But, how to understand something like this? Curiosity always wins out over doubt.








































The torso goes through really beautiful transformations just from the change in light. I end up shaking my head in disbelief. I see her all the time, and suddenly it's as if we're on a different planet, never before seen. Stops me right in my tracks. Makes me think. And when I saw the colors in my shadow, I thought, what's the changes occurring in me? Are they just the natural and obvious approach of death, or is there something else going on in there all the time which is so subtle as to be unnoticeable? What started this whole process, seemed to indicate that the possibilities of really radical inner changes are an unnoticed fact, something we don't normally think about. What it was, was this goofy little insignificant bug, which also went unnoticed for the longest time. When I first saw the empty shells of these critters in my small "pool" ( just a medium-sized old satellite dish, about six feet in diameter, filled with water.) I knew they were the remains of bugs that turned into dragonflies. Didn't think too much about it. Then one day, as I was carving, I noticed this water bug just swimming around, diving and disappearing under-
water for a while, then re-appearing to swim around rim again. So I decided it was time for a cigarette, and sat down to watch this guy. Much later, fascinated, I discovered that in this stage, these guys are called nymphs. As I watched it swimming gracefully about I'd thought of sting rays. Mermaids. But they're nymphs.

Ja. Nymphs. There's a smaller version of dragonfly. A damselfly. Just the names seemed beautiful. Flying damsel. Anyway, I ended up watching this guy for nine hours. At first, on and off, as he appeared to just be swimming around, trying to make up his mind as to where exactly he (or was it she?) wanted to get out of the water, because from the dry empty shells I'd guessed they do their trans- formation on dry land. Then, when it appeared that it was getting serious about getting outta the water, I watched it non-stop. I told it; "o.k., you little fucker. Better do this right, cuz I wanna take photographs of how you emerge from this stage.". And as I watched, I began to realize that what I'm seeing is a pretty amazing transformation from a kind of an ugly, flat fat water bug into a flying insect that maneuvers through the air with much better ability that any technologically advanced helicopter. Actually, a fly flies way more gracefully than
any flying machine. Only I had no idea how this change from water bug to flying expert came about. So, I did the only thing I could. I watched.
Of course, the first change was that it went from being an underwater breathing bug to one that was able to breathe air. The six legs it had and used for swimming suddenly became land walking appendages. This one, in his swimming around, had somehow managed to break off half of his middle leg on the right side. It'd stop, still in the water, and I could tell it was getting tired, tired and frantic almost, it seemed to me, as if it knew that it didn't have much time left to do its thing.
It was getting on in the afternoon, and it was acting as if it was terribly important to do this. As if whatever change was happening already within it was pushing it to go faster. This inner change became apparent hours later, and at this point I couldn't even guess how incredible it would be to see what this critter showed me. But, as it stopped to rest for a while, I could see it moving its stump of the broken-off leg, and I thought, poor baby, it must hurt, huh? And it'd sit there, still as can be, except for the stump waving in the water. Finally, after a very long time, it managed to get out of the water. The surface of the satellite dish too smooth for it to get any traction, and it'd fall back time after time

This is actually, again, quite a bit later, maybe hours later, when it was finally on solid ground, going somewhere. I followed it and followed it, and it kept getting darker and darker and I kept thinking, man, this might take way longer than I'd ever suspected, do I really want these photos so much?










So, because it kept falling back into the water, I decided to help it, and I'd put stones and twigs behind it to keep it on dry "land". Perhaps that was a mistake on my part. Maybe it needed all these struggles to assist it in the changes that were occurring inside, to flex whatever muscles inside the shell it was to discard. Hard to tell. The more I watched this little critter, the more I liked it. I couldn't help developing a sympathy for it, a sort of compassion. For such a small bug, so much was expected of it if it was to survive and become. Kafka came to mind, with his story of the Metamorphosis, but I couldn't remember him writing about how this change occurred. It seems to me that the guy just woke up one morning already a huge bug. So, it made it to the lip of the dish and fell to the ground, where it began its migration to somewhere. All the time I was trying to come to grips that here's this thing that just a while back lived in water and was now traveling on dry land. Did I remember reading of walking catfish? In Florida? Thoughts of first land dwellers coming out of water millions of years ago. Out of the "soup" where all life originated
and little by little developed. We all came out of water. At birth, "the water broke" and we began emerging into a completely different world. Didn't fall to the floor and begin to crawl away, but a drastic change of environment. As I'd already said, it was getting darker all the time, and I still did want the photos, so I put him on a piece of rubber padding and carried him to my bus, where the night light was such that I could see better what was happening. Put him up on the hood, and watched. By this time, I'd gone inside and gotten my powerful eye-glasses.
It's sort of a bummer that the photos don't coincide with the story. The photos are backwards. I never remember how to load this stuff onto the site. I guess I could delete everything and re-do it, but too many other things to do to wanna devote so much in the name of perfection.
Anyway, after I'd carried him to the bus and the night-lite, he appeared to wanna go onward. So I decided that maybe he needs a little snack. All this unusual exertion must've tired him out. So I found him a little greens and put it in front of him. Man! Was he happy!!! He practically ran to the little weed, and proceeded to climb onto it. Once there, (which took a lot of time cuz of his tiredness), he didn't do anything at all. He definitely wasn't thinking of eating, so I took him back to the pool and dunked him underwater. I don't know what drove me to do this. I thought a little moisture would revive him. Would bring him to his senses and he'd better be able to remember what it was he was trying to do. Well... Wrong again! When I brought him back to the bus he was all weird. Dead looking. His wings had began to separate from the thorax, but now, all wet, they were plastered back against his back. Boy. I felt like shit. But we stayed with it, and amazingly enough he came back around. His wings began raising, and then I noticed that he was really bloated. Somehow, he'd swollen up to twice his original size. Not his head and thorax, but his abdomen was all blimp-ed out. I couldn't believe my eyes. And he wasn't moving. Then it was that I realized that the dry shells of nymphs that had successfully gone through this change, all were in a vertical position, clinging to whatever they chose. So this guy was doing the same. He'd gotten his little greens to which he clung in a sort-of-vertical position, and movement was no longer a necessity. So I picked him up, with the rubber pad and all, and carried him inside my house where it'd be a little warmer, brighter, and I'd be able to sit down. Still no idea how long all this would take. The optimist in me thought maybe a few more hours, but the way things developed I soon realized this may take days.

One of many shells floating in the pool. It was from seeing these that I knew that even though he'd broken off part of one leg, and it probably hurt, it wasn't an urgent situation, because apparently inside the shell they have another set of legs waiting to develop. The whole thing was so bizarre... It got more so as time passed. As I sat hunched over him watching every tiny little change, he began to have like convulsions. As though he was flexing new parts of his self, and he'd flex to one side, then he'd arch his back. Then he'd rest. Again and again he'd flex thus. His bloated abdomen would arch upwards, curling back almost to his wings, and inside this pudding-like mass I could detect movement of some sort, as though whatever kind of new skeleton was growing, was also flexing. And I thought, humans too, go through a stage where days, or a week or two after fertilization occurs, we're a pudding-like mass of life. And it began to seem to me that this pudding already has an intelligence within it, which is utterly foreign to my thought, but this intelligence is able to, within this pudding, organize everything so that this mush joins with this mush, and with that, and begins to grow into something quite un-pudding- like. I thought I remembered reading somewhere that scientists were toying with the idea of storing computer information in a liquid instead of on a chip or disk, and I remembered thinking how the fuck do you extract information from a liquid? I mean, when you put clean water into clean water, the two mix so that, what? You can still tell where the two separate waters are? I thought they mix so, not thoroughly, but so completely, that you can no longer tell. Like air mixing with air... So how would you retrieve information out of a soup like that? But apparently soup and mush and puddings are quite capable of organizational feats which I'd never considered before. It was, mind boggling. All this time, this bug was doing his flexing. Sometimes he'd just move his head a little bit this way and that.
Much later I decided that he can do this without me watching...
I said good night to him. Told him I still want the photos of him finally emerging, so please wait until I get up before doing the BIG PUSH. And I went to bed.

Days later, he'd dried quite nicely, well enough to discard the dry shell, I thought. But, apparently, he dried inside with the shell. Nothing ever happened. He never emerged as a dragon fly, nor as a damsel fly. For over a week I kept checking on him to see if anything at all was changing. But, no.

I don't know if it was the coldness of the nights that killed him. Or if it was my interference with a process which I knew nothing of. Could've been both. Watching a change like this is one thing. Taking an active part in it not knowing what's what, is very human, but, unsatisfactory. All the experiments done in the name of science throughout history should've reminded me of that. And it was constantly in the back of my mind. But the curiosity, the wanting to know, to see...

I believe I'm a little bit late with these transformations, or at least, late in thinKING about them. Transformers have been around for ages. Kids had the "transformer" toys decades ago. Never really paid any attention to what it means.
Change has been all around since day one. Every-
thing changes, even things that seem they're un-
changeable. Well, at least the outer changes. Though I'm quite sure that the recipe for coke has changed also. Hard to tell if it still tastes like the very original drink did. I remember, when I was driving the tank
trucks, hauling corn syrup. A lot of it went to Coca Cola. And that's what they used for sweetener. But for certain Jewish Holidays, for the Kosher Cokes, we brought them sugar syrup. The cans had a tiny little, almost invisible, "k" on them somewhere, so that the buyers would know that this was the kosher drink. Blessed by the Rabbi during production. I'm sure that for a discerning palate, the taste was noticeable.
Two pretty old coke bottles that I'd found in the desert. The one on the right I'd say is older. Not fluted, a little bit flat on one side. Much thicker glass. Some El Paso bottling company... The glass bluer than the bottled cokes I remember from childhood. But even those small glass bottles of coke are almost gone. Mostly it's plastic or cans... The relief I made, inside the red plastic heart-shaped candy box... Even the decorations on the cans change. Pretty fast, too. This one, with the sun-glasses didn't last too long. Some special occasion. So I used it to make this image of a young Indian Seer from way back, from the old days... He told his People that a strange kind of peoples was coming in the not so distant future bearing many strange, beautiful, and some dangerous gifts. Unimaginable things. He probably saw these drinks from that distance......