Eat your vegetables.

Indulge that gum-popping voice in the back of your head and RENT THIS.

RSVP regrets only.

As I was saying....

And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay held illimitable dominion over all.

Edgar Allen Poe "The Masque of the Red Death"

The Importance of Beating Ernest.

My senior year of high school, I had an English teacher who graded me particularly harshly. On my midterm paper on A Farewell to Arms she slashed through the title page with an injunction to "Stay away from Hemingway!". I think she thought she was being glib. I just thought she was being mean. This picture reminds me of her. Not only for the strong resemblance she bore to your standard kettle stirrer, but also because I've a hunch she would have scrolled something similar across any of my rooftop drawings. "Try to escape the cityscape!". "If it's in the trees, hold back your B's! (pencils, that is)". "Avoid the gables, if you're able!".

I ignore her now as I did then.

Let's go for a stroll.

Outside of a few delusions of grandeur from the Welsh, shoemaking has traditionally been the realm of elves. Honest to goodness elves, proud and undiluted since that first Master Cobbler with Hammers-for-Fingers, with the Pincushion Mouth. No sprite mixed in for humor, nor fairy for whimsy. No dwarvish conscientiousness, or gnomish sense of fair. Which means, of course, that poured into your wingtips is pure Elf--unmitigated by equity or charm. Bad attidudes tap-tapped into your leather, small magicks pooling in your soles. Waiting for your first misstep. And, wrapping themselves around your digits, they will take you where they will.

Harrowdown.

There was an old woman of Harrow,

Who visited in a wheelbarrow;

And her servant before,

Knocked loud at each door,

To announce the old woman of Harrow.

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A runner's plea.

I realize it must be tempting to stand at the back door and save your Uggs a nasty muddying while Fido takes a shit, but for christ's sake...tie up your goddamned dogs, Buffalo.

Yip-yip.

Another elusive Mother Goose. Farmer drives his comely kid into town. Bird spooks horse. Kid gets bucked. I'd like to say I was drawn to the cautionary tone--"pride coming before a fall" and whatnot--but I suspect it has something more to do with horses asses. I'm not one to argue with powerful trends. Let's just call it a January theme.

NY Salad.

While folding laundry, I struck up discourse with the denizens in the back room. The lampshade shadows are shifty but they don't miss much; and, once the temperature hits sixty-four, the radiator pipes start to squeal and gossip like little girls. So I turned up the heat and decided to address domestic matters--notably defense plans for whatever has taken to writhing around in the midroom walls. I suggested a potential loose plaster problem. The pipes disagreed and(claiming more intimate knowledge of apartment viscera) chattered on about dust serpents. The shadows dropped dark eyes and whistled which I took to indicate something worse. Of course, all attempts at strategy eventually lost themselves along more conversational routes--from questions regarding the seasonal Livingston ban on chocolate chip cookies, to the Tube Sock Currency Issue, to philosophies on why the buoyant mushroom is really the most congenial of all foods. More pressing matters of hearth and home.