so what's with all the pop art...i grade at night, until i keel over. i grade in the morning before i ride the bike to work. i walk down the stairs and over to the swimming pool; this allows me to meditate a bit on the beauty of the japanese garden (which they are cleaning up) and the wild weeds in the construction area right near it. i can't write; i grow impatient with reading. i do pop art when i'm near a computer...it's soothing, it works.

the images of my daily life come out and i can squeeze various colors out of them, or intensify them. see the poor outline of the figure below? this outline has been at the bottom of the stairs of my own building for the entire fourteen years i've been here. usually i don't think about it much, but i have to say that the various shapes, lines, etc. of my daily life have made a kind of imprint in me, and i'm working with this a lot, especially in the fanerpop series, which is now up to about 13, though not all are up in the gallery. to most people, faner is a bleak, grayish, concrete behemoth which is confusing on top of everything, and terrible when the airconditioner pipes drip or the condensation works its way in and molds up the ancient carpets. to me, it's got new life, now that i can work with the shapes and change the colors of its bushes.

the outline at the bottom of the stairs is small, the size of a kid, and that's tragic, except that, if it were real, they would have found a way to get rid of it long ago. faner is such that vandalism is hard to get rid of; sometimes people scrawl on the concrete, and it lasts for years. someone once put a paul simon bumper sticker about 15 feet up on a concrete pillar and it stayed for about ten years (that i know of), until somone else put an "Indiana Univ." bumper sticker up there, and then finally the maintenance workers were shamed into taking them both down.

the point is, this poor outline could of course have been that of a real kid, in which case he/she may have fallen two stories, from creative writing (this would not have caused death) or, more seriously, from cesl/linguistics, where kids and pretty much all innocence and light-hearted gaiety is doomed. or, more seriously still, from economics, way up on the fourth floor, where, if one takes a good hard economic look at life, one jumps from four stories just on general principle. or, one takes a good hard look at life, and...how could anyone think like this? perhaps it is just one's innocence, a childish enthusiasm, that has fallen over the railing, landed below, and become some police outline, put into the rubber mat, where maintenance workers are unable, or too busy, to remove it. who knows what happened... all i can say is, it makes an interesting outline for pop art- for the contrast button- and it happened long before the oil crisis, it's been around so long, i'd almost forgot it was there.

at the bottom of the stairs a long glass window looks out on the woods, which are gentle, and easy on the eyes, but home of a famished population of deer; overpopulated, these deer occasionally have their babies too close to the action, or come out looking for the mulberries that drop right there at the entrance. this was the home of the violent deer episode that my students wrote about a few years back; as we speak, i'm making them write a midterm about the very same dilemma, namely that there are too many deer these days, and as the university cuts down more woods in its relentless colonization of its wilderness, what many are left, are forced into increasingly smaller areas. this would cause more car accidents, but nobody can afford to drive anymore (my students are writng about this also)- and i myself ride a bicycle almost every day, oppressive heat or not. but as i was saying, i have now begun to look at these images- sculptures, statues, bushes, old photos, as possible topics of pop art, and have been grabbing them, in my free minutes, as i catch my breath from one bike ride, and get ready for a class- i use picnik, which simply allows me to rotate a photo, sharpen it, more or less contrast, exposure, saturation of color, or make it redder or bluer. ingenious. it's all flash; it's all on the desktop. it's great to do the symbols, the images, the lines of modern life. andy warhol is my new hero.

the world continues around me. cesl gets forty five, fifty hours out of me; pays me a paltry dime; we spend ten times as much putting a second story on our house; take kids to dentist, float around in the oppressive heat, listening, these days, to spanish music, on request. learning the pinata song (will learn how to make an enye, one of these days)...dale dale dale...don't lose your aim, or you'll lose the way, it says. don't want gold, don't want silver, just want to romper the pinata....in fact, the weather hasn't been so bad, and, construction forced me to walk today, around the usual steps, around some new statues, down by the mulberry tree at the edge of the kamakura japanese garden- where, sure enough, scores of ripe mulberries hung over a parking lot at the coal research place, in the back there, where nobody goes or looks. i was in a hurry- i only get half a swim as it is, what with a midterm and so many hours of teaching, but, if big ripe mulberries hang in front of you, i'm as greedy as any deer, eager for the purple hand, willing to experience and bleed the rich color out of life. life is good, life is short, and, i'm not going to let the long, drawn out summer hours of grinding over bad grammar, difficult listening, poorly constructed sentences (life sentences) get me down. sharpen, is what i say. put it into a a single haiku, a single moment, in a single spot, a single berry, rich in color, quick, before the deer get it.

when the going gets tough, accidents happen, and that's my only explanation for lots of things, including last night's fireworks' absence of a grand finale, and all kind of other freaks of nature, including a sudden rainstorm in el paso that cost me dinner the other night. but a number of other examples include: a sudden gusher of a rainstorm in pittsburgh pennsylvania one july fourth way back in about 1967, i don't remember exactly but anyone who was there in that era certainly remembers the rainstorm i'm talking about; a huge telephone pole came down, wires and all, and caused my father to jump out of our car into the blinding rain to save the life of someone who didn't even see it. of course we as children (i was 13 or 14) would remember this because why else would one's father jump out of a car into a blinding storm? it seemed like the world was coming apart at its seams.

yet other times, like tonight, the world comes back together, on a small hillside outside of town, above a tiny pond-like lake, with a clear moon and a clear sky, where i played music in a kind of gig that was actually someone's anniversary. we had a stand-in for the guitar, but things worked out very well, especially on my end, where i played all kinds of new songs and just seemed to do well on most of them. the moon over the water reminded me of a time i saw a full moon on the enterprise reservoir out on the border of utah and nevada, and later a guy there at that party mentioned that very same place, as he apparently has owned a few acres out there and has for about forty years. pays all of about $40/yr. in taxes for it, he says, but has water rights, which are quite valuable out there. we talked about the colorado; the hoover dam; route 666 in northern new mexico, which i don't actually know well, and various other topics, covering also england and wales, after the gig.

another fourth of july i was in the city park of iowa city, this was the bicentennial year, 1976, all kinds of charged energy in the air around the fact that the usa was 200 years old and all. but the fireworks were held in a low flat field out by that park, and i think of this now because it's clearly all under a dozen feet of water. but even then, travel there was tough; the field was full of people, and one poor guy got hit by a firecracker and they had to call an ambulance. but the ambulance had trouble getting to him, because there were too many people out there on the field, and they didn't all have the quick wits to just get out of the ambulance's way. when you are in a car, and you hear the siren, it's pretty easy to just move over. but this was in a park, and people were sprawled out on blankets and all, and didn't even fully understand what was going on. nobody was running interference for this ambulance driver.

then, when i got home to black's gaslight village, i'm not sure how it happened, but lots of people were milling around; as i say, there was a lot of energy in the air that night. this one guy threw a firecracker in my direction, which i took as a hostile move, and it hit me in the temple, landed on the ground, and went off; caused ringing in my ear which lasted for maybe ten minutes. on later reflection i decided it may not have been hostile, or maybe hostile on a subconscious level, so, though i felt like i'd gotten a wake-up call in a sense, i eventually let go of it and didn't stay mad at the guy. who knows what happened? when the going gets tough, accidents happen.

had a discussion with my band mate about the oil crisis. not everyone agrees that the world, or even the usa, is really out of oil, or that this is anything but a conspiracy to drive us down; very few people feel it's all just the free market playing havoc with our ordinary routines. i myself have started seeing a bicycle wagon (so that we can stop using the car altogether), hydrogen cars, a vegetable garden, all this stuff we should have been doing anyway, as far as i know. so i see it as an opportunity, even though obviously it will cost everyone a lot of money and agony in the short term, especially poor people and airline travelers. the high prices of gas and food put a lot of pressure on everyone, and, that means accidents will happen., things being what they are. who knows? we're just here at the moment. bicycle lanes are filling up. the drivers that arou out there seem to be angry, as if they know their days are limited.

now, as for enterprise state park, where a sunset and sundown occurred at the lake at the same time, it being a full moon and all, and the simple existence of rock caves took heat stroke from over 100 days and gave me some rest. it was a rainbow gathering, perhaps the third ever, but my first and only, really, aside from some kinds of things that happen around here. i scarcely remember the people; in fact i slept for about a day when i found a cool dark place to get out of the sun. tonight, when the guy was amazed that anyone in southern illinois had even heard of the place, i assured him that i had, and had even been there, and not only that, was reminded of it a little, when the moon rose over the small pond.

now i'm aware that my flashbacks are all very confusing; the rainbow gathering was maybe 1974 or 5, but was clearly on a fourth of july, though there wasn't a firecracker for miles. tonight, the fifth of july actually, after a contentious and somewhat turbulent fourth, in which we all, in carbondale, were deprived of our grand finale, i seemed to get it back, tonight, by that pond, where the anniversary couple just had their own private display, pop pop pop, all over the lake, and i, loading a truck with sound equipment, took a minute and just took it all in. so much rain around here, that there wasn't much chance of it burning down the field or the house or anything else; all the crackers went off just as planned. and, rather than play a hendrix-version star spangled banner as i was tempted to do, this time, for some reason, i set the fiddle down, and just watched. i was tired. i'd played hard; people liked the music; some were talking oil crisis/politics/war or whatever within their own family, none of my business really, on this warm, clear, starry summer night. the children ran down into the field to collect the parachute firecrackers, which i'd never even heard of; i thought it was a little dangerous, but it worked out ok, no one was hurt; the evening passed into a set of holidays, going back many years, that featured parties and gatherings, way out in the country, where folks get together and celebrate. and if they are going to blow gunpowder with colors and all sizzle, i'll watch, if only because it's dangerous, and i want to see it this time, if something is heading my way. not that it would; i've just become superstitious. the price of freedom is eternal vigilance; this is my favorite motto, besides don't tread on me- and, our liberties we will cherish, our rights we will maintain, or something like it, which is the iowa motto. have a good holiday, what's left of it. happy fourth to those of you who are in exile, way out across the ocean maybe, having forgotten, perhaps, that we here blow stuff off in colorful and dangerous display, leaving small clouds of burnt gunpowder hovering over country valleys and small ponds, perhaps offering mosquito protection, if only temporarily. the smell of power spent, used, blazing a kind of memory into us, in its own way, one that the kids who are there will certainly never forget.

i've taken this holiday seriously, ever since the bicentennial year when i was hit by a firecracker and was deaf for about ten seconds, my ears ringing for about ten minutes, that's why, when they try to mess with it, i raise a fuss, a little. it was a steamy, rainy day here, like a tropical jungle, the buses came from chester (home of popeye) to take our students to the city for a long day of mall, arch, fireworks, the whole nine yards. lots of people wanted to go; they filled the buses; that's why, in the end, i didn't have to- and walked home, through the neighborhoods, west carbondale, where people were out walking, riding, taking in some of the steamy weather. later on it dried out enough to have fireworks so the kids could run around on the grass, and the firemen or whoever tried to mess with the various firecrackers so that nobody got hurt and everyone had fun. it was high drama, this being a small town, and nobody knowing exactly what was going on, because something was burning up way down there on the grass; we could see it, but didn't know what it was, or if our grand finale was down there just burning up. we suspect that's what it was; some stage that was connected to the grand finale just caught on fire, and they let it go, 'cause it was out in the middle of a field.

st louis is not a bad town, i've come to like it, read about it, and of course the cubs with their jim full-count ed were in town if one could sneak over to the busch and get a sense of what that was like. but i didn't really want to be there; flying way over the swollen mississippi was enough for me, and i wanted to be home, in this small town, getting out the trains and sprawling around with the kids, sick or not. fortunately, in the end, i did, but not before i'd gone down there, got ready to get on the bus, resigned myself to my fate, etc. etc. reminded me of the story of abraham and isaac, which i'd heard in the chapel in las cruces, where abraham has to serve up his son to the altar, have faith, surrender entirely to fate and to god, etc. where was sarah, the pastor asked as she told the story...but actually, that wasn't what struck me about the story. sure, he took his son to the altar to serve him up; sarah wasn't around. but my question was, why did he have to lie to his son, about who exactly was the offering going to be, today? god will take care of it, he told his son. god will take care of it, i was thinking, as i walked home; eventually to do some patriotic link haiku and get my garden in order. i'm considering finishing this, so i made the links work, added a few, arranged them a little, mostly just considered putting pop art in them. pop art is, after all, a kind of haiku. instead of "season" and "syllable" it has "temperature" and "exposure" and my favorite, "sharpen," which i suppose haiku has also, but the main point is: simplicity, image, edge. the kids were out there, better, full of it, needing every ounce i could give; i kept the pop art off the link haiku, but it might not stay that way forever; can't seem to keep it off the blog, or out of the massive webpage caverns that run under the surface. i'm all surface, andy warhol would say, everything i got, it's right there on the table, there's nothing beneath it at all. that's actually a paraphrase of something he said, but i took it more as a boast; with these simple but bright and dazzling colors, i can put it all in there, if i do it right, i won't be hiding a thing. i know pop art has been compared to the usa a lot: optimistic, generous, naive, all that stuff. i'm not sure about that. it's just a little waywardness with color, a little sharpen on the surface. it's a way to survive, life being full of papers to grade, grammar, a bus, flooded out on the river road, a baseball game, red, blue, and visitor-uniform gray. happy birthday, america...you are one heckuva firecracker. with a stage, left to burn, out on the cool, wet grass, and the brake lights, ahead, in the line to go home. god will take care of it, i suppose, and if god has a part in it, i suppose i'll be out there helping god take care of it. me, and the summer breeze, that gently takes that smell of burnt gunpowder, and drifts it over the fields and the reservoir, make you want to roll up your windows.

back home from a long weekend in new mexico, i have lots of memories; i slowed down a little, slept well especially in a nap on my parents' couch; spent a lot of time with my parents, just visiting. the trip was also full of sights- the irrigated checkerboard texas plains; the dry dusty mountains rising out of el paso; the cactus garden; the adobe houses of las cruces. out there the big north-south road, camino real, ancient passageway of goods-merchants coming from lower mexico and going up into the beautiful hills of santa fe and taos- come to what is known as the jornada de los muertos, the driest of all deserts, not a drop of water, i think i read a mcmurtry book about it a while back. east-west, interstate 10 comes out of the el paso airport, goes past where you can see mexico, and crosses up into las cruces; i take las cruces to mean the crossroads of these two major roads, past and present, though i know it's more than that. read a little about the treaty of guadalupe hidalgo while i was there, immersed a bit in history, history of polk, of the alamo, mesilla and the gadsden purchase, and santa ana, president of mexico, and head of the army at the same time. the area was, in some ways, as old-world as ever; other times, i'd turn around, and i knew there was no going back.

i used to avoid or resist becoming like my parents, but now i relish it, or at least, don't worry about it. my dad is at the same time a graphic artist, and a recycler; i managed to make him excited about pop art and messing with the color controls on ordinary computers, but his dinosaur pc, he'd never thrown out, and a mac, older than this, he hadn't got online yet. like me in so many ways. so we played with cords & walljacks for a while; i read what they were reading, and we watched bela fleck on television. coming back a freak rain storm hit el paso of all places; delayed the plane, and settled the dust i suppose. the mississippi looked terrible from a mile up, way swollen, out of control, and i could see a baseball game in st. louis, as we circled around and landed. summer is in full swing here; i've got three more classes; they're still changing, and, after the long holiday, it'll settle into a groove that may or may not involve more graphics. for now, at home, i do pop art with whatever i have (see below) on the desktop of the old home computer, which, like the dog, has control issues and one foot in the grave. dad gave me a disc of his photos, which always were superb, and permission to play, but i left the disc at work, at the better computer, where i've been too busy to even pull out the flag and play with the pop camera, even as i eat lunch. so i'll have to really play pop-art, later.

the little guys were glad to see me return, and i've been taking them outside, filling up a small pool and letting them splash. the heat is kicking in; the fourth here is brutal, unless you like this stuff. i myself may have to work that day, showing students around st. loo, watching the fireworks by a swollen river. interpreting modern america for visitors- but, in some cases, just interpreting it for myself. kinda like bela and the banjo, in some ways, it may not make the top of the pop charts, but it'll be my interpretation, a variation on classical, a dress shirt with a coffee stain. i'm talking about the art now (see below)- where, hats off to andy, i'm 'a concentrate on my own stuff, i like to put it here, see what it looks like for a while, before i put it in the collection, or storing it at the fotopic site, but i risk forgetting about it or leaving it to sit around a little too long. fortunately, it's digital graphics. it doesn't get yellowed on the edges, faded, brittle; doesn't get fingerprints on it, or coffee, though it could be deleted, i suppose, accidentally, or in a fit of anti-google rage. not by me, mind you. i like google- as a publisher, they've been loyal, they got me where i am today. in the right field of the blogosphere, way down on the astroturf, way over there by the foul pole, tossing the ball into the stands. peanuts! getcher peanuts heyah! peanuts, now! have a good summer...