still-sound 112. Combs

This morning feels like a Sunday morning in Fall.  The heat was beginning to break through, but the night chill still clung to the ground as Rosie and I walked through Elysian Park.  There were few cars.  An older couple walked past speaking Mandarin to each other.  I often see them.  The man usually waves and says "Hi" when he sees me, but today he was concentrating on his conversation.

When I finish my coffee I'm going to have a shower, shave my whiskers and comb my hair.  I will use a comb I purchased at Ross Cutlery, an old shop in downtown Los Angeles that sells all manner of knives and blades.  I suppose their selection of barber's supplies came about as an off-shoot of their straight razor collection.  I asked the gentleman behind the counter which comb I should purchase.  He recommended large ones.  I didn't particularly like the way they looked.  I chose a small black comb made in Germany.  It says MASTER BARBER Junior in gold.  Apparently it's a barber's comb, not really intended for the amateur.  I like the thought of grooming with a precision instrument. 

The small white comb is for my moustache.  It provides a nice contrast to the black comb.  This is how they look propped up in a black glass jar in my bathroom:
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I would love to go on a long bike ride today.  Except I have to go to work shortly.  And I don't have a bike.

still-sound 111. Hocus Pocus

I particularly enjoyed drinking this wine last week.  It's called Hocus Pocus.  It's a pinot noir from Lompoc, California.  The label shows a stage magician with a perfect handlebar moustache levitating into midair.  Here's a closeup:



When I visited a clairvoyant in March, she revealed that I had been a stage magician in a former life.  As a kid I used to pray for magical powers.  I grew up Catholic and understood that persistent, sincere petitions to the Virgin and Jesus would grant your wish, however extravagant.  Maybe my young self was missing the extraordinary powers I enjoyed in my former self.  Though, as I understand, I was a stage magician, a conjurer, and probably had no special powers at all except to deceive. 

Right now I wouldn't mind having some magical powers.

still-sound 110. Moon rocks

I wanted to burn a special incense yesterday to celebrate the Harvest Moon.  I have a mini sampler set of Shoyeido's premium sticks and have been saving two of the very finest for well over a year.  Earlier this week I took the plunge and burnt the legendary Sho-kaku, known to scent-people as the best incense in the world.  Or at least the most expensive.  I will write about that another time.  But in releasing Sho-kaku from its plastic holder, the other fancy stick, Go-un, fell out and broke into five pieces.  Yesterday I took the two largest fragments of Go-un and burnt them at the same time, filling my living room with spicy, sweet kyara smoke.

Last night I discovered that I could actually view the moon from my terrace.  I usually don't venture out there so late and end up missing that part of the lunar trajectory.  The air was full with the sound of cicadas and sprinklers from the gardens at the entrance of Dodger's Stadium.  The light was distinctively blue in that moon way. 

My friend Laura once told me that crystals can be cleansed and energized by bathing them in the light of the full moon.  I've been wanting to do this because it sounds like a nice idea and because I usually like Laura's opinions and find that it pays off to follow her instructions.  I fetched stones from my dark apartment and lined them up on the terrace like soldiers.  This morning I found them waiting for me in the glaring sunlight.  Cleansed and reenergized.

still-sound 109. Moomin

Look what I found while clearing out my little storage unit.  A moomin!  And he's fishing.

In college, my friend Anna had moomin mugs.  She grew up in Andover.  Her family was Finnish.  She spent the summer before our senior year in Helsinki.  I was a little jealous.  Helsinki seemed so much more magical than Providence, Rhode Island.  We wrote letters to each other.  Following Anna's example, I wrote Lentoposti on the envelopes to help the Finnish mail carriers.  It's still the only word I know in Finnish.  It means Airmail.  But then, you knew that.

A few years ago I bought a couple of moomin mugs.  I must have bought something else that was strawberry flavored because I think of strawberries whenever I see these fantastic creatures. 

Here is another moomin object that I also have in my possession.

I don't remember actually buying this book.  I just seemed to own it one day.  The characters look so crazy.  Especially the two red-headed creatures opening the circular door.  Once a Scandinavian friend translated the entire book for me so that I would know the story, which is quite kooky and funny.  I seem to have since forgotten though.

still-sound 108. Iceblink luck

When I lived in Paris for a fine art residency, I travelled back to London occasionally to visit friends and sort out the little details that failed to get noticed before my abrupt exodus from the UK.  On one of these trips I accompanied my best friend Kirsten to the club night she helped organize at the Vauxhall Tavern.  It was called What We Like.  Her girlfriend Lesley Lush dj-ed.  So did her ex-girlfriend, Max.

The first few trips back to a place that used to be home feel poignant.  Eventually your connection and trace disappear and it feels like someone else's home.  During the What We Like-days, London was still home but I was a visitor.  This felt exciting. 

Lesley and Max had me on the dancefloor most of the night.  They are both former goths and instinctively chose music with a dark, romantic soul.  I find this music easy to dance to.  In between Siouxsie and Crystal Castles, poppier Le Tigre and LCD tracks edged their way in.  Late into the night, after a particularly dark litany of songs, the opening notes of Cocteau Twins' Iceblink Luck pierced the Vauxhall Tavern.  I had never heard a Cocteau Twins track in a club before.  The roof was removed and the building instantaneously filled with an unyielding radiant light.  The musical choice was startling to most and even more surprising was the realization that everyone seemed to know the words.  Anyone familiar with the Cocteaus' distinctive, ethereal glossolalia would recognize that this was unusual and amazing.  We all, literally, spoke the same secret language.

This morning on my drive to work, the shimmering introduction of Iceblink Luck filled my car unexpectedly.  A surprising choice from KCRW.  It felt most certainly like a blessing and a reassurance.  My lips mouthed the words of the entire song.


Thank you for mending me babies....

still-sound 107. Swimming pool

There is still a little water in my ears.  I like to swim on Friday evenings because my local pool in Echo Park designates that slot as adults only.  I try to avoid swimming when there are many kids.  Their movements are erratic.  I've often found my swim interrupted mid-lap by children floating across the lane.  Like debris. 

Tonight at lap 40 or so, I heard music when my head came up for air.  A water aerobics class was being conducted at the far corner of the pool.  When I returned underwater I heard nothing except the muted ears-underwater sound.  I had to end my swim prematurely by ten laps because a trio of women entered my lane and proceeded to waterjog.  They jogged across my path in slow motion.  Quite like debris.

In the locker room a guy was walking around wearing black boxer shorts with comic book letters stating across his back side, "The women love me".  Next to the red, bubbly lettering stood Snoopy with his head turned up to receive adoration.  I love Snoopy.

David Hockney, Green Pool with Diving Board and Shadow, 1978

I share David Hockney's love of swimming pools.  They offer an exhilarating freedom.  Like Los Angeles itself.  Rob is moving into a West Hollywood apartment with a swimming pool in the central courtyard.  The scene matches a foreigner's expectation of what LA-living must be like.  I hope that after dark, a shape-shifting phosphorescence enters his living room through the wall of plate glass windows and illuminates his Los Angeles nights. 

still-sound 106. Dark

When I drove home from work today it was already dark.  It's a strange feeling.  The end of summer feels like a loss.  Every year I feel surprised by the onset of autumn.  One would think that I'd be used to this change of light and season by now -- I've experienced it forty times. Yet it always takes me by surprise. 

I wonder if this cat who roams my neighborhood likes the dark or wishes for the sun to warm his belly, so that he can nap.