an artificial Eden for our amusement

a month or so ago, my wife, brother and I were driving up to the Sawtooths in central Idaho. on the way we passed through Eden, where we found the most paradisiacal truck stop I’ve ever seen. like any mall or pentagon food court, they had a Blimpie sandwich place, Taco Bell and TCBY frozen yogurt. here’s the thing though: Eden had been recreated in the dining area! no, not Eden, Idaho in miniature. I mean the real Eden, the first one we all read and hear so much about. yes, the tables and chairs were placed in the midst of a small pleasant landscape of cement rocks and a fake banyan tree with fake bracket fungus. hanging from the tree, notice the giant green python. there were also some real plants and there was real water running over those cement rocks. what a place. they even took my coupon, with some difficulty.


earlier this year, in the spring, I was reading in Walden where he talks about the pond thawing and all the geese coming in.
Thoreau says, “In the morning I watched the geese from the door through the mist, sailing in the middle of the pond, fifty rods off, so large and tumultuous that Walden appeared like an artificial pond for their amusement.”
this is something I’d never noticed before. and the passage is the earliest example I’ve ever seen. you know, when we’re like “wow, those lichens are so brilliant they seem fake!” or “see that tanager up there? it doesn’t even look real.”

growing up I never saw a tropical sunset except on capri sun pouches or on the cover of my trapper-keeper. so when I finally did see an actual tropical sunset for the first time, I’ll admit that it brought back those airbrush on mylar images from my childhood. my mom tells me that when I was little, I called sycamores “storybook trees,” probably because somewhere in some children’s book, they lent themselves well to watercolor for the illustrator. or, less likely, I could have imagined them altogether from the narrative before actually seeing one. in which case this would have to be the earliest example.

growing up… (I know I keep going back there but with this all being so experiential, I see no way to avoid it. you have any better ideas?) anyway, growing up, we had a jigsaw puzzle of Mount Rushmore. once when we were working at it, my younger brother asked me if the monument was natural or man-made. he was young and might have been thinking about a recent family trip to the old man of the mountain in New Hampshire.
what a wonderful question, and so revealing about the anthropocentric spell through which we tend to see our world. I don’t remember exactly how I responded but, as an older brother, I’m pretty sure I took advantage of the situation and made fun of him. I still haven’t made it out to Mount Rushmore or the Dakotas. but if I ever do, I'm not sure I’ll be able to leave the North by Northwest movie set out of it, fake lodgepoles and all.

and then growing up…(just kidding). but I bet you can think of your own experience. seeing faux wood graining where there is real oak. glimpsing model train sets from the airplane window. visualizing a golf course in a mountain valley. or imagining Versailles at the edge of, eh. well, Versailles is just too far out there. I think I’m going to be sick. man, that Louis XIV was sure an s.o.b. wasn’t he? you know, the first time Europeans got a hold of a platypus pelt, they thought it was a hoax too.

maybe Plato was right to post “no mimesis: seriously, cut it out!” signs all around his Republic, casting out Walt Disney, Thomas Kinkade and other taxidermists. I won’t venture to say whether or not all this is healthy. that's why there’s a comments section. but, even after all the mass produced imagery and retail that streams through us, we are still astonished to see real glaciers and iguanas.

and when we did get to the Sawtooths, they were incredible.

raising the stakes of your shell game

ok, just one more do you have pvc periscopes sticking out of your lawn? maybe you’d like to conceal a tiny missile silo or enrichment facility. you probably hadn’t thought of that but now is a good time and you should really get going on it. these also fit great for covering giant tortoises, stubborn belly fat and ugly smaller rocks. you see, the trouble with real rocks is they’re so solid.

$45-$300 from skymall
(you could even hide out and watch tv under the extra large one!)

punctual spacesuit

the alien sport jacket gracefully disembarks from its airy craft.











“why, you’re just in time,” said the man, buttoning his shirt, “we’re expected at the lounge in 20 minutes.”

$200 from skymall

deviant headphones

observing this scene, I get an ominous feeling. but I can’t quite put my finger on what is so unwholesome. could be a combination of things; a whack-a-mole game in 2 static dimensions.

how innocuous, a well groomed (immaculate actually) gentleman, upright in his pajamas, watching baseball on tv. yet this is all somehow very deviant with his sleeping wife laying beside him. and he, so smug in his headphones. regardless of whether they have an understanding, or he, a condition, a mole is definitely out of place.

like when one late evening, in the darkness I heard a bee droning through the night air. so baleful and lost.

$40 from skymall

rest for the bleary

skyrest travel pillow integrates waterwing buoyancy and doorstop wedge mechanics, then floats the product out on the market in turquoise upholstery.

a simple machine softened: it’s an inclined plane that lets you rest on the same principle that keeps your airplane up there. actually they looked into this and found out that all of our textbooks and scout manuals are wrong.

but it seems to work well enough here.
1- just fish the thing out of your carryon.
2- blow it full of rum breath until fully inflated.
3- pass out.

he’s all tuckered out from good times at warmer latitudes. a lot of leaning and sweating going on here, kinda yucky really. isn’t he getting a little old for this sort of thing? so much for dignity. still, Whitman teaches us that even the bathetic yankee hedonist is beautiful when asleep. and in a way, so peaceful at 40,000 feet.

$30 from skymall

dignity in the fumes

you don’t normally see people wearing suits with their gas masks. is that a fair thing for me to say? he hasn’t even loosened his collar. hang on to your dignity amid all the turmoil with this EVAC-U8 smoke hood.



nightmarish


made in Canada by DuPont
$80 from skymall

getting organized

when I was a teenager in suburbia I would go over to my friends’ houses and notice these intercom things built into the wall. you may have noticed them or even grown up with one in your own home. they are kind of like the intercom box at the gated community, cheap country club or fancy apartment building entrance. except these ones also go in your living room, kitchen, bedrooms, heck wherever, put one in your potato cellar if you want. the other difference is these play radio and I’ve seen ones with cassette decks too. I don’t think they survived into the era of mp3 or even compact disc; that is one venn diagram we may never see, but who knows? if my friend was up in his bedroom wasting time, his mom could tell him through the kitchen intercom to come down and vacuum. then mom can turn on KSL and listen to traffic and weather on the 9’s.
the same principal also gets applied to vacuum cleaner hose technology in some rich houses. where just about every room has a suction intake and all you need is the long flexi-ribbed hose to plug in. now your floor is nail-clipping-free, a lot fewer dust mites. it all empties into a big midden in the garage. it’s not enough to have electricity, plumbing & air ducts running through the house. we want them completely biological; with a mouth that speaks inside and out. conscious motion sensors aren’t quite eyes, but then again starfish don’t have it so bad. home security system pain receptors get wired into a decentralized thalamus like ADT or Peak alarm and so on. not quite anthropomorphic but we’re definitely getting there.

except in the case of this shampoo dispenser. not only does she have a face but we can see enough of it to tell that she also seems to have a gender. although I think the mouth could use a little work, still seems kinda robotic, don’t you agree? and is that soap for a tongue or is she being punished for coarse language? hard to tell. it’s also possible that I’m misconstruing the whole thing and this shampoo dispenser is neither gendered nor intelligent. but rather a simple integration of video intercom and shampoo dispenser technology. see who’s been using too much of your fancy conditioner, that kind of thing.
either way, it’s another set of hoses to run through your house behind the drywall so all the liquid soaps in all the bathrooms can be fully integrated. a veritable xylem and phloem of shower gels and stuff.

$40 from skymall

the synaesthetic puppy

the other day my wife and I met my brother at the Fiesta Village strip mall to get some sandwiches. we were so hungry. after sandwiches, the three of us also went to the dollar store and the pet shop. there are no strip malls in my own neighborhood so we kind of spoiled ourselves.

each window of the pet store had grease-paint murals of different pets, most of which were represented inside by the real thing. tankfulls of amphibians and reptiles. big heavy birds pacing side to side on crosswise perches. and puppies.

the puppies were also in tanks, very large aquariums, except these didn’t have water. they just had puppies and shredded newspapers. there were all kinds of puppies really, but I was most taken by this one bloodhound puppy that was lapping water from a bowl in the corner. I reached down and pet him and he totally didn’t care. I was probably like the 26th person to pet him that day and he looked really thirsty. impassive.

the cool thing was how his loooong hound dog ears were dangling well past his nose and sopping around in the water dish as he was lapping with his tongue. lapping at water, wet newspaper and his own soggy ears. how might this all taste, smell, feel and sound to a creature of such celebrated keen senses? (and such a young pup, entering the prime of being.) this, by the way, is not synaesthesia. but we’re getting warmer.

here we are, this is synaesthesia. absolutely textbook. and this webcam is your new best friend. you get it, right? “camera is hidden in dog’s nose!”

in this instance the beady eyes are only a façade to the real organ of perception.
3 varieties available:
golden retriever webcam
beagle webcam
USB webcam set: hardware package without the stuffed animal

these are not in the dollar store but in skymall for $30.

dogladders from skymall

tired of pets not jumping up on your furniture?






a little something for everyone. why should fish have all the fun?

passengers in amber

Martha, the last passenger pigeon, replicated in amber to the power of 9 or something.

What do you think the guy that felled the last tree on Easter Island was thinking at the time? “better get this one before someone else does”, “timber!” -probably something like that. I guess he might have said a prayer.
ok, and what was the 14 year-old in Ohio thinking 100 Marches ago when he shot down the last wild passenger pigeon? “hot damn!” most likely.

there used to was billions of ‘em! flying around in 300 square mile flocks that took days to pass over at 60 mph. ideal for target practice, food, feed and fertilizer. dead ones shipped around the country by the boxcarload.

Martha turned out to be the last of the last, namesake of the first first lady. when they found her dead on the floor in Cincinnati, they entombed her in a giant ice block bound for the Smithsonian. that was on my birthday in 1914. in a final act of benevolent coextinction, Martha had taken 2 species of lice with her into genetic oblivion. the bird lice somehow did come back though, a lousy little miracle.

like I said, here she is, casted and kebabbed in amber by Rachel Berwick.

You remember when Richard Attenborough is brandishing his amber-headed cane and Jeff Goldblum is all like, “life finds a way” and stuff. pterodactyls everywhere! admit it, you were scared too. no way they’d ever let 550 real pigeons near that hardwood, illuminated and angelic as they look.

will everyone please remove your hats and sandals for a moment

that will do. thanks, you look great.

James Hampton: Director of Special Projects for the State of Eternity

This could be a self-timed shot since nobody really saw this stuff while James was alive. he had said something to Meyer, the guy who rented him the garage space. James had told Meyer, “that’s my life. I’ll finish it before I die.”
every night, after finishing his swing shift as a janitor, he would head to the garage and work until dawn. he was making The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly; which is like 10 feet tall and hundreds of … (anyhow, you can see the picture). man, look at it! magnificent! St. James looks like a baron with cufflinks and pinky rings or something. ornate treasures, doubloons, Escalades, carbuncle bling and rich stuff. the elaborate stockroom of a merchant of jagged metals. but he made it all from secondhand furniture, foil, spent light bulbs, cardboard, glass fragments and junk, held together with pins and glue, under God’s direction and for His glory. now you can go see it at the Smithsonian in DC.
James Hampton didn’t have any close friends and he never married or had much money. why don’t you take another look at the picture? if he ever had anything like a resume it could have looked something like this, or better this. James also wrote notebooks full of his revelations in his own encrypted script, if you’d like to take a crack at it.


check him out-
St. James the Janitor- Steve Marshall
the Miracle of St. James Hampton –Mike Walsh

quadrupedal and bonnetted turks

some scientists went out to southern Turkey to check out these 5 Kurdish siblings. one of the theories they came up with was genetic: reverse evolution. this idea presupposes direction, or that evolution happens “to generate us as the summit of life’s purpose.” Steven J. Gould totally would have given these scientists noogies, probably after beating them all at arm wrestling. the BBC even made a TV special (about the hand walkers, not arm wrestling) and this was going to be the next big thing. now it seems headed for the Piltdown file.
these guys don’t crawl around on hands and knees like babies but “bear crawl” on hands and feet. no, not like cartoon bears (that go on 2 legs with shirts and no pants). the siblings wear pretty regular clothes and get around like regular bears. they are mentally handicapped but, the scientists observed, “otherwise they had quite strong legs and arms;” they don't mention whether the scientists carried out arm wrestling tests. the siblings’ ability to walk on 2 legs might also have been better studied if the scientists tried them on a course of ladders, rope bridges and waterslides. this way when the science fair and media circus left town the family would be able to keep the assemblage; a boon to the whole community. as things went, they were at least left with new plumbing and electricity. and for now nobody needs to go revise the Sphinx’s riddle.

old people can be so cruel

Shasta the liger has a posse

I can’t believe all the attention that’s been showered on ligers lately. it’s really quite a milestone for them and for all hybrids, really. if only my favorite lion-tiger hybrid could have lived to see this day. Shasta was born nearly a half century ago this month, and lived through the better part of the cold war. she overcame all of the typical hardships that tend to afflict ligers: blindness, depression, growth dysplasia. anyone who grew up along the Wasatch front since then should not only think of Shasta as cheap soda pop but as our 1,000 lb unofficial community mascot- whether you saw her in the flesh or, like me, preserved in a gallant stance behind glass.

I don’t know about magic but it seems ligers are quite skillful at manipulating their zookeepers. mythical or not, the official story goes that they named her Shasta because they were always like, “she hasta have this” and “she hasta have that.” How do you like that? –preying on the selfless nature of zoology majors. but anyway, what suckers!

now it seems everyone’s got a liger. zoos all over, and they're increasingly required prerequisites for some of the better jobs in ringleadership. “no liger? forget it.” a real proliferation, I’m telling you. is this really good for us? how many ligers is enough? every one of them does deserve dignity, don’t get me wrong. but isn’t each individual a little diminished by the existence of so many? as if they didn’t have enough afflictions already. let’s remember, these aren’t sodas; they have feelings.

found poetry

a rhyme incarnate

wow! thank you Thomas Grünfeld for smuggling these splendid creatures into the new world. and to think that I was barely able to get a box of couscous through customs. photos taken last december at the OMR gallery in mexico city. yes, it is sleek and handsome, but does it rhyme in German?

last fall when the chief addressed our nation he railed against hybrids. like Prednick, he wasn’t so scared of Dr. Moreau’s leopard people but of an arbitrary, wanton creator. you can understand, right? like most americans, the president fears absurdity. gosh, it’s like that x-men prophecy and I just saw the trailer the other day for the next sequel. this will surely be the watershed issue of our time. I think we have the social maturity to handle it though. nobody had vandalized this gentle fauna at least. but there was an armed guard downstairs.



alright, here’s some more polar bear trivia.
Q-do polar bears eat penguins?
A-yes. no, wait, I told it wrong.
Q-do polar bears eat penguins?
A-no -“why not?” your nephew or someone asks
-because they’re extinct.

polar bears and hearing aids

when I was walking into a restaurant on center street I saw these 2 polar bears whispering secrets to each other in a shop window. the shop was Harris Hearing Aid Center and it was closed at midday. as I was taking this picture a lady pulled up in her car and asked me if I’d like to go inside. absolutely! she unlocked the place and let me see the bears from another angle…

I was surprised to see they weren’t whispering secrets at all! their lips were raised in silent sneers and they seemed locked in some kind of patient restrained conflict. the nice lady also told me that if I wanted I could move the baby bears off their arms for a better picture. this was a polite gesture on her part but I don’t know what she was thinking; as if any sane person would dare interrupt what was going on here.

at this point I started suspecting the nice lady might be crazy, or trying to get me killed! these bears had probably been juggling baby bears until the nice (but crazy) lady & I had interrupted and they’d suddenly become shy, caught in what then appeared to be a King Solomon moment. also, there’s a great cheap Salvadoran restaurant next door! ($1.60 pupusas, yeah!)

don't touch my cat!

about 20 minutes into the movie Ed comes over and accidentally finds Rubin's dead cat Simon in the freezer: Rubin's had trouble letting go. from there Simon gets put in a cooler and they head out to the Utah desert to bury him, I recommend. these are storyboards that I got from a guy who got them from a guy who...Trent Harris.

Geezer, my (family's) dog of 12 years hit the streets last winter. He was getting old and arthritic, and his arthritis medicine made him incontinent. what can you do? he had been an inside dog but toward the end he was mainly between the yard and the garage. then he disappeared, ran away. I've heard that sometimes dieing animals/pets will wander off when they sense it's time. this picture is from a month or so before that - I also kind of knew it wouldn't be long. did he end up in someone's window well? under the scrub oak in a canyon drainage? run over?
how do these look as alternatives to being euthanized & cremated, mummified or fired off in a rocket?
yes, of course it makes me sad.

where do mummies come from?

this is the Summum temple where, for the price of graduate school, you can arrange to have yourself or a loved one mummified. for maybe a little less they also mummify cats and parakeets (you cheapskate). is there anyone else around that even makes mummies anymore? not that I know of. these guys also make wine, communicate with summa individuals, and run a “peafowl sanctuary.” while visiting, you can tank up on their sacramental water (9am-5pm). and if you can get your bishop to issue you a food order you can even pick that up a couple blocks over.

man, do these guys have it covered. I mean in terms of immortality, there are appeals pending on egyptology, angels and aliens, and if all else fails there are peacocks and wine for the present. bases loaded. check out the website for all kinds of wisdom from yogis, gnostics, saints, Einstein and Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne, yeah!).

all the same, none of us have a monopoly on immortality (I don't even like board games). we try botulism, mitsubishis, freezers, nanorobots, breakdancing (Fame) -singing “I’m gonna live forever, I’m gonna learn how to fly.” I can’t remember what else people have sung in ages past but I do remember the 1980s and nobody can take that away from me! anyway, how do you know that even when you have been made into a mummy they’re not just going to throw you in the furnace, use you to fuel a space shuttle or something later? I mean things are getting scarce these days, $3/gallon and I don't know if we have the patience for more dinosaurs.

tab energy drink

tab energy: latest harbinger of the apocalypse.
your thoughts?

fish without faces

a pedestrian approach to the small game of blogging. actually, you’ll see this is more jaywalking really. not even bipedal but like a one-legged jaywalking approach. I’m sure you can picture a tyrannosaurus rex typing his big blog with the 2 fingers of each hand. I mean is that lame or what?!

my brother (not me, no) made a mistake one time. he used the word “lame” in mixed company: “that’s so lame!”* I know what you’re thinking; you’d never do something like that. I know. I know. but he did. he didn’t mean anything by it. so this girl at work (2 legs) took offense. she asked him if he'd ever call something “crippled” or “retarded.” I forgot how he replied. I think he just felt really bad about himself after that so he pushed her over and clocked out.
this blog is called fish without faces and it’s all about that kind of thing, and other things.

“This fish you dream about. Let’s talk about that, It’s always the same fish, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” Yossarian replied. “I have trouble recognizing fish.”
“What does the fish remind you of?”
“Other fish.”
“And what do the other fish remind you of?”
“Other fish.”
Major Anderson sat back disappointedly. “Do you like fish?”
“Not especially.”

-so bipedal, monopedal, quadrupedal, octapedal, whatever – we’re jaywalking here.