Friday, July 04, 2008

The United States of Just Piss Anywhere and The United States of What’s Going On? What’s Going On?

The United States of Taffy and T-shirts
The United States of Pamper Yourself, You Deserve It
The United States of Pizza Night, Taco Night, Hamburgers
The United States of Where’s the Beef?
The United States of All You Can Eat
The United States of Who Wants Pancakes?
The United States of Great Big Fat People
The United States of Vegan People Who Do Yoga and Stuff
The United States of Mall Walkers
The United States of Wheelchair Access
The United States of Paper or Plastic
The United States of What Price Bananas? Who Killed the Pork Chops? Are You my Angel?
The United States of Yes, We Have No Bananas Today
The United Straits of Brother Can You Spare a Gallon?
The United States of B.Y.O. Body Armor
The United States of What, Me Worry?
The United States of Just Say No
The United States of No, Not In My Name
The United States of Ask Not and Don’t Ask
The Untitled States of It Can’t Happen Here
The United States of (I Sorry for What I Done) Here Your $600 Back
The United States of Rock n’ Roll
The United States of “Hell Yeah, I’m for Revolution. Let’s Have a Light Beer!”
The United States of Yee Haw!The United States of Intelligent Design
Some United States of Celebrity Governors
The United States of Places Named for Dead Indians
The United States of Real Live Indians!
The United States of Ospreys, Diving
The United States of Glossy Paperbacks by Tan Millionaires
The United States of Snow at 10,000 Feet
The United States of Fridges with Ice Machines
The United States of Halftime Shows
The United States of Smoke Detectors and Car Alarms
The United States of Cops: Atlanta
The United States of Precocious Technologies
The United States of Everyone’s Packin’
The Wireless States of Business Networking Solutions
The United States of Home, Auto, Health, Fire, Flood
www.myunitedstates.lol/whatev
The United States of Cell Phone Cameras
The United States of Summer Sales
The United States of Tie a Yellow Ribbon
The United States of Turn out Your Pockets and Remove Your Shoes
The United States with Two Small Children on a Seesaw
The United States of Free Ipods, Free Puppies, Free Lunch
The United States of Little Boxes and Big Boxes
The United States of Chaparral and Pinion Pines
The United States of Pawn Shops and Thrift Stores
The United States of Six More Superhero Movies…
this morning, you pull into the nearest
national park and find yourself suddenly
surrounded and overwhelmed by the high
whining feedback: hundreds of hearing aids.

and we’re all listening for the same thing.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Friday, June 20, 2008

solstice

the first day of summer and there is this
family of landscapers, just deployed
from a box trailer, riding lawnmowers
into the sun, all in white cowboy hats.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

maybe you've heard this one

one morning a man was rescued, having been shipwrecked and alone on a remote island for 20 years. the rescuers were impressed with the three buildings he had built and asked him about them.

"well," the man said, "this here’s my house, and that building over there is the church I go to."

"and what's that third building over yonder?" one rescuer asked.

"oh, that's the church I used to go to," the man replied.


for the last few years, this is the church I have gone to. last Thursday morning I went by there and it was standing; I took these pictures on Thursday evening.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

one palindrome, three absurdities and one obscenity


sapling sprouting from inside a burnt out sofa at the base of a green volcano,


an ashtray/Zen garden in a steel pylon, leaving the Naranjo ferry port,


soft mosses, ferns and bromelias sprout up from concrete fence posts on the road up to Cerro Chato,


a nest built in the crotch of an advertisement for canopy tours, suspended over the Rio Balsa highway,


punto.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Costa Rica bird list: May 15 - June 4, 2008



smooth-billed ani
immaculate antbird
barred antshrike
great antshrike
collared araçari
bananaquit
rose-throated becard
melodious blackbird
red-winged blackbird
green-crowned brilliant
stripe-headed brush-finch
common bush-tanager
yellow-billed cacique
gray-headed chachalaca
squirrel cuckoo
great curassow
inca dove
white-tipped dove
white-winged dove
cattle egret
great egret
yellow-bellied elaenia
yellow-throated euphonia
social flycatcher
magnificent frigatebird
tropical gnatcatcher
long-billed gnatwren
great-tailed grackle
blue-black grassquit
yellow-faced grassquit
blue-black grosbeak
crested guan
novelas alemanes
long-billed hermit
green heron
green honeycreeper (rey del mar)
red-legged honeycreeper
rufous-tailed hummingbird
steely-vented hummingbird
white ibis
rufous-tailed jacamar
brown jay
tropical kingbird
ringed kingfisher
great kiskadee
swallow-tailed kite
white-tailed kite
white-throated magpie-jay
long-tailed manakin (toledo)
white-collared manakin
volcano-worshiping mannequins
blue-crowned motmot (bobo)
rufous motmot (guardabarranco)
dusty-milk dindon
black-cowled oriole
montezuma oropendola
orange-chinned parakeet
red-lored parrot
white-crowned parrot
brown pelican
red-billed pigeon
bronze-tailed plumeleteer
clay-colored robin (yigüirro)
white-throated robin
violet sabrewing
black-headed saltator
buff-throated saltator
grayish saltator
white-collared seedeater
orange-billed sparrow
rufous-collared sparrow
long-billed starthroat
blue-gray tanager
crimson-collared tanager
palm tanager
passerini's tanager
little tinamou
masked tityra
chestnut-mandibled toucan
keel-billed toucan
orange-bellied trogon
black vulture
turkey vulture
rufous-capped warbler
black-bellied whistling-duck
pink-pint terror bird
streak-headed woodcreeper
black-cheeked woodpecker
hoffman's woodpecker
lineated woodpecker
pale-billed woodpecker
rufous-winged woodpecker
bay wren
house wren
rufous-naped wren
plain xenops