japhy unplugged : happy holidays all- on the t to visit jill-san! Buy war bonds.

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posted by Japhy at 12/26/2002 09:23:00 AM || #

japhy unplugged : watching harold & maude: perfect holiday flick-want harolds fashion sense

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posted by Japhy at 12/24/2002 03:54:00 AM || #

Hey folks- I'm puting the Advent series on indefinite hiatus. I always said that it was just an experiment, and truth be told- it's getting out of hand and interfeering with my real life. I always intended for this site to refrain from the kind of personal maudlin bullshit that most blogs fall into and I feel that, however artful, all this poetry and the series is falling into that trap. My deepest thanks to all the people who gave me encouragement and advice throughout the series- I hope you all won't be too dissapointed. I also sincerely hope that I have not caused anyone to feel uncomfortable by writing all that I have, and if I have done so, please accept my sincerest apologies. I apologize for making you all victims of my public therapy, but on the upside, the whole thing has helped me crystalize what's really important to me and helped me move on with my life. I hope you enjoyed it and someday I will get around to finishing it. I promise. -Japhy

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posted by Japhy at 12/16/2002 07:29:00 AM || #

Advent: Twelfth Note: This the twelfth part of a twenty-four part series running through December 24th. To read the previous installments in a convenient form, go here. Welcome to New Mexico- the Land of Enchantment. The air is palpably thin and dry and as dusk settles, from the giant plains rise the Sandia's, looking like something assembled on a model railroad set. The land here looks like a rough draft of a real landscape, everything is strong lines and simplicity. The mountains are mountains and nothing else. The desert is desert and Albuquerque, our new home, spreads out from the trickling Rio Grande. Daniel is home and he's going at quite a clip. "First, I want to take you the the Village Inn for enchiladas and sweet rolls, then Double Rainbow- my old stomping grounds. And Garduno's- you can have some real soppapillas there. We actually made it! We actually made it!" We pull into his parent's house on Nob Hill and he runs, he literally runs into the house and grabs a hold of his mother, who smiles his smile and says "Hi, son." For the first time since that day, Daniel is happy. This place will make him whole again.

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posted by Japhy at 12/11/2002 09:00:00 PM || #

Advent: Eleventh Note: This the eleventh part of a twenty-four part series running through December 24th. To read the previous installments in a convenient form, go here. The plains of Oklahoma turns to dirt in the Texas panhandle. We wake up in Oklahoma City and by noon we are in Texas. We look at the map ahead and see there is nothing between The City of That Other Bombing and our final destination: Albuquerque, New Mexico. We had planned a week to get out west and will make it in five. This would be our final approach, one last giant slog through the country- we would drive and and drive and- "Look! A Denny's!" Again, we are the youngest travellers by decades. Where have all the young folks gone? Ah, well- more Eggs over My Hammy for us. On the road all is quiet. On the road all is motion. On the road Daniel and I are together. On the road the Earth turns for us. On the road we are one. On the road we sing. On the road we know now there is an end. The soil turns dark, autumn hues, fills with rock and scrub and the sky opens up for us, blue as blue. Daniel and I are the only things to mark the space between the red rock and the blue sky. He drops one hand to my side and I hold it and he holds mine. I turn to look at him and without turning from the road, a smile grows on his face.

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posted by Japhy at 12/10/2002 09:00:00 PM || #

Please Please Forgive Me I'm three days behind on the Advent series. I had an awful stomach virus from a slightly overripe chicken salad sandwich, so I'm just catching up. By tommorow afternoon, we should be back on track. By the way, when they arrive, they're going to be dated by the days they should have appeared, so look below. Till then, here's a proverbial bone to keep you satisfied: Mister Secrets Mister Secrets walked on downtown, not knowing his heart, but holding my hand- and when I'd try to sleep, he'd poke my head with tiny matchstick fingers and whisper mister secrets in my ear. Mister Secrets woke me up from all the nightmares of loveless lovers and held me close when I tried to run away into snowdrifts, rainclouds and nightclubs, but Mister Secrets kept his secrets even when he'd had me whole. Mister Secrets, you love me too much! I catch it in your eyes, your lips, in the letters you write, that you write only to yourself, in your 128-bit encrypted hard drive. Mister Secrets, I am so mean to you! Mister Secrets, your love for me makes no sense! Mister Secrets fell out of love and really, I don't know why. Maybe Mister Secret's secret is that his love is just a lie. Mister Secret's secret love is not he, nor you, nor I; Mister Secret's secret love is secrets kept from him, from us: goodbye. ---- Yes, I listen to too much Alanis. Don't we all? Make your own Alanis song, courtesy of the Brunching Shuttlecocks.

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posted by Japhy at 12/10/2002 10:07:00 AM || #

Advent: Tenth Note: This the tenth part of a twenty-four part series running through December 24th. To read the previous installments in a convenient form, go here. In a Westin outside Oklahoma City sleep two boys, young men, really. One of them has his arms around the waist of the other and between their legs lies a small ink black dog. The standard issue hotel bedding covers them like a heavy tapestry, momentarily weighing them down in absolute stillness. Even their breathing chests can't be noticed through layers of polyfill, teflon coated blanketing. They are practitioners of this sleep: both have at found themselves awake at night staring at the other fast asleep and carefully planned how to position his body with his. For a long time, they had it almost perfect, their sleep. One would begin the night with his head placed on the chest of the other, for this was the only cure for insomnia he had ever known and then, in half-sleep they would rearrange each other so that the boy who's head lay on the other's chest would then repay the favor by holding the other boy tight, arms wrapped fully around like a seatbelt for the wild Snap the Whip and Dodgem dreams he would have. This is not to say that they had completely worked out a perfect system, by any means. One boy liked to hike his leg up over the other, an extension of how he had slept when he was alone and a nineteen year habit was hard to break. This drove the other boy insane, for the other boy hated to be restrained in any way at all, but the other boy also knew he snored. Loudly. Whole symphonies, in fact, long deep resonant percussive bison calls. Early on, this had led to the other boy punching him, for that boy used to hate sleep with anyone in his bed. In fact, he could barely stand someone being in his bed for more than a moment, it required all his effort not to push the other person out of the bed, but somehow, we'll call this "somehow", "love"- somehow, this had faded over weeks and months. Now one boy would allow the other to put his leg over his chest for a minute or two and the other had taken to silently shifting the other when the goat bleating snores came on and though every time it would startle the other, he would quickly fall back asleep, often with no more than a whispered "What?", but not really needing any answer. Since the road began, none of these conscious efforts had been needed in their sleep. They simply just did it. Had they finally gotten it right or were they just simply too exhausted to think about where hand and skin belonged in their elaborate sleep? The puppy, as ever, slept fitfully and in the morning, did something she would never tell anyone she did- She sat for a moment and watched the two boys sleep. She sat perfectly, like she had been taught and she watched for as long as she could, fighting against her limited attention span, but when it finally took over, she jumped on them, pouncing them to life.

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posted by Japhy at 12/09/2002 09:00:00 PM || #

Advent: Ninth Note: This the ninth part of a twenty-four part series running through December 24th. To read the previous installments in a convenient form, go here. You know us, don't you? Our eyes are big and round, taking in everything we see with wonder. We have perfect skin. We never grow old. Our hair is perfectly groomed and never falls out of place. We're unbounded optimism and hope and we're loved by grandmothers across the country for our winsome smiles; the perfect grandchildren who will never leave home or forget birthdays or die or lose our hearts and minds in tragedy. We are the Precious Moments figurines and we live in Carthage, Missouri: home of the Precious Moments Chapel, Fountain of Angels and Precious Moments Wedding Chapel! If Branson was weird and old, then the Precious Moments Chapel is new and shiny and like all things new and shiny, impossible to take in. Daniel parks Jizelle in the middle of the sprawling parking lot, behind us, a giant pastel pink warehouse that we later learn is The Fountain of Angels complex and in front of us, what must be the chapel itself. But, no! Once inside the sprawling lobby, we're told that this is just the Visitor's Center and gift shop, the chapel is out back, just follow your way through the gift "center", I'm corrected. There are Precious Moments figures that celebrate Christmas. There are Precious Moments that celebrate Kwanzaa. There are Mexican, Irish, Swiss, Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, Austrailian, Hindu, German Precious Moments figures. There are Precious Moments clowns, some with tears, some without. There are Precious Moments babies and sick, dying Precious Moments figures with crutches and IV bags attached to their adorable little arms with signs that say "I wuv you". There are Precious Moments wedding dolls and Daniel and I place two of them, one blue eyed and blonde-haired, the other dark haired and brown-eyed together, in matching tux's next to each other and for us, this is truly, a Precious Moment. I walk out into an indoor courtyard, made up to look like the Precious Moments Village and there's a show going on. A five foot tall Precious Moment doll is walking around telling us the story of how he died and there's a five foot tall Precious Moments Angel guiding him up the stairs to Heaven and I am the only person in the entire courtyard watching this. The place is completely deserted, except for me and Precious Moments Dead Baby and Precious Moments Angel, but since the sign says there's a four o'clock show, doggone it, there's a four o'clock show. I run back into the gift center and clutch Daniel for support. Finally winding our way out back, we arrive to a long brick avenue, lined with bronze Precious Moments angels which lead up to the actual Precious Moments Chapel and our tour guide, Melanie. There's a ten minute wait to get inside and Melanie chats us up and asks us where we're from. I haven't told you this yet, puppy, but every time someone asks us this question, we suddenly get a lot of sympathy and we keep on meaning to say we're from Delaware and not Ground Zero, but we can't help it. Melanie asks us all the usual questions and then stops asking when we give her all the wrong answers. She asks us what we do and seems convinced that I must work in the theatre industry, which I suppose, is a Precious Euphemism. She explains to us that the sculptor of the Precious Moments line, Mr. Samuel J. Butcher, who lives in Illinois (Illinois!), was driving through the Missouri countryside one day when GOD spoke to him and COMMANDED Butcher to build a chapel in HIS name in Carthage. Mr. Butcher obliged the Lord nicely and put up, what Melanie explains, "is the Sistine Chapel of the United States". Inside there are paintings of Precious Moments saints and Precious Moments Beatitudes and- okay, there's a lot of Precious Moments Bible shit, all loving rendered in pseudo-Disney style. The altar piece is filled with thousands of Precious Moments babies, all floating up in heaven, surrounded by Jesus- who, is not, unfortunately, done in the Precious Moments style. Melanie turns to us and says, "Every single one of these figures is based on a real baby who has died. People write in from all over the country asking Mr. Butcher to paint their child on this wall and he does his best, personalizing every one." Behind the chapel, there is a smaller chapel, dedicated to Samuel Butcher's dead son. The main piece of this altar is the son's childhood bedroom, filled with weeping family members, but above, Butcher's son is in heaven, playing basketball. We flee out the back and run into a woman, sobbing uncontrollably, and really, we have no place to go. She looks up at us and says, "Life's too short to be with someone who doesn't love you back." Her eyes are surrounded by life vest-sized bags. My face burns and all I can say is "I'm sorry." I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry.

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posted by Japhy at 12/08/2002 09:00:00 PM || #

Want to read old stuff? Blogger sucks. Okay, I like it 90% of the time, but currently, the archive link doesn't work. So- to read archived material, go here. Also, if you'd like to email me, I'm at japhy@hotmail.com. Hopefully, I'll get these things (as well as the commenting features) back up this week. Take care all.

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posted by Japhy at 12/08/2002 10:44:00 AM || #

Advent: Eighth Note: This the eighth part of a twenty-four part series running through December 24th. To read the previous installments in a convenient form, go here. We take a hard left at Springfield, Missouri and head down the Ozark trail to Branson. Night has fallen hard and for miles Daniel and I have only the twin ellipses of the headlights to entertain us. You have fallen fast asleep on my lap and are having puppy dreams. The buzz of the asphalt occasionally changes as we pass through areas of roadwork and then returns to steady white noise. Then they start to talk to us: Andy Williams tells us he's singing with Glen Campbell, Billy Ray Cyrus is all teeth as he invites us to The Americana Theatre, Loretta Lynn and the Lennon Brothers, Elvis Presley and his Superstars, The Jesus Christ Ensemble, they're all calling to us from the road and they're all heartily welcoming us to Branson, where Vegas and Nashville meet! We pull off at the massive interchange and promptly take a right, passing the Passion Pavillion and down a winding road that becomes more winding, more narrow and finally turns to dirt. Daniel pulls the car to a halt and gives me exactly thirty seconds to figure out how I got us there. We turn around and head back the way we came and eventually come upon a small lakeside cabin labeled "Visitor's Center". We wake you up gently and by the time I open the door, you're insane again, jumping wildly and panting like I'm dangling a double quarter pounder with cheese over your head, which I'm not, so you need to cut it out. We jaunt over to the cabin, which is lined inside with wall to wall brochures and happens to be the home of a small Scottish Terrier, which you immediately start barking at, damning it to multiple lifetimes of eternal torment and embarrassing Daniel and I to no end. I scoop you up and hold you back from your murderous urges. Daniel goes up to the visitor's desk and asks the heavily bearded, trucker hat wearing receptionist, just exactly where Branson is. "You need to take a left. You're at the top of Branson and your just going back and forth. Go down. And please get your dog out of here. She's scaring Biff." Five minutes later, Branson is laid out for us like a neon honky-tonk jewel. We're trapped in gridlock for the first time since we left Manhattan and we're assaulted by fourty foot tall giant bouffants and freon arrows pointing us to hundreds of football field sized parking lots. "It says here", pointing to my Branson is Music Country! guide, "that Branson has more theatre seats than all the theatre's in New York combined." "This is so weird." Twenty minutes and a half mile later, we find a Motel 8 with a vacancy sign on and we pull in and do the doggie subterfuge trick to sneak you in to the room. We're exhausted. "Can you believe this morning we were in Terra Haute, Indiana?" Daniel asks me, sprawled out on the plaid patterned king size bed. I join him and let every muscle in my body go limp. "But we're in Branson! What the hell are we doing in Branson?" Daniel starts repeating the name over and over again like a mantra, expanding it first to three syllables, then six, then finally expanding it into one long hiss, that gets you, puppy all excited, much like say, a cloud in the sky or a dust mite, excites you. You start pouncing on us, jumping up on the bed and nailing us each in our stomachs and then flying under the bed, where you wait all of a nanosecond to do it ALL OVER AGAIN. "Oooooooh! I'm gonna getchyu puppy!" "We're gonna getchyu!" And we're off. Daniel leaps down on the floor and you scurry wildly under the bed and out the other side where I chase you back up on the bed and bark at you and I almost catch you, but your too fast. Back you go under the bed, but Matthew's still there so you do a one-eighty and head back out the other side, but just then I stick my head down from the bed and grin at you. "Hi Puppy!" You flip out and start darting madly back and forth under the bed and then out of the bed again where you tear across the carpet and back under the bed and now, we've finally got you cornered and what do you do, you big wimp you, but flip over on your belly and start to cry. We pull you out from under the bed, pick you up and rubbing your belly, tell you just what a very good dog you are. We're starving so we head back to Jizelle to hit up a McDonalds. It's 10:30 now and the roads are deserted. We have the entire town to ourselves, it seems. "This place is so weird", Daniel repeats for the sixth time in two hours. We get into the McDonalds and they are closing up for the evening, just a few stragglers left, in fact. After scooting by three or four aluminum walkers, we're suddenly very aware that we are the youngest people in this McDonalds by a good fifty years. It begins to all make sense. Loretta Williams, empty roads by 10:30, gift shops ornamented with a thousand windchimes; we're in Old People's Paradise. Sure, there's a small group of high schooler's chowing down on fries, but they sit listlessly, eyes glazed over from stolen bottles of their grandparents medication, but clearly, we are not Branson's demographic. Noticing that applesauce is served on the menu, Daniel turns to me and says, "This is so cool."

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posted by Japhy at 12/07/2002 09:00:00 PM || #

Advent: Seventh Note: This the seventh part of a twenty-four part series running through December 24th. To read the previous installments in a convenient form, go here. Morning comes to Terra Haute and you have left a mess on Ohio. We ran out of newspapers for you to pee on back in Pennsylvania and since then we have been using the previous days state map for papers. I crumple up the Buckeye State and toss it into our standard issue knee-high plastic trash can and Daniel and I smuggle you out of yet another dingy Motel 8. "Does Terra Haute mean "the end of the land"?", I ask Daniel, knowing full well that he doesn't know the answer either. The land of Lincoln is dull, drab brown, filled with pathetic trees, pathetic towns and the occasional muck swamp. Every day our mileage has been increasing and fueled up on IHOP pancakes and sausage, we blaze through the state in record time and when St.Louis appears on the horizon, we shout for joy and light a cigarette in celebration. The Gateway to the West looms larger and larger and then finally, at long last the mighty mighty Mississippi is lapping at our feet, a rich brown Lethe that we recklessly dip our heads in to drink deep of the silt, of the earth, the land. Toweling off, we find a parking garage near the Arch and after a quick break of walking you, where you damn a few tourists and a policewoman's horse, we descend into the museum below the Arch and from it, rise up, rise up on a ratcheted space-pod designed at the height of Fifties optimism to the top of Saarien's slender stainless steel, impossible tribute to running into the unknown. From the top we can see stupid-fucking Illinois to one side and great grand unknown Missouri on the other. From the top I can see Daniel leaning onto the carpeted portholes to look out and I can't quite figure out why this non-action makes me love him all the more. Back on Earth, we unsuccessfully try to get into a riverboat casino and then wander through St. Louis' painfully self-conscious historic district. We're heading back to the car when I announce to Daniel that I'm hungry. "You can wait right? We need to get back on the road." "No. I'm hungry now." "Well, I'm not." "So, what? You want me to starve?" "Puppy's in the car." "Yeah, and she'll stay there till we get back. You know how I get when I don't eat." "Fine." The historic district, true to form, has nothing to offer the weary travel for repast except for high-end sit down restaurants. I try to reassure Daniel that there's some place to eat just around the corner and he's now walking far in front of me and I have to run up to catch him. "What the hell's your problem?" "Just looking for a place for you to fucking eat, that's all." I hate him for the next ten minutes it takes to finally find a Subway and then hate him for five minutes after that when he orders a huge meal for himself as well. Travelling South into Missouri, the land grows greener, and the Ozarks begin to bulge up from the soft plains of the East. The Missouri Department of Transportation seems to be run by a cartel of demolition experts as the road continually blasts its way through any mountain that dares tread its path. Billboard after billboard for Meramec Caverns ("Home of Jesse James' Hideout!") assault us every half mile or so and eventually we relent, pulling off the highway and down an increasingly rustic road to the fabled caverns. The caverns themselves are situated in a quiet glen filled with RV's and bisected by a merrily chirping brook. Jutting out the side of the mountain, the Visitors Center is a dull, weather-worn brown, but surprisingly well maintained, the sign of a high quality attraction. The parking lot is nearly deserted however. Daniel decides to stay in the car, while I scout the place out. The Visitors Center, which appears to be the size of a small cabin on the outside, expands into a huge vaulted ceiling of rock inside. Carnival games, stuffed animal claw-grabbers and penny presses nestle in among neon-hued stalactites and when I get to the tour desk, I'm told we just missed the last tour of the day by five minutes. Back outside, I tell Daniel. He turns to me and says, "Well, next time we're in Meramec, Missouri, we'll go. Okay boy-o?" We drive back up to the highway, but decide to stop at a convenience store that looks like its last customer came circa 1971. Inside, in addition to the usual assortment of Twinkies and Doral Lights is row upon row of cardboard tubes, plastic straws reconfigured into stars or cones, red cylinders connected by tightly wound green cords and wrapped in cheap acetate and every single one of them filled with countless varieties of luminescent gunpowder, ready for the Fourth of July, or better yet, today. Daniel and I pick up packages of smoke bombs and paper bees glued over in wax paper, fuses sticking out of their ass. We grab firecrackers, sparklers and roman candles. We make it down the road a whole five miles before we pull off to an abandoned parking lot and set off the smoke bombs, which produce such heavy gray smoke that we momentarily lose each other, Jizelle and inside her, you, yipping wildly at the end of the world outside your window. I release the bees and spirt forward in the air for a few seconds before falling to the ground and popping with a crack and a jubilee burst. The smell of sulfur is intoxicating and so specific that even when we've finished, leaving behind nothing but burnt paper and wire and a few black smudges on the faded asphalt, it lingered there as we drove westward, mingling with the musky smell of the late summer grass.

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posted by Japhy at 12/06/2002 09:00:00 PM || #

Advent: Sixth Note: This the sixth part of a twenty-four part series running through December 24th. To read the previous installments in a convenient form, go here. Things are changing now. My words get lost against the roaring wind, syllables and syntax tumbles out the window, on to Route 40 and then into the Indiana night, where they will lose their accent and become nightly news anchors for a Major Television Network. Daniel’s eyes stay fixed to the road as bucket loads of non-sequiturs and brilliant mixed metaphors about Us, the World and the great grand beauty of the Road, escape like Hansel and Gretel from my New England witch’s mouth and I’m casting a great spell on myself, transfiguring me into me! Me! Me of the country! Me of the great heartland! Proud American! Patriot on the Frontier! Indianapolis rises from the fields and up on her highways we ride round, circumnavigating another completely unremarkable city node, its gravity propelling us faster past its orbit and into the night, west to Terra Haute. Against the blazing wind you’ve curled up into a ball, a warm lump nestled between my arm and my chest and carefully tented under my jacket. I hadn’t noticed how cold it had become. I power slide the window up and Jizelle is silent. “I need to eat.” We live the hardest when we know things are going. Last moments are so much more gripping when we know that they are the last moments and all the moments are last moments. Pulling into a truck stop outside of Indianapolis, Daniel refuels Jizelle as I take you for a little walk over to a grassy island surrounded by parking lot. You bark madly at a car that passes by, then ignore another one. Daniel calls from the station. "She's damning them!" "Yup! Natalia's X-factor is the ability to damn people!" Bark! Bark! In the car we pull up to a White Castle and you bark at a happy midwestern couple in matching sweatshirts. "Oooh- good choice Natalia!", giggles Daniel. "They are soo damned!", I reply. We prop you up against the window and point you in the direction of various people walking by and true to your nature, you ignore some and start yipping at others. Bark! Bark! "What if she barks at us? Are we damned then?", I ask. "She would never bark at us, would you baby?" Nope. Instead you just start biting our hands wildly, feeding off our manic energy. Ah, love.

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posted by Japhy at 12/05/2002 09:00:00 PM || #

Advent: Fifth Note: This the fifth part of a twenty-four part series running through December 24th. To read the previous installments in a convenient form, go here. "You know I will always love you, don't you?" "Um- yes Daniel." "You're my favorite person in the world." "Don't do this." "Okay, fine." Welcome to the Living Bible Museum. Watch the great moments of the Bible come to life! Here in Mansfield, Ohio, in a suburban tract home development, little old ladies have been buying derelict Madame Tussaud figures and transforming them into Sodom and Gemmorah, the Resurrection and the Garden of Eden. Daniel and I are ushered into The Life of Jesus by Ms. Mary Winthrop, who's curly black perm forms a righteous football helmet around her head. Ms. Winthrop carefully explains to us, the youngest members of our tour group by decades, that this must be conducted in silence, and please, no flash photography. Walking down the darkened corridor, we stop at giant rectangular cutouts in the wall where Mary presses a small white button. The portal lights up and there's Jesus- surrounded by Cinderella, Pocahantas and what looks like the cast of Up With People. Nothing moves, but the voice of Jesus (who sounds a little bit like the gift shop manager) tells us he loves all of His creation, which apparently also includes fictional characters, a comfort to us all. We follow His life in diorama after diorama, watching Him preach, get whipped (bloodstains on the wall and all), die, rise again into the clouds of heaven, which are made up of gossamer hair and finally we stand before the Final Judgement. Jesus, sits at a giant throne, facing us head on. To his left is heaven, which looks exactly like Mansfield, Ohio, only everyone is wearing white robes. To his right is the burning pits of Hell, where a business woman, complete with attache case, writhes in eternal agony for the sin of leaving the house for employment. After this vision, we are whisked into a small chapel, lit by a fluorescent cross and asked to sit a moment, "to reflect on the things we just saw." Mary blocks the exit door with her stout frame and we wait. A moment passes as Daniel and I do our best to look moved. All at once, the chapel is filled with a synth pop version of "The Lord is Our Redeemer".. Daniel grabs onto my leg and gives me a "If you laugh right now they will dip us in wax and put us on display for eternity" look and put my hands over my mouth, look down and furiously start thinking about the unfunniest thing I know, Mother Theresa, to keep it in. Finally, Mary releases us from our enforced meditations and it's over. As we browse through the gift shop, snatching up postcards, Mary comes up to us. "How did you like it?", she asks. We spill over with compliments, saying we found the entire thing to be fascinating and expressing our sorrow that we couldn't see the other tours. "It's not often we get young people here, where are you from?" We tell her, "New York" and in a flash her cup truly runneth over. "You poor boys!", she says with total empathy, "Would you like a behind the scenes tour?" and before we can refuse, she has brought us back through the chapel and down a incomplete section of corridor. She turns on a worklight. "When this will be done, it will be the Upper Room. See that cardinal in the window. The man who builds the sets for us had a dream, and God spoke to him and told him to put that cardinal there. He also said He wanted the room to be painted brown. Isn't it just amazing what you can do with proper lighting?"

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posted by Japhy at 12/04/2002 09:00:00 PM || #

Live Like Slim Shady! Yes, Japhyjunket continues while the whole "Advent" short story thing goes on, but honestly folks, I have papers to put together and babies to kill and there is only so much writing I can do in a day. However, here is a bone for those people who prefer their Japhyjunket sunny-side up: You can buy Eminem's childhood house on ebay! Appraised at $100,000, it is currently going for a little over 11 million. This is a really ugly house and couldn't even be converted into a halfway decent memorabilia museum, but if you're an incredibly rich jetsetter and want to experience the white trash aesthetic in a big way, this here might just be your deal.

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posted by Japhy at 12/03/2002 10:15:00 PM || #

Advent: Third Note: This is the third part of a 24 part series celebrating Advent. Parts One and Two are below, in reverse chronological order. Somewhere in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, amid the cider stands and Amish pretzel huts, we travel. The air is filled with the sweet smells of summer vegetation that should have died with the end of the season, but the heat and the rain have kept them alive and thriving long past harvest. Unruly corn fields are littered with fallen ears repolinating the soil and the sun beats down, warming the Earth, warming us. Jizelle's windows are rolled down and as we race through this land, recharting the Manifest Destiny of our great-grandfathers grandfather, we talk about New Mexico and the road ahead of us. Our plan is to visit the great temples of America, the religious roadside attractions built by white-suited evangelists and knitting society church ladies, but here in the secular East, we concentrate on the road which swerves ever so slightly like an absent-minded dancer. We've put you in the kennel for the time being. You were frankly, irritating us with your continuing attempts to jump out my window. While I admire your convictions of invincibility, I'm pretty certain you'd think that jumping out was a lot less cool once you hit the pavement, the rushing pavement, black river. Daniel turns to me grinning. "It's so beautiful out here. Everything's so green! You forget about trees and plant and things in New York." I lean back in to my seat and watch him watch the road. "You're right. And it's so fractal. I mean, in New York everything is straight lines and corners and architecture, but I miss the complexity of tree branches and the the way a forest is the same as a leaf-" "You're such a dork, you know that!, Daniel says. "I know. I'm like The Celestine Prophecy, only gayer." "You know what I can't wait for?" "What?" "My mom's cooking." That's right puppy, you're going to live with grandma. I go back to focusing on the road. The best thing about the road is that conversations can cease for hours of silence and resume as if nothing has happened. "If only the stationary world could work like that!", I think to myself, but of course that would never work. Adam Ant comes on the radio. Our song! The towers are still there and it's summer in the Village and we're walking down 7th Avenue in tank tops as early evening settles in and gets comfortable. Off their aluminum skin, pinks and reds and roses and blues ripple like a Rococo sky caught in a skyscraper frame and I turn to Daniel and say, "This is heaven". Oh, how I love highway meditations! How I love being next to Daniel. How I love this pack of cigarettes and everything will be fine! We are beginning a great adventure! Grand gestures will sweep us away to a bright New Mexican future, because we are together! We will beat the dangers of the tragedy of hubris! We're superheroes and rockstars and above all, young and talented and ferocious tigers of the concrete jungle! "Huzzah!", bursts out of my mouth. "What?" "Everything." "Huzzah!" The road has been steadily climbing now for miles, but in such a way that you had no idea you were going any higher. Fields, though rolling now, spread out on both sides of us and then, the road swerves madly, up around a corner, then to its reverse and then a huge yellow sign with a giant black arrow points to the right and we turn sharply yet again. We're at the top of a mountain, the edges slipping perilously down in front of us. The fields behind us part of a massive plateau that we now descend at full tilt, Daniel whooping madly! "Slow Down!" "It's like a rollercoaster!" The pitch drops like a rock as the road clings to the side of the mountain and Daniel's going eighty and the wind whips and he's laughing all the way down and there's not a car in sight so he floors the gas and every single thing in the car, you and I included, goes crashing into the right side of Jizelle and I'm whooping it up too and we fall and fall down the mountainside and everything grows closer and nearer and the fractals zoom in, infinitely complex, and I hope the ground never levels out ever again.

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posted by Japhy at 12/02/2002 09:00:00 PM || #

It was only a matter of time. If only I had thought of it first. Yes, I KNOW I don't go to NYU anymore, but once a trendy Felicity wannabe superstar- always a... Anyrate- Take the quiz! What Kind of NYU Student Are You?

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posted by Japhy at 12/02/2002 08:55:00 PM || #

Advent: Second Note: This is the second part of a twenty-four part short story to celebrate Advent. The first part is below. Your whole life fits into a Grand Caravan, Natalia. Not just your life, but mine too. And Daniel's as well. We've packed clothes, books (most importantly, The New Roadside America), a candy red igloo cooler that fits perfectly between the front seats, a dozen rolls of film, both 35mm and medium format, so Daniel can make use of his Hasselblatt and notebooks for me to write in, although I'll barely use them. Keeping with an almost compulsive tendency for anthropomorphism, the Grand Caravan is named Jizelle. Daniel bought an American flag from one of the vendors on 52nd Street and we taped it to the antenna. It now flutters in the wind as we enter Allentown, PA like a jingoistic moth trying to escape. On the radio, turned up as loud as possible, Pepper Mashay is singing to us- telling us, for the four-hundred and eighty-second time this year to "Dive Into the Pool." "How ya'll feelin' tonight?", cries out the FM. "GREAT!", we yell back. "Ya'll feelin' good?" "We told you already, bitch!" I turn to Daniel. "Didn't we just tell her?" "We told her good, gurl. She must be busssss-ted." Daniel occasionally channels a large black woman, you see, but Pepper isn't listening. "I've got a little proposal to make to each and every one of you here tonight" " You stop singing this god damn song?" "I think it's time... that we all... go dive in the pool..." "No! It's cold in there!" "Ya'll wanna go dive in the pool?" "Leave us alone you dirty scary diva fag hag wench!" (That's me talking, obviously) "I know ya'll wanna go dive in the pool!" Daniel gives the radio his hand. "Uh-Uhhhhh. She did NOT just ask us to dive into her nasty-ass pool after we already TOLD her." "Daniel. The wheel." There's a curve ahead neither of us see. Daniel bare-knuckles the wheel and Jizelle starts fishtailing and improbably, tilting. Everything slows down for a moment. I can see the van and I can see us and little diagrams come spitting out of my head filled with trajectories and angles of incidence and probable impact scenarios and just as I put the last decimal in place I realize we're not going to crash. The graying asphalt continues on in undulating curves as we stare rigidly ahead. "So I wanna see each and every one of you, dive in the pool... with me, tonight..." Okay, so I burst out laughing, hard, strong manly peals of laughter and this gets you puppy, all excited and you jump up onto the dashboard, but I snag you and pull you into my lap where you squirm and start biting my hand. Normally, this would be the start of a huge argument that would last for hours, but Daniel and I are on road-time, travelling the country in out aluminum lunar orbiter and there's really just not enough room to fit in any arguments. "Hey kiddo, let's pull in for the night." "You know it was complety Pepper's fault." "Damn right." Oooh, look! A barn! "That bitch." We pull into Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for the night. Sneaking you into the Motel 8 is a blast. Daniel goes and distracts the concierge while I quickly rush by with you in the little doggie tote bag we got for you at Neiman Marcus. We drop you off upstairs and go wander through the bloody little town, which this late at night, is entirely devoid of tourists. My childhood was littered with visits to Gettysburg and the place brings back memories that I want to share with Daniel. I grab a Phillie Blunt from the A&P and while we share puffs I tell him about Boy Scout Camp and how the other counselors and I would sneak back to a cabin called "The Pink Palace" and smoke cigars while telling crappy stories about our nonexistent love lives. The air is so pleasantly cool and the highway floodlights seem so comforting, casting down perfect halos every fifty yards or so. Back in bed, you snuggle between Daniel and I, but as usual, eventually wind up curled in a ball nested in Daniel's belly. Zonk- we're out. In the morning, I am repeating a childhood's worth of tour guide spiels to Daniel as we traverse Seminary Ridge, which nowadays looks something like a landfill for tombstones and monuments. Daniel's taking pictures and playing with you, bouncing across the fields where Pickett's men fell and throwing withered dry grass at you, which you jump up to bite at. We have no real use for places of the dead right now, so a little sacrilegious fun is in order. The whole thing looks like a postcard. From Amazon.com:

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posted by Japhy at 12/01/2002 09:00:00 PM || #