Thank you card outside my apartment...

Hey all-

I found this strange card on the ground outside of my apartment. I had my digi with me, so here it is...



I opened it up and it had some text inside. Looked like someone went through the trouble of typing a thank you message out inside.



Here's a wider shot, the thing was getting pretty wet... since it's snowy and such up here in Utica (welcome to the six month winter).



Kinda weird. Not the first time I've found litter, but this is pretty up there in the 'wtf' sense.

Malibu?

-Larson

Pm: The beach by the generator shack

The beach by the generator shack

There was oil in the water,
we were on a little beach.

Not the kind of beach that faces the sea,
but the kind against a murky lake...
all mud and tree trunks and alive.

The wet sand is showing rainbows.
I'm reminded of a grocery store parking lot,
the smell just begging for rain.

We are making sandcastles,
laughing and choking about who-knows-what-anymore,
speaking our own words together.
My hands are putting mud on you,
making little towers on your shoulder blade in dribble
and wiping them away.

We jump into the brown water,
and we are both too squeamish to go out far.
We both try to open our eyes underwater, only to see brown.
Pushing, pulling, daring, tangling for the first time.
Later I will blame it on the fumes,
but for a while I don't even know what I'm doing.

On a hike, you are sitting calmly
on a rock, with deerflies all around.
I'm swiping at them frantically, like king friggin kong out here.
"Just be still, and they'll leave you alone." Like fuck that'll work.
I've always been excitable,
and you've always wished people thought you calm.

We worked in the restaurant downstairs that night,
and each got a T-bone steak to eat.
upstairs in the bedroom,
after we finally stopped talking in the dark,
I heard your breath heavy and your blanket moving,
but now that the fumes have worn off,
I'm going to pretend that I don't hear.

In the morning, we'll sit on the front porch while
the old people come to the restaurant,
and your mother works the bar.

In the fall, we'll sit side-by-side on the bus.
The beach and the oil and the deerflies
will be very far away.
and so will we be very far away.

-Larson

Sketches and Poem

From Sketches

Hi all-

I posted some sketches up here on google photos. Handy little place to keep lots of pictures for the world to enjoy. I hope you get a chance to take a look and enjoy them.

-Larson.

Also, here's a short poem, also for your enjoyment.

Driving

It happens when I'm driving
sometimes, I can feel everything at once.
the seat under me, the slick wheel
all cheap rubber. the belt on my collar bone
the dead air and pin pricks on my face.

and then I realize I'm still driving,
and jerk back into place.

often it gets me angry, to be unsafe
but every time it happens
part of me wants it to never stop,
because my greatest fear is that
it will never happen again.

A Find at the Bar...

Hey,

I went to my local pissing spot for a... well... a piss. After my second drink I headed downstairs to make room. Here's what I saw on the stall.



What the hell is that? I'm all for graffiti... it's the reason I carry my point-and-shoot. But this is something else. Here's a closer shot.


Thoughts? Nobody else at the bar knew what was up... but then again, they weren't exactly in an art mood.

-Larson

We have 'good', how about 'human'?

Hey all-

We have 'good'. There are a lot of 'good' things in the world, cheaper cars, better toasters, smarter phones, bigger airplanes, etc. These 'good' things come from technology. Engineers tinkering away and getting paid the big bucks to come up with more 'good'. We have that, and we have a process to get more. However, I believe that the process to get more 'good' is reaching a critical problem. Really a couple of problems. First, there is no ending condition for 'good'. 'Good' can always be 'better'. There is always just one more thing to do, one more attribute to increase, one more factor to optomize. This is because the world is messy and imperfect and kind of crazy, but the engineers and business-folks who want 'good' will never admit it. The second problem is that 'good' also includes 'good' cost. In other words, the cost of designing, producing, shipping, and consuming 'good' things is dropping. In fact, cheaper is part of being 'good'. So these two problems get us one thing: never ending increases in quality combined with never ending drops in cost. And then the world gets its say, and kind of ruins it... or at least tarnishes.

So, we have a lot of 'good'. But do we have enough 'human'? To me, the human-ness of something admits the messy nature of the world. The uncertain nature of our reality. The conflicting nature of our decisions. The ordinary, everyday, profound ambivilence that consumes us all. On one hand, it's disabling because there is never any certainty. On the other, it's great because it means we can always act right from the here and now. Humans are finite. There is an upper bound. Despite the messy, uncertain world, people make decisions all the time. We go on regardless. And I'm talking something that '80% is good enough' kind of reasoning can capture. I'm talking about the world that blows a probability space away. Poeple act right from the seat of their pants, right from here and now, and don't even realize the power that's there or what kind of odds it overcomes. And yet here we are, and yet here we are.

What kind of technology is 'human'? And where can we get more?

-Larson

Sound Pm/Phto

Sound

War is making the sound
that a car accident makes.
the kind of sound that
you feel in your hands,
and it’s nothing like the movies.

This kind of sound is a sham,
because they never show us
the real version on the screen.
I’d be ready if they did.

No, I’m a liar.
If they did that, I would
walk out… which is
something I cannot do right now.

But I have to… I am walking out,
getting out, going down the hall
to the other movie that’s playing
for the same eight dollars

I’m sitting down,
and I’m watching this film.

I’m keeping my eyes
steady while the world shakes.

I am watching the war we aren’t fighting.
the war over being able to
buy a person in Haiti for fifty dollars.
fifty dollars, U.S.

-Larson

Laura Jones, Suck on This

Hi all-

Just finished my first comic book. So far, the pages are up on my google pics account as images. Each page is one image, so you can flip through the album like a book. here's the link to the album.

http://picasaweb.google.com/secondzflat/LauraJonesSuckOnThis

As I find a way to make a little flipbook for you to enjoy, I will put it up here for your enjoyment. In the meantime, enjoy reading the comic in 'raw' form. More to come!

-Larson Broome

Stressed but I'll be back soon.

Hey all-

Sometimes I get really stressed out. We all do. In those times, I read posts like this from Gaping Void for perspective. Good advice is often free.

-Anthony

Little moments of Graffiti

Yo-

Above from Seattle, WA. Sometimes I feel like I could walk by such a snippet anywhere, though. Part of me wants to. The side of a brick building, delapidated fencing, small moments of graffiti both obvious and inert. There's something about the illusion we have when we are walking down the street. The version of the world in our head and the version right in front of us. There's something to the level of importance we give to one or the other; how we pick and choose what to accent and what to ignore.

Sometimes my friends and I say that America is a third world country. We have a lot of stuff, a lot of money, and a lot of self-esteem. Really, though, what we have is the version in our head. The version that delicately leaves out the ones left behind. The buildings falling apart. The little corners of not-so-clean. We talk a big game, but there are still so many just not cared for, or cared about.

It's so easy to walk down the street and never let these things come into your head. It's also just as easy to focus only on them and get lost in the self-pity and dispair. What's hard is the balance between, where you know how to look for what should be there, and also see the little moments of graffiti. Look at the little dents in the perfection, that show us there's still a need for hope.

-A

Pm/Phto: Road

The other day I saw a woman
walking down the street in one-inch heels
meandering into the road
like it wasn't anywhere special
like there was no word 'road'
and it wasn't a place of its own

I was angry at the time,
she was in a place that the car I was in
belonged to. I was in a car that I
belonged to.

Now I wonder if she's one person
pulled away just enough
to lope over the asphalt yard
and not even think
about the car she belongs to.