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