New Age Trade Show

At the trade show she tells us that she listens to rocks
Tells us that they tell her how to make her potions her
sprays her cures for every ailment, that they whisper
little recipes on a light little breeze
               “the rocks are older than we are
               and that’s how they know…” she tells us
and tells us and tells us, with small eyes squinting with delight
and lips curling back in a smile as thin and as long as her face and
her arms and her hair, a smile
curling back to reveal two rows of tiny teeth
barely peeking above shrinking gum
tiny teeth glistening violet and pearl and light pink
glistening like tiny gemstones:
a polished fluorite? or cut opalite?
or raw amethyst rising from the pearl-white core of a geode?
I think I can hear each stone clicking against another
as she tells us and tells us and tells us
about the wisdom of her rocks

I wonder if she can hear her own stone teeth
clicking and gnashing in between the smacking of gums
or if she swallows up their tiny gemstone thoughts
before they can crystallize into the whispers
that she tells us that she hears on the breeze

Subduction

He wanted to play me a record.
The music was old, and the player was old,
but the record was new. He chattered
as he tore the plastic, clumsy fingers
leaving a trail of cellophane between
the bedroom door, where he entered
and the window, where he went.
He extracted the record from its cardboard case
with a swift flick
of the wrist, and two swathes of white tissue paper
blew out after it escaping
his notice quietly
cutting a wide path in his wake
cutting wide arcs in his wake
settling onto the floor, one
                                      on top
                                          of the other.
The needle scratched and
the music began and
I heard the soft rustling of paper before
I felt it, knew
I felt it: new and old at once, unsettling once – just once.
Unsettling: one
                      on top
                             of another.

Damien’s Big Day

Damien’s first news article! (in case you wonder about the byline, i helped the tiniest bit). It’s a decent article, but the hoops that Damien had to jump through to get it published are a painful reminder of how unprofessional, petty, and childish State Press people can be. It unfortunately  ran next to a ridiculously bad article on the same topic because evidently student papers don’t understand how newspapers actually work (nor do they, it seems, recognize hanging prepositions / value verb-noun agreement). Anyways, an excerpt:

Alternative local currencies — or “scrip” — are not a new phenomenon and have persisted in many U.S. cities, from Detroit to New York, since the Great Depression.

Despite its resemblance to actual currency, however, phxbux do not constitute legal tender, nor do they follow the mold of widely accepted forms of scrip.

While Grether said he was inspired by a popular New York scrip called the Ithaca Hour, they share few similarities.

The Ithaca Hour, like most scrip in the U.S., is made of paper and is sanctioned and governed by a non-profit organization that oversees its distribution. Additionally, they are available in denominations representatives of the New York minimum wage, conceived as a statement about the value of labor.

The phxbux project makes so no such statement, the coins having been manufactured virtually for free by local jewelers Chadwick and Rueling after some initial contention.

“We don’t really get paid a whole lot for labor,” said Matt Rueling, one half of Chadwick and Rueling, who spent one day’s work developing the initial design for the coin and two weeks producing just the first batch.

“For the amount of time we spent in producing each buck, it’s basically free labor,” he said.

Read the rest of it here. Also: Damien’s Photo Blog.