Stop the Shopper Stopper!

So, around two or three times a week the Madison publication, "Shopper Stopper" (brought to you by the same people who bring the Wisconsin State Journal and the Capital TImes) makes two stops in my little two-room apartment: one in the mailbox, one in the recycle-bin--until now.

They don't list any contact information in the entire publication save for a couple advertisements for madison.com (also run by the WSJ guys, Capital Newspapers). So there I went, and with a little searching found a phone number for customer service regarding delivery concerns.

608-252-6363 or 1-800-362-8333.

I called and selected 'other' (number 5) on the little menu that you're greeted with, and was helped by the friendly Pete, who in about 10 seconds was able to cancel my subscription. He says it'll take 3-4 weeks to actually go through the system, but should eventually stop filling my wastebasket.

Hopefully, they'll change the cover to read, "over 124,999 delivered this Wednesday: here's how one Madisonian stopped receiving this publication and you can do it too!" and then tell my story.

Seriously it's really easy, and really worthwhile.

photo by wonder al, "http://flickr.com/photos/wonderal/"

Dia Luna, Dia Pena

So, I got to messing around with that audio file Julia published. This is what I came up with (I've never heard the actual song):

How to Indent

So, I've been experimenting, and have found a couple ways to indent.

The first, kind of a hack, is as follows:

Place a series of the html-tag, before each paragraph. The tag creates a space that won't collapse or disappear when you publish. So, if you use a bunch in a row, you get a four, five, or six-space indent. Got it?

The second, indents each paragraph, but also puts a space between them. Do the following. Click on the template tab, on the top, and then, on edit html.

Scroll down to below the body section, ( body { blah blah blah blah} ) and put the following code:
p {
text-indent: 20px
}

Then, in each post, surround your paragraphs with <p> in front and </p> at the end. Or, you can do, <p/> before each paragraph with no closing tag.

Ta-da.

That's it.

Note that this second method, will always indent the first line of every post.

Another method?

Put the following code instead of the p code above:
#inden {
text-indent: 20px
}

And then, <p id=inden> before each paragraph and </p> at the end. If you do it this way, then you can't have returns or line breaks between your paragraphs or you'll get a double-space.

What a headache, eh?

A French Umbrella

Oui, according to Météo-France, there shouldn’t be snow for another three weeks. So, why am I here, knee-deep in neige, frozen and frost-bitten, in the middle of le Col Agnel, half-way between the Château Renard and Pontechianale, lost and stranded in a 23 kilometer stretch of mountain pass, in the middle of October, tired to the point of exhaustion, huddled beneath this umbrella, without car, without coat, without care, without hope?

Ask Monsieur Oiseau, my agent.

Business in Italie, in Coni, would take me from Lyon, through les Alpes—only, like, the biggest mountain range in Europe—and into Piémont. By rental car. A putain Peugeot 604—I think from 1976—that sputtered and hacked and wheezed for almost fifteen kilometers before coughing a final French curse of black smoke and leaving me to fend for myself out here in the middle of nowhere. I think I passed a cyclist going the other direction twelve kilometers ago.

Right now, my plan is to walk the rest of the way to Pontechianale. Bien sûr, I’m tired. It seems like forever ago that I left that smoking merde, gathered my umbrella and briefcase, and set off. It started snowing an hour ago. I’ve been dying ever since. My legs are so heavy from stepping so high and it’s getting harder and harder to see the road.

I think I’m almost to Italie. I’ll cross at 2 744 meters. I use the mountains as guides. To the north is le Pain du Sucre. To the east, le Mont Viso. Sometimes the peaks are just visible above the forest. Endless queues of beech and ash line up before the huge mountains. Occasionally an oak or sycamore maple budges to the front of the line, waving his arms, in a desperate cry for attention. I completely understand. It’s so hard to be found out here, especially when you’re sleepy. If I look amongst the trees, I can see the yellow eyes of predators watching me, licking their lips, hungrily waiting, waiting for nightfall, as I unknowingly trudge into their trap. I hope they’re as tired as I am.

There are many birds. They come out in pairs or in flocks, searching for something to eat. Or a nice place to rest. Just a bit ago, a little black bird, Monsieur Oiseau, landed on the road in front of me, begging for food. I shoed him away with my umbrella.

It wasn’t long before he returned, pleading “Monsieur Andrews, Je suis très affamé ! On peut aller manger quelque chose, s’il vous plait ?”

“How do you know my name,” I demanded. Really, I was getting hungry and was till very tired from walking. It’s been such a long day.

“It’s only a little further to the fête,” he told me.

Famished and suddenly determined, I decided I’d better go with him. We walked arm and arm to the beach, where he had set up an umbrella. I thought it kind of a strange location, a little alcove in the mountainside, hollowed out by the high tide. It seemed that if we picnicked for too long, the water would carry us away to an ocean grave. I stripped down to enter the water. Peculiar that Monsieur Oiseau would chose such a cold day to go swimming and sunning.

I must have fallen asleep while sunbathing on the rocks. I don’t know where Monsieur Oiseau could have gone. It’s a good thing you found me before that tide did! Especially with the water turning to ice and snow the way it is.

Wait, it’s not supposed to be snow for another three weeks!

Song of the Swamp

Song of the Swamp

A, tick-tick, clicking cricket flicking
Quickly fickle little wings that
Fiddle and flit with stick-legs kicking.
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

Croak. Smack.
A toad’s throat cracks.
As he floats on his back,
And chokes on a snack.
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
Croak. Smack.
Croak. Smack.

Splash!
Out of the water jumps a fish, then,
Flash!
In the sun shine his scales and
Crash!
He goes back in and swims with his fins.
Tick,tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
Croak. Smack.
Croak. Smack.
Crash!

Another Umbrella

The sun peeks over the eastern mountain wall, apparently still deciding if it wants to get up today at all. The traveler marks the occasion by carving a tally on his arm with the fountain pen from his pocket. It’s the eighth tally since leaving the wreck and the third since his pen stopped working, the ink bottled up in the cold metal, preserved cryogenically, waiting to be unfrozen on the other side of the valley.

As he trudges on, the wind stalks him like a winter wolf, always behind him, howling and barking, nipping and biting at those parts left exposed by his now-tattered three-piece and top hat. Its icy maw smells of pine needles and upturned earth and grins in a grim promise of death. As it whistles through the mountain pass, a scavenger-bird, starved by winter, is swallowed up, cawing in distress, fluttering and flapping, and leavesbehind only a scattering of footprints: a set of alphabet magnets, all the letter Y, stuck to a white refrigerator wasteland.

By this point, the traveler is a clown, white-faced and red-cheeked, scuffling his feet in sad physical comedy. As another gust blows past, he raises his full-size umbrella to block the stirred-up snow from entering his eyes. He tires and pants heavily. With every gasping breath the bitter breeze burrows deeper and deeper into his throat and lungs, looking for some place warm to curl up and hibernate. It filling his mouth with taste of ice and snow, a cold sweetness to mix with the salty snot that runs down from his frost-bitten nose. His steps become smaller, his legs stiffened by the cold. Each is slow and deliberate, requiring more effort than the one prior, and sounds like an apple being bitten by horse. After harnessing every throe of hidden strength, when his strides become so small that they take him no further, he crumples into a heap, collecting himself in the fetal position below his black umbrella. Wavering in and out of consciousness, he hallucinates.

The umbrella above him grows larger and larger until becoming an overhang of dark obsidian, wet and barnacle-blasted by the grape-shot-cannon tide. He is an alcove on the ocean shore, only accessible when the water is low, carved out by eons of waves crashing against it. Splashes of water fall on seaweed-covered rocks sending cool ocean spray over his back. Gulls call out like children in a game of tag carried by an ocean breeze that chills the droplets of water that cling to his naked body. He shivers and looks into the cloudless sky at the birds circling above him, carried by the wind…

Stare Down

On an inner city avenue,
The earth turns round and round.
The sun comes up and goes back down,
As it was made to do.

And men and women toil away
And come home tired and sleep,
And live and die, rejoice and weep,
Day to day to day.

And all the while, locked in time,
He stares me in the face,
He hasn’t moved a single pace,
And won’t until he dies.

And In the summer days of heat,
Sweat beads on his brow.
His skin burns and tans, and browns,
Under the sun that beats.

And when the winter days begin,
He shivers and he shakes,
His frost-bitten face, a grimace makes,
As he finds some strength within.

He never moves, I know he’s thinking,
Sitting, watching, waiting,
Patience thinning, nerves abating.
Never breathing, never blinking.

And all the while, locked in time,
Staring me in the face,
He hasn’t moved a single pace,
And won’t until he dies.

The Barefoot Princess

Kelsey felt like a princess, high up on her thrown, garbed regally in her blue silk gown. You had to excuse her lack of footwear—some princesses went around barefoot, probably. She should have done her hair. Too late now. Her public awaited. It was so wonderful to be able to use her prom dress again. She was perched on the very end of a white platform—she had to sit on the edge so she wouldn’t hit her head, he had said. It was roughly two feet in length and textured like harsh gravel. It hurt her legs. It had better not pull any threads. She sat high above a tank of water, sloshing and splashing, stirred by the last passer through its waters. She waved to Molly and Amber, through the yellow netting that protected her from poor throwing.

Corey was such a stick-in-the-mud. He was always, “let’s stop this, let’s go home.” They’d each only been dunked once. He definitely needed to lighten up. He was the one in a wetsuit. It was freezing up there.

And what was with this kid throwing? “You throw like a girl!” she taunted. Her teeth were chattering.

He fastballed another one at the target to her left. Wide right. He had one ball left. “I let that one go,” he explained. His friends laughed.

Her dress had better not fly up when she hit the water. Which underwear was she wearing? This was gonna be cold. She had almost dried-off sitting there in the wind. Should she have taken her earrings off? Too late now. How was Rachel doing? Perhaps she should check up on her after this—

WHAM!

She hated that sound. It was always shocking when you first entered. Maybe this wasn’t good for her dress, either. Too late now.

Kelsey the Incorrigible

“Kelsey,” Corey said, looking up at the sun and wiping a mixture of water and sweat from his brow, “I’m taking off the wetsuit!”

It was mid-June and he’d been following her all up and down the fairground for hours. He half-turned towards the Black Buick Le Sabre parked on the hill, by the school building.

“Can’t we please go just once more?” Kelsey asked, grabbing his thick, rubbery arm.

“I think we’re to big for this and—“

A loud thunk behind him foretold the splash and spray of water that peppered his back.

“—and I think we should get back to the cakewalk. Rachel’s probably lonely and bored out of her mind.”

“So, yes, then?” Kelsey was incorrigible.

“Well…”

“Great! One more and then we’ll go.” She moved to stand in line behind two skinny adolescent girls, waterlogged and shivering.
Corey obligingly shuffled in behind her as the first of the girls in front of them mounted the Tupperware stairs to the dunk tank. “This better be quick,” he said, shielding his face with one octopus-arm.

Thunk. Splash.

The line shifted forward, as the next girl clambered onto the spring-loaded platform. “Do you think they’ll let us do one together”?

“Um… we can ask.”

Kelsey took the hair tie off of her wrist and put her hair back. She handed him her earrings.

Thunk. Splash.

“I’m having so much fun! I could do this for hours!”
He furrowed his brow and pouted at her ascending backside. “Kelsey…”

Thunk. Splash.

He waited for her to exit the tank before taking his place.
Thunk. Splash.

“Now let’s go,” he said, shaking the water out of his hair. The sun felt even hotter after leaving the cold water, and his head hurt.

Kelsey said, “Alright, we’ll go and change, but then I want to do one with me in the wetsuit…”

Umbrellas and Seagulls

It is cold. A dry wind whips through the harsh terrain like a bull in the Corrida de Toros, enraged into a frenzy, howling out battle cries, terrible screams ever louder in the winter air, as it rattles the ground and shakes giant evergreens that sway like performers on stilts. It carries in its icy maw a whiff of pines and upturned earth and the promise of death. A scavenger-bird, starved by winter, caws in distress, fluttering and flapping, as it is carried off by a fierce gust, leaving behind only a scattering of footprints: a set of alphabet magnets, all the letter Y, stuck to a white refrigerator wasteland.

A clown of a traveler, white-faced and red-cheeked, scuffles his feet as he desperately struggles to take shelter under a large umbrella from the bitter breeze, a frigid mole that, with every panting breath, burrows deeper into his throat and lungs, filling his mouth with ice and snow, a cold sweetness to mix with the salty snot that runs down from his frost-bitten nose. He plods out nine steps. Each is slow and deliberate, requiring more effort than the one prior, and sounds as does an apple being bitten by horse. At the end of his trek, after harnessing every throe of hidden strength, he crumples under the shadow of his now-snow-covered umbrella and assumes the fetal position, frost-bitten and hallucinating.

The black umbrella above the traveler grows larger and larger until becoming an overhang of dark obsidian, wet and barnacle-ridden on the ocean shore, carved out by a relentless tide. Waves crash on seaweed-covered rocks sending cool ocean spray over his back. Gulls call out like children in a game of tag carried by an ocean breeze that chills the droplets of water that cling to his naked body. He shivers and looks into the cloudless sky at the birds circling above him, each flapping body a transforming glyph that cycles between M’s, and Y’s, seeming to ask the silent question, “Um, why?”

photo by Juan Riera