Maybe it's the weather

It’s hot in Los Angeles today and the sky is a delicious shade of antifreeze. Everyone’s moving slowly out there, like a clear aspic settled over the city in the night. The asphalt’s humming minor chords. Chunks of pear and pineapple hover a couple of yards above the sidewalk. They shiver with the high notes. In the elevator just now, I met a person who was only five days old. Imagine that. He didn’t have much to say, couldn’t even look me in the eye. Just kind of waved his head back and forth. Not used to so much gelatin, I suppose. It takes time.

Oh well, to business: A friend sent me these photos from Hebron. No aspic there, apparently. The young man is an Israeli soldier. The young woman is apparently his girlfriend. Nothing is sweeter than young, sweet love! I don’t believe these images require any additional commentary. Look close.

moon-mouse

“Can you tell me something about the moon you’ve never told anyone before?”
After a second, Kamp laughed. "Now that is a new one. I'm not sure I know what you mean."
"You were there. I'd like to know something about the moon that someone could only know who was actually on it. I don't mean anything big. But just something."
"The whole flight was broadcast. And we were pretty thorough in our report. We tried to take pictures of just about everything. Also, that's a few years ago; and we were only out walking around for six and a half hours."
"I know. I watched it."
"Then I still don't get you."
"Well: I could bring a couple of television cameras in here, say, and take a lot of pictures, and report on all the people, tell how many were here or what have you. But afterward, if somebody asked me to tell them something that wasn't in the coverage, I'd close my eyes and sort of picture the place. Then I might say, well, on the back of the counter with the bottles, the bottle second from the left—I don't remember what the label was—but the little cone of glass at the bottom was above the top of the liquor." Kid opened his eyes. "See?"
Kamp ran his knuckles under his chin. "I'm not used to thinking like that. But it's interesting."
"Try. Just mention some rock, or collection of rocks, or shape on the horizon that you didn't mention to anyone else."
...
"Hey here's something." Kamp leaned forward. "When I got down the ladder—do you remember the foil-covered footpads that the module rested on? You say you watched it."
Kid nodded.
"Well, now, when I was getting some of the equipment out of the auxiliary compartments—I'd been actually on surface maybe a minute, maybe not quite: A lot of people, back before the probe shots, had the idea the moon was covered with dust. But it was purplish brown dirt and rock and gravel. The feet didn't sink at all."
Kid thought: Translation.
Kid thought: Transition.
"The module's feet were on universal joints, you know? Anyway. The one to the left of the entrance was tilted on a small rock, maybe two inches through. The shadows were pretty sharp. I guess when I was passing by it, my shadow passed over the module foot. And the shadow from the pad, made by the rock it was sitting on, and my shadow, joining it, for just  a second made it look like something moved under there. You know? I was excited, see, because I was on the moon. And it just isn't like in the training sessions at all. But I do remember for maybe three seconds, while I was going on doing all the things I had to do, thinking, 'There's a moon-mouse, or a moon-beetle under there.' And feeling silly that I couldn't say anything—I was broadcasting all the time, describing what I saw—because there couldn't be anything alive on the moon, right? Like I said, it just took me a couple of seconds to figure out what it really was. But for a moment it was pretty funny. Now there. That's something I never told anybody ... no, I think I did mention it once to Neil, when I got back. But I don't think he was listening. And I told it just like a joke."
Formation. Kid thought: Transformation.
"Is that the sort of thing you mean?"

—Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren

More street art

Mohawk Street, last week sometime ( we move slow around here in the summer...)

So

painting by Alex Schaeffer

So I recently booked a flight to report a story for a magazine that uses American Express Travel Services, and, as these things usually go, I received numerous emails from the latter to confirm my intinerary and to confirm the confirmation of my itinerary and the confirmation of the confirmation and so on, but this time I also received an email I’d never received before: a personalized threat assessment document. I will be traveling between Mexico and the United States, so my advisory included a “Warning Alert” on what still gets called “drug-related violence” with a state-by-state breakdown listing “areas of concern,” “major criminal organizations,” and a narc’s-eye-view of the local power grid. (For Tamaulipas: “Los Zetas' control has weakened somewhat in the state, causing violent confrontations with rival groups who are vying for control of territories in the area.”) That section was preceded by an alert devoted to another potentially disruptive force, the “YoSoy132 student activist groups,” members of which, “call for peaceful protests and have said they do not wish to block roads or cause significant disruptions. … Organizers of the YoSoy132 movement maintain their commitment to non-violent protest. However, low-level clashes with police cannot be ruled out.” (Maybe I read that wrong, but it sounds like the problem is the cops, right?)

But the really good part came in the Warning Alert for the US, which made me a little bit nostalgic, and a little proud. Sure, it felt worse than dated, but the anxiety was real. “Police in most large US cities with a significant Occupy Wall Street presence have dismantled camps at public locations,” it began, reassuringly, but continued: “as a result, the Occupy movement has considered alternative methods of protest in what organizers have dubbed ‘Occupy 2.0.’” New tactics might include, “‘Occupying’ foreclosed homes or vacant buildings” and “Demonstrating at political rallies and fundraisers, corporate events or shareholder meetings.” Scary stuff. And this is the good bit: Travelers were warned to “avoid all protests” (presumably clash-prone police might also show) and to “use caution around corporate headquarters, brokerage houses, banks, Federal Reserve Banks, and other financial institutions,” the latter being a rule I have followed for some time.

We interrupt this program for a word from our sponsor

Today please be glad with me that only half the world is on fire, there is still enough ice in Greenland to make at least one cold and minty lemonade, and the article I published last year in Harper's on water and the West Bank (still behind a paywall alas) was just awarded a 2012 PEN Center USA award for literary journalism. (The story, however, goes on. See this by Amira Haas from the South Hebron Hills. And this on the Jordan Valley. And, on a brighter side, this, on Nabi Saleh, which I just left, but perhaps also this, less bright. Also, a very long short story of mine that was published in BOMB in 2009 has just gone up on the CultureStrike site along with a lovely little introduction by Sesshu Foster. While you are there, you will not regret checking out the poems of Lucas de Lima. Here's one:

I FLY INTO GOD’S FACE

& ASK HIM ABOUT MY DEAD BEST FRIEND

THE ALLIGATOR IS ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD WHEN I’M IN THE MIDDLE OF

THE HIGHWAY

I FEEL CONTIGUOUS WITH THE LANDSCAPE

LIKE ANY FLATTENED BIRD WHO SNEEZES BACK TO LIFE AFTER GETTING RUN

OVER BY A TRUCK

I AM LEARNING TO STRAIGHTEN MY SPINE

WHEN I WALK I WALK TOWARD LOVE FOR THE GATOR

ANY QUESTION I ASK GOD ANSWERS BY CREATING A MEADOW FILLED WITH

ORPHANED BEASTS WHO

TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER

I, LITTLE BIRD WHOSE FEATHERS ARE TARRED

WANT TO GIVE BIRTH TO A BABY GATOR

AN ALBINO

I KNOW THE COLOR OF MY BABY IS IMPORTANT

IT MATTERS WHICH SPECIES I FUCK

BUT IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT

IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT

THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE BIRD IS A BULLET’S

I SHOOT MYSELF INTO EVERYONE

WHEN I PICK SOMEONE