Geography

Entries from Tucson

Photos · 18 Jul 2015 · Tucson

The next time you find yourself forgetting the words to the song you are lip synching in an important cabaret act, just mouth the words watermelon, watermelon over and over until you remember. Only other fakers will know the difference. Unless you are in a Spanish speaking place. Then you should probably substitute guayava for watermelon lest you be discovered.

Notes · 14 Jul 2015 · Tucson

Everyday is Christmas

Disappointed a monsoon did not happen in my parts this hot afternoon, I distract myself by meditating on what Sade's 1985 single The Sweetest Taboo might sound like if interpreted by trained collies.

Links · 13 Jul 2015 · Kitchn

Pudla

Thank you for being there for me tonight, pudla.

Honest Stuff I Make Up · 03 Jul 2015 · Tucson

Bats

Bats. They’re all over the place here in Tucson. They come out at sundown to eat mosquitoes and other critters in the air. When they fly, they jerk around in the air like they can’t actually fly, like they’re dreaming they’re flying and that’s what flying looks like in their little bat dreams. Once when I was out for a run, a bat flopped into my forehead. Bats.

Chiroptera — Illustration via Public Domain Review

Music · 19 Jun 2015 · Tucson

Happy Station

Ben Liebrand playing the original master containing all edits of Fun Fun - Happy Station.

Photos · 18 Jun 2015 · South Tucson

Green Jell-O

Videos · 08 May 2015 · Tucson

A Text-book of Free-hand Lettering

Artifact and Artefact. A treasured postcard in funky light: Orange banding from a fluorescent tube lighting a San Francisco Public Library Card Catalog art project postcard presented by collaborators Ann Hamilton and Ann Chamberlain, representing the card for Frank Thomas Daniels’ book, A Text-book of Free-hand Lettering.

Honest Stuff I Make Up · 13 Apr 2015 · Tucson

It’s Called Sun Tran Because

It’s called Sun Tran because “More than you ever wanted to know about Klonopin and paternity tests” wouldn’t fit on the transfers.

Honest Stuff I Make Up · 28 Mar 2015 · South Tucson

Strange Magic

It is early and I haven’t had coffee but it’s springtime and just about everything about springtime here makes me giddy: Ideal temperatures and humidity, the smells of all the acacia and citrus blossoms, the magical alignment of golden hour with bicycle rides at quitting time, and so on. This morning I am riding the number 18 South Sixth Avenue Sun Tran bus. I am staring at a young man’s socks for almost a minute before I notice there is amazing hair staring at me in the face. Red and black and stars and stripes and black and red. Two people I don’t know brought fireworks on the bus and now this bus is on fire. Now I have an inexplicable urge to download the greatest hits of the Electric Light Orchestra band. I am on my way to the border for my weekly hormone treatments.