Walking on Thin Ice

foto by smith

there is but one banana. and it is dying.

we eat one banana most the world over, all 100 billion of them consumed annually. it is the cavendish banana, and it is the same whether it’s grown in honduras, thailand, jamaica or the canary islands. bananas are seedless, hence are grown from cuttings, and by this stage of the game, all cuttings have come from one cutting. the cavendish is essentially a clone - each an identical twin to one first found in southeast asia in the early part of the 20th century, and put into commercial production about 50 years ago.

there’s already been one major banana wipe-out. before 1960, we all ate the gros michel, a banana that was larger and tastier than the fruit we now eat. but a fungus called panama disease wiped them out, so they switched to the cavendish because it was immune.

now a new version of the disease is working its way through the cavendish population - panama disease race 4 has wiped out plantations in indonesia, malaysia, australia, taiwan, and it is now spreading through much of southeast asia. they figure africa and south america aren’t far behind.

and this time there’s 2 diseases attacking - panama race 4, a soil fungus, and black sigatoka, a leaf fungus.

to make it worse, the un food and agriculture organization (fao) has warned that wild banana species are rapidly going extinct as indian forests are destroyed, while many traditional farmers’ varieties are also disappearing.

“yes, we have no bananas, we have no bananas today” - a 1923 song hit.

mom always warned me about reducing genetic biodiversity on this planet and putting all my bananas in one basket.

foto by smith

Please come. The gallery is across the street from Visible Voices bookstore in Tremont, which has a Kerouac “On the Road” reading at 7:30. So before you go to the reading, visit me at the gallery.

OFFWORLD

Work by Kathy Ireland Smith

Opening and Reception Friday October 19, 6 - 10 p.m

OFFWORLD is a body of work created by Kathy Ireland Smith during the last 14 months as she and her new husband traveled through Europe. Read more about their travels here http://www.walkingthinice.com

Exploring a new relationship, new ideas and new worlds, Smith works with some of the same materials and techniques as her husband, most notably liquid copper corrosion. Monochromatic, in her use of the copper corrosion, OFFWORLD is a collection of found object art assemblages that exist for the artist in a world other than ours. A world that Smith has been exploring as a writer and here shares some of the artifacts discovered.

Smith is also the publisher of the online poetry zine The City Poetry. http://www.thecitypoetry.com/

Show runs through December 14th.

Gallery Hours: Saturday Noon - 6 p.m.
ArtWalk Friday November 9 & December 14, 6 - 10 p.m.
other times by appt.

Brandt Gallery
1028 Kenilworth
Cleveland, OH 44113
(216)621-1610

www.Brandtgallery.org

foto by smith

real time reality. i woke yesterday knowing we were moving to chicago in 6 weeks. i woke this morning moving to mexico instead. like that 1959 dinah washington song - “what a difference a day makes.”

better mexico city blues than chicago old cold. keep the adventure going. after morocco, chicago won’t do. we’re both happier going south instead of north, to strange instead of same. we’ll be The Lone Estrangers. now, who’s Tonto, and who’s Toto?

Lady K hung her first one-woman show last night. she gathered the trash and objects, carried them from country to country, sought out strange art supply shops in myriad foreign tongues, made the pieces, mailed a lot of them home from behind the old iron curtain, laid out the show, hung it, named and priced em, and documented the lot. lot of folk don’t realize what a show entails. and that’s not including the networking up front to establish contact in the first place. art’s not all tormented romantic miscreants painting nude dwarfs in paris garrets - sometimes it’s mad elves running naked screaming through the mist, sometimes it’s nice talented ladies like lady.

anyway OFFWORLD opens this friday, runs 2 months. it’s 23 assemblages she made in London, France, Croatia, and Cleveland. it’s a good show.

i’ve helped 3 folk through the fine door of art - my dead brother Cat Smith (1957-87), my dead mother Mother Dwarf (1926-2005), and Lady K (1972-whenevertheworldrunsout). fine artists all. i captured them all by showing them how much fun it was - making assemblage art’s really recess for adults, where play is process, process play.

i’ve left art pieces, poems, books, and artists in the world along the way that weren’t there before i ambled by. plus i’ve paid poets, twice - actual real spendable money. that has got to cut some serious slack in purgatory.

i’ve been way wild and wicked too, which may say serious sentence instead. so ‘all that’ minus ‘all this’ equals ‘whatever they want it to be’ - my sentence being the remainder or the reminder, i miss which.

i don’t expect purgatory though, because i agree with the gnostics: hell is this now, our life on earth. which means we’re way past any potential purgatory problem.

CoolCleveland.com was kind enough to propagate this cyber ink:

The Smiths
No, not Morrissey & Co. Favorite local artists Steven B. Smith (poet/writer of Artcrimes) and Kathy Ireland Smith are back in town for a stretch. Fri 10/19 at 6PM, her exhibition OFFWORLD: the art of Kathy Ireland Smith is served up at Brandt Gallery, 1028 Kenilworth Ave. http://www.Brandtgallery.org. The following night Sat 10/20 at 7:30PM, they both close an exhibition by Jeff Chiplis and others with a poetry reading at Arts Collinwood Gallery, 15605 Waterloo Rd. http://www.artscollinwood.org. And they wrap up the weekend Sun 10/21 at 3PM with the “On The Road” City Poetry Contributors Reading hosted by Kathy at Mac’s Backs Bookstore — part of a weekend festival celebrating Jack Kerouac and On the Road. 1820 Coventry Rd. Cle Hts. http://www.macsbacks.com.

foto by smith

I’ve been talking about Mexico for a couple weeks, actually before we left France, and Smith was kind of settled on the practicality of Chicago, but then I told him yesterday that I’m really really a-scared of the government because they are starting to close the borders on activists and zap students at universities and send the tax men after Democrats and fire professors. Since we have the ability to escape, why not really do it? Until the system goes down we can live off his pension and our savings and I’m also trying to get some freelance writing and web work. And we can still send manuscripts to publishers through the mail. We don’t have to actually live in Chicago to send manuscripts to its publishers. Tho it would be nice to network.

And then our friend from Chicago said that they’re raising the single bus fare from 1.75 to 3.25 in November because CTA is bankrupt. Part of the appeal for me in moving to Chicago was the idea of moving to an economically healthy city. I don’t like that the infrastructure in Chicago is decaying. (Bus fare in Mexico City is 35 cents.)

I’m feeling really really cheerful right now. I’ve been breaking out into the song by the Beatles, “Oh, Darling…”

We could find a house to rent in Mexico if we like it and we could keep re-entering and getting a new tourist card each time. Anyways, we can stay there for 180 days on the card and so this will offer some respite from the constant travel. And Mexico’s supposed to be cheap, so why not try and make it work out? It’d be another adventure.

And I’m really going to try to find some freelance writing projects this time. I imagine there’d be a lot to write about with NAFTA and the peoples’ vs. the corporations’ perspectives.

I need to be somewhere strange, too.

I like that Mexico is a medical tourist destination.

A friend’s brother was in Mexico City for a year.

Anyone have some recommendations? We prefer someplace cheap, relatively safe, dry & hot or dry & cold vs. humid, and accessible via public transportation. Mexico City is probably out because of air pollution.

I know nothing about Mexico.

Anyways, after the next picture I have the conversation Smith & I had last night when we decided to go.

Here, I got out the bag.

“Are you thinking of smoking?”

Well, yes. In fact, most days when I wake up I start thinking about smoking. It’s the true degenerate who occasionally smokes in the morning and then in the afternoon. The responsible degenerates wait until evening.

I’m torn because I have two sides of me: the Smith who wants to please authority, and the Smith who hates authority. In my life obviously the hating authority side has won.

“I don’t recognize authority.”

But you’re living in their land. Using their electricity. Their food stores. Their public transportation.

“Public transportation is for the people.”

Yes, but it’s run by the authorities.

“That’s just our tough shit luck.”

The authorities run everything for the rich, not us.

“Yes, and they tell us the exact opposite.”

I like in France and England how the government’s a wee bit afraid of the voters. In France and England the governments are afraid of the people. Here, the people are afraid of the government.

I think grass should be my reward for putting up with life.

“How come life didn’t seem so hard to put up with before I started smoking?”

Life’s always been hard to put up with for me, from day one. It just amazes me that people — less intelligent than I am — get through life better and more easily.

“Well, you’re a round peg in a square hole.”

I’m square peg in a hyperspace cube, or more accurately, a hyperspace cube in a round hole. To max the metaphor.

I also find since we’ve been socializing with me usually straight, it’s easier to socialize with a buzz.

“Not for me, Dude.”

Sometimes. You can’t be stoned and socialize. But to have a little buzz is good. See, there’s *normal*, there’s *tingle*, there’s *hum*, there’s *buzz*. There’s *stoned*, *wow*, and *gone*.

“Wow, you are just like Aristotle!”

I just came up with this. I make this shit up. But, for socializing, hum and buzz help. Stone makes it harder for strangers.

And the Marrakech hash was better than the Essaouira hash. Essaouira was better than Beziers. All hash is better than grass. But from a quality top down it went London, Krakow, America. Actually Krakow and Cleveland were sorta the same.

“What about Amsterdam?”

Oh, Amsterdam is the best of all possible worlds. The mere fact you can order varieties of what you want from a menu and not have to look over your shoulder as you scurry home.

“We should live there before it goes underwater.”

We should have a pool party as it goes. We’d all be bouncing around in these giant hookahs, floating, quoting Lewis Carroll to one another as we pass.

I figure about 2011 it’ll go under. So we can have a pool party then. I’m starting to take seriously this Dec. 21, 2012 Mayan prediction.

“Everybody into the pool.”

Everybody’s getting that one wrong, though, too. The Mayans merely said their calendar would end and we would pass from the age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. So a new calendar could well start up. The Mayans point - it was if we are to pass properly into the next age, we have to change our values, become more Earth Mother oriented. Less materialistic and greedy selfish sham. Sham you, ma’am. Thanks for the bam.

It’s all in between time here. Cleveland’s in between time. Can’t settle down until we get to Chicago. And so much of what happens there depends on Chicago.

“I don’t know. I’m afraid to stay here.”

Where, here?

“Yeah, in the US.”

So, you want to think about going somewhere else?

“Yes, I do.”

You are really fucking weird.

“Well, I’m really really interested in Central and South America. See, I’m thinking everything might implode soon and we won’t get a chance to get out.”

Well, no. When they take over, it’s going to come around next election time.

“Yeah, so I want to get out of here, not sign a lease.”

But even once they take over, it’s going to take them a while to get everything in working order. We can get out at that time, most likely.

“I don’t know. They’re starting to be rough with the borders right now.”

We got in, didn’t we?

“Yes, but we didn’t try to get out. Let’s go to Mexico.”

OK.

foto by smith

found out at the gallery last night while lady was hanging her art show that young poet joseph told the gallery owner he and i had talked and he thought i didn’t think much of 2 major cleveland poet/performers, folk whom i do in fact think much of. odd, i was never involved in poet circle gossip before i left town, so why now on my two month return through to another place.

no problem though, simple misunderstanding, or maybe a mistaken steve identity - the gallery owner will set joseph straight. just shows that even speaking truth isn’t protection against misinformation and misunderstanding.

and just before i find out that bit of nonsense, i finally realize lady’s been telling me in various ways we’re not staying in the u.s. - maybe head to mexico. interesting life i lead here with an interesting wife. gotta admit, mexico or below sounds more adventurous than cold winter chicago. i can learn spanish. lot of places speak spanish in and out of the americas.

on to normal news.

i collect potential poetry or blog lines and keep em in a words2b file in my poetry folder on my computer. just added “the fecal finger of fate” - i can’t use the phrase right now because my life’s on the upside, so i’ll save it for later when it turns darker. been around too long to expect smiles and sun and laughter forever. darkness interspersed appreciates the light.

some more phrases in words2b2 b used include . . .

- babble on Babylon
- the way of weed
- weary, wary, ordinary
- pre-chewed chicken
- aspirin territory
- cyborg sister and her mister
- talking the two ways of water
- mute and nebbish
- practicing for the apocalypse
- all water one water
- let me jump your cables, let me rub your rosary
- purring was my fuzzle wuzzle as she stroked him soft and slow

i reworked reality. sewed the hole in my sweater that the fence bit. ordered a new battery to replace my dead laptop one. should have an extra power cord in our storage unit to replace my dead cord. just purchased a new digital camera to replace my dying one. reality throws bad at me, i fix lemonade and sip along. i’m a reality adjustor - i fine-tune what i can, try to soften the unescapable.

but then, how bad can bad be for me? i’ve got a lovely insane wife friend collaborator, and we have zero debt. of course we also have no house, no bed, no income, few clothes, no vehicle, almost no possessions. no ‘details’.

speaking of details, lady’s spent the night immersed in mexican internet surf. looks like she’s serious.

mañana

foto by smith

Met some old girlfriends and fell into a typical comfortable pattern of the past. They are my mentors, my guides, my comfort.

These women are wonderful, but the comfort of being with them makes me wary of falling too much into old pattern. I want to be a new, confident, ideal, accomplished me, a person who doesn’t complain, a person who acts with grace and sincerity and maturity.

I don’t think I committed any particular offenses when I met with my girlfriends. I didn’t talk badly about anyone; I hope I didn’t brag.

This is who I used to be: obese, immature, obsessed or jealous over men I admired, jealous of women I admired, a braggart about my career and degree, never thought anyone else could approach my “intellect” or my “nuanced opinion.”

Everything I used to think or say or do was for the purpose of elevating myself over everyone else. I was estranged from people and used faux self esteem as an instrument over them. I felt myself a monster physically and mentally. I shunned mirrors, because I was grossed out by my reflection.

(I really think my interior me is a better person now. I’m happy with my artistic life, with my marraige. I’ve learned that I really DO care about people and the planet. And I’ve learned not to judge people by their sheep skins.)

When I see mirrors now I see an attractive woman, but I peer hard into the reflection. It’s not really me, is it? I peer harder, try to find some remnant of my old me. I wear a mental fat suit.

People are mirrors as well. Some people from my near past elicit strong feelings in me. Usually it’s people I admire, people who have attributes that I associate with my most ideal self. (The old me would’ve labelled them “imposters.”) I don’t like to have any ugly feelings, and I turn over my rocks, squashing my jealous little bugs. I meet these people and I talk to them as though picking a scar, trying to see what I feel now. (Does it still hurt?) I want so much to be GOOD and MATURE and LIKED.

I’m pleasantly surprised to see Smith’s blog picture of me this morning. This attractive lady is not the person I imagine myself to be.

foto by smith

lady k’s finishing up her collage/assemblage pieces for her 1st one-person art exhibition which opens friday. probably hang the show today.

i remember my 1st solo art show back in september 1984. i thought the world would immediately recognize my talent and beat a path to my door with greenbacks. 23 years and hundreds of shows later i’m still waiting. hmmmmm, wonder if they’re trying to tell me something. it did get 3 fine reviews in the press - been about 40 newspaper articles since. i’m good at getting press, bad at making sales.

i blog joked about not being able to cook, and an australian friend called me on it - said “you should learn to cook darlz - it’s disgustin ya can’t even make a coffee… Go serve that woman of yours:)”

i often under say myself, simplify my writing to ludicrousity for the sake of humor. i can make coffee, but since we make cowboy pan coffee ever since croatia, her coffee tastes much better than mine, so we wait for hers unless i’m desperate - and most mornings approach desperosity.

and i can cook, sort of. i can roast a turkey with stuffing… and i make an interesting collage casserole out of leftovers… i fry eggs or steak… used to make applesauce cake and peanut butter cookies… can open and heat assorted cans and both boil and freeze water. i was the head cook my last 5 months in prison, made 50 gallons of chicken soup at a time.

but these past few decades i’ve moved more into food units. a food unit is something that can be picked up and eaten as is whenever you’re hungry. things like cookies, ice cream, candy, cold chicken, berries, bananas (bananas are especially nice because they come with their own food unit handle), cheese, yogurt. if i have to prepare, i’m willing to go as far as making and buttering toast, or microwaving cold pizza or hotdogs. fruits and vegetables are technically food units, but only in emergencies because they lack the taste/enjoyment factor. if you’re desperate and can wait 30 minutes, tv dinners qualify.

her comment makes me realize my humor prevents folk from knowing me - it’s a fence i use to keep them out and me safe. this is especially true with my absurdist, reductionist, surreal, droll, dry, sardonic, irreverent comments. but i’m comfortable with this because i can usually get folk to laugh and gasp while the real i escapes unnoticed.

as for serving my woman, that’s a whole other blog. most everything we’ve done comes from her, even though on occasion i’ve had to help her not back out down the line. she’s a happy lass i am happy to say. we’ve a good thing going, one of those relationships you think can only exist for 90 minutes in a movie or between the covers of a novel. too fairy tale to be concrete, yet is. a lot of it has to do with my weary willingness after 61 years to try most anything coupled with her still being innocent, naive and hopeful at 34. whatever, it works. not many folk would still be speaking after spending 24 hours a day 7 days a week for 60 weeks backpacking around europe and africa through some very tiring and stressful situations - yet here we are, still making nice.

goo goo g’joob g’goo goo g’joob.

foto by smith

don’t know whether my words are weather-vanes of life or not, but i do know my blog titles are not run-of-the-mill… here’s some recent titles.

uncle ben’s oven
no taming this beast
pagan ways
boob lube & poetry
ragnarock n roll armageddon
peruvian purple
the cat that came from the other side
dead mom dust
cri de coeur
days daze
they’re coming to take us away
bowels of barcelona hell
times, tithes, tides
deja voodoo
pay now suffer later
is / is not
went water
1st sex
no wailing offense
1 2 3
i don’t kill things . . . except
3 time once
of by for
line man
brain blown
lizard lunch
human v mutant
self poor trait
monkeyman & mule
lion lamb solar stone hand
two olde farts & a young chick
homeless bound
bring out your dead
gender bender blues
slave & masturbation
myth america
sacred lies
no play yes rat
fur sure
prey has no name
save myself some sorrow
slug city snail heaven
slugocide vs slime slug hat ride

collage by smith

things are breaking on me. reality’s decaying. the power cord to my laptop died, as did its battery. the back tire on the bicycle went flat this morning. the wire fence took a bite out of my only english sweater, my digital camera now bulks at taking low light, fast, far or near fotos, and sometimes ignores the shoot command entirely. it also has a re-occurring dark blotch some where within which moves around the frame staining the fotos (which lately has disappeared). reality plays about me and with me with fluid humor. it’s all metaphoric somehow, but i understand neither the reality nor the symbol, neither message nor parable.

looking back to my pre-LadyK social existence, my basic plan was not to go anywhere in the first place, that was my main objective. my second objective was to keep people from coming over. but if i did go out, i’d get stoned before i left, and take 3 joints with me - 1 for on the way, 1 for while there, and 1for the return trip. i’d take an extra joint if the folk where i was going smoked.

now i socialize straight mostly. been some good talk and laughter here and there, with a lot of standing sitting waiting being polite in between. i’m interested and enjoy the goings on, but i’d rather be back in my hole in the dark, toking and typing into my computer. socializing implies intra-specie communication, and people are human to my mutant, test questions with no logical answer. i’m more the un-missed link in social equations.

uncle even anti odd.

foto by smith