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...and they lived happily ever after. Smith & Lady: poets, artists & urban adventurers.
Our relationship was forged to the soundtrack of Yoko Ono's magic,
frenetic, angst-laden hit, "Walking On Thin Ice." ( play song )
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Archive for the ‘London’ Category
Saturday, March 14th, 2009
“No Exit” by Mother Dwarf Smith - foto by son Smith
We made the monthly Tremont ArtWalk rounds tonight, and our first stop half a block around the corner at the Doubting Thomas Gallery, my 24 year old art past struck again. Performance artist Frank Green is selling off his art collection and one of the pieces he has for sale is a fine assemblage by my dead mom–Mother Dwarf–while another in a rusted cake pan is one-third of a triptych of mine from the mid-1980s (the other two portions of the triptych were destroyed somehow).
Also saw Dick Head at Green’s show, and 4 days ago in another part of town I chanced across some of my old artwork in a couple of Dick Head’s 1985 Clevebland Rag-o-zeens. My old art past is Mobius strip looping around in some Twilight Zone infinity flip. These seem to me to be omens saying I’m supposed to be here.
I first met poet artist punk musician publisher performance artist Dick Head in 1983. There was a pounding on my 4th floor warehouse fire door. I opened it to my first view of Dick Head. He whined, “Do you have any drugs?” “No,” I replied, “but if you find any, come back.” An hour later he was back pounding on my steel door, with drugs. Not a bad foundation for a 27 year friendship.
Robert Ritchie a.k.a Dick Head - foto by Smith
Sometimes I forget how long I’ve been in Ohio. Moved to Chagrin Falls in 1977 when I was 31 (moved there to be with another man’s wife), then to Solon in 78, downtown Cleveland warehouse 81, Tremont 85, Europe 2006, Africa 07, Mexico 07, and back to Tremont 09 at 63.
“Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?”
Started life in Idaho in 1946. Then Washington state, Oregon, California, Tennessee, Maryland, Hawaii, Virginia, Florida, Connecticut, Michigan, Arizona, Ohio. And of course the England Netherlands Poland Croatia Italy France Spain Morocco Mexico Ohio loop just to keep things interesting
No wonder place has seldom been my identity.
“No Exit” (detail) by Mother Dwarf Smith - foto by Smith
“As Above, So Below” - 1/3 of triptych by Smith - foto by Smith
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Posted in Amsterdam, Croatia, France, Italy, London, Mexico, Morocco, Poland, Spain, Travel Notes, Tremont, america, cleveland | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
balloonboy - foto by smith
The adventures of Lady & Smith, soon to be no longer broadcast from foreign shores.
Getting things picked up, packed, mailed, given away, tossed, cleansed for our fiftieth-some move since 2006. Our fridge and furniture have been traded for our final two weeks rent. Plants gone, art gone, books gone, spices gone, smoke gone. Getting white and empty in here. It’s the awkward stage where we’re gone in our minds but still here in the flesh. (Although my body still revels in this sun and warmth).
What an odd three year story arc it’s been - Cleveland England Netherlands Poland Croatia Italy France Spain Morocco Mexico, and now back to Cleveland to live. I spent 29 years there–46% of my life. Looks like I’ll stay at least one more.
Once back, perhaps we can begin to put our journey in perspective. 31 months, 10 countries, 21 cities, 3 continents. Not sure how we’ve changed, but know we ain’t the same.
After all this, I figure Cleveland will be just one more foreign city to report on.
We watched Stranger Than Paradise last night. Wanted to see the actors standing in the blowing snow looking out at the iced-over Lake Erie to prepare us for returning to Cleveland winters. The scene where they drive by Tremont into Cleveland showed our old studio flat. Interesting scene because they’re supposed to be driving from the east, from New York City to Cleveland, yet in that scene they’re coming from the west, which is ass backwards.
redhand - foto by smith
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Posted in Amsterdam, Croatia, France, Italy, London, Mexico, Morocco, Poland, Spain, Tremont, america, cleveland | 2 Comments »
Thursday, December 4th, 2008
Isolation - foto by smith
Roundelay away we stray.
Looks like we’re moving back to Cleveland this spring after 32 months living outside the U.S.
Lady’s been talking of moving back awhile now. She’s isolated here, needs to be around younger people, have a viable art & poetry scene. We were talking of San Francisco or Seattle, but family and a job lead us back to Cleveland.
I’m isolated here as well, but then I’ve been isolated for 62 years now - place don’t make no difference because it’s the people I’m walled off from no matter the country, city or century.
Returning is going to be exceedingly odd because I left Cleveland AND the U.S.A. in both my mind and body August 2006 with nary a thought of ever returning to either. At least my cosmic script writer still has a sense of humor and the absurd.
Knowing we’re going, each day I look deeply into the colors and contours of here, the most beautiful place I’ve lived except for my 7 years being raised on a 40 acre farm on Paradise Prairie outside of Spokane Washington in the 1950s. Both southern France and the Istrian tip of Croatia were beautiful places to live as well, but they were culturally even more disadvantaged than Oaxaca.
Not looking forward to this, but relationships and marriages require compromise and right now Lady’s needs outweigh my own. Plus I’ve lived most my life and have become who I am while Lady is young, still living, still becoming. (Actually, she’s very becoming.)
I’m looking forward to the poetry and art. Cleveland has the best poetry scene we’ve seen anywhere in our three years of travel - including London England. And it’ll be good to make art again. I’ve made a dozen pieces in our journey through 10 countries and 22 cities we’ve lived in during that time, but the art desire was attenuated because I knew we’d be moving on again and I’d have to leave the art behind - my ego is too large to be comfortable with that.
I’ve fond memories of the cities we stayed in along the way - in chronological order: Cleveland, Ohio USA / London, UK / Leeds, UK / Grassington, UK / Burley-On-Wharfsdale, UK / Amsterdam, Netherlands / Lodz, Poland / Krakow, Poland / Liznjan, Croatia / Trieste, Italy / Venice, Italy / Abeilhan, France / Barcelona, Spain / Madrid, Spain / Marrakech, Morocco / Essaouira, Morocco / Keswick, England / Marseilles, France / Paris, France / New York City, New York USA / Oaxaca, Mexico / Tanetze, Mexico.
Not a bad run. And this will not be our last - get some more money and a wee bit of security and we’ll be off again.
Light at the end of the tunnel - foto by smith
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Posted in Amsterdam, Art, Being, Croatia, Family, France, Italy, London, Mexico, Morocco, Poetry, Poland, Relationships, Spain, Travel Notes, Tremont, cleveland | 2 Comments »
Saturday, November 1st, 2008
hot surface - foto by smith
Here I am at my normal morning trouble point.
I’ve finished my morning ablutions, drank my 1st cup of eye-opening life-giving Mexican coffee purchased from the mountain woman with whom we stayed twice to help pick her coffee from her trees (so maybe we’re occasionally drinking some coffee beans we actually picked), answered my 1 email, spot checked the news to see what lies the evil corporate empire has defecated on us since last night, glanced at the blogs I follow of others, and read the few comments left on my blog.
Now it’s time for me to blog, and of course I have no blog.
Lady started this blog on WalkingThinIce.com end of June 2006 while I was recovering from my nose polyps removal and cancer biopsy operation (polyps are gone, cancer is clean). Since then we’ve lived in 10 countries (4 of them twice) and have blogged 1,232 blogs with between 2 to 3,000 fotos of our travels.
Lady and I have been together 3 years and 2 months, and we’ve a daily blog of our life and times for 2 years 4 months of that. Well, almost daily - for our three months of living in a small fishing village on the tip of Croatia facing the Adriatic we had to bus a half hour into town to blog, and our two weeks of camping in the North England rain we had to walk an hour through the mountains to blog, so in those cases we only blogged thrice weekly. But I blogged two-three times a day in our two months in Krakow Poland, so that should keep my average up.
In our 38 months together we’ve moved 50 times, living in the U.S.A., England, Amsterdam, Poland, Croatia, Italy, France, Spain, Morocco, England-France-Spain-U.S.A. a second time, and now for the past 11 months in southern Mexico.
Here in Oaxaca is my favorite place I’ve lived since I moved from the farm to the city in 1960. It’s not the most important place I’ve lived since then though - that’d have to be Morocco. One month in Marrakech and 2 months in the old walled city of Essaouira on the Northwest coast of Africa was the most amazing adventure I’ve had because it was like going through the looking glass to an ancient time before electricity, cleanliness, antibiotics. There’s nothing Western about it, it’s more like Old Testament times. Morocco also kept trying to kill me with multiple attacks of dysentery, which kept things interesting.
The one thing daily blogging in a multitude of countries, cities and cultures has done is made me a better, faster, more thoughtful writer. The other thing is it has given Lady and me an online diary record of our daily existence, with fotos.
The funny part is when Lady started this blog, I asked her why. I couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to blog. And now I’m addicted to my daily noise.
Still, it is hard to blog every day, to think of something to say. No one’s interesting every day all the time. So here’s my bogus non-blog of a blog today. Of course my non-blogs aren’t really a problem because I always have interesting fotos for eye candy to keep you distracted from my lack of content. Tomorrow I might just have something real to say.
Or not.
shadow slant - foto by smith
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Posted in Amsterdam, Croatia, France, Italy, London, Mexico, Morocco, Poland, Spain, Travel Notes, Tremont, cleveland | 1 Comment »
Saturday, October 18th, 2008
weirdsville - foto by smith
Weirdsville last night tumbling through stillness and cold sweat going places I’ve not gone before and would prefer to not ever visit again.
Was sitting reading last night when the book page started swirling counterclockwise. Looked up and the whole room was rotating like I’d drunk too much, yet it’s been 17 years since I had a drink. Lay down to recover. Got worse. Started feeling nauseous. Got up to splash cold water over my head because I was beginning to get scared. I had no balance so had to use the walls to get to and from the bathroom. Lurched from wall to wall as if intoxicated. My arms were tingling and my head light and rising like I’d shot too much speed. Nausea got worse. I called to Lady who brought me a bucket which I tried to fill with all my me. When I emptied my body, the retching wouldn’t stop and I tried violently to force out the rest of me. Looked like I was vomiting blood, but peered closer and saw it was Monastery lentil soup and chocolate cookies mixed with strawberry yogurt. Cold sweat and chills with a temperature a couple of degrees below normal. At this time we both independently decided it was food poisoning. I’ve had food poisoning a dozen times in my life - you could add them all together and they wouldn’t even come close to being this bad. Couldn’t move because my body was falling through space to the left. If I slightly moved left or right, the nausea multiplied exponentially. It was as if my body were a gyroscope, and if I deviated from its plane even slightly or slowly or gently I became much worse. Had to keep my eyes closed because the spinning room made me nauseous. Lay there in cold sweat, eyes closed, holding body and mind together with sheer will, making the occasional sardonic comment to Lady to reassure both of us. Couldn’t undress because couldn’t move, so lay there with a blanket over my cold wet chills. Fell asleep. Woke 3 hours later and made it to the bathroom by hugging the walls. Had to use the wall to hold myself upright on the toilet because my body wanted to fall to the left. Walked the walls back to bed. Woke this morning shaky, no nausea, 99% of my balance back. Got down a cup of coffee, will try a bowl of oatmeal. Feel chilled and weak and a bit chagrined - not used to having my body betray me. I’m indestructible Super-Smith, so what the flux is going on?
Think I’d rather be an energy being, except then I couldn’t hug Lady.
nausea - foto by smith
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Posted in London, health | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008
lady in sitting room room window from kitchen window - foto by smith
blog partial from Tuesday, August 22, 2006, London UK
in the undergound tube on the way to cabaret poetical’s open mic last night, lady says we have to change from the orange line to the pink line at whitechapel. “i don’t do no pinks lines,” i reply. “pink lines are for feminists. pink lines are for commies. pink lines are for girly men. i’m a manly man,” i say. “i don’t do pink - unless it’s pussy … i do do pink pussy.”
she stares at me. then says we have to get off at whitechapel. so i start singing “going to the chapel and we’re gonna get ma-a-ar-ied, going to the chapel of love.” she stares some more. so i explain it’s ‘chapel of love‘ by the dixie cups - then say that’s wrong, it can’t be the dixie cups, cuz they’re black, and this is whitechapel, so it must be elvis’s version, cuz he’s white. she looks at me some more.
then we come to the wapping stop and i say “you know what stop this is?” she says “what. “i say wapping,” and lightly wap her back and forth across her cheeks. she’s laughing too hard by now to stare. on the way back, i ask her, “do you know the next stop?” she says “no.” i say “wapping,” and wap her some more. she says “you’re way too far past your bedtime.” we wake up this morning and she waps me back. ah, that’s the way to start the day - with a good wapping.
recalled Yesterday & Today Beatle album cover - collage & foto by smith
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Posted in Humor, London | No Comments »
Sunday, August 10th, 2008

foto by lady - smith in brandt gallery basement wings
TINKERBELL AS GOOD GLANS FAN
“My first crush was Tinkerbell.”
”I could be your Tinkerbell.”
“I still find her sexy. I imagine her flying just below my erect penis, hitting my glans with her wings.”
“I think that flutter wing on stick would feel good, maybe as good as a little raspy kitty cat tongue. I’ll flutter your butter, Baby.”
“Churn my chime?”
“I’ll purr your porridge.”
“Rhythm my rhyme.”
~
“Tinkerbell would be kinda frustrating because she wouldn’t have orifices big enuff for you.”
“Back then I didn’t know about orifices, so it didn’t matter. She could always give me a wing job. Besides, how do you know she doesn’t have orifices?”
“Not large enuff.”
“That’s OK. Some days I have a really small dick. I’m gonna reduce myself down to my essence, compact myself, reduce myself down to an mp3 file. I’ll still be me, this tall n all, but I’ll be compacted into a lot lighter. I’ll only weigh 17 pounds, which could be dangerous in a wind storm. So you’ll have to keep a leash around my neck to keep me from blowing away when we go somewhere.”
smith n lady
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Posted in London, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Monday, August 4th, 2008
medium moth on our roof terrace - foto by smith
i’m reading our two years of blogs looking for stuff to steal for our projects, and this one made me smile. it was a good day.
Sunday, August 27, 2006, London, UK:
i nodded off on the subway. awoke to see old nun standing. first thot i should give her my seat… soon as i decide no, the church has taken enough, the subway speaker announces “next stop angel.” person across from me gives the nun her seat. nod off again. open my eyes and there are 2 nuns. kept my eyes open after that so they don’t multiply. they kept glancing at my agent of chaos t-shirt, then up at my face, whispering.
on hampstead heath, little boy’s big ball went into the pond. i tried to make it come back to shore with my mind. it did. happened second time, so i did it again. 3rd time it went in, i saw the boy did it deliberately, so i didn’t. ball didn’t come back. suddenly crazy italian lady pops in front of us saying they were making fools of us letting the boy knock the ball into the water… they were making fools of us by having us take her picture… told her we hadn’t taken her picture, she said i know … asked her who they were, she said whoever. as she walked away she repeatedly called us stupid stupid stupid. 20 minutes earlier i was taking a picture and she walks into my frame. i stop and say i’m sorry. she frowns and goes around the other way - where lady’s taking a picture and she walks into her frame. she glares at me and says you’re trying to irritate me. she walks into our movie and decides we’re in hers.
later, sitting on a bench in the woods, we watch an earthworm crawl 3 feet, then begin to burrow into the earth at our feet. i’d never seen an earthworm going into earth before. it would push in, pull back, pulsate - then push, pull, pulsate… over and over and over. earthworm earth sex.
walking back to the underground, lady notices there’s mostly stuff to eat for sale… then adornments for surface beauty… then alcohol - no culture. basically food, baubles, booze. she mentions the tabloid papers here show bare breasts and ass, but in america flesh is frowned upon… in america you can kill and show horrendous violence, but can’t show flesh.
probably show earthworm sex tho.
large moth on our bedroom window - foto by smith
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Posted in London, Travel Notes | No Comments »
Thursday, July 31st, 2008
G I V I N G I N
T H E C I T Y P O E T R Y
I S S U E 2 2
did you know that darwin didn’t even know that chooks couldn’t see the blue iridescent feathers of the roosters that he presumed to think were a basis for his selection theory?
allow me to react to such nonsense with a few words about domestic silence. mediocrity is to oblivion what sound is to wind, and to further unravel such simple distractions, note first the blue iridescent feathers of the rooster, and ask yourself or anyone for that matter, who snaked the sun from the rainbow’s heart?
from Evolution is a Burning Blunder of Hot Hair by Andrew Boerum
The City Poetry is an underground zine which focuses on Cleveland writers and artists, but it also features well-known contributors from all over the world. Its poems and art are typically surreal, irreverent, madly political, beautiful or sublime. Warning: contains mature content.
View the complete issue online at www.thecitypoetry.com, buy it in print here. *
This issue features Joe Balaz, Marcus Bales, Richard Biscayart, Andrew Boerum, Kimberley Diamond Bones, Bree, Adam Brodsky, Michael H. Brownstein, Eli P. Cimota, Melissa J. Craig, Jesus Crisis, Danilee Eichhorn, Z. Guadamour, Jim Lang, Jack McGuane, Michael Salinger, Darryl Salach, Eric Shaffer, wendy shaffer, Yuyutsu RD Sharma, David Smith, Lady K & Steven B. Smith, Wanda Sobieska, l-j stockman and George Wallace. I apologize for inadvertent omissions.
All are called to stand up
for this over-inflated establishment,
this store that had unwittingly morphed
into a universe in its own right—
self-sufficient, fully-fledged, and indisputably functional:
a model microcosm to our own imperfect world;
an island unto itself; a high-voltage bubble of commerce
that had boiled over the top,
frothing into some hyper-charged
cash-and-credit force field that trapped its contents
within a finely-tuned matrix
of creeds, rules, and regulations, which formed
a new and complete set of guidelines for existence,
apocalyptic bylaws and all.
from To Wal-Mart by Wanda Sobieska
T H E C I T Y P O E T R Y I N P R I N T
Starting with this issue, I am pleased to make The City Poetry available in print at Lulu.com.
Full color version, perfect bound spine. 42 pages. This issue is available at cost.
$10.83 plus shipping *
> purchase issue 22 here
* Disclaimer: I have not yet reviewed a proof of this. After I get my proof I will update this page to let you know how lulu did with the printing.
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Posted in London, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Friday, July 4th, 2008
Cemetery offerings in Oaxaca, photo by Lady
This visit to the States has been nice for us. Weird, tho. Some prices have skyrocketed. Went to our local coffee shop and they’re selling cookies for $2.00. When we visited 7 months ago, the same cookies were $1.25 or $1.50. We settled for two teas for $3.75. Crazy! At least the tea was fantastic. It came in open ended tissue bags which were stropped to the top of the cup with a stick. My bag had delicate little purple flowers in addition to the green tea.
We loaded up on THINGS yesterday in a kind of ecstasy of consumerism. We went to a dollar store and I was totally astonished by what’s available. Tho food’s expensive, THINGS are not. I think these dollar stores must be spoils of the empire. It would be too outrageous for the pillagers of the planet to outright GIVE us the loot, so they sell it to us for a token price. Anyways, we saved a bunch of money stocking up on toothbrushes, floss, aspirin, deodorant and plastic toys that we’re going to use to make collages. If we bought the stuff in Mexico we’d go broke because Mexico doesn’t have dollar stores.
Then we went to Target to get cheap durable underclothes and shoes. We wandered the electronics section and I was amazed that they’re still trying to sell DVDs. I wonder if anyone buys anymore, or if they all download from the Internet. There were two aisles in Target devoted to ipod accessories. I’m looking for a microphone for my ipod so I can record street noises for collage but couldn’t find it. But I’m just amazed at how quickly technology is changing and how they get all these new products on the shelves.
We wandered over to the food section in Target, and I saw more spoils of empire. Huge quantities of chocolate for sale, for cheap. I don’t know how it is possible for the lizard brains of people to NOT buy all this cheap chocolate. No wonder so many people are so very heavy here. (I’m so glad I got myself outta that bind - I used to weigh 300 pounds.)
This has been an interesting experiment so far. We got a rental car, and we’re noticing how convenient it is after two years of carlessness. But the car has the feeling of being a time machine, and all this store stuff is a time machine, because this certainly ain’t sustainable.
Candy aisle in Target, photo by lady
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Posted in Environment, France, London, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
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