ALLERGIC VULNERABILITY HAS INDUCED METAPHORS FOR FINALITY THAT PERPETUATE AS HUMAN(E) DEFENSE MECHANISMS

'Lost', 'Passed', 'Not With Us',  'Departed', 'At Peace', 'With The Lord'......are among the many euphemisms that I've seen and heard, today, for what seems to be a difficult word for so many.....DEAD.......When 'the game is up' and the 'expired' are 'pushing up daisies', having 'slipped away' to 'ride into sunset'....People are just 'Dead'.....  I was annoyed, just minutes ago, when someone asked me, in a conversation about a childhood friend, "Is he no longer with us?", as though he were, now, somewhere else......I replied, "He's dead!".....To which my friend replied, "Well, you don't have to be so Negative about it, Reed!"......I couldn't resist retorting, "What do you think?....that he'll be a Zombie, afterward? Aren't there enough Living Dead already?"........'CLICK'......[phone call terminated from my 'friend's side........]

THE DESOTO.....156 7th Street, Atlanta.......

The De Soto Apartments on 7th near Juniper were built in 1911 by architect Frederick Frerichs. The three story, six unit building then rented a three-bedroom for $68. The first residents are a Who’s Who list of Atlanta’s most prominent citizens; William Huntt, one of the founders of Ansley Park golf course, architect Haralson Bleckley, Joseph Hirsch, one of the main founders of Grady Hospital and doctor Edgar Crawford. I first rented an apartment..#6, at The DeSoto, after moving from my apartment, #6 @ 1708 Peachtreet Rd...When The DeSoto was converted to condominiums, in the early 1980's...I purchased the top right hand one, for $40K......gussied it up a bit, and sold it, again, for $135K and bought a house in Druid Hills.....Incidentally, I supplied the art deco sidelights that still flank the entrance doors....When I lived there, the other condos were purchased by the Interior Decorater, Ed Kilby; Antiques Dealer, Jack Hotchkins; Architect, Tom Blount; Steven L. DeArmoun and his then girlfriend...and, later, wife...Maria Gallogly Irving, who moved in after its original owner, Dramatist,Bob Hollister, sold his basement unit to Steven ; Landscape Architect, John Ross West and Ga. State English Professor, Bob (?).......

In 1991, the Atlanta Preservation Center moved its offices from the downtown Flatiron Building into a 2,000 SF unit at the DeSoto. Their rent was $1,000/month....Today, my old condo, now expanded to include a rooftop garden and many architectual improvements, is currently valued at over $700K!

THE MID-SUMMER SOLUTION....WAS, EVENTUALLY, EASIER THAN RIPPING OUT WALLS AND HAVING WORKMEN FROM A HEATING & AIR COMPANY TROMPING OVER MY ROOF....

A/C on the 'blink'.....87 degrees in my bedroom!......so, I called "The Heating & Air Company" about topping off the freon level........was told that the $16/lb (wholesale) R-22 refrigerant would cost $159/lb....but.....the hook, of course.......the EPA was not permitting the older refrigerants to be utilized...and, that I would have to replace the "unit"......$6000 (or more) and that the walls around the air handler would have to be ripped out, replaced and painted!........So, I asked....."can't you just add some freon?"........"Well, yes" the rep replied......"but it would just be a 'matter of time' until you'd have to replace this 'OLD' unit......'Units" don't have long term warranties.....like new houses, you know.....that have 15 year warranties!"......He's saying this to a man that lives in a house that's almost a hundred years old!....Out with the 'old'...in with the 'new'.....that's The American Way...... don't 'fix' it when you can just replace it and send all that 'old' stuff to the city or county dump, adding it to the millions of metric tons of crap that's already been abandoned!......Hmmmm........there's an old 'window unit' in my garage. The eventual compromised solution, nine years later, was obtained this week...at COSTCO, where i purchased a Shark 'FlexBreeze' Fan for less than $89...that I had seen, days earlier ...at BESTBUYS....for $230.70!.... Within a few hours, the room's temperature had dropped ten degrees F......and, by 10PM....I had to nap beneath a light blanket.....as the Shark Fan pulled the cooler air up the stairs from the air-conditioned area to the hot bedroom.....problem solved....and good nights' sleep seems to be, under the cool breeze....controllable via a wireless remote and adjustable airstream directionality.....

THE SUMMER 'WAR GAMES' JOB AT THE REDSTONE ARSENAL .....

Recalling my first 'real' job....a 'summer job' that lasted from June-Sept (what could have been 'summer vacation') .....typing SPAM cards into a gigantic Military Computer at The Army Ballistics Administration, where it 'paid' to be fast on a keyboard, with few mistakes....programming potential Nike, Sargeant and Corporal counter-attacts...on Russia, of course, in the Event that America's then-arch-enemy were to threaten Redstone Arsenal with total annihilation or blow up the growing NASA Command Center, Bldg 4200....less than a mile away.....I remembered this "Job" while re-watching WARGAMES, the 1983 Movie......Fortunately, My 'cell' at ABMA was just five minutes drive from the Parkway Country Club, where I could have a cool swim after my day of typing toil in the un-air-conditioned Headquarters Building with that over-heating computer that kept my work cubicle at 82F, all summer..  I suggested to my parents that they should shed their useless H&E Investments Stock and reinvest in IBM!  Mother DID upgrade from her  ROYAL, Model 10,  mechanical typewriter to a new IBM SELECTRIC, with its set of interchangeable 'golf balls'....

"THE APOCRINAL PITS".....or "HOW TO FRUSTRATE THOSE SCENT DOGS" ....AND.....POTENTIAL SUITORS AND WOOERS, ALAS....

An anxious friend with bushy armpits called me, on his way to a luncheon, inquiring if I had some deodorant that he could 'borrow'.....his A/C was on the blitz.....so, he was 'sweating like a hog'......I didn't 'lecture' him, but handed him an opened Calvin Klein Stick Deodorant that has been on my 'medicine cabinet' for 20 years or so.......He shoved the stick under his short sleeves, swiping it over his pits, that changed their 'smell' to a 'French Pit scent' of bergamot/lemon/civet, masking an acrid, putrid, 'skunkiness'....and left, feeling confidently 'scented'.......I said 'wait!'.....took his wet shirt and 'blew it dry' with the wall-mounted hair/body dryer....and handed him a shaker of talc..... as I stood there, sniffing my own pits......before shaking some Emami sandal talc into them.....leaving me 'smelling' like a Louis XIV French geranium/primrose/thyme/basil salad. We 'civilized' Homo Sapiens spend billions of bucks to deter our instinctual processes, even though our olfactory equipment did evolve for the purpose of detecting unsafe foods, desirable sex objects for compatible breeding stock, and identifying both hostile threats and 'come-n-getitishes'.......Now, usually, cloaked in enigmatic perfumes and bacteria-killing drug scents. Most 'other' animals are less concerned with such matters as they seem either neutral or highly motivated by 'the scents of others'....

Show Business is just Drag. When the footlights are ignited, the Business of Selling begins.....Open the curtains, girls...the "Show" seems neverending........

After viewing so many insipid photographs of unreflectively pedestrian realities, I am driven, again, to abstraction....but not without the semblance of Kinemacolored veneers.....perhaps, well surely, an after-effect of having viewed bits and pieces of a Ginger Rogers/Carol Channing Film, while still in pre-dawn slumberland......with it's mid-50's saturation by naive presentiments of Modernity.....Yet, even now, we are reconfigured to represent the same mores and sentiments of a century ago......Women, still corseted, painted, powdered, hair-do'ed, and lipsticked, now market the drag queenish Idiocies that were once always instigated and formalized into societal constructs, ironically, by Men.....as Men, losing sexist control, don the frocks and eyeliners that a few women have surreptitiously abandoned in revulsion, even disgust......or, does Pop Culture accentuate and perpetuate the Divide, masked in the same old drag? Truth is the unglamorous servant of Glamour, as it has always been....

A DAYS 'OUTING' WITH MAXINE FEIBELMANN

 

Relatively early in his career, Bernie Taupin....poet/songwriter.....and his 'then' girlfriend, Maxine..who was just out of her teens at that time, stopped by my Booth at The Atlanta Flea Market, on Piedmont Road in Atlanta....Bernie had landed a 'big paycheck' share of the royalties from his then lyricist/performer/pianist's highly publicised LP Album that contained a couple of songs..referencing Bernie's infatuation with his and Elton's young costume designer, Maxine Feibelmann; and, Bernie had some cash in his wallet to spend during their first visit to Atlanta that summer of 1971.....and had promised some extravagances to his 'girl', Maxine.....   Bernie wandered down the aisles of second-hand-stuff, while Maxine engaged me, flirtingly, in banter about Fashion and Costuming.   I reveled her with some stories about my brief career at Saks 5th Ave, showing her some costume jewelry from the 1920's, which enthralled the young, ambitious woman....When I mentioned that there was a new-ish Museum in Athens, Ga....She asked if I'd like to go there, with her, to see the Erte' gowns that were, because of their perishability.....old, rotting silk.....kept, wrapped in acid-free paper and folded in boxes..and not 'on display'......So...why not?.....We left  Bernie to hang out with Elton, finishing off some lyrical rewrites, and drove to Athens......The Museum Director was't too keen on accomodating us...of course....until we dropped a few names, leading him to think I was some important so-and-so apprentice Costume Collector and Maxine was the lover of a potentially very, very rich musician/singer/lyricist.....Anyway, the Erte' garb was hauled out and, after Maxine whined "Oh, please....PLEASE!....let me 'try on' this gorgeous Art Deco gown, Sir!".....She got her way..  Within minutes, she had stepped on the long gown's lace train and ripped it from its  bodice!..... Maxine offered to 'pay for it'....to Buy It from the museum.....After that remark, we were asked to leave...So, we drove back to Atlanta....with, at least...for me, anyway....a Memory.     Bernie swept Maxine back under their umbrella of Celebrity and they flew off to 'the next stop on Elton's tour'.....The Tiny Dancer and Bernie moved to Lincolnshire for a half decade of Luxury and  Bernie's almost totally forgotten undertaking, TAUPIN....an LP of his poems to then-popular sitar music......I awaited a collaboration between him and Ravi Shankar....why not?... George Harrison did it, didn't he?   I suppose that Maxine's hiding behind her Art Collections, careful not to regain notoriety.....after filling her coffers with a few million bucks, having auctioned off some of her memorabilia.....

SHOULD I DRESS FOR THE FORMAL 'DRESS UP' PARTY......OR JUST 'COME AS I AM'?

                   I AM  WEARING  A  SILK, QUILTED-LAPEL  DRESSING  JACKET,  AFTER ALL!  

MAY I JUST DON A COUPLE OF RINGS,  BRACELET, WATCH AND BROOCH.....PERHAPS AN EARRING OR TWO..... AND TUCK IN MY PAJAMA BOTTOM'S DRAWSTRINGS, MAYBE??  I'LL DOFF THE RED, PLASTIC CROCS AND SLIP ON A PAIR OF SILK SATIN SLIPPERS....I PROMISE!   
 

THE ILLUSIONS OF MEMORY

although the photograph is not  before my eyes, i remember it ^ ^, well. My bachelor Aunt Louise Gattis, round faced and enjoying the moment, between her love of 60 years, Dollar...and Dollar's younger infatuation of the season, 'the pretty-enough for dollar one'.....the other two are dollar's gay brother, Maurice, also my third-step-cousin, by the way, and his long-time companion, who's name will never likely return to my memory....... i have no idea why they are wearing feathers of wild german hawks, however......they are in Munich, if you wondered about the unladylike portions of beer.

MITOCHONDRIAL DYSPLASIA .......WHEN ONE BECOMES A 'CONDITION' QUANTIFIED BY STATISTICAL CHEMISTRY......AFTER YOUTH WANES AND DECOMPOSITION TO ELEMENTAL PARTICLES ENSUES, CAN ONE STILL 'CHECK ONE'S PHONE FOR UPDATES'? ....

......the thin green line reappearance on the Iphone's screen as a sign of Hope.......the 20hrs/day USB feeding tube of consensual validation having readministered  yet another four hours of effulgence.. more than the importunings of tearful Mary Case, as she made her last call ditch for $600 to pay her liquor store bill.....confused about whether she owed her jeweler, and friend of many years,  for the Art Deco ring she had left without paying for, or had she not actually been gifted the Giovanni Piranesi engraving that at one time hung in the office of the President of First Atlanta Bank, before its Mothership reincorporation and displacement by yet another Exercise & Fitness Facility.....now, also, washed away by the shifting sands of Time and Circumstance.....as Mary was dismissed, and eventually abandoned to her dementia-driven paranoid disassociations and confinement in a mental ward...until her money ran out, that is....She was allowed ten minutes a day on her last dimes, for desperation calling, having been displaced from the throne from which she had ruled just a decade before even her beloved sons' began to disentwine their once dependent child arms from her withering embrace, their need to suckle at her empty breasts having been replaced by more youthful flesh, still with the Trusts and exquisite furnishings of their dowries........(it's 8am....and I really "must" leave the keyboard for the dashboard and journey into the traffic....I'm completely out of chocolate almond milk for my Java....and.....a tall cappuccino is my only impetus to complete this story)......."Cætera sequentur".

Aren't 'Lives in Art' usually subsidized by 'Focussed Mediocrity'?

T.S. Eliot--the banker; Maya Angelou—streetcar conductor; Charles Bukowski—postal clerk; Leonardo DaVinci-- armament designer; Robert Frost—light trimmer; Robert Burns—tax collector; Harvey Peckar--hospital file clerk; Walt Whitman- government clerk; Herman Mellville--Deputy Customs Inspector; Henri Rousseau--customs officer; ........and this list goes into tens of thousands......A life, in ART, has always been 'second tier'...that is, until we normalize the innovations that arose from the thinking and doing of those to whom monuments are later, often much, much later, erected...to those that produced those incomprehensible shiny, black inscrutable monoliths that stick and stone casters both worship and destroy.... ....well, the message is clear enough!

genetic interlink

my father, mother.....and their only child.....me!   below, a rather sardonic photo of my father who died in his early 30's....tight-lipped,  and buttoned-up, until The End....    

THE DAYS....AND NIGHTS....OF SWEATY YOUTH.......

I lived, as a child, in an old house that had no A/C.....we had cars with no A/C....I went to a school that had no A/C.......took dance classes with no A/C.......only department stores....just a few of them...and movie theaters provided that comfortable 'luxury' ....until the mid-50s', as "units" became compact enough....and cheap enough.....for 'everyone'.......Today, I'm reliving those years....as both my home and car A/Cs are non-functioning.........I've been putting ice cubes in the aquarium to keep the fish alive until the Central Unit is restored to service....tomorrow..........and I'm unwilling to shell out $1300-2000 to 'service' the car's 'unit'.......It's going to be a long, hot summer, I think........

I've 'narrowed down' the Timeframe for this photo.....1931, perhaps....from clothing, especially that 8-panel 'baker boy/newsboy' Cap....

"Memorial Work" digging through another box of century-old, and older, crumbling & creased Family photos....to mend and retouch..many of their subjects are unknown to me......like this photo of a relative of my maternal grandmother.......Lewis McGee....taken in Lynchburg, Tennessee, where there is...still...a "Lewis McGee" Road.......I've not a clue as to who the child was...

"Interestingly, in the 16th century, the British Parliament wanted to stimulate wool consumption, so they mandated that all non-noble men must wear a wool hat on Sundays and holidays, or face a fine. This essentially forced most of the men in the country to buy hats, and even though the law didn’t last for very long, the hat had become irrevocably part of the uniform of the working man. The cap continued to be popular through the 19th and 20th centuries." .. GENTLEMAN"S GAZETTE (SVEN RAPHAEL SCHNEIDER)

I remember 'THE DEAD END KIDS/THE BOWERY BOYS".....Juvenile Delinquents, satirizing the 'look'...which became the 'in' fashion for the Urban Working Classes....

When the bees' wax melts, while flying closer to the Sun.......Sometimes, it is Mettle that keeps us aloft, Icarus.......

the reassurances of childhood are thwarted, early in The Game.....as even the Nursery Rhyme:

"Rock a bye baby, on the tree top,

When the wind blows the cradle will rock.

When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,

And down will come baby, cradle and all." 

 Daedelus reminds.. even infants......of their temporality......thus, lowering their hopeful expectations.    

                         Bronze is more lasting than Plumage.......

Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercié's David may have felt justified and victorious; however, Alfed Gilbert's young lad was having much more fun....

Maybe, its just 'brown sugar', sugah.....served in a spliff....that turned those blue eyes....red!

'Giant Steps' is 'What you take"... 11:13 pm.....On Staring at the Moon from the 'attic' window: ["There is no dark side of the moon, really"] Matter of fact....it's All dark. "The only thing that makes it look 'light' is the sun..." [Brain Damage, Eclipse: Pink Floyd] ....... Walk on the beach, with a blunt in your fingers, then, as the moon turns red, jump some synapses & ponder the origins of mystic fantasies; for, as the sky goes black, under this self-hypnotic spell, our ancient brains signal the newer cortexes...that the stars are pinholes in a velvet, dark Cosmos.....then pass, don't bogart, that joint.....It takes a long, long time to disregard preconceptions..passed, for countless generations, within the coils of DNA.... Whoever claimed that 'the sleeper must awaken'? (The bloodshot eyes, turning blue from the 'spice', melange?)

THE 'LOOK AT ME ' CROWD GATHERING OF APRIL FOOLS' MET GALA, WEARING COMPETITIVE COUTURE COSTUMES, THE BUDGET FOR WHICH EXCEEDED THE 'GOOD CAUSE DONATIONS'.....

Pondering the 'dig in' area.....now, stacked with 'stuff' to find places for.....Good thing...that that auction of Metropolitan Opera costumes, six years ago, was cancelled! And...I'm not shopping for unworn getups from this year's reinstallment of the Grand Narcissists Show.... I'm out of hangers! and, too few big, parallel walls to hang Art upon......then, on to the retouching of the 'black light Milky Way murals that cover the bedroom and 'jacuzzi pit'......now, obscured by rolling racks of costuming and furniture......So much for that "Zen Room Plan'.....of an empty room, from which stars and nebulas emerge under the old black light that Eddie Sisk gave me, decades ago, to illuminate...in the dark.... that Jimi Hendrix 'Black Light Poster' that she also gave me..... Time to clean up this Mess, sit back, turn on Eddie's old 'black light' and trip the light fantastic to 'Daphne Of The Dunes' and some Japanese Koto and Wooden Flute Music.....No loss...Not a Celebrity, I would not have received a 'pass' to the Met Show, anyway....not in this relatively unspectacular outfit....suitable, only, for loungewear...while watching re-runs of RuPaul's Drag Show...

and....'you shut your mouth, Harry Stiles.....we all remember your having gotten a pass, wearing women's loungewear!' even with those stubby nails.......

EDDIE'S POSTER.....AS DISPLAYED AT HER MOUNTAIN CABIN.....AFTER SHE LEFT HER 'POSITION' AS MUSIC DIRECTOR AT A BUCKHEAD PRIVATE SCHOOL, DROPPED ACID WITH HER SON AND HIS 'ROCK GROUP', LEFT HER HUSBAND AND HOME ON WEST PACES FERRY ROAD, AND ...HAVING 'TUNED IN.....DROPPED OUT',

REPLACING THE LITHOGRAPH OF JESUS, ON HIS CROSS....SUFFERING....FOR THE GARISH JIMI HENDRIX, "TURNING US ON" POSTER......

BEFORE 'MARTY SUPREME'.....THERE WAS 'FRANK' ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE NET.....BEFORE THE PING-PONG WAS SUPPLANTED BY 'BIGGER BALL GAMES'..

I'm not immune to emulating the activities and interests of Pop Icons........... Having a folding table tennis table installed in my parents 'recreation' room was a source of great social prestige in the early 1960's.........(yeah, sure!).......as was the foray into badminton, after watching "befuddled bungler, Bellamy B. Birdbrain" in an instructional film at the Lyric theater in the early 1950's..... or watching Paul Newman, hustling pool in The Hustler...leading to my getting a collapsable pool stick, in a lizard skin carrying case. My foray into 'computer/arcade games' ended with brief quarter-dropping into Centipede and Ms. Pacman, however........Too 'Virtual' for my tastes, I think......and some time wasted stoking blood pressure with Super Mario Bros...... Pick-up Sticks, anyone? Guess I'm a 'small court' guy....and the Bridge Table is just about perfect, if shuffling and dealing is enough exercise...........After all that practice, I never got to play with Frank, and my old ping-pong balls now serve another purpose, floating in the coffee-maker to indicate the water level......my old badminton was relegated to 'carpenter bee swatter' status. "Marbles", anyone?

A SPECK OF MAYFLOWER FLY'S WING MAY SEND MILLIONS OF ANXIETY-RIDDEN PEOPLE TO EMERGENCY ROOMS......

'online' at 3am, a few years ago, to discover which, of many 'conditions', may have caused this failing vision......using my 'good' eye, which was normal.....it 'seems' that just about every site was either promoting some 'eye doctor/clinic' or some 'drug/eyedrops'.....OR telling the reader to get to a hospital ASAP, for fear of having a stroke, macular degeneation, sudden deterioration of the eye, abrasion/scratching of the lens....and on an on....(more fuel for Anxiety)....."screw all of THAT", I thought, as I flooded my eyeball socket with ten year old prescription eyedrops and saline solution.....eventually, dislodging a tiny speck of what 'looked like' a bit of mayflower fly's wing......Now, back to normal, and listening to NPR during a morning caffeine fix, I was a bit amused to hear people discussing 'baby's 'milk' Formula Anxiety' that seems to be sweeping America while Nancy Pelosi makes her appearance, as U.S.'s highest ranking 'representative', to allay our Anxiety about the Russian takeover over of our newest Alliance in Central Europe.....Oh, I see!

PHOTOGRAPHY, AS ART, IS NOT JUST LOOKING THROUGH A VIEWFINDER, THEN 'PRESSING THE BUTTON'.........

Today is the anniversary of the death of Ansel Adams, the David Attenborough of Photography.......I've written to Anthony Hopkins about his potentially 'playing' Ansel in a not as yet imagined biographical film...... In my teens, as an aspiring photographer, I purchased Adam's books on Zone Theory...."The Camera", "The Negative" and "The Print"....and journeyed to NYC to stand before his beautiful photographs at The Light Gallery......my hyper-vigilance, however, brought me to notice the 'spot toning' that the artist had done on just about all his photographs!.....He wasn't 'PERFECT'!.....There was Hope for me, who had little confidence, then.... On my return, I immediately purchased, via a Photographic Supplies catalog, three vials of spot toner, a bottle of selenium bromide paper toner and a cheap Calumet view camera and tripod......

LEST I FORGET THE DANGERS OF 'NATURE'.........NO 'BAREFOOT IN THE PARK' FOR ME!

pulling up weeds in the driveway and yard.......I kept this photo of my 'contact dermatitis', the modern day 'leprosy', episode, 11 years ago.....the poison ivy and oak are just sending out their leaves, but the prickly holly is ready to cause some serious issues with my sensitive, thin integument......time for another hot, soapy shower, and some epsom salts in a warm tub, later......and, to think, my ancestors lived in the jungles and plains, beset with poisonous 'stuff'......then, we travelled further North and our DNA must have forgotten about the 'poisonous' plants, nearer the equator.......You'd think that 'living in the South' for a dozen generations would have established a better immune system to deal with this issue....this oozing issuance......

THIS SCRIBBLED NOTE ABOUT 'THINGS TO THINK/WRITE ABOUT' WAS ON THE FLOOR, BY MY BED, THIS MORNING......

 SO THAT I WOULD 'REMEMBER' THE 'TOPICS' THAT WERE ON MY MIND, DURING THE PREVIOUS NIGHT'S DREAMING AND REFLECTING........     

"cystic fibrosis"; "mercurial temperament"; "existential ideology";   "admonish vs. astonish"; "do my variables lead to higher contentment?";  "Macauleyfuzzylogic... a thingamajig"  

I'm wondering, now, where these obliquely-related had 'come from'.....obviously, from the caverns of my Mind......But, later.....they seem random thoughts from a very active Sleep State, alternating/oscillating with wakeful associations......

THE MEMORIES THAT ARE CONJURED UP BY A PHOTO OF ME, SCRAPING CAT DANDER OFF A SPONGE MOP, AND COMMENTS FROM OLD FRIENDS WHO VIEWED THE 'PICTURE'..

how time flies.....this was taken over 43 years ago, when I wore only Australian WWI army surplus shorts.....still stylish and wearable....they were manufactured in 1918......Birkenstocks....which I still wear...with a bit less cork in their soles.....

FRIENDS' COMMENTS AND MY RESPONSES 

 JAN:  Are those Arizona Birks? My favorite shoe for years and years

ME:  from Janice of ABBADABAS.....bought at the Atlanta Flea Market.......

JAN:  My last pair (which is no longer with us) was from Abbadabbas in Duluth.

ME: Still around, I think....In Little 5 Points........

TONY:  I am going with asparagus retrofractus?

ME:  The retrofractus went "yellow" after 10 years or so.....Did it die of old age or plant hepatitis, Tony?......

DEBBI:  Is this the apt u were in when i knew u- on P'tree st? u had taken all the wallpaper off in pieces-and then glued it all back on backwards-and it was FANTASTIC!   

ME:  I may have some old photos of the "reverso/tobacco leafish" wall treatment, which were "papered" over and painted beige after I left "1708", as were the subsequent Peloponnesian Man of War murals at "The DeSoto" on 7th St.

ME:  I found the art deco sconces at a junk store.....they were perfect for the 1903 building.......the artist who did the trompe l'oeil marbling at The White House, flew to Atlanta to do the walls of the entrance foyer.....It was still a seedy neighborhood in the late 70's....Backstreet and all its wild nightlife, drag-queen hookers, pimps and drug dealers always on the late night scene.....I moved after a man was murdered in our foyer, my Reynolds bicycle was stolen, my parents witnessed two guys having sex in the grass of the then empty lot across 7th St....and my having to chase a drag hooker from turning tricks in the back seat of my old 1960 Cadillac towncar......

DEBBI:   lived on 4th St- Jaff lived above us-and ed Barnum was across the street. I remember his house burning down-i think he saved his mom-but died when he went back in to save his dog- They found him holding her. The were both dead. I also remember he had one arm that did not have a hand.

LINDA:  Anywhere near the Collonades? sp

CHESTER:   I remember those British army shorts of yours. I finally got a pair of my own thanks to you Reed! Where was the building w/ the reversi/tobacco wall paper? On Peachtree?

DEBBI:  The guy who did the marbling was at a fundraiser that i went to at Baltimore Place in 1978..omg....

[THEN, AS THE CONVERSATION VEERS OFF WITH SOME CONFUSION.....AS I THINK OF BOTH ED AND RYAN.......HMM.....PERHAPS, I SHOULD JUST RETURN TO MOPPING THE FLOOR.....]

ME:   Ryan Gainey....remember him?.....also died when he went into his burning house to save his dogs.......or, was 'that' Woody Brooks? or, both of them, maybe?? I remember the last time I saw Ed Barnum.....who'd forget!.....His "date", Rudolf Nureyev and he were dining at Gene & Gabes after a Ballet Performance......5 feet from the table where Montague Matthews and I were dining.....Ed did all the talking, while Rudolf cruised the room for attention(s)......I think we may have been there for a 'late performance' by The Wit's End Players at Gene's wife, Teresa's, mini-theatre, Upstairs.

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AS, EVEN AT EIGHT, I WAS SINKING AND TURNING FROM VIEW, THINKING THAT I HAD FAR MORE IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS TO COGITATE UPON....

O.K., I'M LISTENING, EARS FORWARD, FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENCE IN THE ROOM

"What's on your mind? Destiny, Time, Memory, Relativity of Perspectives, False Memories, Subjectivity.......?" I asked

"Well, you know, uh.....I was like in this group twitter, sorta, if you know what I mean....and the space key was stuck and just kept going and going.....so I didn't know what, exactly, to do, uh, you know....so I just texted them until my battery was dead.....you know......" she replied

"So.....Nothing Much?" I retorted

"Yeah, something like that, uh.." she replied to my back

Three days from today.....March 23....is National "ATHEIST DAY".....again.......Four out of Five People CAN be wrong!

EVERY day is Atheist day, for me, anyway....not just this coming Monday....So....there have been lots of celebrations of God(s) during my Live.    When I was 13......(I remember the morning when 'all that' vanished from my perspectives......8th Grade....) My 'home room' class was 'led' into its then legislated compulsory prayer and 'pledge of allegiance to 'The United States Of America" that morning...like all other 'mornings' in the Alabama Public School System; then, an hour later, we were off to the Auditorium, single file, where some guest religious speaker was to proselytize  (after the 'system' had 'outlawed' a 16MM sex education film (that I'd rather have seen....for sure!) ........My then still latent 'disbelief' was 'outed' by all that morning's  demonstration of religious faith.......I felt so relieved that 'GOD'' was dead and I was free to think as I wished.....and, besides, hormones had begun to ravish my brain, which had far more interesting ideas to occupy it....a few years later, at 15, I watched the movie, Inherit The Wind,  which nailed the 'Religion' coffin, stuffed full of dogma,  shut...In '10th grade'  I read Origin of Species and The Interpretation Of Dreams...and that was that!  Interestingly, both of these books were 'banned' by the School System, and were conspicuously absent from the School Library.........I believed that 'we' were just some more monkeys......In 1963, now a student at Vanderbilt, my thoughts and ideas were reified by Dr. David  Nunnally, who first introduced 'Genetics' and 'Evolutionary Biology' to the SYSTEM........

I received an 18th Century 'style' wig, today.......'Grey', rather than 'White'......

 

and, just a night ago, I dreamt that I was dining at Versailles, in the company of other 'wigged out' courtiers and sycophants....all of whom were comparing their wigs.....Only I was donned in a white  cotton T-shirt....I suppose that I should dig out some ruffled blouses and white gloves, satin shoes with jewelled buckles and heels and blend with the Fashionistas of the Dream......

and...I loved lace collars, too! I'll trade this clunky old train on a pull-cord for one of those hats....by the way!

I felt that girls had the cooler playthings.......I'd rather decorate a miniature house and make costumes for dolls than clang a bunch of male action figures together in mock warfare!   Girls have more Fun! Boys just struggle and fight on the playgrounds, during Recess.........Besides...who'd want to wear clunky shoulder pads and cleated shoes, when they could be wearing lace collars and satin slippers, anyway?     

o.k.'boys'....have fun, decimating one another!  

Look.....quick!... CHUCK LORRE'S GOT A COUPLE OF LINES BEFORE "WHAT'S NEXT?" DON'T BE DISTRACTED BY YOUR OWN ANTICIPATIONS.....JUST SHOVEL ALL THAT DETRITUS UNDER THE BED AND BRUSH YOUR HAIR, DARLING! .

on the screen for a couple of seconds, before a needed rerun of Samantha Bee's FULL FRONTAL show, .....a little message from Chuck Lorre, perhaps.....applicable at any time, to a number of situational considerations......{a scene from the film, DARLING, came to mind.....wherein Julie Christie loses her 'cool'....the 'escalator scene'}....[although I've not seen the film in several decades].......an example of how the aging brain's storage and retrieval mechanisms operate.......whereas, a scene from a film that I watched, only yesterday, has found no lodging place within my cerebral foldings....already congested with words and images, whole constructs of thought processing, embedded associational linkages and rationalizing tinker-toys.....constantly reformatted, like plastic molecules, filling the weak chemical bonds of ideational memory....Now, back to listening to the 'worth a penny' buck being passed around during this morning's Senate Hearings.......each snollygoster trying to fit it in into their already-cramped political wallet, crammed with 'the real Gold money'....Take out some fresh, wet 'big bills'.....they can buy an apology from DJT, if they empty their swollen coin purses to the marble floors, as they feign incessant apologies to their constituents with the perpetual vomitus of legalese.......At a profound level, it's not anyone's 'fault'...it is everyone's......'Oh, I'm sorry....did I brush against your sleeve?'.....

Helen Glenn

 

 

My lovely step-sister, Helen Glenn James, as a young tap dancer and in her debut photo.  (room decor by Madeline Hereford,  consulting with "June Cleaver"......)

a more recent photo of Helen Glenn.....Who died, recently, at 83, on Jan. 2, 2026 

a photo of Helen Glenn, more advanced in age,  and a grimmer countenance......with an unknown (to me) friend....or, perhaps, a young "Mammy"....this was Vestavia Hills, after all!  On Route 31....not Route 66....Miss Magnolia....