All.

This is a map of the route that I am taking to get to New Orleans.

Who is along the way?




One thing I need, quite seriously need, to find along the way is bungee jumping. I have an experiment that can only be performed while being thrown off a bridge.

Consider it Shock Therapy.

I'll be leaving within 48 hours.

I'm procrastinating, I know.

I lost my driving companion - so I'm on less of a tight schedule.

I'll be flying this one solo.

That I quit my job and am moving back to New Orleans.

This is true.

And this is how I'm informing people, en masse, via blogs.

Bicycle Messenger Strap DIY.

Friends,

Do you, like me, have a favorite single strap pack that you enjoy wearing around?



A pack that carries all that you need and nothing more?



Fed up because every time you try to take it with you on a bicycle ride it always drags out into the front and obstructs your peddling?



Thinking about going to REI and buying a bike messenger bag for $40.00 - $400.00?

Well here's a little DIY I did yesterday when I became frustrated with the prospect of spending so much money.


All you need is a pair of suspenders.



Which can be found at Goodwill for about $3.00.

And -



Scissors and electrical tape. And if you are like Adam and I - you have these both in abundance in your home.

Cut out one strip of the suspenders -



And come up with this -



Fold the suspenders until you've reached the desired length, or cut them down to the size you want.

Tape, or stitch, shut to keep it at the length you want.

For durability I chose to do both stitching and taping.



Having the clips on both sides of this elastic strap now give you the ability to clip it in 2 locations on your bag and remove it anytime you want to! :)



And then that bag - aint goin' nowhere.

General observation this morning.

When looking at my roommates XBOX system I noticed that what turned the system on was a round button presenting the, possibly universal, symbol for power.



I remembered representation of a hydrogen molecule -



- that looked very similar to the symbol for power.

It was the symbol that Sagan and the gang used on the Pioneer 10 Plaque.



For whatever it's worth - this is just a fun observation connecting the universal understanding of power and, as the Pioneer team hoped, the hydrogen molecule.

Being a conscientious vegetarian/hippie type, I always wonder about waste and what is necessary to toss and what is not.

Food is easy. If you are not going to eat it give it to a homeless person, toss it in the woods, compost it, don't waste it in a plastic bag.

But I've always wondered about the parts of food we throw away.

I always eat apples in their entirety. Stem, seeds, etc.

I did my research and no, there is not nearly enough cyanide in apple seeds to cause any sort of effect on me.

I quite like the challenge of the hard bits of the apple too. Especially the stem.

One day, a few years back, I sat staring at a banana.

The way I always ate them was to snap them in half and then peel from the middle.

But this banana, on this day, for some reason had an appetizing looking skin.

Accordingly I ate the banana whole. Skin and all.

Today I was thinking about that banana and did some research and found that banana skins have no poor side effects either.

As long as it is washed, or organic, nothing bad can come from it. It will even help clean out your guts. And the high levels of potassium aren't bad either.

I started doing some research again and found that most fruit skins are not bad for you at all.

I think I'll go test some more waters about eating fruits in their entirety this summer.

I'll report back with findings.

Anyone else have any experience?

Something I don't understand but wish to is time.

The way that I see it is that "time" is a word and, consequentially, a "concept" used to describe something outside of ourselves.

When I look at a word I always feel a small sense of being cheated out of he reality of the object that it is attached to.

I first had this feeling when I saw a photo of a pack of lions.

A Pride.

The lions, in a group or family, are called "A Pride" of lions.

All words, each in this entry and in that photo of the lions, are man made symbols represented as noises or written graphics to convey information.

The lions were here, however, long before man started to speak thus they are no more a "pride" than I am capable of claiming that I am a velociraptor.

To call a pack of lions, for example, a "coffee" of lions is quite silly. But calling them a "pride" can, argumentatively, be considered equally silly.

I wish no longer that a Pride of Lions be called such. In fact I wish that they would switch their title with crows.

Yes, that's it. I feel we should have a Murder of Lions and a Pride of Crows.

Either way - it is language.

Does this make sense so far?

What confuses me and drives me to want answers is the concept of time.

What is it? What is the word? Was time, this invisible concept, here before man began to speak? Was it "time" before we spoke? Or was it merely a passing of moments? A transition from one physical space to the next? One giant moment. A spacious-now. Did people "age" or did the elastin simply corrode and breakdown naturally throughout the course of ones existence?

Does time exist? How does it exist? What are the difference between spacetime and time?

If it wasn't until 2000 BC that the Summerians created a sexagesimal system, then isn't it safe to assume that we could have had any other number of systems?

Etc.

Last night I did a reading.

I didn't advertise doing it for, really, no good reason.

The reading was for Greensburg-Salem Highschool.

They asked me to come out, read some poetry, talk some poetry, talk to some kids, get them motivated to read and write more poetry.

I was more intimidated by this reading than I've ever been.

Teenagers scare me now that I'm no longer one.

About 20 kids showed up with their parents and teachers.

I asked how many kids were obligated to be there and the answer was - none of them.

It was thrilling to see so many kids interested in poetry.

They asked me to come back to the school and talk in the classroom with the kids about poetry.

At the end all the kids gathered around me yelping and screeching and smiling - and I was doing the same thing.

It was a great night.

Blake asked me to head into the recording studio with him to set up some poetry tracks.

I agreed.

And started one of those Myspace music pages for it.

Go friend me.

http://www.myspace.com/jasonkirinpoetry

They stole my jumper cables and my grandmother's engagement ring.

Not to mention - they simply made a mess of the whole thing.

They left my poetry zines, my books, my Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance book with all my notes in it, my nag champa oil.

I had the battery replaced the other day - so the jumper cables are, for right now, no longer needed. So that's the reason behind the jumper cables being stolen. However much money he will get from them will go on to providing him with something there is a reason for.

At present - I am in no need of jumper cables. This man, however, is in need of them, or the money they will bring him.

My grandmother's engagement ring, however, is an interesting one to reason out.

Why would I lose something with such an insurmountable sentiment. Why now?

Sentiment, as Pirsig puts it, is, "the narrowing of experience to the emotionally familiar."

Makes sense to me.

The thing about my grandmother and I, however, is that the emotionally familiar with her, specifically, was in conversation and embrace. It wasn't in objects in the slightest bit.

I know that she gave me that ring because she was interested in seeing my ex-girlfriend and me lasting forever. "Give this to her," she told me, "I want her to have it."

I kept in in the little cubby hole in my dash board all this time. I also used to keep around a picture of my ex and me to remind me of the transience in happiness, the danger in love, the probability of failure.

These are no longer, as exemplified by actually being in a relationship now, attitudes that I accept in me and they are slowly, but insistently, dissolving.

Of late I've projected a mass psychic bombing into the collective conscious requesting drastic change.

Change, as my closer friends know, is apparent, obvious and confoundedly upon me.

The cables - easy. I didn't need them.

The ring - simple. I never carry sentiment, or at least rarely, in material objects. The life of this ring in my possession is passed and past. Whether it gets pawned, tossed or given to the wife or girlfriend of the man who made a mess of my truck - it's back in the system existing a life of it's own.

With the ring's sentiment I can only wish it the best of happiness. I can only hope that the wearer of the ring will feel the joy that my grandmother did when my grandfather, Arthur, asked her to marry him.

The idea is to show a process.

I found some old pieces to a sculpture that I never finished.

With the most recent "archeological" concepts I've been working with, this was an easy project to revamp.



Just the parts, and some tools.



Blow torching the old epoxy and gunk off of the pieces.



The pelvic bone of the "skeleton" is, as all the pieces are, put in place with a fishing wire harness.



The legs and breastbone too are harnessed the same way. Small holes are drilled at specific points near the pieces and adjacent to each other. Fishing wire is strung through the holes and tied very tightly in the back.



My hand will give a good perspective of size.



The wigs and arms were difficult to keep in place while I was tying them down so vice grips were necessary through the process.

The legs and arms are both hammers in the typewriter. The arm that has the letters on them and actually smack the paper.

The wings are an internal piece that harness the hammers to yet another arm that ultimately ends where the "keys" are. The breastbone and abdomen are center indicators from two different scroll bars.



The result is a sort of deconstructed skeletal Eros. 

The idea was an Archeological Finding.

The dimensions are approximately 2 feet by 1 foot.



With a "key" listing the proper names of the bones and their locations.



1. Greater Tubercle.
2. Acromion Process.
3. Supraglenoid Tubercle.
4. Lesser Tubercle.
5. Intertubercular Sulcus.
6. Caracoid Process.



And a "proper" archeological write up.



"At the 1982 International Congress of Zoological Sciences, Dr. S. J. Williams expounded, definitively, that this humerus and shoulder was that of an early, uncommonly known, lizard species of the genus basiliscus, from the Greek basilískos meaning, 'little king,' known as Abraxas (Abrasax Ornithoamphis). 'Curiously enough,' Williams commented, 'the glenohumeral joint is not as flexible as once believed. Perhaps he was capable of playing his saxophone in manners we'll never understand.'"

Abrasax Ornithoamphis is the name that I came up with for this one. Abrasax being one of the original spellings of the name Abraxas put together with the Greek words Ornitho, meaning bird, and Amphis, meaning snake.

Blake has asked me to teach him about poetry.

(http://events.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=events.detail&eventID=473233.662&Mytoken=1A6334C4-91A4-4201-B762473A94FEA7E340937308)

I told him that I would - no problem.

So on Tuesday nights at 7pm I am going to be lecturing him, blood on the walls style, about poetry.

We've decided to invite all for these little chautauquas.

So, please join us.

My face down
inhaling the mattress,
sheets, near the pillows.
Like fire thieving
oxygen from the air
to find you
anywhere you may be.
Where hair flattened
long enough to remain.
A residual scent, still,
and anywhere.

No, not there.

Lower, still, where
we formed into and made
Caduceus a verb.
Our legs, Abraxian,
like the snakes around the
Herald's staff.
No where,
still,
I inhale the scent of
Hermes. Wings upon
his heals.

I know he must've been here.

Messenger God.
Protector of thieves,
Patron myth of liars.
Upturning dust of
shadows that settles
as ethereal oud
to shut out the light.
There are no cracks
in this room.

My face down
inhaling the mattress.
Where are you?
Oscillating vices -
I have you
in my palm
you rest inside my mouth
I have you in my palm
you rest
inside my mouth
I have you.

At the foot end
of the bed, precipitous
to the self swallowed
snakes tail
wherein a pose
outstretched, and unmade for
vertebrates, we rest
kissing the still backs
of our own necks my hand
labyrinthed in your hair.

The light painting technique is a technique that I learned from artist Adam Blai. And when I say that I learned it I mean that I saw all of what he did and simply reproduced the process.

Doing this - my mind frame was simply this... Here is an art form that I've never experienced before. And like poetry when I had first learned of it. Like dancing. Like juggling and sculpting - I ran with an art form that I was interested in.

What I didn't realize at the time was the vast uniqueness of the situation that I was experimenting with and realized that it wasn't my place, after all, to be trying to make myself into a light painter publicly just yet.

Adam Blai is unique in his light painting techniques to such a degree that what he does is nearly unheard of. As an artist I feel it is unfair on my part to attempt to do some sort of real showing of this art prior to Adam actually making his name with it. Adam and I talked about this - and regardless of how anyone feels about that - it's how I feel.

This is first, and foremost, Adam's child. And I wasn't aware, until this evening, that this was so and thusly I was just stepping on toes.

Now as an artist I know that I and my friends hold a unique perspective - what we say and do is free. Anything that I write or think or sculpt is not only free to everyone but, as you all know, I encourage the taking of what we do and running with it.

Placing myself in Adam's shoes at first - that is if I were the one doing this originally - I would have been elated, excited and enthused to see someone else doing this! I know this is a unique perspective for me and my friends.

I personally, after talking with Adam, feel it would be irresponsible to him, art and my acquaintanceship with him to run with this much further than simply having fun with my friends prior to him making a name for himself in the art.