Mass

Two tweakers pull up outside the Safeway
In a rust-gutted '83 K car last owned by her exes
Exes ex.

Not exactly a new car, but it was new to them.
And he laughs and she laughs and they both laugh.

She is out of the car now, and bolts to
His door,  snagging a crumbling shard
Of fender on her pink running shorts
He bursts out of the car and she hugs his waist
"What do we need?!" she exclaims
Hands sliding into his sweat pants.

"Everything!"  He shouts picking her up and spinning
Her round.  "Everything!"

So they skitter, clenched tight to each other, to the store,
Panicking briefly when they realize they have walked
Into the out door instead of the in

Time is their enemy at this point, since everything
Runs at triple speed for them yet everything they
Do takes three times as long

They spin around each other
Three times dodging an old lady hobbling
To get inside

Of course they are behind her and they
Can barely contain themselves as the geezer
Steps surely over the rubberized automatic
Switch

Still not inside
Still not inside
Inside!

But then it is the decision of carts
Should it be the big cart or the little cart
Or do they just need a basket

Each option is carefully considered between
Fits of laughter
Followed by clenching and spinning
They enter the store with no cart and end up past
The cold medicine when they realize their
Folly

"Fuck!"  And he laughs and then she laughs and then they
Both laugh before grabbing onto each other and spinning.

They wander, four hands on the basket handle
Laughing and grabbing and throwing and spinning
Their basket nearly full but they continue on
When you are tweaking you never know what's
Around the next endcap

It could be a cage display of pickles
It could be tampons
It could be your landlord tapping his foot

But it was just Ritz and Cheez Whiz in a jaunty
Holiday display of Santa offering a darn cheezy good
Communion

Merry!

Merry Xmas!

IAIN BAXTER&: TV Works

IAIN BAXTER&: TV Works
Originally uploaded by Clint Gardner

At the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

Stop the downloading

Hotel Balderdash

Relax

You have another year of Signifying nothing to look forward to.

Cheery chimbah.

Cheery chimbah.

Tuesday's child is full of grace: A decade of Signifying nothing

Apparently I was traveling then, and concerned about web design.

Go figure.

¡Feliz diez!

Funny thing is, I'm still rabies:



Which Horrible Affliction are you?
A Rum and Monkey disease.

Gulls

Gulls a video by Clint Gardner on Flickr.

Time

Dear customer,

You are being sent this message because you are a contact for the domain signifyingnothing.com.

This domain will expire at the Registry in 30 days, on 2011-12-10 18:13.


If you would like to keep this domain, you must renew it before this date. The domain will be renewable at the normal price until 2012-01-09 08:13
If, on however, you do not want to keep it, there is nothing more that you need to do.

If you do nothing, then signifyingnothing.com will go back on the open market on or around 2012-02-13 18:13 (the exact date may very slightly depending on the registry and the time zone differences).


Thank you for choosing Gandi!

Best Regards,

10th anniversary, yo!

Signifying nothing reader Eric Anderson has pointed out that the new "dynamic views" that our esteemed blog was experimenting with for a few weeks was not readable on his electronic communications device.

So fuck that fancy-pants shit.  We're back to basics.

Here is a picture of a cat:

So much for that.

iPad note poem number 9: Arab spring

iPad note poem number 9: Arab spring

The city turned cold
Unexpectedly
Men and women have found
Their lost coats
Hiding from the wind
In spidered closets

"God damn, it is cold,"
They say stamping booted feet
And clapping mittened hands
"Think it will snow?"
There is no appropriate
Response so they ask
Again, breath wafting
From their mouth like the
Demon seed of hope
Floating higher and higher
Above the city where
Finally, it crystallizes
And falls too gently
On the oil slick
Streets

Sent from my iPad

Baconed

Narwhal.

二足歩行ロボットを自転車に乗せてみた

Bitter

Art of the Fugue

How's this for messing with you?

Encephalitis lethargica

There is no dream
In the disease of sleep
Meatloaf please
Here you go

There is no sleep
In the disease of dreams
I'm sorry, I was only kidding

Are you visiting someone?
You're a patient?
You don't look like a patient.
I don't?

Did you choose this place?
Why?

Where else is there?

And somehow we wake up
Each day, a simple mantra
Of self-loathing on our lips

Give me a Rob Roy
On the rocks.

My mother doesn't think
So.

I receive medication
For what
Stored up like your
Father

That's what I hear
That's what I didn't want to do

I didn't want to tell you
I didn't want to tell you

You know you made me love
You.

It was nice talking to you
Too.

Take me away from this
Place.

How's it going?

How's it going?

My son has disappeared.

That's how I feel.

Hi.

That's really nice.

He'd die without me.

Hello.

Hello.  I need to talk to
You.

Hello.

Are you all right?

Yeah.

The simplest thing.

The Lawrence Welk Show: Chicken Dance

IPad Note Poem no 8: the psoriatic

IPad Note Poem no 8: the psoriatic

It starts on the calves
The skin reddens
Swells and itches
It is only later that
The scales come
If they come at all
And then the shame
Follows

Of course, it is known
That it is not one's
Fault. No pecuniary
Damage can be assessed
But tell that to the
In-born savage who
Sees patterns in the
Cracking skin: the
Mark of the Devil
The hooves of the beast
Kicked hard into the
Shins

So one applies ancient
Balm that smells of
Pitch and sulfur,
Muttering two word
Prayers to a god
Too angry to remove
The curse

Oh God
Oh God
Oh God

And one believes
And one repeats
And one remains
The itching of the
Skin subsides
An abiding God
Resides

Recalling the cold
Past where we
Swam deep in
Tropical waters
And our skins
Were hardened
For a purpose
Not beyond
Reckoning

Where the only
God was to swim
On to the next day
With no feeling
In our flinty
Hides

Our past
Hides beneath
Supple skin, waiting
For the winter
Morning when it
Will break forth
To protect us
From something
That is no longer
Here

Sent from my iPad

iPad Note Poem Number 5: the good things

iPad Note Poem Number 5: the good things

The good thing about having children
Is that they understand the necessity to move
On, immediately

Move on
Move along
Move on keep on moving on

You, once again, know how it is
You always did, now, didn't you?
You and your fancy college degrees.

Bet you didn't think this one was going this way,
Did you

Fancy
that

Sent from my iPad

iPad note poem 6: blinders

iPad note poem 6: blinders

The riders on the bus were not aware of the explosion
They road along in bumping silence, kept company only
By their thoughts, their fears, the hunger, or by podcasts
They hurtled forward towards an interstate they would
Never merge with, eyeing the stop cord suspiciously
As their stops approached. Down through the valley
Wending toward a quiet doom that they just avoided.

Five minutes earlier and they would have all been burned
Alive in a gas tanker explosion that God had planned to
Destroy them. Of course no one would say that aloud
But as they crept closer to the site of their fate, the
Thought flitted across their faces as they leaned into
Their windows to get a better view of e roiling black
Smoke.

Sent from my iPad

iPad note poem no. 4: high desert

iPad note poem no. 4: high desert

The wind started in the morning rattling
Windows to wake the family from sleep.
It was going to be a bad one, they knew
So they talked about it over coffee and melted
Cheese

It was just fifty years before that her father
First scratched out life from the alkali clay
Baked hard by the high mountain sun
But she remembered his stories of sheets of
Roiling dust, choking even the tall grass with
White

So they worried over their coffee and cheese
About the coming of the storm, the choking
Wind, the failing of the spirits, the strength of
Fathers

She watched the west all day, intermittently,
From her kitchen window while she went about
Keeping her father's house, now hers, waiting
For the family to return, and for the coming of
The storm

Sent from my iPad

iPad note poem no. 3: fortunes of war

iPad note poem no. 3

He does not leave her until she gets on the bus
They are newly married, you see, and we all know
The longing look he gives her as she mounts the
First step.

He stares at the bus for a moment too long
While it pulls away and we know and he knows
And she knows he is smitten; he is hers; he is
Gone.

He turns to walk back to their shag carpet
Where he will lay half of the day killing his
Friends who whisper murder in his ear, not once
Thinking of her

And he is there on the shag when she returns
And he barely notices her in between fragging
A friend from Wyoming. Soon the child will
Be born

A child of lust and longing and desire and hand
Grenades. He won't notice it much either
As it cries for milk in one hand, controller in the
Other

Sent from my iPad

iPad Poem Number 2: September Morning

iPad Poem Number 2: September Morning

She wakes and suddenly she is divorced
Married in February, separated by May
Divorced by August, alone in September

The marriage, she knew, was just kidding
A means of making this guy happy
That something more might exist that
Would make sense of his mindfulness

But no, she knew better but drove
Ahead with him, even though they
Were clearly on different freeways
He on the interstate, she on the
Belt route

And soon they were miles apart
Not even texting would keep the
Bond that was only a joke in the
First place

And suddenly it is September
And in the back yard there
Is a rat, climbing the tree to
Get to the bird feeder he put
Up

It has no food in it, of course
But the rat checks it all the
Same

Sent from my iPad

IPad Notes Poem 1: Public transit

IPad Notes Poem 1: Public transit

The bus smelled of urine that morning
The odor hanging on hard from some
Unwashed vagrant whose days and
Nights were spent in a whiskey bottle

The bus riders tried to ignore it
Absorbed in their text messaging
Or books or music or staring blank
Into the fetid air

But on occasion you could note
The slight grimace cross a brow
The scrunching of noses
The down-turned lips

And even then someone would
Wonder how they were the
Unwashed. They were the
Vagrants going from here to
There

Sent from my iPad

tomato no soup

tomato no soup
Originally uploaded by Clint Gardner

Lasers or Captain Phoenix Visits the Sun

I give you vacation action days:

1. Disc golf.  Disc golf.  Disc golf.
2. Heart, Heart, Heavy Heart.
3. Captain Phoenix Visits the Sun

Ok, that last one needs some more clarification:  my friend Jason Jones volunteers to work with developmentally disabled young adults at Art Access here in SLC.  A result of this work is a show where the assisting artist and the artist student display their work.  The title of one of Jason's student's pieces as the aforementioned Captain Phoenix.  

Still, seems appropriate.