Tag: Yip

Leaving Through the Gate to Abstraction

Numbers have rhythms but do they have rhymes?

Could this be the gate? It could be the gate, the gate to log rhythms and rhymes. Pay no attention to that creature behind the curtains; it’s just me at the levers, playing with filters and color. Is it Art? No, it’s Yip, but it was fun getting wherever it is we is.

Numbers have rhythms but do they have rhymes?

Photo / Graphic by Roman.

Carnival of Aliens

a mongrel of fleas or invader from mars

Photo / Graphic by Roman.

3/30 — Where does a story begin? That depends on what story you intend to tell.

4/22 — I’ve been singing my death song all the live-long day.

(This is not what I meant to write when I sat down, pencil in hand, only to be confronted by a cannabis-induced* blank spot that removed the slightest trace of the original…

(Instead, I am beset by questions asking half empty / half full or questions for which “Yes” is truthful, correct yet contradictory or those where “No” does the same.

(What we learn from philosophy is that we learn nothing from philosophy.

(Oh, we are a voluble lot, those that gather here. The thoughts tumble one or another then sometimes one and another but sometimes call and response. It is sometimes dissonant but sometimes harmonic…

(Harmony? Yes, when sometimes we agree.)

It is, in sum, a carnival of aliens.

Yip

* Or maybe just a senior moment. After all, where does the story begin?

Rolling Stoned

A Letter Written to a Friend at the End of the 1970s.

Side One

Satori?

What a beautiful night! There’s a deep purple sky rouged with violet and a new moon setting. The moon’s darkside is a phantom of a shadow. The stars are rocks, bravely bright against strangely dim street lights. Two small, illuminated clouds ghost across the sky.

Mystic but cold.

She’s Like a Rainbow

Meet my new roommate: Rainbow, the Bifrost Cat, Scat Ambassador Extraordinaire to Chicago. Yes, Rainbow stayed here, but I’m not sure the relationship is permanent. It’s been fun so far, but she may be pregnant. (I guess I lost my head.)*

Warpigs

I’ve revived the barbaric custom of wargaming, and G____ has taken an interest. We’ve been playing Panzerblitz; however, I have just purchased two new games. One you may like to play: Stellar Conquest. It does not necessarily involve warfare; there is an economic dimension. But you must expand one way or the other– it will be interesting to see which is more profitable, war or peace. Up to four can play.

Tasting the Big Apple

M____ is thinking of moving to New York. She talked to some people in the crew of Man of La Manche which was playing at the Aire Crown. They told her the market for theatre people is much better in New York (and LA) than it is in Chicago. She [is] going to try to get into the Stagehands Union first, though. (Initiation fee: $700)

Among the Dangs

How are you doing?

Side Two

8 Miles High

It was fun watching the city snow removal crews at work: huge articulated earth moving machines that stood two stories high on monstrous tractor wheels. But the men who ran them ran them like extensions of their bodies. Rapid, fluid motions and precise: No uncertainty of movement or wasted motion, and they came within a foot of snowed-in cars. It should have been to music.

Street Dance

The neighbors were amusing also. The crews were clearing every portion of unoccupied street, but several people stopped them to make sure their personal spots were shovelled. I’m sure you can guess who at least one of them was — the Don Himself. There were several futile attempts to move snowed-under cars. N____ A____’s wife floundered about and C____ the Dealer was unable to even open his doors. The last I saw he was desperately shovelling.

Old Lang’s Sign

Te___ is very sad now that B____ and Th___ are gone. I left her an extra dollar in sympathy.

There are still people pushing grass on the street corner in Old Town.

Happy Lunar New Year

neigh?

* A notably lame attempt at a joke… For those of you in the 21st Century, Rainbow was a cat and the father was most likely Dapper Dan. Rainbow was not quite Grand Champion material, so the cat-breeder hadn’t planned on showing her (again) or breeding her and that is why she ended up with me. He kept the males caged as they were apt to fight and spray. I suspect this pregnancy was Rainbow’s idea but how she and Dapper Dan managed it… Rainbow gave birth to four kittens: BawanaCat, Ferocious, Punk, and Bellybird. Rainbow and Bellybird remained with me. We found homes for the others.

At the time the letter was written, I was living in the Armour Square neighborhood in Chicago. I discovered the letter while cleaning out the hall closet in preparation for moving. I keep copies of most of my correspondence but I may end up shredding them; I can’t bring to mind just who some of these people are / were. And of course, it’s been years since I’ve received (or sent) an actual physical personal letter.

Sincerely,
Yip

PS  Photo/Graphic by Roman.

Lost Marbles

Photo / graphics by Roman.

I lost my marbles the other day.

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Photo by Roman.

I threw them all away.

Never did play them much anyway.

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Photo by Roman.

They were nicked and dusty

And by lost packets interrupted

From the platonic ideal.

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Photo by Roman.

Their kaleidoscope magic dimmed

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Photo by Roman.

For it was light from other days.

Yip

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Lost marbles in the light of other days. Photo / graphic by Roman.

Murmuration Psychology

complex behavior from simple idiocy…

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Photo / Graphic by Roman.

A crowd of me
Gathers around the screen
To watch the work
Of some of us
And are so pleased
To be surprised.

As we gather,
We snack on nuts and flesh
In nervous anticipation,
Not all of us pleased
To be fed.

Every one of them me.
As me as me as could ever be.
Some are ephemeral,
Some seem hardwired.

We don’t all agree
And frequently quarrel:
Sabotage…
Or was that really an accident?

Yip