Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Retirement Party
Documentary evidence will soon be taken and posted, i.e., pictures, and then we'll hand deliver our collective work to the Green Lake Public Library, where we hope it will be entered into evidence.
A new book will be available on the bench as soon as the Thunderstorms pass.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Hey, didn't see you there...
Welcome back, friends. We hope you’ve been keeping up with the brilliant commentary over at Capitol Hill and checking the raw, uncut stuff for
So many bodies
Thinking once again
About inertia
Thinking once again
About gravity
We’ve personally noticed a rise in actual roller skaters, presumably because of the rising popularity of roller derby leagues like the august Rat City Rollergirls. At a
Hits | Misses | Debatable |
The trumpet guy in the parking lot | Duck itch | The bubble man |
The marimba man | Leering | Inadequate athletic support |
“Spanish Lessons” | Wolf whistling | |
Capoeira, brazillian martial art | | |
The Rabbit Lawn | | |
We might add to hits the two guys who always play Frisbee near The Notebook and The Notebook itself. And of course the dancing rollerblading man, who is quite possibly one of The Temptations, at least to a certain kind of woman. (Side note: what’s wolf whistling?). We also want to give big-ups to the first table ever entered into The Notebook. Corporation agents also espied the “Spanish Lessons” man and his mustache reading The Notebook. Here’s to hoping he saw his own fame.
We also encountered this mysterious entry, purporting to address a member of The Corporation. “Alpha, Now may not be the time, but the opportunities that the future may hold are limitless… That… That is beautiful.” Alpha has been interrogated about his role in this entry and we can only describe his attitude as plausibly deniable.
WA shed mads”
1981
My ex Wife 9-11
Hello
(I hope 1.2 makes it to retirement!)” The writer is, in fact, referring to The Notebook 1.2. We hope so too. Only about 1/2 a page left.
I leave my mark
At
On this cool April Day
A big hello and wishes well
To all who pass this way
Raindrops
Streaking down my window pane
With dimpled puddles all around
We must be close to
But think – we don’t need garden hoses
Let’s go out and smell the roses
The sun came out and brought relief
And we’ll find diamonds on each leaf.
And while we’re in the loving spirit of the
Our main man agrees, “Sat down to loosen my shoelaces – had to contribute. What a nice community building activity/experiment. I love Greenlake & this walk around, in grey weather. We are so fortunate to get to enjoy such a lovely place on Earth.” We love that
Mostly we can attribute our narrow view to Uncle Mabey and his constant bitching, “My son & I drove down from Stanwood to visit w/uncle mabey 3 minutes go by and he lays into me about cracked windshield. Short visit. Ed *
“GL Crew
Novice girls 07 OR
Yeah baby!. We’re on a stupid run to the community center – right… haha we’re walking most of it. Yay! Rowin the Miller @ Brentwood tomorrow-ish. TA [heart] forever
Go Greenlake Novices! We’re gonna kick ass @
J. Rinkeydink.
I hate running! Bitch! CL”
We are happy to report that the Novice Girls slacking did not cost them too dearly. They placed second (http://regatta.brentwood.bc.ca/results.html). Nice work, team. Represent.
After all, life is short, as Faye reminds us in this bumper sticker inspired postmodern Baz masterpiece:
“They say look before you leap
Just don’t look to long that
You forget to leap
Go! Never had to work for a
Living!
Doesn’t mean the devil
Won’t hijack your plane.
Don’t sale your self short
When you become an adult
Follow the example of children
Make funny faces, skip instead
Of walk once in a while. Climb
A tree for no rason at all.
Smile at strangers. Eat a
Booger when your surround by people
Who take them way to serious
Do any of these things and you’ll never
Get old.
Eww. Boogers are gross. We will take laugh lines over having to eat boogers regularly. Some fountain of youth that is. Isn’t it enough to occasionally take a vacation? We’re sure that Owl agrees, “Taking 4 Days off. Almost finished. Come join me at Lighthouse Roasters. –Owl”
These last two entries are difficult to decipher but both seem to end with that ultimate condition, “I crossed the ocean to get [illegible] again. I hope it will end soon.” Then, a writer in a strawberry induced trance, shamanically contributes, “Today I look @ the pond, I eat 3 bushels of strawberries, saw [illegible] fighting squirrels and one beagle.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
A New Notebook's Debut
The Corporation doesn’t work weekends. We apologize for leaving you without a dope beat to step to.
We begin this book with a rant. It is the sort of rant you imagine that Starbucks baristas have, when the shop is shuttered and they are pouring from flasks:
“We are Starbucks baristas and we ask you to:
--Not Bite the hand that feeds you
--Not ask for free Venti H20. (Why?)
--Don’t put your greasy nasty hands on the glass of our pastry case
--Speak up, don’t point to the pastry you want/we are not mind readers
--Do not give us attitude. We WILL give DECAF
--Say Thank you
--Don’t say Your welcome
--Don’t talk on your cell
--Don’t mumble
--Don’t count out the exact change
--Know what you want before you get to the counter
--Always remember to TIP.
Love Your local barista”
Of course, this being a city in which most people are guilty of at least one of that litany of complaints, someone was bound to feel bad about themselves and tell the baristas that really, you are making $12 an hour, so STFU. “Whatever! Disgruntled baristas. Its part of the customer service job scope.” See, we can imagine a parent saying to a child: this is what you have to look forward to in the new service economy of the 21st century.
This child, being precocious, realizes that this is, in fact, what is in store for them and responds, “I love dookie so much!!! Fuck
Alternatively, this child could join a secret, mysterious organization. As one person asked, “What should I write about? Well I am sitting at this place looking at the people and playing a kind of spy game with my daughter.” The entry then ends. We were worried at first that perhaps this spy game had gotten out of control. But then we discovered this clue from an agent known as Kane, 4-yrs-old, which is clearly a message. “This is a map. ‘Go by the river & through the trees & then find the treasure’. I like sheep!” (Not too much, young man.)
It is possible that our conspiratorial spirit has infected the entire lake, and is even stretching into our empire, like
Speaking of language, here’s something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue, “The aqua is purtiful. I see a woman who is jogging, who desperately needs a bra.” We sincerely hope that this runner is not the structurally unsound woman described above, “I use this book to read when I’m stretching – Great IDEA!! Thoughts today – we as people need to be honest w/each other. If you like someone give them a hug, if your sad ask for a hug and if your ticked off run a lap around Greenlake. Toodles!” Be that as it may, we as corporate entities have no need or desire to be honest with anyone, most especially ourselves.
And how can we forget that this weekend we passed a holiday, “Earth Day! LOTS of people out, talking sports, teaching their younguns how to ride a bike, running, walking, talking, loving and hating on this sunny and beautiful day—which to me is a gift.” To us, really, the true gift is this post. “I [heart] Greenlake. Where else do you see a goth drum circle competing for space with hippie knights in full armor dueling with each other?” Factually, however, we take issue with the supposition.
Toodles.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Another Day, Another Theft
But we've been thinking about the importance of simple things. A short paean to them was going to be included in today's post, but all the blue words were stolen. It's just you and us, kid.
We came to this project simply (book on a bench), took it conceptual (importance of place, embodiment, empathy, moral distance), and have returned to the simple things: always have a pen attached to every book, lock each book in place with metal wire, get to each book at least every other day. Absent these simple things, all the conceptual importance is just Yoko Ono fluff. (Writing of Yoko Ono fluff, alpha once saw a short film she made in which a sequence of naked butts on treadmills occupy the screen. One extreme close up after another for 20 minutes. Some butts were repeated, particularly one with a strange mole on the right ass cheek. The film became like a Where's Waldo book, where the masses of jiggling flesh were the fantastical Bosch-like locations and the mole on the guy's mole was Waldo. Your eye became trained; you cheered its reappearance as an anchor in the morass of, well, ass. Perhaps alpha should have studied physics.)
Back to simple things. Pablo Neruda understood the importance of the little things, for example, his socks, or an onion, or a tomato, or a delicious pico de gallo served in a tube sock. He wrote odes to these things and they would start off like this:
Onion,
crystalline sack,
your beauty formed,
petal after petal,
of luminous scales
that increased you
and your belly grew with dew
in the mystery of the
dark earth.
Which is getting pretty deep on an onion, even for us. Still, we owe an ode or two to cheap Bic Pens, and metal wire. Keep it locked.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Say hello to our little friend
Don't fear, The Corporation will find a way; and that way will probably be a large man who has been in a fight before.
Just a teaser.
"Did anyone see that movie "The Notebook?" This is pretty much nothing like that."
Or two:
"Beautiful, sunny, warm, clear. I always sit on this bench and watch the fathers with their children. My father hardly ever played with me. He died last April. I am a medium. I talk with spirits. My father sits with me here on this bench. He spends more time with me here than when he was alive. I never thought I'd miss him, but I do. It's April 14, 2007. A friend, another medium, said something magical would happen today. Maybe this notebook is it."
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Day 10ish
Unfortunately, shortly after the return of the notebook by The Stranger (bearing the inscription, “I’m sorry I stole your book.”), it was restolen by a less communicative thief. This is particularly sad because at last inspection, it was on its very last page.
Then, on Saturday, a compelling and effective war protest comprised of thousands of plastic grave markers with
All that to say, the following represents only a few hours from Sunday, the 15th.
An anonymous contributor put forth, “If you are feeling blue, go into nature with your honey and sit on a park bench.” While the standard interpretation is honey-as-woman, it is perhaps more entertaining to imagine a man with one of those beary-shapely honey jars hiking off into (Self?)
One thing you might learn is, “Love and beauty are everywhere.” On the other hand, you could instead find out that you should, “Contemplate the miraculous ordinary.” Either way, an aphorism can come in handy, even if they do sometimes sound Dad-dancing uncool. We might remember that the greatest coach in the history of sports, John Wooden, used to have an entire bushel of
“Living next to
And last but not least, we find our main man Miles, who is excitable, “Hello! My name is Miles. This is a very nice place here in
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Mystery Solved: The Thief Confesses
All thanks to The Stranger's Jonah Spangenthal-Lee for falling into the idea trap. It appears that they were stolen in the spirit of charity and goodwill, or at least drunkenness, which often approximates the former virtues. Next time you see Jonah out on the town, make sure to give him an awkwardly passionate drunken hug. During which you take his wallet. Return it to him the next day, though, but only after you are sure he has cancelled all his credit cards and ordered a new driver's license.
Victory is Ours
Notebook 1.1 Dies; The Corporation Lives On
An unnamed Senior President of Vice within the company said the organization was saddened but not shocked. "It's a real tragedy for the children. Just think of the children. And to think Spalding, as she was known internally, was a mere 10 pages from retirement to the Green Lake Library. It's a damned shame. Rest in Peace, pretty lady."
The Corporation behind the Notebook released a short statement on its website, stating simply, "Spalding was beloved and she died in the battle against disembodiment, and that's how she would have really wanted to go. They might have won the battle, but it is a Cinco-de-Mayo victory, for we shall win the war. One of her brothers will step to the fighting line like a Greek hoplite in a phalanx, weather proofing for a hoplon, pen for a pike. We cannot be defeated."
There are no plans for a memorial service but donations can be made out to cash and sent to The Brown Eyed Handsome Man Corporation World Headquarters.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Day 8
After the linguistic deluge of the past several days, The Notebook quieted down a bit. We asked Weather Inc to chill out Seattle for us, and they delivered. Still, a few crazy people braved the frostbitten little toesies and hit the circuit. “We are braving the elements with our 6 little girls!!! Are we silly or what?? We have 2 Speedy Gonzales, 2 medium, and 2 slow pokes! Eventually we will get there.” We might have found our media hook because we now have the first official evidence of a talking and quite literate dog, “I love this place. It’s where I know the world. It lives in my dreams. And I sleep a lot. – Geoffrey the Poodle”.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Day 7
“TUESDAY 10 April @ 0900. My vacation bank at work is full, rather than donate to the mega-corp, decided to burn a few days. The dog + I, on patrol at the
Beneath that entry there was a page of pictures, possibly the last recorded scribblings of a man dying of rabies. There was an ice cream cone, a flower, a sun, a heart, and a fuzzy monster that says “Rawr!” Next to the sun, someone wrote, “Sun is wrong L Go to Arizona” Another person wrote “LOVE” in block letters, which two distinct handwriters then finished with, “yourself” then “maybe”.
“Venture along
Venture with
Trust venture along
Like a lion or fox
Mwa ha haaa”
As everyone that came before or after
When should a smile be not in your [unreadable]
When the birds fly above you
And the conqueror worm below you
Everything in the world dies
And I wouldn’t want it any other way
What else could make the sun so warm
On living skin that knows its end
Is always at hand, always just beneath the surface
The wind that kisses your face
Will one day carry you into oblivion
And it will be the most beautiful passage
Into the object of creation
The ever present artifact that we are put on
To learn its purpose, our design
And that you are here ‘til you are gone.
“God appears and God is light
To those who dwell in realms of night
But does a human form display
To those who live in realm of day.”
But enough death, let’s have a quick shower and a poop joke instead. We return to BEHMC recruit, Ian M, and his provocatively titled, “Easter Confession.”
“Yesterday I took my dog for an Easter morning walk from my house in
This story alone would have been enough to win Ian some respect around the boardroom, but this last sentence made us scream out, in unison, like a Greek chorus, "That's right. Now you've got it! That's the spirit!"
In any case, this type of attention to the quirky details of social regulation—strong enough to force the pantomiming of dog poop extraction, for example—is reminiscent of Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine. A fantastic book featuring among other things, the greatest imaginary peeing on someone sequence in all of literature. We swear: you'll laugh so hard you'll pee in your neighbor's pants.
There was actually another Confession. Someone admitted to power walking. “Day one of power walking… Never thought it did much for you but already sore. My best friend + I just walking and talking! Both of us w/the no direction. Keep you posted! Enjoy the lake!” We also enjoyed the idea of a way of going called "the no direction."
“The day after
Easter and it
blusters and blows
here in cold park
on cold bench,
my heart warm
with love of my husband.
Next to me.
A warm heart on a
cold cold day.”
Day 0: Raw Feed
This is the beginning of the Phase II Expansion of The Corporation. Agents are training in a field near you.
Day 0 Post: Telepathy and Copycatting
Two Corporation members had an interesting conversation about the (non)random nature of The Notebook entries. One posited (before denying) that the “notebook may be a random thought generator.” To which the other replied that it seemed very far from random. In fact, certain words seemed contagious, moving from one entry to the next. These words usually summed up or contained an idea that seemed to be floating in the air around the bench. On the 6th when it was beautiful, that word/idea was beautiful. When the weather turned on the 7th, beautiful was still overlaid the sensory world and the conversation became, “Today is not a beautiful day.” So it was the weekend of beautiful, one way or the other.
1. Bench as scene of crime; humans as thieves.
2. Bench as bridge; humans as (un)willing empaths
Monday, April 9, 2007
Day 6
“Green lake waters are glistening bright,
In the morning the stars are a sight.”
A less nonsense poem, featuring flowers and an exhortation to love thyself:
Dafodils Tulips Magnolias
And all…
Bloom like the love
In your heart already
Mere and ever present
And never to leave
Even when the leaves
Begin to fall readying
For winter
Know you are
Loved
OK”
A brief respite can be provided by Carl, “Runners, walkers, skaters, joggers, kids, lovers… and dogs.” He forgot birds, moms, and fishermen, but other than that, it seems a pretty accurate accounting.
Sunday, April 8, 2007
2,114 Words or So from Day 5
Day 5
We’re back on track. To be honest, we might even be on a better track. The first two days of V1.1 have yielded some remarkably insightful comments. Take this one for example, “This is a wonderful idea. Too bad so many people have forgotten how to write. Maybe someone will prove me wrong.” But lest you think only the judgmental have grown a fondness for The Notebook, read ‘em and weep:
Peace
“A beautiful sunset, with a beautiful woman
The water calm and smooth
The air is fresh and clean.
Beautiful—
E + V”
It should be noted that Friday, the 6th, featured the greatest weather of 2007 while Saturday was warmish, overcast, and a little drizzly. It is not a stretch to say that the Friday crowd was pretty pumped about life while the Saturday people were a bit more restrained in their enthusiasm.
Greta was clearly writing on Saturday when she wrote, “Give me a Big Sun!! And I Love You Leehome. (I miss you so much.)” Apparently, there is love all around you. Check out this sweet little confession, “I’m waiting for my girlfriend to finish up her 3rd lap around the lake. She’ll run her 1st ½ marathon in
Perhaps the most interesting idea to get caught in the trap comes courtesy of Katie.
“Well – I’m Katie—and I’m with Junie—He’s a 14 yr old patient here to cruise chicks in tank tops and pony tails. I’m his nurse & this is the 1st time I’ve set down to rest & do nothing since
P.S. I’ve got a good man – no cruising for me.
Katie”
That first line is a pretty amazing story, in and of itself. For the weight it carries in hidden pockets, you might compare it to Hemingway’s famous 6 word story, “For sale: baby shoes, never used.” You also like Katie in this paragraph. She comes across. The kind of woman who knows the exact temperature and is outside in it. Call me uncouth, but here’s hoping that Junie got laid or at least smooched.
And while we’re on the topic of sex, or close to it, at least, we got an oldie-but-goodie joke from none other than Ernest Matthews III. “A chicken and an egg are in bed. The chicken [is] smoking a cigarette. The egg pulls the covers over him and says, “I guess we know the answer to that question!”
Then, five or six lines down the page, Ernest wrote “(which came first the chicken or the egg)”. Get it. We appreciate that he left that space, so that if you already got it, you’d just move on but if you were confused, you could read a little further and not get left out with the uninitiated.
But clearly, the risqué comment of the day goes to the author(s)/artist(s) of this doozy:
“[Drawing of a penis with a cape]
Hello. My name is Sir Longfellow, superhero of the planet Cletoris. Anime is my pet peeve and I get really testy around it.
Look for me the next time you spot trouble. Be wary I travel through the black hole & I spit!”
A question: does the chance that you can find the clitoris increase or decrease with the inability to spell it? Just asking. The caped, capering penis will be photographed for your perusal soon by a drunkard raccoon trying hard to stay on the straight-and-narrow. No guarantees on when those pictures will be available.
While we’re on pictures, there was also a drawing of a dog behind a man with trees. The man sort of looked like Paul Bunyan, but the dog bore little resemblance to Babe, the Big Blue Ox.
There was a Harper’s Index which indicated that roughly ½
Shortly thereafter, The Notebook happily received its first non-alphabetic writing. What look to my untrained eye like Chinese characters were posted by Carrie, Doreen, and someone who concluded, “Today is not a beautiful day. It rains and quite hard!! I want sun.” We’ll get our photographer on getting those characters photographed and posted, so that the Internets can translate them.
We also received a note from what I’m guessing is Mother Russia. It said, missing a couple of accents, “Sjedim u hladu, jedem ōokoladu!!! Ermin. Ispod Kruskelezim Pbtrbuske EMER” Any translating fairy/ogligarchs are welcome to take a stab at that one.
4.07.07
4//7.
4/7
We’re never surprised at human variation but who teaches you this?
We want to end this huge post by asking that you turn your hearts and minds to this anonymous fellow traveler. Please think good thoughts for his/her urethra.
“I just got here and I’ve been riding my unicycle all day. My friend said that after goin around greenlake once, she couldn’t use the bathroom for a whole day : ) anyway
Have a good day.
Bye!”
Friday, April 6, 2007
Day 0 Post: The Notebook v.1.1
Our elf-interns are pretty distraught over the loss of their hard work, so we are having to hand handwrite the New Notebook. That's taking a while and we don't want you to lose interest. So, in case you were wondering, here's the structure of the trap, i.e., the words we used. The prompts are scattered throughout; new prompts welcome. Most of the writing is from the Brown Eyed Handsome Man Corporation's archives.
PAGE 1
The Greenlake Preservation Society
in association with
the Brown Eyed Handsome Man Corporation
presents
The Notebook 1.1
at Bench #1
(In the world: 47º40’11.19”N, 122º20’04.06”W)
If found detached from its home bench, please write something funny in it and then email browneyedhandsome@gmail.co
PAGE 2
WHAT IS THIS?
The short answer: A place to write stuff down that you think while sitting in this exact spot. Then, a place to read what people have written while sitting in this exact spot. It’s anonymous and fun! Like the Internet, but slightly less high-tech. Like a bathhouse, but slightly less touchy-feely.
The long answer: We’re not really sure. The Society and the Corporation have just noticed tons of people sitting on this bench, looking like they maybe needed a pen and some paper. Other people have looked like they wanted to read something, possibly gain some wisdom. It could be that all of those people were just looking at girls, boys, and/or dogs, but we thought we’d provide paper and a pen anyway.
This is version 1.1. The Notebook 1.0 was stolen on April 5, 2007 after a mere 2 days of service to its bench. RIP. We apologize if your words were lost.
SOME PROMPTS (just to get you going if that is where you're at)
The View for One Old Man
He did have this. A perfect half-moon, behind a thin rhombus of high clouds, setting, still twenty degrees north of Phinney Ridge, and mirrored just off the coast of the lake, as if the water brought the moon closer for examination. The neighbors got to watch this ancient interaction in wonder. It would be gone in 10 minutes, disappeared behind the ridge, and the star spangled night would return, the streetlight flickering outside his window and the candles inside struggling to keep up with the darkness.
There are bigger views. There are more celestial views. But for its groundedness, its understatement, its peekaboos and hideaways, looking west at 65th and Meridian was his favorite view in Seattle.
This Spot, in Song
Sounds like:
Capture the Flag, by Broken Social Scene
The 3 Words
We have heard that everyone’s got three operative words at whatever point in life. They change and are probably half-truths, but what doesn’t and isn’t? It’s good exercise.
My 3 Words: Purpose, Self, Focus
The View for One Young Man
Ah, look at it. It makes one lapse into bourgeois, not to mention girly, sentimentality. But still. (Stops jogging.) To see it on a sunny day from the east side of the lake. Reflections from the other side fading at some almost perceptible point into mere water. Phinney Ridge rising behind it and in the distance, just barely visible, the Olympics, a perfect impressionistic shade of blue. To what feels like the southwest, light, pink saturating into magenta, darkening the trees into outlines, skeletons coming into focus in the night.
It is a time and a place that history won’t remember… And therefore. Therefore is… useless? Useless. But still.
Why You Like It
A List of Repositories of Social Cachet:
Cars, Husbands, Mohawks, Non-ideological ideas
The Development of the Lake
Green Lake, once a cesspit slash moral vacuum of human waste and drag racing track for amphibious vehicles, was deepened, that is to say, given more feet. Cleaned up around the edges, snipped, and clippered, planted and replanted, dredged and stocked, encircled and recircled, populated, lost it, and populated again, built, fallen into disrepair, and gentrified, all of which, as historical forces, have combined, competed, struggled and died for what you now see before you: a shimmering example of what a little elbow grease and a spit shine can do to a mosquito ridden shithole. The sham-and-tout, men living harmoniously together making a better world.
Who Is Thinking This
Being a healthy, busy, productive young member of society in Seattle, it is my duty to remain fit, to shine fitness down upon the fatties like the beacon city on the hill. Work out!