Where They Make that Good Salsa You Can Actually Pour Out of the Bottle

If you follow my Twitted feed you may have picked up on the fact that
I'm in New York for the week. If you only follow my blog feed than
you've probably only said to yourself, "Hmm... No rants from that Adam
for a bit, maybe he finally got that drink he so desperately needed.".
Or perhaps you follow none of these things, and have been continuing
to discover my "Greek Animals" post through Image Search just as you
have for the past year and a half, and my actual Internet prescence
means nothing to you. If that is the case, enjoy the goat and dog
pictures, strangers caught in the eddies of the tubes!

I've been missing blogging, and I am filled with various ideas for
when I return to the proximity of a real keyboard. Most are possibly
quite-long essays. At least one I hope will make it to the
Brutalitarians' online pages, which means fewer of you will read it in
the long run. I always hesitate a bit to put good stuff there, because
I like when people read my stuff (maybe you do too?) but perhaps we
can steadily build up a readership for The Brutalitarian as well. I
know--it would certainly help if it had an RSS feed. But there doesn't
seem to be a good method of syndicating Google Sites. Because of this
I've been considering experimenting with Word Press (for the Brute
Press side of things) but yet to make the move because of the hassle
of switching DNS and such things. But this is all very uninteresting
to you; just take away the promise of interesting writing to come, in
some format or another, about such fun things as Czech novels and
film, machines and human bodies, narratives and modern dance, and
angry cartoon squids. Also some pictures, perhaps.

NYC is looking good for the most part. Conspicuously more vacant
retail space than 2 years ago, and conspicuously similar amounts of
vacant gazes. A lot of stares at my hair--maybe I was too used to
Portland. Megan and I have been loving the subway and eating too much
expensive food, and generally wandering around between places and
events with no responsibilities in the way NYC will let one do, so
that this drifting phemnomenal consumption feels as if it has
aesthetic purpose rather than the soft, fleshy sensualist absorption
of a floating sea sponge. An interesting thing about the Porifera is
that anything too big to be absorbed through the skin must be eaten
and expelled through the same orifice.

But the food has been delicious. Also some good and not so good
performances, used books, public transportation, and the fun of
dressing nicely without people feeling the need to ask what the
occasion is. All in all--New York City. I totally remember why we
moved to Portland, but also I've been acquainted with a fact; I will
live in this city again. I hope to live in many more cities around the
world (there is an informal list), and I am not a New Yorker by any
sense of definition. But this city catches up with you in a way I
haven't fully understood yet, and I know I'll be living here again in
the future.

There's probably a metaphor related to an idea for a very short story
idea I had while riding the subway some years ago, which would help
explain this pull. But it involves cyborgs and synth-pop, so I'll
leave it alone for right now.

Find a City, Find Yourself a City to Live In

Tomorrow I move to Portland, Oregon. It's going to be a long trip from Hartford, Connecticut all the way west, and there are a lot of stops in between to commune with many of my scattered cohorts, comrades, and colleagues. Here is the list of scheduled stops:

Philadelphia
Baltimore
Cincinnati
Chicago
Grinnell (Iowa)
Omaha
Denver
Pocatello (Idaho)
Portland.

It's gonna be good to get back on the road. I'm glad that I'm going to be stopping in so many places. Often a long distance trip will encourage the intrepid traveller to speed through on interstate lane; unfortunately this takes you through the gutter of america. Truck stops, billboards, and interchanges hardly a country make. This way I'll get a good sample of living locales across the country before arriving at my own choice. Pictures and blog posts will follow as internet access allows.

I've collected a good number of cassette tapes for the journey. My own installed CD player fried many a year ago, after my brother spilled a hot chocolate inside of it (he denies this version of events). A '95 Plymouth Voyager has no factory installed CD player. I'd say the best of the bunch is Michael Jackson's Thriller and Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet. I've even got a tape of whale songs though, because its a pretty big continent on which we live. Where can you even buy new cassettes these days? Other than the ubiquitous truck stop, I think Wal-Mart may be the only location. I'll find out though, and report back.

A '95 Plymouth Voyager also has a lot of other things that are not factory installed. Or, at this point, need to be installed again. I'm hoping to make it across the country without too many automobile mishaps. I'll probably need a new fuel filter at some point, but that is standard with this many miles on old Vee-ger. Maybe a flat tire too, though the ones I have aren't too old. Let's hope for the best.

So I'll be in touch over the next two weeks with regular reports about people seen, highways conquered, national historic sites observed and liquors imbibed. It will almost be like the entire internet is going with me in the car. And then, when I finally run out of road and reach the Pacific Ocean, we will begin a whole new chapter of my life. Kind of sobering. Or intoxicating, depending on which way you look at it.