The ides...

The ides of October—Our Time.

Mercury is in retrograde until October 18th. This retro thing of planets meant nothing to me until this year—I don’t read horoscopes or any of that stuff, but Mercury has my attention, sort of like “earthquake weather” in California did. Santa Anas. An uptick in freeway shootings.

Raymond Chandler said, in Red Wind, “There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”

That’s how I feel lately. Except with the added Kansas negative of humidity. It reminded me of an article I clipped years ago heralding October as a dangerous month in California. I went to my voluminous files and looked it up. While I was searching for it I got lost in files titled “Neat Stuff” and the year. This article came from “Neat Stuff,1982 on.” The files hold stacks of great ads, wonderful copy, outstanding articles—but I’ll get back to that in another blog some day. I’ll just say the stuff kicks copy and writing ass over what’s being churned out these days, my recent natterings included. Note to self: get back to work and rework. Start trying again.

My journal last week—that guy yowling, sharks circling, is how I felt that day…

This is about my summer of discontent. What a godawful time to prepare for a sculpture show. (It opened October 1st in KC’s Hilliard Gallery.) Sweat streamed into the eyes under the hot, baking welding helmet. I cussed a lot. Hydrated.

That article goes on about how the tourists disappear, the Santa Anas start and October is a hot electric disruption in a blur of splendid months. The good old days before firestorms ate half the state. Before...well, everything as we all know it now. Still, a dangerous time.

I was out walking and it’s hot and humid.  My journal is full of complaints about The Weather. I looked up the hottest year in KC—turns out it was a record in 1936, unbroken since, with temperatures as high as 113. No AC back then, not even in department stores. I told myself waahh waahh, quit yer damn snivelling. Those folks put block ice in tubs in front of fans. If they had them. It was The Depression.

So what’s this Mercury thing? Planets move from east to west around the sun—during the retrophase, Mercury appears to move backwards and that brings out Murphy’s Law of astrology. If you believe in that sort of stuff. All I know is our rural internet went to hell, and is sloooowww. I’ve signed up for Starlink but Elon is fresh out of semiconductors right now and no telling when that situation will improve. It affects everything made with electronics; pickups, computers, games, appliances. Meanwhile, Hughes, Dish Network, Viasat, Gotw3, and the rest of the Covid profiteers have us by the rurales. I wish them only ill. I will drop Gotw3 like a dirty shirt when the chips come in (when the whip comes down) and Starlink delivers.

Like I said, I don’t read horoscopes. But one weird night many years ago an ouija board told me a Belgian parfumeur who claimed to be a relative was talking to me. Well, my forebearers on one side are from Belgium but nobody at the table knew that. I still haven’t found the fortitude to see if any perfume makers are among the ancestors. And I don’t mess with ouija boards.

Well, shoot. Enough whining for now. As the French Belgian parfumeurs and cops say, bonne journee. XO, G.

 PS: To end this on a much higher note (you’ll see what I did there) here’s a video of my favorite graffiti artist, Futura, laid back, way, way back, (link here) on The Bowery in NYC.