- Monday 15 thru Wednesday 17 September 2o25 ·

15th

Ordering

toools

life

pallet

freedom

dismay

!0:30 am or so went downstairs to workout what i’d hoped to become a painting out the front door of what i’d paid for and weathered the end of winter rain · someone had torn up the purslane, tore down the dog bed, tossed the root i dug up at my last domestic fracaso:

- Wednesday 17 September 2o25 · my birtday

it took a full day for me to recover the curiosity and joy i felt commencing a new work - went riding Tuesday to pick up turmeric rhizomes from the local market and to see about modifying my former bike with higher gearing · the store was closed, streets were quiet because of Mexican Independence Day the 16th. The house was buttoned down, my compah had reappeared the midnight before from his alcohol hibernation; which somehow he and his father telepathically participated pretty sure unbeknownst to each other while the mother set about putting things to right and the daughter kept her child active having attended some celebration requiring solemnity and finer clothing. 

Ordered my tools and was surprised the office in Vermont did not acknowledge receipt as i’d requested; following up with sister K; hoping to make sense of our estrangement to help stabilize what i still hope will become a very productive two decades-putting me at 92 when i die (as though). I like people, but don’t understand the melange or how to formulate a rubric the greatest number can perceive when i have trouble teasing out the personal from the objective. For example, as i rode up with my basket from the market errand, though i’d not gotten fresh Turmeric to plant in my ‘masetas’, Sister of Josephine, Elia intervened and served me Pozole from her own pot when the merchant across the ‘mall’ snubbed my request for take out saying ‘out.’ punking foreigners is now sport, may have always been, but beats the shit out of getting shot.

When Mero Mero Marino saw me riding up, he wrapped up a coffeeklatch(gossipsession) with the welder Jesus, smirking ‘i’m busy’ afer i greeted him affably enough on his way to his storefront, my rejoinder ‘tu eres falso’, didn’t help, i still like people and know he’s up to his ass in alligators having spontaneously shared ‘my family is all pissed off at me’ a week earlier. It helps to see the struggle others are engaged in when my solipsism kicks into high gear, my food is running thin, ergo shopping errands rise to the top and tweaking my design to get fermented, unprocessed comestibles from this agricultural rich region delivered enough to what exercise i engage in is to strengthen, educate and encourage others. One is dialoguing - father and son are so in tune they each uncorked a ‘spat’ i believe unknown to the other; while father’s slaughter of my landscape scene was more commentary on son’s promise to provide - x,y, and z of yard maintenance, a father reduced to enlarging the hole used to latch the big gate on the side yard and a mother tending the son’s greater ambition, the ‘flea market’ which makes perfect sense.

I worry about the grandmother who took a fall to the face, because she doesn’t want to be seen as needing a cane though she’s in her nineties - the moral sea anchor of the family. “Youth is wasted on the young.” is a fraught quote; more smarm, than wit. I’m glad being able to include kissing her hand to list of outrageous i’ve managed. For example i once hosted a surprise birthday masquerade for myself in a dance studio at the corner of 4th and Maine in Santa Ana - one of the most successful events i can recall, if only measured by the mescal ‘caballo’ with which i commenced drinking beer from the keg and finished with many hours later; included in that spectacle was one of the grandest dupes of all time the aging hipster doofus ‘eye’talian engineer, cum hipster doofus replete with (combed-over-balding-pate) semi-professional parachuter/pilot completely smitten by the parts runner he’d never have given the time of day in our work-a-day lives through the artifice of a mask over her eyes, a gypsy blouse off her shoulders with flowing bright red skirt ensconcing her wordless presence in an auxiliary wheelchair to enjoy for hours the doting suitor never to learn of his ___________-fill in the blank.

This birtday, i’ll be content to blow a little pot, eat some day-old-two beans & rice turn a creative moment into two moments and/or visit with unexpected surprises that result in ‘another’s’ happiness. “Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed all the corners of your life.” - Rumi ·  Driven has caused so much misery in our lives i wonder about the role of ambition, what is it to want vs need - the rolling stones nailed it, though i don’t understand the distinction. 

What i like best about my creative life is the feeling of accomplishment - ‘time well spent’ · in my spiritual focus this innocence conflicts with the real ego-driven wish for recognition. Is that our human lot to be held in suspension by the faintest of tension; is there surcease, the ’nirvana’ spoken of; the ‘holy grail’ sought ever since it was ¿ Birthdays have taken the position of the Sacrosanct in my existence in keeping with my narcissistic heritage, however harsh that may sound - without verisimilitude where is the weight that allows for the ineffable gravitas of awe. Birtday discovery - getting old allows one to wash 1st then dig in the garden. It has been an exceptional day, mostly due to a rich vein of volition with chocolate to match. The flashes of synchronicity “I strive to be brief and thereby become obscure.” - Horace · via BDTTRH, along with 

Holyfuck - time flies when you’re having fun · 3:31 pm and there’s fuckall i can do to slow the clock, not that i would if i could; just spent too much time searching for Brother Jefferson’s quote about ‘dissent’ being the highest form of patriotism - while Samual Johnson’s quote about patriotism being the last refuge of the scoundrel rattles around the brain pan (that i could hit that 3-point quote) leaves me ready for another year. I pray for ways to discover how to use what i’ve learned to relieve suffering without bearing its corrosive nature, or rather utilize ways to amplify the joy so that others may bear their weight more comfortably - lord willing while i learn to mindmyownbusiness.   

until L8r (help yourself to other creative vagaries below) ·

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                    

jts Monday 15 thru Wednesday 17 September 2o25

http://ExtinctionChronicles.blogspot.com 

http://JosephTStevens.blogspot.com 

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com

prohibited from AI sampling in any form

reprinted with permission; all rights reserved

∞

- Sunday 14 September 2o25 ·

5:25 am full of chocolate piss pot and vinegar tamale day thinking of a name for my burro - edgar cayce ¿ will become one revolution further sooner than later . bicycle ain’t cuttin’ it or cutting my flexors nor enough of my core . read burros are good for balance and core strength and the gait apes my own . petrol excavation being what it is does not auger well for clean air anymore than putting flame to splifff · birdcall is luxurious . balance feels like the floor is uneven ¿ walking on ravels can be unnerving . an abuela here has fallen upon her face as has my sister herself an abuela . mornings here feel like the costa mesa sky so unique for so long ·

solipsism and empiricism are not mutually exclusive that is one does not exist without the other and i won’t say if that is dualism or extraction theory - explosive/lbomb blasts hold fascination to ears where i live - or the manufacturers again have outwitted the slower · pop with his 4th of Julyjest ‘so ya’ want to buy fireworks, gimme your $ whilst casting about here and there for ignition as your eyes would bug knowing the deftness of his dexterity nor wh3re you last saw fire · am just now looking at a painting to frame outside my downstairs door - watched an aether wisp waft for more than a minute nearly frantic for confirmation i wasn’t ‘seeing’ some lucent refraction off my prosthetic eyeball

food a spot to hang from in a door jam; just imagining the visceral pull was a pleasure coupled with the etherial sense of the light in this space was nearly visceral imagining how the tabletop easel will fit on the bench · including turning to see the space away from the lucent wisp .  ..

picture hanging nut mixing scarfing L8r whuffin’ from tokin’ wonderin’ the point ‘orientation’ toward corkscrewing foot to ground to counter buckle continued paragraph count though ‘nothing you can measure anymore’ - Leonard CoheN · cherry pickin’ vignettes - so small against the stars so large against the skY witnessing itself filtering behaviors for ¿ or playing along with meñtal coñstructs thay ceaseless practice volition i am here for you i know you are there i know you suffer i suffer

Two Mules for Sister Sarah - Clint Eastwood and Shirley MacLaine · what could go wrong 

will pigs burros sheep eat mango seeds ¿ no !

until L8r (help yourself to other creative vagaries below) ·

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                    

jts Sunday 14 September 2o25

http://ExtinctionChronicles.blogspot.com 

http://JosephTStevens.blogspot.com 

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com

prohibited from AI sampling in any form

reprinted with permission; all rights reserved

∞

- Saturday 13 September 2o25 ·

 

Journaling is different than writing ¿ that is a question; have fallen on my bike twice since I bought it; went to sleep to dream of burro, not sure i got there but braided my hair may be taking mushrooms L8r, didn’t send off my carving tool request and cut mustard for a raspberry cactus fruit parmesan cheese sandwich on sourdough rosemary raisin bread. Am struck dumb by the enormity of calamity our world careens to the extent I focus far more closely in front of me than elsewhere. Am drawing and contemplating a canvas (board) with Cezanne’s pallet - Frank Tauriello’s, still ranks highest for pure surprise. Have labored long on El Viejo de Agua, and unless I wished to become gun shy, ought to undertake ‘her’ portrait¿ or not . I know not a her to portrait . 

Would still parse the whys and wherefores of rigidness which seems to have conscripted an otherwise intransigently autonomous agency . The darks of El Viejo de Agua muddy into miasma while my shrieking kibitzer don’t give it a rest . Distinguishing the inclination to walk chocolate to the Doctora Leo, from Bob Marley’s observation about awakening the love of woman without intention to act being the epitome of cowardice . Yet she who would be queen still echoes with her conventional narrative about ‘we have to talk’ being so “contrived” ¡ .

No idea W T F brother Winston is on abou; anymore than I have any idea about brother Brad . unlicensed unprovoked unscrutinized journaling is an editorial comment of its own anymore than streamofconsciousness is clichè . the longer Pop is gone the more i appreciate his good company, truly leadership . I feel vulnerable in a comfortable sort of way in so far as i know not where to go from here and that is perfectly alright .

Bugs, I’m not seeing near enough bugs to suit my foreboding; countertops, moist ground, spiders, etc. It is as equally possible I am looking for disquiet to counterbalance the unaccustomed ebullience of foraying back to the world of happy carving, intentional creativity, unashamed embrace of my shadow, its appetites minus the reaction formation of furtive curiosity. The ‘voice’ of ____________ chirping chisme, Bob Dylan attributed such gossiping as well to the cult of celebrity rather than the more horizontally distributed reality of pluralism .

“I hate writing, but I love having written.” - Dorothy Parker · My good fortune to have fallen into the company of writers early, either through reading or writing . Before we’d unload at Thrifty’s for Rocky Road ice cream, we’d go to the River Jetty and park at the Yellow house to walk across ‘Tornado’ alley and bang a right at the ice plants where Pop’s promptly discarded shirt laid flush against the fascinating fatty lump lodged at the anterior interior shelf of his scapula and adorned his floppy fishing cap over his bald pate to script poetry .

until L8r (help yourself to other creative vagaries below) ·

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                    

jts 13 September 2o25

http://ExtinctionChronicles.blogspot.com 

http://JosephTStevens.blogspot.com 

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com

prohibited from AI sampling in any form

reprinted with permission; all rights reserved

∞

Extinction Chronicles - Friday 12 September 2o25 ·

Is it an embellishment to add a day of the week to the title¿ do i care? in my ‘driven’ rubric, i’ve uncovered the voice i’ve searched for in my writing, anonymity. it is much easier to use proper grammar and capitalize the beginning of a sentence when one cares not who is reading. For a time i used writing as augmented reality, ‘the conversation' I’d like to have had with my mother, and not. I veer from scathing and unreasoned rage as expression, for there is no percentage. Like my personal experience with psych0tropic drugs, my salvation has mostly been reason; for example the accumulation of objects has never been my forte: what to do with them once you've collected them? or power¿ At first it was reaction formation; if I identified with the bullies, maybe they wouldn’t pick on me, but I was too egotistical for the ’swarm’ mentality coming from a tribe of refined narcissists, I wanted distinction, more than what a pair of “crossed eyes” provided. For a time, it was enough that I was related to beautiful people, a long time. 

However that ‘ego-thang’, Osho’s ghost that doesn’t want to die, didn’t want to share the fictional limelight that comes from having entree to the Beatles' ‘beautiful people,’ however vacuous and empty such promise was. About then in my existential timeline, maturation was giving way to doubt and the burden of ‘realizing one’s promise’ kicked into high gear. Life became a kaleidoscope of schedules, certificates and appointments whizzing by, commingling with the fictional accumulation of security which one adheres to as a child of Depression Era parents. Somewhere in the miasma a voice tried to echo the logic found in intangible treasures of human existence. Music was never an option for creative sustenance, no models to draw on, and a ruptured eardrum sort of added to the lopsided nature of my cycloptic-monocular vision, while a short-leg syndrome gimp at times makes me wonder if there is such a thing as ‘TV Series Karma’ for having made such ridicule of Walter Brennen’s hobbling? that's a question.

Yet for a chronicle to have teeth, it wants to be more than entertaining vignettes seeking approbation: like the fear and frustration of dying alone in a foreign nation surrounded by language and traditions that go in and out of focus, or the confusion of resisting the real disparity of transposing a ‘retired gringo’ wherewithal on an impoverished, ‘destination’ aspiring colony at an ancient crossroads containing the roots of a 2,ooo-6,ooo year old tree bearing the fortunes of a ‘wannabe famous’ suburb of a never-quite-known hipster-doofus foreign-owned post-Columbian, never gonna be as metropolis, cultural dumping ground too far from CDMX to claim anything but the birthplace of the most potent of Mexico’s revolutionary leadership.

Ya’ can’t make this shit up, I know I’ve tried. For example within this same blog is the carcass of a novel, “Pre-Extinction People”, I wrote during a typhoon season while stranded in Viet Nam by the pandemic of 2o2o. Now I am ensconced within a community I am regarded sincerely enough by its population to be hated by some and cared for by others; this at a time in my own human development to become mindful of how little I know about myself, much less how others experience my presence. The real fact is that I am close enough to my objectives to order a set of stone carving tools; a yard in which to carve, And garden; an upstairs studio where I now sit and write, (gibberish or not); and am closing in on the sourcing of a studio easel on which to puzzle over compositions which may have been living inside of me since I gave up painting because my well-intentioned father told me one 'young adult' day, “You’re not a painter, you’re a sculptor”. I wish he was alive to provide succor to my sister.

If not this season, than next I will again take a psych0trop with the intention of jarring my assumptions loose, in s way similar to what Daniel Odier advocates in his book “Tantric Quest”, amongst others. I am going to die: I’d like to face that event with aplomb Michelangelo possessed when he painted his empty hide being held up by St Peter. I know of no other way to find that sense within without asking questions, which for some reason some time back I abandoned in favor of ‘certainty’, - a condition that has mostly resulted in fatuous defense of erroneous thinking serving no practical end except _________ fill in the blank : 

until L8r (help yourself to other creative vagaries below) ·

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                    

jts 12 September 2o25

http://ExtinctionChronicles.blogspot.com 

http://JosephTStevens.blogspot.com 

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com

prohibited from AI sampling in any form

reprinted with permission; all rights reserved

∞

- 2o25 September 11 ·

 

Today is my sister’s birthday and on another blog i’ve posted a sonnet i wrote years ago, now she is dying from Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP); we communicate through multigenerational trauma, and texting. Yesterday in conversation with our younger brother i had to voice out loud the very real understanding that my presence in the upcoming distribution of our mother’s ashes in the desert of her youth would not be welcome - how does one acknowledge such pernicious antipathy ‘cheerfully’¿ · I share this extremely personal snippet of existence, because it tracks with another time in our lives at a family intervention’ promoted by our mother, i said to my sister ‘my sense is that you don’t like me very much.’ to which she replied, ’No, I don’t.’ During this same intervention where we were ostensibly tasked with clearing the air, our mother described my sister as ‘brutally honest’ and myself as ‘suffering’ more than my siblings.

Another passing moment from the ’touchy-feely’ 60’s, long on potential - ripe for the plucking by those less scrupulous amongst us. Keep in mind during this same period ‘Brown and Williams’ were knowingly murdering, by way of their Nicotine Delivery Vehicle, countless clean lunged voters; legislators were consciously poisoning one of the densest vegetation biomass climes on the planet, because it had been deemed the most efficacious way to gain access to an mineral rich terrain, while containing the red menace of socialism/communism/anti-capitalism. Old Money at this time was interbreeding with the rapidly mutating Aristocracy cum Oligarchy; the fossil fuel cheeses were in the process of expunging from the public record any reference to carbon fuel and deterioration of the atmosphere vis-a-vis breathable air, and computer pundits were only beginning to envision the enhanced capacity for social manipulation via ‘digital technology’.

The arms industry in whose service i financed decades of ‘therapy’ and acquired while still affordable my bonafides as an ‘educated man’ - though it took me 20 years compared to the normal 4 years to graduate from college: 1972-1992. I was ill suited for a life as teacher that my psychiatrist glibly proposed one early morning session, anymore than i was aptly suited to carve stone for the balance of my life, because a 90 year-old charismatic Spanish stone-cutter patted my oh so lonely noggin, like the puppy dog i was in NYC at the ripe old age of 19-20; l’enfant terrible·scholarship anomaly @ the Art Students League of NYC - alum to Jose dé Creeft, (legend in my own mind) super dooper veterinary pooper scooper, wannabe Hansom Cabdriver, for real Falafel Vendor - seducer of anything that moved; though cautioned by the verisimilitude of trans-craft; (New York City is the place where they said:

Doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo-doo

Doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo-doo)

Sentenced next to Leonard Cohen’s “20 years of boredom for trying to change the system from within,” shoehorned a trifecta of marriages - and ipso facto i sit in Oaxaca parsing as much together as i can before i become a disembodied series of +/- 5v pulses in an analog universe. Come and see me if you want advice on how to rinse or evade Blastocysts in an E-Coli rich environment; searching for ways to misunderstand the greatest number of people while confusing the other half of that equation, or piss off the whole batch with a single gesture at the appropriate ‘influencer’. However look not this way if what you seek is tranquility and equanimity of the ‘Zen’ kind; he too was harried from my friend’s list - know not why · pretty sure i never will .  ..

Still and all back to the task at hand of living, while a dear sister mortificates over her more pressing schedule on, what has to be ‘a confounding’ revolution about Sol. Will buy tools, i already own, but are stored in another country being overrun by fascists and zeolotgoofballs feeding on a media maze of rabbit holes and existential cul-de-sacs devised by some of the hollowest humans i’ve yet encountered (aside: similar in nomenclature to the aforementioned ‘intervention’ - but squishy like so much meaning in our days of ending. There are actually by all accounts members of the ruling class who are rooting for the ‘rapture’, not rooting in the way a Cheesehead might paint his gut mustard and get plastered on a Sunday TV camera opportunity, but rooting as in: devising, scheming, financing, seancing, hiring, scheduling and other various sundry activities the HNWI delude themselves into thinking constitute meaning. 

until L8r (help yourself to other creative vagaries below) ·

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                    

jts 11 September 2o25

http://ExtinctionChronicles.blogspot.com 

http://JosephTStevens.blogspot.com 

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com

prohibited from AI sampling in any form

reprinted with permission; all rights reserved

∞