- Thursday/Fri 18/19 September 2o25 ·

 

Extinction Chronicles

- Thursday/Fri 18/19 September 2o25 ·

Just the name Extinction Chronicles aught to be enough to give pause, and yet .  .. rather than a primer on how to prepare one’s soul for a life of deprivation in service of developing an open loving heart, i parse the grammar lessons, dodge the “a iEye” hobgoblin and like the little boy looking for his parents at the mall cast about for an approving glance - pretty much like us all · The Bukowski quote about dying being enough to ‘flatten us’, never gets old. How do you compete, why would you ¿ when everything in the universe points to “when the student is ready, the teacher will come.” What are priorities, what is sacrifice, for what? ambition, narrow focus gains, ego¿ what is clarity compared to the intransigence of death, much less the end of our species.

Joy is a requisite to good health, is why those who would employ measures for coercion undermine wellbeing, encourage discursive logic and activities, agitate for unease. Or i am undergoing transformation whereby i identify that which pleases me and encourage others to do the same. If, for example, you are reading this after some manifestation of the ’6th Great Extinction’, you may find resonance in the relationship of joy to health, or find leverage in a perception of ‘dis-ease’ that may have been obscured - for whatever reason · or by whatever dynamic. What if stasis is not mutually exclusive to the state of flux and that part of our mental acuity predicated from our flexibility and is as Jung postulated “the pendulum of the mind does not alternate between right and wrong, but between sense and nonsense.” 

Is the same true for communication? what is the role of recounting in storytelling, how does one wield ‘incitement t0-; e.g. (Friday 19 September) a young impresario running a similar business model to the store over which i live sold me the desk from which i hope to resume painting. In the process of purchasing the desk, the impresario made clear his admiration for a ‘gringo’ by giving me a book this ‘marshal’ expat wrote; i say marshal because he writes under a pseudonym, and was clear about his Military/VieNam training. Some time back while conferring with an Apache Kola from the Hollywood ‘Y’, Junza commented in passing that many special forces operatives were making their way to Oaxaca, but didn’t go into any detail. I aver from govt forces, and so am unsure about fbfriending ‘Quetzal’s’ author friend. I am sharing because it is a paradox of the expat life to be isolated and unclear about people’s orientations politically. I found the difficulties of trust and suspicion in the voting process as it manifested in Oaxaca.

This dilution/infiltration of community is realistic, for the reactionary forces are far better financed and make much better use of subterfuge and deception. Nevertheless, if this author/expat is more than an agent provocateur it will be an important step in gathering compadres for the arduous battles of liberty which lay ahead for what is left of a free humanity. 

I returned my new geared bike for my former heavier framed single speed better balanced beast and very glad i did, gears or no gears. 

Received another foto from sister K, and am encouraged by its simplicity to attempt a portrait of the illimitable expression on her lovely countenance, a pleasure fraught with potentially corrosive memories and delusional cul-de-sacs of emotion, or a mine of rich undeveloped healing feeling for us both. It feels like such a complex issue; for example the single mother where i live rides her daughter to school on the bicycle and in my ‘self serving’ everlovingfantasy i landed on the oblique gesture of providing helmets for as many children in similar straits as i could manifest until the community sees it was ‘their’ idea - “The secret of human freedom is to act well without attachment to the results.” - Bhagavad Gita ·

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

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                    

jts Thursday/Fri 18/19 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

∞

- 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

∞