GARY PANTER BLOG

I love bird watching in Texas. I was in Sulphur Springs a couple of weeks ago sodding the lawn for Mother and Daddy, and everywhere were birds. Daddy and I drove to Winnsboro a couple of times for sod and I spied about 8 red cardinals, about 30 scissor-tailed flycatchers, some giant hawks, always buzzards, always white cranes. No road-runners.

When I arrived at DFW, there were no rental cars to be had; a giant crowd of people was at the rental center and as people turned in cars they called out names and agitated renters filed to the lot one by one. My brother Tommy and his wife Gwen were nice enough to drop everything in Riley Springs and drive over and pick me up from where I was waiting downstairs, feeding the birds (many kinds) bits of sandwich and drawing them in my sketchbook.

Saw four dead crows on the ground in front of the public school across from Braums—made me wonder if there is an electrical short on the electrical lines over there?

One day I had biscuits and gravy from Braums, lunch at the outlet mall Mexican place, and later a foot-long cheese coney, tater tots and a shake at the new Sonic. The first time I’ve been to the Sonic in my dad’s pick-up. I noticed that every car there was a pick-up and that they all had their motors running the whole time for air-conditioner purposes. His air-conditioner is broke so I just breathed everyone elses’s smoke. One car pulled in—a couple of black kids in an old Malibu, outfitted with those new style giganto spin rims. I ask one of them how much the rims cost. I am hard of hearing, but I am pretty sure that he said $1200.00 a wheel!!!!!!!!!! Thats a lot of biscuits and gravy. Breakfast the next day at Bodacious on the way to the airport. Got out of town before I exploded.

Paris, Texas has never been the same to me since they shut down Speas vinegar, so now there’s nothing to smell by the railroad tracks on the way to Oklahoma. Nothing good anyhow anymore.

I used to meditate in Commerce with some sufis. We held hands and chanted and it was fun and relaxing, we learned some simple mediation brain-quieting techniques,very helpful, until they all started astrally projecting and doing so much aura cleansing. I got out of there at that point. I wasn’t wanting to zoom around out of my body. But it was nice and I made some friends.

One very nice guy in the sufi meditation group, who was really into aura cleansing, was living in Paris. And he said there was this isolated spot in Paris where he would rake off or dump all the bad vibes in his arms and hands and shoulders that he accumulated from cleansing other people’s auras. And he said nothing grew there— that it was a dead burnt ring about thirty feet across in a pasture. Killed by the bad vibes from the auras of now-happy folks.

So I am guessing that this is part of the problem in Paris—that this sufi gentleman, since the early ’70s, has been harvesting bad vibes from Quitman, Mineola, North Caney, Harlingen, Wolfe City, Fairley, Granger, Lubbock, Tyler—all the places he cleansed auras—Texarkana, Laredo, Reilly Springs, Yantis, Baird, Marfa—and he has gradually completely destroyed the karmic balance in Paris, Texas, by shipping all that woe into his private little woe dump.

At Play in the Fields of the Lord- Peter Mathiessen

Far Tortuga- Peter Mathiessen

You Bright and Risen Angels-William T. Vollman

The Franchiser- Stanley Elkin

Bernhard-Yoel Hoffmann

The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor-John Barth

Not Fade Away-Jim Dodge

Little Lulu; April Fools-John Stanley and Irving Tripp

The Acme Novelty Library #19-Chris Ware

Rebels, Turn out Your Dead-Michael Drinkard

Comics Journal -Deitch issue

Herbie- Shane O’Shay and Ogden Whitney

Omege the Unknown-Jonathan Lethem

Schmoo- Al Capp

Espectacular de Lucha Libre-Lourdes Grobet

The Ganzfeld #7-Nadel, Jones

PowerMasters#2-CF

How Fiction Works-James Wood

Groovy Bob-Harriet Vyner

B.C.; Big Wheel-Johnny Hart

Grandpa’s Troll Stories-Art Stavig

Bob Zoell-Norman Hathaway

The Genius Bakabon- Fujio Akatsuka

Mike’s World- Michael Smith & Joshua White

I Can’t Believe a Girl Is Playing Me Metallica-Valerie Phillips

Spaced Out-Alistair Gordon

Guston-Robert Storr

No Wave-Thurston Moore & Byron Coley

The Killing Machine-Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller

The Unfortunates-B.S. Johnson

Henry Darger’s Room-851 Webster

Wormdye- Eamon Espey

The Virtuoso- Thomas Shadwell

Double Down-Frederick & Steven Barthelme

Guston In Time- Ross Feld

The Acme Novelty Date Book; Volume Two-Chris Ware

Zaha Hadid- Hans Ulrich Obrist

Flying To America- Donald Barthelme

Monster Men BUREIKO- Takashi Nemoto

Lost In the Funhouse- John Barth

The Teachings of Don B.-Donald Barthelme

Illuminations-Walter Benjamin

Remainder- Tom McCarthy

Happy Hooligan-Frederick Opper

Mutt and Jeff- Bud Fisher

Collected Poems- Wallace Stevens

Odd Number- Gilbert Sorrentino

Layers- Keiichi Tanaami

Gilead- Marilynne Robinson

Peter Saul- Cameron, Duncan, Storr

Storeyville-Frank Santoro

The Origin of the Brunists-Robert Coover

I’m a fucking beaver, out here in the woods chewing down a fucking tree, is what’s happening. What do you think, smart ass?!

I saw you talking to the fish. Fuck fish! Fish think they are so fucking smart, but hey, fish are stone cold candy-assed fools. They have no fucking idea what goes on up and out and over and around here. Out in our woods of the clear air with the whispering elm and shaky maple or whatever the fuck; the bitter fir or sibilant martin; glowing lichen and wildcat pee-stained moss bank. No fuckin clue. A little jump out of the drink and what do they learn? Not much, sister! Something about a worm? Get out and walk around and learn something, Karl. Live a little! Carry something over a stump for as change. Spoiled brats! I have no sympathy for them. They don’t deserve— they deserve what ever they get.

Me, as I chew down a friggin tree, I am watching those tall pale motherfuckers grope and stumble about and all their shenanigans and hijinx and goings-on far away from their white meat hive. They are always up to something and it is not good! I hunch in the under-bush and observe piously. The Whatchacallums. I don’t know what they call em, but I am keeping a close eye, believe me, sailor. They are crunching around hooting and such—making hot spots and smelly areas, dis-infections, wire barriers and deafening reports— and corks. Kind of like Pepto Bismol colored or cocoa-flavored walking stick insects, but seven tails erect, some of them, cheap bastards in shabby threads and shecky Tees. Fleshy blabbing lemurs in stripes and dots or jaggered with canopies or jugends. Never for a minute quiet. Can’t shut up.

Last night in my sub-pond hidey hole, or beaver cave if you prefer, suit yourself, either way. I was shaking like a leaf, no shit. There was a BIG WHOPPING THUD right on my crap and I was freakin out, Inspector Fenwick. The twigs were heaving and shaking, rattling—I thought the whole mess would come loose, whisking me up some shit creek with a big fat functional fucking paddle, right? You with me? Sittin in splinters? But somehow! Gee whizz! Holey moley! Somehow my little soggy wet dripping love shack withstood whatever ever the fuck was going on out there. I didn’t dare look. Those fucking ass-holes—maybe Yogi or Bullwinkle J Moose or Wally Gator or some other dick, probably. Officer Ranger or some stupid fuck. Fucking around. Rattling on and on and on about something! Not minding their own damn business. Coming around here like mincing gaylords and tearing shit up in their propulsion units or dropping a royal pain in the loaf. Me, I chew a gas hose or starter connection now and then, I eagerly admit it. Slow up the snivelling shits, I say. Give em a kick. It’s only fair! They are fucking with my shit, right? Fuck, man! Boo hoo, right?

A gas hose is nothing. I can chew straight through a big honking log even! No problem! In no time flat. Like you would a carrot. But I’m not stuck up about it. How do i do it? You of all people should ask. Well, that’s for me to know and for you to miserably fail to find out. A trade secret. There is a technique and maybe a little show biz and deception involved, but I sincerely do gnaw my way through plank, heavy timber, branch or bough. There is a certain sincere angle that helps. I don’t try to analyze it, really. I knew since I was a little peckerwood that I had a gift, knack, talent, luck—a witching way with wood. Whatever you people call it. Board-feet. length-o-pine, pole, shim. peg. shilleleagh or switch!