...we innovate, inspire and support, we create an authentic space... ...Conscious jewelry, United Healing Modalities and DNA, ETs to Enlightenment. ...the Angelic Realm of Light. She shares photography, revealing this reality as it appears on digital images. ...prepare a spiritual cleansing bath using items that are common the kitchen [sic] and personal items. - Body Mind Spirit CELEBRATION Fair
The following day, I am on a bus home after work. I am sitting in the middle of a trio of people discussing being on probation, not supposed to be on probation, being put on parole, your parole officer telling you not to smoke pot even though you have a card allowing you to do so, one of the three being a guy with long salt and pepper hair and a beard and using oxygen who claims that the hospital won't fill a prescription for marijuana or Viagra "or anything," being accused by your parole officer of being a verbal abuser because your dad calls your parole officer to yell at her, having to pay for your UA, and showing up for your court date only to be told that your parole has been extended for another year.
The following morning, I am preparing to leave my house around a quarter to three in the am. I am looking all over the house for a hoodie which I had yesterday. I write a lot about my neighborhood, and perhaps I don't mention much which may be considered good. When I am out the door, I see that one of two things happened. Either I dropped it on the fence, which I consider highly unlikely, or I dropped it in front of the fence and someone found it and put it there for me. I doubt that someone would have done that for me in the neighborhood where I lived previously.
The next morning is another Saturday. I am on a bus to work. Not long after I get on, a drunk guy gets off. Another guy gets on. He mentions to the driver that he is looking for another boulevard which runs parallel to the one we are on. He falls into a seat and goes to sleep. The driver gets to a stop and puts the bus into park. He wakes up the guy to tell him that he can catch a crosstown bus to his boulevard. The guy tells him that he will just wait until the bus we are on gets to the end of the line and turns around, and comes back here. This does not appear to make sense to the driver, hope against hope, and he tells the guy that he "can't ride around with me all day." And the guy disembarks with dispatch.
Early this morning around 1 am we were shot at by paintball guns as we were walking out of our car. It appeared to be from a White [sic] Chrysler 300. They continued to shoot as they drove up the street. - Nextdoor Westwood, 3/9
...a neighbor...saw a van more than once scoping around the neighborhood. It looked like a trash bag on the passenger side window. Hispanic driver, acted like he was with a realtor when someone walked up to him. - Nextdoor Westwood, 3/13
...the U.S. is experiencing a revamped pop revival through...Korean pop, or "K-pop", bands. ...moving them into company dormitories. The young recruits train up to 14 hours a day, seven days a week for years... These recruits are prohibited from owning a cell phone, hanging out with friends or developing romantic relationships before their debut. ...after the company recoups its costs, there is little left for the artists... For all their passion, home-grown fans are not paying enough. The CD industry is stagnant, and digital music sites are seen as vastly underpriced... "...at the moment, it's not sustainable." - Asian Avenue, 2/2014
...totalitarian systems, yoking terror and ideology and claiming to dominate and shape the entirety of existence...in the name of a vision of a total utopia. The bourgeoisie has...in place of...chartered freedoms, set up...free trade. The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production...and with them the whole relations of society. The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must...establish connections everywhere. - Essential Works of Socialism, ed. by Irving Howe, 1970
It's the morning after St. Patrick's Day. I'm at the bus stop across the street from where I live, to catch an bus earlier than usual. It's a quarter to four am. Next door, at the gas station, there is a familiar guy standing in front of the door. He appears as if he is waiting for someone inside. He's a panhandler who used to live in a house just down the street from mine. I haven't seen him in months. Another guy comes out of the gas station, and the two head to his car. He asks the panhandler, "What's your name?"
SUNDAY MORNING AT 5:30 A.M. ...As I was walking out into Times Square from Port Authority, I ran into Busta Rhymes... ...he was talking to some dude, so I just kept movin'. ...out to the corner of 42nd Street and 7th Avenue, out in the middle of the street, there were top to bottom lights, cameras, stages, cops... Merchandise is everywhere you look. What do people really want? FOX Sports Live had a stage where there was always a big audience around causing a commotion. ...there was always a soundtrack of music coming from the studio ij the middle of 46th street and Broadway. There are guys in red from the Times Square Alliance that [sic] are picking up trash. It's so hard to hear myself think. NYC food can get really expensive. Homeless people are all over the place panhandling to travelers. Some are living under tarps on the side of Port Authority. Blondie played a set in the street for over an hour that had everybody really going.
THE ELYRIA-SWANSEA NEIGHBORHOOD in Denver sits on an awkward residential-industrial intersection. ...most of the neighborhood's 10,000 residents...lack access to banks, pharmacies, and grocery stores. "We can't really afford to move to a nice neighborhood." Some local gardeners are hoping to create demand... "You have to get kids to taste produce, and you can't educate the kids without educating the parents. ...you can't change from Cheetos to kale unless you appreciate the difference." Education programs provide resources to make...gardens sustainable. "It's long-term food security, not emergency-aid, for people in need." "The purpose of food banks has shifted in the past 20 years. Where they used to be primarily for emergency food assistance they are now a regular source of food that people depend on." "Land is the thing that a lot of [urban] gardeners want and can't find access to..." - Denver Voice, 3/2014
Foodies flock to nationally lauded new restaurants housed in shuttered factories, while well-to-do college graduates rent their first apartments... ...out of the Great Recession and into a broad, rising prosperity... "It's like high school with money. We all know each other. We know the spouses. We know the dogs." On any given day...over deviled eggs and sugar bacon...there are reformers and politicians and bankers and artists and academics...figuring out how to use stories to create appealing lives and livelihoods. - Time, 3/17/2014
Editor's Letter HEAD FOR THE HILLS
Everyone comes out for Spring... Some want to find steep terrain and untracked glades; others are in it for the apres ski. Our job...is to dig in and experience Vail...and then tell the tale. ...pursue the latest in kids' gear. Follow...one daring duo's quest to ski seven resorts in one exhausting day, and then create your own plan of attack for this, that and the other. Just make sure you enjoy it...
Our homes not only reflect our personal style; they can also reveal our mindset, the way we make our way through the world, and even our innermost desires. ...a project for a former Stafford Golf Team captain, who lives a very dynamic life, traveling all over the world with his wife, who was a news anchor. The structure...with walls of windows that are concave to the outside, in order to highlight the golf course outside the home... "Most of us want a sense of shelter and security, so we look for elements that speak of substance. Some thrive on adventure, so there might be an articulation of forms, a wide glass wall across the vista or a soaring balcony that quickens your pulse." The open expansiveness found in great rooms adds to a sense of psychological transparency... - Vail Lifestyle, Spring 2014
...the giant multi-national transportation firm that owns Yellow Cab is attempting to buy Metro Taxi, which could result in a single company controlling a majority of the city's $70 million annual taxi business. "What happens when Uber puts me out of business and there are fewer and fewer cabs? Do you think those...left are going to be...picking people up at the hospital? Not everyone has a smartphone; not everyone has a credit card. We are not replaceable. We are absolutely essential to the functioning of a city." - Westword, 3/20-26/2014
It's the first day of Spring. I'm out the door and across the street to the bus stop. I can see someone or something in the bus shelter. When I get there, I can see that it's a guy in a wheel chair. He is bent over asleep. When the bus shows up, he wakes up and gets on with the rest of us. His entire head is the same shade of red-brown, and he speaks with an unintelligble voice of gravel. Monday of the following week, I am on the same bus at 5 am. In one seat is a young woman putting on her makeup for the entire ride. In a seat up front is a middle-aged guy talking to the driver. "I remember you," he tells the driver. "I met you on our first day." I get off the bus and run into the deathburger. Seated at a corner booth are three people, all dressed in the same dark shade of clothes. There is a younger guy with a laptop, making use of the wi-fi. Together with his watch cap, his outfit reminds me of the illustration on police shooting targets. The other two are a middle-aged couple. The following day I am back at my usual bus stop. Of the people waiting for my bus, four are wearing what appears to be uniforms with name patches sewn on their jackets, as well as work boots. Three of them are woman. One has bleached hair and is smoking and coughing.
The next day, I am working a late shift. A couple of panhandlers are discussing their scores. One guy, with a Harley T-shirt and weather-beaten face, tells the other, "The first guy gave me 23 cents. The next guy gave me a ten, and the one after that gave me a ten." The day after, I am again working a late shift, and I'm at the deathburger much later in the morning than 5 am. A panhandler comes in and sits at a table next to another guy. This other guy has what appears to be nails, screws, and other such items from a hardware store packaged in groups spread all over his table. He tells the panhandler, who he appears to know, to "keep an eye on" his stuff, "'cause that's your job," he instructs him. The guy with the nails appears to head out to a drug store next door. While he's gone, the panhandler asks me three times, "How's it going?" A young guy comes in, and the panhandler asks him if he can spare a cigarette. When the young guy comes up with one, the panhandler asks him, "Gonna go smoke?" He appears to expect this stranger to go outside and smoke with him. After I leave, I pass the hardware guy on the way back. With both a soda and a coffee back on his table back inside, he's coming back with a bottle of water. The next day, after work, I'm on a bus home. A guy is sitting next to a younger girl, telling her about his day in excruciating technical detail. He makes a call to his work on his phone. He's a security guard who is calling his boss to ask if he can take his "little sister up from (Colorado) Springs on a quick tour" of the building which he works in. He makes a reference to the hour when he will begin his shift on "fire watch", at "sixteen hundred hours." He says "Yes, sir," and then bids goodbye to someone with a female name.
The next morning is another Saturday at my usual bus stop. 5 am. An elderly gentleman comes shuffling along. On a cold morning, he's without a coat, but otherwise appears as any other grandfather in a sweatshirt. With a raspy voice, he asks me, "Hey brother, have you got a smoke or anything?" When I tell him that I don't smoke, he shuffles off toward the deathburger. This early morning, the bus stops are dotted with people waiting for their bus. Mine shows up, and it has just begun moving before it again comes to a stop. One last guy slowly climbs up the steps. When the driver gives him a transfer, which appears to confuse him momentarily. As he slowly, slowly steps down the isle, I see a middle-aged, grizzled face hidden under the hood of a coat and a rope for his belt.
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