RIP Jimmy Crochet

Last night I attended a candlelight vigil for a beautiful person who passed away Saturday. Way, way too soon. We weren't super close, but I was crazy about him anyway. Everybody was, it seems.

I gave him a crochet lesson once. At first he was frustrated with the awkward, new feeling of the hook and yarn in his fingers. I invited him to think about other skills he had mastered--drawing and skateboarding--and how long it took his body to memorize those movements, and to have patience with himself.

As he practiced the chain stitch, we made up an elaborate history and etymology of crochet. He also told me about a high school girlfriend who had tried to teach him. It didn't work out (the relationship or the lesson), and he was determined to learn it now to spite her. I think he was mostly kidding.

Before long, he was on his second row of fairly even single-crochet stitches, so pleased with himself he didn't notice the time. He jumped up suddenly when he realized he was late for an open mic a friend of his was playing at.

Today I just want to be home crocheting mustaches in his memory.

Haiku for A.F.

You learned the chain stitch,
Which was invented in France
By Jimmy Crochet.

This looks a lot like the mustache he sometimes wore.

Sons of Death

Last night I had the extreme good fortune to see a great Vermont band with a very cool history. Rough Francis is three brothers from Burlington who got together initially to cover Bad Brains. Somewhere along the way, they discovered their father's band, formed in Detroit in the 70s with his two brothers, called Death. Rough Frances started covering them, and then writing and recording original music, with their first album coming out a year ago (which you could maybe get from Riot House if not your local record store).

All this I learned from my current mystery bandmate earlier this week (more "mystery band" here). I am now even more excited to watch A Band Called Death, which has been collecting dust in my Netflix queue.

Haiku for Intergenerational Afropunk

Rock is in their blood
From Detroit to Burlington
Long live Death and Sons

At SXSW. Photo by Greg Beets.

When Worlds Collide

Haiku for a False Binary

Thanks, I guess, but
I'm not the best of both worlds.
There are more than two.

Earth, Wind, and Fire (and Ice)

Last night, a friend was talking about winter and how it's been so freaking hard. They were explaining how it's particularly bleak for certain signs, like fire signs ("Help, it's cold!") and even water signs ("Help, I'm stuck!").

Leaving on foot, I was struck by the feeling of my relatively thin-soled motorcycle boots (compared to my snow boots, which I've lived in for months) on bare pavement. I thought about my own earth sign and how I might be adapted or not to moving on frozen ground buried beneath ice and snow. I'm looking forward to connecting to my source again.

Haiku for an Earth Sign

Walking on water
'Til the ice melts, now I feel
Ground under my feet.

It's too damn warm out.

Last night, after a rock show in a small venue full of stinky young people, a friend brought a bubble machine into the space and pointed it out the window. We scrambled down the stairs and into the alley to chase the frozen bubbles.

The cold made them more durable, not solid but gummy. We could catch them without popping them, and they would cave in but not disintegrate. After a while, they started collecting on the pavement, sticking to each other and rolling down the street in clumps of bubble-tumbleweeds.

We screamed with laughter and staggered around the alley like sugared-up toddlers. And wished it were even colder so we could see what the bubbles would do.

Seems like that's the value of magic, even the silly type of magic that makes soap bubbles into something strange and wondrous: that we are willing and even glad to give up what's comfortable (relative warmth at 20 degrees F) in exchange for possibility.

Haiku for Barely Frozen Bubbles

I stayed out too late
Breathing body odor and
Chasing bumbleweeds

Your Place or Never Mind?

Haiku for Non-Initiators

Well, we got this far.
Now we're sitting on a couch.
Thirteen is awkward.