I risk immodestly imagining that re-posting
this reply to a friend, Dia Volpe, about
a pic I affixed yesterday to my Facebook timeline of a chopped-off tree trunk (to which I
gave the caption: 'I don't know what to
say about this other than holy effin hmm') will be
of more general interest. I risk it, however, to bring to the attention of as
many people as I can reach the absorbingly interesting if alas, in most cases,
sorry state of mental hygiene of many, perhaps most, of New York's trees and
flowers. Pictures being worth a thousand
something-or-others, perhaps my cluster of same herewith will on their own be a
sufficient flag-down.
I’m
hoping the fact that there’s all this uninterrupted Serious-looking text won’t set anyone up for expecting
anything Serious from it. My addiction to cosmic hilarity sometimes takes the
form of high-falutin’ fancy language overkill which, alas, some try to parse as if I – well, meant it. I mean, I probably mean something, but it’s, um,
probably not – oh shut up, Kettelhack. Remember the completely warranted taboo
about ever trying to explain why something’s funny.
what I sayeth.
===================
Dia Volpe
Was that a tree toppled by hurricane Sandy?
Guy Kettelhack
Well, Sandy was October 2012, this truncated trunk pic dates from May 2013, so could be. However, numerous catastrophes befall trees. New York can nuzzle and kiss and lick you, sneeze on or halitosis you, fall asleep roll over & flatten you, freeze or burn you, drug you into craziness or stupor, or stare into your eyes with such relentless sociopathy that your mental hygiene deteriorates to the point of paranoia and/or hallucination and/or ungovernable despair and/or a state of such magical thinking that you imagine absolutely nothing bad can or will happen to you ever again as long as you keep living in it (New York saves this last mental illness for the really really gullible, like me, who 'suffer' - if that could possibly be the word - from the affliction with a blithe unknowingness).
Indeed, I think I may modestly claim to have applied myself over the years to what amounts (however unintentionally) to a reasonably telling anecdotal study of New York's effects on the mental hygiene of its trees and flowers, in a series of portraits of them at the extreme stages of their city-derived delusional mental and emotional illnesses, none of which, of course, bode well for a long or happy life (save the last magical thinking variety described above). As per the assortment of pics herewith.
As you'll see, this can involve conjuring real-as-life visions of pornographic bunnies in your branches, contorting yourself into humanoid forms or expressions, generally situational shapes you (if you're a tree or a flower) unconsciously create in your craving to believe they will make you alluring or interesting or eye-catching to human beings, whom you know to be your default caretakers when they're not absently or actively in the process of killing you.
Do not think for a moment that a Sycamore isn't entirely aware of every nanosecond of your behavior and facial expressions and body language. One of the reasons they arc over streets so gracefully is to pose more fetchingly for the eye of my iPhone camera. Don't think they didn't induce me to illuminate their plight of their schizophrenic tendencies. Leaves continually murmur to me about it. (Continually!) They're every bit as loquacious as stand pipes, and you know how THAT sub-culture has assailed me with their every whim and woe. It is part of the price I pay for my besotted love of New York - which of course includes sycamores & outside street plumbing. Prepare yourselves, when and if you ever visit me, for what I'm afraid will be the inescapably harrowing experience of walking down any New York street with me. You'll be whispered, crooned, hissed, yodeled and whistled at (standpipes are really good at whistling) from every variety of plant and sidewalk plumbing appliance. None of them doesn't know me by now. And I know their dreams and fears and longings and jokes.
===================
Dia Volpe
Was that a tree toppled by hurricane Sandy?
Guy Kettelhack
Well, Sandy was October 2012, this truncated trunk pic dates from May 2013, so could be. However, numerous catastrophes befall trees. New York can nuzzle and kiss and lick you, sneeze on or halitosis you, fall asleep roll over & flatten you, freeze or burn you, drug you into craziness or stupor, or stare into your eyes with such relentless sociopathy that your mental hygiene deteriorates to the point of paranoia and/or hallucination and/or ungovernable despair and/or a state of such magical thinking that you imagine absolutely nothing bad can or will happen to you ever again as long as you keep living in it (New York saves this last mental illness for the really really gullible, like me, who 'suffer' - if that could possibly be the word - from the affliction with a blithe unknowingness).
Indeed, I think I may modestly claim to have applied myself over the years to what amounts (however unintentionally) to a reasonably telling anecdotal study of New York's effects on the mental hygiene of its trees and flowers, in a series of portraits of them at the extreme stages of their city-derived delusional mental and emotional illnesses, none of which, of course, bode well for a long or happy life (save the last magical thinking variety described above). As per the assortment of pics herewith.
As you'll see, this can involve conjuring real-as-life visions of pornographic bunnies in your branches, contorting yourself into humanoid forms or expressions, generally situational shapes you (if you're a tree or a flower) unconsciously create in your craving to believe they will make you alluring or interesting or eye-catching to human beings, whom you know to be your default caretakers when they're not absently or actively in the process of killing you.
Do not think for a moment that a Sycamore isn't entirely aware of every nanosecond of your behavior and facial expressions and body language. One of the reasons they arc over streets so gracefully is to pose more fetchingly for the eye of my iPhone camera. Don't think they didn't induce me to illuminate their plight of their schizophrenic tendencies. Leaves continually murmur to me about it. (Continually!) They're every bit as loquacious as stand pipes, and you know how THAT sub-culture has assailed me with their every whim and woe. It is part of the price I pay for my besotted love of New York - which of course includes sycamores & outside street plumbing. Prepare yourselves, when and if you ever visit me, for what I'm afraid will be the inescapably harrowing experience of walking down any New York street with me. You'll be whispered, crooned, hissed, yodeled and whistled at (standpipes are really good at whistling) from every variety of plant and sidewalk plumbing appliance. None of them doesn't know me by now. And I know their dreams and fears and longings and jokes.
But I try
not to let on too overtly that I'm 'in on them.' Amazingly, other human beings
think I'm making it up! Imagine.
.
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