I recently went down to California for the dual purpose of retrieving Jade from the previously-posted summer in the Sierras, as well as hitting up Tuolomne for some classics. Time is always shorter than you’d hope, but we tried to make the best of it. Arriving mid-afternoon on Wednesday and miraculously finding an open site at Porcupine Flats($10/site a night!), we went out to Olmstead Canyon for a brief cragging session, the best we could hope for with a sky full of puffy clouds and a 18-hr-train-ride sore back for myself.

We looked for a good warmup climb, only finding a 10a hand-to-finger crack on the right side of the ivory tower, which we both sent cleanly and boosted our morale for the prospects of the next three days. We top-roped a 5.8 offwidth which proved to be a great bit of practice for our final day. After that, desiring true brutality and punishment, we went and top-roped the sinister Galen’s Crack (10c offwidth). We were both summarily spanked, and I left a modicum of flesh on the crack as a snack for the adventurous anoles about the area.

We had both (obviously) wanted to climb Fairview Dome’s Regular Route (5.9), but were slightly spooked by the prospects of thunderstorms and getting stuck behind slow parties (or both!), so we got a nice alpine-rock start (4 am vs. 1 am) the next day. First at the base of the climb by 6 am. Jade led the first pitch, and we swapped leads from there.




A truly wonderful climb. Puffy clouds remained in the sky, but we moved quickly and topped out by noon. After the very fun ledgy traverse, we simuled the final 300 feet of 4-5.6 climbing, and pitched the top out. 6 hrs up, first on top for the day, and beautiful views on all sides. Summit cigarette and photos, then a mellow walk-off and a large, carb-heavy dinner back at camp.

The next morning we woke up late, enjoyed a decadent breakfast with copious coffee, and headed out to DAFF Dome to do the West Crack (5.9 5 pitches). There was a bit of a line by that time, so we climbed the 5.9 Witch of the West sport route next to it, then got on the crack proper. What a fun climb! So many knobs and crystals that you can really vary your crack technique quite a bit. Great hands, great fingers, and mellow belay spots that eat up gear. Another 5-star climb…we’re getting spoiled. We hung out on the top, repeated the sundry summit rituals, then rapped off and headed back to camp.

Last day! We wanted our money’s worth, and the only two objectives that were screaming out at us (On the Lamb, Phobos, and Hobbit Book were the distant runners up) were Cathedral Peak and Eichorn’s Pinnacle. No better way to get at these two than right in a row: our first baby link up! Another 4 am wake up, and were the first people on the Southeast Buttress (5.6) by 6 am on a Saturday. Rare, but not unheard of. We cruised the route, simul-climbing the first bit, then pitching out to make for 5 pitches on 700′. We topped out and took in the views (amazing as they are) before down-climbing to the old John Muir route and heading down to the base of Eichorn’s Pinnacle West Pillar (5.9 700′). We climbed Cathedral in 3 hours, giving us ample time to laze in the sun, get more dehydrated, and kvetch as a slow and nervous team jumped in front of us, then bailed, then asked us to retrieve their gear for them.


Jade led the first strenuous 5.9 offwidth in great style, setting a fine belay above the crack system. I sent down the errant gear to our fellow climbers, followed the pitch, then was greeted by the much-different-than-advertised 2nd pitch. 5.9 awkward flare it says, but doesn’t mention the runout roof traverse and traverse on rotting (for Tuolomne) granite that brings you to the awkward flare. Anyhow, the pitch proved exhilarating and one of, if not my favorite lead pitches to date. The 5.9 flare was another strenuous offwidth that spit me out at a nice enough ledge for me to ditch shoes and take in the views. Jade came up, enjoying the gnar traverse before heading up for the next pitch. This pitch proved to be another fantastic lead on Jade’s part. Very exposed, varied climbing from cracks, to knbby face, to flakes, to chimney/stemming. This brought us a little lower than the suggested belay, but rope drag wasn’t to be argued with. I took the next “pitch”, a 4th class traverse with a 5.6 move to the base of the Rib-Wrestling gully.

Jade took the next pitch, traversing into the gully and making up to yet another 5.9 offwidth. Good god, why so many in so small a space. Jade burled through this final obstacle and brought me up. I climbed the final 50 feet to the summit, brought Jade up, and we basked in the piercing sun on the glassy granite. Chapped, bloody, and dehydrated, but a perfect day of climbing. Summit rituals and then a rap down. We picked up our gear, hit the JMT and got back to the road without having to turn headlamps on (9:30 pm). All the climbing that daylight and a tight schedule could afford!

Sick sends, great granite, lengthy link ups. Can’t wait for my hands to heal to get back on some gnar rock!

Our meadows

PLACE

Yosemite Valley

South Lake Tahoe, our home

Lake Tahoe chillers on a day off.

Yosemite Falls

A big tree

CLIMB

V0 highball at the Buttermilks. Bishop, CA

Adam on an unclimbed boulder.

Bouldering at Lover’s Leap.

Atop Manure Pile Buttress, Yosemite.

View of Royal Arches Route (16 pitches, 5.10b/5.7 A0) from Glacier Point.

Looking up at the blank 10b slab and the A0 pendulum on Royal Arches. Jade free climbed the slab, Adam did the hilariously fun pendulum.

Adam on a barefoot lead of the notorious waterfall pitch.

Top out.  God damn.

Jade leading the slabs of Pywiack Dome, Tuolumne.

Adam leads the final crack up the headwall.

Pywiack top-out. Tuolumne high country beyond.

Bouldering in Tuolumne.

Adam attempts the second ascent of Salacious Crimp (V4) at Round Meadow, Stanislaus National Forest.

At one point they joined to form and ice-thmus from hair to mustache.

A thread has begun and there are 6 of us ‘brainstorming’. The timeline is set for an execution of 2012/13.

My first, and current, focus is to spread the word a bit; probe interest:
‘You’ -the lasercave community- came to my mind first; for obvious reasons.

So, say the word.

GREG

Jade and I had the pleasure of rather lovely weather for a trip to Smith Rock with aspirations for a Monkey Face Climb. We got to Smith later in the day on Sunday, so we cragged around on some pretty fun basalt columns in the lower gorge. Met some hilarious 19 yr old ‘fer sherrr bros from Walla Walla at night who were emphatically “stoked” that we had tortilla chips. Future senators indeed!

We managed to be the first people on the column, starting up the west face variation (variation) of the Pioneer Route. It tacks two lovely pitches of 5.7, 5.8 up to Bohn Street and the fun(ny) bolt ladder.

Jade killed the first pitch, nice flake and pockets up a moderate corner. Following was awkward with a backpack and extra rope through a very tiny chimney.

I took pitch two, and was greeted by hail and little snow upon starting. There’s a rather spicy, unprotectable move to traverse into a crack to the above left of the belay that gave me pause. Well met, March! Then came a lovely crack on weird rock.

Neither of us have ever aid climbed, but Jade played on a bolt ladder in a garage, making him the shoe-in for the A1 ladder pitch on the monkey’s neck. Jade did very well, moving quickly and methodically. I took forever, bled, laughed, took longer, and thrutched up into the monkey’s mouth joining Jade.

At this point, we added a climber to the team, one David. Total chiller central Oregon dream, brewing beer for Deschutes and climbing all the time. He’d been rope soloing, but joined onto our team to speed his end along so teams that were starting to climb wouldn’t have had to wait for him to work his way up. After being challenged to a pissing contest by some self-proclaimed free-soloist on a cliff near the climb, David shut him down with the beautiful,”part of soloing…is not talking to anyone.” David talked to us the rest of the climb, taking pictures and giving an amazing tour of the park.

After the bolt ladder you just get to chill as hard as you want in the monkey’s mouth cave.

Then comes the funnest little pitch ever. “Panic Point,” a 5.7 barn-door/blind traversey thing out of the monkey’s mouth with some lovely, very airy exposure below. A dropped carabiner would have to fall about 175 feet before hitting the base of the tower. Here’s some other climbers following on the pitch.

Then a scramble up to the summit. Great views of the central OR cascades and weird houses!

Then came a very very fun rappel. David went first and took pictures, the bro-among-bros. I followed

and Jade field-tested his backup knot

Sick!

Such a fun climb!  Made possible by Lord of the Rings Audio book, Red Bull, and chips.

Middle February

116 k day into this jungle city paradise. Forts and palaces to explore, and a river for daily swim.

Shivaratri commence. In lue of “shubaratri” (good night),  Orchha comes alive past 9 to make merry like “there’s no other time”.  No bhang lassi reverie with  my lost travelers in Varanasi- a rained out cycle day spent playing chess. Yesterday we wandered into the square outside of the only religiously relevant building in this city of ruins, which is not an architectural gem. Wedding music blares, Bangara drummers funnel blast beats of energy. I take out my guitar and start to play along, drawing a crowd and locking eyes. Oh, the Saddhu we helped into the nature sanctuary the day before wants us to follow him. He leads us into a circle playing baijan on Sarangis and tiny cymbals. Our guy plays a little hand drum-I take out my guitar and look at him through his thick glasses.  My guitar is magically and randomly open tuned to the same chord of the Sarangis.

Call and response “Sita-Ram”, “Hare Krishna”. I chordify baijan classics, sharing in the exact romaticized way we’ve put our search for on the backburner in exchange for hot showers and lemon tart. My plan to unload my wallet on these holy beggars is foiled only by their incessant asking for money.  Interrupting the music- “Money”-I ignore. “Rupees, Rupees!”. Of course we give. But the harsh reality reigns another day-money is the basis of every friendly exchange here.  India will never give us what we hope for, and tends not to give us what we expect. But as soon as we give in, agree to love or hate it, it smacks us in the face with a stomach flu or sunset river dip.

“ride awaaay”

GWALIOR

End February

Too much “real India”. The city is off the tourist loop, and left us fending for ourselves from the bottom of the food chain in a “law of the jungle” economy with fewer western comforts. Being bullied by greater vehicles amidst insane traffic, being ripped off more, and general heckling left us indulging more intensely in soda, ice cream, and television. We upgraded rooms to view “Street Fighter” in Hindi on our big rest/recovery day.

More of the same, if you can call experiencing extremes “sameness” (Which one can more easily here). Exploring the fort that sits atop the city (turns out architecture is the best thing about India) we were pleased to meet a good hearted, wispy bearded man at the Sikh temple. He gave us food and chai in an enormous dining hall where everyone sits on the ground in lines and cleans their plate. He treated us as pilgrims in the classical sense. He offered us a place to stay around the temple for free. A place where a traveler in a strange land may have some peace and dignity. We left the temple evolved from a cocoon(a) of judgments (unevolved Beedrills) about the nature of the Indian, open hearted and greeting strangers with “Namaskars” to show respect. We smoked a bidi on the fort wall, overlooking the city in smog. We heard yells from above in Indian half-englishy, threats and curses. A group of teenagers were throwing rocks at us from hundreds of feet up. Multiple encounters on the ride home left us cursing the idiocy and ignorance of India’s layfolk.

I am learning the value of “callous” here. Whatever’s I do do is what I do, and there’s some rightness in it. There’s wayyy better places to work on opening the heart than India. Expand in the comforts, attack and defend when in its almost a matter of survival, lest we finally push our luck and in our ultimate plunge into the unknown suffer death, which we can’t better ourselves with.

SHIVPURI

ender February

Such grace led us to the holy mandir (temple), where we deed as Baba’s do for 3 days. It started with a young 17 year old’s prayer to Hanuman that his dream of meeting a westerner may finally be granted, after 2 years of studying English from the songs of Akon.  After an hours conversation, mostly translations of American slang and uncomfortable descriptions of sexual acts, we asked to stay in his home. Too embarrassed to show us wher he lives, he took us to a temple which sat under a spring, and the keeper of this holy place agreed to let us stay.

The babas, whether out of ignorance  or disinterest in value judgments of “good” and “bad” possessed as little ecological consciousness as the rest of India, littering plastic chai cups and washing oily dishes in the source of fresh water for the wildlife of Madhav national park. Sharing their lifestyle for a few days was a gift and required little renunciation, save the headmaster Baba insisting that I use his blanket instead of my sleeping bag, which everyone was equally astonished and disgusted by.  These people know how to live: wake early, bath, meditate, eat delicious, simple food, do Assana, formal prayer and Baijan singing, hitting the chillum violently and drinking chai throughout the day. And all in the name of god.

JAIPUR

Beginning March

” Bundar manu, Holi hai!” That’s what we say to victims of our bicycle, water balloon drivebys on this holiday-Holi. Day…of water and color bombs, dished backhanded to approved victims based on their response to a “Happy Holi” as we approached. If there was no risk of cold blooded, cruel natured revenge, I flung one and rode away with a “scram!”. “Do’t mind, it’s Holi!”, and most didn’t. The foul looks and nastiness that we often receive at the whims of overproudy teenagers and young men as we ride by have, for the time being, transformed to smiles, hugs, and a generous smearing of purple powder dye on our cheeks.

We stayed in a guest house occupied by a cross section of a family with a long lineage of musical mastery.  The current bearer of the flame, 17 year old named Zuber,  is presently a finalist on Indian Idol. His crystal voice could easily come to be recognized through overdriven speakers on street corners across India. Each morning we  practice Qawwli singing. The home cooking is Rajasthan flavored and delicious. Our room has lot of windows and smells like old books. During the day, pigeons fly in and out of the open windows as I play guitar and write poems.

Hardcore roadside calorie clincher

Sikh wedding. Guess I was doin’ “the zombie”

We biked many sun baking, wind whipping, lip parching days through the desert of Rajasthan to get to  Udaipur  , oasis city where the “bicycle adventure” portion of the trip ends and the “traveling with parents” section commences. We meet my dad and grandparents here tomorrow, and do aspire to sneak our filthy selves into the Lake Palace hotel to stay with them, most romantic and luxurious hotel in all of India. I always thought of this section as the icing on the cherry of the cake of this trip, very end, lap of luxury. Weird! Home on April 7th. Thanks for reading my blodglings’zes!

FALL_APART_PARK_

BOOK 1
1.
The doors -monstrous- creak, crack, crunch, and moan: open.
Step over the threshold and accept this City; cast foot upon this portentous promenade, do come along this caustic causeway . . .

Through the doors . . . A gnarly cinema marquee -the off-white board, the plastic-backed black lettering, the red border- addresses the arrivals: “as we build so shall we live; 69 of 73.”

Within now: stop; this is the City.
The entrance dais is up so high, a visitor just has to halt, adaze . . .
Head, arcing full -left to right- glides the wild width;
as shock gives way to focus, the City unfurls.
This severe view of the City below inspires at once a panoramic notion, yet perhaps moreso, a riot -riot- of vigorous density. It’s this dense vigor that stuns: this City is alive. Its verdurous pulse beats upon its sleeve. Its every inhalation, every exhalation a ripple sent through its weedy streets.
A chill breeze breathes, tossing around some trash; one’s a tabloid . . . see the words: “What we build creates possibilities for, and limits on the way we live; 67 of 73,” italicized upon it?

What is this pulse? What are these beats? What breath? What italicization?

This City -this place- it is green. Exclamatorily. The city is awash, aflood in green. It bolts from windows -long tendrils freely creep and creepers splay unabated. Unchecked it is unchained . . . it struts and dives from overhangs; it dominates balustrades, paints arches -keystone and all . . . mops rooftops; it paints chimneys leaf green, terraces sweet green, the variety of greens is of an old forest. The City has become an old forest!
The City’s cape is a greenscape, athrive with life: thick leaf aripple, beat and breathe.
The cityscape is a mad-artist’s palette slung upon canvas, a palette of earthly greens, a rave of lawless green. The greenery, it is the City’s skin; a precious peach caked in mold . . .
What’s more: the expression and the voice. For if once, indeed, there was a time when the City’s voice was that of automobile, superfluous static, that of the hectic, the hindrance, the daily-grind . . . jingle jangle, discordance and shit . . . then now: the City’s voice is a crew of crickets; it is a wide moon; the wind flows cleanly along your soft leaf wall; your sweet voice is probiotic.

But oh: the many voices of this City . . . this City of our future . . . “This is not some slow, controlled change we’re talking about. its fast, its unpredictable, and tis unprecedented; 23 of 73,” proclaims a great pillar, the words destined into its wood. A pathetic carved eagle crests the top; the beak, gone . . . one wing, broke. How many winters have born upon it: this wild animal, so symbolized to death?

Hitherto -for all the green- the grey; the City, is a skeleton now. The original City bides; eking out its existence, taut to remember, straining to remain -cobble to cliff, rafter to rooftop- aruminating. The skeleton is all but assimilated; all but consumed.
To see you thus! Battle-bathed in green-blood. Your exterior rots -seized and colonized even! Your own devilish tables are turned! Serenity ridiculed, your buying power is devastated: where are your spick n’span, polished offices now? Your flawless heights? Where are your civilized trimmings now? Tarnished, sullied, dishonored. All those choice cutlets? Where indeed . . . !
With each spat of bird shit on each front-desk, each weed or rose arisen in each street . . . with each broken window . . . with every resident deer, fox, varmint . . . busted water-pipe, sun-bleached alleyway . . . each threatening seed aloft, an insurgent parachuting . . .
The City is aghast, falling back; the mutiny slinks, while the City shrinks.
You are dying. Your buildings, skyscrapers, your avenues and residential blocks, they are starving and they are dying. They cringe and cower . . . and die slow . . .

2.
But oh -and ah- what is a healthy body without a skeleton? And this, this -you City- must understand: this is your destiny, your fate. Embrace this: bow to your new, green existence; submit, surrender to your new master; for you have been dethroned.
And it is here -where the City will not accept reality, yet the scene screams of it- here is where the beauty lies. Here is the arresting dynamic. With only teeth and the bones left, the City fragmented, the tide has turned and your disfigurement is just delightful. Misshapen, you are elegant, engaging, and magnificent once again. Revel in your revolution. You are cleansed . . . crisp, raw, innovative, and again drop-dead interesting . . . you are reborn.

Yet no. Or, rather, sort of. Yes, you are reborn . . . Sure. But . . .
Is it ever simple? Could it ever be? No. All is not obvious. No, not straightforward. Because: what are you without us? Without human beings, what can you be? An uneventful coffin, boring; nothing more than a dead-weight; a useless experiment; a hollow thing under a microscope. Sterile, objective, and dull . . .
For the dynamic, the tension, the combo is, what it, is, all about; praise the strife, the contrast, the human condition, for it is what is interesting.
And so to gush of the green-scene -to dilly amongst this cultural psychedelia and dally amidst its debris; to foo-foo and hippy- speaks only the obvious of Fall-Apart-Park, the surface-layer. Ahhh, to be sure, the feralized city is innately interesting. What beauty does lie therein . . . But sprinkle the people and look: fascinating as magic . . .
And so, Fall Apart Park is not just a City revolutionized, an urban setting with a post-modern paint-job, nor hippy’d, no. This City is not Mickey Mouse. This City is Fall Apart Park.
And so -naturally, to be sure- Welcome.

Enter this City- cast foot upon this promenade, this causeway. Yes. Within the double-doors, weave with the entryway.

Book 2
3.
A boy is seated. The seat is a kind of chair, for it’s an ancient stump. Massive. Perhaps odd, but it sure makes a sensational chair. Five steps rise to the cushioned platform, and in each, wild flowers live, small ferns and mosses, too. Some hundred mushrooms -of maybe a dozen varieties- blankets the perch.

About the base of the fantastic chair, is a canvas: “Welcome To The New Frontier; 71 of 73.” It’s a painting.
As well, a tablet: “There are millions of interesting speculative ideas out there, with people re-imagining what their cities could be, but the problem is precisely that no one is building them; 20 of 73.” That’s a poem.
Not lastly: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it; 30 of 73.” This’s a reality.

From the venerable hollow, aloft, the boy gazes; observing, taking-in the City’s panorama . . .
A single street follows like a bee-line, and it is heavy with action and movement . . . an assortment of buildings follow its either side. The street and buildings end at an enormous skyscraper, outvasting the cloud-cover and burying the horizon. Some patches of structures crouches, smears, and bleaks at either side of the megalith; on the left, a freneticism of activity, people or ants scuttling and whirling . . . on the right, the people or snails move slow, druggedly. Behind the dominating skyscraper, an arc of squatter, dismal and roily scrapers touch the dangers of the wilderness, forever behind. How they manage to stand at all, prompts speculation. So ruined and crappy, the ‘buildings’ must truly be as good as dead, looking like a nuclear aftermath, all rubble and wreck.

From the look-out the boy stares. Meditating, or thinking, or just concentrating. Wondering or speculating, maybe. Maybe just trying to relax and act normal . . . maybe just taking it easy . . .

Whatever the boy is up to up there, the continuos flow of visitors pours on. The doors, like funnels, stream and slosh. Mostly, the people make a line, naturally, curiously obedient, and thus the line centipedes into the City Park.
Though the enter in this way, they exit all differently. Walking choppy and halty, in chunks and pieces. Bit on bit the visitors leave, not so neat or trim any longer . . .

The boy of prospect descends the marvel and walks next to the line of people, outclipping their amble.
The pathway shallows, gentles -ease by soft ease- down, down down to the Park below; on it proceed the chain-calvacade and the boy.

4.
Quite quickly, the procession reaches a number of benches surrounding an artesian well. The constant flow pours and pours . . . if not into a mouth, or cupped-hands, or a bottle, then into the channel. The watercourse tributaries, nourishing a great number of plants. To sit here, it’s easy to decompress or collect one’s self. A plaque explains that when the City was founded, there were nearly one-hundred such wells. In the event of baffling decision making and current lifestyle choices, so many were capped, plugged, and otherwise stopped that this single one remains. Whatever could be more essential, more critical than water, it’s hard to know . . .
The boy fronts the well and its garden, through the sound of the trickling-tickle, the purring-purling, the murmur . . . *******
Beneath this slow yet unshakable transformation; below this nature’s re-appropriation; under the growth of trees, their yogic limbs; under wood and thick thicket; under Mother Nature: under this new reality . . . debris and brickwork, plaster and masonry, glass and metal, these chaff and dreck lay undertone. Civilization, humanity -honest insignificant disregards- the ancient fact of us, our work, can be winced. Our toils and sweats, back and heart breaks, can be sniffed out. Wipe away the humus, slide aside the rich soil, and you will find it. Beneath the teeming Earth -this cauldron of power- reside our dead dreams, antiquated.

the boy squints at the mutilated A good lot of the visitors find a bench . . .

Three backpacked explorers pass, heading for the exit, nearly out now . . . their voices are higher than the surroundings: “Can you believe that?!” He wipes his beady brow and with it his worry.
The speaker’s companions prop a silent, speechlessness; their silence saying more of the situation than words could suggest . . .
The boy hears that and sneers joyously. He carries his smirk to a bench where he might listen-in . . .
Then, again the leftmost lets out: “Jesus.”
Subsequently: “I don’t believe it . . .” . . . “How did they ever . . . pull that off?”
The emphasis on the three ital’d words is equal. He who said it, peels-off from the group to sigh upon a bench.
He reaches into a shirt pocket: “Peak oil informs everything. People ought to know about that, butt they don’t . . . we depend on it for everything; 26 of 73.” His head collapses into his hands . . . he drags his eyes to the sky where a blimp quips: “The debate is about whether we will have anything remotely as convenient and powerful in place to continue propping our gigantic human population and enormous levels of consumption when the supply of oil begins sliding off; 25 of 73.”
“Oh God . . .” he says.
The boy looks to the blimp in the sky, snickering into his hands.
The other two half-notice their friend’s absence, half-stop; stop; retrace the few steps to plunk down, too. Three to the bench, shoulder to shoulder to shoulder; second. Second. And, second. Then . . .
“I mean . . .” eyebrows draw an exhale, then: “. . . I knew it was a . . . social-commentary . . . or whatever . . . environmental degradation . . . economic collapse . . . the meltdown; but shit . . .” says the middle of the seated three.
The fellow to his left -arm slung about the back of the bench: head drooped to the grit ground, pebbly: scattered babblesome by so many shoes- opens his mouth: “ . . . . . ”
He shuts it.
Opens it again:
“Mmmm . . .” thinking, breaking-off yet again, lost for words, head still acloud.
“Hmmm!” she finishes for the cat-tongued.
With something between broken and slurred speech, he aims again:
“Well, well . . . . . well?”
“The reality is . . . well it’s downright disgusting.” This is the left-most of the three.
“Wait.” This is the girl speaking again. “So: it’s Fall Apart Park, right? ‘Come and see the collapse.’
Meanwhile, the boy is folding paper.

4.
“Okay. But what kind of collapse?” she continues. “Social . . . Structural . . .” loses focus, scrunch-eyed.
“And Environmental,” adds the middle.
“Don’t forget emotional,” mewls the left-most: face all melty in hands so shaky; sifty: sand through a screen.
“Right,” she continues. “Three: Social, Structural, and Environmental; emotional (italicizing stresses the weight on the trio) and economic can fall under the umbrella of Social. The Park is divided into thr . . .”
Interrupting: “Four,” breathe both left and right.
The boy nods imperceptibly.
“Okay. Right. Sure . . . ‘four’.” She inhales quick, “Still:” exhales slow, her tempo back, “so you are talking about . . . ‘social collapse’ when you say its disgusting?
“I guess . . . social,” plainly squinty. “I guess I am talking about social collapse being disgus . . .” Cut-off:
“I guess?” She scoffs. “But what do you mean by disgusting? Like it’s bothersome to you? Like: Emotionally, personally? Or: that it is disturbing and wrong, period.”
“ . . . I, uh . . . I don’t really know . . . what you just said . . .”
The boy laughs out-loud this time. But the three don’t really pay attention, can’t really pay attention.
“How about this: What’s disgusting?”
By now the middle of the three is leaning, way back, out of crossfire, eyeing the cottoned sky -the blimp having passed- momentarily calmed by the relatively cleanish, powder-blue beauty . . . Only to be brought back by his own whip-lash: “What are you talking about? You saw the man on fire! You saw the pot-bellied kids, so sick, the spittle and the puke, begging for change! You saw the rebels and the riot! The God-Damned starving and dying!”
The cathartic expulsion wracks the the man with shivers, feverishly.
A tiny pause passes, heavy as a hippo. The boys eyes wink and light.
“It’s a reality. It happens all the time, all over the world; it’s happening right now even,” she continues.
All three sink with that, lead-bellied.
Then: “We just got closer to it today than we usually do. At home.”
“Or at work,” the middle adds, a bit of stability found.
“I still think it’s disgusting . . .”
“Obviously. Whatever.”
“Whatever to you.”
The boy laughs again.

A minute -full of people, of all kinds, reeling and veering about the bench, their words sometimes spoken, sometimes heard- passes. A pile of origami mounds on the bench with the boy.

“But I wonder: what can people do to each other under stress? What lengths will people go to -to survive- when comfort and stability are gone? What happens when it breaks? Our way of life, our consumptive habits, our ignorant squandering of finite energy, our cursed habit. When the jig is up . . . We all know it’s coming . . .Where will our food come from, our water, our heat, where will these necessities come from when the industrial oil-complex can’t provide them anymore? But [she shakes something out of here head] I misaim my words; what will we do -as individuals, families, towns, and cities; as a species- when the our lifestyle quits?”
A bottle of beer is passed to her. She looks at it; drinks from it; sets it upon her knee, still looking at it: through the glass, on the other side of the label -that which sticks to the bottle- is written: “We have at most 10 years -not 10 years to decide upon action- but 10 years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions; 24 of 73.”
“Certainly, desperate people do desperate things.” says the middlemost.
“Too, too true,” she follows.
“Well, we’ll see, won’t we?”
“Shit.”

5.
Sitting here, upon this bench, eyes cast downward, the City reveals itself in full -block on block derelict, a panoramic macro-crumbling; the end, awaiting dastardly leopardly, in the near near distance . . . awaiting, taut and crouched; a dynamite a detonate. The three’s eyes ache at the outlook.
The City is a tremendous tensegrity sculpture, demanding disbelief. A dicey environment, both highly volatile and tempestuous. Every single visitor asks: How does it stand? Is it going to truly fall-apart right now?
No; somehow, not yet. Now?

The three hunchy, buckled bodies quit the bench that sits the last overlook. Weaving through the benches, heading towards the exit, the three pass an origami mobile, yarned together with twigs and branches. The girl pauses at it; and stops one cube in its wind-propelled spin to read: “ .” AND
Reading the quotes, she is oblivious to the boy . . . she turns on her heel, to join her friends. With that, the three mutter and muff their thoughts as they lurch on.

A fat cloud parts, a beam escapes, a building brightens. Away and below, the beaming building kindles the city aglow. But then, for all that, a number of minor clouds swirl and coalesce and unite; then suffocate the sun; the building duly so.
The boy moves on . . . just a five minute walk, the whirly preamble, and then the City.

6.
The boy resumes his fringe, flanking the tourist queue; but quickly poofs from sight . . .
The pathway widens and flattens . . . a signpost reads: Bonescape. Then, so rupturous of a sudden; cataractic, a cacophony; what was the flat street is now everything but. The shattered street is a cold and dry ferment of fantastic shards . . . the visitors halt, suspended. Oooh’s and ahhh’s are heard up and down. The centipede gathers itself, kind of; it lurches on.
The sharded road pitches huge blocks of asphalt every-which-way . . . a wily forty-five degree scramble here; a titanic smooth, slab-sheet there; an elderly chunk-on-chunk saunter-stutter now. Hand-rails assist these travelers and expedite the crowded populace round, between, through an introduction, asketch and akimbo. Steps chisel the asphalt, azig a switchback, azag a roundabout.

This grey daggery bonescape shards the distant Downtown; the already keeled skyline, cants preposterously behind the seirran asphalt . . . grip the bronzed railing: there, where the bronze beams. Stick the hold; launch the tusk; round the moonward fang; look behind into the palled guts -piping, thick cable, layer and layer and layer of techno-roots.
The underside of one particular shard grabs each visitor (either because each person in the advancing queue sees the next look within, or because it is commands scrutiny). In the giant’s shadow, alcoved, sits a fire-pit; along the sooted floor, are scattered hand-written papers . . . detailing . . . annotating . . . something, but the dark keeps it secret . . . A bolded title catches legibility: Survival Strategies; another’s header reads: Worst-Case-Scenario. And written thick, huge: Iconoclastic Tactics. Designs, formations, figures, and jargon scrawl the walls.
Graffiti swirls: “Architecture is always a way of speculating about what might be here in the future -and its not inaccurate to say, then, that architecture is its own peculiar form of science fiction: architecture is always a way of envisioning our world transformed into something else; 22 of 73.”

It’s difficult to see it all, the line moves too quickly; follow the leader.
Turning back towards the City -step over the fissure- and face it . . .
Walk this new trail. A road gone ludicrous, broken yet embarkable; ruined yet navigable; a novel confab, our latest contention.
Just a few more obscenic curlicues; switch and round, about and back . . .
The route curves and opens up and . . . the eyes can go only one place; each is forced to a billboard, like a magnet, or a television: “Isn’t this what they’ve been doing all along?!?; 31 of 73.”
“Ha!” A laugh in the line. “Good one.”
“Right. We didn’t have any choice . . . the message was placed in a spot where we will look; almost where we have to look.”
“The design of the environment -the very structure- is intended to control us.”
“Nobody ever asks permission. It’s like it’s their right to advertise. And not ours to be advertised to. No, certainly not: we have no say.”
“Just cog-caught consumers . . .”
A banner waves above the path; in high-quality graffiti it says: “QUOTE ABOUT SPECIES VS. NAMEBRANDS.”
“The best we can do is try to ignore it . . .”
“And that’s not enough . . .”

And then, all at once, the road gravels. Its grit and rock even out. And see the City ahead? The visitors breathe and calm, widen and flank. Slow and saunter.
The boy returns to the crowd, now enlivened with their introduction.

BOOK 3
7.
The urban pilgrimage concludes itself at Prime Street. A real street, left to collapse, allowed to feral; encouraged to ruin: assisted suicide. And so it is with fantastic minimism the buildings stand.
Some buildings and shops slant and sigh shoulder-to-shoulder.
Some structures (skyscrapers, apartment blocks, churches) have fallen and are now caught; propped and pillared by more structures (cafes, commercial complexes, low-slung shops); a fallen tree in the forest, caught at sharp and wild angles in the arms of another, moldering and losing itself there. An urban-nurse-building; so many varieties of plant make it home. A mushroomy smell clouds about; the smell of wonderfully old books, like delicious dirt hangs and murks.
Yet: Ahhh . . . this is no forest; this is The City: Fall-Apart-Park.
Many falling buildings, having found no such support, plummet the ground. There they rest, in various stages of decomposition. Some buildings windowed, most not. Some walls smithereen; yet some poised, caught whole.
Those that stand ‘sturdy’ are active businesses, little economies in this ‘Fall Apart Park.’

****Onceler’s.

The walls of the columned Onceler’s, are cobbed and painted a deep purple. The walls are draped with clay-dipped straw, and the vertical posts are visible inside of the wall -if you look for them. There are slight waves, undulations of the wall that suggest them. Often the posts are sunk directly into the ground, fat ones at the corners and in between, each a hand-width apart some smaller ones. Once erected, horizontal branches are woven through. Thus a veritable matrix is woven. Atom walks up to the wall and gives it a push: the wall doesn’t notice. Thinking back, he remembers giving the matrix a push, and the tight, solid response.
Atom stops, one thought leading to another . . . digging the pit behind the structure, excavating the clay . . . and stomping the straw into it . . . pulling the lengths out, squeezing the excess clay from them . . . and wrapping the walls . . . how quick it was; the building was finished in less than a week.
The casein paint of the walls are a fuchsia color. Aside a ’truth window’ -a raw window, purposed to show the internal material of the wall- made by cob and paint- an etching reads: tapioca flour – water – fine sand – purple clay – red clay. And below that: boiled water, add flour, and stir satisfactorily; add sand and clay; the strong paint will not dust or flake.
Two windows are tall and wide on either side of the big doors. The windows aren’t glassed though . . . a thick black fabric, bound up and tied off to a loose nug with a length of vine covers the openings. On each sill, cactuses in bloom sit and spider plants hang. A redwood burl on a post mocks a mailbox.
The doors are old wood and when they swing, they are noticed. They open and from within, a crew emerges.
They walk across the stepping stones and the compact the thick ground-cover that grows between; the purslane, the pinto peanut, the moss carpet.
********

The first is EyeScream. A banner adangle: Vanilla Thrilla; Chocolat- Cha-Gonna-Get-It; Cara-Meltdown; Feral Fruits; Triple-Topple; Cashew Cash-Ew; Hay Ice Cream.

“Hay Ice Cream? Wildflower and grass . . .” some random voice rises above the din. “crisp and bracing . . . rousing sproutings? Weird.”
“Cool,” a different voice crowns the hubbub.

Staggering out EyeScream . . .
A family of six, in an emotional deluge, skedaddle on all heels . . . as one they amble right . . . right . . . right, whoa . . . left. Okay, okay: left. Straight? Straight. Left . . . The family is amoeba -generally: human.
One body doing its damnedest to stay reasonable.
The little ones try to pay attention to their ice-cream; now, seeming, somehow, so strange, so questionable. Their beady little eyes so cautious now. The ice cream softens, weakens, drips under their disturbed ogles. One child panics, flapping his ice cream like its stuck to his hand and it needs to come off. What is happening? The paper wrapping around the cone zips into the air, arcing slow back down to the ground, where it sits now, proclaiming: “We have bigger houses but smaller families more conveniences but less time. Dalai Lama; 28 of 73.”
Another of the kids sees that and peels his paper off: “The idea is: people will open their bag of chips, their cigarette box, reach for the price tag on a jacket hung on some rack in some clothing store, scoop into popcorn at the theatre, unfold their morning paper, and find a startling piece of news: information about peak oil, or the car/freeway/oil complex, environmental collapse, or fringe innovations in architectural design; 34 of 73.”
The other two kids see now and peal theirs: “Subliminal gorilla advertising for a parallel future brought to you by: Our New Centers; 33 of 73.”
And lastly: “The Boyscouts of America have a youth anti-terrorism training program in California. The explorers program can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situation . . . the kids, toting compressed air guns styled to look like heavy weaponry, even once ‘raided’ a simulated marijuana-growing operation. ‘I like shooting them,’ a 16 year old scout named Noriega said. ‘I like the sound they make. It gets me excited’; New York Times; 44 of 73.” The kid who got that on his ice-cream looks first confused, then ill . . . going to be sick? He dry-heaves, spits some pink milky liquid. No one notices . . .
The big dad’s eyes are busy listing to and fro for the heads or tails of the Map in his mitts. The Map leans at once with the great head . . . then against: a crate on a slippery ship-deck, asail to the wildly unexplored beyond.
Which’s a crate? Which’s a slippery ship-deck? Oh, he’s wondering all right; wilding and beyonded.
With eyes like goldfish and sockets like fishbowls he tries to decode the Map; and so, needs to get it together.
He knows they are looking at him . . . his one eyebrow tics his face murine.
Unravel scramble . . . he mumbles to himself . . . too loudly?
“Honey?” the kids rocket eyes at the mother: off-guard, off-balanced, just off. Their ice-cream dribbles.
The ‘honey’ takes his fish off the Map, or crate, or . . . was it mutts . . . and puts them on his wife . . . he is dizzy . . . oh so dizzy . . .

His bulk is hucked, and caught, braced upon the hand-rail; on either side a dreadful slope. His fishies warble the tumble down. A dozen automobile-skeletons (sedans, buses, coupes, trucks, and motorcycles) lade the rubbly-ground to a metallic necropolis.
His head lolls back to his ache-full family:
“I didn’t know it would be like this . . .” he is backtracking, “I thought it would be educational.”
Thank heavens, the looks he is given are indescribable.

7.
After EyeScream, ‘stands’ a severely battered church. The blasphemy is too overt for many. The profane state of unholiness really scruffs a lot of people; the place is a shambley and shameful mess. For all the world the structure seems a tombstone. Some reparative tokens like flowers or ice scream or even money sit then rot at it’s front. It’s weird: despite the decay of previous offerings, people keep bringing them; without people to clean it up, it just dies.
“That’s the eeriest thing: all these tokens strewn about like little gravestones themselves. They are acting as the antithesis of their intention. They just bolster the sense of death. They reinforce the dying process . . . rather than restore its health, the things actually reinforce death.” A coated figure says, leaning (not too heavily) against a fence which is leaning itself.
“All these offerings . . . reminds me of Easter Island . . .” responds somebody standing with the coated figure and before the stupendous setting. “When modern explorers found Easter Island, all the tools and belongings seemed to have been just dropped, right there, right to the ground . . .” He crosses his arms and his posture worsens. “As if they, all the sudden, just stopped.”
“And anyway, as if a few ethical amenders will do any good. When did an ornament or some trinket ever save a building, or for that matter a religion?” One of them says.

But the Last Church of Christ is still identifiable as a church. Its caricature just kept intelligible, just. There are certain indicators: the vaulted front; the size and shape; and of course the cross. But it too, appears not be carried much longer. So Christ’s Last Church (also referred to within the Park as: ‘Christ’s Tombstone,’ or ‘Christ’s Last,’ or even just ‘The Last’) hardly maintains its dependent lean -feebly, archaically- into EyeScream.

Across the street from the two is the tall, black building: The RealiTea House.
Initially, everyone sees the giant dragon along the structure’s face. Wrapping entirely around, the dragon is textured, it is raised off the wall. It’s blue, red, green, white, and orange scales pop-out; its tremendous, fanged face; its cold claws . . .
The walls are adobe bricks; clay, sand, and water put through a form, then left to dry; finally stacked with a clay-mortar. Many of the bricks are simple rectangles -but the dragon’s bricks aren’t rectangular: they are trapezoids. And they are placed at angles, thus embossing, as to define the entire creature. The artwork is extraordinary, the skill is awesome. The beast’s belly rounds the left-most corner, dips under a window, over the doorway . . . the dragon’s head extends from the wall farther than the rest of the body, and it is outrageously detailed for its size. The creature’s face is ominous and dire. It’s slavering and leering heinously. If the dragon were real, as it sure looks, we are all in terrible trouble . . .
A trail leads around the building’s left-side and many walk it to see more of the dragon, for its tail continues around the corner. And it continues nearly around the following corner . . . but it ends there, in the hands of a young boy. The child is also made with the textured-hexagonal-bricks, thus his body is projected from the building. **** His body surfaces at a ferocious angle for the dragon’s tail is threatening to carry him off; it’s as if the boy is leaning out from the building, about to fall on the ground . . . his toes barely touch the earth, but they do; just by the tippy-toes. His muscles are all flexed, his face all strained in concentration; he is committed despite his obvious disadvantage. *****

Back at the front of The RealiTea House . . . the windows are huge, but dark; probably steeply tinted. The roof is agush in green and splashes of color spark so many tips. Someone exits the store and rounds the dragon’s head, turning the building’s corner, where a wooden ladder -wheeled like a ladder in a tall bookstore- leans to the rooftop. She pushes the ladder downside the building . . . climbs up . . . and reaches into the green sea . . . immediately the smell is apothecary; she de-rungs down.
Her powder-snow-white sundress urges the doors open. Her and her gorgeous grapes subsume into the winking within, a trail of herbs waking.

8.
The tea-house is packed. Glass tinks, chairs rake wood, the air is full of muffled mouthings, rising as one staticky voice, falling softer as one too.

On the wall, lamps are dim; each an orange blush inside a warm halo. Here on the wall, three across room, one at the door, and two over the counter. And a lone candle flicks the top of each table; its fire-line flashes casually, by chance, to then fro; the simple breathing of the room moves it so.
The walls . . . so dark . . . are blue? Yes, deep blue, and its depth -fleeced soft by the lamps- embraces and envelopes. A few rosey-pink panels dent the darkness like light-bolts. The floor is blue below, a grey panel sometimes breaking. Above, blue, too; some black stripes, just identifiable amidst the mostly-black-blue.

Below a plank chiseled to read: The RealiTea House, is suspended another: Doomsday Cafe.

A pot of heady tea aids every table. Then:
“Welcome to the Doomsday Cafe. Okay everyone. In tonight’s Doomsday Scenario, the electricity has gone. Several days ago, there was a black-out. But it didn’t stop. And now, we have learned, no electricity exists within at least three-hundred miles; at least. For all we know, the globe’s electricity is no more. Without it, we cannot turn on the lights; we cannot machine-wash any laundry. We have no refrigerator. No internet. And most formidable and awesome, without electricity we cannot obtain gasoline; for the stations rely -or did, at least- on electricity to pump.
Now: how many are we here tonight? Mmm . . . seven tables, four people each, plus me: 29. For the most part, we are 29 strangers. I imagine many of you would up and leave. Just like that. How many would stay, I wonder . . .
Could we get a show of hands . . . who would up and leave: for family, significant others, hometowns, whatever: if the electricity went? If modern society as we know it, if it just up and ‘fell . . .’ . . . who would leave -this instant?”
Five hands rocket-up. Five more see those and rise, too. That’s ten . . . Then, one here, a few over there, raise thoughtfully, almost chickeny. A few more straggle behind, following what those they think leaders -confidence building. The individual hands drop slow, awkwardly, drunken dominoes. Wobble, wobble, whoa . . .
“Okay.” Muffled and safe. “Please raise them again, so that I can count the total.” A weird smile teeters the host’s face. “Alright. So it’s seventeen who would leave now?”
Some nods and some reserved signals say, ‘yea, that’s right.’
“You, seventeen . . .” he grabs an empty chair, pivots and swings it round, dips it down and drops into it, exhale-like, shoulders comforting, “leave:” No pause for effect: “Go,” he says, sipping his steamy tea.
A strewn number of weird looks batters the room. Some stand, some more stand. Coats are grabbed inappropriately, chairs are mashed back uncomfortably . . . a song is made of odd scrapes and off gruffs; a tempo hits the people and they feel stoned, out.
The song lifts, soars sags, dips, crash. Those seventeen are out. Back into Fall-Apart-Park, flummoxed and fucked; go ahead, explore the place now; you’ve the right brain-space for it now.
Hem, hack and hawked, the speaker’s throat clears. “Great. Seventeen gone. See how timid they are too? That’s not a reciprocal question. You saw.” He looks around the small, lit room; at the same time, cracking his neck, a little bit; no-one hears. “Seventeen . . . not so many . . . So . . . what are ‘we’ now?” Pause; some people count. “Twelve.”
The ‘twelve’ ‘we’ look around at each other ‘twelve.’
“Mmmm . . . twelve . . . the twelve have stayed . . . assumably . . . for reasons of their own . . .”
The room looks comfortable, accepting, and ready.
“I don’t really care why you have decided to stay; but that doesn’t mean you won’t or shouldn’t care yourselves. In fact, you probably will, and should” Stop. Start: “The electricity has gone out. We do not know the extent of the collapse. Perhaps -we, twelve- have felt its coming . . . it has come.” He hooks a candlestick, lifts it before his beardy chin.
“It’s over.” Dramatically. Heavily. Realistically.
“Food. Water. Fire.” Pause, launch: “We have little; I assume you realize that. Please . . . renumber yourselves: four to a table.”
A scurry happens and pots of tea pop round, bamboo-cups follow the elliptical whirl. The reorganization is quick.
“Welcome to the Doomsday Cafe; thank The RealiTea House when you get the chance.”
He lifts a vast cone from his flannel pocket and strikes a match . . .

9A.
“By now, you know the situation . . . First, though, a hasty introduction . . . This kind of conversation, this style of dialogue is very valuable. Boeing -for example- uses it. At one table (each table -most unconsciously- eye about) might sit a CEO, a janitor, a person in IT, some receiving lackey, a shipping donkey; all of that: one table. Each person has a name-tag: first-name only. In this way, each has an equal say. It’s fair.”
All twelve follow along.
“After some fifteen, twenty minutes, the tables reorient; one person stays, the rest disperse. At each table, then, sit a collection: one member from each other table. So the reconfiguration will debrief each other, so everyone at the table hears what every other table discussed. This method of information sharing is super speedy and concise, allowing both a great number of people to be heard, yet, at the same time so many speak.” Pause. A cup lifts from the table, and he drinks, slowly, deliberately, the tea must be quite hot. Yea, see the steam . . .
“Regarding real heady ideas such as the ‘end of oil’ and the like, this process is particularly helpful. I think you will see why shortly.” Pause. Nod.
“Lets just get into it . . . The electricity has stopped. And for that matter, so has reality as we know it . . . What do ‘we’ do?”

10.

“What do ‘we’ do?”
Each table begins. The moderator scratches chalk on a blackboard, collecting whatnot from the verbal hubbub. Scratch, hub and what . . . Then that same powder-snow-white dress clouds from behind the counter. It sails and says ether. Another aerial beauty sashays. The two things out the door and the door slowly closes behind them. Conversation around the room recovers and continues its bushwhackings.
Outside, The RealiTea House ladder is wheeled round the corner of the building, disappearing from Prime Street. The two women ascend the ladder, vaulting the tip-top and vanish themselves. Only the occasional mint leaf, the flower petal, the seed sometimes falls to earth. The sun slowly falls too, dusking the potent street in darker and darker colors.

The boy, fifteen maybe, walks . . . quicker now; now running. In face, fifteen . . . in composure, older. Eyes are gray. He is running through the heart of Prime Street: “Oh Sinnerman, where you gon’ run to? Sinnerman, where you gon’ run to?”
He is singing at the top of his lungs: “To the Rocks! But the rock cried out: ‘I can’t hide you!’ Don’t you see I need you rock?!”
Arms flinging, catching, and swirling around a lamp-post, ricocheting to the top of a street-side EyeScream table, towers of ice cream crash to the ground: “I run to the Sea; it was bleeding! I run to the River; it was boiling!”
Drinks spill and puddle his bare feet pink or brown, leaving weird and gross mars upon the table tops: “Please hide me, Lord! Go to the Devil! So I ran to the Devil! He was waiting!”
He quickly leaves; customers are tizzed and ruffled: “Power! Power! Power! I run to the River; it was boiling! I run to the Sea; it was boiling!”
But so quickly, a waiter or hostess, wipes the table-top, and replaces the melteds with fresh; the boy storms on, his bellow dimming; into The EyeScream Shop: “Where were you? Hear me Praying Lord.”
The boy flings himself at the counter, springing over: “Sinnerman you ought to be praying! Sinnerman, you oughta be praying!”
His hands shoot at the flavors; of a sudden three-scoops roost in each waffle-coned hand; he twirls the counter, towards the door, belting, roaring, head back and throat wide: “Power! Power! Power! Pow-er! Pow-er! Power!” The EyeScream Shop is stunned dumb, mouths open, arms slack, as the youth dances out.
His singing weaves down Prime Street; through guests and visitors and the crowd. Many stop stock-still and watch. His voice pierces and exacerbates the already achey heads, their many crappy moods, discomposes, ruffles, and spooks the hell out of a lot of people. Someone catches it: “Nina Simone; that’s a really good song.”
The boy spins behind The RealiTea House and ducks out of sight, out of mind, kind of.
He fronts the ladder and pitches up, rung by rung . . . slowing now . . . to the reduced tempo:
“The car is on fire. and there is no driver at the wheel. and the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides. and a dark wind blows.”
His voice mounts the building, drops over it into the street, into the ears of the passersby:
“The government is corrupt and we are all so many drunks with the radio on and the curtains drawn. we are trapped in the belly of this horrible machine. and the machine is bleeding to death.”
“The sun has fallen down. and the billboards are all leering. and the flags are all dead at the top of their polls.”
The youth pauses, just to holler:
“It went like this: the buildings toppled in on themselves, mothers crutching babies. picked through the rubble. and pulled out their hair.”
“The skyline was beautiful on fire. all twisted metal stretching upwards. everything awash in a thin orange haze.”
“Kiss me you’re beautiful, these are truly the last days.”
The two doves lean in, and kiss his cheek; he wraps both arms around, and in its arc, an ice-cream for each. They laugh and snuggle in just as creamily.
The sun sets upon the City below . . .
“You grabbed my hand and we fell into it, like a daydream. or. a fever.”

The sun having sunk, a candelabra and a variety of glimms wake and wink-up, The RealiTea rooftop flicks to a galaxy, the world’s colors and pizzazz bend and skew, they arch and bow.

The great expanse of Fall-Apart-Park lays asprawl below . . . streetlights embellish steps hurried and illume the moseyed. A crew of vagabonds and gypsies horn, drum, and fiddle. Another, further down Prime Street, chant, gong, and throatsing. In the distance, a great circle is Brainstorm, another Powernap. Some twenty fires flick with life and grow all along the street . . . the night brims with so much music . . . yet above it . . . !
TKRCK-RAKK-KKLLH!!!
A terrific and vicious crash sounds from deep within The Park . . . another follows; the three on the rooftop wince . . . and the last sound is the unmistakable one of a skyscraper’s guts sinking-down, settling-in for good.
“Good thing nobody’s in there . . .” the belle under Atom’s left arm whispers.
“Yea, good thing.” Atom intones.

In the Park’s depths, there are all kinds of sounds, all kinds of noises . . .

“Noises like that though, still frighten me. It makes the Park seem so real . . .” A pause -filled with clamor and beats- passes . . . “We walk around here, this parody, this mockery, so casually, we’ve become so used to it.”
“But, Bell, it’ll be okay.” Is that a sarcasm in his voice . . .?
“Right,” grumbly, “ . . . right.” The other girl says, staring off. “Still . . .”
“I wonder when . . .” Bell adds.
“Godspeed,” says Atom.
“Funny . . .” sneers Bell.
“You Black Emperor,” finishes Atom.

Book 4
11.
The sunrise in this Park of the Future is as usual as most sunrises: unseen. Most aren’t awake, or ‘out-and-about’ to see it. Regardless, it’s a nice day out -clear and blue, cool and breezy. Close to the sky, astretch on his back, each arm tacked-down by a candied crown, one tumbley with gold, one brunette . . . Atom recognizes the sunrise a pinky-purple . . . a few clouds, wispy ones, thin and soft. He shakes his head and paws his eyes. He looks at Bell; he looks at Lake: they are both beautiful in sleep; seeming innocent. Atom sits up, and the girls shluff off waking only a little. He looks from the rooftop, down the street.

After The RealiTea House ********* He looks a second, shuffles, and lays back down into the warmth of love . . .
then wakes again.
The girls are gone . . . so he gets up, finds his shirt, shakes the blankets, fluffs the pillows and sweeps thoughtfully but quickly. . . then walks around the echinacea, the salad-burnet, Rising River Farm carrots, and pulls a Sun-Gold Cherry Tomato. It’s huge, laughably huge and bright, bright, bright orange. He pops it in his mouth and it explodes with the full-flavor of summer. He picks a few more, and eats them with fresh basil.
Robusted, Atom collects some bee balm, some german chamomile, and a sprig of lavender. Hugged in his hand, their aroma billows about his face. He inhales their character -once, twice deeply in the morning cool.
Atom picks a spray of mugwort, puts it to his teeth . . . the beautiful bitterness . . . lifts a hatch in the rooftop, and zips down the fireman’s pole.

Wicker baskets of herbs and flowers flex the tight room; a hundred shattered rainbows are petals, like jewels. The fragrance is extensive and near overwhelming. A shiver traces Atom’s spine. One more inhalation, deeply . . . a bottomless purple pierces his closed eyes.
Atom gives the door a push, and leaves through it, shutting it behind him.
He walks the short, lantern-lit hall to another door and leans into it. Behind the counter, a kettle is already softly whistling away. He fills a ceramic mug with the simmery water and sets the herbs to steep in its heat. Seeing Bell on her way, he waits till: then steps from behind the counter and. . . springing out of Bell’s way -just in time- and she laughs through her lush lips. He beams back, and she elbows him on her way. Atom spins around tenderly to her shoulder, looking into her purple eyes. Eye to eye. She laughs again, and he turns to one of the dozen or so tables.

It’s cozy inside The RealiTea House. The light tinted out, its dim, soothing, soft on the eyes. Even at this hour, the candles are on; for ambiance . . . for the setting.

Atom heads to a table in a corner, back to the walls, able to see and hear most of the café . . .

Somebody, somewhere: “I dunno . . . what’s your favorite?”

A table quite close rises:
“After all . . . (His eyes widen, for effect. The affect is a circle of smiles.) I always wanted to start a story with ‘after all.’ I think it’s so funny! (The smile he makes with the words causes the table to laugh.) Because it assumes so much; but nothing’s been said.”
Then: “Better hope the reader cares enough to give a damn.”
“Why? PHHH! to the ‘reader.’ (‘Reader’ drawl-crawls out his mouth, the vowels long and rolly.) I write what I want, when I want, and I don’t give a shake if ‘they’ don’t give a damn.”
And then: “That’s good. (The tonal-rise on the ‘that’s’ bespeaks the cynicism.)”

A table beside Atom piques: “I’m writing a novel; two actually.” The whole table drinks at once. Biting his bottom lip, then: “I imagine the second novel will have to change quite drastically though . . . I happened to begin it first.” He takes a drink, looks into the disappearing liquid. “It was interesting . . . I started a novel -which I thought was the the novel. Then I realized it needed a setting, some background. So I begun another. But so quickly, that novel needed background. I started again, naturally.” The speaker looks at Atom, smiles, and removes a pipe from his vest pocket. He fills it from a tin and gives it light. “I always wanted to be a writer.” Puff, puff. Masterful smoke rings ‘O’ the air. “But what’s more . . .” he drains his glass, finds his flask from his slacks, and repairs the empty glass. “I don’t know . . .”

Atom’s mug has finished steaming, and the tea is lax and limber. He nods a smooch to Bell, who comes right over with a mug. She rolls into the low chair that’s there and wrinkles her entire face into a grin. Atom pushes his index finger into a particularly tight curl that hangs from her bangs. “Hi, she says.”

“It’s going to be a gorgeous challenge, writing this novel. I tell myself I don’t care if it fails; I don’t know if I believe that yet. I tell myself nothing can bother me; I very nearly believe it.”

Atom guffaws and smashes the table with his palm.

Smiling again at Atom, “And the novel is just about finished. An edit will follow, of course. I will try to get as much input from friends as possible in hopes of avoiding an ‘agent’ or ‘publisher.’ Hopefully the edit will be swift.” The ‘O’s coming from the man hang like suspended doughnuts, and he lofts one at Atom and Bell. “In a few months, after I finish teaching natural building and seed saving at The Panya Project, I am going home. Immediately, I intend to take workshops concerning self-publishing: learning about the letterpress, software programs, and printing options . . . as well as what is referred to as ‘book arts:’ book binding, restoration, everything having to do with the actual physical product. Once absorbed, I will travel up and down the west-coast, trafficking them, stocking them in as many book stores as possible.” He raises his eyebrow at his silent companion, swilling his sauce. He looks above him, for no reason at all and reads: ********

The door swings open, too forcefully, crashing against the wall, the collective voice of the The RealiTea House wilts; blooms back to where it was.
A fellow in a red jumper labors to a table, plopping leaden feet, “I’m so . . . sorry! I got . . . horribly . . . lost . . .” The red been shed to the chair back, the fellow flops down.
The other person at the table shifts and: “Don’t worry about it Dred. I’m just glad you made it. But, how did you get lost? I mean, the park isn’t that big.”
Still out of breath, Dred says, “Yea . . . it isn’t that big . . . but somehow, I lost all sense of direction. The surreality of this place is really disorienting. It’s creepy.”
Dred’s friend, “I know what you mean. I get scared sometimes.”
“Things will fall apart . . .” adds Dred.

Returning to his conversation, “After hawking them throughout the west-coast, I will leave my home country again, to travel. I will visit subject-related sites across Latin America, South America, Europe, and Africa, documenting what I see and incorporating what I can into my next novel.” Another huge ‘O.’ “The second one.” Taking another nip, “I am going to try to make copies of the first novel en route, out of found materials. I don’t really know what that means yet, but I imagine it will become clear. I envision cardboard, newspaper, plastic bindings; cloth, t-shirts, yarn, tree-bark, bamboo covers; retrofitting antique books, photo albums, whatever I can find. In this way,” his chair rocks; nodding its slow, smooth rhythm in agreement, a smile on top, thick clouds forming above, “my ‘art’ will not be just with words, not bound in mass-produced paperback, not uniform, not reduced to ‘writing.’ I will create the entirety which the reader holds in her hands. And I am not talking about a zine; I am talking about a full-fledged novel . . . At least, I will try.”

Bell pulls from Atom, back behind the counter. Atom leans back, relaxed, thinking something. “Always thinking something,” he thinks.

“Another thing I will try . . .” he leans in a little, chin on fist, “is handwriting -in found quill and homemade ink- several copies of the novel. People don’t just hand-write books anymore. What can it, or does it, mean to hold, to read from a work so intentional, so deliberate, so handmade? And one not screened by mainstream editors, not filtered by ‘professionals,’ not compromised in any way? And what can it mean when the content is dangerous? When it threatens our global lifestyle?” He smiles wickedly, the rogue, swallowing still more of his potion. “When it is challenges the way we currently live our lives? When it contests our assumptions . . . you know what happens when you assume . . .”

At the only round table, a candelabra at its center:
“Look what I found today . . .”
“Where?”
“Actually, I found it inside a toilet paper roll; I was using the toilet and reached over for a couple squares, and it tumbled out.”
It reads on one side: ‘Our New Centers -then, below- The Gorilla Advert Project -then, below that, Welcome to the New Frontier -then- 71 of 73.’
“What does that mean?”
The look on the recipients face makes it obvious that he doesn’t know.
Hey! I found one of those, too! It was between my ice cream cone and the paper wrapper; I came as close to eating it as I did to dropping it. Mine says: ‘The addiction to cars is a structural addition that is built into the physical structure of the city, 70 of 73.’
“Oh! That’s what that was! I think I put it into my pocket . . . yea, here! I didn’t know what to make of it, so I just stuffed it in there: ‘The City, town, or village organizes our resources and technologies and shapes our forms of expressions.”
“Hmmm . . . New Frontier huh?”
“HA! I found this in my newspaper the other day!!! ‘people will open their bag of chips, their cigarette box, reach for the price tag on a jacket hung on some rack in some clothing store, scoop into popcorn at the theatre, unfold their morning paper, and find a startling piece of news: information about peak oil or the car/freeway/oil complex, environmental collapse or fringe innovations in architectural design.’ Crazy.”
One person reaches for the menu, grips it, opens it and a little card falls out. He pick it up: “There are millions of interesting speculative ideas out there, with people reimagining what their cities could be, but the problem is precisely that no one is building them.”
“Our New Centers, eh . . .”

“I don’t presume to be that good of a writer; as well, I don’t presume not to be.”
Nodding at his friend and at Atom, he rises and leaves. Only his friend and a card remain at the table . . . the friend reading the card: “www.bldgblog.blogspot.com – Geoff Manaug; Ecocities – Richard Register; The Transition Handbook – Rob Hopkins; 41 of 73.”

Atom watch the man disappear and stretches his stiffened legs. He stands and and stretches a bit, waking his muscles; then, he too, leaves.

10.

There are six. Two have a map; they are being unfolded, rotated, squinted, and pointed.
“A right onto If Avenue.”
The six take a right.

12.
The street changes; there are less upright buildings, instead of every other building strong and standing, it is one in nine, one in eleven. There is more rubble on the ground, but there is also a noticeable increase in foliage, in plant-life. Flowers blanket the ground and mushrooms thrust from decaying wood, their mycelium whiting much of the buildings’ dead bodies. Some mushrooms even hang from the dampest of the walls, and a grip line the foundations. Their gills unveil and flute.

“That one, with the steps leading up to it . . . it was a bank.” One reads from the map. All stare.
A big billboard fronts: “A Caveat: ‘Money As Debt’ performed by The Peach’s Viking’s Thirst.” And: “Growing Awareness performed by The Director.”
“Hah! Check that out,” another of the six says, pointing at the bank. Aside the crumbled pillars, so Roman, and vaults, so high . . . upon the side of the building the film projects and the live music accompaniment rocks up.
The sizable crowd is sitting amphitheater-style with hay-bales. The pyramids pinnacle-up. Smoke curls the air and clouds above truthfully.

Three of the six peel towards the film and the other three keep on . . . down If.

Walking further, deeper into Fall-Apart-Park . . . more buildings burying; sidewalks splinter and break up; the central road bits like gravel, but worn quite smooth from foot-traffic. Seedlings and saplings stretch into the open air. Green growth always finds its way in the sharp cracks . . .

If Avenue comes to a junction: three roads.
From left to right the signs read: Environmental; Structural; Social.
“Left, straight, or right?” one of the three says.
Nothing . . .
Then, “left. To . . . Social.”
Another sign, a kind of billboard, a bit farther down, says in enormous handwritten words: “Welcome to The New Frontier -71 of 73.”
And another, of split wood: “Temporary Autonomous Zones; Flash Mobs, Street Theatre, and Demonstrations. Squalor, Hunger, Repression; Terminator Genes; The Transportation Conundrum. Sick, Spittle and Puke, Begging for Change! The Rebels and The Riot! The God-Damned Starving and Dying; Survival Strategies; Worst-Case-Scenario. And written thick, huge: Iconoclastic Tactics.”
“Fine. Let’s see what it’s all about.”
The three split left, but Atom goes straight.

12.
The huge skyscraper. It’s the most dominant building in the park, in the whole city. It pierces the sky; enters it, and beyonds it. The rooftop hides in the greaterness. The some hundred, thousand stories up, up, up . . . into space.

A long line of people -its a queue- leads to the lobby. Follow it slowly and slowly and slowly . . .
and after so many conversation chunks and lots of silence too, and standing, standing . . .
move your legs to keep them awake. Boring, boring, standing in lines is boring.
Slow.

A tour guide takes a batch at a time, up to fifteen visitors. Come on then . . .
Follow the line and keep shape. Fold into your group and keep up.
The façade looms deeper and deeper and oh how oppressive its verticality, until: straight up.
Careful the broken glass shards, the brick debris, the busted posture.

Because the building is slopey, slanty, and full of rickets, be careful.
But one time, it was built with thought -supposedly- it was intended with care -assumably- it was designed with thought -hopefully. Yet, now, regardless, take care. And have fun.

A lintel gives way, cracking the air, and a load of roof-tiles clatter to the ground; a creeper booms a blue bloom; a seed drops from the rafters and a thousand follow, millions. They each hit a broad-leaf, or a wide fern, or the soft hummus of the lobby floor . . . tiny battle by teeny token, blade by sprout, day and night, the little delicacies keep at it, hammering away in their soft way. . .

Within one caved in structure -its roof having slugged right down to the ground, yet the walls still managing a stand- three deer amble to a grass-patch; the green parcel, sunbeamed bright, growing right there in the foyer. Their thick, powerful necks dip and their thin lips curl back. Their square teeth tear the green tips . . .

Jai Villas Palace, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India, 1876, one year after completion

Behold, Jai Vilas Palace, home of:

His Highness Ali Jah, Umdat ul-Umara, Hisam us-Sultanat, Mukhtar ul-Mulk, Azim ul-Iqtidar, Rafi-us-Shan, Wala Shikoh, Muhtasham-i-Dauran, Maharajadhiraj Maharaja Shrimant Madhav Rao III Scindia Bahadur, Shrinath, Mansur-i-Zaman, Maharaja Scindia of Gwalior.

Combining taxidermy exposition, archeological museum, photographic obituary, and current residence of the Scindia family,  the palace is a stunning monument to the architecture of paradox.  Combining EPCOT level futurism, psychedelic taxation structures, and an abiding respect for European architectural uselessness, the palace is a crystallization of wealth so far reaching and unapologetic, that nothing short of heroism is implied.

Read: Wayne Manor.

13,000 – Approximate number of people who climb Mt. St. Helens each year

8,365 – feet the crater rim rises above sea level

52 – Age of climber Joseph Bohlig when he died after a cornice gave way during a casual photo at the crater rim

68 – Number of times Bohlig previously summited the mountain

Very experienced guy has terrible luck on the biggest “walk-up” mountain climb around.  So simple but so sad.  What happened?  What happened to him after he fell?  How did he die?