n o v e m b e r ... the m E p.com

NOVEMBER 30 2001 7:15 GMT+1

Hungarian-style Chicken Livers with peppers a sleeping evening for the poot and boot, after fresh salmon and pan-fried new potatoes. there's a thrill i get from cooking; like art, signed once. if i could change one thing about everyone, (goodness aside), that would be it. to care enough about food, about eating, such an intimate activity, yet shared with so many. no matter how simple, whether to fill tapered glasses with mineral water and set them symmetrically around the table; to brush flattened triangular bread slices with melted butter and garlic, waiting to wrap themselves around small shrimp, or what happens to tomatoes onions and parsley when they sit at room temperature doused in lemon, oil, and salt and pepper for a while. i can't say, truthfully, whether piles of delicious morcels on their own excite, or knowing that they will be shared around the table.

Jeff Smith says:

"I think we are starving in our time, though we have ample foor to eat.
It is simply not fulfilling unless it is shared at a feast.
We are hungry for meaning much more than for food."
-The Frugal Gourmet Keeps the Feast 1995

Pootys favorite : Swedish steak

thirty days has september;
april, may, and ...
freeday brings a weller slept poot; caffeine notwithstanding.
it's only a blessing that months are ending, count them.

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NOVEMBER 29 2001 17:17 GMT+1

mamma går i husen
barnen kvar i bilen
synar alla tecken
väggarna som glöder

färger
låt all ting vara
precis som alltid
aldrig som aldrig

poliser ner från rymden
knackar hårt på rutan
barn är kvar bilen
kan nån ta hit en låssmed

färger
låt all ting vara
precis som alltid
aldrig som aldrig

hon och han i samma säng
frysta just i skymningen
och nu blir allting blekt och fult
och mamma går aldrig bort sig igen

sommarnatten tjuter
blåljusen är vackra
en biltjuv går förbi
hjälper dom att öppna

men röster
blir kvar i luften
stannar på vägen
kom aldrig fram

färger
låt all ting vara
precis som alltid
aldrig som aldrig
aldrig...

-staffan hellstrand

translation coming..

NOVEMBER 29 2001 7:18 GMT+1

strawberry cereal and gritty coffee. hunched shoulders are my nemesis.
a lovely dinner with the sanfransiscan; the boot and he got on just fine.

i sometimes miss the superficial opportunities, the calculated small talk,
the niceties of conversations. i'm doing it now. i suppose it annoys some
people. oddly, i often find myself regretting it, although not in business,
but often it means that i miss the basic information; like a name or a
relationship to the hostess. ironically, once the conversation that i've
driven is over and forgotten, that nice to have information is missing,
somehow. do i do it on purpose?

it's a dark morning in the north, darker than yesterday. garbage bins
are being tossed about loudly in the courtyard, i'm thinking about
the 8:59 train, and the boot stirs.

one more day

__________________________________________________
NOVEMBER 28 2001 7:44 GMT+1

greeted with a countdown, this body won't move, although it's brain races.
another gray hole stifles hopes of outdoor activities.
sip, poot, sip.

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NOVEMBER 27 2001 7:33 GMT+1

morning wellslept, brings firemen loudly sawing something. time to get up!
after-movie dreams included a radiation leak and broadway-style singing.

i just know you didn't go and listen to her (159kb)

email has it's uses; and we see the purely functional side for a change
and how it can't replace friends. is that the lap of luxury; having to learn that?

time to make lists, poots! time to sit around the christmas decorations in your
underwear and make lists. perhaps photographs too. it might be the time.

i hate to be the one to admit this, but it is possible to survive with less than sixty
tupperware containers.

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NOVEMBER 26 2001 8:07 GMT+1

it was a real monday for some,
but i read about john denver,
chatted with the stranger twice,
and finished my mad calculations,
leaving me feeling purposeful, thrice.

the san franciscan appeared promptly for the 8:59 kungsängen-bound pendeltåg and we conversed for the second fastest 4 minutes of my life. feverish chatter, symptomatic of strangers with even remote connections, left me feeling as if someone had released oxygen back onto the planet. we missed him for 2 months at the fox and badger; but you can't change history, and everything happens for a reason.

we know many food-related words and can pronounce the tunnelbana
stations if we try; but only today, something unexpected motivated
me to have anything more than a mildly functional interest in this
singsong (pardon the pun) language: Lisa Nelson.
outloud, i copied her pronunciation in Aldrig som Aldrig;
not knowing what i was saying, but feeling finally,
some sense of passion through this cookie cutter
life.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
and more music news...
poots and boots were in a real swedish video!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

NOVEMBER 26 2001 07:31 GMT+1

all i hear when they speak of riots in prison camps is my memories of the end of this war; is the future's analysis of the history we are living through. can there be any other motivation than to see the end and hope that someone's life was changed forever, for the better? i know history has proved this theory wrong a dozen times, but i'll stick with it; it's the only hope i know.

imagine how much havoc anger has wreaked; can only anger make me angry, but the roots must be deeper than this - inside their primal fear, something separates us right down to the core of this basket of apples. yes, it's more useful for rot to spread; for no one will take of it willingly, and the state of being good and shiny stands on it's own, no matter what is going on around it. imagine not being able to see the difference; because that is the only thing that will have the two together in the same pile. and this is the goal, perhaps blinding, that ironically, only God has, i suppose.

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NOVEMBER 24 2001 16:34 GMT+1

an Ikean adventure sent poots and boots from trains to buses
and home with christmas lights, now taped to the windowframes.

how much more is there to say than nothing.
number-crunching for a day or two was useful,
but not entirely inspirational.
in how short a time can perspective be granted?
the focus is blinding:
i crave the misdirection that is my busy life.
and i'm failing miserably at any attempt to convince myself
otherwise. don't bother toying with the logic that free time
one inspires. it does not. it brings you into a space that in the early stages, entertains by it's uniqueness, feels comfortable and peaceful in the middle stages, but eventually leaves you trapped inside your own silence.
there you have it, self-portrait of an insanely-happy-to-be-extrovert.

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NOVEMBER 23 2001 16:42 GMT+1

three Swedish paydays mark our time in Scandanavia
while icecream trucks bellow their jingles
in the dark and snowy crisp night air.

inside, baking garlic and small entrecôtes remind us of home.

mentalcase! what a word.

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NOVEMBER 23 2001 07:11 GMT+1

automated coffee making process.
automated coffee drinking process.

'giving thanks and givin' praise
lyrics no where to be found.
the siblings will know.

is this what it's like, when you can't let your mind out of the box,
when there's not a fanciful thought in the room?
bouncing from one to another;
some faces i know well, others are just an epitome.
web searching children i've not seen since grade school,
they're adults now with accomplishments.
what would i do if i found them,
in a private place it's easy to know.
i'd love to list them here, but i won't.it's been too long.
besides, the searches failed, and we were only kids...

there's enough sugar in my coffee that the small european spoon
sticks to the edge when i tip it in my mouth.
it entertains me.
in truth, we're waiting for emails.

again, i will say, it's like being in a box with nothing to do
and all the while your lips are taped shut.
and you can't say much here in case, just in case.
and you can say much there, just in case.
so you're prevented from writing it by your very own design,
because the lyrical words are no where to be found,
and all you can do is make promises, saying nothing in a public place for now, until, until. and you did it that way, you did it.

and the hope is that in saying nothing, you've said it all.
where is that poots-translator when you need it?
a penny for every word i haven't said.

_________________________________________________________
NOVEMBER 22 2001 07:14 GMT+1

torsdag

three weeks and six days.
empires have fallen in less than twenty seven days.
us, counting? don't be silly.

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NOVEMBER 19 2001 ..more.. 19:49 GMT+1

writing for me, writing for you,
any semblance of a challenge outside of the ordinary.
words at my majesty; i can't mould them into yours.
sentance structure and obvious paragraphs, goodbye.
here, i break the rules. winding cotton candy coloured strings
into structures of my own design,
there are no judges here, no ruling parties.
weaving, waving, words into art.

don't worry, if you don't understand, you're just a click away.

_________________________
"What   o n e   man can do is   d r e a m
what    o n e    man can do is    l o v e
what   o n e   man can do is   c h a n g e   the world
and make it   w h o l e    again
here you see what   o n e   man can   d o "
___________________________
-John Denver

they are sending their children to movies during school hours.
this is what i mean when i say that the experiment is complete.
how else would one box millions on a weekday?

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NOVEMBER 19 2001 07:57 GMT+1

birthdays in ottawa

from 1964

the bright grey morning sky reflects in the shiny oak flooring.
assuming the position, a bubble of lateness guilt is firmly
pushed aside. instead of allowing the pre java dizzies any clout,
the goal is to make a decision about the direction of thoughts
and become the boss of yourself. how do i know to tell you this is
always possible - only if you believe it is, under certain life
circumstances and with enough coffee...to move the brain molecules
where you want them to be and not the other way round.

any of these take time, time time. how to hold onto that stuff.
that i don't know. could we use the same rules, make a decision
then force brain energy around it, i'm not sure. goals and unimportant things cloud vision. and mine, all the time.
but there's a way if a will - if you will.

and sometimes, the exact thoughts that i manage to encapsulate
come forth, and they are there for the mEpping, asking me to
look at them but i can't, when it's not all worth the mEp
and not all safe here. untouchables, no matter how many
time zones and degrees of latitude away. shame that.

you may wonder what would fill your mEp
as i sometimes trace thoughts around an evasive mine.

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NOVEMBER 18 2001 09:23 GMT+1

prism views

dreamt i was in sweden playing with computers.
funny that.

the cowboys of the Magyars and the french of Acadie.
each a lively bunch, to drink to dance to sing,
to come together and apart and keep the history alive.
and going on, and on, in us, here, now.

mindsets come and go. some are gone forever,
other pop back from fleeting time to spurious moment.
and some of these are snapshot; and some are locked away.
with a loved one or in a dorm with a small kitchen,
pick an angle, an imprint, can they be listed here.
forcing them all into a bundle, the purpose won't
become entertaining until you're done.
go thru the years, remind yourself,
leave out the bad ones.
"sealed with a kiss"
take time to inhale music from the seventies.
that's a scary time to go back to, the depths of me
that i've left there. the me that no one knows anymore.
not even me. listing songs from 65 (womb theory)
make me happy with no explanation.
then sometimes, you own the world.

the longer i sit with my thoughts;
they filter into a trickle,
and a natural brain chromatography
siphens out only two or three simple views.
the first, a truest sense of appreciating not being alone,
the second, to have food on the table, and warmth in the air,
the third, a family that cares,
the fourth, tomorrow,
and the fifth,
well the fitth is a combination of wondering if i'm actually the good person that i always thought i was, and guilty feelings for judging those who probably are.

larger photos

NOVEMBER 17 2001 16:50 GMT+1

the convenience of knowing how to cook when in
a foreign country is noted when one tries to
follow a cake mix recipe box. so those silly-looking
diagrams actually have a purpose.

it's still saturday time, tick tock.
dueling laptops in the dining room;
oh it's dark out, you know it is.
close your eyelids and swing those legs
over the dock.

rant 6 comes in

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NOVEMBER 17 2001 08:17 GMT+1

into what we'll call the home stretch,
are some fleeting moments and some not so.
on saturday, excitement only lasts
until the next capuccino.

no, i'm not feeling whimsy
i'm not flipping axels
i'm not making movies
and i'm not even waing poetic
but in stillness,
in quietude,
i'm feeling as centered as a well-thrown pot,
spinning miles in a minute
the growing pains are tangible
and stronger.
something softly and steadily, pulls me upward,
fitting into the space that needs filling;
nestled there, like a rock that's been
in it's place for a long, long time.
it brings neither joy; neither sorrow;
but assurances and a view.

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NOVEMBER 16 2001 16:09 GMT+1

i'm popping little chocolates,
something other people do. that's entertaining.
it's always nice to believe you're free, no?
chatting with a skater!
and seeing other scooters and doin' the poots-scootin' boogy ...

conversations one and two sidled up to the coffee bar; i can't resist mentioning it, it stirs up something deep inside me. do people freely make their own choices, really? i include myself in this wannabee list but really i see most of the western world (all i can speak for) more like neo does. there's a blue pill and a red pill and that's about the extent of it, only mostly we don't even know there are two. it matters to me into my very core; and i'm having the hardest time saying why. let it be, poots.

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NOVEMBER 16 2001 07:19 GMT+1

silence in the pootly house;
today is a more normal day.
should be achy should be stiff,
there's one thing added and one missing;
i know which one it is.

freeday in the world how simple that sounds.
each of us our little battles.
then again, mine, tiny tinier still.
football! movies and a c a b b a g e casserole
suit us fine, we're in hibernation mode.
giving praise for laden tables,
together is there anything else to know.

so far we've seen no indication of boxes of kleenex, though many of them sniffle in the
streets. things that make you go hmmmmm.
lambi, anyone?

and i'm pushing thru the last of the tepid and sweet java remains, neither awoken nor akake.
i'm cross-legged, wooly-socked, fully caffeinated
and spending the moments that i do waiting to wake up. a evenness pervades me;
i can't rock my own boat.
i slept well. i'm comfortable,
i'm the right temperature,
and my fingers are hitting the right
keys to place these ordinary words.
in american beauty-isms,
i'm ordinary too i suppose.

saying lots and saying nothing
i'm allowed.
sometimes there's nothing to say
and i still like to say it out loud.

have a peak at the photos
from all the parts of Hungary.

what time learns you.

NOVEMBER 12 2001 07:15 GMT+1

more dreamy dreams, and i'm delivered here, burning eyelids slightly, it's dry, and bright sky above me to the left. back to the regular drumbeat, java normal if on the watery side, and somewhere for at least one of us to go to.

the oscillating fan stops,
there's a breeze coming from the window.
it's official, it arrived while we were gone.
so many things have happened while we were away, Lady Di's passing, the great Ice Storm, Trudeau, and now nearly the war and certainly the aftermaths. maybe we should stay home more often.

and where does the barometer lead me for today,into the java pot and a new skirt i suppose. some tender friends in unnerving situations, still others closer perhaps as much so. can i tell them of a freer life; i suppose i cannot, as our paths are strictly our own. with those tightropes i propose a lightness, to all, to everyone; in remembrance of simple things. to stand and wash a glass squeaky clean; to have an oscillating heater;
to have even a string to flush, and even simple warmth, but these are those which are not taught but learned, not obvious but important, and not given, but taken. so they are those that we must want for, and wanting takes time. and someone said that time is all we have, and perhaps just maybe now i see that that is true.

what an oddity, a conundrum, time.
to finally feel closer to it's true meaning,
and to stand, watching it,
using it, to do the dishes.
life is weird, and getting weirder only;
don't let anyone tell you otherwise. i wouldn't miss it for the world.

_______________________________________
waiting for the floors to heat up again

NOVEMBER 11 2001 07:51 GMT+1

dreaming dreaming, richness from the sleeping world into the crisp sunshine of another Stockholmian day. rich java through my lips, we're hashing over mutual stories, planning friday night's dinner, and eating leftover pizza for breakfast. my favorite.

________________________________
on children and the classic arts

in standard wine babble, the story went like this;
just expose them, just once, maybe twice, to something they won't see somewhere else. this is enough to imprint into their expanding brains, something that has more endurance, for many reasons, than most of what they see today. they won't know why, they won't know how, but the seed you planted will grow, and grow,
and when it makes a match in the world, it will do something with that match, if only to watch and to understand that it holds properties not seen elsewhere. i can't tell you what they are, but that won't matter, because they'll be watching. you'll see.

09:22 GMT+1

chewing chewing, it's still early. which direction do i face today, how much empty time is useful? what are the plans to know, the roads to uncover. and which of them can i cross alone? can i create something useful with emptyness, can i advance the cause by staring in this mirror? or is this only my reflection. it's not my only reflection, but it's anonymous and quiet. it's unbiased and as accurate as i can be.
in it, i reflect that which is
perhaps skewed, at once mine,
but always and forever,
a reflection unchanging.

_______________________
a week without dental floss

NOVEMBER 10 2001 11:58 GMT+1

clean to the core,
i sit to tell a story for the first time.

imagine, being somewhere not long enough,
somewhere you wouldn't want to leave. i couldn't. until now.
how many pictures can one take, how many missed photo opps don't tell a story? there was the day that began with seven pictures I didn't take.
the other with a shot of brandy. the other with a train ride into the countryside. if i'm someone who can tell my thoughts easily,
this one is a picture and a thousand words.
Hungary is a place where people have so much pride it drives them to courteousness. a passerby's devout expression of thanks is met with eye contact and nothing rehearsed but something from within him that is offered directly to you. never tossed into the air,
never careless.

although this is my story,
i'm actually not the first to tell it.
i quote:

"July and August were spent in England. Maybe the srangest feeling after a year away was the simple fact that we could understand everything everybody was saying. It was a relief to sink back into automatic reactions to situations, conversations which required no effort, shops you could buy what you wanted when you needed it and the pervarding symplicity of everyday life. Yet after that initial relief followed a restlessness, an irritation with the grey weather, a feeling that life was too easy, too routine, too 'nice'. It lacked the struggle, the intensity and the colour of Hungarian life. It made no demands on the abilities and reserves of character we had only discovered in ourselves during the previous year, and personal relationships seemed weak in a society where everyone could, and did, manage their everyday lives without the help of their friends.../.../...'So what do you notice first now that you're back? /../ 'Three smells', I replied, 'Hungarian coffee, Hungarian cigarettes, and the pollution from the cars'

-Marion Merrick
Now you see it, Now you don't
Seven Years in Hungary, 1982-1989.
Magus PUblishing, 1998

_________________________________________________
transcribed from the train from Pecs to Budapest,
Nov.7, 2001:

The day began with seven photos that I didn't take. The late automn sun, still low in the southern sky, teased at the even fog cloaking the town. an extremely warm october had left most of the yellow leaves on the trees in a painting like spectacle of seven rolling hills that are the town of Komlo, home to many ex-miners. The fog and the sun battled it out as we took speedy corners around and over the hill toward Pecs. as the crowded peugeot swerved around each bend, i took photos one by one, if only in my minds eye, while i tried not to crush Ilonka. Soon enough, millions of tiny sun fingers had eaten their way into the road's path for all to admire. i was reminded once again, and not ashamed to remember, that i had explained to jennifer that we far prefer God's creations to man's.

_____________________________________________
NOVEMBER 09 2001 08:43 GMT+1

in darkness that reminds me of christmas,
i'm characteristically squirming, anxious.
i'm not someone who gets comfortable easily,
and i can't fulfil every whim of my thoughts here today. it's a diverse and rich world that we have entered, it's as juxtaposed and not all at once. it's many viewpoints for me to digest -
of people who fled in 56 and the reasons why, and those who stayed. it's more similar and more different than you might think, but far more exotic than i had imagined. it's richer and poorer.

it's csirke running wild in the yards, it's bathrooms with hot water tanks fixed to the ceiling. it's brandy first thing in the morning. it's hospitality like you're doubtful ever to see again, and don't say you like something, because you'll leave with it. unless you really want it.

`it's people our age who still value the old ways, it's acres of vineyards and miles of river.

it's a million things that stockholm isn't, and its magical, in this fragmentary way that someone chose to give it to us.

and, i wanted to let them know that in case they didn't know it, the world they left is still very much here. that's the one thing i hadn't have guessed.

________________________________________________
NOVEMBER 05 2001 22:27 GMT+1

it looks like this here

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NOVEMBER 05 2001 09:17 GMT+1

about facednes now! no room for mincing,
we're into something new. flighty flights with extra throttle and 2 hours south are arrived poots and boots in somewhere completely different but long familiar. imagine, for the first time to hear voices in all shapes and sizes in a language you had previously only heard spoken by about 6 people? it's a sense of earthenly homeness for him, and that makes us home twice.

and so the pigeons wake us to each sunny landlocked yet Danube-straddled day. there is more meaning in the crumbled buildings here, more appreciation or bread than even France.
the simplest things would be so lost on so many, and the mechanical espresso machine is something
that thankfully i know how to use.

outside these stone pidgeon-filled courtyard walls are worlds where young travellers meet in passing, where the most elegant of women take Opera on Saturday nights, where corner stores do not sell coffee cream, and where streets were re-named only 10 short years ago when on June 19, 1991, the last Soviet soldier left Hungarian soil.

when i read that, i knew that this is truly
'the farthest' i have ever been from home,
the dreadful pollution notwithstanding.

and in your spare time,
you too might pay 500 forints
to go back in time.

photoessay to come soon

_________________________________________________
NOVEMBER 02 2001 07:13 GMT+1

richness on my lips, a sense of actually having slept. more sugar, please! so we're bitting and batting, over here over there. for example, tomorrow we return to the other homeland; we'll interact with another american in the eastern block and do some christmas shopping.they do have christmas over there. and imagine, poots planning anything so far ahead of time.
what i want to say is, that it's actually possible to plan your life so that you don't feel you are running from start to end. i've planned being here, staring at you for hours on end, and the possibility exists that when we are run run running, we are enjoying. think about it, and if you feel panicky thinking about having nothing to do, then try to enjoy the business, the non-stoppness. you might be enjoying it more than you can know. i know now that i do. remember, there's a time for everything.

i've painted you the colour of my swedish socks.
and you match nicely the java pot too.
poots is pleased.

_____________________________________________
NOVEMBER 01 2001 9:34 PM GMT+1

at long, long last.
a friendly stranger, a surprise, a something
that has not happened yet. a bit of warmth sent
all the way from syracuse. to sit next to us
tonight in the indian restaurant.

converstaion bouncing, from beautiful women to breaking the swedish ice, to september 11.

as for the women, it's the skin,
the redcheeked glow. the healthy food,
and the walk to the train.

another in the headache series, i'll attempt a late 'white rabbits'and hang my hat til tomorrow.

welcome november,
welcome themEp.com,
welcome you.
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it's ... the mEp.com	N o v 2001
my E l e c t r o n i c pen	photo captions october

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