Judgment Overboard

1564: Italian natural philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician Galileo, born this day in 1564, made fundamental contributions to the sciences of motion and astronomy, as well as to the development of the scientific method.

Sitting in front of my Apple computer, I was planning to conclude my post by polishing off a lopsided bruised blushing apple, the thing of beauty, intoxication, control, the forbidden sweetness whose modern form requires more pesticide than any other food crop (Pollan). I dropped it while I wrote my passage about the American flag.

1764: Auguste Chouteau settled St. Louis at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.

The drifting experience to stop at the bank. Chouteau was the town's business and social leader who led St. Louis in diversifying into banking as the fur trade declined.
Saint Louis adapted to Spanish rule in 1770.

1898: USS Maine destroyed, leading to Spanish-American War.
On this day in 1898, an explosion in Havana harbour sank the battleship USS Maine, killing 260 American seamen and precipitating the Spanish-American War, which originated in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain.

Spent the evening recording War, asking for the the word from anyone.

I was covetously staring at Surly Girl's Forbidden Fruit cocktail while I sipped my Love on the Rocks.
The waiter growls "War" underneath an ornate chandelier fit for a ship.

Ran back to the liquor store to belatedly ask him for Liberty or Death.

Two incidences of a Skull-and-Bones cap. One Skull-and-Bones sign hovering above my head.

Knocked on the door to Roots, stepping over a bag of American bread between the records strutting their wrapped-come-rad grooves, the man gave me a sticker emblazoned with REBELUTION stenciled under the breasts of a black and white lady in crimson shades and I asked him to say War he sounded Bostonian Waah, I walked out and I had to pee out my Love on the Rocks in an alleyway behind OH Exterminating Company,

Took two pictures of the American flag above the library.

A man leaning on a snow-ravaged brick wall calls out as I walk past, I am three panels away from the Che Guevera mural, "You on the peacekeepin side..." He was the last person I asked to say "War." He was reapeating "oppresso de libre," "de oppresso libre," "oppresso de libre."

My camera battery expired in front of the Che Guevara mural.

Stopped at Chase bank one block afterwards to punch in a Spanish transaction to retirar sesenta nombres.

Long drags of Liberty accompanied me home.

I burnt my rice and beans and as the violet mass froze behind the blinds, I fished out a potato boiled in sea salt water accompanied by a quarter head of boiled cabbage drizzled in apple cider vinegar. I split that one eyed tuber with a cleaver, carved away at the root that remade the economies of South America and Europe (Botany of Desire) and slid each half translucent slice off the blade. Tuber, tuber cult, tuberculosis. The vinegar matched the color of my brandy and chortled pungently at its companion's fermentation process. My headphones were playing the "Sea Above, Sky Below" and it was Dirty Three's seventh track in Ocean Songs.

One apple and a six pack of beer imported from Mexico.

Maria reaches up towards the lottery tickets as I step outside the corner store smoking the unfiltered remains of my broken Liberty cigarette.

The Pacifico Clara beer slides down my tongue with a steeled silver tinge. Seu Jorge sings Cru's Tive Razao.



1989: Under President Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union withdrew its last troops from Afghanistan after occupying the country since 1979.

Walked into Long's Bookstore at the corner of 11th St at approximately 8:29 PM and read the last lines of Salman Rushdie's Midnight Children and Shame, respectively:
"And then the explosion comes...Until I can no longer see what is no longer there, a phantom with one arm lifted in a gesture of farewell."
"...To be unable to live or die in peace."

The K in the Kaimir vanilla vodka brandy label at the brink of breaking through the liquor level held tense absorbing the stack of newspapers into its amber and gris depths.