The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other form of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart

And this is it

Tour de France 2009

Thinking about tomorrow won't change how I feel today

Your absence has gone through me like thread though a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color.

W.S. Merwin

I seen another world. Sometimes I think it was just my imagination.

This great evil. Where does it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us? Robbing us of life and light. Mockin' us with the sight of what we might've known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed through this night?

Private Witt, The Thin Red Line


Journey to the Line by Hans Zimmer

And all morning I woke up

Lisa and I made a fort that summer,
Way back behind the houses and the garden
With the rhubarb patch at the end:
Way out where the folks couldn’t see us.

We were full of great ideas.
We imagined scenarios in which our fathers
Would be slain in their suits by flocks
Of wild geese, and we dreamed up equally absurd

And violent films, or TV shows—most of which
Have now been filmed, or have happened
In real life. I guess we had our fingers on the pulse
Of the New Horizon, though lots of others did too;

But every generation thinks it’s the Lost Generation,
And we were bored. By August, me and Lisa’d
Taken to smoking her mother’s cigarettes,
Long and tarry and smelly, and Lisa could blow

Smoke rings. I couldn’t. She’d put one up there,
And say, "Don’t let it die a virgin!" and we’d stick
Our cigarettes through it like cocks, and giggle.

And then she’d kiss me,
Pressing me down into the rhubarb and my pulse
Would quicken: desire, the might-be of getting

Caught, the horizon I saw from my pinned-down side
Spanning out in frontiers of pinks and off-pinks.
Now, I can hardly remember the details of all that,

Only that I didn’t let it die a virgin,
In any case,
And to this day I associate the scents

Of cigarette smoke and sex—those and chlorine,
Of us swimming and laughing in the neighbor’s pool
Before going in, with the sun going down,

Trying to get it all off.

Don’t Let It Die a Virgin by Kevin McGowin

When we should be closest, part of me is still so alone

every so often
i can hardly
remember the sound
of your voice
or the awkward
rhythm
in your
walk
i'm losing you
all over
again

abstraction by w.c. pelon

When I die it will be the day when every one of my wrongs will be made right

William Saroyan said, "I ruined my
life by marrying the same woman
twice."

there will always be something
to ruin our lives,
William,
it all depends upon
what or which
finds us
first,
we are always
ripe and ready
to be
taken.

ruined lives are
normal
both for the wise
and
others.

it is only when
that life
ruined
becomes ours
we realize
then
that the suicides, the
drunkards, the mad, the
jailed, the dopers
and etc. etc.
are just as common
a part of existence
as the gladiola, the
rainbow
the
hurricane
and nothing
left
on the kitchen
shelf.

Ruin by Charles Bukowski

And when you know how few things there are worth knowing I suppose anyone who tries could forget

You're mostly what I think about and I'm proud

I sang to you and the moon
But only the moon remembers.
I sang
O reckless free-hearted
free-throated rythms,
Even the moon remembers them
And is kind to me.

I Sang by Carl Sandburg

Did anyone hear me cry there, through a toilet stall divider? I swear I care

Stalker's my whole style
And if I get caught I'll
Deny, deny, deny

Today you're 25
I made you something fine
It's in the palm of my new hand
It's out
You're mostly what I think about and
I'm proud
I've been coasting on this singles route
But I still hear your name
In wedding bells
Will I look better or will I look the same
Rotting in hell
You're the only proper noun I need
Hurry
My copper crown's gone green
Pull me, pull me on out of this tree
I'm stuck up a branch waiting
Clearly caught between
Two things unclear to me

Are you a female young messiah
For stowaways in dugouts
And are you what church folk mean
By the good news
Pulling plastic bags off heads
Or are you giving me a dirty look
In the rear view
Clicking the button on your u-ha pen
Don't pretend you didn't see me
Coming round the bend
On my fixie with the chopped corns turned in
Trailing behind your biodiesel bends

Stalker's my whole style
And if I get caught I'll
Deny, deny, deny
Deny, deny, deny
Deny, deny, deny

25 carved with a butter knife
On the palm of my new hand
It's out
You're mostly what I think about

Simeon's Dilemma by Why?

"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland trailer

I can't remember starting, and I'm never done.

There was a boy
A very strange, enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far
Very far, over land and sea
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he

And then one day,
One magic day he passed my way
While we spoke of many things
Fools and Kings
This he said to me

The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return.

Nature Boy by Eden Ahbez

On days like this, I would like to just disappear

The man, his gaze. He paid with cash. I thought, together we could break the system. To break something alone is desperation, but to break things together --
What I miss most is not what you'd expect. I miss falling asleep atop the covers and him waking me up, his body bizarre.
Now I only wake up for a glass of water. Better after midnight, half awake, less distracted. I empty the glass and immediately refill it. I sip. I sip. I'm awake. Water is just water after all.

Water Water Water Cash by Tim Jones-Yelvington

Things we cannot hear, shall not hear, want not to hear, will never hear.

The street is ill lit by the shadows of inner city buildings and the lack of working roadside lampposts. Two young adults are waiting on the street curb, across from a bus stop. They sit a significant distance away from each other, but not enough for one of them to raise verbal concern. Clearly, they are two, but not at this moment. They sit on large duffel bags, their feet dangling in the street. The traffic is calm where they sit -- an occasional car finds them with it's headlights but loses them in the darkness soon after as it passes. Another couple, barely seen in the far distance, appear only as silhouettes as they wave gestures at each other. The moon rises and becomes visible between some of the buildings. The night's cold begins to fill the air.
"Another day spent," the girl sitting on her bag tells the man, on his. Her eyes follow along the cracks of the broken pieces of asphalt in the street.

He glances upward towards her, looking for eye contact. When contact is not found, he responds, "There are better ways to go about looking at it."

The crack ends. She sighs. "Like how? Anyway, was it worth the trade?" she questions.

On his own trail of thought, he ponders, Maybe it's just another day where something hasn't gone wrong. His eyes wander, his mind now comforted by this thought. He readjusts the bag, once a fitting seat, now making him uncomfortable. He's rather uncomfortable. With wit, he exclaims: "There is a trade for everything and everything is worth the trade."

A personal philosophy of his. He's known for his philosophies, although his actions are often hypocritical of them. He believes in all of his philosophies. Once the pride of his apparent richness of thought dissipates, he realizes he wasn't really sure what she meant. "What trade?" he asks, looking up at her again.

Her eyes meet his. Prepared for the question, she begins to express a thought she clearly has been sitting on for some time. "A trade for a more accomplishing day -- a more accomplishing life. A day where you take risks. Taking a chance on some things rather than just sitting around on the sidelines playing it safe."

Looking down, he ponders this for a moment. She feels reassured on her position by his silence, knowing she's talking to a man dedicated to thought, and continues. "Sure, things can go wrong. Things will go wrong. But that's what life's about. Making a point to get out there and try. Think of the great things that could happen!"

He imagines only the things that could go wrong. With a specific bad thing in mind, he thinks to himself, Yeah, this day was definitely better than that. He believes it. This conversation seems to bore him. This isn't anything he hasn't heard before, or at least, he imagines, he hasn't read before.

Their conversation is disrupted by an approaching car. His eyes follow it. As the car passes them by and gets lost in the night, as have all the others, the moon moves higher into the sky partially hiding itself behind a flickering lamppost. A once silent argument taking place down the street by two silhouettes is now faintly audible. His eyes, having lost the car, follow the sound and find the two silhouetted figures making gestures. He makes an attempt to listen in, but cannot make out a word. The cold creeps in a little further. He adjusts his seat, again. She sits still.

He respects her argument and keeps silent, waiting for her to continue. And as expected by him, with no response, she follows in confidence: "Just think. The things that could become, even today!" There is a slight pause between her last words and this next thought that overcomes her: The things that I could become. Her eyes now array, her mind clearly lost in these thoughts. She is beautiful in this moment.

Unaware of her beauty, he begins to think less of her. He thinks of her a little dull to wish for such things, such simple things. Regardless, he continues to entertain the thought. What's the point? he asks himself. What day will come, he continues, when it would actually be worth it to take those risks? His mind is not lost, unlike hers. He knows exactly where his is going. He believes it.
His eyes find cracks left by broken asphalt in the street. Following the path of them, he concludes, It'll have to be one hell of a day. He believes it.
A bitter chill from a breeze finds its way through the maze made by the city buildings and passes him. He shivers and pulls his jacket tighter. She doesn't seem to notice the cold. Suddenly, she blinks rapidly and looks around -- her eyes had been open and staring in a single direction for a while now from being lost and deep in thought. His eyes meet the end of the crack. He sighs. He adjusts the bags beneath him. He is so uncomfortable. Another car finds them and loses them. The distance between the two stays constant. The moon moves a little higher in the sky, escaping from behind the dying lamppost. The night creeps on.

The Argument of the Distance Between Us and the Argument Taking Place Down the Street by Two Silhouettes by Calvin

I'm always looking for the sun

When the wind picked up the fire spread
And the grapevines seemed left for dead
And the Northern sky looked like the end of days
The end of days

The wake-up call to a rented room
Sounded like an alarm of impending doom
To warn us it's only a matter of time
Before we all burn

Before we all burn
Before we all burn
Before we all burn

We bought some wine and some paper cups
Near your daughters school when we picked her up
And drove to a cemetery on a hill
On a hill

And we watched the plumes paint the sky gray
But she laughed and danced through the field of graves
And there I knew it would be alright
That everything would be alright

Would be alright
Would be alright
Would be alright

And the news reports on the radio
Said it was getting worse
As the ocean air fanned the flames
But I couldn't think
Of anywhere I would of rather been
To watch it all burn away

To burn away

And the firemen worked in double shifts
With prayers for rain on their lips
And they knew it was only a matter of time

Grapevine Fires by Death Cab For Cutie

You don't have to move on to let go

You get the car
I'll get the night off
You'll get the chance to take the world apart and figure out how it works
Don't let me know what you find out

I need a car
You need a guide
Who needs a map
If I don't die or worse I'm gonna need a nap
At best I'll be asleep when you get back

I wanna see it when you find out what comets, stars, and moons are all about
I wanna see their faces turn to backs of heads and slowly get smaller
I wanna see it now
I wanna see it now

I want specifics on the general idea
I wanna think what I should know
Want you to do me what to show
I wanna see movies of my dreams
I wanna see movies of my dreams
I wanna see movies of my dreams
I wanna see movies of my dreams
I wanna see it when you get stoned on a cloudy breezy desert afternoon
I wanna see it untame itself and break its owner
I wanna see it now
I wanna see it now

Car by Built To Spill

God I hope that turns out to be true

And he takes, and he takes, and he takes

We only get one chance
Gotta make it last
We can make things last
Only get one laugh
Make it last
We can make things last
Make it last

Crazy dreams and nightmare screams
Seems like nothing is what it seems
I was walking with you last night
I was walking with you last night

Let me go, let me go, let me go
Rejection
This is reconnection

I've lost my friend
Didn't get to say goodbye
Only get one life

We can make things better
We can make things work
We have to make things work
We can make things better
We have to make things work
We can make things work

Reconnection by Alpen

"Go ahead and shoot," I told her. "I'm already dead inside anyway."

he spoke to mice and sparrows
and his hair was white at the age of 16.
his father beat him every day and his mother
lit candles in the church.
his grandmother came while the boy slept
and prayed for the devil to let loose his hold upon
him
while his mother listened and cried over the
bible.

he didn't seem to notice young girls
he didn't seem to notice the games boys played
there wasn't much he seemed to notice
he just didn't seem interested.

he had a very large, ugly mouth and the teeth
stuck out
and his eyes were small and lusterless.
his shoulders were slumped and his back was bent
like an old man's.

he lived in our neighborhood.
we talked about him when we got bored and then
went on to more interesting things.
he seldom left his house. we would have liked to
torture him
but his father
who was a huge and terrible man
tortured him for
us.

one day the boy died. at 17 he was still a
boy. a death in a small neighborhood is noted with
alacrity, and then forgotten 3 or 4 days
later.

but the death of this boy seemed to stay with us
all. we kept talking about it
in our boy-men's voices
at 6 p.m. just before dark
just before dinner.

and whenever I drive through that neighborhood now
decades later
I still think of his death
while having forgotten all the other deaths
and everything else that happened
then.

death of an idiot by Charles Bukowski

Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does

Well it's been a long time, long time now
Since I've seen you smile
And I'll gamble away my fright
And I'll gamble away my time
And in a year, a year or so
This will slip into the sea
Well it's been a long time, long time now
Since I've seen you smile

Nobody raise their voices
Just another night to mourn to
Nobody raise their voices
Just another night to mourn to

Nantes by Beirut

This is the single most important thought of our days

Check out the rest over here.

The appearance of a man

I saw a dream which made me afraid, and the thoughts upon my bed and the visions of my head troubled me.

Daniel 4:5

And although I am leader of this country: blue, because I'd still have sad days

Courage and horror stand side by side,
say the gods who
dole out fates. Like the one they give
the massage therapist
raped in her office by a
stranger off the street.
Raped face-down
on her table, in dimness and
lavender oil. No, this is yours, say
the gods,
handing off
a profusion of fall days in Boston, when
the boy you loved
was dying. Each morning
on your way to see him you cut a bouquet
of cosmos from
the front steps of
a brownstone.
The other, not yours,
is braver than yours, how
it ends —
the therapist feared she would die
hating him and began to chant,
and the panicked rapist ran, not knowing
she was chanting the
Buddhist prayer
for compassion.
And did you sing for your enemies?
No.
The gods are busy.
The cosmos are lavender,
rose, tangled and
orange,
replacing themselves in what
seems hours.

Courage and Horror Stand Side by Side by Katrina Vandenberg

That's what I figured out the cat in the street meant

I don't know how a human can trust anyone.

Jesus Christ

Here, it never snowed. Afterwards it did

Everybody makes mistakes
But I feel alright when I come undone
You are not making me wait
But it seems alright as long as something's happening
I try to make you late
But you fighting me off like a fire does
You try making me wait
But it feels alright as long as something's happening

Get your payments from the nation
For your trials and tribulations

You try to make me wait
You come around when it's come undone
Everybody makes you late
And it's never you because you're always thinking
I try making you wait
And give you me some like you give it good
Everybody makes mistakes
But it seems it's mine that always keep on stinging

Get your payments from the nation
For your trials and tribulations

You try making me wait
But you come undone when you come undone
Everybody makes mistakes
But it's always mine that seem to keep on sticking

Get your payments from the nation
For your trials and tribulations

Tribulations by LCD Soundsystem

Sweet for my sweet and sugar for my honey

I broke free on a Saturday morning
I put the pedal to the floor
headed north on mills avenue
and listened to the engine roar

my broken house behind me
and good things ahead
a girl named Cathy
wants a little of my time
six cylinders underneath the hood
crashing and kicking
aha!
listen to the engine whine

I am going to make it through this year
if it kills me
I am going to make it though this year
if it kills me

I played video games in a drunken haze
I was seventeen years young
hurt my knuckles punching the machines
the taste of scotch rich on my tongue

and then Cathy showed up
and we hung out
trading swigs from a bottle
all bitter and clean
locking eyes
holding hands
twin high maintenance machines

I am going to make it through this year
if it kills me
I am going to make it though this year
if it kills me

I drove home in the California dusk
I could feel the alcohol inside of me hum
pictured the look on my stepfather's face
ready for the bad things to come
I down shifted
as I pulled into the driveway
the motor screaming out
stuck in second gear
the scene ends badly
as you might imagine
in a cavalcade of anger and fear

there will be feasting and dancing
in Jerusalem next year

I am going to make it through this year
if it kills me
I am going to make it though this year
if it kills me

This Year by The Mountain Goats

The long long lonely

Oh my love, in the barrel of a gun.
We're the girl girl girls, with the golden son.
Oh my love. Nothing's gonna stop us now except the long long lonely.
Nothing's gonna stop us now, not the long long lonely. Oh My love.

Symphony 1 In The Barrel of a Gun by Emily Wells

We don't know anything and we'll call it quits. Carefully, carefully.

Heart of a Hunter Poem 85

Whatever we've said, friends, we're saying still -- such as it was, such as it is, such as it will be.

For a second there I thought you disappeared
It rains a lot this time of year
And we both go together if one falls down
I talk out loud like you’re still around
And I miss you
I’m going back home to the west coast
I wish you woulda put yourself in my suitcase
I love you
Standin all alone in a black coat
I miss you
I’m goin back home to the west coast

And if you shake her heart enough she will appear
Tonight I think I’ll be stayin here
And you never did like this town
I talk out loud like you’re still around

No nooo!

And I miss you
I’m goin back home to the west coast
I wish you woulda put yourself in my suitcase
I love you
Standin all alone in a black coat
I miss you
I’m goin back home to the west coast

So pack up the bags to beat back the clock
Do I let her sleep or should I wake her up
You said
We both go together if one falls down
Yeah right, heh
I talk out loud like you’re still around

No noo!

And i miss you
I’m goin back home to the west coast
I wish you woulda put yourself in my suitcase
I love you
Standing all alone in a black coat
I miss you
I’m goin back home to the west coast

West Coast by Coconut Records