spotted on JMG.

beneath the city of houston, and above
the bayou where the old brewery
once flourished, you
sway on your feet.
in your right hand, a plastic cup
is almost empty, and in your left,
trembling fingers manage
a broken cigarette.

i hear water whispering below,
faint music from behind a door, but i
listen only to you.

words leave
your mouth as if keeping them inside
was like holding breath.
words washed with vodka, words cooked in grass,
words, words, and
more words fly free from your mind
to be ensnared
by mine.

later, a thousand birds
will flap their wings
inside my head.
with scissors
in my hand, i must remember;
beneath the city of Houston, and
above the bayou where the old brewery
once flourished, you
just swayed on your feet.

©2009 Faisal Butt

Before there was Kelly’s shoes, Mommie Dearest/Mamma Mia mashup, and Deven Green’s Brenda Dickson impersonations (which have unfortunately been pulled), there was this little gem that would silent a noisy bar crowd, save for hilarious outbursts. This is comedienne Lois Bromfield in “Sorority Girls from Hell”.

Douglas Coupland, 1993:

“My friend Graham Law took the footage of me with a Super-8 camera. All told, it took maybe 30 minutes. When it was developed, there was a bunch of footage still on the reel that he’d taken in Toronto years before. One of the most beautiful images was that of the nuns walking around on the square boardwalk. His studio used to look out over this walk. It was a rest home for nuns with Alzheimers, and its sort of sad because they’d spent their life devoted to God and then in the end they couldn’t remember it. Or could they? It’s a fascinating question.”

I thought about how odd it is for billions of people to be alive and yet not one of them is really quite sure of what makes people people. The only activities I could think of that humans do that have no animal equivalent were smoking and writing and body-building. That’s not much, considering how special we seem to think we are.

From fuzzyco. His Twitter feed is here.