Pair of a Kind

Poems from a Vault #1

Three Wishes.

A Waltz.


I've dreamt of a cavern with an alter so tall,
Where giant's stand on their toes to adore,
The ancient old lamp, all covered in mortar,
In need on some cleaning, a rise with some water.


Inside the housing of stone-cold old brass,
Lived a being, by nature, blessed with age old class,
He'd give me a gift, of wishes, yes three,
And I'd wish them on you, as if wishing on me.


I'd wish it was as easy as just pressing play,
On a CD to take all your worries away,
The music would fill you with the energy to soar,
A feeling, so strong like never before.


With wish number two, A trip unplanned,
On a boat, then a goat to a far away land,
Where car parks are torn and shopping malls crushed,
To make way for the sudden rainforest rush.


Though, with wish number three, I could not free the genie,
For you need it more, to escape from the meanies,
Those who surround your bed, and cloud your head,
And listen to less than what you have said.


A tip of his fez, with his job now complete,
He disappears to a land, untrodden by feet,
He waits, years and years, for the next man to find him,
A man who's in love, a love which is binding.

So I've used up all three and I am now at a loss,
Since ten thousand wished could not bare the cost,
Of everything that I wish I could give you,
Like a lifetime of happiness, in which we could live through.


Stuck in this rut I would go on a mission,
Equip with nothing but the fiercest ambition,
To again find the genie with the power to change,
All that you wish to be sent away.


If I found it Again…


I would pick up the lamp, rub it 1, 2, 3,
Then tilt it to the side and fill our cups up with tea,
For a wish-granter does not exist in our world,
The only magic is born in the heart of a girl.


But yes! Wishes come true, though not in an instant,
For your deepest desires, you must be persistent,
Through frights, and delights which may catch you off guard,
When that specialized someone is warm in your arms.


It is a sad conclusion that wishes from lamps,
Are as fictional as talking warthog and Meir cats,
But the one thing I promise, with my actions as proof,
I will do anything and everything for your wishes to be truth.

Written by Michael Berto.
circa 2007.

The Blow @ Glasslands 5/13/2010

You Tube Week (Tom Cruise/Craig Ferguson Special)

Watch this:


and Then This:

Tennantism

"I've been to many planets in the solar system and you'd be surprised how many of them look like quarrys in wales." - David Tennant.

Who needs Acid...

... When you've got the 'Sponge Bob' theme played backwards?

Backmasking Backbeat (sdrawkcaB deyalP seltaeB)

Phorographers, no sugar, it's sweet enough

Ricky Gervais. Is. Bambi

When Aldous Huxley, Peter Fonda and John Lennon are Mentioned in the Same Sentence...

It's Good News Week (also known as Cliffhanger Week)

Wibledon History: Isner and Mahut: 5 World Records, Match Suspended at 59-59 in the 5th

"John Isner"

An exhausted Looking American Jew.
It's what happens when the french get involved.

A Clip For the Clouds (Neon Spoodle in Neon Badger and Violins)

- Music:
1. Without You I'm Nothing - Placebo.
2. Hydrohedron Hexaherdron - Billy
3. This is the Dream of Win and Regine - Final Fantasy (Owen Pallet)

Magical Mystery Tour - Lennon Naked - BBC Four

Overheard in Camden;
in a stall store place that only sold belts, woolen t-shirts with a variety of rock stars printed on them (Variety included wholly of Ozzy Osbourne looking like John Lennon and The Bangles), Amazing Jackets that looked like sliced snake skin meets technicolor and Himalayan/African Hand Crafted Jewelry. Tarantino'd the vender who gave me the cd for a whole 45 seconds to jot down the name. It reminded me of Kyoto's Disney Store and Ramen in the Snow.

http://www.myspace.com/michiluca

http://www.michiluca.com/

Camdentown; The Town Forever a Market, Forever Charming, Forever Adorable, Forever Smiling and Blushing Masseuses in the Underground, Camden Forever

... or "get me the F out of Camden." as over heard from an american, by an australian.

I wanted to write an article, which I still may do.
There were far too any conversation had and over heard, as well as adorably friendly incentives to plug the township as much as possible.
(like it needs it...)
I may also edit the photos.
But, truly, Camden is a place only for the imagination.
and the photos were color-filled enough on account of that it was Camden, innit.
As Noel Fielding would say;
"Ask the people of Camden, They Know."

And their masseuses' are hypervintagecute.

C'mon, Spill!

Christopher Walken's Poker Face

The Pandorica Opening Welcoming Party Allliance

Derren Browns Portrait's Plug #8 and #9 (Athiest Edition.)

Bertrand Russel.
"The Celestial Teapot."

Richard Dawkins.
"The God Delusion"

The Adventures of Monsieur Robinet (an excerpt)

Monsieur Robinet is out walking when he notices that all the colors are mixed up. The cows are Green. Green! They walk under a blue sun with a yellow sky. Monsieur Robinet takes his pear out of his bag and the fruit is grey - grey with stripes of violet, orange and black. He eats the pear. Madame Toutmoi approaches and says, 'Monsieur Robinet, I need you, desperately.' Monsieur Robinet is embarrassed. Suddenly Madame Toutmoi turns into an enormous potato. Monsieur Robinet places her in his bag and returns home to prepare his dinner.

- Procured from Adventure 14 in "The Adventures of Monsieur Robinet" by John Hegley.
Doughnut Publishing.

buy this book!

The Covent Gardener #2 (Cyber Candy and Tin Tin)

Upon a blissful retreat from Jubilee Market Hall, I found myself going off-piste and through very venetian streets, back towards the tube station. I was contently making my way back with the three shirts and various treasures from the markets when something caught my eye. Super Mario, Donkey Kong and Jelly Beans all in the same sentence. All in the same window. I quickly crossed the street and walked through the door of a place, not unlike what I imagine Heavens Gift shop to be. The place was 'Cyber Candy' the produce was Candy, themed not only from the worlds palate, but that of the virtual worlds.

The above shelf housed everything from Nintendo Controllers filled with mints, Atari Joystick filled with jelly chews, An array of Mushrooms (both Regular and one up, amongst others), T-Virus Antidote Drops, Slimer Sours (Slimer being the patent ghost of ghost busters)and a whole lot more of novelty candy that the packaging was far more a keepsake that the flavor.
Just saying, the Health and Mana potions, they were anti-re-gen. anti-heals.
They were poison.
I thought they may have been bubble blowing liquid. They werent. But due to their orientation.
They're still bomb. They still rock.

----

The opposite wall housed a remarkable amount of Candy from the Orient. I had to try the Ginger Ale Kit Kat, as memories of Japan's terrifically tantalizing range of kit-kat's was too much of a nostalgia hit to resist the purchase. And don't let the name fool you, collon are a delicious snack. If you ever attend the rock concert that is Cyber Candy, i recommend the Japanese Strawberry Sugar Drops. They're just below the oreos. And they're delectable.

The drinks fridge was just as impressive, keeping cool Flaming Moes, DK's jungle juice, Naruto, Street Fighter and Mr. Men themed energy drinks. I had to get myself a hand full of cans, and I tell you, I made it back to the tube in under 45 seconds.

And how can you call yourself a lolly store without having a giant selection of Jelly Belly Jelly Beans. They call them self a lolly shop, alright.

and then there was the Tin Tin Shop;

It was like a high end boutique, but instead of Kashmir scarfs or Italian high fashion, it housed classic Tin Tin Merch' at very reasonable prices. They had every comic every printed by Hergé, as well as chronologies of the comics in hardback volumes. They had shirts, posters, a whole section of model cars in the style of tin-tin, spanning the classic french and global automobiles ever driven by our favorite French, polo-wearing, white-dog-named-snowy-owning, globe trotting detective. They had figures made of Wedgwood, as well as ceramics and wood carvings. It was a store rivaled perhaps only by the Paddington bear store, such exclusive products to keep the vision of Hergé and the history of this great comic alive.

I was browsing the bookshelf sized store for over half an hour, deciding what to buy and how much to spend. I thought the lady was going to ask me to leave, as I was not 'high-brow' enough for the Tin-Tin store. But she got her revenge, as she came flailing towards me in true french style, exclaiming my iPod was on "too loud." I pulled the headphones out of my ears to hear Placebo's 'Bulletproof Cupid' blaring throughout the tranquil store. "Sorry. It's a loud song." I replied. She pursed her lips and nodded, she wanted my money. And i needed new headphones. You could hear it better from her end than in my ears.

I made my purchases and darting in and out of boutiques, i made my way back to the tube, ready to return to Covent Gardens as soon as possible.

here is a small sample of the treasures of a Material Nature I found at London's Covent Gardens;

Abbey Road Storm Strooper Shirt, Tin Tin Comics Volume 4,
4 Hand Carved Wooden Animal Pens (giraffe, elephant, peacock and leopard),
1 Up Mushroom Mints, Hylian Shield Mints, Nes Controller Lollies,
Genuine Heath and Mana Potions,
Pac Man Peppermint
and a Sonic Screw driver and a Lego Diver for Eye Candy.

The Covent Gardener #1 (The Markets and the Tin Man)

Rainbowphant.

- Jubilee Market Hall, Covent Gardens.
The place where dreams are bargains.

Shirts for the homepeeps.
and a coincidental Trio of Relevance of my 2009. or
Coincidental Personal Story of 2009 Meaningful Shirt Trio.

Infront of the markets at cvnt grdn there was a tin man. Not a man made of tin, but one painted as to resemble as if he was. After a smirked minute of observing his trully statuesque stature, i retrieved my camera. Before I could shoot, a man, not painted silver to look like a metal sculpture, appeared in front of me, gesturing towards the cigarette barely hanging from my mouth.
'Hello. Can I, uh, please have cigarette'
'you're french?' i asked.
'i am french, yes.' he replied.
and thus, i replied instantly,
'anything for the french.'

The epilogue of the story, i guess, is that I caught the tin man observing the gesture, and I attribute the stare and the swagger in the photograph to my kindness to share my smoke stick with a sharply dressed frenchman.

Derren Browns Portrait's Plug #5, #6 and #7

Clint Eastwood.

Tom Waits.

Kirk Douglas.

The Wreath Star

"Darth Vader Control's Everything but Himself."
- My 7 Year Old Brother.

Do Not Sit Down Illusion Head

(from "The Melancholy Death of Oysterboy" by Tim Burton)

I once knew a girl
who would just stand there and stare.
At anyone or anything,
she seemed not to care

She'd stare at the ground,

She'd stare at the sky.

She'd stare at you for hours,
and you'd never know why.

But after winning the local staring contest,

she finally gave her eyes
a well-deserved rest.

source - http://homepage.eircom.net/~sebulbac/burton/home.html

Apart from his hauntingly quaint short story book, "The Melancholy Death of Oysterboy", Timmy B has been working on some animations, all revolving around the character "stainboy" (also from the book "The Melancholy Death of Oysterboy") a superhero who ruminates stains and is also the renowned vigilante of The Municipal Town of Burbank. He works for the Burbank Police Department and by the command of the Chief of Police, rids the town of 'low life scum' or social outcasts which jeopardize the towns... uh... already mediocre and slightly distpoicesque image. lol.

With that gallery space opening over the last few months, and these cartoons and novella, Tim Burton is finally opening up his closet of wonders to his loyal audience, rather than showering us with the silver screen. Not that I'm complaining, but since I stumbled apon a website of Burton's sketches, my hunger grew from the Artists works, well beyond his uniquely stylized films which always feed the starving artist. At the very least, this one.

The World of Stainboy; Episode 1 "Stare Girl" in HD.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World Trailer

Exile on Carnaby Street

carnaby street; modcity
man; pamphlettown

Overheard on Kids TV #1 (perhaps the first and last)

"the pipe made my eyes are all red and blurry, i may have hit the pipe too hard."
- 'Rusty'
the monkey wrench on fixing the sink.

(Handy Manny Children's Television Program)

- Rusty, the culprit in question (right)

Grotesque Blogism

.... Sometimes I Wonder if Bakhtin and Nietzsche, had they met, would have had long conversations about how one of them had despised Socrates philosophies and the other had despised Dostoevsky's works, and then both realized that neither of them are listening to each other and both were just looking for someone to talk to about their supreme and deificaitic dispositions.

and Then, they would precede to dance the macarena, and when dancing had subsided, they would sit in antler donned chairs by the fire and feed each other grapes from the vine. Then, Woody Allen would fan them with a giant peacock feather in this hypothetical reality where powerhouse minds argue, and then culminate with pampering each other, hedonistic style.
+ sultry women.

In closing, I recommend this article:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Nietzsche%27s+influence+on+Bakhtin%27s+Aesthetics+of+Grotesque+Realism-a0204861628

Mark Twain; Forward Thinker...

- Mark Twain; Forward Thinker.

"I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt:

"Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together."

- Mark Twain, 1909
(1909; a year before his death as well the actual re-appearance of Haley's commet)

100 Years in the Procrastinating.

In 2010 (our current year, a.d), one of Mark Twain's dying wishes, as outlined in his will, is being fulfilled by the kind publishers at University of California Press;
until recently the death date of Mark Twain had been calculated via rumor and hearsay. Due to recent liberation of information, we are now illuminated to new developments in the way of ancient memoir surfacing.
the author had previously requested that they be held by his estate until he was 'dead, unaware and indifferent.'

In short, Twain completed an auto biographical memoir in the years before his passing, and made it one of his dying wished for the articles in question to not be released until 100 years after his death. Twain's justification for such a request had to do somewhat with the un-intention of offending anyone, in particular, specific lawyers and figures of authority of his time. If he was oblivious to its publishing, so much those be who are referenced and colourfully and moustachily slandered.

It is a milestone for his legacy, as well as literature, where as amongst the various biographies of Twains, this one was his personal memoir, writing he held close to his chest and discovered some kind of personal elation in writing them. This is easily seen in a letter he sent to a colleauge in the latter part of 1870;
“I’ve struck it! And I will give it away—to you. You will never know how much enjoyment you have lost until you get to dictating your autobiography."

The Mysterious Stranger Himself, Mr. Huck' Finn, Pudd'nhead Wilson, The Frog Enthusiast; Mark Twain, lived a life of self pontificating and self-depricating philosophical dreamlike menagerie of wisdom, mystery and albeit, great story telling. I always felt that his connection with the famed comet was not simply a 'paul is dead' rumor, or a silver lining, possibly stitched in by the literary forerunner himself. But one which depended not what the public, his readers or publishers thought of it,
but rather a personal belief, wrapped tightly in mysticism and personal belief that was as real as the comets stratospheric passing. and amazingly sadly, his own.

Fellow Frog Enthusiasts await with baited breathe to read the words from Twain's Typewriter, as he reveals all about his doubts about God, questions the imperial mission of the US in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, critiques of Roosevelt, his position against sending christian missionaries to Africa. (He said; "they had enough business to be getting on with at home: with lynching going on in the South, he thought they should try to convert the heathens down there.")
and,
amongst other things,
extrapolating his view that patriotism "is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
Anticipation ensues.