tuckova

ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things

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Interests: Alfons Mucha, Archibald Leach, big words, Bob Hicok, Brian Eno, Cat Power, Charles Bukowski, Charlotte Masaryk, cheese, clarity, dark chocolate, David Byrne, David Foster Wallace, Dorothy Parker, Douglas Adams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E.E. Cummings, Frank O’Hara, Fred Rogers, garlic, Gaudi, Gertrude Stein, ginger, Gustav Klimt, Iva Pekarkova, Jane Austen, Jaromir Nohavica, Jeanette Winterson, Josef Skvorecky, Joseph Campbell, Joss Whedon, Just a Minute, Kate Bush, Kurt Vonnegut, laughing until it hurts, Laurie Anderson, Leonard Cohen, little kids singing, Lloyd Alexander, mandarin oranges, making lists, Margaret Atwood, Miss Manners, New Yorker, Paul Simon, performance, P.G. Wodehouse, poetry, Rebecca Solnit, Rob Brezsny, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Creeley, salt, Salvador Dali, secrets, silence, Star Trek, Stephen Dunn, Talking Heads, Terry Gilliam, things that stain, This American Life, Tom Waits, T.S. Eliot, vegetable juice, veiled cultural references, vinegar, water, wine, W.H. Auden

Category: TODAY

  • copy paste

    When I was in high school I used to shave my eyebrows and draw them on with liquid crayons. Blue, green, lurid. I wanted to look like a weird and intriguing alien; I probably just looked weird. Some months later, the school newspaper profiled another student who had just started painting her own eyebrows: what…

  • squeaky clean

    I spent last week in a remote village on the side of a mountain in Spain, visiting my friend who owns a donkey as her mountain is too steep for cars. She has a DIY approach to life beyond any aspirations I recall ever having. The donkey is agreeable despite having what can only be…

  • un gato Andalou

      I wanted in some part to be away from home long enough to know what things actually mattered to me as identified by their absence. So far: utter darkness for sleep. A blanket or duvet and sheets. A window or good fan in the bathroom, and heat. Good toilet paper. Small things mostly. I…

  • post post

    On Friday I went to the post office to mail the rest of the bookish artist's postcards, because I said I would. I don't generally like post offices, in part because of a catch-22 in which I don't go often and thus don't know how to behave and thus make mistakes and get reprimanded (like…

  • Anfa Thus Far

    Holes all over the place: the pulled teeth of trees or cables or maybe another emptiness altogether. Skies that are blue or dappled or overcast but never dull. It's cold in the morning but by noon we're carrying our sweaters. Cafes with all the chairs facing out, making a parade of the sidewalk. The chairs…

  • talking trash under your breath

    For the last couple weeks I've been feeling low-key sorry for myself, which is not my best look. There's a sadness that is a consistent undercurrent; I keep from drowning by keeping my chin up, by staying in motion. Generally that works. Sometimes it's the cold undercurrent itself that helps me feel every bit of…

  • brushing the animal’s coat

    There's been a bit of a scandal at one of the universities, involving teachers behaving inappropriately with students. A fun experiment is to ask people what they think, whereby you learn some things they might not otherwise volunteer. If I were a better experimenter I'd keep my own thoughts to myself but it's hard. Finally…

  • Wordle

    I don't remember where I started. I think it must have been random at first, while I found my place. I never fell for the rich man's word, audio, nor the smartypants salet I didn't know, suggested instead of the more obvious tales. Then for a moment I had a word that was mine, one…

  • ha ha very funny

    The increasingly atrocious facebook still has the "memories" feature, which I enjoy. I treat it kind of like a horoscope: a few years ago on this day I was thinking about this or that, so maybe today will also be a this or that day. Sometimes it is.  Four years ago I went to Vienna to…

  • save some room for later

    For the last few days I've been feeling something I'd best classify as "low-grade rage" that starts shortly after I wake up and continues through the day. I've been meditating again, thank goodness, and so part of me sits next to this rage and watches it like a dark cloud passing across the sky or…