April is the pearlest month day eighteen: YOU GUYS. I guess there are pearls that talk.

Apr18

Ok, so, I walk into Julee’s Jewelry which everybody knows is the hotbed of jewelry action in St. Peter, Minnesota. Looking for new material to distract myself from the fact that I’m halfway through this project and still don’t have a comfortable pearl mode. I mean, I’m wearing them, every damned day because I said I would, but it’s still not comfortable as in “effortless” as in “was she BORN wearing those because she certainly looks as if she was.” It’s not working out like that, so far. For about five minutes I thought I was onto something with the trashy-eye technique but that’s a lot of work and it doesn’t pair well with, say, promoting the Arts Center’s new summer “Music for Toddlers” class. (Which is going to be great, taught by Ms. Anja Scheidel, who is fabulous.)

ANJA. Pearls implied.

So.

I go to Julee’s. Julee, who is the kindest and most passionate person you can imagine in or outside of any jewelry store, shows me her new antique clock. She shows me her new line of jewelry with tiny chains that move, like, while you’re wearing the piece. I should have taken photos. I’m sorry. It was so nice to talk to her and just to look at those tiny swinging chains, I forgot about photos. I urge you to seek out a few minutes of the same. She’s really fine with browsers, just fine.

Photo courtesy of The St. Peter Herald. Here’s the story.

Ok but the pearls.

Turns out Julee carries this new line called Momento Pearls by Galatea. And you guys, you guys, they talk.

They. TALK.

I guess if you start a pearl by sticking little chip inside the oyster, instead of sand or whatever it is that’s the normal way, if you make the pearl with a CHIP instead of a piece of SAND then you can RECORD YOUR VOICE ON THE CHIP. And then guess what. Guess. What???

Roll film.

[What, you don’t have time to click through? Don’t have time to see the freakbeauty miracle of 21st Century accessories-meet-surveilance-meet-Siri? I THINK YOU CAN CLICK. Here it is again.]

As shown, when she activates the pearls, what comes out is the voice of her deployed husband reminding her of his limitless love.

[And then — spoiler alert — just when you’re like “oh OH OH that must feel amazing for her because he’s so far away,” suddenly there he IS in the living room, home on leave or something, and it is WONDERFUL but also confusing in a way because, wait, if this is so futuristic that the pearl is talking to her, IS he actually there? Or is he simply some kind of hologram created from a grain of sand inserted in the Internet. Right? Whoa.]

One wonders, though. Besides deployed soldiers with wives who have pearl-ready necks, who exactly is in the market for talking pearls? Or should be?

I did a little field research. It was a rigorous half-day study of interviews with people I happened to see at work and at home. The majority response is best summed up by what I got from Lauren, a sharp, thoughtful, and open-minded studio art major: “Oh. Oh wow. I think that’s weird.” (touches ears to indicate the weirdness of something hanging off your ear as it talks into your ear) “I think that would be weird.”

HOWEVER. It was statistically significant that the interviewees who 1) were men and 2) had to take off their Bluetooth headphones to listen to me talk about this reacted like this:

“OH. MY. GOD. ARE YOU KIDDING ME.” (drops jaw) (drops brochure) (joyful gleam in eye, like laser)

Point being. Today is the birthday of my friend Jake, a writer and filmmaker whose work I admire very much.

Here’s his Nerdist essay Five Reasons Your Star Trek Tattoo Will (Predictably) Not Get You Laid.

I admire Jake’s writing and I value his editing great deal. I’ve killed many a darling, many a superclever turn of phrase, after Jake told me it was crap. You have to cherish writerfriends like that, you really do. When their birthday comes around you have to kind of return the favor by giving them stuff they didn’t even know they needed. Right? You do. One year I gave him a Tarot reading, not actually in his presence, I just pulled up his Facebook and thought about what I figured he should do with his life and read the cards and sent him the audio. It was like I did all the work for him, which, who doesn’t want that. One year I sent him an Avenging Unicorn Playset.

This year, my well-timed research indicated that Jake — while neither in the military, nor married nor about to become married or anything along those lines, to my knowledge — is the exact perfect market for pearls that talk. I would suggest that these pearls might even be the slightly older, more cash-flowing person’s equivalent of a Star Trek tattoo. Like, if she’s into nerd things the way he is into nerd things, MAGIC is going to happen. He could buy them in advance, like now. And record something authentic like maybe taking a sharp inhale and then choking out “………so.” And then, just have them. Pull them out at whatever airport bar or film set or organic produce aisle he happens to be hanging around when a prospect walks in.

And he’d be like, “check this.” And she’d be like, “OH… MY…”

You get it. He can take it from there. He is so welcome. Happy birthday, Jake.

Jacob Strunk’s words and motion pictures are stalkable here, at seven miles west of town productions. Click on shop and you’ll get to the blood-spattered tanks and tees promoting his film Life, Love and the Dear Departed. Mother’s Day! Just saying.

Eucalyptusexy: A tribute to winter, your wife, and Vicks VapoRub ®

Jan1

There she is.

She isn’t lounging in the tableau that you love – late morning summer, bedroom window, leaded glass, sun shining in like golden oil on her shoulders, waves of sweet exfoliation touching straps that keep her tank top just in place. On those shoulders. Warm and freckled, skin on fire with inner glow thanks to you there in the bedroom, Mr. Husband, in your t-shirt, boxer briefs. Goodbye tank top. Hello, Sunday. Make. Me. Coffee.

That is not the way it looks in January. It looks dark. It looks dirty. Big dust hairballs on the floor, crunchy ladybugs from autumn still a crust inside the window where the leaded glass is frosted and the light comes through just barely, rather chilly, rather gray.

Nothing gold. Nothing with powers to warm your wife who’s like a grub rolled up in bed, rolled in layers upon layers of chenille, fleece and flannel. Maybe tank top in there somewhere? Maybe skin? But way down where you can’t quite see. For sure can’t touch. Because it’s cold. And if you cannot make it warmer then you’ll have to put on hold your thoughts of marriage interactions, sweet late morning satisfactions. Goodbye, urges. Hello, bathrobe.

But! There’s hope.

There is something, Mr. Husband, you can use to reach the woman deep inside that insulation. Just lean over the cocoon of her, and on that bedside table past the tissues, past the bottles, past the book club books and vaporizer – careful not to fall on her – keep reaching till your fingers feel the cool, slick plastic ridges of the jar that has the power to grant your wishes. It’s the substance that has magic like medicinal Absinthe but it’s quite legal, it’s quite easy. It’s quite aquablue and greasy. The key to what you need, to white-hot January love. It’s the one thing she wants more than heat. It’s Vicks sweet VapoRub ®.

Ask her, please, if you could reach beneath the blankets and the sheets, and slide her woolen socks off gently and just moisturize her feet. With Vicks ®, which, you might know, is noted to have properties that soothe the worst bronchitis when applied to the bottoms of the feet. It’s the oddest, truest thing, and that small bit of conversation is a very good distraction from the fact that you’ve now lifted up the blankets and your hands are on her skin. Granted, ankles – but you’re there.

You just keep rubbing. Warm it up first, make sure nothing touches her that’s not as nice and hot as summer on her soles, her heels, her soft unshaven calves. Keep it warm. Keep it moving. Keep it smooth, Mr. Husband, and the next thing you both know she’s taking big deep drags of bedroom air. That chest that’s in there somewhere, under blankets? It is rising. It is falling. And her neck? It might be arching just enough that you can see a slice of flesh like winter moonrise cresting over threadbare flannel. It’s her throat! It is – yes! It is something close to chest.

Close enough. You seize this moment. Keep one hand down at the bottom, keep it moving, keep her happy, keep your balance, reach your other hand around to find that Vicks ®, and then, just lightly, really slow and very slightly, bring that pearl of eucalyptus close to where she can inhale it – as a service, as a kindness, you are Mr. Winter Selfless, taking care of feet and sinuses – and watch. Next thing you know, sure as your unshoveled snow, she will rise. She will peel the fleece and flannel and chenille. She’ll sit upright, or just enough that you can access things you haven’t seen in weeks.

Do not pause to take it in. You do not risk air on her skin. You fast unbutton. Make a tent out of the covers. If the grease that’s on your fingers makes that clumsy? Tear the flannel. An advantage of it being old and ugly Is that no one’s going to argue hours later when a shirt is found in tatters on the floor. Hours later when you’re both quite newly warm.

Hours, or minutes. Doesn’t matter. You have turned it into summer In the bedroom, and there’s nothing out those windows that can touch the way it feels inside this minty cloud of sweetness, this hot seal of eucalyptus that adheres you to the woman who is worth all that and more.

She is close. She is yours. She is flannel on the floor.

She is warm. She is happy.

She is eucalyptusexy.

EUCALYPTUSEXY is now a micro motion picture by Jacob Strunk with music by Paris Zax and gorgeousness by Lindsey Vaerst. A warm and emotive gorgeousness that mocks Minnesota winters in a most brazen way. Ah, Hollywood.

Originally performed as part of Mankato Mosaic’s 2012 Brrrlesque show, featuring the quilt-wearing, sock-twirling, lovely Launa Helder.

This post not (yet) endorsed by Vicks VapoRub ®.

Border Protection won’t let me give you the good stuff

Jun23

The last thing I did before I left South Africa this week was buy all this great food to bring back for everybody. Tasty stuff. Ostrich pâté, springbok pâté, crackers called Salticrax which aren’t exotic but the name is funny even if you’re sophisticated, like me. Supersophisticated. Look how poised I am while the manager at the duty-free shop takes back all my stuff once he realizes I’m American, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection doesn’t allow meat. And the Salticrax aren’t that funny on their own.

This left me torn between sadness over not having any treats to bring to work on Monday, and excitement over looking non-American enough that I got away with buying this at all. If that’s why it happened. I’m pretending it was. While I sort that out, here are some hassle-free souvenirs:

For Claudia, an undead flower.

For Brian who’s been painting and posting the most contagious black lines in search of his Black Madonna, a tavern wall.

For the Black Madonna.

For all my artistically risky friends, and the regular risky ones.

For my friends who worry about size of their ass or anything else.

For my friends who brew their own. This was in the yard of a microbrewery where Scott accidentally ordered a popular lager and the proprietor said, man, you’re at a microbrewery, you’re being insulting. We re-ordered. The head was impassive.

For Jacob who enjoys a roadside skeleton.

For Rachael who is macabre.

For Amy who thinks about decorating her rafters.

For Goth Mom whose shadows are delicate yet terrifying.

For Launa who would wear these quite well.

For Shandy, the only woman in the Western world to wear a baby as stylishly as Africans do. Check this out, with a bath-sized towel. Every mother there does it just like this. I don’t know how the baby doesn’t fall out backwards or why this looks so right.

I don’t know why I’m cursed with hair that won’t turn into soft dreds.

It’s possible that I haven’t surrendered enough, yet, to something. A shampoo-free life. Something.

This is for Scott and Becky who showed me a version of surrender, the version where Scott drives an hour in a traffic jam to a city that’s closed.

To see the lights.

Hello from Gandhi to Jake.

Also for Jake.

And here’s a little take-home for me so I remember how it felt to spread out my pencils in front of a breathtaking tableau and then remember that I can’t actually, like, draw. I can’t draw big things.

I tried anyway, of course, artistic risk and blah blah blaaaah. That was enchanting for only so long. About this long:

I was so blank in the face of that, I went up to the edge of the pool and took a picture of that instead. Like, fine. If the sky’s going to be that way I’ll just see what’s in the pool.

The pool was at Glen Garriff Lion Farm in Harrismith, where I also got to see this. I watched and watched and watched.

To simulate my experience, imagine that it’s chilly but the sun is relentless. Imagine smacking sounds and tearing sounds, longer and more luxurious than noises you can make yourself. But you can try. After a while you maybe can’t help it. There you are in the sun and the stillness, watching this, not a single canned thing for miles and miles. I mean hectares. Just this, and this is everything, and it stuck in my eyes and ears and now I’m giving it to you, and Border Protection can’t really do anything about that.