http://www.thickjam.com 'Think long. Write short.' — George Lois Tue, 18 Jun 2013 08:51:36 +0000 http://www.thickjam.com en http://thickjam.com/no-294 http://thickjam.com/following/thickjam.com/no-294 Tue, 18 Jun 2013 08:51:36 +0000 'Think long. Write short.' — George Lois 5834531 The Facts of Life Anonymous Go up a few generations. Or more than a few: seven. Go back down again as far away from yourself as possible, your sixth cousin. His parents raised him on an island you’d say constantly smelled like coconut but had none. They’d found their own freedom, they said to relatives and friends, and it was severing any and all communication to the outside world. They’d remain on this island for as long as they lived, as would their son. When he was two the ocean started to claim the island more and more, and by the time he turned nineteen there was no dry land to stand on, only a mound of sand under water. He more than understand his country would be washed away, it was the fact of his world. He was the last to go (he fought the hardest), but even as his muscles became hot in their effort to keep him in air, even as his emaciated skin swished without feeling, he’d call his upcoming death natural. Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); The Facts of Life Anonymous Go up a few generations. Or more than a few: seven. Go back down again as far away from yourself as possible, your sixth cousin. His... http://thickjam.com/no-293 http://thickjam.com/following/thickjam.com/no-293 Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:36:49 +0000 'Think long. Write short.' — George Lois 5807558 Route Oblique Richard Baldasty As soon as I stepped into the bus, the driver turned into a large fish, which I thought might be a flounder. Don’t stare, she said, it’s not polite, and besides this isn’t the first nor likely the last of today’s transformations. And I did, as I inserted my ticket, begin to feel something within me yanked up from the muck of the sea, a lobster pot or bones of a luckless conquistador. Far he seemed from lemon-bright Sevilla—placid river, easy bridges—distant from the home he’d left, somehow or other believing in the beauty of someone else’s gold. Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Route Oblique Richard Baldasty As soon as I stepped into the bus, the driver turned into a large fish, which I thought might be a flounder. Don’t stare, she... http://thickjam.com/no-292 http://thickjam.com/following/thickjam.com/no-292 Wed, 12 Jun 2013 08:54:32 +0000 'Think long. Write short.' — George Lois 5800858 Morocco Mon Amour Fayroze Lutta Morocco Mon Amour, I feel forgotten by you, but I can’t forget you. I can’t bury you in the cemetery of the past. It’s a hoax, this business of forgetting. J'ai interrogée mon cœur ce matin de l'architecture de l'oublier. I questioned my heart this morning of the architecture of forgetting. I think back to your near fatal car crash on the expressway from Casablanca, returning to the hotel room to be by my bedside then my deliberate attempt to get you intoxicated. My ill-advised instantaneous cure for when death flashed before you. These near misses come to pass in life; quotidien and what of memory bliss is that to left to rot, left to decay along with that expressway – left forgotten, buried in the past. And, day by day, time puts a space between your memory and that love act, that expressway and all your left with is an old faded watercolour painting of Morocco, a violent haze of ochre and tangelo light if Turner had chosen those colours. That is all that remains now, a painting in my mind of a feeling of being scorched, of touch and go, a tortured twisted raging violent wind, of water and sky of life’s lived fury coloured in ochre. I walked over the Harbour Bridge yesterday; it has a view of one of this city’s few saving graces, the Opera House. All I saw was six lanes of metallic and the roar of petrol but I’m comforted by the rattle of the train as it passes over the bridge. With work I feel like I pass the day in perpetual silence, chained to my desk, drowning in paper. My friend said, “It’s just a job… change your attitude.” I don’t know… I’m going to continue to write to you and I will not get a reply. It will cost you 89 centimes for a stamp. It seems too much to ask… I want to frame those first three months I was in Paris with you, and that month last year in Morocco. I want to hang it next to the wooden clock on the wall above my bed. Those hot nights of waiting, talking, making love with our words on Rue D’Aboukir. Waiting for you to return to my fourth-floor apartment with ice cubes for the Martini Rossato and the loud love making that would follow next to paper thin walls where I could hear the neighbours cough. Paper-thin walls never mattered in that hotel room in Morocco. Calling out “Oui”, bent over the bed and the knock of the chamber maid on the door. What to make of all those moments of ecstasy past? I want to unfold you again, not curl up in the misery of an unanswered phone, or worse, answered with a woman’s voice. I want to smear my lipstick all over your shirt collar with my lips. I want everyone to see you are for me, like yesterday, like before and for always. I don’t want to know another man’s touch or form. I want you to keep me; to make love to me in the mornings before work. To make love so loud the neighbours blush. Oh mon objet d’amour, I will return to you and your embrace. What to make of all these frayed threads of my heart …? Je t’embrasse forte, (I kiss you hard) Ta chérie Fayroze Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Morocco Mon Amour Fayroze Lutta Morocco Mon Amour, I feel forgotten by you, but I can’t forget you. I can’t bury you in the cemetery of the past. It’s a... http://thickjam.com/no-291 http://thickjam.com/following/thickjam.com/no-291 Tue, 11 Jun 2013 08:31:11 +0000 'Think long. Write short.' — George Lois 5793188 Reanimation Robert John Miller MEMO FROM THE MEDICAL DIRECTOR ============================== DATE: 12/23/2033 TO: ALL STAFF CC: FILE FROM: CAPT. JAMES PENNYHOFFER, MD, MPH RE: ON THE PATHOGENESIS AND PROGNOSIS OF "ZOMBIE SYNDROME," AKA ZS, AKA HUMAN TRAUMA-INDUCED CALM-DEFICIENCY DISORDER, AKA HTCD ============================== 1. To date in 2033, we have found more than 50 new cases of HTCD per day across all branches. Infection is often triggered by mental or physical trauma. 2. If left untreated, prognosis includes violent eruption often at site of initial infection point (i.e., the head and neck region), even after long periods of dormancy, creating a public health hazard. 3. Primary symptoms include malaise with hypersensitivity to environment, often resulting in general anxiety or panic; reduced cognitive abilities; deteriorating physical appearance; actions that suggest a desire to infect others. 4. The following transcript should apply immediately in all suspected ZS cases: a. The first step to reclaiming your humanity is to breathe. Take a breath right now. Fill your lungs. If you can breathe, you are alive. It has to start here. In. Out. There are no tricks, no secrets. Breathe deep, suck the life in. This is an important task. This is the most important task. The lungs connect you to your nerves. The lungs are your only connection. So the first step is always to breathe. b. Now you are breathing, the next step is to sleep. Sleep is breathing for the mind. Each new day dawns from sleep. When you stop sleeping, you stop time, though the months continue. Sometimes, years. You will be stuck without a beginning or If you are not careful, you could slip away forever. These your only responsibilities. To sleep, to wake, to breathe. course you must also eat. Of course you must also move, as are able. This is a full life. c. You can stay where you are. There is no hurry. When you ready, you must feel. To be human, you must feel. Remember earlier lessons. Breathe in. Feel. Say, "I am feeling this particular feeling." Breathe out. Feel. Say, "I am feeling particular feeling." And again. And again. Feeling nothing place to start. Feeling nothing is a feeling. Feeling nothing is better than not feeling. You must not rush. d. The final cure is to re-stick yourself in time. You must think, "This is now." You must think, "That was then." You must continue. You must reflect. You may revert as needed. e. Repeat until symptoms subside. 5. This doctor died after longterm failure of 4(a). Suggest future cures be administered under highest supervision. Self- medication not recommended. Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Reanimation Robert John Miller MEMO FROM THE MEDICAL DIRECTOR ============================== DATE: 12/23/2033 TO: ALL STAFF CC: FILE FROM: CAPT. JAMES... http://thickjam.com/no-290 http://thickjam.com/following/thickjam.com/no-290 Thu, 06 Jun 2013 08:49:30 +0000 'Think long. Write short.' — George Lois 5764001 To Strangers in Airports Amanda Martin Here’s something funny that maybe you know but probably don’t – you can always forgive yourself. You can always start over. You have all of the time in your life, whatever is left of it. You could start running every day from now on, no exceptions, for the rest of your life, or at least until your hip or knee gives out (for more, read Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running). You can start tomorrow, or in the next hour, or within the next moment, but I’d advise you not to wait. Allow yourself the freedom to start anew – that’s all it takes. And here’s something else – I love you. I do. There’s a part of me that is you, and I love that part, the part that’s behind your eyelids when you close them in an exhausted place, when you’re horizontal somewhere on a train or airport bench or really anywhere but your bed, when you’re simultaneously afraid of ever having to leave your body and pent up, anxious at the thought that you’re trapped within it; you can never have an experience that isn’t yours. I love the inevitability of sticky-hot nights when you’re waiting to go to sleep, of insecurity and generalized fear and feeling stifled under the unexpected and unreciprocated love of a strange sleeping hand resting on your waist. I know the other side of that love too, I’ve been able to detect another’s desire to remain untouched like finding a needle in a haystack with a magnet. But most of all, I love whatever part of you that would share a bottle of whiskey with a hobo on a riverbed at the end of the world; whatever you would discuss inside that drunken wetness, I’d love. Because on that impossible night, you’d express the sort of deep-rooted feelings of strangeness and tragedy and inexplicable beauty that makes me love you, and life, and humanity, so unbearably much that sometimes I need to sink my teeth into the earth and scream and jump into lakes and cry underwater because I can’t bear to think that I can’t harness this experience, can’t tie it down or encapsulate it in amber like that bug in my father’s old office paperweight. This is why I love you and need you to know – you too have this sort of fire and light within you. You too have a world to learn about and create meaning within, and the time to change and start doing so. You too have some experience that escapes words and photographs, and in this way we are not alone, and intrinsically bound to each other. Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); To Strangers in Airports Amanda Martin Here’s something funny that maybe you know but probably don’t – you can always forgive yourself. You can always start... http://thickjam.com/no-289 http://thickjam.com/following/thickjam.com/no-289 Wed, 05 Jun 2013 08:38:30 +0000 'Think long. Write short.' — George Lois 5756851 Hope Anna Zumbro They had been at sea for three days without sight of land and with only the sun and stars for navigation. They were subsisting on raw fish that attracted circles of gulls. Today she could see nothing but water and fog. She had only him, the tiny lifeboat, and the emptiness. Then she saw it, laboring to stay aloft despite the weight of its glittering tail. “A peacock! Look, look, a peacock! There’s land nearby, to the left!” His eyes were full of pity. “Peacock? Here, there’s some meat left on this fish. You need it more than I do.” Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Hope Anna Zumbro They had been at sea for three days without sight of land and with only the sun and stars for navigation. They were subsisting on raw fish that... http://thickjam.com/no-288 http://thickjam.com/following/thickjam.com/no-288 Tue, 04 Jun 2013 08:27:01 +0000 'Think long. Write short.' — George Lois 5718984 Dreams Peter McMillan For some time he had dreamt what people dream when they grow old. The recurring theme—death … his death. Dreams of facing a vast lightless emptiness. Always ending with his getting swallowed or blotted out. Of being removed entirely from the world and from other people's memories. Oddly, he didn't hide his dreams. Sometimes he joked about his "dark epiphany" and its "interminable reruns." At one family gathering—his Aunt Katy’s wake—he said, far too loudly for the small room, that he’d love to break into one of his nighttime silent movies and yell "Fire!" No laughs. Subsequent failures on similar occasions moved him to give up black humor. As he'd gotten older, he'd turned into an unpleasant, bitter, mean person. He didn't seek company, and it didn't seek him. He begrudged the money solicited by charities. Resented people who exploited their disabilities to get to the front of the line. Hated minivans, SUVs, and shiny poser pickups—he drove an orange Carmen Gia convertible—for the view they blocked and the people they cocooned. Caricatured everyone, and basically, found fault with everything. His dreams, weighty and unrelenting, gradually worked changes on him. Indeed, coming around to accept them as a personal revelation and wake up call, he decided to focus on assuring the most favorable circumstances on his death. His wife noticed it first—the change—and one evening at a French restaurant celebrating her birthday, she commented that it was as if he'd been reborn. As soon as she said it, she wished she hadn't, fearing that particular image might trigger a reversal. But he didn’t slip back. In fact, he praised her “charming way of putting things.” Downtown on workdays, he sought out opportunities, and being cheerful and kind, energized him. During lunch breaks, he walked through the financial district, getting to know the regulars—the panhandlers, the buskers, the food vendors. He even visited a couple of shelters for the homeless and for abused women but wasn’t welcomed with the gratitude he’d expected. Undeterred, he continued to circulate among the people. In a dramatic concession to his wife, he now accompanied her to the upscale retirement home where Mother—his wife’s mother—lived. Weekends got busy as he and his wife went out to parties, the theater, the symphony, and even opera, and, for the first time in their marriage, began to host parties of their own. Then one hurried Wednesday afternoon in heavy traffic on the way home from the train station, he swerved sharply to the right to avoid a pothole and ended up forcing a motorcyclist off the road right into a telephone pole. In his rear view mirror, there was no movement on the ground. Seeing that no one was looking his way and the light was still yellow, he floored it. He couldn't be late. Jason Ripley, Sr. of Applewhite, O'Donnell, and Ripley was reading Mother’s will at five. His old dreams never bothered him again. Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Dreams Peter McMillan For some time he had dreamt what people dream when they grow old. The recurring theme—death … his death. Dreams of facing a vast... http://thickjam.com/no-287 http://thickjam.com/following/thickjam.com/no-287 Wed, 29 May 2013 08:41:43 +0000 'Think long. Write short.' — George Lois 5711138 The Movies Mila Jaroniec The one time I blacked out at the movies was in middle school, during The Passion of the Christ. Mom remembered reading somewhere that middle school was an important time for father-daughter bonding, and besides, Dad had taken my brother to the movies once so it was only fair. We chose aisle seats in the far back. The moviegoers crunched their popcorn while the actor-soldiers beat the hell out of Christ. The chemical butter scent settled wetly in the back of my throat and my vision went grainy, then narrowed into a shrinking static tunnel before the film cut and I hit the floor. See, my dad said after, placing my thin-blooded body on a bench in the lobby, Looks like you’re Catholic after all. Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); The Movies Mila Jaroniec The one time I blacked out at the movies was in middle school, during The Passion of the Christ. Mom remembered reading somewhere that... http://thickjam.com/no-286 http://thickjam.com/following/thickjam.com/no-286 Tue, 28 May 2013 08:26:02 +0000 'Think long. Write short.' — George Lois 5703145 Tipping Point Kristina England The ballerina's mother insisted it was an accident. Just a misplaced foot. But, you see, a ballerina can only lean over so far without someone to hold her. There's only so much strength her legs can give, only so much balance the world can offer. And when you hoist her up on an electric wire, ask her to thin herself so it can bear her weight, eventually anyone would chance the fall. Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Tipping Point Kristina England The ballerina's mother insisted it was an accident. Just a misplaced foot. But, you see, a ballerina can only lean over so far... http://thickjam.com/no-285 http://thickjam.com/following/thickjam.com/no-285 Thu, 23 May 2013 08:35:51 +0000 'Think long. Write short.' — George Lois 5674268 Some Time Has Gone Since Parthosarathi .......Inspiration trickles down a lost link desperately trying to hold on to. Inspiration is dead in a reality as consuming as cancer. Eating the soul from within. Gnawing at it like menacing rodents gone rampant with plague....... .......The silvery moon hanging in anticipation at a quiet western horizon. Moonlight blues and silver fairies making love by the dancing stream. Streams and cascades caressing the mountain slopes, awaken in the shadows of a silent night. Contemplating a mood that stirs strings of a faint nostalgia. Southern stars, bright with a soothing brilliance, trying to communicate. Posing questions, eternal queries about the nature of beauty, the implications of life....... .......Then there are the tears. Heavens look upon and nod in helplessness. Wandering souls, burning amber within, a cold impassivity on the surface. Passions running high, but with not the remotest inkling of the vents. Vents to release the rapid retrograde. Only a weltering wilderness to wallow over. A wilderness that once had inspired love in its greatest manifestation. Only to sit back and stare at fading snapshots from an anonymous album....... Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Some Time Has Gone Since Parthosarathi .......Inspiration trickles down a lost link desperately trying to hold on to. Inspiration is dead in a reality as consuming...