Big 10 Meanderthal Project with Mr. Baker

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Working on a project with the amazingly talented photographer Mr. Baker (http://www.peterbaker.net). The working title for his collection is Meanderthal, and he's been kind enough to invite us to contribute some dancing prose to his anthology.

As we've been known to fade into the annals of extinction from time to time as a result of drugs, sex, and quantum mechanics, we're going to keep a running collection of notes and pieces here to keep us honest and to demonstrate to all you wary cynics out there that we actually do work every now and then.

Profound:
Potential Introduction:
There’s a painting hanging crookedly on the wall in this place. It’s like no other painting I’ve ever seen. I walk up to the painting, so close to its canvas that I can smell the sweet acrylic. I take a deep breath in and exhale out slowly. The decorated scene feels eerily familiar to me.

I focus my attention on the young man in the painting. He’s staring right back at me, his dark eyes burning me with judgment and accusation. If I listen closely, I can almost hear him whispering my name, reminding me that in time, all of this will be no more than a distant memory.

I. Time is a meandering Neanderthal, watching your every move from a distance, waiting patiently, spear in hand, to celebrate or destroy.

II. Have you ever rolled across your bed and pulled the curtains back, looked through the window and felt your soul moving through time? Have you ever followed your thoughts through a dense forest at dusk or watched a reverie dance on a rooftop in the summer?

III. If I showed you the rays of blue that sprung from the earth and the beaches of white gold, if I showed you the snow fallen ballerinas and the fields of their lost brethren, if I showed you the iridescent fish swimming through clouds and the seas of dark misfortune, if I showed you all that I have seen…

IV. The world is a dark alley reborn by the second, around every bricked corner a snapshot of a new life, an opportunity to look into a hanging mirror and redefine oneself. When I am alone, in the swallowing shadows of these ominous buildings, I ignore the beacon of light pulsating in the distance from some far-off city and instead delve into my innards, because it is here, in the darkest depths of my entrails, where I will find the answers that I most desperately need.

Whimsical:
Potential Introduction:
I don’t care what you say, righteous superhero. I can’t even see your nylon cape. I can’t hear your super special heart beating and I sure as hell can’t feel your super penetrating x-ray vision stare. Perhaps I’m immune to your superpowers. Invulnerable. Untouchable. Perhaps I’m all that is pure in this world, the fulfillment of the prophecy, the prized superhero’s eternal nemesis.

Let it be known that I will race you to the rooftops, run up countless flights of stairs, run to the top of tall buildings. Somewhere high. I’ll be high. High and high, yulping like a warrior prince, telling the world everything I know, telling the meek and poor and downtrodden that I’ve come to save them from your perfect, super paradise.

I’ll tell the world my secrets, tell every living soul that they will pay homage to my wickedly sinful innovation. I’ll tell them that I’m more powerful than their venerated and righteous superhero. I'll tell them that I’m a force. A tornado. An earthquake. A mother fucking god.

I. Meanderthal: Any living creature that elects to errantly wander the planet for an indefinite period of time while ironically paying no attention to its surroundings.

II. I pray to the Holiest of Holies that age will bring me neither wisdom nor true love, but rather a hairy paunch and the will and commitment to sport a Speedo at every public function.

III. In Hinduism, the cow is a symbol of wealth, strength, abundance, selfless giving and a full Earthly life. I try to remember this every time I eat a hamburger.

IV. Traveling has opened my eyes to a myriad lessons about humanity and our shared global culture. I have learned that we will urinate on practically anything, that trash is considered decorative at specifically designated locales, that automobiles are prized more than lakes, that motels never wash duvets, and that ice cream will undeniably make you fat.

V. I want nothing more than to own a boat. I’d sail that boat to some distant island off the coast of Burma, find a bathing beauty floating on a raft in the Bay of Bengal and make her my wife. We’d frolic naked across my boat, from stern to bow, dancing wildly to the melodies of the crashing waves and the clucking of soaring gulls.