Sagittarius 12° (December 4)

Just when I thought things might have been looking up another bomb, which I did not see coming, gets dropped. I truly don’t understand this life. The challenge feels way too big for me and I don’t know why, during a pandemic, that people can be so cruel. But I try to imagine that I am being guided in the right direction, despite the stress and searing pain I’m feeling. I look for signs and there may be some but not really sure they are what I’m after anymore. The stress is really just too, too great and I know myself and I need to secure a back up. There is no point in giving over to this place at this point now. The day really was going so well, but you just have to flow with the go in life, is what it comes down to, and so I will let myself be slightly derailed and then I will do a giant redirect. There is nothing else can be done about things. There is a special circle in Hell for people who intentionally cause others pain and suffering, particularly during this Covid-19 pandemic. (And it is so cliché to be a douche at the end of the day on a Friday.) 2020 has brought out the best and the worst in people, but like traitors, real perpetrators of any kind are now easy to spot among those in whom this dark time has brought out the bright lights of kindness and compassion. Go out of your way to be loving, as you have no clue what loss and difficulty others might be enduring. Don’t add to people’s pain. I know I’m preaching to the choir, here, because if you’re reading this we are friends, so at the very worst, you’re a benign narcissist (as I’ve pretty much weeded out the maligant ones from my social media sphere over the last twelve months)! Forgive even the most rabid fucktards for the sake of your own peace and well-being. Feel for those who tresspass against you because that karma you done heard about is real. Happy weekend everybody and stay out of every kind of harm’s way! 00

The following blocks of text are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 1236-1240 I am reading through all of my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, by the time I get to my seventh, I will have journeyed through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize. Year seven, I’ll only have to read through year six, once a day.

Still really unsettled by the shark incident and I know I won’t get back to our beach before returning from NYC where we go in a couple of days. I was looking back on some writing from the past couple of years. And I wish to just repeat it here.

My mother used to tell me how she had to fight and, I think, ultimately, drink to silence her “impressions”, empathetic Pisces that she was. Sometimes I would catch her unawares sitting in a kitchen chair staring unblinkingly, only her gaze seemed to direct inward not out. I didn’t experience what she experienced as a child.

I do remember moving objects when I was very small, something I never repeated, though I’ve tried. And surely I did enter the fairy world, for lack of a better term, through duvet covers and sometimes even the odd pillow case. But there was nothing in my youth or teens of the psychic about my experience except so far as my mother was concerned. I would get a flash that she was about to phone me and I would suprise and entertain friends and roommates by saying the phone is about to ring and it would be my mother which it was. I chalked that up to her not me.

In Rome in 1984 Stella and I met an old man who spoke in tongues whom we “understood” on a transmissionary level; in our Hoboken apartment in 1988 we saw plasmic scenes of partygoers from the 1920s superimposed upon the visual landscape of our interior. We had a ghost cat that visitors would also see and almost trip over. But it wasn’t until the early 1990s, living in New York’s West Village, where we did for a good long time, that my so-called gift emerge.

In clubs and in bars with a good buzz on was how it began. Inevitably the struck-up conversations with acquaintances or veritable strangers, I would start getting messages. People wouldn’t think I was crazy because I was eerily accurate in my verbalizations; in the moment I didn’t judge, while, next day, I chalked it up to quasi drunken stupidity. Now I know that drinks would relax the veil between me and it. I wasn’t a professional astrologer then, never mindsome form of metaphysician. These little episodes were foreshadowing. But, slowly, over time, I did begin to trust these impressions which  were being received increasingly in sober moments. I simply thought: cool, I have inherited something of my Celtic mother’s gift which might amount to a tiny party trick perhaps. No further expectation.

Year’s later as we began doing astrological readings for people, the sharp focus of doing so seemed to have the same effect as the fuzzying out that drinking enabled. Impressions were coming to me through the very opposite end of my mental spectrum—that of a concentrated openness to the symbolic patterning on a individual’s astrological chart. We were (and are) continually trained to read people’s charts, the result of which is already forever astonishing—the accuracy of a technical astrological reading will always remain inexplicable as to the why it works. But, more and more, there was something extra available to me. Training my mind technically, consciously, intellectually via the complexities and intricasies of one’s chart at hand seemed also to open a window somewhere in the back (or, to be accurate upper-left side) of said consciousness where these flashes, impressions, or rather, imperatives were asking to be articulated.

I pick a Tarot card every morning. Doing so is never the same twice. Our minds are never exactly in the same state when we do some ritual behavior—they state always varies at least by tiny degrees. This morning I was shuffling absent-mindingly to the point that I forgot what I was doing, lost in some early morning daydream, the to-dos of the day yet to creep their way in. Suddenly I “heard” a pick me from one of the cards I remembered I was fondling. I did. It was the Magician. And its appearance immediately inspired the theme of today’s installment. In a way my so-called psychic ability, as transient as it can be, is the Universe’s ultimate Blage on me.

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Possible venues throughout New England Portland: State Theater; Aura, Longfellows, Space Gallery.

I stumbled on a few things I wrote of late

How to speak on the subject of nothingness: The day was devoid of meaning, there was nothing to discuss, the televised news headlines were the same as last night’s, it was toast as usual, today, with almond butter and honey, not miso-tahini sauce. Alas, it was a no-nonsense day, with varied purposes being personfied in beings moving too and fro, like birds, in the morning.

There was beauty; there always is. But today had a special spark suggesting something significant might happen. Use of simile, unawares. And somewhere via something else a corner of the mind awakes from long sleep not hindered by worry and longing. There was poetry, too. Somehow, inside ones head, verse was heard, sounded like voiced by Laurence Olivier, the first name to be introduced here. And now, I have nothing to fear.

I asked the door to move if there were spirit here and it didn’t. So I know that it is just me. And before I exercise license I must feel, and that is near impossible. Take sip, swallow. Make of yourself vehicle and vessel. It’s uncomfortable but it gets the lead out. Golden years, gold, whop whop whop.

I sent L.R. another email to try and get paid for the time and energy I put into booking her a gig. I don’t know why I won’t learn my lesson with certain people who seem to feel justified in using others for their own selfish ends. Lesson learned. Never again. I alighted on Rob Roth’s show and wrote him a note but he wasn’t interested apparently. I’m still pulling teeth from people who pledged to become sponsors of the festival. I don’t understand how ridiculous this process has become. The December show is coming together band-wise. And I’m already immediately into grant writing for next year. Crazy.

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There was something else I stumbled upon recently, things I wrote but failed to remember:

Living in seaside towns you see your fare share of inns and B&Bs and so forth. And there is something about the signage that can tell you something right off the bat, I find, about the personalities of the owners. If full and they hang a little NO to the left of VACANCY I take it as a polite, time-saving gesture for all involved. It’s polite enough without being cute. I hate cute. The only exception perhaps is when a shop says OPEN and then scrambles the words to read NOPE when they’re not. I can sort of deal with that. But when an inn or B&B is full and they hang the world NO to the right of the VACANCY sign, I feel we’re in for a bit of a problem. I mean there won’t be a problem because obviously I’m not entering to inquire about a room—I wouldn’t anyway; but I might subliminally steer visiting friends or strangers, even, away from some a place. Somehow that particular combination of the two words is the equivalent of the kind of 1980s joke, like, “I’m so interested in this—NOT.” It’s something Roseanne used to say as the character Roseanne on Roseanne. It’s a little dangle-y, as if there is a silent question mark after the work VACANCY? and then boom: NO, loser. It’s just a bit passive aggressive.

And then there is the more cloying passive aggresive version of the no vacancy sign which is SORRY. Really? Sorry? Are you. Why. Who asked you to be. Who says I’m disappointed? How did we jump to disappointment. It’s assuming a lot: To think you have the power to disappoint me. It’s so condescending. It might be worse than VACANCY NO now that I think about it. Like it’s so fucking great to stay at your crappy B&B. SORRY. That’s like breaking up with someone because you know they are just about to break up with you. Like I have to be shut out from staying at your crappy place and also be noble enough to let you down easy that I didn’t want to fucking stay there in the first place. God. It’s such a victimy projection. Like don’t fucking worry about it. I’m fine. I don’t need your fucking pity that I can’t stay in your lousy room with the squeaky double bed and eat your mini muffins with bad coffee in the morning. Trust me we are good.

Whatever happened to FULL. I love FULL. It’s so simple and direct. It’s the opposite of VACANCY, that would be EMPTY which wouldn’t be accurate because a place isn’t empty then full it’s filling up and then full. FILLING UP would be a cute way of saying VACANCY but, yeah, we don’t like cute so never mind. And so what—damn the parallel structure—FULL works just fine. It’s succinct and yet it feels a little friendly. It’s not assuming anything about me or asking me to feel away. It’s not like the other codependent nightmare signs. It’s just like FULL. That’s it. We’re cool. No need to discuss. I have boundaries. I wish you well. I’m not going to waste your time. Just keep looking and I wish you well. God Speed.

While on the subject of signs: I have this idea to market a two sided Provincetown Paddle whereupon, on one side it says COME HERE and on the other GO AWAY. Because after living and working in this town for quite some time what I’ve noticed is that it’s a petrie dish for polarization. And ultimately people fall into two categories—those you want or actually need to see for one reason or another on any given day OR those you are definitely trying to avoid seeing or being seen by. So I thought I would market an auction paddle. I could call it the “Provincetown People Polarization Paddle”™ I think it would sell like hotcakes.

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Yesterday we drove from the Cape to Boston. I haven’t had panicky feelings in a long time but as I was telling S. I have been experiencing a sort of dread lately. It might very well be about money, but I think it’s more than that. I think it’s about the creative limbs that we keep going out upon and not knowing when to sort of reel those suckers in.

Some more remembrances:

As a small child in Jersey City we used to have soot showers. That’s right. There was a nearby factory or something and sometimes soot would fall from the sky like black snow flakes, wafting down. It was very odd and frankly something I hadn’t thought about probably since the last time I witnessed one—sometimes sitting down to write a Blague without any exact idea about what that Blague might be can trigger memories of this sort. These soot showers used to happen, I recall, most, in Spring, which seemed longer when I was a kid, in no small part due to the manmade changes in our weather patterns.

There was something magical that happened to kids in Spring, which I can’t quite explain. In the city, there would come that day where bubbles and water balloons and kites and kids trying to ride bikes for the first time without training wheels, bats-and-balls, those paddles with the ball attached with a rubber band, and hopscotch, water pistols, and hulahoops, and those small pink balls one used, in cities, to play handball against a brick wall, and the two dangerous early-seventies toys called Clackers—two balls on a string you would try to make hit above and below your quick-flicking grip, only to hit yourself in the head or face—and that other gadget, a loop with a string and ball attached, where you strapped the loop around one ankle and you would try to jump over the ball as you swung it in a circular motion with said ankle, only to trip yourself and fall face first onto the pavement—all would all start to surface. Girls played elaborate patty cake and jumped rope and everyone played Red Rover and May I.

Later in the more bucolic suburbs, in addition to paper airplaines, boys would fold up paper footballs and shoot the between a buddy’s goal post—index fingers connected at the tips with both thumbs up, while girls made what I was told later in life by someone were called Cooty Cathers, little magical folded and numbered creases of paper with numbers that you manipulated with your fingers and to which you posed questions about love, for the most part. I didn’t describe this at all well. Under flaps of paper were “answers” to the questions girls would ask. Suburban girls played less patty cake it seemed and gymanstical feats seemed to replace jumping rope, but that might be Nadia Comenici’s fault. And of course little league and new gloves and mitts and such played a major part in the childhood estate of Spring. And for some reason candy seemed to be more a Spring occupation than it was in other seasons. I think that had something to do with marketing and the knowledge that kids could sneak away to candy stores more readily in the clement weather.

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Yesterday we drove from Boston to New York City. It was ridiculously fast and easy all the traffic going the other way. We checked in and immediately went in search of lunch. Match was just a couple blocks away so we got seated and when we plopped down realized that Richard Barone was seated next to us with Paul Williams. Actually I spotted Paul first and thought in an instant that the only person I know who knows him is Richard et voila it was Richard. We said hi and did our own thing. S. had soup and I had a tuna tartare and then some single espressi and upon splitting had a nice chat with Richard and Paul who I think is 78 years old and really nice. He gave us his card. He is preseident of ASCAP. And he not only wrote We’ve Only Just Begun and most songs you (well, at least I) grew up on….he wrote the freaking The Rainbow Connection. For that he should be sainted.

We quickly spruced up and prepared to meet the publisher of Harper One books who was coming to see us for a chat. These types of meetings always give me something of a panic attack to be honest because I have such trauma around publishers, editors, agents, managers and lawyers in regard to book world. She was super cool but super on a schedule as is not expected. Still you never know where these things go. She mentioned doing a book for people we know that own a shop in Salem. Anyway we got a text that JW was going to be joining us that evening for dinner which was to make a happy foursome. We met around 7 and it was just the three of us for awhile which was great cuz we got to catch up on personal stuff and then JW joined and that was a differnet kind of fun. As usual we closed the joint and it wasn’t the best night of sleep.

We had a wee breakfast in the room and then set off for Barneys where I had two clothing options in mind that I needed to round out one or the other of the outfits I brought. I ended up scrapping everything and spending way too much money on a Margiela jacket and cotton cashmere t-shirt. Anyway I never buy clothes and it was a good investment so really no harm done. Then we decided to have lunch in the building at Fred’s. Suddenly Michael Cohen was there (apparently—I did not know this—he lunches there pretty much every day), which I thought was strange cuz Donnie Deutsch had been saying on Morning Joe so much, recently, that Michel is laying low and he hadn’t really seen him. S. had the chopped salad which is her custom and I had the club salad with blue cheese. We had a nice crisp glass of Sancerre each and headed out. Who should we see exiting the restuarant, in that weird area with art sculptures made for six year-olds but, yep, you guessed it: Donnie Deutsch. Before I could open my mouth, Stella said: You know Michael Cohen’s in there. He said yeah I know. I said: So I guess he’s not laying as low as you said. He turned scarlet and said yeah but he’s still not talking though. Meanwhile Cohen spent the entire hour we were there getting up to hug or shake hands with every manager and waiter at Fred’s. My take is that he is trying to act the hero, now, since pleading guilty. As if he is going to save us from the orange menace. I’m not really buying it. He is a crook just like the rest of them. Donnie Deutsch works out way too much and his kids who were playing around the sculptures are really, really young. I’m guessing this is family number two for him, but what do I know.

My Margiela was being altered meanwhile and I was to hit Barneys back at 430 to pick up the jacket. Well I texted the sales guy, Anthony, at 430 and he said twenty minutes. I was already strolling over and I had to be downstairs in the hotel at 6 to meet the car. I sat at Barneys till about 5:15 becoming increasingly irate and adamant and when I finally go the hand of I bolted back to the room where I still had to shave and shower and do all such sundries. I forgot to spritz myself with cologne and raced back to the room at the stroke of six, and the phone in the room was already ringing. They are really precise with timing I guess. We got to the party in plenty of time and was meant to be greeted by our friend who now works for the charity, Kris. We didn’t see her and so just checked in ourselves. I was holding my phone and glasses because I thought I didn’t have any pockets in my new jacket. This was disproven by our friend Debra who was the first of the guests to greet us.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go! Copyright 2020 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved. Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2020 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox.