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Proud
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Jun. 28th, 2009 @ 11:09 am
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A homo. |
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( more )
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Happy Pride Month
( More inside )
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What? You're still here, after reading this entry's cheesy-as-heck title? Well, I'm much obliged to you.
Not sure what else I'd call this picture, though. I took it the other day, when I went up on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The last time I photographed the Parkway I somehow did the impossible and took reallyreallyreally awful pictures.
The only other time someone managed to take gorgeous subject matter and make it look like hell was the movie Frantic, starring Harrison Ford. If that was the only example I'd seen of what Paris looks like-- it looks like a dope clinic under fluorescent lighting, in the film, and if you have doubts don't look at me; look at Netflix-- then I would be left without a city to obsess about, and would have to turn to nature, perish the thought.
There's plenty of nature coming up. But only when you're ready. I am. Got my survival kit right here:
GATORADE! In case anyone ever wondered what my middle initial stands for, well now he or she knows everything (and I know nothing).
The pictures get MUCH better, I promise you....
( Click here for lots more! ) |
| » Fully trained |
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Today's Mark my words entry is brought to you
in vivid beautiful
color!
( More! )
Jun. 18th, 2009 @ 11:35 am
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| » Getting high |
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These past few nights, warm and without rain, have been gifts for me. I've gone out on my deck and looked at the trees, watching the lightning bugs.
They begin the summer each year here by illuminating the trees. Later on they venture away into midair, the way non-swimmers toe their way into a pool, I reckon.
The fireflies remind me of lights strung through the branches of another type of seasonal tree. They also have a paparazzi-quality. It can seem like they're hiding in the bushes, popping flashbulbs, if one has a big enough ego, and one does.
Speaking of which, after watching them for a while I start to yearn lately for getting further away from it all, and late at night I'll grab my car keys and take my, as Merriam-Webster says, gorgeous fine self for a drive up on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
It's clear to me that some timid soul with a day job named this road I drive on in the wee hours. The ridge doesn't look very blue while I'm there, but that soul's tucked into his bed with his pajamas buttoned up to his chin during that special time and wouldn't know this fact from Shineola.
If the pavement is ignored, there are no signs of civilization there, and no lights, not even those bugs that started this entry. It's black, there.
I've seen it, the same darkness seen by the Elizabethans.
The Parkway is higher than where I live, and there are overlooks where I can pull my car over, kill the ignition, and steal a view reserved for the highest soaring owl. It's all they say, mystical, magical, and there's no telling what year it is there, so absent is our footprint.
I've seen that phrase in action, a "deer in headlights." They're a startling thing to see, by the roadside. I don't recommend driving along and spotting one to the weak of heart. I've also thought wonderful thoughts while stopped up there:
1) A chocolate milkshake would be a good idea on the drive back home.
2) I'm crazy about my friends.
3) Please let that McDonald's I passed earlier have a 24-hour drive-thru.
4) It's so dark. Oh, dear. I hope it's still 2009. I don't want to be an Elizabethan.
5) Poor fucking Elizabethans... never had a McDonald's chocolate milkshake. Terrible!
But for the most part I'm not thinking, at least I don't think I'm thinking, while up there. I'm pacific. When I'm not looking down, I'm lying on the warm hood of my car, looking up.
In that position my chest would make a great lub-dubbing headrest for someone, but it's still just a chest, up there, all alone. While there I stare at heights I can't achieve, the spun sky, higher, higher and filled with twinkling touch-me-nots, and I find the damned and dismal aspect of it sort of comforting, though I don't know why.
Hey. You could have read any entry, but your, as Merriam-Webster says, gorgeous fine self read this one. Thanks.
Jun. 15th, 2009 @ 11:58 am
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| » Party on |
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Say,
"Ka-boom,"
like Garth
from Wayne's World.
(Photo
taken by
my brother.)
Jun. 13th, 2009 @ 02:02 am
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| » Ageless and caring and beautiful |
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Another happy birthday to my mom.
Jun. 12th, 2009 @ 10:41 am
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| » Grateful |
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Here's a
review that has
some really nice things to say
about my short story,
"As Sweet By Any Other Name"
from
Best Gay Romance 2009:
"...If I had to pick a favorite amongst the stories here, it would be a tie between Adult by Natty Soltesz, an hilarious and occasionally sexy excerpt of the life of a recent high school graduate working as a porno clerk in the town of Groom, Pennsylvania, and As Sweet by Any Other Name, by Mark G. Harris. That last story is about a delightfully bitter, love-stung guy called Ralph and his friend Yolanda, who tries to set him up with a blind date, to his dismay. It's a story about friendship as well as love; it's sweet and real, and it might me believe that yes, you can meet love like that. It happens every day. Even if you’re bitter and a bit slow."
You can
click on this link
to read
the full review:
The Short Review by Stefani Nellen
I managed to type
this entry
with a blown mind.
I didn't do too badly,
if I do say so
myself. : )
(wow-w-w-w-w...)
Edit: Here's a review written by writer 'Nathan Burgoine, which says:
"...For me, the two tales that stole the show were Jay Mandal's "Chiaroscuro" and Mark G. Harris' "As Sweet by Any Other Name." Mandal's beautiful progression through a relationship born, bloomed, and fallen, and the connection to a younger generation, was a delight to read. Harris' doughty ability to spin prose with a sly humor turns even the wounded and love-shy hero of his tale into someone you admire, and his witty plot leaves you grinning."
: )
Jun. 11th, 2009 @ 12:10 am
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| » Treehouse of Horror LXXV |
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In the romantic short story
I wrote called,
"As Sweet By Any Other Name"
there's a treehouse...
...where two men
meet while working
on the treehouse
as a community project.
Is it heady stuff?
I use convoluted
in relation to a body feature,
if that's any indicator.
I wanted to use
doughty elsewhere
but my editor's
red pen said,
"Aw, hayull naw,"
and I still haven't
quite gotten over it.
[sniff]
There was a treehouse in my childhood, too. A treehouse; a farm for a couple of years complete with private lake and rushing creek; puppy after puppy; a bike... you know, a childhood with such ingredients should have produced the local pipe-smoking font of knowledge/mayor/sherriff/doctor shucking peanuts at the general store. Instead you got me. Feeling cheated, yet?
We built the treehouse. My mother drove me and my brother and sister to an abandoned house nearby, both for lumber and because it was 1975 and dumpster-diving had yet to become a fad and we had to do something for crying out loud.
The abandoned house looked a bit like the one featured in that R.E.M. video, or the finale of that movie that scared me.
I sometimes think nothing is creepier than an abandoned house.
Then I get a good look at John Davidson.
Anyway, it was while building our treehouse that I fell out of it and landed flat on my stomach on a floor of orange hard packed clay and tree roots. I'm lucky I didn't bite my tongue off. The air in my lungs expelled involuntarily in one large- or medium-size rush. Who else has had the air knocked out of him or her? show of hands? isn't it weird?
I might have featured a treehouse in my short story in order to exorcize some of the unpleasant, for me, psychological associations... because treehouses are neat-o and everyone likes them and I ought to be allowed to like them, too, all nice and unhindered and such.
But I'm no shrink, in addition to being
no font of knowledge/mayor/sherriff/doctor.
"As Sweet By Any Other Name"
(by me!)
can be found in
Best Gay Romance 2009.
Jun. 10th, 2009 @ 10:57 am
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| » Flight of the bumble bee |
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The movies
treat me, every now
and then,
to the dangerous cinematic woman
wearing the classic colors.
And I love it
every time.
( for more, click here )
Jun. 9th, 2009 @ 11:59 am
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| » Coke and a smile |
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More fun stuff from
Edith Head...
I post this
for two reasons.
1) Because it's
beautiful and camp
at the same time,
which is nigh impossible
to achieve.
2) Because
David Puterbaugh
didn't use his
Edith Head
User Photo
yesterday
in comments,
and I've been
miserable about
that ever since.
Ooo, wait.
Hang on;
I need
to jam
for a sec:
If you wanna hang out
you've got to
take her out,
Miss Head.
If you wanna get down
[umph!]
down on the ground,
Miss Head.
She don't lie she don't lie she don't
lie...
[total silence]
...Miss Head.
( More! )
There. That ought to scare
an Edith Head
User Photo
out of David
Puterbaugh.
I've know him
so long,
and we're in
an anthology together...
I almost feel
like calling him
"Dave Puterbaugh."
You know, like some
guest on a talk show,
ankle crossed over knee,
corduroy lapels spread to
reveal chest hair and
gold medallion
to the late-nite
American
television viewer...
...saying stuff like,
"Yeah, I
was dunebuggying
with Nick Cage
the other day."
...or,
"Chris Atkins
thew this far-out
luau the other night."
It's enough
to make me
wonder if
I could
get away with
uttering, 'Than Burgoine.
: )
In other
news,
my computer needs
a new mouse.
grumblegrumblegrumble
Jun. 5th, 2009 @ 11:15 am
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| » A message from Mr. Unpredictable |
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And then,
just when everyone
thought
I was going to
gripe about how
getting a new mouse pad
wasn't the solution,
and that I'd have to
buy a new mouse,
I turned the tables and posted
Grace Kelly's entire
wardrobe
from Rear
Window instead.
How about a little ( Head )
Jun. 4th, 2009 @ 11:17 am
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| » How to stay the fever when the dog-star burned |
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(Hey, it's Mark! Here's you a poem.)
LONG ago Apollo called to Aristæus,
youngest of the shepherds,
Saying, "I will make you keeper of my bees."
Golden were the hives, and golden was the honey;
golden, too, the music,
Where the honey-makers hummed among the trees.
Happy Aristæus loitered in the garden, wandered
in the orchard,
Careless and contented, indolent and free;
Lightly took his labour, lightly took his pleasure,
till the fated moment
When across his pathway came Eurydice.
Then her eyes enkindled burning love within him;
drove him wild with longing,
For the perfect sweetness of her flower-like face;
Eagerly he followed, while she fled before him,
over mead and mountain,
On through field and forest, in a breathless race.
But the nymph, in flying, trod upon a serpent;
like a dream she vanished;
Pluto's chariot bore her down among the dead;
Lonely Aristæus, sadly home returning, found his
garden empty,
All the hives deserted, all the music fled.
Mournfully bewailing, -- "ah, my honey-makers,
where have you departed?" --
Far and wide he sought them, over sea and shore;
Foolish is the tale that says he ever found them,
brought them home in triumph,
Joys that once escape us fly for evermore.
(So sad! Mark again, BTW ...will there be a happy ending?)
( The brave can continue reading here.... )
Jun. 3rd, 2009 @ 11:07 am
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| » And another thing... |
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When I woke up
this morning,
the second thing I did
was mouth to myself
in the mirror,
Good morning, jazz lover,
with a wink.
Third thing I did was
to brush
my teeth.
P.S. It's warm outside,
it's warm outside!
DEATH TO
HOODIES!
P.P.S. I want to
be
ya sledge-
hamma.
Jun. 2nd, 2009 @ 10:21 am
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| » "Daydream Believer" is one of my favorite songs |
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Hello!
You've gone and startled
me.
Before you got here
I was daydreaming about
something.
I am totally and
completely and
adverbially obsessed with
une fête champêtre.
Not to be
confused
with, "a picnic."
No. This isn't
a picnic. There are no
hot dogs.
There is no Mountain Dew served
here. Anyone who asks for it
will get a heaping glass of
Mountain Dewn't.
( For further perusal, click hither )
Jun. 1st, 2009 @ 11:50 am
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| » Riveting |
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I go to the
doctor's office today.
I'm kept waiting
25 minutes.
I'm so bored I start thinking up
alternative or "rejected" names
for Pizza Hut,
like, "Pizza Cabana,"
or, "Pizza Hovel,"
or, "Pizza Lean-to."
I text message
my brother,
asking him to steal me a
mouse pad
from work,
which he does.
True story, I promise you.
May. 29th, 2009 @ 01:38 am
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| » Mail call |
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Listen up, mes anges.
Of late,
and of no
real importance to you,
of coffee I've been
drinking. See?
...whaddup, Abigail! Oh, that miserable
end...
It says it contains
half the caffeine.
But I drink two cups in
the morning, to
get the full dosage.
See how that works?
I'm tapping my forehead.
Now that I have your attention, here's what some rascals did to me.
In yesterday's mail I received
a hardback copy of
Fool for Love. [Click me]
Inside I found the precious autographs of:
Timothy J. Lambert and Becky Cochrane
David Puterbaugh
Shawn Anniston
Famous Author Rob Byrnes
Trebor Healey
Jeffrey Ricker
'Nathan Burgoine
Greg Herren
Included in the envelope was a placecard
with my name on it. It was from the
reading I was supposed to attend,
but couldn't.
It's hard to describe what seeing that
did to my emotions. If it were easy do
you think I'd be running off at the mouth
about coffee? No, I wouldn't.
...what might've been. I don't have to tell you about
that, Abigail, now do I...?
Who's responsible for doing this to me? I'll find out. And
I'll find you heathens. I'll know just where to look,
too, since clearly you're all going to heaven.
Thank you. : )
(Also, I got the freaky voodoo stuff, Lisa. Kiss.)
May. 28th, 2009 @ 10:09 am
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markgharris's journal
