Mark my words.

Drawings

2009-11-10T06:11:46Z

Here are a few fragments of drawings I've done that I felt like sharing.

I try to emulate my drawing heroes, the great draughtsmen of the past, Ingres, Degas, J.C. Leyendecker and George Stavrinos.

Lots of thrift and no short shrift

2009-11-09T06:03:10Z

It really was no miracle. What happened was just this: The other day I went shopping for clothes at Goodwill.

I didn't have my good camera on me, but did take pictures with my cameraphone. A visual feast awaits....

Hi, I'm Mark. I'm the I the upcoming sentences will be referring to. : )

Here is the men's section where I did my shopping:

My top half was in need of toasty flannel shirts, the whole point of the visit, so I thumbed through the racks until I'd gotten together a group of possibilities.

I took the shirts to the dressing room and tried them on.

I also found some neckties I liked:

I didn't buy all the shirts I tried on, but I did take all the ties home with me. I shot a better picture with my good camera when I got home.

I wouldn't have bought such a wide necktie like the one in the center, and I don't see myself wearing anything so floral any time soon, yet I couldn't leave the poor garish little thing in the store a minute longer, somehow. I don't know why.

Hey, thanks for checking in on me. : )

A cute little house plan...

2009-11-08T06:18:54Z

...posted by a cute little house fan.

This is your little home-away-from-home on a lake, of course, and down the leafy autumnal road, just a short drive away in your red pickup truck, is a little store that sells wood and apples and coffee.

I bet never was an alarm clock allowed in this house. No, whoever lived here was called awake by the sound and smell of bacon in a skillet. : )

Art and aria

2009-11-07T14:12:52Z

I like the paintings of Caio Fonseca.

They remind me of the inlaid marble Qur'anic prayers at the Taj Mahal.

I enjoy looking at that style of calligraphy.

It's a bit like opera to me; I have no idea what it means but hearing it cancels out the need to know and fulfills many other needs unnamed.

Too late

2009-11-06T06:14:12Z

This is a picture I took in a parking lot with my cameraphone. It's a melted sucker and an insect.

One of the saddest things I've seen in a while. I was too late to save him, already stiff and dead, and what a death, so terrible. One unlucky hop.

I like to watch the grasshoppers hop; they're spring-loaded little guys and don't seem to premeditate where they're going, and where they land is often dictated by the breeze... which is kind of like ourselves, I think.

It's all a story best told over a glass of something.

Penis Thursday

2009-11-05T06:04:41Z

Hey! And welcome to Penis Thursday! Do you love yourself some penis? Then you stopped by the right LiveJournal entry, my friend.

(By the way, hi, Grandma! Don't read this entry! Love you!)

Here at Penis Thursdays, we strive-- heck, we thrust-- to provide you with classic high-quality all-American penis.

It all started over here at chas_lou's LiveJournal. His fondness for a beautiful building in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, The AEGON Center,

or as he calls it, "The Penis Building," inspired me to give writing a weekly column a shot this month.

So, column, let's start shooting! For today...

...let's celebrate a masterpiece of phallic symbolism, the famous final frames from the movie, North By Northwest. This movie was one of Alfred Hitch

Well, I can't quite recall the fellow's whole name right now, but the movie was one of his best, and that's the important thing to remember.

And to anyone out there reading, I hope to see you again next week for another thought-provoking-- heck, probing-- Penis Thursday!

And of course this is all a joke, in case anyone was offended. : )

"Get up, stand up..."

2009-11-04T08:18:05Z

After staying up to get some election results, I decided to re-post this entry from November of '08. It's my little note of optimism. I wish there weren't a need to post it again, but I might end up doing so every year and make it a November tradition, until there isn't any need....

Here is a closer look at Asheville NC's turn-out for The National Protest Against Proposition 8, which was held in cities across the country on Saturday, November 15th.

[Hey, a warning to those with slow Internet connections: There are many pictures ahead. There's a YouTube clip, too.]

There were a lot of messages on signs that I wanted to photograph, and the great people who made them and brought them. Out of the crowd...

...I focused on these two guys right away:

Maybe it's the glasses, or the slight build, but I can identify with the guy on the right as easily as I can play "Heart & Soul" on a piano. I can sense nights when he might've bitten his lip while looking out a window, wishing to have someone to love, and to have that someone love him back, at a supreme level of commitment. Whether I'm right or am just imagining things, he deserves to call his bearded and burly husband his husband, and to have that relationship recognized as valid and legal, and certainly not have that right stripped from him... but not everyone sees it that way.

Every person who I approached with a, "Can I take your picture, please?" was accomodating and friendly; must've been something in the air. Here I am doing just that...

...in a photo taken and used with kind permission by Squishyray from Flickr. And here's my photo:

...which, if one looks in the upper left corner, reveals some of those who, I can only assume, "don't see it that way."

The guy on the right turns up as a "background extra" in a few of my shots, like this one:

He even made it on the local news, as seen in this clip:

I'm not sure why he's so galvanized to protest. But, he has the right to do so. He has a lot of rights.

The background scenery gets much better, though:

I have a feeling the woman in the purple cardigan is going to appear again, in this entry.... and I like imagining these two guys stretched out on their kitchen floor the night before, making these signs, and one saying, "Damn it, you write so much better than I do!" and the other saying, "Come on, just-- just look at your use of color, man!"

To stay sane, I allow myself a little levity during serious business. And the business was very serious...

...when closer inspection of her sign...

...reveals she has access to a staple gun. Reason enough alone to give her a listen, I think, but again, some don't see it that way. I wish they could see what beauty I saw:

I wish they could've heard what I heard. Several people chose to speak...

...to a crowd estimated at over 200...

...gathered in downtown Asheville's Pritchard Park, site of the Stonewall Celebration I went to this past June.

The speakers were gay and straight, secular and religious, funny and angry, and I was there to clap my hands for them and cheer each on, having had scads of experience doing this same thing at drag shows. The biggest round of applause, by my meter, went to the GLAAD mother with a gay son and a lesbian daughter, a mother who, like this sign...

...only wants her homosexual children to have the same things her heterosexual children are granted. All I want is to know where that guy's jacket is, considering how shivery the temperature was on Saturday, but that's me for you... and hey, I also want her kids to have it good. I wasn't alone in that sentiment, considering the number of people who brought children.

This little boy's mom brought along a wooden puzzle toy for her son, so that he could exercise his right to assemble.

These two kids were a well mannered pair.
But over on the rambunctious side-- the smokers' section-- things were peppy, loud and ready-to-go:

And this woman in the center, with the rainbow umbrella...

...would've had me sneering, "Listen, ya little scene-stealer, quit making me look dull and go get your own damned blog," were the day's occassion not so vital to us all. A bisexual man illustrated the point pretty clearly. "The state of North Carolina informed me of over a thousand rights I'm guaranteed should I choose to marry a woman. They also told me that if I want to marry a man, I get zero."

Such a solemn fact might bring this entry to a note too sad, were it not for-- you remember?-- the woman in the purple cardigan.

It might seem she found the someone she'd been waiting for during her own nights by the window, upon a closer look....

But so much for closer looks. If we back away, to here...

...or to here...

...or even to here...

(photo used with kind permission from and taken by Zen from Flickr.)
...would her love look any less deserving of dignity, validation, respect and legal protections than anyone else's? Is it only deities, at this height, who can say whether or not that's the case? Maybe only deities can judge whether or not we all appear pretty much the same... but I think that's something we can all figure out for ourselves, and hopefully that moment, down there, is just around the bend.

Playing Cupid

2009-11-03T16:11:34Z

We ought to set up these two mixed up kids on a date. They have so much in common.

Or do opposites make the better match, yin and yang, "you complete me," and all that? Something to ponder...

Whatever the case, in matrimony or not, someone should join these guys. They're falling apart. See, I used join there as a funny....

Live[Journal] Poets' Society II

2009-11-02T12:55:00Z

Time for a little recycling, so, all right, strawberries... let's get ready to jam.

Since I live in fear of the thought of Mondays on LiveJournal not being iambic, I thought that it might be time to blow the dust off and instigate the second annual Poetic Entry Contest*. If you're on my friends list, you've already cleared the qualification round. Go, you!

If you want to participate, here's the deal, pickle:

1) You say, "I'm in!" or, "Hit me, dealer!" or some other affirmative.

2) I hunt through your archives because I haven't yet figured out a way to rifle through your underwear drawer. I find a brief [get it? n'yuk!] entry of yours and charge you with rewriting or reconfiguring or paring it down or summing it up until it rhymes, LeAnn.

3) You post the rewrite on your journal. Then everyone-- most importantly, myself-- has something wacky to read tomorrow or Wednesday or whenever. Simple! Merriment!

If the idea doesn't suit, don't worry. I won't be yanking anyone off my friends list who doesn't want to play. But if you do, then sign up below, pluck a feather from your nearest pheasant, dip it in your trusty inkwell and... pebbles? Get ready to rock.

* No prize awarded, so it's not really a contest... unless hearing me shut up and stop calling you a berry, a dill pickle, a pebble or LeAnn Rimes is considered a prize.

Day One (Mark: zero)

2009-11-01T23:29:41Z

I reckon I'll give posting a journal entry every day in November a shot. I'm not sure what to say.

Confession: I typed the above two sentences. After that I stared at the blank remainder of the screen for an approximate time of 4 minutes, wiggling my left foot, which was crossed over my right knee. Then I left the room and went to the kitchen and made myself a peanut butter sandwich. Then I came back. I've been staring at the screen and eating, trying to form thoughts. Just a couple of seconds ago, I put the half-eaten sandwich in my lap, having been raised by wolves, and am now typing this paragraph of rapid filler.

I'm typing this after having picked my sandwich back up and finishing it. Now I need a beverage and my pants are crumby. See you tomorrow.

P.S. Happy November to you.

A little contribution

2009-10-30T14:51:32Z

Here are some photos I took yesterday. Took 'em to the cleaners! Kidding. Anyway, I hope anyone reading enjoys seeing this picture...

...plus a few more.

These are pictures of our S & W Cafeteria here in downtown Asheville, one of my favorite Art Deco buildings here, a real jewel.

Next, here's our "flatiron building," a bit like NYC's, or that room in the first few minutes of Neil Jordan's Interview With The Vampire where Louis and David begin the story.

Here is another building I like:

It houses a law firm. There were a lot of after-five racquetball-trim groomed-to-the-teeth married-with-kids and otherwise hyphenated male lawyers running around in that area yesterday while I was snapping photos. Their slick haircuts and blinding white shirts... the cologne in the air... it was sort of lovely.

It was a gorgeous day yesterday, huh?

The kind of day where I could indulge in my love affair with red brick...

Well, there are my pictures. As many pictures as I steal from the Internet, sometimes it's nice to give some back. : )

Exchange student

2009-10-29T14:59:29Z

At a very early point in my education, we were exposed to art along with milk and cookies and cartoons. We stared in transfixion at mobiles as they turned above us, at primary colors, at shapes we didn't yet know the names of, and still don't, in my case.

Later on...

...it seems like my teachers stopped caring about art that way. It used to be, when they would introduce a bunch of 1st Graders to something, the wonder we were supposed to feel was something they could feel for those few moments, too. It created a circular energy between us, an exchange. But as I progressed to higher grades, that sensation quit, teachers stopped giving the awe-factor, and school became something hard and unrewarding. Maybe that was an exchange, too. Maybe that's how they felt and it trasnferred to me.

Of all the art teachers I had, only one, Miss Lawson, was able to recapture that feeling of exchange, when I was much older. I was lucky to have a teacher like that. It's a powerful thing. I'm not sure if any of this babble makes a lick of sense. Just a thing that was on my mind. And now it's not. : )

(These are the artworks of Gert & Uwe Tobias,

twin brothers who as you know do woodcuts and "typewriter drawings" and who I find as delightful and childlike as Paul Klee.)

The view from my lap

2009-10-26T05:19:20Z

Hey! Every year come October I take the same sort of photo and post it here in this journal. Who the hell knows why. They'll be debating this centuries from now, I feel certain. Anyway, here is 2009's edition,

as well as a surprise....

The surprise comes courtesy of guest contributor, long-term reader of this journal, behind-the-scenes commentor and best friend, James! [applause!]

I told him about this upcoming entry last week while he was at his ultra-cushy desk job and asked if he wanted to participate, and after he stopped hyperventilating from the excitement he agreed and Blackberry'd me the above gorgeousness. The question of Who Took The Better Photo For 2009 is another topic they'll be gnawing over in flying cars.

(Bonus! Here are the photos from previous years.)

(left to right: 2006, 2007 and 2008)

These pictures have something in common

2009-10-23T05:23:47Z

This entry was days in the making...

2009-10-19T14:42:47Z

...and yet, it's still lame as all get-out.

Anyway, here I am, posting some pictures from my deck that I've been taking lately, plus another. Here they are now:

Yesterday I took a few minutes out of my day to get some "autumnal" photos from The Blue Ridge Parkway for my journal. They had most of The Parkway closed (I believe due to snow; that's usually the only reason they close it, no matter how skimpy the accumulation), so I was only able to get to this elevation:

I'll wait and go back, maybe in November, since I only see one tree that's doing its job and being a riot at the moment.

Swing and a young miss

2009-10-13T15:54:08Z

The model in the center, as you probably know, is Colleen Corby, a textbook example of an It Girl.

Colleen was unstoppable in the Swinging Sixties, and from what I hear she was the most popular model for Seventeen magazine; she scored 15 covers.

I think she's wonderful. Thinking about her made me wonder if there's such a thing as an It Boy. The closest thing I could come up with was maybe a young quarterback, like my current favorite, Aaron Rodgers.

He plays for my favorite NFL team. I've liked that team since I was so young I couldn't pronounce the word football. I used to say, "Wutball," a story my family likes to tell. And I chose that team because they're green, my favorite color from the get-go.

They recently played against my brother's favorite team, the Vikings. The outcome of that game isn't something I wish to discuss.

Young, beautiful and seemingly blessed by the gods, aglow with the sheen of heroism, figures with an atavistic power... a little idolatry on a Tuesday morning.

Was "Nick" the first nickname?

2009-10-12T14:53:46Z

Good morning! Nowhere among my nicknames am I called The Next Ansel Adams, and here are some photos from my recent beach trip to illustrate the point, like this one:

"Er, um... hello."

That was the stovetop in my hotel room. Every time I entered the room, I kept seeing a face, there, maybe a little side-parted hair, and a mouth that's not sure if it wants to frown or smile. Can you see it, too?

Here is Yours Stupidly trying to take a self-portrait, Attempt # 1:

Maybe a little flash was called for, so I turned it on and here is Attempt # 2:

Ugh! Out of focus! Though, that guy in the lower left corner on the beach comes in pretty clearly. At that point I threw in the towel, as we say. It probably would've been a terrible photo anyway... I always hate how the thickness of my glasses seems to bite a chunk out of my face from certain angles. Just a little factoid.

Because all stories ought to have happy endings, there's this shot to wrap things up on this rather blah entry that I can't believe I got you to read.

At that moment the sky and the water looked the same, and I'm glad I bothered to snap the photo... it's sort of neat in a "Which end is up?" kind of way, I think, yeah?

Well, that's it from Not The Next Ansel Adams, better known as Mark Nice Package Harris. : )

Sailor take warning

2009-10-09T04:45:31Z

Hi, there. Been gone for a few days, and now I'm back. I felt the need for a spontaneous beach trip. Even though the sky looked like this the morning I left...

...I decided to take my chances with the weather anyway. And I got you something.

I got you beach pictures. : )
I wanted to get you saltwater taffy, but I don't know how to fit that through your e-mail slot.

Anyway, nice enough getaway. The weather had its rainy moments,

but mostly it was gorgeous. Myrtle Beach is always gorgeous to my eyes anyway, so my opinion's a little slanted. Here's the view from my room (very nice!):

I walked to that pier in the distance a lot. This was a picture I took underneath it:

Topside, everybody was fishing....

I worked on adding to my seashell collection, the one The Smithsonian won't stop bugging me about. Mostly I swam and walked and ate and slept, and when I remembered I took the camera along.

(I wish these pictures conveyed how soft the sand was. Plush, sifted... really marvy.)

Here's me getting my crop on:

And there we have it. Hope you enjoyed that. : )

Blast from the past

2009-10-02T17:33:11Z

Remember "I Touch Roses" by Book of Love? I used to love that song so much. Anyone else?

By the way, there, happy October from me to you. : )

*I'm English all day today

2009-09-29T15:41:01Z

Such a beautiful morning! I wanted to share what it looks like here on my deck with you, because-- and I can't deny it any further-- I like the way you're built.

Breezy, temperature's just right, nice place to kick back and have a cuppa* and watch the clouds scud.

No one under 17 permitted without parent or guardian

2009-09-24T13:43:28Z

For mrpolyonymous, beckycochrane, timothyjlambert and possibly rhondarubin, I present...

EEEEEK! A BUG!
Now, I know Rhonda's spooked by bees, so who knows if this bug will get under her skin or not.

In fact, I'm "eeking" blindly, here. I mean, I think the bug's sort of cute. Just like a little butterbean. I took the picture... last month, maybe?

(Isn't punctuation cool? Did you sense that I paused to stroke my chin while I tried to remember when I took the photo, there? yet my hands never left the keyboard! magic!)

Anyway, it takes me a while to get my act together, since I'm only uploading the photo now. I have no idea if it's a scary photo or not, but everybody knows what spooks markgharris.

Dear God in Heaven, brown appliances... laminated woodgrain... E-Z Brick... and, oh fuck, is that carpeting in the cottonpicking kitchen? I can't tell. I'm fetal in the corner, burying my face in my arm, swatting at the air, trying to form the words, "M-make it go away!"

In honor of the first day of fall

2009-09-22T05:56:49Z

Do you have a happy place?

I have some places where I've been happy, but those are more memories, since the geography is so linked with the time spent there. I doubt I'd be happy to the same sublime extent if I were to return there right now, I mean.

I've mentioned before, the first time I heard the song "Falling" was on the beach in Santa Monica, underneath a round summer sun, on my back, propped on my elbows, a yellow Walkman plugged in my ears.

(Weren't they cute?)
I was a young brown and blond man, gritty with a dusting of authentic California beach and smelling like Coppertone, watching the waves come from wherever they come from to meet the sand, and this song came on the radio, a song which I'd never heard before until that moment, and I was happy.

Was there ever a more perfect song? To go back in time and hear it again like that... if only for three minutes or so.

But now I'm bittersweet about it... and because of that, I think happy places work best if they're places we've never visited. I have several happy places like this, and as anyone who knows me can guess, they're in Paris, France. And they're tax-free, and I don't have to arrange with a neighbor to have my mail picked up. They never fail to do the trick, when anxious or stressed or afraid or lonely, etc.

Here's a happy place of mine that's not in France, just to shake things up....

Cinque Terre, Italy
What do you think? We could handle it there, yes? I suppose we'd get sick of the steady menu of seafood after a while, but I still enjoy thinking of this place, a little room all mine behind a pair of those shutters, the conversations of seagulls mine to overhear, the scent-- !-- and it's warm there, and the only clothes I own are hanging on the line, and I've taken up the guitar, and I'm liked by everybody I see, and so on.

So, yeah, in case anyone's read this far: Show me your happy place, please!

("Falling," just for the first day of fall)

There and Back Again

2009-09-21T16:47:07Z

So, I'm sitting on the shitter a minute ago, got my chin in my hand and I'm staring out the window at the rain.

It's been raining here for several days. The forecast calls for several days more rain, and it's starting to wear on my mood. It's blah-looking at 7am and it looks exactly the same at 7pm, and enough is enough already. It's making me sigh and frown.

I'm blue, okay? I'm blue. I'm buh-lew. I'm

And then I get the theme song from Cat Ballou stuck in my head, which makes me smile, and I'm all, "Well, that was unforeseen."

I come in here grinning to jot all this vital info down and a thought occurs to me, upon proofreading everything I've just typed. Samuel Pepys gives his reader such a glimpse of life during his time, and all I have to show for a rainy September Monday circa 2009 is this.

So, now I'm sad again. Ugh.

Right 'round, baby, right 'round...

2009-09-19T15:18:05Z

Morning!

That's what my straw boater and my buggy whip and I have to say to you, neighbor, "Morning!" So there.

(This just in: Not two moments ago I told a spoonful of oatmeal, "Touch, if you will, my stomach.")

Here's some jewelry I'd like to show anybody reading--

-- and there's more where that came from....

These are from the hands of Kent Raible (his link, monseigneur, and I'll say no more), who's a real mind-blower, huh?

This next one...

...is pretty cool. According to his website, there's nothing holding that pearl there but tension, and you can spin it, all afternoon long if you want.

Here's some architecture-inspired rings from Philippe Tournaire (my voice is hushed, shhhhhhh), of the Place Vendôme Tournaires.

We must be cautious; there are geniuses afoot. All of these pieces of jewelry made me think, Just when I thought I'd seen everything.... Anyway, I figured it might be fun to share. I wish I could buy them for you, but maybe just looking at the pretty pictures is enough for a pleasant morning like this one, no? : )

Pansies

2009-09-09T15:16:01Z

If one searches back in time far enough, he'll find a sunlit dewy morning when the word fail was still just a verb and had yet to acquire noun status. I pronounced that, "state-us," in my head, which is what happens when a guy from Guilford County uses one instead of you, by the bye.

There's a kid playing in front of his grandparents' house, if you look closer and can squint through all that sunlight and dew, and that kid's me. Please don't tell that kid about what's going to befall fail; he can only handle so much at a time... and at the time in question he's decked out in short pants that showcase his prominent kneecaps.

His grandparents have told him that his kneecaps resemble Pilot Mountain, and suffering from an acute and budding-- and, as it turns out, lifelong-- case of egomania, he takes this as a compliment.

The house he's playing in front of is a parsonage, located next door to a church. His grandfather is a minister. Inside the house is a study, windows open, with a collection of paperweights keeping fresh typewritten sermons from blowing about. The typewriter is an electric behemoth circa 1971. There's another typewriter, an antique, black, skeletal thing, that the grandfather will hand down to the boy later on in life, but that's another story. Besides, we're not supposed to be in this room, so let's duck out.

The boy will roam through the empty church later on that day, and tinker with its piano, but at the moment he's fixated on the flowers planted by the front brick steps.

They have faces. In his head, the boy adds an exclamation point to the preceding sentence.

There's something vaguely oriental about those displeased yet funny faces. They remind him of Fu dogs.

He knows about these dogs at such a soft sweet-breathed age (he's 4 or so) from paying attention to the illustrations of Hans Christian Andersen's The Tinder Box, which was read to him by his mother, who's off elsewhere in this story, leaving the boy in the hands of people who prefer the telling of other stories, like Tom & Jerry and The Three Little Pigs. The grandmother isn't the best storyteller, but the grandfather, perhaps due to his vocation, can spin quite a bedtime yarn. When the wolf appears at the door, the grandfather slips a hand out of view and knocks on the headboard, for example, for added chills.

The grandfather also has a fun habit of shaking the boy's hand and slipping him a dollar bill, or a cylinder of LifeSavers candy. The boy later will compare notes with his half-brother and -sister and discover that they never get any money or candy, and it'll make the boy's feelings about this tall blue-eyed man change, a man who's handed his exact shade of eye-color as well as that clunker of a typewriter down to this kid who's all grown up and chewing your blessed ear off right now.

A change of feelings was probably inevitable in the relationship between that minister grandfather and his gay grandson-- not to be confused with a pansy.

That kid's fond of auriculas these days.

There's a slight family resemblence to pansies, perhaps. He mentions that, lest anyone, ahem, fail to notice.