In the cities, suburbs and across the countryside, short squat buildings crop up like dandelions through cracks in the concrete. The innards of these buildings are covered in fake-wood paneling, green beer lights, chipped linoleum floors and gold-flecked Formica counters. Bowling Allies. Diners. Taverns. Everything here is coated with a yellow haze. From nicotine, yes, but also with the breath that exhaled the nicotine; breath that carried stories, secrets, vows, stifled cries and whispered prayers. These words mingle with the smoke and collect on the walls, the ceilings and the light-fixtures. These buildings are Justin Longacre.
Abandoned houses sit in secret corners like forgotten skeletons, sun-bleached and sullen. Floral wallpaper peels off the walls in yellowed streaks and the roof sags. They are haunted, but not with dead things. Jimson and St. Anne's lace drift up like ghosts through the porch, and ivy breathes sweet tendrils to tangle itself in the bone-bare boards. And when the indian grass gets high; the locust drone sad hymns of death and resurrection and the inexorableness of both into the hollow rooms until the walls sing too. These buildings are Kevin Clark.
The tilted old barns clutch to the farmlands like brittle dried-up cicada shells. Sometimes, if you are alone, you might suspect that these buildings are up to something. You might imagine that you snuck up on the barn in mid-stride, and froze it momentarily in its arrested careen. When you leave it will continue on its way, taking part in the vast, lopping migration of its kinsman, to some secret place, where they will plot a return to their golden-age. (golden like wheat, not gold). These buildings are Sam Pilbeam.
In the cities stand straight, proud, slate-gray buildings with bold lines and brightly-colored awnings, which protected women in expensive furs from the rain. Inside these buildings, furious business was conducted by cigar-chomping men in green visors. Newspapers. Unions. Political offices. Architects of industry. Desks were pounded on; a nation was built. Like the exterior, the business of the interior was vaguely Classical in nature, with much said about fairness and ought. The men might have as easily worn togas. These buildings are Dan Rock.
Tree-houses hunker in the crooks of stately oak trees in sparse patches of forest or in holy back-yards, hovering like secret cathedrals. Rust bleeds down in streaks where the nails pierced the boards on the way to the trap-door. You may have forgotten you put them there: they hold secret things. A handful of acorns. A wheat penny. A pocket knife. The biggest pine-cone. These buildings are Paul Zink.
Listen, I don't need to tell you about factories. You know factories. Corrugated and sturdy; impassive. All the while the insides pulse and throb, recombining cold, dumb elements into civilization. Glass bottles. Textiles. Automobiles. The factory doesn't make a big deal about it. But if you squint the right way at that shuddering factory flame, it might as well be a lighthouse. These buildings are Steve Mohr.
Spires and steeples of church buildings break through the trees and interrupt gray city blocks. Without people, they are just buildings. Inside, the stained-glass splinters and refracts the light, and organ pipes gather air and shape it into music. The high-raftered ceilings, the bone-worn pews, and bare walls form a resonating chamber to trap songs spilled from desperate mouths. Sometimes, if you listen carefully enough, you'll hear a sound that can't be accounted for from amongst the congregation or the organ pipes. This sound lingers among the rafters long after the people have gone home to brunch and naps. These buildings are Ashton Albertson.
Influences
Sherwood Anderson
Phil Levine
Charles Simic
Carl Sandburg
Flannary O'Connor
William Faulkner
I am so bummed that I missed the show. I'm working third shift these days, so I'm bound to miss anything that happens after 9 PM. I need like a months notice of things to request a night off. Are you guys playing at Black Swamp this year? That's a daytime thing, so I could totally make it.
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