Author: Nada Gordon

Happy New Year!

Here’s what Gary and I sang at the St. Mark’s Poetry Project Annual marathon yesterday. It is, of course, to the tune of “My Favorite Things”:

NADA:

Rhinestone cacophony smelling like fossils
Replicant president quoting apostles
Mayonnaise underpants, tabular wings –
These are a few inexplicable things

GARY:

Twirly menageries wrapped in wax paper
Rococo primates and lipstick with capers
Puberty molecules, globular strings
These are a few inexplicable things

NADA:

When I’m pacing
up at midnight
and I scratch my beard
I can’t figure out inexplicable things
And that makes me feel… so weird…

GARY:
Lactating nuns give abortion to walrus
Leave it to Beaver stars Telly Savalas

NADA:
Grandmother’s labia flapping like wings

GARY:
These are a few inappropriate things

NADA:
Sandals with tube socks and belching in public
Picking at acne or massaging dog dick

GARY:
Cooking a steak for a family of Singhs

NADA:
These are a few inappropriate things

GARY:
When I’m peeing
out the window
of my hitch-hiked ride
I think of a few inappropriate things
and then I don’t feel … so shy!

Nada:

Parasites, peptides and pussycat scratches
Birth-control implants and nicotine patches
Botox injections with needles that sting
These are a few subcutaneous things

Gary:

Maritime tattoos and beauty that’s deeper
Scarification that leaves you a keeper
Silicone mammaries, lovers that cling
These are a few subcutaneous things

Both:

When the skin breaks
When the cut goes
Rather deeply in
I just think of these subcutaneous things
And then I don’t feel… thin-skinned…

Both:

[GARY] Eyedrops in noses, [NADA] and tunafish blossoms
[GARY] Mongeese and meercats [NADA] and sheep and oppossums
[GARY] Marbles and cucumbers tied up with string
[NADA] These are a few miscellaneous things

[NADA] Girls in white dresses, [GARY] refillable toner
[NADA] Snowflakes that stay on a boy with a boner
[GARY] Bureaucrats flying around on the wing
[BOTH] These are a few miscellaneous things

[Nada]When the elk bites
[Gary] When the squid stings
[Both] When I’m feeling sad
I just think of these miscellaneous things
And then I don’t feel so bad…

Yesterday was the fifth bbirthday of Ululations. Huzzah! May this be a more generative blogyear…

Can anyone explain to me why my archives disappeared when I switched to beta blogger? All the archived posts still appear on my “edit posts” page — they just don’t show up as archives here. There is no “republish” option anymore in beta, or at least not one I can find. Help! I want my ulularchives back!

Then there was the guy in the astrakhan hat — Russian? Kazhakstani? Azerbaijani (sp)? — who had obviously never used a Metrocard before. He kept swiping it in the opposite direction. I tried to explain to him how to do it, but he didn’t understnad me, so I just went ahead and went through the tunstile myself — but lo! he had slipped in directly behind me, and I screamed, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? — and he said — holding up the card, “CARRRD NO GOOOD!” I was freaked by his proximity and kind of kept screaming “Get away from me!” once on the other side of the turnstile, where his female companion — wife? cousin? friend? — started scolding him heartily in what sounded to me like Russian.

After all was said and done, I wanted his astrakhan hat.

On the train a few mornings ago: tall black guy in maybe his early 30s leaning up against the center pole, crowded morning train. In preppy clothes. Wearing headphones. He’s intoning:

Fuck bitches, fuck bitches.
Get money, get money.

Obviously singing along with something.

After I got off the train, I walked the smelly gingko-lined road to school thinking and thinking of this.

Dreamed I was the new bassist for Metallica, but I couldn’t decide what to wear onstage… tiresome going between apartments, couldn’t go fast enough — one item from the outfit always missing — do I wear the t-strap earth shoes with the skinny jeans? a brightly-colored dress? I remember my hair was bobbed, perfectly straight and covered with pallette sequins. While crawling on the sidewalk trying to get to where my other clothes were, I was hit in the side with a whirring bird.

(our apartment is overheated so I wake up dizzy)

I need more time.

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rockislandline.jpg, originally uploaded by Ululate.

Sausalito, 1971, around this time of year. I’m in the lower left corner, wearing my favorite Palestine dress and holding my puppy Govinda, who ran away soon after. This is a rejected group shot for the holiday card for the health food store, the Rock Island Line, that my mom worked at.