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garden parties 13.3

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without 13 garden parties…

may, 2017

july, 2017

with 13 garden parties…

june, 2019

june, 2019
clearly, life is better with 13 garden parties.

come see for yourself.

john bluhm & john gibson invite you to

13 garden parties, 3rd edition

every tuesday this summer (june 25 to september 17, 2019)

6 to 8pm (sharp), 142 stovall st se, atlanta, 30316

no food, no fuss, no rsvp, no lingering. rain or shine. can you bring a friend? are they lovely? then yes.

text ’13cp’ to 434.962.2211 for a weekly reminder.

cheers, dears!

(thanks, andreas, for image 4)

parkie 

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I lied to get the job, and he knew it. August, 1983: my first week at Catawba, work-study assignments were going quickly, and though I’d seen sewing machines, I’d never actually run one. Still– how hard could ‘costume shop’ be? Down to the basement for gimlet-eyed scrutiny. Of course he knew. He knew everything. And yet– he took me on. I was one of four freshman assistants, and the only guy. Maybe I’d be handy lifting bolts of fabric.

Continue reading parkie  →

tinytown 

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(i wrote this on sunday and then stewed for a few days over its shortcomings, which remain, and with which i’ll have to be at peace, as it is all, day by day, just beyond me.)

Center of the World
I lived there for twenty years, now am seven years gone from that tiny town at the center of the world.

Continue reading tinytown  →

small kindnesses (grief week, 4)

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yes, something hovers over that door. go on through it.

thoughts of a practical nature, not on grief itself, but on a statistically more-likely condition: grief-adjacency.

being with those who are grieving is hard. suck it up.

feel like you’re intruding, stumbling over words, unsure what to do? afraid you’re not strong or close enough, that you won’t, in some fundamental way, be up to the task? all that pales. you are not the point. just go. Continue reading small kindnesses (grief week, 4) →

a speaker for the living (grief week 3)

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murmuration
i know from odd jobs:
i’ve sold vacuum cleaners door to door and catered holiday parties for the hell’s angels. i’ve run a bakery and a theater, driven forklifts and trucks, created fancy paint finishes, taught firearm safety, stitched frock coats, toted rocks, and slipcovered houses. i’ve had professional cause to rent camels, stencil pumpkins, and commission a giant fake butt. once, as the janitor for a circus, i cleaned up after a passel of drunken french clowns, learning, as i mopped, lessons i later drew on for my work as a fundraiser and strategic planning consultant.
i speak from experience when i declare that my latest job is odder than most:

Continue reading a speaker for the living (grief week 3) →

grief club (2)

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step right in. the meeting’s about to begin.

grief is a club. no one ever asks to join.

the grief club hasn’t got a secret handshake. when the time comes, the members know one another.

the grief club comes with a free pass of about a year’s duration. ditch any tiresome date or obligation, no further excuse needed.

you don’t get out of the grief club. lifetime membership. sorry/you’re welcome.

Continue reading grief club (2) →

seven years a widower

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on a sunday morning seven years ago today, i joined the grief club.

i didn’t intend for this post to be about joe barker, but instead about grief, public and private, a subject i’ve thought about a lot.  however, the only way to eat a mountain is one bite at a time.  so though i’ll return to this topic soon, for today, here’s what i wrote shortly after joe’s death. my dear friend will kerner read this at joe’s memorial; i haven’t heard or looked at it since.  Continue reading seven years a widower →