I just got back from a three-day conference at my home office in Phoenix, where I learned that the state of our economy is a bit worse than I first thought. For this week, I wanted to let you know that, once again, the Dow Jones is not a direct indicator of actual reality (especially since AIG was kicked off the Dow Jones Industrial Average and replaced with Kraft). If the Dow was an indicator of actual reality, nobody would be trading anything…everything would be frozen in position, as it is with our economy. Continue reading »

Just about every night, I talk to my younger brother before I go to bed. His brain operates a little differently than mine. He’s good with numbers and deciphering information and taking tests and solving word problems. While me and my sister and my other brother stood up to be recognized as summa cum laude’s at our graduation ceremonies, he stood up at his because he really was one.

Most nights, we discuss world news and I make him tell me versions of everything in simplified terms. He’s kind of like a walking CliffsNotes, so I thought it would be perfect to begin having him contribute, to Minus Five, his insights on the economy.

Today’s lesson begins now:

When MF asked me to “in layman’s terms, explain what is going on in our economy that is not in a recession,” my first impulse was to start with Monday, September 17, 2008. But that would be jumping the gun. Yes, the Dow lost 500 points that day (504, actually). As I’m writing this (Wednesday, September 17, 2008), the Dow has just lost another 449 points. It’s the lowest the Dow has closed in over three years. It’s the most dramatic loss in eighty years. That’s important to take in, but it’s really the last chapter in the book. Continue reading »

I broke my woodburner doing it, but I was still excited to find that I could engrave/melt records and that I could cut/melt them into squares and drill/melt holes in the side to allow for stitching. It makes the edges weapon-like, but those can easily be sanded down with an electric sander. The sander is also capable of rounding the corners.

I, of course, don’t follow directions very well, so my stitching will frighten most any legitimate bookmaker. But I kind of like it.

I finally decided that I will teach those apprenticeship kids how to make their own sketchbooks and then every week, I will show them a new process. We’ll go out that first day and pick out our covers from the cardboard boxes that have been thrown out, curbside. Brooklyn trash contains the best boxes and have the coolest vegetable and fruit and soy prints that cover them.

I’ve been warned that introducing middle school kids to box cutters and x-acto’s and stitching needles can be dangerous, but I figure I’ll just kick them out if they start stabbing each other.

I don’t know if it’s illegal to take pictures in public schools, but sometimes I do. My super-small church, where even shorts, t-shirts, and flip flops are welcome, meets on Sunday mornings at a nearby elementary school. Like everything up here, the school old and outdated. Whether I go in the front door or the secret backdoor I learned about only weeks ago, my eyes find something I want and just like that I’ve broken a Ten Commandment and coveted my neighbor’s school. There’s the wooden lunch lady desk, the real wooden office chairs on wheels and the big steel teacher desks that are virtually unmovable, but my favorite thing has to be the kids’ drawings that line the hallways.

I like to find the most jacked up drawings and imagine what that kid must be like. I’m fascinated by the simplicity of their thoughts. How they use a million colors that never match, but still, somehow go together. And I love it when they write overly structured sentences with misspelled words.

Since school started, there have been about twenty self-portraits that have lined the front cases. Apparently, the assignment was to draw yourself and then write a memory you have about that school. Now most kids had the, “I remember when we had recess and…” or “I remember when we got to see Fantom of the Opra,” but the one featured above probably resulted in a parent/teacher conference.

One special memorie I remembered was when I was angry and alone Moby came to a company me.

On one hand, I feel sorry for this kid because I know how tortured he has to feel around all of his alleged peers and I know how alienating it can be when your mind exists on a completely different plane. On the other hand, I’m excited for him. His life will always be hard, but he’ll live in his pipe dreams.