ronny

QUARANTINE GRATITUDE — DAY 3

I hate taking photos of food. Because I’d rather be eating it.

Salt. Olive oil. Vinegar. Honey. Onion, garlic, shallots. Parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme. Beans, rice, oats, lentils, pasta, polenta, tortilla, bread. Peanuts, walnuts, cashews, pecans, almonds, pistachios. Mushrooms. Orange, mandarin, apple, apricot, peach, plum, pear, cherry, blackberry, strawberry, banana, grape, lemon, lime, watermelon, pineapple, cantaloupe, kiwi, mango, papaya, passionfruit from miles away. Lettuce, spinach, kale. Avocado. Celery, carrots, cucumbers, zucchini, beets, olives, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, bok choy, asparagus, peppers, plátanos, pumpkin, potatoes, tomatoes. Cheese, cheese, cheese. Cream, butter, yogurt, eggs. Sardines, herring, anchovies. Salmon, trout, tuna, swordfish, mackerel. Chicken, duck, turkey, pig, cow. Sushi. Teriyaki. Smoothies. Sopa de res, gallo pinto, nacatamales. Pho, miso, udon, ramen. PB&J. Pizza, sandwiches, burritos, tacos. Donuts, ice cream, pies, cookies. Gyros. Tapas. BBQ. Chili. Curry. Dumplings. Stir-fry. Fried rice. Insert ➡️😛

From the produce we harvest to the animals whose lives we take to the people who do the lifting and killing and harvesting and packing and shipping and delivering and prepping and cooking and serving, today I am thankful for food—and you.

QUARANTINE GRATITUDE — DAY 2

Almost every Sunday, my dog and I go to church. That is, we walk to the ocean.

I call it “church” not just because it’s a Sunday ritual, but also because it’s a reminder to express reverence and adoration for our place of birth. Life on this planet started in the ocean. And, in a sense, we never left: Covering 70.8% of the Earth’s surface, the world’s ocean is inextricably connected to the rest of the planet’s bodies of water through an infinite process of evaporation, condensation into clouds, rainfall, snowfall, fog drip, lakes, rivers, and groundwater all returning to the ocean.

You, in your body that’s 50% water, are a part of this too. Every time you work a sweat, every pee break you take, every glass of water you drink—it’s all just drops in the planetary bucket.

So, today I’m thankful for water.

QUARANTINE GRATITUDE — DAY 1

Take a deep breath.

Nothing feels better. That breath means you’re alive.

It’s easy to take for granted any of our daily pleasures and privileges—maybe a home-cooked meal, a conversation with a good friend, a favorite song—but there’s none we take for granted more than the moment-to-moment oxygen that keeps us alive. It’s breath that keeps our hearts beating, our brains thinking, our organs working, our muscles moving.

And so, today I am thankful for air.

ambient falls like snow in the winter months white light noise and musing

NOISE SEX MONEY

you land somewhere in the vast, ambiguous perimeter, and crawl to the center. you are poised between seasons. between work and play. gate and car, car and door, door and room, room and street, street and subway, subway and tacos, tacos and doom.

you sip black liquid under dead roses as the unsmiling man on stage deafens you with his bleak craft. this is noise.

you turn the dial. in the chianti-colored basement, a nonagenarian jazzman raps the keys the way he has for a century, while his heirs sit in shadow shivering with ecstasy. this is sex. this is money. in the morning,

you and the creatives circle the 40th-floor fish bowl, seeking a novel view, finding only the fog of war. you breathe indoor plants. the gardeners seem peaceful, perhaps well-paid. the plants could survive a crash of climate, but not of market. tomorrow, it will be 40 degrees colder. today,

you eat a grease-drenched slice of pizza bigger than your face. you eat four. same thing tomorrow. the more grease you eat, the more wine you drink, the more noise you hear. every day is new music friday. a golden idol hangs serene behind a neglected harpsichord. on the floor, four radiant girls shake their tresses in wild dance. this is sex.

spanish, turkish, lebanese, italian, irish, trinidadian... pretty people everywhere. they work. they stay at home. they strike out for the villages in search of sex. they find noise. they spend money. they find heartbreak, eyes sad and full of blame for no one. they leave, looking for what. the course never did run smooth.

you pick up the pace on the streets, eager to escape the rancid smells of the underground. this place wants to test your knowledge. this place wants you to feel special. this place wants you to feel nostalgic. this place demands you take a shot. this place wants you to sing, but when you stop nobody will enjoy the silence. this is noise.

you join the rockstars in their fancy hotel room and eat all their drugs. they celebrate you with promoted posts. this is money. with no followings to speak of, three brothers slap each other on the backs, reassuring themselves they exist.

you dream, reaching out to some lost lover. this is sex. you try to swim through 300 million images but there is nowhere to go.

meanwhile, masked death stalks the city unseen.

9. PAROS RESERVE

i'm lost in the woods and all i can hear is a buzzing, a murmur, a voice singing, “number 9... number 9... number 9...”

8. SILLOGI RED

can you balance a selection somewhere between yes and no, and still make the selection that's best?

7. PAROS RED

a torrent, a flood, a windswept rush of uncertain love, unhinged destruction sealed shut in a promise.

6. MORAITIS ESTATE ROSE

saline floods the palate evolves into plagiarised taste evolves into crisp comfortable happiness.

5. AMPHORA

the colors look familiar but what shapes blazon the sides? figures fighting and making love in the unsure amber.