mental notes
—self-published chapbook
—©1996 by John Trivisonno
—ISBN 0-9687416-0-6
•A sometimes poignant, sometimes funny collection of anecdotes and memories written over the course of 1995-1996 while working at an opera company in Montreal.
•excerpts
Florida
I went to Disney World two or maybe even three times and nothing weird ever happened to me... not like in those stories you hear about people getting crushed to death in the rotating machinery of the Hall of the Presidents.
But back before all that, I caught the tail-end of what I call “Miami glitz” (I was first brought there at one-and-a-half years old and then returned several times after that). We stayed at the Hawaiian Isle (and Mike, many years later, also revealed his strange fascination with this faux-polynesian paradise) where I won a shuffle-board contest against a midget (and still have the trophy) and I attacked a man for having pushed my dad into the pool. The old guys then all called me “Tiger.”
Pot-luck Cocktail Lounge
Kind of an early-60’s feel she managed to create. Some women still like to entertain in this way, I guess. Simple, homemaker stuff... nothing fancy. A punch bowl and chips with dip (where the hell do you still drink punch these days besides weddings and sometimes on New Year’s Eve?).
Created a kind of nuclear-testing, Leave it to Beaver, let’s go bowling kind of feeling that I’d like to experience again every once in awhile. Maybe a summertime pot-luck barbecue... sometime when my hairline has receded even further and I’ve put on a pot. We’ll eat MSG-flavoured hot dogs of course, certainly not ribs... and I’ll wear light blue shorts and white patent leather loafers as we eat in leisure, our bodies adapting to new chemicals in the air.
Yes, she certainly can take me back to a cocktail napkin, hard day at the office, coconuts and vibraphone kind of time.