ROBB TODD
Someone actually let me have a book. My first collection of fiction is on sale. You can even enjoy a Kindle edition.
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© 2012 Robb Todd
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I ALSO HANG OUT HERE
OTHER PEOPLE'S STUFF
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Another Drums Along The Hudson Pic. #inwoodpark #inwood #inwoodhillpark #washingtonheights #washheights #newyork #city #newyorkcity #nyc #Uptown...
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“No one is ever really alone. You are part of everything alive.”— William S. Burroughs, Queer
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Skull Crystal LED Door Knob
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“Malia and Sasha and a bunch of my friends and Michelle had sort of like a roast, a little private roast, each one of them read something and Malia...”
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“I’ve no light in me
but that I reflect of you.
You are stars to me.” -
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Look, single dudes, the world will never be in short supply of
ticking-clock women who want kids, so just stay in a little bit of...
Tag Results
14 posts tagged pigeons
The man pointed at a pigeon perched on the back of a bench and said it wanted to sit on my arm if I would give it somewhere to land. He called the birds by name. “Come here, Cinnamon. Here, girl.” I held my arm out.
EVERY DOG IS A KILLER IN HER HEART
A man on the street said, “Can you help me? I’m poor.” I handed him a banana and he said, “Everything you need to know about life you can learn by watching animals,” and he peeled it by pinching off the black spot at the bottom, not by pulling the stem. “I speak several languages, including toddler, and I’ve picked flowers from rhinoceros horns. Every ritual is forced upon us.” He ate the banana and rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand, looked around, stared into shop windows, eyed the pedestrians, regarded the traffic. He rolled up his sleeve, revealing a faded tattoo of a sleeve. “All we know are assemblages.”
PANK PUBLISHED A STORY OF MINE
The December issue of PANK is filled with words that might interest you. They should interest you. They BETTER interest you. There’s also this story, All You Need Is Love (And A Job (Or Maybe Not A Job)). I wrote it. Maybe check that one out, too.
NATIONAL PIGEON DAY
They are like angels that eat trash. Today really is National Pigeon Day so find a way to celebrate without getting pooped on.
WHAT TO WEAR TO AN ORGY
A woman pushed a stroller to the edge of the curb and when she saw a small opening in the rushing traffic, she ran for it. Her and her infant made it across alive and it excited me for all the possibilities that remained.
A pigeon posed for me on a ledge and I bought a bottle of ranch dressing from a farmer’s stand by a busy subway entrance. I had just been fantasizing about ranch dressing and the universe brought it to me. On the train a woman’s newspaper sat in the seat next to her. “Is that yours?” She snatched it and I sat down next to her and she dug through her purse and wheezed, “Ohhhhhhgoddddd.”
M&Ms rolled around the floor and bounced off my shoes and a baby cried. A man played a panflute. I thought “What to Wear to an Orgy” would be a good title for my book.
A drunken man slurred his way through the crowded train pleading his case. “Someone stole my wallet and cellphone. I just want to get home to Connecticut.” He stumbled into someone and did not say sorry. “Can anyone spare a dollar or a five or ten? If someone gave me a ten I’d go straight home and you’d never have to see me again.” Nobody gave him anything. “The feeling is mutual!” A cigarette was pinned behind his ear. “The reason they call it spare change is because you can spare it. I know times are tough but …” He pushed his way past a couple holding hands. “Thanks for being so understanding. I hope you lose your wallet and cellphone.” He got off the train.
When I got home I Internet-searched “What to Wear to an Orgy” and it has already been taken, some article written during the key-partying ’70s. I dipped a dab of ranch dressing on my finger and it was delicious, the best I have ever had and nothing like what stores sell. I drank it like a drink, straight from the bottle, thick and creamy and herby.
”Aaahhhhhh.”
The sun set behind a hill, trees full and green, clouds catching the deepening colors of a day leaving us for somewhere else. My window filled with weekend motorcycle engines and death sirens and car horns and drunken sidewalks but in the morning it quieted with churchgoers and hangovers and dog walkers and birds chirping Morse code before it gave way to everything starting over.
AND SO YOU’RE BACK FROM OUTER SPACE
It smelled like bacon on the subway platform, not like someone was eating it but like someone was cooking it — a lot of it. A woman sang and strummed her guitar, and a police officer sniffed the air. He reached behind his bulletproof vest and pulled out a cellphone, sent a text and stuffed it back behind his armor, near his heart.
A pigeon in the park strutted and puffed its shimmering neck, metallic purples and greens and blues, while a ladybird pretended she was not interested and walked away. He danced close behind her and she kept giving him her tail feathers, but if she really was not interested she could have left at any time. He kept dancing and she let him get closer and he jumped on her back, his feet between her wings. She sat and I guess they were about to do it but another pigeon charged them and flapped its wings and they all flew away.
A 14-year-old followed me on Twitter and asked me to follow her back. “I make an advice show called _____ on youtube so if you have any questions about relationships email me and I will answer thank u.”
I know a bartender who uses a brass-knuckle bottle opener. People listen to him. A toast: “Here’s to constantly proving yourself wrong.” Some advice: “Bro, she’s not the solution to your problems … she’s the source of them.”
11 Plays
MORNING LIGHT AND THE SIDE OF A BUILDING
Dogs are walking their people and babble rises from baby strollers along a bright back avenue and I stop to take pictures of fire escapes. The sidewalk is veined with the twisted shadow-webs of bare branches and birds are everywhere, flying and singing. The breeze is cool and I tilt the brim of my hat. It is that in-between temperature where a jacket is a little too much but no jacket is a little too little. Pigeons will not pose for me and the other side of the street is in shade and I hear the metal ping of baseball bats and the farmers market is crowded by the rows of wooden crates filled with many colors of apples, steaming cider in white Styrofoam cups. I return an empty bottle of milk for the deposit, buck and fifty cents. A flounder is dying in the sun, on ice in a cooler, its gills opening and closing slowly. My bag fills with bread and a jar of pickled beets and fresh pasta and eggs and a guy says he will not have walnut cake again for a while so I buy a slice. The line is long at the mushroom stand and next to a box filled with alien spores I find a small portobello and wrap it in brown paper. I sit on a bench in the park, sun at my back, and a man picks up a dog’s fresh shit with a plastic bag and people hit tennis balls and a woman pushes a boy and a girl on a squeaky swing. The naked trees, all winter wood and silhouette, seem swollen, ready to burst in green.
