Behind the windshield my eyes swim in a sea of blue as my father spins through suburbia. We are going to visit his mother. I watch the white and yellow streaks on the pavement fade in and out – a feeling of lost time creeps up out of nowhere. Where did that come from? There must be something sacred about travelling without moving, moving without a sound. My father and I do not use many words on these journeys. I pretend there is some form of unspoken communication, but it’s not that. We’re thinking of different things. A heavy lulling sensation hangs like fog in the car. I reach out, wave and flap my hands around fanatically, desperately slicing through the cloud of quiet. After I stop, he looks at me, silently amused and confused. In the dream again, I am sinking into the gentle motion of the wheels.
In my half-conscious state we dip into a parking lot. Abandon all hope ye who enter here, for this is the Cummer Lodge Home For The Aged. I see a large wooden cabin, looming over the empty spaces. This log cottage holds together the ancients, waiting for disposal, unwritten depositions, forgetting they are already forgotten ashes. We pass through its majestic arches and electronic entrance (keeps ‘em from runnin’) arriving at a wide red door fitted with a security code. A cavernous room, actually a hallway with bad lighting, extends out into other passages, small and narrow, with individual rooms which contain individual artefacts. We don’t have to go that way. Here there are plush green couches, loveseats, clutched by old bones and leathered skin. Famous prints of paintings on the walls. Pastoral, scenic, soothing. Why don't they let them paint their own walls? Mental graffiti sprawling everywhere, instead of this pacified art. They don’t have a say because they mumble too much.
A few limp about here and there, scattered around like a party slowly sobering near dawn. The TV hangs suspended in the absolute centre; loud, deliberately turned up maybe, blasting crude Fox entertainment that flickers through squinting eyes. As these explicit images are opened and closed, they go tumbling out of glassy eyes and get discarded through open mouths. Removed from the trance, a woman approaches me and touched my shoulder. She looks at me and gave me a wordless singsong hex, chuckling with hanging spittle, merciless. The moments here are epic spiritual confrontations.
It suddenly occurs to me they know no more then we do.
I am happy to see Darryl, a tall gangly black man with a toothless wild smile, someone with enough life to overpower the zonked. He sees my dad making contact with grandma, and he yells, ecstatic, breathless: “Is that yo mama! Hee hee! Oh that is a good one!” He cackles some more and slaps his knee. Full of soul and the holy spirit. He clutches his ribs to muffle his laughter and has to sit down. Someone in white informs us that if he becomes bothersome, he can be restrained.
We see her before she sees us. My grandmother faces our harmless questions, but, refusing or unable to concentrate, instead listens attentively to the gruff man beside her, who speaks an endless stream of his foreign tongue (something Slavic, maybe Ukrainian?). She answers his nonsense in equally nonsensical English and then, searching for a word only to find it in Yiddish, shrugs and offers up a look of “Why not?” and soldiers on, plodding through their exchange in broken Yiddish.
Trying to reach out to his mother, my father reveals something else every time, and this is partly why I join him. I’m sure guilt and fear and love are in there somewhere. He might get upset, turn away, as his hands fall limp to his side. He might dance, hit himself, who knows. There are no expectations. He just wants a reaction, some justification, some reason to take part in this silent reunion. It is sad and beautiful, as I wonder how I will cope with the slow decay of my parents, as I wonder whether my friends will come see me drift away from life and reason and still find ways to make me laugh. Maybe it will be easier, I think to myself, as I watch.
Her eyes are bright and blue.
Friday, July 22, 2005
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Sound of Silence
Your little brother and father are watching Charlie Chaplin films. You hear them laughing for what seems like the first time. Mother is lying down reading, fading in and out of consciousness, and you hear the occasional scratch of turning pages. They all go to bed. If you could sleep forever, would you still dream? You wonder. The faint hum of the fridge signals a change. You open the screen door and step outside into the blackness, but you are standing in between two lights. On your right, high in the trees, there are wooden planks illuminated by a green lantern, something you have never seen before. A patio in the sky. On your left there is a light, attracting countless moths. Cloaked in the darkness, dancing circles in the neon glow. The insect nightlife is vibrant, full of quiet excitement surrounded by the still night. There is a gentle wind rushing through the leaves. There always is a breeze, sweeping sadly through the silence. You hear the faraway horn of a train, the never-ending train that passes by every twenty-one minutes or so. This is the only measure of distance; here you step outside of time, immersed in a moment. The melancholy howl of the loon, the wailing in the night, does not make an appearance. With eyes closed, you feel the leaves rustling in a tender sway that makes your bones shiver. You reach under your shirt, and clutch your flesh in that familiar way, making sure you exist. Completely alone in the night, the woods listen and watch your every move. You pull your limbs around the deck, trying not to disturb them. There is no one around you in every direction; only one soul deserted in the wilderness. Of course, the family lives asleep behind you, but they are as far as the moon. Up above, the dark clear air speckled with stars reminds you of something unreal. You open the screen door and step back inside to sleep.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
recent happenings
Today there was a fantastic reading by Chuck Palahniuk at Indeego with the mouse. Our first encounter since I got back from Europe two weeks ago. There are many stories and images to reflect about the backpacking experience, but I am taking my sweet ass time. Chuckniuk relayed some gruesome but hilarious vulgar stories about failed masturbation attempts with foreign objects. He held everyone's ears locked and guts churning. The funny thing is, he looks so preppy - a cheeky geek with the heart and humour of a fourteen year old. He confirmed that we grow old and rehash the same stories over and over. We cling to our experiences, and the indecent dialogue is always the most entertaining. The best stories to hear about are the most shameful and embarassing. Maybe I will tell one sometime.
On the way home, I was aware of a scattering of things. A young woman sitting in the back of the bus had normal clothes topped off with a pink beret. We accelerated towards a red light. The bus driver was drumming sounds to avoid the silence. Looking around at a haze of clouded faces, trying to exist somewhere between awake and asleep, I opened the window and swallowed the air in hungry gulps. We rolled down a hill and the world flew by, a dark pink sea of sky. A magic bus ride for my tired eyes. Walking home along Leslie I noticed grass where there was once a wild hedge of sprawling bushes. They used to own that stretch of sidewalk, but now there is nothing left. There was also a big tree missing. A handful of stumps and limbs, severed and stuck in between the chain link fence in so many places. The suburbs take precious care of immaculate grass. Nothing growing outside of its prescribed boundaries. I felt as much as I could and then walked away.
On the way home, I was aware of a scattering of things. A young woman sitting in the back of the bus had normal clothes topped off with a pink beret. We accelerated towards a red light. The bus driver was drumming sounds to avoid the silence. Looking around at a haze of clouded faces, trying to exist somewhere between awake and asleep, I opened the window and swallowed the air in hungry gulps. We rolled down a hill and the world flew by, a dark pink sea of sky. A magic bus ride for my tired eyes. Walking home along Leslie I noticed grass where there was once a wild hedge of sprawling bushes. They used to own that stretch of sidewalk, but now there is nothing left. There was also a big tree missing. A handful of stumps and limbs, severed and stuck in between the chain link fence in so many places. The suburbs take precious care of immaculate grass. Nothing growing outside of its prescribed boundaries. I felt as much as I could and then walked away.
Monday, June 06, 2005
identity
who am i?
sometimes i think of myself as an absent-minded professor.
and when i say my mind is absent, i really mean it's absent. there are times when altogether it's not there.
people i love have called me a terrible communicator. i agree with them.
if i am perfectly comfortable, i can slip into another stream, and i submit to my senses. i see through the tiniest lens sometimes.. i can think so carefully and feel the vibrations of a single moment, trying to isolate the active parts of life around me.
all this is telling me nothing of my identity.
another few seconds pass, and nothing moves.
you feel torn between realising the person you've become, and becoming the person you believe to be. holding fast, grabbing on to the fraying seams, you can't even stand still. there is nothing pushing you around. you look around yourself, desperate and hungry for advice from the unknown.. but as soon as you see something, you know what it is in all its lonely history. you crawl around upstairs, but you've been there before. so you go outside into the wind, and let your bones sway away the time.
sometimes i think of myself as an absent-minded professor.
and when i say my mind is absent, i really mean it's absent. there are times when altogether it's not there.
people i love have called me a terrible communicator. i agree with them.
if i am perfectly comfortable, i can slip into another stream, and i submit to my senses. i see through the tiniest lens sometimes.. i can think so carefully and feel the vibrations of a single moment, trying to isolate the active parts of life around me.
all this is telling me nothing of my identity.
another few seconds pass, and nothing moves.
you feel torn between realising the person you've become, and becoming the person you believe to be. holding fast, grabbing on to the fraying seams, you can't even stand still. there is nothing pushing you around. you look around yourself, desperate and hungry for advice from the unknown.. but as soon as you see something, you know what it is in all its lonely history. you crawl around upstairs, but you've been there before. so you go outside into the wind, and let your bones sway away the time.
Monday, May 30, 2005
The Scientist
Berlin, May 30
There was a friendly scientist on the train from Vienna to Krakow. Or was it from Prague to Berlin? A mop of coarse dark hair ran ragged across his round face, from which he sipped his coffee innocently. He had glasses, and a flattering stare. My attention was framed by his rotating expression, which varied from warm nervousness to thoughtful deliberation. We shared the world from that tiny compartment, eyeful of the landscape racing forward and backward, as we sat opposite each other. Frequently he returned to his work which, as far as I could tell, involved wildly jotting down scribbles on graph paper. He was watching me with care; such a warm stare it made me uneasy. Whenever travelling alone with foreign faces, for any distance in any place, you form and unfold imaginary stories that fill the void of communication. I briefly imagined him as my real father, having left me for adoption years ago to help me escape a brutal Soviet life. Upon realisation that his long and forgotten son was actually here with him, he struggled to keep the smile from stretching across his long, thin lips. He kept glancing back to make sure, with smug furtive looks that hinted a secret known only to him. I should add he was feeling quite pleased with himself for having wasted no time whatsoever in a futile search for his lost son, to finally encounter him as a fully-grown child, travelling confidently without the use of his paternal wisdom. Now he opens his mouth, ready to snap me away from my daydream, unable to use him like every other listless plaything.
There was a friendly scientist on the train from Vienna to Krakow. Or was it from Prague to Berlin? A mop of coarse dark hair ran ragged across his round face, from which he sipped his coffee innocently. He had glasses, and a flattering stare. My attention was framed by his rotating expression, which varied from warm nervousness to thoughtful deliberation. We shared the world from that tiny compartment, eyeful of the landscape racing forward and backward, as we sat opposite each other. Frequently he returned to his work which, as far as I could tell, involved wildly jotting down scribbles on graph paper. He was watching me with care; such a warm stare it made me uneasy. Whenever travelling alone with foreign faces, for any distance in any place, you form and unfold imaginary stories that fill the void of communication. I briefly imagined him as my real father, having left me for adoption years ago to help me escape a brutal Soviet life. Upon realisation that his long and forgotten son was actually here with him, he struggled to keep the smile from stretching across his long, thin lips. He kept glancing back to make sure, with smug furtive looks that hinted a secret known only to him. I should add he was feeling quite pleased with himself for having wasted no time whatsoever in a futile search for his lost son, to finally encounter him as a fully-grown child, travelling confidently without the use of his paternal wisdom. Now he opens his mouth, ready to snap me away from my daydream, unable to use him like every other listless plaything.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Dialogue/Friedensreich Hundertwasser/The spinning boy
Strasbourg – May 21
Words seen on the walls and floors of the tram station underground:
Vous pensez à l’histoire. Vous pensez à ceux qui ont vécu et à ceux qui sont morts. Vous pensez aux objets et images qui racontent comment c’était. Vous essayez d’avoir les idées larges. Vous essayez de comprendre les autres. Vous essayez d’être gentil et généreux. Vous êtes très seul. Vous avez tout votre temps. Vous n’êtes pas pressé. Vous marchez dans la rue et le soleil vous réchauffe. Vous êtes heureux.
Far now, far away, but far too many one-sided conversations with you in my head.
But who are you? Are you anyone?
You know those conversations, the ones where you make up the rules, when you know what the other will say, but you still want to hear the words, because the repetition is something you trust, familiar, numbing.
Sometimes I lack the will to resolve my thoughts. I let them twist like open endings.
Do these words give you hope?
Watching the world around you as it dissolves into a second scene, where the faces melt, indistinguishable from one to the next. I like open senses. Not moving, just receiving. Noises are muffled by the panasonic surround that absorbs everyone into everything. You either focus on one instant, pinpoint its most subtle quality, trying to notice all the rotating vibrating actions that give the moment life – or, you focus on everything at once, and you hear nothing.
Does any of that make sense?
A whirring blur of choppy dialogue, French and German, it hovers around this bopping space, becomes the same. People watching people watching people. I cannot talk about myself now, only the slices of peoples’ lives that encircle me. I am only the lens, the only lens I got. My senses are not my own, they belong to the world. I study faces, invent the lives behind them, because it is better to guess a life than to know the real, pathetic truth.
Do you see your face changing?
I cannot trust the faces I believed in, because I was a character in their stories, and I am guilty of losing my identity, implicated in my own game…
Late at night, falling into wide open barren spaces, falling in love with stranger faces.
In between the curbs, scraping the stones lit up by streetlamps. I am a sensualist, and maybe I will never change.
I live and breathe all the little vibrations. I don’t like being interrupted. But I must finish the thoughts I begin, so you’ve told me a million times. Otherwise you’ll never get anywhere, just round and round in circles.
Vienna – May 24
What a wonky one that was. The architect of the creative spirit, Oh Hundertwasser, I have a crush on you! What was it he said? “Our greatest illiteracy is our inability to create.” The lines, they go spinning round, and you bent the ruler until it was destroyed. Straight lines are an abomination in our world of nature. It is our crude, scientific attempt at perfection. Oh Hundertwasser! You even had a spiral on a flag. How could I not fall for that, or your clever Palesraeli design. You were a peaceful hermit who came down from the trees, and built your identity into your constructions, for all to enjoy.
It’s not just that, or your psychedelic graphics, or your beard I could get lost in for ages. No, there is something immediately connective and convincing about your words. We are stepping outside of the places we belong, constantly pushing nature back and beyond our reach. We build high buildings, walls everywhere, we blot out the sky. We build these towers where we spend all the hours of our days, and we run out of spaces for parks.
I am sitting in a tree-lined café, just behind his colourful, bumpy building. A wild child is hopping in hysterical footsteps, running from his father, tugging at everything, clinging to the foliage like a monkey on acid.
He has blue and white striped pants, so baggy that his knees are invisible, and all you see is this waddling harmless menace. Again, another animal comes to mind… a penguin. He scurries frantically in circles, twirling in freedom. He keeps running from his parents, escaping the adult ways of sitting and staying still in slow motion. Run little one! Free from the (illegible – “chair of polite restraint?”) I take a picture. He is my favourite child in the world. For the twentieth time his legal guardian leads him back to their table, holding his hand.
I have spent the last hour or so walking to the Wurstelprater amusement park, several miles away from downtown. There is an open field on the way in, where people relax in the grass. Napping couples curled up, Turks playing chess, young and old rolling dice, telling stories in canes and suits, everyone seems to be downing beer and lighting smokes. I look up and ahead to my destination, the Riesenrad, an enormous ferris wheel that spokes the sky red.
No tickets needed, so I’m walking through the funhouse, past the zero gravity seats and bumper cars and the carousels, not taking any rides but watching the attractions, and it is a surreal feeling. There is a chill, so the park is not very crowded, and this strange haunting breath comes over me. Those eerie carnival sounds, those lifeless faces behind concession stands, I did not want to write about it.
Went into a bar, completely lost on my way to cross the Danube. I was looking for the metro station to get me back to the hostel. Opened the door to old scarred Austrian faces, completely at a loss as to why someone who could never belong to this place or this moment would step into their scene. They seemed frozen in there. A deep low voice struggled with me to find a way out. I ordered a beer and tried to look as tired as them.
Words seen on the walls and floors of the tram station underground:
Vous pensez à l’histoire. Vous pensez à ceux qui ont vécu et à ceux qui sont morts. Vous pensez aux objets et images qui racontent comment c’était. Vous essayez d’avoir les idées larges. Vous essayez de comprendre les autres. Vous essayez d’être gentil et généreux. Vous êtes très seul. Vous avez tout votre temps. Vous n’êtes pas pressé. Vous marchez dans la rue et le soleil vous réchauffe. Vous êtes heureux.
Far now, far away, but far too many one-sided conversations with you in my head.
But who are you? Are you anyone?
You know those conversations, the ones where you make up the rules, when you know what the other will say, but you still want to hear the words, because the repetition is something you trust, familiar, numbing.
Sometimes I lack the will to resolve my thoughts. I let them twist like open endings.
Do these words give you hope?
Watching the world around you as it dissolves into a second scene, where the faces melt, indistinguishable from one to the next. I like open senses. Not moving, just receiving. Noises are muffled by the panasonic surround that absorbs everyone into everything. You either focus on one instant, pinpoint its most subtle quality, trying to notice all the rotating vibrating actions that give the moment life – or, you focus on everything at once, and you hear nothing.
Does any of that make sense?
A whirring blur of choppy dialogue, French and German, it hovers around this bopping space, becomes the same. People watching people watching people. I cannot talk about myself now, only the slices of peoples’ lives that encircle me. I am only the lens, the only lens I got. My senses are not my own, they belong to the world. I study faces, invent the lives behind them, because it is better to guess a life than to know the real, pathetic truth.
Do you see your face changing?
I cannot trust the faces I believed in, because I was a character in their stories, and I am guilty of losing my identity, implicated in my own game…
Late at night, falling into wide open barren spaces, falling in love with stranger faces.
In between the curbs, scraping the stones lit up by streetlamps. I am a sensualist, and maybe I will never change.
I live and breathe all the little vibrations. I don’t like being interrupted. But I must finish the thoughts I begin, so you’ve told me a million times. Otherwise you’ll never get anywhere, just round and round in circles.
Vienna – May 24
What a wonky one that was. The architect of the creative spirit, Oh Hundertwasser, I have a crush on you! What was it he said? “Our greatest illiteracy is our inability to create.” The lines, they go spinning round, and you bent the ruler until it was destroyed. Straight lines are an abomination in our world of nature. It is our crude, scientific attempt at perfection. Oh Hundertwasser! You even had a spiral on a flag. How could I not fall for that, or your clever Palesraeli design. You were a peaceful hermit who came down from the trees, and built your identity into your constructions, for all to enjoy.
It’s not just that, or your psychedelic graphics, or your beard I could get lost in for ages. No, there is something immediately connective and convincing about your words. We are stepping outside of the places we belong, constantly pushing nature back and beyond our reach. We build high buildings, walls everywhere, we blot out the sky. We build these towers where we spend all the hours of our days, and we run out of spaces for parks.
I am sitting in a tree-lined café, just behind his colourful, bumpy building. A wild child is hopping in hysterical footsteps, running from his father, tugging at everything, clinging to the foliage like a monkey on acid.
He has blue and white striped pants, so baggy that his knees are invisible, and all you see is this waddling harmless menace. Again, another animal comes to mind… a penguin. He scurries frantically in circles, twirling in freedom. He keeps running from his parents, escaping the adult ways of sitting and staying still in slow motion. Run little one! Free from the (illegible – “chair of polite restraint?”) I take a picture. He is my favourite child in the world. For the twentieth time his legal guardian leads him back to their table, holding his hand.
I have spent the last hour or so walking to the Wurstelprater amusement park, several miles away from downtown. There is an open field on the way in, where people relax in the grass. Napping couples curled up, Turks playing chess, young and old rolling dice, telling stories in canes and suits, everyone seems to be downing beer and lighting smokes. I look up and ahead to my destination, the Riesenrad, an enormous ferris wheel that spokes the sky red.
No tickets needed, so I’m walking through the funhouse, past the zero gravity seats and bumper cars and the carousels, not taking any rides but watching the attractions, and it is a surreal feeling. There is a chill, so the park is not very crowded, and this strange haunting breath comes over me. Those eerie carnival sounds, those lifeless faces behind concession stands, I did not want to write about it.
Went into a bar, completely lost on my way to cross the Danube. I was looking for the metro station to get me back to the hostel. Opened the door to old scarred Austrian faces, completely at a loss as to why someone who could never belong to this place or this moment would step into their scene. They seemed frozen in there. A deep low voice struggled with me to find a way out. I ordered a beer and tried to look as tired as them.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Train
May 19
I write this on the topmost bunk in a room (7x7x10ft?) with six beds. Sleeping up here gives you control over light and darkness. I am the Sun god. Left that cramped mobile dorm, treading lightly on to the john to write on the toilet. Having finished my business I stumble and shuffle down the narrow corridor into a coach of seats instead of bunks. I realise I have not written very much. The mind has been too busy absorbing - this must come before any sort of release. The moments I wish to record are witnessed by my senses. It is in the sandy courtyard, hearing eerie churchbells of Almería, children howling with laughter and in another language at dusk. People-watching is a timeless activity, just like pegging and plugging made up stories into faces, and you can watch a whole dialogue unfurl between two people walking past. You create a story, invent an inner monologue.
I have noticed as much as possible. Awareness has led me to my senses which are piqued by the world that surrounds. It is necessary to connect the mind and body this way, spiritually.
We have stretched ourselves through a melting pot of scattered alleys and sunlit strolls, through markets bursting with flavour and people groping for a view, gasping for a breath, in a place that caters to your every delight. In Madrid there was a chain of miniature bookstore kiosks, all lined up in a row, dozens of them parading thousands of books (from the rare to the kitsch) to the passerby. Here you are as an eternal pedestrian, swept up by the moment of something new and unheard of. You focus your sights on everything at once, but it is impossible to notice everything at once. All the minutia, all the common and uncommon elements of life working at once. So instead you watch and experience a chain of events unravel naturally, the progression from action to reaction to rejuvenation all through your unsteady eyes. I am drunk off my senses!
It is a challenge to be a faithful and honest witness to the world around us felt by our eyes and ears, internal pleasures and fears, fixations neuroses etc. In short, everything that gives off a perpetual motion that reminds us we are caught in constant motion. Ex-stasis?
Whipping through a green French countryside, everything is polite and nothing is obtrusive. Plaster white homes with rusted iron roofs scattered like salt. There are wires of course, and the odd industrial warehouse. But nothing obscures the view; something is missing. Gone are the corrosive elements getting stale in our consumerist age- I see no advertising, shopping malls, no giant wastelands of parking fields and outlet stores and so on. Simply farmland mixed with forests and sometimes the rare relic of nobility- a castle perched on a hill, a beautiful shadow on the land overlooking the peasants of old.
I write this on the topmost bunk in a room (7x7x10ft?) with six beds. Sleeping up here gives you control over light and darkness. I am the Sun god. Left that cramped mobile dorm, treading lightly on to the john to write on the toilet. Having finished my business I stumble and shuffle down the narrow corridor into a coach of seats instead of bunks. I realise I have not written very much. The mind has been too busy absorbing - this must come before any sort of release. The moments I wish to record are witnessed by my senses. It is in the sandy courtyard, hearing eerie churchbells of Almería, children howling with laughter and in another language at dusk. People-watching is a timeless activity, just like pegging and plugging made up stories into faces, and you can watch a whole dialogue unfurl between two people walking past. You create a story, invent an inner monologue.
I have noticed as much as possible. Awareness has led me to my senses which are piqued by the world that surrounds. It is necessary to connect the mind and body this way, spiritually.
We have stretched ourselves through a melting pot of scattered alleys and sunlit strolls, through markets bursting with flavour and people groping for a view, gasping for a breath, in a place that caters to your every delight. In Madrid there was a chain of miniature bookstore kiosks, all lined up in a row, dozens of them parading thousands of books (from the rare to the kitsch) to the passerby. Here you are as an eternal pedestrian, swept up by the moment of something new and unheard of. You focus your sights on everything at once, but it is impossible to notice everything at once. All the minutia, all the common and uncommon elements of life working at once. So instead you watch and experience a chain of events unravel naturally, the progression from action to reaction to rejuvenation all through your unsteady eyes. I am drunk off my senses!
It is a challenge to be a faithful and honest witness to the world around us felt by our eyes and ears, internal pleasures and fears, fixations neuroses etc. In short, everything that gives off a perpetual motion that reminds us we are caught in constant motion. Ex-stasis?
Whipping through a green French countryside, everything is polite and nothing is obtrusive. Plaster white homes with rusted iron roofs scattered like salt. There are wires of course, and the odd industrial warehouse. But nothing obscures the view; something is missing. Gone are the corrosive elements getting stale in our consumerist age- I see no advertising, shopping malls, no giant wastelands of parking fields and outlet stores and so on. Simply farmland mixed with forests and sometimes the rare relic of nobility- a castle perched on a hill, a beautiful shadow on the land overlooking the peasants of old.
Monday, May 16, 2005
Almería
I decided to slowly transcribe some things I wrote in Europe.
May 14-16
Almería, Spain -
A sandy haven from the overcrowded cities of culture, no teeming tourists down here. We are south, near the sun, and I lounge on the beach surrouned by Spanish, Catalan, French and Arabic. Morocco is a ferry away. I need a moment's peace. Here the beer is cheap and dry, one litre for one euro. A flawless blue cathedral of sky, tanned exotic buildings and bodies dot the landscape. It is a quiet wonderland of sand and smiles. Countries of the sun cannot be blamed for basking in a lazy harmony. I squint and frown through the glare. The sun and sea swallows up the hours. An old wrinkly woman stares ahead, and someone loves this sun-dried tomato. I am crushed under the power of things that wrap the mind in a comfy slow-motion collapse. Infinite distraction is surrendering my senses now.
Climbing the Alcazaba fortress. Cactus, sand-swept hills, tiny lizards and starving bushes living off the land. Where am I in this deserted myth? The city is a random mess of plaster, I don't look at it. A million glittering shards of glass twinkle and sharpen my eyes to the rocky desert around me. Up above, a swarming mass of black birds circle and dive and rise fanatically like mosquitoes. The sun melts the ancient walls of a time so far gone and forgotten. I am parched and perched, feeling accomplished for being high up above it all with JC, a grandiose white statue who welcomes every visitor with hands and arms outstretched. The minutes linger. I stay firmly planted on this ghost fortress that looms out over the world.
On the train to Madrid, tracing and carving our way through a twisted path that cuts the dry rocky hills. I see the backs of heads in front of me. Beside me a scenery collapses and rises endlessly against the window. Tiny green bushes and cactus are fastened to the ground like stubble on an old man's face. My cheek edges closer to the window, trying not to hit it when the world bumps up and down. Not quite mountains, but bigger than hills. The graceful motion of the ground races by. What is passing? An old stony wall. Deserted sandy houses. A small ranch, a few cows or bulls. A white home with blue doors and windows. Mossy cliffs, shadows clipped by the outcroppings. I see my face in the mirror in dark tunnels and try not to recognise it. I am tired. My body and mind exhausted from travel. My eyes flutter open occasionally, comforted by the glimpse of a repeating scene.
May 14-16
Almería, Spain -
A sandy haven from the overcrowded cities of culture, no teeming tourists down here. We are south, near the sun, and I lounge on the beach surrouned by Spanish, Catalan, French and Arabic. Morocco is a ferry away. I need a moment's peace. Here the beer is cheap and dry, one litre for one euro. A flawless blue cathedral of sky, tanned exotic buildings and bodies dot the landscape. It is a quiet wonderland of sand and smiles. Countries of the sun cannot be blamed for basking in a lazy harmony. I squint and frown through the glare. The sun and sea swallows up the hours. An old wrinkly woman stares ahead, and someone loves this sun-dried tomato. I am crushed under the power of things that wrap the mind in a comfy slow-motion collapse. Infinite distraction is surrendering my senses now.
Climbing the Alcazaba fortress. Cactus, sand-swept hills, tiny lizards and starving bushes living off the land. Where am I in this deserted myth? The city is a random mess of plaster, I don't look at it. A million glittering shards of glass twinkle and sharpen my eyes to the rocky desert around me. Up above, a swarming mass of black birds circle and dive and rise fanatically like mosquitoes. The sun melts the ancient walls of a time so far gone and forgotten. I am parched and perched, feeling accomplished for being high up above it all with JC, a grandiose white statue who welcomes every visitor with hands and arms outstretched. The minutes linger. I stay firmly planted on this ghost fortress that looms out over the world.
On the train to Madrid, tracing and carving our way through a twisted path that cuts the dry rocky hills. I see the backs of heads in front of me. Beside me a scenery collapses and rises endlessly against the window. Tiny green bushes and cactus are fastened to the ground like stubble on an old man's face. My cheek edges closer to the window, trying not to hit it when the world bumps up and down. Not quite mountains, but bigger than hills. The graceful motion of the ground races by. What is passing? An old stony wall. Deserted sandy houses. A small ranch, a few cows or bulls. A white home with blue doors and windows. Mossy cliffs, shadows clipped by the outcroppings. I see my face in the mirror in dark tunnels and try not to recognise it. I am tired. My body and mind exhausted from travel. My eyes flutter open occasionally, comforted by the glimpse of a repeating scene.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
the view from here
A man decked out in neon nylon pedals down the road at an awkward crawl, trailed by the awful sound of his flat bycicle tire. It bounces clumsily over rocky pavement and makes his body vibrate. It's painful to watch him push his legs to grind the chain. His stubborn refusal to get out and walk a broken machine with his working legs is strange, strangely amusing.
Sarah and I are on another one of these walks with uncertain destinations. We see incredible things together when we are aimless. Hordes of cars, families of students and someone with majestic dredlocks pass us. A castle-like house (but really a house-like castle) looms to the right, and a house with a hundred windows of all shapes and sizes stands on the left. We walk through the arch beside the castle, it turns out there is a hidden basement apartment that backs out onto their deck. We cross streets and find ourselves drawn to a hideously large storage facility of some sort. It feels like another city - suburban quiet emptied streets, one sapling per garage. The grass is neat and trim. A father stands protectively behind his daughter, tricycling in a pink parka. She gets out and decides to fall down, kissing the sunny pavement with her cheek. There is a dead end here.
We walk towards the giant cylinders, offwhite cream-coloured tubes in wonder. It is as high as the highest building in Halifax. We both think of the possible view, looking at the ladder glued from the bottom to the top. We shuffle down a little hill, cross a marshy moat, but are held back by the triple barbwired fence surrounding the big view. I find a shovel, but a sign warning of video surveillance makes me think I'm being watched. I decide to come back another day without her.
We walk to the end of the facility, and discover it is next to a commercial wharf. There are a hundred colourful containers, red blue green. I think of christmas ornaments. We find our way up the grassy knoll, where I find a pair of discarded pants, as we walk to the end of the suburban street, sloping upwards. At the end, below us is the train tracks, and a view of the seaport. There is nowhere left to go. We scale down the stone mixed with broken beer bottles, torn fabric, and everyday junk. Lying on the bottom, twisted, discarded, an old 386 computer, smashed to bits but not unrecognisable. The keyboard is dismantled, propped on its side, compressed in the wreckage. The mouse is nowhere to be found. We walk in the direction of home along the two tracks, separated by the gravel, the sun beating down on our backs. I watch the planks skipping in and out under my feet. We travel through the valley of rail while rocky faces stare us down. The sun reflecting off the skinny metal road that slowly curves in and out and onward into the shrinking perspective. We get out of the valley, delicately scamper up the side, and sit on a giant rock looking out on the tracks. I am happy as we take turns throwing stones into the abyss, trying to catch a rail and make a sound we can hear.
Sarah and I are on another one of these walks with uncertain destinations. We see incredible things together when we are aimless. Hordes of cars, families of students and someone with majestic dredlocks pass us. A castle-like house (but really a house-like castle) looms to the right, and a house with a hundred windows of all shapes and sizes stands on the left. We walk through the arch beside the castle, it turns out there is a hidden basement apartment that backs out onto their deck. We cross streets and find ourselves drawn to a hideously large storage facility of some sort. It feels like another city - suburban quiet emptied streets, one sapling per garage. The grass is neat and trim. A father stands protectively behind his daughter, tricycling in a pink parka. She gets out and decides to fall down, kissing the sunny pavement with her cheek. There is a dead end here.
We walk towards the giant cylinders, offwhite cream-coloured tubes in wonder. It is as high as the highest building in Halifax. We both think of the possible view, looking at the ladder glued from the bottom to the top. We shuffle down a little hill, cross a marshy moat, but are held back by the triple barbwired fence surrounding the big view. I find a shovel, but a sign warning of video surveillance makes me think I'm being watched. I decide to come back another day without her.
We walk to the end of the facility, and discover it is next to a commercial wharf. There are a hundred colourful containers, red blue green. I think of christmas ornaments. We find our way up the grassy knoll, where I find a pair of discarded pants, as we walk to the end of the suburban street, sloping upwards. At the end, below us is the train tracks, and a view of the seaport. There is nowhere left to go. We scale down the stone mixed with broken beer bottles, torn fabric, and everyday junk. Lying on the bottom, twisted, discarded, an old 386 computer, smashed to bits but not unrecognisable. The keyboard is dismantled, propped on its side, compressed in the wreckage. The mouse is nowhere to be found. We walk in the direction of home along the two tracks, separated by the gravel, the sun beating down on our backs. I watch the planks skipping in and out under my feet. We travel through the valley of rail while rocky faces stare us down. The sun reflecting off the skinny metal road that slowly curves in and out and onward into the shrinking perspective. We get out of the valley, delicately scamper up the side, and sit on a giant rock looking out on the tracks. I am happy as we take turns throwing stones into the abyss, trying to catch a rail and make a sound we can hear.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
watery tomb
I am camouflaged, immersed in muddy colours, streaking in the rain. I feel dilapidated.
I climb the stairs to the attic of the grad house. No one in the room, just empty chairs, tables, an ancient piano and me. No ghost tapping black keys, not this time, just scattered crumbs and coffee stains. I close my eyes and run my hands along the objects. The wood is cut and chipped, the edges are dull. Out in the blue, where the rain muffles light, my lens is blurred again. No one is watching as I twist and pirouette and deke out the furniture until I reach my fabric lover under the window, and I fall back, sunken soul in my favourite recliner, soft and ratty. It is dark in the room but I turn out all the lights to see the rain better. I like it this way. The surfaces are gleaming in the street. Students with heads hung down, heels splashing and scraping past the million drops exploding around me. I tap my fingers. Umbrella one, umbrella two, lost in step go me and you and Bang
snaps the screen behind the window, it flutters awake with the wind, and I see me looking at myself in the glass, in a room that knows more than I do…
A gradual panic begins to unravel. What do I know? I will never be able to leave. Leave my body, to escape my self, my thoughts, the endless stream of poobelle that plagues my conscience. This is no dream, I am terrified right now. I am shut up, cornered in this tight compartment. I am always going to be this rambling clumsy hulk, I do not know how to tear this back. Where will I go, to get outside myself? Maybe a love and fear of observation is the escape, a way to leave yourself behind. Bearing witness and bearing grudges, up against a world of inner space. It makes me wonder, it makes me sick, why can’t I leave me?
Avoiding reality, French class today bothered me more than before. I heard and thought I understood all the professor’s words, but they never made a point, not a dent in my head. He was constantly alluding to the effects of lexicology, psychotropisms, run-on sentences about how the author was unable to differentiate between sense and experience; it was all vagueries. Clever words to cover all the basis of experience, and he could not explain a single thing without using a metaphor. Those words I could not touch, words that could not reflect the feeling I enjoyed; me being carried on the imagination of someone else. Words that led you outside myself.
Of course I kept thinking about the room. It was my cozy cell, where I could not exist before this moment. What big sweeping statements of insecurity. What you had here among the furniture were conversations frozen in time and space, conversations that would not let you breathe. You cannot remember who spoke first, who left last, but the words are still hanging, a film of dust, getting old in wasted time. But out there, nothing is still. It’s really a torrent now, you could see it, cascading reflections of water stains shimmering back and forth along the street. Time to leave these reflections on pavement. So I stepped out of the room, reborn, and became a puddle. I was outside looking in, squinting through the rain, and as feet skipped around the puddles I thought I saw someone flickering in an out.
I climb the stairs to the attic of the grad house. No one in the room, just empty chairs, tables, an ancient piano and me. No ghost tapping black keys, not this time, just scattered crumbs and coffee stains. I close my eyes and run my hands along the objects. The wood is cut and chipped, the edges are dull. Out in the blue, where the rain muffles light, my lens is blurred again. No one is watching as I twist and pirouette and deke out the furniture until I reach my fabric lover under the window, and I fall back, sunken soul in my favourite recliner, soft and ratty. It is dark in the room but I turn out all the lights to see the rain better. I like it this way. The surfaces are gleaming in the street. Students with heads hung down, heels splashing and scraping past the million drops exploding around me. I tap my fingers. Umbrella one, umbrella two, lost in step go me and you and Bang
snaps the screen behind the window, it flutters awake with the wind, and I see me looking at myself in the glass, in a room that knows more than I do…
A gradual panic begins to unravel. What do I know? I will never be able to leave. Leave my body, to escape my self, my thoughts, the endless stream of poobelle that plagues my conscience. This is no dream, I am terrified right now. I am shut up, cornered in this tight compartment. I am always going to be this rambling clumsy hulk, I do not know how to tear this back. Where will I go, to get outside myself? Maybe a love and fear of observation is the escape, a way to leave yourself behind. Bearing witness and bearing grudges, up against a world of inner space. It makes me wonder, it makes me sick, why can’t I leave me?
Avoiding reality, French class today bothered me more than before. I heard and thought I understood all the professor’s words, but they never made a point, not a dent in my head. He was constantly alluding to the effects of lexicology, psychotropisms, run-on sentences about how the author was unable to differentiate between sense and experience; it was all vagueries. Clever words to cover all the basis of experience, and he could not explain a single thing without using a metaphor. Those words I could not touch, words that could not reflect the feeling I enjoyed; me being carried on the imagination of someone else. Words that led you outside myself.
Of course I kept thinking about the room. It was my cozy cell, where I could not exist before this moment. What big sweeping statements of insecurity. What you had here among the furniture were conversations frozen in time and space, conversations that would not let you breathe. You cannot remember who spoke first, who left last, but the words are still hanging, a film of dust, getting old in wasted time. But out there, nothing is still. It’s really a torrent now, you could see it, cascading reflections of water stains shimmering back and forth along the street. Time to leave these reflections on pavement. So I stepped out of the room, reborn, and became a puddle. I was outside looking in, squinting through the rain, and as feet skipped around the puddles I thought I saw someone flickering in an out.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Frank's theory
All of a sudden he started drooling absurdly over everything. A little puddle of liquid disbelief started forming in the bottom-right corner of the page. His theory was finally justified. Wars, poverty, hunder, inequality... humanity would change forever. Knowing his name would be uttered in the same breath as all these historical plagues gave him a sense of pure, medieval happiness. He tried to restrain himself, but he even became aroused to the point of a bulge in his trousers. He realised it wouldn't matter if he ran down the streets fully naked yelling about the apocalypse; his power was godly from this day forward.
"Sheryl!" squealed his noise hole in childish delight.
She waltzed into the room, smelling of potatoes. She always smelled of potatoes, ever since he accidentally spliced a potato gene which entered into her soup. Coincidentally, from that day forward, he was swayed tremendously by her opinion.
"I don't know, Frank."
"What do you mean you don't know?" he thought to himself. Either you know or you don't.
"Is the world really ready for something of that magnitude? It seems a little too abrupt."
"Well Sheryl, the world can't survive off fish heads can it?"
For too long, Frank had been ignored by the fellow scientists, colleagues, friends, and now family. He alienated himself with his ridiculously empty pursuits, fashionable to dreamers. Would the president have time to pencil him in? He wondered. Every crisis, every issue, every single minutia would be subject to the theory.
"Sheryl!" squealed his noise hole in childish delight.
She waltzed into the room, smelling of potatoes. She always smelled of potatoes, ever since he accidentally spliced a potato gene which entered into her soup. Coincidentally, from that day forward, he was swayed tremendously by her opinion.
"I don't know, Frank."
"What do you mean you don't know?" he thought to himself. Either you know or you don't.
"Is the world really ready for something of that magnitude? It seems a little too abrupt."
"Well Sheryl, the world can't survive off fish heads can it?"
For too long, Frank had been ignored by the fellow scientists, colleagues, friends, and now family. He alienated himself with his ridiculously empty pursuits, fashionable to dreamers. Would the president have time to pencil him in? He wondered. Every crisis, every issue, every single minutia would be subject to the theory.
so
swept under the current
pulled the cover over head
a glimmer of light bleeds
through the closing curtain.
she doses
breathing into my ear.
dusted off my shoulders
soldiered through a wide open field
a sad happy sucker wandering why
it's time to bathe in the sky.
she leans towards you who
drowns in the blue.
pulled the cover over head
a glimmer of light bleeds
through the closing curtain.
she doses
breathing into my ear.
dusted off my shoulders
soldiered through a wide open field
a sad happy sucker wandering why
it's time to bathe in the sky.
she leans towards you who
drowns in the blue.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Noticed
A chronology of frozen moments wrapped around my conscience.
I notice the unending stream of student passengers shuffling through the doors. There is trouble: too many are caught in the enclosure, bottlenecked, between the arts building doors and the doors to the outside world. People look out longingly and look in drearily. Avoiding the chaos I take the quiet ones on the side, to the left. No one ever thinks to use the perfectly functional three other doors around them - people wait their turn patiently or impatiently, and squeeze by gracefully. Apologise when necessary. Stranded on the stairs is a girl reading On The Road. I smile at her but she is submerged with zen. I look back, transfixed, to the nebulous mass of chattering wavering bodies, that multiply and shrink and fill up again if I stare long enough.
I notice the unending stream of little children file endlessly down the street, around the corner, and presumably into infinity or at least until nap time. I have never seen so many little ones all at once. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, but probably not. They are from a preschool in the area, on a preschool trip to bask in the sidewalk sun. They are out for a walk. A walking carnival of coats of every colour, some have locked hands, some are out of order, forming groups and ranks of their own. There is a teacher every so often, to maintain peace and good conduct among the rabble. They are happening. A kaleidoscopic horde of munchkin. They speak their own language, yelps and hoots and cries, frenzied distractions of the world.
I notice the unending stream of jovial twentythirtysomethings with black shirts and bad haircuts enter the coffee shop, formerly known as empty. There was peace, once, in this land. The Trident was packed, so we tried the place next door. It was perfect - quiet, doowop and soul on the radio, bright with light, and deserted. Minutes later, we discover that we have stumbled upon the testing ground of a geek fantasy world. They are a rambunctious bunch, each cradling the same box. Tension fills the air as they await the hour of redemption. There is no authority, and every single table has filled. Enough! They devour the cardboard all at once, empty the contents (beautifully crafted miniature metallic creatures) and with unabashed glee brag about whose statue has better statistics. More and more keep filing in, one by one. I can't believe this. Someone unravels a poster and fastens it to the wall: "Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures - Deathknell Prerelease Event" I am in their domain, but they don't seem to notice.
I notice the unending stream of student passengers shuffling through the doors. There is trouble: too many are caught in the enclosure, bottlenecked, between the arts building doors and the doors to the outside world. People look out longingly and look in drearily. Avoiding the chaos I take the quiet ones on the side, to the left. No one ever thinks to use the perfectly functional three other doors around them - people wait their turn patiently or impatiently, and squeeze by gracefully. Apologise when necessary. Stranded on the stairs is a girl reading On The Road. I smile at her but she is submerged with zen. I look back, transfixed, to the nebulous mass of chattering wavering bodies, that multiply and shrink and fill up again if I stare long enough.
I notice the unending stream of little children file endlessly down the street, around the corner, and presumably into infinity or at least until nap time. I have never seen so many little ones all at once. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, but probably not. They are from a preschool in the area, on a preschool trip to bask in the sidewalk sun. They are out for a walk. A walking carnival of coats of every colour, some have locked hands, some are out of order, forming groups and ranks of their own. There is a teacher every so often, to maintain peace and good conduct among the rabble. They are happening. A kaleidoscopic horde of munchkin. They speak their own language, yelps and hoots and cries, frenzied distractions of the world.
I notice the unending stream of jovial twentythirtysomethings with black shirts and bad haircuts enter the coffee shop, formerly known as empty. There was peace, once, in this land. The Trident was packed, so we tried the place next door. It was perfect - quiet, doowop and soul on the radio, bright with light, and deserted. Minutes later, we discover that we have stumbled upon the testing ground of a geek fantasy world. They are a rambunctious bunch, each cradling the same box. Tension fills the air as they await the hour of redemption. There is no authority, and every single table has filled. Enough! They devour the cardboard all at once, empty the contents (beautifully crafted miniature metallic creatures) and with unabashed glee brag about whose statue has better statistics. More and more keep filing in, one by one. I can't believe this. Someone unravels a poster and fastens it to the wall: "Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures - Deathknell Prerelease Event" I am in their domain, but they don't seem to notice.
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Cold
(I was running around my place furiously looking for something I once wrote that really frightened me at the time. It was supposed to be for someone, but it came out really cold. Found it.)
But she only got as far as the door. Familiar shivers paralysed every bone in her body until she was numb. Legs tingled and carried her back out into the lifeless street. If only there was some sound... some noise that distracted her wandering mind. She gently sung (gently? crooned?) old corny pop songs to the trees that glistened with snow. Why did everything seem so... foreign? Even the crunching under her feet felt different. She stopped and stooped and made sure her toes were alive. They were. As a child, she would often escape outside and run as fast and far as she could until the whole world was (behind her?) unrecognisable, and she would find a new way home. Back then her mind wasn't limited by reason, and she believed that she would explore the world this way. Now she was convinced that the people she knew were forever asleep, clutching their blue flesh.
Everything around her hung limp, motionless, passing through her trembling stare, framed by the deserted streets that passed like the breeze. She would find others, she would find a way out.
But she only got as far as the door. Familiar shivers paralysed every bone in her body until she was numb. Legs tingled and carried her back out into the lifeless street. If only there was some sound... some noise that distracted her wandering mind. She gently sung (gently? crooned?) old corny pop songs to the trees that glistened with snow. Why did everything seem so... foreign? Even the crunching under her feet felt different. She stopped and stooped and made sure her toes were alive. They were. As a child, she would often escape outside and run as fast and far as she could until the whole world was (behind her?) unrecognisable, and she would find a new way home. Back then her mind wasn't limited by reason, and she believed that she would explore the world this way. Now she was convinced that the people she knew were forever asleep, clutching their blue flesh.
Everything around her hung limp, motionless, passing through her trembling stare, framed by the deserted streets that passed like the breeze. She would find others, she would find a way out.
Saturday, March 19, 2005
winding down by the water
Today was a good day, satisfying.
Midday we decided to watch the sun come down on the water. In the evening we met up and walked down to the end of the street, across a parking lot, down a string of straight and windy streets until finally we met the shore, the arm. On our way there was a balcony missing a door, and skeletons of red bushes. There was an alcove etched into a sidewalk wall, with thin branches drooping over it.. I thought instantly of a waterfall and desperately wanted to claw my way in and lie vertically against the cement and look at a world full of lines. An industrial-sized pipe was drawn across the valley of the train tracks. They lead to a shipyard by the sea. We stumbled through a muddy forest and zigzagged our way to the edge, flanked by majestic monstrous homes that tried to outdo the view. The glowing sliver of red sun was already swallowed up by the tops of pine trees across the arm. Too late. Dejected we climbed the hill but the water left our eyes, and we quickly turned back towards it, scampering through properties to trace a path through a darkening sky. Stepping out onto the quiet shaley rocks, I could see forever in one direction into endless blue. Elemental feelings I can't express in words. A smattering of rocks are stranded in front of me. Everything is quiet, I keep my eyes and thoughts to myself in the dusky grey. We walk by intermittent docks, stepping carefully along the edge. Two ducks float by politely. I'm faced with a distance. Always something humbling but reasurring about the water. Nothing is passing the time or piercing the silence. It is brisk down here, so we pick ourselves up someone's stairs and walk through a vast immaculate lawn.
There I am, contemplating how blissfully content I become on these adventures, bottled and bundled up in another world, when a train whistle completes the day. It is so close it rattles my bones and fills me with childish glee.. I race up the embankment and watch it clatter by noisily. I tell my companions that when I was young my grandfather drove me out to the train tracks where I would count the endless colourful cars slowly streaming by. The train rambles into the disappearing distance and I forget the long walk home.
Midday we decided to watch the sun come down on the water. In the evening we met up and walked down to the end of the street, across a parking lot, down a string of straight and windy streets until finally we met the shore, the arm. On our way there was a balcony missing a door, and skeletons of red bushes. There was an alcove etched into a sidewalk wall, with thin branches drooping over it.. I thought instantly of a waterfall and desperately wanted to claw my way in and lie vertically against the cement and look at a world full of lines. An industrial-sized pipe was drawn across the valley of the train tracks. They lead to a shipyard by the sea. We stumbled through a muddy forest and zigzagged our way to the edge, flanked by majestic monstrous homes that tried to outdo the view. The glowing sliver of red sun was already swallowed up by the tops of pine trees across the arm. Too late. Dejected we climbed the hill but the water left our eyes, and we quickly turned back towards it, scampering through properties to trace a path through a darkening sky. Stepping out onto the quiet shaley rocks, I could see forever in one direction into endless blue. Elemental feelings I can't express in words. A smattering of rocks are stranded in front of me. Everything is quiet, I keep my eyes and thoughts to myself in the dusky grey. We walk by intermittent docks, stepping carefully along the edge. Two ducks float by politely. I'm faced with a distance. Always something humbling but reasurring about the water. Nothing is passing the time or piercing the silence. It is brisk down here, so we pick ourselves up someone's stairs and walk through a vast immaculate lawn.
There I am, contemplating how blissfully content I become on these adventures, bottled and bundled up in another world, when a train whistle completes the day. It is so close it rattles my bones and fills me with childish glee.. I race up the embankment and watch it clatter by noisily. I tell my companions that when I was young my grandfather drove me out to the train tracks where I would count the endless colourful cars slowly streaming by. The train rambles into the disappearing distance and I forget the long walk home.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
On a plane
(written in the air some time ago, not sure where i was going)
Clenched by polyester fabric and polite warnings all around me, expecting to fly, a flash of sun-drenched sky lights the narrow path that splits the plane in half. My fellow passengers are all within sight but all out of reach. Waiting to be catapaulted into a sea of clouds and fuzziness, I await release.
Flashing lights are carried through the crisscrossing veins of the city. A city that makes no noise when you’re flying miles above it. Only in the darkness everything sparkles and glistens. The further you are, the more it begins to look the same, as everything fades into itself. Shame that we live in these concrete wastelands that sprawl outwards, clawing their way into the horizon, or to the edge of the sea. They can be beautiful, but never as a whole. Communities should try and reflect their natural surroundings, instead of dominating them. If only we could give up this urgency to move great distances, always with the help of pavement.
(The plane points its nose towards the ground and there is some turbulence.)
The tip of the wing is slicing through the snowy sky (clouds, sprinkly whiteness and everything!) but we never move so fast that we cannot slow down.
Focusing my thoughts is proving to be more difficult than I anticipated. Describing observances is bothersome, since my life consists of pointing out absurdity in and around observations. We think of death when we're on a plane, don't we?
The plant in my apartment is slowly dying lonely. There was a time when I watered it diligently, about every two weeks because it was a desert plant that required little maintenance, and no grooming. But now the soil is nutrient-less. Its impending death is impeded by its stubborn refusal to give up. Ever so slowly, shrivelling up and drying out, leaves curled inwards empty of colour. Brittle bits snap off without even the help of a careless caress. "Losing its hair" I think to myself. Shrinking and recoiling into itself.. no longer eminating life, but never fully ending, its resilience gives me pause for thought.
Will my death be a grotesque spectacle for someone else? Maybe someone clutching my listless hand grinds their teeth as I take a pained last breath. I always dreamed of falling to my death, but from a great height, in order to take everything in.. but the ground would still rush up too quickly, near the end – this was the only problem. I've considered other possibilities.. maybe climbing the highest mountain and rolling off it. Drowning would be too poetic, a bullet too simple, an injection or pill too sterile. Maybe sex, or a voluntary o/d on a wide array of tranquilising drugs. Maybe it won't be up to me.. an embarassing accident that turns out my lights. I don't want to make a scene or disturb a silence when it's time.
I wonder if in the future they will find a way to make death efficient.
Clenched by polyester fabric and polite warnings all around me, expecting to fly, a flash of sun-drenched sky lights the narrow path that splits the plane in half. My fellow passengers are all within sight but all out of reach. Waiting to be catapaulted into a sea of clouds and fuzziness, I await release.
Flashing lights are carried through the crisscrossing veins of the city. A city that makes no noise when you’re flying miles above it. Only in the darkness everything sparkles and glistens. The further you are, the more it begins to look the same, as everything fades into itself. Shame that we live in these concrete wastelands that sprawl outwards, clawing their way into the horizon, or to the edge of the sea. They can be beautiful, but never as a whole. Communities should try and reflect their natural surroundings, instead of dominating them. If only we could give up this urgency to move great distances, always with the help of pavement.
(The plane points its nose towards the ground and there is some turbulence.)
The tip of the wing is slicing through the snowy sky (clouds, sprinkly whiteness and everything!) but we never move so fast that we cannot slow down.
Focusing my thoughts is proving to be more difficult than I anticipated. Describing observances is bothersome, since my life consists of pointing out absurdity in and around observations. We think of death when we're on a plane, don't we?
The plant in my apartment is slowly dying lonely. There was a time when I watered it diligently, about every two weeks because it was a desert plant that required little maintenance, and no grooming. But now the soil is nutrient-less. Its impending death is impeded by its stubborn refusal to give up. Ever so slowly, shrivelling up and drying out, leaves curled inwards empty of colour. Brittle bits snap off without even the help of a careless caress. "Losing its hair" I think to myself. Shrinking and recoiling into itself.. no longer eminating life, but never fully ending, its resilience gives me pause for thought.
Will my death be a grotesque spectacle for someone else? Maybe someone clutching my listless hand grinds their teeth as I take a pained last breath. I always dreamed of falling to my death, but from a great height, in order to take everything in.. but the ground would still rush up too quickly, near the end – this was the only problem. I've considered other possibilities.. maybe climbing the highest mountain and rolling off it. Drowning would be too poetic, a bullet too simple, an injection or pill too sterile. Maybe sex, or a voluntary o/d on a wide array of tranquilising drugs. Maybe it won't be up to me.. an embarassing accident that turns out my lights. I don't want to make a scene or disturb a silence when it's time.
I wonder if in the future they will find a way to make death efficient.
spiral
(niina lüus and i wrote this on a whim last saturday. i did one paragraph, she did the next and so on.. it has a wonderful distinct flow to it, without drifting too far into meaninglessness, and i dig the characters. it's also bizarre how similar the writing is..)
Trembling from being indoors for so long, she motioned me to waltz towards the trees.
“?” I wondered with my eyes.
“!” She exhaled, thrusting her cheekbones to the sky.
“...” grumbled myself, too subtle to make a scene, but just barely out of earshot, so she wouldn’t know what hit her. She groaned, mockingly, as I started to fall behind. She took large flamboyant steps, tucking her knees up to her waist, in a flagrant display of her annoyance.
I laughed as she tripped over a twig, picked it up, started chewing it nonchalantly, swatting flies with it when I needed to.
Downwards we crept, closer to the hypnotic water. Chasing it like lemmings to the sea. Ending our gray-skied days and snow blown nights in a watery orgy of splashing colours.
When we finally arrived, two ducks greeted us and warned us that once we entered the watery abyss, we would never leave.
I dipped my toe cautiously into the water and then tasted the sweet drops.
“Ah, caramel” I exclaimed, and threw my new flyswatter into my watery home. She walked in up to her ankles and wiggled her toes with joy, realizing that our earthly hibernation of twenty years had finally ended.
Thousands of pebbles gently rubbed each other under my feet, making a noise that could only be “kishaaa” as my wild eyes scoured the beach for something with meat. The waves were glittering, the sun was shining brilliantly – everything was blinding my eyes and obscuring my view; I wanted to weep and somehow add my own tears to the vastness that leapt outwards. I felt outside my body, firmly rooted only by the fleshy skin wrapped around grey-blue stones with my toes. I made the face the cloud above me made, and spent an eternity in all the energy of one instant.
I nudged her shoulder with my jaw: it was time to go.
Eyes smiling, she laughed and pushed me backwards. Head over heels, heels over head, I spiraled ahead to heal from my wintery grave. The sun streaked through the stream, and a high-pitched ringing vibrated in my mind, calling me to new levels of understanding. Alone in the womb-like gel, I continued spiraling to the innermost darkness, free at last from the airy superfice. I held my breath until my lungs almost imploded from the pressure.
Suffocating
Decaying
Entropy took willing control of my body.
It took all my strength to break free of the spiral, but with this rupture came a tremendous relief, a masturbatory freedom if you will, and I stopped trying to move. I let the waters flow around me, past me, even through me. I joined the salmon, and smirked at how our paths are so similar; immersed in a substance beyond our control, only able to alter ones’ direction, and how easy it is to be caught up in the spiral of existence, to let go.
I clamped down on something pink and felt scales separate in my noise hole. I emerged from the stream of life, dripping wet from the mouth that fed me. She pulled me out of the womb; shivering, we lit a fire and gorged ourselves on nature’s creation: sweet and sticky.
Trembling from being indoors for so long, she motioned me to waltz towards the trees.
“?” I wondered with my eyes.
“!” She exhaled, thrusting her cheekbones to the sky.
“...” grumbled myself, too subtle to make a scene, but just barely out of earshot, so she wouldn’t know what hit her. She groaned, mockingly, as I started to fall behind. She took large flamboyant steps, tucking her knees up to her waist, in a flagrant display of her annoyance.
I laughed as she tripped over a twig, picked it up, started chewing it nonchalantly, swatting flies with it when I needed to.
Downwards we crept, closer to the hypnotic water. Chasing it like lemmings to the sea. Ending our gray-skied days and snow blown nights in a watery orgy of splashing colours.
When we finally arrived, two ducks greeted us and warned us that once we entered the watery abyss, we would never leave.
I dipped my toe cautiously into the water and then tasted the sweet drops.
“Ah, caramel” I exclaimed, and threw my new flyswatter into my watery home. She walked in up to her ankles and wiggled her toes with joy, realizing that our earthly hibernation of twenty years had finally ended.
Thousands of pebbles gently rubbed each other under my feet, making a noise that could only be “kishaaa” as my wild eyes scoured the beach for something with meat. The waves were glittering, the sun was shining brilliantly – everything was blinding my eyes and obscuring my view; I wanted to weep and somehow add my own tears to the vastness that leapt outwards. I felt outside my body, firmly rooted only by the fleshy skin wrapped around grey-blue stones with my toes. I made the face the cloud above me made, and spent an eternity in all the energy of one instant.
I nudged her shoulder with my jaw: it was time to go.
Eyes smiling, she laughed and pushed me backwards. Head over heels, heels over head, I spiraled ahead to heal from my wintery grave. The sun streaked through the stream, and a high-pitched ringing vibrated in my mind, calling me to new levels of understanding. Alone in the womb-like gel, I continued spiraling to the innermost darkness, free at last from the airy superfice. I held my breath until my lungs almost imploded from the pressure.
Suffocating
Decaying
Entropy took willing control of my body.
It took all my strength to break free of the spiral, but with this rupture came a tremendous relief, a masturbatory freedom if you will, and I stopped trying to move. I let the waters flow around me, past me, even through me. I joined the salmon, and smirked at how our paths are so similar; immersed in a substance beyond our control, only able to alter ones’ direction, and how easy it is to be caught up in the spiral of existence, to let go.
I clamped down on something pink and felt scales separate in my noise hole. I emerged from the stream of life, dripping wet from the mouth that fed me. She pulled me out of the womb; shivering, we lit a fire and gorged ourselves on nature’s creation: sweet and sticky.
gestures
How about those moments, when you're strolling down any street, and you encounter someone exactly like yourself - a passerby. You know instantly that eye contact is going to be the key issue. You analyse your every movement and gesture, however slight. (?)
Sharing a moment of intimate understanding with a total stranger in a public place about an event that only you two have witnessed. The sly grin of mutual recognition.
Little sensations - not the objects themselves, but the sensual instants, the subtle phenomena that you're sure you're noticing, but no one else/while everyone else is in motion (perpetual).
These instantaneous moments of creation, teeming with vibration. My mind is vibtrating. What am I noticing? I am noticing happening. It is happening, before my eyes.
I must come back to this later.
Sharing a moment of intimate understanding with a total stranger in a public place about an event that only you two have witnessed. The sly grin of mutual recognition.
Little sensations - not the objects themselves, but the sensual instants, the subtle phenomena that you're sure you're noticing, but no one else/while everyone else is in motion (perpetual).
These instantaneous moments of creation, teeming with vibration. My mind is vibtrating. What am I noticing? I am noticing happening. It is happening, before my eyes.
I must come back to this later.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
silly talkers
(this was actually written october last year, and i always thought it didn't make very good sense at times and that's what i liked about it. maybe i can develop it some time.)
and then the silly talkers jumped ship. they got the hell outta there. no one saw them leave the building. they gently traipsed over emptied bodies and broken glass, then leapt from the tops of things to the bottoms of things.
they were very discreet. the only sound the pitter-patter of feet.
the current leader of the silly-talkers was a human undercover spy. he was granted this position mainly because he spoke the silliest-less. he kept the key to his life with the secret that he possessed no power at all to lead them, and he decided to always choose randomly. whatever the situation, it did not matter. he was able to survive this way; why and for how long, he did not know.
so in short, they had a direction – but no sense of direction. they were careening through life and everything faster than something you can’t even imagine.
opening doors and scrambling down emptied passageways, they looked for an exit.
“Exit!” screeched one of them. but it was never that simple. the same one continued, “we can exit everywhere, but never escape.” and then laughed manically. the others pondered quietly. like wallace stevens, the silly talkers behold nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
they decided to tackle the one with ideas. besides, the more ideas one has, the less likely one is to act on them. the mind just masturbates through the infinite possibilities and you’re just as impotent as the rest of them. like when a senile smiling old lady tells you a joke[1] in kindness, but you aren’t sure if it’s genuine or she simply has nothing in her life but you for one instant, and that is the ultimate truth she has chosen to reveal to you.
ask yourself, “what?” and hold on to a second.
intermission –
passed a man today who is always smoking a pipe outside on the veranda, cradling his life away in his rocking chair. end transmission.
anyways, the simply adorable silly talkers had this nasty habit of ‘overthought’… such a shameful thing to be cursed with sometimes. don’t you think? well the silly talkers came together to chew their way through human society with their gift of overthought. why you ask? for the Underground. “the Underground?” you say? what is it?
…
just imagine it. create it and then forget it for your life.
…
you lazy bastard.
the way i see it in my loony bin, is that the silly talkers came from an entire society of living things that has been thriving under your feet for millennia. the world that exists is only the one you see with eyes wide open.
the silly talkers loved having tea-parties and discussing the wonders of humankind. they often wondered, out of the many possibilities, how exactly the most unique species, the one they always knew had the most potential (suppose it turned out equally for good and bad), would constantly tease themselves with total destruction of their physical existence. one big-ass flood was the going opinion. it happened once before, but the silly talkers decided to change their ways this time around and drown the animals rather than saving them from the water. but really, as the silly talkers often reflected with universe-pride, natural disaster was the most poetic way to go down the drainpipe of existence.
the silly talkers maintained existence by dining on human brain (they found the cerebellum was the real treat, it was often divided up amongst the littlest silly-talkers to share). the human was full of poetic irony. the human type often went outside and stared back at the stars that projected their lives back to the planet, and one of these humans desperately avoided stepping on ants in the twilight. her name was, unfortunately, unknown to us. it came from a bizarre mixture of backgrounds, and was thus unpronounceable or even translatable into the alphabet.
the modest ones were forgotten and the insane ones were remembered. they did the same things day in day out. they claimed not to be scared of other planets, but they were terrified of something invisible they celebrated on the same night every earth-year. constantly scurrying about, coming and going, taking their baggage with them: that was humanity. and the silly talkers, unlike humanity, were brutally honest.
reeling from mind-jump, the silly talkers picked themselves up and dusted off the sleep from their eyes.
with emptied conscience they scanned for a target.
“let’s cross a desert!” yelled the smallest one, who bolted across a perfectly flat black surface, with colourful metal strewn across it in neat, pretty rows divided by lines.
“i’ll never understand why they keep building deserts.” whispered one of them. i’d tell you which one, but they whispered. oh, i forgot – silly talkers are tone-deaf. silly talkers led lives which strongly resemble a rambling hoard of barbaric philosophers. constantly forging ahead disputing what they had been taught, was the pursuit of the most brilliant humans. funny, they called themselves philosophers too. the silly talkers rushed to new heights, carrying their zealous prejudice against sense talkers with merciless vengeance…
the silly talkers went through some revolving doors.
“hey! you need a pass to go there. ugh… what the hell are you made of?”
the fattest silly talker then put his Noise-Hole Sucker 3000™ right through the noise-hole on the security man’s face on “high”. the man’s eyeballs flew across the floor into a man’s yawning mouth entering the building.
just kidding. but it was pretty sweet, even by silly-talker standards. the fat one exclaimed with delight: “opened up the other doors in their foreign language in a ham and cheese sandwich they levelled off the bloody cloth they tried to hide their selves inside the shelves that decide their every move to fling themselves into the abyss of meaning!”
the human collapsed on the floor in a mess of neurons and bloody body parts.
“NEXT!” screeched the little one. the blind guide restrained him with a leash.
[1] an old lady approaches and stares into your soul with a cute, buck-toothed, goofy grin:
– What did the cat eat for breakfast?
– I don’t know, what?
–“Mice-Krispies!”
*maniacal laughter for an instant, and then her eyes faced ahead with intensity. She plodded on with brief little baby-steps.
and then the silly talkers jumped ship. they got the hell outta there. no one saw them leave the building. they gently traipsed over emptied bodies and broken glass, then leapt from the tops of things to the bottoms of things.
they were very discreet. the only sound the pitter-patter of feet.
the current leader of the silly-talkers was a human undercover spy. he was granted this position mainly because he spoke the silliest-less. he kept the key to his life with the secret that he possessed no power at all to lead them, and he decided to always choose randomly. whatever the situation, it did not matter. he was able to survive this way; why and for how long, he did not know.
so in short, they had a direction – but no sense of direction. they were careening through life and everything faster than something you can’t even imagine.
opening doors and scrambling down emptied passageways, they looked for an exit.
“Exit!” screeched one of them. but it was never that simple. the same one continued, “we can exit everywhere, but never escape.” and then laughed manically. the others pondered quietly. like wallace stevens, the silly talkers behold nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
they decided to tackle the one with ideas. besides, the more ideas one has, the less likely one is to act on them. the mind just masturbates through the infinite possibilities and you’re just as impotent as the rest of them. like when a senile smiling old lady tells you a joke[1] in kindness, but you aren’t sure if it’s genuine or she simply has nothing in her life but you for one instant, and that is the ultimate truth she has chosen to reveal to you.
ask yourself, “what?” and hold on to a second.
intermission –
passed a man today who is always smoking a pipe outside on the veranda, cradling his life away in his rocking chair. end transmission.
anyways, the simply adorable silly talkers had this nasty habit of ‘overthought’… such a shameful thing to be cursed with sometimes. don’t you think? well the silly talkers came together to chew their way through human society with their gift of overthought. why you ask? for the Underground. “the Underground?” you say? what is it?
…
just imagine it. create it and then forget it for your life.
…
you lazy bastard.
the way i see it in my loony bin, is that the silly talkers came from an entire society of living things that has been thriving under your feet for millennia. the world that exists is only the one you see with eyes wide open.
the silly talkers loved having tea-parties and discussing the wonders of humankind. they often wondered, out of the many possibilities, how exactly the most unique species, the one they always knew had the most potential (suppose it turned out equally for good and bad), would constantly tease themselves with total destruction of their physical existence. one big-ass flood was the going opinion. it happened once before, but the silly talkers decided to change their ways this time around and drown the animals rather than saving them from the water. but really, as the silly talkers often reflected with universe-pride, natural disaster was the most poetic way to go down the drainpipe of existence.
the silly talkers maintained existence by dining on human brain (they found the cerebellum was the real treat, it was often divided up amongst the littlest silly-talkers to share). the human was full of poetic irony. the human type often went outside and stared back at the stars that projected their lives back to the planet, and one of these humans desperately avoided stepping on ants in the twilight. her name was, unfortunately, unknown to us. it came from a bizarre mixture of backgrounds, and was thus unpronounceable or even translatable into the alphabet.
the modest ones were forgotten and the insane ones were remembered. they did the same things day in day out. they claimed not to be scared of other planets, but they were terrified of something invisible they celebrated on the same night every earth-year. constantly scurrying about, coming and going, taking their baggage with them: that was humanity. and the silly talkers, unlike humanity, were brutally honest.
reeling from mind-jump, the silly talkers picked themselves up and dusted off the sleep from their eyes.
with emptied conscience they scanned for a target.
“let’s cross a desert!” yelled the smallest one, who bolted across a perfectly flat black surface, with colourful metal strewn across it in neat, pretty rows divided by lines.
“i’ll never understand why they keep building deserts.” whispered one of them. i’d tell you which one, but they whispered. oh, i forgot – silly talkers are tone-deaf. silly talkers led lives which strongly resemble a rambling hoard of barbaric philosophers. constantly forging ahead disputing what they had been taught, was the pursuit of the most brilliant humans. funny, they called themselves philosophers too. the silly talkers rushed to new heights, carrying their zealous prejudice against sense talkers with merciless vengeance…
the silly talkers went through some revolving doors.
“hey! you need a pass to go there. ugh… what the hell are you made of?”
the fattest silly talker then put his Noise-Hole Sucker 3000™ right through the noise-hole on the security man’s face on “high”. the man’s eyeballs flew across the floor into a man’s yawning mouth entering the building.
just kidding. but it was pretty sweet, even by silly-talker standards. the fat one exclaimed with delight: “opened up the other doors in their foreign language in a ham and cheese sandwich they levelled off the bloody cloth they tried to hide their selves inside the shelves that decide their every move to fling themselves into the abyss of meaning!”
the human collapsed on the floor in a mess of neurons and bloody body parts.
“NEXT!” screeched the little one. the blind guide restrained him with a leash.
[1] an old lady approaches and stares into your soul with a cute, buck-toothed, goofy grin:
– What did the cat eat for breakfast?
– I don’t know, what?
–“Mice-Krispies!”
*maniacal laughter for an instant, and then her eyes faced ahead with intensity. She plodded on with brief little baby-steps.
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