Barbarella: "I'm here to find Duran Duran."
These Boots Are Made For Walking (video)
Some things really should be resurrected (and some maybe not)-my deep thought for Easter Sunday.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Saturday, April 15, 2006
what's the world coming to?
From “Keytracks” review section, Rollingstone.com:
Twenty years after the Smith’s heyday, Moz finally gets laid. Why didn’t anyone think of this before?
It’s just like when you turn on a Bill’s game, and they’re winning, but then start to lose just when you start watching.
-------------------------------------------------------
Then, I read this: The raddest (raddest?) song on the second consecutive album to reassert Prince’s funk bona fides is arresting in part because it is so unassuming. The rad part is a lyric that explicitly invites us to ‘get saved’. Christ is never mentioned, but Prince’s talk of ‘new exaltation’ and ‘streets of gold’ can’t be rationalized away as sex talk . . . The greasy organ R&B of “Satisfied” ‘ain’t talking about nothing physical’. “Incense and Candles” turns on an unusual entreaty: ‘I know you want to take off all your clothes/ But please don’t do it.’
Prince found Jesus and is promoting celibacy? I read the review out to the woman who is cutting my hair. She says, I don’t see the big deal. Was Prince sexy?
Let’s take a listen: Satisfied
If that song is about celibacy, well then Madonna might stand a chance with the Pope.
---------------------------------------
Speaking of whom, rounding out my thoughts for the day of musicians aging and changing and the unsettling affect it might have on the rest of us to witness it . . . What would you provide as a caption to this photo? Here are some of my choices:
Guy Ritchie is a necrophiliac.
Guy’s last girlfriend was a blow-up doll, and well I just wanted to make it work so bad . .
I haven’t been shtooked right once since I got with Mr. Tea and Crumpets.
And lo, uh huh. (Punching out her rabbi is rarely a good sign.)
bonus track: cherish
Twenty years after the Smith’s heyday, Moz finally gets laid. Why didn’t anyone think of this before?
It’s just like when you turn on a Bill’s game, and they’re winning, but then start to lose just when you start watching.
-------------------------------------------------------
Then, I read this: The raddest (raddest?) song on the second consecutive album to reassert Prince’s funk bona fides is arresting in part because it is so unassuming. The rad part is a lyric that explicitly invites us to ‘get saved’. Christ is never mentioned, but Prince’s talk of ‘new exaltation’ and ‘streets of gold’ can’t be rationalized away as sex talk . . . The greasy organ R&B of “Satisfied” ‘ain’t talking about nothing physical’. “Incense and Candles” turns on an unusual entreaty: ‘I know you want to take off all your clothes/ But please don’t do it.’
Prince found Jesus and is promoting celibacy? I read the review out to the woman who is cutting my hair. She says, I don’t see the big deal. Was Prince sexy?
Let’s take a listen: Satisfied
If that song is about celibacy, well then Madonna might stand a chance with the Pope.
---------------------------------------
Speaking of whom, rounding out my thoughts for the day of musicians aging and changing and the unsettling affect it might have on the rest of us to witness it . . . What would you provide as a caption to this photo? Here are some of my choices:
Guy Ritchie is a necrophiliac.
Guy’s last girlfriend was a blow-up doll, and well I just wanted to make it work so bad . .
I haven’t been shtooked right once since I got with Mr. Tea and Crumpets.
And lo, uh huh. (Punching out her rabbi is rarely a good sign.)
bonus track: cherish
Friday, April 14, 2006
Spongebob: Patrick!, are you with me or against me?!!
Patrick: Can you give me a hint?
(love that)
-------
From The Beginner, Lynn Hejinian:
This is a good place to begin.
From something.
A little beat of time, a little happiness quite distinct from misery as yet.
The sun shines.
The sun is perceived as a bear, then a boat, then an instruction: see.
Like other beginners, the child makes an array of connections between a large number of people.
I don’t mean that they happen around the child, I’m saying that the child makes them.
A foreshortening, it’s really a form of freedom, it seems so inevitable, so normal, that no one imagines it could have been intended, but in what direction does it go?
No matter how much one prepares, one must take jumps, and I don’t what, because they are so active, to call them unless playful (dramatic) and promising (even more dramatic).
But why jump?
Time matters to experts but it is everything to beginners, who don’t want to get up in the dark unnecessarily any more than anyone else but who don’t want to be left in the dark either, they won’t want to miss out on life, hardly anyone does, though I’m not such a beginner myself as to deny that some do, some come to that, to wanting to be left in the dark, that is, yes.
Everything that’s real is repeated in its new found sense.
We know that limit and surpass it, renaming our integrity.
Now it’s reality.
Patrick: Can you give me a hint?
(love that)
-------
From The Beginner, Lynn Hejinian:
This is a good place to begin.
From something.
A little beat of time, a little happiness quite distinct from misery as yet.
The sun shines.
The sun is perceived as a bear, then a boat, then an instruction: see.
Like other beginners, the child makes an array of connections between a large number of people.
I don’t mean that they happen around the child, I’m saying that the child makes them.
A foreshortening, it’s really a form of freedom, it seems so inevitable, so normal, that no one imagines it could have been intended, but in what direction does it go?
No matter how much one prepares, one must take jumps, and I don’t what, because they are so active, to call them unless playful (dramatic) and promising (even more dramatic).
But why jump?
Time matters to experts but it is everything to beginners, who don’t want to get up in the dark unnecessarily any more than anyone else but who don’t want to be left in the dark either, they won’t want to miss out on life, hardly anyone does, though I’m not such a beginner myself as to deny that some do, some come to that, to wanting to be left in the dark, that is, yes.
Everything that’s real is repeated in its new found sense.
We know that limit and surpass it, renaming our integrity.
Now it’s reality.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
genre: vignette
"Where Did I Go Wrong?"
She takes her time, turning over all the sandals checking the price. It's spring and the season's shoes are all just out, so the prices are not ones she'll pay. She takes her time anyway, choosing hypothetically what she knows she'll not have, not now anyway, not soon even. She tries on a few pairs, styles she doesn't like so she won't be tempted to purchase, stilletos and platform flip-flops. He waits. Next she wanders into the 'misses' section, where nothing would fit her and the spring-fling color palate of professional wear nauseates. She runs her hands over the fabrics and holds up various 'shells' in lime green and taupe stripe.
“What do you think?”
“Huh?,” he snaps to. “It's hard to tell on the hanger.”
He immediately regrets the statement, as she plainly sees, so she tries things on mercilessly. She won't come out of the dressing room, calling through the door amused accusations, “How could you have thought this might look good?” He wedges the side of his ass at the base of a jaunty manaquin to sit down. Another man waits similarly for his wife, standing dull of face and resting on his own weight like a long-fenced domesticated animal. Here it is men who are turned to pillars of salt.
She walks right past him on her way to the make-up counter, and he notices seconds later and scrambles to catch up to his designated position: trailing. When he catches up, she turns to him and puts sunglasses on his shirtfront, kissing him on the cheek. "Hold these for me, will you?" Then she tests the perfumes and chats with the ugly women whose job it is to spritz customers. Finally, she heads for the door, letting him off the hook. They walk chastely into the parking lot, side by side at a distance.
When they get to the car, she says, "Can you give me the sunglasses?" He takes them off his shirt, noticing the tags.
“Did you just steal these?,” he looks at her appalled.
“No, you did.” She laughs.
He looks back at the mall, aghast, holding the evidence and quickly realizing the impossibility of going back inside to return them. Would he make up a story about accidentally stealing them or try to explain it, that he was on a date and wasn't paying attention . . .? The absurdity of any version of taking the stolen goods back inside daunts him immediately, and then he wonders further if a security guard isn't even now being dispatched to catch him. He's just gotten his first real job! She's watching his face, laughing harder, until the hilarity of his predicament finally warms her. He hands over the glasses, amused despite himself. Slightly.
She takes her time, turning over all the sandals checking the price. It's spring and the season's shoes are all just out, so the prices are not ones she'll pay. She takes her time anyway, choosing hypothetically what she knows she'll not have, not now anyway, not soon even. She tries on a few pairs, styles she doesn't like so she won't be tempted to purchase, stilletos and platform flip-flops. He waits. Next she wanders into the 'misses' section, where nothing would fit her and the spring-fling color palate of professional wear nauseates. She runs her hands over the fabrics and holds up various 'shells' in lime green and taupe stripe.
“What do you think?”
“Huh?,” he snaps to. “It's hard to tell on the hanger.”
He immediately regrets the statement, as she plainly sees, so she tries things on mercilessly. She won't come out of the dressing room, calling through the door amused accusations, “How could you have thought this might look good?” He wedges the side of his ass at the base of a jaunty manaquin to sit down. Another man waits similarly for his wife, standing dull of face and resting on his own weight like a long-fenced domesticated animal. Here it is men who are turned to pillars of salt.
She walks right past him on her way to the make-up counter, and he notices seconds later and scrambles to catch up to his designated position: trailing. When he catches up, she turns to him and puts sunglasses on his shirtfront, kissing him on the cheek. "Hold these for me, will you?" Then she tests the perfumes and chats with the ugly women whose job it is to spritz customers. Finally, she heads for the door, letting him off the hook. They walk chastely into the parking lot, side by side at a distance.
When they get to the car, she says, "Can you give me the sunglasses?" He takes them off his shirt, noticing the tags.
“Did you just steal these?,” he looks at her appalled.
“No, you did.” She laughs.
He looks back at the mall, aghast, holding the evidence and quickly realizing the impossibility of going back inside to return them. Would he make up a story about accidentally stealing them or try to explain it, that he was on a date and wasn't paying attention . . .? The absurdity of any version of taking the stolen goods back inside daunts him immediately, and then he wonders further if a security guard isn't even now being dispatched to catch him. He's just gotten his first real job! She's watching his face, laughing harder, until the hilarity of his predicament finally warms her. He hands over the glasses, amused despite himself. Slightly.
strep n spongebob on spring break
Why do I keep tripping over Smells Like Teen Spirit, I wonder? That's Willie Nelson covering, and believe it or not, it's great. Short but compelling.
Speaking of Nirvana covers: Johnny Cash - Hurt
I don't care what anyone says, Johnny was good to the last drop.
Pearl: Do you know what that would do to my complexion?! People would mistake me for a planetarium!
Mr Krabbs: What are you talking about?
Pearl: I. Have. No. Idea.
Speaking of Nirvana covers: Johnny Cash - Hurt
I don't care what anyone says, Johnny was good to the last drop.
Pearl: Do you know what that would do to my complexion?! People would mistake me for a planetarium!
Mr Krabbs: What are you talking about?
Pearl: I. Have. No. Idea.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
self help reading + music
from The Book of Illusions, Paul Auster:
Dearly Beloved wakes first, and as she opens her eyes and sits up in bed, her face tells us everything--moving rapidly from joy to disbelief to guarded optimism. She springs out of bed and rushes over to Hector. She touches his face (which is dangling backward over the arm of the chair) and Hector's body goes into a spasm of low-voltage shocks, jumping around in a flurry of arms and legs that ultimately lands him in an upright position. Then he opens his eyes. Involuntarily, without seeming to remember that he is supposed to be invisible, he smiles at her. They kiss, but just as their lips come into contact, he recoils in confusion. Is he really there? Has the spell been broken, or is he only dreaming it? He touches his face, he runs his hands over his chest, and he looks her in the eyes. Can you see me?, he asks. Of course I can see you, she says, and as her eyes fill with tears, she leans forward to kiss him again. But he is not convinced. He stands up from his chair and walks over to a mirror hanging on a wall. The proof is in the mirror, and if he is able to see his reflection, he will know that the nightmare is over. That he will see it is a forgone conclusion, but the beautiful thing about that moment is the slowness of his response. . . We are looking at him as he looks at himself, and in this eerie doubling of perspectives, we watch him confront the possibility of his own annihilation. Double or Nothing.
------
beautiful-and-sunny-with-chance-of-showers playlist:
the fray – over my head
jimmie dale gilmore – I’ll never get out of this world alive [kinda catchy?]
the stills – still in love-(logic will break your heart) [late morning clouds pass over]
elliot smith - twilight-(from a basement on a hill) [love this]
built to spill - traces
neko case – dreaming man (neil young cover)
land of plenty soundtrack – the weight of the world [so pretty]
Dearly Beloved wakes first, and as she opens her eyes and sits up in bed, her face tells us everything--moving rapidly from joy to disbelief to guarded optimism. She springs out of bed and rushes over to Hector. She touches his face (which is dangling backward over the arm of the chair) and Hector's body goes into a spasm of low-voltage shocks, jumping around in a flurry of arms and legs that ultimately lands him in an upright position. Then he opens his eyes. Involuntarily, without seeming to remember that he is supposed to be invisible, he smiles at her. They kiss, but just as their lips come into contact, he recoils in confusion. Is he really there? Has the spell been broken, or is he only dreaming it? He touches his face, he runs his hands over his chest, and he looks her in the eyes. Can you see me?, he asks. Of course I can see you, she says, and as her eyes fill with tears, she leans forward to kiss him again. But he is not convinced. He stands up from his chair and walks over to a mirror hanging on a wall. The proof is in the mirror, and if he is able to see his reflection, he will know that the nightmare is over. That he will see it is a forgone conclusion, but the beautiful thing about that moment is the slowness of his response. . . We are looking at him as he looks at himself, and in this eerie doubling of perspectives, we watch him confront the possibility of his own annihilation. Double or Nothing.
------
beautiful-and-sunny-with-chance-of-showers playlist:
the fray – over my head
jimmie dale gilmore – I’ll never get out of this world alive [kinda catchy?]
the stills – still in love-(logic will break your heart) [late morning clouds pass over]
elliot smith - twilight-(from a basement on a hill) [love this]
built to spill - traces
neko case – dreaming man (neil young cover)
land of plenty soundtrack – the weight of the world [so pretty]
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Monday, April 10, 2006
. . . I head off to see Capote in the afternoon, the last place it’s still showing on the big screen, way out at the mall in the sticks. I get there a little early and wander around. I buy a present for a friend. I sit and watch the long line of kids waiting to spin an Easter wheel and get a little basket of crap. I go in to the cinema, behind an elderly couple, her barking at him and him limping along slowly. I notice that he’s sensed me behind him, and is trying to step up the pace. So I stop and turn back for a box of candy I don’t want. Then I sit down front, 25% of the way back from the screen, my preferred percentage of distance. I put my feet up, and as always feel a little spark of gratitude at being small, so I can curl up in a thimble if I have to, and at movies my legs can stretch full out and just reach the tops of the seats in front of me, a foot in the notch to either side. Splayed out and comfy, nobody there to bug me and tell me that people aren’t supposed to sit this way. The movie starts up, and it’s one of the most riveting things I’ve seen in eons. I put my legs down, and lean forward, rest my chin on my forearms, concentrating on it. There is one moment in particular, when the camera is on his face, then on the prisoner’s, then back to his, then to a slow-wider shot of the prisoner as he’s walking, then back to his face again as he is watching the whole of the man. There is no dialogue, but what he is seeing is the prisoner’s jeans cuffed on black boots, if you pay attention and watch the angle of the camera through his eyes. On his face, it falls so very slightly, that he thinks (with aching pity) the 1950’s word: “homo”. Then. What follows is a mutual and amorphous seduction, each of the other’s spirit, full of kindnesses and betrayals so slight they melt in the mouth. Just when you think, when Capote himself thinks, that it is clear which one is growing on which, you’re wrong, he’s wrong, and it unsettles and begins again. Not one single look on his face is repeated or wasted. It's fantastic, and devastating.
I walk out into the sunlight focusing on the effort to remember it all, to repeat it in my head and carve it there. I stop and look at a man waiting for a bus at the stop just outside the doors. I’m not really looking at him, I’m thinking and he’s just there. He’s smoking. Everyone in the film chain-smoked, and now suddenly there is the smell of it. He pops the cigarette into his mouth to free his hands, then gets out the pack and taps one out for me, holds it out in the air between us. I take it and say, I don’t smoke. You looked like you needed one. Did I? Yes, he says, not smiling. I ask, Do you know what bereft means? Can’t say as I do, he says.
Nancy Sinatra – Bang Bang
I walk out into the sunlight focusing on the effort to remember it all, to repeat it in my head and carve it there. I stop and look at a man waiting for a bus at the stop just outside the doors. I’m not really looking at him, I’m thinking and he’s just there. He’s smoking. Everyone in the film chain-smoked, and now suddenly there is the smell of it. He pops the cigarette into his mouth to free his hands, then gets out the pack and taps one out for me, holds it out in the air between us. I take it and say, I don’t smoke. You looked like you needed one. Did I? Yes, he says, not smiling. I ask, Do you know what bereft means? Can’t say as I do, he says.
Nancy Sinatra – Bang Bang
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Friday, April 07, 2006
It's where the heart is, so not that I'd choose to be elsewhere necessarily (well okay, Paris maybe) (or Rome) (for sure London) (okay so a lot of places are probably better), but the dreg of my home has got to be that it snows in April. Which it is doing right now. Sleeting sideways. I can affirm it in its harshness, which most others cannot imagine the compelling aspects of, but it's hard to muster an upbeat soundtrack.
Califone - No Expectations
Calexico - Yours and Mine
Califone - No Expectations
Calexico - Yours and Mine
FW/SWP
Fallen Woman seeks Single White Pope. Annabella Sciorra on a good day, I know some Latin, a few suggestive phrases in German, and will bring own incense. Into ornate architecture, good liturgy (humor cannot be overvalued), and could wander Rome with my heart on a string. Am seeking empathy, an open mind and heart, and a lack of hypocrisy. Will trade celibacy for absolution (if absolutely necessary).
Damien Rice - The Professor
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
What are you doing?
Yoga.
Have you gone crazy?
Good question, though unrelated to yoga.
You look weird.
You’re eating an apple sideways with approximately 8 teeth left in your head.
But I have clothes on.
I have clothes on, these are yoga clothes.
You’re practically buck naked.
I am not!, these are yoga shorts.
This is the living room.
You should try it.
Yoga? (curlynose ick look)
No, being half naked in the living room. Big guys all do it while they watch tv.
You mean if I take my pants off you’ll let me watch tv?
(ha, got me) Well, only sports. Big guys watch sports in their underwear.
(drops em, grabs the remote)
Morrissey – To Me You Are a Work of Art
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
bonus track – Dear God Please Help Me
Yoga.
Have you gone crazy?
Good question, though unrelated to yoga.
You look weird.
You’re eating an apple sideways with approximately 8 teeth left in your head.
But I have clothes on.
I have clothes on, these are yoga clothes.
You’re practically buck naked.
I am not!, these are yoga shorts.
This is the living room.
You should try it.
Yoga? (curlynose ick look)
No, being half naked in the living room. Big guys all do it while they watch tv.
You mean if I take my pants off you’ll let me watch tv?
(ha, got me) Well, only sports. Big guys watch sports in their underwear.
(drops em, grabs the remote)
Morrissey – To Me You Are a Work of Art
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
bonus track – Dear God Please Help Me
Sunday, April 02, 2006
i give up
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
god damn it shit stupid god damn o great just great the leg came the god damn hell off ok ok just don’t talk to me right now for a second shiiiit (giggle giggle) stop go watch tv just stop give me a second OW! haha the damn thing bit me it won't go the hell back on god damn it ok just wait (giggle transformers make you swear a lot) (she didn't say the f word yet) (almost) how do you almost say the f word? shit let me get the stupid pliers (you almost say it all the time) (and she says it all the time) (they swear in the transformer theme song, TWO TIMES) well maybe that's why they make me swear so much then -- here, and don't transform it again (but but) transformation is overrated trust me (can I someday?) yes someday is a perfect time to transform (a week?) sigh ok a week let's watch the movie so I can listen to the swear words [yup, they say "shit" in the transformers movie theme song]
"crosswise" - whoever invented transformers should be shot dead in the street
g2 theme - Paul Oakenfold produced this, almost as big of a shock as Orson Welles playing Unicron. Still, since I knew who both those men were already, and knew how to swear, I can't see as I'm getting much out of this. Back to straightfoward action figures.
bonus track- Even Better Than the Real Thing (U2), the first significant Oakenfold production of many.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
god damn it shit stupid god damn o great just great the leg came the god damn hell off ok ok just don’t talk to me right now for a second shiiiit (giggle giggle) stop go watch tv just stop give me a second OW! haha the damn thing bit me it won't go the hell back on god damn it ok just wait (giggle transformers make you swear a lot) (she didn't say the f word yet) (almost) how do you almost say the f word? shit let me get the stupid pliers (you almost say it all the time) (and she says it all the time) (they swear in the transformer theme song, TWO TIMES) well maybe that's why they make me swear so much then -- here, and don't transform it again (but but) transformation is overrated trust me (can I someday?) yes someday is a perfect time to transform (a week?) sigh ok a week let's watch the movie so I can listen to the swear words [yup, they say "shit" in the transformers movie theme song]
"crosswise" - whoever invented transformers should be shot dead in the street
g2 theme - Paul Oakenfold produced this, almost as big of a shock as Orson Welles playing Unicron. Still, since I knew who both those men were already, and knew how to swear, I can't see as I'm getting much out of this. Back to straightfoward action figures.
bonus track- Even Better Than the Real Thing (U2), the first significant Oakenfold production of many.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
A literary mind is an inevitable thing to waste. - DmS
from Teaching Hamlet: What it Feels Like for a Girl:
Meanwhile, often overlooked as the real tragedy, there is Ophelia. Before his haunting visions of vulnerability and betrayal make a bludgeoning tool of Hamlet, she knew him and admired him and she sometimes held his hand. She is brought as bait to tempt him to reveal himself, but she knows (she thinks she knows) that that would be impossible, that the dark and dangerous mind that they all want to flush into the open does not actually exist in Hamlet. So standing there, she expects to see only the man she knows. Wouldn’t any of us? She’s never seen any other in him: “He hath importun’d me with love/ in honourable fashion.” He does not resist going to her, but he is armed to the hilt now with gloom. He knows that already, and despises her for not knowing it and for thus standing there like a slab to his blade. She pleads (but but . . ), and in doing so she bares her throat to his slicing of her, down to size:
Get thee to a nunnery: . . . I am very
proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at
my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,
imagination to give them shape, or time to act them
in. What should such fellows as I do crawling
between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,
all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery
. . . . or if thou wilt needs marry,
marry a fool; for wise men know well enough
what monsters you make of them.
“Get thee to a nunnery,” he hisses close to her face as she meets his eyes.
He is righteous, only being “cruel to be kind”, then he retreats. She stares into the space where the man she used to know used to be, racked with mourning. She caves in around the mortal wound she’s taken, (“Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me/ To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!”) and she drifts from the stage as others continue chatting. She is a Dead (want) Woman Walking, and she knows it, the first fatality of his unrelenting despair. She dies slowly, knowing and knowing. She talks to the air, her half of their conversations, wincing from anyone else taking up the response. Finally, she crumples into her own trembling reflection, unable either to comfort herself or to save her lover from disappearing into the man who flays. She did it. She bared her throat and sealed both their fates. She becomes the woman distorted in the current. But like Noah’s dove, she does not stop and drown soon enough to prevent the world from having begun.
Gortoz A Ran-J'Attends - Danez Prigent & Lisa Gerrard
Meanwhile, often overlooked as the real tragedy, there is Ophelia. Before his haunting visions of vulnerability and betrayal make a bludgeoning tool of Hamlet, she knew him and admired him and she sometimes held his hand. She is brought as bait to tempt him to reveal himself, but she knows (she thinks she knows) that that would be impossible, that the dark and dangerous mind that they all want to flush into the open does not actually exist in Hamlet. So standing there, she expects to see only the man she knows. Wouldn’t any of us? She’s never seen any other in him: “He hath importun’d me with love/ in honourable fashion.” He does not resist going to her, but he is armed to the hilt now with gloom. He knows that already, and despises her for not knowing it and for thus standing there like a slab to his blade. She pleads (but but . . ), and in doing so she bares her throat to his slicing of her, down to size:
Get thee to a nunnery: . . . I am very
proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at
my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,
imagination to give them shape, or time to act them
in. What should such fellows as I do crawling
between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,
all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery
. . . . or if thou wilt needs marry,
marry a fool; for wise men know well enough
what monsters you make of them.
“Get thee to a nunnery,” he hisses close to her face as she meets his eyes.
He is righteous, only being “cruel to be kind”, then he retreats. She stares into the space where the man she used to know used to be, racked with mourning. She caves in around the mortal wound she’s taken, (“Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me/ To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!”) and she drifts from the stage as others continue chatting. She is a Dead (want) Woman Walking, and she knows it, the first fatality of his unrelenting despair. She dies slowly, knowing and knowing. She talks to the air, her half of their conversations, wincing from anyone else taking up the response. Finally, she crumples into her own trembling reflection, unable either to comfort herself or to save her lover from disappearing into the man who flays. She did it. She bared her throat and sealed both their fates. She becomes the woman distorted in the current. But like Noah’s dove, she does not stop and drown soon enough to prevent the world from having begun.
Gortoz A Ran-J'Attends - Danez Prigent & Lisa Gerrard
Friday, March 31, 2006
between good enough and bored stiff
from “Around the Rim”:
Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess each scored 18 points to lead the Pistons over the 76ers, 101-91 . . . Dwyane Wade (how the hell do you say that? is that Duane? or D’Why-ane?) scored 16 of his 37 points in the fourth quarter and the Heat beat the Raptors . . . (nothing about the Spurs, otherwise known as The Village People [in my head]) . . . Paul Pierce and Wally Szczerbiak each scored 22 points as the Celtics pounded the Knicks (otherwise known as the team with those hats, like David Duchovny wore all the time that one season and he was so hot [whatever]), 123-98.
loudon wainwright iii - pretty good day (mp3)
(not really. and then it rained)
Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess each scored 18 points to lead the Pistons over the 76ers, 101-91 . . . Dwyane Wade (how the hell do you say that? is that Duane? or D’Why-ane?) scored 16 of his 37 points in the fourth quarter and the Heat beat the Raptors . . . (nothing about the Spurs, otherwise known as The Village People [in my head]) . . . Paul Pierce and Wally Szczerbiak each scored 22 points as the Celtics pounded the Knicks (otherwise known as the team with those hats, like David Duchovny wore all the time that one season and he was so hot [whatever]), 123-98.
loudon wainwright iii - pretty good day (mp3)
(not really. and then it rained)
Thursday, March 30, 2006
small sacrifices
It’s inevitable. The cold will return, and it’ll probably catch me out, nipping body and spirit. It will be bracing, and I will brace myself against it, crossy-armed. Anything that is dynamic, anything alive, moves. Up and down; back and forth. The mind knows this, but the heart delights in the warm day. The mind says, Remember. The heart, Live. The mind says, The warmth is fleeting, and thus it is not real. The heart, Everything is fleeting, and it is warm today (duh). The mind says, No. The heart, Yes.
No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yesyesyes. The heart is stronger than the mind. (reference: Terry Schiavo.)
The first pedicure of the year. The mind knows this as the sacrificial pedicure, lain on the alter of the Sandal Goddess and otherwise wasted in the Texas shitkickers.
"Juciy Pink" - 3.2006
yeahyeahyeahs – Let Me Know (this is a b side of a single off the new cd --Review of it here among other places, but most have samples that iTunes cuts off after one minute. Phemonena interrupted.)
No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yesyesyes. The heart is stronger than the mind. (reference: Terry Schiavo.)
The first pedicure of the year. The mind knows this as the sacrificial pedicure, lain on the alter of the Sandal Goddess and otherwise wasted in the Texas shitkickers.
"Juciy Pink" - 3.2006
yeahyeahyeahs – Let Me Know (this is a b side of a single off the new cd --Review of it here among other places, but most have samples that iTunes cuts off after one minute. Phemonena interrupted.)
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
corpse of wednesday
Paul Anka – Smells like teen spirit [Nirvana cover] - (The rhyming inspiration of mosquito and libido really comes through in this version.)
"Dancing"
S. Klaurens
bonus track: Detroit Grand Pubahs - Sandwiches
"Dancing"
S. Klaurens
bonus track: Detroit Grand Pubahs - Sandwiches
Monday, March 27, 2006
Not the person who could not read and write would be the illiterate of the future, but the person who could not read photographs.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy 1936
-----------------------------------------
Every photographed object is merely the trace left behind
by the disappearance of all the rest.
It is an almost perfect crime.
It is photographs which bring us closest to a universe
without images, or in other words to pure appearance.
For it is the object which sees us, the object which dreams
us. It is the world which reflects us, it is the world which
thinks us. This is the basic rule.
Jean Baudrillard 1998
------------------------------------------
Every photograph is a certificate of presence.
Roland Barthes 1999
-------------------------------------------
(Amon Tobin) Slowly
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy 1936
-----------------------------------------
Every photographed object is merely the trace left behind
by the disappearance of all the rest.
It is an almost perfect crime.
It is photographs which bring us closest to a universe
without images, or in other words to pure appearance.
For it is the object which sees us, the object which dreams
us. It is the world which reflects us, it is the world which
thinks us. This is the basic rule.
Jean Baudrillard 1998
------------------------------------------
Every photograph is a certificate of presence.
Roland Barthes 1999
-------------------------------------------
(Amon Tobin) Slowly
Sunday, March 26, 2006
theory + music
from Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire:
Submerged in reality, the oppressed cannot perceive clearly the order which serves the interest of the oppressors whose image they have internalized. Chafing under the restrictions of this order, they often manifest a type of horizontal violence, striking out at their comrades for the pettiest of reasons; the oppressed feel an irresistible attraction toward the oppressor and his way of life. Sharing this way of life becomes an overpowering aspiration. In their alienation, the oppressed want at any cost to resemble the oppressor, to imitate him, to follow him. This phenomena is especially prevalent in the middle class oppressed, who yearn to be equal to the eminent men of the upper class. Self-depreciation is another characteristic of the oppressed, which derives from their internalization of the opinion the oppressors hold of them. So often they hear that they are good for nothing, know nothing and are incapable of learning anything that they are sick, lazy and unproductive, that in the end they become convinced of their own unfitness.
They must realize that they are fighting not merely for freedom from hunger but for freedom to create and to construct, to wonder and to venture . . . if social conditions further the existence of automatons, the result will not be love of life but love of death.
Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of generations into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes 'the practice of freedom', the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.
rhett miller – your nervous heart (mp3) (what would be my heart's adjective?)
Submerged in reality, the oppressed cannot perceive clearly the order which serves the interest of the oppressors whose image they have internalized. Chafing under the restrictions of this order, they often manifest a type of horizontal violence, striking out at their comrades for the pettiest of reasons; the oppressed feel an irresistible attraction toward the oppressor and his way of life. Sharing this way of life becomes an overpowering aspiration. In their alienation, the oppressed want at any cost to resemble the oppressor, to imitate him, to follow him. This phenomena is especially prevalent in the middle class oppressed, who yearn to be equal to the eminent men of the upper class. Self-depreciation is another characteristic of the oppressed, which derives from their internalization of the opinion the oppressors hold of them. So often they hear that they are good for nothing, know nothing and are incapable of learning anything that they are sick, lazy and unproductive, that in the end they become convinced of their own unfitness.
They must realize that they are fighting not merely for freedom from hunger but for freedom to create and to construct, to wonder and to venture . . . if social conditions further the existence of automatons, the result will not be love of life but love of death.
Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of generations into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes 'the practice of freedom', the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.
rhett miller – your nervous heart (mp3) (what would be my heart's adjective?)
Saturday, March 25, 2006
ecstasy being more easily imagined than achieved
I'm already late for coffee and still messing around reading about how to rip from vinyl to pc, dragging my feet. She’s been knocking on the door for six years, and I’ve been pretending not to be inside. But recently she’s sent me an email to apologize for blowing my head off in a dream. I email her back, thanks for being sorry . . .
She works here, no I don’t want my coffee for free, for the umpteenth time, why do you ask every time I come in? Everyone else takes it, she says. No. She’s agitated as usual, obsessed with the latest love affair as always, which has ended typically. I am rereading the horoscopes, bored and groggy. She’s complaining that she wants everyone he loves to die. Well that sounds like a good plan, I say—Do you know how the turntable works at World? She says, He’s adopting another kid and working it out even though his wife is a lesbian. Skip your noon yoga class for me, she says. (sigh) I want to go to the record store, but the Morrissey cd still isn’t out and I don’t need the Trespassers William or anything really, I say . . . She brightens and pulls out a little notebook in which she’s written a Morrissey quote about how people who say passionate things aren’t passionate people and how people who write the best things about the human race are loner weirdos who live in small squalid rooms. I laugh, Great finally I look good for having not published a novel.
Morrissey – You Have Killed Me (video link, he looks fabulous, love the suit, and the quick shots to women in the audience rearranging their tits in their dress-up clothes is amusing punctuation). This song gets better and better the more you listen to it. "You have killed me. You have killed me. [repeat]"
self help reading + music
"The older I get, the more I realize less is more." -Jessica Alba, Elle Magazine, Mar 2006.
Kevin Long - Kicked (live) ; Haunting my Hallways; I know (Fiona Apple cover)
all of these are great
Kevin Long - Kicked (live) ; Haunting my Hallways; I know (Fiona Apple cover)
all of these are great
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
m i c, k e y . .
A good friend is not going to die after all. So we have coffee and he makes me an honorary colon cancer survivor, a mousketeer sorta, like Annette Funicello. There are rules: Eat what you want, but as soon as it doesn’t agree with you, stop. Do what you want, but as soon as it doesn’t agree with you, stop. Heal and wait six months before doing anything much, and if you find yourself doing otherwise, stop.
from A Short History of Decay, E.M. Cioran (an oxymoronic title if ever there was one):
Each of us is born with a share of purity, predestined to be corrupted by our commerce with mankind, by that sin against solitude. For each of us will do anything in order not to be doomed to himself. Our kind is not a fatality but the temptation to fail. Incapable of keeping our hands clean and our hearts undiluted, we soil ourselves upon contact with strange sweats, we wallow—craving for disgust and fervent for pestilence—in the unanimous mud. (Is this guy an upper or what?) And when we dream of seas changed into holy water, it is too late to dive into them, and our advanced state of corruption keeps us from drowning there: the world has infested our solitude; upon us the traces of others become indelible.
trespassers william – i know (mp3)
from A Short History of Decay, E.M. Cioran (an oxymoronic title if ever there was one):
Each of us is born with a share of purity, predestined to be corrupted by our commerce with mankind, by that sin against solitude. For each of us will do anything in order not to be doomed to himself. Our kind is not a fatality but the temptation to fail. Incapable of keeping our hands clean and our hearts undiluted, we soil ourselves upon contact with strange sweats, we wallow—craving for disgust and fervent for pestilence—in the unanimous mud. (Is this guy an upper or what?) And when we dream of seas changed into holy water, it is too late to dive into them, and our advanced state of corruption keeps us from drowning there: the world has infested our solitude; upon us the traces of others become indelible.
trespassers william – i know (mp3)
Monday, March 20, 2006
self help reading + music
from “Gospel Song”, Dorothy Allison:
“You got a look like your granddaddy sometimes.” Granny pinched me and laughed again. “Bastard was meaner than a snake, but he had his ways. And didn’t I love his ways? Lord Christ!” She pulled back and rolled the snuff around in her mouth.
“Man had only two faults I couldn’t abide. Wouldn’t work to save his life and couldn’t stay away from gospel singers. Used to stand out back of revival tents offering ‘em the best whiskey made in Greenville county. Then he’d bring me that slush they cleaned out of the taps. Bastard!” She stiffened and looked back over her shoulder, afraid my mama might be behind her. Mama didn’t allow anybody to use that word in her house.
“Well, shit,” she spit to the side. “You got a little of that too, don’t you? A little of that silliness, that revival crap?”
“Aunt Grace says you a heathen.”
“Oh Aunt Grace, huh. Aunt Grace fucked her oldest boy.”
My mouth fell open. Granny wiped her chin.
“Don’t you go telling your mama everything you hear.”
“No ma’am.”
“And don’t go taking that gospel stuff seriously. It’s nice to clean you out now and then, but it an’t for real. It’s like bad whiskey. Run you through fast and leave you with a pain’ll lay you down.”
(amen. but what won't do that?)
low - amazing grace
(bonus track: cherokee singers [acapella] – amazing grace)
“You got a look like your granddaddy sometimes.” Granny pinched me and laughed again. “Bastard was meaner than a snake, but he had his ways. And didn’t I love his ways? Lord Christ!” She pulled back and rolled the snuff around in her mouth.
“Man had only two faults I couldn’t abide. Wouldn’t work to save his life and couldn’t stay away from gospel singers. Used to stand out back of revival tents offering ‘em the best whiskey made in Greenville county. Then he’d bring me that slush they cleaned out of the taps. Bastard!” She stiffened and looked back over her shoulder, afraid my mama might be behind her. Mama didn’t allow anybody to use that word in her house.
“Well, shit,” she spit to the side. “You got a little of that too, don’t you? A little of that silliness, that revival crap?”
“Aunt Grace says you a heathen.”
“Oh Aunt Grace, huh. Aunt Grace fucked her oldest boy.”
My mouth fell open. Granny wiped her chin.
“Don’t you go telling your mama everything you hear.”
“No ma’am.”
“And don’t go taking that gospel stuff seriously. It’s nice to clean you out now and then, but it an’t for real. It’s like bad whiskey. Run you through fast and leave you with a pain’ll lay you down.”
(amen. but what won't do that?)
low - amazing grace
(bonus track: cherokee singers [acapella] – amazing grace)
Sunday, March 19, 2006
self help reading + music
from “Mama” (Trash), Dorothy Allison
Watching my mama I learned some lessons too well. Never show that you care, Mama taught me, and never want something you cannot have. Never give anyone the satisfaction of denying you something you need, and for that, what you have to do is learn to need nothing. Starve the wanting part of you. In time I understood my mama to be a kind of Zen Baptist—rooting desire out of her own heart as ruthlessly as any mountaintop ascetic. The lessons Mama taught me, like the lessons of Buddha, were not a matter of degree but of despair. My mama’s philosophy was better and thin. She didn’t give a damn if she was born again, she just didn’t want to be born again poor and wanting.
(throw the kitten in a bag with a rock, plug your ears to her soggy mewling)
death cab for cutie – sick of myself (but Edie Falco rocks my world)
Watching my mama I learned some lessons too well. Never show that you care, Mama taught me, and never want something you cannot have. Never give anyone the satisfaction of denying you something you need, and for that, what you have to do is learn to need nothing. Starve the wanting part of you. In time I understood my mama to be a kind of Zen Baptist—rooting desire out of her own heart as ruthlessly as any mountaintop ascetic. The lessons Mama taught me, like the lessons of Buddha, were not a matter of degree but of despair. My mama’s philosophy was better and thin. She didn’t give a damn if she was born again, she just didn’t want to be born again poor and wanting.
(throw the kitten in a bag with a rock, plug your ears to her soggy mewling)
death cab for cutie – sick of myself (but Edie Falco rocks my world)
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
end (of the week at least)
"Unexpected Dangers" (Erdrich)
I’m much the worse for wear, it’s double true.
Too many incidents
a man might misconstrue –
my conduct, for a lack of innocence.
I seem to get them crazed or lacking sense
in the first place.
Ancient, solid gents
I sit by on the bus because they’re safe,
get me going, coming, with their canes,
or what is worse,
the spreading stains
across the seat. I recognize at once
just what they’re up to, rustling in their coats.
There was a priest,
the calmer sort,
his cassock flowing down from neck to feet.
We got to talking and I brushed his knee
by accident,
and dutifully,
he took my hand away and put it back
not quite where it belonged; his judgment
was not that exact.
I underwent
a kind of odd conversion from his act.
They do call minds like mine one track.
One track is all you need
to understand
their loneliness, then bite the hand that feeds
upon you, in a terrible blind grief.
Tegan and Sarah - Speak Slow
I’m much the worse for wear, it’s double true.
Too many incidents
a man might misconstrue –
my conduct, for a lack of innocence.
I seem to get them crazed or lacking sense
in the first place.
Ancient, solid gents
I sit by on the bus because they’re safe,
get me going, coming, with their canes,
or what is worse,
the spreading stains
across the seat. I recognize at once
just what they’re up to, rustling in their coats.
There was a priest,
the calmer sort,
his cassock flowing down from neck to feet.
We got to talking and I brushed his knee
by accident,
and dutifully,
he took my hand away and put it back
not quite where it belonged; his judgment
was not that exact.
I underwent
a kind of odd conversion from his act.
They do call minds like mine one track.
One track is all you need
to understand
their loneliness, then bite the hand that feeds
upon you, in a terrible blind grief.
Tegan and Sarah - Speak Slow
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
who invented irony?
from FreeWillAstrology this week, Virgo:
The ancient Greeks had words for love that transcend our usual notions, writes Lindsay Swope in her review of Richard Idemon's book Through the Looking Glass. Epithemia is the basic need to touch and be touched. Our closest approximation is "horniness," though epithemia is not so much a sexual feeling as a sensual one. Philia is friendship. It includes the need to admire and respect your friends as a reflection of yourself--like in high school, where you want to hang out with the cool kids because that means you're cool too. Eros isn't sexual in the way we usually think, but is more about the emotional gratification that comes from merging souls. Agape is a mature, utterly free expression of love that has no possessiveness. It means wanting the best for another person even if it doesn't advance one's self-interest. The phase you're currently in, Virgo, is providing you with opportunities to explore the frontiers of at least three of these kinds of love.
uh huh.
Ever get those fantasies going where you go back in time and shoot Hitler in his youth? I wonder what our inner lives would look like if we could take a power hose through time, stick it up the ass of Western Thought, and blow the Greeks out. I spose then we’d all be Spartan? Austere, but Free? ( Or Free, but Austere?)
Jonathon Coulton - I feel fantastic (mp3) when I take my steak tastes better pill
The ancient Greeks had words for love that transcend our usual notions, writes Lindsay Swope in her review of Richard Idemon's book Through the Looking Glass. Epithemia is the basic need to touch and be touched. Our closest approximation is "horniness," though epithemia is not so much a sexual feeling as a sensual one. Philia is friendship. It includes the need to admire and respect your friends as a reflection of yourself--like in high school, where you want to hang out with the cool kids because that means you're cool too. Eros isn't sexual in the way we usually think, but is more about the emotional gratification that comes from merging souls. Agape is a mature, utterly free expression of love that has no possessiveness. It means wanting the best for another person even if it doesn't advance one's self-interest. The phase you're currently in, Virgo, is providing you with opportunities to explore the frontiers of at least three of these kinds of love.
uh huh.
Ever get those fantasies going where you go back in time and shoot Hitler in his youth? I wonder what our inner lives would look like if we could take a power hose through time, stick it up the ass of Western Thought, and blow the Greeks out. I spose then we’d all be Spartan? Austere, but Free? ( Or Free, but Austere?)
Jonathon Coulton - I feel fantastic (mp3) when I take my steak tastes better pill
Saturday, March 11, 2006
reading + a song
From The Invention of Solitude, Paul Auster:
He ate, he went to work, he had friends, he played tennis, and yet for all that he was not there. In the deepest, most unalterable sense, he was an invisible man. Invisible to others, and most likely invisible to himself as well . . . he had lived alone. Doggedly, opaquely, as if immune to the world. He did not seem to be a man occupying space, but rather a block of impenetrable space in the form of a man. The world bounced off him, shattered against him, at times adhered to him—but it never got through.
Talking to him was a trying experience. Either he would be absent, as he usually was, or he would assault you with brittle jocularity, which was merely another form of absence. It was like trying to make yourself understood by a senile old man . . . I would find myself saying more than I normally do, becoming aggressively talkative, chatting away in a futile attempt to hold his attention, to provoke a response. Afterwards, I would invariably feel foolish for having tried so hard.
In spite of the excuses I have made for myself, I understand what is happening. The closer I come to the end of what I am able to say, the more reluctant I am to say anything. I want to postpone the moment of ending, and in this way delude myself into thinking that I have only just begun, the better part of my story still lies ahead. No matter how useless these words might seem to be, they have nevertheless stood between me and a silence that continues to terrify me.
A Girl Called Eddy – The Long Goodbye (mp3)
He ate, he went to work, he had friends, he played tennis, and yet for all that he was not there. In the deepest, most unalterable sense, he was an invisible man. Invisible to others, and most likely invisible to himself as well . . . he had lived alone. Doggedly, opaquely, as if immune to the world. He did not seem to be a man occupying space, but rather a block of impenetrable space in the form of a man. The world bounced off him, shattered against him, at times adhered to him—but it never got through.
Talking to him was a trying experience. Either he would be absent, as he usually was, or he would assault you with brittle jocularity, which was merely another form of absence. It was like trying to make yourself understood by a senile old man . . . I would find myself saying more than I normally do, becoming aggressively talkative, chatting away in a futile attempt to hold his attention, to provoke a response. Afterwards, I would invariably feel foolish for having tried so hard.
In spite of the excuses I have made for myself, I understand what is happening. The closer I come to the end of what I am able to say, the more reluctant I am to say anything. I want to postpone the moment of ending, and in this way delude myself into thinking that I have only just begun, the better part of my story still lies ahead. No matter how useless these words might seem to be, they have nevertheless stood between me and a silence that continues to terrify me.
A Girl Called Eddy – The Long Goodbye (mp3)
Friday, March 03, 2006
who will show up (or might not) + tunes
from “Study Shows Babies Try to Help”:
Psychology researcher Felix Warneken performed a series of ordinary tasks in front of toddlers, such as hanging towels with clothespins or stacking books. Sometimes he "struggled" with the tasks; sometimes he deliberately messed up.
Over and over, whether Warneken dropped clothespins or knocked over his books, each of 24 toddlers offered help within seconds — but only if he appeared to need it. Video shows how one overall-clad baby glanced between Warneken's face and the dropped clothespin before quickly crawling over, grabbing the object, pushing up to his feet and eagerly handing back the pin.
(“The simple experiment shows the capacity for altruism emerges as early as 18 months of age.” As does skepticism, clearly. Like a beer and shot.)
-----
My sister calls. She can fly in tomorrow. Saturday. Wait, what day is today? Seriously? (How long have I been here? Whoa—yeah, I guess I could use the help . . . ) She tears right into the catpisscarpet, yelling "she ra!"
Leadbelly – Where did you sleep last night? (mp3)
-----
Some weeks feel longer than others. Is this hutspa or pychosis?
Voxtrot - MothersSistersDaughters&Wives (mp3)
Psychology researcher Felix Warneken performed a series of ordinary tasks in front of toddlers, such as hanging towels with clothespins or stacking books. Sometimes he "struggled" with the tasks; sometimes he deliberately messed up.
Over and over, whether Warneken dropped clothespins or knocked over his books, each of 24 toddlers offered help within seconds — but only if he appeared to need it. Video shows how one overall-clad baby glanced between Warneken's face and the dropped clothespin before quickly crawling over, grabbing the object, pushing up to his feet and eagerly handing back the pin.
(“The simple experiment shows the capacity for altruism emerges as early as 18 months of age.” As does skepticism, clearly. Like a beer and shot.)
-----
My sister calls. She can fly in tomorrow. Saturday. Wait, what day is today? Seriously? (How long have I been here? Whoa—yeah, I guess I could use the help . . . ) She tears right into the catpisscarpet, yelling "she ra!"
Leadbelly – Where did you sleep last night? (mp3)
-----
Some weeks feel longer than others. Is this hutspa or pychosis?
Voxtrot - MothersSistersDaughters&Wives (mp3)
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
self help reading
from The Body Artist, Don Delillo:
It felt like home, being here, and she raced through the days with their small ravishing routines, days the same, paced and organized but with a simultaneous wallow, uncentered, sometimes blank in places, days that moved so slow they ached.
Her body felt different to her in ways she did not understand. Tight, framed, she didn’t know exactly. Slightly foreign and unfamiliar. Different, thinner, didn’t matter.
She woke early every morning and this was the worst time, the first murderous instant of lying in bed and remembering something and knowing in the flow of the same breath what it was.
The plan was to organize time until she could live again.
She looked at him.
“Tell me. You’ve been here how long?”
He didn’t raise his head. There was something so strange about him that she heard her words hang in the room, predictable and trite. She felt no fear. He had a founding quality—lost and found—and she was, she guessed, the finder.
“You have been here,” she said, speaking clearly, pausing between words.
“Talk to me. I am talking,” he said.
She thought she understood what he meant by this. There was a certain futility in his tone, an endlessness of effort, suggesting things he could not easily make clear to her no matter how much he said.
She knew it was foolish to examine so closely. She was making things up. But this was the effect he had shadow-inching through a sentence, showing a word in its facets and aspects, works like moons in particular phases. . . He talked about objects in the room, stumblingly, and she wondered what he saw, or failed to see, or saw so differently she could begin to conjure its outlines.
She says she is going to the restroom . . . wait . . . but she doesn’t comes back.
She stopped at the edge of the doorway, aware of the look on her face.
She knew this look, a frieze of false anticipation.
She stood for a while, thinking into this.
Her face still wore a decorative band, a trace across the eyes of a prospect of wonders. It was a look that nearly floated free of her so she could puff her cheeks, childlike, and blow it away.
It felt like home, being here, and she raced through the days with their small ravishing routines, days the same, paced and organized but with a simultaneous wallow, uncentered, sometimes blank in places, days that moved so slow they ached.
Her body felt different to her in ways she did not understand. Tight, framed, she didn’t know exactly. Slightly foreign and unfamiliar. Different, thinner, didn’t matter.
She woke early every morning and this was the worst time, the first murderous instant of lying in bed and remembering something and knowing in the flow of the same breath what it was.
The plan was to organize time until she could live again.
She looked at him.
“Tell me. You’ve been here how long?”
He didn’t raise his head. There was something so strange about him that she heard her words hang in the room, predictable and trite. She felt no fear. He had a founding quality—lost and found—and she was, she guessed, the finder.
“You have been here,” she said, speaking clearly, pausing between words.
“Talk to me. I am talking,” he said.
She thought she understood what he meant by this. There was a certain futility in his tone, an endlessness of effort, suggesting things he could not easily make clear to her no matter how much he said.
She knew it was foolish to examine so closely. She was making things up. But this was the effect he had shadow-inching through a sentence, showing a word in its facets and aspects, works like moons in particular phases. . . He talked about objects in the room, stumblingly, and she wondered what he saw, or failed to see, or saw so differently she could begin to conjure its outlines.
She says she is going to the restroom . . . wait . . . but she doesn’t comes back.
She stopped at the edge of the doorway, aware of the look on her face.
She knew this look, a frieze of false anticipation.
She stood for a while, thinking into this.
Her face still wore a decorative band, a trace across the eyes of a prospect of wonders. It was a look that nearly floated free of her so she could puff her cheeks, childlike, and blow it away.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
