Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Nest
A boy visits his father's nest.
They are estranged, but he is young, so there is still time, both think, to remedy the situation.
Though it is a horror like a boner at a funeral.
The nest of the father is is a conical, whitewashed structure. It is a helix like certain other shells that wash up on the beach, with an open lip at the end of the volute that turns, originally like a spiral staircase without stairs. But this has been altered. It stands vertically on its narrower end and it is high in space, as it is an aerie.
There is a staircase etched into an interior wall, a turn in the volute, that goes straight up. It is a staircase built to fit the body of the boy. He alone can ascend this staircase in the wall, cut to his form, although he bumps his head. His father adjusts the size of the etched staircase to his growth, at regular intervals, and he is behind. His winged peregrinations are at fault.
Sometimes his father flies out the hole at the top, at the center of the shell-like dwelling. This happens suddenly, violently. This lets the boy know his father is a wild thing; he is fauna. A body flies straight up the air, and it is his father, winged, dripping a sort of honey or colostrum as he goes. His feathers are messy and fluid. His feathers are liquid fire. They are like two wet fires beating against each other, the father's wings. The boy tries to understand.
The shell house is a cold, conical dwelling with, nonetheless, a white shine of interiority to it. If you look carefully, you can see your face in the shine of walls, or rather, wall, since this is a singular fold of some smooth mineral concretion which feels both marmoreal and calcareous, at once, to the boy's senses. You see your face reflected in that white wall, or think you do, but it looks like a breath that has caught there, a momentary illusion of your reflection. You aren't quite sure whether either pole of the illusion is real.
The boy is shown how to climb the inset staircase and ring the tiny bells that wait on the ancient table in the small chamber at the top of the shell in which his father lives when he has not yet taken flight. He learns to ring the bells in the proper, ancient order. They must move as the stars move in the heavens, those charred notes of the tamed, toy bells.
The tiny bells are chased silver which is sooted like the teeth of dead enemies. The boy enjoys handling the bells, but he is terrible at playing the required melodies. There is a horn book that looks like old hide, dead flesh. The notes are braised on its surface. This is a room of vellum and faded ivory yellowed to nicotine addiction. You have thoughts like dead elephant's teeth here.
At the top of the shell, there is a more or less circle of cerulean, blue sky and wind, directly above one's head. It tousles and ruffles one's hair as a father would. In absentia, this wayward blue. The boy enjoys the sensation.
Sometimes spirits descend through this hole and whisper promises of other dwellings, while the boy practices his bells, while his spirit wanders and he dreams of the father's death as yet another song.
But it is only a breeze from the sea the boy will never see. For he has been blinded in a sort of kindness by the father whose wings are liqud, false fire. The hopeless sect of the family is all the boy has ever known. And his own hatred, which he is polishing now like a stone into its fatal dream point.
One day the boy will melt the father's nest. That cold, crucial dwelling. There is a temperature at which even shell melts.
But for now he is its servant and the puppet of its bells.
Also, he is thousands of years old but childish.
They are estranged, but he is young, so there is still time, both think, to remedy the situation.
Though it is a horror like a boner at a funeral.
The nest of the father is is a conical, whitewashed structure. It is a helix like certain other shells that wash up on the beach, with an open lip at the end of the volute that turns, originally like a spiral staircase without stairs. But this has been altered. It stands vertically on its narrower end and it is high in space, as it is an aerie.
There is a staircase etched into an interior wall, a turn in the volute, that goes straight up. It is a staircase built to fit the body of the boy. He alone can ascend this staircase in the wall, cut to his form, although he bumps his head. His father adjusts the size of the etched staircase to his growth, at regular intervals, and he is behind. His winged peregrinations are at fault.
Sometimes his father flies out the hole at the top, at the center of the shell-like dwelling. This happens suddenly, violently. This lets the boy know his father is a wild thing; he is fauna. A body flies straight up the air, and it is his father, winged, dripping a sort of honey or colostrum as he goes. His feathers are messy and fluid. His feathers are liquid fire. They are like two wet fires beating against each other, the father's wings. The boy tries to understand.
The shell house is a cold, conical dwelling with, nonetheless, a white shine of interiority to it. If you look carefully, you can see your face in the shine of walls, or rather, wall, since this is a singular fold of some smooth mineral concretion which feels both marmoreal and calcareous, at once, to the boy's senses. You see your face reflected in that white wall, or think you do, but it looks like a breath that has caught there, a momentary illusion of your reflection. You aren't quite sure whether either pole of the illusion is real.
The boy is shown how to climb the inset staircase and ring the tiny bells that wait on the ancient table in the small chamber at the top of the shell in which his father lives when he has not yet taken flight. He learns to ring the bells in the proper, ancient order. They must move as the stars move in the heavens, those charred notes of the tamed, toy bells.
The tiny bells are chased silver which is sooted like the teeth of dead enemies. The boy enjoys handling the bells, but he is terrible at playing the required melodies. There is a horn book that looks like old hide, dead flesh. The notes are braised on its surface. This is a room of vellum and faded ivory yellowed to nicotine addiction. You have thoughts like dead elephant's teeth here.
At the top of the shell, there is a more or less circle of cerulean, blue sky and wind, directly above one's head. It tousles and ruffles one's hair as a father would. In absentia, this wayward blue. The boy enjoys the sensation.
Sometimes spirits descend through this hole and whisper promises of other dwellings, while the boy practices his bells, while his spirit wanders and he dreams of the father's death as yet another song.
But it is only a breeze from the sea the boy will never see. For he has been blinded in a sort of kindness by the father whose wings are liqud, false fire. The hopeless sect of the family is all the boy has ever known. And his own hatred, which he is polishing now like a stone into its fatal dream point.
One day the boy will melt the father's nest. That cold, crucial dwelling. There is a temperature at which even shell melts.
But for now he is its servant and the puppet of its bells.
Also, he is thousands of years old but childish.
Sunday, May 29, 2016
[COVER] Yukihiro Takahashi - FLASHBACK 高橋幸宏 回想
I love covers that adapt songs so they sound like something that would fit into the Mario Brothers or Yoshi universe.
Time travel to the nineties is possible.
Here's the original.
And this is different, for sure. I like this one muchly too. What do you call this genre? Techno-primitive?
And the original.
Time travel to the nineties is possible.
Here's the original.
And this is different, for sure. I like this one muchly too. What do you call this genre? Techno-primitive?
And the original.
Are You Watching Viceland?
I find myself really smitten with the Vice network's latest enterprise, their new television channel Viceland.
If you haven't seen it, check it out.
The programming is exactly what you have come to expect from Vice: journalism with a sharp edge and a sharp eye. Also, helpin' heapfuls of young people doing dangerous, photogenic things. And, of course, lots of open talk about the gamut of human sexuality. Oh yes. It is Vice transposed to a new medium.
Oh and about that "sharp eye": the photography on these shows is gorgeous. Again, that's something you'd expect if you're familiar with Vice magazine and its commitment to breaking some of the best contemporary photographers.
I'm already a big fan of Thomas Morton and his show Balls Deep. You can actually see most (all?) of the episodes of Season 1 here.
The first episode I watched was the one on orgasmic meditation and I sort of had a negative vibe off Mr. Morton in that one. He admitted up front he was approaching this New Age, West Coast, quasi-religion that has sprung up around clitoris-worship with a healthy dose of East Coast skepticism. I felt he was being a little smart-alecky even as he was (at least) superficially giving himself over fully to an unusual experience in an attempt to learn about one of the sometimes drastically different ways of life of others in American culture, which is the premise of the show. I think the idea is that Morton is going to go "balls deep" into each subculture or cultural phenomenon he investigates. I guess I should give him points for doing things that might not be exactly easy for him. I don't think he ever hurt anyone's feelings in the process of making the documentary and he did respectfully worship a stranger's clitoris (without the emolument of sex). So there's that. He claims to have reached a sort of spiritual enlightenment about women by the end of filming. I wasn't sure how sincere this eleventh hour epiphany really was, since there were so many little snaps and not-so-subtle digs he got off throughout the show in his exchanges with others who belong or subscribe to this movement.
I give him bigger ups for going to Bear Week in Provincetown and hanging with the furriest gays and not snapping on anyone once. But then you don't really want to start a snapping contest around gay men, do you? It wasn't that type of deal though. Morton gave himself fully to the experience and was usually seen around P-Town riding on the bitch seat of gay bear rapper Big Dipper's bike. And I do mean bike, as in bicycle with a cute little bell you can ring. It was priceless. He really did go balls deep into Bear Week and even ventured under "Dick Dock" in the heat of the night when it was in full swing with a bunch of men acting out the gay Kama Sutra (the video camera was left at a safe distance). He interviewed Mr. A. Maupin, went to a gay party, learned about the "Truvada (barebacking) movement" (don't get me started) and got gay-ducated in all other sorts of ways. He came away with a real respect for gay culture and its ability to embrace and elevate elements of physicality that other segments of culture might vilify. Oh, he even got naked with some guys in a body affirmation ceremony that involved a gay man handling and praising his junk. And then he returned the favor. He did the same for a very large gay bear. Viceland, this straight man has earned his paycheck! Give the guy a raise already!
I've come to the conclusion that Thomas Morton is indeed worthy of being called adorable and a very good investigative journalist who makes investigative journalism seem like a hell of a lot of fun. Check him out. I think this is just a starting place for this guy. Expect to see him on a major network soon.
If you haven't seen it, check it out.
The programming is exactly what you have come to expect from Vice: journalism with a sharp edge and a sharp eye. Also, helpin' heapfuls of young people doing dangerous, photogenic things. And, of course, lots of open talk about the gamut of human sexuality. Oh yes. It is Vice transposed to a new medium.
Oh and about that "sharp eye": the photography on these shows is gorgeous. Again, that's something you'd expect if you're familiar with Vice magazine and its commitment to breaking some of the best contemporary photographers.
I'm already a big fan of Thomas Morton and his show Balls Deep. You can actually see most (all?) of the episodes of Season 1 here.
The first episode I watched was the one on orgasmic meditation and I sort of had a negative vibe off Mr. Morton in that one. He admitted up front he was approaching this New Age, West Coast, quasi-religion that has sprung up around clitoris-worship with a healthy dose of East Coast skepticism. I felt he was being a little smart-alecky even as he was (at least) superficially giving himself over fully to an unusual experience in an attempt to learn about one of the sometimes drastically different ways of life of others in American culture, which is the premise of the show. I think the idea is that Morton is going to go "balls deep" into each subculture or cultural phenomenon he investigates. I guess I should give him points for doing things that might not be exactly easy for him. I don't think he ever hurt anyone's feelings in the process of making the documentary and he did respectfully worship a stranger's clitoris (without the emolument of sex). So there's that. He claims to have reached a sort of spiritual enlightenment about women by the end of filming. I wasn't sure how sincere this eleventh hour epiphany really was, since there were so many little snaps and not-so-subtle digs he got off throughout the show in his exchanges with others who belong or subscribe to this movement.
I give him bigger ups for going to Bear Week in Provincetown and hanging with the furriest gays and not snapping on anyone once. But then you don't really want to start a snapping contest around gay men, do you? It wasn't that type of deal though. Morton gave himself fully to the experience and was usually seen around P-Town riding on the bitch seat of gay bear rapper Big Dipper's bike. And I do mean bike, as in bicycle with a cute little bell you can ring. It was priceless. He really did go balls deep into Bear Week and even ventured under "Dick Dock" in the heat of the night when it was in full swing with a bunch of men acting out the gay Kama Sutra (the video camera was left at a safe distance). He interviewed Mr. A. Maupin, went to a gay party, learned about the "Truvada (barebacking) movement" (don't get me started) and got gay-ducated in all other sorts of ways. He came away with a real respect for gay culture and its ability to embrace and elevate elements of physicality that other segments of culture might vilify. Oh, he even got naked with some guys in a body affirmation ceremony that involved a gay man handling and praising his junk. And then he returned the favor. He did the same for a very large gay bear. Viceland, this straight man has earned his paycheck! Give the guy a raise already!
I've come to the conclusion that Thomas Morton is indeed worthy of being called adorable and a very good investigative journalist who makes investigative journalism seem like a hell of a lot of fun. Check him out. I think this is just a starting place for this guy. Expect to see him on a major network soon.
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Blood Art
I did a Google search just now for paintings in blood and everything was unbelievably ugly and amateurish.
I'm sure someone has done a decent painting in blood.
I don't think the idea is impressive or particularly interesting. It seems to appeal mostly to the juvenile mind. It's become one of those horrible cliches in art.
And then you'll have idiots hurting or killing animals to get blood for something like this. Or hurting themselves.
I remember liking Marc Quinn's head in supercooled blood back in the early days of Saatchi.
I'm more impressed when artists can evoke blood than when they garishly incorporate it in their work.
I suppose there are some cases where artists work with their own menstrual blood and it doesn't feel exploitive or anything. I think that's almost a "blood exception," because there blood is being taken from one's body without one's consent. So it almost feels like a "taking back" of something that could even be seen as "stolen." Granted, this is part of the cycles of fertility which allow us to bring forth new life. So it gets complicated. To what degree is this "taking" a "giving" by nature? This sort of blood art broaches the usual taboos concerning menstruation. I think instantly of the heightened fear this can cause, particularly in males. It probably scalds the male gaze. This recoiling is sort of funny but also illuminating. To what degree is this recoiling a form of control of the female? By stigmatizing this process, the male is able to "put the female in her place." We think of the isolation of menstruating women in so many cultures. Is it true fear on the part of the male? Is it rooted in the power of fertility, its mojo? Or is it about males not wanting to be discommoded? In "modern" cultures, it seems to be more of a primal fear of blood. This is not a uniquely male fear. But I have to wonder whether post-pubescent women generally have less fear of bleeding as a result of their cycle? Probably studies have been done. Yet I have known women who get faint when they see bleeding, just as I have known men who have this reaction.
I realize there are probably countless works of art in which human (or animal) blood figures prominently. I'm not so interested in this that I want to read in depth about it. It was just a passing thought, wondering if a search would bring up anything of (problematic?) visual beauty.
Sometimes blood in art is just there as part of nature. I saw a pretty powerful photograph tonight of a dead deer where the last few moments of its life had been written in blood on a country highway. It had obviously been hit by a car and staggered to the other side of the road and fallen there. Its suffering was almost certainly mercifully brief. Would that it had been instantaneous, but this outcome was still so much better than those cases where struck animals wander off in horrible pain that lasts on and on. That photograph was like a painting but there was no manipulation, no animal abuse by humans, no human-laden guilt for us to process because of some ridiculous wile laid out by a manipulative and unethical artist. It was just horrible nature drawing an ideogram with her finger on the earth. It was just that force, that voice saying, "Look on my works."
I'm sure someone has done a decent painting in blood.
I don't think the idea is impressive or particularly interesting. It seems to appeal mostly to the juvenile mind. It's become one of those horrible cliches in art.
And then you'll have idiots hurting or killing animals to get blood for something like this. Or hurting themselves.
I remember liking Marc Quinn's head in supercooled blood back in the early days of Saatchi.
I'm more impressed when artists can evoke blood than when they garishly incorporate it in their work.
I suppose there are some cases where artists work with their own menstrual blood and it doesn't feel exploitive or anything. I think that's almost a "blood exception," because there blood is being taken from one's body without one's consent. So it almost feels like a "taking back" of something that could even be seen as "stolen." Granted, this is part of the cycles of fertility which allow us to bring forth new life. So it gets complicated. To what degree is this "taking" a "giving" by nature? This sort of blood art broaches the usual taboos concerning menstruation. I think instantly of the heightened fear this can cause, particularly in males. It probably scalds the male gaze. This recoiling is sort of funny but also illuminating. To what degree is this recoiling a form of control of the female? By stigmatizing this process, the male is able to "put the female in her place." We think of the isolation of menstruating women in so many cultures. Is it true fear on the part of the male? Is it rooted in the power of fertility, its mojo? Or is it about males not wanting to be discommoded? In "modern" cultures, it seems to be more of a primal fear of blood. This is not a uniquely male fear. But I have to wonder whether post-pubescent women generally have less fear of bleeding as a result of their cycle? Probably studies have been done. Yet I have known women who get faint when they see bleeding, just as I have known men who have this reaction.
I realize there are probably countless works of art in which human (or animal) blood figures prominently. I'm not so interested in this that I want to read in depth about it. It was just a passing thought, wondering if a search would bring up anything of (problematic?) visual beauty.
Sometimes blood in art is just there as part of nature. I saw a pretty powerful photograph tonight of a dead deer where the last few moments of its life had been written in blood on a country highway. It had obviously been hit by a car and staggered to the other side of the road and fallen there. Its suffering was almost certainly mercifully brief. Would that it had been instantaneous, but this outcome was still so much better than those cases where struck animals wander off in horrible pain that lasts on and on. That photograph was like a painting but there was no manipulation, no animal abuse by humans, no human-laden guilt for us to process because of some ridiculous wile laid out by a manipulative and unethical artist. It was just horrible nature drawing an ideogram with her finger on the earth. It was just that force, that voice saying, "Look on my works."
Thursday, May 26, 2016
Shaker Art
I am fascinated by Shaker art (and bygone Shaker life).
I think what really intrigues me is how the Shakers were open to revelation from the spiritual world, on principle, as a daily occurrence. I think this is what so often gives their art a cosmic beauty. And then I think the Shaker tradition of "gift drawings" is a very beautiful one. If you read the text on the somewhat Blakean drawing of roses below, you will see these were spiritual communications. For people who didn't have congress with other bodies, this was probably as intense as sex, this form of heightened exchange. I like that art was elevated as a form of divine communication in this religion.
Did you know the Shakers (who were celibate) believed that God was bisexual? This was because we are told in the Bible that God made both man and woman "in His own image."
I think what really intrigues me is how the Shakers were open to revelation from the spiritual world, on principle, as a daily occurrence. I think this is what so often gives their art a cosmic beauty. And then I think the Shaker tradition of "gift drawings" is a very beautiful one. If you read the text on the somewhat Blakean drawing of roses below, you will see these were spiritual communications. For people who didn't have congress with other bodies, this was probably as intense as sex, this form of heightened exchange. I like that art was elevated as a form of divine communication in this religion.
Did you know the Shakers (who were celibate) believed that God was bisexual? This was because we are told in the Bible that God made both man and woman "in His own image."
Clam Art
Display some works of art with a clear, assigned value.
Display with this art numbers of clams equivalent to the dollar values of the art. While it seems more aesthetically interesting to have the clams in a pile before the work of art, to allow that rank smell to emerge, it might seem more humane (even if clams lack the capacity to feel pain) to have the clams in brightly-colored kiddie pools with filtration, enjoying their ongoing lives.
The point is to have that equation of "exchange value" from organic body through abstract market of "value" back to other "organic bodies." That's what interests me in this image.
If a painting is worth "750 clams," this is actually (if clams go for a dollar apiece that week) a true barter exchange for that painting, this heap of clams. (It should make one think about the soft body of the consumable.)
Display with this art numbers of clams equivalent to the dollar values of the art. While it seems more aesthetically interesting to have the clams in a pile before the work of art, to allow that rank smell to emerge, it might seem more humane (even if clams lack the capacity to feel pain) to have the clams in brightly-colored kiddie pools with filtration, enjoying their ongoing lives.
The point is to have that equation of "exchange value" from organic body through abstract market of "value" back to other "organic bodies." That's what interests me in this image.
If a painting is worth "750 clams," this is actually (if clams go for a dollar apiece that week) a true barter exchange for that painting, this heap of clams. (It should make one think about the soft body of the consumable.)
This is My Favorite Book Lately
I feed and feed on the little samples they give you of all these artists' books.
But this book is evil. Because it makes you want to acquire so many of the books contained in these pages. And that's not going to happen. It's such a tease. It's art pornography in that regard.
Because so many of these books are unfindable, and the ones that happen to be findable are generally the sorts of things that go for many thousands of dollars. (I'm sure you can imagine how few copies were produced in virtually all cases.) Good luck at Sotheby's or Christie's.
A few classics have been reissued by art presses and they are affordable. But it's a very small minority of the works featured here.
Artists' books have always been like this, rare unicorns. It's part of their charm, right? Generally, you have to visit them in their museum vitrines.
Sometimes you get lucky and find someone or some cultural institution has made available/put online one of the artists' books in this resource which you want to find. I think MOMA is sometimes kind, a serendipitous stop-off, in this regard. But often I find the title I'm searching for is indeed indexed at MOMA but "not available." Often, there is just an informative gloss and cover photo. Maybe there is an extra jpeg if you're lucky.
It's surprising to find so many artists whose bodies of work I don't exactly love have produced some wonderful books that I actually do love.
And numerous books cataloged here include some stellar poetry.
I'm seduced by Dubuffet's La Lunette Farcie.
And I see it could have been mine for a mere 7,500 bivalves.
It Is Generally Agreed
It is generally agreed that the worst fate would be to be sewed up alive inside a dead horse with one's ex (dead or alive). The idea of this seems to bother even mellow people. I'm sort of like, "Eh...I'm used to this sort of thing."
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
River
It was only an animal lapse
It was just music on its turnstile
A bouquet of limbs without bodies
Just Just That
It was only a penny I wanted to spend
The body the music
It comes inside for a bit
It was only an invitation
Made of water and fire and regret
The last makes it so sweet
Who wants lips without regret?
What chump? what river of gump?
Looking in restaurant windows
Walking on cobblestones like a horse
It was just music on its turnstile
A bouquet of limbs without bodies
Just Just That
It was only a penny I wanted to spend
The body the music
It comes inside for a bit
It was only an invitation
Made of water and fire and regret
The last makes it so sweet
Who wants lips without regret?
What chump? what river of gump?
Looking in restaurant windows
Walking on cobblestones like a horse
Ad
What I want is a green beast
A new beast car from the underworld
No a drop of rain
A street like a garment
A hotheaded street full of promises
Full of lies like an art gallery
No like a river
Full of sheep
That is what I really want
A river of sheep
Something to sleep in securely
My head swollen a thundercloud
A new beast car from the underworld
No a drop of rain
A street like a garment
A hotheaded street full of promises
Full of lies like an art gallery
No like a river
Full of sheep
That is what I really want
A river of sheep
Something to sleep in securely
My head swollen a thundercloud
Asian Room with Fern
Here is a pallor holding onto a form
The drippings of green are what kept me a man
A stillness of a fan which was actually stone
None of these are periods like you need
I brought you to a doorway which I painted out
The ceiling was removed by musicians
I can't get out from under a fueling station
The children enter and remove their teeth
This thought is the color of a lover
The drippings of green are what kept me a man
A stillness of a fan which was actually stone
None of these are periods like you need
I brought you to a doorway which I painted out
The ceiling was removed by musicians
I can't get out from under a fueling station
The children enter and remove their teeth
This thought is the color of a lover
She Turned Her Nose
She turned her nose up at it. IT COULD BE the meat was rank. The beasts of the field or beasts of the sea's magnetic fields. It might have been rank. It could be that she hasn't filed her teeth lately. I felt a slight in the night. For it is a risk for me to go out there to put the food out. There are shadows that become beasts very quickly, if one is not armed at all the cardinal points of the body. It has become very hard to explain my life. I saw a shadow through my legs when I was bent over to release the food, out there in the night, where there is also gunfire, and it could have been the end for me right there. And would you have cared, would you have written the epilogue for my poor form? I doubt it. The shadows I see between my legs looking backwards are like the shadows of people who died in plane crashes. The shadows of people who died in plane crashes are like drawings by Nancy Spero. It becomes harder to explain my life, which no longer has a doorbell. She turned her nose up. It was all a drawing of the night. Even the absence was a drawing, so I drew it close, in dearness. The beasts of the field or the beasts of the sea's magnetic fields are sex. They are sex and they are drawings of sex. Let's face that. I don't know what to say. I was preparing to do some paintings on these blue tulle circles. Little feminine tondos. You can see right through them, they're thinner than eyelids, thinner than paper. When I bend over, the shadows I see between my legs are a sea. The sea has no epilogue and neither does she. I could go back out into the night with a file and offer to fix her teeth. If she comes back. If she smells the food and thinks twice. Her body is a terrible armature for something I like to think of as her soul.
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Monday, May 23, 2016
Best Movie Quote This Year
The quote I can't get out of my head, and which always makes me smile, is this one from the recent genre-renorming "horror" film The Witch:
"Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?"--Black Phillip.
Hear that as a Satanic whisper of temptation, like the voice Satan used in the wilderness when he wanted to try the soul of the son of God.
This movie had such a stellar ensemble, all actors unknown to me. The three youngest child actors all delivered performances I want to call Oscar-caliber. So did the other young actor, the oldest sibling, the young woman coming of age who is the crux character of the film. I suppose she was a child actor too. She's on that borderline between child and adult, a fact which drives much of the drama of this film, which is very slyly about the subconscious motivations which emerge in families, as much as it is about witchcraft.
That line above, by the way, is delivered by a goat, by the Devil, by the Devil in a goat.
I might even nominate the goat for an award. Black Phillip gave a terrific performance. Menacing, brooding. And it isn't always easy to gore people on cue, despite what you might think.
Oh, also the cinematography is wonderful in this film. Mad props to Jarin Blaschke.
I can't wait to see what director Robert Eggers does next. (Any relation to Dave Eggers?)
This was a smashing debut.
"Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?"--Black Phillip.
Hear that as a Satanic whisper of temptation, like the voice Satan used in the wilderness when he wanted to try the soul of the son of God.
This movie had such a stellar ensemble, all actors unknown to me. The three youngest child actors all delivered performances I want to call Oscar-caliber. So did the other young actor, the oldest sibling, the young woman coming of age who is the crux character of the film. I suppose she was a child actor too. She's on that borderline between child and adult, a fact which drives much of the drama of this film, which is very slyly about the subconscious motivations which emerge in families, as much as it is about witchcraft.
That line above, by the way, is delivered by a goat, by the Devil, by the Devil in a goat.
I might even nominate the goat for an award. Black Phillip gave a terrific performance. Menacing, brooding. And it isn't always easy to gore people on cue, despite what you might think.
Oh, also the cinematography is wonderful in this film. Mad props to Jarin Blaschke.
I can't wait to see what director Robert Eggers does next. (Any relation to Dave Eggers?)
This was a smashing debut.
Me at Belio Magazine
I couldn't remember the source of this image at first, where I had actually taken the photograph.
Then I did.
The title is "Watching the Film JAWS Backwards."
Then I did.
The title is "Watching the Film JAWS Backwards."
Sunday, May 22, 2016
What I Like About Photographs
What I like about photographs is that they command me. Especially in the middle of the night. They tell me to put a pot of water in the center of my kitchen floor and make the light rare. Make it dark. Photograph the way the water looks in darkness. Sloshing around and still. Make your footsteps visible in the surface of the water in the pot. Adjust the variables (aperture, shutter speed, ISO) until the water has its sensuous sway and say as a thickness of darkness, as an island of dark and light in the general darkness of the room. Let it wag and waggle like a dark tongue and lap up the light rays it beams at your camera. Then go out and shoot into the darkness of the backyard. Know that you can only lay down the scene in darkness, in digital grain. Then go inside and lighten what you have shot using the light in the honeycomb of the laptop. Expose the hive of the night. Art-i-fic-ial-ly. See how much seeing is artifice, how much artifice there is in seeing. Hate and love. Hate and love this. The endlessness of this. Motes and grain. Subtraction is more interesting than addition. Subtraction will get you more.
Left and Right, Black and White
A small girl floats in the darkness of the photograph, slightly above center, two long arms extending from left and right holding her hands. We see her from behind. Her little hands are like boddhisatva hands. The fingers seem like prescient mudra. I say she floats but it is a lie. It is a true lie though. She's actually seated on a picnic table, but the table is so dark, a solidity of black, that it seems the child is floating towards the table. It seems she is located closer to us in the foreground than she actually is. So she floats. It is a joy and a panic. It is a joy and a panic as it usually is when people float, whether in dreams or in their waking lives. This is one of those calculated lies photographs can tell and which we believe. It is this lying which so often gives photography its unique charm. But the toddler's satiny dress has a sash that hangs over the back of the black picnic table like an animal's tail. This helps us to see she is actually on the black table. One detail leads us on to another. Details hold hands like this in photographs. They dovetail consciousness in its looking. It is not the same way details hold hands in writing. That is a different way. The child is tiny, probably two years old. I imagine the dress is pink. The arms that stretch out from the sides of the photograph feel stretched beyond what one would expect in reality. Like a Stretch Armstrong figure, but the arms are slender and young. It must be the lens. Lenses are chimerical things. Are they the parents? You can see the dark back of the head of the figure at left. The arm of that figure is more tanned than the arm which comes in from the figure at right, who is cropped out, unseen. That figure "feels" male, but what does it mean to say something or someone "feels male" when there is nothing there to "feel?" The arm doesn't really look any different than the arm at left, except for the absence of tanning. Maybe one expects the expected. You think "young woman" from what you can see of the figure at left, but it could be a boy with long hair. It feels like the safety of family, the glowing arms in the darkness of a summer evening. The figure at left is wearing a tank top, so you do think summer. The picnic table is tilted so much from left to right that it just adds to the dream quality that the impossibly stretched arms have already created. The baby feels like a small buddha and like a prize given out in a dream, if you have one of those dreams in which babies are given as prizes. There is a forest in the background, but we can only see in dissolve a few little openings in the trees at the top. We can see only a few dark tree trunks and a few motes of light that hint at an evening sky both left and right at the top of the photograph. We will never see the child's face and besides she is grown up now, a woman and no longer a child, if she lived, if she wanted to live and this happened, if she wasn't only a bit of a dream or a doll that fooled us.
Friday, May 20, 2016
It is the End
It is the end of human time and there is a bird carrying a thread through the deepnesses of space. It is holding such a fine thread, and it is on fire. And the bird knows nothing, but its own skill at survival. It is doing this thing, perhaps for you, perhaps for everything. It has this final skill, your one hope. Though you are gone, you are not there. Only the bird is now. And its soul is boiling. It is mad with its life, which feels now like your life, and you feel very fortunate that you can wish on this as everything is ending, fortunate that you can hope that it makes it, that it reaches the point where more survival is possible. Although no one knows what that is. Where something impossible opens as light opens. Impossible light.
Homeless
Many people like poetry, and some even claim to love it, but virtually no one will live with it.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
I'm Rereading
I'm rereading Slow Burn: A Photodocument of Centralia, Pennsylvania (University of Pennsylvania, 1986) .
I can't recommend this book highly enough.
Copies can still be found on Amazon, ABE and other online bookselling sites.
Jacobs took an interesting approach to her subject. She lived in Centralia for some time as an embedded artist and journalist. She came when there was still very much a town to speak of. Many had already fled this small town in the Pennsylvania coal country by 1983, the year Jacobs arrived, driven out by the hellish gases that emanated from the mine fire that burned below and threatened to engulf the town with the various sinkholes and subsidences that had resulted from the inferno under everyone's feet. Centralia has since utterly vanished with the exception of a very few buildings. There is no more town. What were streets are overgrown with trees, hard to even discern. Possibly the form of what was once a town can be seen from the air on a fly-over. Even the zip code was revoked by the government. This town (and a neighboring small town) were given the Sodom and Gomorrah treatment. But most of the destruction came in the form of bulldozing, which was done by the United States government. The mine fire itself did not get the opportunity to physically devour the town. Ironically, the air quality in Centralia today is reportedly better than that of Pennsylvania's capital, Harrisburg.
Jacobs was such a good set of ears, such a good listener, as well as a great set of eyes. She uses many quotes by citizens of the beset town as she follows them in their tribulations and in their reckoning of the political process in which they are all forced to participate. There is initially a big division between those who want to stay, to claim the land of their ancestors, and those who are willing to leave. We now know how this ended, how the choice was taken away from these citizens. Jacobs' photographs are often stunningly well constructed, even as they go about their business of stark witnessing. The poetry and narrative qualities of these images are never at odds. They are felicitously joined in Jacobs' art. Often, these images are quite tender. Many of them are unearthly, as Centralia in that period often did look like the surface of some alien planet or some quarter of the Underworld. These photographs are of much more than archival value.
The (then) young Centralia resident pictured here is Todd Domboski. He is the teenager who fell into a hole in the earth that opened up below his feet as he was walking through his grandmother's backyard. He was very lucky to be pulled out, narrowly escaped death, as the hole was determined to be several hundred feet deep and filled with carbon monoxide. Just now I confused him with the citizen who made a valiant stand to keep the town going long after everyone had vacated it, following government orders. Actually that civil disobedient who remained so long was John Lokitis Jr. He held out until 2009. If you search his name on YouTube or Google him, you should find the same really interesting documentary I found some time back.
Postscript: I see this book came out in a new edition in 2010. I hope Photo-Eye Blog will not mind my sharing these two photos they snapped of the new edition of Jacobs' book.
If You Don't Think a Trump Presidency Would Threaten Social Security, Look Who He's Recruiting
This article by Pulitzer-winner Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times two days ago should be required reading for those thinking of voting for Donald Trump.
Trump is recruiting and being advised by men who want to dismantle social services and withdraw funding needed by disabled people. This article also foregrounds the egregious abuse which occurs through the "state blocking" of Medicaid funds, which is just another insidious strategy used by these horrible Trump cronies to divert money from children and adults with disabilities. This is truly shameful Republican "strategy" designed to deprive the most disenfranchised Americans of needed health care.
If you vote for Trump, you will be voting for the loss of many Social Security benefits. You will be depriving countless Americans of needed social services and health care. Quite possibly you will be denying yourself these same benefits, as a sudden reversal in fortune or health could occur with you or your children. It happens every day. You could crash right through the basement of your insurance benefits and find yourself looking for an assistance that is actually in place right now to catch you, but which would not be there under a Trump presidency. I'm sure "The Donald" would have no problem telling you to just sell your house. Still not enough? After that's done, start hawking the contents of your house out on the street. Just work "the art of the deal" with your pots and pans with passers-by.
Trump can say he won't touch social security, but he's made these reversals repeatedly. It speaks volumes that he has just hired people like John Mashburn and Sam Clovis. If you don't think he knows these people's viewpoints on Social Security inside out and that he endorses these viewpoints, you're seriously deluded. There is the real "transparency" of Trump's views on Social Security. Don't bother listening to what comes out of his mouth. After all, he was extolling Hillary Clinton's virtues not long ago (before this presidential run) and he was totally pro-choice then as well. So this is a man who has never led a truly principled life. He says whatever he feels he needs to say to get what he wants.
Please don't think this is hyperbole. I assure you it isn't. Don't expect a billionaire who has never shown a moment's consideration of those less fortunate than himself in this life to suddenly "grow a conscience." Donald Trump has never been about anything more than his own enrichment and self-aggrandizement and he has spend his life catering to his "chosen people," the rich and super-rich. He is a maker of playgrounds for the wealthy and a television entertainer and nothing more. He knows nothing of what a life of service entails.
A vote for Trump is a vote to increase poverty and misery in America.
But so many people with petty hatreds are now worked up by the Trump jingoism and the shibboleths and the easy demonization of minorities, the xenophobia, that this great nation is now truly in peril.
Trump is recruiting and being advised by men who want to dismantle social services and withdraw funding needed by disabled people. This article also foregrounds the egregious abuse which occurs through the "state blocking" of Medicaid funds, which is just another insidious strategy used by these horrible Trump cronies to divert money from children and adults with disabilities. This is truly shameful Republican "strategy" designed to deprive the most disenfranchised Americans of needed health care.
If you vote for Trump, you will be voting for the loss of many Social Security benefits. You will be depriving countless Americans of needed social services and health care. Quite possibly you will be denying yourself these same benefits, as a sudden reversal in fortune or health could occur with you or your children. It happens every day. You could crash right through the basement of your insurance benefits and find yourself looking for an assistance that is actually in place right now to catch you, but which would not be there under a Trump presidency. I'm sure "The Donald" would have no problem telling you to just sell your house. Still not enough? After that's done, start hawking the contents of your house out on the street. Just work "the art of the deal" with your pots and pans with passers-by.
Trump can say he won't touch social security, but he's made these reversals repeatedly. It speaks volumes that he has just hired people like John Mashburn and Sam Clovis. If you don't think he knows these people's viewpoints on Social Security inside out and that he endorses these viewpoints, you're seriously deluded. There is the real "transparency" of Trump's views on Social Security. Don't bother listening to what comes out of his mouth. After all, he was extolling Hillary Clinton's virtues not long ago (before this presidential run) and he was totally pro-choice then as well. So this is a man who has never led a truly principled life. He says whatever he feels he needs to say to get what he wants.
Please don't think this is hyperbole. I assure you it isn't. Don't expect a billionaire who has never shown a moment's consideration of those less fortunate than himself in this life to suddenly "grow a conscience." Donald Trump has never been about anything more than his own enrichment and self-aggrandizement and he has spend his life catering to his "chosen people," the rich and super-rich. He is a maker of playgrounds for the wealthy and a television entertainer and nothing more. He knows nothing of what a life of service entails.
A vote for Trump is a vote to increase poverty and misery in America.
But so many people with petty hatreds are now worked up by the Trump jingoism and the shibboleths and the easy demonization of minorities, the xenophobia, that this great nation is now truly in peril.
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
New York School Poem
Assault 05/08/16 11:00 PM 00 BLOCK OF W 26TH ST
Theft 05/08/16 11:00 PM 200 BLOCK OF W 40TH ST
Burglary 05/08/16 09:00 PM 700 BLOCK OF 8TH AVE
Theft 05/08/16 08:00 PM 600 BLOCK OF AVE OF THE AMERICAS
Theft 05/08/16 08:00 PM 525-527 BROADWAY
Assault 05/08/16 07:00 PM 200 BLOCK OF VARICK ST
Thef t05/08/16 06:00 PM 15-19 E 4TH ST
Theft 05/08/16 06:00 PM N/A
Theft 05/08/16 06:00 PM 00 BLOCK OF E 17TH ST
Theft 05/08/16 06:00 PM N/A
Theft 05/08/16 06:00 PM 00 BLOCK OF 2ND AVE
Theft 05/08/16 05:00 PM 100 BLOCK OF W 23RD ST
Theft 05/08/16 05:00 PM N/A
Theft 05/08/16 04:00 PM 00 BLOCK OF UNION SQUARE W
Robbery 05/08/16 03:00 PM 00 BLOCK OF W 32ND ST
Theft 05/08/16 02:00 PM 11900 BLOCK OF DYER AVE
Theft 05/08/16 02:00 PM 200 BLOCK OF 2ND AVE
Theft 05/08/16 11:00 PM 200 BLOCK OF W 40TH ST
Assault 05/08/16 11:00 PM 00 BLOCK OF W 26TH ST
Burglary 05/08/16 09:00 PM 700 BLOCK OF 8TH AVE
Theft 05/08/16 08:00 PM 525-527 BROADWAY
Theft 05/08/16 08:00 PM 600 BLOCK OF AVE OF THE AMERICAS
Assault 05/08/16 07:00 PM 200 BLOCK OF VARICK ST
Theft 05/08/16 06:00 PM 15-19 E 4TH ST
Theft 05/08/16 06:00 PM N/A
Theft 05/08/16 06:00 PM 00 BLOCK OF E 17TH ST
Theft 05/08/16 06:00 PM N/A
Theft 05/08/16 06:00 PM 00 BLOCK OF 2ND AVE
Theft 05/08/16 05:00 PM 100 BLOCK OF W 23RD ST
Theft 05/08/16 05:00 PM N/A
Theft 05/08/16 04:00 PM 00 BLOCK OF UNION SQUARE W
Robbery 05/08/16 03:00 PM 00 BLOCK OF W 32ND ST
Theft 05/08/16 02:00 PM 11900 BLOCK OF DYER AVE
Theft 05/08/16 02:00 PM 200 BLOCK OF 2ND AVE
Assault 05/08/16 02:00 PM 305-307 W 13TH ST
Theft 05/08/16 11:00 AM 59-61 COOPER SQ
Burglary 05/08/16 09:00 AM 500 BLOCK OF 8TH AVE
Theft 05/08/16 06:00 AM 300 BLOCK OF W 33RD ST
Theft 05/08/16 06:00 AM 100 BLOCK OF W 34TH ST
Theft 05/08/16 06:00 AM 600 BLOCK OF 8TH AVE
Theft 05/0816 05:00 AM 7TH AVE
Assault 05/08/16 04:00 AM 00 BLOCK OF W 32ND ST
Theft 05/08/16 03:00 AM 400 BLOCK OF AVE OF THE AMERICAS
Burglary 05/08/16 03:00 AM 100 BLOCK OF CHRISTOPHER ST
Burglary 05/08/16 03:00 AM N/A
Theft 05/08/16 03:00 AM 200 BLOCK OF 3RD AVE
Theft 05/08/16 02:00 AM 200 BLOCK OF SPRING ST
Theft 05/08/16 01:00 AM 144-168 W 42ND ST
Theft 05/08/16 01:00 AM 6700 BLOCK OF 9TH AVE
Theft 05/0 8/16 01:00 AM 00 BLOCK OF UNION SQUARE W
Theft 05/08/16 01:00 AM 100 BLOCK OF W 19TH ST
Theft 05/07/16 11:00 PM 52-64 GRAMERCY PARK N
Theft 05/07/16 11:00 PM 300 BLOCK OF 3RD AVE
Theft 05/07/16 10:00 PM 300 BLOCK OF 3RD AVE
Robbery 05/07/16 09:00 PM 429-437 W 40TH ST
Theft 05/07/16 09:00 PM 901-959 AVE OF THE AMERICAS
Theft 05/07/16 09:00 PM 400 BLOCK OF 7TH AVENUE5/08/16 01:00 AM300 BLOCK OF W 19TH ST
Saturday, May 14, 2016
Watch Your Rain
Hey, a lovely May day here with some storminess.
But the thing is that this "clean spring rain" is depositing clear grit all over windshields. It appears to be (hard to tell, as it's very fine) clear and crystalline.
Maybe I should get out the microscope I used so much as a teenager?
I've Googled this, but only cursorily. I couldn't find many others talking about this.
It wasn't just on one surface. It was on the leaves of trees too. So if you're wondering if it was dust or pollen on the windshield that merely became visible with the rain, no, that's not what happened.
I've seen the chemtrails in the skies around here off and on (we are near some sites that have flown experimental aircraft including the black wing fighters in the nineties) and haven't really spent much time reading what's posted on those. I know there are many paranoid theories.
This could have been a local anomaly. It could also be totally natural. But then it might not be.
It looked a little twenty-first century is what I'm saying. It looked a little problematic.
So you might want to watch your rain too.
But the thing is that this "clean spring rain" is depositing clear grit all over windshields. It appears to be (hard to tell, as it's very fine) clear and crystalline.
Maybe I should get out the microscope I used so much as a teenager?
I've Googled this, but only cursorily. I couldn't find many others talking about this.
It wasn't just on one surface. It was on the leaves of trees too. So if you're wondering if it was dust or pollen on the windshield that merely became visible with the rain, no, that's not what happened.
I've seen the chemtrails in the skies around here off and on (we are near some sites that have flown experimental aircraft including the black wing fighters in the nineties) and haven't really spent much time reading what's posted on those. I know there are many paranoid theories.
This could have been a local anomaly. It could also be totally natural. But then it might not be.
It looked a little twenty-first century is what I'm saying. It looked a little problematic.
So you might want to watch your rain too.
Are Friends Electric?
Anyone who doesn't believe in A.I. friends doesn't leave YouTube on autoplay much.
I was listening to the Budd/Guthrie soundtrack for Araki's Mysterious Skin, so wonderful both, and then YouTube just wandered on while I was doing visual art thingies, onto:
Harold Budd & Robin Guthrie - An hour, a day, no more...
then
Harold Budd & Brian Eno - The Pearl (1984)
then
Brian Eno - Thursday Afternoon (61 Minute Version)
This is called "being a good friend."
Friday, May 13, 2016
A Day
1). A person becomes onerous.
2). A tree is flagged as beautiful.
3). The mist comes and comes after a deer, a female deer, looking, breathing into it.
4). Bloodsucking is done through a television screen or an alternate screen.
5). Things appear to possess a great lassitude in nature, a pathos even, but no regret whatsoever.
5a). They lay in the shine that the star gives them. The parent star. These stones in the museum show the trust of children.
6). A tree flagged as beautiful is now onerous.
7). The ocean decides to enter the land, but tentatively. It tries it with its toes, making an affectation of being afraid of entering the elemental otherness.
8). No one is home tonight.
9). The mist goes and goes; the doe is no longer looking.
10). I am walking on these flagstones, one by one, not touching the earth.
11). It is an affectation, but it is also a path to the grave.
12). Should I wake then, after, it would only be more music. More chivalry with disappearing.
2). A tree is flagged as beautiful.
3). The mist comes and comes after a deer, a female deer, looking, breathing into it.
4). Bloodsucking is done through a television screen or an alternate screen.
5). Things appear to possess a great lassitude in nature, a pathos even, but no regret whatsoever.
5a). They lay in the shine that the star gives them. The parent star. These stones in the museum show the trust of children.
6). A tree flagged as beautiful is now onerous.
7). The ocean decides to enter the land, but tentatively. It tries it with its toes, making an affectation of being afraid of entering the elemental otherness.
8). No one is home tonight.
9). The mist goes and goes; the doe is no longer looking.
10). I am walking on these flagstones, one by one, not touching the earth.
11). It is an affectation, but it is also a path to the grave.
12). Should I wake then, after, it would only be more music. More chivalry with disappearing.
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Care
Eric had lately taken to sleeping in the guest room in the bed with too many mattresses on it.
There was a reason they had piled the mattresses on top of one another, but this reason was lost to the young men's collective memory. All those springs made for a strange malaise of balance when one slept in this bed. Perhaps there was a greater sense of buoyancy, but also a bit of a threat. None of the mattresses were of particularly high quality, so there was a bit of a slope, a lean created. If one were not careful, one could be rolled right off the bed. Fortunately, the whole queer arrangement, this pancake stack of mattresses, was up against a wall. So when a body slept in the bed, it just subtly moved downhill and found its sleep against that wall. A wall can be a comforting sleep partner. If you are sleeping alone, it asserts its existence as a supportive other.
The bed was up against the wall with the single door to the small bedroom, the only practical ingress. There were two windows in other walls, but these were perpetually locked and shrouded with blankets. Eric was often a day sleeper. The dark woolen blankets Eric had hung over the tall windows damped sound as well as light. It gave the room a feeling of the nineteenth century during the day. Or so Eric thought, though he couldn't articulate exactly why. Friends who had seen the room had made the usual vampire jokes.
Andrew entered the darkness of the room where Eric slept, disturbing it with a sliver of light for a few seconds before he shut the door almost noiselessly behind him. He climbed into the bed with Eric and the contour of his body immediately matched and followed his lover's own sinuous form. It felt like a long ago familiarity to both bodies at once, though one body was awake and the other was asleep. Andrew knew the trick of balancing in the bed and he managed to fit himself to Eric without even disturbing the old cat who slept in a coiled green blanket shaped into a soft, impromptu basket at the foot of the bed.
No words were exchanged. But a hand found a hand, backwards, behind Eric's back.
Some blissful, watery, half-conscious moments passed this way between the men's bodies, alchemized themselves into unshapeable minutes that had glints of light and dark, waking and sleeping, tenderness and oblivion.
It was night but still early. Eric was due to wake soon. A clock tensed its digital muscles, the horrible thing. The awareness of it was somewhere in the room's blindness.
Eric's backward hand wandered over Andrew's muscular body in a gentle appreciation of his form. It was a shorthand of affection.
Then Eric, or maybe his body, felt too much stillness and silence in his lover and so he turned his body to face him in the darkness, blind with eyes open. He soon closed his eyes again. His fingers told him, by accident, that Andrew's eyes were also closed.
He didn't want to ask Andrew if he was feeling better. He wanted to savor the moments of this feeling. The wholeness of a moment in which their bodies felt like two pear halves. He kissed Andrew; it was the syrup to hold the pears in the moment. Andrew's lips, if they responded, if they shaped themselves at all to the moment, could only have moved to an immeasurable degree. If they moved at all. It seemed doubtful to Eric. Was he sick? Sicker?
Andrew's arm, the one not under his body, was now resting on Eric's buttocks. It was cool. It felt good, this minimal form of holding. This made Eric snuggle closer, full frontal affection.
"I wanted to tell you..." Eric began, but was interrupted by the most horrible sound as a river of vomitus struck him full in the face while Andrew pulled his body tightly against his own, almost as if it were prey.
Andrew held Eric this way, tightly, the disgusting mash of his emptied stomach between their bodies, dripping wherever it wanted. It was in his face but his arms were now trapped by Andrew's arms. Andrew didn't say a word and it was totally dark. Eric opened his eyes now, demanding in his alarm that they see, but they saw nothing. Andrew's body had gone rigid, so stiff it almost felt as if were undergoing some sort of seizure. And this body, its strong arms and even its muscled legs, continued to hold Eric prisoner.
"Baby, let me help. Let me...get up." Eric was doing his best to coo, to coddle his lover, but he was disgusted and even a little afraid.
"Towels..." he said.
Andrew said nothing.
"We'll just go to the shower."
Andrew said nothing and his grip didn't give a bit.
Then he heard Andrew snoring.
"You can't be asleep." Eric's head was spinning. "Andrew, I can't move. Wake up!"
Was it true snoring? Why did it sound wrong?
"You're scaring me. Did you have a...stroke or something? A seizure? Can you understand me?" There was a pleading quality now in Eric's voice. Of course there was.
He is a young man. It can't be a stroke, Eric promised himself. But what else? Eric's brain tried to reason in furious fast-forward.Andrew's illness had remained undiagnosed, a mystery. He had worried about his partner but remained duly optimistic as the doctors advised. No real threat had been pinpointed. But now Eric's emotions were skyrocketing as he realized the mystery illness had found a horrible new plateau. All those doctors had admitted their bafflement at Andrew's strange constellation of symptoms. But nobody had said to expect anything like this. Those doctors, those specialists, just kept sending his partner home. But now, pinned against Andrew's body in the darkness, it was clear something had been horribly missed. Something was seriously wrong with Andrew. The terror of this realization was as frightening as Andrew's death-grip in that moment, which had not relented one bit.
He began to fight against his lover's body. Andrew's body still continued to produce the weird snoring sound, but his grip tightened even more on his lover. The puke was disgusting. It was on his face. It rankled in his nose like brimstone. He didn't want to accidentally taste it. But then he didn't get his wish. It was acrid, horrible. He nearly vomited in gustatory reflex.
He fought against Andrew and then he began to believe that the snoring sound was fake. He felt that Andrew was, for some inexplicable reason, faking unconsciousness. He realized this was an insane idea, but this is what his brain told him.
Eric finally got one arm free, but his panic continued to swell. He contemplated slapping Andrew, but involuntarily he found himself pulling his lover's hair.
"Goddamn it, wake up!" he shouted now.
Andrew did seem to wake up then, but he was laughing.
"Why the fuck are you laughing?" Eric hated himself for sounding shrill. It must be genuine illness. He is sick. He must not be unkind.
"How the hell did I get in your bed?" Andrew asked. He sounded sincere.
"You threw up!" He hated that it sounded like an accusation. What sort of asshole judges an ill lover.
"No. I think you threw up. All over us. What's going on, anyway?"
He seemed innocently bewildered. It must have genuinely been some sort of altered state, Eric thought. Maybe Andrew was an epileptic. Even though more than one specialist had said he was not.
"What the fuck are you talking about, Andrew? Don't you know where you are? Don't you remember throwing up? Why do you think we're covered in this shit? Babe. We need to get up now. We'll talk while we're...oh Christ. Just try to keep it on the bed. Where's the fucking cat?"
The cat was not there. She must be hiding under the bed. Hands communicated this knowledge in darkness.
The digital clock screamed alive.
"I have to be at work in a half hour. This is a nightmare just beginning."
"I'm sorry," Andrew said. "I don't even understand what's happening. I'm sorry. For whatever I did."
"You're not warm." He had his hand on the other man's forehead even as they were climbing out of the unstable bed piled with mattresses.
"No. I feel fine. Please tell me this isn't puke."
"Of course, it's puke. I don't want to turn on the light. I really don't. Here goes."
The light came on and Eric felt that terrible urge to vomit again.
"My God, is that blood? What is that red stuff in your puke?"
"I don't know. It can't be. I must have eaten something..."
"For God's sake, what did you eat?"
"I must have had spaghetti, tomato soup, something..."
"Spaghetti was several days ago. That's not spaghetti sauce. Let me see your tongue."
And so they were off to the hospital after a call by Eric to his office.
Andrew held a stainless steel pot the men used for steaming clams on his lap. A bucket had not been located in time. It had gone missing. He was in the passenger seat. Eric insisted on driving even though Andrew curiously wanted to drive to the hospital. He insisted he could drive himself in his own car. They compromised by taking Andrew's car. But Eric drove.
Eric began putting together in his head a diatribe he would use against the first doctor he encountered in the emergency room. This had gone on so long now, with no answers. He began to seriously sense his own fear that this situation could result in total loss. The unimaginable was there in the interior of the car with them. It was going with them to the hospital. It would follow them now, Eric realized, wherever they went. He realized he was staring at his hands on the steering wheel obsessively as he drove Andrew to the hospital for what, the fourth time that month? He didn't understand why he had fixated on this image of his hands on the wheel. But then he did too.
,
There was a reason they had piled the mattresses on top of one another, but this reason was lost to the young men's collective memory. All those springs made for a strange malaise of balance when one slept in this bed. Perhaps there was a greater sense of buoyancy, but also a bit of a threat. None of the mattresses were of particularly high quality, so there was a bit of a slope, a lean created. If one were not careful, one could be rolled right off the bed. Fortunately, the whole queer arrangement, this pancake stack of mattresses, was up against a wall. So when a body slept in the bed, it just subtly moved downhill and found its sleep against that wall. A wall can be a comforting sleep partner. If you are sleeping alone, it asserts its existence as a supportive other.
The bed was up against the wall with the single door to the small bedroom, the only practical ingress. There were two windows in other walls, but these were perpetually locked and shrouded with blankets. Eric was often a day sleeper. The dark woolen blankets Eric had hung over the tall windows damped sound as well as light. It gave the room a feeling of the nineteenth century during the day. Or so Eric thought, though he couldn't articulate exactly why. Friends who had seen the room had made the usual vampire jokes.
Andrew entered the darkness of the room where Eric slept, disturbing it with a sliver of light for a few seconds before he shut the door almost noiselessly behind him. He climbed into the bed with Eric and the contour of his body immediately matched and followed his lover's own sinuous form. It felt like a long ago familiarity to both bodies at once, though one body was awake and the other was asleep. Andrew knew the trick of balancing in the bed and he managed to fit himself to Eric without even disturbing the old cat who slept in a coiled green blanket shaped into a soft, impromptu basket at the foot of the bed.
No words were exchanged. But a hand found a hand, backwards, behind Eric's back.
Some blissful, watery, half-conscious moments passed this way between the men's bodies, alchemized themselves into unshapeable minutes that had glints of light and dark, waking and sleeping, tenderness and oblivion.
It was night but still early. Eric was due to wake soon. A clock tensed its digital muscles, the horrible thing. The awareness of it was somewhere in the room's blindness.
Eric's backward hand wandered over Andrew's muscular body in a gentle appreciation of his form. It was a shorthand of affection.
Then Eric, or maybe his body, felt too much stillness and silence in his lover and so he turned his body to face him in the darkness, blind with eyes open. He soon closed his eyes again. His fingers told him, by accident, that Andrew's eyes were also closed.
He didn't want to ask Andrew if he was feeling better. He wanted to savor the moments of this feeling. The wholeness of a moment in which their bodies felt like two pear halves. He kissed Andrew; it was the syrup to hold the pears in the moment. Andrew's lips, if they responded, if they shaped themselves at all to the moment, could only have moved to an immeasurable degree. If they moved at all. It seemed doubtful to Eric. Was he sick? Sicker?
Andrew's arm, the one not under his body, was now resting on Eric's buttocks. It was cool. It felt good, this minimal form of holding. This made Eric snuggle closer, full frontal affection.
"I wanted to tell you..." Eric began, but was interrupted by the most horrible sound as a river of vomitus struck him full in the face while Andrew pulled his body tightly against his own, almost as if it were prey.
Andrew held Eric this way, tightly, the disgusting mash of his emptied stomach between their bodies, dripping wherever it wanted. It was in his face but his arms were now trapped by Andrew's arms. Andrew didn't say a word and it was totally dark. Eric opened his eyes now, demanding in his alarm that they see, but they saw nothing. Andrew's body had gone rigid, so stiff it almost felt as if were undergoing some sort of seizure. And this body, its strong arms and even its muscled legs, continued to hold Eric prisoner.
"Baby, let me help. Let me...get up." Eric was doing his best to coo, to coddle his lover, but he was disgusted and even a little afraid.
"Towels..." he said.
Andrew said nothing.
"We'll just go to the shower."
Andrew said nothing and his grip didn't give a bit.
Then he heard Andrew snoring.
"You can't be asleep." Eric's head was spinning. "Andrew, I can't move. Wake up!"
Was it true snoring? Why did it sound wrong?
"You're scaring me. Did you have a...stroke or something? A seizure? Can you understand me?" There was a pleading quality now in Eric's voice. Of course there was.
He is a young man. It can't be a stroke, Eric promised himself. But what else? Eric's brain tried to reason in furious fast-forward.Andrew's illness had remained undiagnosed, a mystery. He had worried about his partner but remained duly optimistic as the doctors advised. No real threat had been pinpointed. But now Eric's emotions were skyrocketing as he realized the mystery illness had found a horrible new plateau. All those doctors had admitted their bafflement at Andrew's strange constellation of symptoms. But nobody had said to expect anything like this. Those doctors, those specialists, just kept sending his partner home. But now, pinned against Andrew's body in the darkness, it was clear something had been horribly missed. Something was seriously wrong with Andrew. The terror of this realization was as frightening as Andrew's death-grip in that moment, which had not relented one bit.
He began to fight against his lover's body. Andrew's body still continued to produce the weird snoring sound, but his grip tightened even more on his lover. The puke was disgusting. It was on his face. It rankled in his nose like brimstone. He didn't want to accidentally taste it. But then he didn't get his wish. It was acrid, horrible. He nearly vomited in gustatory reflex.
He fought against Andrew and then he began to believe that the snoring sound was fake. He felt that Andrew was, for some inexplicable reason, faking unconsciousness. He realized this was an insane idea, but this is what his brain told him.
Eric finally got one arm free, but his panic continued to swell. He contemplated slapping Andrew, but involuntarily he found himself pulling his lover's hair.
"Goddamn it, wake up!" he shouted now.
Andrew did seem to wake up then, but he was laughing.
"Why the fuck are you laughing?" Eric hated himself for sounding shrill. It must be genuine illness. He is sick. He must not be unkind.
"How the hell did I get in your bed?" Andrew asked. He sounded sincere.
"You threw up!" He hated that it sounded like an accusation. What sort of asshole judges an ill lover.
"No. I think you threw up. All over us. What's going on, anyway?"
He seemed innocently bewildered. It must have genuinely been some sort of altered state, Eric thought. Maybe Andrew was an epileptic. Even though more than one specialist had said he was not.
"What the fuck are you talking about, Andrew? Don't you know where you are? Don't you remember throwing up? Why do you think we're covered in this shit? Babe. We need to get up now. We'll talk while we're...oh Christ. Just try to keep it on the bed. Where's the fucking cat?"
The cat was not there. She must be hiding under the bed. Hands communicated this knowledge in darkness.
The digital clock screamed alive.
"I have to be at work in a half hour. This is a nightmare just beginning."
"I'm sorry," Andrew said. "I don't even understand what's happening. I'm sorry. For whatever I did."
"You're not warm." He had his hand on the other man's forehead even as they were climbing out of the unstable bed piled with mattresses.
"No. I feel fine. Please tell me this isn't puke."
"Of course, it's puke. I don't want to turn on the light. I really don't. Here goes."
The light came on and Eric felt that terrible urge to vomit again.
"My God, is that blood? What is that red stuff in your puke?"
"I don't know. It can't be. I must have eaten something..."
"For God's sake, what did you eat?"
"I must have had spaghetti, tomato soup, something..."
"Spaghetti was several days ago. That's not spaghetti sauce. Let me see your tongue."
And so they were off to the hospital after a call by Eric to his office.
Andrew held a stainless steel pot the men used for steaming clams on his lap. A bucket had not been located in time. It had gone missing. He was in the passenger seat. Eric insisted on driving even though Andrew curiously wanted to drive to the hospital. He insisted he could drive himself in his own car. They compromised by taking Andrew's car. But Eric drove.
Eric began putting together in his head a diatribe he would use against the first doctor he encountered in the emergency room. This had gone on so long now, with no answers. He began to seriously sense his own fear that this situation could result in total loss. The unimaginable was there in the interior of the car with them. It was going with them to the hospital. It would follow them now, Eric realized, wherever they went. He realized he was staring at his hands on the steering wheel obsessively as he drove Andrew to the hospital for what, the fourth time that month? He didn't understand why he had fixated on this image of his hands on the wheel. But then he did too.
,
Thursday, May 5, 2016
Rand McNally
I stop turning to others and turn to otherness
The radiators of the house wait
Here is a droplet against the window I am following
It is outside it cannot drip on this page
To make the words bleed sympathetically
Into each other and towards the edge
The torn edge
Where the paper ceases to exist
Where the page is mercifully air
The radiators of the house wait
Here is a droplet against the window I am following
It is outside it cannot drip on this page
To make the words bleed sympathetically
Into each other and towards the edge
The torn edge
Where the paper ceases to exist
Where the page is mercifully air
Your Sculpture
Here are some stones that make you weep
It is always and only about configuration
It's not the things themselves
These words are coming to me from very far away
Maybe as far away as you
I measure this distance in light years
The yawn of centuries
The stones quietly together are called sculpture
Put your hand over your mouth and laugh
Try to keep your spirit in your body
Mine escaped centuries ago
This is an ancient way to say I love you
A cluster of bananas on a stone table at the train station
If the bananas turn to stone, well then, I guess they were sincere
It is always and only about configuration
It's not the things themselves
These words are coming to me from very far away
Maybe as far away as you
I measure this distance in light years
The yawn of centuries
The stones quietly together are called sculpture
Put your hand over your mouth and laugh
Try to keep your spirit in your body
Mine escaped centuries ago
This is an ancient way to say I love you
A cluster of bananas on a stone table at the train station
If the bananas turn to stone, well then, I guess they were sincere
(photograph for Mother's Day)
This is from back in the summer, taken with an Ilford disposable camera.
I love this particular configuration in my little town.
Madonna and Child (child aged perhaps four years old).
They were preparing to cross the street and he was afraid So she waited for him, with him. A century or so.
I like the strange aureole that formed.
I love this particular configuration in my little town.
Madonna and Child (child aged perhaps four years old).
They were preparing to cross the street and he was afraid So she waited for him, with him. A century or so.
I like the strange aureole that formed.
Sunday, May 1, 2016
I'm Halfway
I started The Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas by Marguerite Duras, which is included in her Four Novels (Grove).
It's a slight misnomer of a title since some of the four works (all of them?) included in this compendium are novellas rather than novels.
The writing is gorgeous and the later Duras is prefigured in this early work. She has begun to use some of her more rhetorical tropes and figures, but she's still playing the "straight novelist," so she does this in moderation.
It's hard to miss the strong similarity this work bears to Mann's Death in Venice. This is so much a tale about age, about an individual in the process of leaving this world. The protagonist is a seventy-eight-year-old man completely taken for granted and virtually erased by all those around him. So far it's an interior monologue (his) that is exquisitely tortured and nuanced. He's plunked down outside on a hot summer day, abandoned, so Duras luxuriates in describing the nature which surrounds him and encroaches upon him in that almost Robbe-Grillet way. There's really no place in this work where language is merely functional. Virtually every sentence is a poetic pivot or fulcrum. You keep losing yourself as a reader in the moments between the moments. But that's what Duras does so well. Her prose is designed to open up those interiorities in language. So there's always almost an infinite regress the attuned reader experiences when reckoning the terms of her language, her concept of description, which is more poetic than factual, more connotative than denotative.
It's a slight misnomer of a title since some of the four works (all of them?) included in this compendium are novellas rather than novels.
The writing is gorgeous and the later Duras is prefigured in this early work. She has begun to use some of her more rhetorical tropes and figures, but she's still playing the "straight novelist," so she does this in moderation.
It's hard to miss the strong similarity this work bears to Mann's Death in Venice. This is so much a tale about age, about an individual in the process of leaving this world. The protagonist is a seventy-eight-year-old man completely taken for granted and virtually erased by all those around him. So far it's an interior monologue (his) that is exquisitely tortured and nuanced. He's plunked down outside on a hot summer day, abandoned, so Duras luxuriates in describing the nature which surrounds him and encroaches upon him in that almost Robbe-Grillet way. There's really no place in this work where language is merely functional. Virtually every sentence is a poetic pivot or fulcrum. You keep losing yourself as a reader in the moments between the moments. But that's what Duras does so well. Her prose is designed to open up those interiorities in language. So there's always almost an infinite regress the attuned reader experiences when reckoning the terms of her language, her concept of description, which is more poetic than factual, more connotative than denotative.
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