the best part is when the ball gets really close to the pole, almost touches it !game over!, but then you THWACQ! hit it right back the other way. it doesnt take long for that ball to swing around and come back your way again, only this time its closer closer wow how did it get so close to your face. so you have to swish your head back, really cool fast martial arts like, and the ball is going so fucking fast as it spins past you and gets ready for another pass, fwip fwipfwip! the promised violence of that thing just whacking you the fuck in the face, man, thats fun.
another great part is those sloppy hits that make the ball hit the pole and then go fwoop! flying up into the air unpredictable, into the grey and distant drizzled sun, the sky so huge with the birds small but elliptical, until the rope grabs it back to earth and towards miles and i's upturned smiling faces. miles is 8, lazy eyed, slow and dreamy and sweet when he talks about getting married and having a dog and sweeter still when he doesnt do his homework but spends all day working on a valentines day card to his mom, one piece white notebook paper, folded once, with intricately lined letters on the front -i love you mom- and the inside a four line essay of painstaking cursive and love in banal form...
-happy valentines day i love you i hope you had a good valentines day-
but then the lovely:
-you are pretty-
and he lazy eye smiling and checking the cursive against the alphabet taped to his desk.
and so now we are out here in the drizzle whipping the shit out of a tetherball at each other, and we are looking up and there are great black birds circling us. and were getting wet. and we never win, neither of us ever wins, we just bat it the fuck back and forth as the birds circle us, and sometimes the birds and the ball and the THWACQ! just so great and he cant hold it and a "shit!" sneaks out and then, shy, shoulder down eye up, a little "excuse my language". but too much lost in the laugh i am not going to stop him from saying shit on this day when theres a tetherball and a black bird and a grey drizzle all hitting him the fuck in the face and his mother is so far away. i get hit in the teeth, he jams his fingers. ive got don henleys "dirty laundry": running maniacly through my head for some reason.
a couple nights ago a good old friend came over and i felt like i didnt have enough to say. everything has slowed down and gotten simple and my life is in just three or four places, the wild drizzle, the long bus, the hermited room, the faraway la. and i float from one to the other with little of the huge water shaking feeling that filled so many years past. now just walk and see, and not too sad and not too happy, just walk and see and guess at how time will move next. and good the flowers are lovely, and good the man in the tacqueria gave her limes for free, and good shes beautiful as she and her mother speak language misterioso on the bus and both perform the cross at the same time, a look up, a grin, in their frantic conversation. but i see and dont add and am only the drizzle or maybe just the tree at the top of the hill at the edge of the yard that watches our mad spiraling tetherball and slow circling birds and invisible circles of rain. must just be the colors she sings as i walk through the mall and cant rememeber. so slow and undefined.
but then that tetherball THWACQ! buzz so fast the wind against my cheek and theres a child screaming in my arms; a child screaming and swearing in my restraining arms and trying to hurt me as badly as he can. and then a sleep dream bus ride and then theres a perfect love underneath me and theres a beautiful new harp never heard above me, and then we do it all again and its all a little new but im comfortable and *safe*, feel so safe in her arms. and circling: not as slow as the birds, but not as fast as that tetherball motherfucking coming right! for my face!.
and those moments are thin and forgettable if its drizzling too lightly like this...but in the forgetting nothing too bad, only the past that is gone and right now its small wonder or blank stare or small tear or vast love unknown and too real to understand. so this is okay/.
right? right?
i think so...so undefined and not at all attached, not at all attached to a pole bolted to the asphalt with a ball tether flying all the way the fuck around you so fucking fast to come and hit me in the face. oh fuck its going to hurt me it is going to sting so bad when the ball fast and wet with tingling drizzle hits me the fuck in the face. and i love that game and i love you sweet slow miles when you are screaming in my soft forceful restraining arms, and im sorry, im sorry, this is as soft as i can hold you, this is as soft as i can hold you. and i want to play with you and show you this game i know where the tetherball can just whack you surprise alive in the face.
and i want to play tomorrow, cuz i dont think im playing right now.
wait...am i?
07 March 2005
18 February 2005
05 December 2004
there a face in the woods above a fire; and hes smiling or grinning and hes older and he looks like he knows, but when i look all i see is that he looks like he knows and he must know the looks; and so hes making the look. and if hes making the look, he must not really know. sure hes confident in his drawl as he roasts rabbit on thick and thin, and he will tell you where the fire burns and how to wear the fire like a blanket and which foot to leave uncovered. and much of what he says is the truth. but why does he say it at all, why does he say it all.
in the anonymous man there is a myth of sadness that fills the chambers with rich mulberry wine. sometimes its the wood that cries out as it gets saturated with the notion of blind genius, and the creaks that fill auburn night have a glass chime within, solidifying in beams yet fragile to the touch as spun sugar.
or this man on the couch: bag filled with all the goods needed, and quiet when he should be but will fight for the cause as it emerges; and his eye shines just too metallic in his triumph. and when the sorcerer twists her ankle just off, when she missteps over the lines of dust and the quiet breeze of her error allows a fine filament to escape the sacred circle, then he catches it there too and in a voice just loud enough for the trees to hear he fixes the spell and sits down again silent yet content wiith his mastery.
should this knowledge be kept to the one, do i beleieve that the solitary soul is more than the illusion of the mind struggling against its own insignifigance, or do i see this private collection of electricity as the fundamental truth whose challenge fries doubt and unity like eggs on sidewalks, on dashboards, on marble counters near foam. these are the first questions; and yet is the second questions that plague me tonight, candle near plant leaf, ice cream over wine. the second questions, once the soul is distinguished and separated, the second quetsions of what to do now. and should she sing for herself or for the singers around her or for the sky above, or is there a difference.
and do i wear this cloth for you. and do i dare to turn my face from the mirror, and do i dare to sing alone, and do i dare to turn from the door, do i keep my recipies under my cape where only the sly dragonfly on wind may find it.
is the god in the garden built in the mind alone, or must when be the truth, this when that leaves, so one must move great stones, great heaps of dirt and grass, flowers blooming in designs to the will of the one, so that all may see. must one sing funny fork songs for the approving crowd in the kitchen, or is the beard too long.
in the anonymous man there is a myth of sadness that fills the chambers with rich mulberry wine. sometimes its the wood that cries out as it gets saturated with the notion of blind genius, and the creaks that fill auburn night have a glass chime within, solidifying in beams yet fragile to the touch as spun sugar.
or this man on the couch: bag filled with all the goods needed, and quiet when he should be but will fight for the cause as it emerges; and his eye shines just too metallic in his triumph. and when the sorcerer twists her ankle just off, when she missteps over the lines of dust and the quiet breeze of her error allows a fine filament to escape the sacred circle, then he catches it there too and in a voice just loud enough for the trees to hear he fixes the spell and sits down again silent yet content wiith his mastery.
should this knowledge be kept to the one, do i beleieve that the solitary soul is more than the illusion of the mind struggling against its own insignifigance, or do i see this private collection of electricity as the fundamental truth whose challenge fries doubt and unity like eggs on sidewalks, on dashboards, on marble counters near foam. these are the first questions; and yet is the second questions that plague me tonight, candle near plant leaf, ice cream over wine. the second questions, once the soul is distinguished and separated, the second quetsions of what to do now. and should she sing for herself or for the singers around her or for the sky above, or is there a difference.
and do i wear this cloth for you. and do i dare to turn my face from the mirror, and do i dare to sing alone, and do i dare to turn from the door, do i keep my recipies under my cape where only the sly dragonfly on wind may find it.
is the god in the garden built in the mind alone, or must when be the truth, this when that leaves, so one must move great stones, great heaps of dirt and grass, flowers blooming in designs to the will of the one, so that all may see. must one sing funny fork songs for the approving crowd in the kitchen, or is the beard too long.
28 October 2004
nothing is right these last few days. this is because of a low pressure system, which we have been sailing through for over a week now, almost constantly....a new bermuda to canada itenerary involves a lot more seadays than usual, and each day at sea has been worse than the last, the ship under constant attacks by 20 foot waves that spray the top decks relentlessly. sleep is impossible because the entire world is moving under you, which is not too bad, indeed has in the past been praised bei mir for its rocking lulling rockabye rock, but now in violent sporadic bursts there are bombings...a boomingcrash followed by ten seconds of back and forth aftershocking, so traumatic that the whack of wave wall sends cackling ghost images of sinking directly into my head, THWACK!! and the room itself creaking protest songs all night. drawers are left on the ground and oh my god it never stops. no one is happy, as the stumble about the mess tired and cranky and unstable, coffee spilling and christ when will it end looks of disbelief on all the young international faces. a short storm is fun...a week of this is madness inviting.
further frustrations abound in this wartorn enviornment...worst for me is sporadic computer functioning due to wild weather, and on top of this yahoo mails 48 hours+ of outtacommission...whether this is a yahoo thing or some strange low pressure bug that has infested the three working computers on the ship, i cannot say. (positively aching to send certain someones certain someloves, rest assured. also in need of timely email from me is my sister, who celebrates her birthday today, so let it be said here at least love and 35 kisses and soon to see and thank you for all.) but playing too is wildly stressful, as we are rocked nearly out of our chairs as the ship shakes and moans during a nightmare version of delilah, the stage filled with schizoid light rays and smoke machine excess as scotsman jack walker falls to the groud and i pound out fm9 triplets which the earth moving underneath conspires into gm9s against my will. i held the knife in my hand and she cried no more. last nights lunar eclipse glimpsed under black sheet of clouds, and when she did emerge the shaking boat frame caused the moon to appear to be hanging from a rubber band, bouncing playful throgh the sky. gorgeous. and shake shake whack again.
spent part of our last night in bermuda riding a shoppng cart through the abandoned streets of 5am hamilton. that was not right either, but at least that disreality had the wind in my hair in a continual flow, not these jerks and starts. how i long for a smooth ripple of time to pet my back, low to high all night long.
further frustrations abound in this wartorn enviornment...worst for me is sporadic computer functioning due to wild weather, and on top of this yahoo mails 48 hours+ of outtacommission...whether this is a yahoo thing or some strange low pressure bug that has infested the three working computers on the ship, i cannot say. (positively aching to send certain someones certain someloves, rest assured. also in need of timely email from me is my sister, who celebrates her birthday today, so let it be said here at least love and 35 kisses and soon to see and thank you for all.) but playing too is wildly stressful, as we are rocked nearly out of our chairs as the ship shakes and moans during a nightmare version of delilah, the stage filled with schizoid light rays and smoke machine excess as scotsman jack walker falls to the groud and i pound out fm9 triplets which the earth moving underneath conspires into gm9s against my will. i held the knife in my hand and she cried no more. last nights lunar eclipse glimpsed under black sheet of clouds, and when she did emerge the shaking boat frame caused the moon to appear to be hanging from a rubber band, bouncing playful throgh the sky. gorgeous. and shake shake whack again.
spent part of our last night in bermuda riding a shoppng cart through the abandoned streets of 5am hamilton. that was not right either, but at least that disreality had the wind in my hair in a continual flow, not these jerks and starts. how i long for a smooth ripple of time to pet my back, low to high all night long.
12 October 2004
the challenge of alec duffy
is a great one. he will force you to be yourself and to ignore the world around you. or, more accurately, to ignore your perception of how the world around you may be percieving you. you cannot count on him to behave...you may only count on him to trumpet loud loud to the genral public inside of bookstores, post offices, home depots, etc. you are to join in, and not blush, not shy away from how they make think of you.
i usually come with, so intoxicating is the feeling of the world being just for you. i draw a line when i feel he is actually infringing on the happiness of others, making them uncomfortable, etc. alec does not stop at this point, because he has learned that it is okay to be disliked. related is his flee from buddhism and embrace of anger at appropriate times. alec always tells me to do whatever i want to do.
alec recently made me stop in my tracks with one of his theories of theater.
i do not really want to post this guest article that i asked him to write.
Guest Article, by Alec Duffy
I sailed on and its purple the sea with Dave Malloy. We listened to
said Mario (or I did), because you have to on the 11th deck he's so
loud singing Simon and Garfunkel in mellifluous. Dave and I really
listened to the Philipino trio singing Elvis ballads so good in three
part harmony and soft guitar. what a soothe.
Dave took me for drinks and we met no-one. He wouldn't talk to the
other people on his ship, though they would reach out. Dave is
uncomfortable with the unweird. And so he brushes by them as they
call "Malloy!" So we had lots of room for cuddling in my stateroom
and ordering room service Black Forest Cake and coffee.
Dave revealed he was obsessive/compulsive by re-arranging and fixing
my whole Itunes library (over 17 GB of songs). Thank you, DAVE!
Dave and I drank Dark and Stormys of rum and ginger beer and then we
danced like they do in Brazil, that fighting dance. Caparinha, or
whatever it is. The others just looked on.
I sat and watched him play keyboard in the band, playing for Elliot
Finkel ("son of the small-screen legend Faivish Finkel"). They
played piano versions of Santana and Broadway songs.
We both got brazilian waxes in the salon. Dave footed the $80 bill.
Thank you, DAVE!
He showed me his hidden beach, yes he did. Not before ditching the
Danish drummer. We rolled around in the warm tide and tried to mount
a big rock.
What was my favorite part of the trip? His excitement/nervousness
about what the following week would hold. And how he talked physics.
And now I'm back on the shore. I went to Bermuda and I came back.
I'll never go again. But I sure did have a good time with Dave.
Glad we could share. We were both so longing. And it was sweet.
is a great one. he will force you to be yourself and to ignore the world around you. or, more accurately, to ignore your perception of how the world around you may be percieving you. you cannot count on him to behave...you may only count on him to trumpet loud loud to the genral public inside of bookstores, post offices, home depots, etc. you are to join in, and not blush, not shy away from how they make think of you.
i usually come with, so intoxicating is the feeling of the world being just for you. i draw a line when i feel he is actually infringing on the happiness of others, making them uncomfortable, etc. alec does not stop at this point, because he has learned that it is okay to be disliked. related is his flee from buddhism and embrace of anger at appropriate times. alec always tells me to do whatever i want to do.
alec recently made me stop in my tracks with one of his theories of theater.
i do not really want to post this guest article that i asked him to write.
Guest Article, by Alec Duffy
I sailed on and its purple the sea with Dave Malloy. We listened to
said Mario (or I did), because you have to on the 11th deck he's so
loud singing Simon and Garfunkel in mellifluous. Dave and I really
listened to the Philipino trio singing Elvis ballads so good in three
part harmony and soft guitar. what a soothe.
Dave took me for drinks and we met no-one. He wouldn't talk to the
other people on his ship, though they would reach out. Dave is
uncomfortable with the unweird. And so he brushes by them as they
call "Malloy!" So we had lots of room for cuddling in my stateroom
and ordering room service Black Forest Cake and coffee.
Dave revealed he was obsessive/compulsive by re-arranging and fixing
my whole Itunes library (over 17 GB of songs). Thank you, DAVE!
Dave and I drank Dark and Stormys of rum and ginger beer and then we
danced like they do in Brazil, that fighting dance. Caparinha, or
whatever it is. The others just looked on.
I sat and watched him play keyboard in the band, playing for Elliot
Finkel ("son of the small-screen legend Faivish Finkel"). They
played piano versions of Santana and Broadway songs.
We both got brazilian waxes in the salon. Dave footed the $80 bill.
Thank you, DAVE!
He showed me his hidden beach, yes he did. Not before ditching the
Danish drummer. We rolled around in the warm tide and tried to mount
a big rock.
What was my favorite part of the trip? His excitement/nervousness
about what the following week would hold. And how he talked physics.
And now I'm back on the shore. I went to Bermuda and I came back.
I'll never go again. But I sure did have a good time with Dave.
Glad we could share. We were both so longing. And it was sweet.
22 September 2004
my new roommate, mario the philipino (i asked him!) poolside sunset cocktail hour guitarist (he of lovely though oddly accented windswept versions of "across the universe" and "homeward bound"), just came home drunk, very very drunk (i am tip tip typing late night in me bunk). and he was apologizing...."sorry, david, sorry. i drunk. too much. never before this drunk (which, wow...the guys at least 40). sorry, sorry, david. oh i drunk." watching him take off his pants was just too much. but luckily for him, i had just been reading about the bacchanalian influence on plato, and i told him that drinking was divine, and that he had a right to see god. i also told him to drink some water.
last week was spent with beauticarammle. ______, which i could go on about for hours, but in the interest of decorum and masculine restraint (not to mention artistic maturity) i will not. i will say, though, that there is a girl who knows about god and alcohol. really, she was matching me drink for drink the entire cruise, and our san francisco wanderings with bottles in bags find her holding the drink more often than i (this evens things out because i consistently take bigger sips). always stretching for the stars she is....and while we were never really trashed (maybe once), there was a nice lubricated haze about the lights in the sky all week, they twinkled at us even when they werent there, and i know that this drink was a small part of that.
and i love this! i do. i love embracing it without the mock ironic shame, just drinking it. alcohol doesnt get its just holiness these days, owing to the overwhelming negations of fraternal vomit and styrofoam coffee cup meetings, bleeding steering wheels and failed marriages. but back in the day, when the magic of fermentation was discovered, it was known to be of the gods. bacchus and wild orgies of tearing flesh and divine ecstasy. and we can trace this into judeoschristianland, monks and mead, the four glasses of wine at pesach and purims edict to "drink until one cannot tell the difference between right and wrong" and of course the communion....this is holy liquid! and i feel like everyone, all these young hipsters getting trashed at night, know about this, but they dont talk about it, so knickknacky and hated is the plastic gleam of western religion. theyll go on and on about peyote and mushrooms, any drug that has some shamanic/eastern tone, but beer is of the west, of woman hating catholic church barbecues, and so the drink is not taken as seriously, at least on the surface.
but why every weekend, every magic saturday night, do these bottles of wine and gin call to our screaming souls!
i suppose a lot of this religious feeling has been overwhelmed be the far more potent and mind fucking capabilities of hallucinogenic etc., thus the religous ecstasy raves of the milennium and melting burning men in the desert. (though my mother used to proclaim that no drug gave a better high than alcohol. this may have been her own subconscious attempt to curb my drug use while maintaining her liberal credentials...other memories of her expounding on drugs contradict the previous assertion. but ill let that lie). old roommate eb once told me that she hated people who use spiritual reasons to justify drug use. "just party and say its for party and thats fine" she would say (supply your own south african accent).
im more in line with my mother than eb on these two really not at all related statements. because while lsd and ecstasy and all sure can show you a lot of weird fucking things, and encourage metaphysical wanderings of the most fruitful (and dangerous) kind, leave it to alcohol alone to get at your raw humanity, your pulsing emotion and fires raging under your skin. and its this kind of spirituality, the spirit made flesh, that seems to me ultimately most useful. one can trip for hours on the perfection of creation and the illusion of duality, but youve still got to love someone in the morning, got to talk to people, got to feel the hot sun on your forehead and decide what to do with your sweat as your lover walks beside you. ive just about had it with ascetism of any sort (and fuck spelling something im done with), so key is this body to expereince. why fight against half of your reality? why dualize mind and body at all i guess is the more edifying question. anyway, i love this body, this lust, this god of touches and tastes, and leave it to drink alone to bring the honest out, to say yes to a million specters of color and dissonance buzzing about in the sky. leave it to drink to help you find laughter in the night air...and then communicate it to your love in real ways unchecked, vulnerable, shaking and quaking. ecstasy.
now im going to relate all this to the beach boys' "pet sounds", which i just listened to seriously for the first time today. ive heard it in passing a lot, sure, but this time i snapped on the headphones and went all the way through, while riding the bus out to bermudas southern shore rocky beaches. and the music was great, wow, vocals, strings, fucking timpani!
but it was the lyrics that really took me aback. wilson is just so completely embracing all of the "worst" approaches to love...neediness, insecurity, pessimism, dependence. yet he is naked and unapologetic. he tried to change, to become selfreliant, but at the end said fuck it, "thats not me", and now he wants love, "god only knows" what hell do without it. this pervading desperation makes some of the sweeter love songs ("put your head on my shoulder", "wouldnt it be nice") almost creepy in my mind. only the beauty of the music itself makes you suspect that maybe hes right, maybe he does "have the answer" (god i love the line "what can you say that wont make them defensive". what indeed!). that maybe its okay to want love that badly.
cause hes so fucking honest and its so fucking beautiful! what a weird wonderful thing that beauty can make you reevaluate your philosophical views on things. my experiences with love a few years ago have left me very much anti-petsounds in terms of needing love (at least in theory)...and now here are these beautiful falsetto harmonies encouraging me that maybe its okay to want it so badly. and to taste again true romance...everything is up in the air again. where am i! how much may i feel! everything is true and beautiful...how to pick! oh future you tremble me!
when drunk, there is honesty flying through the air, crashing into itself with its multitude of contradiction, and beautiful love are all of its promises. drink you bring me every truth all at once, and i know it so well because i always laugh with you.
last week was spent with beauticarammle. ______, which i could go on about for hours, but in the interest of decorum and masculine restraint (not to mention artistic maturity) i will not. i will say, though, that there is a girl who knows about god and alcohol. really, she was matching me drink for drink the entire cruise, and our san francisco wanderings with bottles in bags find her holding the drink more often than i (this evens things out because i consistently take bigger sips). always stretching for the stars she is....and while we were never really trashed (maybe once), there was a nice lubricated haze about the lights in the sky all week, they twinkled at us even when they werent there, and i know that this drink was a small part of that.
and i love this! i do. i love embracing it without the mock ironic shame, just drinking it. alcohol doesnt get its just holiness these days, owing to the overwhelming negations of fraternal vomit and styrofoam coffee cup meetings, bleeding steering wheels and failed marriages. but back in the day, when the magic of fermentation was discovered, it was known to be of the gods. bacchus and wild orgies of tearing flesh and divine ecstasy. and we can trace this into judeoschristianland, monks and mead, the four glasses of wine at pesach and purims edict to "drink until one cannot tell the difference between right and wrong" and of course the communion....this is holy liquid! and i feel like everyone, all these young hipsters getting trashed at night, know about this, but they dont talk about it, so knickknacky and hated is the plastic gleam of western religion. theyll go on and on about peyote and mushrooms, any drug that has some shamanic/eastern tone, but beer is of the west, of woman hating catholic church barbecues, and so the drink is not taken as seriously, at least on the surface.
but why every weekend, every magic saturday night, do these bottles of wine and gin call to our screaming souls!
i suppose a lot of this religious feeling has been overwhelmed be the far more potent and mind fucking capabilities of hallucinogenic etc., thus the religous ecstasy raves of the milennium and melting burning men in the desert. (though my mother used to proclaim that no drug gave a better high than alcohol. this may have been her own subconscious attempt to curb my drug use while maintaining her liberal credentials...other memories of her expounding on drugs contradict the previous assertion. but ill let that lie). old roommate eb once told me that she hated people who use spiritual reasons to justify drug use. "just party and say its for party and thats fine" she would say (supply your own south african accent).
im more in line with my mother than eb on these two really not at all related statements. because while lsd and ecstasy and all sure can show you a lot of weird fucking things, and encourage metaphysical wanderings of the most fruitful (and dangerous) kind, leave it to alcohol alone to get at your raw humanity, your pulsing emotion and fires raging under your skin. and its this kind of spirituality, the spirit made flesh, that seems to me ultimately most useful. one can trip for hours on the perfection of creation and the illusion of duality, but youve still got to love someone in the morning, got to talk to people, got to feel the hot sun on your forehead and decide what to do with your sweat as your lover walks beside you. ive just about had it with ascetism of any sort (and fuck spelling something im done with), so key is this body to expereince. why fight against half of your reality? why dualize mind and body at all i guess is the more edifying question. anyway, i love this body, this lust, this god of touches and tastes, and leave it to drink alone to bring the honest out, to say yes to a million specters of color and dissonance buzzing about in the sky. leave it to drink to help you find laughter in the night air...and then communicate it to your love in real ways unchecked, vulnerable, shaking and quaking. ecstasy.
now im going to relate all this to the beach boys' "pet sounds", which i just listened to seriously for the first time today. ive heard it in passing a lot, sure, but this time i snapped on the headphones and went all the way through, while riding the bus out to bermudas southern shore rocky beaches. and the music was great, wow, vocals, strings, fucking timpani!
but it was the lyrics that really took me aback. wilson is just so completely embracing all of the "worst" approaches to love...neediness, insecurity, pessimism, dependence. yet he is naked and unapologetic. he tried to change, to become selfreliant, but at the end said fuck it, "thats not me", and now he wants love, "god only knows" what hell do without it. this pervading desperation makes some of the sweeter love songs ("put your head on my shoulder", "wouldnt it be nice") almost creepy in my mind. only the beauty of the music itself makes you suspect that maybe hes right, maybe he does "have the answer" (god i love the line "what can you say that wont make them defensive". what indeed!). that maybe its okay to want love that badly.
cause hes so fucking honest and its so fucking beautiful! what a weird wonderful thing that beauty can make you reevaluate your philosophical views on things. my experiences with love a few years ago have left me very much anti-petsounds in terms of needing love (at least in theory)...and now here are these beautiful falsetto harmonies encouraging me that maybe its okay to want it so badly. and to taste again true romance...everything is up in the air again. where am i! how much may i feel! everything is true and beautiful...how to pick! oh future you tremble me!
when drunk, there is honesty flying through the air, crashing into itself with its multitude of contradiction, and beautiful love are all of its promises. drink you bring me every truth all at once, and i know it so well because i always laugh with you.
30 August 2004
yesterday we passed the absolut ice ferris at sea. have you heard of this? fucking wild. its a giant boat, with a ferris wheel in the middle of it, round and round superquickly to the tune of bizarre trombone music, fast ride cymbals, walking basslines. its basically a huge pr thing for absolut vodka, so the place is swarming with girls in bikinis and guys with sloppy haircuts, snoop dogg, martha quinn. we set up a couple of slides and walkways between our boat and theirs, and i was off for the night, so i got to see the icing itself, a completely wild suicidal rite.
the ferris wheel is powered by solar dry ice compression; the exhaust is filtered off through a, you guessed it, vodka filter, off the starboard side, into a cordoned off section of the sea, about a half mile square. the cordons are tied to giant papermache icebergs, inhabited with audioanimatronic penguins, polar bears, etc. and of course, a triangle of subspeakers half in half out of the water, creating bulging eurotrance bassline ripples that involve the hips against their will.
so anyway, after a few hours of ferrising, the sectioned off water becomes a plate of frozen vodka and saltwater, and all the girls in their bikinis go running about, slipping on their bare feet, enjoying the wild contradcition of frozen ice and blazing sun, belly sliding with their mouths open to receive the salted vodka shavings, the men doing body shots, wool hats and melon halves used for impromptu booty curling, zamboni grinding, and the daring sticking their tongues to the teasingly placed metal poles scattered throughout.
its as the sun goes down that the weridness begins. the ferris wheel is shut down, and the delta t's of the chilling night air and the frozen sea begin to interact and lead towards the inevitable and incredible cracking of the ice. on deck, men in parkas sell you buckets of loose snow to mold into snowballs. but careful, careful...if you throw too hard, the legend goes, the ice will stay intact. you must pack the snowball loosely enough that the snow is still flowing through the air like confetti, held together by the lightest of promises. you can not hurt the ice; you can only fool it into hurting itself. throw the snowball just so, and the ice will begin to itch, and the ice will endanger itself by scratching, leading to the great splashing avalanches of vodka into the sea. cold air rushing towards you from all directions, and sounds like crystal bamboo. the dance party is still raging on the unfrozen ice, and men and women dare each other to stay on as long as they can, some making love on the melting ice as the world crashes about them. until the great spectacle of the final collapses, and the reckless slide into the sea, lost, lost. there are halflit searchlights and drunken rescue attempts, but mostly the passionate deaths are celebrated, even envied.
the ferris wheel is powered by solar dry ice compression; the exhaust is filtered off through a, you guessed it, vodka filter, off the starboard side, into a cordoned off section of the sea, about a half mile square. the cordons are tied to giant papermache icebergs, inhabited with audioanimatronic penguins, polar bears, etc. and of course, a triangle of subspeakers half in half out of the water, creating bulging eurotrance bassline ripples that involve the hips against their will.
so anyway, after a few hours of ferrising, the sectioned off water becomes a plate of frozen vodka and saltwater, and all the girls in their bikinis go running about, slipping on their bare feet, enjoying the wild contradcition of frozen ice and blazing sun, belly sliding with their mouths open to receive the salted vodka shavings, the men doing body shots, wool hats and melon halves used for impromptu booty curling, zamboni grinding, and the daring sticking their tongues to the teasingly placed metal poles scattered throughout.
its as the sun goes down that the weridness begins. the ferris wheel is shut down, and the delta t's of the chilling night air and the frozen sea begin to interact and lead towards the inevitable and incredible cracking of the ice. on deck, men in parkas sell you buckets of loose snow to mold into snowballs. but careful, careful...if you throw too hard, the legend goes, the ice will stay intact. you must pack the snowball loosely enough that the snow is still flowing through the air like confetti, held together by the lightest of promises. you can not hurt the ice; you can only fool it into hurting itself. throw the snowball just so, and the ice will begin to itch, and the ice will endanger itself by scratching, leading to the great splashing avalanches of vodka into the sea. cold air rushing towards you from all directions, and sounds like crystal bamboo. the dance party is still raging on the unfrozen ice, and men and women dare each other to stay on as long as they can, some making love on the melting ice as the world crashes about them. until the great spectacle of the final collapses, and the reckless slide into the sea, lost, lost. there are halflit searchlights and drunken rescue attempts, but mostly the passionate deaths are celebrated, even envied.
06 August 2004
we are sailing through a hurricane.
storms on giant ships are just about the best thing this life (this cruise ship life, that is) has to offer. everything gets so fucked up. at night i went to sleep to a nice soporific rocking (ps in morning remembered six dreams), but was awakened in the night by crashes: first things in the bathroom, then a bottled water rolling off of my bed. and then, more ominous, the loud metallic far off crashes of more substantial things on the ship tilting. trash cans, chairs, guitar stands. there are so many angles at which the boat may tilt, that the crashes come throughout the night, each precarious potential waiting for its exact wave parameter to actualize its china shop disaster.
walking around is even better. relativity in action: from my inertial frame, the ship moves around me, this leg heavy, this one light. there are long hallways that run almost the entire length of the ship...the best of these on deck 2, crew cabins, tiled floor and harsh flourescent lights and water tight door lips that are drunkenly tripped over often. walking down these halls, you are treated to the oddest visual sight: people walking towards you at an angle, there feet as close to the right wall as possible, and then there bodies obscenely angled to towards the left. it looks positively supernatural. everyone laughs and smiles during storms, at their own idiot balance, and the seasick are urged to eat green apples, for the pectin.
but up top is where its going down, fucking wind spray wave sky ocean killer god power. theres a sun way off in the distance, backlighting these grey death clouds and streaks of wind, one burst of wind creating the waves, another gust ice shaving the spray off of the crest of each wave- sheeeeeeeeex//
and the officers are going nuts, theyre really tense. a group of three security officers up on top deck are wildly flinging tables and chairs into a barracade, yellow caution tape, worried looks to the sky.
theres a lot of this going on: ~~~~~~~
storms on giant ships are just about the best thing this life (this cruise ship life, that is) has to offer. everything gets so fucked up. at night i went to sleep to a nice soporific rocking (ps in morning remembered six dreams), but was awakened in the night by crashes: first things in the bathroom, then a bottled water rolling off of my bed. and then, more ominous, the loud metallic far off crashes of more substantial things on the ship tilting. trash cans, chairs, guitar stands. there are so many angles at which the boat may tilt, that the crashes come throughout the night, each precarious potential waiting for its exact wave parameter to actualize its china shop disaster.
walking around is even better. relativity in action: from my inertial frame, the ship moves around me, this leg heavy, this one light. there are long hallways that run almost the entire length of the ship...the best of these on deck 2, crew cabins, tiled floor and harsh flourescent lights and water tight door lips that are drunkenly tripped over often. walking down these halls, you are treated to the oddest visual sight: people walking towards you at an angle, there feet as close to the right wall as possible, and then there bodies obscenely angled to towards the left. it looks positively supernatural. everyone laughs and smiles during storms, at their own idiot balance, and the seasick are urged to eat green apples, for the pectin.
but up top is where its going down, fucking wind spray wave sky ocean killer god power. theres a sun way off in the distance, backlighting these grey death clouds and streaks of wind, one burst of wind creating the waves, another gust ice shaving the spray off of the crest of each wave- sheeeeeeeeex//
and the officers are going nuts, theyre really tense. a group of three security officers up on top deck are wildly flinging tables and chairs into a barracade, yellow caution tape, worried looks to the sky.
theres a lot of this going on: ~~~~~~~
jan says that the other night i was screaming in my sleep. "like animal...animal. waahahah!" he falsettosaid. the dreams that i remember of the night seem fairly innocuous...a bowling match, photographs of small children playing in sinks, a jumprope-style-reversable tuxedo shirt of light blue tree bark. but i also remember a state of half sleep, in which a dream, still flowing, was being observed by my conscious eye for dream journal inclusion. and in the midst of this mental recording, i questioned myself: if i was semiconcious at the moment, did this really count as dreaming?
could this moment of blur have caused my screams? it seems doubtful, but one thing certain is that my recording of my dreams is affecting the dreaming itself. for one thing, a consistent geography is coming to light. a steep forest hill, a vortex of wind and surf, a physics laboratory on a dark cliff, a vast mall, a store for blue dresses and old record players. a labyrinthine house of strangers and drywall, a purple ballroom ship, a german train, a school with hidden closets and bizarre security designs. the characters too have a consistent personality from night to night, both the predictable cast of family, friends and lovers, and more bizarre, the phantoms that i create out of thin night with rich complexity. in the bowling dream of two nights ago, i had to ask a fair hippie sitting on the floor behind me to move over so i would not backhand him with the ball (the pins, giant red dice, were set up five across in a wicked split at the front of the lane). his blond curl shine smiled at me and revealed puzzlement at my activity and sadness at his exclusion, mystification and irritation, but then an internal shift, and finally a compassionate decision and a smile and a scoot scoot scoot so i could execute my spare. this insignificant moment detailed and full of contradiction and humanity.
the evening following the screaming, i was daydreaming on stage and missed the entrance to scotsman jack walkers blitzkreig of miss saigons "why god why". which was really a damn shame, because the beginning is just bass and piano, a really pretty and mysterious rocking Bo to Am thing over an F pedal. (i frantically sandwiched the first three notes into a sickening mockery of a triplet starting somewhere in the middle of the second beat. but by bar 2 i was on the scene). where was i? i dont really remember, because i was trying to remember more details of the previous nights dreams; but the exact nature of the reminiscive investigation was as lost to me as the elusive dream details themselves. a moment of remembering, unremembered. daydreaming of dreaming, recalling the past and forgetting the present, asleep in wakefulness. and a memory and a dream are in the end the same. why god why, he asks, why did god send me this beautiful vietnamese girl on my last night, why now this love, why?
a memory and a dream, the same. both stories in my experience, in my library of thought, that shape my present actions, reasonings and raptures. are these dreams then real? once they are etched into memory, what difference in contribution to my vastness do they have from waking experience? the cause, the intention behind the experiences themsleves is different, clearly, in that i am actually creating the dreams in a more complete way then i create my living experience. but after, when only the memory remains? and why god why am i creating these particular things? does my secret heart know what memories it hungers for, what will keep my velvet belly shining and full?
and then. the next morning, this morning, and the dreams are lost. i am robbed. i have a pretty good method for recalling dreams: since i almost always dream of people i know, i just go through a mental rolodex of everyone ive ever known, starting with the big guns, then aimlessly floating through different phases of my life, recalling faces and names and scents and songs, until a tickle of recall is awake. but this morning, nothing, nothing. my head a closet heap: i still had why god why running through my head (oh but fuck its a good song!), and i was thick with the jack daniels i had shared with the trombone player daniel the night before. (this trombone player, alcoholic, is a sad story that is slowly breaking my heart, by the way, and i dont know what to do). my head was crowded, gas station bright.
so heres what i did: i cleared my mind. ha!
i tried to do this by focusing on the breath, but im honestly just not a very good meditator, and this did not work, still mocking circles of invasive thoughts chased me. instead i focused on a single image. ah, a blackbird. i painted her loving on mind screen, facing left, still, zoomed in on her twitching head, deep eye, caressed her slightly, and then still. stopped the endless modifications that my mind insisted on for thoughts survival. still, still, breath and then spaced out.
images began to float in on the peripherals. i was hoping these images would be of my lost dreams, but they were not. they were new images, unpredictable and vibrant. a red and green tiger, an animated postal golf cart, a tall glass of passion punch. if i looked to one of these imgaes, the bird and her steel grey background would tear, vertical diagonal swatches of her realitys fabric exactosliced away by my inattention. in refocus, the new images to drift past half seen. and thus i allowed myself to only discern partial impressions of these images that were being created completely by my mind.
to only know some of what i thought.
now, was this dreaming?
and why god why, are you giving me this beautiful vietnamese girl on my last night, why this love now love? do you know what my velvet belly hungers for?
*********
in the morning, i stopped at the mess before going to the beach (oh yes, im in bermuda). i had missed breakfast, but was hoping to find a croissant or yogurt in one of the forbidden stainless steel cupboards of the pantry.
and what do think i found? belly growling, and there, on the counter, under a silver lid, a plate of untouched, still warm, eggs benedict.
why god why?//this velvet hunger//benedictus deo//
could this moment of blur have caused my screams? it seems doubtful, but one thing certain is that my recording of my dreams is affecting the dreaming itself. for one thing, a consistent geography is coming to light. a steep forest hill, a vortex of wind and surf, a physics laboratory on a dark cliff, a vast mall, a store for blue dresses and old record players. a labyrinthine house of strangers and drywall, a purple ballroom ship, a german train, a school with hidden closets and bizarre security designs. the characters too have a consistent personality from night to night, both the predictable cast of family, friends and lovers, and more bizarre, the phantoms that i create out of thin night with rich complexity. in the bowling dream of two nights ago, i had to ask a fair hippie sitting on the floor behind me to move over so i would not backhand him with the ball (the pins, giant red dice, were set up five across in a wicked split at the front of the lane). his blond curl shine smiled at me and revealed puzzlement at my activity and sadness at his exclusion, mystification and irritation, but then an internal shift, and finally a compassionate decision and a smile and a scoot scoot scoot so i could execute my spare. this insignificant moment detailed and full of contradiction and humanity.
the evening following the screaming, i was daydreaming on stage and missed the entrance to scotsman jack walkers blitzkreig of miss saigons "why god why". which was really a damn shame, because the beginning is just bass and piano, a really pretty and mysterious rocking Bo to Am thing over an F pedal. (i frantically sandwiched the first three notes into a sickening mockery of a triplet starting somewhere in the middle of the second beat. but by bar 2 i was on the scene). where was i? i dont really remember, because i was trying to remember more details of the previous nights dreams; but the exact nature of the reminiscive investigation was as lost to me as the elusive dream details themselves. a moment of remembering, unremembered. daydreaming of dreaming, recalling the past and forgetting the present, asleep in wakefulness. and a memory and a dream are in the end the same. why god why, he asks, why did god send me this beautiful vietnamese girl on my last night, why now this love, why?
a memory and a dream, the same. both stories in my experience, in my library of thought, that shape my present actions, reasonings and raptures. are these dreams then real? once they are etched into memory, what difference in contribution to my vastness do they have from waking experience? the cause, the intention behind the experiences themsleves is different, clearly, in that i am actually creating the dreams in a more complete way then i create my living experience. but after, when only the memory remains? and why god why am i creating these particular things? does my secret heart know what memories it hungers for, what will keep my velvet belly shining and full?
and then. the next morning, this morning, and the dreams are lost. i am robbed. i have a pretty good method for recalling dreams: since i almost always dream of people i know, i just go through a mental rolodex of everyone ive ever known, starting with the big guns, then aimlessly floating through different phases of my life, recalling faces and names and scents and songs, until a tickle of recall is awake. but this morning, nothing, nothing. my head a closet heap: i still had why god why running through my head (oh but fuck its a good song!), and i was thick with the jack daniels i had shared with the trombone player daniel the night before. (this trombone player, alcoholic, is a sad story that is slowly breaking my heart, by the way, and i dont know what to do). my head was crowded, gas station bright.
so heres what i did: i cleared my mind. ha!
i tried to do this by focusing on the breath, but im honestly just not a very good meditator, and this did not work, still mocking circles of invasive thoughts chased me. instead i focused on a single image. ah, a blackbird. i painted her loving on mind screen, facing left, still, zoomed in on her twitching head, deep eye, caressed her slightly, and then still. stopped the endless modifications that my mind insisted on for thoughts survival. still, still, breath and then spaced out.
images began to float in on the peripherals. i was hoping these images would be of my lost dreams, but they were not. they were new images, unpredictable and vibrant. a red and green tiger, an animated postal golf cart, a tall glass of passion punch. if i looked to one of these imgaes, the bird and her steel grey background would tear, vertical diagonal swatches of her realitys fabric exactosliced away by my inattention. in refocus, the new images to drift past half seen. and thus i allowed myself to only discern partial impressions of these images that were being created completely by my mind.
to only know some of what i thought.
now, was this dreaming?
and why god why, are you giving me this beautiful vietnamese girl on my last night, why this love now love? do you know what my velvet belly hungers for?
*********
in the morning, i stopped at the mess before going to the beach (oh yes, im in bermuda). i had missed breakfast, but was hoping to find a croissant or yogurt in one of the forbidden stainless steel cupboards of the pantry.
and what do think i found? belly growling, and there, on the counter, under a silver lid, a plate of untouched, still warm, eggs benedict.
why god why?//this velvet hunger//benedictus deo//
02 August 2004
finally started that dream journal. four nights running strong. right upon waking, work it all out, get it down. the reason behind this, is, i feel like i have another life, a really rich and amazing life, that is all but lost to me in my waking state. i would like to be whole, and really know whats going on with me. how pretty can i think?
heres a good one form last week, predreamjournal era, so i can comfortably put it down here without fear of repetitous creativity:
worked out reversed time.
its always bothered me, that to make something happeneing backwards comprehensible, little parts of it have to presented forwards; that is, if you tell a story in reverse order, all the little scenes still run forward. if you write a sentence backward, all the individual words still read forward; and even if the words are spelled backwards, well still the letters are forward. and if you mirror image the letters, well then the whole thing is just incomprehensible unless you read it backwards, and thus forwards.
but ho ho, figured it out! i was in the ballroom of my dream cruise ship, which is much vaster and more purple then the real ship. i had giant geometric canvases and banners streaming about the place, almost ready for the big show, giant rectangles of orange and brown arranged in a challenge. the presidents were coming- reagen, clinton and kerry.
i had two hologram projectors on opposite sides of the room. the projection was a scene involving the three presidents, and some others in tuxedos, in rainwater trenchcoats. and streetlights, and a train. a noir chess dance. and heres the trick: the second projector was projecting a time/space mirror image of the first; so two scenes were playing out on the stage. but my moving the projectors just subtlely so, the images came closer, and when the two images were placed exactly on top of each other, the holographic bodies became these wild blurs of human essence. by overlapping the two timelines, past to future and future to past, the resonance created a timeless scene of noncausation and real truth, which we all watched over bloody marys. extra celery.
see?
heres a good one form last week, predreamjournal era, so i can comfortably put it down here without fear of repetitous creativity:
worked out reversed time.
its always bothered me, that to make something happeneing backwards comprehensible, little parts of it have to presented forwards; that is, if you tell a story in reverse order, all the little scenes still run forward. if you write a sentence backward, all the individual words still read forward; and even if the words are spelled backwards, well still the letters are forward. and if you mirror image the letters, well then the whole thing is just incomprehensible unless you read it backwards, and thus forwards.
but ho ho, figured it out! i was in the ballroom of my dream cruise ship, which is much vaster and more purple then the real ship. i had giant geometric canvases and banners streaming about the place, almost ready for the big show, giant rectangles of orange and brown arranged in a challenge. the presidents were coming- reagen, clinton and kerry.
i had two hologram projectors on opposite sides of the room. the projection was a scene involving the three presidents, and some others in tuxedos, in rainwater trenchcoats. and streetlights, and a train. a noir chess dance. and heres the trick: the second projector was projecting a time/space mirror image of the first; so two scenes were playing out on the stage. but my moving the projectors just subtlely so, the images came closer, and when the two images were placed exactly on top of each other, the holographic bodies became these wild blurs of human essence. by overlapping the two timelines, past to future and future to past, the resonance created a timeless scene of noncausation and real truth, which we all watched over bloody marys. extra celery.
see?
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