so many
things
almost
never
happen
and
so many
things
are just
shy
of impossible
so numerous
are these
things,
in fact,
that they
can be
relied
upon
to happen
every
day.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
The Church of 4 Dollys
Here we are, again, at sanity's last stand. Onion rings served fresh all night. Geronimo is here, and the 4 Dollys and that lady we busted out of house arrest in Burma.
Ours is the church for when no time is left
We are The Church of the 4 Dollys. Dolly of the melted clocks and the cloned sheep Dolly. Dolly the Lama, Dolly singer of the legendary breasts.
The fire eyed lady from Burma sleeps only out under the stars
Whenever we lose one Dolly, another Dolly takes over. Never are we bereft. We are gathered here to teach the sheep to sing in preparation for when the busty blonde must don the yellow hat and lead Tibet.
To the world we say: do not be afraid we love you we will make time
(Madrid, 02/24/09)
Ours is the church for when no time is left
We are The Church of the 4 Dollys. Dolly of the melted clocks and the cloned sheep Dolly. Dolly the Lama, Dolly singer of the legendary breasts.
The fire eyed lady from Burma sleeps only out under the stars
Whenever we lose one Dolly, another Dolly takes over. Never are we bereft. We are gathered here to teach the sheep to sing in preparation for when the busty blonde must don the yellow hat and lead Tibet.
To the world we say: do not be afraid we love you we will make time
(Madrid, 02/24/09)
Percy, 39
I’m drinking gay coffee at Downtown when the woman at the next table announces that Percy died this morning.
She expects the waiter to be upset, but he doesn’t know who she is talking about. “But he was here all the time!”
Percy was a fashion designer, well on his way to being famous. He was only 39. He’d been found in his bathtub that afternoon. He slipped and hit his head and that was it.
The waiter, instead of being upset, tells the story of another man he knew who died in his bathtub. And he was only 32!
The waiter says that he is lucky, because he is poor and only has a shower. He says, “It’s always those big bathtubs where you have space to die.”
(Amsterdam, 10/09)
She expects the waiter to be upset, but he doesn’t know who she is talking about. “But he was here all the time!”
Percy was a fashion designer, well on his way to being famous. He was only 39. He’d been found in his bathtub that afternoon. He slipped and hit his head and that was it.
The waiter, instead of being upset, tells the story of another man he knew who died in his bathtub. And he was only 32!
The waiter says that he is lucky, because he is poor and only has a shower. He says, “It’s always those big bathtubs where you have space to die.”
(Amsterdam, 10/09)
Monday, February 23, 2009
Size
Often it happens I am the wrong size. Walking down a picturesque bricked alley, I discover myself to be Godzilla with luggage. Except, unlike Godzilla, I am entirely ineffectual: just a big lizard in traffic.
Or I’m talking with someone, offering a little something about myself, and I think, “Wait. Did I just refer to myself as the Shah?”
More often I am trying to do something simple and important, such as buy a bus ticket, but when the man (impatient, bored) turns to me, I find myself unable to make a sound. At this crucial juncture I have transformed into an aphid. An above-average aphid--but still.
My job is to diagram the sentence but I am flimsy as a cumulonimbus, floating somewhere in the distance. How does a mustard seed get the attention of the waitress?
It gets so I am nostalgic for human male average. Five foot nine. Nostalgic for when I thought that it would be enough to be in the right place, and at the right time.
(Amsterdam, 10/08)
Or I’m talking with someone, offering a little something about myself, and I think, “Wait. Did I just refer to myself as the Shah?”
More often I am trying to do something simple and important, such as buy a bus ticket, but when the man (impatient, bored) turns to me, I find myself unable to make a sound. At this crucial juncture I have transformed into an aphid. An above-average aphid--but still.
My job is to diagram the sentence but I am flimsy as a cumulonimbus, floating somewhere in the distance. How does a mustard seed get the attention of the waitress?
It gets so I am nostalgic for human male average. Five foot nine. Nostalgic for when I thought that it would be enough to be in the right place, and at the right time.
(Amsterdam, 10/08)
Talk
My problem is I’m unable to talk like a regular human being. Every sentence sounds like something I memorized the night before.
“Excuse me.” I said. “Could I please have a big cup of coffee?” Which seemed to me a natural and straight-forward sentence. I’d practiced it several times, waiting for the waiter. He has cheeks like a slapped baby’s ass and hair that looks warm and soft.
Because I have been a teacher, I also acted the sentence out, mimed holding a big cup of coffee.
Isn’t it considered polite to speak somewhat slower when speaking English in a foreign country?
Is it possible that I sometimes try too hard?
He paused and then he smiled at me, as if to say, “And here we have another one.”
This happens to me every time I open my mouth.
(Amsterdam, 10/08)
“Excuse me.” I said. “Could I please have a big cup of coffee?” Which seemed to me a natural and straight-forward sentence. I’d practiced it several times, waiting for the waiter. He has cheeks like a slapped baby’s ass and hair that looks warm and soft.
Because I have been a teacher, I also acted the sentence out, mimed holding a big cup of coffee.
Isn’t it considered polite to speak somewhat slower when speaking English in a foreign country?
Is it possible that I sometimes try too hard?
He paused and then he smiled at me, as if to say, “And here we have another one.”
This happens to me every time I open my mouth.
(Amsterdam, 10/08)
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Fresh.
I shower in the morning but never feel entirely clean until night makes the city new and the British boys have had a few beers and the whores are gearing up, tapping at the glass, and laughing at us already. Terrible fried chicken is deliciously available for another seven hours! Not so bad I'm not, not overall, considering the miles. Crazy, not in a bad way, shifting my cock to the left, and staring without apology. I don't have to spend my whole life crawling on my belly! A big man with stubble's gonna lean across the bar and kiss me. He's gonna put his big pink tongue in my mouth, for starters.
(Amsterdam 10/08)
(Amsterdam 10/08)
Saturday, February 14, 2009
"Everyone has his sharp-toothed sleep-destroying devil inside him, and this is neither good nor bad, but is life . . . This devil is the material (and basically what wonderful material) that you have been endowed with and with which you are supposed to make something."
-- Franz Kafka
(Note: Kafka wrote this in a letter to a very young woman he'd met at the sanitorium. He might not have been so upbeat in his own diary.)
-- Franz Kafka
(Note: Kafka wrote this in a letter to a very young woman he'd met at the sanitorium. He might not have been so upbeat in his own diary.)
Guttersnipe Bookshelf: The Spell of the Sensuous
David Abram
The Spell of the Sensuous
Vintage, 1997
Here's an extraordinary book about how we stopped perceiving the world as sacred and came to feel cut off. A daring leaping mix of ecology, linguistics, indigenous traditions and philosophy. It is also is a book that is remarkably different from chapter to chapter.
The first chapter, about Abram's experiences as a sleight-of-hand magician in Nepal and Indonesia, is lyrical and gorgeous. I admit that I also caught myself thinking, "Dude! I want some of what you are smoking!"
I thought chapter two might advocate wearing amethyst pendants. Not remotely. The next two chapters -- on philosophy and linguistics -- require black coffee and a clear-headed morning. It is exhilarating to watch someone think this way -- like watching a daredevil making leaps over cars -- except the leaps he is making are not sport but the leaps we need to survive on the planet.
Abram investigates the present, the past, the future, and where each can be found in the landscape. He even goes so far as to offer, on page 202, a meditation on how to dissolve time. (Of course I annotated my copy; you never know when you're going to need just this sort of thing.) The last section is about writing, how the Hebrews left out the sacred vowels but the Greeks left us marooned in the abstract. (My crude summary does violence to the text. It is exhilarating to read.)
Then comes the coda and, a few pages before the end, Abram says, basically, "This might be true and it might not and what is true anyway? Truth is what heals the planet and falsehood is what harms it." Part of me agreed and part of me felt like, well, the victim of a sleight-of-hand magician. I want my truths to be, well, true and not just gorgeous. The whole section made me uneasy.
I do not mean to condemn the book. Not at all. I have told everyone I know to read it -- because I want people discuss it with! Abram gave me raptures, lectures, arguments and questions. A beautiful book, well worth wrestling with and re-visiting.
The Spell of the Sensuous
Vintage, 1997
Here's an extraordinary book about how we stopped perceiving the world as sacred and came to feel cut off. A daring leaping mix of ecology, linguistics, indigenous traditions and philosophy. It is also is a book that is remarkably different from chapter to chapter.
The first chapter, about Abram's experiences as a sleight-of-hand magician in Nepal and Indonesia, is lyrical and gorgeous. I admit that I also caught myself thinking, "Dude! I want some of what you are smoking!"
I thought chapter two might advocate wearing amethyst pendants. Not remotely. The next two chapters -- on philosophy and linguistics -- require black coffee and a clear-headed morning. It is exhilarating to watch someone think this way -- like watching a daredevil making leaps over cars -- except the leaps he is making are not sport but the leaps we need to survive on the planet.
Abram investigates the present, the past, the future, and where each can be found in the landscape. He even goes so far as to offer, on page 202, a meditation on how to dissolve time. (Of course I annotated my copy; you never know when you're going to need just this sort of thing.) The last section is about writing, how the Hebrews left out the sacred vowels but the Greeks left us marooned in the abstract. (My crude summary does violence to the text. It is exhilarating to read.)
Then comes the coda and, a few pages before the end, Abram says, basically, "This might be true and it might not and what is true anyway? Truth is what heals the planet and falsehood is what harms it." Part of me agreed and part of me felt like, well, the victim of a sleight-of-hand magician. I want my truths to be, well, true and not just gorgeous. The whole section made me uneasy.
I do not mean to condemn the book. Not at all. I have told everyone I know to read it -- because I want people discuss it with! Abram gave me raptures, lectures, arguments and questions. A beautiful book, well worth wrestling with and re-visiting.
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