| The June Gemini |
[Mar. 14th, 2008|01:38 pm] |
"...then I shuddered as I remembered that, according to a tradition well known in Germany, every man has a double and that when he sees him, death is near" -- Gerard de Nerval, Aurelia
I went to bed early, after reading most of this short dialogue of disintegration, and an image came to me, of the Gemini twins, joined at the hips, and the horror they must experience, being constantly confronted with their double ... I feel like my life, for the last couple of years, has been like this, coding death in my shadow ...
After Nerval remembers a man who had been released from jail the night he'd been imprisoned for insane behavior, under his own name: "...But who exactly was this spirit who was myself and yet outside myself? Was he the double of legend or the mystical brother whom the Orientals call ferouer? Had I not been struck by the tale of the knight who had spent an entire night in a forest battling an unknown adversary who was none other than himself?"
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"the seventh of the many philosophical systems of India recorded by Paul Dressen denies that the self can be an immediate object of knowledge, because if our soul were knowable, a second soul would be required to know the first" ... "Schopenhauer rediscovers this idea around 1843. 'The knower himself,' he repeats, 'cannot be known precisely as such, otherwise he would be the known of another knower'" -- J.L. Borges, Time and J.W. Dunne'
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"I caress the white bears without reaching you" -- Andre Breton, Mad Love |
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| Cold Harbor |
[Jan. 18th, 2008|08:55 pm] |
The Night They Tore It - because I tried to post it another alcohol-sensitive night not so long ago and the tag didn't work. The only thing that will actually produce/ bring me to choking tears is the thought of things like, well, the civil war, and, "The Night They Tore Old Dixie Down" ... the approach to Richmond, the worst of which took place in my backyard, ( I'll spare you the appenadages -- Battle of Cold Harbor/ Bloody Run Creek ) netting 3,500-7,000 deaths in about twenty minutes, which, of course, is more than U.S. casualties in the entire Gulf War ...
Which brings me to thoughts of growing up in Mechanicsville, VA, which I am brought back to on reactionary drunk trips, thinking how the the smell and tang of the soil was taken up by , specificially, Jason Mraz to enormous fame, ( if that's what you want to call "the sound of the soil", or "enormous fame" ) just I tell you without acid that the boy is notorious for investing a voice that he hidn't then, and a lot of people would rather he not now ...
Which brings us to Lee Davis High, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) strangevisitor... which, after this Morrissey interview, though not the High of English hooliganism which he describes ( and, yeah, I've seen on my travels ); we did get botched for a fairly genuine "race riot" when I was in 10th grade; most of the rest was pretty demure, remember a friend saying, "look how older women in this town dress", which you'll see in this video, and though I say I knew 'em hot and young when I came through, I love this one for her immediacy, and excitability ...
Back, oh oh, that works: 11:11: incorrigibile. Put down I'm not there, I'm Only Bleeding, Ma, and let me get on with "this".
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& for my boss at Kim's, Mr. Lennon's is beautiful ( I'm jerking off now ) but I thought I had it well there ( Sandston, VA, what is it-"re-immigrant" "recalcitrant" brothers )-- sorry nothing from my mobile nights, mo.mo. |
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| Whoa Whoa (It Was) Placebo |
[Jan. 8th, 2008|06:58 pm] |
Whoa-Oh, Placebo
No more pins in your eye-eyes!
Whoa, Oh, Placebo
No more tears in your eyes |
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| Christmas In Pynchon |
[Dec. 26th, 2007|04:29 pm] |
"Christmas bugs. They were deep in the straw of the manger of Bethlehem, they stumbled, climbed, fell glistening red among a golden lattice of straw that must have seemed to extend miles upward and downward - an edible tenement-world, now and then gnarled through to disrupt some mysterious sheaf of vectors that would send neighbor bugs tumbling ass-over-antennae down past you as you held on with all legs in the constant tremble of golden stalks" ... "The crying of the infant reached you, perhaps, as bursts of energy from the invisible distance, nearly unsensed, often ignored. Your savior, you see ..." -- Gravity's Rainbow
( & tdaschel, give me your advice on that one again: the signif. of the colors... so far, 'mauve' ). |
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| Miracle On 42nd St. |
[Dec. 4th, 2007|04:38 pm] |
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An incident which renews my faith in the innate goodness of mankind: I step into the peep show at the corner of 42nd and 8th Ave, and lay out the wad of ones I have in my pocket on the ledge of the cash acceptor. I feed the machine a bill, and, before that bill's time runs out, I hit paydirt. Jump started by the rapid victory, I pull up my pants, and jolt out of the booth, down the mirror-lined hallway, looking approvingly at my pale face, and step out onto the busy street again. I walk down 42nd st., through Times Square, and am strolling through Bryant Park, about to head into the Research Library, when I realize that I left the wad of ones on the cash acceptor at the peep show. At first I think that I won't bother going back, as the cum-mopper must have gotten to it, already, or the next occupant of the stall. Tehn I decide that, well, it's only two avenues away, I might as well go back. I walk quickly through the bitingly cold wind, back past the Madame Tussaud's wax statues, the movie theaters, into the 'show, where I see the mopper at work, sweeping out a stall. "Did you find any money in that stall?" pointing to the open one, near where I thought I had been. "I haven't found any money today," he says, as if offended, already. "Come on, man, I had a stack of ones on the grille, there." "I tell you, I haven't found any money today!" The accent places him as an African. I look at the numbered covers of porn videos on the wall outside the booths, and find the pair of Asian breasts that corresponded to my stall. "No, it was that one", I said, and, just as he was telling me I'd have to wait till it's present occupant was finished, the door to the stall swung open, and a young black man, with wide, and deep reservoirs under his eyes, smiled, and thrust the ( I later found out ) untouched pile of ones at me. "That is an honest man!" I said, "THAT IS AN HONEST MAN!" ( "and so am I," proudly emphasized the African ). |
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| Control |
[Nov. 29th, 2007|02:13 pm] |
Saw the Ian Curtis biopic last night, and could tell by the first minute of the movie that I'd be disappointed -- misled by a glowing Voice review ... the actor playing Ian being a bit too pretty and childish ( even as a teenager : can you really imagine Ian Curtis donning Ziggy Stardust makeup and furs? I always imagined him as conservative in that sense ) for the awkward-looking, serious-sounding Mr. Curtis. This was especially clear when the first song chimed in, and the actor lip-synched to them. The audio held the movie I wanted to see -- it's amazing that someone who died at 23 could sing with such sober authority, with his brand of intensity, which seemed so mannered. I thought he was at least a few years older than that when he died. His story has been considered for film for a long time, it's disappointing that the photographer who put this out as his directorial debut was the one to do it. It wasn't bad, and Samantha Morton was great as his estranged wife, I had just for something more substantive. The scenes of the band in bars, or backstage suggest an aloof and silly, definately naive band ( and they may have been, being as young as I guess they were ). I'd like to know if the interview conducted by Curtis' soon-to-be mistress was an actual transcription - if it was, then maybe it's director got it right. I remember meeting a young actor in Washington Square Park, in that period after I'd chosen to abandon college, who said that he was being considered to play the lead in a film about Ian's life, and he, at least, seemed abstract and psychologically gaunt enough to approximate a better Curtis. I remember thinking that the guy who played the lead in Children of Men would be great also, but that would be misplacing his age by, like, fifteen years! The best line of the movie, delivered by the band's manager, after Ian has a seizure onstage, comes as he's comforting him backstage: "it could be worse, you could be the lead singer of the Fall". As it is, it's got to be a daunting task, trying to reimagine someone who had such purity of vision ...
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Was looking, earlier in the week, at a tribute page to Peter Laughner, who died at the age of 24, due to alcoholism. How you'd have to drink to kick the bucket from saucing, at that age, astounds me, though our next-door neighbor in the neighborhood my brothers live in in Richmond, which I spent my first years in, managed to do it faster ... That Pere Ubu, and the Dead Boys came from the same initial band is hard to imagine, but I guess that in the smaller metropolises people and energies are forced closer together ... I know one of the 'Boys got it, also, I think it was Stiv Bators ( 'Ain't It Fun /When you know that you're gonna die young' ) |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 28th, 2007|10:30 am] |
Quote from touchyou, after seeing an "Amazing tree" on the street: "I was fixated on it and started to cry. You cannot judge a person crying on the sidewalk, you really can't".
I identify completely: I've spent months feeling like I was on the edge of tears. I'd say I developed this condition a few months into my year's homelessness in Maine, or a little over two years ago ( though I'd experienced fairly long periods of sobriety, previously ). I used to wake up in the wet shelter, or in my sleeping bag, and, until I got that first drink in me, feel like I was about to burst. I just went for a walk this morning, very early, and felt the same way; indeed, walked from 42nd st. to South Ferry yesterday, moving through zones of "alright" and "in crisis". I've been told that it's because of my drinking that I've developed this condition, but it didn't get a hell of a lot better during my last couple periods of sobriety ... the strange thing is that I can usually stay out of the red when I'm alone, but when I'm around people it becomes hard -- so many people abhor the sight of a man crying that the anticipation of their censure alone brings it on ... all of this making me think of those who've judged me as weak, a weakling, because of this, and my drinking ... Me, who've travelled all over the world, often just by the skin of my teeth ... and so I'd say that yes, I'm weak, but my weakness is a condition, not a spiritual problem, or lack of will-
I used to have an incredible capacity for life, and living; I DO blame myself for the erosion of my ambition, though the circumstances of my life, at present, don't help --
* : Sad, also, as when I see someone in pain, or crying, I usually want to, if only in a small way, give comfort to them. I think the prevailing, or at least the offensive, sentiment is: 'We've all got our problems, so don't show me-" when, of course, the "showing" of doesn't feel like an option - |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 26th, 2007|03:47 pm] |
Just found out that my old pal cedar sigo was in New York, and didn't contact me, even though we'd been exchanging the occasional mail recently ... feels like I really have become a pariah ...
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Kryptonite real |
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| "...the leper scene couldn't be repeated..." |
[Nov. 23rd, 2007|04:38 pm] |
Just got out of detox ( again ). read an author I'd never read before in there: Umberto Eco. He teaches semiotics, which makes sense, as his narrative seems a web of languague-and-history relations...
"the monk who is despised and bears it is like a plant that is watered every day"
"those who perform magic, it so happens, finally are persuaded that, even if they don't believe in the devil, the devil surely believes in them"
"the world condemns liars, who do nothing but lie, even about the most trivial things, and it rewards poets, who lie aout the greatest things." |
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| Leos Carax |
[Sep. 25th, 2007|07:13 pm] |
this is beautiful, with the dream-passage from Night of the Hunter and music by Scott Walker;
( also, this tribute; it's great when the Bowie kicks in... |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 25th, 2007|10:59 am] |
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I had a flag for Brian DeGraw, of Gang Gang Dance's show at the James Fuentes gallery last week ... This had me look around to see what GGD was doing, and found out that they were doing a tour where they made a video entry for each day, which they edited in their van, along the way ... Now, I've long admired these folks, thinking of them as some of the most vital artists working in New York now ... Lizzi Bougatsos showing work, also at James Fuentes Gallery in Chinatown, along with Brian; and now, Interviewed by Rockers NYC; They're going to put out a DVD of "Retina Riddim", which, come on, isn't so far removed in spirit from other riddim music(?!); I can't say how much I admire these people, who's influence shows in what seems to me a similarity between DeGraw's collage work and Dash Snow's, ( though maybe the link is only assumed, after seeing an IRAK sticker on his amp at their show in Greenpoint a few months ago ... I say all this unreservedly, as it was one of their members who told me to "give up," the last time I saw them : if only I knew what they based this opinion on ... |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 21st, 2007|09:06 am] |
After thinking about Mr. Supertramp, and his idealistic journey, I was reminded of a NY Times article I read about a logger who can't give up methamphetamine, on the show Intervention, which I have yet to see. This is truly the voice of the vast hidey-holes.
Perhaps related, but probably not, I had a dream last night that was incredibly vivid, due to the fact that I'm slowing down my drinking: I was with my youngest brother in a Canadian waste expanse, having somehow become indigenous peoples, and lain in a fort to confront a visiting enemy that, by sheer number, was impossible to defeat. I tried on tons of different guns and knives befire using a six-barrelled musket ( it was olden times ) as they broke our gates, and, after an hour of sword and spearplay, the room became overrun with a glowing incandecence, and a ton of multcolored lemming- like creatures overran the room. I was so impressed by the beauty of it, the color of the light matching that of the surrounding mountains, that I woke up, to check myself for wounds.
& Chris Marker's La Jetee |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 20th, 2007|06:12 pm] |
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Recovered my radio from my old roommate today, and heard on WFMU that it's Crispin Glover's birthday. Happy birthday, What Is It?. |
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