Thursday, October 26, 2006
we watched it all night. we grew up in spite of it.
A friend of mine was bored and asked me to tell her a story. I started writing randomness. Here's what fell out:
ok. so there's this girl. she's got her ups and she's got her downs. her life is fine. not the best, but she does alright.
as she shutters in her passenger cabin seat, a slight notion of fear strikes her. maybe this is a bad idea, she thinks. maybe things won't be okay. but then she remembers the point. the point is that there is no point. there is no reason to what she's doing. and that's why she's doing it.
now you could call it an escape if you wanted. but that wouldn't really make it one. she's on this plane over the north pole because she had nothing better to do. maybe she's fancying the idea of a new brand of stealth. a new place. a new start. a new taste of independence.
for most people, leaving their lives behind spontaneously is a nerve-wrecking, grueling job.
one that can usually send 1000 volts into the conscience and knock out the will. but for her, it is something life-giving and priceless.
now, this is not to say that she didn't plan ahead. that she had no plan of action for when she got to where she was going. ofcourse she had the money, the reservations, the back-ups, and the necessities for this endeavor. she's not crazy.
don't even think for a second that she's crazy.
but it's okay if you do. she likes it. she loves the label of craziness.
no one knows where she's going. no one but her. it's been like that for months. she really loves that part. patience is a virtue. a very very rich virtue. one that she will no doubtedly be paid handsomely by for her effort in secrecy.
but the bonus is that she enjoyed having the secret. holding it. having something that no one else has. it put a smile on her face. and that's what mattered.
now i sit beside her in this boeing 737, watching her smile. she turns to me and chuckles. a satisfied smartass type of chuckle. then she tells me nothing is worth anything unless somebody remembers it when you're gone.
it was random.
it was true.
it was hard.
i agreed and fell back to sleep.
and find somewhere to go
find somewhere to grow"
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
everything i touch turns to stone
Here are some amazing songs I've been listening to lately:
- Fire Eye'd Boy by Broken Social Scene
- The Story Of An Artist by Daniel Johnston
- How I Made My Millions by Radiohead
- Bastards Of Young by The Replacements
- Daddy Never Understood by Deluxx Folk Implosion
- Black Swan by Thom Yorke
- So Many People In The Neighborhood by Ween
- Slow Dancing In A Burning Room by John Mayer
- Rabbit In Your Headlights by Thom Yorke and DJ Shadow
- Jessica by The Allman Brothers Band
- Your Ex-Lover Is Dead by Stars
- Hall Of Mirrors by The Distillers
- Basement Apartment by Sarah Harmer
- Grow Up And Blow Away by Metric
Monday, October 09, 2006
the air moving in and out of your lungs
Postcards
My bedroom. High ceiling and white walls. It's about the size of Elwood's apartment in The Blues Brothers. Miniscule. The walls stained with markings left by previous tenants. The silhouette-like forms of spray-paint concealed by white. The last clinging remains of countless pieces of sticky-tac that once held up so many memories that I'll never know.
Only three pictures were left. Postcards, actually. Three reminders that I suppose the previous tenants could go without to bring back memories of far-off wonders. One of the Moulin Rouge cabaret in Paris, France. One of Plaza Monumental de las Ventas in Madrid, Spain. And one of Barco Rabelo in Porto, Portugal. Three places I've never been. Three places I now know exist, at least in someone else's memories. They preferred to take home their memories as places in their minds, where ever home may be.
Some say home is where the heart is. If that's true, then this is certainly not my home. Come to think of it, I don't truthfully know where home is exactly. I left my heart somewhere hidden, I guess. Hidden even to myself. I guess I should bracktrack and find it.
Maybe home is a person. A person you've left your heart with.
It all sounds stupid.
Call me crazy.
I came to this place not really knowing what I'd find. I didn't really have a reason for coming here. Now that I'm here, I've found something that I've long since found somewhere far, far away.
I came here hoping I'd find something new. Instead, I found something I'd already seen... just with a different language. Just without the extra skirt of third-world poverty.
Now that I'm here, this place won't change and neither will I because there is nothing here to change me. My perspective hasn't really been changed; only justified. One place is as good as the next. Just collections of people in shelters with minorities who aren't. Despair, hope, grief, joy, relief, curiosity. It's all everywhere. It's all the same. I know it sounds depressing right now. But come to the same conclusion as I have through your own personal experience and it'll do more than just sound depressing. So don't feel too bad. Drink your medicine.
Sometimes I lie awake in the night; staring at the ceiling. Walls so blank and high, they give off the feeling of being in an asylum. Nothing outside but thick concrete. Lots and lots of thick concrete. A grey matter. The beams of street light breaking around the dancing curtain and swirling, cascaded, and projected onto the walls. And to think, after all these years, I still can't sleep facing a window.
It's the aliens, you know. Beaming from an over-imaginative energy surplus in some grey matter.
I'm going to sleep now.
We are so far away now, her and I. I don't have any physical fragments of my own memories so I need someone else's to remind me. That's why I keep those postcards on my wall. Someone else's reminders used to bring about things they don't represent. It doesn't matter. One place is as good as the next.
I keep them there so that maybe I can fall asleep into a memory. A memory of her. Someone else's souvenirs are what I have left to bring her back to me. To let me see her again.
Some say absence makes the heart grow fonder, where ever it is.
Melodramatic and ridiculous, I know.
Here comes the night. Trapped in a land I just arrived in yet had unknowingly seen before. Trapped in the asylum.
Call me crazy.
Monday, October 02, 2006
can you make the pig sound?
the world is my canvas
i put my art on my canvas
my art matches my canvas
my art is shit
"can you feel me slide in?
can you hear your blood pound?"