Zero to lazy in 30 seconds of "The Office" and two bites of pasta

It's happened so many times, but I never seem to learn....

I get motivated, somehow - say, a stimulating conversation, reading an inspiring essay or interview, or perhaps just a thought that had never occurred to me before - and I am ready to go. Ready to create, ready to act, ready to do whatever the case may require.

But before acting, I usually get hungry. I don't know what it is about hunger and the creative drive, but for me, they seem inextricably linked. It's not necessarily a bad thing - to have my passion for food (when it's plentiful, delectable, or even merely accessible - which isn't always) leashed like a Pavlov's dog to the things I want to accomplish in life - but it's terribly unfortunate that I've linked it to the third element in the chain....

Assuming that I'm eating by myself, I figure I might as well have some other type of stimulation to accompany me. (But why? Therein lies the problem!) For some reason, if it's daytime, I can pick up the paper or a magazine, and read something relatively useful while I devour my turkey and provolone sandwich or leftover Chinese; but at night, as I warm up the pasta-spinach concoction, I have an unholy desire to be entertained by the TV. A typical justification: "Well, I already read the paper today, so I'll just relax a bit in front of the tube while I eat, before I tackle this project that I'm so excited about."

The beginning of the end.

For me, it's so easy to get caught up in diabolical cable TV, whether I like it or not. (There are shows that I like, and then there are shows that I know are trash, dumbing me down minute by minute, but sometimes it matters little which type I watch; they draw me in and beat me into submission.) Streaming Netflix is the worst. I mean, it's great... but it makes dependency so easy. I watched the entire second season of Parks and Recreation last week in three nights. It's like a goddamn soap opera to me. And you can guess where that motivation I spoke of earlier went: down the tubes... via the tube itself.

I'm not gonna dwell on this right now. In fact, I'm getting a tad frustrated just by describing the process. But perhaps it's a step... towards the exorcism of the flickering demons of the small screen.

Propaganda

"To the average man (sic) who tries to keep informed, a world emerges that is astonishingly incoherent, absurd, and irrational, which changes rapidly and constantly for reasons that he cannot understand. And as the most frequent news story is about an accident or calamity, our reader takes a catastrophic view of the world around him. What he learns from the paper is inevitably the event that disturbs the order of things. He is not told about the ordinary — and uninteresting — course of events, but only of unusual disasters and crime, etc., that disturb that course. He does not read about the thousands of trains that every day arrive normally at their destination, but he learns all the details of a train accident[...]

"The man who keeps himself informed needs a framework in which all this information can be put in order; he needs explanations and comprehensive answers to general problems; he needs coherence. And he needs an affirmation of his own worth. All this is the immediate effect of information[...]

"Though a mass instrument, propaganda addresses itself to each individual. It appeals to me. It appeals to my common sense, desires, and provokes my wrath and my indignation. It evokes my feelings of justice and my desire for freedom. It gives me violent feelings, and lift me out of the daily grind."

These are a few selections from excerpts of Jacques Ellul's Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (I put a "sic" up there because Monsieur Ellul is from the old school, and exclusively addresses only one gender), which I will post a link to down below. I'm posting this here because, in a roundabout way, it's connected to some of the stuff I've written here in the past: the last entry, about the T (hence the first excerpt up top about trains running on time), for one; and also some older ones about connections between news stories.

But it's much more than that. I've read the excerpts twice and both times have shaken me, in a somewhat profound way. They've made me cringe at times. When I think of propaganda, I think of fascism, eugenics, justification for imperial wars... things like that. All bad things, mostly perpetrated by the right and far right. But, you see... Ellul's take on the subject could equally - as I see it - apply to the left, the far left, and other conceptions of society that I subscribe to, even now. In other words, it hits close to home.

That's not to say that I fully support Ellul's arguments - and that's at least partly dependent upon one's definition of propaganda, I think - but this is one comprehensive critique of a major portion of our daily lives, and the bigger picture at the same time. It doesn't strike me as very optimistic, but it opens up a very important discussion. It strikes me.

I've only read these excerpts, but if you have the chance, I highly recommend giving them a look. The commentary on them is very interesting too.

T Party

Two brief accounts of recent experiences with the T*:

Friday night
Jeremy and I planned to go to Mobius for the first ever U.S. performance/reading by Ivan "Magor" Jirous, a Czech underground poet and philosopher who's been around the block a few times. We got a late start because of a good meal, but managed to catch the right Red Line train at North Quincy. (I almost always plan out my trips ahead of time on Google Maps now - it has all the bus and train schedules and gives pretty accurate routes.) So we were good to go....

Until we got to JFK, where there was a delay. (This song gets stuck in my head often.) It lasted 30 minutes, before we rolled on... then stopped at Andrew. We got out to check the bus schedule, but had missed the last CT3 bus. So back on the train, which, after 20 minutes, made its way to Broadway, before stopping again. After getting off there, we found that we had just missed the #47 bus as well. But also, had we taken the #18 (or one of those buses at Andrew), we could still have made it to Mobius, arriving a half hour late, and thus making it worthwhile. But we didn't, and now it was too late. So, giving up, we headed back down the Broadway stairs to go back to Quincy - only to get stuck behind these two knuckleheads descending painfully slowly with the bow-legged gaits of drunkards - just as a Braintree train pulled in and out of the station. So then it was another half hour until the next one. The two slow crabs in front of us also had to wait for the next Braintree train, but they soon got all jazzed up on coke (the illicit kind), which, had they done so earlier, may have caused them to actually catch the original train. At least I learned a lot about Broadway station, thanks to Jeremy's history as a Red Line driver.

We later found out the long delay was due to not one, but two disabled trains, the second being brought out solely to rescue the first, before crapping out as well. But if there's a moral to the story... I think about all the times I barely catch a bus, or manage to get somewhere just in time, or otherwise get lucky in my daily travels; and then there are days like this, where everything goes wrong. It's bound to happen some times, even all at once. I really can't complain, you know?

Saturday night
Wasn't planning on doing much, other than making it through the Die Hard series and watching the Bruins, but we decided - and this is again due to Jeremy's connections with the Red Line - to head to the Red Line holiday party, at a VFW hall in Randolph. About an hour and several phone calls and texts later, we finally figured it out that the party was at a Knights of Columbus hall in Canton (or an Elks Lodge in Stoughton? We tried so many permutations that I can't remember exactly what it was), but delays and wrong directions are not the point of this story.

This is the second Red Line holiday party I've been to, and I don't ever want to miss one again. Consistently - both in the two I've been to, and among the attendants in each - I've noticed a unique and sustained joy that I can't immediately ascribe to any other social function, than that of a Red Line party. First of all, there was food there - cold cuts, deviled eggs, cookies - and that's enough for me anywhere. But there was more... so many smiling faces, so much dancing, unrestrained and unconstrained. Let me compare this dancing attitude to two other types that one might encounter in our society: 1) when I'm at a club, like a techno or hip hop club (which is not often, but just to set the scene), I see serious faces, contortions and postures that seem to belong to heads removed from bodies, removed from all of their surroundings, physical and emotional; and 2) the dances of the silly and ridiculous - to old hip hop songs, classic rock, etc. - faces and bodies that clearly don't take it seriously, but seem to have fun that way.

The second way is definitely the one I most usually participate in. It is fun. But it's also self-conscious in a way; it's not really letting go. Then when I see folks at this K of C in Canton, they are dancing naturally, smiling, moving with ease, and clearly they care genuinely about the union of mind and body, nature and soul. I felt it for the short period I took to the dance floor. There certainly is no moral to this story, but I appreciate the whole scene: smiling, talking, joking, dancing... all toward a contented and relaxed ecstasy, even if that's a bit of a paradox. It didn't last too long (how could it?), but I want to recognize it as a special convergence toward a natural and ideal environment. When it does occur, I'm glad to experience it.

*Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, for those of you outside the region

The Irony of Highlights

Last night I hit rock bottom. After a very good and rejuvenating film production meeting with Kevin, at Grendel's Den, I went home to watch the Major League Soccer Cup. The game - in and of itself quite gnarly, a rough-and-tumble fight to the finish - was fun to watch, but I followed it up by watching SportsCenter. I watched SportsCenter longer than I ever have before - longer than I thought possible - for one goddamn hour and a half. Rock bottom.

And while that hour and a half was the culminating moment in a hazardous series of strung-together-moments of sitting in front of the television, I had my reasons. As far as football is concerned, I'm not the biggest fan, but I take an interest from time to time. Whereas I'm lukewarm about Favre, I love wreck and carnage in the arena of professional football. And Favre and the Vikings have proven martyrs in my spectacle of carnage this season, perhaps most exemplified by their 31-3 defeat at the hands of his old team, the Packers. And I had a perverse desire to see those highlights and the post-game interviews on SportsCenter.

Instead, I get to see briefly the highlights of the Pats-Colts game, which is good, but then I'm subjected to one hour of highlights and interviews from the Giants-Eagles game. While I'm lukewarm about Favre, and feel an intense dislike toward Peyton Manning, I have almost no feeling whatsoever about Eli Manning. And I have absolutely no interest in watching him - or for that matter, anything that is not the actual game - for one hour. But I also had no idea it would take that long. When it's finally over, the knuckleheads at SportsCenter go back to the Pats game, only for much more in-depth "analysis." I don't care anymore; when will it end? No carnage, so I give up. One hour and a half that I will never get back.

But "Today...

tomorrow is not within your reach
To think of it is only morbid:
If the heart is awake, do not waste this moment -
There is no proof of life's continuance. (Omar Khayyam)

...today I found out about Buy Nothing Day and Carnivalesque Rebellion Week, an attempt at organizing a bit of creative opposition to the Spectacle and drudgery epitomized by SportsCenter and Black Friday. It appropriates one of the most estimable situationist mottoes - "Live without dead time for a week" - as a means to mobilize this opposition. By itself, this attempt does not necessarily amount to much (that mostly depends upon how successful it is in garnering participation), but it is something. Something to go on... and to be honest, I find it inspirational. I have no illusions about what I must do to survive in this world, but the more I can cut out the time I spend watching Eli Manning's post-game press conferences and replace that time with potluck dinners and walks in the park, the more I come to life. Imagine the possibilities if Dr. Frankenstein, rather than directing all his resources toward the creation of the monster, had directed them toward creating his own authentic life.

* Incidentally, I really would like to organize something creative for Buy Nothing Day - in Boston, Vermont, wherever. I haven't put any thought into it yet, but we still have four days... if anyone's interested, hit me up.

Sufficiently disoriented, as the French once were

"With Michele, Debord lived only a stone's throw away from Les Halles, the old fruit and vegetable market halls, destined to be demolished in 1971 to make way for the rapid commuter train. (The Centre Pompidou, completed six years later, would seal the neighborhood's fate.) Before that, Les Halles had been a sprawling, delirious, humdrum world, intensely alive, bawdy and beautiful, an urban paradise for Debord. When Baudelaire wrote in Le Voyage 'To plunge into the abyss... And find in depths of the unknown the new', it might have been the old Les Halles he was describing." - Andy Merrifield, Guy Debord

Les Halles no longer exists. Probably not much like it in the "western world" still does. So I'll never have the opportunity to experience that "sprawling, delirious, humdrum world." But, I can do the best with what I've got, and find other ways to create other experiences.

On Halloween, I went to the SoWa Open Market, the last Sunday of the season, with Dan and Megan. It's an art, clothes, and farmer's market in the South End. We got hot dogs, which were expensive but marvelously satiating, and walked around. Lots of very cool local artisans' work... Diane Koss (Cutesy but not Cutesy) designs intricate and adorable stuffed monsters. Fuzzy Ink specializes in T-shirts celebrating the handlebar mustache, especially if accompanied by a monocle. Greg Stones's M.O. is "penguins, zombies, nudes," and let me say that until you've seen his work, you can't imagine the possibilities within that realm. So we walked and took it all in. Until we got too cold.

Then we went inside - to the SoWa Vintage Market - to a warehouse/barn-type building, with big, mostly wooden interiors, connected by a long hallway. The place was packed, with people (because of the cold) and things: all sorts of old ("vintage") and antique art, accessories, knick-knacks, trinkets, what-have-yous, and you-name-it. In other words, a ripe atmosphere for the sort of disorientation I seek in a place such as this... not exactly Les Halles, but, like a mild drug, enough to give me a buzz.

The first thing that struck my fancy was a rack of old men's magazines - like Man's Life and Adventure - the type with cover stories such as "My Gun is the Law," "Why Foreign Girls Make Better Wives and Lovers," and even, "I Battled a Giant Otter." If the Surrealists had lasted, they would've deemed this shit genius. But at $25 a pop, I'll move on. Save it for the museums.

Megan came across a very cool Steadman reprint, before we ended up at a stand selling antique prints, from old atlases and art books and that sort of thing. I was only vaguely interested, until I came across this, from La Brique Ordinaire 1878:


IMMEDIATELY transported, I was. To a time of 21 or 22 years ago, in New London, NH, perhaps a Saturday afternoon. There was something I used to play with my grandmother - I don't even know if it was blocks, or a puzzle, or a board game (Mom thinks it may be the puzzle) - but this image brought me instantly to an olive carpet past the dining room in New London, with my grandmother. Everything about this print... the brick facade, the symmetry, the lighting, the tree on one side and gate on the other, even the number of floors and windows... everything. The combination of an image, a memory, and the disorientation of my surroundings (all these people and things) produced the most vivid and (at the same time) transposed reality within my being. Inebriation by proxy, by receptiveness, by heart. It was remarkable.

The right combination... I was ready for it and I'll try to be ready again.

In Other News

"When our man after the day's work comes twitching, tired, off the assembly-line into what are called without a shred of irony his 'leisure hours,' with what is he confronted? In the bus on the way home he reads a newspaper that is identical to yesterday's newspaper, in the sense that it is a reshake of identical elements . . . four murders, thirteen disasters, two revolutions, and 'something approaching a rape' . . . which in turn is identical to the newspaper of the day before that . . . three murders, nineteen disasters, one counter-revolution, and something approaching an abomination . . . and unless he is a very exceptional man, one of our million potential technicians, the vicarious pleasure he derives from paddling in all this violence and disorder obscures from him the fact that there is nothing new in all this 'news' and that his daily perusal of it leads not to a widening of consciousness, [but] to a species of mental process that has more in common with [the] salivations of Pavlov's dogs than with the subtleties of human intelligence." - Alexander Trocchi, A Revolutionary Proposal: Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds

I've always found this passage interesting, and to be honest, I haven't entirely made up my mind to what extent I agree or disagree. But it's a bit provocative, isn't it? Bearing in mind that I think Trocchi may have some valid points, here's a somewhat different take....

Occasionally, while reading the news - something I do much less frequently or thoroughly than others - a few stories will "team up" in order to produce a strong effect on me, an effect that only exists in response to the sum of the multiple of stories. The articles in the set may have a vague connection, and enough to induce a reaction in me that I want to share (examples here and here). In that sense, it may be as simple as A + B = C, with C being my reaction.

In other cases, the effect may be purely dissonant. No synthesis at all. I can think of one example, because I happen to have written it down. Not sure exactly what I was reading at the time, but it might have been Vaneigem's "Total Self-Management" ("We want the enjoyment of all rights, or what amounts to the same thing, the right to all enjoyments"). In any case, I had something on my mind that had me thinking about "living subjectively and creating art (while also fighting imperialism)." Then, in the Boston Metro on 11/17/08, I noticed two articles: one about a selection of music streaming services on the web; the other about horrible situations across the African continent, third world countries where too many people die every day. Three elements - anti-imperialistic subjective living, music streaming, and untold deaths in the third world - with seemingly no common ground. This apparent lack of connection is what produced such a strong effect on me.

And then there are times when I read a string of articles that seem to be connected somewhere... somewhere out in the cosmos. In other words, I have no idea how they are connected, but I have a feeling. It's a feeling I cannot - and do not wish to - elucidate, but it's somewhere. Perhaps you felt it too?

I got a feeling while reading this past weekend's edition of the Metro (11/5/10). In order to try to illustrate this feeling that I can't describe, I have taken a selection from each of the articles I noticed. No editorial, just quotes:

1. "Somerville officials are examining a band (sic... okay, one editorial) on an alcoholic and caffeine mixed drink popular among college students. The Board of Alderman wants to see if it can ban Four Loko from store shelves..."

2. "A pair of books, 60 years overdue, were returned in a mailed package to the Boston Public Library's Copley Square Branch Tuesday[...] The returned books were the 'Autobiography by John Stuart Mill' and 'The Writings of Henry David Thoreau.'"

3. "[Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell said Republicans, who will hold a majority in next year's House of Representatives, should aim to hobble the health care law by 'denying funds for implementation' of the measure."

4. "Two days after congressional elections, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs signaled that Obama might consider a compromise with Republicans that would keep tax breaks not only for the middle class, but for wealthier Americans as well."

5. "At this point, Zach Galifianakis knows a thing or two about how to make an unstable character funny. 'People who are like a truck with no brakes are inherently funny...'"

That's all. Somewhere out in the cosmos it all makes sense.

Tying up the shoes

It's been over a month since I've written on here. I'd like to up that frequency quite a bit, primarily just by writing shorter entries, as opposed to storing up a month's worth of thoughts and experiences in order to write some epic passage that's only cohesive in the most tangential of paths. (Posts from here on out will likely still be tangential, but shorter.) But first, to excuse myself for not writing much lately, let me illustrate my last Friday night.

Even before that, the background: I'm living in Quincy (though up until the past couple of weeks, I had been going back and forth between here, Vermont, and Maine, pretty often, for various weddings and visits with family), and I'm enjoying it. However, I've noticed that I am much less social and less likely to leave the neighborhood than I ever have been before while living in Boston. I'm aware of this, and it's not a bad thing. Part of the reason, in fact, is good: I live in a little house with my friends Jeremy and Dan, and we hang out a lot, talking, listening to music, watching movies, eating, and reading. Because of this, and because it takes me longer to get into Boston or Cambridge or Somerville, I'm much less likely to leave the house or hood. (The neighborhood includes several grocery stores, Atlas Liquors, the Old Railroad Cafe, No. 7 Restaurant (Chinese and Malaysian) and Paddy Barry's pub.)

In the midst of writing this, I got hungry. So I went for a walk to No. 7 to beat the lunchtime cut-off and save myself two bucks (and get a free soup). Walking down Copeland Street during the day is an interesting experience. Lots of dudes hanging out, in groups or singly, on stoops and lawns, both sides of the street, all races and creeds, speaking a variety of languages. I wouldn't call most of them "sketchy," just peculiar, curious. And it makes me awfully curious to know what they're up to at two in the afternoon, all congregated on front steps. Take one of the buildings on the block before No. 7, for example. On my way there, a guy with a big, bushy mustache and flight jacket is pacing out front, on the sidewalk. Then another guy hurriedly walks out of the building in athletic shorts and a tank top (and it was cold today), talking rapidly on his cell, and walking toward the parking lot. From the lot comes a third guy, with baseball cap and track jacket, walking even faster than the other two. On my way back from No. 7, the first two guys are standing out in front of the building. The third, cap-and-track-jacket, is speed-walking down the street. Then he picks up the pace to one of those speedy jogs you do when you're crossing the street in front of cars. Then he literally starts bounding, the rest of the short distance to the 7-11. All the while, shorts-and-tank keeps repeating a three-digit number on his cell (who knows?). By the time I catch up to cap-and-track-jacket, he is hiking up his pants (from the bounding), then tying his shoes, and about to turn around. He didn't even go inside the store. I literally have no idea what these guys were up to (a relay race?)... but you can imagine the fun in guessing.

So anyway, Friday night... by the way, there isn't much of a story here, and you'll see why... Jeremy was out, and Dan came home. I made a ham, Swiss, and honey Dijon sandwich, and then we went to Atlas for some beer and wine. We watched The Office (which I am slowly catching up on, season by season) on Netflix. Megan, Dan's girlfriend, was out in Quincy Center with some of her friends, so we decided to go meet her. Bad Abbots has apparently been renovated and "gone country" (or was this just for Halloween?), so we went to the Half Door. We got a table, got a pint, and had fun talking and dancing (rather ridiculously) at the table. Before long, it was last call. So back home, and at this point, I had three things I could partake of - Jeremy's excellent spinach lasagna, some Montepulciano, and of course, The Office - and the exclusion of any one of the three would've meant going to bed and getting a good night's sleep. Conversely, to choose any one of the three necessarily meant partaking of the other two as well. I don't remember the order, but it could've been this: "I think I'll watch one episode of The Office before bed. I feel like a snack; there's plenty of that lasagna left. You know what would go great with this? Montepulciano. Now I'm full, so I should probably watch a couple more episodes, so I can digest, before bed. That lasagna is so good, just one more plate...." You get the idea.

So I stayed up late on Friday, slept late on Saturday, and that's it. You and I both know that there are more productive ways for me to spend my time. But the fact that I do know this, and the act of putting it down in words right now, is what will allow me to make today so much more productive. I'm not even exactly sure how it works, but there's a circle of energy that allows me to act slovenly and passive on Friday night, realize it on Saturday, verbalize it on Monday afternoon, and "rectify" it on Monday evening. (Next, I go to the library to do some research, I get groceries, and I hit the net to try to find somebody else that will pay me for services rendered, pay me to make them happy so I can sustain myself. That's productivity, you know. You know?) And anyway, I don't regret the indulgence of late-Friday night, the triumvirate of lasagna-wine-The Office... That was three days ago, now immortalized, now gone forever. Today is Monday. Off to the library.

So much for writing shorter entries.

Transportation, Transcendence, Tra-la-la

On the ride to Hanover to catch the bus, Dad jokingly says something about toxic waste in the cab of a truck, and I immediately think of The Toxic Avenger, and how in high school I would seek out all these bizarre, obscure and deranged movies. (Associations.) The hunt for B-movies isn't quite so important to me anymore, but it's interesting to think about the part it's played in my life, and how it's shaped me in the long run.

Then on the bus, in Lebanon, the driver announces that the movie will be Clash of the Titans. Watching it is the furthest thing from my mind, but I have a feeling it's a more immediate thought for some of the other passengers. That's not a judgment of them, but of a certain culture in which we live, and the distance from it which I feel.

Later on the ride, I recognize that my back is tied in knots, and my teeth feel really sensitive. I have various physical ailments that pop up from time to time, and maybe I medicate, or go to a dentist, and that sucks, but that's it. All there is too it. My eyesight isn't great, so I wear glasses. I don't want to think about these things any more than I have to.

Rather, I want to live as much as possible with a certain vitality, a transcendental bravado, like I felt only days prior, hanging out with Ryan and Travis - before, during, and after the Pennywise show. Not that I want to be drunk, seductive, and singing really loud all the time - the only-partial quality of these realizations is another issue altogether - but that I want to capture a spirit, in essence, that I feel when I feel like I'm living authentically, and not being held back.

My teeth hold me back. My back holds me back some times. My eyesight would hold me back.... But so does boredom. Having to earn money holds me back, as do all the things that that stop-gap entails. False emotions hold me back. So does bureaucracy. Just have to fight all these constraints in order to live.

...

And now I'm back in Boston, living in Quincy. Some times I take the train to Ashmont, and then the #215 home. Back-of-the-bus drug deals, undercover cops, the corrosiveness with which the Boston accent can be employed... and a whole world I never fully experienced in the eight years I lived in the city of Boston.

Other times, I get off the T at Quincy Center, to walk home. Majestic oak trees, great Swedish-castle-homes, and that fresh fall air... green ferns, shrubbery, a warm wind, and no long-sleeves for me, thank you. Last night, after a BBQ, followed by trivia at Charlie's, I felt wonderful on this walk, and I had the perfect word to describe it. But in the half hour it took to get home, I forgot that word forever. Better that way; tra-la-la.

Wait for it...

I was up in Vermont for a little bit, and had a pretty good routine going, if only short-lived. Get up between 9 and 10, coffee, toast, and eggs, and if time, some reading (non-fiction, to get the brain working). At 11, off to work - either landscaping and gardening, or painting - for a couple of hours. Then lunch (maybe sausage and an IPA?) and reading the papers for an hour, before going back to work for another two. Then home to shower, have supper (been using that word to describe the meal between lunch and dinner), check email, watch Family Guy, and have dinner. The rest of the night writing and reading. As Depeche Mode says, enjoy the silence.

(I realize that's only four hours of physical work, plus the chunk of writing I do that gets paid for, but bear in mind... we live in a society where one of the biggest problems is a 10% unemployment rate, and one of the biggest initiatives is to create (make up) new jobs. Many of the jobs available now exist with the purpose to convince us to buy more things, which is why we need those jobs in the first place.... All I'm saying is that we could all be working four hours a day (or much less), and I'd like to practice that life whenever I can. Smoke it.)

Anyway, over the weekend following that routine, I spent a couple days transcribing my handwritten notebooks from the past six months. Came across this, from some time in May: "Two sort-of poles: the wonderful earthly delights (as Bunuel describes them) of adulthood, and the anticipation with which I used to look forward to going to punk rock shows in junior high and high school...." My point at the time - "There is pleasure in each, but not a total pleasure..." - is not quite as important as my realization on this Saturday in September: that I don't get the same pleasureful anticipation that I used to, especially from driving over to Burlington, VT to see my favorite bands.

The kicker: as I typed this up, I found myself in the midst of one of these bouts of anticipation - just like when I was 15 - because I was excited for the following day, when, with Ryan D and Travis (high school co-conspirators), I would go to Winooski to see Pennywise, a favorite punk band from high school. How much of this feeling was willed by typing those words and how much was genuine, I can't say, because it all occurred to me at the same moment. It doesn't matter too much; it's the sensation that counts. In any case, we had a blast. I'll stop analyzing the connection between the youthful anticipation and the actual (awesome) experience it preceded, and instead default to a quote from Vaneigem's The Revolution of Everyday Life, which I'm sure was on my mind back in May:

"...You are under the spell of a past moment - a moment of love, for instance; the woman you love is about to reappear, you are sure of it, you already feel her kisses... such passionate expectation is in effect the prefigurement of the situation to be constructed."

Too much too late?

I recently came across an astounding factoid, courtesy of Google CEO Eric Schmidt: "There was 5 exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003, but that much information is now created every 2 days, and the pace is increasing...." (Schmidt goes on to hint that Google will work with the government to make sure we're all kept track of through increased surveillance.) I've been feeling a part of this global information overload for years now, but immediately upon hearing this information, I asked myself, what am I doing? Writing, blogging, making videos, reading, watching videos, talking.... The amount of stuff out there is overwhelming and I am actively contributing to the whelming by making that statement. Ayyyeeee! Too much.

But then again, I'm aware of this paradox and still acting in it. Playing a part because I must. A character that fulfills a need. Motivation is the need to create.

I was in Maine when I read the above article. A couple days later while packing up, with the late-morning sun searing through the windows, I'm assailed by flashbacks to Austin. The early days, listening to a Big Boys cassette while walking the motor-dominated South Lamar Boulevard, on a pilgrimage to Half Price Books, in the beating sun. Waking up on Saturdays, having just moved, with a world in front of me, and only simple choices to make. Do I go to Goodwill for small appliances or do I go to a Chinese buffet to satiate myself for the whole day? Days when Phil and Laura would come over for music, talk, rolling dice, and maybe water balloons. There was a feeling of community and a good deal of exploration during those days, when, for instance, Phil might leave his place for a walk and show up on my doorstep with a six-pack, at 11 in the morning. Chase the Cheerios. We walk on together, in deeper exploration.

Then, months later, coming back home from two shifts at the white collar factory, with almost no rest in between, my first exposure to late-afternoon autumn sun in weeks. I had to push on, hit two Oktoberfests, by myself, before being joined by the others. Still later, taking the bus to the University Co-op, reading Vaneigem, drinking coffee, and still time for breakfast at Einstein Bagels. Before I'm off to sell Longhorn sink strainers and dartboards....

What's the point of all this? What's the point in me remembering these times in written form? Simple: a certain orientation of the sun makes me happy by triggering distinct memories associated with other solar orientations. If I took it a step further, I would say that I want to channel these memories in the creation of new solar-charged moments in the present. But having typed that sentence, I think I've already taken it too far in written form. The Google CEO says we create an excessively huge amount of information every day. And here I've added just a little bit more.

Get lost

...in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. That was the idea, anyway. Random turns, to the heart's content, stare into massive ship-wrecking waves in the 18th century Atlantic Ocean, for hours with googly eyes, and move on through a bout of phantasmagoria.... That was the idea. But I had one or two things I wanted to see (like the exhibition of Toulouse-Lautrec's prints, which I was a bit underwhelmed by), so I grabbed a map, and then found more things I wanted to see, and eventually the whole idea of getting lost flew out the window. But perhaps that's the way it was meant to be all along...? C'est la vie.

At times I wonder if I'm simply more attracted to words than images. Times in museums and galleries when I'm drawn to the names and descriptions and biographies and histories... before even looking at the pieces themselves. It even extends to my passion for the cinema: I love to read the descriptions in the Shocking Videos catalog, and in Michael J. Weldon's The Psychotronic Video Guide, some times more than the movies themselves. Take this, Weldon's narrative of Flavia the Heretic (which I still haven't seen, and thus can't make a fair synopsis-to-film comparison):

"Flavia is sent to a 13th-century Portuguese nunnery where torture is common and a crazy tarantula cult appears. She wonders why God is a man and runs away with a Jew named Abraham. She's coached by an older rebel nun, then joins her new Muslim lover, who leads an invading army and punishes rapists. She hallucinates a female Christ, a dead nun rising, and women crawling out of a cow's carcass .... It's pretty strong and amazing stuff with some historical basis and feminist themes. The great music helps too. The director was known for making documentaries. The Brazilian-born star claims to have been JFK's last lover. Think about that while you watch this."

That's art to me. Having said that, in the museum, I really enjoyed Van Gogh's portraits, Monet's Mediterranean landscapes, and lots of other stuff.

Luis Melendez is a saint and a martyr. His Still Life with Bread, Ham, Cheese, and Vegetables is a monument to asceticism. I could never draw something like that. I could never sit there, painting for hours, with all that food in front of me... without devouring it. A saint and a martyr.

There are times, often, when I feel that museum-viewing should be a solitary experience. Look, I understand the importance of brush strokes and palettes and all that, but I don't need to hear bourgy old ladies belabor it through lorgnette-goggled eyes.

And having said that, these gold-tinged panels in the Medieval and Early Renaissance rooms - a medium known as tempera (which I just learned) - are the shit.

Bosch's Ecco Homo (Behind the Man), which I also love, reminds me of certain faces in Metalocalypse - those brainless, tortured faces, with deadened eyes and mouths agape.

John Martin's Seventh Plague of Egypt astounds me with its vision, its attention to detail, and the obvious amount of labor that was put into it....

And having said that, it's been a very fine experience, but after two hours in this goddamn museum, I'm ready to leave.

Water Over the Bridge

Friday evening, in the rain, walking across an urban bridge, I heard a siren. Sirens often remind me of a tune by Patriot called "Songs for the Youth," because of the way the guitar sounds. "Oi is for the working class and that will never change...." Spontaneously, I started singing it aloud in a high-pitched voice, and I laughed at myself. Then I sang it in the voice of Bob Dylan, and laughed more. These moments of sheer nuttiness, that may last only seconds, where one feels as if he or she is the only one on earth....

Met up with Kevin and friends, and off to Plum Island for the weekend, where Taryn's family owns a beach house. Friday night was eating and drinking and listening to Jonathan Richman. Later, we went to the beach, tested the water, and started walking. Toward dark coastal cottages, back-lit by some mysteriously dull yellow light down the beach, and I felt as if I was in a Warner Bros. Cartoon. I've had this feeling before, and I think most of the time it specifically relates to Daffy Duck's Quackbusters, perhaps even more specifically to its depiction of Transylvania. Funny, because two days later, after breakfast, Rev and Jimbo started reminiscing about Count Duckula, which strikes me as a British counterpart to Quackbusters, both of which reach that spooky supernatural tip in animated form. Anyway, it's a good feeling to be in a Warner Bros. Cartoon. Quite comfortable. But then we ran into a skunk, our eyes bulged like Porky Pig's, and we scampered away, leaving a trail of sand in the air. Marching band music all sped up. That's all folks (for tonight).

Saturday spent at the beach, more food, more drink. When part of the group went to the commuter rail station for a pick-up, those of us left in the house started a game of Sorry! that was meant to merely appear intense and cutthroat to the pick-up contingent when they returned. But the charade became real, and shit got intense. I'm not sorry.... it was the beginning of a great, long night.

Some times I find myself in situations where I have nothing to say or contribute for a prolonged period of time. It might be the time of day (not a morning person), the company, the conversation itself, or any combination of factors. One of these situations occurred on Sunday, I think mostly just because of over-tiredness. At other times, I might force something out of my mouth, or try to latch onto a joke, but on Sunday, it felt right to just let it ride, and let the contributions flow in due time. It took awhile, but it did happen. No pressure, and I think that's the way it should be. It's much simpler to look at conversation not as an art, but as a necessity with luxuries. Like eating spaghetti and homemade meatballs at the grandparents' house on a summer evening.

Spent more time at the beach, played a guessing-outlandish-statements game called Things, drank some gin and water, packed and cleaned, and left, feeling serene. The feeling continued on the ride home, relaxed and mighty fine. Settled in at my temporary home, ate, and watched a great movie called The Puffy Chair. Dramatic, funny in parts, gripping in others, and overall quite exciting. I started to think about the following as a possible dialectics of cinema:

Realism reflects the experience of our lives. Fantasy depicts the possibilities developed in our dreams. The synthesis of realism and fantasy invokes the possibilities of our lives more fulfilled.

This, after watching a movie. Then, at 2 in the morning, I decided to have a third beer, finish off the potato chips, and watch another episode of 30 Rock. A line from a Highway Bar Music song popped into my head: "...Turned into a hedonist, and Momma don't approve." Immediately I caught myself. Is this really hedonism? No, not at all; only a confused attempt that masks the truly qualitative. But it's okay, because I caught myself. I'll go to bed, dream about zip-lines made of Twizzlers, and tomorrow is another day. Full of possibilities. One cup of coffee puts them all within reach.

I start fires

I got in the habit of only posting on here when I thought I had something to say, or something to contribute to the spate of lived experience one reads from the little screen. A bit of a bad habit, I suppose.

I left Austin at the beginning of July, and right around the time I started to think about the trip, I heard that the Cathedral of Junk was closing. (This beautiful 33 foot structure built out of recycled junk - which I've written about a couple times before - is climbable, unique, and lots of fun to explore.) The announcement came after several months' worth of troubles with the city government and zoning code violations, and I remember reading an article that used it as a fitting metaphor for the city as a whole - the conversion from epicenter of weirdness and freedom to sterile urbana sprawling into suburbia. Fitting too, I thought, that I would be leaving at this time, as the Cathedral closed.

But right as I was getting ready to leave, owner Vince Hannemann decided to keep it going. Truly, I realized, this was more fitting: something great about Austin that I will miss, until the next time I'm there (I have no idea when that will be). I will miss a lot about Austin... friends, Tex Mex, Weird Wednesdays and the Alamo Drafthouse, East Side arts and bars, running along the "Town Lake" before dusk under swirling skies of pink and orange, etc., etc.

In Boston now. I told almost nobody when I was coming, and I thought about pulling some surprises when I showed up, but wasn't wily enough. First several days back, I started to reconnect with people, and it felt good. Watched the fireworks, and then went swimming and hiking at Breakheart the next day with Susanna and friends. Took the T straight out to Kevin's - two days without a shower, even after wandering that little mountain in flip-flops, seemed to be fine and appropriate - for a fun get-together in East Cambridge. Next day, from my base in Jamaica Plain, off to Mission Hill to watch the World Cup. Only coffee until 2:30, and then pizza and beer. And then to Dorchester for grilling with Buddy and Tanya. And on and on.... Boston is a city full of neighborhoods and character. Explorations, meetings, moments....

I started to develop a - for lack of a better word - existential attitude in June, in the last few weeks in Austin. It developed out of a general lack of planning, from a practical standpoint (like packing and getting ready to leave my apartment), a professional standpoint, and an aspirational standpoint. Very few goals, very few definite ideas of what to do next (beyond making some films, doing some writing, and trying to find some money). It amounted to a cosmic stream of mental health. When what lays before one seems to be all that exists, that existence seems superb. And I know that in the society in which I live, the purest form of this mental clarity is unsustainable. But there are still a few embers in the fire. And as soon as I can make it to the store, I will douse them in lighter fluid.

Deep East

Spent last weekend in New Orleans. Here is a mish-mash of notebook and journal excerpts:

Baton Rouge. Friday morning I begrudgingly wake up at 9 to watch the U.S.-Slovenia match. Turn on the TV just in time to crank up the Star-Spangled Banner to wake Eric up. (We've had the conversation that the World Cup is the only time every four years that we feel patriotic, albeit a warped patriotism, but still we won't stand for the National Anthem.) Staying at Ben's uncle's house, and I go wake Ben up too. Says he's going back to bed until the second half (he's English), but eventually changes his mind. Switching back and forth between beer and coffee this morning, and we end up with a 2-2 draw, which most certainly should've been a win for the U.S. But okay, onto New Orleans.

I am thoroughly enjoying this drive through the bayou. Tall trees spiking out of open water, a village of power plants in the distance, wet warm air.... Shortly thereafter we're in the French Quarter (which we will scarcely leave for the weekend), and the terrain becomes: tight streets, grassy medians, amazing Colonial and Creole houses side by side, street after street, all unique. This city is alive, in spite of, and because of, the seeds of Old Europe and the natural disasters of the New World. I love it already, and feel quite comfortable.

We're out all day and much of the night. Towards the end, Ben and Eric are very tired, and I'm not, so I stay out a bit longer. The street our hostel is on dead ends going southwest, and my walk home puts me on the other side of it. Once I realize this, I ask two pretty ladies if they have any idea where it is. They don't. But they're nice: "Are you trying to go into the projects?" No. "Do you realize you're about to walk into the projects?" I did not. "You might wanna turn around." Okay, thanks, I will. It takes longer, but I backtrack to get home safe. Who knew?

A weekend in the oratory tradition of Henry Miller and George Carlin: a complete disdain for censorship of words and thoughts. This means that absolutely everything that comes to the mind finds its way out through the mouth, or at least it seems that way - bad puns, inanely ironic catchphrases, lurid and ridiculous sex fantasies that can be described in one sentence, and intoxicant-fueled proclamations ("I won't be caught alive without a pen in my pocket", etc.).

Saturday, after a rejuvenating late lunch of red beans and rice and sausage, we're walking the streets of the Quarter. A woman abruptly turns back to her significant other, who's pushing the stroller, and makes a suggestion: "Hurricane?"*** The man nods his head and they cut immediately into a bar, as if this was the obvious and only action to be taken. Later, a girl in panties steps up from a candle-lit dinner on her balcony to blow bubbles over the railing, over our heads, into the marmalade-hued sky. A woman walks down Decatur Street with a full glass of wine (you can drink in public in the Quarter, but you're supposed to use plastic cups). Multi-generational groups, oddballs and goddesses, and even families out for wholesome entertainment, all come together, descending upon the gaudiness of Bourbon Street. And we three, walk the other streets, with no agenda and no pace. Directions, stops, whole journeys are dictated by a gesture of beer-guided hand.



***One of those fairly alcoholic specialty drinks that's served in a big plastic neon receptacle

2009 Marcus James Chardonnay, Mendoza, Argentina

I don't usually do wine reviews, but this one stuck out. I bought it at my corner store, on "very special sale," for $5. It wasn't chilled when I bought it, so I threw it in the fridge for maybe a half hour before I got impatient. I didn't smell it either. It's got like a golden-toxic color, something like Mt. Dew, and it has a nice, sweet, fruity taste, like apple-pear or whatnot, with a pleasantly sweet-sour finish. But it's most striking feature is this: I could scarcely take a sip without feeling like it had gone down the wrong tube. I didn't actually choke on it, but had to lean forward a bit, for at least two out of every three swallows.

I thought that it might be the manner in which I drank it - lying on my bed, eating potato chips and Reese's Pieces Easter eggs, while watching Bringing Up Baby (an excellent screwball comedy starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn) - but I had the same experience finishing up the bottle over my next couple of meals. Although I enjoyed the taste, I can't wholly recommend this 2009 Marcus James Chardonnay because of the "texture."

However, since at the moment it's the cheapest wine available at my corner store, I'll probably give it a second chance.

Dinnertime for Radicals

The last post I wrote ("Bad Education," below) had been on my mind for awhile, was one of the more difficult thoughts I've tried to materialize lately, and in the end, did not completely produce the desired result. It reeks a bit of angst-in-a-bubble, like if the character Doug, from The State ("I'm a rebel...."), were to be converted by The Boondock Saints; "me against the world," and so on. But more importantly, concepts like the desire to possess someone else's time are left mostly unelucidated. Even more so, this giant preoccupation we have with the idea of "becoming someone in life"... well, there's a lot more to say about that.

My plan was to let it sit a week, and then revisit it with corrections. But a week later, and then two and a half weeks later, I'm still not sure how to correct it, update it, modify it, or do anything else to it. So I'll let it stew, on a cyberspace burner, and wait to see if it comes up again, perhaps even in real life.... In the meantime, instead of correcting something I wrote, I will "correct" something that someone else wrote:

Every town in the world of any size should have a neighborhood named "Freetown" (as in Freetown Christiania, Copenhagen). A place where people who don't have any employment or guns or TVs or bitterness or allegiance to a flag can go.

People like that are treated like pariahs in other neighborhoods, kept on the move by cops, teachers, and small-business owners. Like jellyfish, they are happy to move, but it's nice to have somewhere to go, some times....

Somewhere they can continue to drift, to and fro, enchanted variously by a cactus, a castle, and the hairnets of other jellyfish, until they come to rest at the local cinema or library.

Where they can chat and play all day. Where they can plant gardens and farm. Where they can drink in the streets. The basic idea is this one: a place where people can be free of the dominance that they inevitably suffer from under a capitalist hierarchy.

Bad Education

I am constantly trying to unlearn things that I have been taught all my life. (Let me clarify, right off the bat, that this statement doesn't reflect upon my parents, to whom I genuinely owe a great deal with respect to imparted wisdom.) My desire for anti-education is directed at the society in which I grew up, the society in which we all live - The Society of the Spectacle - which Debord details in the book of that name. (A "capitalist society based on hierarchical power" will do just fine, for these purposes.) A few key concepts: consumption, possession, exchange value. These categories apply to objects, to be sure, but also to human beings, space, and time (consumption of my own "free" time, possession of the time of others, exchange of services)... all ideas that dictate my life in some form or other.

And I could live the rest of my life without forgetting that two slices of pizza equal a four-pack of energy-efficient light bulbs, or that an X-ray and dental consultation costs $50, or that I need to buy a new DVD player to get closer to the experience of going to a movie theatre. But I don't want to think in those terms anymore. It makes life trivial, and more and more, I notice how these concepts affect and direct my everyday life - my relationships with other people, my day-to-day activities, and what goes on inside my head. And I'm really getting tired of being controlled by abstract concepts.

Here's another one: recognition. One could also say "prestige," or even "success." "The injunction, everywhere, to 'be someone' maintains the pathological state that makes this society necessary. The injunction to be strong produces the very weakness by which it maintains itself, so that everything seems to take on a therapeutic character, even working, even love" (The Coming Insurrection by "The Invisible Committee). I just reread a section (First Circle: "I AM WHAT I AM") of this remarkable pamphlet, and something occurred to me that never had before: that the desire to be someone, and to be recognized by others (for accomplishments, for character, for appearance, whatever) can function as a means of separation. Wanting to be someone, and getting noticed by others for "being someone," actually sets one apart, removes one further from a shared connection with his or her fellow beings. Just a thought, and I won't go much further, only to say that, like the other concepts, I am deeply afflicted by this one, as I suspect most of us are, whether we admit it or not. It would be nice to get over that....

Account of a Root Canal

In the chair, initialing stacks of forms describing what they might do to me. Meet the doc. He looks pretty young.... But amiable enough. At ease, I am. Explain to him the tolerance I've developed toward novocaine. Doc says, "We'll give you double what you're used to. And would you like some nitrous oxide - to relax?" Hell yes. Inhaler over my nose, and within minutes my feet and legs are prickly. And then numb, as he injects the novocaine. Shortly thereafter, I hear a soft rock drumbeat. Then singing. The voice of Richard Marx? And it seems to be emanating from my nose. Doc and his assistant have left the room. I'll ask them about the soft rock coming from my nose when they get back. On second thought, better keep that to myself. More oxygen and I come to. And then wait.

Long time.

Doc is back to administer more of the nitrous. Pretty soon I understand completely all of Dennis Hopper's actions in Blue Velvet. And the Counting Crows trying to get into my nose.... Or out of it? Feeling blissful, except for the increasing duration (it's now been at least a half hour, probably more; lost all track of time) with which my jaw has been propped open. Like the portrait of the man in Munch's The Scream. And the discomfort makes my background swirl too. At a break, I reach for the block keeping my jaw agape - I just want to relax, and talk. (Jonah has had plenty of time to escape.) "No! Don't take that out." Doc cuts me off the nitrous, probably thinking I've had enough. Probably right.

And hours go by. Various X-rays, various complications, various repetitions of the same various procedures. Travel Channel has gone through two episodes of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, and on the second Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. And all this time, being subjected to the most heinous sound to anyone who's ever spent any length of time in the dentist's chair - the drill - and I'm feeling fine, because I don't feel shit. It's awesome. I'm used to feeling the drill when I get a filling - a bizarre, deeply sensitizing sensation - but now I know why: not enough novocaine! A revelation. And then finally it's over.

(Figured out the soft rock too: it actually came from the speaker directly above my nose as I faced the ceiling. They almost had me fooled....)

I've always taken good care of my teeth. Floss once a day and brush at least twice. But I have what they call in the industry, "soft teeth." So I may have to get used to the above experience. Fine and good. Just gas me up and make me numb.

Pretty swell(ed)

Been pretty busy for awhile now, and the most evident sign of this is the list of people I've been trying to catch up with for some time, and how long it's taking. I guess this is at least partly an attempt to catch up, from my end. In early March I started a new job....

The week after brought on the SXSW Festival, a big music and film shindig in Austin. Last year I posted three blog entries about it. This year I saw no films and since I was working, didn't make it to any of the hallowed free day parties, until Saturday. But I was able to get out to free shows almost every night, and then go home to attempt the overwhelming task of planning the following night. Slept 20 hours in the first five nights, and it was a bit rough, but manageable, as always. Saw Shannon and the Clams (excellent '60s style rock and soul), the Rubies (crazy garage rock from Japan), Off With Their Heads (awesome "contemporary" punk), Andrew W.K. ("When it's time to party, we will party hard"), and Mariachi El Bronx, which is hardcore punk band The Bronx's mariachi incarnation, with full regalia and instrumentation. Holy shit, that was something. It ended late Saturday night with Eric and I sneaking into a parking garage for the Vice after-party, drinking Mexican beer on an escalator.

Then I got sick. My Skee-ball teammate Sarah diagnosed it as South By SARS, which was going around at the time. Then Mom, aunt Marion, and cousin Dan came to visit. They hit the town hard during the day, and we had wonderful times at night, punctuated, of course, by good eats. Most notable was Buenos Aires Cafe on the East Side, where I had Milanesa a la Napolitana. That's breaded beef cutlets "blanketed" with ham, mozzarella, and homemade marinara sauce. Those Argentines know how to eat. We also hit the Texas State History Museum, the Museum of Weird, and the recently-renovated (but still rocking) Cathedral of Junk, before the family left on Monday.

Then Tuesday I had a nasty ache in the gums, and woke up the following day with an excessively swollen cheek. It was up to the eye by Thursday. Turns out I had an abscess, and will have to get a root canal. Bummer. Got some antibiotics for the swelling, and some hydrocodone for the pain, and went to the library to get Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater, to prepare myself for feverish and delirious drug-induced dreams....

And all this time, although busy, I'm thinking about things. Too much. Thinking about what seems good, what seems bad, the past, the future, and how they all relate to each other. When I'm caught up in the evaluation of the moment, I forget about the moment itself, and that life is made up of infinite moments, spanning the spectrum of emotions, consciousnesses, directions, and physical sensations - like the pain of aching gums. And like an abscess, these life-measurements some times swell. And then you take antibiotics and hydrocodone, become drowsy, and fall asleep. And wake up the next fucking day. The swelling goes down. Oral metaphors can be drawn out forever; I'll switch references to The Big Lebowski: "Oh, you know... strikes and gutters, ups and downs." And when you think about the totality of this life, all the ups and downs, how much effort can you put into the evaluation of one moment, when another one is already here?

Now, on the flipside, this oscillatory view of life is not an excuse to not strive for more authenticity, for more of the qualitative in each moment. In fact, they go hand in hand: try to achieve the qualitative in every moment, and don't worry too much about the outcome. Maybe it's idealistic, but what would the diagnosis be without the drugs?

Twinkle, twinkle

Spending all day spacing out in front of a computer inevitably brings on introspection (as well as boredom, fantasy, and delirium). Between spurts of "official" work, I fill pages and pages with ideas about my life, about your life, about our relationship to the Spectacle, about transcendence, about all kinds of shit.... But at the end of the day, these ideas rarely find the urge to jump back into a computer. Introspection transforms into reflection....

Yeah, I occasionally re-read the stuff I write on here. Even more occasionally, I talk about it with others. Think I should clarify a bit the last post ("Strawberry Shortcake..."). The Vaneigem quote is completely accurate, but can also be read out of context (as can everything). Place more emphasis on "We have a common project" than on "They must use me to save themselves just as I use them to save myself." There are two factors working here: my own subjectivity, and its connection to others. They must work together, but - what I'm taking most to heart in all this is - how can I connect to something in others that I haven't developed within myself? The point is: don't depend on others for an authentic connection... work with them to cultivate it together.

Blah blah blah... where does this subjectivity start? I'll bring up Henry Miller again too: he let go - in the most complete and sincere sense of the phrase - of everything, and moved to Paris to actually live the life of the starving artist. And it worked. Just tonight, I was talking to Nate on the phone, and we were batting around cool, potential places to live. Portland, San Francisco, New Orleans, Orlando... sure, it worked for Miller, but for me, I know it would just be a crutch - a mirage that deflects from the innards, the guts of the subject: my subjectivity.

So I go back to this... the writing that articulates these ideas, the reading that encourages the thoughts in the first place, the wandering that concretizes the thoughts in action, and yes, the people that cultivate the thoughts together with me. The Sunday post-SXSW, after breakfast, Tania and I decided to hit the East Side. No plan, but certainly a feeling. Off the bus, across the highway, murals gleam in the sun, 24 ouncers creep out of brown bags. In the cemetery, in the empty softball field, in my favorite vacant yard on Pedernales and E 5th. Like a movie - beginning, middle, and end - we cross paths with the ice cream-cart vendor, and find ourselves at a random party with music, kegs, and inflatable playpens, for the kids (I suppose). Fueled by the Marquis de Sade (we've been reading the intense Philosophy in the Bedroom as a book "group") and sweet tea vodka, we make some friends and end up at Justine's... the French bistro named, of course, after another of de Sade's tales... and with de Sade and our attractive bartenders and Cognac, the night continues, and on and on... until it's 3 in the morning. With the alarm set for 6, because we have to work. No, nothing has changed. But something has deepened, intensified... an awareness of a will to live.....

And we're back where we started. The Minutemen:

"You and me, baby. Twinkle, twinkle. Blah, blah, blah, etc."

Strawberry Shortcake After Two Courses of Dirt

"The great question was that eternal, seemingly unanswerable one: what have I to tell the world which is so desperately important? What have I to say that has not been said before, and thousands of times, by men infinitely more gifted? Was it sheer ego, this coercive need to be heard? In what way was I unique? For if I was not unique then it would be like adding a cipher to an incalculable astronomic figure." - Henry Miller in Nexus

"No other problem is as important to me as a difficulty I encounter throughout the long daylight hours: how can I invent a passion, fulfill a wish or construct a dream in the daytime in the way my mind does spontaneously as I sleep? ... If I write, it is not as they say, 'for others'. I have no wish to exorcise other people's ghosts. I string words together as a way of getting out of the well of isolation, because I need others to pull me out. I write out of impatience, and with impatience. I want to live without dead time. What other people say interests me only in as much as it concerns me directly. They must use me to save themselves just as I use them to save myself. We have a common project." - Raoul Vaneigem in The Revolution of Everyday Life

A sort of question and answer forms for me when I place these two quotes back to back. And then this, a note I jotted down at work on September 16, 2009, which I recently stumbled across: "Often I catalog the feelings that make up a good mood. But I'm in one right now, and at the moment, it seems superfluous to document it. I know that yesterday, I was beat, and not feeling particularly good - not bad, but not good either. The point is that some times I feel good and some times I don't, and why bother dwelling on either? It's all part and parcel. I guess I just like to remember good times...."

Well, there's a bit of a contradiction there. And I think the last statement is more correct than the one before it. But there's more to it than that.... I started this blog for several reasons (I like to write and blogging is good exercise and practice, I wanted to share things with my friends and others, etc.), and looking back on the early stuff, I see experiential descriptions of life's charms, a roving catalog of the moments in life that make up what I would call living. And as the posts develop, a critique also develops: the problems I perceive, the constraints that seem to hamper this desire to live... the illusions and masks that prevent us from making these criticisms in the first place. From a simply linear perspective, one detects a negative pattern emerging. Am I becoming more negative?

Am I becoming a sourpuss?

The answer is no, and I know that. But it can be difficult to explain why. The Vaneigem passage above proves important in this explanation: I write about the wonderful experiences in life - the people and places and events that make me happy - to remind myself what I am capable of in this existence. As accompaniment, I write about the constraints - those imposed from above (Power), those self-imposed, those willed outwardly as impositions on others - to prevent myself from allowing them to obstruct my will to live. And in addressing myself, I reach out to others for help.

The positive and the negative work simultaneously, regardless of a superficially chronological read. (Another Vaneigem quote (of which I have an endless and growing list): "Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.") But since a chronological read naturally befits the form of the blog, and since the critique seems to reign as of late on this blog, I offer a purely rapturous day recounted in a paragraph or two:

Last Sunday, I woke up after noon (as usual), had cereal for breakfast, and went right over to Bouldin Creek Cafe. Met Eric, recently back from a five month trip through South America, and this was the first time we'd really caught up. Sat outside, over coffee, and let the recollections fly. He had great, picaresque scenes to describe (the salt flats of Bolivia, the plateaus, oasis cafes in the jungle), as well as the psychological toll taken on one by five months of backpacking. Coffee refills, and the talk moved to books, of which we'd both read a few since last talking, everything from Dostoevsky to Malcolm Lowry. I had planned to go for a run and go to an experimental music show in my neighbor's backyard that evening, but momentum, dear reader, momentum... when Eric suggested horseshoes and home-brewed beer at his friends' house, the path had already been bushwhacked.

Over to Jeremy and Jenny's, we loaded up on great nacho pies, avocado, and bean salads, then sampled pale ales and IPAs that Eric and Jeremy had brewed. Tasty, all I could say. Jenny's relatives were visiting and everyone seemed to be in spirits of the most agreeable sort. To the backyard, to play horseshoes on a freshly-laid course (as fresh as yesterday, literally). Ringers and beer, metal on metal and hops... until the course was dark enough that the metal clang was only the hope of a successful toss; it was simply too dark to see. And later we went downtown with Jenny's cousin Kat, first to Ginger Man, for beer and darts, and then to the great Peche, a Prohibition-era bar, only serving cocktails from that time period. Happy hour all night on Sundays. For me, this included a French 79, a Sazerac, and a Rum Old Fashioned, but I must say, the happiest hours are those spent in good company, and this set, on this night, was of the utmost. A pure joy, in all subjects and subsets, manifested in conversation rolling off tongues without a hint of mediation. Later, we went to Jackalope's, but the sensation had already been cemented. And we made hopscotch footprints as soon as the cement was laid.

So it's simple... in theory. I felt great on this day - a day absent of those constraints which I will not speak of this in post - and I remember it in words. The challenge, however, comes not in theory, but in practice: I only remember it in words because I want to live it now, in action.

Black, white, red, and now

Hey hey, not much to say... as of late. Living the life some times seems more like a struggle for awareness than the unabashed awareness of living that I believe it should be. But the train continues to chug-a-lug, even if there's a mountain in the way. I find my memory lately reverting to the first two years of college, for some reason. That was a time when, for instance, I might sleep soundly enough that my alarm would not wake me up for class. The alarm would, however, wake up my neighbor, and her subsequent banging on the wall would then wake me up. A good system, huh?

Particularly fond memories of the times at 21 Lewis St. in Somerville, where Jorge and Eric lived, as well as Julian and Troy (a.k.a. the hip hop artist Magmuzzle) and later, others. These memories appear in black and white and red. Black and white, because of the film stock used in the document of that time which most sticks out in my mind - "Mondo Politico" - which, if one ignores the pretentious attempt at a message that the film makes, is a fun and esoteric snapshot of our lives at the time. Red, because of the "Commie Room," in the basement, where some times there was a fight club, and more often, there was a smoking circle. Also in that time period, there was romance (and equally, mishandled situations and blown opportunities), there was cinema (nights watching L'Age d'Or, Underground, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, etc., with an always eclectic group, in the living room), and there was music, which seemed to perpetuate it all; something about the centripetal force of our location between Harvard, Central, Inman, and Union Squares. Not only a creative time (or, it would've been, if we were motivated enough), but a time of camaraderie and passionate association.

I watched Underground again last night. It reminded me of the genesis of "Mondo Politico:" Alexandros had suggested we watch Underground - a great, great film - and then explained that the plot is a sort of allegory for the history of Yugoslavia since WWII, represented by the relationship of the two main characters. When the U.S. military invaded Iraq in 2003, I thought it might be fitting to make a cinematic allegory of the relations between the U.S. and Iraq since '79 or so. Peter played a Satanist, representing Iraq, and Eric played a Mod, representing the U.S, and in the film, they are roommates. The interstellar pretensions of a second year film student! But I still enjoy watching Peter pour holy water onto the ground while reading from The Satanic Bible, and Eric dicking around on a skateboard while wearing a derby hat, and then the two roommates getting into a fight. And of course Underground has a large Communist element to it. The Commie Room at 21 Lewis had a huge hammer and sickle flag draped over its sound-proof walls. I believe it was like that when the guys moved in. Black and white and red....

In a circumambulatory path, this drift of the mind has led me (yet again) to a declamation against practicing the arts. You see, earlier in the day, I was thinking about the effect that trashy TV has on the psychological and social make-up of the masses. I thought how I'd like to make a film not about the consuming, alienated, and isolated lives that TV seems to encourage; but about authentic participation and communication, lives imbued with an active poetry that has nothing to do with words. And perhaps making that film would be a step towards living that life. Then I watched Underground - one of the most wonderfully anarchic, vibrant, unique, and lively films I've seen in quite awhile - and I felt a bit empty inside. Passive and uninspired and ready for bed.

I must quote Vaneigem again: "What do I want? Not a succession of moments, but one huge instant. A totality that is lived, and without the experience of 'time passing.' The feeling of 'time passing' is simply the feeling of growing old. And yet, since one must survive in order to live, virtual moments, possibilities, are necessarily rooted in that time. When we try to federate moments, to bring out the pleasure in them, to release their promise of life, we are already learning how to construct 'situations'."

An afternoon of a few weeks ago. Susanna was visiting, and making a breakfast of couscous, honey, and nuts. I got out the OJ, and noticed a full bottle of Andre in the fridge. She suggested mimosas, I put Operation Ivy on the stereo, and we were off. The warm breeze under the ever-more-luminous sun reminded me that I have a hatchet in my room and a stump in the backyard. So, to the yard for an axe-throwing expedition! My roommate Anjela mentioned the Cathedral of Junk, Jess came to pick us up, and off we went. A three-story tower made entirely of items that would've been thrown away, an afternoon of leisurely exploration, looking into mirrors surrounded by hubcaps and bicycle tires, climbing ladders to a massage table in the sky. And industrial freezers populated with paraplegic dolls.

And then to Taco Vallerta for gorditas and horchata, sitting next to the window, families coming in for a Sunday meal, while other patrons watch Sunday soccer on TV. Simple, yes? Let me federate these moments, let me make this instant last forever....