The Poet, or Half Past Three by Marc ChagallThe other day, at one particular hour, saturated in-between, I had felt overwhelmed, but also felt rather collected and calm (the 2 c’s in this case), like Lewis Hine’s Waiting at the Clinic, Hull House Neighborhood—torn between many things, many subjects (two, to be exact, but who’s counting?) and wishing that I could have connected the pieces together, like some broken Rubik’s cube, scattered about on the ground, but that would have been far too simple. Given my ambivalence (something like Walter Benjamin, perhaps) things had blended together over such time, even when the overhead tracklist that was playing on an apparent loop (which I have since discovered is indeed true). My heart, like Max Richter’s “Old Song.” Something of new debris, each day.
There are times when I have my head against cold metal framework; the smell of cedar in the air, in a dimly-lit backroom, with certain pointy spots where one must be quite careful. In the back of the building, on the outside, there are small pine trees gathered thinly together (balding?) on a slanted hillscape. The way the light must shine on them is perhaps like stars and constellations, creating new presentations from nature to be exposed to (perhaps for me alone; at least in my tranquil and meditative atmosphere). I am thinking of photographing them, perhaps with film, shooting with film, hoping for light-leaks.
I feel thoughts leaking this day, waterfalls from the mind, overthinking like the Pink Panther; not as mysterious, or perhaps so when I am told that I am “unreachable” and “unattainable” and “overwhelming” (flattery, oh)—who knows which banana-peel will be the most slippery? Spoke with a woman in her late-50s about being an introvert and we connected well (one of my “floaters” just made my jump). After the conversation she said, “I know that you’ll make a great husband.” (flattery, oh).
I have graduated from gravitating.
3 year-old girl named Boston giving me an evil “look”—squinched forehead, observant eye! Later, I laughed, snickered at her poignance. She then looked up at me and said curiously, “What?”
Today, fleet-footed, sail away like Enya-clouds, Enya-waves. A little girl kept asking her mother: “Mommy, where’s daddy from? (she said it at least seven or eight times, but the mother wouldn’t answer, almost embarrassed, or perhaps wanting to keep where he was born a secret, or “private.” She then said, “you’re something else today!”—“exactly what, I wonder?” crossed my mind)
Often overwhelmed, I am, by lack of help—lack of action—grins and grunts-galore. Mouth not moving, words come out snapping, dynamite from certain one’s tongues, popping like bubblewrap-sounds, but perhaps powerful explosives wrapped within small constraints. Anger in people’s eyes, sadness within people’s lack of kindness. Oh, if they only knew what my heart speaks, but selfishness is a thin razorblade cutting slowly, delicately; a slow velocity, perhaps, but with a kind of demolition-force. We are all barcoded, numbered like the days, culturally-hungry like the waves. Saturday backwash; people and their vomit-y attitudes. “What kind of animal are you?” Complaints of things being “downsized.”
Earlier, saw two women are on each side of an elderly man holding his hand, walking with him around the cul-de-sac. Feeling so arrested by such unmasked “youth” where age, as a youngster, can be constructed through visuals. I dislike “Ageist Language.”
The history of eternity aches us, aches the cusp of the larvae of the future, and my fingers touch the keys of malfunctioning typewriters as if language itself, being an entity all its own, could usurp the words right from my mind and out through the tips of my fingers, and I am in favor of being kissed by sunlight, no history is as warm, no history could swallow me in its banks; I am constantly ripening like a mudslide giving certain portions of the earth a taste of its own gooey medicine. Tomorrow never leaves. The leaves die in a future tomorrow, today the air is of that future, the leaves have browned in their leisure, or no, not in their leisure, and
I mean to say that there have been instances where I have felt as if I could have been cuddled in the arms of a sweet soul, but there have been instances where another has remained crumbled in their fear, as I had crumbled in the way that I had been steered with different gears, like how a poem must die when it has no place to go, and I could be held like the black cat that John Cage is holding in the photograph that I am looking at. I have often thought, Where is the unremarkable silverlining that certain people choose to subtly shape into me, weaving into my imagination, stirring verociously into my heart? One’s monumental-hopes, one’s breathtaking promises having often made me feel as worthwhile as a wolf in a crowded forest of Little Red Riding Hoods; a world erupting into red, or like a clumsy child on a swingset, swinging too high. I have thought: I am David Copperfield-ing all over this geography without you, dearest. This means that I am not walking carefully. This also means that I could be stepping on the Jurassic shells of our sleeping memory.
Rigid paradigm. Paradise frigid. My plate awaits in the refridgerator. Interesting to note a bit of text via Avital Ronell’s book Stupidity:
Refusal, especially of theory and thinking, takes on many forms, visceral, fantastic, and linguistic. The first two are easily traced as "refusal" manifests itself as "strong reaction," either in tossing or in the fantasy of tossing a theory book or colleague out of a window--the complement to Wittgenstein's "poker." The third form of refusal is much more difficult to locate since it appears or seems to appear as something not there or not understood or not gotten. These "refusals" are "performative contradictions" in speech. Not understanding or, too simply, stupidity follows in this direction insofar as it expresses itself by its incapacity to properly express itself linguistically. "Duh," "er," "um," are instances of this refusal, a refusal of meaning. But is it altogether wrong to refuse meaning? Let's examine "duh." "Duh." It is generally understood to be an extra or para-linguistic symptom of discourse's pause or failure—something akin to Aristotle's "mere voice" or an animal phone. It is not a word per se since it references the "unavailability" of discourse proper, but it is the title of a book, a website, and, now, included in an academic essay, perhaps not the first. "Duh" evokes presence through a feeling of absence, marking that which is unavailable to discourse or that which is obvious. For example, "'Duh' evokes presence through a feeling of absence, marking that which is unavailable to discourse or that which is obvious, duh (or 'no duh')." Since "duh" or even "no duh" is an extra or para-linguistic phenomenon expressing or performing an unavailability of or obviousness within discourse, it has theoretical consequences and, more precisely, consequences for the future of theory. "Duh," as a pause or failure or refusal, has been and remains the response to theory. This is easily testable by saying "différance" in a departmental meeting. The testable "duh" transforms into the detestable "duh" as the pause or failure turns to "duh" as the expression or performance of the obvious--"duh (or duuuh), that's theory," a revving up or a coming to realization of some awareness, however minimal or previously unavailable discourse. "Duh" is not all bad, however. "Duh" has a significant place in the discursive practices surrounding academic, sometimes intellectual, discourse. "Duh" is evocative, calling up, as it were, stupidity's rich tradition and within this tradition "duh" stands the ground of refusal. Refusing "duh" means resisting stupidity and its double, a "refusing duh," conjures up a break between discourse and world. This duality of "duh," the evocation of stupidity and its refusal, also elicits a response from knowing, stupidity's reciprocal and necessary condition.
“No duh.” Ugh, or “uh.” Cat just made her presence known, entered the door, licking lips. Jon Schmidt’s “Morning Light” just finished entrancing me. Now, Myleene Klass. Spoke with an elderly couple from Orange County, California that are fans of Groucho Marx and Red Skelton. The wife said, “When we were living in California, we once went by Red Skelton’s house. He had many cars, oh, he loved cars. He had them everywhere; garages full of them! Well, as typically known, most celebrity homes are closed-in with large walls and gates, but Red Skelton’s house wasn’t so, and we parked, got out and walked up towards the house and began taking pictures. Suddenly the maid came out of the house and began screaming to us, 'No pictures! No pictures!' and then she asked us what we were doing there, and we said that we were just fans that wanted a few pictures. The maid then calmed down a bit and said, 'Oh, take my picture then!'”
I wish you could see the glow of the sunlight through the trees at this moment. “The fern in the corner / is one part of this feeling.” Thomas Carlyle: “It is all a Tree.” And I say, “calling all trees, calling all trees!”
Ring-ring. Go “figure.”
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