Let me tell you what it is like out here tonight. Stories travel at night on the desert. Someone gets in his pickup and drives a couple of hundred miles for a beer, and he carries news of what is happening, back wherever he came from. Then he drives another hundred miles for another beer, and passes along stories from the last place as well from the one before; it is a network kept alive by people whose instincts tell them that if they do not keep moving at night on the desert they will lose all reason.
malleable persona
IN SPECIUM occupatis
May 16, 2012
11:18 pm
May 10, 2012
During half-time at the Boston Garden, the speakers take a break from playing dubstep remixes of Led Zeppelin songs. For almost a moment, the noise is clear. Then, without warning, they break back into ferociously bass-driven Chaozhou music, which, if you don’t know what it sounds like, sounds kind of like a clay pot just grew out of your garden and started spinning right there in front of you, five feet off the ground, filling you with the sense that something incredible was just accomplished. So now your eyes go back to the court, where they find a woman on a unicycle three times her height. She’s quickly moving back and forth in order to stay still, like she’s treading underwater. Then a man wearing leprechaun-green hands her a stack of cereal bowls. (All of this is real, you remind yourself.) She balances the stack on one free leg, while the other one frantically pedals back and forth. She then kicks the stack into the air high above her and catches them (stacked) on her head. This goes on for some time. She presents this magic to all four corners of the court. You feel one with the astonished. Soon the music fades abruptly, the woman wheels off, the pot stops spinning and falls, there, onto a head of lettuce. You pick it up, dust it off, and watch the rest of the game.
May 9, 2012
May 2, 2012
April 24, 2012
8:24 am
I love you too, Mari.
But remember,
Pancho is an outside dog.
And he will always be
an outside dog.”
“Of course,” said Marisol.
“I have always wanted
an outside dog.
But remember,
Pancho is an outside dog.
And he will always be
an outside dog.”
“Of course,” said Marisol.
“I have always wanted
an outside dog.
— 
April 16, 2012
April 10, 2012
August 26, 2011
4:55 pm
Rain in Cambridge
I.
Human interaction keeps the heart-rate up;
I find that throwing yourself
into large groups of people is
great for calisthenics. Wind troubles
occur when your instrument’s un-
clean, so carry what counts for
a cloth or a rag in your back
pocket at all times. For some
this is a Bible. For others it might be
a twenty dollar bill: whatever it is that will help you feel safe.
Safety, of course,
is a feeling and nothing else, and can be represented
symbolically
like all things.
II.
It was a mistake to wear this jacket, which is flashy.
To explain that this is your only jacket is apologetic and
weak. Spend your free time finding another jacket, one
which no one can think anything of. These are the colors of
your culture, to camouflage. Walking between the rain storms
the street musicians retake their seats and play less successful
versions of very successful songs. You duck into a cafe. Upstairs
there is a sign which reads “Please limit your time to 1 hour”
which means that logically you do not need to leave
until everyone else has left.
By counting the hours between each storm
you can feel somehow involved.
III.
What makes your situation comical
is the stasis presented by
options. Yes,
that’s better. Imagine
the Venus De Milo
wanting to move
and the Venus De Milo not
wanting to move.
The stone’s appearance
leads us to think that the stone has wants
and feelings. This is
projection. People
at tables wear beards on their
faces they’ve likely seen in films, and
these thoughts are thoughts that you’ve likely imagined
your favorite characters
thought.
IV.
Think of your stress as the mind’s secretary:
useful, removed, and objective.
August 23, 2011
August 17, 2011
July 31, 2011
July 30, 2011
July 29, 2011
July 27, 2011
