A curtain opens into darkness. We sit. The hum of a bedroom fan, the sound of distant car doors opening and closing, like the gills of the night. Slowly, slowly, the light comes up, just enough, just enough, to see the shape of a body in a window frame. The hand to the mouth, the arm across the stomach. Slowly, slowly. The shape a body makes in waiting. A bus goes by, the fan hitches. Our body moves across the window. Slowly, slowly. We can begin to see the bed. It is not large, but oh, it is an ocean.
The faintest light of early morning is pressing its hands against the curtains. It wants to touch. It wants to peel back the horrors of the night. Tears are streaming down our body’s face, not like sorrow but like sweat, a process like breathing, like crossing a room for a glass of water, face calm. A sweater is removed, a sweater is put on. The hair pinned up and taken down. A fight, a fight. Our body continues to wait, for it cannot rest or sail this ship alone.
The curtain never shuts–the lights rise up, the lights grow dim, the body departs, the body arrives–there will be no shutting until all is shut. But moments, moments, there is no waiting, for someone is here.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Surrounded Islands, 1980-1983
Christo and Jeanne-Claude created this environmental artwork by surrounding 11 small islands with 6.5 million square feet of pink fabric. The work existed for only two weeks.
So part of me always wants to be like, oh, Christo is a tool, but fuck, sometimes the scale, simplicity, and ephemerality of his work makes me want to cry.
Troop (je marche)
In a pit of plastic frogs in paris
I fell, hobbled,
on allée andré breton
the poets rushed forward, mais
non, I winced, je marche
I gnash my teeth,
Roberto,
your thin legs
at which I spent so many hours
–in what language does there lie a yellow bow
to pull my cramping limbs together?
there were grey crossbeams, rain
there was soft, wet, red
I’m tired, she said
un peu fatiguée
the modern, a mantis
has staked me
I examine the flag, standing
my black fingernail flukes across the scape.
- Paris, February 2008
Behind The Scenes With Exit Ghost
A video Sneak Peak of some SD footage shot for Jack Lawrence Mayer’s upcoming music video with Chicago’s own Exit Ghost for their song, Like I Did Before.
check it, y'all, I am in a music video.
black ink scraps of white unlined paper, some time ago, in semi-darkness:
You and I, we quickly allow these many small erosions–
the fire hydrant’s leak upon our feet, the gradual disintegration of paper,
the ever and ever passing of time.
The dart’s point grows ever duller with each throw.
My first grey hair lies with Yuliya in Berlin,
beside a burning chapel.
I spend years of my life on train cars, alone.
We think: how did it happen this time, the sunset?
The swell and the breaking. The water, the anchor.
A car door slams a thousand years ago in Brooklyn.
I hear your voice. We sleep, we blindfold each other against the sun.
Wake up. The body next to you is yours. The body you are in is yours. They are both on lease–one from heartache, one from death. Here, let us take solace in the light of morning, in the smell of smoke, in the sound of fabric moving. The shape of your mouth on my face will keep the world at bay, for a moment.
When men sleep, their souls nest in their shoulders, fluttering through collarbone and scapula, wire’s glow and muscle’s sheen. I link my fingers with the tendrils of sleep and this sweet pacing lulls me. I am always on fire, I am always on fire.
“For the rest of your life, you will get tired. You will shy away from risk. You will cathect to comfort. You will watch lots of television. It’s a gentle process, and it’s completely unstoppable. We will lose energy. The universe will end. We can’t stop the Great Heat-Death of the Universe.
But by God, we are University of Chicago students. And we can fight.
”
http://ishum.wordpress.com/2007/09/01/drew-dir%E2%80%99s-graduation-speech/
- Student graduation speech to the University of Chicago class of 2007 by Drew Dir (Manual Cinema, Court Theatre).
I was at the 2007 convocation, as an ex of mine graduated that year, and was blown away by Drew’s speech. I don’t even remember who else spoke. Go read the whole speech, imagine Drew’s really charming and tongue-in-cheek delivery. It still totally rules.
the apples I bought today.
things feel very surreal lately, the passing of time, god, was that only a week ago? has it already been two years? eight?—the picking apart of the true, the good, the real, from the dreamt, the imposed, the constructed. I walk through the door to a courtyard and enter a bedroom. I reach for the curtain of a theater’s exit and find myself at home. Days are nights and truths are lies. A stranger turns to me and says yes, I think you’re the one for the job. There is always work to be done, not merely the flushing of my mind through my eyes and through my bleeding nose. Readying for take-off: the acceptance of death. Finally, finally, my life begins its striding, true to nature.
Please, please, please, please don’t die.
Let’s put aside, for the moment, all of the terrible things I’ve said about you– because while the truth is still the truth, and intent still intent, anger anger and damage damage–at this moment this is more important, to live.
I may not want you in my life, but I want you alive.
I got new glasses today. I had my updated prescription put in frames that I bought at the Brown Elephant for three dollars. Strange to think that perhaps whoever once wore these is now dead, or simply walking around with different eyes.