The Time Capsule Thrown Through My Window, or, Tick Tick Tick

 

D and T and I have been talking about mentoring as of late. It feels good. Nerdy. When did it happen that I would go from mentee to mentor in what feels like a blink of an eye? It feels good to learn and develop more skills from them in order to be an effective mentor. Sure, having the skills and experience of what you are mentoring is a big part of it, but it’s kind of like how they say a person can be a genius mathematician and a crappy math professor all at once. I look forward to seeing how it all unfolds. 

(pause)

I received your letter today. It’s mind-blowing to think about being friends with and knowing someone for almost 25 years, still have them in your life, and have them not even be your longest friendship. I remember hearing about you before we ever met. Derek and Joel and them described you so well that, when I set foot on that farm/commune, I knew it had to be you. You "looked like the one anarchist among the hippies” that worked the farm.  You may not know this, but the day I met you was also the first day I hugged a turkey. I had no idea until that day how huge they are in real life. Me. The perpetual city kid. 

Thank you for being the gentle spirit with the spark in your eyes, heart and between your teeth that I’ve always known. Gentle on my mind, indeed. 

Be well; be loved,

K. 

P.S. If you are into The Magnetic Fields, or Stephin Merritt in general:  The other day J and I were talking about audiobooks and I was telling her about how some people don’t know that Stephin’s side project, The Gothic Archies, did the music accompaniment for Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events books. I discovered this fact accidentally back twenty years ago when I was listening to the series. I kept thinking to myself “DAMN. This music is GOOD. It’s like something my housemates would aim to make.” Then I looked into it and discovered the secret. (Evidently, Merritt is friends with Handler aka Lemony Snickett so they collaborate from time to time). 

What I love about the songs is that not only are they good (albeit short), they are also completely detailed in their references about whatever book it is. Even if you haven’t read the books (but especially if you  have), have a listen. Here is Scream and Run Away .

 

 

[Image credit: Jason Leung] 

Beginning to Count (Multiples of Eighteen)

Home at last. 

My eyes hurt from watching the road; my legs hurt in the good way from movement. 

Jace and I went on a long walk (I still am unclear when to use the word hike) through a forest that was filled with trees that look like mossed arms stretching and reaching in every possible direction.

Tonight, post class, I am thinking about the discussion about middot. Savoring ideas. Enjoying shifts. If you had to name one right now, what is the characteristic that you have that aim to transform next? 

 

Emerge.

 

 

Be well; be loved,

k.  

(Image: Sven Brandsma via unsplash)

Into the Mirror

Last night, I escaped a mosquito of a day in order to catch a dance performance with Jess. The performance was based on the Czech surrealist film Daisies (Věra Chytilová, 1966) that K and I watched together cozied up on her couch at some point in the last few years. The performance was able to catch the mania of the film: The all-teeth-showing excitement for bright ideas and improv and pretend.  Two women in somewhat translucent, somewhat identical nightgowns in electric magenta and aquatic turquoise. Rubber knives, broken lamps, and a royal blue chainsaw that I couldn’t tell was real or a toy served as temporary props. I enjoyed the vibrant colors of the set, the packed-but-small-number of the audience members, and the use of giant masks (orange; blue) on two dream-like characters (slugs?) that would float onto the stage from time to time.

 

The stage had a white, reflective covering on it. I spent a decent portion of the performance trying to watch it purely from the floor reflection back up the dancers’ legs. I liked the experience of it so much more than I would have had it been on a run-of-the-mill stage. The white, reflective flooring so much better than painted black or fake wood. 

 

(pause) 

 

Reflection, as a theme, has been strong this week- the stage floor of the performance being another, singular ripple of it. Three days ago, a flirtatious text inquired if I had a preference of reflective surfaces in sex: Mirrors or reflections on the glass of windows and such. In truth, I have never given it much thought. Perhaps because I can’t see much without my glasses on or contacts in. Perhaps because that has never particularly interested me. Is this a type of preference that everyone had at the ready? I asked one friend, yesterday. He said no. 

 

In the Megan Milks book I am reading, Mega Milk, they describe a particular apartment they live(d) in as having seven full-length mirrors lined up on a wall, with two additional full-length mirrors on another wall.  I imagined it doing that thing where the mirrors reflect within each other at certain angles and lead into infinity. I tried to imagine if that infinity would feel disturbing in a living space, or meditative. Perhaps neither. Perhaps both.

In thinking of that familiar mirror-to-mirror infinity that we have all seen at some point in our lives (funhouses; dressing rooms), I thought about how it feels to behold (both in one’s body and in one’s mind). At times, it is simply a temporary wonder. At other times, the reflections can cause a person to lose perspective on what they are seeing and even on whom they are seeing: Is it, indeed, a separate person who is doing those movements - or is it simply the person themself that is doing the things in the mirror that they desperately want to stop? How hypnotic it can be if we are not connected to our own actions. How easy it can be to convince ourselves that the arm and connected hand holding the proverbial knife is not our own.

That aspect of a mirrored infinity, too, has been part of the reflection theme that has been echoing this week. Through performance, literature, curious and welcome text messages, and through odd, confused communiques shot out of the blue, the question emerges: 

 

When does the arm in the mirror belong to you, and when are you convinced that it belongs to someone else? 

 

Be careful as you move, Dear One, and gentle as you assess: 

 

Any maiming, no matter your illusions, will always and only 

 

fall upon you. 

 

 

Be well; be loved; be gentle with all that rocks within,

 

K.

 

Notes:

 

-Full disclosure: I did not enjoy the film Daisies. I found it annoying and asked K if we could stop watching it about a quarter of the way through. She seemed to have been waiting for the green light on that one and clicked the film off immediately.

-While looking into the infinity mirror effect after writing this piece, I came across the fact that the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt wrote his composition Spiegel im Spiegel ("Mirror in the Mirror") as a musical reflection on the infinity mirror effect. I had no idea. It makes all the sense in the world to me now, and it is a piece I have listened to (and been torn apart by) hundreds of times. To save you searching, I will link a beautiful version of it  here.

 

(Image: A still from the film Daisies that has a mirror in it.This scene, if I recall correctly, is a snippet from a dinner party or restaurant that the two women crash and take over. It may be the one scene I did truly enjoy.)

Which Hell Would You Prefer? The Angel Will See You Now

 

Last night, I was having a nightmare. While fighting through it, in real life (whatever that means), at 1:11am, a sound from the other room woke me up. 

Disoriented, the sound constant and filling my bedroom, it was the carbon monoxide alarm. Was it in my room? No. It was outside of my bedroom. I opened the door and stumbled into the hallway.  The sound continued. It was coming from my bathroom. I turned on the light. A buzzing.  Was it my hair clippers? No. 

There, standing on my bathroom counter, my electric toothbrush vibrated. What the fuck had turned it on? A malfunction, I am sure. It was at the end of its life. Maybe an angel had used it to pull me out of the nightmare?

The toothbrush wouldn't turn off. I tried putting it back on its charger. No. The battery is not one you can take out. By 1:27am, I was bashing it against my bathroom sink. Still it buzzed. I wrapped it in a towel and threw it on the floor. It stopped buzzing. Five minutes later, it started again. By 2:30am I wondered if I should simply throw it outside. Falling back into sleep, I wondered if it would cause alarm outside. A call to have a sound investigated. A knock upon my door to ask why a toothbrush was in a pile of grass next to my neighbor's fence. I decided to leave it wrapped in a towel and hope the battery died soon enough. 

It must have died around 3:30am. This morning, I picked it up and threw it in the wastebasket. It started buzzing again.

*

I am glad I was taken from my nightmare.

Most of last night was spent in the dark, half awake, wondering if this was what the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart felt when the heartbeat of the dead man's heart filled the house, the room, his ears, his body, his mind.

 

 

 

In other news, I have started reading Megan Milks' book, Mega Milk: Essays. Unexpectedly (for me, for an essay book), I have been completely pulled in and am unable to put it down. It is incredibly written and the details are as perfect as they are immeasurable. 

 

Be well; be loved,

 

k.  

 (image: Pawel Czerwinski) 

To Open You, or, Practice Makes Perfect And Even Then There's Still Work to Do If You're Very Good

 

I'm looking forward to seeing Pillion, and that's really all that is on my mind at present other than a very sturdy To Do list that makes me smile. 

Here is the trailer for Pillion.  

 

I watched a film short by Àlex Lora entitled La gran obra (The Masterpiece) (2023) a few days ago, and I am still thinking about it. So many angles and tensions and uncertainties in the span of twenty minutes. If you can get access to it, watch it.  I know Kanopy has it, currently.

 

be well, be loved,

 

k. 

 

(Image credit: Kelly Sikkema)

All That Protects You: The Fingers You Place Upon Your Eyes and the Dagger You Keep With You Hoping You Will Find it in Time

Good morning. It is a new/different thing for me to stumble across the keyboard, pre-9:30am. 

I am currently typing this from underneath a pile of blankets, the blue-gray softest fleece one closest to my body. The window, which is about five feet away from me, is open.  Outside, the crows are talking shit, there is the hum of a distant airplane, and a periodic gush of ice cold wind pushes my curtains towards me. 

My dream life has been so active, lately.  Each time I go to settle down into sleep, I get preemptively tired knowing that more adventures or terrors are about to begin. When I close my eyes, I feel hesitant. Uncertain. Like when someone tells you to close your eyes for a surprise, but you really don't trust them.

 

be well, be loved,

 

k. 

 

(image: Two photos from Alexander McQueen's Fall/Winter 1998/99 show entitled Joan. The show was inspired by Joan of Arc and the Romanov Family. The theme was clothes that look like armour and clothes as armour. Images are from 29secrets.)

 

Cults and the Color of the Black Baccara Rose

Last night was Conspiracy Night with X at my place. This is where we get pizza and junk food (yes, we always bring our own hot sauce), put our tin foil hats on and do a deep dive into the world at large- past and present. Last night X picked the film Eyes Wide Shut (1999), which he had already seen, but I had never seen. He thought it a good accompaniment to all that's been going on with the release of "the files". Needless to say by the end of the night it was 2am, our stomachs hurt and we had jumped down the conspiracy ideas of how and why Kubrick (who reportedly was in good health) was dead four days after the first viewing of the final cut of the film.  

Anyway. Here is to X and the "caja de metal" that we say we are going to put our phones in at the beginning of these nights.  

In other news, tonight before bed, I watched the 27 minute documentary Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (1970) that is a bunch of excerpts of interviews with James Baldwin made by what seem to be some pretty fucking obnoxious white guys.  

In talking about despair and stating that he is still writing and that a person in despair would not be able to write, Baldwin says: 

 

I'm aware, you know, that I and the people I love may perish in the morning.  

I know that.  

But there's light on our faces now.

If you live under the shadow of death, it gives you a certain freedom.

I'm perfectly happy, odd as it sounds, and relatively free.  

 

 

 

be well; be loved, click on the painting to make it larger. 

 

k. 

 

[Image: The Apparition (1875) Gustave Moreau] 

Laughing With My Feet in Your Lap Like You Were My Closest Friend

On Valentine's Day, I was at brunch sitting in a booth across from J at a diner. About an hour into our hang out, a person walked in who was a doppelganger of you. Of course. A vaguely military green sweater, stylized camouflage pants, ears sticking out a bit and pierced with small piercing hoops of sorts (the type one associates with the 90s). They sat so they were facing me. Across from them looked to be their father (they looked alike; he was significantly older) but you never know these days. 

For the rest of the time I was there, I looked past J and at them. It was so odd to see you sitting there. Every part of me had the inclination to pass them my number, but I had no idea why.  

Lately, I have been reading Donald Kalsched's work (The Inner World of Trauma in its Diabolical Form) and feeling the sci-fi-ness of it. It makes me think of each season's "Big Bad" from Buffy the Vampire Slayer mixed with the familiar demon-and-angel imagery I grew up with. I've also been reading The Labyrinth: An Existential Odyssey, a graphic novel that - ironically because of all the shit I've talked about him- centers around a particular work of Sartre's. To say I'm reading it more because of the creativity of its cover and the cuteness of the cartoon mouse who stars in it would just come across as defensive. I am grateful for my library hauls and stolen academic library access so much these days. 

Last night I was asked to describe what kind of "weird" I am and I did not have an answer. I have heard people describe me with this word the majority of my life. It does not resonate with me. I suppose there is some hilarity to be found within that fact. 

 

 

be well; be loved,

 

k.  

 

(image: From Sadviolences Tumblr)

(title from Maroon) 

Excess; Reflection

 

It's that weird season again. The one that is laced with memory and fabrication, coziness and outsider status. It's the season where I start working out differently - wanting to feel my body and its limits more. As if pushing to failure will help me realize where I stand. What I'm capable of.  What results are those deep and particular cravings.  In sex, in food, in comfort. All of it. 

Tonight I am writing this with muscles aching, a bag of Takis (Fuego) and the kind of Kinder Egg that requires you to scoop milk-and-white chocolate out of half of an "eggshell" within reach. I've been going back and forth between the two: My mouth on fire and the heat being put out by the thick sweetness of the unreal, but not necessarily good, chocolate.  

A few feet away from me, a stocking with my name on it that arrived as a gift from a friend in New York hangs over a non-functional fireplace with a padlock on it. There is seasonal symbolism in there, somewhere, but I can't quite place it. 

Meanwhile, most of the day has been spent talking to friends who live far away and listening to podcasts on this week's parsha/parasha/parashat. I'll never be clear on how to spell it. 

Reading and listening and learning and reflecting. 

Eating and fucking and lifting and thinking.  

 

I am thinking, tonight, about the minds that I covet. 

I am thinking, tonight, of the minds that I miss. 

I am thinking of the boy who truly loved Genet and the way he would wipe his nose.

I am thinking of the masc who told me of their former lover who liked to be wrapped in Saran Wrap.

I am thinking of the secrets I have held for people.

I am thinking of the people who wanted to hold mine. 

 

How many Decembers have you had in your lifetime so far? 

Can you remember them all? 

 

k.  

 

 

(image: akiphotogrpahthings tumblr)