Slow Dancing in Our Living Room

 

I. 

This week I've had an unhealthy relationship with the Pomodoro Technique. Yes, I have been wildly productive. However, something has shifted where I feel like my life is existing in 15 minute intervals*. It reminds me of when I was a child and some adult would have an old-school slide projector and would be showing images of photos they had taken, or perhaps works of art. There would be a heavy clunk-shift sound, then an image projected onto a screen. Just ask you started to lose yourself in the image: Another clunk-shift. A new image, pulling you out of the world you had just started to immerse yourself in. 

II.

I never really understood souvenirs until I experienced them through you. You told me that you liked to get things to commemorate particular experiences. Capturing a memory before it became a memory. Slowly, you started getting me little (as in tiny, my favorite) mugs here and there on our adventures. 

Over the years, it continues. I love it. 

My favorite so far is what may be the softest shirt I've ever had on my body that you picked up from a Midwest doughnut shop. You took me there to show me why they may be the best donuts around in that sun-faded, somehow familiar hometown. 

 

be well; be loved,

k. 

 

 

*= (I have been doing 15 minute increments, not the traditional 25). 

 

[image from Ifoundshelterhere tumblr] 

Car Culture and the Lines of a Tailored Suit: Passenger Princes and the Bratty Boy Behind the Wheel

The rain on my car is a baptism.

                                 -- From that one movie. You know the one. 

These past few days have had a calm within me. Externally, there have been storms for some around me. Asks for emergency Zoom calls; texts for last minute tarot reads. This kind of thing doesn't happen often but, when it does, it just feels good to be able to have and offer the capacity to hold and take on some of the weight of it. The timing feels serendipitous and for that, I am grateful. It has been sunny for several days now, but it has been raining hard in other realms.

This weekend will be a housewarming party: The house filled with family and love and laughter-  with or without a functioning barbecue. 

* 

Lastly, because I don't know the order in which to put it, I learned earlier this week that a loved one's sibling died by suicide. 

[This loved one is of so many years. Years of letter-writing, romance, friendship, clues. The first blueprint of something true. Their father helped me figure out how to buy my first new-for-me vehicle. Their sister the first child aside from my niece I had bought a present for back then.] 

So I am here: Showered and quiet, contemplating the complexity of these kinds of deaths. They churn the stomach, the mind and the heart in a way that is distinct from other kinds of deaths. In their immediate shadow, there are never exact words to say and, perhaps, it is better that way. 

Memorial Day, indeed.  

 

be well; be loved,

 

k.  

[image: Jing Wen for Vogue UK, March 2018  Mert & Marcus]

Sunset Through a Keyhole

Such endless-summer-with-your-friends feel tonight. One of those endless hang outs that could easily go on for a few more hours. Sunset, ice cream, the waterfront, great conversations, and me finally witnessing (and thus dispelling) the mysteries of electric car charging stations. 

* 

Last night was the sound performance. Fifty of us in an auditorium with 1800+ seats, all sitting in the center of the first seven rows (for the best experience of the three dimensional sound). All in the dark. Seventy minutes. Brief, haunting human  vocals, but mostly field recordings of the most gorgeous and vast sounds spilling from front to back to left to right. Train wheels into violins; birds into fear into the power of the ocean. Underwater and above the atmosphere in the span of the hands on the clock.

Leaving the auditorium was disorienting for a thousand beautiful reasons. 

be well; be loved,

k.  

The report, once delivered, included:

Excerpt from a letter dated [redacted] years ago:

 

I'm so relieved you told me about the [redacted]. I've been wanting to tell you: She keeps coming up to my cafe. When she first came in, she introduced herself and reminded me that she had met me through you once. I know she doesn't live anywhere close to there.

[redacted] 

She 'liked' every photograph I was in on my workplace's Instagram page. Nothing else. Maybe she didn't think the people at my work would notice. They did. (We are an imperfect but caring work family). She sent a request to follow my personal account. I left it pending. If she asks me about it, I will tell her that I don't mix my work life with my personal life.

 

 

[Image credit: Artem Nadyozhin via thephotoregistry Tumblr]

Sound Vibrating Your Hipbones While Lying on the Floor

A book that I am reading at present proposes that asking the meaning of life is akin to asking a chess master what "the best chess move is". Which is to say that the question makes no sense. There is no singular answer and, what is more, each individual's answer is so specific to the alignment of the multiple contexts in which he finds himself. 

Am I searching for the meaning of life? No. 

Am I reading Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl because I was on the waitlist for months and it was, at last, my turn? Yes.  

Not quite the beach read material that the season whispers, but fascinating nonetheless. 

[In case one is unfamiliar, Frankl was a psychiatrist, philosopher, survivor of the concentration camps of the Shoah, and founder of Logotherapy. (If Freud was "will to pleasure", Logotherapy is "will to meaning". Existential/humanistic at root.)]

Something I'm thinking about is this tactic/idea he talks about in the book known as Paradoxical Intention, where a person is able to overcome a behavior they would like to change by aiming to desire the very thing they wrestle with or fear.  So, for example, in the book he describes a person who sweats a ton when they are nervous. Instead of "trying not to sweat", he instructs the person when faced with a situation that may make them nervous to, instead, think along the lines of "Normally I sweat a quart of perspiration. I'm going to try and sweat three quarts of perspiration tonight!" Evidently, it somehow overrides something and the person no longer sweats. He offers examples of this being effective with OCD handwashing, fear of sleeplessness that ends up causing sleeplessness...all sorts of things.

It's a bit of a mind-bend to imagine. Simultaneously, it makes me curious to attempt.  I'll have to think on what I could use it for. 

What would you use it for? 

Let's do it and report back.

**

In other news, this week I'll be in art fag high heaven.  There is an event for sound nerds that will take place within a room set up with high-fidelity multi-channel system that are constructed for immersive, spatial audio experiences and I can't wait.  I will report back but, some of the concepts behind the pieces are so nerdilicious that I may look into the option of just living out the rest of my life in the room with the performances on repeat. 

 

be well; be loved,

 

k.  

 

P.S. For the past two weeks, if I hit any level of low motivation, I have had Diljit Dosanjh's most recent album on repeat and all motivation skyrockets. (Yes, the song Morni in particular, as I'm sure is obvious.) If you're feeling low inspiration, check it out.  

[image credit: André Kertész]

The Pulse of Chlorine in Your Eyes

 

Lately, in order to feed a particular writing project A and I will return to soon,  I've been steeping in the intersection of writing and the condensed emotion of film shorts. It has continued to blow my mind how filmmakers are able to create worlds and depth and impact in the span of less-than-25-ish-minutes (sometimes as few as 6). When I think back on shorts that I have watched over the years, such a disproportionate number of them are engraved into my memory because of their economic use of image, tone, movement, and writing. 

Tonight after a high-speed day slowed into a cool evening, I settled in to watch an 18-minute long short entitled Barbie Blues (2011) by Adi Kutner. The film, in my understanding, was originally made as part of a BA program at Tel Aviv University and ended up having a nomination at Sundance for International Fiction, as well as another nomination in the Jerusalem Film Festival. 

In truth, I had only read the first sentence of the description of the film. It read: When Mika, a suburban teenager, finds a disturbing creature in her pool, she asks her new friendly neighbor Gershon for help. I didn't bother to read the rest of the description. I figured, cool. A film that has some sort of sci-fi vibe to it in which a girl and her neighbor deal with a mysterious creature that has turned up in her pool. 

What actually ensued was my body and mind starting to tense about 180 seconds into the film. I started to realize that, perhaps, there would be no sci-fi element to the film.  During the18 minutes of the film, I was able to feel the oddest sensations in my body and mind. Clenching, bracing, not-quite-releasing-but-not-quite-not-releasing. My breath held then released; shallow then deep. There was something reassuring in knowing that whatever I felt, it would not last longer than 18 minutes as the story unfolded. 

Now? I keep thinking about the film. The last few lines that are spoken. Who says them. What is said. How the story is told without being said, exactly. Mostly, I can't stop thinking about what I felt in my body and mind during the film.  

I can't say that I would recommend the film, nor would I advise against it exactly. I'll just say that if you happen to see it, or if you choose to see it (it is available on Vimeo, Kanopy and the like), pay detailed attention to your body and tell me later 

what it said. 

 

be well; be loved,

 

k.  

 

[Photo credit: Jamie Street] 

The Bit You Put in Your Mouth to Tame Yourself

 

Wade asked me if I was experiencing the "(delectable) hangover" associated with stepping back into life after an extended travel/visit/guest/extravagant disappearance. I had never thought about it in those terms.  

I was. 

I am. 

It's wonderful. 

It's disorienting. 

The scents I catch upon my clothes are as intoxicating as they are exquisite. 

 

be well; be loved,

k.  

 

 

Envelope in my mailbox today. A handwritten note (appreciated). 

Case summary: Same obsessions; different pet. Nothing changes other than the delusions of her mind with the phase of the moon.  

Report to follow, albeit a predictable read.

- P.  

 

[Image credit: Maxime Ballestero DTSM SS2016 via Tissue Magazine]

Weird Science

 

 

In less than 24 hours a helping of the Midwest will be scooped up and weighted down next to me. My sleep shifts so significantly in the presence of said scoop: Like a satisfying last puzzle piece locking into place.

Insert an image, here, of an analog paper map with all of its pen-drawn circles and highlighted routes: Something between a blueprint and Frankenstein's stitches. There is the electricity of sleeplessness and anticipation of all the good reasons to stay awake. 

 

be well; be loved,

 

k.  

 

[P.S. One of the art exhibits I have thought about the most in the past year and some has been Business, Pleasure, Pressure, Release by Nick Doyle.  There is a sterile, measured, official description of it here .  However, I encourage you to look for short video footage of the other video invitations and tagged photos from the actual opening parties on Instagram or other outlets (@nickdoyle333 or @human_resources._ ). 

There is one video of a woman with thick red lipstick locked within the bar that is shown in the aboved-linked video. While locked within it, a black stiletto filled with champagne is brought towards her face and is poured from the stiletto directly into her mouth, which she drinks without being able to touch the stiletto to steady it. It is just spectacular in the image and concept.]

 

[image credit: Raymond Woolhead] 

The 15th (Not the Wire Song; Not of This Month)

The closest thing to blue flowers

The only straight person who knew The Maids

The pages on your walls I was afraid to read

The one who inadvertently introduced me to Shakespeare 

The blurred memory of the murder mystery castle you took me to and the groundskeeper who seemed to be everywhere

Your comfort with getting dirty 

 

Dante, or, The Circle That Dripped From Our Mouths

I've been thinking of how masks and/or hidden identities aid some people in feeling free to reveal who they are or perhaps try on who they imagine themselves to be. I begin to imagine masquerade balls, the history and art of Venetian masks, bank robberies, and the rubbery masks depicting politicians that seemed to be big at an earlier point in history. I think of some of the artwork of Gillian Wearing from long ago. In particular, her work Confess all on video. Don't worry you will be in disguise. Intrigued? Call Gillian (1994), which was a 30 minute video of people who had answered an ad in Time Out magazine being recorded in masks confessing fantasies, betrayals and just general secrets of every stripe.  

 (pause)

Growing up Catholic, you learn to crave confessions: Your own and those of other people. The electricity of catharsis that runs through your body as you tell your misdeeds, but also the excitement and wonder at who it actually is listening on the other side of that dark-latticed window within the oak-smelling confessional booth. Perhaps someone stepped in before the priest did. Perhaps the priest is more gloriously rotten than you.  

Working in proximity to particular types of sexualized work for a number of years, that craving would get satisfied.

We all know, on particular levels, that everyone has things they do in the shadows. Sometimes those shadows are darker, sometimes they only seem dark to person who did them, and sometimes there are those who simply wonder "What's so fucking dark about this? Desire is desire. Let there be light."

I think of all of the confessions I have heard over the years, and I think of my own. Such a strange vehicle one rides in to hear stories from strangers about their secret desires or identities.  

I recall stories from men who would sneak into their mother's closets to have sex with their shoes, of men who coveted the idea of being dressed up as a girl by a woman, of men who wanted to leap over a woman in order to have her kick him in the stomach, mid-air, just to send him flying. Men who wanted to be denied. Men who wanted to be run over (Not symbolically, but literally. As in Jeeps.). 

I've lost all perspective on what is taboo these days. Recently a political figure's voluptuous husband had the curtain pulled back on his joy-smeared face in the throws of his sublime and almost saint-like bimbo-fication. For me, too often there will be these "big reveals" that seem to be nothing more than a flashlight shining into the dark dank basement people hide their desires in. Too often it is the masks of the "vanilla" mainstream that strikes me as the most perverse: Promoting family values and flat-front khakis out in broad daylight. 

In a context where all is consensual, what is the big reveal? Why the dank basements? Perhaps the basements simply function as the mask that some need in order to fully confess and access the depths of their desire.

I say to each their own and, for my own hunger,

spare no detail.

 

 

be well; be loved. 

k

P.S. What is something you've participated in that you would hesitate the most to tell another person?  

[Image: Photo from Alexander McQueen's show, Dante, A/W 1996]