the courage of turtles

I took the initiative to lift the window and set a fly free.
The grateful bug went flew through the crevice to be a free creature once again.
In my haste, after convincing myself this trivial deed was worth doing, I forgot about the screen outside the window (which cant be opened), thus damning the fly to an even more claustrophobic and hopeless existence. How fragile we are.

alteregos

Antonin Artaud, owner of the phrase "all writing is pigshit" resembles a more stoic Conan O'Brien, owner of the phrase, "Now as I mentioned in the monologue, or as I like to call it- quiet time..." History repeats itself.

phaedrus

Dad told me before a soccer game in 3rd grade to stand on the outer edge—I remember him showing me in X’s and O’s on the back of a church bulletin. If the action was in the middle of the field, stay on the outside, because the opportunity to score only came once the ball was dislodged from the mayhem. When this worked, I felt great (or smart). Usually though, it resulted in me being less assertive on the field. I traded vigor for ‘endurance’, always played defense, and eventually dropped soccer as a sport.
What does one do when their irons are in the fire? Is the night watchmen more admirable than the vigilante? Is man born or bred* to be an athlete or a scholar**? Who is more alive? Who is a better servant? Who is happier?


*because it seems to me there are two fundamental approaches to living:
"defense is the best offense" (scholar)

vs.

"throw everything against the wall and see what sticks" sports newscasters call it "picking up the trash" (athlete).


**third category: artist

the reason the modern world is so hard is that a man doesn't labor with a hammer in his hand, but in his head.

Don't look back, look out.

"Off the landing is a dark little mezzanine arranged as a room of furniture. It is a place one passes twenty times a day and no more thinks of entering than of entering a picture, nor even of looking at, but having entered, enters with all the oddness of entering a picture, a tableau in depth wherein space in untenanted and wherefrom the view of the house, the hall and dining room below, seems at once privileged and strange...Kate sits there in the shadows, exempt from the needs and necessaries of all passers-by. It is her sense of their waiting upon her and that alone intrudes itself into her mezzanine."
-p.175 of The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

Think of the recurring images that fill the memories of your life: the cover of a book you took months to read, the view out your bedroom window or from behind your car dashboard, the look of your feet in a certain pair of shoes. Is this the calendar by which our time is individually measured? The frame that actually contains us? There is no February--there is only the time I wore the same blue plaid shirt at least two days per week. There is no first two years of college--only the seasons I watched pass out my window on cedar lane--all of life contained in the park across the street. There is no summer of 2008--only the time I carried the Brothers Karamazov around--the red cover making the hefty book like a brick from which I hoped to construct either a home or a barricade. How many years will you watch the world pass before the windshield of the car you're driving? It seems that duration sorts our days better than any calendar ever could. This is a lonely idea--one less thing to unify us, but that's why there's four extra seats in my car, and why my shoes are hopefully cool enough you'll want to shake my hand.

SOURCE: I got a ticket today. I was driving to a mechanic to have my bumper put back on (another story). I rolled out of bed and put on the pair of jeans my hands grabbed first; got in the car and backed out of the driveway. As I was shifting into the forward gear, a cop passed me and I saw him turn around. I rolled my eyes hoping he wouldn't come wank on the fact I hadn't put my seatbelt on yet. He did. He hassled me further because I realized the pants I put on didn't have my license in them. Then, after discovering there was no marijuana in my car--informed me that my license plate was expired. I wasn't aware of this. Anyway, all that is what got me thinking about the recurring views--I've encountered a lot from behind that dashboard. When the fender is missing, I don't have my license on me, and I find out the tag is expired--I get to thinking I don't belong behind that dashboard. Don't look back.

ALSO: I saw Inglorious Basterds last night. The later Tarantino films--Kill Bill 1 and 2 are notably more succinct than his earlier classics. He seems less concerned with having an impact on the world than of creating his own (which usually involve spastic moments of gunfire and blood). This one was more self-contained that an Agathe Christie mystery, but, you know, a bit more badass.

The Deferral

I dreamt I was away for a few years. Too much sugar and alcohol last night combined with living in a new room in a house full of strangers made my sleep a little congested—more antsy than usual, the kind of sleep where you wake up sweaty with your sinuses too clogged to want to sit up.

The dream was less visceral but felt about the same as the waking. The difference was I knew the cause of my grogginess, where the distance I felt from those I knew in the dream was a mystery. I dreamt I returned to the community in which I now reside to visit after having been gone for three or four years. I was either a missionary or living in a big city—something respectable and intriguing to those I was returning to, but not something they could relate with, hence the alienated feeling.

A friend who had made it with his music was asked to play a back to school concert at his alma mater (which would have been mine also had I finished college). The setting was strange for all of us—felt more like a high school reunion than a meeting of old friends. In the gymnasium-floored auditorium of the university, we talked between the non-descript opening bands. As it works in dreams, my friend—who was playing next—was simultaneously in the audience talking to me while on stage tuning his guitar. Our interaction was a combination of eye contact from the stage, and words only half-heard by my deaf right ear.

People were at the concert that who never would be in reality—people I knew from jobs I’d had around the time I left who were now avid fans of my buddy’s music—“hands-waving-in-the-air” kind of fans. For them this wasn’t a joke-y “I can’t believe I’m playing at my old school” kind of show, but a chance to meet their favorite artist and get his autograph. People of snobbish tastes were here. Middle-aged people I knew were here. I think my grandfather was in the audience. It was my own Sergeant Peppers cover with every character in the audience a profound or ironic recollection of this season in my life.

Next I dreamed I was driving back to the airport or somewhere in my old beater Honda (which will likely not make it another 5 years in the non-dream world). A suspension bridge was before me with an otherworldly incline—like ramping up Niagara Falls. All the other cars had no problem ascending this highway, but the motor in my Honda was huffing like the train in Dumbo...”I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can…” Then I awoke.