Unfolding that which is between us is like unfolding a
Michigan grocery store. Unfolding Saturday like unfolding Nicolas Cage. But I
don’t want to do that. Do you?
Good. It’s not even Saturday. It’s just the thought of
it that makes me dance to another boxcar.
Things have been feeling rather sad, lately, gay and
sad, like a rockabilly competition in Slovakia.
In your youth you’re a spirited mountain brook
tumbling down the mountainside in a heedless spray. But in old age you’re a
swamp. Things bubble up and glow blue in a nebula of haze and fireflies. The
memories are often sweet, comforting oases of time in a world that made sense
and everything was topsy-turvy but still had a solid foundation, a gold
standard, a still functional constitution and bill of rights. You knew where
you stood. Even when things got shaky with tear gas and bullhorns. Not like
now. It’s like living in a world of methane hoping nobody lights a match. The
value of the dollar erodes by the minute. There are multiple wars that are a constant
suck on the treasury. Nothing goes to the streets and bridges. Nothing goes to
the homeless.
The memories are important because they provide
reference points. People read. They went to coffeehouses and sat at tables with
the local weeklies and paperback novels and cappuccino meditations. They
exhibited courtesies. They had a clear sense of right and wrong. They
apologized.
Today was very pleasant and sunny, a mild day in
mid-May. R and I went for a run by Lake Union. We were humming along just fine
when a young man whizzed by on an e-skateboard within inches of me in the
pedestrian lane. I could easily have been severely injured, if not killed. I
yelled at him to get into the bicycle lane, and he causally raised his arm
& flipped me off. I ran faster. I wanted to ring the asshole’s neck. R
pointed out that he was a lot bigger than me, and considering my age, it would
not go well for me. But when you’re filled with rage it’s amazing what you can
do. It’s like having a superpower. The guy kept going and that was that. I
calmed down. I could see myself slamming the guy in the stomach and going to
jail. That gave me some relief. That asshole wasn’t worth jailtime. I think my
flare up was due, in part, to a frustration. Earlier that morning, while having
my coffee, I began reading an article titled “Our Humdrum Dystopia” in an
online magazine. The article began by describing the number of electric bikes
and monowheels and e-skateboards plaguing New York City, the incredible speeds
at which people ride them, “indifferent to life, theirs and ours,” either for
the sheer maniacal fun of it, or the need to maximize profit. Who knows why
these A-holes take such chances. It’s like Mad Max. What’s going on? Is it the
screens, the constant mindless scrolling? Is it the apotheosis of money as God
to which all must sacrifice their principles and authenticity as human beings?
I only got two paragraphs into the article and hit a paywall. A fee. We’ve
already got enough fees. The other articles weren’t that interesting, so
subscribing for that one article didn’t make sense. I let it go, but not
without feeling frustrated. I wondered what direction the author was going to
take it.
If one feels like mooing one should moo. But one
should do it with a stride of compelling insouciance. I feel a parable coming
on. Let us shine as we assemble and compare our cuts of the pie. The parabolic
pie. The perpetual hole at the center of things pie. The pi of pie. And carpenters
and hems. The pie of hems. The pie of hymns. The pie of you. The pie of us all.
I finally got to liking that Stones song from December,
1967, “2000 Light Years From Home.” It was one of the better songs on that
infernal record, it just wasn’t in the Stone’s DNA to dally with the prettier
and utopian side of psychedelia, even in satire. They never mocked the flower
children. They seem humored by them. Their hearts were elsewhere. When they
returned to their senses and did Beggars Banquet that sweet dream had
evaporated. It had always seemed vapory. Too ethereal to get any traction in
this old world. Many years would pass, whole decades, before I’d get a shot at
hearing that weird space-age song again on YouTube. It starts with a bouquet of
otherworldly tones, someone hammering a preternatural piano, followed by some
sinister bass chords. Watts kicks in – bam! - & launches us into space. All
you want to do is drift. Dissolve into stars & drift. And then it ends with
a whoosh and a groan and a pounding drum and you’re back at the panel, spinning,
reaching for a dial, & a map of the Dandelion Puffball Nebula.
Steve Buscemi was punched – hard – by someone, for no
apparent reason, while he was walking in New York City. There was no evidence
it was personal. People have begun punching people. Arbitrarily. Why? Because they’re
mad at our species, at homo sapiens, for fucking up so badly? For being such
selfish bags of bone and sewage? I don’t know. I’m spit balling.
I loved Buscemi in Ghost Town. A sad sack with a keen
sense of the sublime, especially when it came to the blues.
I hear water running through the pipes. R watering her
flowers, fuchsia and dahlia and hellebore. Sweet alyssum, which the bees like,
and a rose, from Texas. She has a tough time watering. The soil is hydrophobic.
She waters strategically, trying to create conditions in which the water can
penetrate and percolate through the dirt. Water as rhetoric, persuasion by saturation.
And it continues. It’s what things do. The things that exist. The things that don’t exist continue, too. But only as ideas. Whispers. Ghostly presences. The darkness of closets. And the clothes that hang in them, awaiting a body to fill out the contours, and bring them into the world.
2 comments:
the world is going crazier by the second. i've noticed a blatant disregard for a few things we take for granted. like stopping at red lights rather than blasting thru them. obeying the laws of traffic are threads of the social contract that are now frayed & being pulled. what is the source of this pulling? i really don't know.
have people always got punched for no reason on the streets? i don't know either but like you i deeply admire Buscemi, especially in GHOST WORLD. there's a video taken at william burroughs' house in lawrence, ks. according to jim mccrary, who was his office manager, burroughs hosted many visitors at his modest midwestern home. & in that video, among all the hipsters, including patti smith, there is steve buscemi sitting quietly with an elegant modesty at a table with a few other guests.
life is strange & getting stranger. as usual, john, you've crafted a beautiful essay to make art from it all.
Thank you, Richard, for correcting my mistake; I continually get Ghost World mixed up with the 2008 film with Ricky Gervais, which is a very different kind of movie.
I've noticed the same phenomenon regarding traffic lights; we see people racing through red lights like never before. And drivers are much meaner. They drive with maniacal aggression.
There's also a new phenomenon that's emerged in U.S. cities called "Street Takeover," in which flash mobs consisting of hundreds of people show up at a certain location and take over the street to do drag racing and donuts. There was one here recently in which several drivers took turns doing donuts around the one cop car that showed up, lights flashing, but otherwise doing nothing. It's a mystery why they didn't call for backup. People have been doing this in France as well.
Post a Comment