13/3/13
Fresh honeycomb. Either you have it or you don't. Gingerly, between two fingers and a thumb, I heft the biggest brick I've ever held. The dark honey in its complex geometric structure is quite rich, and holds together better than what you find in the market or at a state fair. It's the product of wild African honey bees, the kind that go ballistic like bloodthirsty marauders of old, and chase interlopers for miles, stinging with a long merciless memory and often killing the unlucky through sheer persistence and volume.
When we first arrived at Umkwali, our boss's house was a jumble of odds and ends, the material mishmash of a place about to undergo a renovation. The spare room we stayed in was crammed with warthog tusks, years-old office papers, vuvuzelas, cast-off toys, curtain rods, filing cabinets, a golf ball, unidentifiable odds and ends, a piston-powered airgun that I later appropriated, and a cramped low mattress. It was a relief to get into our corrugated-iron shack in the bush a few days later.
When we first arrived, the kitchen ceiling was a patchwork of soft tiles and duct tape. An ominous hum underlay the sound of printers and toasters and teaspoons clinking in mismatched mugs. It accompanied our naive conversation about conservation and culture and planning. Anthony told us the rafters above were home to a population of bees. And that the weight of the nest threatened to collapse the ceiling. It could happen at any time.
"What about your kids," I asked, nodding my chin at the high-chair in the corner.
He shrugged. "We're working on it."
Apparently there were too many bees just to fumigate the room and have done. And too many for him to rent a suit. And the handful of professionals who'd come to evaluate had retreated in horror, shaking their heads. But what was he supposed to do, just burn the whole thing down? They nodded sagely.
For our first days on the farm, any kitchen conversation was punctuated by the crack and sizzle of bees in a bug zapper. Emptying the zapper was a many-times-daily chore for the house staff. Some weeks later, they completed a renovation of the house, building shelves in the kitchen and putting up stone tiles. It was beautiful. Except the ceiling remained.
But then came the fumigation campaign. Finally they'd found some guys willing to take on the buzzing horde. In exchange, they would take the bees and the honey. Apparently there was enough to make it worth their while. With that, they rolled up their sleeves and got to work.
I arrive on the farm just after they've finished stripping the honeycomb from the opened ceiling, preparing to fumigate the remainder and cleanse the space. They've packed the riches in numbered boxes on stacks of pallets on a flatbed. What they couldn't fit they left for us. We revel. The brick in my hand weighs easily half a pound.
The honeycomb is almost red. I take a slow eager bite. My teeth sink in as if coming home after a long journey. Crystallized bits of honey tickle my tongue, and a natural warmth spreads to all the little crannies of my mouth, filling my soul with flavor and sweetness and gold. It's rich and faintly smoky from a previous attempt to flush out—or at least subdue—the hive. The wax is sturdy, not sticky, and keeps its integrity as I chew out the last molecules of honey. I look up, and everyone is staring. The moan dies on my lips, and I smile ruefully.
"Yum," I say.
Then I take another bite.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Circles of life
5/3/13
You can smell death from several dozen meters away. Though it's funny we call the stench death, when it's really an abundance of life. Millions of bacteria popping off; hundreds of thousands of maggots hatching and munching their way toward airborne adulthood; and however many ants can fit along a pheromone trail three centimeters wide by three or four hillocks long. Turning flesh into sugar and sugar into gas. Wretched, gag-inducing, fetid gas. The smell of life.
The smell of death is nothing. Naught. Absence. Vacuum.
But life! In teeming circles on and around this baby zebra. Awful, sweet, thick, heavy. Clinging to nostrils, to clothes, to air, to memory. I like to picture the world according to olfactory-favoring animals. I see throbbing waves of vivid color coming off this little black-and-white-striped offering. A bloom of hope for acres around, bigger than the treetops, brighter than the sun, denser than the bush. A little creature who almost was. Or rather, was for less than a season. Was for just enough to see a few glorious rainy weeks. Spared the cracking terror and daily torment of the next seven parched months of dry. He was lucky. From a certain point of view.
And so were the cheetahs, who happened upon the little guy at the edge of his herd. Perhaps he'd wandered after a butterfly, curious about this new world around. Perhaps he'd been spooked by a scorpion and run off. Perhaps he'd stumbled during a life-and-death chase. Perhaps he simply was slow.
Either way, his luck and the cheetahs' luck were inverse. Finite balance points in the universe, a tangible clockwork neutral. In the mottled shadows under the bush next to the kill lie two bloated forms, mottled shadows rising and falling in pained panting. They're resting and digesting, between stuffing themselves as full as possible. Literally as full as possible. Because who knows when their next meal will be. So they eat and rest, eat and rest, panting and lifting their heads just enough to check their surroundings, layering shreds of meat into stretched bellies, laying in calories for the next several days or weeks.
At night, hyenas close in for their turn. Too full to defend their kill, the cheetahs watch as the big slouching carnivores tear into the remains, crunching bone like rock candy, gulping greedy hunks and shredding the corpse even further where nimble little nocturnals can nibble and gnaw in safety.
By next day, the kill is little more than a stain, a trample spot in the tall grass. Splintered bones are carried off by teams of ants. Butterflies slurp up the leftover moisture. Flies return to the scene, perhaps remembering their first and final feast as maggots. A dung beetle scrapes and rolls someone's evacuation from the night before, tidying up the site. The original players are nowhere to be seen, vanishing back into the bush. Cheetahs hiding whole and fat, baby zebra split and shared and returning to dust.
You can smell death from several dozen meters away. Though it's funny we call the stench death, when it's really an abundance of life. Millions of bacteria popping off; hundreds of thousands of maggots hatching and munching their way toward airborne adulthood; and however many ants can fit along a pheromone trail three centimeters wide by three or four hillocks long. Turning flesh into sugar and sugar into gas. Wretched, gag-inducing, fetid gas. The smell of life.
The smell of death is nothing. Naught. Absence. Vacuum.
But life! In teeming circles on and around this baby zebra. Awful, sweet, thick, heavy. Clinging to nostrils, to clothes, to air, to memory. I like to picture the world according to olfactory-favoring animals. I see throbbing waves of vivid color coming off this little black-and-white-striped offering. A bloom of hope for acres around, bigger than the treetops, brighter than the sun, denser than the bush. A little creature who almost was. Or rather, was for less than a season. Was for just enough to see a few glorious rainy weeks. Spared the cracking terror and daily torment of the next seven parched months of dry. He was lucky. From a certain point of view.
And so were the cheetahs, who happened upon the little guy at the edge of his herd. Perhaps he'd wandered after a butterfly, curious about this new world around. Perhaps he'd been spooked by a scorpion and run off. Perhaps he'd stumbled during a life-and-death chase. Perhaps he simply was slow.
Either way, his luck and the cheetahs' luck were inverse. Finite balance points in the universe, a tangible clockwork neutral. In the mottled shadows under the bush next to the kill lie two bloated forms, mottled shadows rising and falling in pained panting. They're resting and digesting, between stuffing themselves as full as possible. Literally as full as possible. Because who knows when their next meal will be. So they eat and rest, eat and rest, panting and lifting their heads just enough to check their surroundings, layering shreds of meat into stretched bellies, laying in calories for the next several days or weeks.
At night, hyenas close in for their turn. Too full to defend their kill, the cheetahs watch as the big slouching carnivores tear into the remains, crunching bone like rock candy, gulping greedy hunks and shredding the corpse even further where nimble little nocturnals can nibble and gnaw in safety.
By next day, the kill is little more than a stain, a trample spot in the tall grass. Splintered bones are carried off by teams of ants. Butterflies slurp up the leftover moisture. Flies return to the scene, perhaps remembering their first and final feast as maggots. A dung beetle scrapes and rolls someone's evacuation from the night before, tidying up the site. The original players are nowhere to be seen, vanishing back into the bush. Cheetahs hiding whole and fat, baby zebra split and shared and returning to dust.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Show and Tell
1/2/13
Warren found a snake skin today. Arriving at school before the rest of the pupils, he generally plays outside while I check my email. At one point he came rushing in, breathless, grinning. "Teacher Paul!"
"What's up, Warren?" Mildly annoyed at the disturbance.
"Look!" He holds up a good-size snake skin.
"Oh wow!" I coo, inwardly alarmed. It's about 9 hours since I last heard a story of a near brush with slithery death, and my nerves are keyed. Especially with a school yard full of five-year-olds. "Show me."
He leads me outside to our Jeep-sized water container in the playground. He points underneath. I kneel and peer at the narrow space, potentially a great hiding place for a small snake. The skin he showed me is at least a meter long, and thick enough to be a puff adder. Or it could be a fat rat snake. Can't really tell from the pale, dry skin. Either way, the snake probably just stopped nearby to shed its skin and lap up some leak water before moving on.
"Okay, Warren," I tell him, palming his tow head. "Just be really careful around here, and tell me if you see it." He nods excitedly. I explain to him the idea of show-and-tell. "When the rest of the kids get here, you can show them all what you found."
Over the next twenty minutes, I'm summoned to the area at least a half-dozen times, as each pupil arrives for Warren's animated recounting of his discovery. Each kid thinks he or she is the one to see the snake. I warn each student in turn, and they all give a wide-ish berth to the spot, all eagerly hoping to spot the slithery bugger.
By the time Warren stands in front of the class for his show-and-tell, the story is old news, and I can barely keep their attention for ten minutes with descriptions of molting and scales and snake bites. As I move on to the next lesson, the snake is long forgotten, and I heave a silent sigh of relief.
Warren found a snake skin today. Arriving at school before the rest of the pupils, he generally plays outside while I check my email. At one point he came rushing in, breathless, grinning. "Teacher Paul!"
"What's up, Warren?" Mildly annoyed at the disturbance.
"Look!" He holds up a good-size snake skin.
"Oh wow!" I coo, inwardly alarmed. It's about 9 hours since I last heard a story of a near brush with slithery death, and my nerves are keyed. Especially with a school yard full of five-year-olds. "Show me."
He leads me outside to our Jeep-sized water container in the playground. He points underneath. I kneel and peer at the narrow space, potentially a great hiding place for a small snake. The skin he showed me is at least a meter long, and thick enough to be a puff adder. Or it could be a fat rat snake. Can't really tell from the pale, dry skin. Either way, the snake probably just stopped nearby to shed its skin and lap up some leak water before moving on.
"Okay, Warren," I tell him, palming his tow head. "Just be really careful around here, and tell me if you see it." He nods excitedly. I explain to him the idea of show-and-tell. "When the rest of the kids get here, you can show them all what you found."
Over the next twenty minutes, I'm summoned to the area at least a half-dozen times, as each pupil arrives for Warren's animated recounting of his discovery. Each kid thinks he or she is the one to see the snake. I warn each student in turn, and they all give a wide-ish berth to the spot, all eagerly hoping to spot the slithery bugger.
By the time Warren stands in front of the class for his show-and-tell, the story is old news, and I can barely keep their attention for ten minutes with descriptions of molting and scales and snake bites. As I move on to the next lesson, the snake is long forgotten, and I heave a silent sigh of relief.
Tracking
1/31/13
They're tracking Happy and Fluffy, two male cheetahs on the property who hang out together as a coalition. High and hot in the wide blue sky, the sun shimmers in the grasses alongside the Land Rover. Every so often they stop, kill the engine, and climb up on the hood with a telemetry device. Each radio collar emits a unique frequency. Over the course of several hours they triangulate the signals until they narrow the animals' location to a block between roads. They hop out eagerly and proceed single file through the bush, on the lookout for born experts in camouflage, the fastest animals on land. Picture your housecat taking down an impala.
At the end of the wet season, the grasses are flush, flowering, hip-high. Even more so than other animals, cheetahs blend in perfectly, motley coats like grass and shadow. Hunters. Silent. Still. You're lucky to see an ear twitch.
Antenna in hand, Elisa leads the queue, listening close, walkie-talkie receiver near her ear. Volume way low, static faint. Eyes peeled, head on a swivel. The last time they were out, they came upon the cats suddenly. Suddenly—like one of them growled, and everyone froze.
Elisa leans down to scratch at a bit of thistle in her sock. The blips are constant now, from every direction. The cheetahs are within 10 meters. That's...about 30 feet. Brooke walks behind her, field-guide studies forgotten; in the practical, in the bush, in the thick of it. Step by step. The hush of grass. Even the volunteers in her wake are quiet.
No one says a word. Scanning the area. Looking for tiny movements. Bugs hum; the grass sways in the breeze. Shadows stick close.
Elisa feels it first. A mass under her boot, soft and giving, but not squishy like mud or dung. It moves—she jumps. The snake rises above the grass. It locks eyes with Brooke. Darts toward her. Dark body, light green belly. She sees its beauty. Recognizes it from her guidebooks. Its eyes—
Black mamba. Or snouted cobra.
Either way...
Its hood spreads. She leaps away.
It follows.
The volunteers scatter. The sun beats down. The grass undulates. Brooke leaps away. The snake swerves. Fixes her with its eyes. She leaps away. It follows. A breeze rustles the bush. The others look on, helpless. She leaps away. The snake pauses. Disappears.
After a long moment the group breathes again. The telemetry receiver blips, indicating the cheetahs are still at hand. Brooke smiles. She shrugs. "Catlike reflexes," she says. The sun beats down. After a bit, they see the cheetahs.
Building a School in the Bush
1/31/13
My classroom is small. Just enough room to make my sweaty rounds behind the square of desks, checking on who's writing numbers correctly, saving massive glitter-glue spills, preventing small-but-significant violence. A motley collection of educational posters speckle the walls, sticky-tacky sometimes coming loose in the midday heat. The stained concrete floor is hard beneath my heels, but at least it cleans up easily. Teaching primary school is a nonstop, on-your-feet kind of job; exhausting, exhilarating, and more worthy of mad respect than I ever knew.
The kids span the spectrum. Three speak only Tsutu. Some can subtract. Some don't know numbers yet. Some are capable of telling complex stories. Some can barely point at pictures of letters. All day long I shift gears wildly between babysitter, preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. Four-in-the-floor, and someone else is pumping the clutch. I struggle to find balance in the classroom, to challenge the advanced and develop the slow.
And yet they all play with equal impressive vigor, parading around the playground with a zeal that spans color and language, age and gender. Recess remains my favorite, a time when I can breathe and stand (mostly) still and reflect. Heidi pushes the others around and around on a plastic wheelie, making sure everyone takes turns. Dimpho bounces higher on the trampoline than anyone else, giggling and screaming like an imp. Warren has learned how to climb the tree, utterly unconcerned about dirt on his white t-shirt. Mashau swings as if she were born on the wooden seat.
My experience and training with this age group are utterly lacking at best. At times through the day I find myself on the verge of violent collapse, sanity stretched thin between English, Afrikaans, and Tsutu. At times I want to scream and curse the fates that have brought me to these rocky shores. I am without compass, map, or navigator. I'm awaiting a curriculum. I have no printer. My books and puzzles are untidily stacked on a low dented table. My whiteboard perches haphazardly on a chair. The minutes can't move fast enough.
But when I look at these kids, a mix of black and white like no other school in the area, playing together with almost no notion of the still-rampant segregation in their country, I remember to take a deep breath and sigh happily. I'm on a frontier here, as all the parents keep telling me. We're breaking boundaries. It's never smooth, and it's never easy. Fogey-old ghosts are rolling in their musty graves. A sapling has been planted in Alldays, and even if my hose is weak and full of holes, the water is still finding its place.
My classroom is small. Just enough room to make my sweaty rounds behind the square of desks, checking on who's writing numbers correctly, saving massive glitter-glue spills, preventing small-but-significant violence. A motley collection of educational posters speckle the walls, sticky-tacky sometimes coming loose in the midday heat. The stained concrete floor is hard beneath my heels, but at least it cleans up easily. Teaching primary school is a nonstop, on-your-feet kind of job; exhausting, exhilarating, and more worthy of mad respect than I ever knew.
The kids span the spectrum. Three speak only Tsutu. Some can subtract. Some don't know numbers yet. Some are capable of telling complex stories. Some can barely point at pictures of letters. All day long I shift gears wildly between babysitter, preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. Four-in-the-floor, and someone else is pumping the clutch. I struggle to find balance in the classroom, to challenge the advanced and develop the slow.
And yet they all play with equal impressive vigor, parading around the playground with a zeal that spans color and language, age and gender. Recess remains my favorite, a time when I can breathe and stand (mostly) still and reflect. Heidi pushes the others around and around on a plastic wheelie, making sure everyone takes turns. Dimpho bounces higher on the trampoline than anyone else, giggling and screaming like an imp. Warren has learned how to climb the tree, utterly unconcerned about dirt on his white t-shirt. Mashau swings as if she were born on the wooden seat.
My experience and training with this age group are utterly lacking at best. At times through the day I find myself on the verge of violent collapse, sanity stretched thin between English, Afrikaans, and Tsutu. At times I want to scream and curse the fates that have brought me to these rocky shores. I am without compass, map, or navigator. I'm awaiting a curriculum. I have no printer. My books and puzzles are untidily stacked on a low dented table. My whiteboard perches haphazardly on a chair. The minutes can't move fast enough.
But when I look at these kids, a mix of black and white like no other school in the area, playing together with almost no notion of the still-rampant segregation in their country, I remember to take a deep breath and sigh happily. I'm on a frontier here, as all the parents keep telling me. We're breaking boundaries. It's never smooth, and it's never easy. Fogey-old ghosts are rolling in their musty graves. A sapling has been planted in Alldays, and even if my hose is weak and full of holes, the water is still finding its place.
First Day of School
1/25/13
It's a long red road from camp to school. The sun climbs slowly over the horizon, still nice and cool with the breeze from open windows. You can only drive about 20 mph on this pocked dirt road—not because of the mud or the accidental knee-high speedbumps or the periodic broken-down electric gates. Here I stop and idle the engine, waiting for a group of giraffes standing in my path. They bob their way into the pale green brush, checking back at me and plucking choice leaves from the squat trees only they can reach. I continue on after staring at them in quiet amazement.
A few minutes later I stop for a pack of wildebeest, burly animals springing over the road, sun dull on thick black horns. They pass, and I throw the truck in gear, checking the bush again before easing on the accelerator. Another big male bursts through within a tail flick of my grill. I stifle a gasp and drive on down the dusty road. I'm going to be late, but that's okay. TIA.
I bump down the rest of my 45-minute commute, passing the usual packs of baboons loping, impala leaping, and innumerable birds flapping across my view. Guinea fowl bob along like stupid chickens, frantically bobbing and weaving in the tire tracks until they finally remember they can fly away. I'm already used to it. I've been here one day.
The school is near the Alldays post office, a low group of buildings surrounded by a chainlink fence. It's the fences and walls around every building, from here in the boonies all the way through the choicest city streets, that remind you this is a developing country if nothing else—I'm pretty sure there's a Whole Foods in Joburg. But up here in this tiny town, things are a lot more informal.
Despite the delays, I still make it before the kids arrive. First I meet the mother who's been holding down the fort awaiting my arrival. She explains to me how grateful the parents all are, how excited for the concept. She tells me about up-front racism.
"Isn't that illegal?" I ask. Yes, I've brushed up on my apartheid.
"Yea, technically." She sucks her teeth. "But since it's a church school, they can screen their pupils."
We shake our heads, scratching toes in the dust. Many in the community are still very wary of a multiracial school. They wonder if the black kids will be dirty, smelly, stupid. They wonder why these white parents would expose their kids to that.
"But what about when they grow up and have black bosses?" Roxi shrugs. "And how can we tell our kids something, and tell them to respect their teachers but their teachers are saying the opposite?"
I look around at the kids happily playing with hoola hoops and mud, bouncing on the trampoline, hopping from numbered square to numbered square in the playground. Situ, English, and Afrikaans mixing with the dust and high-pitched laughter.
"Anyway, we're just so happy to have you here. It's amazing to see this happening. Like just two years ago, you could've said this and no one would've believed you. So thank you."
I shrug bashfully and shake hands with other parents, equally enthusiastic if rather more brief. My first few days will be pure play, getting to know the kids and figuring out who's who and who fits where. I have them color pictures and count blocks and point out pictures as I read them stories. I struggle to maintain order when I go from kid to kid, giving one-on-one time. I quickly run out of printouts and worksheets, and head home in a daze, hazy with dust and fatigue. It's 3 pm and I'm beat. Tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow we move into our shack. Tomorrow I'll begin to build my curriculum. For now I must rest.
TIA Delays
1/24/13
In a coffeeshop in Johannesburg, Brooke's ZA phone chirps. It's Anthony, our link in South Africa. The farm manager in charge of all the volunteer projects. She reads the text message aloud, voice and shoulders slumping deeper with each word.
Too much flooding. Roads closed. We not coming to Joburg.
Oh shit. No. We flop back in our cafe seats, where we've been browsing the internet, killing time in Johannesburg with nothing to do but spend money and laze about. We've been here for days, visiting the malls to pick up what we need and what we've forgotten. We've hit half a dozen great restaurants that almost remind us of home.
We've been waiting on salvation, waiting for Anthony to sweep us up off our asses and into the bush. Ready for adventure. Delayed yet further.
Not sure how long. Roads all mud.
Doesn't he have a helicopter? Can't we get up to Polokwane and he can pick us up there? Polokwane is about four hours from Joburg and another two from Polokwane to Alldays. Plus 45 minutes from Alldays to the farm, given dry roads and no obstacles.
Helicopter hangar unreachable. Will let you know...
We slump, chins on fists. Dejection. Now what? Can we just fly up to Polokwane and wait there? There must be somewhere we can stay. But why bother? We buy a day pass at a gym in Joburg and burn off some energy. Then we settle ourselves into a few bottles of wine at an Italian joint with a ZA twist. Brooke's phone chirps.
Roads ok. Can get to Pkn now.
We leap out of our seats. We dig out the iPad and rummage up some wifi.
Flights to Polokwane fall within our budget. A 45-minute hop. We check on luggage policies for our huge suitcases full of donated school supplies. We buy the tickets. The wine becomes a celebration. We toast and dance and laugh and cheer. Our waiter joins in. Fellow patrons look at us under raised brows. We pay our bill. We skip back to the hostel.
The next day Ant and Emma pick us up at the Polokwane airport a few hours behind schedule, where we pass the time in the Millionaire's Lounge, a silly lavish cafe of tacky velvet couches and unused fondue sets. We order fondue. It doesn't come. We drag our luggage and wedge it into the truck between jerry cans of helicopter fuel. Finally we make it into camp as the sun goes down bringing our eyelids with it.
Into Africa
1/19/13
We land in the rain. Sheets of water on the tarmac riffle under the jets, and we stoop awkwardly over our seats wiggling swollen ankles and trying to breathe shallowly through 9 hours and 400 people worth of stale breath. Somehow customs is a breeze, our agent mostly chattering in Zulu to his colleague across the way. He stamps us, says gud luck, and we're on our way to wrestle with backpacks and two suitcases full of construction paper, puzzles, paint and brushes, markers, stuffed animals, and two desperate-seeming but hopeful binders of borrowed Montessori material.
What lies before us is an indefinite stretch of conservation and education. For at least three weeks I'll be headmaster and teacher of a small private primary school, kindergarteners and first graders from farms and homesteads around Alldays, Limpopo, the northernmost province of South Africa. Our fundraising efforts have focused on gathering tuition for underprivileged kids in the community, hoping to pull some of them out of overcrowded and underserviced community schools. Welcome to Briershof Primary, the only multiracial school in the area.
Brooke will be project leader in charge of cheetah conservation. If they find an Afrikaans-speaking replacement for me (probably not—TIA), I'll join her on a nearby rhino-conservation project, tranq-ing rhinos from a helicopter and affixing radio collars for tracking. Poachers can pocket up to 30 grand for a good-size horn, mostly destined for China where it will do nothing to increase...pinky size.
After hitting the airport ATM, I now have four kinds of currency in my wallet, and we ride a train from the airport toward our guest haus in Johannesburg proper where we're welcomed profusely by Bonga, who remembers "Crazy Bruke" from when she was here last winter. He pulls us flamboyantly toward our room and bids us rest up before lunch. Gratefully we collapse onto the bed, propping our legs up the wall. As soon as I'm asleep, Bonga calls "loonch!" and we straggle into the kitchen with the Awesome Travel Guest House staff who trickle home throughout the afternoon, leaving behind Rubin, Gihan, and Bonga. We drink whiskey and beer with them, trading stories and music, learning local laws and parlance and getting better with the accent as our two cultures slur toward a common understanding.
For the rest of the weekend (what day is it?) we'll stay here acclimating and picking up a few forgotten sundries before our 7-hour ride up to Alldays, to our tin shack and open sky.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Quotidian
It's funny that I feel the need to clean out my glass before leaving. Makes perfect practical sense; the thing is disgusting. Flecks of char spill out as I rinse and rerinse, pumping in soap and shaking and soaking. The color of the swab paper towel is no prettier.
But it's more. It's a ritual, a ceremonial cleansing. A way of looking myself in the mirror and saying, "Hm, maybe I oughta cut back." A skeptical nod in the mirror. "Or at least give my lungs a more frequent dustoff." Agreed. With that promise in the books, I can shake out a few more black flecks and swab out some more yellow stain.
Then come the q-tips. Collectors. Squeezing out the toke-hole laden with nasty treasures, and I hear echoes of suck-throughs and think: good thing the water was there to protect me.
Finally satisfied, fingers pruney, glass shining, no more ash, I towel it off and tuck it away, drawstring tight. Wrapped up and ready like a present.
www.paulblumer.com
+Sam Rosenbaum +John Ritenour +David Blumer +Erik Greene +Bradley Mock @
But it's more. It's a ritual, a ceremonial cleansing. A way of looking myself in the mirror and saying, "Hm, maybe I oughta cut back." A skeptical nod in the mirror. "Or at least give my lungs a more frequent dustoff." Agreed. With that promise in the books, I can shake out a few more black flecks and swab out some more yellow stain.
Then come the q-tips. Collectors. Squeezing out the toke-hole laden with nasty treasures, and I hear echoes of suck-throughs and think: good thing the water was there to protect me.
Finally satisfied, fingers pruney, glass shining, no more ash, I towel it off and tuck it away, drawstring tight. Wrapped up and ready like a present.
www.paulblumer.com
+Sam Rosenbaum +John Ritenour +David Blumer +Erik Greene +Bradley Mock @
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Sunday, July 29, 2012
South America redux
Bogota, Colombia
After a while you get used to the smell of the baño basura, its micro-folded units of used toilet paper protecting weak septic systems; you get used to the smell of raw gasoline and faulty exhaust; used to the smell of shit and trash in the streets. You get used to it because the nose is a real Zen character. The nose is where it is whenever it is. The nose knows it´s not going anywhere for a while, so it adapts quickly. It adapts and instead points out the timeless beauty here, the personality and the passion and the 600-year-old presence of the human spirit. There´s a strength here, a connection that goes back generations without interruption, without noticing the changing tides of technology and social interaction.
South of the city en route to Ipiales is a patchwork countryside, little squares of land stitched together by thin rows of spindly trees, and far below a white river splashes and churns, no part of it aware of the overall flow, knowing only to go down, down, down, under rolling foothills thick with vegetation and terraced by the hooves of pastured cows. Heavy clouds crawl over the mountains, dragging their swollen bellies over the sharp peaks and spilling out on the other side. Along the road, motley barbed-wire fences stretch tight between cut branches, festooned with vines and aloe-like plants. Banana trees stand pale green between ramshackle houses and skeletal shacks. A gnarled tree limb leans on a bamboo fencepost like an old man taking a breather. Here and there a cow munches ditch grass at the end of a short taut lead. Corrugated metal roofs glint in the sun as if showing off to their terracotta neighbors. An abandoned sign proclaims "Venta de quesos," and an old man swats at the grass with a machete in an elaborate leather scabbard. Purple mountains shrug in the distance while hens cluck and scratch under a clothesline. In a yard, an upturned section of tractor tire serves as a water trough for a pair of skinny horses. On the other side of a low bridge over a flat stretch of delta, a shoe hangs from the barbed wire like a Christmas ornament. The bus hurtles past leaving only a cough of exhaust and the occasional skid mark from changing gears uphill.
Later a soldier/police in US-marked utility duds stops the bus, sweating as he leans in to check the cargo compartments, holding his assault rifle back with a veiny hand. He waves a thumbs-up at two kids looking on over popsicles, and waves the bus on toward Quito.
After a while you get used to the smell of the baño basura, its micro-folded units of used toilet paper protecting weak septic systems; you get used to the smell of raw gasoline and faulty exhaust; used to the smell of shit and trash in the streets. You get used to it because the nose is a real Zen character. The nose is where it is whenever it is. The nose knows it´s not going anywhere for a while, so it adapts quickly. It adapts and instead points out the timeless beauty here, the personality and the passion and the 600-year-old presence of the human spirit. There´s a strength here, a connection that goes back generations without interruption, without noticing the changing tides of technology and social interaction.
South of the city en route to Ipiales is a patchwork countryside, little squares of land stitched together by thin rows of spindly trees, and far below a white river splashes and churns, no part of it aware of the overall flow, knowing only to go down, down, down, under rolling foothills thick with vegetation and terraced by the hooves of pastured cows. Heavy clouds crawl over the mountains, dragging their swollen bellies over the sharp peaks and spilling out on the other side. Along the road, motley barbed-wire fences stretch tight between cut branches, festooned with vines and aloe-like plants. Banana trees stand pale green between ramshackle houses and skeletal shacks. A gnarled tree limb leans on a bamboo fencepost like an old man taking a breather. Here and there a cow munches ditch grass at the end of a short taut lead. Corrugated metal roofs glint in the sun as if showing off to their terracotta neighbors. An abandoned sign proclaims "Venta de quesos," and an old man swats at the grass with a machete in an elaborate leather scabbard. Purple mountains shrug in the distance while hens cluck and scratch under a clothesline. In a yard, an upturned section of tractor tire serves as a water trough for a pair of skinny horses. On the other side of a low bridge over a flat stretch of delta, a shoe hangs from the barbed wire like a Christmas ornament. The bus hurtles past leaving only a cough of exhaust and the occasional skid mark from changing gears uphill.
Later a soldier/police in US-marked utility duds stops the bus, sweating as he leans in to check the cargo compartments, holding his assault rifle back with a veiny hand. He waves a thumbs-up at two kids looking on over popsicles, and waves the bus on toward Quito.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
LSD in the GC
My campsite is a five-minute walk from the Grand Canyon south rim. The first notes in my notebook: Always take a pre-trip poop/Drop a deuce before you drop acid. It gets weird from there.
On my way over I pass an incongruous yellow fire-hydrant with orange trim sitting in the stubby forest like a lamppost in Narnia. This is going to be a good night...
By the watchtower, a hummingbird drinks from pink thistle flowers that only a careful gourmet could enjoy. Like pufferfish. The hummingbird dances in the air, tail flicking up and down, as if suspended on a wire. A truly remarkable creature—and to him, he's just making a living.
This watchtower seems impossible. The echoes, the sound of children scampering. Strewn with pictographs & symbols, a mockery and an homage in one. Like many preservation projects. I feel I must keep jotting to exist, to maintain my grasp. But perhaps I should let go. Perhaps that's the point. When I look around, so much fodder, so many reasons why it's okay to sit and do one's own thing, deeply, unjudged. Did the architect do these cave paintings herself, by hand? Or did she have her friends? Throw a party? 1933. I picture too-loud laughter, hierarchies of guests formed ad hoc & ex officio. Cocktails & pearls. Overdressed patrons buzzed enough not to complain of the heat; not yet drunk enough to bicker. Echoes of time, of place. Foreign accents and giggles. It's hot in here. Sweat breaks on my forehead.
I realize I'm narrating a scene. Can I change it? Can I conjure a Lipan sorceress with clear cold water for my parched lips? What are all these scenes, these styles? They're telling me to move, to get up and see the rest before the building closes. I nod my head and tap my feet like I'm composing music. Editing myself for content, for character. By my own design I am creating myself. God-like.
Are these just the cocooned ramblings of a drug-addled freak? Or is there really something to the idea of life as a work of fiction?
Creation is a most awesome process. Constant flux and flow, artists & brushstrokes blending into a story. Words. The strongest medium, for their ability to craft psychology, to effect an effect. But will words one day cease to exist? When we direct-connect experiences & authorship no longer matters? Or will it still because we'll still craft our perspectives from all those around and all those around before?
What a flow. What a place. So much more than a pin on a map. A glimpse. A wink. This is where it is. This is where you'll find it. Whispering. I live my trip in words, exploding on the page. Careening through life, not sure whether I'm narrating or writing or both. Time to go.
I don't know where to go, where to choose to enjoy this the most. And yet, I do—every place is perfect. Every angle is there. As long as I'm HERE.
Here I am in the pages again, an attempt to capture the heavy clouds dragging rainy bellies along this rugged land, shy like a painting of purples & fire & rays of light. Storm fronts gather—am I actually going to see a thunderstorm out here? Am I going to die transfixed by lightning from within and without? The perfection of this moment is
HARD TO FATHOM
as the universe—or at least this speck of it—seems to gather itself before me, a dusty display of hereafter.
I wish I could paint those hazy valleys and ridges laid bare by the sun's slant. I have no grasp on how close that cloud is overhead. Seems like it could just reach out and scoop me up, carry me along some dusty mile and drop me off wherever it pleased.
These clouds
So perfect
I wish I had the words.
The wind kicks up dust devils. This is a side of her I've not seen yet. Flexing a little. Ready for the show. (ongoing)
I'm so torn in this place—to stare and contemplate, or delve & explore. That's the glory of it. Those doubts are strictly for befores & afters. In the THICK of it it takes over completely, and all you can do is follow or be left behind (which you can't be). If I get up and walk over to that tree on the promontory, will the people behind me behind the rail think I'm walking strangely (picture Johnny Depp) and do I really care? Can this Grand Canyon attitude be brought back to real life? Is it really just a tourist trap? or do people remember its touch? Do they, behind me, comprehend the beauty? Do I need to move forward to escape their touch? What will this all look like in the light of the morning? Isn't that the endless ??
This moment won't last (it's infinite) so enjoy the mess out of it.
The sun is master of this place (or so he likes to believe)
God alone knows if these words make any sense
(which is to say)
I alone know if the words make sense
(and they do)
So cheeky.
Who am I talking to in this tome? Me? My progeny? Anyone?
I think I'm crying. Or is it really just the dust?
I think I'm shaking. Or is it really just the cold?
Sunset under the clouds, and it seems like it will clear in time for the stars. That kind of a night.
Cameras. Always trying to capture, spending the whole experience trying to capture the experience.
Is the tree blocking my view, or part of it?
What about these words?
Drops of rain. What a thing in a place like this. I feel like I could spend a lot of time here, leaving behind the trappings of society. As I watch myself write this, eyes telling me look up!
LOOK UP!
How often do I obey? Smell the sagebrush? Sip the fountain?
How often do I cry?
How much of the noticemanship do I bring back each time? Like I'm weaving (or knitting?)
I could never bring this experience to someone who hasn't been. All I could ever do is find a few tidbits and bring them back. All that exists are remnants.
(like the space between these lines)
Fossils of moments past.
No, not like that, that's not how I want to say it. Just gibberish & ranty episodic memories. Just pieces. Who can puzzle them together? Why can't I have someone record these thoughts while I experience? Then there wouldn't be this hopeless scrabble to get it all down.
I've totally left behind the mortal realm. The psychedelic state is one of mankind's greatest gifts to itself.
(if only they all knew)
There's a verve, a sense of childish wonder at the amazing spectacle of life (all around!). The sheer terror & delight. I don't even know where to begin (continue?) (leave off?)
It's truly remarkable how much the human brain (mind?) can fit into such a brief window of time (as we understand it). I've only been out here a brief while, and already eons of thought have passed. The roar of the mind is a sight/sound to behold. All these minds, these energies and experiences all bubbling together in this unfathomable spot of land.
Staggering.
It's always just out of reach. Like looking at the Seven Sisters out of the corner of your eye instead of directly on. It disappears if you look too closely.
This utterly belies marketability. This perfection all coming together turns that whole scheme laughable, exhausting in its narrowness of scope. And yet it's our only unified channel. The Get-Things-Done-ness is what this whole thing spins on, from before the words ever meant anything.
I feel simultaneously immutable and transient. The psychedelic state is such a oneness and no-ness it seems silly to describe. Every time I try to jot it down, I just miss it, like a shooting star. It's good to be brought back into the wonder, to awaken—as it were—through this absurd dream state. Tears roll down my cheeks, and the only thing that looks small is the Big Dipper, impossibly far and enormously large (as well as tattooed in centimeters on my arm)
I might be inside a dust storm right now. There's really no way to tell, but it seems so. I'm pretty sure this is a dust storm. Or at least a dusty storm. Evidenced by my gummy chapped lips, my crusty tearstreaked cheeks, the thin film of grit on my teeth...
Course, now that I've thrown that label on it, it clears up (in a manner of speaking) and I'm once again entirely unsure of the dimension of this landscape.
Shit, that's not what I was trying to get across.
Language can't possibly keep up with thought. So what's next? Where's our next experience-trading jump? All these ladders of communication; DNA, data, archaeological evidence...
What are we trying to share? Why is communication?
Every word I write seems silly and inefficient, incapable of communicating the thought behind. As pretty & poetic as it is, language is a cudgel when it comes to communicating this (and every) experience.
Try not to pinnacalize. Take that away.
I'll never be here again. In this holy moment. In this slice of lifetime.
Trippin' on the edge of the Grand Canyon. Definitely one of those things you're not supposed to do. Good thing I'm sure-footed (I think) (therefore I am)
Curious how gross and animalistic it feels when I briefly awaken, look around, snort, clear my throat, gnaw the grime from my lips, spit dust and cough. Funny how we embody all that grossness while also thinking these thoughts of gods & heavens.
We created the gods.
Why?
Because we had to.
Or
Because how else could you explain all this?
Perfection creates itself because it cannot envision life on this planet without perfection.
Damn, once again
almost had it.
Life is verb. Enlightenment is verb. Me falling and writing, even as I fall, hoping to capture
to capture
to capture
As it once again slips away furtively into its own mystery.
Have I been present & aware?
Am I present & aware?
Is that possible, when we're trying to simultaneously narrate and live our own stories?
What becomes of these amalgamated experiences when I'm dead?
I am just an idea
my own
my loved ones'
my unborn progeny's
Who will tell of me after I'm gone?
Does it even make sense to ask such a question in this calamitous tech age? So caught up in our trivialities, we forget how trivial we are (as individuals)
Or maybe we're constantly battling that diminishing idea, so we surround ourselves in cocoons, forgetting (or not really knowing) that we're about to be born as butterflies. And maybe as future butterflies we have to lose ourselves in our chrysalises, we have to forget (or not know). Certainly feels like it. For whatever that's worth.
The psychedelic state is there to say WAKE UP to your present moment while in this deepest of dreamscapes. Paradox. It says take heed of every little thing and its place, because tomorrow the sands of time will have swept up all traces of the party.
Don't forget your favors.
From any unfortunate outsider's perspective, I am clearly a crazy person, sitting out here on a ridge under the moon surrounded by crickets and dusty cyclones, alternately beside myself with laughter and jotting fiendish notes as if someone's out there reading. (and they will) But clearly crazy. Those eyes. Streaming with tears. Those hands. Furiously scribbling at nothing, chasing dreams here and there across the page across the canyon across the galaxies.
Plainly nutty. Out of his mind (which usually means all the way in it)
It's so confusing, being a writer. A constant turmoil, an internal battleground of ego vs humility.
A writer. Like, who the fuck am I? Where'd I dig up the audacity to think my words and experiences are important enough to share—even trade for? I alternately crow and cower in the face of it.
Acknowledge me acknowledging the world. (pretty please)
I can't tell what's a shooting star and what's just conjured by the power of that thought. Perfection is all about perception. You load your own gun, as it were. Just like how I know this road trip is all perfect. Like: it would make perfect sense if my car flat died in Iowa. (Am I even going through Iowa?) (Is Iowa even a real state, or just a sort of bumfuck catchall?) (Would they be offended?)
We have to arrange the stars into pictures and patterns and maps because the depth is otherwise just too much. Too much to wrap this tiny bit of matter & mind around. Patterns exist because we find them. What an extraordinary privilege to Be Here Now.
Perception: you're not talking to the plant. You're looking at the plant and talking to yourself and the universe. Which is (considered) worse?
What if we replace "God" with "Universe"? Does that work for everybody?
What's the next doomsday date after Dec 21, 2012 whirs on past? Who will tell us?
The genius of Judeo-Christian is its vague dates, as the Mayans get ready to drift away, so much more dust in the hourglass. (but maybe not...) It's just exciting to think about. As always.
Compare the psychedelic state to the moment a chick wakes up and realizes
IT'S IN AN EGG!
(Get out. Now.)
See the world. This has been a truly blessed, blessed night.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Grand Canyon
The next step is to master the process, to train and strengthen, to engage the muse. When that happens, we are enlightened. Are. Active. Not a noun, not a goal, not a level-up. An activity. A state of being. We enlighten; ourselves, our progeny, each other. That's the hope. That's the big idea. It's ongoing—but we just want to BE there already. And that impatience is the perpetual-motion machine that had already existed for eons before we ever put a name to it. Or maybe that's just what we tell ourselves.
The Hopi Old Oraibi ruins have been here since 1050AD, figured out by comparing lumber age-rings from the ruins with known regional tree-growth data. So much knowledge and lore has been lost in our commodification of everything. Are we on the right track? Does inevitable mean right? Are we losing touch with nature in psychological preparation for upload to the cloud?
I sit and contemplate depths unfathomable, thinking of pueblos observing each other from afar, some on the rim and some by the river down below. All transient and aware of it. Erosion. Scarred troughs of rubble, knife-edge ridges and steep shoulders where land slid, hard core skeletons of hills like neck bones awaiting replacement heads.
Thin zigzags of footpaths, a day's journey between, with water in gourds and bladders, and salted meat against the takings of the sun. On a slab beside the path a raven lopes jauntily away, his good eye cocked toward the travelers, flat of his beak displayed in profile like a cutlass. One elbows the other and points with his chin. The other nods and takes a sip from his gourd.
The moon waits patiently while the sun goes down in a blaze of glory. Hills impossibly far away appear in the sun's last rays, shades of purple stretching west into daylight. Sheer immensity gives way to alien terrain, and observers rub their arms, comfort and reassurance that we're still at home. That our small world contains THIS as well, a nearly untapped wealth of insight into this Grand Story.
Layers of warm pastel colors appear after the sun clears the edge, orange and pink and rose toward peach and ember, behind shreds of cloud ignited to gold. Green spreads to indigo around the bowl of the world, and all around, creatures sing their thanks. Crickets chirp, bats flit about with barely audible clicks. It's time to prowl, to forage. The all-holy shadow now encompasses everything. Until the moon finds her place and bathes the nightly battleground in poetic patterns of pale light.
Venus appears amid the sun's last glow, the first to appear, psyching herself for the upcoming transit between Earth and Sun. Make a wish.
I hear lovers' murmurs in the wind, and can't tell what's real and what's Venus' song. Vanished already, flaring briefly and hotly, and following the Sun to bed. She may or may not be a cock-tease—depends who you ask. At her suggestion I wander down beyond where anyone can see me, in search of shelter from the brisk and panoramic breeze. The moon's light washes out the stars. Leaning against a still-warm rock, waiting in vain for the Milky Way, I milk my own whey into the Canyon. Goodnight Venus.
This is all so cosmically unlikely. How did we get here? What is awareness? What is soul? re we just amalgamated sensory information and perceived memories? Or is there something more to it? Where does this Drive come from? Is it simply inherent survivor's attitude? Or are we meant to be hurtling toward whatever's looming, like a butterfly to a second chrysalis?
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Nigh the deadline
Morning of the city-wide strike, the poet’s rosy fingers of dawn nowhere in sight, pale horizon instead a running-light sparkle of news helicopters and freighters at anchor off the port in uneasy suspension for the first time since the turn of the century.
Droves of citizens, dock workers, truck drivers, engineers, students, unemployed, reporters, physicians, small-business owners—a living blockade against massive and unchecked corporate greed. Imports at bay, swirly gurgle of money down the drain almost audible with each fleeting minute. Purchase of global awareness, in a way, given enough negative numbers on a ledger.
Civilian response to the netherworld flow of money and resources, the subaudible pulse of this impossible infinite-growth paradigm. Finally active, finally ready for something else: a new way forward. With worldwide access to information—outside of the silly but vociferous media channels of corporate spokespersonhood—the long-overdue realization of consumerism’s auto-asphyxiation fantasy.
Huge turnout, long before business hours, clusters of strangers with thermoses of coffee and hot chocolate, with loud signs and songs, with ready cameras and demands. Nonviolent bellicosity under the air of a community picnic, glad for the sun’s rise and tolerant even of the media buzzards overhead. The more the merrier.
With every hour, more and more citizens, from all walks of life, tens of thousands out in defiant demonstration of their existence as more than just demographic items, as more than mere consumer statistics; as sovereign units of something grander than profit margins or acquisitions or stock indices.
The novel idea of human consciousness not as aloof, not as heavy-handed dominators, not as a stand-alone be-all and end-all of creation; but rather just another part of the whole, just one form of awareness, just a cell within the organ of the world within the body of the universe.
Flow of people through sidewalks like the movement of blood in veins, surges with each subway time slot. Retirees, schoolkids, young professionals, artists; a constant outpour of puzzle pieces in an increasingly solid picture of humanity.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
A sex scene with no verbs
Under a bruise-purple sky, dawn’s pale green light in optimistic approach despite stars’ exodus in droves, despite disharmony down below, despite the clear echo of the night’s drama. Streets all empty now, except for the usual living fixtures with their omnivident but silent place in the scheme of things. Damned souls in hell’s waiting room, indefinitely on hold because of coverage denial.
To a cosmic investigator, with access to deeper vision, clear traces of the struggle. Footprints of the clash almost still visible in grimy streets, like battlefield ghosts, burn marks in memory of the ground itself. Zero-mortality massacre; psychological slaughter both of boundaries and faith in the state the police the government the system. And utter destruction of status-quo optimism in people’s hearts.
And yet, also throbs of beauty, of community between strangers. Like the sharing of gasmasks and goggles, distribution of bandanas and vinegar-soaked t-shirts. Glimpses of a better way, a different attitude. Like two small women with arms around a blind and bloody fat man, assistance in spite of inevitable arrest. Or the college dropout with his gallon-jug of milk as pepper-spray salve, de facto guardian of a homeless woman’s toddler after her strident arrest.
A new paradigm; all in it together, partnership for betterment of the whole. Like the human chain and the milk-splashers behind them, a throng of spoiled first-worlders resolute and strong, awake and in arms after decades of dormancy. Slough of the spoon-fed, tag-team resistance to ruthless enforcement of a rotten structure. Vague dreams of a new Eden, a global community of mutual assistance instead of dogmatic purity in survival-of-the-fittest attitudes. For all its logic, Darwin’s system just a philosophy cum religion. Not absolute truth. Re-emergence of a global organism, a Gaian outlook.
In the scant warmth of a student-slum apartment, three friends silent in collapse, in contemplation, in grim recollection of the very real smell of their idealistic game.
Numb with experience of state-sponsored Protection and Service, in the adrenal aftermath of a unilateral scuffle, awash in connection to each other, to everyone behind internet streams and video uploads, widespread solidarity and a feeling of rightness, despite the shroud of pure terror and disgust and outrage.
Drips of blood on the student’s shirt, dry and brown. Back against the cupboards on the kitchen floor under the lawyer’s supportive arm, feet against the fridge.
Etch of incredulity and hurt on the student’s forehead, angry tears hot on stubbly cheeks. “Unbelievable. What kind of world…? Unbelievable,” repetition like a mantra, “unbelievable.”
“Here, ice,” cubes in a plastic bag, our hero’s stricken face.
“Unbelievable. Hey, no one dead, right?”
“No.” No one dead. But plenty in the hospital with capsaicin tears; mucus membranes on fire, respiration laborious and painful. Bruises, headaches, broken fingers and wrists. But no fatalities.
“The golden-ticket injury, man. An honorable demonstration of devotion.”
“Not your fucking martyr,” the student’s sudden snarl under the ice.
“Whoa, easy. What up, man?”
“Just…” Anger, accusation, doubt in his eyes. Then softer, “Yeah. Right. Sorry, just traumatic stuff back there—our own appointed guardians. Hey, no one dead though, right?”
“Uh...right,” our hero’s puzzled look at the lawyer.
“Good. What a vicious cycle of history, man. Inevitable and indefinite dark ages after the Fall. Always the same. For me, just one look at a better world, with fairness. Connection to the overall.”
“Heh, one look probably your only entitlement, with your head’s easy intimacy with every nightstick in its path.”
“My poor dome! A date-rape victim on the first night out.”
“Tst, gross, you two”
Ice on his head, the student’s groan of pain and exhaustion, head back, eyes shut. Motrin from the lawyer’s bag, waterglass almost steady. Labored gulp. Shudder. Then, eyes open, apprehensively, “But no fatalities, right?”
Ice in the air, in veins.
Our hero and the lawyer, eyes wide.
“Hey man, hey. You okay?” a frightened croak.
Outside in the street, city-bus rumble, routine wake-up bellyache of a drowsy cityscape.
“Yeah...why?”
Just one look at mismatched pupils.
Concussion.
“Okay, hospital time.”
“No no, all good. Just tired.”
“Yeah, not for a concussion,” the lawyer’s assurance. “Just rest and observation. According to my mom, anyway.” Her mom the ER nurse.
“Fine then, bedtime. No class for you tomorrow. Er...today.”
Morning sun a bright sliver on the couch, the lawyer on her side under a thin afghan, back to the glare. Our hero on a chair, bleary eyes on news feeds and discussion forums, yawny ache between jaw and ears.
“Hey, sleepy time for you too, mister hero,” the lawyer’s sleepy murmur. “Room for two on here.” Nominal scooch as a gesture.
Fingers frozen above the keyboard, chills down spine in a pool of electric tingles in his seat. Nonchalant swallow. “Okay. Thanks.” Distraction from online drivel, all so unbearably interesting, so additive, so galvanizing. Incessant emails and personal messages and forwards—digital organization of life patterns. But nothing compared to this. This offer from his buddy’s old fling, this ravishing and captivating woman, forearm over eyes, splayed hair a fan on the cushion, weak sunlight and dawn shadows on dream-sheen stretch-pants.
Heartbeat in his ears, our hero on the couch slowly, gently. Curious absence of conscience, in spite of the obvious. The lawyer’s jerk awake, fearful flash in her eyes. Anguish in our hero’s heart—obviously too good for truth, her offer one of politeness, or an accident of sleepiness.
But then: “Oh; you.” Her sigh of relief, easy lapse back into sleep. Long debates in our hero’s head, tense and withdrawn, eyes on the spotty ceiling. Until finally his decision. A roll over, arm around her waist, relaxation into the space between them. And delight in her arching response, arms in a hug around his arm. Face in her hair, fantasies wild, a rush of blood to his nether head. Her languid press back against it, somnolent but rhythmic. His hand on her thigh, warm through the fabric and responsive to his touch. In his arms, her twist, one leg over his hip. Handful of hair in his grasp, head back, neck taut. A second’s pause before a kiss full on her mouth, soft and sweet like a ripe mango, jolts of excitement at the thought of her tongue-ring, with its months of sexy torment, glimmery allure a recent affectation in defiance of her former corporate path.
Valiant efforts at soundlessness, with the bedroom adjacent, rustly movement against each other; heavy breath and muffled sighs in necks and ears.
Fingertips on panty line, noses in their traditional awkward dance. The lawyer’s palm on his cheek, light kisses and assent to his move on top, between raised knees, on her back now in a tangle of knit blanket, all soft sighs from collarbone kisses, tanktop straps down her shoulders, small brown nipples hard in the air, shirt around her waist, trails of kisses and nibbles from chin to belly, both atremble from months of tensions, sexual and otherwise.
His fingers along her waistband, teasingly slow. Hips up, pants down, skin hot, gentle slide of a finger into her.
Palms on his ears, firm push toward her lap, a desire for envelopment, for togetherness. With a downward focus. He, hungrily, lips in silent slurpy songs of adoration; she, rhythmically, primally, hips in short gyrations, fingers in his hair. Then hands down his torso, an irresistible draw upward, kisses on his sticky mouth, shirt off, fly and button free, small hand in a cup around his tented underwear.
Ungainly battle with stubborn pants, to the tune of palm-stifled laughter. Finally out, chest to chest, naked on their friend’s couch. And then a yearning trembly arch into her, hot and close and enveloping, a soft high cry behind lip-caught teeth, faint moans through noses, both momentarily motionless, extension of the holy moment, dual revelry in the illicit thrill...and then a rhythm, a giving-in to each other, away from the apartment away from the world away from the revolution from time from any concern other than the rustle of long-awaited passion, the creak of the cheap couch, the too-soon build of an explosion, pinpoints of light in a gathering focus toward their shared center, the slishy, slippery, slick, salty pace; escalation, incapable of delay, gasps and grunts and whimpers and squeaks, mouths together—a pause, tense, suspension, sighs.
And then sleep.
To a cosmic investigator, with access to deeper vision, clear traces of the struggle. Footprints of the clash almost still visible in grimy streets, like battlefield ghosts, burn marks in memory of the ground itself. Zero-mortality massacre; psychological slaughter both of boundaries and faith in the state the police the government the system. And utter destruction of status-quo optimism in people’s hearts.
And yet, also throbs of beauty, of community between strangers. Like the sharing of gasmasks and goggles, distribution of bandanas and vinegar-soaked t-shirts. Glimpses of a better way, a different attitude. Like two small women with arms around a blind and bloody fat man, assistance in spite of inevitable arrest. Or the college dropout with his gallon-jug of milk as pepper-spray salve, de facto guardian of a homeless woman’s toddler after her strident arrest.
A new paradigm; all in it together, partnership for betterment of the whole. Like the human chain and the milk-splashers behind them, a throng of spoiled first-worlders resolute and strong, awake and in arms after decades of dormancy. Slough of the spoon-fed, tag-team resistance to ruthless enforcement of a rotten structure. Vague dreams of a new Eden, a global community of mutual assistance instead of dogmatic purity in survival-of-the-fittest attitudes. For all its logic, Darwin’s system just a philosophy cum religion. Not absolute truth. Re-emergence of a global organism, a Gaian outlook.
In the scant warmth of a student-slum apartment, three friends silent in collapse, in contemplation, in grim recollection of the very real smell of their idealistic game.
Numb with experience of state-sponsored Protection and Service, in the adrenal aftermath of a unilateral scuffle, awash in connection to each other, to everyone behind internet streams and video uploads, widespread solidarity and a feeling of rightness, despite the shroud of pure terror and disgust and outrage.
Drips of blood on the student’s shirt, dry and brown. Back against the cupboards on the kitchen floor under the lawyer’s supportive arm, feet against the fridge.
Etch of incredulity and hurt on the student’s forehead, angry tears hot on stubbly cheeks. “Unbelievable. What kind of world…? Unbelievable,” repetition like a mantra, “unbelievable.”
“Here, ice,” cubes in a plastic bag, our hero’s stricken face.
“Unbelievable. Hey, no one dead, right?”
“No.” No one dead. But plenty in the hospital with capsaicin tears; mucus membranes on fire, respiration laborious and painful. Bruises, headaches, broken fingers and wrists. But no fatalities.
“The golden-ticket injury, man. An honorable demonstration of devotion.”
“Not your fucking martyr,” the student’s sudden snarl under the ice.
“Whoa, easy. What up, man?”
“Just…” Anger, accusation, doubt in his eyes. Then softer, “Yeah. Right. Sorry, just traumatic stuff back there—our own appointed guardians. Hey, no one dead though, right?”
“Uh...right,” our hero’s puzzled look at the lawyer.
“Good. What a vicious cycle of history, man. Inevitable and indefinite dark ages after the Fall. Always the same. For me, just one look at a better world, with fairness. Connection to the overall.”
“Heh, one look probably your only entitlement, with your head’s easy intimacy with every nightstick in its path.”
“My poor dome! A date-rape victim on the first night out.”
“Tst, gross, you two”
Ice on his head, the student’s groan of pain and exhaustion, head back, eyes shut. Motrin from the lawyer’s bag, waterglass almost steady. Labored gulp. Shudder. Then, eyes open, apprehensively, “But no fatalities, right?”
Ice in the air, in veins.
Our hero and the lawyer, eyes wide.
“Hey man, hey. You okay?” a frightened croak.
Outside in the street, city-bus rumble, routine wake-up bellyache of a drowsy cityscape.
“Yeah...why?”
Just one look at mismatched pupils.
Concussion.
“Okay, hospital time.”
“No no, all good. Just tired.”
“Yeah, not for a concussion,” the lawyer’s assurance. “Just rest and observation. According to my mom, anyway.” Her mom the ER nurse.
“Fine then, bedtime. No class for you tomorrow. Er...today.”
Morning sun a bright sliver on the couch, the lawyer on her side under a thin afghan, back to the glare. Our hero on a chair, bleary eyes on news feeds and discussion forums, yawny ache between jaw and ears.
“Hey, sleepy time for you too, mister hero,” the lawyer’s sleepy murmur. “Room for two on here.” Nominal scooch as a gesture.
Fingers frozen above the keyboard, chills down spine in a pool of electric tingles in his seat. Nonchalant swallow. “Okay. Thanks.” Distraction from online drivel, all so unbearably interesting, so additive, so galvanizing. Incessant emails and personal messages and forwards—digital organization of life patterns. But nothing compared to this. This offer from his buddy’s old fling, this ravishing and captivating woman, forearm over eyes, splayed hair a fan on the cushion, weak sunlight and dawn shadows on dream-sheen stretch-pants.
Heartbeat in his ears, our hero on the couch slowly, gently. Curious absence of conscience, in spite of the obvious. The lawyer’s jerk awake, fearful flash in her eyes. Anguish in our hero’s heart—obviously too good for truth, her offer one of politeness, or an accident of sleepiness.
But then: “Oh; you.” Her sigh of relief, easy lapse back into sleep. Long debates in our hero’s head, tense and withdrawn, eyes on the spotty ceiling. Until finally his decision. A roll over, arm around her waist, relaxation into the space between them. And delight in her arching response, arms in a hug around his arm. Face in her hair, fantasies wild, a rush of blood to his nether head. Her languid press back against it, somnolent but rhythmic. His hand on her thigh, warm through the fabric and responsive to his touch. In his arms, her twist, one leg over his hip. Handful of hair in his grasp, head back, neck taut. A second’s pause before a kiss full on her mouth, soft and sweet like a ripe mango, jolts of excitement at the thought of her tongue-ring, with its months of sexy torment, glimmery allure a recent affectation in defiance of her former corporate path.
Valiant efforts at soundlessness, with the bedroom adjacent, rustly movement against each other; heavy breath and muffled sighs in necks and ears.
Fingertips on panty line, noses in their traditional awkward dance. The lawyer’s palm on his cheek, light kisses and assent to his move on top, between raised knees, on her back now in a tangle of knit blanket, all soft sighs from collarbone kisses, tanktop straps down her shoulders, small brown nipples hard in the air, shirt around her waist, trails of kisses and nibbles from chin to belly, both atremble from months of tensions, sexual and otherwise.
His fingers along her waistband, teasingly slow. Hips up, pants down, skin hot, gentle slide of a finger into her.
Palms on his ears, firm push toward her lap, a desire for envelopment, for togetherness. With a downward focus. He, hungrily, lips in silent slurpy songs of adoration; she, rhythmically, primally, hips in short gyrations, fingers in his hair. Then hands down his torso, an irresistible draw upward, kisses on his sticky mouth, shirt off, fly and button free, small hand in a cup around his tented underwear.
Ungainly battle with stubborn pants, to the tune of palm-stifled laughter. Finally out, chest to chest, naked on their friend’s couch. And then a yearning trembly arch into her, hot and close and enveloping, a soft high cry behind lip-caught teeth, faint moans through noses, both momentarily motionless, extension of the holy moment, dual revelry in the illicit thrill...and then a rhythm, a giving-in to each other, away from the apartment away from the world away from the revolution from time from any concern other than the rustle of long-awaited passion, the creak of the cheap couch, the too-soon build of an explosion, pinpoints of light in a gathering focus toward their shared center, the slishy, slippery, slick, salty pace; escalation, incapable of delay, gasps and grunts and whimpers and squeaks, mouths together—a pause, tense, suspension, sighs.
And then sleep.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Backlogged Dream Journal Entries
8/24/10
Some kind of picnic or gala. Don Draper is there as my father figure, while I'm relegated to the kids' table.
Frustration.
I discover there's a different homemade apple-butter at each table, so I scurry around sampling. The apple-butter takes on a white creamy texture more like sour-creamy, but still tastes like apple-butter.
Then a coach-type is scolding me for being great at the sport but I've got to get better with the women. So I go drive, catching up with Don Draper, and then wake up.
8/28/10
I'm a new member of a diving team. Teams go around almost a track underwater, collecting fish, shells, and other target objects in a frenzy of activity.
I can feel that I'm slow and ineffective, but getting better, more valuable, and I start contributing and thinking of new strategies and remembering where to search.
In a sneaky move, my team installs a few huge blue plastic tubes to help our flow and distract the other teams. Bits of seaweed cling to the outside of the tubes.
Felt like visiting Michigan State.
9/2/10
Sounds of a revolution. An office and desk in an older building, perhaps a university.
A woman—older, professor-type—alternately looked up to and scorned.
Loading the mag of a pistol from a box of mixed bullets, keeping the odd bullets for other potential uses.
An envelope marked "4:30: He's been snooping."
The gun at the small of my back in my waistband.
Bodies surrounded by cops.
9/18/10
I'm in a hospital or doctor's office, and I go to wash my hands, taking some telescoping object with me to wash as well. The bathroom is there, behind all those people.
Muslims, many in traditional garb, are gathered in protest or something.
One comes angrily forward, demanding to know just what I think I am doing trying to profane their presence on my way to the bathroom.
There's a stirring.
Volume increases, people start jabbering, and suddenly I'm in the middle and the target of an angry boiled-over tumult.
Some people try to interject on my behalf, becoming Uncle-Tom targets of anger. The mass is embroiled.
Violence.
People pushing, grabbing collars, circling, screaming, threatening, grabbing, pushing, surging, snarling, growling.
And I'm in the center of it all, being thrashed around. In my own circle of violence and counter-violence are a few specific faces, while everyone else around is a blur.
Then two friends grappling become a hug, which spreads among the chaos.
I'm crying.
Quiet.
Debris and sobbing and understanding and remorse.
Exhaustion.
Peace.
1/29/11
A series of vignettes, all taking place in a space I understand as the climbing gym.
I wander around lonely, in search of a climbing partner, seeing birthday parties and groups of kids forming, but my time is ticking and still no climbing.
Out a window I watch the tops of the World Trade Center toppling, panic noises and confusion. A few people egress the piece of tower, and one little girl is borne up on an updraft or something, falling skyward in a little white dress.
Then a kid shows up as I'm stretching or warming up. I can't tell if he's retarded or just ugly, like the Kakos kid from church, but he's extroverted and talks a storm.
A guy my age shows up—known by the ugly kid—who is also seeking a climbing partner, so we strike up a conversation. Food topics, juice or soda, and other et cetera indicating greed on part of the kid.
There's a slight outdoors shift, though still "in the climbing gym," and we see a variation of frisbee being played.
Then a small pomeranian-type dog runs out on a powerline like a squirrel. I'm told it's a sort of invasive species—or maybe just the one—and then the thing has a fat joint. This leads to a discussion of how it would strike a lighter with no thumbs.
9/30/11
Somehow Brooke and I get involved in a foursome with a woman and a newly-woman. The setting keeps changing, including a dorm-like hall, a post-bar walk through SF, and someone's home. There, we all inspect each other's shoes for white flakes. I have none. The tranny has "almost none." Brooke has none, but mentions my lack of flossing, as if it were another possible STI indicator, to which I protest, I have been flossing plenty.
We all give the go-ahead and sign the papers, but doubts remain, esp about the tranny (who is still rather mannish).
Some movement happens and some things I don't remember, and then I am in a mall trying to navigate to the men's room with a tray full of wine. I find my way in, navigating back through the tunnels/hallways of consciousness, and wake up having to pee.
11/18/11
Sitting at a beach-side cafe table with Jag and (Mairaj?). They get up, go away. A spoon flies at me from behind a rock—I catch it and start eating my cereal, re-torquing the silver decorative spoon to make it straight.
They reappear, and I know they've thrown it, representing magic. They announce the spoon as a token that I am the sage/magician/wizard of our group of friends, and present me a janitor/mechanic-type overshirt, with "apprentice"/"assistant"/something on the tag, inside out, with ballpoint writing describing my new position.
I put it on, and pretend to vibrate, shake, tremble, as if overwhelmed by the power, tilting back and falling over in my chair.
From the floor, I say, "That's my official acceptance speech."
Erik joins and they tell him what went down.
"Nice," he says.
Then we all start roaming or looking for something specific to do.
Some kind of picnic or gala. Don Draper is there as my father figure, while I'm relegated to the kids' table.
Frustration.
I discover there's a different homemade apple-butter at each table, so I scurry around sampling. The apple-butter takes on a white creamy texture more like sour-creamy, but still tastes like apple-butter.
Then a coach-type is scolding me for being great at the sport but I've got to get better with the women. So I go drive, catching up with Don Draper, and then wake up.
8/28/10
I'm a new member of a diving team. Teams go around almost a track underwater, collecting fish, shells, and other target objects in a frenzy of activity.
I can feel that I'm slow and ineffective, but getting better, more valuable, and I start contributing and thinking of new strategies and remembering where to search.
In a sneaky move, my team installs a few huge blue plastic tubes to help our flow and distract the other teams. Bits of seaweed cling to the outside of the tubes.
Felt like visiting Michigan State.
9/2/10
Sounds of a revolution. An office and desk in an older building, perhaps a university.
A woman—older, professor-type—alternately looked up to and scorned.
Loading the mag of a pistol from a box of mixed bullets, keeping the odd bullets for other potential uses.
An envelope marked "4:30: He's been snooping."
The gun at the small of my back in my waistband.
Bodies surrounded by cops.
9/18/10
I'm in a hospital or doctor's office, and I go to wash my hands, taking some telescoping object with me to wash as well. The bathroom is there, behind all those people.
Muslims, many in traditional garb, are gathered in protest or something.
One comes angrily forward, demanding to know just what I think I am doing trying to profane their presence on my way to the bathroom.
There's a stirring.
Volume increases, people start jabbering, and suddenly I'm in the middle and the target of an angry boiled-over tumult.
Some people try to interject on my behalf, becoming Uncle-Tom targets of anger. The mass is embroiled.
Violence.
People pushing, grabbing collars, circling, screaming, threatening, grabbing, pushing, surging, snarling, growling.
And I'm in the center of it all, being thrashed around. In my own circle of violence and counter-violence are a few specific faces, while everyone else around is a blur.
Then two friends grappling become a hug, which spreads among the chaos.
I'm crying.
Quiet.
Debris and sobbing and understanding and remorse.
Exhaustion.
Peace.
1/29/11
A series of vignettes, all taking place in a space I understand as the climbing gym.
I wander around lonely, in search of a climbing partner, seeing birthday parties and groups of kids forming, but my time is ticking and still no climbing.
Out a window I watch the tops of the World Trade Center toppling, panic noises and confusion. A few people egress the piece of tower, and one little girl is borne up on an updraft or something, falling skyward in a little white dress.
Then a kid shows up as I'm stretching or warming up. I can't tell if he's retarded or just ugly, like the Kakos kid from church, but he's extroverted and talks a storm.
A guy my age shows up—known by the ugly kid—who is also seeking a climbing partner, so we strike up a conversation. Food topics, juice or soda, and other et cetera indicating greed on part of the kid.
There's a slight outdoors shift, though still "in the climbing gym," and we see a variation of frisbee being played.
Then a small pomeranian-type dog runs out on a powerline like a squirrel. I'm told it's a sort of invasive species—or maybe just the one—and then the thing has a fat joint. This leads to a discussion of how it would strike a lighter with no thumbs.
9/30/11
Somehow Brooke and I get involved in a foursome with a woman and a newly-woman. The setting keeps changing, including a dorm-like hall, a post-bar walk through SF, and someone's home. There, we all inspect each other's shoes for white flakes. I have none. The tranny has "almost none." Brooke has none, but mentions my lack of flossing, as if it were another possible STI indicator, to which I protest, I have been flossing plenty.
We all give the go-ahead and sign the papers, but doubts remain, esp about the tranny (who is still rather mannish).
Some movement happens and some things I don't remember, and then I am in a mall trying to navigate to the men's room with a tray full of wine. I find my way in, navigating back through the tunnels/hallways of consciousness, and wake up having to pee.
11/18/11
Sitting at a beach-side cafe table with Jag and (Mairaj?). They get up, go away. A spoon flies at me from behind a rock—I catch it and start eating my cereal, re-torquing the silver decorative spoon to make it straight.
They reappear, and I know they've thrown it, representing magic. They announce the spoon as a token that I am the sage/magician/wizard of our group of friends, and present me a janitor/mechanic-type overshirt, with "apprentice"/"assistant"/something on the tag, inside out, with ballpoint writing describing my new position.
I put it on, and pretend to vibrate, shake, tremble, as if overwhelmed by the power, tilting back and falling over in my chair.
From the floor, I say, "That's my official acceptance speech."
Erik joins and they tell him what went down.
"Nice," he says.
Then we all start roaming or looking for something specific to do.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Associations
"Can you mute it? Or at least turn down the volume a bit?"
An arc of fire leaps out from the screen, searing space in all directions. Magnetic poles twisted to the point of its eleven-year reversal, the sun unleashes laughably large bursts of energy in the form of flares whipping out half a million kilometers past the surface.
Finger frozen on what she thought was the Volume button, she adjusts her position toward the TV, and takes in the whole incomprehensible scene. Distracted now worse than before, I almost ask her to switch back to the innocuous drivel on the last channel, but think better of it and adjust my own position to accommodate her and the quarks flashing onscreen.
She sighs. "Can you see?"
I look under her armpit, but the view is slightly blocked, so I settle deeper into the couch with her and watch over her shoulder, occasionally kissing cheek or neck. Moved by the deep-space images of a binary star system, we push and pull, rising and falling with our own orbits of interest.
"This is amazing!" she cries, eyelids flickering.
"I know!" I agree, running the gamut of significance.
Space exploration is still in its infancy, the narrator reminds viewers, but astronomers have increasingly cool gadgets to study the outer reaches of the tiny little fragment of space we can access.
She giggles and presses back, fingers dancing along mine, encouraging and teaching, guiding her own experience with her own imagery with her own narrative. I'm her passenger. If I'm the rocket, she's the liquid fuel and the fire, the chemical reaction that unleashes energy from matter, the plasmic brilliance under the delivery vehicle.
A splash of color represents the unfathomable geography of an interstellar cloud, the placenta of a star. The screen shows a gathering of particles, the slow accumulation of mass, the massive overload and nuclear fusion of hydrogen, the growth from intense white dwarf to sage old red giant, the fusion of a heavy iron core, the inability to support its own mass, and the inevitable collapse.
The screen explodes in supernova splendor, sending its photons intensely, momentarily to the far corners of the room. We're both caught in the heady glow of the star's dazzling death knell, pulled into the transmutation of a black hole, a point of infinitely concentrated mass that's collapsed into itself, consuming and silencing itself, greedily converting the neighboring light and space and time into an other-dimensionly unknown.
The turn of a cosmic hourglass.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Halloween
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
The helmet was a little big, but the lightsaber was just right. With a hemmed cape and shiny black boots, I was invincible.
Koo pshrr, koo pshrr.
The air was misty with candy-coated promise; with streaks of mystery and ominous rumblings of thunder. My empty pillowcase hung ready to accept its burden, an incongruous capitulation against the unbending darkness of my grim attire.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
I stood in the hallway, peering at things through the goggles, trying to discover the best cant for visibility.
“Ready?” my mom stood in a witch’s hat, buttoning a thick peacoat.
I nodded under my helmet, and waved the lightsaber redly.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
“Did you take your inhaler?”
I hesitated. Waffled. Shook my head.
She brought it. I took it.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
Croup was a frequent guest in my lungs, particularly on Halloween night, when November hung heavy over a Michigan sky. The cool damp air wreaked havoc on my larynx, and the excitement of Halloween crawled up my trachea. I needed albuterol near at hand.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
“Mom. Help me take...this mask off…”
Puff. Puff. I passed the inhaler to my mom and replaced the helmet, wiggling until it aligned with my own eyes. Once my brothers were ready, we headed forth into the night.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr. Even with medically relaxed lungs, I barely had to fake the anguished and sinister breathing effects. But it was Halloween. My favorite time of year, when I had an excuse to wear costumes and run around the neighborhood, when I was still fresh with birthday treasures, when a sackful of candy was allowed to remain in my room until it was gone. Generally sometime in December.
With the right amount of squint and smirk, the far-off thunder sounded like TIE fighter flybys, and my pillowcase could be mistaken for Princess Leia’s still-warm gown.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
I brandished the glowing lightsaber and listened to its wwhan wwhan wwhan and clashed it against my brother’s legs until he whined and my mom scolded.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
We knew all the best candy houses in the neighborhood: the ones with the king-size Butterfingers and Reese’s and Gushers. We hurried from one ding-dong-trick-or-treat-thank-you to another, eager to hit all the lit and decorated houses, and glowering at the ones left dark and unwelcoming.
Before it seemed possible, it was time to go home. The pillowcase was stuffed, slung over my shoulder like a drifter’s duffel. My cape was a bit bedraggled from dewey lawns, and I’d tricked David into carrying my lightsaber for me while my mom carried his bow and arrows. The albuterol had long-since worn off, but my pride fought tooth and nail to get home without another dose. I took off my helmet to enjoy the last few ragged spice-scented breaths of Halloween.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
Until next year.
©2011
The helmet was a little big, but the lightsaber was just right. With a hemmed cape and shiny black boots, I was invincible.
Koo pshrr, koo pshrr.
The air was misty with candy-coated promise; with streaks of mystery and ominous rumblings of thunder. My empty pillowcase hung ready to accept its burden, an incongruous capitulation against the unbending darkness of my grim attire.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
I stood in the hallway, peering at things through the goggles, trying to discover the best cant for visibility.
“Ready?” my mom stood in a witch’s hat, buttoning a thick peacoat.
I nodded under my helmet, and waved the lightsaber redly.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
“Did you take your inhaler?”
I hesitated. Waffled. Shook my head.
She brought it. I took it.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
Croup was a frequent guest in my lungs, particularly on Halloween night, when November hung heavy over a Michigan sky. The cool damp air wreaked havoc on my larynx, and the excitement of Halloween crawled up my trachea. I needed albuterol near at hand.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
“Mom. Help me take...this mask off…”
Puff. Puff. I passed the inhaler to my mom and replaced the helmet, wiggling until it aligned with my own eyes. Once my brothers were ready, we headed forth into the night.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr. Even with medically relaxed lungs, I barely had to fake the anguished and sinister breathing effects. But it was Halloween. My favorite time of year, when I had an excuse to wear costumes and run around the neighborhood, when I was still fresh with birthday treasures, when a sackful of candy was allowed to remain in my room until it was gone. Generally sometime in December.
With the right amount of squint and smirk, the far-off thunder sounded like TIE fighter flybys, and my pillowcase could be mistaken for Princess Leia’s still-warm gown.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
I brandished the glowing lightsaber and listened to its wwhan wwhan wwhan and clashed it against my brother’s legs until he whined and my mom scolded.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
We knew all the best candy houses in the neighborhood: the ones with the king-size Butterfingers and Reese’s and Gushers. We hurried from one ding-dong-trick-or-treat-thank-you to another, eager to hit all the lit and decorated houses, and glowering at the ones left dark and unwelcoming.
Before it seemed possible, it was time to go home. The pillowcase was stuffed, slung over my shoulder like a drifter’s duffel. My cape was a bit bedraggled from dewey lawns, and I’d tricked David into carrying my lightsaber for me while my mom carried his bow and arrows. The albuterol had long-since worn off, but my pride fought tooth and nail to get home without another dose. I took off my helmet to enjoy the last few ragged spice-scented breaths of Halloween.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
Until next year.
©2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Thesis Proposal
Paul D Blumer
CCA MFA 2012
Thesis Proposal Louder Than Words
Le Train de Nulle Part is a French novel by Michel Thaler, who claims it as the first book written without a verb (apart from gerunds and participles as nouns and adjectives). It stands mostly as a series of observations by a narrator aboard a train, and has been criticized for its lack of action and its scathing, seemingly pointless grievance. The work has not been translated to English, so my plan for Louder Than Words is to achieve the historical position of first author to pen an English book without a verb—and to do it better. With loads of action. It’s about a revolution, after all, and all the gore, glory, love, and loathing that go into such a thing.
Inspired by George Orwell and the Arab Spring, my thesis will comprise as much of a novel or novella as I am able to complete in the time allotted, which will thereafter be added to, tweaked, and molded until it is fit for public consumption. My overall goal for Louder Than Words is somewhere in the vicinity of 200 pages, depending on what the story calls for, and the idea is to bind the thesis as a book for its final presentation.
As I see it, the thesis is in and of itself a work, but its importance to my writing is as an oasis, to replenish my water supply—if one can imagine an oasis with a weight room, a jumprope, and a climbing wall. The due dates and the pressures serve to strengthen my writing, which is part of why I’ve chosen such an exceedingly difficult project. But to call myself a master, without reaching so high, would be disingenuous at best.
CCA MFA 2012
Thesis Proposal Louder Than Words
Le Train de Nulle Part is a French novel by Michel Thaler, who claims it as the first book written without a verb (apart from gerunds and participles as nouns and adjectives). It stands mostly as a series of observations by a narrator aboard a train, and has been criticized for its lack of action and its scathing, seemingly pointless grievance. The work has not been translated to English, so my plan for Louder Than Words is to achieve the historical position of first author to pen an English book without a verb—and to do it better. With loads of action. It’s about a revolution, after all, and all the gore, glory, love, and loathing that go into such a thing.
Inspired by George Orwell and the Arab Spring, my thesis will comprise as much of a novel or novella as I am able to complete in the time allotted, which will thereafter be added to, tweaked, and molded until it is fit for public consumption. My overall goal for Louder Than Words is somewhere in the vicinity of 200 pages, depending on what the story calls for, and the idea is to bind the thesis as a book for its final presentation.
As I see it, the thesis is in and of itself a work, but its importance to my writing is as an oasis, to replenish my water supply—if one can imagine an oasis with a weight room, a jumprope, and a climbing wall. The due dates and the pressures serve to strengthen my writing, which is part of why I’ve chosen such an exceedingly difficult project. But to call myself a master, without reaching so high, would be disingenuous at best.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Icon, can you?
The first time I saw God, I was digesting a bellyful of poison and processing a headful of one of the stronger psychoactive biological byproducts known to the sapiens crew. Staring at the placid surface of the pond, I grokked and grokked, alternately smiling and sobbing; feeling at once completely refreshed and utterly destroyed.When the face-to-face confrontation became too much, I trailed my fingers through the water to disrupt the image. Narcissus' failure was not in his gaze, but rather in his inability to shake things up every now and then. We become enchanted with and enamored of our own iconized fictions, forgetting that they're no more than deep ruts of habit—and no more valuable than a scent whose strength fades almost as soon as it becomes apparent.
As the ripples settled down and my reflection rematerialized, I recognized that I finally understood everything. The pattern was clear. Through the course of history, the spiritual looking-glass had been clouded over by a multitude of cheap products and obscured by the patina of centuries of filthy rags.
As I see it, the truth that the snake-oil prophets would obscure forever is simpler than anyone would believe. As I see it, the truth of the universe (which is infinitely complicated or shockingly simple, depending on the layer) rests briefly in each one of us. But through a mad web of manipulation and an artificially structured society, we've been led to believe that there are paragons to admire and pinnacles to aspire to.
This is wrong. This is the product of living in a "community" of 300 millions, a number that the human brain can't even really conceptualize outside of an abstract comparison to grains of sand or stars in the sky. Bound together by a vague sense of patriotism, we sift through the proverbial hourglass while bullies with billy clubs keep us from disturbing the peace as we worship the plebeian promise of the American Dream.
But the truth of the matter is, the patsies always outnumber the iconoclasts, which traditionally means the latter are killed as soon as feasible. Nowadays, however, such individuals are simply paved over by the bland idolatry of 1/300,000,000. Even God has been rubbed out by those who refer to it the most.
©2011 Paul D Blumer
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Remembering 9/11
9/11/11
I'll never forget where I was on 9/11. Down to which seat at which lab table, I can point out where I was in advanced Chemistry, lighting steel wool on fire, startled by how well and how quickly it burned. There was an announcement:
Ladies and gentlemen, a plane has run into the World Trade Center in New York city.
A very serious fucking accident. How could that happen? Those buildings have been there so long. How could they let that happen?
The whole class was abuzz, and some people started worrying aloud about people they knew in The City. Some classes sat silent, some classes started discussions, some classes ran amok in disbelief.
And then the second plane hit.
Suddenly it was an attack.
Suddenly a chill ran through the blood of anyone paying enough general attention to understand what was going on. Classrooms emptied out as students and teachers filed into the auditorium to watch the news on big screen. Tom Clancy provided some commentary based on his experience imagining such scenarios. Certain students were picked out from the crowd to get on the phones with mom and dad.
The smoke pouring from the buildings warped perspective, a nightmarish billowing as if they were mere smokestacks. As if they weren't a roiling glimpse at the inferno underlying any industrial nation. As if they weren't spewing the souls of thousands at high velocity into the beautiful azure afternoon.
The talking heads were choked up, some fending off panic, everyone milling about in a daze. School buses rolled in, but no one wanted to leave the screens for fear of missing something crucial. People held each other who'd not spoken three words in two years. A brotherhood and a defiance set people in step with one another, and many kids vowed to join up, to defend against whatever may follow.
It was a horrific day, a glorious September day, an innocuous day turned upside down. For all the victims, and the victims families, and the firefighters who'd get fucked by the insurance companies, and the soldiers, and the Iraqis and Afghani people who had nothing to do with it, and for everyone watching the accelerated crumbling of the American Empire, it was a day that changed everything.
I'll never forget where I was on 9/11. Down to which seat at which lab table, I can point out where I was in advanced Chemistry, lighting steel wool on fire, startled by how well and how quickly it burned. There was an announcement:
Ladies and gentlemen, a plane has run into the World Trade Center in New York city.
A very serious fucking accident. How could that happen? Those buildings have been there so long. How could they let that happen?
The whole class was abuzz, and some people started worrying aloud about people they knew in The City. Some classes sat silent, some classes started discussions, some classes ran amok in disbelief.
And then the second plane hit.
Suddenly it was an attack.
Suddenly a chill ran through the blood of anyone paying enough general attention to understand what was going on. Classrooms emptied out as students and teachers filed into the auditorium to watch the news on big screen. Tom Clancy provided some commentary based on his experience imagining such scenarios. Certain students were picked out from the crowd to get on the phones with mom and dad.
The smoke pouring from the buildings warped perspective, a nightmarish billowing as if they were mere smokestacks. As if they weren't a roiling glimpse at the inferno underlying any industrial nation. As if they weren't spewing the souls of thousands at high velocity into the beautiful azure afternoon.
The talking heads were choked up, some fending off panic, everyone milling about in a daze. School buses rolled in, but no one wanted to leave the screens for fear of missing something crucial. People held each other who'd not spoken three words in two years. A brotherhood and a defiance set people in step with one another, and many kids vowed to join up, to defend against whatever may follow.
It was a horrific day, a glorious September day, an innocuous day turned upside down. For all the victims, and the victims families, and the firefighters who'd get fucked by the insurance companies, and the soldiers, and the Iraqis and Afghani people who had nothing to do with it, and for everyone watching the accelerated crumbling of the American Empire, it was a day that changed everything.
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