reflections on a post-thanksgiving dinner:

i had the opportunity to have a couple drinks and dinner this evening with a good friend, her fiancée, two of her sisters, a mutual friend, and a few other friends in the crowd. sifting through the details of the evening, i finally happened across the topic of importance as i sat quietly observing my surroundings: i did not belong. it was not the lack of intellect, it was not the lack of class, nor the lack of the care of the people around me; it was that i simply to not fit with the "independence" and capabilitty of savoring the higher cost joys without finding the sum in the background dwindling, diminishing significantly, maybe a more accurate word would be noticeably.

i cannot blame them for accepting a challenge placed by peers and the predecessors of peers, nor can i say that the luxuries should not be enjoyed. what i can say is that i really no longer have a place in the festivities of a voluptuous bacus and her rowdy entourage. what was once a place that i belong without any doubt, has now become the figure that casts a shadow over my corner of the table. bacus now appears to have slimmed greatly, becoming a near anarexic shadow of the lover who prostituted herself to the mortgage of a man.

past "lives" have offered me events hosted and attended by only the elite, being a guest of distinction at one, a simple wall flower at another, and at best a buzzing fly for a third. a question comes to mind: what story is it that age then begins to tell? is it the same story of a progress toward "greatness" that just doesn't fit without the tight confines of the über elite? or just finally being able to recognize where it is that one actually fits within these crowds and mini-classes? the reflections of this evening bring me closer to a moment of understanding an "artists" discomfort with the world of "fine" things when those things are not something that should be so easily attainable for such a short period of time.

they are the shadows of the ghosts of what could have been at that moment, under different circumstances and with different influences. born to more over-worldly pleasures, and distanced from more grounded, simple joy. how long can you belong to something that cannot possibly imagine you within it before it recognizes your presence and spits you out the rubbish discharge, trash not dissimilar to the worn cog, that always refused to fit properly wearing the edges of its own cogs, as well as the cogs that tried hopelessly to fit against it, and finally being chewed and spit by the machine for which it was supposed to be a functional part?

not really a relevent photo

his life really was never really all that important, at least that was his perception. all the value that he saw in himself, and the value that he perceived others found in him, seemed always sourced from those that surrounded him. it was never explicitly him. even in groups formed by his friends, he found himself completely isolated, as if the source of his value was also that which consumed every last once. when your source is also your leak, where can any progress be made? of course he could answer that question, since i am not him you will have to look for him yourself to find the answer. but one piece of advice i would like to give: don't look for too long.

so i am hoping to return to the original purpose of this blog: meetings and paths. for some reason over the past few, there was some distancing in regards to the encuentros part, but now, i think that will have o be a nearly daily exercise for me. i have many back logged photos, and that will be the source of visual information for those involved. also, i hope to have no order to those people being "treated" within the brief un-authorized biographies, but plan on putting a reasonable number up. the only stipulation is that the photo used be in black and white and that the un-authorized biograpies may be disclamed as such, meaning that the facts have not been verified, and may distance themselves from the truth a bit. first entry to come soon, and from then... so many paths but only one a person can walk at a time.

just for the fun of it, we have this post: something along the lines of there being "one person left after an earthquake to tell of it." it came from a short story la noche de ramon yendia by lino novas calvo. seemingly intersting to consider the use of a natural disaster to describe events of great trauma in latin america. return during a moment or two, for instance, to the use of the earthquake by mario benedetti in a previous post in the parallel blog.

wow: do things ever come around. the acedemic actions of taking one person's thought(s) and applying it (them) to things that appear to have no depth, managing to show that [not so] deep in that very hole you can find a little water, and a little bit of rock and sand. The fun then comes when you are forced to see upon what the hell they are resting, because unless we begin to talk about gravitons crossing the the varying dimensions in string theory, every non-neutral object (explicitly not in the form of energy) must rest on something. (fuck, I hope that pseudo assertion is right)

So where does the water, sand and rock rest in this hole?

the klein bottle and the human condition

the (w)hole of chet baker. his life was not perfect, nor was it really all that beautiful, but what it was was memorably tragic. a beautiful and delicate voice, it revealed his vulnerability, even to himself. to whom are we suceptible if we are not [exactly that] to ourselves? but to let one's-self search for an internal disappearance...

his existance became a hole, and it was in that hole where he was able to bury himself, hiding all that was his self-perceived identity, until unable to even recognize himself. in that hole he was able to slowly destroy everything that he was, all that created him and everything there was around him; except for the two things that were the true outward presentation of his complete internal vulnerability: his voice and the trumpet, both calling out with a joyful melencholy that was his expression, but that he couldn't seem to even claim as his own. they too belong to the pieces of his creation. he contained himself, but somehow had no control of the contents his soul consuming everything that made it, and held it.

[this video came thanks to an happenstancial viewing of the film when it was re-released in spain somehwere near mid 2009. i had gone on the invitation of my (then roomate) friend jaime barros to see the showing of a corto for which he had done the sound, and the documentary was showing not long after the short. a glass of wine later next door with a tapa from the bar served as an inpromptue dinner and then we entered the world of chet baker (as told by bruce webber). the above are simply the thoughts of reflection after purchasing the remastered pseudo best-of that was the soundtrack for the documentary. the above is saturated by the tastes of the portrayal of baker in the documentary, but somehow i think it also stands slightly on its own. the music itself, and a little knowledge of his life could lead one to make very similar observations]

a peregrine falcon's talons, along with its wings, can save the head of a motorcyclist

this is not going to become a place to write about running, nor are my runs places where i am going to pretend to do writing, but today just a simple comment from an ingorant stranger sitting in the car that came to a slow crawl near a light right next to me... a "what the fuck?" starting and finishing on the higher tone with the first and last words, and the middle dropping nearly a complete octave. it was as if he has never seen a football game before, seeing men participating in high level sports while wearing knee level tights; though i have to admit that he hasn't likely seen them come out from under the pads. so many have heard, "run forest, run" thrown in among the "nice legs!" comments, but there have no often been blatent frightened statements from uncomfortable strangers

the sea and the seaweed

come find the sea
come float with the seaweed and me
so strange to be
floating with seaweed and me

the depths of the waters are so profound
and the fishes they nibble the kelp
they carry the bits to the darkest depths
where you can drown searching for help

come find the sea
come float with the seaweed and me
so strange to be
floating with seaweed and me

the waves are crashing, over the wiseman's head
and the water looks into his lungs

his beath begins to labor

so he sinks to visit the dead

come find the sea
come float with the seaweed and me
so strange to be
floating with seaweed and me

he found the sea
and sunk with the seaweed and me
come fly with me
and seaweed in the eternal sea

come find the sea
come float with the seaweed and me
so strange to be
floating with seaweed and me

There is something tremendously eerie about being in a place where you have been before, a place where your feet have rested in nearly the same place, yet in different times and in different circumstances. The ghosts of your previous persons look over your own haunting shoulder from the previous moment, with glimpses of that past time and quickly passing flashes of presently-tinged thought of those same moments. The vision from the past into the present becomes even more abstract on those evenings where the storms leave a damp reminder of its power on the road that slowly rises to obscure the view from behind the front lamp of the motorcycle or that, again, slowly creeps over your shoulder with the humid breath of an evening after a storm.

There was definite company this evening, even if it came from within the cobwebbed corners of own memory. The fog that ran across the pavement with the wind that ruffled the wet flag quickly enough that I was like time was running through all of the previous instances of my being there. The view through the eyepiece of the camera was even more apropos, as it became the newest memory to haunt me in that place, to remind me of another moment in time, where my existence was the same, but my awareness completely different. It will be the newest moment to pass-by in the clouds of an insecure tomorrow.

first star that i saw this evening,

why haven't you answered in so long

star light, star bright

first the first wish, i know you ignored.

the second, you pretended to hear

and my third you dismissed with a scoff.

up until this current run, when we would meet, 

i would walk away happy, and you,

you would slowly slide away 

with soothing accomplishment 

and the excitement of tomorrow's meeting.

Neither of us needed a shooting-star, 

now it is all that keeps me looking to the skies.

The blog is suffereing a little as of late as my focus is placed towards a few chapters of an attempt at a book and me trying to get a head start on the summer papers. If there is anything new to post, then it will be posted, but I am trying to avoid spending too much more time in front of the computer than necesary for the writing.

The blog, over the past three to four months, has almost turned into the memories of past "encuentros" and "caminos". When the things which were the anchor to many things rested in an assumed future, and that achor disappears, there is a sudden feeling of being completely lost in the present and future and only the security of the past moments are capable of creating a feeling that does not border a complete loss of control. It is that moment when sadness is the only secure emotion, that one can really understand what gave a true state of happiness, and that the sadness is the tremendous shadow that is left from what lent that state. The thing is, there are other things that lend a light to cast a new shadow, but you have to be willing to step out into that new light, or that new sun. Is that a willingness to give-up on an old happiness, just in hope of the new light, another which could burn or turn its focus in another direction? A lack of that willingness may be the piece that hampers the beginning of the duel, the beginning of the process of recuperation and acceptance of another light. When is the right time for that next light?

related to a project in school and quite possibly the focus for expanded studies:

distance is the medium that brings peace to the memories of the traumas and the experiences that were the parents to those memories. no matter the way that distance is achieved, is seems a necessary in order that the repetition or cycle of trauma can be cut. although one necessary piece, there are many others that need to be in place so that the battle between the necessity to leave the moment behind, and the desire not to forget can occur. only with that battle, can there be the necessary, and unwanted, mental casualties that bring about the peace, or if not casualties, possibly a quarantine of certain trauma and their associated feelings.

the current project looks into the idea of distance and tries to describe the varying types of distance that are used in the process of breaking the cycle of trauma so that the past is neither repeated nor re-experienced internally: the view, with the memory, remains, but the possibility to return and experience the trauma is left behind.

I want someone who knows that I am not perfect, but believes that I am anyway.

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I cannot say that I have never run from anything in the past, even with my heard-headed nature, but I can see with a certain clarity - even during the events themselves - that I am running from something at the current moment. Even with my mind blurred with days of intense sessions and long runs, so as not to great the thing from which I run, I can see what it is that I am avoiding. It moves like a puma in the jungle, so black it nears purple and morphs into the shape of everything that embodies it. It is an ocean, it is everything that floats quietly on the tips of small waves, everything that looms in the agression of stormy seas. They are friends, they are awkwardly shared friends, they others held in common. Today and yesterday, I run from the ocean of reminders. Tomorrow, I run again.

Bouillon Chartier

just a quick note on one of the restaurants worth noting from the culinary and drunken trip to france. i had a lunch with very good company, to whom i am indebted, in the place seen in the picture on the side and in bold above. they take your order on the fly, writing your entire order in illegible scratch on the paper tablecloth replaced on each table, and sum everything on the same tablecloth after you have finished your meal just before finding a new home for the dead and thinly sliced tree. the prices, especially for france, are quite inexpensive and the food is quite good; though that is not to say that there were not others that were better.

Bouillon Chartier

March 28th 2007
and 
March 18th 2010

sandcastles

(a song that i wrote about myself - though I didn't realize that it was autobiographical at the time - during the trip to spain in 2002-2003, in cooperation with josh colpitts. funny how things seem to apply to various facets of one's life)

she's got nothing on her feet but her pretty pink shoes

a whole in all her pockets, and nothing left to lose.

she´s jumped a train to nowhere and can't wait to see

that no one's there waiting, and there never will be.

she climbs sandcastles, nearing the sky

someone so damn low, should never climb so high

she climbs sandcastles, nearing the sky

someone so damn low, should never climb so high

she smiles to the sun, then cries herself to sleep.

she´s got a worm inside her sole, and it's digging too deep.

well her heart's still pumping blood, like the day she was born,

but the skin she wears outside, is jagged and torn.

she climbs sandcastles, nearing the sky

someone so damn low, should never climb so high

she climbs sandcastles, nearing the sky

someone so damn low, should never climb so high

a paper airplane to the coast, she road to find,

the castle in the sand, that she used to climb.

a paper airplane to the coast, she road to find,

the castle in the sand, that she used to climb.

she climbs sandcastles, nearing the sky

someone so damn low, should never climb so high

she climbs sandcastles, nearing the sky

someone so damn low, should never climb so high

almost forgotten

I cannot remember your squint after a long fit of laughter

nor the touch of your hand as we sit, awed by the fire.

The color in your eyes has sunk deep into an old photo,

and the corners of the photo, reminders of your forgotten your smile.

Reminders of the days, when I awake with your warmth.

Gone are the days, when we occupied my spaces,

warmth now disappeared from each corner and each nook.

There is, but one place where you remain sharp and alive;

one place where your hands still pull at my heart.

But gone are the days, when I awake to your warmth.

As I return for a dream between morning and snooze,

15 minutes to recover a loss that should never have been.

Behind a fountain your figures disappear into shadows

and the figures in silhouette grow closer to one .

You return to speak, awaited words also seem to arrive,

slowly and with clarity the unknown seemingly released.

Then just when you are ready to tell me your truths…

15 minutes are gone and your voice turns to what wakes me.

Also gone are those days, when I awake to your warmth.