so i started thinking about this room.

it sits in the corner of a home that is modern, the ones that are almost all white with hard wood floors and a wall that is all windows. but...

this room is not.

in the middle of the main living area of this home is a multi piece sofa that can be re-arranged in a varying number of ways, there is little clutter around the sofa but for some art, no other funiture, nothing, crouds the sofa it is really quite spacious. but...

the room is not.

the kitchen has ladders to reach the two story shelves, pots and pans and kitchen appliances sitting around, organized very, mathematically. but...

the room is not.

someday i may tell what the room is like, but for now at least you know what it is not.

my running, for various and likely stupid reasons managed to get pushed back until after 11pm this evening. on a normal occasion i might have been upset with that, and to be honest this was nearly a very normal ocassion. but then there was tchaikovski's "october", part of his "seasons", and then there was bach and his unaccompanied cello suites as played by yo-yo ma, and then there was the considerable dark, and yet another piece was the considerable cold. every piece playing perfectly into the hands of the other so that i could be reminded what running was like, alone, in the middle of the dark, down the middle of what is a normally busy street all with good music quietly accompanying each audible step. i bought the shuffle about 4 years ago to keep me company during my morning runs - some people can remember my telling of them, others (few) had been privey to their witness, and fewer still (one) managed to keep me company on a handful (for those the shuffle was left in its port) - and many of those early mornings shared the characteristics of this evening's run, a short 42' or so.

i had forgotten that the dark really helps to erase everything from your head, letting it wonder a bit through the space. seeing too many things is like having too much planned, it all just lumped into a mess and nothing can be comletely enjoyed as it should be. tonight, the focus somehow turned towards poetry. the disgust most people have toward poetry preferring the narrative. it may be that poets seem too self-engaged, too removed possibly. but i imagine another source of, maybe distrust?

the love of narrative and the hatred for poetry both seemingly have root in the same concept: effects. while narrative often allows you to feel the effects through, or even in another character, poetry has a much more direct effect on the reader. that is the point, poetry is emotive and that seems to make people rather uncomfortable with it. the thought of allowing something to get close, without some kind of fitler, is just too close. poetry in nature is like pealing the leaves of a roasted artichoke, verse by verse each getting richer until getting to the heart, where there is nothing to mask its rich flavors, and nothing left to disgard. the last piece has to be eaten, swollowed. literature has all the characters, each having to go through a certain process through which the reader can sympathise or empathise with the character. poetry does not evoke sympathy, nor empathy, it is the emotion rewrapped for the reader to stumble upon, happily, painfully, frustratingly, or simply bemused. good narrative can manage to tear away he filters of character, and make the public feel the emotion internally, and that may be what makes some keep their meaning instead of becoming pastel-binded novalties sold used in the local coffee.

can the reader trust something that makes them feel so much? can the modern figure accept a poem that causes a feeling of being weaker than a subordinate nature before borders ("psalm")? or before a clock, created by human kind, that grows to govern as a god?

as much as the writing needs be be done today, there are (unfortunately) other things that trump in the hierarchy of need. included in the pile that has accumulated over the past few months would be the most recent readings for a class tomorrow and the possible murder of a character's soul. not to be outdone, the marginal figure is pushing his way into the lime-light and the never ending presence of the mujer desechable just won't go the hell away.

thankfully, the hallucinagenic hold that keep me from my feet the last few days has been released and the pile shouldn't grow any larger. all the better since its shadow is growing much shorter,

so it was handel's messiah, and there was just something about the baritone. he didn't want to be there; had no interest other than a few fleeting moments that involved himself, memory and imagination, and the young soprano. previous to the evening, he managed to sip out of his pocket flask the required whiskey to whet his palate for uncontrollable vibrato, so that the moments of staccato scales came with a difficulty in differentiating between the frivolous vibrato and the change in actual base note. not that it was really a matter any longer, as this was obviously just another pass toward a hopeful retirement that had been pushed back a bit with a collapse of his investment in a certain hedge fund.

in his chair on the left he sat, with his slacks lifted to clear the knees of any discomfort leaving the socks to tease the front row with their possible edge. his tux jacket fit rather well, but the shirt underneath was forced to a wrinkled lump pressed out from a belly exacerbated by a slumped and apathetic posture. there was a moment where apathy seemed to wane from his face and body, but unfortunately the ephemeral change died when the realization that the soprano was not the same as that one. one of his first concerts after finishing the conservatory. she was thin for an operatic singer, with a voice that was anything but. she lead him down a path of notes where his baritone became a tenor, and then as if the two voices morphed, managed to drop to a D2 with the sudden desire for a cigarette. but this young soprano had only fleeting moments that reminded him of the past muse. that is to say, once her voice failed to fill him in any way with feeling, that was the reminder of just how long ago it was when he last felt something that resembled having swallowed a fresh ember.

what he really needed was another few whiskies and a prostitute named bambi: the first feeling almost like the warmth of love that pleasantly burns as it passes through the chest bringing a slight change in perception and the second a body whose loving intensions last equally as long as the time paid on the parking meter. he would never have told you that directly (unless you were bambi), but the empty look on his face during most of the performance, and the fact that he almost missed his cue for one of his solos, should lead you to understand where he really was. just like so many others who never became quite what they wanted -even if they were revered by so many- what he held inside was vacancy, a neon-sign announcing room for rent; even temporary tenants would be better company than the memories with no corners and a coffee with no cream or sugar.

now to hell with spellcheck, caps, etc.: caps are for creating an importance, giving value to something that should really be perceived the same as all the rest, and spellcheck is for making sure that you can show how well you memorized the expected representation of a thought, without ever having actually gone through with the act, but instead leaving it to a machine.

even when other things must be done, there is always the blog. now what that really means is that the practive of writing, be i in spanish or in english, is an art of practice. of course there are people prediposed to better apply their vision to any given medium, but without the formation of artistic development, a person's own style and voice are completely overwhelmed by everything that they have read and studied. what i really mean, is that without the practice, you may as well sit with your favorite book at hand and copy word-for-word each chapter you want to be your own, or take a place with your favorite painting, and slowly mimmick each brush stroke you are able to discern (maybe even a little more difficult than copying words for most) but lest i stray from the point, the art is in the some novalty, not continual repetition. whether people will value that art at the time of its inception is another topic and maybe another entry (i will pretend to have learned not to form empty promises to an empty readership) at some possible juncture.

really not so far from the final stage, he just found nothing left in his legs and couldn't reach any further. after arriving to work on the rickety old bicycle, he found himself in front of the only elevator in the building and it was broken. there were a few people stuck inside the elevator between the 27th and 28th floor, and the technicians were just leaving their office 17 blocks away. well fuck, he thought, first it was the ignition in the car after my alarm didn't set itself last night, and now i have to climb all these fucking stairs. He had been meaning to get back into shape, but just found himself far too lazy every morning before work, at lunch break, and every evening. and plus, there just wasn't enough time in the day to do what he really wanted to do.

the thing that he really wanted to do was to quit his job, leave all that shitty world of exploiting one person for someone else´s gain. not that it would have taken that much time to write the letter, hand it in, and wait out the two weeks of the mandatory notice. the starting of the letter was taking him more time than he had in a lifetime. often he thought to himself, i am compromising my beliefs, why? so that some fat and happy man, his unfaithful wife, and the children who might not be his, can all go on another 2 week vacation to aspen, drinking wine that is more expensive than my bar tab for the month, and sleeping in their fifth home that he paid cash for. but he was still working on starting the letter.

after waiting fifteen minutes for the elevator mechanics to arrive, he finally gave up on the hope of avoiding the grunt work, let his head drop between his slumping shoulders that struggled to fill the over-sized suit, and began to shuffle (as much as one can) up the stairs to the floor where his office was, and the floor where his immediate boss was sitting in the office across, staring at the empty chair in tony's cube. it wasn't even remotely entertaining to stare into tony's cube, there was a picture of his ex-wife hanging crooked in the corner, a few scraps of disorganized paper built into uninteresting stacks, each just slightly less colorful than the last, a map of his sales territory with a few lines drawn, delineating the boundaries that seemed to be continuously retracting, and a cup for his coffee with his college football team's logo. after each step, he began to question the previous, and started to note that, although he knew he was going in the right direction, the numbers did not pass nearly as fast as he was expecting.

Since in the rush to get out the door, he had forgotten to put on his watch, he had no clue the amount of time consumed by this climb, and he was starting to get hungry. he hadn't had his typical breakfast of honey ohs and a glass of don diego's pre-ground coffee. on an empty stomach, there was no way the energy was going to be there to make last the rest of the flights of stairs, so he sat at the landing where he found himself, and buried his head in his hands, running his fingers disgustedly through stingy hair. without the energy to move for the next several minutes, and with a pad of paper that he had in the briefcase, he found a pen and just began to doodle, the doodles became words, the words became musings and the musings became justification for another step. really, what the hell am i doing. slinging myself left leg then right up flight after flight of stairs, to throw my pride to the wolves around me, and sell their feed to the sheep for a better feast. and one that i don' even get to taste.

taking out another sheet, he began writing the letter that he never had time to write. he finished the last word and finally had the energy to climb the stairs to hand in the literary masterpiece and wait out the two weeks, then he realized he was actually two floors above his office, and walked sheepishly down the stairs with his paper in hand. his boss, waiting for his just as he had expected began to pounce, when tony handed him the letter. his boss read it, and calmly explained that letters of resignation had to be accompanied with a form, and in addition to being typed and placed in the slot in his door, they were also to be filed electronically through the human resources page on the intranet. he placed the paper, just as the last in one of the lifeless piles on tony's desk, gave tony a pat on the shoulder, and turn back towards his office closing the door behind him, knowing that tony just didn't have time to write complete the steps necessary. just too much work to be done.

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?