Sarah and I are sitting at a picnic table overlooking the Hudson, eating our BLTs (with too much mayonnaise for my liking) and strawberry Twinkies (just as vile as they sound). Making conversation, Sarah says, "Seventh grade is going to suck. We have to take health class!"
"Do tell," I say noncommittally, wiping excess mayonnaise from the sandwich.
"They're making us take health class instead of art class. Isn't that stupid? Wouldn't you choose art over health?"
I take a sip of sugar water and reply, "I did."
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Study Hall With Booze (An Almost True Story)
One weekend Doug called me up and said "I think we should go to the quiet party."
"The what?" Everything was buzzing very badly and I was sure I had misheard him. More high paranoia.
"The quiet party," he repeated. "It's this thing, it's in some hotel in Manhattan, and you can't talk."
"I beg your pardon?" This time I had heard him perfectly.
"No, really, everything you want to say gets written on index cards instead. Like at a monastery or something. Oh, and there's drinks too."
"I dunno. It sounds lame."
"You say that about everything. It'll be a novelty."
So we traveled by subway from the Bronx to Manhattan and began our exploration into the seamy world of silence. At the door we each had to pony up five dollars, then on the inside a cheery woman told us "There's a two-drink minimum. Fifteen dollars, please." Everywhere you go there's someone trying to shake you down. I coughed up another three fives and my hand got stamped. Inside the place looked like any bar or club might, except that it was almost entirely silent. Excluding at the actual bar, where talking was still permitted -- bizarre social experiments apparently only go so far.
"So far this seems like the lame art snob version of a frat party," I muttered to Doug as we entered the room.
"Ssssshhhh!!!" someone said, louder than I'd been speaking. Then someone else shushed that shusher, even louder. I imagined everyone shushing everyone else, louder and louder, but it stopped there. We sat at an empty taple. On it were a whole slew of index cards, and those short pencils you get on standardized tests. Someone came and took our drink orders. Then we sat in silence, watching everyone trying to maintain the atmosphere of the quiet party. People were shuffling around, passing each other notes. Every once in a while there's be another outburst of "Sssshhhh!!!" in clusters. It was all quite silly: "Someone violated the code of silence so I will reprimand them even louder!" I wanted to laugh but I didn't want to get shushed again. So I wrote HA on an index card and crumpled it up. It wasn't the same.
Doug passed me a card. "SO."
"SO WHAT?" I scribbled back.
"SO WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE QUIET PARTY?"
"SO LAME."
"SO TRUE." He took the card back and added "CIGARETTE?"
Outside it was noisy the way the city is supposed to be. Doug lit a cigarette and handed it to me, lit another for himself. It was chilly, and we basked in the loud and the dissonant.
"Okay," he said finally. "So the quiet party is lame. It could have been interesting. It still could be. Maybe in the fourth quarter someone goes nuts. It could still get good."
"Please. It's study hall with booze."
Then, more smoking in silence. Traffic sounds. People talking -- to other people, to cell phones, to themselves -- as they walked by. Sirens in the distance. Then the cigarettes were done and we returned inside.
"Oh, you're just in time," the cheery woman said after checking our stamped hands. "They're about to begin the silent poetry reading." Me and Doug exchanged glances, wordlessly turned an about face and left.
"The what?" Everything was buzzing very badly and I was sure I had misheard him. More high paranoia.
"The quiet party," he repeated. "It's this thing, it's in some hotel in Manhattan, and you can't talk."
"I beg your pardon?" This time I had heard him perfectly.
"No, really, everything you want to say gets written on index cards instead. Like at a monastery or something. Oh, and there's drinks too."
"I dunno. It sounds lame."
"You say that about everything. It'll be a novelty."
So we traveled by subway from the Bronx to Manhattan and began our exploration into the seamy world of silence. At the door we each had to pony up five dollars, then on the inside a cheery woman told us "There's a two-drink minimum. Fifteen dollars, please." Everywhere you go there's someone trying to shake you down. I coughed up another three fives and my hand got stamped. Inside the place looked like any bar or club might, except that it was almost entirely silent. Excluding at the actual bar, where talking was still permitted -- bizarre social experiments apparently only go so far.
"So far this seems like the lame art snob version of a frat party," I muttered to Doug as we entered the room.
"Ssssshhhh!!!" someone said, louder than I'd been speaking. Then someone else shushed that shusher, even louder. I imagined everyone shushing everyone else, louder and louder, but it stopped there. We sat at an empty taple. On it were a whole slew of index cards, and those short pencils you get on standardized tests. Someone came and took our drink orders. Then we sat in silence, watching everyone trying to maintain the atmosphere of the quiet party. People were shuffling around, passing each other notes. Every once in a while there's be another outburst of "Sssshhhh!!!" in clusters. It was all quite silly: "Someone violated the code of silence so I will reprimand them even louder!" I wanted to laugh but I didn't want to get shushed again. So I wrote HA on an index card and crumpled it up. It wasn't the same.
Doug passed me a card. "SO."
"SO WHAT?" I scribbled back.
"SO WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE QUIET PARTY?"
"SO LAME."
"SO TRUE." He took the card back and added "CIGARETTE?"
Outside it was noisy the way the city is supposed to be. Doug lit a cigarette and handed it to me, lit another for himself. It was chilly, and we basked in the loud and the dissonant.
"Okay," he said finally. "So the quiet party is lame. It could have been interesting. It still could be. Maybe in the fourth quarter someone goes nuts. It could still get good."
"Please. It's study hall with booze."
Then, more smoking in silence. Traffic sounds. People talking -- to other people, to cell phones, to themselves -- as they walked by. Sirens in the distance. Then the cigarettes were done and we returned inside.
"Oh, you're just in time," the cheery woman said after checking our stamped hands. "They're about to begin the silent poetry reading." Me and Doug exchanged glances, wordlessly turned an about face and left.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Post-Ridiculoid (A Haiku On Haiku)
It is all so real --
building syllabic cages
to house our verse in
(April 8th, 2003)
building syllabic cages
to house our verse in
(April 8th, 2003)
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Scatalogical God Knowledge
My real belief is, we are all given a pile of shit that had no right to be there. We inherited this from our ancestors, both biological and cultural, and before there were humans from a harsh nature that is "red in tooth and claw." The ones that came before us didn't do enough to absorb this pile of shit, and in fact some of them actually just piled more shit on it instead. So here we are, in the pile of shit. It's our job in this life to do what we can to clean the shit up and not add to it so that the next generation will have an easier time cleaning up the shit we didn't, and so forth and so on until we (not us, we'll be long dead) finally clean up all the shit and heaven dawns on earth. This is the secret occult meaning of "turning the other cheek" -- when you get shit dumped on you you have to absorb it and not pass it on, otherwise the cycle goes on forever and this is the best it will ever get.
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