Tuesday, October 26, 2010

fingers

i don't think about my body much in its own right. the sensory harp that is my nervous system usually bypasses itself to privilege my brain, which will then inspect respective reports. i'm sure you can already see why this might be a prosaic recipe for stupid... cerebral distortion rears rampant, and discordance reigns. dancing unmakes this order in me, or beauty, or passion, or meditation... but, back to her, beauty really does it best: in music in facial constellations in literature in architecture in justice in empathy in nature... these make real, and decommission a tyranny that ofttimes feels most desperate. guillotine.

nevermind.

fingers get allocated strange habitual tasks. i use a different finger for each lightswitch (within reason. i never borrow.) and say its dark, or i'm altered or moody, and i miss my jab.. there's a wrongness there, like my body forgot, not me. extreme moods call for the weight of a second finger behind the one of contact (ebullient? try jazz-snapping. pissed? try judo.) there is never as much authority behind the switch which has an auxiliary. obviously, going off is more final than going on, but there's still a confidence pushed into the finger. sometimes one pushes that finger-thought further, into a whipped towel or thrown object. to affect a light.

i believe the above was mostly speaking to the forefinger. do you use odd fingers for specific tasks? i lift my pinky to thank drivers for stopping when i walk. that may've come to be because i was once concerned that a wave could be seen as imperious. actually, it can't really be confused for much other than what must be acknowledgment "thanks for letting me cross, want this in your ear?" the ring finger on my left hand (is that redundant? where do rings go again? evidently i pour custard on marriage. but i wish i trusted it) checks my fly as habitually as i pat my pockets for keys and bankcard. to assure itself, the zipper toggle is run beneath the fingernail. there are regrettably too many reasons why this digital affirmation came to be.
nervously, i will lightly circle the dome of one fingertip on the dome of a thumbtip, even more lightly than 'lightly' might convey, until the feeling of rolling a pea emerges. this simple discovery, made at the age of 7 or so and continued to this day, might have shaped me more than i know. the translocation of sense, producing a phantom object? only ever had this with my fingers. couldn't imagine how it would be with any other area to be honest "i have a tangerine in my armpit"?
the nerve buds at the fingertips are very densely packed. how concomitant with the use of, say, an iPhone is that idea? what evolutionary use would this extreme sensitivity have aside from the obvious interrelation with technology? ever read this article? it's worth it.
and fuck off.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

I don't care, but you do, so I should and that means I do

Supposedly hard to describe, toujours dans la moment, but that was exactly good. Gaslamp Killer was a Jim Henson puppet gone ronin, respectfully. 12th Planet was a dubstep dervish, precise and yet delirious. Daedelus, whom I dimwittedly engaged with the axiomatic 'Montreal loves you.. that is, those parts of Montreal I could vouch for loves you. They're not quite all there, cause I'm here, but they love you!' to much fist-throbbed chest motion, is a composer.

It was all so achonological then, that it decries sense to try depict now, but... there was a moment when, purchasing a shooter, a lass dropped what may've innocently been a billfold. I stepped in and said, scuse me lady, but you dropped something. She looked down and said what? Gentle as I want to be, the room ever having corners with shadows with shapes in them, I say that. She looks at me like I am holding a grilled cheese in one hand and someone's scalp in the other, and teeters. Her friend pops up as I am in the midst of kicking the sanitary pad into the shadows - as a geniality mind you, not a spontaneously-educe-feminine-hygiene-products-from-your-friends service I've got going on the side - and withers my attempts to be conspiratorial. Fine. Time passes, much lots happens. And we're in a crowd. Lady-you-dropped-something rushes past again, somewhere in the midst of her early 20s entourage, and I wouldn't have noticed her except that she caught my arm in her open purse. Seriously. What would you have said? A lot came to mind. Belatedly.

Not much transpired from that, as even within an elapsed 50 seconds it seemed such a waste of moments otherwise human. Being with friends, and meeting theirs', and partaking of a disjointed engagement around the music.. ultimately that's what was. Though there's something in me that ever wants to share it... to hold it for someone in particular, or be there with them to spin it further. It feels like 'missing', but I'm not sure if this is so. I miss so many people, I know it can't be so. Perhaps the future?

Friday, October 15, 2010

Developing Notions

Plenty Offish is a bizarre bazaar of a free 'dating' website. It gives me pathos like mashed potatoes. You simply develop a name and profile (mine's Developing Notions and I like sustainable sandwiches and speaking pretentiously) and then take a tour of those of other people. You can write to them and chat, and, if anything kicks off, go for a date.

All that is in principle though. What really happens is that you embark on a demented cross between a safari and a dungeon. Earnest people peering through their picture portals, so lonely you can almost hear them tapping the other side of your monitor.. their cells made out of gliberties and 'about mes' and platitudes and attitudes. Or single moms stealing your hubcaps and menacing you if you venture from the car. I don't really want to get involved, but maybe just give everyone a hug.

I actually thought I'd have more to say about this, but I find I'm just annoying myself.
[edit: single mom just msg'd me, she'd like to play chess some time? is this a trick?]

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

public pools, or, why self-diagnosed hypochondria isn't

i have a pet project of taking photos that attempt to discredit our silent predilection toward gravity (NB: this project does not actually involve pets.) in consideration of this, i'm now going to try to conflate that idea toward the hope of undermining the preceding posts, which may come off as grave. i will not fuse words for purposes of intelleggtable wankery; will not talk about the Egg, or any part thereof (eg[g]. is the albumen more or less repellent than the germinal disc? how about in the conteggst of public pools?); will only offer ruminations of impending mortal doom specific to the person under discussion; will not mention the juvenile belief of saving the orange Smarties for last in the imagining that one could wish them to actually taste orangey etc.

i went to a public pool on Monday. turns out that the notion of 'public' is subjeggt to deggree. Mondays are eggstremestly public. and that's not especially good for someone with the lamentable problem of distortative logolatry. unbidden comes glyphic degeneration of the word 'public'... pubic is one. lice, another (it's there, believe me.) and then there's poo and whatever ool might turn out to be. however, because i was chatting with my upstairs flatmate the whole while, none of this was thought about until the changing rooms, which are apparently designed to ensure that every single article of clothing you bring will touch the floor. toughest though is changing amongst children again without actually being one yourself. not that i conduct my waking moments with the mantra 'do not eggspose yourself to children today', but, for a generic-looking, scruffy white guy with salient markers of maturity-under-duress, there is the problem of observed societal-refleggtion whereby i often find myself confronted. i am eggstremely sensitive to this (my biggest driving dilemma is having to slow down to 30kph when passing a schoolyard... crawl past, and i'm flaggable; speed up, and i'm flagged as looking like i'm trying to ovoid looking flaggable.) there is no graceful eggsit from this crushing eggsplication...

so yeah, in the pool. trying not to notice other publics repressing their compulsion to itch, i hop straight on in, rinse the goggles and submerge. bliss! favourite ending to a sentence, anywhere in the world, is submerged (ed: voluntarily and in water.) swam a width this way: first half, aglide! first half of the second half, goggles fogging, thoughts of 'oh no, what if i'm thought of as even more pervy?' and 'what was that semi-mucilaginous entity i just passed?' and then 'perhaps i could've phrased that last thought more accurately, considering its antecedent', oxygen? second half of second half, dancing gummy bears, replete with names, bios and musical influences........dots........ and at the other side!! the rest of the pool appears to have continued beautifully in my continual absence of 23 seconds. colour slowly returns.

chat with my friend some more. aww, she's great. lets me blather on about 'let the right one in' while she does floaty-legg eggsercises back to where we started. chinese dude sweeps upper thigh whilst in backstroke, top to bottom. and back again (lower thigh, up.) mild panic, visual confirmation of untampered towel; soothed. we go to and fro some more, go down the slide letting the lifeguard believe her own ironic smile, and then head to the steam room.

28 seconds into over-crowded steam room, and with surprisingly little prompting required, my friend mentions her potential three-way tryst with randoms. i joke she met them at 7/11. moderate time elapses before she laughs. room's ceramic silence deepens, other than -admittedly already developed- laboured breathing. i quail and ask her how etsy.com works. she tells me. we go to the sauna.

bum-prints everywhere. sit on the half of one which doesn't contain the toenail. eggschange views on the differing merits of sauna vs. steam room with my friend. my claim is that i like knowing where my sweat is, hers is feeling her respiratory system. trio of blokes having a similar comparative chat, except over eggonomical sources for 'chainmail'. friend and i eggshaust the topic of swiss chard. we go back to the pool.

pool is fantastic! we loaf around again, obtain some large oblong float-pads under the lifeguard's proviso that we only stand up on them in the deep end. we immediately go stand up on them in the deep end as if we came up with the idea ourselves. tiring, we make to go into the jacuzzi. i am hampered by seeing my friend Arturo stretching off a workout on a raised alcove. i do this:

Arturo doesn't hear. i degglare that i'll get him later. we get into the jacuzzi. 8 months preggnant lady (that's an interpretation, not a hope) on the left. righteous dude with righteous babe opposite. pimply people to their left. lose my goggles. friend finds them. much merry rejoicing is had by all, except for alpha pimples who wants to punch me. look a bit harder at those sharing the tepid water with us: conjunctivitis on righteous dude? his girlfriend (behavioural observation) has similar ailment.. they high? wistful pangs emerge, but suppressed with assurances that phenomenon is definite proof of conjunctivitis. notice red lines describe peoples' high-water mark. suggest we leave. friend justifiably freaks over bubble-scum on her back. we take a shower and giggle a bit. back to the steam room.

then, sauna... triumvirate of historical reenactors replaced by homeowners sizing up 20 year mortgages. friend leaves. spritely old lady does the splits beside me on the top riser. i leave.

towel grabbed, i enter the locker room. shower, check on the socks i left airing up top the lockers, phew... fuck! children! thank heavens for punctuation marks! change as modestly as humanly possible, making sure every article first sweeps across puddles of discoloured liquid(s?) eggreggating in physically improbable areas. leave.

and am left -skin feeling a few sizes smaller- ovoiding eye-contact with angry-looking parental people outside whilst waiting for my friend. why do i have to endure this prejudice!? should i rise now, denouncing and condemning this indiscriminate bigotry towards disheveled misfits with red eyes hanging around community fitness centres? what form would this indignation take? a minor remark about how best to obviate grammatical ineggsactitude within the usage of 'slow children crossing' signs? or, go strong and find some way to prove that, irrespective of gender or mediated alarmism, it is hard doing kindness these days? doubtlessly, the counterclaim would be: what's hard? and, did you know that 'kind' means 'child' in German? and, if you burn, you're innocent. then my friend came out, and i felt the borrowed calm of looking like we were together; a prejudice finally eggsalting my favour.

at only $2 for a couple of hours, i'll definitely be going next week. gonna grow a beard first though so's to make my face, if not less suspicious, then at least more alterable. will also pass eyedrops round the jacuzzi, but will reserve the right to do the application myself on those wearing down the question. this way everyone will be more able to [e]n[g]a[g]e with the raw-egg-in-a-jacuzzi test.

ps. did you know, that -potamia (sing. -potamus) means 'rivers' or 'of the river'? think hippos or mesopotamia!

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

distancing as means of possession / Marco Polo awareness

perceptive possession begs space. a retreat to secure. extirpative immersion at odds with fathom-soundings. the call and response of conversation, especially with oneself. morelike twoself. a yes:yes that shimmers forth a mirror studio within which to think and meet another truly. do not get con-fused, leave that for the skin. you know that retraction of space that another can 'inflict' on you, they literalize you, becoming themself some spontaneous arbiter of reality? some people are very good at this sort of violence, but don't worry, it only postpones their realization. literalism is a sort of thievery, a social trick, try not to encourage it. you are a broadbeam of pure thought, so think of time as its syntax and respect your spectator.


Monday, October 04, 2010

Each Hit and I

Something beautiful should be written, but I am a bit too angry to be the one to write it. Mine is the anger of a fantasist, and it's not very healthy. Here instead is a saying that I can only hope is truly attributable to the supposed source:

"One winter’s evening whilst gathered round a blazing camp fire, an old Sioux Indian chief told his grandson about the inner struggle that goes on inside people.

“You see” said the old man, “this inner struggle is like two wolves fighting each other. One is evil, full of anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, deceit, false pride, superiority, and ego”.

“The other one,” he continued, poking the fire with a stick so that the fire crackled, sending the flames clawing at the night sky, “is good, full of joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith”.

For a few minutes his grandson pondered his grandfather’s words and then asked, “So which wolf wins, grandfather?”

“Well”, said the wise old chief, his lined face breaking into a wry smile, “The one you feed!”"

Egregiously borrowed in entirety from Don't Feed The [Wrong] Wolf (www.dontfeedthewolf.com)