Friday, July 13, 2012
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Smells
As you know if you've read any of my other blog posts, I remember place and time very well by scent. (Music, too. It is some kind of sentimental shit.) I'm in Hangzhou, China right now. I lived in China around when I was four with my sister, mother and grandparents. As with any place, there are smells of things that only exist in Hangzhou. Smelly tofu is one. The smell of construction is another, because things are constantly being built here.
Today I smelled something. I think it was the smell of dinner, but what was cooking I don't know. What it reminded me of specifically was coming home from preschool to my grandparents' house and waiting (usually upset) for my Mom. What it reminded me of more abstractly was the feeling of homesickness and distance. I guess I missed the States when I was in China, and I guess I was capable of missing places when I was four.
Now I know that the way that these familiar smells are encoded into my memory must be through the vehicle of intense or stressful emotion. For some reason, I did not know this when, for example, in Seoul the natural gas emanating from the ground of the street reminded me of 1990s developing China. It did not remind me of the feeling of intense stress. Must think some more on that.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Cultures of fear
One day two years ago, I was having water cooler conversation with a biochemistry grad student. She was talking about the looks that she gets from medical students working in our building.
"It's like they think they're better than me! In smarts, I could take on any one of them. We just have that curiosity that that they don't! And that's why we chose this path."
She wasn't bitter, but she was a little indignant. Sure, she's probably right. The context is that science graduates have two primary options these days - graduate school or medical school. And grad students are a curious bunch, if I say so myself. I remember this person to be brilliant. But her reaction is a kind of feeling that never requires a full conversation in order to percolate.
Many conversations about identity start this way. These days, I overhear Korean Americans here talking this way all the time. Someone has some momentary experience passing by another person. A quick summary is conducted during which there is an understanding, a feeling of judgment.
It's like a form of telepathy, but it doesn't truly matter if the judgment actually exists. Or does it? Whether the feeling exists in the field of socially transmitted thoughts or whether it exists only within the mind of the thinker, who can say that one is more real than the other?
"It's like they think they're better than me! In smarts, I could take on any one of them. We just have that curiosity that that they don't! And that's why we chose this path."
She wasn't bitter, but she was a little indignant. Sure, she's probably right. The context is that science graduates have two primary options these days - graduate school or medical school. And grad students are a curious bunch, if I say so myself. I remember this person to be brilliant. But her reaction is a kind of feeling that never requires a full conversation in order to percolate.
Many conversations about identity start this way. These days, I overhear Korean Americans here talking this way all the time. Someone has some momentary experience passing by another person. A quick summary is conducted during which there is an understanding, a feeling of judgment.
It's like a form of telepathy, but it doesn't truly matter if the judgment actually exists. Or does it? Whether the feeling exists in the field of socially transmitted thoughts or whether it exists only within the mind of the thinker, who can say that one is more real than the other?
Monday, September 27, 2010
중국사람이에요
There used to be moments talking to my mother about nationhoods when she would respond to my grasping claims of American identity with: "周为, you can be as American as you want to say you are, but at the end you're still 中国人." It's ironic because these days I say 한궄사람아니에요 almost every day, and likewise 중국사람이에요 is more important to me than ever. Tricky positions.
This was how it became clear to me why I couldn't spend the 추석 holidays in Seoul. The costs to bring myself to 杭州 for the holidays were more than discretionary. This was the frame of my week, the root of my impressions of my fifth trip to China.
My 中国 is mediated by the people whose experiences I try to access. It lies in a frame is held tenderly by my parents, who deny the leaks that happen at the corners when I reach for cultural ground outside of their reach. Europe, Latin America, the American West and the American city. I call them leaks that's what it feels when language comes to you and leaves from you - a trickle, a flush. While I stood at the train station at 杭州 gathering the hundred characters or so that I know, I re-saturated myself with Chinese as a month's worth of Korean trickles and fifteen years of English sweat a little, too.
Things I did: Entertain family friends. Feel awkward about my educational privileges. See family. Talk international politics with my cousins. Eat a little 月饼. Visit the Shanghai Expo. Learn the 上海 metro and the 杭州 buses. Wonder a little about my place here, but everywhere really. Six days.
한궄사람아니에요 = I'm not a Korean person
중국사람이에요 = I'm a Chinese person
Monday, September 6, 2010
The thing about expats
I hang out a quite a bit with American expats like myself, almost all of whom are teaching English.
Once a long time ago, someone asked why people never call Western expatriates immigrants. And while that was a deeply thought-provoking question, there are indeed profound differences. Subjective differences that lie in intention rather than circumstance. (Or maybe not, since class is so central.) I still wondered if I knew what they were.
My first weekend, I met a few college grads the night after they had a training exam for their positions. The ones who failed would go home. And while most passed, the ones who went home would return to their parents' homes and places that don't hire anyone anywhere, not even the fast food chains. Some people come here to Seoul because of this. Because they can save and go back and maybe pay rent for a year while looking for jobs.
My second weekend, I met a man who would leave following week. I asked him what he'd do back in the States. He shrugged his big tattooed shoulders. "Seoul is great," he said. And I wondered in what way, since earlier in that day he was talking shit about the guy with the grin on his face charging 2500 for bottled water. Why if so much distrust?
That day, I met a man who came to visit his former colleague, who is now teaching adults. They used to work at a company that gives financial advice lectures to retired folks around the country. "There were months at a time when she would not have any gigs. For her, it was like being paid to sit around, but that's not her. She had to do something." Enough said.
And when the sun went down, I went to Hongdae, near Honggik University. I remember it like it was the LES, but on crack. A lot of college students starting their year. But also a lot of foreign faces. A lot of plastered faces. Some European accents. A lot of twenty-something white folks in their going out clothes and heels.
In the cab home that night, I talked to another recent grad who used to study philosophy. She said that there were only two things she really wanted to do after college - community/labor organizing or teaching kindergarten. Her current job is far from those things. "I had to really reconcile that before coming here. What I was adding to." She works for a publicly traded corporation that charges middle class families exorbitant amounts to learn English afterschool.
But ultimately, there is money here. I'll talk about that soon, since I seem to be in the middle of much of it...
Once a long time ago, someone asked why people never call Western expatriates immigrants. And while that was a deeply thought-provoking question, there are indeed profound differences. Subjective differences that lie in intention rather than circumstance. (Or maybe not, since class is so central.) I still wondered if I knew what they were.
My first weekend, I met a few college grads the night after they had a training exam for their positions. The ones who failed would go home. And while most passed, the ones who went home would return to their parents' homes and places that don't hire anyone anywhere, not even the fast food chains. Some people come here to Seoul because of this. Because they can save and go back and maybe pay rent for a year while looking for jobs.
My second weekend, I met a man who would leave following week. I asked him what he'd do back in the States. He shrugged his big tattooed shoulders. "Seoul is great," he said. And I wondered in what way, since earlier in that day he was talking shit about the guy with the grin on his face charging 2500 for bottled water. Why if so much distrust?
That day, I met a man who came to visit his former colleague, who is now teaching adults. They used to work at a company that gives financial advice lectures to retired folks around the country. "There were months at a time when she would not have any gigs. For her, it was like being paid to sit around, but that's not her. She had to do something." Enough said.
And when the sun went down, I went to Hongdae, near Honggik University. I remember it like it was the LES, but on crack. A lot of college students starting their year. But also a lot of foreign faces. A lot of plastered faces. Some European accents. A lot of twenty-something white folks in their going out clothes and heels.
In the cab home that night, I talked to another recent grad who used to study philosophy. She said that there were only two things she really wanted to do after college - community/labor organizing or teaching kindergarten. Her current job is far from those things. "I had to really reconcile that before coming here. What I was adding to." She works for a publicly traded corporation that charges middle class families exorbitant amounts to learn English afterschool.
But ultimately, there is money here. I'll talk about that soon, since I seem to be in the middle of much of it...
Friday, August 27, 2010
ATWP, AWOL
hey hey, atwp is gone. i've renamed this blog and changed the url. changes changes!
please update your shit correspondingly!
please update your shit correspondingly!
Summer on Wheels
I did two things really new this summer. Well, three things. The first two were biking from home and learning to drive. The third was flying a few thousand miles away from New York, leaving perhaps indefinitely. But this post is about the first two things.
When moving out of my senior dorm, I swiped a Pacific Aries mountain bike from the courtyard. (Now, I took it from near the heap of trash to be thrown out, so I'm pretty sure that wasn't stealing.) The bike is pretty standard. Shimano brakes, 27-speed. I roped it onto the hood of our minivan and drove it home. Over the next three months, I put over $200 into that bike. I fixed the gears, pumped the tires (free), replaced the clamp, bought a chain, another lock, a security cable, two seats and seat posts, and three safety lights. I took it everywhere - Flushing, DUMBO, Prospect Heights, Jackson Heights, everywhere in between.
I learned where the hills in the city were and why some neighborhoods are called the "Heights". I learned the meaning of traffic signs and street lanes. I learned where and how fast people like to drive. Where I could go fast and take my feet off the pedals. Where I could go slow and respond to a text with one hand on the handlebars. As a 20-year New Yorker, I think it was one of the last things that I haven't yet tried to do in that city.
Then I started driving, another culture entirely. Someone once told me driving depends on this field of social interaction. (If so, biking is an incredibly solitary activity.) So I learned to signal with others, watch others, follow laws and (less explicitly) neighborhood norms, and literally personify other cars as people. I drove a blue Toyota four-door on my test, but since then I've only been in my parents' red Mercury minivan from 2005. I got my first ticket. (Broken brake lights.) I resolved that ticket within 12 hours afterward. I felt awesome. Then I stood in front of the DMV judge and felt like just another law-abiding citizen.
If I had to choose? Biking, definitely cooler.
(This is a blog post that deserves pictures, but alas, I'm in another country already!)
When moving out of my senior dorm, I swiped a Pacific Aries mountain bike from the courtyard. (Now, I took it from near the heap of trash to be thrown out, so I'm pretty sure that wasn't stealing.) The bike is pretty standard. Shimano brakes, 27-speed. I roped it onto the hood of our minivan and drove it home. Over the next three months, I put over $200 into that bike. I fixed the gears, pumped the tires (free), replaced the clamp, bought a chain, another lock, a security cable, two seats and seat posts, and three safety lights. I took it everywhere - Flushing, DUMBO, Prospect Heights, Jackson Heights, everywhere in between.
I learned where the hills in the city were and why some neighborhoods are called the "Heights". I learned the meaning of traffic signs and street lanes. I learned where and how fast people like to drive. Where I could go fast and take my feet off the pedals. Where I could go slow and respond to a text with one hand on the handlebars. As a 20-year New Yorker, I think it was one of the last things that I haven't yet tried to do in that city.
Then I started driving, another culture entirely. Someone once told me driving depends on this field of social interaction. (If so, biking is an incredibly solitary activity.) So I learned to signal with others, watch others, follow laws and (less explicitly) neighborhood norms, and literally personify other cars as people. I drove a blue Toyota four-door on my test, but since then I've only been in my parents' red Mercury minivan from 2005. I got my first ticket. (Broken brake lights.) I resolved that ticket within 12 hours afterward. I felt awesome. Then I stood in front of the DMV judge and felt like just another law-abiding citizen.
If I had to choose? Biking, definitely cooler.
(This is a blog post that deserves pictures, but alas, I'm in another country already!)
Monday, April 26, 2010
Adults
When I started first grade in the States, I was a little puzzled by my first grade teacher. She was so... interesting. I want to say it wasn't because she was the first white person I ever got to know, but who knows? I was a five year old who just came back from a year and a half in China. (Read "adjustment issues".)
But from an early age I learned neither to trust nor identify with adults. It's not that I didn't think they knew what was best for me. I didn't even trust how they got their information to begin with.
Firstly, they're imprecise. When I was five, the attention to detail that I paid to my surroundings came down to half-millimeters. Adults? They couldn't tell the difference between one inch and two inches. I asked one of my teachers once to show me how long an inch was. She spread her thumb and index finger apart until they could hold a strawberry. "This much." She held her fingers probably two and a half inches apart, not one.
Secondly, they're dirty. Once during arts and crafts in first grade, I got some glue on my fingers and didn't know what to do to clean it. I showed it to my teacher. What did she show me to do? Wipe it on my pants. No doubt my mom did not appreciate that.
Thirdly, they don't know how to move themselves. Their bodies were bulky and generally all over the place. Why did I have to follow them around? They should be keeping up with me!
Lastly, they bend truth. That's just true. I still think that's true. In fact, I'm starting to do it.
So those are a few of the reasons why I'm dreading graduation/adulthood.
But from an early age I learned neither to trust nor identify with adults. It's not that I didn't think they knew what was best for me. I didn't even trust how they got their information to begin with.
Firstly, they're imprecise. When I was five, the attention to detail that I paid to my surroundings came down to half-millimeters. Adults? They couldn't tell the difference between one inch and two inches. I asked one of my teachers once to show me how long an inch was. She spread her thumb and index finger apart until they could hold a strawberry. "This much." She held her fingers probably two and a half inches apart, not one.
Secondly, they're dirty. Once during arts and crafts in first grade, I got some glue on my fingers and didn't know what to do to clean it. I showed it to my teacher. What did she show me to do? Wipe it on my pants. No doubt my mom did not appreciate that.
Thirdly, they don't know how to move themselves. Their bodies were bulky and generally all over the place. Why did I have to follow them around? They should be keeping up with me!
Lastly, they bend truth. That's just true. I still think that's true. In fact, I'm starting to do it.
So those are a few of the reasons why I'm dreading graduation/adulthood.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
an experiment in unconscious processing
make a list of friends. friends who you have different relationships with, and some of whom are more dear to you than others.
place that list somewhere on your workspace (or somewhere you face quite often). but not right in front of you. somewhere just below where your line of sight is typically, so that you often have to move your eyes past it pretty quickly to where it belongs or where you want it to be.
some of those times, your attention will land on certain people's names. i don't mean when you blankly end up staring at the list and observe multiple names. i mean you end up staring at one name before you realize you're staring at anything at all.
= unconscious cognitive processing calling your attention.
place that list somewhere on your workspace (or somewhere you face quite often). but not right in front of you. somewhere just below where your line of sight is typically, so that you often have to move your eyes past it pretty quickly to where it belongs or where you want it to be.
some of those times, your attention will land on certain people's names. i don't mean when you blankly end up staring at the list and observe multiple names. i mean you end up staring at one name before you realize you're staring at anything at all.
= unconscious cognitive processing calling your attention.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Such a thing as regret
Say you might have changed some things in the past of your forward/causal/time-specified life. Okay. You regret.
You deeply regret. You ate a poisoned doggy biscuit and then pitiably fall dead the next day. That really sucks. You shouldn't have died.
You say, I don't want to die! I want to live! I want to not have eaten that doggie biscuit! I want to fix this state of affairs.
Well, doggie, you can do it in a number of ways. We can rewind the tape. You'll be dead doggie T minus one day. That's great! Don't eat the biscuit this time. But you do. Because this time you are still hungry. And you still didn't know that biscuit was poisoned. Who would?
No, you want to do it a different way? Okay. You're saying you want to go back and know that this is a poison cake. Sure, do that. But after this turn, you can never reasonably assume that any doggie biscuit won't make you choke. That sucks. Your friends are really bewildered; they ask, why is that dog not eating biscuits all of a sudden? But you've changed. In fact, it's hard to eat anything. You have new knowledge, but you're a different doggie - not as carefree as you were that time you died. Life is something else now entirely. (But is life ever not?)
Not acceptable. You need it all back, and nothing else can change. You need to intervene without engaging the system. Through a wormhole you jump to T minus a day and a half and land on the bad biscuit. With a swipe of the paw, you slide it into a furnace. Hide in the bushes for a day. A naive doggie trots along, sniffs some crumbs and leaves. You never see him again. And you're still dead. But where was the dog whose poor life I just saved? You float toward him. He's licking another biscuit. He doesn't recognize you. He doesn't even act like you, because you act like dead.
Is there such a thing as regret?
(Or time travel?)
Can you ever wish to have known? Can you ever wish to change things? Can you tell that I want to watch Lost again?
You deeply regret. You ate a poisoned doggy biscuit and then pitiably fall dead the next day. That really sucks. You shouldn't have died.
You say, I don't want to die! I want to live! I want to not have eaten that doggie biscuit! I want to fix this state of affairs.
Well, doggie, you can do it in a number of ways. We can rewind the tape. You'll be dead doggie T minus one day. That's great! Don't eat the biscuit this time. But you do. Because this time you are still hungry. And you still didn't know that biscuit was poisoned. Who would?
No, you want to do it a different way? Okay. You're saying you want to go back and know that this is a poison cake. Sure, do that. But after this turn, you can never reasonably assume that any doggie biscuit won't make you choke. That sucks. Your friends are really bewildered; they ask, why is that dog not eating biscuits all of a sudden? But you've changed. In fact, it's hard to eat anything. You have new knowledge, but you're a different doggie - not as carefree as you were that time you died. Life is something else now entirely. (But is life ever not?)
Not acceptable. You need it all back, and nothing else can change. You need to intervene without engaging the system. Through a wormhole you jump to T minus a day and a half and land on the bad biscuit. With a swipe of the paw, you slide it into a furnace. Hide in the bushes for a day. A naive doggie trots along, sniffs some crumbs and leaves. You never see him again. And you're still dead. But where was the dog whose poor life I just saved? You float toward him. He's licking another biscuit. He doesn't recognize you. He doesn't even act like you, because you act like dead.
Is there such a thing as regret?
(Or time travel?)
Can you ever wish to have known? Can you ever wish to change things? Can you tell that I want to watch Lost again?
Sunday, January 10, 2010
i grew up with these
in my childhood we had a few video cassettes. i watched these cassettes repeatedly growing up. i just don't know what my life would be like if this set up were any different. what if i grew up with pocahontas? or the jungle book? or up?
- fantasia
life, nature, growth, magic, death, and most of all, hell.
- alice in wonderland
reality, shattered. i hated that.
- the lion king (i don't actually think we owned this)
death is loss is life.
- pinocchio
love. family.
- superman
heroism.
- the rescuers down under
mice in love, golden eagles, australian accents. and the united nations!
lastly, we had a broken cassette of crusader rabbit that always, always scared the fuck out of me. there are no words to describe it. what the fuck was a rabbit doing on a horse, in knight's armor with a lance? to kill people?
- fantasia
life, nature, growth, magic, death, and most of all, hell.
- alice in wonderland
reality, shattered. i hated that.
- the lion king (i don't actually think we owned this)
death is loss is life.
- pinocchio
love. family.
- superman
heroism.
- the rescuers down under
mice in love, golden eagles, australian accents. and the united nations!
lastly, we had a broken cassette of crusader rabbit that always, always scared the fuck out of me. there are no words to describe it. what the fuck was a rabbit doing on a horse, in knight's armor with a lance? to kill people?
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Ways of getting across
I typically get pretty excited about songs with dance beats and bass lines. But this one song I just got too excited about last September. It was a little vindictive, a little disruptive, and it sang to me at that moment because, well, that's what I needed. Not all songs could have done that for me then, and that song might not do that ever again. I understood then what musicians do - they have to understand the field of people. They have to capture them at that moment in the most effective way possible, because music is based in a dimension of time that reeks of transience.
Visual artists do something a little different, but they are fixated on vision. But what are our eyes and our visual cortices? Take Descartes' spectrum - no one has the same answer for when colors begin or end. I, for one, might never be able to perceive any craft in the way it was intended. If the back of my brain developed a little atypically, I might not even be able to see anything in a way I can even describe to other people.
Writing is different. It is so limited. One has to abide by language and its fickle structures which impose on the mind endless amounts of unnatural conflict, contrasts and equalities. One relies on only the words that humans have been unimaginative enough to invent, and not all humans at that. But with words I can move within a field of ideas that can escape body, time and space. But, then again, maybe I just haven't accessed the skill to do this with anything but words.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
- Yann Martel, from The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios
"I would also have to convince him that he had no choice, that this storytelling wasn't a game or something on the same level as watching a movie or talking about politics. He would have to see that everything besides the story was useless, even his desperate existential thoughts that did nothing but frighten him. Only the imaginary must count."
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Sleeping
That moment before the singularity of conscious experience dissipates, I'm having a hard time enduring lately. But every night, falling asleep is just enduring this moment. I lie and meander in thoughts until my focus can no longer be singular, but must be surrendered to forces disparate, dissonant and grand. This is what unconsciousness is, after all.
But I wonder if one day I will struggle on a different bed to retain this tight, mindful integrity that may no longer wake me the next day. I will be fighting then, but I'm sweating the stresses of that fight on my bed right now. I can't sleep if I don't want to ever sleep.
I started sleeping on my chest earlier this year, no doubt in my mind to substitute for a different weight. When I wake up with my heart racing, I know there has to be a healthier way to sleep. Sleeping on my back, there is no weight to make me feel my heartbeat change. These days, I lie with two hands over my heart and, like the months during which I suffocated my lungs and compacted my chest, I do this by instinct. What an ordeal.
But I wonder if one day I will struggle on a different bed to retain this tight, mindful integrity that may no longer wake me the next day. I will be fighting then, but I'm sweating the stresses of that fight on my bed right now. I can't sleep if I don't want to ever sleep.
I started sleeping on my chest earlier this year, no doubt in my mind to substitute for a different weight. When I wake up with my heart racing, I know there has to be a healthier way to sleep. Sleeping on my back, there is no weight to make me feel my heartbeat change. These days, I lie with two hands over my heart and, like the months during which I suffocated my lungs and compacted my chest, I do this by instinct. What an ordeal.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Microaggressions
When I graduated from high school, they told us that a lot of people were going to mention where we came from. So far, I've been reminded in certain ways. I say, "Yeah, yeah," I say, and try to mess up the paint they splashed on my face.
I am rooting for my Queens hometown in some made up contest of neighborhoods. "Says the guy who went to Thatplace."
"Hey, David. You went to Thatplace?" "Yeah..." "Fucker. Kid on my floor did, too."
"Where did you go to school?" "Just around here." "Where?" "It's on the Upper West Side." "Yeah, like which school?" "It's called Thatplace?" She goes off on how she tutors these kids from there and their curriculum is so intense, almost like where she grew up and the curriculum was also intense, even if just by American standards because she's not from this country.
"Oh, you went to Thatplace." "Yeah, I switched schools in middle school..." "Did you know this guy...?" I've forgotten. We're talking about education in low-income communities. I talked about how I switched out of public school. "Well, you know, not everyone has access to those opportunities." He goes off on statistics, his experiences at a public school Fewblocksover, and how Teachingorg is going to finally fix how different that is for someone like me. My mouth is not agape, but I'm fighting off a wrinkle in my eyebrows.
"I can't believe you're a private school kid." I'm not worried about that. This is the stuff they must have been talking about.
I am rooting for my Queens hometown in some made up contest of neighborhoods. "Says the guy who went to Thatplace."
"Hey, David. You went to Thatplace?" "Yeah..." "Fucker. Kid on my floor did, too."
"Where did you go to school?" "Just around here." "Where?" "It's on the Upper West Side." "Yeah, like which school?" "It's called Thatplace?" She goes off on how she tutors these kids from there and their curriculum is so intense, almost like where she grew up and the curriculum was also intense, even if just by American standards because she's not from this country.
"Oh, you went to Thatplace." "Yeah, I switched schools in middle school..." "Did you know this guy...?" I've forgotten. We're talking about education in low-income communities. I talked about how I switched out of public school. "Well, you know, not everyone has access to those opportunities." He goes off on statistics, his experiences at a public school Fewblocksover, and how Teachingorg is going to finally fix how different that is for someone like me. My mouth is not agape, but I'm fighting off a wrinkle in my eyebrows.
"I can't believe you're a private school kid." I'm not worried about that. This is the stuff they must have been talking about.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
This is too much.
flavors.me my cool internety card
atwp a tumblr!!!
google profile boring...
the rules are as such: flavors.me will keep me in touch with you forever. tumblr is for small ideas, and life happenings. (blogspot for big ones.) google profile for keeping my search rank high. trying to decide where to put creative writings. blogspot is just not pretty enough.
that's that, folks. small stuff will no longer go on this blog. please add this to your feed readers!
atwp a tumblr!!!
google profile boring...
the rules are as such: flavors.me will keep me in touch with you forever. tumblr is for small ideas, and life happenings. (blogspot for big ones.) google profile for keeping my search rank high. trying to decide where to put creative writings. blogspot is just not pretty enough.
that's that, folks. small stuff will no longer go on this blog. please add this to your feed readers!
http://atwp.tumblr.com/rss
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
I feel like
Every song I put up here will attain a significance more profound than I realize at this moment. I'm going to hear it again, and it's going to sound like today. I can almost hear it now, but in the future. Auditory fates.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Peace of mind
I met the mayor of a city once. He was a gallant, ambitious man. He was convicted in his views on urban welfare, interesting for his dramatic stories of political heroism, and just admirable overall. He fought things, like drugs and poverty and corruption. When you hear him speak there's no end of feeling, the kind that moves you to believing that cities are places where people are degraded and are revived, and that this is a man who cares for their fundamental human redemption. We all sat there and we were wowed.
He wasn't mayor when I heard him, actually, but our school practically had a love affair with him. My history teacher invited him to class after his first talk in the auditorium, just to have him tell us stories. So our tables in a circle around this leader among men, but boys really, we were rapt in attention. That's how I remember it. I sat on the lip of this curl, next to my teacher who giggled at every quip he made. The boys in the middle in front of him were tilting their chairs, but their mouths were agape. I sat there because my friend sat there with me, or I with him. We didn't tilt our chairs. We also kept our coats on and tied our ties tight, because there was little room to get comfortable when the trains were cold in the morning and they will be again when it's dark. But our teacher told us to take our coats off for the mayor.
He must have talked about serious things. I didn't pay much attention in history class then, because learning this stuff felt stifling. When he was done, a lot of kids had real questions about things that he might do to fix things in the future, but when they were done and we were unraveling, my friend asked what use were these political goods if the overpopulated human race could do with some depopulating. Oh, don't do that, I thought, I just want to leave. Our classmates pretended not to hear him and gathered their books.
This mayor courted him earnestly and privately, as if he had stepped up to share his thoughts. He entreated my friend not to be cynical, and to believe that every human being has a right to peace and happiness.
We remained friends for a while. I never saw him outside of school, and I heard publicly that he didn't make it back for the next semester. By then I had found belonging in my studies and my love for poetry. I made other friends, I dated, and I still talked to our counselor sometimes, as we misfits both once did.
In two years, he passed away. He had become depressed and took too many pills. Some of us went to his funeral, although his family didn't really know who we were. His mother cried so hard. We were asked eventually to leave, and on my way out I saw his face. In his note, he wrote that he was at peace. I know that and I know we all deserve that, but I wonder who thinks about it when we fix problems and fight fights and say things.
We find out there are more things than we can handle. Rest in peace, my friend. I know you live.
He wasn't mayor when I heard him, actually, but our school practically had a love affair with him. My history teacher invited him to class after his first talk in the auditorium, just to have him tell us stories. So our tables in a circle around this leader among men, but boys really, we were rapt in attention. That's how I remember it. I sat on the lip of this curl, next to my teacher who giggled at every quip he made. The boys in the middle in front of him were tilting their chairs, but their mouths were agape. I sat there because my friend sat there with me, or I with him. We didn't tilt our chairs. We also kept our coats on and tied our ties tight, because there was little room to get comfortable when the trains were cold in the morning and they will be again when it's dark. But our teacher told us to take our coats off for the mayor.
He must have talked about serious things. I didn't pay much attention in history class then, because learning this stuff felt stifling. When he was done, a lot of kids had real questions about things that he might do to fix things in the future, but when they were done and we were unraveling, my friend asked what use were these political goods if the overpopulated human race could do with some depopulating. Oh, don't do that, I thought, I just want to leave. Our classmates pretended not to hear him and gathered their books.
This mayor courted him earnestly and privately, as if he had stepped up to share his thoughts. He entreated my friend not to be cynical, and to believe that every human being has a right to peace and happiness.
We remained friends for a while. I never saw him outside of school, and I heard publicly that he didn't make it back for the next semester. By then I had found belonging in my studies and my love for poetry. I made other friends, I dated, and I still talked to our counselor sometimes, as we misfits both once did.
In two years, he passed away. He had become depressed and took too many pills. Some of us went to his funeral, although his family didn't really know who we were. His mother cried so hard. We were asked eventually to leave, and on my way out I saw his face. In his note, he wrote that he was at peace. I know that and I know we all deserve that, but I wonder who thinks about it when we fix problems and fight fights and say things.
We find out there are more things than we can handle. Rest in peace, my friend. I know you live.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Sunset, Morningside
Au Revoir Simone - Shadows (Tanlines Remix)
I was here before, one late summer evening. On the roof of Teachers College, I looked south quizzically at the setting sun. To my right was Grant's Tomb, which I tried to find but it was too cold. In front of me were a lot of trees. I never found out how that tomb looked like. There were a lot of places in this city that I didn't care much about. Being here before made me impatient, obtuse, dull and boring. What was this river, these pacing students, those hallways and passageways. All toward places outside my scope of concern.
If I had made the right connections, I could have seen the windows of rooms where I'd sleep, where I'd meet people who changed me, other places where I would never show up. These places could have haunted me from a different time. I sat in a lawn chair on that roof, looking up at the skies and away from the architecture below me. I had convinced myself that three helicopters above midtown were stationary spaceships, waiting to descend. I was as absent then as I am now, sleeping days and fretting nights.
I walked along 116th, turned on Amsterdam, and smelled winter the way I did when I was fourteen. I can hear songs that make my heart beat the same way. When I close my eyes, I can see the spaces and moods I will inhabit in years that have yet to arrive. The details change, but the feelings will play themselves out exactly as I see them now. I know this, better than I know people now in their transient humors, their idle talk and their material projections. Better than I can see shapes whose contours will change. I can travel years and not move.
I was here before, one late summer evening. On the roof of Teachers College, I looked south quizzically at the setting sun. To my right was Grant's Tomb, which I tried to find but it was too cold. In front of me were a lot of trees. I never found out how that tomb looked like. There were a lot of places in this city that I didn't care much about. Being here before made me impatient, obtuse, dull and boring. What was this river, these pacing students, those hallways and passageways. All toward places outside my scope of concern.
If I had made the right connections, I could have seen the windows of rooms where I'd sleep, where I'd meet people who changed me, other places where I would never show up. These places could have haunted me from a different time. I sat in a lawn chair on that roof, looking up at the skies and away from the architecture below me. I had convinced myself that three helicopters above midtown were stationary spaceships, waiting to descend. I was as absent then as I am now, sleeping days and fretting nights.
I walked along 116th, turned on Amsterdam, and smelled winter the way I did when I was fourteen. I can hear songs that make my heart beat the same way. When I close my eyes, I can see the spaces and moods I will inhabit in years that have yet to arrive. The details change, but the feelings will play themselves out exactly as I see them now. I know this, better than I know people now in their transient humors, their idle talk and their material projections. Better than I can see shapes whose contours will change. I can travel years and not move.
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