words are like a gated community. sometimes you have access, find yourself right in the thick of that community, and can comment at length on anything and everything, leisurely plucking words from the air as they swirl around you in endless fecundity, feeling that all that you say is very wise and apropos and true-ringing, that the gods love you and only you (whether or not any of this is correct is, of course, highly debatable. that is, other people can debate it if they like. when in such spirits, pedestrianism of this kind--adherence to what is realistically correct and what isnt--is for peple who are not you). other times, without having even noticed yourself growing weary, without even understanding how it happens, you suddenly and unamusingly find yourself on the outskirts of the community, with no way of getting in, and you wonder how you ever did in the first place and doubt that you ever can again, the gate going all around it being unfathomably high and impenetrable.
or, words are like a mass, a big circular mass of something dropped into your hands, which you blindly run your hands over, which you work at like a sculptor, an almost tangible experience, complete with weight and feel, these last two things being very important. other times the words just run through your hands, like water. no weight. no substance. nothing.
the latter of these two instances is how i am feeling now, have been feeling for the past week. like a mute. like nothing clicks. like i have holes in my brain--yes, very much like i have holes in my brains. or blank spots, like the way your eyes feel after having looked at a bright light for any length of time (which is interesting because my eyes do feel like that now, and always seem to when im in this way--is there a connection, i wonder? "body i am entirely and nothing else besides", ala nietzsche?). it's very frustrating. how am i supposed to record my preternaturally brilliant observations and opinions on all things great and small for the edification and education of the world in this state?
despite my blank spots, i nevertheless sat down today to try to will words into being, because surely, i thought, i must have control over the things in my own brain? as long as i applied myself and had the necessary patience ive always been able to do anything i set my mind to before--never not understood or not been able to do anything. surely, then, it must just be a laziness, a lack of will, that makes it seem like i have holes in my brain and not any actual holes in my brain. but alas, despite my best efforts at optimism and logical thinking, and all attempts to deny the inevitable fruitlessness of the endeavour, i was, predictably, met with nothing but blankness. so i just pissed around a bit on the computer, as i do; drank copious amounts of coffee, as i also do (though more today in the hopes that it might have some sort of energizing effect--it didnt); wondered briefly what it would be like to get hit with lightning, would i, for a split second, know everything there was to know? (a new train of thought for me); and chalked this day up as a waste. but not without one flash of insight: because im sitting in a different spot than i normally do (for inspiration, feng shui or whatever), i noticed anew the collection of art cards and post cards i had half-assedly stuck to a cupboard ages ago, and was momentarily enchanted by the way the pictures went together, by the way you could grasp them both as pictures in themselves and as part of a whole, all the patterns and pictures in collaboration to create a new effect (what work, i wondered, takes place in the brain when you take in 10 individual pictures at the same time, instead of just one? what if all the pictures were of a jarring juxtposition: concentration camp inmates alonside carnivale drag queens, concentration camp vs. concentration of camp?), which occassioned me to sigh to myself and wonder why it wasnt possible to have a career as a maker of collages, since that is what i would really like to do, enough of this writing nonsense. because if there is one thing i have always felt to be true to the core of my being it's this: pictures are infinitely better than words. that is why it's better to be beautiful than smart, and why spending your money on expensive clothes is much better than spending it on college (fyi, kids). not that this is an opinion i can afford to have, being no great beauty by any stretch (though i will admit a certain affectionate fondness for my nosebridge and ears), but it is one that i feel to be quite true none-the-less. so that, finally, when i get tired of this business of sitting down to confront yet again the holes in my brain, when the absolute pointlessness of it finally hits me, im going to just live my life as installation art, considering only one thing: how would this scene, with me in it, look from above? are all the pieces in place? how can i ameliorate this scene by the way i dress, or the way im standing? how everything comes to be in this one particular moment hardly matters, how one feels about anything unconnected with the moment hardly matters. all that matters is the moment, that the scene is enlivened, weighted by objectivity and framed as though it were a picture being watched by the gods. the only language i am really interested in is the one communicated silently between all the objects sharing the same space.
there is nothing bad to fear; once you have crossed that threshold, all is well. another world and you do not have to speak. (franz kafka)
i go now--in the meantime--to despair (and maybe to see if theres anything to eat besides a lone jar of jam?)
dont get me wrong, i like our neighbours to the south just fine, but the american cruise ship passenger is an entirely different species of human. i really think with them the saying "doesnt know their ass from their elbow" is quite literally true. they demand to be treated like invalids, half the time they dont even know they're in canada, and they express surprise when they find out that the canadian unit of currency is also called the dollar (what did they think we used? euros? rupees? furthemore did they do absolutely no research before they began their travels?). their large unappealing families can be seen milling around the main streets with no particular purpose, usually with gargantuan slurpees in hand, and always getting in the way of anyone with any actual destination. if there are five of them taking up the sidewalk and only one of you coming toward them not a single one of them shows any intention of moving, they are that oblivious, that odious, or that stupid (but i dont move either. ill walk right into them if i have to, on principal, despite how vile a physical encounter that might turn out to be). then they insult you by telling you that they're on vacation like it's real cute and neat and a total novelty, when nobody really gives a f***.
