October 29, 2010
Confessions of a Tischaholic -5- auster vs. calle
Not all books can haunt--and not all audiences possess the mystical potential to be haunted, to reckon with ghosts.
Leviathan haunts, passionately; and I'm excessively susceptible to becoming the haunted.
It was love at first sight (site? cite?).
Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there lived a little girl named Sophie. As all little girls, Sophie had numerous wonderful talents, such as chasing rainbows and strangers; but she excelled best at growing up. In fact, she was so exemplary at this one act, that people gave her gaily wrapped gifts and presents every year as proof; and to this very day the crazy colorful packages are the first glinting articles reflected in the mirrors of the eyes of anyone who visits her warm and welcoming home.* Legend has it that sometimes the shimmering pools of light have made people leave her apartment completely blind. You see, having grown up to the point of perfection, Sophie became an object of envy –by both grown-up little girls and boys alike.
But, as luck would have it, one grown-up little boy –who lived not too far away– stood apart from this dreary crowd of spiteful on-lookers. It’s still a baffling mystery to many, how Paul came to possess such desirable and alluring magical powers. “Could it be that he was the chosen one?” people would ask silently. Some speculate that his secret resided in the shards of broken glass he carried around in his pockets; they say he’d been seen around town, pulling them out of his pockets and bestowing them upon passersby who seemed to have forgotten the beauty they reflected when they smiled and talked to strangers. But my dear, what’s important isn’t the number of raging two-headed monsters and terrifying fire-breathing chimeras he had to fight in order to find the light. What matters is that once he discovered it, he tried to ignite sparks within those that crossed his path –even himself. In the course of illumination, Paul found himself to be a Peter –and not just any Peter, but the Peter who had glimpsed the inner Maria in grown-up little Sophie. And one day, as Sophie stood –far far away– in her phone booth covered in the mirrors she kept surreptitiously, she caught two things: a flash of Maria, and fire. As she walked out of the cubicle, rising fresh from her ashes, she knew, for certain, that she had once again found true love. And they –Paul and Peter– lived happily ever after.
* "Don't tell me the moon is shining/show me the glint of light on broken glass." - Anton Chekhov
excerpt written apropos my unofficial, unannounced, and unapproved collaboration with my own good friend...
Labels: narcissism, school, yada yada
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Confessions of a Tischaholic -4- Prenez Soins de Vous
Different people break off romantic relationships in different ways. Different people react to their partner's attempts to terminate such intimacies in different ways.
G. decided to break up in an email. Sophie Calle decided to go on being Sophie Calle.
I didn't decide to respond. But when asked to, I decided to respond in the following way.
PRENEZ SOIN DE VOUS
Pensively perched atop the promise of possible death
Rage ringing anew in rows of raw silence
Entranced encore avec the ephemerality of endemic love
Nascent nostalgia ablaze with nightmares of narcotic repose
Eloquence eclipsed above the embraces of elliptic words
Zombified zest along the Zeitgeist of zero-hour
Sophie, ça suffit
Ominous obsolescence overwhelming my future
Illicit idleness impoverishing my fate
Neglected narcissism nauseating my focus
Disheveled decadence displeasing my façade
Exigent entanglement exonerating my flee
Vicious “vous” is votre valeure
Offside oases your optimum horreur
Unraveled unity – upsy-daisy!
Sois souriante, Sophie; ça suffit.
Labels: poetry, school
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Confessions of a Tischaholic -3- Love and Bellyaches
Ultimately, we're all plagiarists at heart.
Love and Bellyaches
She was once again restless, preoccupied with the whims born out of an idle imagination. In the absence of paints and clay, her hands were swollen with the grave desire to wash themselves with blood drenched in crime—like any artist with no art form, she had become dangerous. If only it weren’t for that goddamned gaping hole in her world, she could at least ponder something, anything, to engage her tremendous curiosity and her gift for metaphor; and forget momentarily her craving for the other half of her equation.
A new September was timidly forcing its presence on Manhattan’s street-lining trees; and as always, it brought her leaves along with distance; a distance which seemed to stretch on infinitely, marking the scathing emptiness of that un-holiest of holes—the one occupying the place where he used to be. It was this hole that she found herself constantly tiptoeing about in the daytime, and falling into sometime around midnight. It always started around midnight. Every night, as the city sun fell over her and New York fell into discord, she’d lose herself for a minute or two, in books soaked with words bragging about sober moments in which some witty fool had rewrote time. And then, like some foolish wit lost in the haze of words, she’d try to humor herself into believing she could plagiarize thought and create alternate realities. Her mind—infiltrated with a rush of feral waves of perfume-scented, candle-lit memories—would ameliorate her ability to envision herself traveling back, and traveling abroad to the lands of eternal bliss. Yet even in those desperate moments when she would temporarily forget the world she was long forgotten by, she couldn’t quite comprehend why she thought they could have been happy together, if only they’d moved abroad? A change of environment, she knew, was the traditional fallacy upon which doomed loves, and lungs, relied. And as her imagination stumbled over the banal details which interrupted every journey—experienced in body or soul—the two perfect circles of the curl of their entwined bodies would come undone. Her oxygen-deprived, scorching lungs would indeed scream as she’d start to drown, alone, in the web of solitary years grown long, patience grown short. And as she’d struggle upwards to free herself from the murky waters of her absurd history, she’d see every one of those failed years; years that had each gone by exactly like the last. They would stream right past her like credits on a screen, pronouncing his memory as it blazed through her, burning not just her lungs, but everything in her being.
Allowing her fiery passion to consume her, she would close her eyes, plagued by the pictures stained on her eyelids. Knowing that suicide was her only alibi, she would tell herself that it was time to start her descent. And so her thrashing limbs would quiet down, a serene calmness settling over her trembling body, as she surrendered herself and died in the grief of the voice which told her: “I love your hands.”
She would plant her hands in the garden, and they would grow—she knew it would be so. As the sun rose over the skyscrapers, the city landscape coming into view, her sweaty skin let her know that she had to grow her hands, so that swallows could lay eggs in the hollow of her ink-stained hands. She knew that another birth was near. As she started to repeat to herself the things that she always said to make herself feel good again, a string of: “I’ll speak, I’ll write, I’ll laugh, I’ll lie”; she was certain that the worst had come to pass for another season. She would again grow her hands, laugh as she lied, spoke as she wrote; and all the while swallows would once again lay eggs in the hollow of her love-stained heart.
Key
“Love and Bellyaches,” expression coined during a great night by a very sick Harley Prechtel-Cortez of Red Cortez, Oct. 23, 2009.
Toni Morrison, Sula:
In a way, her strangeness, her naïveté, her craving for the other half of her equation was the consequence of an idle imagination. Had she paints, or clay, or knew the discipline of the dance, or strings; had she anything to engage her tremendous curiosity and her gift for metaphor, she might have exchanged the restlessness and preoccupation with whim for an activity that provided her with all she yearned for, And like any artist with no art form, she became dangerous.
Forough Farrokhzad, Another Birth (poem: Earthly Verses)
People
the fallen masses of people
heartsick, broken, stunned,
dragged their ill-omened carcasses
from one alienation to another
and the grave will to kill
swelled in their hands.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay:
Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.
Native, Wrestling Moves
September brought leaves and distance. (song: Five Year Payoff)
Our years grow long; our patience short / At nightfall the city brings discord. (song: Backseat Crew)
Books soaked with the words describing the nights that we rewrote time. (song: Ponyboy)
We plagiarize thinking. (song: Shirts and Skins)
P.J. Harvey ft. Thom Yorke, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
And you must leave now, before the sun rises, over the skyscrapers, and the city landscape comes into view, sweat on my skin / The city sun set over me (song: This Mess We’re In)
The Airborne Toxic Event, The Airborne Toxic Event
And it starts sometime around midnight, or at least that’s when you lose yourself for a minute or two. / And so there’s a change in your emotions when all these memories come rushing like feral waves to your mind: of the curl of your bodies like two perfect circles entwined. (song: Sometime Around Midnight)
And my closet is filled with all these endless accoutrements: these shoes, these scarves, these shirts, these ties, and these things I say to make myself feel good again, “I’ll speak. I’ll write. I’ll laugh. I’ll lie.” (song: This Is Nowhere)
Now these years have seen so many imitations turning green. Each like the last, they go right past like credits on a screen, with your memory blazing through me, burning everything. (song: Gasoline)
You thought suicide was an alibi (Wishing Well)
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night:
Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard:
How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita:
Why did I hope we would be happy abroad? A change of environment is the traditional fallacy upon which doomed loves, and lungs, rely.
Forough Farrokhzad, Another Birth (poem: Another Birth)
Ah
This is my lot
This is my lot
My lot is
A sky which is taken away at the drop of a curtain
My lot is going down a flight of disused stairs
And regaining something amid putrefaction and nostalgia
My lot is a sad promenade in the garden of memories
And dying in the grief of a voice which tells me
“I love your hands.”
I will grow my hands in the garden
I will grow, I know I know I know
and swallows will lay eggs
in the hollow of my ink-stained hands
I shall wear a pair of twin cherries as earrings
and I shall put dahlia petals on my fingernails…
Labels: narcissism, nyc, school
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September 7, 2010
Guilty Pleasures -1- Eat, pray, love
About a month ago, we hung out. Old friends, kicking it around. Or so I thought.
We went to the movies; it was my idea, dinner and movies on me. How else can one properly celebrate a birthday with only two people around?
I could have done more, yes. But I was burnt out. This past summer really did me in. I loved every minute of it, sure. I'm murderously obsessed with school, umhum. And yet, I still feel mentally and physically behind myself. I'm already looking forward to next summer, since I've made plans to spend my winter break finishing up my play, writing up the theory, and developing the blueprint for my final project. Excited, really. Very very tired, truly.
The movie ended, discussions ensued. It must be weird to live in a world where "praying" and "loving" become cliches to its inhabitants. My friend said the scenes from India and Bali provoked no internal response.
It's equally bizarre to share an intimate setting with someone for long days, only to become aware of the fact that you're coursing through different time/space equations; to realize that what was will never be again, and to bear witness to the simple truth that even the closest friends can become unapologetically estranged.Labels: cinema, yada yada
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August 23, 2010
n, y, and c -2- vicious cycle
You slow down -momentarily- to check out the gorgeous, unearthly guy whose seething presence demands pause... only to realize -before even coming to a full stop- that he himself had only slowed down -momentarily- to check out the other gorgeous, unearthly guy whose seething presence demanded pause.Labels: nyc
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August 21, 2010
n, y, and c -1- carpe diem
There are those of us that are born with the potential to enjoy morning runs.
The rest of us learn early on how to indulge in the simple luxury of sleeping in.Labels: nyc
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August 20, 2010
Confessions of a Tischaholic -2- first impressions
Tragedies are crafted when it's realized that your intro to your intro portfolio probably could do with its own intro.
An Introduction to Introduction to Performance Studies: The Things Performance Studies Does
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
–Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Yellow brick buildings, dating back to the early 1930s. Towering trees providing shade for the vast spread of walkways occupying the space between the yellow bricks and the green patches of grass and botany. Water running down quickly in the small brooks aligning the pavement, the meditative trickling sound of its jubilance evoking memories of chasing after your feet while running down a soft slope on a cool summer day. A stray cat here, a love-stricken couple there, crows lurking in the skies, crowds generating distant brouhahas, books and magazines and newspapers held in hands, backpacks and messenger bags slung over the confident figure of youth, the defeated student leaning against a tree which grants the support lacking in an infelicitous romantic relationship –all makings for a typical college campus.
Except this college campus is anything but typical, located in the heart of a city which does anything but boast its approximate population of 12 million. The city is Tehran, capital to a climatically diverse country sometimes still referred to as Persia, which for its inhabitants resonates a time of greatness. A time that –given the linearity with which they have been taught to progress through temporal dimensions– they have no hopes of ever experiencing, ever repeating, except by its realization via their rich oral culture. A culture driven to basements under a totalitarian regime fearful of its own shadow, and concealed in the safe depths of the hearts of its loyal parish. An oral (aural) tradition fabled to be safeguarded behind the affective gazes of the students constituting this very college’s devoted body. The college, the oldest new school in the Middle East. The college, a university. The college, The University of Tehran.
And at this non-typical university, there are very typical schools –highly typical departmental divisions. The five-story School of Engineering sits opposite its twin, the School of Sciences, with a park moderate in size disjointing the two. To forge a connection seems impossible in this narration, for the narrator is well-aware of a grave injustice; an injustice stemming from the lack of justice of the type Derrida was concerned with. A justice impregnated with a sense of responsibility to those not present; or better to say, those whose absence signifies their presence. The absentee here is a free-standing Persian language: ruptured and colonialized by the penetration of French, Arabic and English, this living force serves not just as an archival form, but as a repertoire for the Iranian population. This repertoire consists of an embodiment of the textual repository of knowledge, thus rendering it transmittable in a visceral fashion. As a culture which expresses, acts, and lives with and through its poetic language, this infiltration –while problematic– also serves as a problem which unifies and links different societal generations. A DNA pattern, one based in performance, is formed in this bothersome way.
Let us return however, to the problem arising from linking –in a totalitarian fashion unaware of the true happenings within the campus– the two aforementioned structures. This dilemma is embedded in the very name of the “School of Sciences,” for this school is not the school of sciences at all. Or at least, its Persian name –which in fact uses an Arabic term– does not imply so. In this literal translation, sciences is meant to represent the term o’loum: an Arabic word in the plural form, the singular of which is elm. The trouble here, is that based on its mode of employment in Farsi, elm should be translated as knowledge. Translation thus becomes a double-edged sword: not only is this complexity one emergent from translation, but it is also one only recognizable through translation.
In a world where mere words do things, where uttering a statement can make it so, referring to “knowledge” as “science” engenders a crisis, the extent of which is hidden to no one dedicated to the study of performance. To performance studies, epistemology is grounded in embodied comprehension: performance knowledge is a form of knowledge which is embodied. Words –which perform actions in their own respect, and can elicit actions in return– are also vessels which bottle knowledge. This is precisely why translation is so fundamental to this field of study; as important perhaps, as articulation to the arena of everyday life. And if we’re to accept the veracity –or the felicity– of Roderick Hart’s statement, “freedom goes to the articulate,” then perhaps we can go a step further and conclude that proper translation is a must, if we are ever to approach the hopes of a just society, which understands the importance of artistic and aesthetic expression to the annihilation of totalitarian rule.
Since we have already docked at the School of Sciences, let us investigate it further. At this school, one can excel in one of many academic fields: Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, and other “core” sciences. Yet whatever discipline is chosen, one must also decide upon a branch: Pure or Practical, that is the question! While the dichotomous structure imposed in this manner can be effortlessly deconstructed with a gentle critical push, it is one worth considering; for its roots speak to our ontological understanding of disciplinary fields in the academic world. Our need to somehow arbitrarily classify that which we realize through not just our five senses, but also our sixth, has led to our creation of countless “either/or” dichotomies. While we may do so with the intent of increasing our ease of access to the material, natural, and supernatural world surrounding us, we are in fact partaking in a losing battle: such categorizations are incapable of doing much more beyond limiting our means of travel –mental or physical– from one plain to the next.
This cruel reality is of course no secret –as the many who have exhausted years of their academic careers toward its revelation can tell you. The twentieth century saw a rise in the number of scholars who sought to break the conventional dualities which the majority of our modern, capitalist thinking patterns lead us to perceive as a given fact, the “truth” of which cannot be questioned. Inherent in this way of thought was, and continues to be, accepting the hierarchical power relations birthed out of exclusionary binaries. The contestation of such widely standardized constructs was picked up by J. L. Austin as well. Sadly however, while Austin did put one dichotomy behind him, he substituted it with another: utterances were to be happy or unhappy, felicitous or infelicitous, as opposed to “true” or “non-true.” Of course, breaking away from the neo-Aristotelian tradition of the Enlightenment era which honored truth and perfection above all was in itself commendable. The worth of Austin’s work is also in his introducing the idea of the performative: a controversial move which sparked much academic debate and squabbles, and opened up a space for the discussion of such possibilities, creating a stage full of potentialities. This potential, similar to others of its kind, generated a liminal space from which emerged the interdisciplinary field of Performance Studies.
Performance studies is situated in that connection which is impossible to forge: the connection which can be used not only to fuse together the different branches of one entity, but also to chain links among multiple entities. Performance studies can be viewed as betwixt and between; hop-scotching from theater, to anthropology, to photography, to literature, to rhetoric, to philosophy, to ethnography, to hauntology, supplementing one with the other and ultimately –going to infinity and beyond. And it is in those joyous moments of leverage, of hovering above, and simultaneously transcending across the borders of any conventional discipline, that the ontology of performance itself is understood. An ontology fixed in “liveness,” and a performative mode of being which is always on the verge of disappearance. As for the ontology of performance studies, we can conclude it to be a chimera of sorts, an intellectually eclectic method of studying the practices of everyday life. A continuous process accomplished by means of the various clever ways in which humankind has managed to engage itself with the world, and from which it has skillfully fabricated different lines of knowledge.
Having already addressed matters of epistemology and ontology –and bearing in mind a Persian proverb which can be clumsily translated as “unless there’s three, there’s no game,” probably arising from the notion of stability embodied by triangular forms comprised of three sides, and simmering down to the need to do things thrice– it seems rather immature to close this essay without attending to the notion of axiology in performance studies. Concerned with the nature of “truth,” this topic in itself appears as somewhat at odds with what Austin was trying to prove, at least in relation to speech utterances. This might lead to certain sloppy conclusions, purporting that “truth” is always a relative perception in the study of performance studies. Conclusive remarks of this nature are in large part correct: the notion of intentionality and attempts to uncover motives are considered a trap scholars should safely distance themselves from. Interpretation is fundamental in performance and its study, and is the sole thing one can ever hope to speculate about; inferences made based upon one’s own personal experiences which inform a certain attitude toward life. However, the use of the defining adjective “sloppy” just a few short sentences ago was intentional. This is because although we cannot fully understand the intention behind a performance, ideological performances should be singled out. Clearly, ideologies do have a specific take on the nature of truth: they believe in a single truth, and seek methods with which to pronounce it. Marxist devotee’s will always consider the exploitation of the laborer to be embedded in the power structure currently prevalent in the world, while feminist scholars will always believe misogyny to be the “truth” in today’s societies. While these ideological approaches have neo-Aristotelian presumptions, post-structuralists subscribe to no ideology, believing that all systems, even the one through which “truth” is understood, will be deconstructed through their own defective essence. It should be noted that here as well, similar to ontology, it is necessary to make a distinction between performance studies and performance.
In performance studies, it is the beholder who comes to life in response to the performer. It is in how one chooses to behold an action, a showing of a doing, that a performance is signified and understood. This notion of course implies the necessity for someone to audit a performance, placing a heavy weight on the importance of spectatorship and audience appraisal in its actuality. The perlocutionary act is at the heart of these performances, a placement in line with the movement away from l’art pour l’art, to l’art pour tous. These performances can range from the extraordinary epic theatrical creations facilitated by technology and exported worldwide, to the mundane ritualistic performances of everyday life carried out in the most banal way, in the confines of one’s home. They can even be as simple as a speech utterance in naming a pet, a plant, or a stuffed creature. Speech utterances which in this case, would most likely be happy, and felicitous; yet as curious creatures, it is seldom that we devote our time to their study. For it is precisely as Tolstoy puts it in the opening sentence of Anna Karenina: a happy statement is terminated, and therefore every felicitous statement resembles the next, just as all “happy families are… alike.” It is the unhappy statement that “pricks” us, the infelicitous misfires and abuses which delight our inquisitive nature, and fuel performance studies –sometimes forward, other times back– into the vast unknown pleasures of time and space.
Labels: narcissism, nyc, school, yada yada
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Confessions of a Tischaholic -1- things I learned in school
weeks 1, 2, and 3.
-how to play (with?) dirty harry.
-Adrian Piper: Cornered
-life is full of awful choices.
-the future creates the past.
-shit can seriously embody the slipperiness of abjection.
-I have to read Yellowface.
-repertoires are so much more fun than archives.
-everyone's traumatized; few of us think it.
-psychoanalysis is about what two people can say to each other if they agree not to have sex.
-Freud's work on mourning and melancholia?fucking. brilliant.
-there's no such thing as boredom -as soon as you start attending to your boredom, you're technically no longer boredom.
-the denial of death compels us to act out death upon others, over and over again.
-psychoanalysis is a modern secular practice in which ghosts are talked to.
-melancholia is knowing who you've lost -yet not realizing what you've lost.
-I too have unconsciously become a mausoleum for objects lost.
-even the past is unsettled by reperformance.
-Barthes' Camera Lucida goes beyond expectations: "death is the eidos of photography" (p. 15). "photography is subversive not when it frightens, repels, or even stigmatizes, but when it is pensive, when it thinks" - "photographs of landscapes must be livable, not visitable" (p. 38)...
-theatre? tableau vivant.
-capitalism is in fact, not as natural as it may seem.
-seriously, what if a commodity could speak?
-I resent being considered a commodity.
-we all need a little bit of "Act UP."
-die-ins? genious.
-"through the media, not to the media."
-Ricardo Montez is one of god's most perfect creations.
-you have to actually experience jam-packed subway trains to understand the desire Keith Haring was alluding to.
-Nelson Sullivan was probably abducted by aliens.
-De Certeau is what I wanna be.
-racial desire is oftentimes sold.
-Dynasty Handbag thinks its cool if we call her Jibz Cameron.
-according to Jibz, "sometimes when people are telling you to be free all the time, it's very controlling."
-Barbara and her son love ponytail.
-Zizek is still an interesting fella, but that's probably all he'll ever be.
-so Lacan (Freud on high-grade cocaine mixed with hallucinogens) thinks that "love is that thing you can't have that you want to give to someone who doesn't want it" -go figure.
-people are still pretty cool with the idea of caging the indigenous as ethnographic specimens for heightened pleasure in their spectatorship.
-thanks to Dan, we all now know that "loving musical theater doesn't make you gay -it just makes you awful."
-you shame, and are shamed.
-lots of times, i can't read my own handwriting.
-what does it mean, to write about something you love?
-"in times of great danger I try to understand which words have no footfall and sorrow apprehends."
-one cane dare to allow for the failure of interpellation.
-"straight" moments in the p.s. may be few and far in between, but they do exist.
-if someone graduates without queer sensibility, i don't think it should count.
-assigning readings from Lacan is considered a form of punishment by most professors.
-best high yet? Shoshana on the seductiveness of Don Juan and J. L. Austin. mmm.
to be continued...
Labels: narcissism, nyc, school, yada yada
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May 29, 2010
Take 25: going, going...
... gone.Labels: NWI
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May 28, 2010
Take 24: Ways to say goodbye
And now
I know.
This is how they'll look
when I won't be there, looking in.
Labels: NWI
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May 27, 2010
برداشت 23: ماه تام و داستان ناتمام
"شبي در خواب و بيداري
بر مهتابي ياسگونام
ديدم دو بوتهي آويزان
كه در بر ميگرفتند رز عاشقي را
به چشم خويش ديدم
ارغواني گشت رز سفيد
افسوس كه
با نخستين بوسهي عشق
گلبرگهايش از آتش سوختند و
با درد ريختند.
كه گل نازك و شكنندهاي بود..."
فدريکو گارسيا لورکا - دوشيزه رزيتا
ترجمه فانوس بهاروند - انتشارات مینا
Labels: nostalgia, NWI, poetry, theatre
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May 25, 2010
Take 22: on the verge of anxiety
And nwi, I will miss. I'll miss the radiance of the face that continues to glow despite its bearer's visible apprehension, growing by the hour as what promises to be her personal roller coaster approaches quick. Her heart -which is as big as love- I will miss.
And I'll miss the girl who I'm certain I'm best-friends with in some distant parallel universe, where life consists of drama, sunshine, beach balls and hockey; and the boy who reminds me so much of myself, his nonchalant ways speaking volumes of the turmoil he hides inside, an anxiousness I can't put a finger on...
And, nwi, I will miss.
Labels: NWI
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May 24, 2010
Take 21: after forever
On certain spring days, it's perfectly fine to play xmas jingles.
It's perfectly fine to dance to the beegees, overdose on pistachio ice cream, and hug, soberly.
Perfectly fine to doze off under the sprawling sun; and then hazily discuss "the past" and not the past.
On certain days, it's perfectly fine to let go.
It's perfectly fine to lean back, strip bare. to melt away, sweat in the heat.
Perfectly fine to twinkle your eyes, knowingly; and stand out of position, purposefully.
Today, it was perfectly fine to be good, and not just fine.
I'm good.
I'm... good.
Labels: NWI
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May 19, 2010
Take 19: Vocational Insight, and Pieces of You.
The little things do matter.
These are the people I want to be associated with. People who care.
"My dear, I have just rescheduled an ultrasound so that when I go to campus on Thur I can see you! I am sorry I just "lost it" this weekend. I have been sleeping only about 4 hours a night and with difficulty. A lesson for young women in this is do take care of your physical health when you are young. Don't let employers, school, institutions, etc., push you to the extreme limits of your physical capacities. Say NO to some things! And consume lots of calcium. Ok, I am rambling. That might be the pain killers. I have a meeting at 12:00 that should end about 2 or 2:30. Now that you are having to leave early, please know that you can stay at my condo in Chicago. I live alone and there is plenty of room (my daughter stays in the city and her room is free). Also, it's more fun here than Hammond!!! Call me. I am at 708-------. The paper is YOURS--don't ever forget that in this post-democratic society. Sometimes instiuttions will try to claim your academic work as their own, esp. if it's electronic material. So feel more than free to post on your blog. And I strongly encourage you to look for a journal that will publish it.Oh, I forgot to mention that you have an A in the class! I always forget that we finally have to post a grade. It always seems like an afterfact in a grad course where the work is so good. Hugs. C"
-----------------------
I never thought it possible, but I'll miss PUC. I'll miss the beautiful people. And you.
Labels: narcissism, NWI, school
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May 18, 2010
Take 18: two + one
And after 20 years, it finally happened. I missed her birthday.
I love you. I miss you.
happy birthday juj.
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May 17, 2010
Take 17: Pointless Practice
I walked, because had I not, they would have thought it was because they weren't there.
They weren't there, and therefore I had no reason to walk.
In my twisted mind, the void-est of arguments can make sense.
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May 14, 2010
Take 16: My Poetic Ancestry
They say that passionate poets are the most honest historians of their times.
Maybe someday, I'll write poetry.
Maybe then, you'll know that it was all about you...
ps poster designed by badass graphic artist, Sahar Afshar.
Labels: NWI
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May 13, 2010
Take 15: Stepping Back
I lay broken
You, lay bent.
We gazed -hopelessly-
at the rearview mirror.
It spoke of the cursed path
we'd have to retrace in the future.
Labels: Tehran
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