Saturday, March 23, 2024

springularity



I’m no hermit, but I sympathize with the monkish way of life: highly away from chaotic city life below.

Love of solitude may have mystique, but it’s mostly cause for being forgotten—which is OK: Sought aloneness isn’t lonely.

Coincidently, when I went to bed last night, I realized again
(as I do sometimes) that I’m glad no one’s in bed with me.
I cherish the silence, reverie fading to sleep. So it goes when everyone you’ve loved is dead.

Daily, I cherish the hours at my desk, my keyboard, my tens of open-ended writing projects. As I “told” Jacques, I’m “never lonely, you know, just so singular, solitudinous by now.”

And I’m alone with “you,” whomever I keep near to mind.

Saturday, May 27, 2023

expressions



I know the name of very few varieties of flowers, but I’m some-
times fascinated that a field of the same variety of flower—or
a flowering bush or tree—has variety among the blossoms.

Biologists call it “phenotypic” differences of genotypic expressions. Horticulturalists may aim to cultivate the best, most flourishing expressions of a kind—or risk their life to find a rare kind (e.g., orchid hunters in the tropics).

But mostly, the varietality of so many varieties of life goes unseen. Singularities of a kind go unseen.

Monday, August 1, 2022

love life



Really.

“Yeah, but haven’t you worn out the story through so many sentimentalist postings in earlier years? Get over it.”

I did. That’s it. The full version. No more haunting. I’ve moved on.

“Really.”

Really.


Friday, March 25, 2022

love and gravity: 16 months after
my story



In the relay odyssey of life, I happily slowed
my trek to bring you along, Linda. We sailed together
awhile. You fell behind. I slowed my pace. But
you fell behind further, and too often, until
I was gone from your lowland view because you
after all, weren’t Katherine: You wouldn’t learn to fly.


Sunday, January 2, 2022

café transcript on the identity of Art



The origin of the following (far below here) bit of dialogue from some years ago has a history which is two degrees of separation from me: A friend of mine, Gene, from college decades ago, turned up last year at the funeral of his close friend, Thom, whose journalism I’d read occasionally. Detailing why this matters would get very involved, but—in a phrase—Thom’s link to Gene is causing Gene to be sought by foreign agents. I know that’s tritely implausible. But again, there’s a history that gets very involved. There’s no good place to start. So, I start here, though not yet to explain.

Sunday, March 8, 2020

a few of the loves gained and lost through the years


Mar. 6

Last night, I streamed “The Handmaiden” (2016) which is amazing—and thanks to the stop-and-start option of streaming, one can be sure to not get frustrated by subtitle reading amid major action. Later discussing this feminist fable of duplicity will be fun.

Now, I’m going to stream “The Souvenir” (2019).


Mar. 8

“The Souvenir” is well done. I read that it received highest honors at Sundance. I see why—but I didn’t like it. I recognized that I was seeing mature filmmaking that I didn’t like, then slept into Daylight Saving Time resenting Julie’s naïveté, her being seduced into a Rescuer role by her suave (and phony) boyfriend’s control of her. I became an impatient woman wanting Julie to grow up faster.

Saturday, February 16, 2019

a muse



1970: I graduated from university, living in an urban commune, doing mescaline (with “In Search of the Lost Chord” between my ears), reading Joyce, Sartre, Husserl (mygod)....

Tonight, I saw the video of “Joni Mitchell Live at the Isle of Wight Festival, 1970,” new for me, as someone who “worshipped” her, from circa 1971 through the mid-‘80s. [Insert biography of Gary, 1972—1985 in terms of Joni Mitchell songs.]

At the Isle, she’s not the jaded jazz voice, tending toward tonally oblique experimentalism. She’s the girlish folk singer (not looking 27 years old). The camera is commonly on her tightly when she’s at the piano (much closer than the photo here, performing for a crowd of 600,000!), though from a physical distance that would make the intimacy unknown to her, immersed in her songs. The camera’s intimacy feels almost invasive.