Only If You March First

BEFORE ANYTHING, I gotta say that I LOVE COMMENTS; how else would I know that you came here naturally instead of through the ridiculous tags? Thank you.


(Before this post commences, I should tell you about the night's vagaries: just as I was getting ready to publish this, the computer crashed and would not restart. Then I discovered that my bank account had gone into overdraft during the night. I sat here with the computer for an hour, tweezing dust from the fans. There was't much there, but at least the thing starts now. Hello hooray March.)

Hi! This is a Zygarnic poem (the "Zygarnic Effect" is that nagging discomfort that accompanies neglect of one's duties). Motivated by "why complete assignments when the everything is just so much?" 

I had been called for jury duty on the day (in june, 2002) before this poem was written;  appearing punctually at the courthouse and everything, I accepted the $20 that they gave me (for "lost pay") and got drunk with it during lunch. 

I walked around, smelling Gardenias and looking for misspelled traffic signs (the two notable ones read 

DEAF CHILDERN 

and 

NO INTOXIATING BEVERAGES PERMITTED IN PARK.


Yes!).

And I didn't spare a thought for my woefully overdue Master's thesis, which felt as good as it could have felt. If I were a string, I wondered, what tone would I produce when plucked?

deadlines are guidelines

before it writes

it speaks and

before it speaks

it thinks and

before it thinks

it moves and

when it has moved

enough to think then

it stops moving for

long enough to think

the thinking and after it

thinks the thinking then it

does with it what it will or

what is generally expected

so excited to be up on its damn

self that it forgets the motion

and is discovered locking

certain doors without any

palpable effort but what if it just kept

moving and moving and moving and

moving (like an advancing desert) and moving and

moving and moving (like love or somesuch) and moving

and moving (like a collision minus impact) and

moving (sallying forth)

and (don’t hang on)

moving (ha

a-ha-a-hahahahaha) getting

all like there’s no shame ‘cause

there’s not and also something’s there

like a proton you know

everything always

happening for real

at the same time

what kind of crazy

shit is that

Correctifications

See, I didn't even realize yesterday that I'd posted this exceptional program (programme, for you Anglotypes) as a separate blog entry—I thought that it was part of "Watch and Observe." So, that should tell you something, but likely doesn't.

Nonetheless, when I awakened at 1:30 in the morning, haunted by heartbreak, I began to reflect upon everything in my life that I've done incorrectly. And this post came to mind. Its original title was "Molly F, filmed this masterpiece," but I'd intended that as a descriptive sentence. Then I saw that I'd already posted a link in "Watch and Observe," and I realized that I had created a miniature golf course from a molehill. I still have very little idea of how blogging works, but that's more than I can say for before now.

Don't Joke

12/15/2010, 11:45 AM

I realize that, of late, I have shared precious little in terms of ideas, but the holiday season has ensnared me, and I am forever a fool for it.

At the moment, Molly and I are vacillating regarding the evolving quandary over which aspects of holiday-era things to observe and recognize. It is (in general) getting colder, and people are progressively erratic - both sentimental and temperamental, while more a few of them are "tired and emotional" with ever-stiffer holiday cocktails. There's inappropriate matter in pockets the world over (e.g., the Netherlands with Santa's dwarf slave, "Black Pete"). The chromatic palette of the West shrinks to absurd, near-complementary combinations. I wonder what sense there is to be made. And, furthermore, whether we stand any chance at making it.

I already know that we won't be going to Wal-Mart, which is as close as possible to a foregone conclusion. It needs saying that I am relieved not to see those grotesque inflatable Wal-Mart ornaments adorning the yards of otherwise-taciturn townsfolk. I have never endorsed vandalism or destruction of property that isn't mine, but never have I felt such temptation to poke anything with a pin. So there's none of that. We live right in the center of a smallish downtown that's positively effing abuzz and wreathy and fancypants everything so as to render reverie an inescapable fact. Like a beautiful ball to which nobody is ever invited.

Will we honor Winter Solstice instead? I mean, it happens to everybody, and any reasonable person could make a reasonable case for: (a) the calendar flushing a toilet on itself; (b) indulging hibernatory instincts; and/or (c) lowering the bar for what "good" feels like.

My own favorite way to approach it is to act like we're all stuck in a meat locker and don't know when (or, indeed, if) we'll ever get out. This explains it all: the inordinate weirdness and the encroaching sense of urgency and the anomalously feverish compulsions for consumption and conviviality. Not to mention the pop-culture fixation upon babies being born in barns, as if having been conceived immaculately weren't enough for all involved. And being given myrrh and frankincense from "wise" men like it's somehow helpful on a frigid night. That's just what we'll be doing in that meat locker - praying for myrrh.

But, what about Santa Claus? We've not gone to specified lengths in any specific direction regarding Santa, although we remain on friendly terms. We figure that Desmond will absorb that which he wishes to absorb, because the holidays are so much about celebrating that we have each other that the iconography is moot.

Last week, while Desmond and I were out on a tiny grocery shopping expedition (we try to make our jaunts tiny ones because people everywhere have this type of rabies that makes them impetuous and flagrant), we saw Santa standing atop a construction lift in the middle of the train station that is being built in Brunswick (Maine Street Station, about 500 feet from our house). Despite the dubious legitimacy of his wearing cop-style sunglasses, we went to him, he ho-ho-hoed at us, and Desmond had his photograph taken with him. Desmond told him about the various things that Brunswick, Maine has to offer ("Over there is the Brunswick Explorer bus. It goes around Brunswick on weekdays."), inquired as to the whereabouts of Santa's cadre of reindeer (he reported, not very imaginatively, that they were "eating lunch"), and demonstrated his extant talent for finding topics of conversation that leave most grown-ups (myself included) eating his damn dust. And if he thinks for a second that he's not being taken seriously, then he'll tell you straight up, in a voice whose grave intensity matches his unwavering glare:

"DON'T JOKE."