28 August 2006

there goes the fear (again)

a parent has every right to be fearful when a stranger approaches their child. tonight on the subway however, i literally broke out laughing at the events that transpired. and i felt even more ridiculous laughing while reading john updike's terrorist. not exactly what one would classify as humorous.

there was a man selling liquid and stick-based incense, describing the various odors the incense came in, its uses, ya know the usual shtick. well i was sitting next to this 10 year old girl, and beside her was her parent or guardian. on the girl's lap was a cloth lunchbox that was unzipped and the girl was spacing out in typical 10-year-old fashion. slightly listening to the salesman tho i suspect more lost in her own thoughts.

the man approached our section of the train and the mother became more and more nervous, i could see her hands trembling out of the corner of my eye. now from what i could tell, the seller was not homeless or meant to be feared in any way, in fact i found him to be much more innocuous than the typical purveyor of subway mercantile. a bit hippyish but otherwise a non-vagrant. nevertheless, as he drew near, she grabbed at the little girl's lunchbox and with timorous fingers, zipped the three sides swiftly shut.

the man walked past without- i suspect- even noticing the incident, but i could barely contain myself. it had been a stressful day and i probably over reacted as i laughed out loud, but i wondered what could be so valuable that she had to zip the box up. i mean if he really wanted to steal it, or something out of it for that matter, couldn't he have just snatched the whole thing? it was still resting on her lap afterall. i imaged her as a modern-day bonnie parker and i was sitting next to her and clyde barrow's love child whose lunchbox carried an untold fortune. it made me almost want to fleece it.

but then again she was probably just a paranoid, overprotective mother who was going home to feed her daughter another round of mcdonald's.

the further dissection of the citizen's psyche

i think the reason i am disappointed in this day, is that i was expecting more conclusions. i am increasingly becoming more dependant on closure and resolutions, as a way to mark time, but also in a reinvention/ reanimation sense. for me inspiration springs from challenges and new situations. (which brings its own sets of turmoil and anxiety, yet forces one to think discordantly, which is in effect growth. and in my hyperkinetic mind, i want a lot of things to end just as soon as they've begun, just for the sake of having the cache of experience.)

today's lesson is based on what we will be calling the double-entendre of the word agitate. in the one sense, to be agitated would imply that one is on-edge, aggravated maybe even hostile. and truth be told that's how i feel presently. with the conclusion of the play coupled with finally finishing a book i've been reading on and off since last august as well as wanting to find a new job, i feel like everything came to a crechendo over the weekend. yet here i am back on monday, looking at puddles of stale dog piss being soaked up by one of my employers t-shirts. very anti-climatic. if not discouraging.

when you finish one thing, you almost half-expect everything else to conclude as well.

but in the greater- albeit more scientific- sense, agitate means to shake, mix and otherwise churn a liquid or chemical compound (at right, agitating a film tank). and right now that's what i'm looking for. for the great scientist-as-prime-mover to put me in the washing machine of happenstance then hang me out to dry. soak away the bullshit, leave the substance and let the air flow through my fibres.

a more positive post will arrive tomorrow. chalk this up to postpartum depression. and to think i started out wanting to bitch about something else.

22 August 2006

The Parenthetical is Complete


well it has ended just as it started, with Sigur Rós. i began the cycle last january with ( ) their 2002 release (right) and listened to the 6500+ tracks on my mp3 player straight through until i finished with 'Avalon' the tenth track on Ágætis Byrjun (1999, below).

for the most part i listened to it during my 45 minute commute and played the tracks alphabetically by album. the parenthetical was first, followed by other shapes [such as ellipsis and well, brackets] then numbers, penultimately the alphabet only to settle on and conclude with Á.

this was a great way to listen to music. because you never know what record is coming next. some days i'd hit something i hadn't listened to in years and totally rock it. other days i couldn't wait for a series to end.

example: The Kinks. one of my favorite bands if not my favorite. however they have albums titled alphabetically [and disregarding 'the'] Kinda Kinks (1965), Kink Kontrovery (1965), The Kinks (1964), and The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society (1968). and in the case of VGPS, i have the expanded 60 track 3-CD reissue. So it was a long and kinky week to say the least. i'm sure ray davies or the A&R team thought it was a brilliant idea in the 60s, but even as the most ardent fan i had a hard time getting through it (ditto Beck's Guerro [Expanded w/ Remixes] and Guerolito (both 2005) and the Johnny Cash boxset Unearthed (2003))

it must be noted that there were a few exceptions along the way.

for two weeks i had to take a hiatus to listen to my lines for the play- a huge asset in my memorization. also when we were painting our new place in july i would skip around to different albums to appease the masses (i.e. abbey, emily and their family.) but despite these setbacks, i would resume my categorical mission and pick up wherever i left off.

also, over the last eight months i acquired probably somewhere in the ballpark of 80+ hours of new music. i added these to the album list, though i never backtracked to listen to new ones; only integrated them and traversed the new ones as they arose.

so, what will i listen to on my way home tonight? start all over? i doubt it. probably just put it on random for a while. but i was never a fan of shuffled music. the album as a whole is too important to me. any thoughts?

PSA (without guitars)

i remember when i first got a cell phone. someone told me that area codes are now irrelevant. i thought this was a great idea, putting the area coderati in their place. but it's funny the nostalgia people have. we started a [612-Bitch] listserv on yahoo for (mostly) 612 expatriates. furthermore, over in martha's vineyard having a 508 area code is a badge of prestige over the newer 774 (or is it the other way around). nevertheless there is a waiting list to get the older code. i even had a friend tell me i should get a NYC cell phone soon before the 917 numbers are all taken and i'd have to settle for a lousy 646. and here i thought 646 was the more mellifluous number. it's palindromic for chritsake.

but i'm sticking to good ole 612 simply cuz it's an easy number to know. but that's not to say it hasn't caused a bit of conversation if not consternation in my new city. to the younger crowd, they say "that's a great number, how did you get that!" to which i explain that i just went to verizon and that's what they gave me. however the older set seems to scratch their head saying "why don't you get a local number" then i must explain the obsolescence of area codes. in short 10 digits are the new 7.

sorry for the digression, today's forum is addressing the larger issue of dialing 1 as a long-distance predicate. as we previously established, area codes have been naturalized into the citizenry of telecommunications. however it seems that people lack the greater leap to dropping the 1, which has effectively become arbitrary. i'll barrow my phone to someone, then get it back full of 1+10-digit-#s. and this is not an age-specific phenomenon, it's just an antiquated view of "long distance."

the thing about it is, this is one of the few instances where our lives will require less information, and it is to be embraced. when VoiP takes off, as it inevitably will, there will be international codes to remember and to be programed into these prisons we call cells. but luckily for us in the USA, we'll just have to dial 001 to reach each other.

15 August 2006

non apologia

i'm not an apologist and i'm not ready to become one. people are going to see the show i am in, and inevitably a portion of the audience is going to be offended, or turned off or maybe even a bit disgusted (there is a fisting scene afterall, done comedically certainly, but nevertheless it's still there).

the play is what it is. come if you wish, but you know what it's about. it's gay male prostitution. if you're uncomfortable with the concept, don't come. it won't bother me in the least, just don't bitch afterwards like you were somehow unprepared. i'm not here to make concessions or ease your provincial mind.


conservatives need not apply