it starts out as almost inaudible. actually, it’s not even a sound at all, more of a sensation or suspicion. very minuscule but you know exactly what it is. even so, you have some time to bide. the distortions have yet to make their presence felt.
the frequencies change. the quiet rustling becomes a deafening roar. time comes into focus and the need to adjust becomes apparent. ignoring this sensation only prolongs the irritable. . . .
alter, adjust, adapt, amend, modify, revise, refine, redesign, rework, reorder, vary, transform, transfigure, transmute, metamorphose, and evolve.
“the observational aspects of photography were carried off into other areas…”
“i frequently go to sleep.” (during my concerts) -phill niblock
all that glitters
(for 邓利、杨鸽、陈延娜 and 陈芳，on participation and parting)
In an exergue to the collection of poems she entitled Requiem, Anna Akhmatova recounts how her poems were born. It was in the 1930s, and for months and months she joined the line outside the prison of Leningrad, trying to hear news of her son, who had been arrested on political grounds. There were dozens of other women in line with her. One day, one of these women recognized her and, turning to her, addressed her with the following simple question: “Can you speak of this?” Akhmatova was silent for a moment and then, without knowing how or why, found an answer to the question: “Yes,” she said, “I can.”
As Agamben notes, “I can” here does not mean a conviction of the possession of certain capacities that guarantee success in ‘describing’ the indescribable, but a radical acceptance of “the hardest and bitterest experience possible: the experience of potentiality.”
What is set upon the stage for potentiality, where “speech”, but also a refusal to speak can take place? Where do our bodies take us that our words do not? What transitory epics are written in the face, the things that tell you to wait, to feel, to know that this mess we’ve created is greater than ourselves?
things will change soon. i know it. to say, “i wish i could describe it to you better” is to turn around the thing, over and over and over again. like words, nearer and nearing to meaning, wavering infinitely close, proximitous without sameness. Can we speak of these unnameable spaces in between the named? Can you describe them, will you ever know that silence with me here, a glittering in darkness, a deafening roaring?
(partial text and thoughts from Giorgio Agamben, Potentialities, and Where Everything is Yet to Happen; photo from OVERSEAS, close by)
Posted by 丫 | reply »the city as film
sunday morning, atelier of modifications, waiting
“to wait, to make oneself attentive to that which makes of waiting a neutral act, coiled upon itself in tight circles, the innermost and outermost of which would coincide, attention distracted in waiting and returned all the way to the unexpected. Waiting, waiting that is the refusal to wait for anything, a calm expanse unfurled by steps.
he experiences the impression of being in the service of an initial distraction that would let itself be reached only when dissimulated and dispersed in acts of extreme attention. Waiting, but subordinated to that which could allow itself to be awaited.
to wait seems to signify for her the relegation of herself to a story that she would make it his obligation to carry through to the end and that must have as its outcome its progressive movement towards a goal. the attention should be exerted, so to speak, by this narrative in such a way as to draw it slowly out from the initial distraction, without which, however–he senses it well–attention would become a sterile act.
to wait: what did he have to wait for? She manifested her surprise if he asked her this question because for her, it was a word that sufficed on its own. As soon as one waited for something, one waited a little less.”
– maurice blanchot, awaiting oblivion
Posted by f | reply »too quick
summer ’09
Posted by joe | more »yesterday/today/tomorrow
The weekends were less exciting to him than were the weekdays. On Saturdays and Sundays, a hollow feeling washed over him and he struggled to make it through those days. Time was spent with the T.V. filling his musty wood-paneled apartment with welcoming sounds, going to the Men’s Club and sitting there alone while the rest of the men were with their families, and going through the weekend paper, methodically. At night he would warm up some old pasta from the night before and check/recheck his lotto tickets while still allowing that T.V. to add some dialogue into the apartment.
Weekdays however, were different. He had a routine that he really enjoyed and with this being Monday, he had five amusing days in front of him. Getting out of his apartment and heading over to the Club was his first priority. At around 8am, the first wave of straphangers would make their way to the subway and this was the first of two highlights of his day. Born and raised in this neighborhood and having left only once, for the war, he had seen the dramatic change to the neighborhood occur right before him. Today’s commuters were composed of twenty and thirty somethings who had little regard for tradition. They seemed to be slightly unconscious to their immediate surroundings…which he found curious. What were they constantly entertaining that made them seemingly exist outside of the present? Life seemed a little overwhelming to the younger generation he thought. Their distracted faces, the way they dressed, the young couples, this all kept him in a stupor until about 10:30am when the parade subsided.
Midday was mostly spent at the Club eating lunch, going over neighborhood gossip, watching t.v., and playing either pinochle or breaking out the cribbage board. Recently though, he felt the need to slip home and try to grab a few hours sleep. Nights had turned into restless endeavours and at his age, sleep was a necessity.
However, once 5:30pm came around, his favorite morning routine started its second act. He tried his hardest to read their faces, seeing if he could decipher those expressions to come up with certain conclusions about their day. He thought about all the meanings of the word “communication”. He was never mistaken as a poet and this form of interaction suited him just fine. Eventually, the procession from the subway to the various apartments came to a slow trickle.
On this night, as the dark clouds started their march over the neighborhood, and everybody made their way home for dinner, he thought it would be a good idea to head to the deli and pick up a few Lucky 5 scratch-offs for the long night ahead of him.
Posted by joe | reply »
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