倫敦 london – 英属哥伦比亚省列治民市 richmond, british columbia

dearest,

that’s heavy. hope that it is not a reflection of your current state.

is it?

but i discovered this today, which whether or not you like the music, you may begin to love simply by the way it is described:

Talked to you on the phone the other day——WhatsApp voice call——and I noticed the dissecting and unsettling silence fading in between each spoken word, like someone holding the breath or stopping time. Or a tap closed between each filling of a glass. It was a clean, cleansed, silence; one purified by the dullness of calculation, of automation, of regulation and optimisation.

I remember the feeling of talking with friends via landline connection——it felt like a direct channel opened up between our ears and tongues, an airiness of circulation. I could hear the other person breathing and the slight static noise of electricity hardwiring us. Now I don’t hear the other person’s breath anymore——the algorithmic sound detection for controlling the threshold of the microphone transmission seems to not register breath as a signal deemed necessary for communication.

…

日惹 yogjakarta – 墨西哥城 mexico city

wonder if you remember that we had said we would go on holiday together last year.

wonder how you and your child are doing.

wonder if you remember that i had wanted to make strange models for your movie.

wonder if you remember that i haven’t written back to your e-mail.

can a contemporary condition become one’s psychological impairment, the wonderous thing, like her blank auto-replies, or trying to imitate the words of a great master:

⋯⋯很想对着那些无忧无虑的娇花倩草哭上一场。可她的眼泪已经被巨大的悲哀征服了，她这才明白绝望者是没有泪水的。

⋯⋯All she wanted to do was cry into those graceful and carefree petals, into the beautiful grass, but any tears in her had already been conquered by tremendous sorrow, and she finally understood why those in utter despair shed no tears.

— 遲子建 CHI Zijian，“亲亲土豆 Potato Kisses”