the first page of Resident, or Resident Evil, or This Minor Contextualisation of a Minor Temporality Known as Publishing on the Run, self-published 2022 (the copy for boat is the only time a delivery has completely failed)

dear h.,

the first disclaimer is that this letter is possibly not to only be read by you. i can imagine you might find some offense to that, but i realised like some strange twitch in me, there is something making me unable to face up to certain individuals on the ‘should reply to’ list, kind of like being less able to look at people in the eyes. and if i could only make this happen through finding a channel through a more general, faceless you to you, then it may only be this for the time being. looking aside from your eyes, there is a thing next to the thing. but it must be next to you.

i hope you may not be too offended and can find a way to understand this possibly strange manner of behaviour, perhaps a bit of a narcissistic reverse to the original request to hear more about you. i think most of what i saw and wrote before were also self-projections, which despite their reassurances makes me feel worse somehow, like not being able to look a you in the eye. that is why i said i will try to ‘face’, another way.

i ran into our mutual acquaintance Y last weekend and——in the same vocal paragraph of bemoaning the fact that people don’t read anymore——she was adamantly encouraging about continuing to write. so i try to readdress.

the last message you wrote was that _Friends are important. Especially nice if one doesn’t need to socialize to have them_ And it has almost come to this stage in life where one can say exactly that, like wise (and funny) C. noted so so long ago about knowing a good relationship when you can sit together in the same room together and feel comfortable not speaking to one another. more recently, W. discovered a version of it in the form of a named therapy called ‘body doubling‘, which is a less romantic, more production-oriented way of thinking about being together in a world that is absolutely not ‘together with it’. That goes back to the difficulties of being sad-core in a success-driven society, though one may also argue that success-driving is exactly what makes the fissures with sadness ever irreconcilable.

so go back to rhythm. 4/4 time is simply 4/4 time, but one can be-come another, there must be infinite transitions from the one to the other, right? Is this a silly metaphor? What makes you laugh these days, if you are still thinking about the point of humour? I actually really love your laugh. It’s more like a giggle or a chuckle, because you are generally a quiet person, and that is endearing coming from a man, if i can say that. An array of subtleties there, but maybe (another projection here) that combination of cynicism with humour is where our rapport found its place. i think i would define absurdity in such a way, but hope we can find some sort of specificity here that extends it beyond the nationalised version of which you spoke? Or maybe you’re right, as we are mostly so well trained now as ‘internet Americans’. That is the horrible contemporary universalism of language and humour buttressed by technology. Do you remember the very bad joke about Elaine and Coke that you shared with me when we first began talking more, from the ad campaign that was all over the city at the time? Something like that.

Another thought. That you can continue with the small joy you take from the live shows. Small joys is the same thought as rhythm, i think. So how to maintain the rhythm in which you can keep returning to that? Because of course it is so hard to see what small joy is in the midst of a dark refrain, or in the outburst of anger. I try my best not to react these days. Writing to you in this way is perhaps the same gesture of self-reflection while feeling terrible. So yes, I don’t know how to think too much about Kassel because it bore, in some ways, that feeling of rift. The core and the face alienated from one another in this overdramatisation of camaraderie that I wanted to partake in, but could only flitter about numbly because most of the things that were causing internal distress had nothing to do with the context at hand. Looking back now, perhaps I could have made better links between the core space and the extension of limbs. I don’t know how that would have been possible. I tried the direct confession to the best of my ability. I apologised. And still, I lost a friend. Too many accumulations of ‘created absence’ these years. That echo of emptiness is probably what rings this tinnitus.

About you at that time, I only felt that you were eager for having a real dialogue, which I would have wanted to do but can never do in those social situations because I want to try to take care of everyone——a mise en scène——only to end up failing mostly myself, of course. I didn’t feel anything destructive on your part, only that you were unable to read this from me and the situation, leading to your feeling of disappointment? what did you feel was destructive? were you upset?

i think you know yourself well enough to make choices that work fine for you given circumstances, but perhaps it is also about learning to rely more upon what we don’t know about ourselves, or about others… I wonder if Brasil was able to do that for you? You didn’t say too much about it. Someone said to me once that when he was young, he used to think that he was right, that it was the whole fucking world that had gotten it all wrong. But the older he became, things turned, and maybe it was that the rest of the world had it right, and he was the one who couldn’t figure it out. Years later, a young friend said with a grin to me that he hopes to keep finding himself wrong, because it’s when he feels that he’s more ‘right’ than everyone else that he’ll know he’s gotten too old. are you an old man yet, dear h?

Shall we meet (online) soon? Do you have non-socialising, body-doubling friends where you are now? Is it important for you to bring bodies and friend(s) and ideas and trust together into one room, and how do you go about doing that?

from another city,

e[UTF-8]

     ::   ,,,,,,,,,       ::         ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,     ,,,,,,,,       ,,
     ::    ''' ,;'       ;;,,,,,,          ,::'           ::    ::      ::::
'''';;'';;    ;;        ;;     ;;        ,;'::';,         ::''''::      ::::
  .;;' ;;' '''::'''    ;'     ;;       ,;'  ::  ';,       ::,,,,::      ::::
   ;; ;;'     ::            ,;;      ;''    ::    ';,     ::    ::       ::
    ;;;'      ::          ,;'';,            ::            '';:::''       ::
   ,;;;,     ,::        ,;'    ';           ::             ,;';;    ,    ,,
.,;''  ';;.   ;;     .;;'        ';,.       :;         .,;;'   '';;;;   ';;'

  ,,,;''  :: ;,     ,;',,,,, ,,,,,    ::      ,,              ,,          ,;,
 '''::    ::  '   ,::' :: ;: :: ::    ::      ;;          ,,,,;;,,,,      :::
,,,,;;,,,,;;,,,, ;;':: ::,:: ::,::   ,::', '''::'''::         ::          :::
    ::    ::        :: :: :: :: :: ;;':: ''   ::   ::   ,,,,,,;;,,,,,,    :::
    ::,;  :: ,;     :: ::''' '''::    :: ''''';;'''''''    ,, ::          :::
 .,;::'    :;;'     :: ::       ::    ::     ,:;,          :;,::''''       :
 '  ::   ,;;:. .    :: ::       ::    ::    ,;' ';,       ;;'';;,          .
   ';;  '   ``;'    ;; ::      ';;    ::.,;;'     ';;,. .;;    ''';;;,,.. ';'

sometimes the fires cannot be fought,
in which case, you can also e-mail me at ho【愛特】iwishicoulddescribeittoyoubetter【點】net.
何穎雅 now in new territories.