When a disciple is ready, the teacher will appear. - Buddhist saying
Nunchi Nana
I may make light of my mother’s death, or wish for it, or try to hide my true feelings with humor, ranker, and misplaced anger transformed into cryptic language, but my mind is uncontrollable. I don’t want to focus too much on the why, the where, or the rapid when. It’s all I thought about on the way over in the taxi. I had no idea why. I hadn’t talked to my mother for 10 years. She wouldn’t talk in English anymore.
But I was thinking of my mother as I buzzed and walked up the narrow square steps. The final story was a spiral.
Ben Marcus opened the heavy red door. I wish I knew his middle name. I like to collect them.
We sat and talked about ironic cabaret, Lars van Trier and Silver Jews. We agreed. We drank wine from little glasses with math equations formed into the glass. I noticed that his was the Brouwer fixed point theorem. Mine was the Riemann hypothesis. He said that his father presented them to him on the first day of his manhood. He didn’t mention the age. It changes from boy to boy. I myself wonder if I have found my time.
I am envious of those who have, I think while he goes to the kitchen to grab little round cookies with gems of jelly in the middle. The green ones had the same shade as absinthe. I eat a green and an orange that tasted like sand, sugar, and the delicate bite of an earlobe.
And then he let me on to his little secret, one that could only be earned by an instinct of trust. We hadn’t talked for 3 hours before he felt he could finally tell me. He said that he had a feeling about me, but instincts are often wrong.
That I could follow along. That I might be sympathetic to his new world. That I might be willing. That I might not be scared. That I might beat the odds, all the ones that point to the likelihood that I am ignorant underneath my human face. That if he lifted and looked, he would only see the banana mush of a monkey brain.
He was pale, ponderous, with a bald head and a glum face. That day of all days he wore an orange scarf. He kept things cold. He had a pocket watch with a sticker of a dead dog on it. He took it out for what seemed every 10 minutes. I think he liked the sound of the clicking, of the metal clasp. The light drone of the soft vibration of the gears. He told me that he has very sensitive hearing, and sight. He found his way out of a ballroom during the blackout, he told me, and didn’t stumble over one table of chair. He told me that the others just hid for an hour under the tables, and some were making love as if it were the end of all time. Without any apprehension to scream out. It felt like a competition, he said. He said he stood by he door and listened, because it was his job to feel as much as he could, to be able to describe the moment, even if it was the end of the world. Though, of course, he didn’t believe anything would ever really end. Except, he hesitated. Except…
Do you love your own language, he asked.
Yes, I said. I love my language above all others.
But, he offered, do you feel that it is lacking. I mean, do you often feel as though there aren’t words that can adequately describe the feelings that you have. That it is limited in some way. That you feel tongue-tied, weak, even threatened by it. Like your blood was suddenly another man’s piss. You dig into your arm, but you cannot reach?
What are you getting at? I asked politely as I wondered if he had coffee. My stomach started feeling like a petrified sewing needle were sticking through. I looked down, and everything still seemed to be there.
I’m sure you’d like some coffee, he said. I see you in Mod Coffee on Other Broadway.
It seemed as though he knew all my secrets.
Do you have children? I mean, coffee?
Yes, certainly. The cookies are divine to dip. I like to dip half, bite, and then bite the hard end. I suggest it, or maybe I insist.
While he was fixing the coffee, a press of two buttons and a flip over of a K-cup, I wondered if I should bolt at the moment of the steam. I could make it to the door. I could outrun him. It was a walkup, but he walked slow. I figured his steps transposed perfectly to his running. I can’t imagine him running, and I have never seen him sweat. The thought of him with a sweatband, I don’t even know how to…
He handed me the coffee in a cup that said, “Don’t Bother” printed on it.
Wait a second, he said, I have it set to the hottest. I wouldn’t want you to burn your tongue.
I ignored his advice, and sipped, and hid the pain of the burn. He looked at me with a faint admiration, and breathed out with relief.
Now, he said. Now my boy I have to tell you something. You must realize that this cannot leave this very room. If you mention it to anyone else, I will deny it and call you mad. As a student, I wouldn’t want to recommend you for the clinic on 164th street.
I heard rumors of a girl named Kate in my program being sent there, but her mother had died, or was it finances, or going blind. Rumors are often hard to remember. The right one, they meld with others, and some who are malicious, transform them into attacks or anger. I try to keep away from it, but it digs deeply, and as I exist, I am rife for something to distort. Even if I were silent, or invisible.
Chance, he told me. Chance, what I am getting at is that this is soon to be our time.
Our time? I asked meekly. Leading him seemed to be the only way.
Yes. Our time. Soon, and I will not mention the day, we will finally be in place in all the major magazines, newspapers, radio, and every distribution network known to man, woman, or dimpled beast.
I listed all the publications that I could think of, and he assured me that there was someone in place, ready to take power at the right moment. Ready and willing to take action, and to slice the necks of anyone or editor that would stand in their way.
I sat silently as he went deeper into his plans. He showed me how he would send the word. He had developed a machine that can change the flight patterns of birds into messages. No one would notice. It was important that this revolution be unknown to the consumers. They must just open and read the words in a way untarnished by expectation.
It makes sense, I said. But why have you brought me here?
I want you to run the New Yorker, Chance, he said. My heart started beating faster, and swelled in my chest. It was as though he was stitching the most powerful dream.
I have gotten you an internship digging through the poetry slush pile. When you get the signal, you will know what to do, he said.
Won’t the staff be scared as their editor’s neck is being cut?
Half are already with us secretly, and the other half can either be convinced or thrown to the street. And where will they get work if everyone is under our flag?
I had to admit to myself that the plan was well-considered. He had seemed to work everything out. I asked questions about the cracks, and every crack was filled.
And the brilliant thing, he said, is that no one will know that it is me speaking into this dictaphone for the orders.
He went to his desk, pushed a solitary metal switch, and out from underneath popped a curious device of cloth and metal with what seemed to be a place for a face.
I think about all the people walking down the street, and none of them will notice us. I will hide behind this dictaphone, and the others will hide behind their print. They can even change names or habits or styles. They can pass it to their children. Before I die, I can choose a successor.
He started to smile from ear to ear and focused his eyes on the future. He was almost in a trance.
He did not notice at all as I rose very calmly, went to shake his hand, reached down to my boot, and stabbed him with my other hand right into the middle of his belly.
“Chance!!!!” he raged with his last few breaths. He said my name until it became a slur of spit and air.
I put my head inside the dictaphone, and 40 minutes later two men in masks took away the body. They didn’t say anything, and I don’t know what they did with it.
I cleaned up the blood with his towel with faded quotes, and sat at his desk. I whisked away his newspapers, and started to write my principles for the a new future of rhyming.
When a disciple is ready, the teacher will appear. - Buddhist saying
Nunchi Nana
I may make light of my mother’s death, or wish for it, or try to hide my true feelings with humor, ranker, and misplaced anger transformed into cryptic language, but my mind is uncontrollable. I don’t want to focus too much on the why, the where, or the rapid when. It’s all I thought about on the way over in the taxi. I had no idea why. I hadn’t talked to my mother for 10 years. She wouldn’t talk in English anymore.
But I was thinking of my mother as I buzzed and walked up the narrow square steps. The final story was a spiral.
Ben Marcus opened the heavy red door. I wish I knew his middle name. I like to collect them.
We sat and talked about ironic cabaret, Lars van Trier and Silver Jews. We agreed. We drank wine from little glasses with math equations formed into the glass. I noticed that his was the Brouwer fixed point theorem. Mine was the Riemann hypothesis. He said that his father presented them to him on the first day of his manhood. He didn’t mention the age. It changes from boy to boy. I myself wonder if I have found my time.
I am envious of those who have, I think while he goes to the kitchen to grab little round cookies with gems of jelly in the middle. The green ones had the same shade as absinthe. I eat a green and an orange that tasted like sand, sugar, and the delicate bite of an earlobe.
And then he let me on to his little secret, one that could only be earned by an instinct of trust. We hadn’t talked for 3 hours before he felt he could finally tell me. He said that he had a feeling about me, but instincts are often wrong.
That I could follow along. That I might be sympathetic to his new world. That I might be willing. That I might not be scared. That I might beat the odds, all the ones that point to the likelihood that I am ignorant underneath my human face. That if he lifted and looked, he would only see the banana mush of a monkey brain.
He was pale, ponderous, with a bald head and a glum face. That day of all days he wore an orange scarf. He kept things cold. He had a pocket watch with a sticker of a dead dog on it. He took it out for what seemed every 10 minutes. I think he liked the sound of the clicking, of the metal clasp. The light drone of the soft vibration of the gears. He told me that he has very sensitive hearing, and sight. He found his way out of a ballroom during the blackout, he told me, and didn’t stumble over one table of chair. He told me that the others just hid for an hour under the tables, and some were making love as if it were the end of all time. Without any apprehension to scream out. It felt like a competition, he said. He said he stood by he door and listened, because it was his job to feel as much as he could, to be able to describe the moment, even if it was the end of the world. Though, of course, he didn’t believe anything would ever really end. Except, he hesitated. Except…
Do you love your own language, he asked.
Yes, I said. I love my language above all others.
But, he offered, do you feel that it is lacking. I mean, do you often feel as though there aren’t words that can adequately describe the feelings that you have. That it is limited in some way. That you feel tongue-tied, weak, even threatened by it. Like your blood was suddenly another man’s piss. You dig into your arm, but you cannot reach?
What are you getting at? I asked politely as I wondered if he had coffee. My stomach started feeling like a petrified sewing needle were sticking through. I looked down, and everything still seemed to be there.
I’m sure you’d like some coffee, he said. I see you in Mod Coffee on Other Broadway.
It seemed as though he knew all my secrets.
Do you have children? I mean, coffee?
Yes, certainly. The cookies are divine to dip. I like to dip half, bite, and then bite the hard end. I suggest it, or maybe I insist.
While he was fixing the coffee, a press of two buttons and a flip over of a K-cup, I wondered if I should bolt at the moment of the steam. I could make it to the door. I could outrun him. It was a walkup, but he walked slow. I figured his steps transposed perfectly to his running. I can’t imagine him running, and I have never seen him sweat. The thought of him with a sweatband, I don’t even know how to…
He handed me the coffee in a cup that said, “Don’t Bother” printed on it.
Wait a second, he said, I have it set to the hottest. I wouldn’t want you to burn your tongue.
I ignored his advice, and sipped, and hid the pain of the burn. He looked at me with a faint admiration, and breathed out with relief.
Now, he said. Now my boy I have to tell you something. You must realize that this cannot leave this very room. If you mention it to anyone else, I will deny it and call you mad. As a student, I wouldn’t want to recommend you for the clinic on 164th street.
I heard rumors of a girl named Kate in my program being sent there, but her mother had died, or was it finances, or going blind. Rumors are often hard to remember. The right one, they meld with others, and some who are malicious, transform them into attacks or anger. I try to keep away from it, but it digs deeply, and as I exist, I am rife for something to distort. Even if I were silent, or invisible.
Chance, he told me. Chance, what I am getting at is that this is soon to be our time.
Our time? I asked meekly. Leading him seemed to be the only way.
Yes. Our time. Soon, and I will not mention the day, we will finally be in place in all the major magazines, newspapers, radio, and every distribution network known to man, woman, or dimpled beast.
I listed all the publications that I could think of, and he assured me that there was someone in place, ready to take power at the right moment. Ready and willing to take action, and to slice the necks of anyone or editor that would stand in their way.
I sat silently as he went deeper into his plans. He showed me how he would send the word. He had developed a machine that can change the flight patterns of birds into messages. No one would notice. It was important that this revolution be unknown to the consumers. They must just open and read the words in a way untarnished by expectation.
It makes sense, I said. But why have you brought me here?
I want you to run the New Yorker, Chance, he said. My heart started beating faster, and swelled in my chest. It was as though he was stitching the most powerful dream.
I have gotten you an internship digging through the poetry slush pile. When you get the signal, you will know what to do, he said.
Won’t the staff be scared as their editor’s neck is being cut?
Half are already with us secretly, and the other half can either be convinced or thrown to the street. And where will they get work if everyone is under our flag?
I had to admit to myself that the plan was well-considered. He had seemed to work everything out. I asked questions about the cracks, and every crack was filled.
And the brilliant thing, he said, is that no one will know that it is me speaking into this dictaphone for the orders.
He went to his desk, pushed a solitary metal switch, and out from underneath popped a curious device of cloth and metal with what seemed to be a place for a face.
I think about all the people walking down the street, and none of them will notice us. I will hide behind this dictaphone, and the others will hide behind their print. They can even change names or habits or styles. They can pass it to their children. Before I die, I can choose a successor.
He started to smile from ear to ear and focused his eyes on the future. He was almost in a trance.
He did not notice at all as I rose very calmly, went to shake his hand, reached down to my boot, and stabbed him with my other hand right into the middle of his belly.
“Chance!!!!” he raged with his last few breaths. He said my name until it became a slur of spit and air.
I put my head inside the dictaphone, and 40 minutes later two men in masks took away the body. They didn’t say anything, and I don’t know what they did with it.
I cleaned up the blood with his towel with faded quotes, and sat at his desk. I whisked away his newspapers, and started to write my principles for the a new future of rhyming.
Made with Paper
“Everybody who comes to BYU, every student if they’re an athlete or not an athlete, they make a commitment when they come. A lot of people try to judge if this is right or wrong, but it’s a commitment they make. It’s not about right or wrong. It’s about commitment.” — Yes, it isn’t about right or wrong. That’s completely arbitrary. (Quote by BYU coach Dave Rose.)
I think the most interesting point of this article is that point made by the playwright Richard Foreman.
He says :
“I come from a tradition of Western culture, in which the ideal (my ideal) was the complex, dense and “cathedral-like” structure of the highly educated and articulate personality—a man or woman who carried inside themselves a personally constructed and unique version of the entire heritage of the West. [But now] I see within us all (myself included) the replacement of complex inner density with a new kind of self—evolving under the pressure of information overload and the technology of the “instantly available.”
I think what the interesting is that while Foreman’s anxieties may be correct, there has always been this assumption within some bits of the creative community that technology, and in particular the internet deluge of instant on information will destroy culture.
I would argue that in fact it will make insight more rare and needed than that instant fix. We cannot put the Google mindfuck back in the bottle, but we can simply point out the premises of the Western tradition that will not die no matter the rewiring that goes on. And most importantly, create for the context of the rewiring, not burrow in a hole hoping that upon emergence, we will be back in the 1930’s again.
The point is that while the internet has broadened our access to information, it severely lacks the tools to express individual insight. Sure, we can have these personal visceral moments in social media and elsewhere, but the depth of these thoughts is usually on the level of “I’m going for a piss, I just broke up, and I love the new sandwich shop.”
But I don’t have any fear that new mediums will arise that will focus primarily on expressing something very simple, and for lack of a better term, human. What is inescapable throughout human history from the drama competitions in Greece to texting preference to American Idol is that we need insight and connection more than we need information. But some may just not know it yet.
An actress friend of mine, Maya, is involved with a theater group in London called Punchdrunk which I think is directing this head on. They immerse the googled mind into something outside of its range to compute, and forces that mind and soul to be apart of an experience, much like Breht or Gortowski. That the physical, now that it has gone into a web haze of slumber, can now have the advantage of playing of those sleepy expectations. This is an opportunity, not a detriment.
But just like Everest, only a few people can experience Punchdrunk. The key will be to use the web in ways that can capture something contrary and shifted from the logic of the google search. (Which BTW, isn’t the end all, be all of web experiences.)
So I don’t fear for the human need to smash this perception to bits when it starts to encroach on our very instincts for survival through connection. Just deal with it, and do something about it, don’t moan about it.
[video]
The Original from Glenn Gould:
Wanted
Friendly, companionably reclusive, socially unacceptable, alcoholically abstemious, tirelessly talkative, zealously unzealous, spiritually intense, minimally turquoise, maximally ecstatic moon, seeks moth or moths with similar qualities for purposes of telephonic seduction, Tristanesque trip-taking, and permanent flame-fluttering, no photos required, financial status immaterial, all ages and non-competitive vocations considered, applicants should furnish sets of sample conversation with notarized certification of marital disinclination, references re: low decibel vocal consistency, itinerary and sample receipts from previous successfully completed out-of-town moth flights, all submissions treated confidentially…
And my take:
Wanted
Friendly, secretive, conspicuously and lovingly toxic, socially selective and somewhat redundant, alcoholically furtive, unrepentantly inquisitive, tirelessly seductive, unzealously zealous, spiritually tangled and humanistically skeptical, minimally concerned with trinkets, maximally instinctive in direction, seeks another life lived in continuum with similar qualities for purposes of seduction of the mind, instruction to your soul, and all remaining human instincts and flickers left unchecked. Financial status immaterial, nationality inconsequential, education always in wanting, canine collaborus, tired legs from hiking towards no particular destination, cautiously beautiful, and beautifully optimistic, fearless in integrity, and fearful of nothing but the dead air of ignorant sameness and agreement, appreciative of solitude, but needing all benefit of human contact and sharing, Alice-ly curious, and musically literate with implicit depth of scope (to even be open to the occasional biyearly country song), independent of the constant mirror and ego-boosting text message, yet able to dazzle in contained moments. Must be accepting of those that eat meat and are not evil, and that eating nothing but derivatives of corn is not only harmful, but quite boring. In short, able to jump headfirst into something without a guide and know that the inner strength will guide you through. If that is a faith in self, without reliance on platitude, then so be it. You’d ask of the moth, “what did you see?”
All submissions treated confidentially. Trading card photos appreciated. Writing sample even more so. Submissions will be responded to swiftly and professionally. Coffee consuming and conversation not out of range of possibility. Butterfly catching. Etc.
The Art of Surprise - By Steve Vineberg -
Great “Last Lecture” on what art should do, rather than what art should explicitly communicate, or render.
This reminds me of Nabokov’s great little book on Gogol. So much of what passes as art nowadays wants to communicate a message, a PR stunt, rather than deeply surprising you. What is really surprising about a 15 million dollar waterfall, when you can explain it in 5 seconds.
Try explaining Barnett Newman’s “Stations of the Cross” to someone sometime.
[video]