A Farce
Haven’t we ever had a presentiment in the night, of expansion and contraction, wind stretching itself through leaves, an icicle fall, or the sound the air makes as it settles on the dust. And who’s to say that our life hasn’t led up to this barely noticed—barely created!—sound, the sound of a feeling.
In The Beginning
Park used to think that the development of one’s intellect mirrored his growing understanding of a city’s layout. That is, as the mind matured it gained a better sense of how faster to get where, which restaurants to frequent and the streets one ought to avoid after dark. The easy link between thought and action—as if the mind could be schematized and illuminated, filled in, like a map of the new world—this link and its fallacy wouldn’t dawn on him until much later. But at the time the image of a mind’s education mirroring its facility for navigating unfamiliar terrain seemed itself like a beacon, a waypoint to keep him on the right path of progress, like a grandly intelligent idea that only a grandly intelligent youth would harbor. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy if there ever were one, and its significance remained undiminished even as Park lost himself every time he tried his way around the city.
Like Reverb But More Heartbreaking
I one day left Albuquerque riding on a Greyhound bus. My expectations were unsatisfied. You’d think that it was an easy proposition—I’m riding on a cheap A to B vehicle, one out of many that happen to operate over a nation-wide network under a single corporate moniker, an aegis. But I had in mind a mythical animal. Not at all like the dogs inspiring the name; more like the associations around the dogs (which I hadn’t seen often but of which I knew the way people tend just to know things, like that New York City throbs with excitement while simultaneously it withers, decays). I thought it would be like a greyhound dog: fleet and lean. I thought riding the Greyhound would be capturing a little of the American Dream. Total freedom of movement. But it didn’t seem like the mythic vehicle of discovery that Maurice Kenny waxed poetic riding on. It wasn’t at all a vehicle of discovery. It was just a regular tour bus with the same patterned seats and narrow aisle with rubber piping that’re in all tour buses. The Albuquerque bus station foreshadowed this discovery, and I thought that it deserved its meager station, run down but not really seedy, it was small and sad.
Where We Compose A Poem In The Shower: Catastrophe
Apostrophe wouldn’t rhyme
With catastrophe if
Possession didn’t lead
To a ruinous end, and
Contraction weren’t a part
Wretchedly deserving.
My First Religious Experience
I had my first religious experience tonight, but its possibility was contained in a sermon I had heard a few weeks ago. It was during the homily or sermon—whatever they call it. I’ve been to a lot of differently denominated and non-denominated churches, lately. I’d been trying to find one that stuck. At this service, the priest made a point about prayer. He said that a lot of people treat prayer as a way to ask God for things. Like, ‘Hey God. It’s me, Brian. Please give me a new car, pay my bills, and make sure my kids don’t cut class.’ This approach to prayer is the exact opposite of what we should be doing, though. The priest didn’t go into why this approach is wrong, but I imagine it has to do with God’s omnipotence and the fact that He knows the things you know, and therefore He knows you want those things; if He should want you to have them, then He would provide them. Getting back to what the priest said. He said that instead of asking God for things you want, you should ask God what He wants. We are the ones, after all, who are born imperfect by nature, who can never been whole, who cannot know with transcendent certainty, who bear Original Sin. It’s fitting, then, that we should spend our prayer and contemplative moments wondering at what God wants of us.
Wanted: One Girl
Wanted: One girl [Age 19 to 24. Into art, New Expressionism preferable. Into music, knowledge of post-Reich minimalism required. Must smoke American Spirit cigarettes. No hard drugs except on occasion. A runner. Required, between 95 pounds and 115 pounds (inclusive). Into art, must dislike Ed Ruscha. Into music, past (or over) the indie scene. Should have migrated all physical artifacts to digital. (Books/7”s excluded.) An opinion on the serial comma appreciated, semi-required. Into art, must prefer design to advertising, advertising to television, television to theater. Into music, proficiency in two instruments (flute/piano excluded) encouraged, not required. In school, recently out of school, dropped out of school. No psychology majors. Futon owners acceptable. Must own several (read: more than four) striped sweaters, vertical/horizontal. Into art, considers commercial art to be a necessary evil. Into music, goes to at least one show per month. Posters. Tea. Ottoman. Claw-foot bathtub. Riesling. Never takes a ‘to go’ cup. Must recycle.] for occasional sexual intercourse.
Yeasayer
“Mondegreen”
Yeasayer is our biggest fan.
Mondegreens.
A mondegreen is a misheard lyric, saying, catchphrase, or slogan. The word was coined by the Scottish writer Sylvia Wright in a 1954 article in Harper’s Magazine. There she wrote that, as a child, she had misinterpreted the lyrics of a Scottish ballad called “The Bonny Early of Moray.” One of the lines in the song is this: “They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray and laid him on the green.” She had thought it went, “They hae slain the Earl of o’ Moray and Lady Mondegreen.”
