The Urban Soup (Part XIX)
So blogging's not kosher anymore. This I've heard. It's apparently also not kosher to be fasinated by humanity. You'll forgive me if the following manifesto's a little bit heavy-handed. I'm out of practice. It should be at least 30% more heavy-handed.
So it was a White Night.
Not a racist holiday, not an orgy of destruction. Rather an orgy of diddling preconceptions--at least on some idealized level. In reality we find ourselves on streets flooded with pedestrians, spotlights behind every building, street-level lamps in shades we have bnever seen before and have trouble assimilating. We found ourselves standing in lives on the sidwealk--anathema to the spirit of the night. Behind every art-party facade was a fast-food joint serving hungry mouths and alimentary canals. Tents blasting popcorn at us, panda bears performing manicures. The whole city lost its mind. Ethnic oud music poured out of the crystal explosion of the ROM. Old women were trampling over each other to see the entrance to this castle in the sky open: and what emerged? What human form out of the shadows?
(This isn't how it really happened. Not entirely.)
But we're all spinning our fictions at various levels of consciousness. Luckily, we are not spiders when it comes to our webs. We can sit in it, sway on it, endure the winds with it, and yet modify it. A little. Let's not kid ourselves. We can't stand beyond. We can, however, stand across the street from Art Hotel #4, drink coffee and bull session far into the night. Far into the night, and deep into our weary, bruised hearts. Bruised hearts which have begun to heal (heal from panic attacks and crying fits, heal from burdens even the straight-backed stoicism of Tai Chi could not relieve...)
We had our moments that night. J.P. stood in an art gallery crying quietly in front of a photo spread: there were all her friends, in their art moments: looking away from the camera, eyes bright and clear, colours bright and clear, positively reaching out and hugging the room. Here was yur life; here is what leaving;s like. And yet, we have to lose parts of ourselves to heal. Here in this rooom with a mattress ripped open in classical autopsy incision, and here with pictures of girls unwrapping layers of their structure, allowing us to see through the chookbone, and through the hair, through all occluded jaw lines, tooth caps, tongues, uvulas, gyri and sulci mysteriously glowing--all projecting something I know not what. We heal together, and we'll cry apart.
What else was there? There was the barren room with a glowing lamp, the room pregnant with ghosts dripping form the moisture on the window. There were places you could smash shit. There were projection screens, ambiguous art-duos, old men sleeping on installations, unsure of their own status in this metaphysical clusterfuck. There were writhing organic masses of balloons that almost hugged me: oh to stay in there and hide from the security guards until dawn! There were caverns wormed out by worms and reinforced by naked mole rats. There were wolves and deer co-existing. There were lonely walks up and down the fire escapes. And there was the awkward realization that tonight was about the people you know--and only that. No abstract pulling of heart-strings did anything. Because for the first time in my life, my people are important.
Consider: "Anything worth learning can't be taught. But most things worth being can be trained."
So it was a White Night.
Not a racist holiday, not an orgy of destruction. Rather an orgy of diddling preconceptions--at least on some idealized level. In reality we find ourselves on streets flooded with pedestrians, spotlights behind every building, street-level lamps in shades we have bnever seen before and have trouble assimilating. We found ourselves standing in lives on the sidwealk--anathema to the spirit of the night. Behind every art-party facade was a fast-food joint serving hungry mouths and alimentary canals. Tents blasting popcorn at us, panda bears performing manicures. The whole city lost its mind. Ethnic oud music poured out of the crystal explosion of the ROM. Old women were trampling over each other to see the entrance to this castle in the sky open: and what emerged? What human form out of the shadows?
(This isn't how it really happened. Not entirely.)
But we're all spinning our fictions at various levels of consciousness. Luckily, we are not spiders when it comes to our webs. We can sit in it, sway on it, endure the winds with it, and yet modify it. A little. Let's not kid ourselves. We can't stand beyond. We can, however, stand across the street from Art Hotel #4, drink coffee and bull session far into the night. Far into the night, and deep into our weary, bruised hearts. Bruised hearts which have begun to heal (heal from panic attacks and crying fits, heal from burdens even the straight-backed stoicism of Tai Chi could not relieve...)
We had our moments that night. J.P. stood in an art gallery crying quietly in front of a photo spread: there were all her friends, in their art moments: looking away from the camera, eyes bright and clear, colours bright and clear, positively reaching out and hugging the room. Here was yur life; here is what leaving;s like. And yet, we have to lose parts of ourselves to heal. Here in this rooom with a mattress ripped open in classical autopsy incision, and here with pictures of girls unwrapping layers of their structure, allowing us to see through the chookbone, and through the hair, through all occluded jaw lines, tooth caps, tongues, uvulas, gyri and sulci mysteriously glowing--all projecting something I know not what. We heal together, and we'll cry apart.
What else was there? There was the barren room with a glowing lamp, the room pregnant with ghosts dripping form the moisture on the window. There were places you could smash shit. There were projection screens, ambiguous art-duos, old men sleeping on installations, unsure of their own status in this metaphysical clusterfuck. There were writhing organic masses of balloons that almost hugged me: oh to stay in there and hide from the security guards until dawn! There were caverns wormed out by worms and reinforced by naked mole rats. There were wolves and deer co-existing. There were lonely walks up and down the fire escapes. And there was the awkward realization that tonight was about the people you know--and only that. No abstract pulling of heart-strings did anything. Because for the first time in my life, my people are important.
Consider: "Anything worth learning can't be taught. But most things worth being can be trained."
posted by A. D. at 11:27 PM
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