So this crazy thing happened last night--crazy, of course, being
a relative term, related to a deviation from the norm--and what I remember
about it are dead grandparents, and drill presses, and talking sticks, that last
thing being particularly odd, as it meshes well with the novel I'm reading at
the moment, to wit: there's an ambulatory Painted Stick in that
narrative, which speaks, and if that's not a talking stick then nouns are
not persons, places, or things.
There was music! And extreme paranoia! And three people who were just about the same age, which is a first for me in this town, this town being mostly the province of the newly wed and the nearly dead. There was, in addition, a vanishing woman, and a man with good cheekbones and a hat well worn, both of whom contributed, but were not essential (sorry folks) to the unfolding of the tale. They were embellishments, which is a fine thing to be, but! As we all know: nice to look at, great for adding detail and myth to the scene, but not, you know, vital.
Let's step away for a moment and consider that: were they vital? Something in me recoils at dismissing them as mere decoration, slight fillips of strange, and one of them did, in fact, buy me a beer. That alone should elevate the participatory importance of that hatted lad. Hutch--dear, cheekboned, hat-wearing Hutch--he vamoosed, skedaddled, was "Audi" before flame was ever set to vegetation, leaving me to the tender mercies of the apostles of hemp. And the woman! Had she not been so voluble at the start of things, I'd've left alone, two martinis poorer. Deep in her cups, she was, and capped in a face-hiding manner, and she vanished at some point unnoticed, out into the evening, leaving only a space on the couch in her wake, her absence only remarked upon minutes or hours--or perhaps even days!--later.
But even her disappearance was not so crucial as that of Zach, slider of faders and beater of skins, who was defined at first by a plate of pasta and his non-presence. Zach, who was not-there! Broken-hearted Zach! Zach by the dumpster next door, succumbing to the vagaries of his liver and alcohol. He disappeared before I ever met him.
And what, then, of Josh? Maker of furniture. Appreciator of vacuum tubes, drawer of lettered houses, player of keys! That's what of Josh, good-hearted Josh.
I'd gone downtown with a specific purpose: go to Roy, order a martini, and see what happens. Perhaps there will be people there, and we can talk. I've done it before, showing up there alone with my guitar, fresh from busking for drunken bridesmaids, and invited by strangers to join them at their table due to my apparently interesting look and the instrument by my side. The bar at Roy curves 'round at the end, so that we were in effect all seated at a table, Josh and Hutch opposite, Emily next to them, and an empty space next to me, like Elijah's place at the Seder table. Conversation was struck: where is the man who ordered that pasta? I'd never met him. But he'd ordered and then gone, and the three of them seemed unsure of his whereabouts. Eventually, it was determined that he was next door. "There's nothing next door but a dumpster," I said, whereupon the situation resolved itself into clarity. It had been a long night for those four, and consequences were being paid, out on the sidewalk.
They packed rare Zach into a cab, a poacher, no less, who'd just happened to drive by after the call was made. Then the four of us wandered northwards, while the jilted cab company called Josh every few minutes to complain. Eventually we crawled to a bar with a keeper of a legendary and accomplished flirtatious nature, and a tale was told of that. You see that fellow there, in the black ball cap? Her boyfriend. He comes here and drinks and watches her until it's time for him to leave, said Josh, and there he goes, now! Just watch what happens to her demeanor when she's not under his watchful eye. Tits out, winks on! There she goes. And that pair at the end of the bar: not sisters, no, but enough alike in habit and appearance be be considered such. Slaves to the bottle, them, with their beers and shots lined up before them like brave soldiers.
A-wandering, then, to yet another establishment, where Hutch pulled a story about being pantsed by a Balinese monkey for the peanuts in his pocket out of the air. A cash-only establishment, this, which meant that new friend Hutch bought cash-poor me a Boont amber ale. Embarrassing somewhat, that, though he was gracious about it. Then: more wandering! Off into the misty evening on fog-slicked streets. Hutch departed, having had enough of our nonsense, but the four of us went on, seeking shelter and smokables. Which we found, in a small plaster-walled dwelling wherein the walls met the ceiling with gentle curves rather than molded angles. Zach had made it home with the taxi poacher, and was wrapped in unconscious tartan on the couch. Flame was struck, and he awoke! Then be-capped Emily disappeared into the night, without a word that we could recall, leaving the three of us--mixer of sound, worker of wood, smithy of words--to the tender mercies of our neurochemistries.
Imagine, for a moment, that you've developed a sort of cosmology, not overt, not a System of the World, but more of an overarching viewpoint derived from the sum total of your experiences. It shouldn't be hard to imagine--you're doing it whether you want to or not--but it might be something that you don't pay a lot of mind to. Then imagine that you encounter, in the course of one befogged evening in a city by the sea, a pair of other people who for some reason seem to have laid down a similar experiential substrate. They use much of the same notional shorthand that you do. A simple phrase--"I have the talking stick!"--is freighted for them with the same meaning as it is for you. It's really an amazing thing, if you'll take it down from the shelf and look at it, shuffle it from mental hand to mental hand: the common viral idea, a hot nest of a concept, shared among strangers, saves months or years of discussion. It's the ideological equivalent of a single word, but no one spends much energy on being amazed at a shared noun or verb. That's just what communication is, isn't it, and a single word can easily bear as much meaning as a concept that can be unpacked in a phrase or three.
We had that going on for us, though it took a lot of work to bring me into the room, befuddled as I was with the consequences of toddler dexedrine and methylphenidate. By that I mean: I was acutely aware, suddenly, that I was a jumble of experiences and chemical impulses, and that, furthermore, my own path from birth until just that moment had assembled a unique consciousness that was given to rattling the bars of its cage and occasionally pissing in the corner. So it was difficult for me, just then, to focus on the realities of these two shiny new people, or to even believe the stories I was hearing: had grandparents really died, just that day? Was that drill press that seemed as though it had been there for quite some time actually a recently acquired heirloom? The story of the broken relationship I believed, having seen Zach booting into the street wearing Josh's borrowed white pants. But all else was uncertain, lost in a fog of paranoia so acute that I am, even now, waiting for the video of my foolishness to show up on YouTube.
Which is, I think, a comment on mod'ren media, if I may slide into my pretentious theorizing. I blame Alan Funt, he started it. With the technology of his day, he entrapped people in ridiculous situations, recording them for our amusement. Now, ABC News has "What Would You Do?" a hideous program described as (and I quote): "ABC's hidden camera, ethical dilemma series What Would You Do? puts ordinary people on the spot. From bullying to abuse, racial attacks and public humiliation, John Quinones captures people's split-second and often surprising decisions when they're thrust into real-life ethical scenarios." Fuck John Quinones, though, to be fair, he's just riding the surveillance wave that's cresting on the Internet, where temporary idiocy lives forever. I spent some portion of the evening looking for cameras, so convinced was I that the situation couldn't possibly be unfolding as it was.
But it was. Strange and deep conversations. Matters of etiquette! Laughter in the garage, and a complete inability on my part to determine when the evening was actually over. Which is fine. My gracious hosts were patient with my neuroticism, or at least put on a good show of it.
It's morning now--and will remain so for another fifteen minutes--and what I really want is pancakes. I see that in my future. I feel as though I've made a foray into an uncharted land, because I'm strange that way about new people. Who are they? I don't really know yet. Sometimes I'm struck dumb by the sheer oddness of our skull-encased consciousness: we toddle around, a perceiving "I," a thing-that-sees, an awareness wrapped in meat studded with sensory receptors, bumping into similarly-clad and equipped Others, each of us truly alone because of the quarter-inch of bone which forms the tureen that holds our neuronal soup. We can pass messages out of the mixture, information encoded in the vibrations of the air, with subtlety lent by the light that bounces from the expressions of our faces. But all of that is just packets moving from hand to hand, letters from the soul, their true author always hidden, never really seen.
One can achieve great facility with the language, become a raconteur of personal experience. But in the end?
We're never entirely sure that we're not just making the whole thing up.
There was music! And extreme paranoia! And three people who were just about the same age, which is a first for me in this town, this town being mostly the province of the newly wed and the nearly dead. There was, in addition, a vanishing woman, and a man with good cheekbones and a hat well worn, both of whom contributed, but were not essential (sorry folks) to the unfolding of the tale. They were embellishments, which is a fine thing to be, but! As we all know: nice to look at, great for adding detail and myth to the scene, but not, you know, vital.
Let's step away for a moment and consider that: were they vital? Something in me recoils at dismissing them as mere decoration, slight fillips of strange, and one of them did, in fact, buy me a beer. That alone should elevate the participatory importance of that hatted lad. Hutch--dear, cheekboned, hat-wearing Hutch--he vamoosed, skedaddled, was "Audi" before flame was ever set to vegetation, leaving me to the tender mercies of the apostles of hemp. And the woman! Had she not been so voluble at the start of things, I'd've left alone, two martinis poorer. Deep in her cups, she was, and capped in a face-hiding manner, and she vanished at some point unnoticed, out into the evening, leaving only a space on the couch in her wake, her absence only remarked upon minutes or hours--or perhaps even days!--later.
But even her disappearance was not so crucial as that of Zach, slider of faders and beater of skins, who was defined at first by a plate of pasta and his non-presence. Zach, who was not-there! Broken-hearted Zach! Zach by the dumpster next door, succumbing to the vagaries of his liver and alcohol. He disappeared before I ever met him.
And what, then, of Josh? Maker of furniture. Appreciator of vacuum tubes, drawer of lettered houses, player of keys! That's what of Josh, good-hearted Josh.
I'd gone downtown with a specific purpose: go to Roy, order a martini, and see what happens. Perhaps there will be people there, and we can talk. I've done it before, showing up there alone with my guitar, fresh from busking for drunken bridesmaids, and invited by strangers to join them at their table due to my apparently interesting look and the instrument by my side. The bar at Roy curves 'round at the end, so that we were in effect all seated at a table, Josh and Hutch opposite, Emily next to them, and an empty space next to me, like Elijah's place at the Seder table. Conversation was struck: where is the man who ordered that pasta? I'd never met him. But he'd ordered and then gone, and the three of them seemed unsure of his whereabouts. Eventually, it was determined that he was next door. "There's nothing next door but a dumpster," I said, whereupon the situation resolved itself into clarity. It had been a long night for those four, and consequences were being paid, out on the sidewalk.
They packed rare Zach into a cab, a poacher, no less, who'd just happened to drive by after the call was made. Then the four of us wandered northwards, while the jilted cab company called Josh every few minutes to complain. Eventually we crawled to a bar with a keeper of a legendary and accomplished flirtatious nature, and a tale was told of that. You see that fellow there, in the black ball cap? Her boyfriend. He comes here and drinks and watches her until it's time for him to leave, said Josh, and there he goes, now! Just watch what happens to her demeanor when she's not under his watchful eye. Tits out, winks on! There she goes. And that pair at the end of the bar: not sisters, no, but enough alike in habit and appearance be be considered such. Slaves to the bottle, them, with their beers and shots lined up before them like brave soldiers.
A-wandering, then, to yet another establishment, where Hutch pulled a story about being pantsed by a Balinese monkey for the peanuts in his pocket out of the air. A cash-only establishment, this, which meant that new friend Hutch bought cash-poor me a Boont amber ale. Embarrassing somewhat, that, though he was gracious about it. Then: more wandering! Off into the misty evening on fog-slicked streets. Hutch departed, having had enough of our nonsense, but the four of us went on, seeking shelter and smokables. Which we found, in a small plaster-walled dwelling wherein the walls met the ceiling with gentle curves rather than molded angles. Zach had made it home with the taxi poacher, and was wrapped in unconscious tartan on the couch. Flame was struck, and he awoke! Then be-capped Emily disappeared into the night, without a word that we could recall, leaving the three of us--mixer of sound, worker of wood, smithy of words--to the tender mercies of our neurochemistries.
Imagine, for a moment, that you've developed a sort of cosmology, not overt, not a System of the World, but more of an overarching viewpoint derived from the sum total of your experiences. It shouldn't be hard to imagine--you're doing it whether you want to or not--but it might be something that you don't pay a lot of mind to. Then imagine that you encounter, in the course of one befogged evening in a city by the sea, a pair of other people who for some reason seem to have laid down a similar experiential substrate. They use much of the same notional shorthand that you do. A simple phrase--"I have the talking stick!"--is freighted for them with the same meaning as it is for you. It's really an amazing thing, if you'll take it down from the shelf and look at it, shuffle it from mental hand to mental hand: the common viral idea, a hot nest of a concept, shared among strangers, saves months or years of discussion. It's the ideological equivalent of a single word, but no one spends much energy on being amazed at a shared noun or verb. That's just what communication is, isn't it, and a single word can easily bear as much meaning as a concept that can be unpacked in a phrase or three.
We had that going on for us, though it took a lot of work to bring me into the room, befuddled as I was with the consequences of toddler dexedrine and methylphenidate. By that I mean: I was acutely aware, suddenly, that I was a jumble of experiences and chemical impulses, and that, furthermore, my own path from birth until just that moment had assembled a unique consciousness that was given to rattling the bars of its cage and occasionally pissing in the corner. So it was difficult for me, just then, to focus on the realities of these two shiny new people, or to even believe the stories I was hearing: had grandparents really died, just that day? Was that drill press that seemed as though it had been there for quite some time actually a recently acquired heirloom? The story of the broken relationship I believed, having seen Zach booting into the street wearing Josh's borrowed white pants. But all else was uncertain, lost in a fog of paranoia so acute that I am, even now, waiting for the video of my foolishness to show up on YouTube.
Which is, I think, a comment on mod'ren media, if I may slide into my pretentious theorizing. I blame Alan Funt, he started it. With the technology of his day, he entrapped people in ridiculous situations, recording them for our amusement. Now, ABC News has "What Would You Do?" a hideous program described as (and I quote): "ABC's hidden camera, ethical dilemma series What Would You Do? puts ordinary people on the spot. From bullying to abuse, racial attacks and public humiliation, John Quinones captures people's split-second and often surprising decisions when they're thrust into real-life ethical scenarios." Fuck John Quinones, though, to be fair, he's just riding the surveillance wave that's cresting on the Internet, where temporary idiocy lives forever. I spent some portion of the evening looking for cameras, so convinced was I that the situation couldn't possibly be unfolding as it was.
But it was. Strange and deep conversations. Matters of etiquette! Laughter in the garage, and a complete inability on my part to determine when the evening was actually over. Which is fine. My gracious hosts were patient with my neuroticism, or at least put on a good show of it.
It's morning now--and will remain so for another fifteen minutes--and what I really want is pancakes. I see that in my future. I feel as though I've made a foray into an uncharted land, because I'm strange that way about new people. Who are they? I don't really know yet. Sometimes I'm struck dumb by the sheer oddness of our skull-encased consciousness: we toddle around, a perceiving "I," a thing-that-sees, an awareness wrapped in meat studded with sensory receptors, bumping into similarly-clad and equipped Others, each of us truly alone because of the quarter-inch of bone which forms the tureen that holds our neuronal soup. We can pass messages out of the mixture, information encoded in the vibrations of the air, with subtlety lent by the light that bounces from the expressions of our faces. But all of that is just packets moving from hand to hand, letters from the soul, their true author always hidden, never really seen.
One can achieve great facility with the language, become a raconteur of personal experience. But in the end?
We're never entirely sure that we're not just making the whole thing up.
nice story ian. forgot about the laugh therapy sessions....