Thursday, May 27, 2010
Wet/Hot/Big
The weather today was one. The weather yesterday, half of one. At night I can hear rain falling through the walls. Sleeping outside... How many worlds ago was it when I slept outside in the rain. Maybe, never. When the weather is a one, like today, my body will slow... be, heavy. This morning, I took my guitar case to school in it, 1, but couldn't practice my songs with enthusiasm. The older generation knows the weather patterns. I heard directly from a few of them, from this time of year, every year, the number is doing preparations to get heavier and stickier, and it will make you sweat to stand. Today is still a 1. I must train my body.
Monday, May 10, 2010
If this were a tiny article in the Spokesman Review, the editor would title it, 'Breaking the Silence,' (because it's a code deeper than we realize!)
Today I became a drag queen opera diva again.
I found an empty room in the basement of the club building at the Christian University in Tokyo.
In the practice room hall that I didn't know I could enter so easily, in the basement, I returned to drag queen opera diva form.
I found an empty room in the basement of the club building at the Christian University in Tokyo.
In the practice room hall that I didn't know I could enter so easily, in the basement, I returned to drag queen opera diva form.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Scientist Girl's Do-Nothing Robot
(In a single hour, Scientist Girl will leave the club meeting. A monologue along these lines is being performed inside of Scientist Girl's head) While the rest of the club members are chatting on and on about old things: space shuttles, automatic libraries and the like, Scientist Girl will suggest the development of a standard robot to be used as a presence in homes that have been left dark by families on vacation. The club members will perk their ears upon hearing the idea, but communicate only disinterest with wrist flopping. Six hands will drag the air down with eyes unattached, mouths unattached, and already the beginnings of new segues into less realistic chatter will have begun. Scientist girl will take this as a sign of her own superiority made irrefutably obvious and leave the club room, and return home to build her presence robot.
It will take Scientist Girl a full week of little sleep to complete the robot, but she will work hard, knowing that when the club members see the presence robot worked into being, she'll have changed their thinking, and all at once, become one of them again. She will use expensive materials.
The robot will be named Zen-Ryoku2, standing fashionably on legs and wheels, with a steel head just bigger than the average human head (increasing its presence) and covered with leather.
1 month will pass and Zen-Ryoku2's picture will be posted on the wall for the next hundred club meetings as a show of Scientist Girl's accomplishment. Scientist Girl will feel electric.
2 months will pass and Zen-Ryoku2 will have been tested once. The test will have been a success, but later Zen-Ryoku2 will start acting in unexpected ways. Zen-Ryoku2 will start writing self-empowering poems everyday, and standing in the windows every now and then, even when no one has left the house. The closet that will keep Zen-Ryoku2 will become a mess with scraps of paper taken from the junk drawers in the kitchen, each scratched by one of Zen-Ryoku2's poems. One reads:
MY BODY ASSEMBLED
IN SUPER HEAVEN
HEART OF HUNDRED LIONS PURRING
GROWN GARDEN BATHING IN SUN
Another one will read:
PLEASE, WHY
on an orange Little Caesars' HALF-OFF 10" PIZZA coupon.
Other non-sense:
僕は今
天気を愛してる
乾燥した性格の周りの人
に伝えたい
何を
Zen-Ryoku2 will not stop even after being glared at, even after having been scolded by other body-languages.
If he continues to stand out when it isn't needed, there's something wrong, Scientist Girl will say gravely. Scientist Girl will tell the other club members that and all will repeat it over again, adding the nods of all their long-haired beautiful heads.
Zen-Ryoku2 will disappear from the house.
The night that Scientist Girl will want to make him pretty, with the reasoning 'if it's going to stand in the window all day and be in the way all of the time it may as well have a scent,' she will open the closet and find not even the poems.
It will take Scientist Girl a full week of little sleep to complete the robot, but she will work hard, knowing that when the club members see the presence robot worked into being, she'll have changed their thinking, and all at once, become one of them again. She will use expensive materials.
The robot will be named Zen-Ryoku2, standing fashionably on legs and wheels, with a steel head just bigger than the average human head (increasing its presence) and covered with leather.
1 month will pass and Zen-Ryoku2's picture will be posted on the wall for the next hundred club meetings as a show of Scientist Girl's accomplishment. Scientist Girl will feel electric.
2 months will pass and Zen-Ryoku2 will have been tested once. The test will have been a success, but later Zen-Ryoku2 will start acting in unexpected ways. Zen-Ryoku2 will start writing self-empowering poems everyday, and standing in the windows every now and then, even when no one has left the house. The closet that will keep Zen-Ryoku2 will become a mess with scraps of paper taken from the junk drawers in the kitchen, each scratched by one of Zen-Ryoku2's poems. One reads:
MY BODY ASSEMBLED
IN SUPER HEAVEN
HEART OF HUNDRED LIONS PURRING
GROWN GARDEN BATHING IN SUN
Another one will read:
PLEASE, WHY
on an orange Little Caesars' HALF-OFF 10" PIZZA coupon.
Other non-sense:
僕は今
天気を愛してる
乾燥した性格の周りの人
に伝えたい
何を
Zen-Ryoku2 will not stop even after being glared at, even after having been scolded by other body-languages.
If he continues to stand out when it isn't needed, there's something wrong, Scientist Girl will say gravely. Scientist Girl will tell the other club members that and all will repeat it over again, adding the nods of all their long-haired beautiful heads.
Zen-Ryoku2 will disappear from the house.
The night that Scientist Girl will want to make him pretty, with the reasoning 'if it's going to stand in the window all day and be in the way all of the time it may as well have a scent,' she will open the closet and find not even the poems.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Bugs Return to Japan
Japan has been a cold, wet place without curious bugs for a long time. But recently as the temperature rises everyday a little, you discover again spider webs have been made for you to walk through. You leave the house and tear an invisible line and it tickles, and you fear those big cartoon spiders, and one sticking its towering, yellow-green legs into the fabric of your shirt somewhere. But you never find a cartoon spider or even any spider. And so you go out and you come home and you wash your hands and you put your bag down in the room and get on your computer and turn on a fan and try to find the classes you need for the fall semester, and in the meantime that spider whose web you ran into and through when you left the house today, and also the second one you ran into on the way back, well both of those cartoon spiders are in the room now! grown to HUMAN-SIZE behind your back they just flick their tongues, and as if blind-folded face seemingly without intent of doing anything towards directions not worth mentioning, the thoughts of the cartoon spiders are impossible to read, but if you saw even the ease, the tongue flicking would make you scared. But they leave you, they leave the room quietly, leave the house, go into the city and don't come back. Was it you? Or maybe they don't remember how to come back? Regardless, secret webs collide into you at every awning you pass under everyday and you come home and you've never ever met any spiders.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Happy to sit on kids day
The sounds of France. Chilly water sprinkling the top of our forehead, and the whistling of an accordion. The clicking of a bike tire being walked through a busy park. The whispers of scuffling feet on warm sidewalk. The bike tire’s clicking fades off and sounds of water are orchestrated to get louder. In Japan, a popular stringed instrument clucked by the hand of an old group of men, taking turns. Those men have counter-parts in the United States still chasing hair-metal dreams that went away for everyone else thirty years ago. This park is like a dream, it's the one that keeps on being recreated in movies, bumped up and up from below and kept above water. Then, what’s under water? Sea creatures. And what’s above? Swan boats with two people driving from the inside, clumsy like giant plastic children breaking up the small schools of living ducks whose home is the park. Then what of the dream? Is it still floating? Yes, of course, it isn’t like other dreams. This one is for real. Does that make it last? No. It’s just a coincidence, maybe. But this dream was chosen by everyone without anyone choosing. Which is it again? I can’t see it. You aren’t seeing it? It’s the one with the balloons and the music. In the mall? No, but there are clowns too. But it isn’t anything like the mall; there’s no water or breeze in a mall. That’s not true, what of fountains? And air conditioning? They aren’t real. And the dream is? Yes. Something you can feel is real? Not always. Are you real? Yes. Am I? I’m not sure if you are or if you aren’t. Because I’m me, and that’s all I know. How do you know? I control my limbs, I experience my thoughts, I get angry, I get sad. Is that the same as the dream? ??... You can feel it and so it is real? Yes. I see. Are you hungry yet? No. That bag is heavy isn’t it, I’m sorry that I asked you to carry it, I brought it after all. It’s ok, my arms don't hurt.
The girl walking by the man on the phone in the park, ‘It’s like a scarf.’ The man in the park, ‘it’s like a scarf’ into his phone.
Three types of boats on the lake, the swan, which you know of already, for certain, do you remember? Yes. The other two, well you can see for yourself. No. Ok, one was made in the same factory as the swan boat, but there was no head put on it, and painted yellow. Same mechanics, people kick from the inside, steer with a wheel. … The other is a plain rowboat, like the one your dad took you on when you were 8, remember you told me that story? Yeah. Could you tell it again? I don’t remember what day it was, or what the weather was like. We woke up so- early, it may have been the earliest I had ever waken up in my life except for at Easter mass and except for Christmas when still I cant sleep. It was 3:30 and dad woke me and my brother up, I remember the tackle boxes, then I remember the wetness, then my mind jumps to when we’re in the boat, and the sky is hardly awake, pale grey and purple, we found a half sunken barn in the lake with its door spreading open halfway above the water, but the top was low and so we had to duck our heads to get in. when we got in. the window of the barn from the inside made outside look bright. There were spiders on the walls, all sorts of bugs that I didn't, couldn't see, it was so exciting. Did you catch anything in there? No, I don’t think so. I don't remember fishing in there, I remember just going in, and being excited and afraid.
I should know better than to bring you out with me! Unbelievable! What? What do you me-an what! You know what! I didn’t see anything! Why don’t you open your eyes! You idiot! You could have destroyed something just then! You don’t spill over a carriage and then give excuses! Thank god there was nothing in there! Well, there wasn't anything in there, so don't be so angry. But you don’t understand! Aren’t you shocked at yourself? No, it wasn’t my fault, I didn’t born myself into this type of place.
The man on the harmonica has the precision of an accordion player and I’ve never seen someone play like him before. Look! No. If you keep your eyes closed you’ll lose your sight! I hope I do. Oh you do? Well why don’t I just take care of that, you should have asked, lucky for you I’ve kept my fingernails long enough to reach the back. No! Don’t! Open your eyes or I’ll do it… Fine… No! Okay. Okay, okay!
Lucy’s eyelashes flickered with a florescent start and then raised. Her yellow eyes made as though she saw nothing, visibly upset at being threatened and at herself for having done what Honey Bunny asked. ‘Honey Bunny, how old are you?’ ‘Why?’ ‘You’ve been around since last February, when we met at the restaurant, and so you must be at least that old, but come on, where were you born?’ ‘I don’t want to tell you because I don’t want you to get upset.’ ‘Why would I get upset? I’m upset now!’ Lucy picked up Honey Bunny’s bag and pulled out some papers, then in silence began swallowing up the words written from top to bottom with her lion eyes. ‘That’s nothing. Just receipt stuff from tickets to a show I bought yesterday. Miss Hungry Jeneeva sang at the Core Stone’ ‘Who? Where?’ ‘The Core Stone, you remember don’t you? The big, big oval building, like an egg on its bottom, balanced in the middle of a little town with so few buildings that its all you see of the town for a long time on your way there from any direction. The town is called Jillian.’ ‘Remember?’ ‘Of course, I’m telling you to remember.’ ‘Remember… I do remember.’ ‘Of course you do.’
The girl walking by the man on the phone in the park, ‘It’s like a scarf.’ The man in the park, ‘it’s like a scarf’ into his phone.
Three types of boats on the lake, the swan, which you know of already, for certain, do you remember? Yes. The other two, well you can see for yourself. No. Ok, one was made in the same factory as the swan boat, but there was no head put on it, and painted yellow. Same mechanics, people kick from the inside, steer with a wheel. … The other is a plain rowboat, like the one your dad took you on when you were 8, remember you told me that story? Yeah. Could you tell it again? I don’t remember what day it was, or what the weather was like. We woke up so- early, it may have been the earliest I had ever waken up in my life except for at Easter mass and except for Christmas when still I cant sleep. It was 3:30 and dad woke me and my brother up, I remember the tackle boxes, then I remember the wetness, then my mind jumps to when we’re in the boat, and the sky is hardly awake, pale grey and purple, we found a half sunken barn in the lake with its door spreading open halfway above the water, but the top was low and so we had to duck our heads to get in. when we got in. the window of the barn from the inside made outside look bright. There were spiders on the walls, all sorts of bugs that I didn't, couldn't see, it was so exciting. Did you catch anything in there? No, I don’t think so. I don't remember fishing in there, I remember just going in, and being excited and afraid.
I should know better than to bring you out with me! Unbelievable! What? What do you me-an what! You know what! I didn’t see anything! Why don’t you open your eyes! You idiot! You could have destroyed something just then! You don’t spill over a carriage and then give excuses! Thank god there was nothing in there! Well, there wasn't anything in there, so don't be so angry. But you don’t understand! Aren’t you shocked at yourself? No, it wasn’t my fault, I didn’t born myself into this type of place.
The man on the harmonica has the precision of an accordion player and I’ve never seen someone play like him before. Look! No. If you keep your eyes closed you’ll lose your sight! I hope I do. Oh you do? Well why don’t I just take care of that, you should have asked, lucky for you I’ve kept my fingernails long enough to reach the back. No! Don’t! Open your eyes or I’ll do it… Fine… No! Okay. Okay, okay!
Lucy’s eyelashes flickered with a florescent start and then raised. Her yellow eyes made as though she saw nothing, visibly upset at being threatened and at herself for having done what Honey Bunny asked. ‘Honey Bunny, how old are you?’ ‘Why?’ ‘You’ve been around since last February, when we met at the restaurant, and so you must be at least that old, but come on, where were you born?’ ‘I don’t want to tell you because I don’t want you to get upset.’ ‘Why would I get upset? I’m upset now!’ Lucy picked up Honey Bunny’s bag and pulled out some papers, then in silence began swallowing up the words written from top to bottom with her lion eyes. ‘That’s nothing. Just receipt stuff from tickets to a show I bought yesterday. Miss Hungry Jeneeva sang at the Core Stone’ ‘Who? Where?’ ‘The Core Stone, you remember don’t you? The big, big oval building, like an egg on its bottom, balanced in the middle of a little town with so few buildings that its all you see of the town for a long time on your way there from any direction. The town is called Jillian.’ ‘Remember?’ ‘Of course, I’m telling you to remember.’ ‘Remember… I do remember.’ ‘Of course you do.’
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