Last night Spencer was telling me about the lyrics to How do you sleep? * by John Lennon, we agreed that sometimes John Lennon was a small man while we drank tea and ate cup cakes fresh from the oven. Last night there was nothing above us save bats, stars and darkness but today I discovered how easy it is to be small, how anger writes my emails for me while my head thinks calmly of washing dishes. I'm listening to McCartney's Fireman album Electric Arguments online as punishment.
I prefer the false intimacy of madness to those plodding people, backyards planted thick with Sunday afternoons, this as always has been my downfall.
I had a terrible time when I went to Queensland with Superman. Early on in the trip Superman ceased all the usual modes of expressing friendship, such as acknowledging my presence or consenting to conversation and abandoned me almost entirely to his beige ** and ever present relatives who eyed me suspiciously and talked quietly about the way Superman was not talking to me. The house itself had some potential but was decorated so hideously and situated so firmly in that particular kind of Queensland suburban isolation that the building itself bred oppression. The people were not unkind but I drifted through days bored, ignored, isolated and trapped. Having lost my wallet and broken my phone I was unable to plan any kind of independent escape. I watched the heavy hours pass, unwilling or unable to talk to Superman and risk his unreasonable anger in response.
When I returned to The Peach, after twelve stretched days of extreme politeness and a constant biting of my tongue, I determined to irrevocably terminate my friendship with Superman. My friends dissuaded me, counseled me with caution, begged me to take some time to think it over, the lovely Rita being a watchful guardian against impulsive action. So I did and I was until Superman messaged me out of the blue about Bill Callahan tickets and I replied in my sleep. If I had been fully conscious I would not have gone. I sat on the train opposite Superman thinking well I might as well see what kind of a time I have, and in the end it was not bad so I invited him to my birthday dinner, eventually, as instructed by friends.
I invited him to my birthday dinner but received no reply, not even Grizelda who was in charge of booking the table received a reply to her kind text message. I received no reply until almost the night itself, I did not expect him to attend but attend he did. He attended without so much as a scrawled message of happy birthday on the back of an envelope but with a battery of narkiness, a determination not to enter into conversation with me or anybody except a baffled Grizelda and then he left, straight after dinner, leaving me shrugging my shoulders on a street corner.
I thought I might try and talk to Superman about this business and to ask him to return some albums he had borrowed, but he would not take my calls, I sent an email asking if it was me he was avoiding or just people in general, thinking I would approach the issue with an enquiry instead of an assumption. Most often I have avoided writing anything of consequence about Superman, to avoid having one of his great and petulant misunderstandings, but right about now I don't really give a damn, I am quite certain that no matter what I do or say he will alter every meaning of every syllable until it sounds like the ringing in his head and he ticks off another box on his list of always being right.
A week passed before I received any reply but such a reply I most certainly did not expect to receive. I am shocked at his arrogance, petulance, selfishness and general ability to shove his head so far up his own arse whilst still uttering audible insults. I am shocked despite my knowledge of his character and temperament, I am shocked despite all of my past tongue bitings during his interminable lectures on How Superman Sees The World And Why He Is Correct And Also Why You Would Be Stupid If You Disagreed (or dared to believe in love). I once again find myself more angry than you can imagine, or at least I was until I felt embarrassed and humiliated for allowing myself to imagine that Superman and I were friends. I feel embarrassed and humiliated for all my bendings to his will, for my silences when I disagreed, for my defence of his character to all and sundry, for holding off the official Superman Is A Prick ceremony that some others attempted to invoke some time ago and for batting away my idle wonderings that such a good man has so paltry a circle of friends, that he hardly ever has any contact with.
Hold the phone I just received an email reply, the single word "fine". So fine it is, here ends the brief but eventful friendship of Dale Slamma and Superman, during which Dale Slamma lost her job, her car, her wallet, her phone, her confidence and for a short time, her backbone. Pass me my hatchet I've some work to do.
* How do you sleep?
by John Lennon - about Paul McCartney
So Sgt. Pepper took you by surprise
You better see right through that mother's eyes
Those freaks was right when they said you was dead
The one mistake you made was in your head
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?
You live with straights who tell you you was king
Jump when your momma tell you anything
The only thing you done was yesterday
And since you're gone you're just another day
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?
A pretty face may last a year or two
But pretty soon they'll see what you can do
The sound you make is muzak to my ears
You must have learned something in all those years
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?
** Superman's sister Ol' Mon Mon is not a beige person, she is an ideal person.
Showing posts with label Superman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Superman. Show all posts
Indignation afoot
I have become angry at my foot, just as Gemma was angry with her tonsils. I don't about Gemma's tonsils but my foot is letting me down. I haven't had a car since Superman smashed and killed the Zammercarship (and after that our friendship) so for three years now I've been walking everywhere I want to go. I had intended to buy a bicycle but Mr Oddweird put an end to that dream by requiring me to save my all of money for bond on a new house.
This is where the foot comes in again. I need it to walk with. I need it to get to work in the morning and back home in the afternoon. I need it take me to the shops and down the hall to the kitchen and back up the hall to the bathroom and then wherever else in the house I wish to be. I need my foot to work.
My foot doesn't work. It hurts when I wriggle my toes, it hurts when I roll over in bed, the other day it hurt when I turned on the shower and water hit my skin. It hurts when I stretch my leg or stand up or sit down or put on a loose sock.
I'm packing up the contents of The Peach one-legged and unsteady. Yesterday I spent four hours ironing every piece of linen in the house, standing on one leg. The story of packing is boring, even on one leg. First I select a cupboard or drawer or corner and go through every item checking if I need it or can donate it to charity, sell it or throw it out. I thought I would be overwhelmed by the onslaught of memories inadvertently attached to every tiny thing I own. This is what has happened in the past but I find myself enjoying the ruthlessness of culling. I don't know if its the crazy pills, the foot or lingering thought that this house turned out just to be a house and nothing more. Nothing like the temple of my personal salvation I thought it was going to be or was, from my time to time. Nothing but walls and a place for me to wander around in temporarily.
I am finding that I can't follow a thread of thought. I am unsure about almost everything except the urgent need to cull and ongoing anger at my broken foot. People keep asking what the new house is going to be called. I suspect it might end up being The Embassy. I don't think that's a very good name but it floated out of my mouth while I stood at the front gate with my left palm flat against the brick wall topped with wrought iron spikes. The Embassy. It sounds ridiculous, more ridiculous than The Peach. What are we to be called? Ambassadors? Diplomats? That's even worse than Peachettes. I suppose I'll think on it a little, when I stop being angry at my foot.
This is where the foot comes in again. I need it to walk with. I need it to get to work in the morning and back home in the afternoon. I need it take me to the shops and down the hall to the kitchen and back up the hall to the bathroom and then wherever else in the house I wish to be. I need my foot to work.
My foot doesn't work. It hurts when I wriggle my toes, it hurts when I roll over in bed, the other day it hurt when I turned on the shower and water hit my skin. It hurts when I stretch my leg or stand up or sit down or put on a loose sock.
I'm packing up the contents of The Peach one-legged and unsteady. Yesterday I spent four hours ironing every piece of linen in the house, standing on one leg. The story of packing is boring, even on one leg. First I select a cupboard or drawer or corner and go through every item checking if I need it or can donate it to charity, sell it or throw it out. I thought I would be overwhelmed by the onslaught of memories inadvertently attached to every tiny thing I own. This is what has happened in the past but I find myself enjoying the ruthlessness of culling. I don't know if its the crazy pills, the foot or lingering thought that this house turned out just to be a house and nothing more. Nothing like the temple of my personal salvation I thought it was going to be or was, from my time to time. Nothing but walls and a place for me to wander around in temporarily.
I am finding that I can't follow a thread of thought. I am unsure about almost everything except the urgent need to cull and ongoing anger at my broken foot. People keep asking what the new house is going to be called. I suspect it might end up being The Embassy. I don't think that's a very good name but it floated out of my mouth while I stood at the front gate with my left palm flat against the brick wall topped with wrought iron spikes. The Embassy. It sounds ridiculous, more ridiculous than The Peach. What are we to be called? Ambassadors? Diplomats? That's even worse than Peachettes. I suppose I'll think on it a little, when I stop being angry at my foot.
Damp towel brings joy to undisturbed woman who sits contemplating doing a crime
Everyone is talking about love, who loves them, or doesn't, or should, did or could or who they love or don't, or want to, will do or could. I'm not listening to them because as usual I am thinking about myself. I used to love and it was terrible.
Sometimes it was fine or good or mildly excellent but most of the time it was terrible. In theory it was good, someone to share the bills and the worries and the joys and the chores and the adventure but most of the men I have loved, even platonic love, were impractical creatures and more trouble than use in most matters. Almost all of them were deliberately selfish, except Artboy who was basically Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia but without the expensive wedding dress.
When I reflect on the compromises I used to make, the effort I used to go to, the time and energy and worry I gave away, I feel a little ill. Like a mild dose of flu of experienced at high speed but then it is gone and I am here again. When I say here I mean in The Peach, in the present, in my reading glasses and a damp towel with nothing on my mind or my to do list except what I want.
This is ideal. What I love is this, being able to sit around in my reading glasses and damp towel and know that I will remain undisturbed. Well at least until Grizelda shouts down the hallway about cupcakes. She is insisting on making red cupcakes with heart-shaped pink icing thingos to give to the people at her work tomorrow, because she is thinking about love.
I am thinking about stealing one of the cupcakes and how fortunate I am to own more than one towel. I plan on leaving both towel and cupcake wrapper on the floor overnight.
Sometimes it was fine or good or mildly excellent but most of the time it was terrible. In theory it was good, someone to share the bills and the worries and the joys and the chores and the adventure but most of the men I have loved, even platonic love, were impractical creatures and more trouble than use in most matters. Almost all of them were deliberately selfish, except Artboy who was basically Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia but without the expensive wedding dress.
When I reflect on the compromises I used to make, the effort I used to go to, the time and energy and worry I gave away, I feel a little ill. Like a mild dose of flu of experienced at high speed but then it is gone and I am here again. When I say here I mean in The Peach, in the present, in my reading glasses and a damp towel with nothing on my mind or my to do list except what I want.
This is ideal. What I love is this, being able to sit around in my reading glasses and damp towel and know that I will remain undisturbed. Well at least until Grizelda shouts down the hallway about cupcakes. She is insisting on making red cupcakes with heart-shaped pink icing thingos to give to the people at her work tomorrow, because she is thinking about love.
I am thinking about stealing one of the cupcakes and how fortunate I am to own more than one towel. I plan on leaving both towel and cupcake wrapper on the floor overnight.
Flapping at my kitchen wall
I thought if this lament is unending then lord let us cry. I was curled like an old plastic chip packet heated in the oven, inelegantly wetting the front of my shirt with an unrelenting flow of tears when a crow hit The Peach windows with a powerful thud and crumpling of feathers. Some days are wet with soup, tea and tears. Some days demand you walk up and down the hallway or follow the movement of light across the floor. This day I needed nothing more than to have freedom enough to feel.
The bird flew away but I was left stunned with my hands on the kitchen sink, immobile and staring at the place where the bird collided with my glass wall. The phone rang, it was Artboy, I made a silent dash and scramble to pause The Way We Were and shake off my crow-weirdness. Hubbell stood frozen at the end of Katie's hospital bed staring at her as his wife for the last time. I don't know how she stood it. I can see why everybody was going crazy for Barbara Streisand, her hands are entirely elegant and there is something about the way she stands and delivers a line. I talked to Artboy for hours while I stared at the frozen Hubbell in his Hollywood jacket and Cobra Kai haircut. I suppose the bad man from The Karate Kid was trying to look like Robert Redford but it took until today to work that out. I've never seen The Way We Were before.
A submerged and profound grief rolled in me like a whale in a pool as I spoke to Artboy today. Talking to anyone else feels like a waste of words but then I catch myself and remember I have my own life now. I have this freedom and joy. I have a house in the city and a media pass. I have friends and a magazine and a small but respectable stack of published work. I have my cat and my desk and I can tell people at parties that I am a Rock Journalist and it is not a lie. I told Artboy nobody ever thinks of Ted Hughes, what it must have been like to live with Sylvia Plath as her illness consumed every corner of his life. I don't know how he stood it.
After Artboy and the close of one of those conversations that jump syllable to syllable like synapses I finished The Way We Were and moved on Into The Wild. It was one of those stories that Loene Carmen sums up best by saying 'trying to romanticise what a cunt you are'.* He had a kind of Superman syndrome where he took the ordinary troubles of life and wound them so tight around his heart and fists that he was punching everyone, including himself, without feeling the blows. Stopped the beat of his heart because he thought he was only one who heard the noise of it. I didn't notice this about Superman until it was too late and I was interstate and trapped inside a house with his family's Christmas leftovers.
I didn't weep for the man who fled like a child into the wild but I did weep. I wept great heaving soundless sobs while I knelt down to choose movies, I wept as I washed dishes in the sink, spread marmalade on my toast, poured tea from the pot. There was no great sorrow, my mind was on ordinary matters much as it always is. I formatted my new hard drive sitting on the lounge room floor taking care not to tip tears into the keyboard of my laptop. My need for unfettered expression was profound, solid as the foundations of the earth. I suppose it as simple as this, monsoons sometimes happen as far south as Sydney.
* From the album Rock'n'Roll Tears - listen to it.
The bird flew away but I was left stunned with my hands on the kitchen sink, immobile and staring at the place where the bird collided with my glass wall. The phone rang, it was Artboy, I made a silent dash and scramble to pause The Way We Were and shake off my crow-weirdness. Hubbell stood frozen at the end of Katie's hospital bed staring at her as his wife for the last time. I don't know how she stood it. I can see why everybody was going crazy for Barbara Streisand, her hands are entirely elegant and there is something about the way she stands and delivers a line. I talked to Artboy for hours while I stared at the frozen Hubbell in his Hollywood jacket and Cobra Kai haircut. I suppose the bad man from The Karate Kid was trying to look like Robert Redford but it took until today to work that out. I've never seen The Way We Were before.
A submerged and profound grief rolled in me like a whale in a pool as I spoke to Artboy today. Talking to anyone else feels like a waste of words but then I catch myself and remember I have my own life now. I have this freedom and joy. I have a house in the city and a media pass. I have friends and a magazine and a small but respectable stack of published work. I have my cat and my desk and I can tell people at parties that I am a Rock Journalist and it is not a lie. I told Artboy nobody ever thinks of Ted Hughes, what it must have been like to live with Sylvia Plath as her illness consumed every corner of his life. I don't know how he stood it.
After Artboy and the close of one of those conversations that jump syllable to syllable like synapses I finished The Way We Were and moved on Into The Wild. It was one of those stories that Loene Carmen sums up best by saying 'trying to romanticise what a cunt you are'.* He had a kind of Superman syndrome where he took the ordinary troubles of life and wound them so tight around his heart and fists that he was punching everyone, including himself, without feeling the blows. Stopped the beat of his heart because he thought he was only one who heard the noise of it. I didn't notice this about Superman until it was too late and I was interstate and trapped inside a house with his family's Christmas leftovers.
I didn't weep for the man who fled like a child into the wild but I did weep. I wept great heaving soundless sobs while I knelt down to choose movies, I wept as I washed dishes in the sink, spread marmalade on my toast, poured tea from the pot. There was no great sorrow, my mind was on ordinary matters much as it always is. I formatted my new hard drive sitting on the lounge room floor taking care not to tip tears into the keyboard of my laptop. My need for unfettered expression was profound, solid as the foundations of the earth. I suppose it as simple as this, monsoons sometimes happen as far south as Sydney.
* From the album Rock'n'Roll Tears - listen to it.
First draft after walking through Central at lunch time with two fans and one man
I could tunnel to America
using sharp facts I want to forget about you
Your Moses hurled me from the mountain
Rained down stones that I swallowed like lead
using sharp facts I want to forget about you
Your Moses hurled me from the mountain
Rained down stones that I swallowed like lead
Are trains electric?
It was curious but I found myself to be nervous. At first I was unsure as to why I was covered in a light sheen of sweat, had a heightened awareness of sound and a general inability to finish my piece of banana bread but it soon became clear that I was nervous.
I harbor no real desire to become a train driver, my motivation for undertaking this lengthy and trying process is more complex and unreasonable than the jurisprudence of equity, and I think you might find that equity has more to do with reasons for taking train driver tests than you first thought.
I was surprised, though I shouldn't have been, to find myself standing in a crowd of men dressed in their smart casual best. Their hideous hair was tied back, gelled down or spike upwards. They all wore pale button up shirts,ill fitting trousers and awful shoes. Somebody else had ironed their shirts. There were about 170 of us, we were herded, inspected, marked off on lists. I was not uncomfortable, not once the pencils came out and we were sat down at desks.
Train driver exams are tremendously enjoyable. It must be a hangover from law school but sitting silently amongst row upon row of people concentrating furiously felt like home. This disturbs me greatly.
The first exam was a knockout round, anybody failing to meet the required and undisclosed score was asked to leave. At first I was pleased to pass test after test but then I heard some of the men talking amongst themselves near a lift shaft. These men have not taken exams, unless it was part of learning a trade. They do not read for pleasure, do puzzles in newspapers or think in unfurling abstract strands. I thought I could be one of them, trying my best with the provided pencils, but something more than a lack of penis in my underpants separated me from the herd and I felt nothing but shame.
Recently I have begun to think that university was a waste of my time. I feel nothing but a sense of awkward regret when I look over those five difficult years. My new and thankfully temporary boss said that I was wasted in my present position, that I would be much better off somewhere else though she still begged to keep me. I am tired of trying to find interesting, challenging and meaningful work. I am exhausted from towing around all this knowledge, the heavy memories of contorting myself to accommodate everything academic. I knew what I wanted to say when I was the shower but it has now become unclear, this is a product of my exhaustion.
I am shedding people faster than dead skin cells, Superman wasn't the first and he certainly wasn't the last. I am exhausted by the mantle of my learning, I am exhausted by people who do not think and require me to do all the thinking. I am exhausted by people who think they are thinking but they are not, they are not even close to the idea of reason. I am tired of people who live in the suburbs and pour judgement across my way of life. I want to sit here, in this city, and type. I am confused about meanings, motivations and just why I dedicated myself to so much learning with no beneficial outcomes.
I want to cry out the maxims of equity, hold up my clean hands and beg for restitution. I want to unlearn all this learning and find myself suddenly just another face in a crowd. I want to gel down hideous hair and laugh with the others at the idea of thinking. I want to wear uniforms kindly provided and view my roster no more than two weeks in advance. I want to tell people at parties I'm just a train driver, I know nothing of anything but signals and patience and the popular easy to read novel tucked into my ugly bag.
Last night I dreamt I was flesh made into a totem pole. I stood three metres high in the middle of a park, sturdy, cylindrical and ancient. I was not carved but constructed, my sides panelled with cassette decks. Every time I thought of anything at all the cassette doors flew open and the force of my will ejected tapes like rockets all around me. All night I ejected tapes faster than the speed of light, across the park and into the stratosphere. I still feel like this, ejecting and rejecting with frightening speed and precision. I don't know what I'm doing but it feels necessary. I might wake up tomorrow and laugh at my train driving exam adventure or I might wake up, call in sick and spend the day writing lists of things I do not like. The future is unclear.
I harbor no real desire to become a train driver, my motivation for undertaking this lengthy and trying process is more complex and unreasonable than the jurisprudence of equity, and I think you might find that equity has more to do with reasons for taking train driver tests than you first thought.
I was surprised, though I shouldn't have been, to find myself standing in a crowd of men dressed in their smart casual best. Their hideous hair was tied back, gelled down or spike upwards. They all wore pale button up shirts,ill fitting trousers and awful shoes. Somebody else had ironed their shirts. There were about 170 of us, we were herded, inspected, marked off on lists. I was not uncomfortable, not once the pencils came out and we were sat down at desks.
Train driver exams are tremendously enjoyable. It must be a hangover from law school but sitting silently amongst row upon row of people concentrating furiously felt like home. This disturbs me greatly.
The first exam was a knockout round, anybody failing to meet the required and undisclosed score was asked to leave. At first I was pleased to pass test after test but then I heard some of the men talking amongst themselves near a lift shaft. These men have not taken exams, unless it was part of learning a trade. They do not read for pleasure, do puzzles in newspapers or think in unfurling abstract strands. I thought I could be one of them, trying my best with the provided pencils, but something more than a lack of penis in my underpants separated me from the herd and I felt nothing but shame.
Recently I have begun to think that university was a waste of my time. I feel nothing but a sense of awkward regret when I look over those five difficult years. My new and thankfully temporary boss said that I was wasted in my present position, that I would be much better off somewhere else though she still begged to keep me. I am tired of trying to find interesting, challenging and meaningful work. I am exhausted from towing around all this knowledge, the heavy memories of contorting myself to accommodate everything academic. I knew what I wanted to say when I was the shower but it has now become unclear, this is a product of my exhaustion.
I am shedding people faster than dead skin cells, Superman wasn't the first and he certainly wasn't the last. I am exhausted by the mantle of my learning, I am exhausted by people who do not think and require me to do all the thinking. I am exhausted by people who think they are thinking but they are not, they are not even close to the idea of reason. I am tired of people who live in the suburbs and pour judgement across my way of life. I want to sit here, in this city, and type. I am confused about meanings, motivations and just why I dedicated myself to so much learning with no beneficial outcomes.
I want to cry out the maxims of equity, hold up my clean hands and beg for restitution. I want to unlearn all this learning and find myself suddenly just another face in a crowd. I want to gel down hideous hair and laugh with the others at the idea of thinking. I want to wear uniforms kindly provided and view my roster no more than two weeks in advance. I want to tell people at parties I'm just a train driver, I know nothing of anything but signals and patience and the popular easy to read novel tucked into my ugly bag.
Last night I dreamt I was flesh made into a totem pole. I stood three metres high in the middle of a park, sturdy, cylindrical and ancient. I was not carved but constructed, my sides panelled with cassette decks. Every time I thought of anything at all the cassette doors flew open and the force of my will ejected tapes like rockets all around me. All night I ejected tapes faster than the speed of light, across the park and into the stratosphere. I still feel like this, ejecting and rejecting with frightening speed and precision. I don't know what I'm doing but it feels necessary. I might wake up tomorrow and laugh at my train driving exam adventure or I might wake up, call in sick and spend the day writing lists of things I do not like. The future is unclear.
Detective Slamma once again solves the great unsolvable mysteries of the universe
I would like to blame science for most everything. Science does indeed have a lot to answer for but maybe this time the blame lies not with science but with superstition. A certain friend of mine or a person I formerly introduced as friend- the actions and intentions of friendship now seemingly over, is refusing to return phone calls or emails. This sudden shunning of The Slamma arises from no reason that I can fathom, for once in my adult life I have done nothing wrong, spoken no harsh and hasty words, performed no deed of betrayal or excessive mockery, indeed I am exceedingly puzzled.
This sudden and complete banning of all communication coincided with a small project of mine. Those of you attached the umbilical of Fspazbook may be aware of my attempt to develop a crush on Billy Ray Cyrus (so far with no success) but you might not be aware of my endeavour to become superstitious. At the dawn of the new year somewhere in Queensland completely surrounded by hippies I decided that what I most needed was to ward off the evil eye, that and a nice holiday, so I purchased a bracelet, a keyring and a wall hanging all sporting the nifty blue guaranteed to work anti-evil-eye blue bead or nazar boncugu, first devised somewhere near the Aegean thousands of years ago.
When I arrived home from my northern adventure I set to the work of believing and this is when said friend decided that I was no longer a person worth communicating with thus leaving me with the conclusion that perhaps they are evil and have been trying to return my calls but the power of superstition diverts the call to a local pizza house leaving them with no choice but to order pizza. Their entire house is now completely surrounded by pizza boxes and they are unable to leave the house. This is indeed testament to the power of not-science or perhaps I am mistaken there is a perfectly reasonable reason but surely common courtesy demands that they would at least send me a text message telling me to fuck off and outlining the reason as to why?
Did I mention that I am exceedingly puzzled?
Update: I was right! I will now advertise my services as a detective.
Harpooneer
I'm walking down the road trying to loosen my load, I've got seven things on my mind, four that want to make me, two that want to break me and one said he's a friend of mine, but I think that must be untrue.
I've half a mind to harpoon things. I'm already balancing like Qeequeg on the bow of all of my ships. I'm smoking tomahawks and setting wooden gods atop my very own head but people counsel caution saying there must be other things afoot. Perhaps there are but I know not what besides rabbit holes and everybody knows I am determined to steer clear of those.
I've half a mind to harpoon things. I'm already balancing like Qeequeg on the bow of all of my ships. I'm smoking tomahawks and setting wooden gods atop my very own head but people counsel caution saying there must be other things afoot. Perhaps there are but I know not what besides rabbit holes and everybody knows I am determined to steer clear of those.
A sleeping cat is more still than a sleeping horse, show me the colts it'll turn my bones to glass
I typed the letters 'y.e.s.' and pressed send. Five minutes later I woke up thinking 'that was an odd dream' but the phone was clutched in my sweaty left hand. I don't remember acquiring the skill of text messaging in my sleep, in fact I'm still surprised that my unconscious self was making decisions without me.
I tried to telephone and ask about the details of the plan thinking maybe I might like to think about this but he didn't answer, he sent a message saying 'get ready now', so I put my pants on and located my shoes. Next thing I knew I was sitting in a tent in Hyde Park watching Bill Callahan dance like a horse.
Bill Callahan has two dance moves, piaffe and the knee waggle, the rest of the time he's doing something akin to a hungry man singing into a refrigerator but don't let that idea stop you.
From the back the famous spiegeltent looks much like an ordinary tent, the kind hired for corporate functions when they want something round and ostensibly outdoors. From the front it looks like a movie circus prop but inside the floorboards flex under footsteps and eyes travel over velvet, mirrors and leadlight windows. I decided at once that I must live in the famous spiegeltent, and so I did, for about an hour.
Bill Callahan has a strange rhythm, like an old tree or your grandmother. It is soothing and terrifying to listen that man sing. Watch a dusk sky fill with bats. I kept wanting the light to fade, it was too light in there, too much dying light pouring in through leadlight windows. I wonder why the festival directors decided to run the night in that particular order? My other main problem was also non-musical, plastic chairs made of magic plastic that numbs the buttocks in record time. I wonder why the festival directors would spend so much money importing spiegeltents and Americans then find the worst plastic chairs in the world? I wanted to stand.
The drummer crawled rhythm, it is difficult to explain his style, loose, low and precise. He was painterly with his movement. I haven't much to say about the guitarist, he was playing guitar. The other night I sat in on a rehearsal with Belle Phoenix (much better now than is reflected in these recordings) where Spencer was playing guitar, I've a lot more to say about that guitar playing but Callahan himself is a different matter.
Callahan does what most musicians can't, he makes writing about his performance pale, pointless and callow. If you get the chance buy the ticket and take the ride. Stand if you can, in the dark forest of heads and shoulders trapping sounds and moments with small movements of your feet.
I tried to telephone and ask about the details of the plan thinking maybe I might like to think about this but he didn't answer, he sent a message saying 'get ready now', so I put my pants on and located my shoes. Next thing I knew I was sitting in a tent in Hyde Park watching Bill Callahan dance like a horse.
Bill Callahan has two dance moves, piaffe and the knee waggle, the rest of the time he's doing something akin to a hungry man singing into a refrigerator but don't let that idea stop you.
From the back the famous spiegeltent looks much like an ordinary tent, the kind hired for corporate functions when they want something round and ostensibly outdoors. From the front it looks like a movie circus prop but inside the floorboards flex under footsteps and eyes travel over velvet, mirrors and leadlight windows. I decided at once that I must live in the famous spiegeltent, and so I did, for about an hour.
Bill Callahan has a strange rhythm, like an old tree or your grandmother. It is soothing and terrifying to listen that man sing. Watch a dusk sky fill with bats. I kept wanting the light to fade, it was too light in there, too much dying light pouring in through leadlight windows. I wonder why the festival directors decided to run the night in that particular order? My other main problem was also non-musical, plastic chairs made of magic plastic that numbs the buttocks in record time. I wonder why the festival directors would spend so much money importing spiegeltents and Americans then find the worst plastic chairs in the world? I wanted to stand.
The drummer crawled rhythm, it is difficult to explain his style, loose, low and precise. He was painterly with his movement. I haven't much to say about the guitarist, he was playing guitar. The other night I sat in on a rehearsal with Belle Phoenix (much better now than is reflected in these recordings) where Spencer was playing guitar, I've a lot more to say about that guitar playing but Callahan himself is a different matter.
Callahan does what most musicians can't, he makes writing about his performance pale, pointless and callow. If you get the chance buy the ticket and take the ride. Stand if you can, in the dark forest of heads and shoulders trapping sounds and moments with small movements of your feet.
There was light
On the fifth day of the Woodford Festival I decided that a five day festival was too long. On the sixth day I mourned the loss of twenty concurrent stages and strange sweltering wandering in a sheen of sweat through smiling thousands with a cigarette in one hand and a joint in the other.
Rain rained itself through my mobile phone transforming all communications to steam and the miracle of static silence. I am still somewhere in Queensland deep in Superman's family nest where they all know from eyebrow to eyebrow the ways of one another. The air is more viscous than honey, thick with light and particles of water. I could convert myself to steam or the kind of warm mud clinging thickly round fetlocks in brown dams.
Water in the air does something to the light so everybody opts for beige, just to be safe, except of course for me. I'll keep notes, I'll look at these Queenslanders with their hats and singlets and everywhere lack of shoes. Three more days and I'm coming back.
Improbable impromtu partakings
Gemma came to stay at The Peach so we made with the merry. The first night we saw Spencer play us some rock which was grand but the second night The Peach threw open its doors for an impromptu party of unreasonable excellence. Retro from The Hive made a special guest appearance for dinner which was super but perhaps the real star of The Peach was the frozen cocktail machine that was improbably produced out of thin air for our drinking pleasure. There is photographic evidence but it is inside The Spatula's camera.
At one point in the evening Gemma took an extensive photographic survey of The Peach Bathroom, this was before we sensibly decided that what Superman does in the shower, besides washing, is practice Elvis karate.
The impromptu party was wildly succesful. We took turns at singing songs using a cheese encyclopedia to supply alternative lyrics. Spencer played themes from 80's television shows on Superman's guitar, Gemma knew all the words. The police snuck down into The Cowboy's backyard and shone torches up at The Peach Deck. We weren't sure what they wanted so we just sat very still until Gemma jumped up and said hello. They wanted us to be quiet which is exciting, we've never been shut down by the police before.
This evening, reflecting on the weekend's events, I became so happy that I invented a new kind of dance.
At one point in the evening Gemma took an extensive photographic survey of The Peach Bathroom, this was before we sensibly decided that what Superman does in the shower, besides washing, is practice Elvis karate.
The impromptu party was wildly succesful. We took turns at singing songs using a cheese encyclopedia to supply alternative lyrics. Spencer played themes from 80's television shows on Superman's guitar, Gemma knew all the words. The police snuck down into The Cowboy's backyard and shone torches up at The Peach Deck. We weren't sure what they wanted so we just sat very still until Gemma jumped up and said hello. They wanted us to be quiet which is exciting, we've never been shut down by the police before.
This evening, reflecting on the weekend's events, I became so happy that I invented a new kind of dance.
178, 190, same thing, precisely the same thing
Superman is wider than he is high, I can assure you this is entirely scientific, if you measure the span of his arms. The same is true of Spencer. Madam Squeeze and I are both taller than the span of our arms.
Now for a list of names in height order with the difference in height between the person listed and the person above in parentheses, Spencer is 199 centimetres wide from fingertip to fingertip.
Spencer
Superman (2cm)
Slamma (0cm)
Madam Squeeze (8cm)
Now for a list of names in height order with the difference in height between the person listed and the person above in parentheses, Spencer is 199 centimetres wide from fingertip to fingertip.
Spencer
Superman (2cm)
Slamma (0cm)
Madam Squeeze (8cm)
Traumax, dress death, incredible happenings and the superness of Superman
One moment I was sitting in the Zammercarship happy after seeing The Maple Trail play at the Hopetoun and going to the gallery Serial Space, hungry for the late late dinner Superman and I were planning on having on the way back to The Peach. The next moment I was lying in an ambulance confused and hurting so profoundly that I did not know where exactly the hurt was coming from. At one point I heard a voice and said, "Oh, is Superman here too?". The ambulance lady told me yes he was but I forgot again and again and was surprised when he appeared by my side in my very own personal trauma room in the emergency part of RPA. I was sure that they were pretending, I could not remember being in a crash, they kept asking me how I opened the broken car door. I did not know that Superman had flung it open, not until he told me the next day.
Small notes of gratitude are scrolling through my still fuzzy and unattractively swollen head for:
Superman who was exceptional, even at 3am sitting in a plastic hospital chair at my side. He went out of his way to be extraordinary. For doing everything possible including making me go in the ambulance and stay in the hospital when I did not want to. For going to great lengths to print and post my manuscript that had to be posted, for wiping the terrible mascara trails from my face when I could not do it myself, for sitting in the hospital forever. For conjuring doctors to come and explain just what the hell was going on. For miraculously fetching hot hospital blankets fresh out of the drier when I was shaking with cold. For his powers of invincibility and not being horribly injured, for talking to everyone from police to parents and friends. For his concern for the occupants of the other car and his gratitude for everyone that helped. For holding amusing things in my field of vision when I could not move my head and could not stand staring at the one roof tile any longer. You're alright Superman.
The woman who lived on the corner where we crashed who came out with her dog, comfort and glasses of water while I sat on a wall and wondered what was happening.
The ambulance lady who was commanding and kind. She held me in a calm centre while police and people and firetrucks made chaos. She did not leave my side, sat by me and put a warm hand on mine every time I started to cry, even while she went about poking me and flashing lights in my eyes. In an amazing display of competence she took my arm softly and cannulated me while the ambulance was moving. She was stern and thorough and wonderful.
The emergency staff at RPA were mostly excellent, except for when six of them suddenly stopped doing all the odd things they were doing to me, all at once, rolled me on my side, cut off my clothes with scissors and let some doctor stick a finger in my bum. That was not excellent. It was also unexcellent when they held open my jaw for x-rays or when they bound my hands to my feet and pulled the ropes tight making my bones scream, or when the nurse pushed pain killers down my throat or when they insisted that the neck brace stay on. What was excellent was being voted favourite patient in emergency.
Grizelda stayed with me all day in the hospital and remedied my cracked lips with ointments, held things up into my limited field of vision for my amusement. For making tea and fetching pillows and telephoning my brother.
The Spatula for coming to the hospital and then missing her appointment to help Superman post my manuscript that had to be posted. For feeding the cat and marching to the shops to fetch me things.
My parents who miraculously appeared from far away. My Dad for waiting in the hospital and in my house, for talking with Superman and saying reassuring things. My Mum and her partner for coming armed with a teapot, two kinds of tea, a bottle of arnica and a fresh apple cake and talking to Superman and saying reassuring things.
Spencer for appearing with a pink shiny beruffled umbrella with whistle attached then sitting in The Peach listening to Superman and I tell and retell the same stories in a blurry fashion whilst high on painkillers.
Ron & Rita who telephoned me from a different hospital where they sit with Ronita and their brand new one day old baby which is so far named Untitled 2008. I am very upset that I did not get to see him this weekend, this tiny brand new person. Being smashed in a car is nothing compared to what just happened to Rita.
Sputnik and Boli for their messages of concern.
My dress, that served me well, I was wearing it the first time I met Superman, I had forgotten this until he pointed it out. My dress that went to parties, galleries, gigs, supermarkets and hospitals. I was going to have it altered next week because it has become too big. The first dress I ever bought for myself, I loved you so. RIP green jungle print 1950's party dress.
My painkillers for making typing and just plain being possible.
My spine for defying all things and not being broken despite the incredible concern of medical people. My left arm for coming out of the piece of car it was momentarily stuck in, this I remember.
I have this picture in my head of a smashed and shaken Superman coming back to the dark Peach alone in the early hours of the morning. How he walked alone and could not find a taxi for such a long time, opening the door to The Peach with my unfamiliar keys and feeling his way down the dark hallway then not going to bed but staying up and printing my manuscript. How he said he was shaking for hours. I would not like to have been him, I would not like to watch him flat and prone surrounded by doctors and lying forever in horrible pain. It is cold, uncomfortable and exhausting to wait in a hospital.
I do not remember the crash. Everything hurts except my right hand and left foot. My jaw is swollen down to my shoulder, I have no neck right now, none at all. My whole face retains a cartilage feeling that comes with a blow to the nose. My teeth, all of my teeth ache and ache and ache. I feel terrible, crushed, smashed, confused, unable to concentrate even on a movie. There is simple sadness and a base need for constant comfort. I cry unexpectedly, sleep unexpectedly, I have no desire to write these words but I type in an attempt to usher in some sense of normalcy and cast out determined surreality in this small window where the painkillers begin to work but have not yet rendered me unconscious.
In Z Block's final hour a man spilled red soda into my shoes
Spencer finished art, last night. He did it with guitars, two drummers, an occasional accordion and the raising of his right arm but right now I’m in Penrith RSL watching a big band. The women are dancing together, men all dead.
I avoided Z Block for a while, a year or two, feeling that it belonged to all the things I left behind when the great tide moved me East and away from this RSL with big band afternoons, shopping malls and heat haze. I came back for the last hurrah, the night the University of Western Sydney shut its art school doors.
Most of the time I think of Western Sydney in the frame of mind I reserve for being stung by bees, undergoing chemotherapy or being pulled out to sea in a rip but I have to tell you this big band is very good.
Z Block is a rat maze warehouse with toilets and one kind of ceiling higher than ladders. Whole glass walls fold and raise like sails with insides worse than weather like, greenhouse, submarine, Western Sydney maybe that’s why they’re shutting it down.
It is important to note that the trombone section just spelled out a giant letter ‘E’ using four trombones, this made the audience clap.
I cut beats with tennis balls in some sort of miniature satellite dish, the balls tracked by cameras, projected onto walls and generating sounds. I drank wine from a popular interactive fountain, saw brains floating in tanks, stood on a platform wearing headphones and a vest heavier than lead. I walked in spirals through diaphanous curtains, a jelly fish forest and the space where once there was a giant walk through vagina. Student art is always precisely what it should be but this is isn’t about the art its about the artists.
We all went, all except Boli who was tired from Jazzercise, the long haul west to where we first came across each other, in Z Block, O Building or the Swamp Bar or on the hills in Werro. The catering at the last ever Grad Show defied the temptation to go out with a bang and instead supplied us with baskets of sandwiches and two bath tubs full of beer. The big band is now playing Jump by Van Halen.
The woman who fell out the window with Spencer, Mona and Mr Hunter made some noises. Freddie Mercury Guy took to the stage with his band Numea, he was breaking for cigarettes in the middle of his set, rolling on the floor and screaming like Damo Suzuki.
It is difficult to define the feeling of a university exhaling, memory confined to memory.
I might have been eight years old when they opened the University of Western Sydney. My father took us, my brother and I, to the grand opening. There were free balloons, sausage sandwiches and the biggest library I had ever seen. Dad stood above us on the big set of stairs with the light looming behind him. He told us about the necessity of this university, the great hope for the future, access to education for everyone no matter where you live. He talked about the tyranny of distance and explained the concept of elitism then looked up at the ceilings with a kind of reverence muttering about brutalist architecture. I stood three steps down clutching my balloon and staring about with a sort of wonder.
Fourteen years later I walked down those same set of steps and took my place in the queue outside the co-op bookshop, clutching my first ever compulsory book list, a small sense of hope and a free balloon. Nine years after that I stood there holding half a sandwich, a free can of beer and a mobile phone.
The problem is that this university is mine, I belong to it. I have belonged to it since that day on the stairs but it is very difficult to define the feeling of a university exhaling. At the end of the night a man pulled down the folding glass wall, the lights went off and there was nothing left to do but leave.
(article about shutting down Z Block)
I avoided Z Block for a while, a year or two, feeling that it belonged to all the things I left behind when the great tide moved me East and away from this RSL with big band afternoons, shopping malls and heat haze. I came back for the last hurrah, the night the University of Western Sydney shut its art school doors.
Most of the time I think of Western Sydney in the frame of mind I reserve for being stung by bees, undergoing chemotherapy or being pulled out to sea in a rip but I have to tell you this big band is very good.
Z Block is a rat maze warehouse with toilets and one kind of ceiling higher than ladders. Whole glass walls fold and raise like sails with insides worse than weather like, greenhouse, submarine, Western Sydney maybe that’s why they’re shutting it down.
It is important to note that the trombone section just spelled out a giant letter ‘E’ using four trombones, this made the audience clap.
I cut beats with tennis balls in some sort of miniature satellite dish, the balls tracked by cameras, projected onto walls and generating sounds. I drank wine from a popular interactive fountain, saw brains floating in tanks, stood on a platform wearing headphones and a vest heavier than lead. I walked in spirals through diaphanous curtains, a jelly fish forest and the space where once there was a giant walk through vagina. Student art is always precisely what it should be but this is isn’t about the art its about the artists.
We all went, all except Boli who was tired from Jazzercise, the long haul west to where we first came across each other, in Z Block, O Building or the Swamp Bar or on the hills in Werro. The catering at the last ever Grad Show defied the temptation to go out with a bang and instead supplied us with baskets of sandwiches and two bath tubs full of beer. The big band is now playing Jump by Van Halen.
The woman who fell out the window with Spencer, Mona and Mr Hunter made some noises. Freddie Mercury Guy took to the stage with his band Numea, he was breaking for cigarettes in the middle of his set, rolling on the floor and screaming like Damo Suzuki.
It is difficult to define the feeling of a university exhaling, memory confined to memory.
I might have been eight years old when they opened the University of Western Sydney. My father took us, my brother and I, to the grand opening. There were free balloons, sausage sandwiches and the biggest library I had ever seen. Dad stood above us on the big set of stairs with the light looming behind him. He told us about the necessity of this university, the great hope for the future, access to education for everyone no matter where you live. He talked about the tyranny of distance and explained the concept of elitism then looked up at the ceilings with a kind of reverence muttering about brutalist architecture. I stood three steps down clutching my balloon and staring about with a sort of wonder.
Fourteen years later I walked down those same set of steps and took my place in the queue outside the co-op bookshop, clutching my first ever compulsory book list, a small sense of hope and a free balloon. Nine years after that I stood there holding half a sandwich, a free can of beer and a mobile phone.
The problem is that this university is mine, I belong to it. I have belonged to it since that day on the stairs but it is very difficult to define the feeling of a university exhaling. At the end of the night a man pulled down the folding glass wall, the lights went off and there was nothing left to do but leave.
(article about shutting down Z Block)
[synth wind] I hear all the people of the world in one bird's lonely cry [synth chimes & synth wind]
Highway dreaming I thought I was imagining cats. Cats running and driving and raining then suddenly a crowd. I rose like one of those American cheerleaders from the centre of the crowd with a flying V guitar. Spencer roared into the microphone, I raised my arm and began. It was the best version of Walk This Way ever heard on planet earth, all because of me and my flying V. The impossibility of this highway driving dream is maximum.
Sometimes driving is a thing to do, the end in itself like walking to the moon or running fish from the airport. Superman said it was Aidan Roberts who first played him Ogre Battle by Queen, it does not seem to have been influential in his songwriting. I still to this moment refuse to believe that this is Superman's favourite Queen song, I declare it to be terrible in five hundred different ways although I do confess to liking Superman's version that he sang, stopping every so often to listen to his mp3 player to check the lyrics, as we sped down the highway.
There is more, or there was more, words or something quite like them but sometimes it is better to sleep than type.
Sometimes driving is a thing to do, the end in itself like walking to the moon or running fish from the airport. Superman said it was Aidan Roberts who first played him Ogre Battle by Queen, it does not seem to have been influential in his songwriting. I still to this moment refuse to believe that this is Superman's favourite Queen song, I declare it to be terrible in five hundred different ways although I do confess to liking Superman's version that he sang, stopping every so often to listen to his mp3 player to check the lyrics, as we sped down the highway.
There is more, or there was more, words or something quite like them but sometimes it is better to sleep than type.
Parachute or I have a temporary spray on pirate tattoo or Superman buys new and exciting hat
Dave Graney reckons that it can't be a jumpsuit if its got pockets but I stopped thinking about this as soon as Christos Tsiolkas appeared on stage in the writers' tent. Writers have a tendency to hold themselves too tightly but Christos was generous, articulate and kind. He signed my book and I felt ridiculous but happy as I walked away and around a corner to perform a happy dance of happiness.
Its been a marvelous jumping as though from lily pad to lily pad. There is an infinite variety of possibilities here in my small existence. Spencer fell out of a window at Paquita and Mona's flat on Friday night. He landed on an awning, was unharmed and spent the rest of the party being most popular with the ladies. I ran about like an aeroplane in Mona's stadium sized bedroom, had several interesting conversations with strangers and attempted to recruit a new Failed Ant Farmer. To assist with my recruiting I gave the man my card, he turned it over in his hand and said "There are no phone numbers or addresses, just your name". I said yes, because that is how I planned it.
Madam Squeeze did not win the busking competition at the Newtown Festival despite my excellent clapping and cheering. I was disappointed until I acquired my very own first ever spray on temporary tattoo of awesomeness. I can not believe it has taken me thirty one years to realise my temporary tattoo dreams. The photo, whilst not entirely excellent, demonstrates my extreme joy on this grand occasion.
Tea cups bookend days. Grizelda sheltered her sunburnt self indoors but Spencer, Madam Squeeze, Superman and I sat under mulberries and stars wearing hats and trying very hard not sing Eye Of The Tiger.
The only one who could ever reach me
Three drinks, one headache, two cigarettes and a codeine tablet. Its past midnight and blowing cold so I caught a rare taxi home after leaving Spencer on the corner outside the cafe Superman can't abide.
Things stopped making sense this morning. I turned on the stereo, sat down at my desk and took up my pen. Before words hit paper I got one text message from Elliot. Now I know that there are no mobile phones in rehab. I'm going to go and get a biscuit or something, hang on.
I have licorice. Licorice can be used as an antispasmodic, I think it only works on your belly, not your whole being so if you are running around being a spaz then eating licorice is not going to help you make better choices. Spencer and I were talking like we do, wandering around our ticking histories and rethreading ourselves through new needles and hallways. We tried building a case for something that others would have us tear down, we agreed that its effects were possible to discuss but that the thing itself defied all language and sound.
I was sitting in a cafe in Glebe last Sunday night with Spencer, Grizelda and Superman. The man at the next table was so drunk that he slid to the ground knocking over chairs and table. Superman hurried to help him like the only living thing in a hall of statues. While Superman grasped the man's arms and hauled him to his feet I set his table right and breathed carefully so as not to weep. He had bread in a paper bag, it was ruined by spilled coffee and I wondered if he had any money for more. I wanted to help but this was beyond my resources. I thought of Elliot sliding down walls and chairs and beds and halls and me. He's been sitting in my brain like a helicopter on a launch pad until this morning when suddenly there he was. I wonder if I conjured him somehow.
I looked at Elliot's message twice, he said simply "How are you Dale?". I put down my phone and walked into the kitchen. I stood next to the kettle, one hand raised, and waited for the water to boil. Its not a steam filled ritual but the water must be boiling.
Things stopped making sense this morning. I turned on the stereo, sat down at my desk and took up my pen. Before words hit paper I got one text message from Elliot. Now I know that there are no mobile phones in rehab. I'm going to go and get a biscuit or something, hang on.
I have licorice. Licorice can be used as an antispasmodic, I think it only works on your belly, not your whole being so if you are running around being a spaz then eating licorice is not going to help you make better choices. Spencer and I were talking like we do, wandering around our ticking histories and rethreading ourselves through new needles and hallways. We tried building a case for something that others would have us tear down, we agreed that its effects were possible to discuss but that the thing itself defied all language and sound.
I was sitting in a cafe in Glebe last Sunday night with Spencer, Grizelda and Superman. The man at the next table was so drunk that he slid to the ground knocking over chairs and table. Superman hurried to help him like the only living thing in a hall of statues. While Superman grasped the man's arms and hauled him to his feet I set his table right and breathed carefully so as not to weep. He had bread in a paper bag, it was ruined by spilled coffee and I wondered if he had any money for more. I wanted to help but this was beyond my resources. I thought of Elliot sliding down walls and chairs and beds and halls and me. He's been sitting in my brain like a helicopter on a launch pad until this morning when suddenly there he was. I wonder if I conjured him somehow.
I looked at Elliot's message twice, he said simply "How are you Dale?". I put down my phone and walked into the kitchen. I stood next to the kettle, one hand raised, and waited for the water to boil. Its not a steam filled ritual but the water must be boiling.
This way comes
It is possible that I am panicking but I am not sure what I am panicking about. I was at a venue tonight watching some people do their thing and for no reason at all started panicking. Since then I have done about twelve stupid things, some regrettable and some forgettable like washing my hair and deciding to go to bed with the towel wrapped around my head instead doing something about drying my hair.
While I think about my hair wrapped in a towel I am beginning to narrow down the source of the panic to four separate moments in my day. They were small things, a handful or two of words, the opening of an envelope and something ill defined like false memories or faded photographs of strangers.
Its been a while since I have had to swallow against rising panic. It is unwelcome. I am saying to myself I will sleep well and wake in the morning with no trace of this unwelcome thing. I will do what I need to do and it will be grand like pianos or glass. I'm thinking about cigarettes and small flat orange cardboard boxes, stiff and lined with black paper.
Superman asked me today what kind of shop I would have if I had a shop and I answered the same old predictable answer and told him of my well imagined shop. I could have handed him a worn smooth memory of floor plans, stock lists and the smell of it but now I want to change my answer. My shop will be a memory shop, the kind where you can take all of your small moments from shelves and examine them one at a time. You can sit on the floor and reconstruct yourself or reconfigure things until they are right all the for the low price of nothing.
While I think about my hair wrapped in a towel I am beginning to narrow down the source of the panic to four separate moments in my day. They were small things, a handful or two of words, the opening of an envelope and something ill defined like false memories or faded photographs of strangers.
Its been a while since I have had to swallow against rising panic. It is unwelcome. I am saying to myself I will sleep well and wake in the morning with no trace of this unwelcome thing. I will do what I need to do and it will be grand like pianos or glass. I'm thinking about cigarettes and small flat orange cardboard boxes, stiff and lined with black paper.
Superman asked me today what kind of shop I would have if I had a shop and I answered the same old predictable answer and told him of my well imagined shop. I could have handed him a worn smooth memory of floor plans, stock lists and the smell of it but now I want to change my answer. My shop will be a memory shop, the kind where you can take all of your small moments from shelves and examine them one at a time. You can sit on the floor and reconstruct yourself or reconfigure things until they are right all the for the low price of nothing.
Tinned beach tomato law fortress
Somewhere quite near to the Fortress of SolitudeIn a fit of spontaneous similtude I told myself I'm bouncing it off the wall like a tennis ball. I saw my friend Sebastian last night. He drove me in his new car to dinner and we talked about his shining life. I sat next to him on the first day in the first class at law school and then most days until graduation. There are photos of us side by side in matching hats and gowns, he wore his like a triumph but I spent the day running down hallways pretending I was Harry Potter, this might be a clue as to why he is a successful lawyer and I sit in a room with a teapot, a typewriter and a cat.
I wound up in Spencer's Beach Shack some time after midnight, sitting in the one good chair staring at his walls of records and wonder. Spencer has one shelf of tinned tomatoes. The Beach Shack is the opposite of being a lawyer. I couldn't help comparing it to The Peach where there are no tinned tomatoes but many good chairs. I felt like I was in the middle of something, halfway between Sebastian and Spencer.
Two days ago there was dust in my socks, lungs, hair and car. I drove for hours across the harbour, on freeways and dirt roads through the bush to get to the Fortress of Solitude. Superman was standing in the middle of a great hall winding electrical wires into shapes when I found him. I was hot and cross but couldn't help smiling. We packed Superman's things into the Zammercarship and I drove for hours on dirt roads, across bridges and on freeways until we got to Emu and Superman was home.
There's no point to these stories. I'm just yawning and bouncing failures off my walls and wondering at the scope of things with its tomatoes, records, fortresses and my old enemy the law. I don't belong in any of those places, with my left hand I'm shaping mud into bricks. Maybe one day I can build somewhere of my own.
Ahoy there
This is your Captain speaking. Tomorrow morning I chart a course for the Fortress of Solitude where Superman, his bags and guitar will be brought aboard the Zammercarship. It is important to note that I am not at all terrified about driving over bridges such as The Sydney Harbour Bridge, The Anzac Bridge and other fine bridges with multiple lanes of traffic going in mad directions all at once with cars in them, many cars that may at any point endanger the Zamemrcarhip and all who sail in her. The cat has abandoned ship and elected to stay ashore in The Peach for this particular journey.
Superman has supplied me with excellent instructions. Today Grizelda drove me across the Anzac Bridge and the Harbour Bridge to demonstrate to me the sturdiness of both bridges and how to successfully navigate on to and then across them. I am almost certain that I know what am I doing.
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