From: crw7@dana.ucc.nau.edu
Subject: list
Date: November 5, 1998 2:14:54 PM PST
To: horsestorideon@hotmail.com
Reply-To: crw7@dana.ucc.nau.edu
Dominick,
take me off that list.. I can’t stand it!
Charles
From: exit2k@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: less than a cheerleader, more than an answer
Date: November 5, 1998 1:42:21 PM EST
To: horsestorideon@hotmail.com
ok,
tell me why you replied ALL to the first thing you wrote but not
this?
an accident — i thought i was to ALL, very disappointing to me to hear
otherwise.
there aren’t fucking Curtains here
there isn’t an audiance and we aren’t the stars, kitten.
it’s not about impressing people
or having them think i’m great great great
no
most of them don’t.
really.
okay. but even you yourself said you have trouble watching people enjoy
themselves if you don’t know if they know “why”.
richard doesn’t and trevis doesn’t and i know you don’t and
if they don’t know this game already
they really don’t care.
do you think that they’re reading this shit?
i really don’t expect them to
and i’m not really considering that they are.
am i the only one who reads all of this, all the time? oh, and the new
guy. who’s the new guy? he scares me, and makes me laugh out loud.
after the first thing i sent out with no response
i realized this
and that’s fine.
i feel like a zelot screaming in the streets, eli
i don’t feel like i’m at a party
i’m not drinking or talking or changing the music
i’m rambling in a corner
or an alley
or a bench
under shitty lights
and i’ve picked the people who are in the city
and they’ll hear some of the words
and they’ll see the spectacle
and they’ll go home and make dinner.
it’s very simple
right
simple.
but why are you doing this to yourself? i’m sorry to be asking the same
question over and over — really, you should just call me on the
phuckingphone, it would be quicker and less excruciating, that’s what i
gave you that calling card # for.
i want to know what you feel you’re getting out of this, because it
seems like you hate it, and it seems you like you need it, or love it,
gotta gotta have it. i’d like to say, it’s okay baby, sit down, have a
cup of tea, write in your journal — there’s nothing you need to tell
everyone RIGHT NOW, we have time. there’s no limits. you may pop, but
baby aint checking out yet. let off the panic button, just for a while.
just for you?
i wish i could hold your head and touch your hair slowly, and then maybe
if i said it was gonna be okay, you might believe, or understand why.
i also don’t see why you’re so fucking pressing and offended.
do i have to do all the work here?
make your own fucking sense out of it
or ask me to stop sending it to you
i’m pressing because i’m pushing you, and you shouldn’t take me
seriously when i say i’m offended if i’m not supposed to take you
seriously when you say, Okay everyone here we go, when actually all you
want is to scream into a void and have no response; proof you don’t
exist.
i can’t give you that, mister. you should stop sending them to me if
you want me to not respond. i’ll never let you scream alone.
it’s like staring out the window on the train on your way home.
it’s just a music video
it’s just a scene in the background of your favourite film:
none of it is centre stage and none of it will do anything for you
or i or anyone.
it’s something you can watch if you feel like it
i’m really not expecting a response from anyone…
i’m actually quite pleased that no one has responded
now if i can get you and richard to shut the fuck up i guess i’ll be
all happy, won’t i?
i guess you will. i was very sad when i saw what you did to richard’s
love-song. it was so beautiful, and to see you screaming at a butterfly
like that … something’s wrong, you’re feeling something i don’t
understand, and i see the actions, the results …
i know i’ve lost you. i talked to you every day for one week, and then
in two days i went ill and built a city and i lost you. isn’t it funny
how things work out?
won’t i be happy in my drugged-out lonliness?
won’t i be happy as i’m falling apart?
don’t think you’re the only one who knows i’m gonna blow
i am
i’m ready to fucking pop
i’ve wanted to for so long
i know how it feels when i need a disaster…
and how’s your November going?
not bad, but it just started.
i haven’t been to a party in ages…
i used to love them as a child as long as i didn’t have to talk to
anyone
and no one would talk to me
then
as i got older and did more drugs
i went to a few and became a spectacle for sheridan
i went crazy
like i do everywhere.
like you are now.
my head is a fucking mess
you know that.
i’m a fucking WRECK
you’re not so bad as you think.
you gotta give yourself a little more than that.
that’s the real reason i keep getting offended and asking you why why
why why why why, it’s because all this I’m worthless, I’m a wreck, I can
do no good, I’m falling apart — it’s crap.
the thing is, i’ve finally figured out the answer to Why. This is all
an elaborate cry for help, constructed to be loudest and most effective
while at the same time cloaking it’s own nature. i knew you’d tell me
the secret if i asked you enough times. and you have.
and it’s fair to scream for help, and it’s even fair to want no one to
answer, but you’re not getting your wish.
you promised you’d call. do it. i can’t do anything with you like
this. we might as well be telling jokes at a cocktease party. if i’m
not home, wait a few hours and call again. you can call as late as you
like, but if it’s after one, then you should probably leave a message
just so i have time to pick up the phone. midnight is a good time. but
no time is as good as the present.
mister, we have to talk.
i want to be shot down
i’ll snatch the bullet with my teeth.
i want to be kidnapped
i’ll rescue you and beat the nappers to death with their own chains.
i want to be killed
i’ll bring you back, blow the blood back into your carcass and make you
breathe.
i’m waiting for the car to blow
i’m underneath fixing it.
andwheni’mdone
i’ll shoot you and kidnap you and kill you and drive your car (which of
course will destroy the engine, you know me) just so you don’t feel like
you missed out on anything.
i’m trying to eek out a little bit of myself
so when i go
people won’t follow
you’re just making a road map
you should know
when they want to go
they go
OR
they’ll see my errs and tell me what to do
well, i HEAR YOU LOUD AND CLEAR
but i can’t write it any more,
i’m gonna teach you to talk on the phone.
because i’m so fucking DESPERATE at this point that everything is
what
i need and i don’t have anything and this is all bullshit so i’m going
to stop now
but stop asking
“why”
just fucking figure it out yourself.
O
.
K
.
…
From: exit2k@hotmail.com
Subject: a story of my life; a fragment from months ago; a tale i never finished telling
Date: November 5, 1998 1:29:46 PM EST
To: exit2k@hotmail.com, afw10@columbia.edu, mrvisible@worldnet.att.net, sowinski@inetdirect.net, sejohnst@midway.uchicago.edu, shorning@willamette.edu, gbrennan@willamette.edu, emcgarry@willamette.edu, and 24 more…
When we were waiting for Jonathan to get home and we drove out to the
woods, I showed Dominic a bridge I know in a place called Camp Meeker.
It’s a tiny town, a collection of summer houses really, and not a camp
at all. There is a river, and the bridge over it is also a sort of dam,
maybe a lock, I don’t know what it’s called. The bridge doesn’t go
straight across, but makes four 90-degree turns, so that there is a
little U-shape in the middle. I had been there with Kitty, on my
nineteenth birthday, about a year before I would meet Dominic and thus
about two years from the day I went back to the bridge with him. From
the bridge you could see the house Kitty lived in when I met her, and I
pointed it’s vague whereabouts to Dominic, because it was too dark to
see the house, or anything much. I had practically lived there that
whole summer we were seeing each other, but we didn’t go down to the
river often enough for me to know where the house was in the dark.
I felt strange taking Dominic there, a place that so much belonged
to she and I, one she had shown me. I know so few places to go in Santa
Rosa — or from Santa Rosa because, as Dominic pointed out, this isn’t
in Santa Rosa — and almost all the places I know were shown me by other
people, given to me by my relationships with them, friendly or
lover-wise. It wasn’t that I felt guilty about taking something Kitty,
my first true love, had given me and sharing it with someone who had now
replaced her, in some ways, and in other ways entirely exploded the
space in my life she had filled. It was that I wanted the two
experiences to stay separate, that she could be to me what she had been
and Dominic remain only my Dominic and never belong to any space she had
once belonged to. But I did not have enough spaces, did not know enough
places where I could take him while we killed time waiting to find
somewhere to sleep.
Once we got down to the bridge, however, I felt fine. It did not
seem strange or wrong, and I experienced no vivid memories of being with
Kitty there. Kitty seemed like something that had happened long ago,
much longer ago than I had expected it to feel. Almost anywhere I go
around Santa Rosa will have some association with her for me, because I
became who I am now with her, but I went through that process again with
Dominic, and what he did to me was like destruction, a burning that was
forgetting, the way of forgetting that allows one to live and remember
instead of having to go back every time so that you live two lives at
once. I would not have been able go on without him, and now he was
coming back to Santa Rosa to do again to himself what he had done to her
and all the rest. Dominic has seen almost as much of my life as Kitty,
except he has seen it much more briefly. Destruction is always quicker
than the process of building, I guess. Not always.
While on the bridge, Dominic tried to walk down the steep concrete
incline of the dam-lock to the river, but found it impossible. I was
sure he was going to hurt himself badly or at least get wet. When I saw
he had failed, I made my own attempt and found a way down. We walked
along the river for awhile, where there was only the light of the moon,
and found a tree that had fallen across the river. We sat on that
not-man-made bridge for awhile and talked. When I looked back at the
lot where we had parked, a haven of light reflected in shiny pieces on
the river, I wished I had brought my camera to take a picture. I
mentioned this to Dominic, that if I had brought my camera from the car
I would take a picture of That, but he had no response. We took a
different route back and passed a small playground with swingsets and a
merry-go-round. We swung for a while, and though the playground is a
place I associate strongly with Kitty I thought of her very little.
That moment had passed. Besides, I had forgotten there Was a
playground. After a while, Dominic flew off his swing and fell on the
ground. It sounded like he hurt himself, and I got off my swing even
though I knew he hadn’t. It’s not something he would do, not that way.
I don’t remember what I said to him, standing over him while he lay
on his back and looked up at me, but I remember kneeling down next to
him and placing a hand flat on his chest, and that we didn’t talk much
that way. I just looked around at the dark surrounding us and tried to
decide if I would lay down next to him or if we should go, and if I lay
down next to him would we kiss again, and how would that change things
— into a progression, something that was not an isolated moment but a
process? When I took his hand he thought I was going to help him up,
but when that wasn’t what I was doing he said, “Am I standing up or are
we lying down?” and I said, “I’m lying down,” and I lay on my back next
to him. He put his arm under my neck like a pillow, and we did not kiss
(really I had known we wouldn’t) but looked at the stars in the sky, of
which there were not many because it was unseasonally overcast. I
remember thinking something about the stars being far away, but I don’t
remember what.
From: rderyke@hotmail.com
Subject:
Date: November 5, 1998 12:36:09 PM CST
To: horsestorideon@hotmail.com
I really am disgusted that I bother to read all this stuff you’re
sending me, and worse that I file it away for future reference. Who are
all these people? It’s dreadful; like a harem where you’re the madam.
Well, maybe more like a house of the Burlesque. It’s rediculous. Just
find some Brahms to sing and it’ll all sort itself out.
Did I tell you I’m studying with Ian Partridge? He’s wonderously famous
and we get on so well… I feel it, you know… success is in my
grasp… I feel so good with all the work I’m doing. I’m organizing a
recital at the end of November… big expectations.
Though you’re still waiting around (God knows why!) and throwing
handouts at all these lost dogs and stray sheep. It’s undignified.
Come to London, you fool… the RSC is doing The Tempest in December!
You should see it.
I’m thinking of joining the Brecht evening too… maybe sing some
Hindemith… do you know him? You must find out if you don’t, it’s
brilliant. I spent all of Sunday with John Adams (the composer I keep
telling you about). He’s coming to the RAM next year. He’s such a good
man. I really adore him. He got six curtain calls at the Barbican last
week and they would have kept on if the ushers hadn’t turned up the
lights and pushed every one out of their seats. He’s the ideal composer
for me right now. But you know Phil is going to be here on the 23 and I
have a pass to sit in on his rehearsals!
So, fine… keep it up in America, and send me a note every once in a
while.
But if you’re going to send more false apologies to the world that’s
fighting over your affection, please send them to my RAM account at
ryan.deryke@kcl.ac.uk (but do send them!)
Hotmail can be time-consuming.
But why do you bother with all of those lonely souls out there?
TA HEE HEE HEE… it is fun, though, isn’t it?
Keep laughing, it suits you. Not me so well… I look better with a
face of wonder or determination.
Anyhow… It would be nice to see you again, and we’ll be in touch.
Yours,
Ryan DeRyke
ryan.deryke@kcl.ac.uk
From: shorning@willamette.edu
Subject: (bulletproof) (fwd)
Date: November 5, 1998 3:48:32 AM PST
To: horsestorideon@hotmail.com
can you send this to all the kids?
———- Forwarded message ———-
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 03:45:04 -0800 (PST)
From: youcareiknowiforgotforawhile
To: “pocket [mostly aspirin]”
Cc: Sheridan Horning
Subject: (bulletproof)
this started out as a specific message to a boy in the dry from a girl in
the wet, and then i remembered that we’re supposed to do it in front of
each other.
we are supposed to exist in front of each other, about each other, in the
same environment as each other.
so we can see what we’re about, so we don’t have to be afraid or
misunderstanding of each other’s settings.
dominic is between all of us, but when you take him out, or when he’s
gone, we should be next to each other.
space exists like that.
i really think we should keep it between us all so we don’t have to worry
about something not being said.
isn’t it comforting, at least a little bit, to hear something from
someone you trust with ideas, something that you hadn’t thought of?
isn’t that part of the repose, that you can rest for the time it would
have taken you to think of that idea, because now you don’t have to find
it, you can find something else; isn’t that why you can sigh?
in response to trevis (and dominic),
it’s not that the kids here are getting to me.
i’ve had a chambered glock pointed at me and all i could say was how dumb
it would be if he blew a hole through my stomach, because he would look
so dumb.
i am bulletproof.
i just get a little nervous sometimes, when i get these ideas, that i
haven’t heard from anywhere else, and there’s no one around to tell me if
i’m correct, or what i’m close to, or how far off i am, or how it just
doesn’t make sense.
the closest i get for the most part, excepting a genabee, is either
someone asking me something specific because he assumes i’m there too
(grb), or someone telling me i’m going about it completely wrong, because
i’m focusing on form and style instead of content.
and i try to tell him that because of the change in style and form, the
content, subject can not stay flat, as a word, as a name, because it is
filling it on more than one plane, or level.
and then he says to me that my art, my expression, is merely the deluding
of what it is to be human, that i’m losing it.
and i say no, it’s that i think that i can suggest more than one thing,
so they can have more than just one way to percieve like i do, so they
can have a stretch, a pull, between more than two things.
so, sometimes, i just get pushed out so far, and i can see the colors and
shades of what’s around me, but i don’t know what the fuck it is.
so it’s good for me to hear sounds about it, and see words about it.
and know that there’s a place that will keep me informed about it.
dominic, pocket, girl one, familiars in a dream, i’m addressing you.
all you kids, i’m addressing you.
dear life,
you are exactly right there. when one thing happens after another, i am
so glad that you still know how to do it.
and sometimes you make it so i want to yell about it, and yell about
it, cause you are such the kind that always does it, no matter what.
and please make it so i know how to do it exactly like it. and thank
you for the friends that remind me that i should be doing it, and
doing it in such a way that makes it beautiful. so other people
like to watch it, that they can feel it to, be reminded by our
faces.
sometimes you absolutely kill me, the way you do it so well.
remind me to play it exactly the way i should,
every little bit, like a good one.
amen
at least for this second it’s like this
From: horsestorideon@hotmail.com
Subject: wood shop [art class: we’ll teach you how to be creative… you did pay for it] [0005]
Date: November 5, 1998 2:35:13 AM PST
To: exit2k@hotmail.com, afw10@columbia.edu, mrvisible@worldnet.att.net, sowinski@inetdirect.net, sejohnst@midway.uchicago.edu, and 26 more…
i’m leaving kansas now… you may not hear from me for a few days
but
buck up
i probably won’t die on the motor-way
and it’ll resume soon enough.
sleep-tight,
mwa.
here’s a fundamental problem
[look, it comes from my joints]
:
in the wonderings given
most are concerned with the tragedies
and questioning or forgetting the joys.
Yes.
maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about that, though.
yes, this is a fundamental problem, comming from all of the earliest pivots made.
in what i’d like to say to you and what i’d like to do for you
i guess i have different aims…
when i’d like to make you [take you, force you]
free.
is joy a way to express that motivation?
i’ve never been taught that
nor have i ever seen it..
i come across joy’s uses in nasty persuasive ways
like rotting out your teeth
or making you bow-down
it’s anger and spite and the dirt of life that makes you grit your teeth and shout and stone, take up arms; run.
it’s this hell we’re trapped in that make you want to change it
make you want to embrace it so close you crush it and make it yours
it’s this anger and possesion and defense and exclusion that makes you sweat in exhaustion at the end of a war.
in war.
we’re in war again…
alright, this is a tried tactic…
get a party of people pissed off about the same thing
[oh, it doesn’t matter if it’s really the same thing… as long as they think they’re pissed about the same thing as the guy next to them]
and you’ve got yourself a pack of snarling wolves ready to rip apart the prey, the enemy, the offender… whatever it may be.
this works well for crowd control
this gets implimented quite well for crowd control
i can use desperation and depression
agression and fear…
i was raised in the mid-west in america as a catholic
i know the nature of the trade…
i’ve learned my own tricks
and some of theirs…
but what about the past?
he said to me “happily ever after”
and i wondered about
before.
:
can you become happy After if before is still there..?
it’s not there…
it’s before, yeah? it’s gone, yeah?
how do we shake it?
what if we react against before?
what if we ignore before
and make all the same mistakes…
what if we react against everyone’s Now and make ours a bit different
on principle.
some guy i once was said “anything that i see that many people doing has to have something wrong with it”
and, forgetting about the duality that “wrong” exists in, we might use that as a lever to propell us into thinking about what we’re doing on a contrasting level….
oh, there are So many people in the world
we can’t watch out for all of them
[fortunately they’ve condensed themselves so we don’t have to]
but what about joy?
right, that’s what i’m aiming at here…
can we try and persuade eachother with stories of joy instead of death?
can we be in love with the night without having to be stabbed to know it?
can we sing some song of joy and not sound like an ignorant fool?
some sort of moron spousing off about how happy they are when we’ve got our…
problems…
.
i’d like to think i’m not dying or losing or pissing you all off
but i know i’m not talking about joy all that often
and when i see the pleasures that some have felt
that i have felt
that i know are there
i always wonder why it has to come back to this bickering and confusion
and professions of death and destruction.
;&;
it might not have anything at all to do with joy..
any of those nouns…
it could all be about our vessels…
ok, let’s look at it like this:
we’re trapped in our bodies
and no matter what we’re thinking or doing
we can’t escape our border-lines
…
we learn to EXUDE
like giving off a sent
or a sound…
these things can be practiced and proffesionalized and mimic’d…
so, as they can be done well
they can be done very poorly.
take one of the men i love:
[he’s not here right now, not on this list: he’s dead. they do that.]
his early readings were emotional… he’d just written these texts and he read them like they were his desperation
his thoughts and words shared no distance…
and he got older. this presents no intricit problem.. but the further we get from thing the easier it is to forget them… what happend was: he had a stroke. i figure it’s as effective as any electro-shock he’d ever gotten [and he had] at knocking out those sections of the brain that were slowing him down or damaging him or making it difficult to get up everyday and keep moving. [some of you may have these sections of brains… or be familiar with the concept]
the difference in the readings were noticable right away:
his intonation was all fuct
like an actor who’d never read the script and didn’t care to get in charecter…
he’d read the lines and be so fucking chuffed that he’d written them or delighted in what they said
that each word kinda BURST! into being and slobbered over to the next one…
yeah, maybe he had a great time reading it
but all the emotional data from the origional writing was lost…
i guess things can change and all
but it’s a bit too much like embalming to me…
anyway,
i don’t think i like listening to people having a good time if they aren’t expressing WHY.
[“why”]
[this is important: watch]
not that it has to be clear
but i think it should be present…
[if you were to look up and catch their eye… you could see it was there even if they turned their heads quickly enough to let you know what it was]
[which leads to]
so many people have separated the thought from the act
and it’s NOT the thought that counts
and it’s NOT the act that counts
it’s this communion of them
the way they spin with eachother
the way they call their names when they’re smiling or fighting
or resting on the floor…
if you’re listening to a joke
and you think you can tell a good joke from a bad joke
do you
laugh
or say
“that’s funny”
?
if you love someone
do you
buy them a ring
or
watch them in your sleep
or say
“i love you”
?
if you say you don’t want it [again and again, to make sure you get it across]
do you really mean it?
or are you trying to trick us into giving it to you?
ahhhhmmmm
i heard so many things . . .
if there’s one thing that i learned when i was still a child
was not to trust Words from a mouth that’s not even paying attention enough to get the intonation right…
liars can be respectable if you can see they respect you enough to try and convince themselves as well
if it’s a game with substancial force
and you have no objection to it
it’s fun to play along
[you just might learn something]
but if you aren’t connecting
if one of you is trying a BIT too hard
maybe it’s time to find another play-mate…
another million.
[i’m not pointing any fingers]
From: shorning@willamette.edu
Subject: belle & sebastian
Date: November 5, 1998 1:44:24 AM PST
To: nobrickwalks@hotmail.com
Cc: exit2k@hotmail.com, afw10@columbia.edu, mrvisible@worldnet.att.net, sowinski@inetdirect.net, sejohnst@midway.uchicago.edu, gbrennan@willamette.edu, gdelling@willamette.edu, and 20 more…
a day at the fair turned out the day
to think about the things
that we have done with you
a dog lies down in the pouring rain
from underneath the ??? railway arch again
the future’s looking colorful
it’s the color of the chaos and corruption
of a happy soul a happy soul
we’re right in the field
right in the field
right in the field til the rain dies down
the railway ticket states a destination
but it doesn’t mean
we will show
there’s a fork up on the line
we’ll pay the guard to switch the sign
off we go
the future’s looking wonderful
it’s the wonder of the businessman
experiencing his failure whereas no one cares
you care i know
you care i know
you care i know i forgot for a while
on a sulky afternoon
spent in dispute
give yourself a headache (yeah)
so it takes ??? story
when you’re dreaming of the time
when we’re on stage
have you seen the “loneliness of a middle distance runner”
when he stops the race and looks around
all at the stage
you’ve seen it now
i walk to the station
walk to the station
walk to the station
walk to the station
won’t you follow me
walk to the station
walk to the station
walk to the station
won’t you follow me
From: nobrickwalks@hotmail.com
Subject: Tonight sets us rolling, a phase.
Date: November 5, 1998 1:01:21 AM PST
To: exit2k@hotmail.com, afw10@columbia.edu, mrvisible@worldnet.att.net, sowinski@inetdirect.net, sejohnst@midway.uchicago.edu, shorning@willamette.edu, gbrennan@willamette.edu, emcgarry@willamette.edu, and 22 more…
This must be like a playground!
But so many of the people I just met are only watching. OK. It makes me
nervous to be here. Who forwarded all of this to me?
I guess I’ve got enough time to read it, but some of this stuff is
really long. And “…d–>” is really the only one talking. (Sorry to
everybody who HAS responded!)
It’s strange to read these letters every night, does any one else feel
like a voyeur? It’s like eating something somebody implied would make
you feel different. Or they told you it would make you feel better.
Since d–> is doing all the talking to everybody, and the other e-mails
seem to be directed back to him I think I should say Hi! once to him and
Hi! once to every one else.
And d, I have to read every letter a couple of times and alot doesnt
make sense, but then again, I don’t know you (YET) and I will keep
trying.
So: You keep up the work. I’m already expecting a message every night!
(P.S.: I’ve never ever gotten such long e-mails! Thanx!)
Recent Comments