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!)
From: exit2k@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: less than a cheerleader, more than an answer
Date: November 4, 1998 5:16:28 PM EST
To: horsestorideon@hotmail.com
and you know some of them are enjoying it
and it’s there: so criticize.
This is public speaking. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to
ask
you all why we are here, who you are, what I’m doing here, and why we
don’t all leave. I’m been very ill for a few days, so I’m shaking a
little and I think I need to go back to bed, or at least eat
breakfast.
Thank you for your time.
Mr. Eli, signing off.
this is a very kind guesture, eli
but do you really think they’ll respond?
this tactic has never worked for me…
but i guess one can always try.
actually i was being sarcastic. i did have breakfast tho, and that was
helpful. for lack of any better thing, and perhaps for other reasons,
i’ve been thinking all day, about mostly this what i wrote about. it’s
something that still puzzles me, and it’s something which seems
desperately important which you seem wildly blind to — and yet can’t i
speak it? i can try, again.
so we’ll start with a metaphor because we love metaphors, and we’ll
avoid similes because this morning i remembered the difference and was
filled with righteous anger against the one and that deep, sacred love
for the other.
you just might be a baloon filled with hot air. but not a hot air
balloon. a party balloon. and this might be the party to which we were
all invited, though not individually — which is an offense. we were
invited at a stroke, and we remain, and some of us are talking, but we
are blind-folded. you are the hostess, and you are feeding us best.
you are a party balloon filled with hot air, and you are making popcorn
inside, where it is hot, and the popcorn bounces around in the rubber
and the balloon gets bigger.
does anyone else have a feeling of impending disaster?
so the party balloon that keeps gettin hotter that is making popcorn
inside, this seems very important to me — but in the world of black
magic nothing is what it seems. and now the strenuous exercise of
shedding images and saying what one means.
which one is that? oh yes, me. here i am again, saying what i mean.
yee-ha.
the whole point of the game was to follow the rules
by not being able to see or touch or say anything really important >to
eachother about what we thought about eachother
but to talk about ourselves to eachother
in such a way
the other might learn something about us.
just like a party.
usually, i admit, i hate parties.
especially when i’m not warned long in advance.
but i’m having fun. i’m playing …
but the rules … why do i always feel like i missed the most important
part where everyone said everything that would allow everything else?
my problem i guess. attention dues … but, alas, having missed the
rules i do fail to follow along. o. well.
so, to say something important about something i think of you, Dominic,
I think that for as long as you can remember they all adored you and
they thought you were amazing and precious and you thought you were
worthless and you didn’t know why anything. You asked questions. It
didn’t help. You played along. It’s gotten you pretty far.
So this is the game. Everyone you know reads everything you write,
unless you read it in time to decide it’s worthless, in which case not.
If anyone writes it’s not about what you’ve written, which is ostensibly
what you wanted (? or a response in kind, but why would anyone else want
to do this? or, if there is someone who does, how did you know they
did? why did you think we wanted to play by your rules? what Are you
expecting from this? i’m asking questions again, very sorry …) but
rather about how amazing and precious they find you to be, which may
ostensibly not be what you wanted but seems somehow to be what you’ve
arranged the entire game around creating … or am i hallucinating again
… eating expensive paper … wastepaper …
i don’t think of you as amazing and precious and i don’t cherish every
word you write. i accept, but out of devotion, not praise. out of
curiosity, not commitment. i always hate parties, and i always stand
around wondering Why is everyone saying this again? Does anyone notice
what is going on? Has anyone wondered why we’re all standing in this
small room, drinking thin poison, waiting for oblivion or intercourse?
And I feel the same way now, and I want to play but I don’t understand
why anyone likes this game.
So I’m asking you, the person I know best at the party, to turn to me
and keep me company; you, who invited me to a party of people I don’t
know, and have been regaling us all with stories for so long, and
haven’t been hearing back and haven’t been noticing.
I’m tugging on your sleeve. Dominic, I’m blindfolded. Please, tell me,
are we having fun yet?
Are you having fun yet?
Are you forcing yourself to do something you hate?
Are you enjoying yourself?
Why is everyone watching you enjoy yourself?
There is some piece I’m missing, some element of the dynamic which
escapes me: loneliness? intoxicated abandon? how it feels when i need
a disaster? a ‘?’ after ‘i exist’?
i’m asking questions. i never stop, do i. do i.
i’ll give everyone a story soon. it’s just parties: i feel isolated,
judicial, insubordinate.
i’ll play by the rules, i promise. tomorrow.
the balloon. i think it is getting too big and nothing inside it is big
enough to sustain it. structureless bits. it is getting too hot. it
will pop. all the elements will survive.
From: horsestorideon@hotmail.com
Subject: brittle attempt at humour
Date: November 4, 1998 11:14:55 AM PST
To: exit2k@hotmail.com, afw10@columbia.edu, mrvisible@worldnet.att.net, sowinski@inetdirect.net, sejohnst@midway.uchicago.edu, and 26 more…
i watched this movie last night.
these thoughts were written on my arm
i didn’t get there…
not all the way there
but maybe later…
here’s a bit.
it’s part of the job, but i’ve got to say that i just don’t understand your politiks..
i almost feel sick.
i used to say that writing is failing.
that is, if you push it all out instead of just trying to live it
you’ve killed off and put into words
you’ve failed and left behind a body of works…
exhumed from your own living shell
now tell me what you have left.
i used to listen to people talking about days that were better
and me
in my realm of speculation [books and films and]
i saw many things that seemed, if not better, purer.
maybe less comfortable
maybe less simple
less affordable…
but they had their reasons and they had their consequences
and if you took their reasons you took their consequences
and you knew what you were getting into as you did it.
you had a country and a name.
respected your father… who loved you even if he didn’t know how to show it.
the people you dealt with may have been just as worried as you
but they did what they had to get along with you
as you were all they had
in the days of lesser transport.
shoes weren’t as comfortable and many people still walked with bare feet in the grass; on the dirt…
they pants scratched your legs up
no deoderants to cleanse you
no sun-block on your naked-skin.
the rules of living were the hard-facts
or facts of life
and were never said to be easy…
those men who had to work knew the meaning of their work
they sweat and lifted and moved and pulled
their purpose came from their loyalties and love of their fellows
so it goes.
i wasn’t there…
or, if i was
i left something un-finnished.
looking around me now i can take things in different ways:
i’ve learned the art of fooling myself so well that i couldn’t really tell you if i wasn’t.
if you pay no regard to the meaning or the message from the creator of the piece
you don’t care about God anymore
and if you aren’t interested in what’s going on outside of your vision
then you’ve learned the rules of the nuclear family
if you lust what you can’t see in yourself [anymore]
and take it in hand in an effort to hold it close
[close enough to be a part of you]
you’ve learned some excuses you know how to use.
i see it being cast off everyday, the importance of things.
it’s like any other lubricant
keeping things quiet
the large of the world got that way from practice
here
it didn’t happen because they needed it to move a plow or lift a pole
it was taken
hand in hand
as a sculpter
gleaned from magazines and co-workers
paid trainers.
men in gyms shaping themselves to the idea of what they want to be
with no idea why they’d ever use that mass outside of putting something back in the position they’d moved it from
[repition, like calendar days and alarm-clock settings]
i wanted to be big, once
i saw the strength in farmers in a rural town
and the movement of their swollen bellies under their shirts
the tightness of their shoulders as they lifted hay into the traughs
but i was so small then
and only trained in gyms
or on lawns, manicuring an exhibition of a some-dollar bill to the neighbours and strangers passing by in their cars
in these pointless acts [with out love, just the appearance of]
i thought of those i’d seen who carried around the burden of having prepared themselves through their everyday life
to live the next day
and week
and month
until it swallowed them whole.
they drilled late into the evenings, til the end of the year
so i’m riding around in a truck
and my feet hardly ever touch the ground anymore.
my jobs are less than sitting at a desk
speaking in a telephone
forcing the computer in front of me to think for the company that pays its wages
things are getting easier and softer and they fuzz out of focus before i can see them
it must be so hard
to pay all those bills
and swipe all those cards
and speak all those numbers…
i imagine why we’re getting thinner…
some of us.
i think of what it’s like when you start losing weight and you go about your business
when there is less and less of you touching the ground
your foot-prints get lighter past every sun-set
and you speak so little these days, sir
as if you had nothing to say to us…
the dreams of being in love with the world
of seeing those people
lush with life
with juicy arms you could dive into
shoulders made to swing up a lover onto a back
legs to go running to catch their desire
bodies alive in the air and the light
smiles with out pills and dentures and tooth-pasty grins
skin with out sores and bruises and
hair where there’s hair and skin where there isn’t
acceptance of living this life that they have
[it’s yr one go, kid… make the best of it or it’ll be hell]
it’s so rare these days to see people who haven’t given up
given in, to pay-checksand bills, medications and surgeries… nightly news and their favourite dramas
the excitement of lives that they’ll never be living
if i took off my shoes now
and touched the ground
could still go walking here
or might i get shot by a hunter?
a land owner?
a security gaurd?
if i took off my clothes
is there a way i could keep from getting arrested and fined?
this isn’t the life i signed up for.
i didn’t want to have to do it by the book and by the numbers.
i didn’t want to have to leave behind my body for pacemakers and prozac
i didn’t want to have to be wrong for leaving my class
i didn’t want to be so far from everyone else
to have to keep secrets
to have to say those things i’m not even thinking
i don’t want all of my thoughts tied up in despair
but i don’t want electro-shock therapy
and i don’t want any drugs
and i don’t want the radio or television or church to give me the answer
From: horsestorideon@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: less than a cheerleader, more than an answer
Date: November 4, 1998 11:13:14 AM PST
To: exit2k@hotmail.com
Cc: afw10@columbia.edu, mrvisible@worldnet.att.net, sowinski@inetdirect.net, sejohnst@midway.uchicago.edu, shorning@willamette.edu, gbrennan@willamette.edu, emcgarry@willamette.edu, gdelling@willamette.edu, and 20 more…
eli, i feel like i’ve answered all this shit before…
maybe i’m getting old and making excuses as my mind goes
maybe i’m just trying to escape this one
but what do you need to know?
why?
why.
i don’t know WHY
..
not on this one.
i don’t think it’s particularily useful..
i can tell you a story…
here goes
once i met this guy i never met
we still didn’t meet
and it took a long time
but then we met
and when we met we were really glad we’d met
but i had to leave.
i’m sure i didn’t really have to leave or anything
but i’d decided to
[i think all of you know about that]
so i left and me and this man kept meeting like this
very partially
and it was a different game with different rules
and there were many things we couldn’t say
and somethings we just didn’t know how to
and we made up a little plan
and we tried to follow it out
but
you know
things happen
and lives cave in
and when the dust clears
it’s empty.
[phew]
which is great
but harsh at times.
so, great but harsh, right…
and “if i asked you for something”
the whole point of the game was to follow the rules
by not being able to see or touch or say anything all that important to
eachother about what we thought about eachother
but to talk about ourselves to eachother
in such a way
the other might learn something about us
ground work
“HEy, leave the light on
just in case
so i can remember where you come from”
see
can you grab my tail?
can i take you for walk?
here: we’ll tour the folds.
if you have five seconds to spare
this is the story of my life
[et cetra]
if i give you everything will you still smile at me?
oh,
will it make you smile more?
i just had this conversation in the real world
‘when you lose respect for someone you begin to see them as they really are
then they’re just a person
and you can deal with them a lot better’
i’m sure you remember, i was on the phone with you,
angel.
are you looking for an answer? you couldn’t be so foolish.
but if you were, why would you be looking to everyone except the one who
knows you best? it’s an old trick, and i’ll pull it again.
why don’t you ever read anything you write?
why don’t you follow your own damned advice?
,pause,
i’m looking for an echo
each little rock has its own face, yeah?
i’m listening to the wind.
now, then there’s me…
yeah
i suppose i could read it
i suppose i should
but it’s so new
it’s so close to me
if read it right now
it won’t make any sense
and i’ll want to change it
and i don’t want to do that
you are far enough away from it so you can get a perspective
maybe it doesn’t make any sense to you either
but maybe it can.
You seem scared. It seems like, if you don’t do it fast and hard and
all the time you’ll stop and you’ll never do it again, never anything,
nowhere. It seems like that’s stupid, and you’ve made us your familiars
in a black magic spell
I’m a rat can type.
You’re a rat can type.
yeah.
i feel like if i don’t do it i won’t do it
i need to do something
and i don’t know what to do
look
i’m a kid
i’m just exploring
it’s what kids do
just stupid kids, exploring.
Do you exist when no one is looking?
Do you exist when less than forty people are looking?
How did you make the list? Do you know if anyone is enjoying it?
well, i haven’t been able to close my eyes all the way yet
so i’m always looking
and i can’t give you an answer beyond that, mr question.
i made the list by time
my thought an action
every person on here has either seen me or touched me or made me want to try
they’ve all given me life
if only once
if only sparse…
it means a lot to me
if only a so small
i’m still small
maybe i need all of these people to keep from disappearing…
you know i’m trying to stay around, eli…
i’m trying.
and you know some of them are enjoying it
and it’s there: so criticize.
This is public speaking. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to ask
you all why we are here, who you are, what I’m doing here, and why we
don’t all leave. I’m been very ill for a few days, so I’m shaking a
little and I think I need to go back to bed, or at least eat breakfast.
Thank you for your time.
Mr. Eli, signing off.
this is a very kind guesture, eli
but do you really think they’ll respond?
this tactic has never worked for me…
but i guess one can always try.
From: horsestorideon@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: Here Is Your Pencil [rescheduling again; two fuckers biting at our heels but we love them SO much]
Date: November 4, 1998 11:11:57 AM PST
To: rsiken@hotmail.com
Cc: 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 20 more…
i tried responding to this last night when i first got it
but had already typed up the night’s mind-flush and was unable to stand what
i’d written
so i scrapped it
it was all about gesticulation, though
so i guess i will fill in your structure here
mister godly-eyes
forcing our worlds into yours
[i do want to try and explain it like this— this raping of reality: it’s
how we see it…
“all my pictures are confused”
this shaping of metaphoric sardonism doesn’t come all that naturally to me
i’m forcing everything trough a small dimpled tip to make pretty designs on
a cake for all my sweet hearts…
i’m vomiting, i’ve been told.
i’m trying too hard, but..]
Richard Siken wrote:
So you have caught the full moon in a bucket and seen our faces,
sleeping, at the bottom of the well. Have we been walking through your
dreams again? At night we leave the windows open and the morning finds
our shoes caked with mud. Our joys are the same as twelve Ethiopian
goats standing silent in the morning light. Our sorrows are slabs of
meat and ingots of copper.
you all flit through my mind
every one of you
[cute as a button]
though i rarely hear from the most of you on any sort of consistant basis
i have no idea as to what your lives are
[and hope they aren’t Just the mundane struggle of repeditive -every – day –
questions]
if you aren’t thinking of me
like i’m thinking of you
at least you’ll know i’m thinking of
or have or did or will
it’s HERE, you know
not like it’s anything special
it just is.
At night we place the milk pails in a row and morning comes and finds
them empty. Are those your footprints on the windowsill? What are you
trying to tell us? Do you simply want to remind us you’re alive? Are you
trying to build a suite of rooms for yourself inside our heads? Okay
then. Here: go on and pencil yourself in:
i’m trying to figure out if i’m alive.
it’s not all that easy
you can push people over all the time
if it’s just two corpses in a row
one pushes one
the both fall over
it’s not much of an accomplishment, really.
i’ve tried to crawl into the spaces you left ungaurded
with your help, ov course: you’re the ones pulling me in…
or not.
it’s like supplimental thinking, dear kid
i’m giving you Milk
[she knows what i’m saying]
i’m vomiting in my little birdies mouths
[that’s love, isn’t it?]
if you don’t get enough from you
maybe i’ll give you a little
and if you don’t get enough from me
maybe you’ll recognize it and do something.
maybe you don’t need to
maybe you’ve got a whole fucking field full of cows…
maybe i’m a wolf.
I’ll steal a car and take you to Hoover dam. We can stand around looking
nonchalant as one hundred thousand gallons of liquid fury pour out below
us every second. I’ll let you paint flames on the hood of the car. I’ll
let you drive. Or how about an all-night barbeque? A dance on the
courthouse lawn? Fried chicken and warm beer as the radio aches a
languid tune that tells the story of what the night is thinking. It’s
thinking of love. It’s thinking of stabbing us to death and leaving our
bodies in a dumpster.
Tell me again how you don’t believe in love. I’ll tell you again how
you’re a liar. Tonight, by the freeway, a man eating fruit pie with a
buck knife is carving his lover’s face into the motel wall. Let’s be
like him, the minutes gone plastic in our blood. Here: more stains in
the night. Here: more whiskey and kisses for everyone.
your sordid examples really aren’t helping
and i ask you to listen to me while you’re making the accusations
i don’t give a shit about the quiet desperation
i feel it all the time
i’m trying to start screaming:
it may end up in a song
or my thoat will just bleed forever
but it’s better than that fucking passivist bullshit of staying quiet one
more time
“one more time dear, i’ll let you have it tonight— if you don’t tell i’ll
pretend not to notice.
i’ll keep taking and you’ll keep crying and i really love you because this
is all you’re gonna get”
you want a story about love?
it isn’t that simple
and it’s hard to believe
it’s like Faith, mother fucker
which i don’t understand
and i have no proof for
it’s a feeling
like i don’t have feelings
it’s something Around the words and underneath…
don’t ever tell me i don’t think i believe in love
I wish I could tell you that I don’t sleep, that I see your face
everywhere, that I wander through the house at night, knocking over
lamps and tilting picture frames, lurching through the dark as if I had
coffins on my feet, grasping at the empty November air as if I could
somehow reach you. I wish I could tell you that I’m inconsolable, that I
come down to breakfast every morning tight-skinned and bleary-eyed. That
I sit there, poking at my eggs with a spoon. I don’t, though. I sleep
just fine.
My burden is a giant pear that floats like the moon. Your absence is an
armful of lilies cut for a shallow vase. Our house is one hundred
pitchers of clover honey. I wish I could say these things with feeling.
But why pour brandy on the fire? Why say anything at all? You put me on
your list as if you’re trying to tell me something. So what are you
trying to tell me little falcon, salt of happiness, favorite of all the
cats? Are you carving wooden shoes for me? Do you want to read the book
of my dreams by the light of the whites of your eyes?
dearest boy
[sigh]
i don’t ask any sort of dependance or despondancy…
i’m just telling you little bits of everything.
this has no point.
there is no grand message here.
nothing is being accomplished.
it’s just a game for kids
with empty heads
washed by dreams.
i’m trying to give you armfullsofflowers or saltedkittensofshoes
anything you want:
just take it.
this isn’t mine
it’s just part of me.
The space between all of us spells a word that you want to put your
mouth around — Twilight, Doorframe, Riverbed, Skin — a word like this
but not these words exactly. It should taste like bourbon and sound like
the hum of distant bees on a summer’s day. So imagine velocity, imagine
you are traveling fabulously towards us, a thing of cream and stars that
becomes, you know the story, simply Heaven in that faraway big band
sense that lasts for one song maybe.
Here is a map with our names for a capital. Here is a shovel to dig your
way in. Act Two, Scene One: backyard plays and cakes and dreams where
you take us and explode us with a more pure joy.
Come on, Slugger. Do it. Give it to us.
i’m on my way, but
have i ever?
[really, i leave the bursting up to you]
From: rsiken@hotmail.com
Subject: Here Is Your Pencil
Date: November 4, 1998 1:40:23 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…
So you have caught the full moon in a bucket and seen our faces,
sleeping, at the bottom of the well. Have we been walking through your
dreams again? At night we leave the windows open and the morning finds
our shoes caked with mud. Our joys are the same as twelve Ethiopian
goats standing silent in the morning light. Our sorrows are slabs of
meat and ingots of copper.
At night we place the milk pails in a row and morning comes and finds
them empty. Are those your footprints on the windowsill? What are you
trying to tell us? Do you simply want to remind us you’re alive? Are you
trying to build a suite of rooms for yourself inside our heads? Okay
then. Here: go on and pencil yourself in:
I’ll steal a car and take you to Hoover dam. We can stand around looking
nonchalant as one hundred thousand gallons of liquid fury pour out below
us every second. I’ll let you paint flames on the hood of the car. I’ll
let you drive. Or how about an all-night barbeque? A dance on the
courthouse lawn? Fried chicken and warm beer as the radio aches a
languid tune that tells the story of what the night is thinking. It’s
thinking of love. It’s thinking of stabbing us to death and leaving our
bodies in a dumpster.
Tell me again how you don’t believe in love. I’ll tell you again how
you’re a liar. Tonight, by the freeway, a man eating fruit pie with a
buck knife is carving his lover’s face into the motel wall. Let’s be
like him, the minutes gone plastic in our blood. Here: more stains in
the night. Here: more whiskey and kisses for everyone.
I wish I could tell you that I don’t sleep, that I see your face
everywhere, that I wander through the house at night, knocking over
lamps and tilting picture frames, lurching through the dark as if I had
coffins on my feet, grasping at the empty November air as if I could
somehow reach you. I wish I could tell you that I’m inconsolable, that I
come down to breakfast every morning tight-skinned and bleary-eyed. That
I sit there, poking at my eggs with a spoon. I don’t, though. I sleep
just fine.
My burden is a giant pear that floats like the moon. Your absence is an
armful of lilies cut for a shallow vase. Our house is one hundred
pitchers of clover honey. I wish I could say these things with feeling.
But why pour brandy on the fire? Why say anything at all? You put me on
your list as if you’re trying to tell me something. So what are you
trying to tell me little falcon, salt of happiness, favorite of all the
cats? Are you carving wooden shoes for me? Do you want to read the book
of my dreams by the light of the whites of your eyes?
The space between all of us spells a word that you want to put your
mouth around — Twilight, Doorframe, Riverbed, Skin — a word like this
but not these words exactly. It should taste like bourbon and sound like
the hum of distant bees on a summer’s day. So imagine velocity, imagine
you are traveling fabulously towards us, a thing of cream and stars that
becomes, you know the story, simply Heaven in that faraway big band
sense that lasts for one song maybe.
Here is a map with our names for a capital. Here is a shovel to dig your
way in. Act Two, Scene One: backyard plays and cakes and dreams where
you take us and explode us with a more pure joy.
Come on, Slugger. Do it. Give it to us.
From: horsestorideon@hotmail.com
Subject: ‘no no no. there are Things i have to DO HERE.’ no no no no. four visions you no-good-bastard.
Date: November 3, 1998 1:08:42 AM PST
To: exit2k@hotmail.com, afw10@columbia.edu, mrvisible@worldnet.att.net, sowinski@inetdirect.net, sejohnst@midway.uchicago.edu, and 24 more…
remember: when it’s comming down it’s sometimes best to go with it.
the boy turned to me
[we’d been setting like that for a good hour or so: my arm round his shoulder my other hand on his chest… all relaxed, like]
and he felt compelled to tell me a story about his child-hood
“why, you’re barely just a child as it is” i would have exclaimed, had i the inclination. but he knew my intentions and wasn’t hurt nor perplexed by my falisites. he continued on.
he had a voice like one i don’t think i could ever describe.. maybe just the path he took to find it. it was a sort of voice you might get if you imagined the way a voice Should sound… but got all worried about someone thinking you might be faking it so ye had to change it a bit so it didn’t sound like something that might be perfectly fit into a film or a song or a monologue or the like.. a voice that might shift a bit after you’ve heard it… not because it was trying to, but because it’d spent so much time trying to sound LIKE something that it didn’t really know what it sounded like ney more and it had to just carry on as it would.. as if you were hearing from a large group of people from all over the world who all seems slightly confused as to WHy they’d be talking with you anyway; the voice that boy had…
he used this voice to explain that when he was still just a child he found that he had to lie about some of the things he thought and did or he’d get in trouble. he said there were people out there that could tell if you did things right or wrong if you were lying to them… he said the only way you could protect yourself against the people out there who were trying to find you out was to Be what it was you were talking about. if you say something you’d better be it or they could see the trembling inconsitancies on your little face. he said he always looked for people’s quivering lips and chins… eye-brows too.
he told me that in all this lying he found himself forgetting what it was that he was or did or said or anything… not that he had a Bad memory, but because he had to … Change the things he had in his mind, lest anyone follow the path-ways of his eyes back into the silent rooms where he committed what ever it was that he’d done and needed NOt to have done.
he knew what he should or shouldn’t do: he’d heard enough people say it over and over…
that’s another thing he said… he told me that people will repeat things if they aren’t happy with your very self. he said they’d look at you a bit funny and say the same things over and over as if YOu were the one that was crazy.
well, he let me know, when the world treats you like you’re crazy then you must be crazy.
he said he took all of his father’s drill-bits and studied them.. seeing what would happen if his father wanted to release evil spirits from his skull… surely a crazy and bad boy would need that done to him… he said he always had to forget that fact or someone would see it in him. he told me he was always very frightened about lombotomies even before he knew what they were called.
he told me a story, in that dim and smoky light, about the time that his uncle had given him a key… a whole string of keys, in fact…enough to get out of ANYTHING… well, the boy knew about getting out of things, really, he did… and he looked at all these keys.. and one of them, his favourite, was a green key. he told me he held onto that key on a key-chain of its own. he said it was special. it was a blue plastic key-chain and a green metal key. he told me that he never let that one out of his pocket even though his brother was always taking his other keys: his brother was always taking his stuff.
well, one day… he can’t really remember that one day… he said he’s not sure of it being on account of something happening that day that he had to dis-remember or on account of that light. see, he told me that the green key he had was THE way out. he said that the key-holes seemed to be everywhere and all you needed to to was stick the key in and it’d open up THE way out and you could just go right through. he’d decided, he supposes, and he closed the door on the place where he didn’t really stay: it was a guest room at the time, he liked spending time in there where he felt more comfortable. well, he put that key in its hole and he flew across the room and hit the wall with a “thump”. he told me his mother said it was a “thump” so he knew it was a “thump” coz she was never too worried about dis-remembering things to make sure she knew what she was talking about because she hardly ever new what she was talking about anyway.
he said that THAT means he can’t leave yet… not until he can find another green key to get him out…
so, in that position, as the boy was still turned slightly toward me, enough to see half of his face shadowed by the direct lighting, i wanted to ask him about the rest… i wanted him to explain to me what it was like being like that. speaking like that.
i kissed him on the forehead because the poor little tike looked a bit sleepy and i didn’t want to put him out or anything like that. i let him rest and listened to the steady mumbling that poured out from his trembling lips as the sun rose for the rest of our day together. i watched the expressions change on his face from one boy to man to another and his syster or mother.. his look of total abandon and then pleading
as if
just now
he might have found what it was he thought he might want .
From: houseofthe2palms@hotmail.com
Subject: deep curtains
Date: November 3, 1998 12:02:15 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…
if no beginning again,
all pockmarks allowed
having to ask a quest
ion: takeit like a pill
is there a name for the self refrential portion of shakespearian
[or any] plays: youknow, where all the characters watch
their charicatures act out the larger twisting plot their stuck in:
r&j:: hamlet::
where they might catch a glimpse of themselves, even the actors
feeling their faces melt onto fellow actors play at actorsacting:
where the plotpath is
[simplified][generalized][encapsulated][cycling][hinted],
the plays motivators
disappearing in the onstage courttheater of saidking distracted by
murders
done deals.
done
with
‘theatertricks.’
is there a name i can use for the puppetshow portion, now that a
curtain has dropped on stage,
but hasnt sealed the 3rd space entirely,
protecting it from applause?
or
maybe anader question for someones fumbling hand:
can we write a list of the VILLIANS who could only see their tortures as
a gift:
giving the other one, the VICTIM, the opportunity VILLIAN was never
given.
or [maybe] just not enough of, regularly.
ready to cry,
happy to hurt:
i speak as
Hello&Mole.
“oh hello mole”
From: afw10@columbia.edu
Subject: A lack; space; a delusion
Date: November 2, 1998 2:40:49 PM EST
To: horsestorideon@hotmail.com
Cc: exit2k@hotmail.com, mrvisible@worldnet.att.net, sejohnst@midway.uchicago.edu, shorning@willamette.edu, and 4 more…
reply why not–bored at “(Wor(?)k:
and love, o love and love
and fucking and fucking and fucking
loneliness
obsession
no thoughts from me (hee) missing past cherryiats; rather agitated
stumble to where—there some place building warmth no duty possibly; but
rather rancid stench of ittie bittie poochie turds built up by rising
gentry rising fast up to even this height of man-hat isle: and putrid,
with riverside steeple a-shining—-must turn back
fuck place: prefer the tremors and ensuing (but aka ‘known’)
depression: back to the trusty couch where free to twitch moan jump
and scream
stare dep into the spoon’s eye:
—–do i think i completely rinsed the bastard
veins bursting with air
enter darkness trauma:
drunken serbians tumbling around
haunted by alternative endings for oscar awarded shit
k’tonka, k’tonka:
they felt the punctures repurcussing
k’tonka
k’tonka
streams of deadened bufalo
streams of post-haste shit
and cum that can’t believe to leave
rises again
o but that love and fucking and loneliness and obsession
but it will still be thought of now and now andnownownownownownow
but you know that whole line—-can’t think to avoid it
the dreams, but i am not yet asleep
but this night finally:first dream
the elevator;theprojects;7th&D
that first sweet spoonful straight off train skip down escalator jump into
restroom pop and rekindled
o i loved her and him and you:
but now
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