pointless.

a lot of delightful things happen when you do the exact same thing with the exact same poeple many many times, and all of these delightful things involve eye contact. eye contact amidst a sea of eyes that do not see your secret eyes contacting with the other, across the stage, smiling in a shiny motown dress.

im almost done with philip pullman's his dark materials trilogy. i started it saturday night, and will most likely finish tonight...thats two days. {contrast this with the book i just left, james joyce's ulysses, where i spent a wolid (yes, wolid) week trudging through the first 66 pages. i got over the stream of consciousness thing, and actually started to like it a bit, (though one night i was drinking irish whiskey while reading it and just kept laughing out loud at all the nonsequiters, saying to my empty room "hes just saying whatever the fuck he wants! look, he just said THAT!")...but all those fucking irish words!! i cant deal with all those fucking irish words!!} so, yeah, i havent finished it (pullman) yet, but it is reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaallly good. i cant beleive something so blatantly (BLATANTLY) anti-christian is being marketed to children.

my absolute favorite books are the great fantasy epics...narnia and the ring, of couse, plus gaiman's sandman and s king's dark tower and lil old popular harry potter. also just read white's the once and future king too, king arthur, and plenty more fun. pullman apparently felt that narnia in particular was sexist, racist, christian propoganda, and wanted to write a response. his trilogy ends up being more about fate vs choice than good vs evil, but its still set against a backdrop of dualistic christianity. the ring is clearly good vs evil, delves into the internal struggle of human nature quite a bit, has rampant christian symbolism which tolkien has denied, but still, dualistic for sure. potter: good vs evil dualism central, and even the attempt at ambiguity in snape has run pretty thin by now, i think (cant they see how good he is?). arthur seems to have a lot more to do with human nature, internal battles, the attempt to civilize society, let the god in man win over the dog. again, dualistic. king gets pretty metaphysical (though nowhere near as interestingly as pullmans take on quantum physics), but hes got his good guys and his bad guys locked firm. sandman is maybe the least dualistic of the bunch...the endless's ambiguous role as neither gods nor humans leaves them kind of free from normal moral rules, and dream is just so very interesting. but the christian and greek influence is super prominent (lucifer gives dream the keys to hell in one story), and there are always two sides in conflict.

and all of these series are strictly goal oriented. destroy the ring, defeat the bad guy, get to the tower, die, etc. maybe thats not surprising, as most narratives are goal oriented, but certainly twentieth century literature has shown us that non linear or even static narrative is possible and often really good.

in 10th grade, we read hesse's siddhartha. i remember really liking it, but i only found out years later that it had anything to do with buddhism (good fucking teacher, huh?).

so heres my thought: what would a nondualistic, nonwestern, nongoal oriented fantasy epic look like? think of all of the lessons of major eastern religions: presence, mindfulness, nonduality, acceptance, understanding, compassion. the destruction of the pairs, good and evil, light and dark, man and woman, subject and object. the though of living only for the present moment, the fool card, the future nonexistent. what about a story like that, but with lots of cool witches and shit?

what if you went on a quest to find out what your goal was, and atop a lonely mountain at the edge of the world you cleared you mind and dropped your sword and your whitehaired master emerged from a slowly flying dandelion cloud and cut your arm off, and you realized that your goal was to find out what your goal was, and with that realization you had gotten it, and your mind collapsed upon itself?

maybe im looking for a seven volume zen koan,
with lots of cool witches and shit.

such a simple thing.

the mess is a series of square tables, all diagonal to the walls, all coated in white linen with folded napkins and glass water goblets. usually when i go to the mess, the band is there too, so i have an automatic place to sit. it is expected that i will sit with them (except for the dangerously alcoholic trombone player), and they are welcoming, and there are odd bursts of converstaion that i am not compelled to either contribute to or resist.

but if the band is not there, i am faced with a weight and a weariness, for usually before me are two or three tables half full with acquantinces; mostly dazzlingly european women, members of the cast or youth staff. and too sad to face the silent sadness of halting conversation, i usually slink by and sit alone.

yesterday, though, the best dancer asked, in her melancholy english accent, "may i join you?". her dancing is amazing...while the others seem to be going through the motions in a plastic smile hangover thickness, she cuts through the air like fine russian scissors. her seven styles of red hair, her eyes done up for the show in a cats mask of silver and white. she sat next to me, not across, and ate her pineapple, melon and coffee, and we didnt say much, but just her nearness made me feel wonderfully present.

too often i find out that the people im most intimidated by are also intimidated by me. i must stop assuming that the rest of the world is stronger than me. i must remember that my ability to give love is miracle.

saw something that i have never ever seen before, never ever, ever ever, my entire vision filled, with this thing that i had never ever before seen ever. it was not a new seen thing framed by the typical background static of often seen things; this thing was my entire field of vision, that is, all i was seeing were these exactly two things, which thanks to a miraculous perfect synchornicity of color and shape had the appearance of being exactly one giant all thing, that i had never seen before, ever ever, and that i was immersed in.

this all happened on a perfect beach, secluded beach, half a mile long, with no one else on it, no one at all, a beach that i had to climb down treacheous rocks to get to, slowly, carefully, bravely, thinking to my foot, my white barefoot, all right, now, foot, im just going to have to trust you here, im about to put my whole weight on you and i am going to trust you that you wont slip and break me. all right foot all right foot are you ready foot. all right. here we go.

and then down and jump onto soft sad sand and theres the perfect beach with no one on it just white white sand, said soft sad sand and cliffs and caves and crannies rocks out my shoes and glasses and tshirt on a rock so i could go into>>>>> the water which was raging with the wind and giant perfect waves were smacking me just me
Iall aloneI

and then the suction>>>> into the sea knocked me down and before i even ever never seen knew it was way way way way out in the middle of the sea and the sun i looked up to or tried to but the water came laughing onto my head and salt was in mouth aw come on sand was in my thick rich hair really rocking me now you water you, growl and come on!! and when i looked up, over the water slaps looked up again to see , through my color senstive nearsighted human eyes when i looked up to the sky all i saw was the sea; and when i looked up to saw the sea all i saw was the sky. sea sky: see sky see sea, see sea see sky, because the water was so clear perfect and the sand so white perfect on this perfect secluded beach ever on this perfect day so clear and so white that together ever never `the light` and `the reflection` the water and the sky were, sigh, aw, come on, aw,

*the same color*

yup, yup, the same color, the exact same color, sigh again, *, foot cant believe it, with a wave over water underwater hardly breathe and salt taste tread to stay a float sigh my god perfect a ~baby~light~blue~ that rippled and heaved over me my blurry vision bluring the horizon line away and there the sea the sky both the same color the same color! the exact same color! never ever! so all i could see was rippling breathing ~baby~light~blue~, and i was /immersed/ in it and it was the only thing i could see, inhaling frantic salt water, up and down panic color never ever alive everything just this one color blue blue blue bluebluebluebluelueblueblueblueblueblue rrraaaaaaaaaaaahh on this perfectly cloudless day perfectly clearless water perfectly emptyless beachess.

later i lalala lay in the sad and alalalaughed uncontrollableable as the waves knocked me wash over and then swoosh slurped me back in ever ever ha ha ha!

Posted by: david / 21:28

i found some unexpected eggs today.

(its a classic paradox. a man presents you with 10 numbered boxes, and tells you that in one you will find an *unexpected* egg. you are to open them in order. the egg must be *unexpected*; thus, you reason, it cant be in the last box, for if you were to open the first nine and find no egg, you would know that it had to be in box 10 and it would thus be *expected*. so box 10 is out. by similar reasoning, box 9 is out too- since it cant be in box 10, when you get down to 9 and 10 it would have to be in 9- but that would then be *expected*. and it cant be in 8 if its not in 9 or 10, again, youd *expect* it. you can apply this to all the boxes, and safely say that it cant be in any of them. until you open box 5 and find a completely *unexpected* egg.)

friday nights the main crew deck, deck 3, becomes a maze of luggage, color tagged and carted into giant metal shark cages in preparation for tomorrows debarkation. everyone knows that luggage is the shittiest job. the housecleaners all wear back braces and sneak bites of cold pizza brought to them on white plates. old wooden ramps are placed over the stairs and the luggage slides down, helped along at each landing by one of these wearyeyeds, mostly philipinos. im pretty sure there should be a doubled letter in that word.

but there the occasional odd and lovely eastern european too...i was walking up the steps opposite a ramp tonight, and saw my beloved estonian, she of blond curls and small small voice and narcoleptic saunter. she gave me a pouty tired look and told me, in a >zabul dabo< voice like velvet taffy, "we push, we pull, mmmmmmm". i asked her if she ever slides down the slides herself. she said, yes, try it, and i did, but my shoes were too sticky and then an officer gave me a look. i had to leave, and wanted to leave with a graceful wit (this was only the second time ive talked to her), but could only manage: "you could sell tickets". which she responded with only a puzzled look. ugh.

i walked away feeling much like one of the rejected awkward teens wearing a signed white celebrity tshirt (signed by all his 'new teen friends') i had seen earlier that night up at the teen disco. (the cool teens were in the back hooking up). i feel the same about love as i always have- desperate, wildeyed, a fool. city streets in the rain, solo trumpet, hard eyes against the tears.

even earlier this night i had watched a bit of edward scissorhands. that is the kind of love i have always wanted, in a fairytale, a one who understands, an embrace of the pained abnormalities. at the end of the movie, winona is old and talking to her granddaugther...so she has clearly moved on. but she still loves him, she will always still love him.

and even earlier then that, lying in my bed thinking about an old old old love...an unrequited one that consumed me for years. one im at peace with; i love her friendship and have put all of my exaggerations about her and of all of the practical complications our history afforded us into their appropriately numbered boxes. we still see each other every rarely, and its wonderful and magic. but yet, but yet, today in my astral nap bunkbed world (specific song that did it was "wigwam", bob dylan, though i do not consciously associate that song with this woman at all), she stepped on my feet under a lowlit diner table again, and i was holding her hand and kissing her at last.

still earlier, at rehearsal, the husband and wife duo sing "to all the girls ive loved" (the willie nelson/julio iglesias(?) classic). just terrible, terrible fucking song. but still...

never fall out of love with someone. never not fall in love with someone else. that seems essential to me. i fall for the estonian as rapidly as i fall away from another on the ship (lazyeyed welder), but i still can taste her odd garlic (for health) kisses. then night i hear another song and remember someone else. theres such beautiful light in their eyes. everyone a different color, a delicate coral, an unsung evergreen.

now ive got my dreams of my one love that sings to me in a secret language and bites my finger and laughs me to the moon. i love her and want to take our grandchildren apple picking.

but still i love them all, all the rest too.
ive put them each in a soft box in my memory, with all of their letters and laughs and lipnesses, and ive closed the boxes, and i dont *expect* to feel that way again. oh but then, but then an oh.

i can reason through everything, i can control what i obsess over and what fills my head. i can let go.

but when i feel snow on my wrist, i shiver.

someones getting married tomorrow. and heres an unexpected egg--- i am so very happy for her. i love her and wish her the world, the stillness grandness of empty space, and all the blazing suns in between.