laughter · without · forgetting

is real life différance sometimes i am inclined to ask and like petals blooming no no there is no synchronicity and the instantiation of a fact is in its failed instantiation that is to say: there is no structure no megastructure no superstructure no microstructure no substructure we are constituted purely and solely by our own inimitable yet consistently flawed attempts at communication, at signification, at the construction of a subjective identity that is to say: cogito ergo cogito, sum ergo sum, or, non sum ergo sum, or non sum ergo non sum but really i am just playing freely laying myself merely bare before the bar pushing forwards into the abyss on a carpet of ugly flowers and in this chasm time has no meaning no motion no wave that rises and falls but rather is and only is as a fragmented unaccountable and unrelatable and unknowable series of moments constantly seeking chasing but never finding an imaginary whole

reading graham greene's the end of the affair. it is the first time in a long while that i have actually become (and allowed myself to become) emotionally invested in a novel. i find myself slipping into the book itself. and of course, it's about love and hate and scorn and jealousy, and memories of a love that seemed eternal only as something imminently doomed. i have been there, i have seen the windows of this house of jealous lovers from both sides. i want to tear pages and throw them into the sea, the air, with reckless abandon and swim forward, on, out, disappearing.

OHMYGOD bessie smith.

Another drink, Cormorant says, shimmering, smoking, sloven. Don't want to lose ourselves do we. Let it all slide out of view. Slide out of you. Haha, he says, haha. Haha.
Yes again it's me and Cormorant, Cormorant and I. We are together but not together, no. I do not drink as much as he does but I do drink and we sit here at the Milkbar drinking. Because really we have nothing else to do. Trust me I wish we did. I wish I led a real serious life. But I do not, and so I drink. But not as much as Cormorant, but that's alright because I can pace myself, I don't have to keep up, I just have to keep afloat, abreast of the tempest. He orders another drink, I do not, I ask for a glass of water, I light a cigarette as Cormorant puts his own out, he lights another cigarette, wraps his thin knobbed leatherhands around the chilled and overflowing pint glass and brings it up predictably to his lips shaking and inhales slurp slurp and I tilt my bottle back verticalwise and put it down on the bar clunk and take a quick sip of water, room temperature, thp. I turn to Cormorant who is either taking a drag from his cigarette or a sip from his pint, it has become the same now really, and I say, I sing:
Cormorant, Cormorant, Cormorant.
Yes dear? he replies.
Cormorant darling. Dear.
Yes m'love, he says. Guiness Guiness. Sip sip. Slurp more like. Comment c'est.
We've got to.
Got to what?
We've got to. I break off in mid-sentence, meaning unspoken hangs like bricks from string. To. Um.
What is it? You alright? Rocks back and forth a little, sip sip. I drag on my cigarette and pretend to hear the paper burning with tobacco smoke. I speak before exhaling.
Leave, somehow, to somewhere. Then I exhale.
One more pint after this then we'll go straight home.
It's cold outside, Cormorant.
It is. Have another drink. It'll warm you. He says warm you like one word. He says It'll warm you like one word, drunk. Itillwarmyew. Itill. Yes it will.
I know. I have had enough though. Comment c'était.
Oh come now dear. One more won't harm.
I should not.
Should is not a matter of dispute here, sip.
Isn't it though. More like: Isn't it though?
No, should I be drinking this here now? Yes, and no.
Do you feel it within you not to? Smoke, burn.
I feel it as a star feels itself burning out. He breathes, sips.
Hmm, I say, hmm. Hmming. That's quite a way to put it Cormorant.
It is quite a way. I'm dreadfully clever sometimes aren't I? Sip. Don't worry dear you don't have to keep up. He slaps me jovially on the back with the open of his free hand, the hand that does not clutch drink.

Stephen comes in, in dancing shoes dancing one-twoing the floors that are made of measured and uniformed strips of wood, what kind I do not know because Stephen’s shoes are so tiptapping that I am not even paying attention to the wood of the floor holding us all up. And now the end is near Stephen sings dancing in singing something something something he sings more. Much more than this I did it my way! Frank Sinatra I say to Stephen and he says yes but also Elvis Presley of course. Do you know the story of that song? I say. Yes. No. So I tell him that it was originally a French song meaning I do not know what because I do not know French but anyway so Frank Sinatra wanted to sing it but in English which makes much more sense, I don’t need to explain, and a couple of struggling songwriters tried to write their own versions and among them was a young lad named David Bowie who wrote a song but also Paul Anka wrote a song and called it My Way and Frank Sintra old blue eyes liked it much more than David Bowie’s, much more than that, and Frank Sinatra did My Way, and David Bowie turned his version of the song into Life On Mars? which is a song I love too. But that is not the point.
Well I did not know that, Stephen says, clipclopping with his shiny black suede and leather shoes or maybe leather and suede I do not know I do not care. I can’t go on, I say, I mutter, I whimper almost, bang bang bang, and Stephen says, No, you can go on, you must go on, and he walks onetwotiptapclipclop up to me arms up and hands out all five fingers open fanned out and he grabs my shoulders with strength he keeps hidden and pulls me to his face and kisses me on my thin little yellow lips and I feel he has shaved, I nearly fall into his smooth open follicles, I pull myself back, I do not fall. I cannot fall.

animalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveanimalcollectiveandnoweverythingcatchesupbutthunderstruckwithwineitllonlybeforalittlewhile

y'know what. a bit of tosser but i think he's alright.

This is about what I have lost. Space, time, countless hours of sleep, spent stirring cream into coffee, mind warbled by worries, swamped with sorrow, bitter and perverted with the stuff of the ancients, flights of fancy that give pained numbless birth to insanity, history's black bastard child. In the evenings I feast upon my cuticles and fingernails and my hands become bloody, an inimitable reminder of past guilts. Hold me, friend, ere I weep for thee! Cull me quick, ere I wilt; extract from me now the blush of youth's wax, the choleric calling of a criminal who does not confess to anything but loss. Yes, this is my confession, but I seek no pardon. I only seek, my brothers, your companionship, your fraternal ears; share with me my loss; take part in it, feel it, gaze beyond it. For it is my loss, gentlemen, as much as it is yours. Yes, you bastards. My losses are your losses, for - what is it ol' Johnny Donne once said? - for you are involved, as am I, in mankind. Now is when in my dreams I would hear bells ring and toll. But these, friends, are not dreams.

YEAH YEAH YEAHS. Crystal Ballroom. September 7th. YES.

i have begun what i am sure will be the lengthy process of reading finnegans wake. it is serving as philological for-fun distractions from proust. perhaps ten pages a day or so. so far, it delights me. very very much. give me my finn, again.

i just thought about it and i know a lot of people who have died. i remember thinking a year ago or i didn't really know anyone who was dead. now i know plenty. odd.

[ 1 ]
When sparrows rained down on the city it was a cold Tuesday and Roland was walking the grand boulevards grandly with roses in hand dethorned of course for there is nothing as reticent, as unnecessary, as small rivers of blood on the palm. The boulevards are of course if you have any sense of rhythm or rhyme not really boulevards but only streets that run like veins through this pretty little town of Howe nestled deep in the south of Wenne at the foot of large mountains. The Hamlithghow Mountains. Named such for Hamlithghow of course. And more of coursely, over, these mountains are naturally not mountains but giant mountainlike Things Of The Earth (TOTE) built many many years ago much before time was introduced to Howe and long before anyone thought to ask and so no one is quite sure how old these Things are but what everyone seems to know but not acknowledge, no no, is that these towers of earth and rock were built to give man – and woman and child – the sense of sublime, of being lost inside a place most giant and larger than life; indeed, a place that is no place and a place that is all-place. And Our Roland, Roland Houre, would have of course been able to tell you that but for his Revocation of Utterance three somewhat weeks ago for he cannot say what. Here are the terms, however, thanks to clever snooping, of his punishment meant, of course, not to punish, but to alter. Signed Robert Altarr, esq. Which does not as I’m sure you assume stand for esquinautician but for esquire, a social standing that involves of course much sitting.

The accused, R. Houre, has been issued a temporary Revocation of Utterance (see code 432534 by-line 321523 section 12452 paragraph 23c line 449i word 9087373 letter 7, multiplied, see also ****** and *********) for [------- ----- --- - - - - -- ------------------] several times in full and plain view of a number of **************s and twelve ********** under ******* and, twice, between ****** and once beneath ******* **** **** for a full ********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************* while riverdancing.
The guidelines of this punishment are as follows:
• The accused, R. Houre, born R. U. Hourse, named altered in legislation of year ***d* (see Legislation, a history, volume 4, chapter 14, found in ******** call no: *************7), has been sentenced to a Revocation of Utterance for a duration of three somewhat weeks (49.6 somehow days, C**) in which he the accused is not permitted to issue any sort of utterance, be it narrative, conversational, or fantastical. No appeal is permitted. The accused is, however, allowed to file for shadowing by a Surrogate-Interpretive Speaking Thing (SIST). The accused is, of course, not allowed to communicate this request in any way, shape, or form, under the restrictions of his the accused’s Revocation.
• After the duration of the punishment has expired and the accused has been punished, roundly, he will then enter a complimentary two somewhat month period of Deremission in which he the accused will enter a period of Utter Mimicry (UM) (see Balz Miek, “Utter Mimicry: Repeating Repeating”) in which he the accused will only be permitted to issue utterances previously issued by an outside party (any person, place, or thing not of or relating directly to R. Houre the accused).
• Pending approval by High Alteration Moderating Board (HAMB), the accused R. Houre will then be permitted to issue utterances of any nature which so please him the accused, though a record of the imprisonment, punishment, and silence of R. Houre the accused will remain permanently in the House of Organized Records (HOR).
Good day.
Signed,
Robert Altarr, High Inconsequence Solicitor (HIS), esq.