Jazz-Tuning Innuendo in Egyptian Blue Turmoil

Journal #37

Thursday, June 26, 2008
3:26—WSQ! —In the truncated* park on a forlorn and fractious bench.

Fear turns to fatigue as a hollow afternoon rotates ponderously across an imploded solar chart.
Underside of the city as I retreat from fear and paranoia.
Comatose on the park bench as irrelevant thoughts sputter and expire in an over-stimulated nervous system.
Magnetic disturbance of a street as shadows walk through the haze of the late afternoon.
Clinging to obscure corners of the Memory-Park-in-Exile.
Dozing off on a multi-dimensional bench.
Husks shuffle through and around the de-natured chess circle [Re-located to the north-west quadrant against all laws of physics—and decency!]
De-camped on the very periphery of the chess quadrant—feeling too frail to be embroiled in the madness of that still-potent node of fractious contention.

4:33—On an even more obscure bench near the Baci court [Now ripped out and already forgotten!]

Brats continue to scream all through the pain/continuum.

Moved to an even more obscure location on the other side of the Baci court.
Now in the locus of two equidistant “jazz” bands, each playing in what I believe to be the style known as “free” jazz. This produces a music** that is perhaps superior to either of the individual bands alone. 
**Jazz-tuning innuendo in Egyptian Blue turmoil.

Dreams born on chemical mists and industrial solvents.
Tomorrow I have an interview for a graphics job at some horrible law firm at 12:00—it will be a miracle if they hire me and a mistake on their part if they do! I am an incompetant, a day-dreamer, and a slacker! Lord!
 

6:07—At yet another bench/location.
Jerking and twitching criminals skulk around the chess circle...
Early evening announces itself on a cool breeze from the south-west. Another day rotates sluggishly out of existence as we hapless creatures are whirled through outer space at unimaginable speeds. I wonder how fast the Earth is actually travelling in its crazed orbit around the sun? Perhaps 10,000 miles an hour? Much faster? Or perhaps slower? I’ll look it up tonight... why should I even be interested? I don’t know—anything to distract me from my misery and fears. So we are orbiting and rotating at the same time—and the sun itself is also moving around the galaxy. No wonder we are all confused and agitated: we’re orbiting and spinning and being dragged around the galaxy by the sun at the same time and it never stops! Why doesn’t everyone simply go mad at the very thought of such a situation? It’s like some insane carnival ride!
[The Earth travels in its orbit at approximately 66,000 mph, and rotates on its axis at a little over 1000 mph]

...A little later on an F-Train heading back to Ditmas Park—at least I got a seat...

9:40—Back in the Ditmas.
Vertiginous evening—thoughts are born and expire before I can examine them...

* In the midst of the great renovation/desecration—take your pick

/// wsq /// solar system /// alienation /// solitude

The Albatross

From Journal #52

Wednesday, March 31, 2010
1:42—No sun here in WSQ—

And it’s really too cold to sit here, so I guess I’m heading up to Union Square... feeling pretty bad... 

4:38—In the confines of the back room of the Unspeakable Albatross Café! [Now gone! All shuttered up and closed forever—I stood in front of the place in shock—I couldn't believe it—

I could only get a narrow glimpse into the dark and gutted interior through the slit between the doors—and I shot this ghostly photo: 

The interior didn't make sense: that window shouldn't have been there... I distinctly saw a woman walk quickly past my field of vision in the interior as I peered through the crack—and she made eye contact for a split second... impossible!]
I am today cursed* by workers who seem to follow me everywhere I go—with their buckets, mops, and overpowering stench of ammoniacal chemicals! [NH₃(g) + H₂O(l) ==> NH₄OH(aq)] The sun has partially returned, but it’s still cold out...
Weakened & sapped by poison; I am skittish & nervous; any sudden sound can send me to twitching and starting... a sad state for the once robust kid. Absurd cacophany back here—a junkyard of the mind...

4:51—I have a mind to return to the park if it’s actually warm enough for such an indulgence.

... Escape from the Poison Trough of the City of Absentia! Snout-in-Trough! Heading to WSQ!

5:22—WSQ—On the Rim of the Circle...

6:02—The longer I stay away from that poisonous hell***, the better I feel.
Ideas flickering around the Circle and the benches.
Accordianist won’t stop—it’s really annoying me—terrible, repetitive “music” and off-key singing! [I am a crank. There was never any question about that.]
I looked at myself in the mirror in the bathroom at Barnes & Noble and I saw an unshaven and unkempt old man staring sheepishly back at me! The horror! Do I need to apologize about my encroaching old age? I really don’t f#cking care—I just want some God damn fresh air!

6:41—The sun goes down in the park, as it must...

* The Ten Thousand Curses and Their Explanations, B. Spaeth, 2008, Serious Ink Press (Unavailable at The Warner Library)

*** Unknown reference...

The Book of Disquiet: Trailer #1

Trailer #1 for my upcoming animated video of Fernando Pessoa's  The Book of Disquiet.
As my accumulation of video clips from this production grows exponentially and threatens to overwhelm both my computer and myself, I have decided to release this teaser in the interests of my own mental health.

The Flatlands

Journal #31
Tuesday, July 3, 2007

11:03—On a Q-Train heading to WSQ—
Have to scrape together the Ditmas rent somehow...
All the brouhaha with the band is meaningless because my hearing is worse than ever—I’m totally toxified* and weakened and my ears are ringing all the time. Impossible! Not an option! Academic! End of problem!

2:09—WSQ—beautiful day in a dream—soon to be nothing but a lost page in a barbaric book.
Lives squandered and turned to paper. I now realize that the toxins have seeped into my dreams and then overflowed onto these ghostly pages...
*Poison-Fueled Literature, Vol. I

Wednesday, July 4, 2007
The Fourth of July!
11:42—I quit the environs of Ditmas in a shroud of toxic fumes and walked along a certain version of Ditmas Avenue on the way to the F-Train on MacDonald Avenue.

Ditmas Avenue (between certain streets) possesses a sadness and weariness—I don’t feel that I am fully here—that I pass through (tenuously) a very late and debased version of the avenue—the absurd feeling that my version could never measure up to previous versions—that the heyday of the avenue existed a long time ago—or may never have existed... the streets are fluid and elastic and strewn with psychic debris...
 

MacDonald Avenue Station—
The elevated platform gives a view of a limitless Brooklyn—I lose myself—as the Flatlands of Old Brooklyn stretch off to the industrial horizon in an atomized haze...

The Great Book of Indigestion

Still-frame from "WSQ", 2011
 
JOURNAL #52
March 8, 2010—

4:37—WSQ—
Debt collectors calling, calling, calling...Vultures circling everywhere in the Poison City. Down to a single bar of “charge” on my cell-phone battery.
 
Trying to conjure the Springtime into existence:

Still-frame from "The Conjure Stone", 2009

Eating compulsively—out of pure neurosis.
 
Park cooling off as the sun goes down one more time...

Still-frame from "Orb Descending in Park/Sepulchre", 2011

Phantoms pass by, sit for a while, and then move on into the oblivion of the late afternoon.
I suppose I’ll be heading up to Barnes & Noble pretty soon—it’s too cold and windy out here now. Fear is ascendent! I am afraid all of the time. Maybe I do need some kind of medication—nah, that stuff never worked for me.
Heading to B&N...

Tuesday, March 9, 2010—

8:28—In the C-Muffin—

Connecticut Muffin, Cortelyou Rd., Brooklyn, NY

Fear, fear, and paranoia—too many things conspire against me—I almost choked when I read that article yesterday about how American Grid conspired with Con Ed and Morgan Stanley to rip off customers in an elaborate scheme that netted them millions! I guess I shouldn’t be shocked or surprised, but I was—the lawlessness and corruption are out of control—it filled me with fear and disgust. This country is absolutely doomed—the depravity is beyond belief! I knew that that American Grid was f*cked up when that psychopath started yelling at me over the phone last year—I felt like I was talking to the mafia or something!

Book #52: Tales of Fear and Disgust!

 
Wednesday, March 10, 2010—

11:25—On a Q heading to 14 St.—oh, no—wait a minute! I’m on a B! Christ—where should I get off?

1:21—WSQ—

Still-frame from "Lost Fountain Observances", 2011

Trying to decide if I should call that debt-collector scumbag back. I probably shouldn’t, but maybe I should at least call them once—I don’t know what to do. I’m really in too fragile a state of mind to be bullied and interrogated by some thuggish debt collector. The back is hurting a little bit but not too bad—where is my PT? I ought to hear from them this week—gotta get that ultra-sound going...

... and I’m sitting in WSQ on a chilly day—not really that comfortable. It’s too fucking cold! I gotta duck inside somewhere... I’m tempted to seek refuge in The Temple... or perhaps... the Albatross...
 

The Albatross Cafe off Union Square West

4:13—Clocks stopped at inconvenient hours.
Endlessly repeating fragments of myself in a spectral Union Square

 4:50—B&N on the 4th floor—I’m sitting in the 3rd row all the way on the right side with a view of Union Square West out of the front windows. It’s cloudy— a gray, swirling sky—overcast, spooky, funereal...

 I have a terribly creepy, paranoid sense of doom swirling around me. It must be the debilitating effects of the last poisoning*** coursing through my system.

Still-frame from "The Periodic Table Contaminated in a Dream", 2010

I wanted to take a walk down to Mosco Street*, but it was too cold.
Sinking into junk-food narcosis.
Everything is rapidly coming to a head: the looming implosion of America and the descent into chaos/police-state/breadline anarchy! Lord!

6:02—In the Faux Viêt Huang Trang Restaurant on Baxter Street.

I order #194** from the menu—I always order #194. But that waiter has begun to anticipate my order every time I come in here—"194?" he asks. And do I detect a slight smirk when he says that? I may have to stop ordering #194... that's the only way to break this vicious circle...
 
The Temple has closed! Another one of my old haunts is gone forever!

Dusk down in Chinatown—always a melancholy undertaking. A thousand memories down here—perhaps I should walk over to Mosco Street just to take a look. 

This part of town reminds me of my stay at Fulton Street, since I often used to amble down here since it was fairly close by.

6:18—Just finished eating my #194—it was half rancid! Bastards! I have calculated that I run a 50-50 risk of getting food poisoning every time I order food in here (or anywhere)—but that those odds are favorable enough for me to keep on ordering.  

Just like old times, yes. The decor in here makes no sense to me whatsoever—Liberace on foodstamps...
Now I have the mother of all indigestions! Christ! What a mistake! Horrid filth! This could take all night to die down...

6:32—I am totally pissed off at this f#cking place—I’m ill!

I am really in an angry pissed off mode these days—all I do is walk through the streets cursing to myself like some old beggar-idiot! Lord! The drooling baby family across the aisle is in for the f#cking long haul—they’re making a whole night of it! Of course! 
My stomach is totally rebelling at the filth I just shoveled down it!
The problem with indigestion is that it overpowers everything else!
 
6:45—Should I jump on the Q train and head back to Ditmas Park?

Ancient insults torment me—why did I put up with them? 

The unnatural lifespan of an insult...

* Mosco Street: the last remnant of the old Cross Street which ran through the Five Points.
**  Chicken with Ginger and Scallions w/White Rice
*** Numberless poisons commingle in our innermost dreams.