Cowboy, Junkies and preachers (a weekend in Asheville pt 2)

i first heard this woman during high school:

singing a song that would someday sound different:

only later did i learn the name of the band:

which word modifies? which word holds its ground? does this man know?

how about the young evangelists next to him?

the four of them argued endlessly, and my own past inevitably nudged me towards the adolescent degenerates rather than the uptight homophobes:

but still, i couldn't help but recognize that the men in shirts and ties will inevitably prevail so long as the exchange is conducted on the basis of hostility. the uptight homophobes are older, more experienced, and by berating them, the teenagers were doing little more than honing their opponents' skills of argumentation. for the teenagers it was a lark, fifteen (thirty at most) minutes spent in empty rebellion. for the uptight homophobes, however, it was further proof of their absurd, misguided notion that their religious proclivities are subject to persecution.

i was once like the teenagers, but now i take my cues from this woman:

hippiedom, drum Circles and denial (a weekend in Asheville pt 1)

my yin and i visited Asheville this weekend, ostensibly to see the Cowboy Junkies, but ultimately partaking in all manners of mischief that accompany the annual Bele Chere festival. since all the streets were shut down, we spent three days and two lovely nights roaming downtown by foot and watching (as my word choice implies) Wheel of Fortune.

but this is beside the point.

the point is that there are innumerable things to be said about the experience, some things better left unsaid, and one which warrants immediate confession. last night i went to my first ever drum Circle, a fact that makes it all the more difficult to convincingly deny the increasingly frequent accusations regarding my relationship to the (sub)species of humans known as hippies.

in spite of this fact, i still ardently deny my connection to this dangerous, smelly, unshaven subculture. (as an aside, have you seen my yin's legs lately?) i will, however, make public my observations regarding last night's activity and allow the reader to draw her own conclusion:

hippiedom, drum Circles and denial

at the center of the Circle was the one who could move, the Priestess, a short-haired girl with a black hat and ample stomach. she undulates with the rhythm and i attempt to watch from the corner of my eye but it doesn't work. i find my gaze drawn to her again and again. she dances with her belly out, making thin ugly again as it was in the beginning, during the first days of famine when the belly was not a source of shame but of pride – a symbol of abundance, prosperity and healthy offspring.

her face, still, eludes me.

the Priestess sometimes dances for the men, sometimes for the women, but always for herself. here, as in the "real" world, women are the bearers of the look while the men sit like churchgoers and stare and beat their drums. the women stand above them like christ on the Cross. i do not know which world, ours or that of the Circle, mimics the other.

somewhere on the outskirts a heavy-set woman plays her bell and watches over the safety of the crowd like some mythical African Godmother.

there is a young girl, perhaps 14, just learning to move. the sex instinct is just beginning to rise in the Apprentice, slightly ahead of her young breasts, and it spasms to the surface at times, finding root in her hips, muladhara chakra, seeping into the earth and guaranteeing more lust and sweat and sticky spasms that insure the wheel of karma keeps turning.

she is under the unspoken tutelage of the short-haired Priestess, whose stomach reminds me of former lovers.

i

m

age

miss

in

g

there is a 90 year old Chinese Grandmother sitting near the center, barely moving, tapping her drum inaudibly amidst the din of revelers. her 60 year old obedient son brings her water from time to time, and his very presence implies somehow that she should not be in this place.

she pays him no mind.

she was playing in the days before he was born, before the Great Leap and the Nanking Rape and the thirty years that teetered between a generation's definition and decimation. she has seen it all before; hers was the echo ringing in the ears of the soldiers during that Long March, promising a better day.

the Shaman leading the Circle is an ageless dreadlocked black man wearing a straw hat and Confederate t-shirt with four black soldiers on it. he is wild-eyed and holds a djembe between his legs, beating it like a phallus as he invokes both the Circle and the crowd, leads them through trough the changes as they ripple out of his soul and travel from one side of the street to the other.

i am outside of it all, taking notes, my body moving without me. the actual tribe collides with the imagined tribe, the force of instinct crashing into the fetish and dream of an unalienated body. the Body Universal pulsates thoughtlessly in the shadow of the bank building towering twenty stories above us, and the full moon rises in the east.

i see them all: the Grandmother impassive, ancient and wise; the Apprentice beginning her initiation; the Godmother who defies description; and the Priestess offering up her body not just to the Circle but to the voyeurs, the stiff-legged passers-by who bought two dollar tacos from a street vendor and drank cheap beer from plastic cups, rueing the fact that church came early in the morning.

most of all i see their Shaman. i see him seeing me, smiling at the site of my sight and challenging me with his gaze. he saw more in a glance than i have in 33 years, and i wonder if he is always so brave.

confusion, madness and inspiration

repetition

my yin and i are leaving in a few hours for Asheville, the first of our intrastate weekend getaways, and we learned yesterday that this weekend is the ginormous Bele Chere festival, which shuts down all of downtown and manages to cram over 300,000 people into a city whose total population is a fraction of that number. i still have no idea what the festival is, much less how we're going to get to our host's apartment on Broadway. hopefully, this is beside the point.

memory

the point is that we were there a little more than six months ago, visiting said host during a brief day trip. it was cold that day, but not freezing, and in retrospect we probably enjoyed some of the last walkable days of 2009 before the unending snows set in. this is not only beside the point, but also boring.

symptom

the point is that i've fallen out of the habit of writing, having spent much of the past month on hiking trails and visiting my family. i've read some, i've watched television, i've had a physical and left a half dozen unreturned messages for counsel. ive taken pictures and i've pictured taking off more often, trying to find a way to travel and drift from beach to mountain, from earth to sky, from eyes closed to open.

analyst

i know that it is incorrect to "think you will be aware of your own enlightenment" and i know this because Shunryu Suzuki said that Dogen-zenji said so. it was Wikipedia, however, that taught me than Dogen died in 1253. as a point of reference, the ink on the Magna Carta was still wet in 1253, and Thomas Aquinas was younger than i am today.

this random assortment of facts may, or may not be the point. there may, or may not, be a point period. my yin said yesterday that sometimes, when we speak of such things, she imagines a pin point, infinitely large and inconsquential. allegedly, sincerity is "more important than any stage which you will attain" and it was Suzuki who taught me this as well. but i wonder:

analysand

1) "who" "is" it that "possesses" this "sincerity"?

2) if the self is transient, then how does one prevent sincerity from taking on the form of fixedity?

non-related(?):

3) i took class with a woman this Tuesday morning who spoke of focus, inspiration and their interplay. she said one could hang out in the inspiration all day long, easily, because it surrounds us all the time. it is unending and ever changing. but, without focus, nothing gets done. we become impotent.

4) likewise, over-focusing can lead to its own rigidity, a fixation on a single goal that prevents us from being open to the ever-changing world around us. as a remedy to these extremes she described a state of inspired focus, which allows one to be both flexible and steadfast.

transference

5) i repeated this story to a friend of mine yesterday, who maintained a listening poise without listening and nodded at the appropriate times. my friend then repeated back to me what was said. nothing was learned.

the Return

i am reading, presently, and in addition to Suzuki, Slavoj Zizek's The Sublime Object of Ideology. the book attempts to integrate Hegel, Lacan and Marx in much in the same way as new age hippie-types attempt to integrate body, mind and spirit. this, approximately, is like my own attempt to integrate "me", "myself" and "i".

sometimes punctuation gets in the way, by this i mean the process is:

6) confusing

7) maddening

8) and, never or

9) inspirational

ultimately i believe that Zizek will have some success in the endeavor, and i like to think that this bodes well for my own efforts. the only problem is that, once integrated, will "i" be able to "recognize" what "I" "see"?

two companies worth supporting

my yin and i hiked Roan Mountain this afternoon (pix+text coming soon) but not before stopping by the greatest bakery in the history of the world:

as my yin will attest, my affection for this Stick Boy borders on fanaticism, and somehow i managed to convince her to let us not only get scones and coffee, but also a loaf of Celtic Sea Salt Bread for the road.

but this is beside the point.

the point is that while my yin was in the bathroom, i butted into a conversation between one of the Stick Boy owners and a madman riding this bicycle:

i asked him, "are you the Bald Guy?"

"yes, i am."

conversation followed, and the Bald Guy told me about his trips to Kigali, his efforts to raise money for Rwandan coffee growers, and how he plans to ride the above contraption from Atlanta to Boone to further this endeavor.

it takes five hours to get from Atlanta to Boone – by car.

anyway, my yin soon joined us and the four of us talked for a bit. the conversation came to a close when the Bald Guy hopped on his crazy custom coffee delivery bike to go make a collection. this is one of the things i love about Boone – anonymous people throwing art into the void, doing whatever they can to make the world a better place.

philogyny, cancellations and rain (book rant)

in spite of the sunny weather, yesterday was undoubtedly the cloudiest day of my summer vacation thus far, and i found myself experiencing a certain inexplicable ennui that can only be likened to the alphabetic algebraic loneliness of Lacan's objet petit a.

but this is beside the point.

the point is that it's raining today, my sole scheduled obligation has been cancelled, and i received an email from my sister this morning in response to my chance encounter with her former lover. this confluence of events allowed me to finish the second book on my summer reading list, which means that i am approximately two weeks behind schedule. and so, without further ado:

Jacques Lacan's The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis

first off, let me state that i have never taken a course in psychology, and furthermore i read only the first half of this book (which most closely pertain to my field of inquiry); but, even if i had taken Freud for Jungians, or Reich for Freudians, or Jung for Dummians – i do not think it would have prepared me in the slightest.

Lacan is a maniac, a wordy, convoluted maniac who, when the mood strikes him, as it does me, now – at this particular moment – will go on, and on, with incredibly long sentences that, if one were forced to describe them in what might be described in layman's terms (by layman, i do not mean, literally, the laying of man, but rather the man who is not, by either choice or chance of birth, a clergyman; this term, of course, applies equally to woman, and the expression itself is little more than a vestigial appendage of the misogyny – as opposed to philogyny – of our language) as confusing.

he literally writes like this.

really.

confusion notwithstanding, the man is a genius, and my only qualm with this book is that it appears to consist of verbatim transcriptions of lectures given by Lacan back in the 1960s. (yes, i know the subtitle on the cover conveys this). it seems to me that many of the commas and hyphens and asides could have been lost without affecting the meaning of the text, and the difficulty of decoding his arguments from his tangents made for onerous reading.

(sound familiar?)

i am certain i will have to return to the book in the fall, but for the time being i take pleasure in having retained at least this much, which may, or may not, speak to the condition of my condition:

"You never look at me from the place from which I see you."

- from "The Line and Light"

Long

Live

Lacan

next up is a toss-up, either Silverman or Zizek – two (living) Lacanians that i hope might help me make sense of what i just read.

attachment

Part 1

yesterday i ran into my sister's former lover. he was sitting in the corner of a small coffee shop on King Street and asked me,

"did you used to live in ____?"

i recognized the Kentucky in his voice and answered "yes."

photograph of Ryan Adams with coffee

a short conversation followed

i did not tell him i

once wrote a poem for him.

Part 2

this afternoon i went to a small storage shed on the north end of the county. inside were approximately 4000 comic books and my dead grandmother's belongings.

photograph by Stephanie Schneider

i remembered

were not there.

some of the things

there

were not remembered.

Part 3

it is not letting go, nor the thought of letting go. it is the inability to reconstruct a memory that might explain the things i saw; it is the inability to imagine a memory that might make sense of the things i did not.

photograph of a photograph by Patricio Reig

?

?

?

artifact

or

memory

?

?

?

Mt. Rogers (a photoessay)

yesterday my yin, mother and i went hiking on Mt. Rogers, the tallest peak in Virginia. drawing inspiration from the great picture books of my childhood, crossbred with the dreaded first day of school monologues entitled "how i spent my summer vacation," i offer this photo essay of the day's events:

My Trip to Mt. Rogers

our adventure started in the parking lot, where i scoured over the map of Grayson Highlands State Park. i was unable to make heads or tails of what i saw, and, although i like to think that the other day hikers mistook me for an experienced outdoorsman, i suspect that wearing my yin's decrepit yellow bookbag may have given me away:

next, i posed for a photo with my mother:

and my yin:

before pointing, incorrectly, to what i thought would be our final destination:

boldly taking off, we soon came to a sign that asked us not to "molest or harass the ponies in any way:"

this request seemed reasonable enough, but there were no ponies in sight. i wondered if perhaps "pony" was some sort of polite Virginian euphemism that hadn't yet made its way to North Carolina. soon, however, we came to said ponies grazing in the field:

although it was difficult, i obeyed the sign and managed not to molest the ponies as we continued on through this forest of dead trees:

and onto this amazing vista:

where i asked my yin to pose for a picture:

even from this altitude (5000 feet at most), it was already possible to look down on the birds flying above the valleys:

some were mating:

while others, perhaps, were hiding in nooks:

and/or crannies:



pondering these questions, (maybe), my yin looked to the heavens for an answer:

but found instead these mossy logs:

somewhere around this point, my mother decided to wait for us. she had gotten a blister from her pair of too-new boots, and my yin and i continued on without her, promising to pick her up on the way back. we were intent on making it to the summit, and after two more miles we finally did, finding a group of five people standing around a tree stump with a stripe of bright blue paint:

my mojo, however, was causing the focusing mechanism on the camera to malfunction, and i ultimately had to switch places with one of the fellow hikers to resolve the problem.

besides my yin and i, there were two Texans and three people from southern Indiana, leading me to wonder if anyone ever takes advantage of the nature in their own back yards. but this is beside the point.

the point is that apparently the USGS puts markers at the highest points of specific mountains:

meaning that we were officially at the halfway point of our journey. in celebration, i hoped that my yin might moon me, but all i got was a half moon instead:

so to speak...

unfazed by my poor taste, my yin picked these tiny flowers:

and we started back to find my mom, who had relocated from the fallen tree where we left her to a giant boulder:

resuming down the mountain, we came upon an errant Christmas tree decoration, which might have been the work of witchcraft, black magic, or just plain tomfoolery:

trying to get some perspective on the situation, i scrambled my way up to the top of this ridge when no one was looking:

while my yin built her own miniature voodoo:

and showed off her skunk-like sunburn:

before we knew it, we were back at the ponies again:

they had relocated to their sign, and in spite of my nearly uncontrollable urge to harass them (i thought a quick goosing might be a nice touch), i managed to maintain my composure and return to the car without incident.

exhausted from more than eight miles of trails, 1500 feet of elevation change, and five hours in the hot sun, we all returned to my grandmother's house across the state line. while i helped prepare dinner, my yin went to the back yard and took this amazing photo of a bumble bee on my grandmother's echinacea flowers;

and this one of a blue butterfly:

we ended the night with making blueberry pies from the berries we picked last weekend, and my grandmother passed along her personal recipe to my yin. i got the honor of cutting the pie, still gushy from the oven:

it was only later, after i got home, that i learned that the crust contained lard, bringing with it disillusionment and the sad realization that my grandmother's blueberry pie was now forbidden fruit...

so to speak.

dream of Chris Marker, imposter and post-scriptum

transcribed on 12 July 2010

dream of Chris Marker's doppelgånger, working as an Anglican priest in Paris. the imposter goes by the name Aaron Marker, and i go to his church, which is packed with university students and hipsters. to pass the time, i speak to the videographer recording the event.

time passes.

eventually the imposter arrives. something is off. he is far too young, perhaps in his late thirties, and as i listen i grow frustrated. the rains come and most of the students and hipsters leave, hoping to avoid the drenching they deserve.

i stay.

eventually i speak to the imposter, wondering why he was signing autographs during the service. why would he – the infamously reluctant model, the famously uncompromising photographer – agree to behavior so banal? i tell him that i'm writing my thesis on him, but the imposter looks mystified.

time lapses.

eventually i realize the imposter as such, that he is merely part of an act, an elaborate ruse designed by le Marker verité to deflect his fame. realizing all this, i begin to disrupt the next service by throwing compact discs at the imposter.

time passes.

i find myself at a university, questioning the path i've taken, wondering how i will support myself. i run into an acquaintance whom i knew seventeen years ago. he now works as a pharmacist, and i wonder if i should go to medical school.

i know it's too late.

time lapses.

post-scriptum

"The Buddha was not interested in some metaphysical existence,
but in his own body and mind, here and now." - Shunryu Suzuki

quantum love story

two years ago (today) i went with Saylor and a (future) mutual friend to stroll art galleries in north Miami. along the way, i learned that my (future) mutual friend was a (present) mutual friend of the woman i was trying, with limited success, to date.

but this is beside the point.

the point is that the events of that evening eventually gave rise to the poem below; and the poem below, in turn, ultimately gave rise to a forthcoming chapbook.

in full disclosure though, a less poetic, more immediate version of these events lives here; the author does not pretend to know which assortment of words constitutes greater authenticity.

quantum love story

We watched quarks falling in love with neutrinos,
dancing in and out of existence in the skies over Miami.

Once upon a time we were like

but last night we talked about
love with the lights on:

“There is more than enough time for everything.”

Chasing nostalgia and remembering
the lies we tell ourselves when
we’re young and in love.

A cut-up in my head:

missing my sister in rain-soaked galleries

missing my sister in rain-soaked galleries

missing my sister in rain-soaked galleries

Nothing can be written that compares to dusk from the
abandoned high rises overlooking the Bay of Biscayne;

I knew nothing of knock-breathed Wynwood, lies and doubt.

It’s hard to see, searching for poetry
in lust in truth in love. Words are just
letters; sometimes they have meaning.

(I tried to tell her:)

The whole
universe
lives in
the
center
of a rose.

I bent to kiss it and it was gone, she couldn’t

hear me through the murmuring of her heart.