Dear Photograph,Thirty two years later I went searching for the ghosts of my parents who never made it back from this trip to Spain. After two weeks of investigative work, I found the place where this photo was taken.Jon
Dear Photograph,Thirty two years later I went searching for the ghosts of my parents who never made it back from this trip to Spain. After two weeks of investigative work, I found the place where this photo was taken.Jon
I wish slitting the wrist of the clock
would let this moment last forever–-
your tongue is so deep in my ear
it feels like a paintbrush, coating
the dark, peeling walls inside my head
with a carmine veneer. I was expecting
you to run, when you saw the cartilage
in the closet. I was…
Driving to or from Vermont always inevitably leads to an hour of emotional breakdown. And in the grand scheme of a 5+ hour drive, 1 hour devoted to flashing back to horrifying moments and doing sex math isn’t that bad, considering those drives only happen every four months or so. But doing it twice in a weekend leads to bad emotional karma. Sex math, relationship math, shameful moments, just all very poor things to think about.
It used to be fears of my parents dying that possessed me on drives in freshman and sophomore year, but then lucky little me, I moved on.
Clearly the answer is to buy another Dan Brown novel on tape so that I never have thoughts to myself. Or maybe I’ll find a jacked-out used copy of the Harry Potter books on actual tapes. Hah. I had a roommate at summer camp who used to kill 4 AA batteries a night falling asleep to the Harry Potter books on tape. She was freakin crazy.
NO MORE HARPING ON BAD MEMORIES AND DIFFICULT TRUTHS. ONLY NPR AND BOOKS ON TAPE IN THE CAR FROM NOW ON.
http://www.altalang.com/beyond-words/2008/10/12/ten-most-difficult-words-to-translate/
and
http://www.altalang.com/beyond-words/2009/05/01/5-more-difficult-words-to-translate/
Jean Cocteau (self-portrait, 1954) (via)
“Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort, the trifling feeling of escape experienced at a masked ball. He distances himself from that which he feels and sees. He invents. He transfigures. He mythifies…
Journalists know this, or at least sense it. The inaccuracies of the press, and the banner headlines by which they are trumpeted, are soothing draughts to this thirst for the unreal. Accuracy is vexing to a crowd of would-be fantasizers. Hasn’t our age coined the term ‘escapism’, when in fact the only way to escape oneself is to allow oneself to be invaded?”
-excerpted from “On Invisibility,” Diary of an Unknown (1953)
