you don't fool me, effy stonem

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I think I simply want to experience it with him. Just once.
I want to know--I crave knowing--if he'd touch with only the tips of his fingers, smoothly and softly, or if he'd take possession, with a certain degree of arrogance, using his entire palm, shifting the position of my body and truly caressing as if yearning for as much contact as possible. I want to know how he expresses love and how he expresses lust. Imagination isn't enough. Every time I look at his hands, I wonder, but it's not as if I'd ever have the opportunity to find out.

it's an excuse that we're making; is it good enough?

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Back from Fresno.




I am energy: I change shape and form, and I manifest myself in different ways. You have to understand. THIS is why I am the way I am. And there are different kinds of energy--good, bad, destructive... I can identify so many in me. Each of us is a unique composition of different energies. Some of us are arranged so that our being is composed of neat layers of energy, and others are composed so that they host dichotomies--warring masses--of different energies. I think I am somewhere in between.



Sometimes, when lost, I understand that I am FOUND. But so often, the state of being found is merely one of being CAUGHT. I want to be free from all of it. I want to be able to be happy with being lost, without desire to be found and without fear of being caught. I want to be able to take that into my hands and hold it close and smile.


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it was you

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on saturday, i went to the dan graham exhibition opening at moca with rick; the only bad part about the night was some 30 yr. old woman asking if she could bum a cig off of me. other than that it was really nice; sonic youth played since the band is close with the artist--an added bonus. before going to moca, we went to a little udon place in little tokyo and ran into fabrizio; i tried very hard not to laugh at rick's attempt to eat asian noodles with chopsticks. i failed, but at least i didn't laugh as much as when he ran into a sanrio...
anyway.
the night was fun. it exceeded rick's expectations, at least, although we both ended up wanting to drop acid by the end of the night.
but that's what dan graham's work does to you, really.


then on monday i went for pancakes with rick and lauren and her friend marx before going to watch entre les murs. i've wanted to watch it since it was announced that it won the palm d'or at cannes, but to be honest, i had mixed reactions. it requires a very patient viewer, let's say, who's open minded enough to really analyze the relationship between student and teacher and the educational dynamic.
it was interesting. not necessarily provocative, but poignant all the same.


tomorrow morning i leave for fresno and will be back by sunday night.
fucking great.

like cocaine

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Dan Rickwood (pen name Stanley Donwood) has created all of Radiohead's album art and poster art since their 1994 album. I knew him largely as an artist, but recently discovered that he writes as well; I always love finding people who integrate writing and art so beautifully in their lives. His work is great. Here are a couple of my favorite pieces:



SNUFF
by Stanley Donwood

We loved each other so much that sometimes it hurt, even when we were close. I wanted to be her and she wanted to be me. Sex never felt complete, and afterwards we talked carelessly about easy subjects to avoid discussing the ache that bruised us both. So one day, in the kitchen, she cut me and I cut her; gently, slowly, too easily. It was the knife we used for onions and our tears were painful but expectant. We dripped the blood into coffee mugs, then bandaged up and went to bed. We fucked and there were stars but we saw different constellations.
The next day the blood was dry and rusty in the mugs. We scraped it diligently onto sheets of paper. We looked at each other silently and lowered our heads to snort each other's dust. Afterwards we both carried a pouch of powdered blood, and when we were low and apart we would retire to a restroom and sniff, sniff, sniff.
Oh my darling, we went on and on. Our blood was there always, red and viscous, burnt ochre and blowaway. My blood in your nasal membranes, filtering into your capillaries, finding its inexorable way to your heart. Your blood. My nose. My heart. We belonged to each other and we had made our love tangible, real; something that could be weighed and consumed, taken and enjoyed.
It wasn't a surprise when we used the scalpel to shave flesh from each other's upper arms. We dried the flesh, though it was difficult to dessicate it completely. We used the airing cupboard. The powdered flesh was better ; cocaine to blood's speed.
Did it end badly? Did we go too far? Was our love replaced or deleted by want or need? In losing ourselves in each other did we lose the essence in ourselves that the other loved? Did time simply bore us with its slow wearing-down? I have no answers to any of those questions. But now, sitting here in the kitchen, I admit I am scared of the knife, that I can't dig deeply enough to draw blood, that I will have nothing in the morning but red, raised scratches on my arm. I don't want her to cut me.
Did we kill each other, or are we living happily; but only as happily as you are?









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screening humanity

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There's a Korean show called "Screening Humanity" about poor people. Or, perhaps I should say disadvantaged; usually the individuals that are featured live in very poor rural areas of Korea and struggle through various ordeals like poverty. The show focuses on their struggles, their dreams; entirely documentary-like with a narrator with a soft, female voice.

I usually hate watching it. It's the American in me--I don't want to feel so like shit when I watch it. It's heartbreaking, but not in the sense of a good movie like The Reader, that says to you, "Here, here's a piece of humanity that you should be aware about." This show gives viewers the emotions that you get after watching some hour long infomercial about poor people in Africa, except it doesn't ask you to donate money. It makes you feel over privileged if you know what I mean, and I'm not exceptionally fortunate either so it's not a pleasant feeling...

I feel like I'm not articulating this very well.

Regardless, my father was watching it tonight and this time the show was focusing on a ten year old boy names Giseok Kim. It caught my intention because he plays the piano. Brilliantly. Beautifully. He lives in an incredibly run down house with his grandfather as his mother left when he was one and his grandmother and father passed away. When I heard him describe his "philosophy" about playing, I wanted to cry: the interviewer asked him how he plays sad pieces, and he was trying to explain how he puts certain emphasis on the ivory keys for certain moments of a song...
He's ten years old, for Christ's sake.
He started playing when he was seven after his grandfather sent him to a piano, wanting his grandson to learn something. Giseok doesn't go to school. His piano tutor acts like a mother to him, cooking dinner when Giseok stays late at the tutoring center practicing, buying math and reading workbooks for him so he can get some semblance of a basic education...
He practices on his own, and even though he's only been playing for three years, he plays better than my mother does, which is saying a lot. When my mother saw him play, she said "That's what you call genius. That's what you call blessed." I couldn't say anything really. It makes me wonder whether or not kids like him can get someone to fund his education after appearing on shows like that. He deserves so much more, not because of his natural talent, but because he really works harder than most adults.
At one point during the episode, Giseok went sledding with some other kids and time came to go to his piano lesson. The narrator commented that he looked a little sad because he had to leave before everyone else, but when asked if he wanted to forgo the lesson, he said, "No, I should go. I have to go." I wish I had that sort of discipline and passion for something in my life.
Watching the episode also made me really admire the people in Giseok's life too. His grandfather, who drives him to his piano tutor's everyday on his little run down vespa, who can't read or write but tells Giseok gently to study at the other side of the room because the light is brighter there, who acts as Giseok's little cooking assistant because he can't cook much and Giseok makes most of the food, standing on tiptoes to scramble eggs on the stove. At his piano teacher's there's a poster a window with a list of students who have won competitions and the like. Giseok's name is first, and his grandfather stands in front of the window and looks at it everyday after dropping his grandfather off, proud and joyful. Whenever Giseok gives him a back massage, he smiles and comments later that if it wasn't for his grandson, he would have died already because it's such a joy raising him. The grandfather exercises every morning to the sound of his grandson practicing, walking on a second-hand treadmill without exerting himself too much because he had heart surgery last year...
And then there's his piano teacher who clips Giseok's nails for him and tells him that he needs to be more nutritious in his eating habits because his nails will get brittle. Giseok's never been to the movie theater, so she watched a video with him on a little TV in a separate room; the movie was about a little boy who wants to be a pianist, but is poor like Giseok and ends up watching his grandmother die of cancer and has to live with his grandfather... He was so happy when he recognized a song in the movie because he had played it before. He said, "You taught me that one too." They had a tissue box between them and were silent with tears by the end of film. When Giseok didn't bring his math homework that his piano tutor assigned, she raised her voice a little and said, "I didn't want to yell... but he needs someone to discipline him if he wants to grow up to become a great person. There's no one else." And she looked as if she was on the verge of tears, too...
And then there's Giseok himself, who practices on his own, studies on his own, cooks on his own, but never seems lonely. He says he wants to go to Harvard and study in the piano department there. He says it with such conviction. "I want to go to Harvard. I have to go to Harvard. I'm going to go to Harvard."






It's uplifting to day the least. It makes me want to work hard, so to speak.
As Giseok's piano teacher said, "You have to keep working hard because there's always someone out there who's working just as hard or harder; don't give up."

gimmick

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R said something really... true... tonight as we were driving to McClain's.
He said that the hard part is waiting, waiting when you know that something great is going to happen in your life and that you're going to be able to start something new, but it won't happen for a really long time.
I feel like I'm stuck in that moment, this very difficult moment of endurance and subdued energy that increases with every passing day. I feel tender and strong, wild but calm, and expectant but exhausted.
It's like restlessness, but it's also like sleep.






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The sun is still shining

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Last night I watched Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
It's a brilliant semi-documentary. I believe it was nominated for the foreign film Oscar in 2005; stars Julia Jentsch as the German hero of the White Rose movement. What I loved best was the constant reference to the outside world--Sophie's intermittent glances outside windows--the ceiling of the atrium, the window in the prison, the window in the interrogator's room.
The best scene, I think, was one of the last ones where Hans, Sophie, and Christophe share a cigarette before the executions. It was terribly moving. My mother came home to me bawling on the couch.
The writing was perfect, as was the cinematography. The acting was more than decent as well, although I have to say that that's largely because of Jentsch.




I also watched Underdog, this pretty short film about coming-of-age in Israel, unforeseen consequences, and the beast within the human. Directed by Eran Merav. I heard about it several times before; apparently it's been lauded by critics for a while, and I know that it won some award at the Berlin Festival. Also recommended to anyone who enjoys a great clip. It's less than half an hour long.


This morning I was in the mood for another short so I watched Intervals, by Paul Greenaway. It's a rather experimental sort of film, using black and white stills and observational clips from the 1960s (?) in Venice. After watching I said "Hmmm?"


I love the feeling of watching a good film.
Tonight I think I'm going to watch The Dead, and then Great Genius and Profound Stupidity. I think De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté is playing early tomorrow morning, and I've only watched that once before...


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Taking Sides.

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I have a question. For everyone.

How do I find peace?

The world is an abyss that, as Nietzsche said, stares back into me because I have stared for too long into it.






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skipped school today

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I have taken it upon myself to be
thin
and
commanding.

The second one is fairly easy for me.
The first is never enough, never attainable.

Sometimes I want to breathe in a different kind of air.
But most of the time the air I breathe is riddled with cigarette smoke.

I've seventeen; don't expect me to have philosophies that don't contradict.

green

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I went out with C today and said goodbye. We smoked while dragging our feet in a slow walk across a path in the park where we first met again last year after an age of separation. I sat between his legs on a table, and he asked me how school's going. It took a split second for me to register; he never asked me that before. I ran my nails over his stomach, and he chuckled. Sometimes he leaned forward, resting his head on my shoulder and breathing deeply as if he needed to leave right then. Then we walked, and we touched underneath the shadow of a tree that he said was maybe twelve years old, and I breathed against his neck, wondering if I'd ever be able to forget how he smells. We gave and took away from each other, alone in a car in the parking lot we always go to, unaware for the most part of the night around us.

It was too short. Everything has been too short.
I am, I think, afraid that we didn't have enough time to find the strength to last.

Sometimes I get the creeping feeling that maybe if I was able to just let go, really let go, then maybe we could have had more time; maybe if I was more open and less expectant, maybe the tension on which our relationship sat for so long could have dissolved sooner. Sometimes I begin to regret.

But then I remember the way he made me feel and the whys behind the urgent questions. I remember that I asked him things, knowing that he would never be able to answer, building frustration within and without, trying to understand him, trying too hard to open him to me. Then I remember his resistance and his anger, the quiet force that never fails to push my hands away, making me take a step back. I remember that most of my memories of us aren't happy, only beautiful in the sense that at least he and I felt, loved, needed, in varying degrees, almost never meeting in our energy, yet continuing for those few moments in which we did. Because those moments were like the quietness of a perfect, perfect night, like the volatile beauty of a dirty, half-opened window, like the feeling of his breath hitching against my skin or the accidental brush of my hair against his collar. We were always as bright or as dark as our understanding of each other.

In the car, on the way home, I watched his hands light up intermittently underneath the pale, reaching street lights. I tried to memorized the way his knuckles are so pronounced and the bump on the side of his wrist that's more noticeable than most people's. The little swell of bone that I always kiss. I love the way his fingers are thin, slightly fanning out toward the tip. I love the way he drives with his legs relaxed and apart, reminiscent of some sexual overtone and entirely comfortable. I love the way he'll look at me randomly as he drives and take his hands off the wheel to scare me. I love so many things about the way he walks, touches, listens, reaches out; yet I will never say I love him. And he will never say he loves me, although he did tell me that he's thankful.

When he said goodbye, he hugged me and kissed the edges of my lips, and I told him to stay safe. He laughed a little and didn't respond, not looking upset by the fact that we'd never have this again, but at the same time emanating a particular shade of yearning that made me feel as though time is the most corrosive force in life. The last picture in my mind is of him, smiling out of the car, hair swept across his eyes.








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absence seizure

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Here we are, practicing the art of each other. Here we are with hands outstretched, reaching with an eager, awakened yearning for a new understanding of skin, of cause and effect; what will make the body shake, and what will make it arch. Here we are with a goodbye held afloat between the plain of your gaze and mine, simmering into me and also into you. Here we are without words. Here we are with half an understanding of what faith in another person should be. Here we are in the dimness, trembling, loving, somewhat. Here we are with our hips touching and our knowledge of each other slanted toward the delicacy of the moment. Here we are feeling young in years and eternal in heart, yet slightly aged in our scope for sadness. Here we are facing the start of another era, one i which we will learn, again, blame and forgiveness, vulnerability and fear. Here we are without any doubt over who can feel the deepest and who can love most easily. Here we are with our minds calm and blood racing, unable to speak louder than the sound of skin against skin. Here we are with no concerns. Here we are, amazed. Here we are with a sense of failure and longing that threatens to make the darkness around us seem like home. Here we are with very little to gain and too much to lose. Here we are diving in anyway. Here we are with a mask of strength and a tendency to smile when kissed a certain way. Here we are, together.





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