Month: May 2007
Later, I saw:
an ochre catfish swimming in a tank of beautiful carp in a tank on Mott St. (the one next to the old Double Happiness) — maybe one of the ugliest fish I had ever seen
an empty cardboard that had once held MSG (“Ajinomoto — 99+% pure”) — that’s a whole lotta MSG!
As if to serve as antidote, not long after the episode with the DVD seller, I came upon, down in the Atlantic subway station:
first a booth of two handsome Lubavitchers set up looking for Jews to bring back into the fold. They didn’t try to give me their spiel but very sweetly said hi
and immediately after, coming out of the elevator, an extravagantly dreadlocked black man with a shopping cart COMPLETELY laden with Africana — drums, fabric printed with village scenes, tasseled hats (like those I imagine on Moroccan water sellers) other musical instruments…
I loved the city again.
Intersection of Race and Gender
I got off work a little early yesterday and took the bus down DeKalb, got off at Flatbush and decided to walk to Target to hang out in some air conditioning — it had already hit 90 degrees. Walking past the Nevins station, I passed a seller of incense, oils, books and DVDs. He was tall, remarkably handsome, black, and wearing a beautifully embroidered kameez and cap. Remembering a film I had seen a few months ago about the popularity of the so-called “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” among such sellers, I browsed the DVDs — only to find such titles as “Judaism, a Stolen Religion,” and “Jews, the Illegitimate Race.” The cover of the latter was illustrated with an old-fashioned cartoon of an orthodox Jew, with a pendulous nose and side-curls. I picked it up and walked over to the seller.
“Can I help you, sister?” he said.
“How much is this?”
“Fifteen dollars.” (If it had been five, I would have bought it out of curiosity)
“You know, I have to say, I find this really heartbreaking and offensive.” (I put the DVD down on top of some incense.)
“Heartbreaking? Why heartbreaking?”
“To have the group of people I come from labeled ‘illegitimate.’… (I looked right at him) You should be able to relate.”
“You should put that back where you found it,” he said, indicating the DVD.
“Thanks for helping your ‘sister’,” I said, and marched off, despondent and furious. “Jerk.”
People are so fucking stupid.
Notes on zaum
Transrational language: a temporary ecstasy, more private than public. Can be returned to sporadically for intense sensation, like ice cream. Best used “in the mix” for contrast, i.e. as dessert (although not necessarily in a linear sense).
Glossolalia: the showy display of murky privacy.
Cherish the zaumishness of garbage-y cyber-detritus. Don’t knock it — use it, milk it.
Fear of the transrational in poetry is akin to a fear of sex (fear of milkiness?).
Animal language is probably not transrational, although it appears to be, to us.
We can keep the transrational interesting not just by contrast — also by degrees and permutations.
Is the transrational a mutation of the rational? Trun hoova blee smur.
crepuscular angle
Things To Do USING Kensington AS A BASE
visit the ponies at the horse stable
go on a paddle boat on the Prospect Park lake
take the B 16 bus through Boro Park on any day except Saturday and marvel at the backwards time travel
get off and visit Brooklyn Chinatown for excellent bubble tea and cheap fashion items
re-board the bus and take it to Bay Ridge — look at the water, also eat real Moroccan couscous off of Fifth Ave
take the B68 down to Coney Island Ave. and Foster, explore Little Lahore — good for buying fabric if you are a fabric person
get hennaed at one of the salons in Little Lahore — also buy some Bollywood DVDs
get back on the bus, go to Sahara near Ave. T, eat a huge amount of Turkish food under the grape arbor
get back on the bus, go to Brighton Beach, trip out on the Russian ladies with their wild hairdos
ride a bike down Ocean Parkway
go to Pergament and buy cheap stuff for the home and occasionally find awesome designer stuff cheap
walk around on 13th and 14th Aves. in Boro Park, take pictures of the nutty old-fashioned signage
make sure to buy the makings for a Greek salad at the 24-hour produce store on Church — don’t forget the feta (so many kinds to choose from!) and fresh mint
go to Ave. J and E. 16th and taste the famous traditional pizza there
hang out around Church and MacDonald in the Bangladeshi area — great chicken tikka, tea, and paan! also lakh earrings in the little stores on I think Chester?
walk around in Ditmas Park envying the houses
go to Vox Pop for coffee and anarchist literature
eat the salads and appetizers at The Farm at Adderly
A Fair(y) Use Tale
http://youtube.com/v/CJn_jC4FNDo
Brilliant.
Recycling
A fabulous dress. I suppose this is Kylie Minogue. Photo from The Times.
Husserl’s Eyelashes
[Whitehead, Husserl, and Heidegger are batting eyelashes at you from
across the floor of some rollerdisco dreamland. Julie Andrews is
there, skating. An interbred clubfoot is also there as a sexual
object.]
Husserl: Consciousness is intentional. … where you see, “artificial
ears, noses, bridges, fingernails, warts, eyelashes, boils and humps,”
I see only eyelashes that catch a sense of an almost fetishistic
vision.
Whitehead: I feel ugly with no eyebrows or eyelashes. Someone wants
to touch me. What’s your idea of Husserl’s phenomenological approach?
[Deadly silence.] Oh my!
Heidegger: Does that tell you what drawings mean, i.e. what do eye
lashes mean in a drawing? You’re sitting on my eyelashes; an album of
cartoons.
Julie Andrews: I don’t wear false eyelashes (Her broomy eyelashes
fluttered slowly, like a shop floor being swept by janitor.)
Whitehead: You should start reading Hegel, Husserl, Merleau Ponty. …
under which you could see brains, eyelashes, joints like knees and
knuckles, internal organs, false teeth, fake wigs, toupees, false
eye-lashes, finger-nail polish, Nietzsche’s theory of value, and
Husserl’s phenomenology!
Julie Andrews: I love singing, and I came. That is the foundation of
phenomenology
Husserl: Most phenomenologists do not. believe … rub her eyelashes.
beniveen. her fbgers. It. was. just. nerves.
Otohime 