What Else Could It Be But A Jester?

december 1 and 2 2022

what else could it be but a jester?

 

there was a thick musk that hung dense in the small ballroom

the sweat was so excessive that it dripped from the ceiling

the crowd was absurd, irreverent, drenched in the sweat of irony

afraid of deodorant (easy observation, bad joke)

irony-poisoned / iron deficient, angry, but craving some

post-ironic happiness, free from internal observation

very aware, too aware, wish was less aware, wish was free

from information / brainrot / ai slop

they want to touch grass and avoid using cliches

internet expressions (comebacks)

 

first set is machine girl. we get angry at everything

a righteous anger in rebellion against the cruelty of

the world. no one is angry at matt, but we grab at their

limbs, dragging them into the throng like animals consuming

a carcass. matt is pushed around in aimless procession

at some point, they wrestle their way back upstage

 

after is the garden. now is the time to be goofy

the line between ironic and post-ironic joy is thin

too thin to even matter. what difference does it make of

your awareness to something that you love. have all of us

lost the instincts of desire? someone says to you:

“you can’t seriously like this stuff, right?”

you see there is some wiggle room, temptation to

retreat into irony and say “yeah, it’s kinda silly”.

shame on you for fear of cringe

 

i sit on the balcony above, getting myself as close to a

community as i’ll allow. there’s a kid with a painted face

that looks back, his head lifted up to the ceiling lights

i watch him with curiosity and a little bit of fear

i’m hoping he doesn’t see me looking

Hithlum

November 23rd, 2022 - starting at 6:17 pm and ending at 8:50 pm but who knows these things really

The pavement extended before me like a concrete carpet, bending and declining into the dim opaque curtain of mist that hung as a thin fabric marking the border of this stage. Trash bins sat attentively, lining the curbs. My eyes were drawn to the sickly branches of inverted roots that twisted and curled their writhing fingers up at the black firmament above. Many still grasped fiery autumnal leaves that flickered faintly in the cold pacific night. I moved between dead beacons on route to my sister’s house. It could have also been my parent’s. The destination was somewhat irrelevant. I was enamored with this frozen place, even as it unnerved me. I knew that it was transitory and hostile to my loitering. Still, I couldn’t resist the urge to photograph. I didn’t know if I would ever be here again. The spotlight sat briefly in this pocket of space. I could feel myself being drained by wispy sharpened fingers that slid themselves through my hair and across my cheeks, viciously pulling back the skin on my face so that my eyelids narrowed and my vision became watery. As I moved, these claws then snatched at my ankles and wrapped themselves through the belt loops of my jeans. I found that if I crossed under the canopy of a dead beacon, their tendrils recoiled instantly, but the regained momentum would propel me forward like a slingshot, and I’d zip through these lights, tossed from one end of the darkness to the other. I stopped briefly to admire the warm glow of a kitchen window that sat above a climbing mound of ivy bushes. To its right was another window of some other room. Sitting side by side on the wall of this house, they appeared to me like bright yellow eyes, unblinking and frozen in thought.

Commonwealth Lake

November 24th, 2022 from 5:34 PM to 6:07 PM PST

apart from “ball” on November 22nd, 2022 at 1:20 PM PST

and “shades” on December 5th, 2022 at 6:45 PM PST

It’s been two years since I took these photographs, and whatever I can remember from that window of time is too worthy of skepticism to warrant any narrative. Days like this one, when there is no intensity of thought or desire, only a pleasant admiration of the world, nothing much is really remembered, only moments recalled in pictures.

I know then I was with my family, probably anticipating food, enjoying the Viking twilight as my two small left toes went numb and the grandchildren rushed ahead of me. We trailed the pavement that wrapped itself around Commonwealth Lake, past the search party of emerald wigeons that patted the blades of grass with their webbed feet in search of food. Around the corner there stretched humble bridges and extended wooden boardwalks occupied by hobby fishermen. In hidden bush shelters was the domain of the nephews, the invading nutria sheltering amongst their foliage.  I was maybe thinking about my future, feeling love for those around me, jousting thoughts of death as some do when they watch the descending sunset. I look at these photos now and I think similar things, but in abstraction, on the other side of a one-way mirror.

There’s a sensation that I often feel in the midst of recording sound or video; a glee in my mostly permanent etching of time, but also a greater fear in anticipating its end. I become aware of my future-self listening to this recording, awaiting the second that I end it, when he has run out of footage to watch and the bridge between us is cut. Sometimes, after I have recorded a video and I press stop, I take note of everything around me, knowing that I am existing in a space beyond a border of my later memory, a space that a moment ago was fixed and eternal and is now active and transient. I’m a little sad to think that the me that is here now is vulnerable again, already dead in the future. But I am also liberated, like a child no longer under surveillance.

As we return home, I look ahead to my family trekking the sidewalk that trails up the hill to my parent’s house, the headlights of a passing car outlining their shapes in bold yellow. I steal the moment selfishly for myself and no one else, not even me.