cutting great neck

fade into you mazzy star.



i remember driving around in the mountains in the desert somewhere, east of san diego, perhaps driving back from death valley or utah or big bear. a long black valley expands forward as you drive on the edges of its bulky red mountain borders, the road like some kind of ribbon that seems to slide into the mountain valley and the car just an infinitesimal speck riding on it.

it was sunset and the wavering maroon shadows of the sky pooled across the valley. we were alone on the road, the solitary witnesses of the purple dying fizzle of the sun. sometimes a car curved out into the road ahead of us from beyond a mountain; white orbs danced from behind us once in a while.

i love the desert, the mountains, the valleys for that reason. the pine trees glowed like embers. streaks of orange light corralled along the cliffs and died down into a blue obscurity.



and fade into you comes up on my zune.

--how can i say it? listen to the song for a moment: torched strings that peel away in the rural night, when only the cowboys hear 'em--the way they seem to fade infinitely away into the melody, into the clattering bells and into the hounding voice, the one that seems so, so resolved, so resigned, and yet it persists, it sings, it--it reverberates and echoes.

it's beautiful.

and the combination of me in the car, from this polarized window, all alone with the music looking out into the dying rays of the sun in this lonesome, empty green valley, with the haunting solitariness of this song...



---

i remember this because my zune broke apart very recently and i was just reminded of it after the song came up on itunes. and this memory has remained with me for no reason at all, one of those insignificant details of life that accidentally leaves a mark.

label me: california, desert, loneliness, memory, miss, nature, song

my parquet floor is littered with open newspapers. i remember in san diego i wish i had a parquet floor, and now i wish for a carpeted one. funny... i would imagine that the carpeted floor belongs here and the parquet in san diego, because of the climate and whatnot.

the truth is...

i don't know.



and now that phrase seems so cliche. so disgustingly overblown and pretentious.

but... i really don't know.

and by now i imagine you're already turned off by this post and i bet that it's the afternoon and you were bored and you were thinking, "oh let's just see if there's another post."

i feel lost. tremendously lost. glad, but lost. unknowing. energized. lost.

i remember six years ago, thanksgiving. the autumn leaves in san jose. the apple tree. how the metal twisting playground things were cold in the morning. funny how in israel my parents never drove me from school and how weird it seemed in san jose and now looking back it's as if i've always been driven home from school.

america--as an immigrant, as a tourist. how beautiful. how bizarre. i remember standing there in gym class and suddenly a flock of great white geeze starts whipping above us, chirping. i gaze at them and as i look down the gym teacher stands there alone, smiling at me, and the entire class is already halfway across the track. those gray clouds, the way the clouds twisted in the sky--it all felt so strange, so novel.

music classes, the frog in the aquarium, filing into the classroom in the morning, the overhead projector. walking into the school, drawings, posters on the walls--and those overhead projectors in every classroom.



listening to carpenters in the car.

...in san francisco....

the hills swaying in the fog. "This Masquerade"-Carpenters. golden gate bridge in the distance. walking next to the blue houses. you feel swallowed, and yet san francisco gives you this feeling--as if you're walking all alone down the street at twilight, or in the morning when the sun is still on the other side of the earth and the light wavers across the sky. and you're walking alone, on a lonely street corner, and the beach is next to you, and there's fog all around you, and there are lights and people on one side of you... and you feel so lonesome, and yet so comforted by the city, by the huge pyramid, by the iron-red bridge that swings across the ocean and yet is so solid, so protective...

and karen carpenter's voice.

i remember in our first winter, stopping at denny's on the way back from skiing. i wonder how--what i felt. who i was.

when you think about it, it's kind of sad--how you are so different today than you were when you were a child.

label me: california, childhood, moving, nostalgia, san francisco, song

28/01/09

i never though i would say this.

i miss san diego.

san diego--yes--the place i hate, the place i would like to shread with my teeth, the dull, cultureless california capital of boredom.



and yet... i miss it.




1. the beach

yes, yes. i miss the beach. and with the beach comes the sun. and with the sun comes the heat. and with the heat comes the beach. and the beach in sd is so refreshing, marvelously enlivening and the cold water as it spreads through your body, the salt, the waves as they lift you up and down, so brisk and moving and just fun. and the whole beach culture. del mar beach—i love you.


2. i miss my friends. miss being with them. miss having lunch with them, going to the movies with them. arguing with them. miss trying to be the center of attention and not succeeding for more than two seconds.

3. the falconer.
well, i do miss indesign. i love indesign and i haven't been able to use it for the past 8+ months. and the newspaper was so amazing, such an outlet of talent and creativity. and wonderful people. layout nights were astounding. the darkness, knowing that in less than eight hours we would have to be in school again, we are the only souls on campus... ahhh.

4. i miss my school. i miss how it's spread out, and there are barely any hallways, and the sunshine streams through your face as you cross the quad and try to bump into people you know, try to avoid people you know. i miss the warm classes, the open classes with those weird brick-things, and the grass.

5. this one's hard to describe.

i miss--i miss yearning for more culture. i miss waiting. waiting for something to happen. for a play, for a restaurant. i miss listening to music and looking out the window and watching the sun set behind palm trees and writing poetry about how boring and intriguing life is at the same time and walking outside and thinking about nyc and about europe and searching for songs on limewire and taking photographs of ginger and playing with ginger in the yard with a frisbee and i miss walking home with britt and i miss going to the synagogye with sarah and i miss going to that big green beach near downtown with all these israeli friends and i miss riding back home in the middle of the night from the airport with the window open and smell the pungent san diego air and i miss biking over to the five in that little reedy gorge near paradisio and i miss going to ami's house and playing with that pokemon game and i miss sixth period with mrs. king so fucking much, just sitting there next to the desk next to the window with my copy of to kill a mockingbird open and writing about racism and learning that mrs. king's a democrat and i miss mia's antics and sitting on that big couch in the journalism room and i miss being outside in the dark and getting out of the theater after watching a horrid film with my friends and seeing all these other people in the highlands doing their stuff and i miss rubio's fish tacos, crunchy and i miss walking through barnes and nobles and picking out books i want to read and then never think about them again and i miss running the superlap (yes, i do) and i miss those little green plants that look like a bunch of little cucumbers and when you squeeze them all the water comes out and i miss biking in del mar and smelling the air and watching the golden retrievers and the boxers running in the cold water and smiling from ear to ear and i also miss balboa park, and even though i thought balboa park was boring i now realize how exceptionally beautiful, and subtle and lush it was, the golden globe theater--going there with my dad, or with my mom, and watching shakespeare or some other stupid play and drinking hot chocolate and feeling like an adult and then coming home and writing a poem about it and i miss sitting in mom's office and using her computer for doing whatever and i miss scaring mom when i came home from the back gate and i miss my old home, the novelty of it, the crisp white wall edges, the way my father always turned on the fireplace even though it was 60 degrees outside, and i miss waking up to birds twittering in april and then having to get up from my bed at six in the morning and lock the window and i miss my piano lessons with the russian lady whose name i never knew even though i had lessons with her for at least a year and a half once a week and i miss so many things, so many more things.































...

and i am sad.

i miss walking up the big hill listening to wilco's hummingbird. i remember the first day in our new home, and we went to the big grassy park with ginger. and it looks to me so different than it did back then. and i miss frightening carrie in the dark room and i miss playing apples to apples with sarah and everyone else and the sukkah and i miss showing britt my albums (haha haha haha) and i miss going lazer-tagging with matan and rony and walking next to the boats and going to the border with ami and i miss taking long frequent vacations and i miss hating teachers that weren't as bad as i thought they were and i miss i miss i miss.

remember how i used to say how much i hate san diego?

label me: california, falconer, friends, i love san diego, melancholy, memory, miss, moving, san diego, sd, torrey pines high school

25/01/09

Another Snowfall

The world burrows its arms in my flesh
and another snowfall makes its home—
in the deepest whites of my eyes they mesh,
the ice and the glass, the dead earth combed.

Stems, twigs, white wooden men stand
and another root, stiff, ruptures in frost—
a red moon lifts in purple skies, as planned,
but the old sun perishes, thus far: dusk.

The eye sheds its white, piercing skin
and another finger atrophied and potted—
in jars, in vinegar, my eyes shut from within.
I sleep alone—waiting for the world to rot.

we went to manhattan yesterday and met judy and avi and yahli. time square; carmine's. amazing food. enormous dishes. we took the unfinished business home.

in toys-r-us




we saw a bunch of blood in bryant park, near the ice skating rink. some guy fell off a construction thing. another guy was hurt on top of it. who knows. lots of police. lots of firemen. we were not allowed to take picture, but, you know, the rascal that i am... i just couldn't resist.


the snow is melting. i hope it will snow soon.



i have midterms this week. i am so frightened.

obama. i love you.

and nothing really changed. nothing really new.



i downloaded a bunch of beach boys songs last night. it makes me miss california so much.



i miss california--the beach, the sun, the heat. the feeling. i miss it, not in a "i want to live there again" kind of way, but in a "i liked it and i want to visit it". maybe i do want to live there, one day.

on the east coast, i feel, people see the west coast as an exotic, wild place. that's what i felt in november, in sd. the palm trees, the smoggy nights, the hills, the beach, the sun. it's all different.

label me: broders, california, food, i love san diego, manhattan, melancholy, miss, poem