i woke up one morning and set out into a new life. this is the moment when the main character: springs out into the world like a freed fetus brought to life, with the inky blue sky pulsating like a great big heart that fills out the world and the sun streaming like rain down it.
i was trembling with the fearlessness of wanting to be the greatest. it wasn’t courage but rather a naive un-knowing, a greenness that opens up like a flower in your veins, squirting out venom.
there i was: not knowing who i wanted to become, but knowing much, much more.
i had no vision of the future, only a vision of the present. i was the greatest, and still am to some degree; the only person whom i truly feel comfortable being, the only person whom i confide in incessantly, the only person whom i can totally, unapologetically relate to and rely on.
and the new life i set out into? it slowly weaved into the other lives i’ve led, and they had all become great.
great in the sense: complexity, so complex that they become simple.
and that’s life. that’s all life, yours and mine.
greatest i did not become, i am not. there are many more great people out there—so many more that i have let my innermost pompous dreams corrode like a rock against an ocean of superiority.
but now i am here, the rain pumping furiously against the black outside, through it, a rough fusty coat pouring around me and with hair matted by cool shower water, the yellow light like a playful insect leaping around corners in my room, and i feel... great.
there's a lightning storm outside. a metallic flash, like a pinch in the sky behind the black obscured nothingness of trees, reverbreates through my window. i feel dulled, silenced, like the great tomes of time that have slowly degenerated into papyrus piles, collected in heaps across ancient tombs and museum libraries; the only thing that rejuvenates me, as the sounds of rain slide in and out of hearing, is the nostalgic songs on the most-played list of my itunes.
how uncultural.
i find that birthdays are often dull and silent. they're trifling and, when depicted as days to observe upon the future and the amorphous prospects that have yet to reveal themselves, often depressing.
sometimes, the thought that all these years--1- to 15--have all been utilized, all been chucked out like used clothes or garbage, has debilitated even the most optimistic of minds. the thought that life encompasses no second chances, and that the passage of one year does not represent the renewal of another but rather an extension of this one, is disconcerting at the least--the thought that i'll never be 15 again, never be able to experience this year again...
to me, birthdays are reflections on a year well- or ill-spent, of a year productive or redundant, a year spent learning, or a year spent forgetting.
15: it was grand.
the crickets have returned to their stances. they ring off in hidden trees, in inky scaffolds, swirling trees, swirling stars, giant flames of crooning insects leaping into the sky like church steeples. a song--the fifth one on the most played--starts, at the moment, and, memories--of israel, of childhood, fields and fields and more black fields penetrating the horizon, obdurate and yet so remarkable in their power, creative power for a lack of a better word, like Van Gogh's The Starry Night...
...and now a Diane Keaton song from Annie Hall--Seems like old times... having you to walk with...
and how i wish i could have lived in the city, in the 70s, in the 60s... the night--slow, dripping. buildings swaying in the distance, their lights fixed stubbornly somewhere in space.
time is like clouds. when one tries to focus on the larger picture--or rather unfocus, or gaze at a different object, like a tree or a building--the clouds seemed so fixed, so unyielding. but when you start looking at the clouds--at their edges, at their shapes--they move, they tremble, they shift at an adament speed. perhaps that's how time seems like to me--so stable and so immovable when you seem trapped in it, when you try to look at the world as a whole as being a part of time. and then, when you start concentrating on the little things--on last month, how you met someone you liked--or how you got that A--time seems to swish off by.
...and yes, it was sunny in philadelphia (not san diego sunny)... if you can call immitating the dying screeches of roadkill in order to survive blustering, jagged winds the ideal counterreaction of sunny.
because that's how sunny it was in philadelphia.
sometimes i could not feel my hands, my nose, my face, my feet.
but more details coming.
so we stopped at this beautiful little town called princeton, new jersey.
yes--the home of princeton university--which was SO FUCKING amazing! princeton is so beautiful, more reminiscent of a quaint brownstone town on the hills of cornwall or a french nobleman's estate. it's enormous, and it's beautiful and the atmosphere is so small-townish but it's still buzzing with energy and you see all these students walking around and eating and wow. it's just astounding, princeton life.
9% acceptance rate.
oh shit!
on the drive there we plugged in a george brassens CD and i nearly spasmed. george brassens... is amazing. here's a video of la mauvaise reputacion .
driving up to philly and the sun comes out. it's beautiful, looks like the skycrapers are climbing up and trying to kiss the sky.
walked over to independence hall, about ten blocks over from our hotel. it was chilly but not too cold and the sun was out and all the people were out on the streets walking, lunching, working, looking about.
we went inside, to the place where our forefathers wrote and signed our constitution... and i can't even tell you how beautiful the feeling is, to know that the most important moment in the history of the world happened at the same place where you are standing, where the most ingenious of people gathered hundreds of years ago to bring about a set of principles and beliefs that would change your, everybody's life, and push human advancement and liberalization further than even before. the hall where they signed the actual thing is huge, the walls high and blue, the soft pale light pooling in from the windows across thirteen wooden tables. mmm.
walking through the liberty bell exhibition was also touching. the bell embodies the american standards and continuous struggle for freedom, for equality. just knowing that the exhibit and the independence hall (plus a guided tour) are free to the public was so enlightening, knowing that history is open and that even the poorest of the poor are allowed to learn--that america's utmost treasures, its princples and its lifelines, are transparent to the world.
we went to the constitution center, which was amazing, and then we cross over the independence mall to the old city. which was sorta empty but kind of lovely, too.
and then we had some chinese red bean cake.
and then we walked up and down philadelphia in search of dinner. we saw indian buffet(no, diarrhea), pizza (pizza in quaker-land? ha!), seafood (schmaltzy), french (expensive and as dull as duck), wandered through some gritty parts of town... until we settled on the first place we saw. yes, well, apparently dinner for us was the usual--middle eastern deliciousness: the place called "sahara". couscous, shwarma, shish kebabs.
sweet, sweet baklawa.
and then, with our stomachs as jam-packed as 5th avenue during a pride parade, we toured down across the street towards the naked chocolate cafe adjacent to our hotel.
the next morning, we turned around the corner and came to city hall. an ornate white "monstrosity" that, in my opinion, was quite fabulous-looking. like a wedding cake. marble and beautiful and subtle, flowing, lush. i liked it.
we climbed up groggily (elevator-rode) to the top of city hall and took some pictures.
and then... began... our journey.
an approximately mile-long track from city hall towards the philadelphia museum of art: yes, THE philadelphia museum of art, a severe walk that was routinely punctured with dying animal noises (as mentioned in the beginning of this post) and sickly, pneumoniac chuckles. we were giddy as hell, fighting against the wind, along the way humming the Rocky hymn--GOTTA FLY NOW! oh please, we almost soaredd from the fucking blazing wind--both my palms were clenched into blood-red fists that burned like ice and my face felt like someone fucking slapped it and i was about to die, DIE HEAR ME DIE!
but we made it... in the end.
oh, and also, there was this huge police funeral nearby. immense. the whole philadelphia police force probably showed up.
and no thanks to any well-toned oscar-winning fatso who actually made it to the top of the stairs of the art museum.
[FLYING HIGH NOW]
oh, and yes. we made it too.
and... enter pictures.
a few hours later...
took a bus to reading market terminal.
from there on, the pictures explain it all.
food. food. food.
we've been waiting for this one ever since we arrived on the shores of pennsylvania: the philly cheesteak.
mmmmmhmmm.
pastrami sandwich and a picke.
mmmmhmmm.
returned home via car straight afterward.
and that's where i am at the moment. it's 11:18 p.m. and i'm about to collapse. had a good week, wanted to watch film tonight though... eyes gruesomely pink now, however, so sleep it is.
i'm sorry if some of the photos got jumbled up. they were probly were. jesus, i'm tired. and thirsty. and kind of hungry after writing about all this food.
My most played song on iTunes is Hakayitz HaAcharon by a band called Shefiyot Hazman
שפיות זמנית - הקיץ האחרון from 1991
the last summer by “time’s illusions”
i don’t know; something about that song makes me melancholy, makes me reflect, makes me... feel so lonely, so full of darkness, so left out... so neglected. but it expresses so many profound and mystical ideas, and i can only... i can only, i don’t know... i love it. it calls to mind israel; the darkness of israel, the sadness, the gloominess, all of my missed opportunities, the homes, the people... i can't tell you. i can't...it is such a mysterious song, so... so full of longing.
the story:
a few weeks ago we drove in the silver toyota
to a park, to costco
two weeks ago, to be exact
and i opened the glove container or whatever
and there’s this colorful cd
and i remembered—i recalled my father telling me that he knows this famous singer and she was his good friend and she signed a cd of hers and gave it to him
he told me this, what—two years ago?
so i put this cd in
and i feel like crying. ...
i want to meet her
i really do.
and it all fits in together. why did i have this sudden connection to the song? this emotional bond with her voice? because i’ve heard it before. years before. in a different time.
it was a one-hit wonder, and then she became a businesswoman.
wow.
why am i telling you this now?
why am i telling you this at all?
i don't know; intrigue. self-fullfillment. life.
~~~
i went to a party on saturday
and it was amazing
valentine’s day party
...
the play is moving along
fine
and i guess... that’s it.
tuesday early morning ah.
darkness cat power catcher in the rye chips sleep wake up shower life
lyrics
this is my last summer with you with the first rain i’ll disappear my tears will pour down the streets like a leaf that falls and far-away hopes i’m a man of winter amidst men of sea but in this winter i will not exist slowly, slowly the layers melt between wanting, not wanting and last prayers
so remember that you promised not to cry because the skies are big and the tears are small close your eyes every first rain and think of me
i want to climb on the mountains because they’re there and to visit oversea countries to know if there is other life forms and if the dead keep living because this is my last summer with you with the first rain i’ll disappear my tears will pour down the streets like a leaf that falls and far-away hopes
so remember that you promised not to cry because the skies are big and the tears are small close your eyes every first rain and think of me
