it swallows you up. black and flowing, like a curtain that closes in all around you. but you can still run, still feel for miles all around you, as if you're standing blind in one of those midwestern great fields of grass that seems to expand every step you take. darkness is endless like that, and free.
infinite: you think your hand can reach its end, but it never will.
blue swirls of light slip into the darkness.
the light from the computer screen ebbs, licking wrinkled papers and the mugs and plates and the keyboard and my fingers typing endlessly.
outside the sky is purple, snowy purple like a liberal arts shirt tucked under someone's bed. wiry tree limbs seem to float upwards like balloons, almost rising towards the sky, roots like teeth flowing away from their gums.
i'm encased in this darkness like a bug trapped by amber. darkness is an amber sun; it spreads, its rays flooding everywhere, ubiqutous and beautiful and dangerous.
as night seeped into the crevices of the sidewalk, i stepped outside with my dog and traveled across meadows and concrete and long, black roads that blended into the infinite cavity of night. there was nothing to think about, nothing to know. music still wedged in time poured into my ears for the first time in a long time. i pulled on ginger and she resisted me and i pulled harder, and she finally gave. and i stumbled near a pole of light, stands on a yard in the corner of hampshire rd. and baker hill, that scaled across my eyes like a great big white sun floating in midair, and a huge white hole ripped open in my cornea and the blackness fell in and was trapped inside and all that was left was the writhing white bulb swelling all around me and then the night clasped in and.
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.
sometimes i feel like life is... is like a long, roatating journey packed with ennui and fatigue, at times spotted with good points that sooner or later become strenuous bores, unneeded chores--a life filled with things from a life that has been lived before, a life... i don't know.
manhattan on saturday, manhattan on sunday, manhattan on saturday, great neck the rest of the week, cold air, same people, same activities.
sometimes i feel like there's only history to look forward to; the past, the intriguing, beautiful past, jam-packed with death, violence, peace, love, hope, fury.
we went with the shapiras to south side seaport, that tourist hole near wall street, and then we went up towards chinatown but never made it, so then we just returned and dined at the same turkish place we ate at in june.
hmm.
we have guests now and i want to tell ya'll how nice life is and how normal and how ordinary and how strange my life is still and how dark night is outside, how dangerous, how enchanting like a movie.
ohh and yes, i did see two grand movies this weekend: "all about eve" (such a screenplay, such actors) and "la strada" (a bizarre connection to the glorious "nights of cabiria.")
i want to live in europe when i grow older; not new york, not san diego, not san francisco, not israel. europe: france, england, ireland, spain, greece, italy, germany romania russia. i want to live in a place where not everything revolves around you, when society has a social aspect and does not only consist of statistics.
i've been listening to a bunch of israeli songs lately
and i want to be in israel again
just to be there, alone, independent, in a small mediterranean apartment
with some girl, just locked up
and go to clubs, and listen to music and eat watermelons in the summer:
is it all that bad?
there is something like you in me; something capricious and sickly, a long shadow inside my eye that expands and contracts with the wind, black and vile. i see you, the vicarious creature, the untenable wolf; vexing and peeling away scars that have dried long ago, drawing blood that has poured long ago. you extend a drooling arm, like a curtain, waving in the wind and rain. the and needs to be smaller, because we all know that wind and rain always go together, don’t we? like harold and maude? and porgy and bess? and sometimes, i think, you and me—but not in the small and sort of way, more like in two voices that fall into place, red and rose, chanting hymns together like twirling snakes. sometimes, i think, you and me need smaller ands, like wind & rain, wood & fire, dark & light. you & the and is as little as the light at the end of the tunnel.
...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.
