Playing cards

Last week I went to see the student-directed production of "Zoo Story", and like any good play, its stuck with me days later. But in this case, it wasn't really the ending (which I won't reveal i promise!)...it's the idea of unplanned events, and sensations. 

We all indulge in routines, obscure/validated, with the files of every past day hovering in our own shadows. Hovering inside dreams that go forgotten with the annoying alarm buzz, or dreams that we label and put on a shelf to accomplish, or, the dreams we always remember--of nights/days we have lived. These are the ones that lurk, whether in a chuckle from jokes impossible to retell, or a cold breeze that somehow reminds of an old touch, an old love, or an outfit worn on an old self. 

"when you're a kid you use the cards as a substitute for a real experience, and when you're older you use real experience as a substitute for the fantasy. But I imagine you'd rather hear about what happened at the zoo."(Zoo Story) 

....so what's more satisfying? or rather, what's more adult? what's more artistic? 

In the time we spend to walk to class, read a book outside, or just keep to whatever routine makes us feel secure...memories bubble up evil ghosts of ourselves---or righteous tales too often unwritten/unphotographed/unexplained. 

    Today I doodled instead of studying for the millionth hour, parked in a different lot...and as I drove home the long way blasting a song I know someone likes, a new trumpet man began playing outside the gallery that sometimes shows my work. 

Towsonites were going about their Mondays-but just ever so slightly there was the unexpected. 

So what's that say? - to embrace the things that feel like fantasy; like they're part of dreams you wake from in the too-early mornings...all the while knowing that the past tidal-waves up and follows you forever along? you tell me 

Daily headphones: "Galvanize" by the Chemical Brothers goes with the absurdity of 8Odegree October days, and offers relief from the mind-numbing of too much midterm studying.

Watch and plan

I've been talking recently about unique tales of homeless people, and scary reports of bus passengers. 

Going over ridiculous aspects of things a little unfamiliar. 

Brought to us by huddled oddities - the same in New York and Baltimore, the same anywhere else that the feet travel and the newspapers clutter pavements.

           And ever, ever so slightly, the feeling of being watched. The feeling of strangers, in the very heart of familiar walks or bus rides up&back.

It challenges a sense of reckless abandon, it sends a trickling form of giggles up the spine...making home warm, welcoming, and catastrophically hard to detach from. Resting a head on something smooth. 

        Then there's the exposure, and the exchange of it...passing new conversations on a parking lot spot, chatting in quiter tones at breakfast by the stairs before class. Awkward jokes, new reasons. 

The over-walking of nights so collectively past, with an evermore overlapping/second-guessing/re-configuring of new things.  Minor travels double-booked atop hometown commitments and faces. I reach and grow tired and amused. Run down the gas tank, catch up on sleep, go for options 3 or 4 or...?  BOO!  Where's the leap? Journeys of miniscule distance go post-poned, re-arranged, over-looked. 

Newspapers fall in piles, & people watch. They watch.

They reason.

Plans guessed, and projects put off an hour longer- for a sense of giggles and movements and memory. Tingles. Restlessly filling in the odd. And preparing the Halloween masks :)

Daily headphones: 

The Scene, " 'Last' Weekend" (400w)

In honor of concert nights recently past/ahead, here's an updated&carved up version of a creative essay I wrote for a class last sem....

Standing immersed inside a growing line, outside, and below a glowing venue sign. Under a concrete-yellow roaring highway, dreaming up adventures in my heavy sighs – mingling with the steam from a nearby street vent; reminder of the cold that dirties everyone near.
We’re waiting in the Baltimore nighttime.
While just above the dyed heads and juveniles, are floating ideas for coming hours; hours wasting time before a blinding, misty dawn. So clear the feeling, I can almost catch someone else’s floating by with an ungloved hand.

And it’s like a routine of racing tires. Between the interrupted sense of volume; with ringing ears and dark makeup. Between the calm collaborated days of work, are dives into a local scene.

I know a few of the faces, a few of the back doors, and a few of the show-night traditions. Everyone knows someone here. Everyone watches.

While I listen inside a "time machine" van to warm-ups and chords. And listen for the words to describe the weekends that I find. 

The comings-together of inspired, hungry artists.
The invites and penciled in reminders; that long for themselves to happen, that long with increasing passion for solidified follow-ups.
                Exclusions from the norm; the elite within an outside circle. Losers of high-class, rock stars of the underground.


But time passes in-between the homecoming/tour-leaving/CD releasing/reunion events. The bands tour and morph, the music changes, the faces wrinkle. With too few photographs to notice the differences.
With crumpled stacks of small show flyers, free demos, screentshirts, and ticket stubs-- weighted down with three bottle caps and a leave-behind guitar pic.
Weighted with the hazy memories of great sets, great line-ups, and great after-parties.

So we wait. We wait at the desks of our bosses, the desks of our draining lecture rooms, and the desks of our own offices for creativity. Remembering the papered doors of favorite venues. The bands that play them, the people that promote them, and all the anticipation on the nights we live within them.
Meanwhile there’s articles being written about these Baltimore ways, away from the heads that know a few of the real stories, the real lingo, and the real price for it all.
Someone out there is about to document it.

And you’ll find me there, waiting in line. Waiting with heavy sighs of steam vents and cigarettes, for the plot lines and lost descriptions of dreamt-up adventures. Held in an ungloved hand the friends up there onstage; horrific jolly jokes of all-night chases, and fashionable people.

Daily headphones: Silent Film's last CD "The Scene is Dead" (best of luck in future endeavors to this local band).