On my performance film “Erase Her Head”
I created this piece at Betonest Arts Residency outside of Berlin in 2018. It was my first exploration of mythical Eurydice. I filmed it with collaborator Sid Charity in an abandoned cement factory.
Full text:
i loved in eurydice the thing
about putting together putting together her body, her self,
…trying to keep her together,
he was,
but she wanted to fall apart.
loose pieces , looser and looser still
there was a time in greek metaphysics when music was
considered one of the three elements of the universe
i want to dissolve //
i want my myth to be destroyed
loose //no joints //
no more grabbing //
we the dead no longer have to know each other
i broke //
someone//
is broken //
there aren’t //
there are //
there is
//is there //
i broke//
someone
is broken //
there isn’t someone
// there is broken
//dishes /
/are there dishes//
she is wearing yellow?//
there isn’t a she
// there isn’t yellow//
there is wearing//
i have friends//
there isn’t i
i could rely on my friends//
if there were i//
there isn’t//
there’s yellow
i saw it//
there isn’t i //
but saw is//
and saw yellow
michael aresty was the first person who ever had a crush on me,
to my knowledge.
when mommy told me that he had told his mom wendy
that he loved me,
and needed help writing a love letter,
i didn’t understand where it came from.
i hadn’t tried to make him love me,
i hadn’t done anything to try to control his impression of me,
to ensure he liked me.
i hadn’t turned it on for him.
i was maybe six, he was maybe five. or i was maybe seven, he was maybe five. and “He was so much younger than me!”
it was completely off my radar. when i heard, it didn’t register in my body.
it was a foreign object.
i’ll be back
this is bad writing.
I know that I am good at writing when I need to be, but I think it is too painful to do it.
Looking at words as they show up on a page flattens them
and the way thinking happens isn’t flat and there’s
no chance to screen it when there are just thoughts.
I know that writing and thinking are different
warm wood of the deck in the sun warmth
radiates up from the wood onto
my face and i can feel the warm
light on my eyelids and smell
the warm light wood roundly, a
surrounding rising up to meet me
smell fills me and holds me light, dark brown knots in the wood and smooth
wood fresh cut i could get splinters but
nice to sit and i can feel the warm wood
almost hot when my bare legs touch it and i
can run my hand softly along the grains of the
warm sun kissed wood banister around the deck
and be kissed lightly by hot sun, the scarf up
in the light on the left when i hold her up through
the light parts light comes through the tassels
but to the right when i see in the shade, the
shade on the blue folds, the darkest parts
i remember the rain the lack in the rain
the wanting so much to go out from
under the overhang and plunge
my hands into the soft cool mud,
the longing so much to feel the love of the rain and the mud and smell,
swallow whole like an empty glass completely filling
with all of these smells and all of this rain i want to swim in this rain
and drink it with every part of me i want her to love me
michael arresty was the first person who ever had a
crush on me, to my knowledge. when mommy told me
he had told his mom wendy that he loved me,
and needed help writing a love letter,
i didn’t understand where it came from.
i hadn’t tried to make him love me, i hadn’t done anything
to try to control his impression of me, to ensure he liked me.
i hadn’t turned it on for him. i was maybe six,
he was maybe five. or i was maybe seven,
he was maybe five. and “He was so much
younger than me!” it was completely off my
radar. when i heard, it didn’t register in
my body. it was a foreign object.
there was a time in greek metaphysics when music was considered one of the three elements of the universe
when i look at my hand //
my finger look //
there isn’t finger //
there is look //
there isn’t look
there isn’t i //
there is go
//going //
goed//
there isn’t/
/there isn’t went/
/i go/
/there isn’t going
there was a time in greek metaphysics when music was considered one of the three elements of the universe
Dripping information to me like a slug
loose pieces , looser and looser
still
moon smacked me in the
face
Like a bright low rubber band
flicked plucked twanged? i gasped
at once a consolidated fleshy form and
an eroding, decomposing formlessness
a writing towards and
against bodies who die
i want to dissolve//
i want my myth to be destroyed/
/loose//
no more grabbing /
/i want to be destroyed //
loose//
no more grabbing
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
withheld in the dust
in the silent parts of
the bike rides in the stares
at the campus restaurant of the men when I had my books in the dryness, so dry
in the air it wanted someone to scream into the air
to kiss the air to shake it alive, to connect its molecules back together
i loved in eurydice the thing about putting together putting together her body, her self,…
trying to keep her together, he was
Maybe he came from a question?
in the back he’s wearing sandals khakis rolled up chipped yellow teeth he smiles or laughs at me like i amuse him he’s amused
he shouts, there’s a belly, two bellies, rolled up
white wifebeaters above the bellies
shower shoes they’re playing mahjong with industrial buckets flipped upside down
they’re squatting around with Beijing “rrrrr’s” thick Beijing “r’s” lonely bike ride
to the supermarket on campus tugging down on my gut
in the dark dark room with Li Laoshi’s too-salty dumplings and the TV room
and how careful she was and particular and her hair
was short and black and she was so clean
no makeup and the hot plate
even though it was hot there was coldness
underneath there was a distance
holding containing herself me containing myself something blocked-off strict
her parents killed themselves in the cultural revolution they were intellectuals
withheld in the dust
in the silent parts of the bike rides in the stares
at the campus restaurant of the men
when I had my books in the dryness, so dry
in the air it wanted someone to scream into it, to kiss it to shake it alive,
to connect its molecules back together
plus there is music playing in here…sometimes Jazz…
which is then just more of the same thing,
but the ESSENCE of that thing. this is bad writing,
but then…maybe writing is kind of a translation of thought.
because like with translation from any language to another…
the imperfection….can never fully translate…
thought too overwhelming, can’t write out
And then ok what is the language…
closest to the language of the brain?
Because the brain is a communication system….
not only does it communicate with our bodies but with itself…which is insane…and talking to ourselves is so far from the deepest level of that…
so then like
Ok Neurons firing? Electricity. Zip zip zip zip zap. Does that make a sound? Do our brains make SOUNDS TO US? Is that how we feel our feelings? I mean …well. No. Wait . Ok. what is it about music?
Sound. Sound waves. Waves. Brain waves. Sight waves? Senses. Brain. Outside. Inside. Outside perception. Inside. Outside perception of structure matching inside structure of brain? Or just how we would perceive it. What do I mean by structure. I don’t mean that looking out at West Main Street what I see there matches what my brain looks like. Because what does that even mean. No that’s not what I mean. I guess the obvious thing, the way we perceive, the way we take in light, spatialization, the way we spatialize music…I feel like it has to do with maybe the way that in our brains …the relative distance or…i guess…ickuhduh. Everything just feels like a brain massage. Ugh