plenerous is plenty generous of you.
but do you read more than right of your means?
Monday, March 2, 2009
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Cairo
I am writing to your eyes tracing the contours on my hand typing now, but also writing parts in so-called cursive when I was eight or so. Before too long, I will tell you about a biking accident I will have had when I was 14 but that’s all after (parts of this story) but before I started wearing two watches to help me deal with what comes in which order, even though I think it might started way before that, when I remembered a fall that almost never seemed to end.
Here's what I remember about Egypt. I remember that the Egyptian pound was more colorful than the English version and pretending to actually read Arabic. I remember my brother telling me that if we entered the mummies' tomb there would be a curse on us... and I remember believing him and nightmares of severed limbs and dark silent deaths in vats of honey. I remember the belly dancer in that restaurant in a boat on the Nile and looking to my Dad to see if it was okay to look at her...a lot. I ate sugar cane on a raft and wondered if I would remember any of it the way I remembered things from my past that I can no longer recall. I remember trying to remember stuff when I was eight too, like when I fell out of our attic window when I was three. No one remembers that but me because I was too scared to say to anyone that it happened. Remembering memories themselves. I rolled off the roof and fell three stories. I remember the memory of it. How it took a very long time to hit the ground. VERY long.
You know how you can remember that you had an epiphany just before nodding off but that you can’t discern the content upon awakening? I'm falling asleep, I'm having a good idea, don't forget that good idea, I'm too tired to write it down, I'll remember it. Good morning. Oh no! I can't remember my idea, but I remember that I had one. That’s a collision of now and then language, to be sure.
It’s hot at Christmas. Sand, not snow. First time for this and/or that, he wrote, trying to choose a tense or point of view, but neither differentiating subject nor object. When is he going to take part of an Egyptian monument home with him? When did it already happen? Who is this child he’s narrating?
Darling, the difference between crocodiles and alligators is the way their teeth are arranged. Thanks, Mom, I feel better now. If fall in the water and a crocodile comes, he would not dare eat me because I'm poisonous and if I look him in the eye, he will know it so – I will convince him. I’ll make him sick.
The water is warm and I can swim to Banana Island, easily. I bet a lot of people died in this river over the last 4000 years – but then, this river has kept many alive. Nevermind. Wake up.
_______
________________________________________
Six hundred hours, the sun’s up and it hot already. Where can I find some papyrus? Do they still make it? It's real paper papyer...us...papayrus. Paper inventors.
Later, I learned what etymology was and tried to find out how the word “etymology” came about. It was Greek, after the before fact.
I have learned to spell my name in hieroglyphs and the meaning of the scarab beetle while on the way to Thebes. My sister is throwing up again but my Mom is holding her like flowers. We give her Dramamine and Coke.
Thebes. With five mirrors the Sun is coaxed down the deep underground halls. There is a beam above our heads and our guide dips into his own mirror into it like a ladle to illuminate the Book of Gates on the walls. I learn it is very important to be dead sometimes. And have a mirror.
Tomorrow we go to the Pyramids at Giza. The real Pyramids. The Pyramids Miss Thompson told us about in 2nd Grade, four years after I fell from the attic, but the same day Bridget Cornwall got a bloody nose for no reason. OK, now WHAT day is it? Eventually, I will have leaned how to use “tenses”. But not for long…I will have had a bike accident that will have changed everything.
How will I know a mirage if I see it? Will it tell me? Clearly, nothing is obvious in this heat. Oh, sure, it’s DRY heat, but so is an oven, ya know.
We live in a kind of place for people who are staying a longer time than other places with their short staying people and after a week I can go on my own if I stay on the grounds. Eventually I can go for long walks outside with my brother. It doesn’t take long for me to turn brown or find my way to the street for a sugared ice. From the steps outside I’m kissed by the singing from the Mosques. There is no way to not hear it. I love my new sandals, because, see, if someone looks just at my feet he cannot tell if I am Egyptian or not. I want to be Egyptian now.
His Father had asked someone to give him a ride around the Pyramids in advance. But the child was completely taken by surprise when the Arabian stranger lifted him up from the dirty sand and offered him to his cloaked partner on the camel.
When you look down on people from a camel and they are wearing a hat you cannot see their face. So you cannot see them smile approvals. You cannot see that it is okay with your Dad, who is wearing a big hat.
Most camels look like they are in a bad mood to begin with and when camels are late they become very serious indeed. Maybe camels must never be late and that is why. Yes, that's it - there is no such thing as a late camel. They are fast enough to out race their own smell. They can lose their shadows. Wide flat pods rush to find the horizon. Nothing is out of range. Nothing, for a camel.
Before I know what is happening and as soon as I am handed to the rider he goes. Fast. With the wind at my ears and a strong arm around me I try to peek behind us but the rider’s clothes are full and thick like his laugh. His laughter is married to the bounce of his friend. Someone has seen us go or we are not alone, I hope, but I have no proof. I have been kidnapped. We slow down and I hear the camel’s heavy breath and the gentle voice of my guide relates an incomprehensible monologue as he loosens his hold. I am riding around the Pyramids on a camel in the lap of an Arab at Christmastime. It was nightmare for moments, now it is a dream. NO, I cannot even dream this, it is too incredible. Without credibility entirely.
My Dad, on another Camel, overtakes us, then my Mom and my Sister and my Brother. I have not been kidnapped, I had just not been warned. Now I will not have to escape.
The Sphinx is caged. The fragile monument sits within a fenced compound. I clearly remember the guard unlocking the metal gateway for us and only us. It was my father’s connections to the Egyptian Consulate got us in. I remember learning the word consulate and understanding my “passport”. I remember at first being fascinated by border-lines on maps and not much later becoming very saddened by them…for everyone, somehow. As we walked around the monument I could not resist tracing my hand along its contours, and when no one was looking, I took it, as small piece broke off in my hand. Yes, I put a piece of the Sphinx in my pocket. I wonder when I may put it back? I hope the passport that enabled my thievery, will not prevent my making it all right again. I dream of the rock’s return often. It comes and goes as a mission. You should smell it sometime, it has an interesting smell. Even though everything in the universe is essentially the same age, the rock smells older than most smellable things.
I'm in bed watching the fan spin on a spinning world - time to sleep - I'm so sleepy from today's sun. I should write down that this life and the people and things I have done are everything I never thought I always wanted, but I am a little boy, and have not learned to write down what I think might be important thoughts for later, if I get them right before I fall asleep, and I think that I will remember it in the morning anyway. Did I?
Here's what I remember about Egypt. I remember that the Egyptian pound was more colorful than the English version and pretending to actually read Arabic. I remember my brother telling me that if we entered the mummies' tomb there would be a curse on us... and I remember believing him and nightmares of severed limbs and dark silent deaths in vats of honey. I remember the belly dancer in that restaurant in a boat on the Nile and looking to my Dad to see if it was okay to look at her...a lot. I ate sugar cane on a raft and wondered if I would remember any of it the way I remembered things from my past that I can no longer recall. I remember trying to remember stuff when I was eight too, like when I fell out of our attic window when I was three. No one remembers that but me because I was too scared to say to anyone that it happened. Remembering memories themselves. I rolled off the roof and fell three stories. I remember the memory of it. How it took a very long time to hit the ground. VERY long.
You know how you can remember that you had an epiphany just before nodding off but that you can’t discern the content upon awakening? I'm falling asleep, I'm having a good idea, don't forget that good idea, I'm too tired to write it down, I'll remember it. Good morning. Oh no! I can't remember my idea, but I remember that I had one. That’s a collision of now and then language, to be sure.
It’s hot at Christmas. Sand, not snow. First time for this and/or that, he wrote, trying to choose a tense or point of view, but neither differentiating subject nor object. When is he going to take part of an Egyptian monument home with him? When did it already happen? Who is this child he’s narrating?
Darling, the difference between crocodiles and alligators is the way their teeth are arranged. Thanks, Mom, I feel better now. If fall in the water and a crocodile comes, he would not dare eat me because I'm poisonous and if I look him in the eye, he will know it so – I will convince him. I’ll make him sick.
The water is warm and I can swim to Banana Island, easily. I bet a lot of people died in this river over the last 4000 years – but then, this river has kept many alive. Nevermind. Wake up.
_______
________________________________________Six hundred hours, the sun’s up and it hot already. Where can I find some papyrus? Do they still make it? It's real paper papyer...us...papayrus. Paper inventors.
Later, I learned what etymology was and tried to find out how the word “etymology” came about. It was Greek, after the before fact.
I have learned to spell my name in hieroglyphs and the meaning of the scarab beetle while on the way to Thebes. My sister is throwing up again but my Mom is holding her like flowers. We give her Dramamine and Coke.
Thebes. With five mirrors the Sun is coaxed down the deep underground halls. There is a beam above our heads and our guide dips into his own mirror into it like a ladle to illuminate the Book of Gates on the walls. I learn it is very important to be dead sometimes. And have a mirror.
Tomorrow we go to the Pyramids at Giza. The real Pyramids. The Pyramids Miss Thompson told us about in 2nd Grade, four years after I fell from the attic, but the same day Bridget Cornwall got a bloody nose for no reason. OK, now WHAT day is it? Eventually, I will have leaned how to use “tenses”. But not for long…I will have had a bike accident that will have changed everything.
How will I know a mirage if I see it? Will it tell me? Clearly, nothing is obvious in this heat. Oh, sure, it’s DRY heat, but so is an oven, ya know.
We live in a kind of place for people who are staying a longer time than other places with their short staying people and after a week I can go on my own if I stay on the grounds. Eventually I can go for long walks outside with my brother. It doesn’t take long for me to turn brown or find my way to the street for a sugared ice. From the steps outside I’m kissed by the singing from the Mosques. There is no way to not hear it. I love my new sandals, because, see, if someone looks just at my feet he cannot tell if I am Egyptian or not. I want to be Egyptian now.
His Father had asked someone to give him a ride around the Pyramids in advance. But the child was completely taken by surprise when the Arabian stranger lifted him up from the dirty sand and offered him to his cloaked partner on the camel.
When you look down on people from a camel and they are wearing a hat you cannot see their face. So you cannot see them smile approvals. You cannot see that it is okay with your Dad, who is wearing a big hat.
Most camels look like they are in a bad mood to begin with and when camels are late they become very serious indeed. Maybe camels must never be late and that is why. Yes, that's it - there is no such thing as a late camel. They are fast enough to out race their own smell. They can lose their shadows. Wide flat pods rush to find the horizon. Nothing is out of range. Nothing, for a camel.
Before I know what is happening and as soon as I am handed to the rider he goes. Fast. With the wind at my ears and a strong arm around me I try to peek behind us but the rider’s clothes are full and thick like his laugh. His laughter is married to the bounce of his friend. Someone has seen us go or we are not alone, I hope, but I have no proof. I have been kidnapped. We slow down and I hear the camel’s heavy breath and the gentle voice of my guide relates an incomprehensible monologue as he loosens his hold. I am riding around the Pyramids on a camel in the lap of an Arab at Christmastime. It was nightmare for moments, now it is a dream. NO, I cannot even dream this, it is too incredible. Without credibility entirely.
My Dad, on another Camel, overtakes us, then my Mom and my Sister and my Brother. I have not been kidnapped, I had just not been warned. Now I will not have to escape.
The Sphinx is caged. The fragile monument sits within a fenced compound. I clearly remember the guard unlocking the metal gateway for us and only us. It was my father’s connections to the Egyptian Consulate got us in. I remember learning the word consulate and understanding my “passport”. I remember at first being fascinated by border-lines on maps and not much later becoming very saddened by them…for everyone, somehow. As we walked around the monument I could not resist tracing my hand along its contours, and when no one was looking, I took it, as small piece broke off in my hand. Yes, I put a piece of the Sphinx in my pocket. I wonder when I may put it back? I hope the passport that enabled my thievery, will not prevent my making it all right again. I dream of the rock’s return often. It comes and goes as a mission. You should smell it sometime, it has an interesting smell. Even though everything in the universe is essentially the same age, the rock smells older than most smellable things.
I'm in bed watching the fan spin on a spinning world - time to sleep - I'm so sleepy from today's sun. I should write down that this life and the people and things I have done are everything I never thought I always wanted, but I am a little boy, and have not learned to write down what I think might be important thoughts for later, if I get them right before I fall asleep, and I think that I will remember it in the morning anyway. Did I?
Friday, October 3, 2008
even our differences are similar
maybe you'll write it or read it or hear it
it depends. you may not continue. you may not finish. i don't care.
i can smell it.
inhale and smell the new forest of marshmallows and bleach .
change you care your charge
but about as much as lint
i've just been diagnosed with terminal existence
and only have the rest of life to live
i micromanage my neuro-chemistry
the first lesson they teach you in elementary pharmacology
is that anything you put in you body is potentially toxic
at some point you can overdose on
bananas vitamin a
even too much water can kill you
barbiturates and alcohol have great grim potential
that's how the Heaven's Gate Nike shoe purple scarves cultists got to their comet
you know of your self
"know thyself"?
how?
when your brain does all kinds of shit it never tells your mind about?
ok, so know your mind
mind your friends
mind the network and no your mind
i micromanage my neuro-chemistry.
my mind i know lit up
the electro-chemical thing managing to type this
maybe I'll write it or read it or hear it said:
the universe is one particle moving at the speed of now.
And it does at least three things.
It cuts, copies and pastes.
it depends. you may not continue. you may not finish. i don't care.
i can smell it.
inhale and smell the new forest of marshmallows and bleach .
change you care your charge
but about as much as lint
i've just been diagnosed with terminal existence
and only have the rest of life to live
i micromanage my neuro-chemistry
the first lesson they teach you in elementary pharmacology
is that anything you put in you body is potentially toxic
at some point you can overdose on
bananas vitamin a
even too much water can kill you
barbiturates and alcohol have great grim potential
that's how the Heaven's Gate Nike shoe purple scarves cultists got to their comet
you know of your self
"know thyself"?
how?
when your brain does all kinds of shit it never tells your mind about?
ok, so know your mind
mind your friends
mind the network and no your mind
i micromanage my neuro-chemistry.
my mind i know lit up
the electro-chemical thing managing to type this
maybe I'll write it or read it or hear it said:
the universe is one particle moving at the speed of now.
And it does at least three things.
It cuts, copies and pastes.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
song titles
chile
P.S.A.
Trigger
CRM114
Anamorphic
P.S.A.
Trigger
CRM114
Anamorphic
Penrose
probability
Gomboc
Gomboc
Kind
How to Count
Charge
Charge
Ground
Table
Pupil
Morpheme
Morpheme
Aspirin
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Highway Music
grooves to wake up sleepy drivers can be designed to play a tune. The distance between the chunks of grooves and the lenngth of the note: whole, half, quarter. The distance between the groove and or with of the grooves with the chunks define the notwe and it's timbre. Th tempo (and pitch) of the tune in toto defined by speed of car and tires. A stero program and or harmonies can be created by having tracks of grooves for each side of car. even mor ecomplicated arrangements could by designed for a trike, ie, three tracks.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Does advertizing work on me?
Does my media-deconstructionist attitude immunize me?
Don't want to work, don't want to play.
I'm not who I used to be, but I don't like the change.
Don't want to work, don't want to play.
I'm not who I used to be, but I don't like the change.
Private Service Announcement.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
How to reject a rejection letter.
Dear MicroCineFest,
Thank you for your letter of September 22nd. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to accept my short films for your festival.
This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it is simply impossible for me to accept all refusals.
Despite Mr. Cyzyk’s outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time. Therefore, I will be honored to have my films in your festival this November. I look forward to seeing you then.
Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.
Sincerely,
Max Friedenberg
Thank you for your letter of September 22nd. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to accept my short films for your festival.
This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it is simply impossible for me to accept all refusals.
Despite Mr. Cyzyk’s outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time. Therefore, I will be honored to have my films in your festival this November. I look forward to seeing you then.
Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.
Sincerely,
Max Friedenberg
Thursday, February 28, 2008
You fell in love with a nut.
I love you more than can be expressed other than
by shining my love on you day after day after day after day after day…
then maybe you’ll understand how I feel about you and how
beautifully I have resolved to treat you day after day after day after day…
Every day that passes, you’ll understand more and more how I love you.
But how will I understand YOU, Dear?
I choose you, because I have no choice…Love did not give me that option.
I just got into trouble.
I spoke of Love as an entity. Capital “L”
Love has been summoned.
-Love here.
-Hey, Love, what’s up?
-Not, much. What’s up with you? Just kidding. I can tell what’s up, dumbass. I brought you two together. Want some advice?
-Ummmm, ok.
-Get a pen, stupid.
So Love told me how to treat you today.
A portion of the message from Love:
“Treat her like diamonds, gold and pearls.
Treat her like water, seeds and soil.
Treat her like flesh, wood and fire…”
Love went on and on in weird triplets.
And I wrote it all down.
I got a hand cramp.
Love can really go off.
And then at the very end, Love told me, (and this is funny, because it really shows how Love has a weird way of doing things)
“Now forget all those things. Treat her beyond what all those tired metaphors deserve, respect and might accomplish.”
So I told Love:
“I can’t believe you made me write all that shit down, you bastard…that’s a creative exercise you got there. But seriously, I don’t know of anything precious enough to compare her to – and to then treat her like. The only thing she is like, is herself.”
Love laughed at me and said, “Wow. I remember when you told her that the first time. That’s pretty romantic. You really have it in you.Want a job? Just kidding. But now you understand, Max. Discover her. If she is like nothing or anyone else – find out who she is and then you’ll know how to treat her.”
I laughed and told Love, “What? Find out? Like today? Hello? Love? Love? You there?”
No answer. Love waits for no man. Or is that Time?
-Time here. What’s up?
-Can we talk later? I am trying to write a love-letter to her.
-Word. I’m pretty fucking busy ,too, as you can imagine.
-I think I can. I’ll call on you later. I have a lot of questions.
-Later. Later. Never before. Rarely now. A ha ha. Inside joke.. Rarely now…love that one. No, but, what is wrong with you people? There is way more Time before, than later. Why can’t we talk before?
-OOO. There’s more Time before, than later? That sounds bad. Are we in trouble?
-Read the papers? Bush? Global warming? Beyond that, ever heard of the the “big crunch”? Get with it. The expansion of the universe is NOT accelerating. Yah, it’s expanding, but it’s slowing down. I told Hawking that two years ago, he’s keeping it to himself. Bitter, secretive, man. Oh shit, that the time...again? Gotta go.
So I want to discover who you are, Ray- to truly understand you.
But now also, I understand why I want to understand you.
Because then I will know how to treat you and how to love you.
I suspect I will realize that I must treat you with Ultimate Understanding in order to to discover you.
It’s a bit of a loop.
-Ultimate Understanding here, sorry I’m late. I visiting a mental institution.
-Crap.
-What? You called on me.
-No I didn’t, I just wrote “Ultimate Understanding” in caps. I didn’t know you were even an entity!
-Well I am. Problem is, no one ever, really ultimately understands me. Except for, ahem, psychotic people. Or elightenend ones. Kinda depend on how you cope with the information. Ironic, no? By the way, did you buy UltimateUnderstanding.com last year?
-Yah. I was was pretty high at the time. Haven’t done anything with it. But now I have some ideas.
-I bet. Well, I want it.
-Too bad. Why don’t you buy it off me, hoss?
-I’m Ultimate Understanding, I don’t have money. Money is like poison to me. That’s part of ultimate understanding.
-I know.You’re fucked. Wait! Isn’t “ownership” antithetical to ultimate understanding too?? Why would you want to own domain name?
- I was testing you. Good work. Shit. We should talk more.
-Oh. Ok. I bet I could learn a lot from you. You’re pretty understanding, huh?
-I understand I’m understanding. You don’t have to tell me. In fact, I understand that you understand that I understand I’m understanding. And so on, forever, until you never get there and it turns out that you are understanding, or beginning to understand understanding just for understanding that very fact. But I will always be more understanding. I’m Ultimate Understanding…I can help you realize that…or come close. No one ever gets the cigar. Actually, there is no cigar. I already smoked it. If you ever reach ultimate understanding, you simply go insane or become enlightened. Either way way, it's ineffable. Kinda lonely, yet serene. Unless you just can't cope with it, then it's just lonely and completely terrifying. Tell you about it later, and how to achieve that peacefully horrific or horrifically peaceful place. . It has to do with nearly stopping T-i-m-e and having every single possible thought almost instantaneously. It's excruciatingly relaxing. But you realize what’s REALLY going on. Up to it?
-Not right now.
-I understand, but that's all the T-i-m-e you'll need.
If you think I am treating and loving you OK now, then I must have some understanding of you already.
OK?!
So my goal is ultimate understanding of you.
But I understand that is not possible, as you are a dynamic force that will forever change and grow.
There is who you were, who you are and who you are becoming.
Ultimately, you’ll never “ulti-mate” (I turned “ultimate” into a verb, there, and actually think it’s never been done before, so I am calling
I can only conclude:
I can’t arrive at ultimately understanding you, but I can approach it. Fine.
I can’t choose to discover you, as you discover yourself and as you discover how you, yourself, wish to be treated/loved. Love’s making me do it.
I can ask you to show me how to do that.
I feels really good to ask you to do that.
Will you show me?
And it’s the best feeling in the world, because I finally know something true:
I know something I can never tell you, and you know something you can never tell me.
Oh sure, you and I can say it all day long and write love letters and songs and paintings and try to “figure out” Love itself, and in some small way, by doing this, we show each other.
But really, I know something I can only ever show you by continually showing you.
It could take a while.
Have some Time?
Wanna see?
-YOU, wanna, are not an entity; “wanna” is turn of phrase. Short for “want to”.
It was capitalized because it was the first word in a fragmented sentence. Not a proper noun, like a name or place.
You are totally off base.
-Fine, I’m going back to watch Oprah.
-Oprah here. This is very expensive, you know, summoning me. This bold italicized will cost you. But, I brought you this Microwave…
-I didn't
- Kevin, here.
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