Introduction
Hey all, been forever. Been some delay as work has been quite busy. And this one is a little longer than usual. However, I’m already prepping for #17 so you might get two newsletters closer together. Hope all is well. ♡ L
Spur Line Hustle
Part 4 of an ongoing series | Previous Parts: 1, 2, 3
Sandra sat on her floral thrift chair in the dim light, sketching in a notebook. she wanted to ask me about it, i could tell. i could always tell with Sandra because she’d look at you and then look away quickly, and back again. a constant studying. this time her drawing saved her from the awkward glances. now it looked like she was sketching me. but i knew that couldn’t be the case. once, i’d offered to be a drawing model for her, get naked and everything. she laughed at it. so did i. i wasn’t the type for it, she’d said. no, you’re right, i’d told her. i was so far from the type. i could get a stand-in, i’d joked. just draw his body and put my head on top. even that, she’d said. would i really ever want a part of me permanently in her secret collection? no, she was right.
i could never manage the idea of me being a subject in her work, stored away to be found years later by an art dealer, sold at an auction, hanging above the hearth of a yuppie’s brownstone. i had many issues with being her subject, being part of her creative repetoire made me feel a responsibility to live up to the image she’d created. to be the person i was in that forever frozen drawing. that i could never match the beauty of her portrayal. subjects could not separate from their representations.
birthed on the page, i would have a second life unbeknowst to me. i would be split, the other life having an audience one day who might give it a meaning i had never meant for myself. another life, moving through its own contours and practices, its sentient essence, its spirit, imbued with the audience’s emotional investment, pushing it along. but i had stake in what happened to this other life, i felt, because i was in there somewhere. i would always carry the moment when it was made, the creation’s act with all of its context lost to everyone else. you could capture a moment, and the moment spoke to people outside of it, a flurry of ideas and theories and critics layering on top. but that would always be a lie to the truth that the artist and the subject held together. because the piece, at its heart, was an event, a cut-out of time where a whispered connection had occurred. every act of creation had its undercurrents, its shadow secrets, just as much as everyone had their own private subtexts and mysteries. for every creation there lay behind it a grand network of activity, a root system, a great spanning unknown. the world was nothing more than mystery given form. playing with the form, building out of it, was like stirring a big pot of broth, stirring up form (uniform), that could be no more or less the sum of mystery itself. the world was recursive. creation, recursive. everything overlapped like a thousand-folded blade. the more overlapping, the stronger the mystery became.
there was a more real thing here: it had been heavy, the idea of being a subject, because i knew her “secret” collection might one day not be so secret. she had a series of drawings and sketches i’d not seen. her “file” as she called it. a portfolio of hidden expression. a quiet project building into something greater, bigger. a far-off wave that might one day hit hard against the shore of the art world. a project they’d find when she was older or had died and was famous. the type of thing displayed at a posthumous art gallery showing. a memorial to genius.
she joked always about being famous. i was never convinced it was a joke. i’d seen some of what she thought were her best pieces. i’d not seen anything like them before or since. some got in a few small galleries around town. a few had landed in a showing in new york city. one in an LA exposition. another in austin. she was getting there. slow, but sure. her online stuff, too, growing exponentially. online could get you famous, she said, but it was the old heads, the not so tech savvy, weird ancient money, that could get you finances to keep doing what you loved. and they ran the longstanding galleries and had real connections. at least her theory went.
she looked at me again. her eyes hung on my face. i lay down on her couch and stared at the ceiling, listening to the scratches against her notebook. i asked about Murphy, some metalhead she’d been seeing out of pittsburgh. he was thinking of moving here, she said. that was the essential problem. too much trouble for him to keep coming to her, he’d told her. he had this bright idea of maybe he could move there, live with her. she never went anywhere that didn’t matter to her, so he’d become frustrated when she didn’t visit pittsburgh. she didn’t have a car, and she liked it that way. she didn’t leave philly except for if her art called her to go to another major city. she grew up in philly, couldn’t be bothered by podunk towns and backwater burbs. the whole world was cities to her. everything in between, wasteland. she never once mentioned a small town. her destinations were places like tokyo or london or paris, maybe a chicago or atlanta. she never visited anyone in a town below half a million people, she joked. some truth to this, though. i was with her once when friends of hers had called to ask if she could visit them in boulder. she balked at it. she cupped her phone, asked me to check the metro on wikipedia. a population of around 300,000, i told her. she visibly shivered. they’d never see her.
as for Murphy, the same thing had happened a few years back, this long distance relationship, the touch-and-go, the commitment but from afar. then the person wanted to move her way, get closer, and everything went up in flames. she liked single life freedoms, and behind it a relationship’s potential, always waiting in the wings, that would spark off when you needed it to and then fade again. the beauty of distance, she said. the brief explosions, the pulsations, the highs of excitement and the lows of missing each other so much it was like the other had died. but she also liked the living and loving across multiple people. as if you had more than one life, to do one thing in one relationship and something else in another, and to test them against each other. the multiple voices she imbibed, the other people now living inside herself, the fibrous muscles of her heart flexing in infinite strands.
you seem to go for people who need you more, not less, i told her. what if you went for someone who needed enough but not more than you could offer, was neutral? like casual. but the casual was just a little too less, she sighed. it could drift or become too fast, could never get her to the point that she could commit to be enough of who she needed to be in that moment and time with that person. she needed someone with enough motivation to move forward into a specific space, but not so idealistic to think forever was a thing. as for dating many people simultaneously, like some friends did, she had no time to manage so many connections. she had her paintings and drawings, and that took up more time than she could afford in order to do another way of loving. and her art-making occupied her desire, since so much of her fullness came from the page. besides, she went on, she was more concerned with a moment’s singularity, a dedicated focus, this kind of drill-down into the very depths and essence of another person. that intensity felt in the mundane, in their cooking food or drinking a cup of tea, walking their dog. transcendence in the worn life. living into their own rituals and loves.
she once dated a health instructor who woke up every day to do a calisthenics routine offered by a niche YouTuber who based the movements on the theoretical motion of prehistoric fish. that one wrinkle alone led her on a year-long journey into this person’s entirety, getting up every day for calisthenics, an herbal tea remedy to follow, a cup of morning yogurt. afterwards, both of them off to work, a light lunch. a small dinner of vegetables and rice, followed by the occasional dessert of strawberries. the instructor’s whole life centered around the health of his body. it was the most fit year she ever had. that year’s paintings were collections of fruits and vegetables amassed into body shapes, humanoid beings in the half-pose of mundane daily activities. behind each of the figures lay various backgrounds of rising infernos, oddly colored rainbows, camouflage textures. a productive year, despite all the exercising. but that world shut down of his choice, before she could get to it. he ended it, in fact, sensing her passion for the healthy life had felt more like mimicry than a kindred connection to the body’s pristine calibration. like she was trying to copy him because she was somehow more into it than he was, trying her best to get him to like her. the irony. as if that was ever the reality. it wasn’t so much an end, a breaking-up, though, she knew, but that they had lived a whole life together and now another reincarnation could take its place. that neither would be remembered or missed, having nothing to do with their individual worth but solely because of the end of a thing.
but also because her playacting had shown through, i reminded her. the experiment had been exposed for what it really was, i said. though he would never be able to define it that way. rather see it as someone might assume these things to go. she was good at long cons, good at constructing a matrix of belief and reality, cozing up into a virtual space, an exact replica of a relationship. trickery, i said. treason, i blabbered, flubbered from my mouth. my head spun, a sudden acidic rush of vomit rose in my throat, then slipped back down. my chest burned at its center.
she lay down her sketchpad and pencils and stood over me. she sighed, and then walked out of the room into the kitchen and clanked and clattered through the pots and pans. i heard the faucet running, the click of the stovetop burner. i’m making tea, she said. and you’re not having any because you’re being mean. soooorry, i replied in that elongated way of a child. and you’re a little drunk, she said, but that’s no excuse. she returned to the living room and stood over me again, her shadow eclipsing the light, so that it splayed at the edges of her dark hair. her eyes reflected a glittering wetness. i’m not fake, she said. i lay for a moment, listening to the tidal rush of the stove’s flame. her eyes flashed as i sat up, disrupting something in the reflection. i didn’t say you were, i said. i really did love him, she said. why does how long matter? it was there, the love, and then it wasn’t. simple as that. love existed. isn’t that what should matter to you? how often does that happen? it existed in the world, it had a lifespan. it was here. and it being here means a living, breathing real thing happened. i want to be angrier with you. but it feels, right now, with everything…
she backed away and the light overtook my vision. i hiccupped. i felt greasy suddenly. my hair was matted and clumpy. my hands, clammy. the room spun into sharp blades like that of a spinning saw, cutting away my vision into a million shards and points. a fire came up in my throat, bulging inside my neck, in my mouth. i ran to the bathroom and chucked in the toilet. Sandra would forgive me. i hoped. forgive me for everything. with all her dating, seeing people, the luxury i felt she had and i didn’t. maybe that was the source of my biting at her, all these foul jealous words toward a friend. because someone else is good at a game and you’re terrible at it. i threw that up in the toilet. i’d be better once i got up. i stood, patted my face with water and looked in the mirror, my eyes half-sinking, dark under them, my face jaundiced in the light.
candles flickered in the center of her two-chair dining table. she drew with her back up very straight in one of the chairs, her neck and head curved over, looking focused down as if into an infinite depth that was her drawing, creating that cataclysmic edge of a thing that was like a canyon or ledge of a building, peering into as if it might suck her down into itself. her own falling away. her hand held her pencil at a shallow angle, a gentle shading. then she gripped it again tightly and began drawing over lines. i sat down on the couch and let her work in silence. it was a major pet peeve of hers for people to stare over her shoulder and watch her. it stole it from her. it wasn’t hers anymore if someone saw it too early in the process. oftentimes people might catch a glimpse too soon, ask her what she was drawing. in a silent anger, she’d fold the paper in front of them and tear it in strips and hand over the strips like they were fake paper money. i smiled when i saw this, especially when it was strangers who often thought the idea a joke at first and who stood there awkwardly, unsure what to say next, wandering around with scraps in their hands searching for a trash can.
her shadow flashed on and off the wall. i shivered. my head throbbed, made worse when the tea kettle whistled. she stood and went into the kitchen. do you want tea? she asked. sure, i said. my head sunk between my legs. the small clang of a cup on the coffee table in front of me made me look up. she smiled now, and returned to her chair at the table. that smile. i knew that smile. the subtle satisfaction in a drawing going well. it would be hard to take her out of the moment. i sat back with the tea and sipped. you can sleep on the couch if you want, she said. i may do that, i told her.
where were you tonight? she asked. out with the boys. ah, the boys, yes, she said. you’re all a funny crew. you’re the kind of guys who have mothers secretly hoping you get married soon. we’re that kind of crew? i said. yes, of course. you have fawning mothers, and that’s why you’re all trying to prove you’re not mama’s boys. interesting, i said. i was never offended by her psychologist armchair attacks. they were, if anything, a kind of strange volley between us. she knew how i would take them, nonchalantly. my father was the same way. he made fun because he liked you. he wouldn’t do it to people he didn’t like. those people got the silent treatment. in that way Sandra was certainly different. she was far more vocal about who she didn’t like. naming names, defining their issues. not mere shittalking behind their backs. called them out directly. she was divisive. whole philly factions took sides. she caused drama at shows, among bands, among artists. all because of her saying some truth, some reality. she was a Plato to the established teachers. she was a Jesus to the pharisees. she still retained many friends, despite her brandished opinions.
do you know what fake is? she said, taking out that thorn from earlier that i’d pressed firmly into her side, examining it. in all reality, yes, i knew what fake could be. she was, in truth, anything but fake. anyone could tell a fake person from a real one, i told her. it was a palpable sensation. like oil on the hands, something greasy. something you wanted to get off of you like a spider crawling up your chest or on your shoulder, but a spider that no matter how much you tried to swipe it away you never could. shooing it away was all you had, distancing it a little bit despite its constant upward motion. a constant act of vigilance was needed. some were so fake that you couldn’t convince them otherwise. so enraptured in their lies that they could never venture too far beyond themselves, could never live beyond the paradise of their walled gardens.
i think everyone is fake, she said. you can always turn the critique back against yourself, you know. it takes on seasons and flavors, or even scenarios. you can be absolutely genuine one instance to a group of people, or to yourself. but in another instance be completely deluded or lost, purposely trying to lead someone astray. like you act nice because you have to be to a person you don’t like. and you act truthful to your closest friends, confidants. everyone knows this about themselves, even when they deny it. being fake is part of living, of survival. because we live in the fake. everything sold to us, social media, entertainment, prescripted fashion. if we live in a world of illusion then how are we not also contributing to it? an animal adapts to its environment. if our environment is just ghosts then we’re ghosts too. it’s that obvious. isn’t that the way of the world now? nothing escapes the hall of mirrors. that this has all been said and done. endless refractions. we are on a track hurtling toward sirens of our own creation. we are ever-escaping into whatever it is we think our freedom will be. we will always attempt to pursue what it is that we are convinced will get us out of whatever present condition we are in. the fight for our lives is the will to live, even when actual living is beyond hope, and when doubt is nothing but hope depressed, disguised as happiness.
here she stopped herself. it was in her voice, the crest of doubt curving off her tone, like a bead of water flecked into the air and lost. her prophetic thoughtspeak drifted into quiet resolve, her eyes dwindled back into a dry darkness. we could circle around for hours on what was false or not false, what was reality, what wasn’t, much like people had for as long as there had been people. i looked at her now across the candle flicker, thinking of thousands of years ago, people looking across campfires, myths and stories refined in their nightly flames. when you got down to discussing reality, then you got down to origins. your life became infinitesimal, and the universe and the expanse of life was an overwhelming force. it would have almost been better if we were high, then, something in our system to explain the escape into this wonder, rather than the monster at our backside, creeping from the darkness.
i knew this conversation, its endless permutations, reflections. we’d had it over the years. if not this form, then another. our forever invention of humanity to be liars or truth-tellers, to be for themselves or others, the trailing post-mortems on what that meant. the constant grapple with existence. the constant doubting of anything that was real. the conversation could veer there, and i knew by her tone that she could go on, but only if i wanted her to. why should she? our eternity loop. if i’d let it continue we’d end up like we always did, placing friends and enemies on a spectrum, who was more or less fake. then placing ourselves on those same scales. when we went deep it became a puzzle. she’d veer us into drawing comical charts and graphs on her paper scraps, listing names and crossing them out, steady and focused like solving a crossword.
these theories, these loops. what was it that we had never solved that kept us returning to this conversation? my mother did the same, and i did it too: that incessant need to repeat a phrase or a thought over and over in the mind, to say it outloud like an incantation, a circular track, grinding through deep-worn grooves forming canyons in the brain. it made you want to wander through the streets, yelling it everywhere, until someone stopped you, someone asked why. jagged knife piercing, the thought tongue-tipped, the words spouted. no answers given, no voice spoke. the circuit closed and never ended.
the tea had gone cold in my hands. i set it down and lay on the couch, falling asleep to her pencils scratching across her paper, guessing what it was she drew by the sound of it. until dreams overtook. when i opened my eyes, light crept in through the cracks in the blinds. i tried to think of what i had dreamt, but could not remember. silence in the place. her bedroom door was closed. it stood in darkness. i stared at it, until my eyes refocused to dust motes swooping around a light ray. i shuffled again and realized a heavy blanket lay over me, not knowing when she had placed it. i peeled back the blanket and got my feet to the floor. i stood and went to the bathroom, came out. i scoured the floor for my coat. i found it, put it on and zipped it up. i heard her door creak, a crack opened. call me, she said, later. i nodded and said i would. i knew she would have questions about how i was feeling. outside the crisp air pushed leaves and paper trash along the streets. i wanted to take the subway, but realized i didn’t have my card or cash on me. it was a long cold walk back to the house. ▨
Tsunami 2011
if there are angels
they will pray for us
to go away peacefully
on a rip tide
if by sight of waves
swimmers ask why?
and stay swimming
they’ll forget they’re drowning
and by drowning
they will never be convinced
I saw it in a video
the tsunami hits as black block
treating boats as bathtub toys
went over the seawall as if it had no feelings
cracked a nuclear reactor like an egg
they're still dealing with the yoke now
every manner of silence cannot
outdo the silence of tremors
from bowels of earth
they shake up the sea quietly
only make a sound
when they lick something
the shore is bald of buildings
a boat perches on a house
whole villages are puzzle pieces
sea moves
the patience of a tiger
about to snap a neck
sea mouth
water wells
about to hawk it up
the rocks stay
or they go dancing
people stay
but then they die
no one's up in the wet hills
but those who didn't make it
or those with video cameras
and they found their bodies
bloated like beach balls
in hazards they treat
the reactor as a god
to be appeased
nothing can cool it down
it foams at the mouth
cancerous
prophets always say the end is nigh
recount our genesis
the same as death is
we were born in the sun's mouth spat here
washed up on these shores burnt drowning
praying hard
your head stung
by ocean breeze
before the church collapses
closing fist
the tremor speaks its name
but it sounds like
toppled bridges
crumbled houses
crying hard
that is salt yes
but in a way you are
stronger than the ocean
it is crying all the time
only the brave
see the waves rideable
here's to all the surfers
stuck in the pipe eternal
their boards fell in the blackness
came up toothpicks
miles down the coast
I cannot keep shaking when I see this video
darkness rises black curved and gleaming
treats every object as the indifference in itself
here's to the angels
may they pacify this Leviathan
I am only here
with my ear
on the seafloor
waiting for the tremor
proffer the terror
by affirming all its evil
how great thou art
but my mouth is filled with salt
Coming Up…
Next Release: End of April (hopefully)
As always: If you missed anything or can’t find an email, just visit the website to read through the archives.