that is not my real name
It’s not easy walking to the tune of sirens. They ring and scream out of sync with one another, creating a soundscape that rival any which one might hear trickling down an eaves trough from the apartment above. It was with these thoughts in my mind that I began to question my place in such a city. The newspaper headline, while only taking shape in my own mind, screamed of a young girl carried away by the cold water of some dirty river and somewhere in the distance a radio told of an auto accident that let few walk away. What the hell would anyone find in a place like this? It seems to me that a better question might be; what can anyone salvage? Sliding past headlines of Maple Leafs and side-stepping politicians it was the process of omitting Garfield that reminded me of something I read recently. As stupid as it may sound I’ve sometimes wondered what my life would be like were it played out in a comic book, or perhaps at this stage in life a ‘graphic novel’ in either case it was Garfield who sparked my recollection of such a Neon Lit remake of Paul Auster’s City of Glass. Like the original it drew much attention to language. Words. Of late they have been brought into question on more occasions then I have ever before encountered. Perhaps if what the French Feminists say of language and its effect on the unconscious the analysis of language deserves even more attention than it receives. What’s interesting of the Neon Lit interpretation of Auster’s text is that they use pictures to draw attention to language. I suppose drawings are not all that distant from words themselves, after all drawings, like words, represent objects and events. However unlike words, drawings can adapt to the subtleties of the ever changing face of existence. Maybe in this sense a language constructed of subjective illustrations best mimics the language of which Peter Stillman Sr. claims to be building day by day. If indeed Jacques Lacan claims that it is language which shape a person then I suppose Stillman’s reinvention of the subject would certainly be the ‘most important event in the history of mankind’. Call me stupid, call me paranoid, call me obsessed, call my stupid affection with language and its connection to this city what you will, these are not my real names, thank-you.