A Theory of Escalation
Let's get through this together. Let's brush aside the cold. The wind. Grey piles of leftover snow, exposing old, forgotten dog shits, re-hydrated and baking slowly in faint February sun.
Let's you and me, computer. You are my computer; you are my mirror; you are my portal, you are my page, you are me. You are my past and my future, a warm blanket on my lap, and the friend to whom I sound off. You have called my bluffs and kept your chuckles to yourself when I went off and told the world I'd eat it up--I'd save our generation--I'd move to South America--I'd get back to writing that screenplay; back to that underground poetry zine; back on the bike; better.
Hands on our shoulders and competitions over who can make the weirdest noise the loudest the longest. Playing tag with our eyes around industrial ovens and through mazes of wire-rimmed shelving and leaning back and looking past the wall of metal and fire between us--the only real thing between us. Music going hoarse so the other could hear.
Written in pencil on a quarter page of notebook paper, now forever in my back pocket.
But it rang, and rang, and I talked and didn't say much because I normally do say so much and then the sun went down and it got colder out and I sat back down with the computer and I read what I wrote and I started writing more.
Powerspace made their break-up Facebook official. And it's still something, to think about the core of my universe split into pieces and reconnected in feeds glowing pale and isolated from the robot. A silent composition of pixels, frozen in time with Pompeii--a stasis that reeks of an afterlife. To think about the way things happen. The way relationshapes change in two years; in two months. They freeze. They melt. They fade. They harden. They take root. They bloom.
Bloc Party. Pinback. Kanye West. We Are the World Trade Center. The Black Keys. Conor Oberst. Death Cab For Cutie. Nick Drake. The Flaming Lips. Mark Mothersbaugh pieces from the soundtrack to The Life Aquatic. The Faint. The Streets.
New Order. TV On The Radio. The Cool Kids. Muscles. Miracle Fortress. The French Kicks. MGMT. M.I.A. Brian Jonestown Massacre. Ambulance LTD. The Besnard Lakes. Beach House. The Libertines. Blitzen Trapper. The Hold Steady.
Jarvis Cocker. Passion Pit. Dan Deacon. Animal Collective. Matt Mays and El Torpedo. Sam Roberts Band. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy. The Fleet Foxes.
Robbie Robertson and the Red River Ensemble. Gordon Lightfoot. Grizzly Bear. Xavier Rudd. The Talking Heads. Joy Division. Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Junior Brown. Jerry Jeff Walker. Keller Williams. The Raconteurs. Jimi Hendrix.
Mayberry, Los Angeles; Denver.
You shoot squeezing through the pinhole sized void to the memory of waking up on a couch in a room wet with the heavy sour smell of warm beer. The floor is a breathing sea of blankets and hair and bare feet. A made up holiday, unimpeachably holy to us. A pizza box, a hookah, a piece, and hot pink and lime colored plastic cups, unexpectedly sent scrape rolling across the floor by an errant arm or leg flailing stupid and sleepily for just one more measurement of comfort. In dream, reaching for the cosmos. A Theory of Escalation, stretched. Tested.
Results pending.
I wouldn't want to be in a band--the projection. Then you become The Guitar Player, or The Singer. Whereas I am The Grocer, but known to so few as such. And where's Alec? And where's Tom? And what's it like to be either of them tonight?
What happens to you now?
A day with highs and lows.
Let's you and me, computer. You are my computer; you are my mirror; you are my portal, you are my page, you are me. You are my past and my future, a warm blanket on my lap, and the friend to whom I sound off. You have called my bluffs and kept your chuckles to yourself when I went off and told the world I'd eat it up--I'd save our generation--I'd move to South America--I'd get back to writing that screenplay; back to that underground poetry zine; back on the bike; better.
Hands on our shoulders and competitions over who can make the weirdest noise the loudest the longest. Playing tag with our eyes around industrial ovens and through mazes of wire-rimmed shelving and leaning back and looking past the wall of metal and fire between us--the only real thing between us. Music going hoarse so the other could hear.
Written in pencil on a quarter page of notebook paper, now forever in my back pocket.
But it rang, and rang, and I talked and didn't say much because I normally do say so much and then the sun went down and it got colder out and I sat back down with the computer and I read what I wrote and I started writing more.
Powerspace made their break-up Facebook official. And it's still something, to think about the core of my universe split into pieces and reconnected in feeds glowing pale and isolated from the robot. A silent composition of pixels, frozen in time with Pompeii--a stasis that reeks of an afterlife. To think about the way things happen. The way relationshapes change in two years; in two months. They freeze. They melt. They fade. They harden. They take root. They bloom.
Bloc Party. Pinback. Kanye West. We Are the World Trade Center. The Black Keys. Conor Oberst. Death Cab For Cutie. Nick Drake. The Flaming Lips. Mark Mothersbaugh pieces from the soundtrack to The Life Aquatic. The Faint. The Streets.
New Order. TV On The Radio. The Cool Kids. Muscles. Miracle Fortress. The French Kicks. MGMT. M.I.A. Brian Jonestown Massacre. Ambulance LTD. The Besnard Lakes. Beach House. The Libertines. Blitzen Trapper. The Hold Steady.
Jarvis Cocker. Passion Pit. Dan Deacon. Animal Collective. Matt Mays and El Torpedo. Sam Roberts Band. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy. The Fleet Foxes.
Robbie Robertson and the Red River Ensemble. Gordon Lightfoot. Grizzly Bear. Xavier Rudd. The Talking Heads. Joy Division. Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Junior Brown. Jerry Jeff Walker. Keller Williams. The Raconteurs. Jimi Hendrix.
Mayberry, Los Angeles; Denver.
You shoot squeezing through the pinhole sized void to the memory of waking up on a couch in a room wet with the heavy sour smell of warm beer. The floor is a breathing sea of blankets and hair and bare feet. A made up holiday, unimpeachably holy to us. A pizza box, a hookah, a piece, and hot pink and lime colored plastic cups, unexpectedly sent scrape rolling across the floor by an errant arm or leg flailing stupid and sleepily for just one more measurement of comfort. In dream, reaching for the cosmos. A Theory of Escalation, stretched. Tested.
Results pending.
I wouldn't want to be in a band--the projection. Then you become The Guitar Player, or The Singer. Whereas I am The Grocer, but known to so few as such. And where's Alec? And where's Tom? And what's it like to be either of them tonight?
What happens to you now?
A day with highs and lows.