An Explanation of Subway Stickers and Additional Information

Please refrain from A) the use of a phantom fetus-conjuring blunderbuss B) the levitation of more than three novelty-themed Rubik’s cubes during a single séance, and C) the piloting of a square-wheeled tank boasting ineffective armaments in public places.

We’ll have more news of this at eleven. And now, tonight’s top story:

There’s something living behind the walls of this Brooklyn-time summer moment that paws, sniffs and stamps restlessly at the scattered ground, sifting through the raped and littered soil with a decidedly pointed hoof for telltale signs of a missing future.  And as it just so happens, this creature and I are hunting the same mouse; a secret stashed safely below the surface of the immediate past and cleverly camouflaged by the present tense.

Imagine if the universe worked differently; suppose every minute in history is essentially a separate world which must be built, maintained and torn down once the world finishes with it. And further contemplate that somewhere, someone decided that this particular instance, one containing a living photograph of alien world, needed to archived and viewed again for whatever reason. Okay, but why? What was so important about that moment, that planet and that dimension? Was it worth saving because it wasn’t ours? Was the archivist hoping to somehow rescue this civilization and provide a how-to or an example of how different life could be if it were DIY’d in another part of the universe?  Was this about “art”? Perhaps it was the archivist’s job to catalog civilizations and somehow this fragment was inappropriately absorbed by the bandwidth of my dreams. I have no fucking clue.

What I do know is this: I’m attempting to reverse-engineer a fragment of a memory using the mnemonic equivalent of a gasoline-scented scratch-n-sniff sticker, an oft-folded illustration torn from a science-fiction magazine and a die-cast metal toy.  And someone off-camera is demanding that I use these items to return a forgotten city to its former glory. The simplified instruction manual provided to me was downloaded as a zip file and stored somewhere in my skull but the link is 404’d, and now I’ve got this… thing bumping around in my not-so-big upstairs with a case of amnesia, creating unwanted bulges in my reality.

Anything I attempt to do while in this state becomes ten times more difficult; everything gets sped up and pinched, as though one were fishing for a shell fragment in a bowl of yolk. Time (yolk) is distorted, flowing faster between the outer shell of this 404′d object (thumb) and the walls of my perceived reality (bowl); images of some mysterious and misplaced Martian market become momentarily visible, projected against the ghostly flicker of heat waves of this New York Minute, brought to you in part by Friday, June 10, 2011, the letter thirteen, and viewers like you.

The good news is that I can almost feel what it was like to live in this place, but I can’t put the experience into words. Not yet. The bad news is that it has to come out.

The key to unlocking this thing’s got something to do with the way that Kanji seems at once ancient and futuristic (likewise Arabic, likewise the art of Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest), so I try to focus on that.  It also smacks roundly of the early issues of Heavy Metal magazine I devoured as a teen, the art of Jean Giraud (a.k.a. Moebius), selected writings of William Gibson and the feel of films like Fifth Element and Blade Runner, where the overt alien undertones are just part of the experience:

- a Bodega cat seeks relief from the summer heat on the lid of an ice-cream freezer.

- a matronly Ugnaught of a woman, with cast-iron breasts like matching Civil War cannons, stomps and sneers and stabs at her sequined-pink cellphone with the gold-painted nails of a velociraptor, talkin’ ‘bout how she gonna “fuck that dumb bitch up!”

- a hovering trade ship from some dusty distant world waits patiently above the East River for permission to land.

… and it’s all part of the Mise-en-scène.

Primarily, it’s got something to do with that fucking sticker.

I scratch at it furiously and press my nose against it, breathing deep. It works, albeit feebly. Something churns in my stomach and my field of vision becomes momentarily faded and narrow.  Encouraged, I scratch and huff at it some more. This goes on for about ten minutes. Beads of sweat begin to form along my arms and a rising sense of vertigo develops in my stomach. Now I’ve got the half-summoned memory of a lost alien world caught like a cat hair at the back of my throat and I’m desperate to cough it loose.

I cram my fingers down my throat and after a moment’s salivation I begin spewing forth watery chunks of buildings and backgrounds which slap at the pavement like horse piss on a flat rock before standing up slowly on their own, like a prizefighter ready to talk serious business at the end of the seventh round. Slumped against a wall with one hand on my knee, the sensation rises up again, coursing through me like a tidal wave as a half-completed grid of city streets soaked in stomach acid snakes forth like umbilical ropes from the enraged space between my lips, anchoring themselves to the soil like plant tendrils and immediately taking root, unfolding like ugly flowers. My jaws are pried open against miles of sewer lines and buried electrical cables and in a brief reprieve I take a few breaths in through my nose. Soon, my abdominal muscles are convulsing and contracting again as the five o’clock skyline of a world I’ve only imagined rockets the wrong way up my esophagus and my mouth gives birth to an alien sunset. It splatters first on the sidewalk before instinct drives it to its feet on doddering legs and it takes its place at the top of the page.

I gasp air for few minutes, wiping the puke from my lips and spitting out the taste of concrete and anodized metal, surveying the half-formed thing that I’ve made.

I’m obviously not done yet, but it’s a start.

TWM

Here and Now With a Baked Potato – Bits of Pieces of My Recent Then

03JAN2011 – Winter’s been here for awhile but happily, today was the perihelion.  We were closer to the sun today than we will be all year.  It’s about damn time.  I’ve been hibernating, spending chunks of days indoors pacing the floor, watching movies and reading the used books I seem to be ordering at a fantastic rate.

I’ve been into this caveman diet for awhile now.  No more pasta, no more junk food, or ice cream.  Only things I could have conceivably eaten 1,400 years ago. Lots of steamed spinach, blueberries, tuna fish, whole tomatoes, and red meat.  And by hooking my toes on my kitchen counter and bridging my body to the chin-up bar above my bedroom door, I can manage some rather strenuous inverted body dips, face down, 10-15 up from zero.  I curl dumbbells while I watch movies.

I go to work, I do my thing, I come home.  I consciously choose the places I’m going to be alone.  Every few days I’ll get off the subway and think about how much money I have in my wallet. Based on this decision, I’ll turn right for a pint of Guinness at Harefield Road, or left for a cup of Americano at the Variety.  Icy sidewalks, dirty snow, and winter coats fill my vision.  I swear I can smell diapers when I walk these same streets each morning on my way to the subway.

Now more than ever, I want to spend some time in the desert being uncomfortable; climbing on hot rocks, sweating like a hostage, feeling the sun warm my bones and browning my skin like a 6-foot solar panel.  At night, I wanna watch the stars watching me, and listen to the No Thing.

Haven’t seen my own words for awhile.  Maybe they’re down deeper in the sleep than I can go right now.  Every time I open my mouth, it’s your voice that comes out.  My brain needs to be quiet, at rest in order for good things to come out. It’ll come back — all things are always moving toward their opposites.

Spent New Year’s Eve alone on my rooftop, bundled against the cold night air with a half a bottle of red wine plunged deep into the snowbank beside the old wooden chair on which I sat. From my vantage point, I could hear the roar of the crowd all the way over in Time’s Square.

It is what it is.

Aliens Prefer Americano

06JUN2010 – Hot as fuck outside, and I’m not in the mood to sit on my floor, pace my floor, sweep my floor, or get into a mental wrasslin’ match with my inner accountant about my lack of groceries as I wait for the Big Fat Paycheck that isn’t due until the first of next month.

Instead, I told myself that, historically and artistically speaking, it’s all the rage to be poor and hungry in New York.  I think I bought it, so I decided to step out for a stout.  Presently holding court at the Barcade, brushing up on my Galaga patterns, and penning nonsense in my ubiquitous journal, as follows:

What do the following have in common?

- Any liquor store

- An aisle of a bookstore devoted to bibles

- The cereal section of your local grocer

- Gun shops

Give up?  Variations on a theme.  How many different bottles of booze can one person possibly crawl into?  Why are there so many versions of the Bible?  How much Muesli do we really need?  Isn’t one gun enough when you catch your wife making magic monkeys with your best friend?

“Well, people need choices.” No, we fucking don’t.  We don’t need leopard print cell phone cases.  We don’t need peanut butter AND jelly in the same jar, and we sure as fuck have no business sipping anything from a can marked JOOSE.  Call me crazy, but sometimes I think free will is a loaded firearm: something best kept under lock and key, especially when there are children in the house.

P.S. Crocs were conceived as a dare.  Ha, ha!  Fooled you!

Common courtesy is a disease we could all stand to catch.  Don’t get the sniffles, or a weekend bug.  Catch a fucking plague of it.  Lose your leg, if need be.

[HHG SHIPMENT ARRIVED SOMEWHERE DURING THIS TIMEFRAME. CASUALTY: ONE FLOOR LAMP]

08JUN2010 – MEMORY OF EARTH: 8^th Ave subway stop, hot summer night, drunk on tequila and red wine.  Across the platform, a beautiful young black girl with Cappuccino skin plucks wandering melodies from her acoustic guitar, the notes lost among the cocktail din of the other commuters waiting for the Brooklyn-bound L.

09JUN2010 – Tired from walking, stopped into Cho’s for an iced coffee.  It’s just around the corner from my place.  Don’t want to go home, but I’ve been wandering for a few hours now.  No money, no friendly faces.

You: “Oh, but there’s so many free things to do in New Yor–.”

Me: Shut up.  I know.  None of them include eating.

Planet WillBurg is kinda weirding me out, anthropologically speaking.  I’ve been dressing like a power nerd since Christ was a messcook: thick black glasses, courier bag, tattoos, camo shorts.  It’s been my thing for years, and I’m great with it.  Imagine my reaction — nay, my chagrin! — when I roll off the train to find these irony-based motherfuckers dropping out of the trees, and all of them look like me.  There’s probably fifty-million dollars worth of India ink walking down Metropolitan Avenue at any given point in time!  So much for being different. Not sure how I feel about it. Safety in anonymity?

I tried to strike up a conversation with the barista.  It went like this:

[brief introductory chatter here, blah, blah]

Her: “So, what do you do?”

Me: (pausing, not wanting to mention government because it always gets a weird response; not quite ready to say, “I’m a writer” because my book isn’t published yet; not wanting to say something coy and asinine like, “Oh, this and that,” because that’s a fucking retard movie dickhead answer; and definitely not wanting to throw down my entire goat-choking title: crisis communications, risk management and media relations specialist…) “Uh, I’m a photographer…”

Her: (dismissively) “Oh, just like everyone else.  That’ll be three-fifty.”

That’s right.  I look like everyone else, and I’m here to open a gallery, just like everyone else.  My mom’s paying for this coffee.  I’ll be over there taking MySpace photos of myself and trying to look poor.

Guess I should go home.  And do what?  (Image of an action figure in blister packaging, sitting erect on the edge of a perfectly-made bed in an inspection-ready apartment.  Towels folded to crisp precision, fridge gleaming – albeit empty.  Glasses and plates washed, dressed to the edge of the cupboard.  Floor swept, files organized by color, trash empty.  Room suffocatingly silent, except for the air conditioner.  Cursor blinking, awaiting further instruction.)

Part of me is thrilled to the gills at not having a social life.  No distractions.  Nothing to do but learn my job, aspire to greatness and write my ass off.  That part of me knows I can survive for extended periods of time on nothing more than beans, rice, tuna, coffee, Sharpies, music, and social media.  But there’s another part of me that knows that first part is a lying motherfucker.  “Friends are a form of wealth, as is knowledge.  Likewise, health.”  I don’t know who said that, probably me.  Plants need food, sunlight, water.  Human beings need their Maslow’s met.

I have dreams where I can fly, or move objects with my mind.  And in these dreams, I can feel the part of my mind that knows how to do these things.  I understand the weight of the object on some deep level.  I feel it rising up, moving toward me, coming to rest in my hand.  But on awakening, that part of my brain reads as 404 FILE NOT FOUND.  It feels like something in me has died.

I wonder what will become of these journals.  Used as tinder, perhaps?

All my travels and
years set free in the tears of
slowly rising flames.

Maybe they’ll put stretch marks on the bottom of a trash bag.  Guess it doesn’t matter, brevity of life, Pale Blue Dot, blah, blah.

Relax, people.  I’m not looking to conquer anything but myself.

26JUN2010 – I’ve fallen into the Pit of Quiet.  I go for days without saying much.  Don’t feel like speaking.  Took everything I had to dress myself and wander into the sunlight this morning.  New York might be safer, doesn’t make it any friendlier.  Found a series of coaxial adapters approximately three inches long on the sidewalk near my apartment.  Walked along twirling this tiny technological sword of state in my fingers, hefting it, feeling the weight of the thing.  Remain silent, stay hidden, Ghost Dog my way through my environment, wait for the map of familiarity to reveal itself.  Muscle memory takes time to form.  Someday I will think to myself, “Remember when this was all brand new?”

Sometimes a woman is a beautiful painting.  She doesn’t need your consent, she doesn’t want your admiration, she doesn’t care for your conversation, she doesn’t require your loyalty, your chivalry or your complication.  Sometimes she just wants to walk down a sunlit street in a pretty dress, wearing her favorite sunglasses and the sandals that took her forever to find.  Sometimes she just wants to be pretty.  Let her.

I’m still afraid of ending up broken and homeless; filthy and terrified, hungry and wasting, begging for the change you got from your latte and have nothing better to do with, but still won’t give it away.  All my clever will be for naught, my stories will fall upon deaf ears, and that will be that.  We leave this world the same way we came in.

The music is this place is god-awful, unless you’re a raging fan of Christmas 1985 Casio keyboards and tone-deaf, two-chord sorcerers wringing every nuance from a simplified rhyme structure, where every line begins with “I feel”.  Makes me want to punch a goat.

Fascinating to consider that people make a conscious decision to dress as they do.  Observe the wild-haired man passing by the window: “I WILL leave the house today dressed in camouflage trousers, a red tank top, worn leather sandals and a healthy stack of ‘rock guy’ bracelets on each wrist.”  There must be an anthropological study on why people dress as they do.  We’re like pirate radio stations, walking the street, broadcasting our likes and dislikes, wearing our hearts on our record sleeves, staying awake on strong coffee and cigarettes, exhaling into the microphone and wondering if anyone is still  listening.

A song is like a piece of software, or a tool.  Someone has to dream it up, write it, assemble it from the tools they have on hand (and hopefully have a working knowledge of).  Then they send it out into the world.  Their user/audience learns of this product, using his/her own personal network to acquire it, and is forced to make an ethical decision:  “Hey, my favorite (programmer) has a new (meme/abstract analogy/external emotion experience/brain virus) available! I will (or will not) engage in the exchange of valued currency to obtain it.”  For some, these programs are just background clutter, and they interact with the program on a very basic level.

For others, the program becomes something like a theme for their computer; it changes the color of their background, selects a complimentary font, or has some other effect on their overall system.

And for still others, the effect is all-consuming: it becomes a photograph, an envelope, a time capsule, a shorthand statement, a bookmark, a reminder of the state of their perception and senses during a moment in time.  “Yes,” we imagine them saying.  “Song X reminds me of time period Y when I was in a relationships A, B, and C with the following objects, systems, or people: [DESCRIBE FURTHER]”

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y! NIGHT!

TWM