Category Archives: fourteen forms of melancholy
“[Music] Practice must always be founded on sound theory”
The void is not silent. I have always thought of it more and more as a transitional space, an in-between space. It’s very much to do with time. I have always been interested as an artist in how one can somehow look again for that very first moment of creativity where everything is possible and nothing has actually happened. It’s a space of becoming… ‘something’ that dwells in the presence of the work… that allows it or forces it not to be what it states it is in the first instance.
Anish Kapoor
“to agree politely and to reject angrily—
how far are they apart from each other?
to find something beautiful and to find something ugly—
in which way are these apart from each other?
if you are feared by others
you will accordingly not be able to not fear them.
what desert! it never comes to an end!
the ordinary people are in a good mood—
as if celebrating a great sacrifice
or climbing the terraces in the spring.
i am serenely among them and do not show any sign,
like an infant that does not yet smile.
what tiredness! as if there is no place to return to.
the ordinary people all have in abundance—
i alone have abandoned.
i have the heart of an idiot.
what simplicity!
the ordinary people are shining—
i alone seem to be hidden.
the ordinary people are distinct—
i alone am undifferentiated.
what barrenness! it is like the ocean.
what desert! as if it will never stop.
the ordinary people all have their purposes—
i alone am so stupid, to the degree of a yokel.
my desires alone are different from those of the other people—
and i esteem the nurturing mother of the dao.”
(Daodejing, 20)
Kiss: Fly: Air: Belt Text from Monologue by Kelly Chen
It is all the time everywhere. The fitness gram pacer test is a multistage aerobic capacity test. The following morning I was waiting for a call. I think I am just a little exhausted right now. I think I am a little overwhelmed by you right now. Realize, real eyes, real lies. Concrete jungle, wet dream, tomato. What people think is hard on violin versus what is really hard in real life. We talk like nothing had happened. It is how I remember it. The house with the best halloween
decorations now has a blue lives matter flag. You asked me about my family.
You asked me about my friends. You asked me how I am.
The sun comes to the world where the place is Sheepshead. The sun comes to me where the place is Sheepshead and melts everything in plain sight. I don’t know where the buildings are. I don’t know how that song goes. I am not sure if I remember liking this at all.
How can you doubt me when I have the lines in the center of my hands? What do you do when memory takes on no shape?
There are no details to confuse – like who and why, or when and where. I opened a video on the house computer and the image was obscured by a finger. Just girly things. Does my voice sound better when you can’t recognize it? Memory foam and memory card games and muscle
memory. I am trying my best to be better than that.
I still hold my toes when I am cold and I am doing less and less. There’s a photo of you that’s old and torn where I gave someone the wrong directions. You asked if I was trying to be impossible. You asked if I liked clean air and a life without buildings. You asked if I would remember if it came to pick me up again. You asked about being a speculative being.
How could you forget my birthday? How did you forget my birthday? I look forward to seeing you and letting you walk around my mind. I look forward to seeing you And? Letting you litter in my mind.
Look at the cars coming. Good morning. Look at the trees and clouds. Good morning. Look at the birds leaving. Good morning. Look at my empty body. Look at the things I am avoiding. Look at the snow. You remembered every snow and told me about them. Look at the snow. Good morning. I heard you like it here but probably not as much as I do. I am seeing the rectangle. I am a rectangle, then televangelism, then a mansion, then a parade.
The dust was dancing and the sky was still. When it happened, I was singing and you were sleeping.
They found me brilliant and wanted nothing to do with me. I try not to complicate it. I was picked up from my house all summer by people. Then I got hit by a car in somerville. I walked all over the place, everything was concrete and the ceilings were high. Everything was covered in aerosol sunscreen. I had a dream that my hair grew long enough that I could tie it back. My mom texted me a picture of her lunch from community college that said “pizza day”. I wonder if she misses mountains. I grew a lot of weed, then made my bed. I rode my bike and didn’t do much else.
Clouds and chemtrails are inseparable. A little patch of light comes through and knocks everything I know over. I like emails, and their parameters. I like caterpillars and their limits. I like that things don’t have to effectively be like anything else. We had a school desk on our porch in brooklyn. My dad ate cold cuts there and I rode my bike up and down the street. I had just learned about block parties and we were playing a game where we guessed the song that was playing. I did not know Rihanna. I said anything, and won a balloon dog. I wonder what my
physical counterpart is.