\t\t\t\ti walked around midtown today, looking into the eyes of strangers, looking
\nfor some glimmer of concern, some unity of interest in the warnings about
\nthe incoming weather, some sense of … something. I think I detected a
\nshared sense of unity this time. It was faint, but I saw it.<\/p>\n
I made a 181 run, to get a stack of copies of old magazines from the 1880s
\nand 1890s. I made a special effort to get them today, imagining that the
\nbasement location of that post office might flood over the weekend,
\ndestroying my precious magazines.<\/p>\n
It turned out there was about 20 pounds of crap at my 181, including a
\n$140 book that I forgot I ordered, and which weighed far, far more than I
\nwould have anticipated.<\/p>\n
The book is an Index of all music published in those old magazines between
\n1883 and 1957. It never used to be so expensive, but I guess it went out
\nof print, and the gouging began. For that much money i at least feel like
\nI gto something of physical substance.<\/p>\n
The last time I blew that much coin on a book was a couple of years ago,
\nwhen I bought a copy of a tiny book which was an atlas of Calvary
\nCemetery, published in 1880-something. I never thought twice about or
\nregretted paying $150 for that little book, and the money expended on this
\nIndex is not money wasted, since it complements my project so nicely.<\/p>\n
i perpetrated my little payphone project further today, remembering almost
\nword for word things i had thought while falling asleep last night. i
\ntalked about the patterns i see in my eyelids when i close my eyes. last
\nnight i saw letters, brackets, ampersands and dashes, along with morphy
\nblobs of white and yellowish nondescription, like lava lamp globs or
\noutsized amoebas from a 1970s light show.<\/p>\n
i remember reading about how the 70s light show was an under-rated genre,
\none whose merits were subsumed in the critical mind by the associations
\nwith drugs and sex that tended to writhe and wriggle on the floors of the
\ntheaters where the light shows were put on.<\/p>\n
i am at a pub, swilling beers, playing video games, typing into this box,
\nwhiling away the triumph of my days in a way unimanigable in the Parc
\nLincoln era. it was at the Parc Lincoln that i came up with the phrase
\n“triumph of your days” whence i saw a homeless guy living outside the
\nhotel. he had made friends with the owners of a corner convenience store,
\nwho let him sit on one of their chairs and, well, do nothing. maybe he
\ndid some work for them, but i knew from what i overheard that he was
\nliving in shelters, and not ashamed of it.<\/p>\n
i would see him walk around the block, repeatedly, dozens of times a day,
\nalmost marching, then taking his seat at the chair near Amsterdam and 75th
\nStreet. there he would sit, and stare ahead, his ass hanging close to the
\nsidewalk and his arms resting comfortably.<\/p>\n
he may have looked sullen, or satisfied, or glowering. i don’t know. he
\nimpressed me, though. he seemed content, and satisfied with his days, the
\ntriumph of his days, as these are mine.<\/p>\n
at my first real job in New York I used to get up from my desk and walk
\naround the floor, indulging in an afternoon siesta whence i took a stroll,
\nburning corporate dollars for no possible value except the thriving of my
\nlaziness.<\/p>\n
that, i thought at the time, was the triumph of my days.<\/p>\n
years later i felt the same about the time i spent playing video games at
\na pizza place on 21st Street in Astoria. long hours dancing from the butt
\nwhile playing Ms. Pac Man at a nondescript pizza dive as I coasted on my
\nsavings and coasted on the serenity of my life outside of corporate.<\/p>\n
that was 2002, or maybe 2003.<\/p>\n
today i feel a sense of peace and surety. the money comes in, i think
\nlittle of it, and i spend my days at the bar playing video games, trying
\nto raise the spark of creativity with which i was born, but mostly i bury
\nthat spark in alcohol soft middle age (to quote Pink Floyd).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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