\t\t\t\t THis is turning out to be a stupid day. I was up at 8am, as I sometimes am. But instead of just going back to sleep I went out to Calvary for no damn reason and accomplished nothing. Nothing new there, really. <\/p>\n
\n Actually I did unintentionally discover that a notable sculptor is responsible for a few of the mausolea near the chapel, in the area of Texas Guinan\u2019s place. I don\u2019t remember his name now but a book was written about him in the not so distant past. <\/p>\n
\n I also learned that there are 14 stages of the cross. I thought it was 12. These two mausolea that this sculptor built depicted the 14 stations of the cross on the structures\u2019 bronze doors. The chapel also contains a rather dumpy series of pieces representing the stages of the cross. <\/p>\n
\n It\u2019s been cool watching the new Kosciuszko Bridge go up\u2026 I meant to look (and listen) if they are still using the old span. The old Kosciuszko made or maybe still makes a horrible almost frightening racket. <\/p>\n
\n I thought of going over to New Calvary to see if the calling card and coins I left in the DETEX Watchclock Station are still there. I bet they are. There are not many places like that, where you can expect to just hide something in public. That\u2019s what geocaching is about but I think I prefer leaving stuff as I do. There used to be some coins on the giant wall that holds all the dead people in at Old Calvary. The wall runs almost the length of Review Avenue. I put coins on a specific stone and found them there about a year later. But the next few times I tried this they disappeared. I had also stashed something behind on of the \u201cLIVE WIRE\u201d signs on the Honeywell Street Bridge\u2026 Somewhere I made a note of which sign it was but that\u2019s lost on me now, as is any memory of exactly what I hid there.<\/p>\n
\n I sat in the chapel for a while. For some reason I just felt that I wanted to be there. I am not especially fond of the structure but it is pretty much always empty save for me. I was looking through a book about Lent and the customs of fasting and giving up certain indulgences during the Lenten season. That stuff should be familiar to me but it felt like I was reading about it for the first time. I\u2019ve forgotten almost anything I ever knew about Lent and even general church rituals. It\u2019s like I never went to Catholic school for those 10 years. <\/p>\n
\n I was going to church once in awhile for a time last year. I had to give up because I could not understand anything the priests were saying. There was one guy whose English was fine. I actually liked him. But most times I went it was someone with an accent so thick I could not understand anything. And the acoustics in that church were no help, drowning the words as they were spoken.<\/p>\n
\n I also found the ritual attempts at pomp and circumstance to be tedious and vacant. I always did find the music at church services to be bothersome.<\/p>\n
\n At a Caffe Bene, feeling restless yet somehow serene. When I am tired from lack of my usual 11 hours of sleep I get lonely and feel even a little desperation. It\u2019s weird how that works. I unplugged from Facebook again, forgetting once again that doing so cuts me off from a number of other things that use FB logins. So, I\u2019ll probably be back quicker than I would want. Just not needing the brain drain, not that I have anything else to do.<\/p>\n
\n I just looked up and saw that word \u201cdesperation.\u201d It reminds me of this phone thing I discovered in college. I think it was called The Bridge. It was basically just a party line where anyone could call and talk, though if it was referred to as \u201cThe Bridge\u201d that meant is was set up illegally. One particular line I found happened to be occupied by elderly people. Listening in on that was some of the most depressing shit I\u2019ve ever heard\u2026 although I wish I could hear it again to see if it still lives up to that verdict.<\/p>\n
\n One woman was droning about how all her kids were grown and had moved on, and this made her \u201cstranded\u201d and she felt a whiff of \u201cdesperation\u201d about her life. The others on this call politely chimed in with affirmations or sympathies while this woman just never stopped talking. My mother walked into the room as I was listening. She heard but a few moments of this phone chat and said \u201cThat\u2019s horrible!\u201d She recognized it immediately for what it was. I have to admit I did not. It just sounded like people talking until my mother\u2019s perspective made me realize these were some sad and lonely old people with no one else to talk to. The one woman in particular spoke in an almost cadential style, like there was some sort of poetry or a rhythm to her litany.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI just feel stranded. I feel desperation.\u201d And she had memories of her children from when they were young, but nothing to say about them in the present.<\/p>\n
\n As depressing as that sounds I really wish I had recorded it.<\/p>\n
\n Another sound I remember was from the high school yard. I brought a boombox to school. I seem to remember the device being considered fancy because it not only played cassettes but also let you record them. I had some music on a cassette but I accidentally hit the record button, erasing several seconds of music with sounds of a couple of kids talking to the Latin teacher, Mr. Peloquin. It was a spirited conversation about what I do not remember. If I knew how enchanting it would sound to me years later I would most certainly have recorded longer, even if it meant nuking the music on that cassette. That live sound from the schoolyard really was unique and real, totally unpretentious in its spirit. <\/p>\n
\n Not to get grandiose but I believe that sound is the blood or the heartbeat of society, its most ephemeral and irreproducible element. It flows through everything. Even if specific sounds can be recreated (bells, horns, thunder) I don\u2019t know how well or even if the experience of hearing it as a spatial phenomenon can be played back. I guess there is something to be said for virtual reality and binaural sound, though I think that will always suffer from being too artificial.<\/p>\n
\n Hmm, not sure why I am thinking about all this. This tiredness leading to a sense of panic has me feeling like I should be in a hurry to get things done. But I have nothing to do.<\/p>\n
\n \u2026<\/p>\n
\n Going outside to dick around with the Links. I am starting to think Citybridge forgot they put these things up in Astoria. None of them are displaying the much-needed advertisements, one of them has been showing a desktop screen for days now, and a lot of the tablets just do not work. But the absence of advertising is most strange, since belching out ads is pretty much the only reason these things exist — or rather, it\u2019s the only productive or money-making reason they exist. Whatever they say about the free services is good for propaganda but it is not creating any kind of revenue stream. <\/p>\n
\n I really do not like seeing people lounge around these things, sprawling on the sidewalk for as long as it takes to charge their phone. It\u2019s been worse in other areas, it seems, where there are more homeless people. But it is really just an unsightly and unnecessary little blight. And there are just so damn many of them. The fundamental logic behind the quantity of these things is presented as unassailable: \u201cWe\u2019re replacing the payphones.\u201d Guess what? We didn\u2019t need so many of those, either.<\/p>\n
\n Man it is only 2:20. Normally it\u2019s so much later by this time of the day. Wait, what?<\/p>\n
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