Complex - Street View

"So I guess you heard..." I didn't know exactly how to respond.  The living legend of her Uncle has become a regular legend of her Uncle, the final installment of the summer blockbuster she was the reluctant fan of.  He's the Twilight series.  No, that's not fair; he's Star Wars, and his death is the end of the prequel series, and she just realized this is her last chance to see it in theaters... as though there won't be countless IMAX, 3-D, and laser light show opportunities to explore his legacy. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Now is not the time for callous jadedness, quite the opposite.  Not my specialty unfortunately, where most have tenderness and compassion, I have probing questions and seemingly cold academic curiosity.  I have only hunches of what my final wood sculpture of her relationship with her Uncle will resemble, and my Dremel and chisel set are biased. Of course they were close, I knew this the way I knew disco and punk were close, the way I knew missiles and fireworks were close, ----------------------------------------------------------------------------  "Yeah, there is a note posted on the bulletin board over there. They still don't have anybody's email address." Fortunately she wasn't listening.  "He left me the complex." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  How many times have we bumped into each other at the nearby laundromat and talked until our clothes were dry and room temperature about the injustices of her Uncle's building management.   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- he made us feel powerless and trapped in an otherwise nice historic building in an extremely desirable neighborhood.  Then there was his habit of seducing his female tenants and then thinking he could blackmail them when they got boyfriends...  He has selectively chased away everyone we even began to make friends with until all the tenants are men with predatory inclinations to be ignored at our peril.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I'm not glad he's dead."  ---------------------------------------------------------- I replied to myself, "Yeah, definitely, nobody deserves to die." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------  She deserves most of the credit for developing into the independent, self-driven woman she became.  He provided a nice dwelling for her, but her teenage years were fraught with instability.  Once she dropped out of middle school to help his girlfriend sell pills in a Walgreens parking lot as part of a pyramid scheme (which, as it was later revealed, was because she was actually addicted to the pills), she began the momentum of self-sacrifice that would define her through her developmental years and beyond.   He was funny, charismatic, and, to an extent, emotionally supportive, but only when it benefited him and the building.  When she got her GED and started sending college applications, he told her to shoot for the stars, but kept her busy with menial tasks at the complex, which were of course always in abundance, until the threat of her leaving was reduced to one or two night classes per semester at a local community college.   His "family business" was the closest thing to stability he ever knew, with a blur of girlfriends and partners he sabotaged into obscurity, and the weight of rationalizing this falling on her shoulders.  Her energy for bearing this weight was so easy to mistake for reciprocation, a machine of perfect efficiency.  Except now he's dead and she still carries this weight.  He maintained her the same way he maintained his building... you might even say he saw no difference between them.  

Whenever she complained to him about the conditions and demanded an improvement, ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- she felt obligated to be grateful.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------.  Her lack of entitlement was bladder the size of a skyscraper,  and as her complaints grew more dire, ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- only shifted more weight onto her.  His penance became more extravagant and more useless, especially since she had no room to put it so she ends up donating it. Ironically, the local St. Vincent DePaul thrift store made her a nice plaque, for which she had no room, so she removed the dedication tag and went to donate it to the Salvation Army across town (to avoid hurt feelings).  She was robbed en route. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Faced with the grizzly prospect of having to settle the books, pass an honest inspection, and decide what to do with the building, we realized our only option was pretty much what we always do: get high in the alleyway.  It either helps me engage with people more emotionally, or makes my pointed questions seem less insensitive.   "Do you want to be a landlord?"  "Fuck no! I would burn this place to the ground if I didn't care about the neighborhood so much."  She felt guilty as her words echoed.  Our frequent desire to redact and reshape our words is a strong tenet of our bond.  "But if I'm going to clean up the place, I should probably still live there, right?"  After a long pause, she confesses, ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   "I understand.  But I want to help you so you don't need to do that. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  I need to give her time to recognize the parallels between her situation and my relationship with my father.   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------, the rats in her building were a place holder for what would inevitably come to the surface.  She had not mentioned ghosts before, but she sounded frightened and vulnerable and had latched onto something as so many feelings passed through her fingers.  I knew that right now was when I should let her reach her own conclusion.  Unfortunately, I asked a really practical question about testing her theory with an exterminator.  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In my ham-fisted kindness she only saw more clutter. "Definitely not. Why should I put you guys out... and what if the ghosts follow me?"  I wanted to scream into her ear that she needs not worry about this, but for once I was discreet.  I asked her more about the ghosts.  Maybe she would calmly realize what I want to write in chalk on the cement floor.   "I've blocked them from my conscious mind for --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now his death has made me realize that what I thought were rats were ghosts all along.  They stumble around my apartment... do ghosts normally stumble?  They jingle keys at me that are worn down from overuse, but I let them in anyway just to make the sound go away, and out of mercy.  Maybe if I let them in from the cold for a moment, they will warm up enough to move on."  When you discover that someone is haunted by the same ghosts as you, it is basically like being in someone's bedroom when they just got home.  It is best to quickly climb out the window and down the fire escape and knock on the front door.  Unfortunately, I just climbed into the fire escape, left the window open and started describing my ghosts.  I could see her relating to my experience, and while it drew us closer it did not seem to ease her trepidation.  As I poured out my explanation, I noticed that I was floating and drifting away from the momentum of my words.  Was I actually being pulled up to my own fire escape?  She tried to follow me to listen, she was so intent on understanding, but we were speaking over one another.  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  As my door swallowed me, I tried to yell out that ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- and that her abandonment would -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------, but I am not sure if she heard me.  She sent me a text message from the airport the next day, saying she will be traveling abroad and her phone will be out of service.  I found my laundry neatly folded.  I felt bad for yelling about the pregnancy, but -----------------------------------------

Complex - South View

"So I guess you heard..." I didn't know exactly how to respond. ------------------------------------------------------------ Of course they were close, I knew this the way I knew ------------------------------- the way I knew bullets and rockets are close, and March and spring. "Yeah, there was a note ------------------------------------------------------------------------  "He left me the complex."  There was no right thing to say.   "Oh. Well that could be good for you, right?"  "Hah." She was right.  How many times did we bump into each other at the nearby laundromat and talk until our clothes were dry and room temperature about the injustices of her uncle's building management.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------  She lived there, I lived in the next building, which shared a wall.  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  He was very polite, but due to a contract he signed long ago everyone within range of his building had to use his lousy cable and internet service.  If you used your own ISP, you were still billed for his, which included telephone and premium cable.  He was likable and his voice was gentle, but he had drinking buddies in the department of health, so violations went uncited as we watched the cockroaches grow larger and larger in our bathrooms.  He was charming and allowed dogs in his building, but he made us feel powerless and trapped in an-------------------------------------------------------- Unthinkably, I broke the silence with ---------------------------------------------------------------------  The weight was unbearable, so I replied, "Yeah, definitely, nobody deserves to die."  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Her parents vanished when she was a pre-teen and he raised her. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He maintained her the same way he maintained his building. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Whenever she complained to him about the conditions and demanded an improvement, he would apologize and draw up some sort of plan, and as penance buy her something really extravagant for which she has no use but felt obligated to be grateful.  His plan would never be implemented, or never make it past the initial phase before falling into neglect, --------------------------------------------------------------------- and as her complaints grew more dire, his apologies grew more emotionally overwrought and ----------------------------------------------- the penance became more extravagant and more useless, especially since she had no room to put it so she ends up donating it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  She was self-cleaning, but the shadow he created in her was dark enough to see the stars at noon under.

Faced with the grizzly prospect of having to settle the books, pass an honest inspection, and decide what to do with the building, we realized our only option was ------------------------------------------------------------------------  "Do you want to be a landlord?"  "Fuck no! I would burn this place to the ground if I didn't care about the neighborhood so much."  She felt guilty as her words echoed. -----------------------------------------------------  "But if I'm----------------------------------------, I should probably still live there, right?"  After a long pause, she confesses, "I feel so overwhelmed right now.  All I really want to do is leave everything and run away."   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  "I understand. -------------------------------------------------------------------------  If you did, you would be defined by the mess you ran away from for a long time.  What do you feel overwhelmed by?"  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  "Since he died, I've been hearing the sounds more and more.  I don't think it's rats, I think he is haunting the building."  We joke about the rats in her building all the time, ------------------------------------------  She had not mentioned ghosts before, but she sounded frightened and vulnerable and had latched onto something as so many feelings passed through her fingers.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  I took this opportunity to make another mistake.  "You should move into my building while you handle this.  Or you could stay in our spare room for a few months, I've been fixing it up. Mark wouldn't mind." ------------------ In my ham-fisted kindness she only saw more clutter. "Definitely not. Why should I put you guys out... and what if the ghosts follow me?"  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------  I asked her more about the ghosts.  -----------------------------------   "I've blocked them from my conscious mind for as long as I've known you at least, but they have haunted me for years. Now his death has made me realize that what I thought were rats were ghosts all along.  They charge into the doors of my perception, wielding keys that they broke in other doors long ago and thus can not be used to gain entry.  But I hear them struggling and fumbling; the jingling grows debilitatingly loud so I open my doors to them just to make the sound go away, and out of mercy.  And maybe if I let them in from the cold they will -------"  When you discover that someone is haunted by the same ghosts as you, it is basically like saying you have the same credit card number as them.  You must breach the topic gently or you -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  As I poured out my explanation, I noticed that I was floating and drifting away from the momentum of my words.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------  She tried to follow me to listen, she was so -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- but I floated straight up into my building, ------------------------------------------------------- she was hesitant to allow our ghosts to interact, that hers would overpower mine somehow.  As my door swallowed me, I tried to yell out that Mark and I are pregnant, and that we are tied to this complex for the foreseeable future, and that her abandonment would condemn us to the next morally corrupt slumlord who -----------------------------------------------------------------, but I am not sure if she heard me.  She sent me a text message from ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ and her phone will be out of service.  I found my laundry neatly folded ------------------------------------------------------

Documentarian

Rain was visiting old friends at a spot that, if you were keeping track, was the place to be from 8:30PM till around 10, at which point the people to be had branched away from tapas and $15 drinks and into their chosen industry, whether it was designer chemicals, performance art, combative fornication, or professional-grade sleep, the type that people announce via social media like it were a Kickstarter campaign. Nobody with a life cares about basil-infusion after 10PM.  It was 9:15 when Rain arrived; she and her friends have never been here, but her friends brought along a tour guide named Brent, who was anxious to meet Rain.  You could hear every conversation in the room, but not understand a single word anybody was saying.  It seemed designed to allow you to speak and feel like you were heard, and listen the same way people listen at karaoke.  They catch the headline like a song title then return to their own internal dialogue until it’s their turn to sing.

Rain was visiting old friends at a trendy spot in LA, when it occurred to her how much time had gone by since they had spoken.  She walks in and thinks about the past 5 months.  Same job, same apartment, same wardrobe… as she approaches the table and notices a carefully groomed stranger talking to her friends, his messenger bag precariously draped over the round back of his chair, his eyes wandering to meet hers as they have been scheduled to, she realizes “Right! Boyfriend.”  Or rather, committed relationship at least; they haven’t really discussed titles.

Brent has a parlor trick where he can take any subject and segue to his effective panty dropper line of “I am an indie documentarian”, in 5 sentences or less.  Rain has read the same book of parlor tricks, so she replies, “So, please forgive my ignorance, what makes you an indie documentarian… are there corporate documentarians?” Just as Rain’s curt dismissal caused Brent’s scarcely contained rape fantasy to surface, the waiter approached the table and announced, “I’m sorry everybody, but the excessive narration of this story has sucked all of the oxygen from this room.  Please put on these masks or you will die.”  Nobody could talk for the rest of the night, so they survived. The end.

Phoenix Passive-Aggressive Art Criticism Interpretation Guide

It's fairly universal, but written based on local observations.

“Hey, I meant to ask, how did your opening go last night?”

1. Sorry, I didn’t go because your art bores me but I like you as a person, or 2. Sorry, I decided not to go to your opening but instead to hang out at a bar where other people who didn’t go to your opening talk about what might be going on there.

“It was an intimate crowd at last night’s opening.”

Nobody showed up, motherfucker!

“It’s very abstract!”

What the fuck is this crap? Did you even try? Or did you assume we’d all think “Well, the artist clearly meant to do something ambitious but it was too fucking hot out to actually put thought into it.”

“Clearly, you have found your wheel-house.” 

This is basically the same thing you’ve been doing for the past 6 years.

“The titles and captions really add a new element to the experience.”

Why do artists try speaking? Forget you ever learned what words are, they don’t serve you at all

“You have a great sense of composition.”

Oh no! Your parents spent $130K on art school and all it did was teach you how to frame an image, but you still don’t have any imagination.

“This is really nice. I wish I had enough free time to paint like this...”

I have no concept whatsoever of how much time and effort goes into developing a craft.

“Your process is intriguing.”

Ah yes, very commonly used around sculptures and metal work.  It could mean, “How the fuck did you make something this awful?” or in less extreme cases, “It looks awful, but I’d like to reserve judgment. Who knows, maybe part of your process involves wearing a bag of wrenches around your balls whenever you're sculpting, that would explain the complete lack of attention to detail.

“I don’t give out compliments easily, but… “

I say this at every gallery I visit. I also probably wear this fucking hat to bed at night.

“I feel like people give too many insincere compliments, so I always try to point out at least one thing I don’t like or I think needs improvement about a piece.”

Don’t worry, I am just going to find something really minute about your piece that will not challenge you at all, so you can continue making shitty art and I can continue complaining about your shitty art to our mutual friends, that way we both still have something to do.

"There's a sense of urgency, I like it."

You obviously rushed through this between bouts of going to bars and talking about yourself, I hate it.

"That’d make a cool tattoo!"  

"Couldn’t find somebody who wants that permanently on their skin? Weird!"  Or "That looks like it belongs on a crappy t-shirt."

“Huh. Zombie... Ninja... Steampunk... Kitten robots. That's... really random!”

Ran out of ideas, didn’t you?

Nat'l Poetry Month Day 4: Sides

Oh! There
you are
Or have been
Whole time
Hold
Time
Now
Holding time
Time and space
Run down
Run for us
Charging straight for us
Charging
Charge! Oh
Where did we go?
Surfaces
Service us
Preclude our landing
More
Fanning
More
Standing?
No more than standing
No
More than standing
Standing to push pedals
Peddling
Pedaling
Pushing petals
Pushing standing
On corners Oh!
Little coroners
Steal your watch

Deep in puddles
As you
Sleep in puddles
Keep
Keep me
In your rubble
Still

Nat'l Poetry Month Day 3: Compressed Air

My air has been
flavored
I've never even
been
In possession of
air
before
So I'm not sure how I know this
And how do
I know
It is you

In order to carry my
Air harpoon
My arms were always full out to
here
Air was the one thing I
Knew I could never
Lose I could never
Use I could never
Choose when I received it
You
What was that?AnywaywhatwasIsaying
Concealed air harpoon -
Spent it all on that -
Then lived in the sea -
Then drowned all my guests -
Then I chased bubbles
Until I ran
Out of
Air.

When I heard your
name
My hidden air
harpoon
Went off in my
Pants
Before
I even tried to use it
That is how
I know
It is you

Nat'l Poetry Month Day 2: Happiness in One Hell of a Semi-Qualitative Enumeration

Happiness in One Hell of a Semi-Qualitative Enumeration*

Forward progress
Always walking backwards
Hide your selfless
Like kale chips from party guests
See your tight-wound dream self?
It's hanging from your dream shelf

Think less, be more
Be your own vacation
Glance left, peer right,
Outsource your frustration
Ventilate your pain
In a beneficial way
Like regulations published for your health
Don't pollute
What you can not have your self

Unwind, rewind
Counting your mornings with chalk
Yoga, Spinning
Wade ten years of TED Talks
The vending machine found
In your destination town
Accepts you only in a certain range
Accepts acceptance in
Only exact change


*Inspired by this and this.  It reads well in the rhythm of the verse and bridge of "The Music of the Night" from Phantom of the Opera**.  You can read it with or without the absurdly melodramatic growl-whisper used in this production, which was far more effectively employed by Jack Skellington in "Nightmare Before Xmas" and Your Uncle in "That Time You Were Groped Behind the Shed on Memorial Day".

**I'll probably never get to kick Andrew Lloyd Weber in the nuts, but I think this is a small step in the right direction.