February 24, 2004
SOUND AND VISION
I can barely fucking see.
I have two small cataracts in my left eye. They're bubbles, technically. (I think it is a rare and beautiful thing when the most specific word for something is the more prosaic.) Apparently, some people wouldn't even notice these bubbles, my doctor told me. (I like her very much but then I am disposed, unhealthily, to like doctors.) "You're very observant," she said. ("It's in my flipping EYEBALL," I thought.)
The reason I can't see is not my cataracts. I can't see because the doctor dilated my pupils with some kind of perfidious drops and the effect lasts much longer than she said it would. Even the traffic lights in the snowy dusk were too much. I went the the Liquor Store Bar, where nobody knows my name and the lights are low, and even that room felt bright. (They also serve liquor, which I did not know.)
I haven't yet read the substance of this Courtney Love review, but I enjoy formal constraints. Rules spice up the joint. Apparently, people don't like this. They don't like it when reviews are written as dialogue, or emails, or diary entries, or recipes, or Biblical parsings. People are known by other people across the world to be useless. It isn't rocket science, ladies. Throw on a boa and they'll still see your face.
UNLESS YOU HAVE NO FACE AND ARE A SCARY WAXBOT.
Which brings me to three songs my iPod taught to me, as I dandled upon her luminous knee:
Talking Heads: "Drugs" [alternate] [uber yes]
Various artists: "Resilient 1.2" [fucking Harpo Chico Grouch mega yes]
Big Black: "Kerosene" [some play-this-at-my-funeral shit--top ten of rounded behind-style yesism and the song, no exaggeration, that I romanced my wife with]
When the machines are smarter, let the machines do the popcorn.
I am either listening to Pierre Boulez or La Bouche and I can't frigging see. Oh, use ears.
Final observation: Neon doesn't blink anymore. Was a time, neon was binary, a precusor of digital blood: on/off/. On/off, an echo of the electrical circuit itself. Now, merhcants generally buy bad imitations of TV screens when they want eye candy for the storefront. What little neon remains is static, throwing the line back to the 19th century. But I liked that interstitial neon phase where it was grasping to imitate the flicker of film, the dance of lightning, the movement of movement.
Posted by Sasha at February 24, 2004 06:42 PM | TrackBack