let december end

Chris Schad

a poet less known

"سپیده دم است

نشسته‌ام و مرگ را معماری می‌‌کنم"

 - بهرام اردبیلی

It's dawn

And I'm sitting here, architecting death

Bahram Ardebili -

death line

STATEMENT : sell your past, present, and future
PAYEE: institution
PRICE: too much
LENGTH: 800 words
DEADLINE: too soon

kissing walls

We have to get boxes.
I'm subconsciously avoiding anything that has to do with moving to the new apartment. Not because I don't want to, but because it's difficult to remove myself from the attic that saved my sanity. It gave my thoughts a warm roof, and my body a solitary bath tub to inspect my toes under the angular light prying through the window. The attic, carefully organized inside its many corners, witnessed loves and lovers --
some of whom I've forgotten, and it never judged me.

I've always been a sucker for spaces. Before we moved out of our first house (a two-story gem with a pond in the garden and rooms filled with memories), I spent days secretly kissing each and every wall. My 8-year-old self thought that maybe those kisses would help ease the house's pain of getting demolished.

But hell, I have to move on. I'm getting better at it year after year. Sometimes it scares me. But the world was made to change, to evolve, destroy, merge, divorce. As Dexter said, maybe we survive better in pairs. And maybe my attic was over-rated.

[moving revelations: n˚ 1]

pizza lovers

additional topping:

artichoke hearts

melancholic dips

sexy olives

a voluptuous crust

and oily texture

can you tell I'm hungry?

Robert Jessup - Falling Couple

a little invention that really matters:

folding

things are queer

Duane Michals (1973) 

utensils

Any poem I write that I'm remotely proud of, is first inscribed on paper with black inkpen or a pencil. After a number of scratches and arrows, I type the final draft for public exposure.
I outline my story ideas on A4 papers.
My planner is not digital.
I can only finish reading a newspaper from cover to cover if I'm holding it in my hands. (My major was newspaper reporting -- don't laugh). 

Not that you should care, but I've come across this a lot: many writers (not to call myself one just yet, but you know, for the purpose of this rant) tend to like it hard...I mean, in hard copy.
I'm just wondering if the next generation will/is getting used to the screen copy, and if that's a good thing.

Are words more lively if they can linger under your pen? Are they more sacred if there's the possibility of them getting stained rather than deleted and vanished?

I don't know. I'm not a romantic in this sense but as Zoozoo says, nostalgia is one of our biggest weaknesses.
(Or strengths?)

today

        William Daniels - William Blake II (2006)a

how do you nail a decision down?

picasso's elegant betrayal

word of the day

Pablo Picasso: Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto

fideism |ˈfēdāˌizəm|noun-
1 the doctrine that knowledge depends on faith or revelation.
2 exclusive reliance in religious matters upon faith, with consequent rejection of appeals to science or philosophy.


*this word of the day is brought to you by Rachel Taylor, the wonderful.

do you eat meat?

Mark Ryden 

monologue

She says it.

Pant,

she shuts her mouth,

bites her lips,

closes her eyes.

She said it.

note

If I buy you flowers and a tree and then put them on the table and then leave,
will you forever want me back and forth and on going metaphors?

If I bite the apple and water the tree will you hang me upside down and betray my wish:
I wish
I wish
I wish
I wish
I wish.

self reflection

curiosity is

Berlin- July 2010

essential

monthly period

Hey, December

I dare you

to beat

November.

bastard letters

Sliding between doors,
removing an afternoon dress to slip on something new,
they forgive to bow
and bullets pass through.

Letters are falling down from the mantle,
who cares to catch
another sunset?

We require your discretion,
yes we do.
Just like mint leaves through your eyes
shut and wild and jailed underneath your
lashes.

Like a toy drifting into a video game,
they succumb to another play but,
we need your discretion,
yes we do,
yes
we do.

N@ЯC!$$US

You were seen on our hidden camera! Click here to watch it: 

The gamut of spam/virus like e-mails have evolved though out the life of the Internet, in accordance with our measure of de-sensitivity toward them. First, they were almost consistently about porn and penis-enhancement products. They gradually became more attractive by giving away amazing, unheard-of deals with astronomical "chances to win" trips, products, cars, and in-your-pocket cash. Then they became more specific: "Lose the Holiday Pounds NOW!!!" "Buy the New iPod Before Everyone El$e!!!!!!!"

To avoid the delete button, many of them start with your name and a few personal words and lead-ups to the sp[c]am. Curiously, they offer you (dream) jobs – think of 2008-2009, at the height of recession, how many viruses wanted to hire you. And of course, you have the humanitarian ones, asking for money to cure a little golden-lock girl's cancer because she can't afford it. (Those scare me the most. What if they're real! [!!!!!!!])

It would be interesting to know which actually do get clicked on the most. I delete about 100 spams from my junk-box every few days. My brother has a word-filtering options that systematically gets rid of most of the rubbish.
Rubbish is by definition unwanted material that is thrown out. Spam is unwanted because really, porn is almost everywhere at hand, there are enough diets and books and Jenny Craigs and gyms and magical-potions to handle, and there are more effective/trustworthy ways to get travel deals or win the lottery.

But there is still something we need that is not as easily acquired: ourself. Fame. Image. Narcissism. And the market evolves...

You were seen on our hidden camera! Click here to watch it:

Go ahead. 

course of relations

I was speaking to my father yesterday, standing outside a vintage store in the cold to avoid the noisy interiors.

We were, as we usually do, catching up on a bunch of technicalities (do you have enough money? he asks. How is your health? I ask), as well as confessing our love and respect for each other. He was also telling me about his new iguana pet (Zoozoo), and how they were watching The Godfather II together the night before.

(1965) Iran

He then talked about his dear friend, Bijan Elahi, who recently passed away; A prolific poet, painter, essayist, translator, and one of the pioneers of the Iranian New Wave in literature. An article in BBC Persian described him as the “poet of silence,” alluding to his quiet last years in a tacit retaliation toward the suffocating atmosphere that was crippling artist and intellectual life in Iran.

My dad told me how when I was five-years-old and had a blazing fever, Bijan who was hanging out at our place and was curiously into mysticism and Sufism, prayed for me above my sickbed. I was touched by this story, until my dad laughed and said, “Well of course that didn’t help. It was a common fever and took its course.”

“At least I didn’t die!” I said. Maybe I would. Who knows?

(1964) From right: Bijan Elahi, Ahmadreza Ahmadi, Noory Ala

But I couldn’t help but feel sad. Even though I don’t remember this unique individual (he handed in a blank exam paper in his last year of highschool, protesting against the conservative and patriarchal education system), I felt like he had something to do with me. He had translated Nabokov, Lorca, Joyce, and Kafka, which I read and drenched in. He studied Picasso and taught a generation of writers and poets to disregard the form, the platform, the rules.

He wrote: “Poetry is chasing the truth through back alleys – such is the creed of relations. But it is only through the course of relations, that you can recognize the back alleys.”

I thought of all the great poets, painters, artists, writers, thinkers, directors, actors, singers, and teachers that were left imprisoned, dead, killed, or muted in a country that is known for its poetry.

And then I thought the best gift, the only thing I can offer to overcome this sudden, onerous nostalgia and longing for novelty and appreciation, is to work. Work, learn my past, and create. Create, and support those who do, and do.

When I hung up with my dad I thought, I should rent Godfather II tonight. And watch it with my own Zoozoo. 

word of the day

Alinka Echeverria

daemon 1 |ˈdēmən| (also daimon)noun1 (in ancient Greek belief) a divinity or supernatural being of a nature between gods and humans.• an inner or attendant spirit or inspiring force.

Daemons are good or benevolent "supernatural beings between mortals and gods, such as inferior divinities and ghosts of dead heroes" (see Plato's Symposium), and differ from the Judeo-Christian usage of demon, a malignant spirit that can seduce, afflict, or possess humans.

temporary spots

my friend, my enemy:

actions have consequences. actions do (do) have consequences. and one day when you show up at my door and i pretend like i'm not home, or i never get your messages, and you say i love you and i say i love you too and it sounds like any other word we enunciated that day (like pass me the salt please, or i'm going to be late), you wonder when exactly you lost your spot.

survival kit: opening day

when a headache will not let go of your brain,
but the morning seems inviting and familiar, like every other Monday that you need to victoriously overcome,
you leave the house as fast as you can,
and wear your favorite colours.

I look at the guitar, he looks at me.

There's a library of sounds to pick.

hey

be serious about something.

Defintion

After our damp skins slid apart

I nearly starved, pulling

on my mother's drained tit.

She used all her strength

to shove me out of her body,

the last link stretched, slashed,

tied in a knot I wear on the beach,

flaunting the twisted emblem

of first rejection, the eye of flesh

that saw love couldn't last.

- Lauren Shakely

secret names

As a kid, I never wanted to become one of those grown-ups who is a "grown-up:" caught up in a superior adultness, and oblivious to the curious world that was waiting to be discovered. And of course, those grown-ups were also less kind and playful around kids, always trying hard to cover their cold exterior and impose our immaturity on us.

But my favorite grown-up was my parents' younger friend Maryam. She was different. She had access to the curious world. She was a writer and a translator, in her late 20's. Her cat's name was Pushkin.* She had short, sharp, black hair and big brown eyes (she would do a trick for me blinking 100 times per second; lashes moving like a butterfly's wings). Her boyfriend was a painter who had been schooled under my father. He used to wear Lenon glasses and had a loud, inviting laugh.

Maryam would dance with me in parties, let me take her hand and give her a tour of my newest hiding place, or tell her secrets about my secret friends.

That glorious couple broke up after a few years. I never asked why.

She got married and went to India for a few months. She got divorced soon after and I didn't ask why.

Maryam became my favorite name.

+++

Right around the time when my 20s began, I noticed that I'm being a "grown-up" grown-up. I just didn't know what to say to little kids, fearing I'd offend them. Or maybe I didn't want to taint their innocence with my adult experiments. But that slowly changed, remembering Maryam.

A few days ago a friend of a friend's dropped by for tea. A beautiful stranger, she walked into my attic holding a blond 3-year-old girl who was tired and sleepy. The mother was only 20. We had tea (and apple cider for the kid). The morning of, cleaning my room and making it more suitable for two, I'd found a doll I bought in a flea market two years ago. I hid it in my closet. And when the model-mother and the small girl were about to leave, I gave the doll to her.

"What's her name?" the girl shyly asked.

"It's a secret. If you're a good mommy, she will tell you what her name is."

+++

I hear Maryam's lives in New York. She has a baby now. She continues to write.

I miss telling her secrets.

word of the day

kaleidoscope |kəˈlīdəˌskōp|nouna toy consisting of a tube containing mirrors and pieces of colored glass or paper, whose reflections produce changing patterns that are visible through an eyehole when the tube is rotated.• [in sing. ] a constantly changing pattern or sequence of objects or elements : the dancers moved in a kaleidoscope of color.

* image: Kandinsky - Movimiento 1

PR

Public Relations

Pathetic Ramblings

Punctual Resonation

Pubic Reoccurrence

Punitive Regurgitation

Passive Rage

Proud Rant

Peculiar Resemblance

Press Release

Panting Roach

Preverbal Rivets

Pedagogical Reek

Prime Rationale

Profit Rack

demian

Thou shalt certainly not kill -- nor rape and kill girls. But you haven't yet reached the stage where you can understand what 'permitted' and 'forbidden' really means. You have only tracked down part of the truth. The rest is still to come, you can be quite sure of that. You have now had an urge in you for about a year that is stronger than everything else and is considered 'forbidden'. . . What is forbidden is not permanently so; it can change. Even today any man can sleep with a woman once he has been to the priest with her and got married.

- Demian / Hermann Hesse

happiness

happiness

may be the undercooked chicken, respectfully devoured

or wine spills that missed your pants.

happiness

rests within sacred chasms of dialogue, elevated to a beam

taking turns wearing a glove

and two pockets full of change, becoming one.

dear diary

soap me.

commonly and casually

it happens the love

smeared over two bodies in a bath

soaps slip on and marry the limbs

boiling pots moan in the kitchen

cold tiles shiver with anticipation

(hearing heavy heartbeats echo and repeat)

and he returns, bringing fog back from the sea

unruly fireflies hide in the corridors

lamps look for a shadow to hunt

(the window breathes, the clock continues)

and she returns with leaves to burn

commonly and casually

the story begins.

shared secrets

INTERVIEWER

Do you feel you have any conspicuous or secret flaw as a writer?

NABOKOV

The absence of a natural vocabulary. An odd thing to confess, but true. Of the two instruments in my possession, one—my native tongue—I can no longer use, and this not only because I lack a Russian audience, but also because the excitement of verbal adventure in the Russian medium has faded away gradually after I turned to English in 1940. My English, this second instrument I have always had, is however a stiffish, artificial thing, which may be all right for describing a sunset or an insect, but which cannot conceal poverty of syntax and paucity of domestic diction when I need the shortest road between warehouse and shop. An old Rolls-Royce is not always preferable to a plain jeep.

From the Paris Review. "Vladimir Nabokov, The Art of Fiction No. 40" by Herbert Gold

chatter box

"You know her right?"

"Mmmm . . . not exactly."

"What do you mean?"

"I know a different version of her than you do."

confidential

when i went over my bank account last week, a few rather costly habits of mine shamelessly revealed themselves. (other than cab-rides and sushi meals and hard-cover books and uncomfortable shoes, of course)

being a writer, and a freelance reporter, has meant endless hours at all the (nice) coffee-shops in my vicinity. i mean, a girl's gotta have her double espresso, followed by a soy macchiato, followed by a biscuit and jasmine tea, no?

no.

a girl has to buy fair trade coffee beans and grind her own. so now i'm committed to lock myself in my apartment and pour over this vintage desk (that i stole from my mom's house when she was moving) on a daily basis.

this post is one result of this commitment. four interviews left to transcribe, must be the other.

* illustration by : kasia matyjaszek

the facebook event

John Currin "The Bra Shop" 1997

"Because no one checks their facebook events anymore . . . ," is becoming a familiar subject line in my inbox. Such emails are usually a more "personal" version of what used be a facebook event, with a plea for a prompt RSVP and seductive party/event descriptions.

So what happened to the facebook event?

Nothing really. They're still there and are being sent by the dozen, hourly. But it's just too much. Like everything else on facebook; The "friends" list, the requests, the pages, the likes, the groups, the causes. And surprise surprise, the market is over-saturated: we don't care (that much) anymore. The newsfeed is overwhelming, status updates redundant, and the pictures just too pictureseque or too personal -- I mean, do I really need to watch you shave?

It's the curse of overinforming and oversharing. And there's really no one to blame. We're only human. How many ways can you say "I had a great night last night" or display your "pretty friends and lovers" before it becomes gauge-worthy?

In this case, what is more emblematic is our inevitable tendency to get
desensitized to images or news or pieces of information, no matter how trivial or critical they are. (to the sad face of the starving African child on t.v, or the Tsunami victims, or Britney Spears, or fitness commercials, or corrupt leaders).

And so we just glance over. Click away. Change the chanel.

We stop digging to discover because it all seems too much to handle, too fucking in-your-face.

So we (or you) elect someone like Rob Ford as Toronto's mayor. Or get enamourd by the Tea Party. We stop reading and stop researching. And what's almost as worst as voting for Rob Ford, is not voting at all [pauses. remembers all the blood she saw on streets of Tehran when people were protesting against fraudulent elections].

In any case, maybe evolutionist theorists got it wrong. Evolution, perhaps, is not a "betterment" of what already exists, but is (apparently) the triumph of comfort and docility.

Or maybe I'm just sick of facebook events.

full circle

In the first year of university, in our "highly reputable" program of journalism at Ryerson University, we were told that we were going to be prepared for real life scenarios, and graduate with a set of hands-on experiences.

I was skeptical -- not because I wasn't excited or ambitious enough, and especially not since I thought my thirst and appreciation for "stories that matter" (given my tumultuous background) would somehow be rewarded. I was skeptical because the most important tool of a journalist, namely language, seemed to be my weakness. English remains to be my second language.

And my professors didn't lie: we were sent on "streeters" on our very first day of class. We reported, interviewed, and were viciously evaluated year after year. Some people dropped out, some people reluctantly stayed. I was constantly doubting my abilities, and was torn between my love for fiction and my hunger for politics.

One of the first stories I pitched to my prof came about after a conversation with the cab driver who was rushing me to my 8:00 a.m class after I almost slept in because of partying with my best friend the night before. It was the old story, but news to my ears: "I have a masters/PhD in . . . But I've been driving taxis since I moved here."

I was touched and repulsed. For that week's report I wanted to write about that issue. My prof said it's too big of a challenge for a first-year story, and that I should pick something more school-related, and focused.

I had my convocation ceremony yesterday. And for the first time in the past four years, I thought, good job.

Check.

I am currently working on a story that coincidentally (or not) is about professional immigrants (not) being employed in jobs worthy of their knowledge/experience.

Check.

Patience. You know?

last week

I got a bit foto-crazed

First, I had wine and coconut water (not mixed) with the most talented bunch: Matin Zad (photography) and Maryam Keyhani (jewelry + art direction). Here's the result in three instances:

Next, a hungover Sunday was turned into a Walking Dream series, envisioned by Shirin Fathi's photography and styling, and my ipod:

survival kit: tools of engagement

Still from movie: Lives of Others (2006)

There is a moment once in a while when you see, crystal clear, your own becoming. It is transcendent but more temporal than you'd like it to be...yet it feels like things will never be the same again.

Like the moment right after you lose your virginity.

Or the first time you realize that just because you're saying the truth, other people won't necessarily believe you.

The first time you try drugs.

And of course, the first time you encounter death.

But all these occasions have something powerful in common: you become more detached, and a new set of practical foundations start to build and back you up. These foundations no longer fundamentally support your moral beliefs or expectations; they merely suggest that everything will constantly change and that you will never get it exactly right. Your only redemption would rely on a sharpened sense of adaptation, the power to migrate and leave behind, while simultanesouly savoring the sweet sensibility of history and romanticism. 

Now that (losing your virginity, telling the truth,  taking drugs, mourning death) is the easy part.