Notes From a Bibliophile: Gilded

Walking the quiet, empty streets, windows watching me. Reflection in shards and geometric isolation: streaks of pane less glass, graffiti carved clean. Not like home.

Here it’s clothes, specialty services, more clothes. More, more. Not enough. More.

Bank after bank as the walk continues. Laughs from a candle flicked bar. Middle Eastern smoke and coffee. The glow of smartphones from unseen faces: “Where did Maja go?” an elderly slur says, or something like it.

Empty streets, the quiet, walking. Princess gowns and boyish shoes for men on altars, red laces falling, hair dyeing onto mirror distorted images to brown leather wingtips, fashionably scuffed as part of the presentation.

Into shadow full alleys lined in dumpsters, urinating behind their anonymity as a silver sports car races by. European luxury. Sudden back to darkness as the amble moves lonely.

Empty streets, the walking quiet gilding soft light, blinking red crosswalks. An oily man in shopping cart black. His sweat trail in the night air aroma like it belongs: swirling in jasmine and gasoline. Has he just come out from under derricks and gushers?

Brought back by bright lights and headless mannequins wrapped in finery. Back to walking the boutiques and quiet exotic names. The mirth of wealth empty, filling the stroll for all and no one to see ’til next morning when I’m back home, again. Alone.

Blog-Thought: Digital Me

When I think about technology in my life (and that is a very common thought) I am continuously amazed at how different I am because of my iPhone, Netflix, apps, YouTube, Facebook, and WiFi. Or in a single word–access, really.

I get excited with the possibilities. Curiosity is a decades long constant in my life. And technology allows for my insatiable interest with all things the world some space. Having an almost instant answer for any question that tumultuously mars my thoughts makes me feel invincible.

My flame of swaying slowly interaction with humanity consistently lit, I am alive. Technology, and the international network it provides, keeps me connected to humanity. Different than Dostoevsky, or Morrison, Cortázar, Wollstonecraft, Murakami, or Orwell. The names and ideas that pique are very often unheard of and live their fifteen minutes in a megabit while sponsored HALS thrive in terabits. The viral hits are rarely ever heard from again (unless you check my bookmarks).

There is rare power in a meme from someone who would most likely never be heard of if it wasn’t for the Internet, smartphones, Apple, or Vimeo. And one cannot forget the intranet. How closer-knit can one subgroup of another subgroup get. Information for information sake. Popular and esoteric, serendipitous and calculated information has its place. Whether I agree with what others feel or believe matters little. Anonymously beautiful. Remixed. Who has the right to tell us what to read, watch, upload and hack. The world is a smaller place (a better place, I’d say) for those of us lucky to have high-speed access.

This intimacy with technology has made me who I am today. And I am curious to continue my relationship. I imagine a world where the Digital Divide shrinks the economic one and I Command-Option-ESC a bit of my wagging head.

Like the still flame that moves in its real-life representation, providing light till the wick runs-out of fuel, or I blow it away, lifting a bit of smoke into the air, my technological flame turns off and on. Sometimes by the wind other times by my saliva tinged fingers pressing tight against the heat. But the melting wax furrowing below in the ceramic trough only cools and hardens by the next morning when, again, the candle, relit and dancing, like my curiosity–ignites.

Seeing Musicly

Believing. Seeing. Both. None. A joyous swing or hateful noose?

Would music help: a soundtrack of our lives to soften the jagged thoughts or sweeten the grassy scent as we fly through the air in childish glee?

Only you can know the truth.

Breathe

Feeling closed in from all sides doesn’t need to be a negative. Calmly take it in. Breathe. Realize that before long that claustrophobic pressing pulls forward, away, and on to wherever aggressors go when one does not let their push back intimidate.

Room for Cream

Coffee with your cream? Dark roast, medium blend? Where are you from?

For years I have been fascinated by the language I am spoken to by strangers. People look at me and either confidently speak, hesitate and then speak in slow English, rarely Spanish, or bluntly ask What’s your ethnicity?.

Waiting for a clue, a word, a sounds from me, verification for them, I teasingly smile.

Race, ethnicity, politics, and political correctness have forever come together, further complicating who and what I am, have been and am now.

I feel more and more American every year.

Blog-Narrative: Voices

Voices speak to me. I answer with the same voice: familiar, unknown, naïve. A conversation from the 21st century to 1921 when the hall first stood, looking down to the railroad tracks, to the foothills, up to Brooklyn Heights and onto the wetlands.

There’s a hint of accent. Scent of fresh cut meat and burning trash from the incinerator. Russian, Californio slang, Jewish Deli and strong Japanese tea. “Keep the automobiles moving. Keep ‘em moving, now.”

I don’t know what to say, how to answer. The red walls talk for me, say what needs be said. The dark wood and shadows whispering that everything will be okay. Everything will be okay, son. Just close your eyes tight. Be still. Quiet. They won’t see you.

All in a Row

After a noisy and windy night the leaves perfectly lined-up on the lilac stair.

Outside the window a few hours before, the boughs and branches shivered in anger, as the tempter showed itself with each exhale from inside: the temperature as light hit from headlights on the highway, darkness in the trees. Fear of nature’s unbiased appearance. Temping all those sensitive to its nuanced presence, fear built and builds, created stories and false musings. Last night all was chaos and uncertain flash-forwards to the future.

The present is now and all is calm and in a row.