To Bite the Face of the Hand That Kills You

2010-08-08T11:53:00.000-07:00

We used to hear their voices moving through the spiral. We would hear them as they moved through the building. Now we don't know if the voices are approaching or receding. It's changed. Sometimes we suddenly hear them and it's as if they're right next to us. Then it gets quiet again.

2010-08-07T15:18:00.000-07:00

They do not whisper today:
French.
Look at it from across the room.
Reds and the brushstroke.
Too crowded for me.
Kitty be careful someone behind you.

I can't tell you why we decided to do it.

2010-08-05T16:17:00.000-07:00

It started when I realized that the whole thing only works for them because it's always unclear whether it's fake or for real. That's why nobody tries to interfere with it, and that why they let it keep going as some kind of boring game that might not be a game at all, that might end up putting a lot of people in danger. Now I feel like I have to come here all the time because it would be suspicious if I didn't. You know that there are people who would openly disapprove if I stopped coming here. I think I'm actually more worried about the people who wouldn't say anything about it to me. I think those people might be planning something for me. This is how I am now. I won't make you keep listening to this.

2010-08-04T21:21:00.000-07:00

Heeeeer we go! ARE YOU READY FOR THIS? Yeah, you're ready. We're gonna do this fucking thing and then we're gonna get the fuck outta here yeah... Oh hello yes yes nice to meet you too. Yeah, I'm Elsaa this is my friend Orrange do you come here a lot? oh hah hah yeah I know what you mean yeah us too. It used to be half as much just a year ago! What's your favorite? oh yeah well what if you had to choose? what if someone were to put a fucking gun to your head and say you have to choose? Come on man! Oh, hah... I don't think that guy liked me very much. What's wrong with you? You're frowning.

2010-08-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

I had to keep reminding you not to speak so loudly in the Center. It's fine for us to talk there, it's fine to have a normal conversation, but when you get excited like that, everyone starts watching us. It's not safe. Seriously, I think you messed up the whole thing. If you hadn't been so loud, we wouldn't have been brought here or to any of the other rooms for that matter. Remember how we talked about how this was supposed to go? Now I'm not sure what to do. Just look at paintings for a while I guess.

2010-08-02T10:06:00.001-07:00

I can’t say, but I really don’t like Kandinsky all that much.

He had synesthesia, you know. Like, he heard colors and saw sounds and all that. He’s was all spiritual and everything.

That’s not a not a real thing.

What?

Synesthesia. It’s some made-up surrealist crap.

No way! It’s a neurological condition. Certain people have the wires crossed in their brain and their sensory perception is all messed up.

Ellen, it’s like female hysteria or something. It’s not an actual disease.

I don’t believe you.

Look it up.

Fine.

Good, you’ll see what I mean.

Ok, I’ll look it up.

Ok.

So what about Sunday?

Oh, I forgot to look. I think I have to work.

Ok. Well just let me know. Ok?

Asafikjhte sfkjhei as asdfiout willows adsasf uas?

Ajrwe ois iwe weriio werkiac tomorrow eirla wei weorya.

Umm whirl munch arewruw wikkkiiiii!

Mrrr.

Ok.

Annnnnnd meow werhwer is etlp.

And then we fell. When I awoke I was alone.

what it's like to think about the collision event

2010-08-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

The only part of that series of moments I can recall with any clarity is the yellow explosion above us and the debris that just kept falling. That’s the part I can still remember well. I will put it more accurately: everything that happened before the collision event and everything that happened after it is obscured by the operations of memory. But the crash, the machines merging and shedding, the eruptions of shiny fire are endlessly replayed inside of my eyes.

End

2010-07-30T13:24:00.000-07:00

No I’m not alive when I’m with others in any case I’m not alive when I’m with them. Now time will be real time in the way that I can feel the minutes and the seconds and the time will have texture and I’ll know it’s actually time. Before this I had it all wrong really because only now am I going to be able to know mornings like the time that a morning is and nights grainy and exactly the amount of time a night is supposed to be—they won’t distort these things anymore. They won’t be sitting standing telling stories making jokes making it seem short and they won’t be angry at each other or frowning and sometimes withholding and frowning or that time she didn’t call for days that made it long and dark but it’s not that way she was long and dark and she distorted it. It occurs to me that now I know this perhaps I would have done one or two things differently but I couldn’t have known it before anyway because they were all there all the time. Now that they’re gone now that they’re gone these things will come together like they are meant to. Oh now that I know. This really may be it after all thank god.

we WILL use this blog.

2008-04-25T16:28:00.000-07:00

We went on a trip down the coast.

Keegan with The Lone Cypress

Prospero

2008-03-04T16:17:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite 9-minute-song-inspired-by-Shakespeare, but then I'm biased because it's by my band. Ben, Jake, Shawn, and Spencer are all here and John mixed the thing.

http://ia341004.us.archive.org/1/items/TheStevedoresProspero/Prosperonotfinal.m4a

Adam

Keegadam created by 9 rules

2007-11-19T18:34:00.000-08:00

Keegadam: The Story

I

1. Balance. Eat them slowly and only kiss them once.
2. Creation of symbols as the “mind comprehending the incomprehensible” God reveals himself to the human mind. Yes--- but not about that. First person narration. Use standard tropes through story to reveal GOD?
3. Shoes!
4. Be not enamored with ______.
5. Hack fish?
6. Do something gigantic and in marble.
7. Learn to knit.
8. Sleep with woman.
9. Graffiti—talk to Max about this. Find Lefebvre essay?
10. Get better at crosswords.
11. Other people deserve chocolate too.
12. Make him a damn present.
13. Praise this mutilated world.

A man walked in to a bar.

1. No self control/ impulsive
2. Flabby lower-butt.
3. Undeniably self-centered / self-obsessed
4. not capable of that I want most?
5. Ego.

A man walked in to a bar. A man walked in to a bar and he ordered a drink. “Bartender,” he said, “I’d like a drink.”

1. Tomato sauce
2. Bagged spinach
3. Cherry tomatoes
4. Dandruff shampoo
5. Orange juice
6. Butter
7. Twine

The bartender made him a drink and set it on the bar. The man drank there for a while. He drank one drink after each drink he drank was empty. This went on and on until it was over. Then the man finished one drink and he went home to his wife.

1. I am prettier than most
2. Animals like me

The man loved his wife. He lay down beside her and the man slept.

II

There are helmets that hang from wires. There are tables in a room. There are dreams that only come once but don’t know when to leave. Most things are circular.
Someone I know used to live here and care for these things. He cherished them without comprehension. Now he understands and he will never return.
Every morning he chooses a new favorite band. He forgets yesterday. He turns something on. He takes coffee with newspaper. He turns it off or he doesn’t. He scans the street stupidly. He makes up lies and writes them down. He opens the same door and enters the one articulation: “When the helmet was removed, I felt light and silly. Anybody can understand that some non-obstacles are filled with books posing as obstacles.”
I am escorted onto a field. I watch him through a wire fence. He watches himself stand in line. I am not disturbed and I do not call out to him.

III

1-5. Damn him damn him he shut the lid over me. Wish to god he didn’t shut the lid over me. Did he even know? Damn him for thinking he knew and even if he thought that he didn’t know damn him too. Damn him. Still I search in this small space still. I try tiny tries and when I finally find them they are too many and I try to quiet them, just to manage them you see, and then they disappear but he’s never gone, won’t leave, and there is no room to fold my legs or take a breath in. Damn him now I’m all in my throat. I am not sure there is a lid at all. 6. There must be a lid. If not I’ll make the damn lid. 7-13. The lid.

IV

The man sat down at his desk and started to write something. He was writing one thing - it is possible to write one thing – can I feel nothing and sadness at the same time? – while thinking about two things – (1) but perhaps I am not sad (2) I shoot holes in all these numbers. when they got plenty of holes, gather them. grind them with my teeth until they look like ashes. scatter their debris on the floor and go to the porch to smoke. forget the porch. sweep up this matter with a broom and a dustpan. deposit it in a little box and then put the box in the bottom corner of a closet. cover it with old blankets and handouts from classes you don’t remember. gone. they were never here. sit at your desk. now go back to the closet and retrieve the box. place it on the desk and open it up. you see those numbers? now put them back together. – while thinking another.
The man’s wife was still asleep. The man heard her snoring in the bed behind him. He crumpled his paper and started over. The man started over by writing the beginning of a song:
Bring out your broken hearts,
Bring out your almost-dead,
Assemble your telescopes,
Up on the mountaintops.

V

The telescopes are meant to help see places we might not otherwise be able to see. There are times when one sees only one thing (the numbers, of course) or nothing at all. There are other times when one can’t say anything, or can speak only a single sound: the spewing of the lists, grating of the lists, grinding of the lists, the resurrecting of the lists. Then one can only hear one sound: the lists, the numbers, the lists. One realizes that one has turned the bartender into a list. One has destroyed the bartender, then destroyed his list. Thus the broken hearts are rendered numbers too. One realizes one is trapped. Has one become a list? One has nothing. To remedy this one must assemble a telescope; one must write a song. One must assemble this telescope and angle it just so. It must bring light in; it must prop the lid up and bring in the light. The man propped the lid and made a mountaintop or many mountaintops. And that’s when the man could see. He saw his wife. Now she is made up of breaths and wheezes and not of digits. She is not her numbers, her plans, her lists. She is alive and sleeping in the morning light.

We belong to new ruins
We belong strange cities
Strange cities spread themselves
Open when we come, God.

To make a life one must build with odd-sized stones and no mortar. No calculations. In the end we hope this life to look like the village of Gordes (the locals pronounce it “God”). We hope this village will hold itself up. We visit Gordes and we say that we have “seen God.” We laugh when we can laugh and we always return from these trips. I shall avoid lists. We shall live in our city. The man sang his song. The man loved his wife. A man walked in to a bar.

******************************************************************************************************************************

The Rules

1) Each part must include at least one piece of pre-existing text.
2) Each part must include both new and pre-existing text. The amount
of pre-existing text included and the ratio of pre-existing text to
new writing will be decided by the authors and may change from part to
part.
3) All pre-existing text must be
1) previously written by the authors (Keegan or Adam)
2) including but not limited to texts written by Keegan to or
about Adam or by Adam to or about Keegan.
4) Include no subject matter referencing, pertaining, or
alluding to VOLCANOES.
4) There will be five parts.
5) Parts will alternate authorship between Keegan and Adam.
6) Keegan commences.
7) Each part will be emailed (in its entirety) between authors upon
completion.
8) Said authors must create parts sequentially within one week of the
preceding part's completion.
9) Keegan may opt to amend rules before commencement.