I had no idea what he was talking about, really. Reverberations pass away easily, behind the ears, at pressure points, when cooking. Roles are performed in adequate fashion, resulting in countering feelings of inadequacy, words flow, nothing is communicated. The treatise is about performance, perhaps. Insinuation of a guise, this is not real, whichever how you really feel. No, really. Keeping it real.
Had no idea what i was talking about really. Sometimes the emotions would arise, and one would find oneself unable to act appropriately, a subjective propriety, a nicety. Trying not to look too hard at his pimples. The palimpsest of his pimples, because even thirty-somethings get them, oh yes, renewal, we can feel like teenagers again and again and over again.
Your postmaturity, maybe. Treatises that we haven’t written yet, half-thoughts, names dropped, another drifting off on the bus again. No, there. When the girl with the ponytail steps on my foot in the bus, I notice her, her captivated audience of fellow passengers, a spectacle in action. She is playing paper-rock-scissors with a boy shorter than her, perhaps that is what it makes it more obvious that he is cheating the game, as his eyes steal glances upwards on every count, towards her poised hand, ready to draw. If he is quick he can change his draw at the last moment, just after he’s seen her paper or rock or scissor coming down like an absurd call of judgement. His is fickle and cunning at the same time. Paper wraps around rock. But each time the breath before the draw is prolonged just a bit longer; she knows his game. He knows she knows his game. And the game shifts a little bit, bus ride bumpy, to a different battle of suspense: who will cheat on the other first. the classic grid of one to another strategy, don’t call it war, it’s just the way things are. remember that lecture that we went to where you didn’t understand? Punnett for non-pundits, I’m on the bus and I could observe this moment for hours. fault or fancy? their fists are suspended in mid-air, holding on a bit longer than forever. this is a treatise on the university of disaster.
Posted by 丫 | more »Die Mannschaft
On Football, Nationalism and Identity Crisis
In anticipation of the football world cup, the Lebanese show their sympathy towards the German national team. The amount of German flags hanging in our neighbourhood is increasing and slowly causes discomfort.
Posted by daniel | more »alibi, from latin, ‘in another place; elsewhere’
beijing, may 2010. individually wrapped cookies and the extra air inside packagings to prevent the chips from breaking. full of excitement, woody asks for our permission to polish the wooden surfaces in the room. he later forgets his basketball behind when his grandma rushes him to go eat dinner. fluffy white things getting in my eyes as i’m riding the bike. the daily tears. the precariousness of life in china. so much dust. everything happening out there, in the open, like the man who is trying to ‘hide’ his bag amidst the bush in the middle of a busy highway. all flesh, no skin. we ride the bus and he argues that women are weaker than men, generally speaking, everyone should know their place, he says. gobo, my new favourite. she says i take too much care, like being mama, ‘can you enjoy when you are like this?’ but then a few moments later she says i’m like child. postmaturity? my friends’ babies and wedding plans. so much life happening. the unpronounceable volcano, the mispronounced “debt restructuring”. sigh. where do we go from here. the haunting pronouns. acknowledging the other. ethics, infinitely demanding. hitting a ball against the wall, our mediated exercise. winter turning into summer, no spring. the guilt of being far away. the relief of being far away. the time, the time, the time. i try to make a dorodango. it turns out not that shiny and ends up cracking on the way home.
we start talking to no one in particular, a no one without properties
“what a lovely name for a street.” feeling. still. yes. no. nostalgia. for something that will never be. alas. so we walk. we walk. with the need for dreams to commit suicide. sometimes. “c’est la chose la plus horrible à faire“. or is it. again and again. and an afternoon in the sun. tracing and retracing and walking anew. circles perhaps. fly. yes. fly again. it’s good to be in a place without lists and rows. construct to reconstruct or an economics as a doing. in the city. it would be nice to see what we cannot see. “precisely to fill the emptiness with emptiness, and thus to share it.” you do with it what you will. never a prescription for life. and yes we are left ‘inconcluded’. always. upon arriving home a message overheard from the new york subway through to london: “everyone knows. that love. belongs in the microwave. for two minutes.” 哈! thank you maria.
Posted by a | reply »inventory, for aikun volume 2
from a contribution to aikun zine number 2, by 王汉丽 Regina Ho. Recording by her daughter 丫, April 2010.
Posted by 丫 | reply »wasted time, excessive time, suspended time, comrades
“But when we begin to question our projects, to doubt or reformulate them, the present, the contemporary, becomes important, even central for us. This is because the contemporary is actually constituted by doubt, hesitation, uncertainty, indecision—by the need for prolonged reflection, for a delay. We want to postpone our decisions and actions in order to have more time for analysis, reflection, and consideration. And that is precisely what the contemporary is—a prolonged, even potentially infinite period of delay. Søren Kierkegaard famously asked what it would mean to be a contemporary of Christ, to which his answer was: It would mean to hesitate in accepting Christ as Savior. The acceptance of Christianity necessarily leaves Christ in the past. In fact, Descartes already defined the present as a time of doubt—of doubt that is expected to eventually open a future full of clear and distinct, evident thoughts.”
–boris groys, comrades of time
Posted by f | reply »“the observational aspects of photography were carried off into other areas…”
“i frequently go to sleep.” (during my concerts) -phill niblock
什么是文化交流？ | what is cultural exchange?
on projection at 玩世不恭文化交流BBQ a cynical cultural exchange barbecue, 家作坊HomeShop Beijing, 11 July 2009
Posted by 丫 | more »spam
(looking through the spam folder, in lack of other responses (sigh), oh the things you discover in the trash..! but i wish you would say something, dear reader.. how are you today? here it’s cold and grey again, they call it the summer.. hmm.. time for more coffee now, a soft-boiled egg.. good morning!
oh and please make sure to let us know in case you are ’saa’, ‘penilopa’, ‘domainmaster’, ‘chad’, ‘uyit’ or ‘blogger’ and your message mistakenly ended up in our spam..)
Posted by f | more »nine sleeping places, eleven days later
to write when one is wordless, or just exhausted, as promotional can be, wordless, blowing, hot air on a very cold day.
Wear journal is now available in Shanghai at 渡口书店 Dukou bookstore and in North America via Textfield distribution.
Posted by 丫 | more »sitting still in concentration, hindi-arabic, as the plane takes off
二OO八 看不见 二OO九
surrounded by family and friends we enter the new year blind. four o’clock, moving rapidly south, smoke-like clouds traveling overseas, engulf the land, the beach abandoned. three hours early or four hours late, another hour early. fireworks and outdoor parties banned, a massacre, an other new year, a blanket, as if called for. “i remember in 1990, maneesha used to say it would be the end of the world soon.” we sleep, prepare for life, the new, and still miss it by two minutes …in blindness, 2009
