Kyle Pivarnik's Blog

Our recent film, "Continuous Frieze Bordering Red," will be featured at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design's film festival this October. More information on the festival can be found here.

Embarking on a new soundscape project with Michelle Nake Pierce! Stay tuned for details and sneak peeks!

But worry.

Of being too honest.

Too direct.

And Ignoring the rules of the game.

Some things never change.

I've come to learn that I'm not the only traveler here. There are others, creating worlds and then abandoning them, like single serving coffee creamers spent and discarded along the synaptic highways of our imagination. They've been here the whole time, but it's only now that I've begun to notice them. The white tiger. The masked children. The elevator attendant. I suppose I thought of them as figments rather than players. Non sequiturs of my own creation, like the projections of people from your life in your dreams. But I'm not dreaming. Although these places share something of that landscape, they are independent of one another. How Mein Kampf and the Bible are both books.

The idea of a populace independent of myself nestled into my left hemisphere this morning. I sat on a ridge overlooking the crater and watched a silver being walk across the horizon. They were too far to shout, so I sat there silently, my eyes trained on their route like a sniper's scope on a soon to be extinguished dictator. Perhaps it was my loneliness that triggered the epiphany. I haven't seen anyone, anything, in… it's hard to say how long. Time doesn't quiet exist in a measurable way here. But I haven't had social contact in a long enough time that my heart began to beat itself ragged with the idea of our meeting. I scrambled down the side of the ridge, the red dust coating my hands and invading the pores of my clothing, darkening their coat of rouge. But as sweat began to break along the line of my scalp, rivuletting the dust into what looked like ancient symbols on my forehead, I realized the futility of it. That I would never achieve the friction necessary to match their pace. That any vocal waves emitted from my throat would be swallowed up by the void around me, sucked from my mouth and replaced with the grit already accumulated in every other crease and cavity.

I crumpled into the earth, letting gravity finally have its way with me. I frowned. Threw fistfuls of the dust, not caring that it blew back at me. And then I cried, washing my dirt streaked face with rivers of mud. I squeezed my eyes tight against the invading stings. Squeezed until I saw stars. And then oblivion.

I imagined the world I wanted. I thought of the happiest places from my childhood, stuffed deep into the recesses of memory, like your favorite t-shirt stuck to the bottom of the hamper. I threw them haphazardly into being, the landscape around me shifting like an insomniac channel surfing at three am. But it didn't matter. It didn't matter how bright and full of people the memories were. How many birthday candles illuminated my cheeks in their rosy hue. When their borders snapped into existence, the colors were mute, mere shades off a grayscale. There was no way to transplant their happiness here. When I was finished, dirty and exhausted, I let them fall away like the confetti they were, letting the red of the desert come back. The sun had gone but the dust still held onto its warmth like the lingering hug of saying goodbye. I walked back to my camp by the pit. To huddle by the crimson hole that lead through a man's chest and finally into hell. Tomorrow I would leave this place. This purgatory. I sat down, dangling my feet off into the abyss and stared at the flames, until they too faded into sleep, like the last dying embers of a cold winter fire.

This isn't the letter I meant to write. I suppose it never is. This place is getting to me. I've been here too long. Amongst the pieces and fragments. Memories like glints of light off glass shards. I've tried to reconstruct my path here, but it is as blurred as the landscape one passes staring out of a car window. You remember the general outline, a few of the bigger details, but the rest is fuzzed over tarmac and trees. The one question that drives me mad is how it all started. If she pushed me or if I followed after. It's like the residue of a song one hears on the radio but doesn't know well enough to sing or remove from one's head. An infinite loop bouncing against the skull.

The rules of this world aren't concrete. Here in these liminal spaces the landscape is continually shifting. The edges of each space rubbing against the other and fraying. Sometimes becoming enmeshed. Other times causing so much friction one burns the other. I feel it may only be a matter a time before my escape routes are reduced to a single path.
At one point, I was definitely following her. Learning the rules by her navigation. Running to her like a stream chases gravity. But at some point we've switched roles, and I can sense her presence, circling me like prey. She's getting closer.

This isn't to say either of us are the same as when this began. We've both changed. Shifted. In my case, I've become weaker, my past draining from me and feeding into her. Them. She's compounded as she's grown stronger. Taking further ghosts into her and becoming multi-faceted. My only saving grace is the knowledge I gleaned from her in the beginning and the tricks I've learned on my own along the way.

I can create worlds now and because of this I've been able to remain hidden. But the elevator is the only way out. In my journey I've come across clues suggesting a map. I must find it. But leaving the safety of my own worlds is dangerous and leaves me exposed. I must remember how all of this started. I must find the map and escape this place. It could be anywhere(s)…

Well rested, with the crust of leisure in my eyes,

I watch a plate of olive oil and vinegar

as one might watch the clouds.

A hot sandwich in my stomach and

a steaming coffee next to me,

I watch the traffic in the struggling autumn light,

glad in my small way

to have spent the afternoon thus.

a full moon over an illuminated city at dusk

observed through the tired half gaze of

a trench-coated man behind a steering wheel,

tail lights stretched into a blur of exhaust,

shimmering like a dizzy spell,

crafting a mosquito flecked darkness that feels

like spinning or the fright of waking in a

darkened bedroom and not recalling where.

a cracked window filters the scent of combustion,

smoke from chapped lips negotiates a space for

its own defeated smell of momentary

comfort betrayed by tinged fingernails.

"Red and grey? That'sso modernist. Haven't we gotten past all…that?The sickle and hammer.Rock and literature.Auto-tune and irony?"We sat in silence then.Together. But apart.We stared at the redpanel at our feet, whichgrew more yellow and orangethe longer we looked.Its edges began to curve.To warp.The room bent until we were standingagain,rather than lying on our backs as we supposed."It's all just false sensory perception,and we're nothing but digital fluxpersona."I wanted to nod my agreementbut had difficulty determiningwhich way was up.

A city imagined is like the line where rainfall beginsa beggar with open palms, cupped, drawn to his mouth as if drinkingwatching the surf brink on the edge of madnessa man returning from skydiving on his 80th birthdaythe way lust knows no boundariesthe way it dissipates like blood in watercompleting dropping facade and innuendo a phone call from Honolulu so she knows how much he carestheir dramatic differencesand how little they matter in the endperpetual motiontheir biggest issuelike metal fragments magnetized to find one anotheras long as the distance is not too greatputt offs and objectionsrecognized as such and negotiated aroundbreaking human relations into formulas and liesheld in suspension like moonlightor how fog can mask a skyscraper in minutesacross a rooftop bar in a light drizzlewondering if your heart would give out before hitting pavementsquabbles over moneywrong turns and bad directionswhistles from teenage boyslaughing at your tiny swimsuitthe way your hips hurt after stumbling like a drunk in the sandquietly retchingthe stomach unable to absorb water without mineral contentpoor decisions in a moment of boastfulnesslonging for the luxuries of childhoodfrequently recounting in order to not forget (them)pride in his white t-shirtswashed twice a week in hot water and bleachboxes of half-stories and unwritten correspondencefavorite memories staring out of car windowsthe way the wind lets you feel every strand of hairresolve but no closure found in over night drunksscreaming excited delusions into the windthe timidness of birdsa certain way of smiling at a good friendhow the drugs you're on tell you not to do themconsistentlybut you have to keep doing them to rememberlike the sound of the first song chosen halfway through a journey