emily > Recent Status Updates

'The Husband is a resting place—a chair—the physical comfort of not being alone—I need it most—early evenings when I feel like—dissolving. During this time—ex-boyfriends scatter—Husband & I go—for dinner—daughter spills raspberry juice—son chides—This is why we can’t have nice things—No, that’s not true—looking at the daughter. You can have everything—I can have my juice and spill it too? Sure. Good use of analogy.'

‘You ever want to see me again, just place an apple under the paw of the stone lion at Beiling Park's east gate—I'll remember that, I said. He smiled at me, turned and left. I watched from the window, but didn't see him emerge. I've eaten quite a few apples in the years since. To be honest, they're my favourite fruit, and I've never wasted a single one.’

‘Now this is where you go overboard—you have to try all the confections—the pastries, the puddings, the cake, and then fruit at the end. “This is what I live for,” you declare as you set your sugar bomb down on the table.’

“Everything depends on everything else, we rely so much on one another and people are so sure that their life is all about their choice, but one loose screw and everything goes to hell.”

‘—married five years—had one son—and wanted another. But what I got was the fuck of my life in the back of an unmarked police car—And that night I went home—And I turn over the Evening Post and there he is, one step ahead, waiting for us—’

‘Look at you—with your hat on your cock—bag of secrets—cross and—prayers—blessing the fucking—turning the tea into wine. It’s me—I was there, remember? The night you fucked up.’

‘—I had the little piece of plastic with which I could cross borders while driving—I could exceed the speed limit without fear that—officer would give me a hard time about anything more than my speeding. Once I sped just to test this. My name corresponds to my picture, my picture meets your expectations, your expectations are a guarantee that I exist—we have fled to the seaside—nobody knows—the air—smell of salt—’

‘—my great-great-great-uncle—superb woodworker who could make anything from a coffin to a comb. When he was fifty-five his heart exploded—he died on a pile of lumber. It happened so suddenly—leaving him bleeding from every orifice—Then—discovered that his heart was full of tiny wood shavings, enough to build a foot-high pagoda.’

'Our health insurance wouldn't be accepted in America—I'd need cash—a wave of despair—'

‘But maybe I’m looking at this wrong. Things that aren’t a choice aren’t always a burden. Who hasn’t wanted to be stripped of agency but in, like, a hot way?’

‘—of pain and transformation—in life—what is done in the name of desire—power—cruel want—things—shift us. But I also see the chance to transform—alter into things more powerful than we can believe—in—different ways—throughout—I'll certainly continue to shift—’

‘Their friendship dates back to discovering the world—before they’d taken on their life roles—a special kind—the kind we have w/ people we’d never hang out with if we’d met them as grownups—because grown-up friendships are oft friendships about roles—I understand him—I despise him—I’m sickened by his simple world and the space he takes up—w/ admiration—You look at me with surprise, I feel—We start chugging rakijas’

‘—why I find Bill Evans—attractive—he's not afraid of softness—sentiment—'

‘—list I made—“Erik Satie—Robert Walser—Fernando Pessoa—Edward Gorey—Joseph Cornell—Harry Smith. Subs: Glenn Gould—Georges Perec—Jane Bowles.” What on earth can they possibly have in common? Self-taught. Odd, uncategorisable sexuality. They esteem the small things of this world—the passed by and the overlooked—offset by a lurking melancholy’

‘—noses soon grew accustomed to the smells—breathed—ate—yawned the unrelenting stench. But rodents were impossible to get used to. The mice and rats feared nothing. Now and then a feral cat would appear and they’d scatter—but after a moment they’d return in droves and attack the cat. Living here had taught him their unusual capacity for aggression—In the darkness—insects were screeching, excited by the night air.’

‘Orchestral Debussy can sometimes be—bit much—purple passages where the agreeably lush becomes almost sickly. When I do love him it mostly involves the counterpoint of strict economy—beckoning swoon—Becoming nearly as besotted w/ Ravel as I am w/ Satie—Gaspard de la Nuit: The Treasurer of the Night. What might his duties be—this treasurer of the night? Is he like Poseidon—who did the endless accountancy of the seas?’

‘Texas isn’t North Carolina—but at that moment I started to see both—not just ugly but gorgeous as well—There, there’s nothing that doesn’t promise to bloom—And who hasn’t felt nostalgia for a place because it was where they first realised who they truly were? Who hasn’t found themselves in something they didnt even realise they were looking for? Despite—beauty—still an unrelentingly cruel film—Even the heroes—cruel’

‘—fundamentally industrial—designed to satisfy “utility” requirements—Furniture Music creates vibrations—has no other purpose—A man who has not heard it does not know happiness—Listen without feeling awkward—It would be easy to dismiss all this as—another Satie blague. But it's yet another radical break w/ tradition—music that doesn't rely on dramatic development/expressive gestures—Pure sound—tone—spatial awareness’

‘Swamps are known for keeping their secrets—parts—I tried to shed until the protests reminded me of them again—were still very much a swamp—teeming—beautiful—waiting—to be found again. They were like my city—holding its secrets with care and love and community—and violence—just beneath the waterline—Person after person made space for me in their life—and I—continually shot back instead to the violence that made me—’

‘—the leaves and branches were bending little by little—Luis’ melody whose talk was miles apart—and then I saw a star inscribed in the center of the sketch, and it was a little star and very blue—and though I don’t know anything about astronomy—I did feel sure that it was neither Mars nor Mercury—it shined too much in the center of the adagio—too much in the center of Luis’ words to be mistaken for Mars or Mercury.’

‘—a Mozart theme that has always been w/ me—1st movement of The Hunt quartet—gentle voice of—violins—transposing—a savage rite to a clear introspective joy—I hum it in my memory—feel—that final allegro which follows the adagio like an encounter w/ light—it was enough—put its chaos to order—imposed on it the sketch of the adagio that would someday pass into the final allegro—accede to a reality worthy of that name—’

‘If clothes can speak—Satie's new ensemble says—I am no bohemian—nor some wild Romantic—but a worker like anyone else. This matter of image may not seem so notable today—but is another prescient departure, ahead of its time. (Think René Magritte—Kraftwerk) Like his scores—it betrays a keen interest in—and a rapt understanding of—how things look—This is art flirting with anonymity, on the way towards pure abstraction’

‘—the birds came to be feared more than the—wolf—because they appeared during the day too—let out low, unpleasant cries—formed a large flock that cast dark shadows everywhere they went. They shat everywhere—pecked at everything they could—baby in a stroller—the legs of—elderly person who—had trouble walking—shat on the bodies of—homeless—Several birds were circling in the night sky—cackling cries—’

‘It’s a world where race doesn’t exist, where class doesn’t exist—Scream is set in a world, somewhere, where the only thing you have to deal with is trauma. Avery and I only saw some of the wealth in LA: blithe hipsters in Echo Park, a set of acquaintances who lived in a Fallingwater of a house up in the hills. But the way this wealth barely concealed the poverty and structural racism present there, too—’

‘—vertigo to the edge of nausea—traffic—standstill for five hours—that much time seemed ludicrous now that the sun—down on the left side of the road—poured a last avalanche of orange jelly into each car—making metals boil—even if you had to start and then slam on the brakes and never leave first gear—the dejection of again going from first to neutral, brake, hand brake, stop, and the same thing time and time again—’

‘Underneath the text, The Ring paints—a whole society—guilty of Samara’s death—In Ringu—radius of guilt is narrower—but the rage Sadako feels—if not her humanity—is affirmed. This is—mirrored in the movies’ relationships to water: In Ringu—we focus on the ocean—immense, uncontainable—But in the American remake—the well, damp and dripping and limited—’

‘—my first visit to Barcelona—party in El Born—I was offered everything: coke, heroin, Ecstasy, pills. The only reason I didn’t buy—I had no money; back then I wasn’t so scared about where my substances came from. I didn’t want to buy heroin because that did scare me: you couldn’t find it in Argentina, or else it was only for those who were really in the know—Memories from toxic years tend to be tenaciously sticky.’

‘—too drunk at a—party and rushed over—saw you enter the room—to tell you a ghost story—Horror movies live in the interregnum of the uncanny, a world ripe with anticipation. This is why they are so frightening. They are close enough to unnerve, and like a mirror they reflect us back—distorted into something strange and new. But isn’t that love, too? Doesn’t everything worth doing change you?’

‘—Piepzna-Samarasinha calls disabled people caring for one another together “revolutionary love without charity.” I love—this—argument not for a positive representation of disability to shift the mainstream’s paradigm—but for a different paradigm entirely. If there isn’t a supremacist culture to view things through—does monstrosity even exist? Certainly, life got—easier once I stopped hiding every affliction—’

‘François stayed outside—between the plants—days—in Paris. Then he traveled among my clothes in a wheeled suitcase. Nobody noticed him. I took him to Spain on—train—then on the plane to Argentina. Not a single objection or worried look at the airports. Now he’s—on my—voodoo altar—next to—a jawless skull I found lying in the street in La Plata—I still don’t know what kind of bone François is—He’s broken at the ends—’

‘Out of the window—clouds coming—turning the afternoon grey—spreading a sudden sort of quiet—I stare at the cars and lorries on either side of us—the Moors beyond—Ellis is nodding along like, this is the fucking fast lane. Me, I feel sick—Trains pass—lights another cig and says, ‘Lunch?’—Staring into dark pints, thinking worse thoughts, fucked if there’s anything I can do about it—Ellis raises his glass. ‘Cheers’’

‘Out of the window—clouds coming—turning the afternoon grey—spreading a sudden sort of quiet—I stare—cars and lorries on either side of us—the Moors beyond—Ellis is nodding along like, this is the fucking fast lane. Me, I feel sick—Trains pass—dogs bark—lights another cig and says, ‘Lunch?’—Staring into dark pints, thinking worse thoughts, fucked if there’s anything I can do about it—Ellis raises his glass. ‘Cheers’’

‘Sunday morning—windows open—going to be another scorcher—red postbox sweating—dogs barking at a rising sun. Radio on—alive with death—And Ellis smiles—like this is what it’s all about—like this was what he’d signed up for—There’s a bloke in a tracksuit by a tall oak, throwing up—‘Fuck’ says Ellis—sits in the front and switches off the radio—I want to throw on the fucking brakes and punch him but, instead, I smile—’

‘—hadn’t made—effort to forget—nor had he—distracted himself—Discussing stocks and real estate—he confused bankruptcy and bounty—He heard what sounded like a machine operating deep underground—so loud he wondered if they had buried the thing while dismantling the factory. Before he knew it, the barking of dogs from the nearby kennels mingled with the mechanical noise from beneath the floor—freight trucks—speeding by’

‘In the beginning, he’d send photos—had thought—his passion—shareable—reassuring—But whatever—said—was too egotistical. To marvel at a wave or at the sun was already to betray his love and marriage and this family that already had to function without him more than six months out of the year. So—he says nothing—He ends up rolling out, mechanically, the words of love, trying not to write the same ones as yesterday.’