thee istsfor manity reader

Strangely Attracted to a Lack of Sense

I’m feeling strangely attracted to the can of vicious motor oil in the corner. I could have said “viscous” but I’ve just come from the cornershop thrumming in a pink and light blue aura of sexiness, one that is ineffable in these turbulent times. Anarchic times for desolate people—times for rows and perturbations. Give me some kind of sign. It doesn’t have to be a walking on the waiter kinda sign or a multiplication of leaves and frog’s legs sign, but let it have that old-timey censer mysteriousness about it. It’s driving me crazy all the swinging censers that way, and what is that censorious smell? Is it frankincense? Why so critical? Why so blue?

What I’m Reading:

“The past eight years were the eight hottest ever recorded, a new UN report has found, indicating the world is now deep into the climate crisis.”

— Damian Carrington / The Guardian

(my opuscule) 4 u

i—c—y—u—r—gr8!

What I’m Reading:

“It troubles the mind
as a held-out piece of meat disturbs a dog.”

— Jane Hirshfield / “A Cottony Fate”

Day of the Drill

He hadn’t so much lived these 33 years in a daydream as much as he felt that there’d always been a scrim between him and the world. Everything was seen and felt at a slight remove. His emotions and his thoughts always disengaged, unable to moor with what was real or intended in this world. He saw how others acted, and he didn’t feel that way. He heard what others said and never thought in that manner.

Learning that trepanning removed the filter between one’s perception of the world and a true experience of reality—moreover, filled one with a universal love—was all he needed to hear.

Lead me to the drill, he said.

Nothing in his short and concentrated life was quite the same again.

What I’m Reading:

“If I was insane, everything could be made to make sense. If I was sane, nothing could.”

— Tara Westover / Educated

Overheard Convos at an Event U R Glad U Missed

I have not challenged myself in that manner in two years…

So what does serendipity mean?

… and she was like so hush, hush. It was so embarrassing.

I think I’ve seen him do much better. Remember his turn as Willy Loman? Or in Mamet’s American Buffalo? He was superior in those…

My god, what is that awful perfume from the people in front of us? Is it him or is it her?

… I hate these things. She drags me out once a month to this. I’ve about had it. Say, you have a tee time for Saturday?

Oh, La Traviata was wonderful. Did I tell you about how we saw it in Venice…

20 bucks for a plastic cup of cheap wine? Are you serious?

… I’m not an usher, sir. But I happen to know it’s down the stairs and to the left.

What I’m Reading:

“Your life is unraveling. You came to the big city, and you found out things about yourself you didn’t want to know, you’ve been on the dark side too long.”

— Bob Dylan / The Philosophy of Modern Song

Impingements

A stomach churning invasion of impingements on the ears and the inner alcoves of the cranium.

Akin to a machine spitting out screws ricocheting off the floors and tinkling in circles, in counterpoint, to the scraping of chairs and metal boxes 12 feet above your head.

As a banana might be injected with bromated flours just to make it softer, more malleable, mush—are the interior contents of the skull of the Cro-Magnon that lives in the apartment above you.

Free writing, while certainly free, takes a toll on the psyche, but in this case, it’s quite expensive—and unusually difficult to exorcise once you’ve lost all your senses—in the auditory version of the death of a thousand cuts.

Except this is a lot less fun.

Like punching a nest full of wasps inside your head.

Be free. Be free.

What I’m Reading:

“Loneliness arrives on a leash of scorpions.
In my skull, loneliness opens like a parachute.”

—Eduardo C. Corral / “Lines Written During My Second Pandemic”