so recently i wrote to a friend about the power of positive thinking, and claiming the things about you which you cannot change and seeing them as assets instead of liabilities. flipping the script. rebranding yourself, as it were.
for instance: i collect crap. magazines, postcards, club flyers, stickers, etc. my mom calls this being a "pack rat." lately i have pushed back my shoulders lifted my chin and decided - declared - that i am not a pack rat. i am an ARCHIVIST.
see? see how i flipped that?
similarly - i am not a dreamer; i am a VISIONARY .
i like shoes and shiny purses and glittery jewelry not because i am shallow but because i am an AESTHETE and a CHRYSOPHILIST.
i write and take pictures and swing dance and want to start a punk band not because i'm flakey with an utter lack of focus but because i am a DILETTANTE (pre-18th c. def) with a JOIE DE VIVRE.
the ups and downs, the days and nights, we wander through the streets in search of what there is to see and do, we start with 6pm champagne and end with 4am pizza, in between we laugh, we see a cute boy in a hotel window take off his pants, we stop by a lower east side bar and find friends and a huge dog inside, we eat a dragon roll in nolita, we're joined by three more, we hit a dive bar, then a depeche mode/cure party, where we dance to "lovecats", and we're joined by two more, then my brother, the posse grows, we roll deep, down avenue b reminscing about save the robots and the junkyard across the street with the motorcycle sculpture, we head to avenue c and get buzzed into speakeasy, we're fake salsa dancing and playing rollercoaster pinball, smoking under the no smoking sign, and when we change locations, the DJ plays joy division as we step inside and we all go, "i love this song" and sing "love will tear us apart... again," and then there are three more outside and two on the way, and we go to someplace else, we shimmy to destiny's child and share beers, three leave and then four show up, someone throws water and that's the cue to move again, outside on the sidewalk there's a walker and some of us use it to get down the street, then there's a split, we dwindle down to four, we hit the boy bar and the straights find try to find a boy for the gay, then it's pizza time, three with cheese, one without, and then a taxi is hailed and four become three, and we find the walker again and leave it hanging on a scaffolding for someone to find, then on 8th street one turns left and three become two, and after a few more blocks it's my turn to go left, homeward, the place i left 20 hours before. then the weekend begins.
Objects should not touch because they are not alive. You use them, put them back in place, you live among them. They are useful nothing more. But they touch me, it is unbearable.
+ + +
This is what I thought: for the most banal event to become an adventure, you must (and this is enough) begin to recount it. This is what fools people: a man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell.
reminds me of closer, which was on TV this weekend... except that i don't agree with alice.
LARRY: So what do you reckon, in general? ALICE: You want to talk about art? LARRY: I know it's vulgar to discuss the work at the opening of the work, but somebody's gotta do it. LARRY: I'm serious. What do you think? ALICE: It's a lie. It's a bunch of sad strangers photographed beautifully, and all the glittering assholes who appreciate art say it's beautiful 'cause that's what they want to see. But the people in the photos are sad, and alone, but the pictures make the world seem beautiful. So the exhibition's reassuring, which makes it a lie, and everyone loves a big fat lie. LARRY: I'm the big fat lie's boyfriend. ALICE: Bastard!
