29 September 2007
Written by
Iris Watts Hirideyo (
)
Published on September 29th, 2007 @ 07:21:37 am, using 292 words, 52 views
These are my people. We’ve never been formally introduced and yet we’re part of the same tribe. Hunched over multiple copies of the same newspaper section… a flimsy 25-page guide that’ll be our anointed bible for the coming two weeks. Pens on hand, improvising choreographies as unique as fingerprints, a zigzagging dictated by relentlessly focused eyes as though we were looking for much needed jobs. Titles, theaters, showtimes, codes. RX, EC, EB, LB, IP, LA, OD… and numbers…
So many things to consider. Will I be able to make it to this one on time? Which are the now-or-never ones? The ones I may never get a chance to see…
We’re incomprehensible to some, I imagine. But I look at these people and I simply understand them. No effort required. We’re kin in so many ways. I can visualize the catalog of different ports they set sail towards when sitting on those seats…
- truth
- a mirror
- escapism
- high art
- easy laughs
- being moved to tears
- being moved to roll up their sleeves and act (acting does after all require a friendly push sometimes)
- being shown something they feel alone in feeling, discovering that what’s familiar to them but seen as uncommon, peculiar or odd by the great majority can in fact grow on a desert… can in fact grow through asphalt. It can grow anywhere, for no matter how rare its seeds, they are not exclusive to one location. Just as no experience is exclusive to any one person.
There is no such thing as an endangered seed. Understanding is ours to be sought and found.
21 September 2007
Written by
Iris Watts Hirideyo (
)
Published on September 21st, 2007 @ 11:11:46 am, using 175 words, 45 views
When does something become real to you? The minute it happens, the moment it’s felt? The second it’s uttered? Or sometime later, when you lay it out to someone? And what is it about that certain someone that injects reality – the feeling of reality – into something already real? How strong a connection does that require? How much of a need to share? How much complicity, respect, admiration? How much influence does such a person exert over you? Are you still able to be yourself before such a person? Or does your ’self’ become slightly changed (compromised, if you will) for their benefit? Are your instincts relegated to mere whispers – barely audible ones?
(Originally written on April 1st, 2007)
And it always feels good to tell you the truth. Because if I can’t share it with you, it’s almost like it didn’t happen.
(Say anything…)
Nothing is real until I tell it to Abby.
(The Firm)
15 September 2007
Written by
Iris Watts Hirideyo (
)
Published on September 15th, 2007 @ 11:17:57 am, using 0 words, 238 views
You and I are a lot alike. You… whoever you are. The way we zero in on the ant speech even though we are ants ourselves. We are ants a little bit, aren’t we? We grab the ant quote almost as a lifeline or a shot at redemption - a last chance without the finality that the title conveys. As though loving it would set the seeping process in motion, would steep us in that beautiful rose-colored Utopia of people bumping into each other (and bravely going against the pre-established norms of what’s expected behavior) by asking to ‘do that again’; then sitting down as if by a campfire and sharing their ideas (a little bit of their most private selves) with complete strangers. Opening up space and making room for the ‘confrontation between their souls.’
Sort of what I’m attempting here. Even though, from this distance, it’s not nearly as brave.
Hey, could we do that again? I know we haven’t met but… I don’t want to be an ant, you know? I mean, it’s like, we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another continuously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. “Here’s your change.” “Paper or plastic?” “Credit or debit?” “Want ketchup with that?” I don’t want a straw. I want real human moments. I wanna see you. I want you to see me. I don’t wanna give that up. I don’t want to be an ant, you know?
(Waking Life)
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12 September 2007
Written by
Iris Watts Hirideyo (
)
Published on September 12th, 2007 @ 08:21:15 pm, using 130 words, 578 views
Daydream delusion
Limousine Eyelash
Oh, baby with your pretty face
Drop a tear in my wineglass
Look at those big eyes
See what you mean to me
Sweet cakes and milkshakes
I am a delusion angel
I am a fantasy parade
I want you to know what I think
Don’t want you to guess anymore
You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we’re going
Launched in life
Like branches in the river
Flowing downstream
Caught in the current
I’ll carry you. You’ll carry me
That’s how it could be
Don’t you know me?
Don’t you know me by now?
10 September 2007
Written by
Iris Watts Hirideyo (
)
Published on September 10th, 2007 @ 09:37:35 am, using 147 words, 132 views
I never met Jeff. But I did come in contact with him. A distant sort of contact disguised as a close encounter. He grazed my shoulder on his way to the makeshift stage at Tower Records in Westwood. I was getting my period and he had a zit on his upper chest close to the collar bone. He was beautiful beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Delicate like a bird you could spend eternity looking at and listening to. And I did that. I looked at him… and listened to him… for as long as I could.
See my autographed jewel case insert signed by Jeff Buckley in part II of this blog post
Currently shattering window panes with a rendition of…
Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye/Grace
Written by
Iris Watts Hirideyo (
)
Published on September 10th, 2007 @ 09:15:14 am, using 339 words, 47 views
In many respects you’re as much a work of art to me now as you once wrote I was to you. A painting to me… you are. Something I’m free to look at but not to approach. You make me glance, stop, squint to try and catch the details and contemplate. If I were to take a step forward to try and look closer, I’d be matched by a man in a suit. I’d be told to keep quiet and respect the boundaries. Let’s face it, being a work of art is not necessarily a good thing. It’s isolating. Art appreciation comes with a pre-established distance. It denies you the fun of dirty hands, of inappropriateness, of miscalculation, of improvisation, the fun of art making. I see you from that kind of pre-established distance. And from where I stand, respecting the line on the floor, there’s a great deal of life to your life. Or so it appears in the stills. You’d make a good postcard, too – to be kept in a notebook and forgotten about, allowed to yellow and one day be found, remembered and admired. Not a postcard to be sent anywhere or to anyone.
This is what I’d write on the back of it:
Your forearms resting on your knees. The touching friendship between your slightly swollen hands. One, seemingly taking care of the other, holding it up. Bulging veins in and on them leading to your knuckles like covered streams. The ocean going through your head, your head southwestern bound, your eyes on some invisible ant. Your feet on ’slow sand’… firm enough sand or so it looks to me. More sand than you could fit into an hourglass. That hood as an awning to that tiny smile that keeps a secret. The secret of your beauty, perhaps? That mix of sadness and glad resignation.
09 September 2007
Written by
Iris Watts Hirideyo (
)
Published on September 9th, 2007 @ 01:04:10 am, using 519 words, 89 views
My little refuge…
…where I’m surrounded by multiplicity. Multiple movie posters, a claustrophobic moving about behind a counter; a strange sort of being… a mindless going back and forth… in multiple black aprons that manage to never once graze one another; multiple overlapping voices I can never distinguish. Untraceable sounds like people devoid of accents; multiple chairs in their black and white starkness; multiple cups I’ve gone through in multiple afternoons; multiple little clear spoons I use to stir and then rest on multiple saucers; multiple words I count myself lucky to know; multiple pages I insist on filling with gibberish for I gibber in writing. I’m trying my feet at multiplicity, at going against my usual choices and my usual self, at trying to be what I haven’t been thus far, before a complete switch is effected, at being both the one I’ve always been and this new person I’d like to become at the same time. The noises in this place, the electronic spewing of paper by the cash register, the dragging of chairs, those voices I merely deduce to be voices… they’re all a beautiful quietness to me. I don’t know what ‘Águas de Março’ is about but it is playing and it contributes to that quietness. Everything I don’t know adds its 2¢ because it fuses easily with everything else… no questions asked. It adds layers to the silence. It mingles effortlessly. It disappears in the crowd. It has no power of individuality. It’s the extra who’s just glad to be there. My eyes find the poster for Babel and I wonder about the extras of my life. How many people I haven’t met and will never meet. I wonder what their stories are like. What chapters they’re in. How many characters they’re juggling. Multiplicity. That couple twenty feet away. That’s a whole other story, a whole other galaxy. Those two people whose voices are muffled by the time they reach me. Twenty feet… Twenty paces I know I won’t bother to take in favor of being an ant. I also wonder how many people I have defied fate in meeting. Sadly a smaller but still significant number, a number to take pride in… The black and white starkness of the chairs gives me a raised eyebrow look and leads me to wonder… rubs its truth in. Couldn’t everything be black and white? Simpler? Am I actively choosing here? If I’m not, how would I rate as a chooser? And if I am, how are my choices stacking up?
(July 30, 2007)
That’s what you want, Gussie. Not what Henry wants. You chose it. Henry chose something else a long time ago.
He didn’t choose it. It just happened.
That’s the way we choose, Gussie. We let it happen.
(Violets are blue)
Posted only because Mr. H said it was postable…
08 September 2007
Written by
Iris Watts Hirideyo (
)
Published on September 8th, 2007 @ 12:04:28 pm, using 486 words, 58 views
(What’s the single most popular piece of advice offered in this day and age? You know! That one-size-fits-all little pearl, applicable to a host of different circumstances…
“Just be yourself!” Ever heard that one? I’d say in all likelihood…
Well, let’s get to the bottom of this being yourself, shall we?
I unearthed the following journal entry written a few years ago… Brace yourself!)
Living is a constant selling of oneself. It is the way by which one becomes liked. And being liked is a commodity like any other. A commodity very much like education in that it can never be lost once obtained. People’s opinions are said to be unimportant in a balance against one’s true self.
And above all else: To thine own self be true
(Hamlet)
But in fact what must be taken into account besides or rather, over politically correct considerations and fairy tale-ish half truths, is the fact that no one’s true self is completely likable. Flaws are ever present, inherent components of any human being and hardly ever well received. So, what to do with them?
There will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet
(The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock)
Diminish them as you would a skin blemish, I say. Use concealer if need be. Your true self in all its splendor of high-lights and low-darks is not always the best of friends.
I’ve always been myself, you know? Even when I was ill. Only now, I seem myself. And that’s the important thing. I have remembered how to seem.
(The Madness of King George)
And those described as friends who may or may not live up to the title but on whose opinions one’s image in this world – one’s reputation, if you will – hinges, THEY will be quick to point and sneer and diminish if given the opportunity. Hiding is oftentimes in order. Selling is oftentimes the only resort.
Just remember that you’re not just reading the news, you’re narrating it. Everybody has to sell a little. You’re selling them this idea of you, y’know, you’re sort of saying ‘Trust me, I’m… credible.’ So when you feel yourself just reading… Stop! Start selling a little.
(Broadcast News)
So what does all that selling and hiding mean? Where does it get us? What does it make us? I say it makes us inexhaustible, bottomless wells of new truths that sprout daily
The time to make up your mind about people is never.
(The Philadelphia Story)
And that’s just as it should be, isn’t it?
Currently shattering window panes with a rendition of…
Incubus - Drive/
Written by
Iris Watts Hirideyo (
)
Published on September 8th, 2007 @ 10:38:37 am, using 114 words, 30 views
Maybe is a word that doesn’t sit too well.
It slouches.
When things start to take a certain shape you recognize as sturdy, ‘maybe’ becomes the earthquake that tells you you’re not on steady ground, that even though you have your feet firmly planted on that ground, even though gravity tacitly promises to keep doing its part, you’re still susceptible to be thrown about – to end up worlds away from where you had in mind…
(Originally written on May 14, 2007)
Currently shattering window panes with a rendition of…
Jack Johnson - Flake/Brushfire tales
Written by
Iris Watts Hirideyo (
)
Published on September 8th, 2007 @ 08:21:52 am, using 424 words, 117 views
I saw this on a sad Friday. The kind of Friday you want to share with someone who can hold you up because you don’t feel up to the task yourself. I spent it alone and found out I was. I walked into the exhibit expecting China. Fitting… Expecting to feel like I had crossed oceans, longing to feel like I had walked out of the last one dripping and renewed… clean. But found more. That is, more and less. We’re always in for something slightly different than what we expected. Different and the same. I went all the way around the world to a piece of China to find a painting that reminded me of a German movie… and of me… and of something I once read from a Polish director…
…a film about things on a macro scale, on a global scale. That doesn’t interest me in the least because I don’t believe societies exist. I think that there simply are, I don’t know, 60 million individual French or 40 million individual Poles or 65 million individual British. That’s what counts. They’re individual people.
(Kieslowski on Kieslowski)
I expected to see China and I saw people instead. Different. The same. I went in expecting art and found a mirror, inspiration, words I would’ve otherwise never used. Less. More.
The opening sequence of Run Lola Run…
That blurry look of people, far too many people aggregated - the blurriness making it hard to focus on any one. A hazy day, clouds hovering above, a hazy confluence of hazy souls and their obedient shadows. They might as well have been standing on ice or walking on ice. Thin ice. Their existence, each individual existence so rife with uncertainty, so insignificant, so delible. A seemingly hand made blurriness to each and every figure. Two strokes is all it takes, I’d be willing to bet. Two fingers on the canvas while the paint is not yet dry. Left, right - and the haziness is there.
As though a mere breeze could sweep them off their feet and then away.
It so often does…
As though the mildest draft could make them dissipate.
Them… Us.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
(T.S.Eliot)
07 September 2007
Written by
Iris Watts Hirideyo (
)
Published on September 7th, 2007 @ 10:09:28 pm, using 255 words, 29 views
This is a period of estrangement from words. Not because the words are unwanted. Just unavailable. Made unhelpful precisely by how much more we need them. Part of it is the laziness that sets in at the thought of how much more there is to think and say and write on all of this every day that goes by. This is a period I’ll instinctively turn to the images in my head with more enthusiasm. The black and white shots I’d love to take of us. To keep us timeless. Older than we are now. And younger than we’ll be in no time at all. All possible images. The startled faces, the sleepy eyes, the rolling eyes, the sighs, the hungry looks, the smiles, the chuckles (the image that goes with the sound I love), the life in us. The one that brims and overflows and refuses to be contained. I dream of black and white shots that’ll look beyond your pinkness* and my blueness to find that which is not altered by color. The essence of what came to be what we are today, everything that conspired to make these two boats cross paths in the middle of the ocean and gravitate towards each other. Everything we are, were and may come to be.
*(Sorry, baby…)
Currently shattering window panes with a rendition of…
Damien Rice - Sleep don’t weep/9
03 September 2007
Written by
Iris Watts Hirideyo (
)
Published on September 3rd, 2007 @ 08:37:01 am, using 461 words, 51 views
How to explain this? How does this happen? It feels so singular it’s hard to imagine it happens elsewhere, to other people… but we know it does. Like snowflakes or fingerprints… it might happen…. but not exactly the same. I long for you, long to know you, long to hear you, long to touch you, long to laugh with you, long to smile with you, long to see the look on your face when I show you the story of our hug that someone we don’t know came up with, long to pet your head, long to kiss your forehead, long to hug you from behind, long to rub your shoulders when you’re tired, long to drink passion fruit juice with you and taste it on your lips, long to draw you a hot bath after a long day’s work, long to cook dinner together, long to eat dinner together with a candle between us, long to make you breakfast in bed when you’re feeling sick, long to make you breakfast in bed when you’re not feeling sick, long to drink from our mugs EU & VC, long to show you all the places I walked by and spent time in thinking of you, long to hold you in my arms, long to show you all the places I haven’t seen since I was little that now I refuse to see again without you, long to caress your fingers, long to eat weird combinations of self service dishes with you… drink weird combinations of juice with you and feel weird all around, long to have you rest your head on my shoulder, long to see you in one of my classes even though you don’t need my humble services… long to show you the town where I grew up, long to go for walks with you, long to blush and feel nervous and ‘feel your eyes on me when I look away,’ and know that when you look back all you’ll see is such deep admiration in them, long to look into your eyes for so long we both melt, long to show you all the things about me no one knows, everything, everything… I long to see the day when we look at this paragraph and are no longer able to tell who wrote what or to see where one stops and the other begins. I want you to be the one who knows me like nobody else in the world knows me… I want to give you that.
funawooal
Currently shattering window panes with a rendition of…
Legião Urbana - Eduardo e Mônica/Dois
02 September 2007
Written by
Iris Watts Hirideyo (
)
Published on September 2nd, 2007 @ 05:11:44 pm, using 107 words, 45 views
I remember one morning getting up at dawn… there was such a sense of possibility. You know? That feeling? And I remember thinking to myself: so this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there’ll always be more. It never occurred to me. It wasn’t the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then.
Currently shattering window panes with a rendition of…
Jack Johnson - Sitting, waiting, wishing/In between dreams
01 September 2007
Written by
Iris Watts Hirideyo (
)
Published on September 1st, 2007 @ 11:49:52 pm, using 210 words, 23 views
Take your dictionary from that shelf and open it for me. Leaf through it until you get to the Bs. Look up bounce. Does it say anything under bounce off the walls. Is that sub entry even there? What does it say?
Our heads are simply too hard to bounce. Stubborn heads don’t bounce. And don’t mesh.
Maybe if we were children.
Children in stature and children in spirit. Not just in deeds.
Maybe if we wanted anything enough to cry and whine and yell to get our way…
I think I may have been the child between us. I feel like I’ve cried and whined and yelled and bounced off the walls… so much more than I should have and to no avail.
Certain degrees of passivity are too frustrating to witness and can’t be combated with hyperactivity… it just accentuates it. It intensifies it and proceeds to erode you to the point where you get persuaded to go along with it… becoming passive yourself.
I may have reached that plain.
Currently shattering window panes with a rendition of…
Damien Rice - Rootless Tree/9
This post is the creative work of Iris Watts Hirideyo and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
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