eleven:eleven:eleven – I don’t know him but I love him now

Jason Webley gave us such a gift this evening, a beautiful, marvelous experience, far beyond what anyone could call a concert.

Not to knock the concert, which was a blasting cap of a show, topping out almost everything else I’ve ever seen, (literally dancing in the aisles, jumping up and down levels of crazy amazing, that show. It just did. not. quit. ravishing. Melodies and shouting and poetry and snow made of feathers and surprise guest performances and identical twins and home-made instruments thrown into the audience and.. wow!), but the truly incredible part came after – when he silently walked off the stage and out of the hall, at the very end of the music, his fist tightly wrapped in the strings of a massive bouquet of giant red balloons, and swept almost the entire crowd into the street with him, everyone singing the last refrain of the last song over and over as the band played everyone out.

As we walked, hundreds strong, still singing, all the way to the water, down a cobblestone hill, under an overpass, over an overpass, Rafael and I arm in arm, up at the very front, sharing smiles with Jason, the leaders of a surreal parade that trailed four blocks long, thick enough to block traffic, the tune still soared with every step, as if the song kept our feet from touching the ground, as if the song was what kept us enchanted, a spell that he made but that we created, until we finally reached a smooth stone beach where a yacht was anchored, lit only with candles, fifty feet from shore.

He motioned us all to stop, then, and began to dance quietly where the shore sloped into the waves, gesturing to us with the great red balloons, a poem in motion, throwing our attention to the dazzling, full moon, then whimsically shifting from joyful pose to joyful pose, his heart bursting for us as he was painted with the flashes of a hundred cameras, like a strange, moving art fresco at the side of the sea. Eventually he paused at the top of some rocks, every inch the grand jester, both the king and the fool, suffused so thoroughly with glittering exultation that his face was a miracle, and finally began to say goodbye, certain, I suppose, that everyone had arrived.

He continued the act without saying a word, tying his treasured trademark hat to the balloons and, with a series of Chaplin-esque gestures, releasing them bumping into the sky. He lay on the rocks, watching them go, the red of the balloons weirdly lit by the moon, the saddest, most happy, fiercest gentle creature that ever lived, all the while as we, his crowd, kept singing, until they were nearly out of sight. Some people cried. (He might have too. It’s hard to say, even though I was close, one of the very front line.) Next he began to strip, unbuttoning his shirt, peeling off his pants, unhooking his shoes from his feet, then he waved to us, we the hundreds, crammed onto the beach, spilling out, farther back, still singing, some stuck all the way back on the street, and we waved back, felicity incarnate, and many shouted, “goodbye!” and “until next time!”. He looked at everyone, posing as he did so again for our cameras, as if it had all been rehearsed, the camera flashes picking him out for our eyes, then turned, satisfied, and bravely waded into the cold, black sea, the blackest thing, the coldest, and swam for the boat.

And that was that. Except that it wasn’t. Telling you what happened doesn’t explain what it felt like, how extraordinary it was, how perfect and clever. I could tell you how we cheered when he reached the yacht, how the crew that eventually emerged was dressed all in theater blacks or what it was like the police arrived to break us up or why my shoes got soaked or even more about the astoundingly good concert, but these are details and, in a way, unimportant. We were transported, as truly if we slipped sideways through space in that theater and briefly inhabited another world only a few molecules away, but happier in every respect. That was the magic. We were there as audience, but we were part of it and essential, all of our voices required, all of our eyes and hearts and minds.

conjunction

just a trim

“Don’t tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon.” – Paul Brandt

As unlikely and unexpected as it might be, I have even more good news! Not only am I going to Burning Man, I’m going back to New York. Not as time-serious a trip as last time, but a weekend jaunt concocted just to see the PunchDrunk show, Sleep No More, an astoundingly intricate 100 room retelling of Macbeth.

Ridiculous, a bit, as it was playing while I was there, but I didn’t find out until after my trip, when Mordicai attended then posted about it, so now I’m flying all the way back just to see it! It’s wiping out my emergency savings and much of what I earned as the photographer at Mishka’s wedding, but I figure that after three years of scraping, living in crazy poverty to pay back Heart of the World, it’s about damned time I starve for a good reason, something that makes me happy instead of twisting me bitter. It also helps that I’ve been managing to move forward with surprising rapidity with Burning Man prep. Though I’ll still probably be scrounging until the last minute, (still no ride, still nowhere set to camp, etc), I think it will all be okay. I don’t think there’s going to be any reason to panic.

In a lucky turn, Tony’s going to come with me, which also makes my heart glad. I was willing to go alone, but I suspect it might have been a little bit of a tragedy, as Sleep No More is designed, down to the last bit of insane writing on the wall, to every minuscule atom of splendid performance, to be shared. Everyone that goes in walks a different path, discovers different scenes, finds different hidden treasures. Everyone gets a unique narrative, an incredible, very personal experience, so it’s extra important to be able to share. (I would probably go twice if I could even remotely afford it). I’m also getting contact lenses for the first time, all proper like, just so I can wear the mask. I’ve only worn them once before, found the learning curve to be a little bit crazy, but this time, I can barely wait. I’ve been dancing everywhere, ever since we booked our tickets.

We fly out of Seattle late Thursday evening, and arrive first thing, the morning of Aug 19th. (We’re staying in Greenwich and leaving Monday evening.) We have tickets to the Friday, 7 pm, Sleep No More show, and for the Sunday’s Fuerza Bruta, (because Tony wanted to see it, after my rave reviews). Besides that, we have nothing planned.

Are you there, too? What are you up to that weekend? Let’s visit!

They need a hero! What they have, unfortunately, is you…

Congratufabulations to Nicholas and his mad and merry crew of crackpot visionaries! After an improbable amount of work, and slightly too many years, his video game, Dungeons of Dredmor, has finally launched!

Get it on Steam for 10% off and slay in the name of the Lutefisk God!

yes, I have a favourite sixty belgian girls. don’t you?

Spending this weekend in Seattle to attend the Ainsley baby shower and take some pictures of Rebecca’s baby bump. It’s going to be a great trip. Not only am I staying with some of my favourite people on the planet, there’s plans in the works for an obscenely epic Friday. If you’re in town, you should come! The rest of you, start your jealousy engines revving. I’m starting with an early dinner in Belltown, the better to attend the opening of a Kris Kuksi show at La Roc La Rue, (also featuring monochrome pop-alt darling Travis Louie), then dropping South to see the Scala Choir hit the stage at the Showbox. Oh yes. YES. Favourite tumbled upon favourite upon favourite. I’m drooooooling. Drooling like a happy kitty. Meaow purr durr.

Also, reading that over, I am considering that my considerable lack of sleep lately has left me with temporary brain damage.

Bringing me back to life to(o).

Walking across bridges at night used to be one of the more dangerous things I could do. All the hollow butterflies cut out of my tummy silenced when I finally stood on the rail. All the water catching the lights. Why does the ocean never reflect the stars?

A man found dead on a NYC subway car may have been dead for hours before anyone noticed.

It could have happened like this, I could have lay on my back in the middle of an intersection.

Instead, I picked up the phone. I dialed. I said, “hello”.

It’s a heavy on the saxophone moment, an understanding of grace with a long hard breath of sound. “Hello” Yeah, I know that one. Emphasis on the beginning of the word, low on the aich, more air than vibration. “Is this?!” There’s someone in town who knows how to conjure your name, your careful explanation of the hazards of cussing out christians in french. You know the game. It’s like a quick agile dance, how we speak. Soft insinuation this way, a little that way. All of it encapsulated in the way I shape your name. Those eyes, watching mine watch your hands. I remember that ring, but I didn’t think of it at the time. I almost offered to trade. Now I know that would have been meaning for meaning. We’re lunatics.

“Jhayne, can I ask you something?”

“Anything you want.”
“Are you crazy?”

The children were delightful, small tiny voices that didn’t know english. A catastrophe of insane grinning.

Sleepless in Seattle re-mixed as a horror movie.

Mike was upstairs when I wrote part of that, but all I heard was the soft susurration of cars passing by in rain. A very vancouver thing. The room I was in is full of polished steel appliances and red hardwood shelves clumsily full of yellowing books, a modern room cleverly awash in english antiques. The lamp at the foot of the stairs, (which has on the landing a half-size grandfather clock), is a bronze victorian woman, hands upraised like victory, a torch in each hand where the lightbulbs fit. Explosions In The Sky playing quietly, making the moment feel as if it was cut out of a novel about a lonely young professional who is questioning life enough to make an interesting book. It would have the kind of ending where you feel incomplete for having run out of pages.

That was before going to Afrikaa Bombata on Thursday, while waiting for Andrew. My day had been splendid, full of fierce joy. My smile felt like it would crack, I was so happy. Friday was different. Friday was still, flying in a comfortable holding pattern as my absent keys looked for a way to land at the shop, where I needed them to open with. (Raphaella came bringing the succor of sweet responsibility, no worries.) Friday was a dopamine calm. Friday I woke naked after an hour’s sleep in an unfamiliar bed. Friday the door opened at nine:thirty as I was about to tie my shoes and Kyle came in with a metal pail of tea and juice and bottled water.

Turkish court dropped the case against renowned writer Orhan Pamuk

My hero, my clumsily found grace. He lives only a block away from my home. The worst part is that this is perfect timing.