Two Attempts on Xiaopin wen
1. On Death
The window filtered the sky with a layer of dirt, the kind that stained the glass with the leftover from seasons of deluges. Most pedestrians were in their summer shirts and shorts, as though the the fall weather had been hitherto a transient and mildly disturbing dream. I was condemned to the confinement of a room overcrowded with SSHSAT students in a Saturday afternoon, in which the kids were working hard for their foreseeable future.
The colour of the sky, the temperature and the humidity reminded me of Chicago. Chicago was that kind of city that had subtly dwelt right underneath the corrugated skin of my underused brain. It was a city that rose along the lake of Michigan, a stretch of almost transparent blue.
My life had never founded itself upon a vision of future. I had always been deprived of the future. Deprived by whom? Taken by whose hand? Erased by whose effort? Perhaps there had always been none for everyone, and I somehow just enjoyed the privilege of understanding the quasi-Bergsonian reality that time, in an experiential sense, is a sequence of presents projected to numerous perceived images of the past and the future. None of my works can be declared finished or unfinished, for that I envy the Romantic artists. History will certainly not write me down as an artist. I am simply part of a gigantic Tedium destined to its own eventual and microscopic self-destruction.
Around me, there were all these talks of death. I seemed to have the ability to absorb and internalize these talks. I staged my own destruction, and I knew very well that it was me who performed this act of suicide. But why the pain? Why the time? I dare not question.
What I long for is quietude, a sense of peace in which I could write, compose, and be myself. I now realize that people cannot truly “plan” on the last years of their lives. It's not that there is so much to do, nor is it that people deny their counted days. There is simply no choice. You simply need to learn to let go.
I am always afraid to be misunderstood by my mother, to the extent that I have given up to be understood. Her words still shape who I am, and I still feel daily disturbed by every word she said.
The photo of Bob Dylan, the writing of Jack Kerouac, the films of Derek Jarman: people do die, don't they?
2. Cat
Granddad Cat,
Olga said that despite of all the drama that occurred in the last few days, I was still beaming and energized. I wouldn't have known if I were truly beaming. All I knew was that I had grown older in the process of reclaiming and rejuvenating a stronger self.
All I hope is that I have not lost you, though I am in no position to bargain or to negotiate.
I also wouldn't necessarily say that I am rehearsing a “new” life that excludes Scott. Life precludes rehearsal, subterfuge and contrivance. Something slipped away at a given moment in time. It is not a form of escape, let alone an attempt to punish. It is like the moment of darkness between frames in a silent movie, a subtle split-second at which the present has become history, even though its form still remains in our brains as a perceived illusion, something that gives form to our sense of continuity, something that has no existential predicate. How much I love Garbo. Garbo does not signify solitude. She gives shape to the triumph of the self––the desire to be left alone, with a laughter that performs and proliferates with companions who truly understand this intricate boundary.
I read Xia Mianzun's leisure essay about his cat. Cat has its own lineage and history that vibrate with those of humans. In a way, cat becomes an index of a human relationship, a reminder of an absent being––it makes an absented being present through its stand-in for the rapport propre.
Our cats are not verbal, and in them, I see life. It is always a comfort to feel a breathing being lying next to you, exuding its desire (perhaps a kitty's dream for “fish”) and providing you with a concrete sense of ontology. Garbo is feline, and from frame to frame, she allows parts of her soul to escape, which register themselves onto film. I wonder if some of these sparkles of the human soul have found their new lives in cats, who stand in for the flitting moments which we can only capture with our eyes wide open.
The window filtered the sky with a layer of dirt, the kind that stained the glass with the leftover from seasons of deluges. Most pedestrians were in their summer shirts and shorts, as though the the fall weather had been hitherto a transient and mildly disturbing dream. I was condemned to the confinement of a room overcrowded with SSHSAT students in a Saturday afternoon, in which the kids were working hard for their foreseeable future.
The colour of the sky, the temperature and the humidity reminded me of Chicago. Chicago was that kind of city that had subtly dwelt right underneath the corrugated skin of my underused brain. It was a city that rose along the lake of Michigan, a stretch of almost transparent blue.
My life had never founded itself upon a vision of future. I had always been deprived of the future. Deprived by whom? Taken by whose hand? Erased by whose effort? Perhaps there had always been none for everyone, and I somehow just enjoyed the privilege of understanding the quasi-Bergsonian reality that time, in an experiential sense, is a sequence of presents projected to numerous perceived images of the past and the future. None of my works can be declared finished or unfinished, for that I envy the Romantic artists. History will certainly not write me down as an artist. I am simply part of a gigantic Tedium destined to its own eventual and microscopic self-destruction.
Around me, there were all these talks of death. I seemed to have the ability to absorb and internalize these talks. I staged my own destruction, and I knew very well that it was me who performed this act of suicide. But why the pain? Why the time? I dare not question.
What I long for is quietude, a sense of peace in which I could write, compose, and be myself. I now realize that people cannot truly “plan” on the last years of their lives. It's not that there is so much to do, nor is it that people deny their counted days. There is simply no choice. You simply need to learn to let go.
I am always afraid to be misunderstood by my mother, to the extent that I have given up to be understood. Her words still shape who I am, and I still feel daily disturbed by every word she said.
The photo of Bob Dylan, the writing of Jack Kerouac, the films of Derek Jarman: people do die, don't they?
2. Cat
Granddad Cat,
Olga said that despite of all the drama that occurred in the last few days, I was still beaming and energized. I wouldn't have known if I were truly beaming. All I knew was that I had grown older in the process of reclaiming and rejuvenating a stronger self.
All I hope is that I have not lost you, though I am in no position to bargain or to negotiate.
I also wouldn't necessarily say that I am rehearsing a “new” life that excludes Scott. Life precludes rehearsal, subterfuge and contrivance. Something slipped away at a given moment in time. It is not a form of escape, let alone an attempt to punish. It is like the moment of darkness between frames in a silent movie, a subtle split-second at which the present has become history, even though its form still remains in our brains as a perceived illusion, something that gives form to our sense of continuity, something that has no existential predicate. How much I love Garbo. Garbo does not signify solitude. She gives shape to the triumph of the self––the desire to be left alone, with a laughter that performs and proliferates with companions who truly understand this intricate boundary.
I read Xia Mianzun's leisure essay about his cat. Cat has its own lineage and history that vibrate with those of humans. In a way, cat becomes an index of a human relationship, a reminder of an absent being––it makes an absented being present through its stand-in for the rapport propre.
Our cats are not verbal, and in them, I see life. It is always a comfort to feel a breathing being lying next to you, exuding its desire (perhaps a kitty's dream for “fish”) and providing you with a concrete sense of ontology. Garbo is feline, and from frame to frame, she allows parts of her soul to escape, which register themselves onto film. I wonder if some of these sparkles of the human soul have found their new lives in cats, who stand in for the flitting moments which we can only capture with our eyes wide open.
posted by Victor Fan at 11:14 PM
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