9/07/2007

"...contemplating jazz."

My world is full of saints.

They come in the form of people and ashtrays, punctuation and mantras, music and muzzles.

The short stories preceding this entry by several months are the surreal depositories of my burdened college mind. Now, without college, I lack any deposits. Take that how you will.

As I continue the upward climb to found our Human Union, I find that reading and thinking must inform my actions more than usual, and so I have acted less than usual, publicly. I only act through my saints, my omens.

Example: Monday night, sinking slovenly into Ellie's mattress, I became inundated with Craigslist to the point of collapse and so went out. I wore no shirt, and ran. I headed first down 6th St. doing chin-ups on the scaffolding. Then up 2nd Ave. to Union Hip, where I played pillow-catch with the fuzzy toilet-paper-wig man. Distracted by rasta drummers I was drawn to Mahatmas Ghandi, who stands a frail 8 feet tall in a garden for us all to share. The garden was closed but I jumped the gate in a flash of excitement and began to clean the trash out from the underbrush. There were many rats. What does that mean? Then I continued to follow my gut to Washington Square. Chess. Chess is a boon to me, a powerful, Force-wielding game. Soon enough I was inside the Thomspon street chess shops and who is behind the register but Todd Briscoe? A strange new friend of mine who is generous and kind and reckless and forthright. He sold me the cheapest chess board they had to replace the one that Avery/Mel lost. Then I returned to Ellie.

Of what is the above an example? My experiments with the natural paths that flow themselves out before us it we remain receptive. Ghandi and Chess were my omens that night, my destinies that remained unforeseen, undetermined, until the very moment that they revealed themselves to me. I've been living moment to moment. Playing music in Thompkins Square on my battery powered keyboard and suddenly being interviewed for a film or sharing Tomatoes with some punks. Drinking organic beer and cheering Judith Molina as she reads aloud her poem-letter to America at the Bowery Poetry Club. Enjoying every surprise, which is every motion, listening to every song which is every sound.

So now I am deposited, depositless, in the lap of freedom which seems emptiness. Avery has chosen to abandon our new place in Harlem, and so shall Matt, and so shall I. Hence I shall float down the river.

Last night I visited the Hare Krshna temple for an event in the HOWL Festival. I wonder if the Human Union is not already alive.