Cold Water
Friday, December 10, 2021
I had a hard time sleeping last night. “I woke up at 4 A.M. and start sneezing, sometimes for five hours. I tried to find what sort of allergy I had but finally concluded that it must be an allergy to consciousness.” Not only that, but I keep hearing noises around the house. I was deeply concerned about a noise coming from my bed last night, and I realized it was my stomach digesting the vegetarian sausage I had before I went to bed, which led me to thoughts about why I ate such a thing before going to sleep. It made me so angry because I wasn’t starving at the time. Why do I eat when I’m not hungry? Many years ago, when I was having sex with a girl that I greatly desired in school, I started to think about having pasta. That whole day was thinking of nothing but getting this girl in bed with me, and yet, when the moment arrived, I started to crave penne. When I climaxed inside her, I thought of tomato sauce spreading over the pasta. That happened many years ago, and to this day, I still think of it - but mostly when I’m in bed trying to fall asleep.
I got up in a rather foul mood and started writing my daily post for the day. Since John Lennon was killed on December 8, I considered it appropriate to write a memorial of some sort. Lennon was very much a figure of my generation, specifically my youth. I loved him. I found the most disturbing aspect of his death because I was shocked when it happened and quite disappointed that I was not too fond of the album he released that year. For me, the Plastic Ono Band album was his masterpiece. Even the singles he released before that specific album was magnificent.
“Imagine,” I think is pretty dull and forever what reason, his music became a sort of wallpaper in my life. After that, he disappeared into the city where one can disappear like Fantomas. He avoided the spotlight for five years; not even a photograph of him was made available in the media, and then all of a sudden, he came back. My excitement to hear a new Solo Beatle song or album was pretty great. Yet, it sounded dated when I heard it, and someone was just coasting on their talent. I knew there must be a great album within him, and it will be the next one. Then his death took place, which robbed me of the “in theory” the perfect Lennon album. Since then, my life has become an illusion of sorts. Soon after December 8, 1980, I gave up pop music and listened to classical music. Since punk was turning into a product, I decided to jump into another decade of music, or something as far as I could get from my once favorite three words: Rock. N. Roll.
I’m attracted to Jean Sibelius’ music because he once “justified the austerity of his old age by saying that while other composers were engaged in manufacturing cocktails, he offered the public pure cold water.” I understand that. Sometimes, even I have a hard time making something of value or worth. When I can’t sleep at night, I have a 16mm projector, and the only film on a roll is a series of works by Georges Méliès. I set the projector up in my bedroom to project the film on the white wall above my bed. My favorite film of his is “The Impossible Voyage” which is about a group of scientists who go on a trip to the interior of the Sun. The film was made in 1904, and I often play music by Sibelius as a soundtrack to the images projected on my bedroom wall. Sibelius is from Finland, and I have never been to Finland, but I think of it as a magical part of the world in my imagination. I often lay on the corner of my bed and think of worlds that I have never been to but imagined.
“Cold water” is not bullshit. It is precisely what it is, and therefore I can’t worry what people will say about me or my writing. I pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue had never been erected in honor of a critic. The clarity that I desire in my life is that I find that “the longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and ironically, the more real.” With that in mind, I face this afternoon with great delight for the adventure that inevitably will happen.