love letters to a friend - the blog

Rosalina. Woman.

You constantly revile me with your singular lack of vision. Be aware, there is an essential truth and beauty in all things. From the death throes of a speared gazelle to the damaged smile of a freeway homeless. But that does not mean that the invisibility of something implies its lack of being. Though simpleton babies foolishly believe the person before them vanishes when they cover their eyes during a hateful game of peek-a-boo, this is a fallacy. And so it is that the unseen dusty build up that accumulates behind the DVD shelves in the rumpus room exists also. This is unacceptable.

I will tell you this Rosalina, not as a taunt or a threat but as an evocation of joy. The joy of nothingness, the joy of the real. I want you to be real in everything you do. If you cannot be real, then a semblance of reality must be maintained. A real semblance of the fake real, or “real”. I have conquered volcanoes and visited the bitter depths of the earth’s oceans. Nothing I have witnessed, from lava to crustacean, assailed me liked the caked debris haunting that small plastic soap hammock in the smaller of the bathrooms. Nausea is not a sufficient word. In this regard, you are not being real.

Now we must turn to the horrors of nature. I am afraid this is inevitable. Nature is not something to be coddled and accepted and held to your bosom like a wounded snake. Tell me, what was there before you were born? What do you remember? That is nature. Nature is a void. An emptiness. A vacuum. And speaking of vacuum, I am not sure you’re using the retractable nozzle correctly or applying the ‘full weft’ setting when attending to the lush carpets of the den. I found some dander there.

I have only listened to two songs in my entire life. One was an aria by Wagner that I played compulsively from the ages of 19 to 27 at least 60 times a day until the local townsfolk drove me from my dwelling using rudimentary pitchforks and blazing torches. The other was Dido. Both appalled me to the point of paralysis. Every quaver was like a brickbat against my soul. Music is futile and malicious. So please, if you require entertainment while organizing the recycling, refrain from the ‘pop radio’ I was affronted by recently. May I recommend the recitation of some sharp verse. Perhaps by Goethe. Or Schiller. Or Shel Silverstein at a push.

The situation regarding spoons remains unchanged. If I see one, I will kill it.

That is all. Do not fail to think that you are not the finest woman I have ever met. You are. And I am including on this list my mother and the wife of Brad Dourif (the second wife, not the one with the lip thing). Thank you for listening and sorry if parts of this note were smudged. I have been weeping.

Your money is under the guillotine.

Herzog.

Source

love letters to a friend is having its first public appearance
i will be joining an intriguing panel this thursday for an event called Designing the Love Economy

love letters as currency…submissions collected over two years will start to be shared this thursday as emblematic examples of why love letters of all kinds are as important as ever…if not even more so.

Designing the Love Economy
Date: Thursday, February 16th
Time: 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Where: Centre for Social Innovation Annex, 720 Bathurst St, Suite 404 (4th Floor)

quiet people in a quiet coffee shop
a record player calmly playing records that sound like tea steeping
with my back to the window it suddenly turned night
and the warmth from the pull down espresso machine keeps my cheeks rosy
as winter tip toes its way to toronto
i can picture my mount royal
air thin and ice thick
in back alleys
and on big mountains
but here the park grass is green and crunchy
and i can feel like home so long as the espresso is hot
and the records sweet. two cities. one home that i carry in my chest.
across from a friend who is lustre.
in silence our fingers tap to work and the mason jars at the back of the coffee shop
reflect the light from the dirty paper lanterns that hang on the ceiling
the same kind of lanterns that hung on my ceilings in this era or that
and as i tap i wait to see if my new ceiling will hold memories from the future
with a balcony for lovers
and a skyline for city mice
hidden just enough for the country mouse to feel cushioned in spring
but for now
records, waiting, tip toeing winter
and lustrous nostalgia for the moment i’m in…

thinking of you….