28.3.10

PLACE AND DISPLACEMENT





















In Delphi, I took a self-timed photo of "Me + Ruins In Delphi." I tried to make myself feel like I was visiting the Oracle. I always ask myself if the Greeks vividly understood religion as a human construct and just kept it around 'cause it's fun. The stories are just too wild. How could you make yourself believe that was real life?



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Eating on dumpsters in a crowd of East End hipsters, we congratulated ourselves on our ability to not appear just like eachother.



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Dear Dean Gaunt, I liked it a lot when you really listened to what I had to say. We were in Germany, I was talking about braided grass, and you looked me in the eye.



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I was completely unable to feel what Copenhagen is like, but I could have explored this dorm complex for years and still had more to discover.



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At our awkward table in our front hallway, are Atypical Actions and Typical Fixtures, alongside a sizable shoe collection. Sarah Studer's pretty good at all of these things. Endless curiosity. (Come home soon.)



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I can't stop thinking about Willa Cather. "She laughed her mellow, easy laugh, that was either very artless or very comprehending, one never quite knew which." I hope that someone will describe me one day like this.

I wasn't there when they took this photo.



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Jo and I sat on benches in a cultural center in London and were quite puzzled by this book on Afghanistan. The project was to show the wisdom and flexibility of words. Ask a question, close your eyes, pick a book, open and point. Read the sentence. This is your answer.

Camels in a Datsun.



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Charlie, seller of maps and globes, stands in Haus am Checkpoint Charlie.



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Before I rearranged the furniture, this room was still Terry's.



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To give me a time machine would be lonely. To give me a teleporter would be cruel. When I pick out photos and phrases and stories, all of the dead time disappears. All of the non-activities and non-places fade out. Before and after this coffee pouring, there was couch sitting. The front door was open. We mixed fresca and pbr and cooked corned beef. It made a stew that fed lots of people. Looking at this picture feels like eating candy. It's a house slowly waking up and wandering into the kitchen, rubbing their scalps. I can't remake this. Who would want to?
I MISS IT SO MUCH. But then I remember the mice and never being able to find things and the way the house sucked me in and my funny futon and the war of attrition that was the kitchen table.


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These things are all so small. These things are so big.

I don't get you, wall at the elementary school in Slovenia.