Dallas
Sunset
American White Pelicans
(with Am. Coot in background)
Bonus Photo (note: closer to home than above)
To the Lighthouse (V.W.)
Somewhere Else (SE) constitutes a removal of oneself from fixed behavior chains, thought patterns, and/or emotional states. SE does not necessitate a change in physical place, although such a change can certainly strike flame to tinder.
(Photos taken with crappy cell phone camera. Pelican photo taken through binocular lens.)
Posted by sean on November 19, 2013
https://sd-stewart.com/2013/11/19/somewhere-else-3/
While walking at the harbor, it’s best to avoid large groups of people wearing matching shirts. One is never quite sure what these people are doing, but whatever it is can’t be good. Particularly insidious are the seemingly disparate groups whose members are all wearing plain white t-shirts. No identifying marks indicates a sure sign of criminal activity, or possibly a cult.
Insider tip: Avoid at all costs.
While walking at the harbor, it’s best to avoid the urban pirate ship. Individuals paid to dress up like pirates gambol on the ship’s deck in the midst of a gaggle of confused tourists. Why did I allow my family to badger me into paying $20 per person for this nonsense, thinks that one morose guy on the port side. Other tourists walking around the harbor spot the ship and excitedly take photos. The guy who drives the weird boat that scoops up trash from the harbor looks bored and/or disappointed with his life as he waits for the ‘pirate ship’ to circle around, thus freeing his vessel from temporary bondage. Potential for heckling from the ‘pirates’ is suspected to be high.
Insider tip: Walk fast in the opposite direction.
While walking at the harbor, watch out for tourists riding bicycles, most of whom appear to have not ridden a bicycle since their training wheels were mistakenly removed at age 6. If one finds oneself in the path of one of these hazards, stay calm. While it appears that the bicycle is on a collision course with your personage, anecdotal evidence suggests that these people do have some semblance of control over their vehicles. It’s likely that, at the last second, they will veer off into the path of some less-suspecting pedestrian.
Insider tip: Get your own bike and challenge these villains to a bike jousting match.
Posted by sean on July 31, 2013
https://sd-stewart.com/2013/07/31/free-travel-advice/
Water main break sends me scurrying yesterday from the building. I tried to stay but the fire alarm went off. I think they were trying to flush us out. Begone, you office trolls! It seems there are water mains breaking everywhere in this city. Our aging infrastructure simply cannot handle a violent shift from warm to below freezing to warm again. Get home, pull up the shade to a turkey vulture gliding overhead. I resent the implication this bird is making toward my general state of liveliness. I am not dead. It’s simply not true. Maybe the vultures should go feed on all the dead water mains instead. Crunch, crunch.
This may sound familiar to long-suffering regular readers, but how one reacts from inside an elevator to the sight of another person walking (hurrying, even) toward said elevator, defines at a base level the kind of human being one is. Most other indicators are largely irrelevant to me; they require too much interaction, too much time to reach a satisfactory conclusion. If I want to know in an instant, a blinding flash, what kind of person a certain human is I will hurry toward the elevator in which she or he stands, looking out at me with either compassion or disgust, and I, at her or him in return with either gratitude or disappointment. What transpires in that brief moment shall inform me of what stuff they [sic] are made. I am reminded of my experience at the revolving door the other day. The simplicity, the stripped-down bareness, of this moment, two humans moving in opposing directions, yet united in one shared motion to move themselves, and each other, forward to where they needed to be. To ignore the sublimity of these moments would be tragic.
Posted by sean on January 30, 2013
https://sd-stewart.com/2013/01/30/indicators-and-implications/
The world was late today. I don’t know. I was late. But I wasn’t expecting the world to also be late. I had hoped for a leisurely ride in on mi bicicleta. Instead there were cars everywhere. An automotive horror show. Maybe it was the rain. Rain slows the world to a crawl. Like slow motion, creeping and crawling. Not me, though. I was pedaling quite rapidly, in fact. Bike commuting reminds me I am alive. Otherwise I might think I was a walking corpse. Or a dancing one. I’m skipping a meeting this morning. I don’t care. It empowers me. Robert Walser would skip it. Walser wouldn’t still be here seven years later, though. Walser wouldn’t have made it seven months. Seven weeks, maybe. More likely seven days. He’d be in his attic room writing his soul out on shreds of borrowed paper with a stolen pen. Oh, where is the rain crow. He migrated long ago. Now who will tell us when it is about to rain. I felt the cold rain on my face and knew I was alive. No more alive than last month or last week or yesterday, but alive nonetheless. 2013 dreams have been vivid so far. It’s like there is an arthouse revival series going on in my dream life. I’m liking it. There’s nothing else to report, I’m afraid. Raining, check. Biking, check. Reading Walser, check. No more rain crow, check. Not a corpse, check. Alive, check.
Posted by sean on January 15, 2013
https://sd-stewart.com/2013/01/15/late-rain-world/
If buried all but traceless in the dark in its energy sitting, drifting within your own is another body—Anne Carson, “Seated Figure With Red Angle (1988) by Betty Goodwin”
There is something about living in a city, and it has to do with the surroundings being artificial, constructed by humans. Here we sever ourselves from real nature. Here what nature there is persists under duress—it may even seem to be a thriving minority, but it will always be the minority. The muted signs of seasonal change vagulate. The constant reminders of the hubris of so-called civilized people swarm in smothering tones. Callousness blankets us. The automobile serves as master and slave. I am concerned.
There is another body inside of my body.¹ And it is drifting. And it is all but traceless in the dark. Whose body is it. Is it mine. Or does it belong to someone quite different.
It is an unfortunate thing to recognize that you are not one who is meant to live in such close proximity to other humans. And yet here you are, aren’t you.
John Stabb from Government Issue sang:
In that comfortable rut again
Goals for the talking man
Outside lies a presence
But a lonely spirit’s walking rut
And he can’t get out
Man in a trap
Deeper things getting direct
Empty social life’s a wreck
Weather and insects tonight
Happiness in black and white
And he can’t get out
Sometimes we come to embody the lyrics we listen to in our youth. This is neither here nor there. It is life. I think we’re all a little bit surprised when we get there. Or here.
Let’s find more creative ways to fail. And write about those ways in more creative ways.
Anne Sexton wrote:
The silence is death.
It comes each day with its shock
to sit on my shoulder, a white bird,
and peck at the black eyes
and the vibrating red muscle
of my mouth.
Anne reminds us that silence can be as menacing and intrusive as noise. A reminder that we are all out here flailing about. And some of us don’t make it. Like Anne herself. Some of us sink beneath the surface, our lungs filled with shards of the little brittle things in life. The ones that drifted beyond our reach, slow or quick, only to be breathed back in with fatal heaving breaths.
Recently I spent a fair amount of time writing up a review of a show I went to the other night but I lost interest. It suddenly seemed unimportant. Literally as I was writing it, I felt the words spelling out into nothingness. The only point of interest remaining when I finished was a question: What do we want from our rock stars? And do we even want them to be stars? I don’t go to see live music much anymore and rock music even less so. But this question startled itself into my mind and would not leave. Music once loved can be tainted. And how a band presents itself to its audience can either win me over or leave me cold. These are the lessons I learned. Outside the womb can be harsh.
There is foam² spilling out here. As winter prepares to wrap us in its icy sharp arms, I am awash with foam. And it may never dry.
___________________________________________________
1. See also: this post
2. For more on foam, see Anne Carson’s essay “FOAM (Essay with Rhapsody): On the Sublime in Longinus and Antonioni,” originally published in Conjunctions 37 and reprinted in the book Decreation (2006).
Posted by sean on November 13, 2012
https://sd-stewart.com/2012/11/13/possibility-of-foam/
I see everything. It’s staggering. Many things are ugly and sad. A few things are beautiful in a superficial way. Some things are ugly in a beautiful way. Or sad in a beautiful way. Or neutral seen through a colored lens of your own choosing. Re: The sky is a lovely shade of cornflower blue / The sky is boring, why is it always blue, but sometimes white / The sky makes me sad / The sky overpowers me with its vastness / The sky enrages me.
Flaws are necessary. Imperfections abound. Everything is so strange. I don’t understand what people are doing. How they are living, existing. Where comes the drive for them to do something. I think I need more sunlight. The darkness slow-kills me with eight-hour stab wounds. My daytime cave smothers me. Who are these people. Don’t tell me. Maybe I need them. I’m not really in a rush.
I can no longer walk ten feet without writing something down. I keep waiting for a lamp post to approach me with violent intent. The suddenness of everything happening around me is electrifying. I’m a festering open sore and the world is my penicillin. But wait, I am allergic. Look out, I’m rejecting the transplant. Maybe I like being alone in a crowd. Maybe the reincarnation is almost complete. Routine comforts and horrifies me. I want it to be different but I’m afraid.
Today was the ice cream social at work. A group of awkward people convened to eat ice cream in a cramped meeting room. Our leader thanked us for doing a good job. It was uncomfortable. We ate our ice cream in silence. Some small talk scratched a flint but the kindling never caught. But there was vegan whipped cream! And organic vegan sprinkles! And vegan chocolate sauce! I ran outside when it was done! It was too late for cigar-smoking man. But expose-her-shoulders-to-the-sun girl was out there. And some bike messengers. I secured a good seat, read another piece in Zone 3. I took the sun and held it close.
As I rode through the supermarket parking lot on the way home, I saw a hearse. Its back window was painted in a colorful stylized manner with the words Girls & Corpses. Soon after, I saw some young runners. I felt a thrill. I felt the sun leave me. This is a true story.
~ FIN ~
Posted by sean on September 13, 2012
https://sd-stewart.com/2012/09/13/yes-to-sloth-reincarnation/
Bill Callahan showed up in my city last night with a filmmaker named Hanly Banks, who had filmed Bill on his Apocalypse tour last summer and made a documentary about it. They showed the film outside on a giant inflatable screen that looked like a moonbounce. This was behind an art gallery in the heart of the city. Trees grew out of the surrounding abandoned buildings. Literally out of the walls. Given time and an absence of interference, nature always trumps concrete and brick. Think how beautiful that could be. A local brewery served beer. I was there with my friends. After the movie, Hanly Banks answered awkward audience questions, such as “Did Bill’s laid-back nature help offset the mundane aspects of touring?” And “Do you feel that how you captured Bill’s personality in the film is how he really is in person?” Not that I’m one to talk. I sometimes obsess in a similar manner over writers, just not so unabashedly. I cultivate my obsessions secretly. Jung would likely not approve.
I’d never been to the art gallery before and when I looked it up on the internet the map made it unclear which side of the street it was on. When I arrived in the vicinity, I crossed the street to the other side, thinking it was over there because of the grassy lot that looked appealing for movie-watching. Then I turned around and looked across the street and saw Bill Callahan moving around inside a storefront. Bingo.
After the film, Bill played a few songs. He joked that he’d been hoping for more screen time in the film. He also mentioned a strange object he’d seen in the sky a few minutes before, like a fixed light, but with a body is what he said. It was probably Foxtrot, I thought to myself. After his third song, he said good night. People kept yelling for an encore, but I knew he wouldn’t be back. Five bucks for a film and three songs was a good deal. I was content.
The film made me think about how many non-zomblobbies there are in this country, doing their things, just trying to make their way in the world. It lifted the bleak veil a bit and let me peek through to the golden light. But then there was everyone with their devices, so frantic to capture this moment as it was occurring. Why can’t they just sit back and enjoy the show. Why with the constant recording of everything that happens around them. When you watch it later, you think, “there i am with my device, recording that guy on stage and updating my status to reflect how much fun i am having.” [Note to self: stop thinking about this]
But the golden light, remember the golden light. And now these intoxicating scents fill the space around me. I drowse into a trance of sensual overload…Labradford’s feedback washes onto the shore of a delicate lack of sleep, coming rain foretold in the shaking cottonwood leaves, rare essential oils pungent and desirous unravel me…and I am gone, like Rumi, on a visit to the elsewhere from whence my soul comes. Or…maybe I’m only going downstairs…
Posted by sean on August 25, 2012
https://sd-stewart.com/2012/08/25/review-bill-callahan-apocalypse-film-tour/
Foxtrot’s tractor beam halos the sidewalk slug trails. We linger in limbo near the antique fan house. It is night. There is no reason to dispute this is the time when I feel safest. Moving in shadow, yellow light spilling across the floor. Motives murky. Fiddle and banjo sound like always during this brief time. In Rhinoceros Eyes the props speak to Chep. He’s not happy about it, mind you. But what can he do. He’s an idiot savant, after all. Or is he. Maybe if you look hard enough at any one single thing, it will begin speaking to you. Dim light, that’s what I’m about. Except when reading. of course. I like a bright light on the page, but dim light everywhere else around. Smoking oil lamps and waning firelight.
The antique fan house intrigues me. They are everywhere. So many fans, none of them moving. It’s pleasantly absurd. I like walking around late night and there is some light in the houses but you don’t see anyone. God, if you saw just one person it would wreck it all. Maybe. I take the corner to the alley and wouldn’t you know it those dogs are out on the deck. We disturb a man and his cigarette, the dogs caterwauling across the way. The city’s branding iron on your eardrums. There is no quiet.
There are others skulking with their dogs. There always are. Skulk, skulk, skulk. We slither down the sidewalks, following the faint slug trails, glistering in the sodium glow of street lamps. Chep has trouble talking. He is awkward and what has built up in his mind is another world not fitting right with this one he’s operating in. It doesn’t matter what those props tell him. Maybe it’s all just a bad dream. Sometimes it is. Sometimes you wake up relieved. And not just when you’re aging, the days running off like lost sheep on the edge of fading summer pasture. I mean when you’ve seen the bottom of the haunted well in your dream life and lived to wake the next day. Morning looks so good then, like a doctored photograph.
It’s happening again. A man in a smiling bag. New shoes. Ha-ha…it’s all still there. The repetitive inputs of our lives, be they intentional or not. You can’t rip out hard wire. But you can open the window and let in the night air. You can do that. And what does air do but move through you. It moves through you like the shadows of night and does no harm. Not like a person. Not like a talking prop. But like the song playing down the credits. And the yellow light all around. And the glass in your hand. Like that. It moves through you like that and there’s nothing like it in the world.
Posted by sean on August 23, 2012
https://sd-stewart.com/2012/08/23/over-time-a-mask-is-recognized/
A man who works in my building rides his bike across the street to the grassy patch in front of the seafood restaurant. There he sits on a portable chair and smokes cigars during his lunch break. I find this an interesting pastime.
People from other countries stroll on the promenade. I can usually spot them before I hear their foreign tongues. It’s usually the subtle or not-so-subtle differences in fashion that tip me off. Others just don’t look American at all. Something in their bearing or gait or facial expressions. Less fleshy and stupid looking.
Tourists swarm the place because it’s the high summer season. Overheard for real: “Should we do Hard Rock?” Imagined rest of conversation: “It’s so nice to go to other cities and see all our familiar places. If things were different it would be scary. Oh look, it’s the Cheesecake Factory. I hear they hate gays just like all my friends back home.”
Here we have the National Aquarium. It’s not like Sea World, but it still makes me think of that episode of The IT Crowd when Roy is dating a girl whose parents died in a fire at a Sea Parks (the fake British equivalent of Sea World). He becomes obsessed with figuring out how, with all that water around and considering the concrete stadium has a total of 12 exits, they could have possibly died in a fire. Much like all IT Crowd episodes, of which I’m not ashamed to say I’ve watched at least two if not three times each, it is hilarious. Of course it’s British. The mainstream American humor palate is so much less refined.
But I digress from my walk.
The harbor smells like a rancid cesspool. I hope the visitors bureau is working on that.
Many women walk around with babies attached to their chests like parasitic blobs.
I don’t walk long. It’s important to strike a balance. If I’m outside too long I feel worse when I go back in. However, at least the temperature in my office is no longer hovering in the subarctic range. That is a plus.
In the lobby I assess the elevator situation. I hate riding with other people in an elevator. I hate everything to do with elevator use, but I will not go into it all here. Building security keeps the stairs on lockdown so even though I only work on the third floor I’m supposed to ride the elevator every time. You can go down the stairs (not up), but according to the sign on the door you’re not supposed to do so unless it’s an emergency. This enrages me. I still go down them, as do others on my floor. Anyway, if there are a lot of people milling around waiting for an elevator I usually go to the other side, which is what I do today. I’m about to enter an empty elevator when a man comes running across the lobby. How can anyone be in such a hurry after lunch that they can’t wait two seconds for another elevator. I’m embarrassed for him. He chokes out a breathless ‘thanks’ before fiddling with his smart phone. They all do. Smart phone fiddling has replaced watching the floors light up on the sign above the door as ‘the’ activity to do in an elevator. I stare at the floor.
Posted by sean on August 21, 2012
https://sd-stewart.com/2012/08/21/lunchtime-walk/
s. d. stewart 