found objects

Future Present Participle. Who knew? Who knew the Boys From Liverpool were so prescient? Found in an attic of Jane Asher's great-aunt, this collection of previously unknown (except for the Beatles themselves and George Martin) songs touches on themes and issues that were barely percolating in the Sixties. The offering, however, is more than an archival collection for Beatles enthusiasts. The album features ten never-heard-before compositions dating from 1964 to 1968. Asher, a former girlfriend of Paul McCartney, had no comment on the shocking event, though the LP was released under her Ashe(r) Wednesday label. "And I Loved Him," the first track, is a tender farewell ballad to Brian Epstein, the Fab Four's manager. "He Loves Me" is a raucous garage-band-sounding outright declaration of Lennon-McCartney mutual affection. "We Can't Work It Out" acidly recounts a bitter break-up, likely referring to Asher and McCartney. "Rainbow Submarine" would have been revolutionary in its time as it celebrates gender, racial, and ethnic diversity. The whimsical "Octopus's Living Room" showcases Ringo Starr's talents for children's songs, foreshadowing his Mr. Conductor role in the Shining Time Station series for kids. A polar opposite of the hit "I Feel Fine, "I Feel Fucked" uncharacteristically portrays George Harrison in a sour and vindictive mood. "Number 6 Times 6 Times 6," obviously an outtake from The White Album, denotes surrealist nihilism in its constant repetitions of six, evoking sinister demonic references. "I Want to Hold Your Gland," clearly never intended for public exposure, features Lennon and McCartney at their Joycean silliest. The origins or intention of several tracks will give critics and fans grist for the rumor mills for years to come. For example, "He's a Woman" prefigures and boldly explores gender roles and previews themes only hinted at in "Get Back." The final track of Future Present Participle, "Can Buy Me Love," is a self-satirizing parody that predicts the group's breakup. Here's your ticket to ride for a magical mystery tour simultaneously into the past and the future. The answer is in the journey. 

double identity indemnity

Hey, aren't you . . . ?
No, yeah, no. Wait. Aren't you . . . ?
Who? I don't think so. I'm . . . 
Aren't you what's-his-name . . . ?
Heh, heh, anybody can be what's-his-name.
Huh huh, got you.
Like I said, I'm . . . 
Yeah, right. You look just like him. You know, he . . . 
I guess you're right. I do look like him.
Totally.
It's been a while, hasn't it.
It has. Truly.
You're good?
I'm good. You?
Been better.
What's wrong?
Nothing's wrong. The regular stuff.
The regular stuff.
Yeah, you know.
Yeah. But you can tell me. After all we've been through.
After all we've been through.
It's nothing.
Come on.
Naw, it's nothing.
I can tell it's something.
A minute ago you were acting like you hardly knew me.
Me? No way.
Yes. Remember?
Yeah, no. I don't know. Maybe. Whatever.
It'll pass.
What will?
It's nothing. Like I said.
I get it.
Yeah.
Hey, I gotta get uptown. I'll hit you up later.
Yeah. Me too. Yeah. Hit me up later.
Yeah.
Sounds good.
Shrill screech of subway brakes as train pulls in to station.

biopsy epiphany

I expected the worst. I'm not even referring to the results. Worst, as in bend over to be probed, inserted, navigated, manhandled. A conjured image of discomfort, humiliation, breathe-through-it pain, tension, and fear. I was given a needle in each butt cheek: an antibiotic as a preventive measure. The left needle was barely felt; the right one hurt. I was escorted to the room for the euphemistically called procedure. Lie on your left side, facing the wall. So that was better than the on-your-elbows position I had pictured. Plus, they "numbed me up" down there. Another aspect better than I had envisioned. (In 2002, I was not given an anesthetic.) Before you know it, during my rambling dialogue with the doctor, they're in there. Ultrasound images on a screen. Colorful computer simulations, like you see in the movies. Numeric designations on the screens. To the left, or the right, up or down, closer or farther. Lunar landscape. Gentle landing. Inner clenchings like staplings but duller, internal pings -- except for one of twenty, not painful, more like an annoyance, a tangible split-second thump within-the-inner-of-the-inner inwardness. To harpoon and retrieve the tissue samples. The conversation and the screens distractions. The doctor said I'd probably want to watch. I said I rarely do, such as during a colonoscopy, which I wouldn't remember anyway because of the Versed anesthesia. He said, oh, you'll watch. And I did. An observer of my innermost self, physically. Not afraid or anxious. Almost amused. A detachment as if it were somebody else being represented up there on the screens. A curiosity, an observation, an objective assessment. Oh, that. Watching some kind of sci fi episode, without the popcorn. A metaphysical shrug of the shoulders.

Would that such detachment were granted to me for any day's probings, any day's pricks and prods, any day's pleasures or pains.

dis-ease

Consider: disease

dis-, as in lack of, not, opposite of, apart, away, asunder, in a different direction, as in two, twice, two different ways, twain, between.

ease, as in mitigate, alleviate, relieve from pain or care, render less difficult, relax one's efforts (including 1863 to 1907, a more specific sense in sailing), to content a woman sexually (slang, 1861), physical comfort, undisturbed state of the body, tranquility, peace of mind, pleasure, well-being, opportunity. Compare adagio. Cf. at ease as a military order denoting freedom from stiffness or formality.

These from the Online Etymology Dictionary. 

Put the two together.

Dis-ease.

Read the above all over again. 

No, I'm not going to walk you through it. I'm not going to sermonize on what breaking down the two word parts means separately or together, or what marrying them conjures up and gives birth to. You can do that yourself.

It's revealing, isn't it?

But, still, add to the mix not at home in the world, nor in your skin, your psyche, nor in your bones.

The etymological and existential tension (infinitely tender and fragile; unspeakably personal) between cling and let go, grasp and avert, indulge and refrain, partake and repel, pause and pirouette, explore and perish.

Why is that?

So much depends. (William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheelbarrow")

So if you have only a thin wire,
God does not mind.
He will enter your hands
as easily as ten cents used to
bring forth a Coke. (Anne Sexton, "Small Wire") 

the static

like, you know; turn the dials on the Hallicrafters short-wave radio like safecrackers; dive bombers; know what I'm sayin; shrill metallic blast; gurgling high-pitched twirling; ya know; crackling hum; intergalactic buzzsaw; in my opinion; galvanic thrumming; Radio Moscow; I know, right; shockwave echoing; lol; electronic pulsating stammering; shrill feedback; ear-splitting waterfallish avalanche; Vatican Radio; yeah, no; tin stuttering; galloping burping; infinite clanging; Radio Nederland Hilversum; LOL; yeah, no, I know, right; BBC World Service; wave-rippling cool giggling trickle; broken-muffler mauling; know what I mean; sandy sandpaperish sifting; harsh endless high-volume whispering; like; right  

the silence

If silence is golden. Speaks volumes. The chime before meditation. And after. And in-between. The silence of the lambs. Bleating. The silence of no lambs bleating. The silence of no iambs, pentameter or otherwise. The echoic silence after the 3-foot-diameter steel gong is gonged. The eloquence of the words not said, the argument not posited, the point not made, the victory not sought. The power of the pause, the well, the hollow, the vapor, the sky. The weight of it. The invincible juggernaut weight of big fat, divine Unspokenness rolling down the avenue for the Krishna festival, devotees throwing themselves before the wheels to be crushed in sacrifice. That kind of obeisance to silence. The silence more than absence of words or sounds. The white space of silence. The anvil of it. The cartoon bank safe falling onto the sidewalk from the skyscraper of it. The where did it come from and where does it go silence. The ringing in your ear silence that screams. And the silence after that.  

the fountain

I sat there on a wooden bench with iron railings at dusk. Golden September evening. Smoking a cigar and nursing a coffee from the shop across the street, I found myself staring at the fountain in the square. The endless trickling. The silent journey, unseen, of the water upwards, to the pinnacle spout, after which it trickles down in stages, filling black wrought-iron bowl- or plate-like platforms that fill and spill until the tricklings reach the pool at the bottom. And then repeat it, seemingly forever. It hypnotized me, mesmerized might be a synonym. But neither says it. Some kind of serene spellbound. The fountain so eternal in quotes but eternal enough for me right then. Is this why Rome is The Eternal City, because of so many eternal fountains? It reminds me of an old joke, the one about a search for the meaning of life with the guru delivering the punchline, "You mean it's not a fountain?" The joke was on us. Life as a punchline that nobody gets. The fountain tableau transported me to wonder: for how long have humans built fountains and how did they work before electricity was supplied? (Something I refuse to research. Why spoil the fun?) You'd think water fountains prove there is such a thing as a perpetual motion machine. Except. Except for water running out. And time running out in trickles like the fountain drippings. Naturally, even the fountains found in the wild, the ones we call waterfalls, are subject to the same rules of supply and impermanence. But enough of all that. The perfect light. (It was magical enough for four sets of professional photographers to stage and pose families, couples, and individuals for photos to be treasured on a wall until someone moves, storing the photos into an eternal anonymity in a box in a storage bin.) I snapped (screen-tapped) three photos on my phone, which is cheating for a wordsmith, isn't it. A magical hour magical enough for the golden retriever to want with all its canine desire to leap into that reflecting pool, only to be restrained by a tug on the leash. So, if I were in Italy and this were in a piazza it would be more worthy of memory and reflection? Who says. I rubbed the ash off the tip of the cigar against the bench, letting the ash fall to the brick pavers, careful to note no fire was possible. Earlier, I had placed the wooden match I had used to light the cigar and put it in the sink of the patina-painted inoperable water fountain nearby. Now that the lighted match was sufficiently cooled, I tossed it into the bed of ivy, where it landed in the dirt.