loose ends

geez i am feeling so confused today about what the fuck i am doing here

!

i am craving depth and desire

and history

and memory

and houses of poetry

made of air and skin

more solid than my current lists of numbers and words

piles of paper and cardboard,

glass and plastic,

everyone doing their little part of this city game

i am frustrated

i have this new stupid job

knocking on peoples' doors

making them care about wilderness and pay at the same time

i don't know how long i will do it for

it makes me want to leave my life

doors swinging on their hinges

that fraction of myself crumpled up under my stupid binder as the rest flies away in a blaze

on the other hand

it is a good challenge--

an opening--

an opportunity for tiny performances if i can summon the chutzpah--

stones rising up into my throat

what is possible seems to change so much from moment to moment

face to face

what is prioritized, what is the reason,

each one with its own world of rules and experience

it is so easy to think myself into their skins and feel bounded for a moment

of course they too are probably barely contained by their skin

and then materially all we city-dwellers are living in little boxes

moving among little boxes

that is undoubtedly part of the confusion

we are not talking about answers

most things seem wrong

but i don't believe in dichotomies

i am speaking in mythic proportions

of a need for mythic proportions

or else nothing makes sense,

nothing to weave together these cups of coffee and text messages

moments of silence and noise, money changing hands,

walking around saying words

(like 1:30 4:30 $ @ && ? , " " @ * :: 3 50 1000 = /)

as a tactic for fighting the fight,

why we try why i try

why do we do what we do

what do you believe in

and how do you remind yourself that you are a powerful and magical creature

ugh ugh ugh monsters monsters monsters

a history of ivory violence (nearly forgotten)

we are not without historical precedent...

just found this article about the 1968-69 student occupations (and tent-in! and hunger strike) at uchicago. it was the most brutally repressed student occupation of the 60s--62 students were suspended and 37 expelled. paul sally, the pirate-esque current head of the math department, tried to defend students against one of the many disciplinary committees which sprung up.

it's an interesting story -- read here. (http://thecore.uchicago.edu/winter2010/which-side.shtml)

sounds like the maroon was a lot better back then.

also, some of the protesters' claims still ring eerily true--
"'How can an unbiased judgment be expected from a committee formed from a University which claims to be a bastion of pure, value-free, uncorrupted, ivory tower thought, yet which allies itself with the war machine and acts as an agent of social repression to the black ghetto?' Steve Rothkrug, X’70, wrote in the Maroon."
racism, sexism...

i love the parts of the article about the "chickenshit theatre brigade" and the WITCHes (Women’s International Terror Conspiracy from Hell).

apparently after the repression of the '69 occupation, the university got a lot of bad press and enrollment dropped; it took until the 80s or so for the university's "reputation" to "recover."

cool shit!
enjoy.
(this story should totally be told on admissions tours. and taught in classes.)