Someday you will die, and somehow something's gonna steal your carbon. Unless, ironically, you are carbonized beyond recognition. Absolute carbon. A black stain on the Earth. Indigestible atomic mold, unrecoverable by the cycles of death and rebirth.
The other day, watching the England vs. Mexico match of the World Cup, my buddy gave me a beer. He is an aficionado of beers, a frequenter of varied breweries - sometimes he finds weird ones. This beer he handed me had unfiltered dregs, clumps of rat shit bobbing at the bottom of the glass. It was an atavism, a blasphemy against the world-spirit. For spirit is spirits, spirits are spirit (except for the American spirit, which is tobacco) - Hegel knew this. But the well and truly carbonized have nothing in them, nothing about them to sublimate. They are severed from both natural and human history.
Montreal
It's been said that there's no need to beat the meat that beats itself, but I've found that the heart, like bread, must be kneaded to rise. You wear the grooves out, doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. It's the moving parts that break most often.
Look look look around, at all the new buildings and flowers and animals. Daylilies are my favourite flower - and the reason may surprise you. Or maybe it would only disappoint you. I can't stand weakness, and Orson Welles once rebuked me for this in a dream. But I was thinking of a way to feed oneself on batter, and so go on from day to day getting a little fatter. It remains one of my vices.
Fewer dogs and more children in Montreal. Every child is a new heaven and a new earth. All of our trees will be carbonized. The smoke smells good, but it sits in your lungs for a while. Anywhere on Earth can be paradise if you've got the spirit for it.
Lakes & Rivers
Someday science will validate this belief of mine: that proximity to large water bodies is invigorating, by some bio-electrical method. You can feel it in your own water (which would be completely evaporated in the event of your carbonization). Lakes are moderately effective in this, rivers even better - likely due to their motion, and the ocean is best of all.
Montreal and Chicago are both expensive cities, and this is even the
case relative to Toronto (which suckles greedily at the teat of Mammon).
Maybe my tastes have gotten too fancy with age. How I yearn for the
hostels, for the ability to enjoy traveling without feeling as though my
salami is getting sliced down very thin indeed. Total immersion in a current of saltwater is the key. Riptide take me out to sea.
I had a recurring dream when I was younger, of every other person disappearing from the Earth (save, in some, of some others in all-covering robes and featureless clay masks). People are the opposite of bodies of water. I don't squash bugs anymore. Haven't for a while. I admire their purity. People are noisy. Even their thoughts are noisy. Crowded streets and crowded buildings full of their hummadruz.
Chicago
I flew in to Chicago expecting it to be fairly similar to Toronto - which it was. Which made it more galling that Chicago was more beautiful than Toronto. The majority of the construction in Toronto is from the last few decades, and is made according to the images of the small and tasteless souls of these latter days. Chicago's architecture is of an older pedigree - the art deco, the gothic, the monumental, great causeways of vertiginous perspective.
Americans are a friendly and chatty people. Perhaps this is just me being paranoid, but they also seem to be suspicious sorts - good for small talk, but talk to them for more than a few minutes and you get the sense that they're trying to sort you into some box or another. I have heard this said about the British, with their classes and shibboleths and such, but never noticed it with them the way I do with Americans.
Chicagoans seem fond of pickled peppers - a fondness I share. Pigs' ears should, however, never be deep-fried, for this robs them of their particular character to turn them into an inferior version of crackling or chicharrons. And it's a sin to water down drinks, and to not serve wine for toasts. A sin against the holy spirits - almost unforgivable. I'd like to dance until my feet blister and my legs burn and I can't stand and my ears go deaf from the music.
How much more do I yearn to slip this world in a fiery flame into another, and leave nothing behind for any other. Nine rings in nine minutes concentric. Hell is empty, and the devils are all here. Hell is emptiness, and the devil gnaws away all roots and fruits. 🌟The world is hell🌟. 🌟The world is hell🌟.
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