![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Terminus: Big Sky Dreaming
Apr. 18th, 2012 12:37 am
Apr. 18th, 2012
A rough truth makes for a Good Start
Apr. 18th, 2012 02:50 amBaby's got real Dada issues.
Take last week for example. When the sound of two raccoons fucking in the attic above her bed all night denied her a rare shot at sleep, she decided to bide her time by driving around the neighborhood for awhile. When a wrong turn led her to an unmanned squad car in a random parking lot at a random apartment complex she was struck with a bolt of inspiration. In her backseat, along with the boxes of paint supplies, machinery cogs and the occasional painted skull of some deceased farm animal, laid a thick stack of skin mags. These she had on hand for the express purpose of 'Porn Bombing' a mutual acquaintance of ours. However, other projects demanded her attention and she never got around to following though with the task. In time the stack laid forgotten back there, much to the amusement of any passenger fortunate enough not to have called shotgun first. But now she knew those fucking raccoons (literally) were a bolt of divine inspiration (figuratively), for a much more delectable target had finally presented itself. When the cop got up the following morning - shit, showered and shaved before walking out to patrol the Fall of Rome - he was presumably surprised to see that his squad car had been completely wallpapered in a collage of raw pornography
A harem of splayed, shaved, and doe-eyed barely legal plastic surgery catastrophes greeted the officer of the law along with any of his neighbors as well for a very Good morning indeed.
Some nights, when the loneliness mixes rough with the gin, she goes through her collection of telephone books and selects random names to mail her ideas to. These phone books have been gathered through impulse nomadic treks across the country, whereupon she deployed a navigational method involving a unique alchemy of the I Ching and Mapquest. Of the 50 states her collection boasts 37 of them. What Albert Eddington of Iron County, WI made of a shoe box stuffed with sea-shells each painted with a word from a poem of Lorca we cannot say. Nor can we guess how Rebecca Greene of Cookeville, TN reacted to a pair of dolls constructed from the butchering of typewriters and vintage sewing machines. Or what fate ever befell the hockey masks covered in rubber insects that she mailed to Donald Arlington of Lake Havasu City, Az. Such things were out of her hands now, surrendered to a grander destiny than any gallery or collector could provide.
"Art has lost its ability to shock people out of their collective somnambulism." She drawled in her not quite from around here accent. "It can't just wait for people to casually stroll by it in some exhibit and expect to have an impact beyond its price tag. No. It needs to wait for you in ambush outside your home, hiding in your mailbox or lurking on the front steps of your door..."
"I dunno," I interrupted, " but hasn't that whole mail-art thing already been done in the 60's?"
"Okay, sure, but they got it from the Futurists..."
"... who also thought that 'war was the only hygiene' if I recall. Guess, the 'Great War' might've changed their minds some though."
She rolled her eyes and sipped the last drops of gin clinging to the ice: "Point being is that it doesn't matter who did what first... what's important is who's doing what now. A revolution need not be novel so long as its effective."
I had nothing and that's exactly what I said. We sat there across the table from each other at one of the last decent dive bars in Terminus. I had been covering her drinks, of which she was on her third, and letting her chain smoke through my pack. She looks exactly as you'd imagine her, so long as you imagined long purple dreadlocks that have been braided with decapitated baby doll heads and thick black glasses.
"So is that what you think it is?" I said finally craning my neck in hopes of catching a glimpse of the world's most elusive waitress.
"Effective?"
"A 'revolution'?" I answered. "Or either one really, I s'pose."
She gave it some thought, all while inscribing an invisible sign, name, face with her finger across the table's grimy surface between us. Finally she sighed and stole another smoke: "Well, whatever it is... it's a start. The real question you should be asking is when you'll do the same."
My head couldn't help but nod helplessly at the truth to her words. I gave her that smirk that passes for my smile, a quick toast with the last dregs of my glass and slammed it down. Instead of another round I ordered the check. Settled up. Passed on her offer for a ride and took a long walk back to my place. On the way it occurred to me then that not every muse delivers inspiration with a lick from their lap or a press of their dark against the skin. Some muses work by skipping the poetry of the heart (or other organs) and going for the gut instead.
It was a rough truth... but it was enough to get started with.
Take last week for example. When the sound of two raccoons fucking in the attic above her bed all night denied her a rare shot at sleep, she decided to bide her time by driving around the neighborhood for awhile. When a wrong turn led her to an unmanned squad car in a random parking lot at a random apartment complex she was struck with a bolt of inspiration. In her backseat, along with the boxes of paint supplies, machinery cogs and the occasional painted skull of some deceased farm animal, laid a thick stack of skin mags. These she had on hand for the express purpose of 'Porn Bombing' a mutual acquaintance of ours. However, other projects demanded her attention and she never got around to following though with the task. In time the stack laid forgotten back there, much to the amusement of any passenger fortunate enough not to have called shotgun first. But now she knew those fucking raccoons (literally) were a bolt of divine inspiration (figuratively), for a much more delectable target had finally presented itself. When the cop got up the following morning - shit, showered and shaved before walking out to patrol the Fall of Rome - he was presumably surprised to see that his squad car had been completely wallpapered in a collage of raw pornography
A harem of splayed, shaved, and doe-eyed barely legal plastic surgery catastrophes greeted the officer of the law along with any of his neighbors as well for a very Good morning indeed.
Some nights, when the loneliness mixes rough with the gin, she goes through her collection of telephone books and selects random names to mail her ideas to. These phone books have been gathered through impulse nomadic treks across the country, whereupon she deployed a navigational method involving a unique alchemy of the I Ching and Mapquest. Of the 50 states her collection boasts 37 of them. What Albert Eddington of Iron County, WI made of a shoe box stuffed with sea-shells each painted with a word from a poem of Lorca we cannot say. Nor can we guess how Rebecca Greene of Cookeville, TN reacted to a pair of dolls constructed from the butchering of typewriters and vintage sewing machines. Or what fate ever befell the hockey masks covered in rubber insects that she mailed to Donald Arlington of Lake Havasu City, Az. Such things were out of her hands now, surrendered to a grander destiny than any gallery or collector could provide.
"Art has lost its ability to shock people out of their collective somnambulism." She drawled in her not quite from around here accent. "It can't just wait for people to casually stroll by it in some exhibit and expect to have an impact beyond its price tag. No. It needs to wait for you in ambush outside your home, hiding in your mailbox or lurking on the front steps of your door..."
"I dunno," I interrupted, " but hasn't that whole mail-art thing already been done in the 60's?"
"Okay, sure, but they got it from the Futurists..."
"... who also thought that 'war was the only hygiene' if I recall. Guess, the 'Great War' might've changed their minds some though."
She rolled her eyes and sipped the last drops of gin clinging to the ice: "Point being is that it doesn't matter who did what first... what's important is who's doing what now. A revolution need not be novel so long as its effective."
I had nothing and that's exactly what I said. We sat there across the table from each other at one of the last decent dive bars in Terminus. I had been covering her drinks, of which she was on her third, and letting her chain smoke through my pack. She looks exactly as you'd imagine her, so long as you imagined long purple dreadlocks that have been braided with decapitated baby doll heads and thick black glasses.
"So is that what you think it is?" I said finally craning my neck in hopes of catching a glimpse of the world's most elusive waitress.
"Effective?"
"A 'revolution'?" I answered. "Or either one really, I s'pose."
She gave it some thought, all while inscribing an invisible sign, name, face with her finger across the table's grimy surface between us. Finally she sighed and stole another smoke: "Well, whatever it is... it's a start. The real question you should be asking is when you'll do the same."
My head couldn't help but nod helplessly at the truth to her words. I gave her that smirk that passes for my smile, a quick toast with the last dregs of my glass and slammed it down. Instead of another round I ordered the check. Settled up. Passed on her offer for a ride and took a long walk back to my place. On the way it occurred to me then that not every muse delivers inspiration with a lick from their lap or a press of their dark against the skin. Some muses work by skipping the poetry of the heart (or other organs) and going for the gut instead.
It was a rough truth... but it was enough to get started with.
