In Search of Adele H

The magic of science.

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:14:47 -0500

The magic of science.

I had a beautifully brilliant, awful idea.

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:47:58 -0500

I had a beautifully brilliant, awful idea.

Memento Mori

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:07:55 -0500

I know you’re wondering. I did know. I suppose it would have been better for me to completely disengage, to obey the one-way street signs and rush toward the future. But the future wasn’t there yet; we did not have here, your shuddering singularity, the endless now.

Most of the time I preferred the virtual to the real, by which I mean of course language to images. Images have such power, yet are dangerously flat. You pass by a mirror and are caught by your reflection, the sum of your decisions cascading in reverse. I did look, occasionally. I had to. But as much as possible I looked at letters instead, their referents and gestures softer, more forgiving. I would lose myself circling through possible worlds, refining and restoring all future, perfect selves, matching each to each.

But it didn’t match. Each morning would bring with it the harsh outlines and endless shadows of northern light, all my possible worlds collapsed by the event horizon of the real, with me racked along its edge, stretched inexorably past time itself.

More art direction from Dad: Hautville House, our home on...

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:13:00 -0500

More art direction from Dad: Hautville House, our home on Guernsey. What I was escaping from! It’s beautiful, but there is not one single inch of it that he left alone.

-source: photos from David Israel for the Boston Globe

Fasten your seatbelts …

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:45:48 -0500

Fasten your seatbelts …

I had plenty of money, and he wanted women, so …

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:49:27 -0500

I had plenty of money, and he wanted women, so …

"As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled."

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:13:59 -0400

“As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled.”

- - Victor Hugo

Reenactment: A Day in the Life

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:49:36 -0400

Reenactment: A Day in the Life

Of course I changed my name. I could feel their eyes, always!...

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:08:54 -0400

Of course I changed my name. I could feel their eyes, always! Worrying, warning, pushing, insisting. Right along the back of my neck, above the buttons. I had to take steps. They cannot see what I have written, I have concealed it in code. And now I assume the same protection for myself; I have gone underground in plain sight.

It is so much better, immediately. Avoiding their eyes has extended my own. Like that strange fish known as the anableps, my top eyes are calm, placid, as am I, seemingly; my disguise is complete. But my bottom eyes - those belong to a different animal: dark, urgent. Full of risk and error. Hidden in the undercurrents, I see, but am not seen.

“What if the Americans invaded?” An entire display...

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:43:19 -0400

“What if the Americans invaded?” An entire display room in the Citadel fort in the center of Halifax, Nova Scotia (now a Canadian national park) is devoted to this question, including dioramas, mannequins, schematics, pencil drawings, and a play-by-play of what-ifs: “well, they would never get past our defenses on the harbor! But if they did, they would never get up our giant hill where we can see them coming! But if they did, they would never get past our moat! But if they did, they would never get past our sharpshooters stationed at acute angles along the inner wall! But if they did … ” etc.

The ship finally docks, after lurching and worrying its way west...

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:11:18 -0400

The ship finally docks, after lurching and worrying its way west for a month. The tiny cabin, the plunging horizon, the inquisitive overtures, the cold and the rain. Nature is terrible—terrible. I won’t meet their eyes. But, in a moment, this moment, it falls away. I have forgotten. Everything is forgotten, everything is new. I’ve lived this so many times in my mind that I am hardly present to my present. Everything shimmers; I watch myself walk down the gangplank and onto the dock, hovering a few steps above the planks and stones. No one knows; not yet. Not anyone. Not him. I have a secret name. I have a secret language. I have a secret mission. There are practicalities of course, I must see to my bags. I must find rooms. I must remember who I am, and who I am pretending to be. And then, in this place—finally!

My life will begin.

Act II, Eyes II: Halifax

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:51:10 -0400

Act II, Eyes II: Halifax

So I said I am Ezra

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:27:00 -0400

So I said I am Ezra
and the wind whipped my throat
gaming for the sounds of my voice
I listened to the wind
go over my head and up into the night
Turning to the sea I said
I am Ezra
but there were no echoes from the waves
The words were swallowed up
in the voice of the surf
or leaping over the swells
lost themselves oceanward
Over the bleached and broken fields
I moved my feet and turning from the wind
that ripped sheets of sand
from the beach and threw them
like seamists across the dunes
swayed as if the wind were taking me away
and said
I am Ezra
As a word too much repeated
falls out of being
so I Ezra went out into the night
like a drift of sand
and splashed among the windy oats
that clutch the dunes
of unremembered seas

- A. A. Ammons

I knew *exactly where I was going.

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:46:11 -0400

I knew *exactly where I was going.

[Adele … escaped.]

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:00:19 -0400

[Adele … escaped.]

"If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, Injurious distance should not stop my way; For..."

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:53:10 -0400

“If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way;
For then despite of space I would be brought,
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.
No matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth remov’d from thee;
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,
As soon as think the place where he would be.
But, ah! thought kills me that I am not thought,
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend time’s leisure with my moan;
Receiving nought by elements so slow
But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe.”

- -Wm Shakespeare, Sonnet #44

"The soul has illusions as the bird has wings …"

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:25:03 -0400

“The soul has illusions as the bird has wings …”

- Victor Hugo

Pandora’s Recess.

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:26:59 -0400

Pandora’s Recess.

Fantasy isn’t all hope and fairy wings. It can easily...

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:30:35 -0400

Fantasy isn’t all hope and fairy wings. It can easily become a vicious, cannibalistic demon, growing ever stronger upon less. It doesn’t need much reality to feed on. In fact, less is better, because then facts don’t interfere with the story you’re writing in your head. He doesn’t call? He doesn’t write? It doesn’t matter! After all, you’re very busy imagining what he’ll say when — if — he does, rehearsing it over and over again until the conversation goes just the way you want. In fact, you can spend so much time this way that months, even years might pass and you’ll hardly notice. Well, you’ll notice, but it won’t make you stop. Disappointment won’t necessarily bring you back to your senses; you’ll just imagine harder, and better, and more elaborately, until you come up with a better plotline and the best conclusion.

Despite the legends, Hope is not alone in Pandora’s insidious Box. Imagination created that Box in the first place — and that’s the really dangerous thing with wings.

He said. He promised. He DID. And then - he didn’t. I...

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:16:21 -0400

He said. He promised. He DID. And then - he didn’t.

I know, I know, I KNOW. I shouldn’t trust words. Only actions! Only what he DOES; it. does. not. matter. what. he. SAYS. Or, it shouldn’t matter … But I mean, a word is an action! It IS, writing is an action, speech is an action. Your Derrida (who’s now mine, since crossing over) said speech cannot be erased. Yes, I understand our Monsieur D. perfectly now; in this realm, his transparencies come to the fore and his opacities recede. Speech cannot be taken back, it is an entity in the world, altering that world the minute it enters. And writing, writing is - actually - actionable.

How can I NOT believe in words? I think in words. We live in words. I write - I don’t have enough words for what I write, I need to resort to code. And code is a technology, it makes things happen. Dad wrote and things happened - in our lives, in the world. The spirits communicated by spelling. Spelling!! Letters, the skeletons of words, needing only inspiration to animate and enliven with layers of epiphenomena. Of course words matter. Of course they are magic. How else can you say what you mean?

Who am I? I am this story. Who is he? He is who I make him. Who are you? You imagine us into being. So tell us, please; or just tell me. 1=A, 2=B … please: what happens next?