the problem, of course, is time-
(always time, menacing thief, exasperated lover, begrudging teacher of all things wonderful and fragile and finite and splendid and alive and ultimately dead)
-a world away from another world, more corrupt, more simple, less stratification, less nuance –
(this is not true at all, if anything there is a greater range of nuance to the greek language and people, a constant analysis and counter analysis, examination and burial and excavation)
-and there is no catching up, no synchronicity: it’s impossible, they are literally living in the future, 7 hours at a time.
(perhaps this is why facebook works for them the way it does: a record of their likes and dislikes, not a catalog of where they are every instant [this ugly new trend of people “checking in”], mini websites and blogs, expressing themselves through found internet art, music videos, pictures, in photographs: they are broadcasting onto a monument against time, for those of us living out of it, for those of us tracing out the future through their past)

away we go paros bound; shoot through economy class, coach straight into business, stride on in and fuck it: even the luggage takes a table.
and of course it’s all fun and games against the tide and the nausea kicks us all in the gut and we toss the sesame bread rings we ate just minutes before.
arrival and everything is as you left it and not at all as you remember it: wasn’t the tavern on the beach? weren’t the buildings whiter? barkers less persistent? “Hotel cousin? Where are you staying? Come with me!”
in greek, in english, the language of commerce and despair share the same grammar.

it’s a set of emotions that tumble: you’ve been before but it’s all strange all over again. between the years, joining the eurozone, imminent bankruptcy and the life inbetween: booming infrastructure and frozen wages. spectacular vistas interrupted by unfinished bridges and tunnels. Athens is rife with graffiti, mistrust and resignation: things have always been this way to some extent where the rich abscond and plunder through the resources of a country densely packed with the poor. pockets of ethnic ghettos form within and on the outskirts of the inner city and resentment seethes as the native population refuses to acknowledge their own complicity in the economic situation of the country: everyone’s out of work but they’re also enjoying a frappe in the platia while they bitch about the latest influx of pakistani’s.

with the move from classical to modernist and post modern art, what matters is no longer the final object, the result, but rather the process. for example the work of jackson pollack: splattered paint on a canvas is not riveting, it’s not monumental, it’s not even the point. the man was an abusive, raging alcoholic. with his work you are not looking at a thing of beauty, but rather the remainder of an event, the aftermath of something cathartic and pivotal.
that painting is just the ash of something that once burned brightly.

but i digress, i die.

it goes on and on, the language experience, because how with think in the world is not how we write in the world and the words we use are an approximation about what’s going on in there, other things are going on and i think that’s going on here, it’s the other things i’m trying to get at with just words. and always the wrong word.

you’d think it would be easy to end one life and start another. spirals at best. the circumlocutions, the twisting helix, a series of splits and joints and bridges. gone today, here tomorrow. the weave is tighter as the years go. love, family, a handful of friends. even if a handful at that. not a noose, but rather the strength of laced twine.

the brief time that i taught. the first class was something else. the second i barely remember, literally a blur. the third (or was that the fourth) was a disaster but more memorable than the previous. it was a large class and in many ways it failed. but i think i did something different there and maybe i took on too much. to connect the personal with the global, to connect the power of writing as somehow being intrinsic to the immediate as opposed to the historical. this is not to say that writing does not outlive us, nor that it shouldn’t, but rather that writing at the moment should not be for the purposes of fame. that fame was something else entirely, that there were structures at play that affected what ended up in the bookstores and what ended up in the trash.
always the personal over everything else, even when it is the product of the political.

We’ve gotten to the point where people in late model cars and SUV’s are pullng up to other people’s houses and rummaging through their recycling bins.

So the prez is fielding questions from this audience in fort meyers florida and he’s going “boy girl boy girl” (his words) and after answering issues like energy and finance he picks out this woman who says “we need help right now, the waiting list is too long, we need a place to stay, please help us…” And obama, obama steps down and goes right to her, asks her name, hugs her, calls one of his staff over, and tells her, “me and my staff will see what we can do.”
Holy shit, is he the real deal?