[love is]
when your sweetheart sends cards like these to cheer you up.
[breathing is hugely underrated]
is the only conclusion I can draw after several weeks in which I have pushed wheezing my lungs out to new and unprecedented levels of misery. that’s right, misery.
the pigeons who normally crowd the area around our house have mysteriously disappeared and been replaced by two crows. I take this to be an omen, some sign of impending doom. maybe they’re even ravens. I’m not sure. Edgar Allen Poe would know. and he’s dead too.
while pointing this out to D., I can hear the birds cackling, as if they’re already gloating over their upcoming meal, which in this case is me. every cough, each gasp is a step nearer to death. his reaction is to ignore me, while putting on his headphones. just wait and see, mr DJ. you’ll be sorry the day you find crows and ravens feasting on my corpse.
for now, all I can do is to continue wheezing my way through the house, with momentary lapses of sweet nothingness and undisturbed breathing, before receding back into a coughing fit. to kill the time, I write letters of complaint to shops and museums and grumble about the awful treatment I’ve received, in the hope it’ll earn me an apology, free entrance tickets and/ or money. I have already obtained two tickets to the Literary Museum, plus the travelling costs. maybe I could do this for a living.
I’ve also watched all the extended episodes of QI, and I annoy my neighbours by sitting on the balcony and spy on them while remarking on the stuff they do. like Facebook, only in real life.
as I am writing this, a funeral carriage led by four black horses passed by, followed by two white stretch limousines.
and I thought a flock of birds were worrying.
[momenten]
goede momenten van afgelopen week:
het nieuws dat M. is bevallen van een zoon, waardoor zij nu moeder is. gaaf en bizar. // de keuze om met mijn verkouden hoofd Brideshead Revisited en Casablanca te gaan kijken. hoera voor een jonge Jeremy Irons die last heeft van sehnsucht, weltschmerz en vlinders in zijn buik voor twee leden van dezelfde familie, en dit alles in een tijdsbestek van zes uur. driewerf hoera voor Humphrey Bogart, toen echte mannen nog whisky dronken, rookten als schoorstenen, oprecht ongeïnteresseerd waren en gleufhoeden droegen. // de zon die schijnt. // de klaprozen die voorzichtig tevoorschijn komen op het balkon. // hard zweten en ijsblokjes kauwen in de Finse sauna met A. // voor 1 euro een mooie editie van Nick Cave’s Abattoir Blues/ The Lyre of Orpheus vinden op een kleedje in de Bankastraat tijdens een rommelmarkt.
//
minder goede momenten:
Bram Stoker’s Dracula herkijken. ik meende mij te herinneren dat het ondanks alle kitsch nog een goede film was. ik was abuis, Gary Oldman’s aanwezigheid ten spijt. deze film had niet misstaan tijdens De Nacht van de Wansmaak. // de regen en de kou. // het gevoel hebben heel hard weg te willen lopen van alles. mijn bankrekening leegtrekken, een ticket kopen naar Kathmandu en daar op een willekeurige bergtop proberen een verlichte staat van zijn te bereiken. alleen. // ondertussen weten dat dit niks oplost en daarom graaf ik me maar dieper in. hopende dat het niet een soort loopgravenoorlog wordt die aan beide kanten meer slachtoffers maakt dan overwinningen boekt. // de geschiedenis herhaalt zich nooit, zong Spinvis. ik hoop dat hij gelijk heeft.
[lisa hannigan// don't swallow bleach]
more, if not all, music videos and lyrics should be this charming.
[bluebird]
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he’s singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?
Charles Bukowski
[tangled up]
she started dyeing her hair long ago. men seemed to like the combination of her dark skin and blonde hair, even though it didn’t make any sense. lately, the number of customers were dwindling. so she turned to more drastic measures to attract attention, attention being the source of her livelihood. she tried to ignore all the rumours and gossip going around her. of course she knew what the other girls were saying behind her back, to each other, and to their customers. she didn’t care, or at least she tried not to show. it was too late anyway, to start caring. she had been in this line of work for at least forty years and she had seen many girls come and go. after a while, she had stopped to befriend other women. at first, there were plenty of others like herself. from various countries in South America, all of them had children back home, mouths to feed, and families to support. it was the reason why they came here in the first place. several times a year, they’d close up shop, and travel back to Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica. it was lovely being back home again, surrounded by familiar sounds, living your life outside and basking in the warmth of the sun instead of sitting indoors because of the cold and speaking a language that felt harsh and uncomfortable. it was hard returning back for work, but having some people around who knew and understood where you came from, helped to ease the pain.
all her friends were gone. back home, if they had earned enough money. some just disappeared, some died. nowadays, none of them could speak Spanish. the new ones hardly even knew any English. they seemed to become younger as well. had she been that young when she first came here? she tried to remember, but she couldn’t.
a knock awoke her from her day dreaming. she threw back her hair and opened the door. two young women were standing outside, asking if she wanted a flower and maybe something to read? she sighed, nodded, and picked a rose from the bunch that the youngest of the two held in front of her. she pretended not to speak any English and accepted the book with a mumbled ‘gracias’. while they turned around and walked away, she threw the paperback in the bin standing near her bed and placed the flower in her window still. she adjusted her corset, flicked her hair, and smiled at the cars passing by.
———————————————-
I guess she must have been around 50. maybe even 60. it was hard to tell. when I first saw her face from close by, I was startled. besides being caked in make-up, her lips and cheekbones had been surgically manipulated in a way that her face looked like it had had an allergic reaction. her breasts was under such severe strain, that they showed heavy stretch marks. several pieces of yellowy-blonde hair extensions were clinging onto the hair she still had left. I could tell she hadn’t dyed it for months.
she looked as disinterested as anyone could be. I don’t think she even really saw us. while we were trying to strike up some form of conversation, she kept glancing behind us and smiling to the men in passing cars, hoping to attract some customers. I peeked inside her room and saw a large collection of whips, chains, masks and other attributes that are normally used on horses. the common denominator was leather. leather was her weapon of choice.
we gave her a rose, a small book in her native language, bade her a good day and turned around. after A. remarked that this woman was a classic example of what happened if women never got out of prostitution, we stopped to see how many flowers we had left. a car drove by, pulled over and a window opened. the driver looked us up and down and asked how much it would cost to have the two of us. I glanced at my clothes and all I could see were worn out trainers, shabby jeans and a jacket I have had since I was nineteen.
the lesson I learnt that day was that looks are in fact superficial. it doesn’t matter how you look like, how you dress, or what your age is. if you’re a woman who finds herself walking around a red-light district, you qualify for being a prostitute.
so much for the science of deduction.
[portraits of addiction]
this is one of the best portrait series I’ve come across recently. a banker who scours the streets of the Bronx to photograph prostitutes and the homeless. he also includes small biographies of the people he portrays. they are beautiful, sad and disturbing. the people, the stories, and the pictures.
all the portraits are on view on Flickr.
[what the world needs now]
a fourteen-year-old during a test, when asked to give a proper sentence using the word ‘somebody’:
“I need somebody to love.”
don’t we all kiddo, don’t we all.
