| "This is Kyle Again..." |
[Sep. 26th, 2005|10:57 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | The Redneck Manifesto: Thirty Six Strings | ] |
Journals, like all things, are a temporary condition.
I've got a new one: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kphaneuf
but i'd love it if you came with me. |
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| It Happened Because it Had To: |
[Sep. 25th, 2005|02:27 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Shellac: Terraform | ] |
There's some eastern religion, i can't remember which one, that prophesied the messiah being born with a specific number of abnormalities. I don't remember everything exactly, but i'm absolutely sure one of them was being born with a tail. The others were just as uncommon; limb defects and the like... i'm pretty sure he couldn't have any toes or something like that.
Anyway, a few years ago a son was born to a poor family in India that had every single one of those defects. The tail, the limb abnormalities, the whole thing. Every single characteristic outlined by some ancient scripture was met, and the story made a small splash in American mass media that was seemingly forgotten by everyone else in the world but me; when i attempted to research it to get the details right, i couldn't find a single thing.
But it's things like this, i feel, that justify calling myself agnostic instead of an outright atheist. What are the chances that one single person could be born with every one of those extremely rare abnormalities, and right in the area of the world where it would mean something to a lot of people? I'm not saying i believe in that religion or that prophecy, nor am i saying that kid is any kind of messiah. I'm simply saying: sometimes i think there is a god, he does listen to us, and he has a fucked up sense of humour. |
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| 26 & Shelby |
[Sep. 18th, 2005|12:40 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Mogwai: Rock Action | ] |
I wish i didn't have to be leaving.
Don't ever let me forget this. |
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| To Hate Clint Eastwood: |
[Sep. 7th, 2005|09:27 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | U2: The B-Sides | ] |
A pleasant encounter with a stranger today. Some middle aged blonde woman in front of me in the Pontiac National City line. It was nothing. Brief and insignificant, but it made us both laugh and i found it interesting how a connection, no matter how unimportant, can develop so quickly between two people regardless of whatever age or even social boundaries may exist. I have always been intrigued by the many relationships we systematically create and blow off during the course of an average day. The pedestrians we pass, the drivers we cut off, the waitresses we smile at. They are temporary and, by and large, completely irrelevant. But they are still relationships, and i think they are still important. We may not always like it, but we're undeniably social animals. We need these little interactions to get through our lives because, as i've said, it can be so hard to be human...
When i walked back to my car she waved to me like she knew me. Really knew me, i mean, not knew me for the past two and a half minutes. It put me in such a good mood i had to change the cd to something a bit more effervescent. They are expendable aspects of our being on a case by case basis. But i fancy them almost... indispensable... in the long run. |
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| Not a Day Goes By: |
[Aug. 26th, 2005|10:41 pm] |
The Tree was a Metaphor
I first read of such a tree in a book of short stories by a man of the name Luis. The story I refer to is about a man who discovers the tree by chance, and upon tasting its fruit, found himself incapable of craving, nay, thinking of anything else. He left the tree with a few fruits for the return trip, at first satisfied with what he had had, but upon returning home, left with none remaining, he discovered he could eat nothing else once having tasted the flavor that grows from the tree. For several months he tried to resist returning to the tree, but as time passed, instead of fading, the memory of the taste grew all the more vibrant in his mind, engulfing his every thought until he could think, he could dream of nothing else. He began starving himself, despite his wish to avoid the tree. He would try to force food down his throat only to have it return within seconds. It was after a few days of refusing to eat that he realized he must return to the tree, lest he would never eat again. Rather, he rationalized, eat exclusively one thing than nothing at all. If he must rely on one tree for his entire life, so be it, as long as he had life to lose.
The man in this story never made it back to the tree. His new found weakness didn’t allow him to make the journey and he died, starved and mad, in the desert that surrounded the plant.
The story intrigued me, even then. One can’t help but wondering what something would taste like that wouldn’t allow one to eat anything else. Although, at the same time, I related to the traveler and his desperate search for what he couldn’t have. I felt, at the time I read it, the tree was a metaphor.
At the end of Luis’ book there was an index of all the stories contained within it and the sources for each. The source of inspiration for the story of the traveler, which Luis had titled simply “A Tree”, was, to my surprise, a book of nonfiction and, stranger still, of ancient Chinese dictators. I wondered how some unattainable, unbelievable fruit could derive from a book of oppressive leaders so I walked that afternoon to the library where I began reading it.
Several chapters in, the nature and mannerisms of a leader of the Zixang Dynasty were described, in some detail. His very life was unfolded to me within that book, just as many other men of many other dynasties before him. Yet this one interested me more so than any of the others, for among the descriptions of the man’s way of life was inscribed his bizarre eating habits. Not only had he eaten the same meal every day of his life, but his meal came from the exact same place. Slaves were sent out daily in the harsh, vapid wastelands that surrounded their dynasty’s rule to pluck the ripest fruit from a single tree. Every day someone would do this for the emperor, and every night he would indulge in the rare delicacy. On days when there was no ripened fruit from the tree, some poor servant would be ordered to his death.
The realization that the tree was, perhaps, not a metaphor at all but rather a non fiction narrative made me all the more interested. I read and reread the story several times until I thought of the tree nearly as much as the story’s protagonist. I had an overwhelming desire to see the tree for myself and to taste its fruit, though I knew if such a tree really had existed, there was essentially no chance that it remains today. Yet my lust for the forgotten fruit got the better of my reason and I planned for a week in China, near the forgotten ruins of the Zixang Dynasty.
It didn’t take me long upon arrival to find that famous barren area west of Zixang territory. I packed all the supplies I’d have had need for, even in this hostile environment, and began my search. The reality of this wasteland was very different than it’s portrayal in the story. Instead of miles of wind swept sand there was only flat rock. Instead of the deafening sound of sand storms, there was only the deafening sound of silence. The sky seemed frozen in a constant grey and the monogamous rock below me went for miles without a hint of change. You could walk for hours without noticing you’ve moved at all, and on a few occasions I had. I never felt any closer to my goal. I just felt as though I was stuck in a disorienting vacuum that wouldn’t allow anyone to pass.
On the second day of traveling I stopped abruptly when I saw a small yellow plant stretching from a crack in the ground into the air above. I examined the pale roots closely and, upon rising to my feet again, realized it was not alone. In the distance I saw more of the strange stems and followed them, allowing them to lead me into the horizon. Within the next few hours the plants gradually grew larger, more vibrant and more numerous. Soon they surrounded me, but their number was always increasing, and they led me on until the grey sky no longer let in enough light to see what was happening beneath my feet.
On the third day of traveling I found myself walking on grass. It was a miserable, sickly colored grass, but it was still grass, and even its thin coating of the ground below was of great comfort after countless hours of walking on the hard, unforgiving stone. As I had expected, this large ecliptic enclosure of grass proved its significance and for the first time in some days I saw something on the horizon. It was small and dark, but it was something, and I was amazed to lay my eyes on anything of height at all.
Some hours later my hopes were confirmed. As the black speck resting on the horizon grew, it morphed before my eyes into what must undoubtedly be the tree I searched for. It was a massive tree and it seemed all the more so being surrounded by nothing but flat rock. Even the fruits themselves portrayed a size that appeared quite great (compared, at least, to the fruits that I am used to). And though the tree has been standing for centuries, surrounded by the most lifeless desert imaginable, it seemed to have no effect on them. The fruits were a bright, ripe green. I picked the most vivid within reach and, at the anticipation of biting into it, my heart beat faster and my hands were noticeably shaking. I slowly sunk my teeth into the green flesh and even now I find the taste to be beyond words. It had the sweetness of other fruits, but it was as if there was some unknown spice hidden within. This combination of flavors was unlike any other taste in the world and I realized how our taste buds are taken advantage of, used to almost no measure against their full potential, assuming their full potential is brought out with this fruit.
I ate three of the massive fruits and found I could eat no more, though I had tried. It was here I found myself trapped. I didn’t want to become the traveler in the story, though a work of fiction it was, and obsess over the fruit until I killed myself trying to get it. I thought of saving the cores to plant in my own garden but remembered the Zixang leader had tried unsuccessfully several times to grow his own trees in the most majestic of his orchards. Perhaps, as strange as it may seem, the tree seeks such a wasteland to flourish.
The end of this story is not as interesting as the beginning. I decided to leave the tree without taking any of my find with me. I thought if I didn’t have a reminder of the fruit I wouldn’t crave it, but I realized I had never known weakness before this journey. After a shouting match with myself in the desert, I returned to the tree, broken and miserable. This time I brought every fruit I could carry; enough, I thought, for the trip back into town and the plane ride back to America.
It worked, if barely, and I found myself back home without fruit nor money enough to fly back. My forced withdrawal had worked, for here I was, without any options, though still desiring the legendary flavor.
The only idea I had was to check myself into a rehabilitation clinic, under the alias of some arbitrary drug abuser. It helped, somewhat, for I haven’t dared return to Zixang territory (the area's unattainability forcing me to give up my truculent habit) but not a day goes by when I don’t think of the tree. |
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