another year for conor and I (a response to 'happy birthday to me')*

all eyes on the calendar
another year i claim of total immobility
right here, the past recycles itself
with decisions i should have made
how many of them would have been wrong?

into this poem i put myself
and with these words i plan to archive and erase
this wasted year
these recurrent years
because devoted friends, they reappear and

i'm sorry about the letters
and writing you
i know they came late
but reading's just like breathing
when you've got to
and there are some things you can't fake

i guess that it's typical
to cling to memories that'll never come back the same
and to sort through them all
a song long ago
weren't those some friends that I used to know?
and there, behold
his frozen face
where you wrote a name
and an ancient date always comes too late and
you better believe
it's really gone
cause all you've got is a fucking song and

i'm sorry about the letters
and writing you
i know they came late
but thank you for reading
when i needed you to
you know some things have no date

yeah some things have no date

yeah

some things have no date
some things have no date

some things

never come

too late.



*this poem is a line by line rewriting of a bright eyes song (yuck, i know) called 'feb 15' or 'february 15.' it is also known as 'happy birthday to me.' the poem has enough intertextuality that i think it would really benefit anyone interested in the poem to read the song lyrics side by side with it.

A Note On Protests

One of the greatest threats to the potential of true radical leftist militant activity in the modern era - especially in the United States - is the notion of a "protest." If we can take assume that a society functions, to a certain extent, like a biological organism, we can understand why.

Let us imagine that there are certain drives or emotions - produced in chemical reactions in the body - that are produced in society as well. We see festivity in celebrations such as New Year's Eve, Carnival, retrospect in days such as Memorial Day, congregation during times of duress, etc. If we are to assume, as many contemporary writers have posited (including Fredric Jameson) that individuality is conformity par excellence, and every subculture is equally necessary in order for the status quo to be maintained, we can begin to grasp the necessity of the "militant" Left and the idea of protests.

Like any other emotion, every subculture has a certain amount of rage that needs to be dispelled. We can see that the societally mandated outlet for rage amongst the contemporary Left is found in the idea of coordinated, organized, peaceful protests. Young, "rebellious" teenagers go, meet up with older "liberals" who have ideas of radical regime change, and the result is some sort of pathetic affair where very little may actually get accomplished, but everyone feels good and cleansed afterwards. We can view this process as a sort of catharsis necessary in order for upper and middle class liberals to tell themselves, "I'm doing my societal duty, now back to work."

The Foucauldian interpretation of all this - which I am in accord with - is that the discursive powers that be need the left, need the militants, need these so called revolutionaries, anarchists, communists, etc., in order to remain in power and keep the status quo in place. Without these forces, the Government faces the possibility of a truly revolutionary, militant response in its constituency.

It goes back to the biological interpretation. Every society will always have a certain amount of steam it needs to let off in relation to its Government, much as every body always has a certain amount of adrenaline it needs to let off. It doesn't matter how the adrenaline is let off; all that matters is that it is let off. Once this happens? everything can go back to normal - until you need to let off some steam again.

The same is true of protests and a liberal desire amongst the contemporary left - the process of protesting, voicing your opinion, etc., is far more important than anything that might happen afterwards. The act of posing as a liberal has become the definitive mark of a liberal. What is necessary is a return to true militancy, and an abandonment of any liberal-intellectual armchair philosopher position. As a character says in Jean-Luc Godard's 1968 Sympathy For The Devil (One Plus One), "the only way to become an intellectual revolutionary is to stop being an intellectual."

If this cliched outlet of protests, merely voicing your opinion, etc., is abandoned, leftists will not find their interest in revolutionary politics lost. They will find it renewed, and with a new thrust. It is only when liberals abandon the societally sanctioned modes of subversion (protesting, writing letters, etc.) that a truly revolutionary break in the political landscape is possible. Anything that the powers that be allows is automatically something they sanction. If they sanction it, it is because they need it in order to support their own status quo - so that the revolutionaries who are "subverting" (actually reinforcing) the regime don't go off and actually become creative, and find something to do with far more potential.

UNTITLED PLAY - SCENE 1 (setup only)

GUILLAUME, mid-20s, vibrant alpha male type. French accent.
PATRICK, mid-20s, quiet, innocent, maybe a little nerdy.
SARAH, early-20s, bohemian, sassy, sharp.

Central Park. A bench. Guillaume sits on the far stage-left side of it. He eats a green apple. He watches the passers-by in the park, but for the most part he appears to be thinking about something. After a while, a baseball sails over his head, just missing him.

GUILLAUME: Hey! Watch where you throw that fucking thing!

A beat as he stares off. He goes back to eating his apple. After a little bit more, Patrick enters from stage right. He begins walking past Guillaume.

GUILLAUME: Patrick?

Patrick stops and turns in a fluid motion, towards Guillaume.

PATRICK: Oh wow. Guillaume?

Guillaume gets up and the two embrace.

PATRICK: What's up man? How've you been?

The two sit down on the bench, Patrick to Guillaume's left.

GUILLAUME: Not too bad, man, can't complain.

PATRICK: Jesus, it's been forever.

GUILLAUME: Well, I - I dunno. Has it? Yeah, I guess - I guess so.

PATRICK: Years.

GUILLAUME: Ha.

A beat.

GUILLAUME: That's funny. It doesn't feel like that long.

PATRICK: You don't think so?

GUILLAUME: No.

A beat.

GUILLAUME: But anyway, so, how've you been, man?

PATRICK: Good. I mean...yeah. Really good, actually. You?

GUILLAUME: Eh. I, uh - better, you know?

PATRICK: You're better? Were you sick or something?

GUILLAUME: No, I mean, like, I've been better.

PATRICK: Oh. I'm sorry.

A beat.

PATRICK: You feel like talking about it?

GUILLAUME: Not really.

PATRICK: That's cool.

GUILLAUME: It's just, like, female stuff. Stuff - stuff with the female.

Guillaume laughs. Patrick seems intrigued.

PATRICK: You mean...what was her name...

GUILLAUME: Oh no, no, not her, no. No, just - new. A new - yeah.

PATRICK: You were always skilled at lining 'em up.

GUILLAUME: Yeah.

PATRICK: Always had it, you know, -

GUILLAUME: Yeah.

PATRICK: - always knew what to do and whatnot.

GUILLAUME: Yeah. Yeah, I did.

A beat.

PATRICK: You meeting her here or something? You seem -

GUILLAUME: Yeah.

PATRICK: - nervous.

GUILLAUME: Yeah - I mean, yeah, I'm meeting her here. I'm not nervous.

PATRICK: I can go or something, if that's what you want. I mean -

GUILLAUME: Oh - no -

PATRICK: - I can go, I got shit to do anyway.

GUILLAUME: No man, it's cool, stay, for sure, stay.

A beat.

PATRICK: So she's giving you a hard time or something?

GUILLAUME: Well yeah. I dunno. She's been acting weird lately. And then - she told me to ah, to meet her here.

PATRICK: Ah ok.

GUILLAUME: At noon.

Patrick quickly checks his watch.

PATRICK: Jesus. That's like - Jesus Guillaume, that was like -

GUILLAUME: I know.

PATRICK: Almost an hour ago.

GUILLAUME: I know.

PATRICK: What the fuck are you still doing here?

GUILLAUME: I, uh...I dunno.

PATRICK: Not answering her cell?

GUILLAUME: No.

PATRICK: Fuck.

A beat.

PATRICK: So, who is this chick?

Love - Ch 1

With the usage of words like "love," "desire," "hate," "cherish," etc., a romantic lexicon is established that can be perpetually reused. This lexicon - which is nothing short of the central engine powering the mechanism of the Relationship as we know it - is in fact a hall of smoke and mirrors employed to disguise the fact that the emperor has no clothes; pronouncements involving these terms are empty of any meaningful signification. The usage of this romantic lexicon carries out one of two tasks, and sometimes both. One task is the task of the placeholder, and the other is the task of the future promise through speech act.

We can start from Jacques Lacan's famous pronouncement that "love is giving something you don't have to someone who doesn't want it." Bearing in mind that one does not posess love, let us examine the nature of the sign "love." It is accepted that love is not something that can be put into words; faced with the task of attemtping to explain why the subject loves this particular person (why not this one instead? or that one?), the subject may fall back on the technique of naming some key characteristics of the loved person, and then saying, "see? This is why I love you!" This overlooks the obvious point that it is not these qualities that make the subject fall in love with the object of his desire - indeed, who knows how many of these traits he was even aware of when he fell in love with the object? - but that these qualities become endearing only due to the fact that the object is the object of the subject's love.

So then, what to make of the word love? The subject cannot ever explain why he loves someone through his feeble rationalizations. Indeed, any attempt to explicate the love he has for his love may very well serve to kill whatever love he has for the object. The inscription of his specific love for a specific person into specific language marks the death of the love it attempts to explain. In language, his love is only safe when the signifiers used are placeholders - namely, in the phrase "I love you" and many other variations. "I love you" is the shifting phrase to end all shifting phrases, insofar as it is certainly the most "meaningful" phrase containing pronouns to be used as often as it has been. In this phrase, the subject is able to express his love with a placeholder - but a placeholder for what?

"I love you" is a phrase that speaks more volumes than any rationalization of a specific love ever could. Imagine pitting "I love you" against anything. "I love you because of that thing you do just after you wake up in the morning," etc. These statements may be cute but there is a certain thundering power in "I love you" that cannot be matched - indeed, is not one of the key milestones of any relationship the moment at which one partner decides to tell the other, "I love you?" Not "because of that thing you do right after you wake up in the morning, I love you," but "I love you" on its own. This is because, for all of its vague generality, "I love you" is closer to the nature of love than any specific statement.

It is safe to say that, while the feeling we associate with "love" is certainly something that exists, and exists incredibly powerfully, it is an emotion caused by a chemical reaction that the brain produces due to unconscious mental processes. How many people really see something a sexual partner does in the morning, or hear something they've said, or etc., and decide that yes, now I love this person? Certainly unconscious processes may use these moments to spring these feelings, produced in the unconscious, upon the consciousness of the subject, but think of this way. Imagine something someone who you were once in love with said or did that you consciously believe strongly aided in the process of you falling in love with them. Now imagine someone else (who you are not in love with) doing this very same thing, or any number of them. Clearly, the result is not the same, because you do not have the same unconscious feelings about this person.

So, we can conclude that Love is an Other to us - it is something foreign, something we never will have the ability to grasp. It is something whose presence we will never revel in. We may enjoy its effects, but the process by which it functions is a complete mystery. In this case, to have the vague statement "I love you" be the defining mark of Love makes perfect sense, for the vagueness of the statement, the gap inherent between the statement and ourselves, is indicative of the gap between our consciousness and the unconscious functioning of Love. Love is a placeholder, an empty signifier, because we do not grasp what it entails. As such, we must reach our key Derridean point - that the subject never experiences the full presence of love, love is always absent, it cannot be signified, and the word "love" signifies little other than our own confusion over a perplexing mental process.

Bearing this in mind, we can understand what Lacan meant with his famous pronouncement - or at least, for the moment, the first half. If love is something that cannot be signified, we cannot identify it; and if we cannot identify it, we cannot give it. We can attempt to give it by using placeholding signifiers that attempt to inscribe it into the present situation, but in the end this structure will collapse upon itself.

RED

Whether or not you wanted to see me
I decided to come.

I came bearing gifts:
these fruits, which I found myself.
And these rocks, which
I always kept.

Something about them makes me think of you.
Maybe it was
the time spent
lazily
on shores covered in them.
Or the time paid
for delivering them through windows.

Yes, Starbucks received its fair share
- although -
you never seemed to toss enough towards mine.
I suppose, with the way we rationed things,
you just didn't have enough -

- or perhaps it was just how
we always seemed to be
scraping two of them together
edge against edge, crevice against crevice,
always trying to make them fit, and
perhaps in the process,
start a fire.

When they were inside, exchanging vows,
we were outside, exchanging politics.

And it seemed like perhaps
the courthouse would really burn -
until the fire department came and
put out all the flames.

And now here I am
with rocks and fruits.
I hope you like them both
and marry each with each.
I know I have, and will;
I am still overflowing with
Red
for you.

(write one thing - essay, poem, doesnt matter, every day in paris. every day, wherever i am)

EXT. THE AMERICAN EMBASSY -ROME - NIGHT - 1963

William Harvey pisses against the back wall - marble - of the embassy as Herrick Hubbard looks on.

HARVEY
You'll never know, Hubbard...you'll never know.

EXT. MOUNTAIN FACE - ARIZONA - DAY -1939

Young Herrick stands on a ledge of the rock face that can't be wider than thirty centimeters. He is perfectly still.

HARVEY (VO)
I believe in entropy, Hubbard. I do. But entropy is not the only thing that exists. We must confront entropy. The universe isn't only chaos.

EXT. THE AMERICAN EMBASSY - ROME - LATER

Harvey points a gun in the Herrick's face. His lips don't move.

HARVEY (VO)
Did you know that my parents almost named me Lee, Hubbard? Lee Harvey. Oh, I know what you're thinking - William suits me fine. But that's not the point, Hubbard. Lee Harvey.

EXT. THE AMERICAN EMBASSY - ROME - EARLIER

Back to Harvey speaking as he pisses.

HARVEY
Lee Harvey Oswald, Hubbard. That man and I had more in common than you could ever understand.

EXT. MAINE HIGHWAY ROAD - DAY - 1982

A much older Hubbard drives along in a pickup truck. He has a gray beard now.

HARVEY (VO)
I believe in something I've termed 'new embodiment,' Hubbard. New embodiment is what I had with Lee Harvey Oswald. You see, the universe isn't all chaos. There's a form, a method to the madness, an organization to the disinformation, there, that's a nice term, right? Most CIA can't see their own pricks for what they are, they're too worried about the disinformation. Maybe it's not theirs, right Hubbard?

EXT. MOUNTAIN FACE - ARIZONA - DAY - 1939

Herrick is still standing on the ledge. In the distance, out of focus, we see the shape of a climber looking for some footing above Herrick.

HARVEY
The universe is taking shape, Hubbard. You may not believe it, but it's true. Things happen for a reason.

INT. MANSION - WASHINGTON D.C. - DAY - 1972

Hubbard rushes into a bathroom. A woman sits in a bathtub. She has slit her wrists but appears to have done it recently. She is not beyond saving. Hubbard grabs gauze from a cabinet and applies it to her wrists as tourniquets. He takes her out of the bathroom.

HARVEY (VO)
So you think Hugh, Harlot, you think he was working for them? The whole time? You better take a good long look at yourself. Harlot was your embodiment.

EXT. THE AMERICAN EMBASSY - ROME - DAY - 1939

Harvey finishes taking a piss.

HARVEY
You'll never know, Hubbard. You'll never know how close to God I feel when I take one good piss like that.

CUT TO: TITLE CARD

HARLOT'S GHOST

Looking Back In My Eighty-First Year
by Maxine Kumin

Instead of marrying the day after graduation
in spite of freezing on my father's arm as
here comes the bride struck up,
saying, I'm not sure I want to do this,

I should have taken that fellowship
to the University of Grenoble to examine
the original manuscript
of Stendhal's unfinished "Lucien Leuwen,"

I, who had never been west of the Mississippi,
should have crossed the ocean
in third class on the Cunard White Star,
the war just over, the Second World War

when Kilroy was here, that innocent graffito,
two eyes and a nose draped over
a fence line. How could I go?
Passion had locked us together.

Sixty years my lover,
he says he would have waited.
He says he would have sat
where the steamship docked

till the last of the pursers
decamped, and I rushed back
littering the runway with carbon paper...
Why didn't I go? It was fated.

Marriage dizzied us. Hand over hand,
flesh against flesh for the final haul,
we tugged our lifeline through limestone and sand,
lover and long-legged girl.



Published in The New Yorker 12/1/06