This is odd. It’s Radical Fun Day 2.0, and I don’t have a piece written. I’d finished one a while back, but it just doesn’t feel fun anymore. So now I’m a little stuck. Quick, before class, come up with something fun. Something that doesn’t just have to do with the goddamn Man. The point of this exercise is quite important after all. It is to release us from the constant engagement with the way things are, and to give a push and pull at the horizon of our imagination.
No pressure, of course.
So losing one piece on ice, I shall steal another. This is probably one of the odder things I’ve ever written. It is on beat up legal paper, with several different shades of cheap blue and purple pens. It’ is folded over several times, and is interspersed with another piece. Lines of academicese on Dante and the semantic structure of torture give way to romantic poetry.
This is a very belated travel blog, a snap shot of being in Paris.
I walked Paris last night. Miles from Gare Monteparnasse to the Tour Eiffel, to the Arc de Triooopmh (as it is called in the vernacular of our day), Louvre, Toullieries, and finally back to Notre Dame.
The air was cold, but not all consumingly so and I just kept on walking, all my gear with me. I had one ear open to the street, for oncoming cars, for vendors, for anything new. The other was being dedicated to country gospel and the House of Mercy Band took the stage.
It was cold and I was having my dinner of wheat bread, chasing after it now and again with the brandy, and it was beautiful to me, and so it went all the way to my fingers and kept them warm.
It was cold and the fading light of the sky did nothing to conceal me as a tourist and a watcher, but i crept anyways as if it might make a difference, and I guess I couldn’t be found. Not a single soul who knew my Christian name could have called out to me then. So I stayed high above it, because the river was rising and swirling over the paths below.
It was cold, and I was awake, alive, loving every minute, every hour the lights of the tower would flash and sparkle. My camera flashed, but when I really wanted to remember something, I just stared.
It was cold, and I thought about Athens, the future, Yale, and everything and nothing. My thoughts swirled in the brandy, biting my throat, just a little and made me silence it all.
Now warm again, paying tourist prices for espresso, and one last last final until it happens again dance with Notre Dame. That beautiful place that tells me that it is not over, and my jaw can still drop and not to talk but just to stare. It is lit for night, and the gargoyles scream, but then again there is Paul and I think I know him. I wish the doors were open, but I content myself to eat the last of my bread.
I hardly slept.
Resting now, calm morning, still thinking of bread and brandy, solitary communion, peace and love.
Yours in the fun,
Sly Civilian
The Life and Times of Sly Civilian 