Tosh Berman's Blog, page 135

Tosh's Journal - September 9 (Homage to Colonel Sanders of KFC)

TOSH'S JOURNAL

September 9

This may seem odd, but when I see an image of Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) fame, I think of Japan. There are many KFC outlets in Japan, and each one has an incredible statue of Colonel Sanders by the entranceway. Although he did live, he doesn't to me appear to be a real living person. Only an image. A ghost image to be honest. Also, when I used to eat meat, I liked the Japanese version of KFC. For whatever reasons, which are a mystery to me, the Japanese taste seems different in these chain of fast-food stores. Everyone I know in Japan loves KFC. Now, I don't love the food, but I'm fascinated with the numerous statues of Colonel Sanders.

Colonel Sanders was born on September 9, 1890, in a small house in Henryville, Indiana. The population was 1,905 according to the 2010 census. Weather-wise, Henryville has a humid subtropical climate, which means it has hot, humid summers and generally mild winters. In 1902, after his father died, he moved with his family to Greenwood, Indiana. He didn't get along with his new step-father and drifted away from his home life to move in with his uncle in New Albany, Indiana. His uncle worked for the city's streetcar company and got his nephew a job as a conductor. He then falsified his date of birth and joined the United States Army in 1906, where he was sent to Cuba. He was honorably discharged after only three months and then moved to Sheffield, Alabama, where another uncle lived. There he got a job as a blacksmith's helper, and later eventually became a fireman at the age of 16.


He got married, had three children, and while being a fireman during the day, at night, he studied law by correspondence, and eventually became a lawyer. His legal career ended when he got into a fistfight with his client in a courtroom. He then moved to Jeffersonville, Indiana to work for the Prudential Life Insurance Company, where he sold life insurance. He then got fired for insubordination and got a salesman job with the Mutual Benefit Life of New Jersey. Around this time, he started up a ferry boat company that was a success. He operated a boat that went from Jeffersonville to Louisville and back. He sold his business for $22,000 and used the money to launch a company that made acetylene lamps. Sadly this was not the right type of lamp, because Delco introduced an electric lamp that soon became the format that was sold at the time. He moved to Winchester, Kentucky to work as a salesman for the Michelin Tire Company, but lost that jobs when Michelin closed their New Jersey manufacturing plant. He then met the general manager of Standard Oil of Kentucky, who asked him to run a service station in Nicholasville. But like his luck, that too didn't pan out, due to the Great Depression, and therefore the gas station had to shut down. However, if you failed once, try again. The Shell Oil Company gave a service station to Sanders rent-free in return for a percentage of sales. It was here that he began to serve chicken dishes and at the same time he was awarded the title of Kentucky Colonel, by the Governor of the state of Kentucky.


Colonel Sanders claimed that he had an original secret recipe for his chicken, and the only thing he had to admit to the public was that he used salt and pepper as well as 11 herbs and spices. The big difference between KFC in the U.S. & Japan is that in the States, they use vegetable oil for frying the chicken. In Japan, the oil used is mainly the more expensive cottonseed and corn oil. Therefore the taste difference between the two cultures. So the colonel eventually sold KFC to John Y. Brown, Jr. And Jack C. Massey for $2 million. When many years later Brown and Massey sold the chain for $239 million.


Colonel Sanders died in 1980, but in truth, did he even existed? After he was awarded the identity of being a Kentucky Colonel, he immediately dressed himself as one. He grew a goatee and wore a black string tie with a white suit. He never wore anything else in public, and he bleached his mustache and goatee to match his white hair and white suit. He had a heavy wool white suit for the winter and wore a white light cotton suit in the summertime. Colonel Sanders wore this uniform for twenty years. So even after his physical death, he still lives on as the logo for KFC. But again in Japan, one is accustomed to seeing his features, his white suit, string tie, in front of 1,181 outlets as of December 2013. As of this writing, Kentucky Fried Chicken is well known as being the meal at Christmas time in Japan. Roughly one billion chickens are killed each year, and therefore I usually have a salad on Christmas Day.

Tosh's Journal - September 8 (Homage to Peter Sellers & Alfred Jarry)

TOSH'S JOURNAL

September 8

"There is no me. I do not exist… There used to be a me, but I had it surgically removed." It isn't I can't stand myself, but I'm on the surface extremely dull. There is no spice in my DNA to make me special. What I can do is re-invent myself to a better version of me. Or start from scratch and create a new "me." I tried to do my best to blend in with the crowd that I came to be accustomed to, but clearly, they never took me seriously. All of them feel that I'm a performer, but for the heck out of them, they can't remember one film or theater piece I have done. They know that I exist, but in what degree is totally beyond them.

As a card-carrying pataphysician, I have consistently been mistaken for Peter Sellers. The interesting fact is that we don't look like each other at all. But still, I'm always reminded of him, due to what people think he or I look like. A day doesn't go by, where someone doesn't comment on the resemblance of the dead late comic actor. If he was alive, I wonder if people would still make the comparisons between him and me. "The dead… are more real than the living because they are complete." I suspect if I were dead, then I would get my own identity back. Again, even with that, my lack of uniqueness would be challenging for someone to pin me down. Also, my face is not mine, but a remembrance of someone else's face or appearance.

To live in one's shadow, is a traveler wandering in a neighborhood where he's not invited, but accepted with closed arms. I have often appeared in front of an audience, but they were expecting something else, or even someone else. It takes approximately ten minutes into my performance where the audience realizes that they are at the wrong show. After a while, I believe "that the applause of silence is the only kind that counts." Every day I try to re-think myself in a new position where I find that I need to think what 'my character' would do in a particular or specific incident or plan. It is rarely that I consider "what I would do" but mostly 'what would he or she does." And that is pretty much how I see the world. A fellow pataphysician has commented that "the theater, bringing impersonal masks to life, is only for those who are virile enough to create new life: either as a conflict of passions subtler than those we already know or as a completely new character."

I was reading Siegried Sassoon's poetry, and I came upon a statement by him that touched me: "The fact is that five years ago I was, as near as possible, a different person to what I am tonight. I, as I am now, didn't exist at all. Will the same thing happen in the next five years? I hope so." The only occupation that I'm suitable for is acting. Sadly I can't remember a written line if my very life been dependent on it. What I do is improvised anytime I find myself in a conversation with someone. I never know where or when the conversation ends, but I pretend that I do know, and I think the other person will gently follow my lead - in a sense, it is like dancing the waltz, where one leads the other.

I wrote a play that had one performance, so I guess one can call it a total failure. Nevertheless, the lead character stayed with me, and I adopted his language as my own. For instance, I never say the wind, or it's windy. Instead, I would say "that which blows." Slowly but surely, I built up a character that became comfortable to wear. But I was always aware that the things I said or do were based on another character - sometimes a fictional character. In the future (if there is a future) the play "will not be performed in full until the author (the royal we) have acquired enough experience to savor all its beauties." I tend to see the world as a theater piece, and sadly, I'm the only one in the audience.

-Tosh Berman

Tosh Berman at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center on Saturday, Sept. 14th at 8 P.M.

Saturday, September 14th, 8-10pm Venice, CA: Beyond Baroquehttp://www.beyondbaroque.org/
Join TOSH at Beyond Baroque!  Beyond Baroque is located at 681 N. Venice Blvd. Venice, CA 90291 For more 310-822-3006; info@beyondbaroque.org  Also interview with Pat Thomas.

A reading and discussion with Tosh Berman, former director of Beyond Baroque and author of the memoir Tosh, Growing Up In Wallace Berman’s World. Tosh will be interviewed by journalist and author Pat Thomas.

Tosh's Journal: September 7 (Homage to Buddy Holly, Jacques Vaché, & Edi...

TOSH'S JOURNAL

September 7

"I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty… But I am too busy thinking about myself." I don't have a lot of knowledge about the world that's out there, but I do know myself, and at the end of the day, that is all I could offer you. Now, whatever that is good or not, is totally up to you. I can only offer what I know, which is not much. I feel like I'm 250 years old, and man does my eyes feel heavy. All I know is that I'm a man of excellent taste, and "good taste is the worst vice ever invented." To stand out in the world is like asking someone to cut your throat. It's not a nice world out there. In fact, it's a jungle. And I wish I can inform you that I'm Tarzan, but I'm more like George of the Jungle.

I feel the time is marching on, and I'm afraid that I will remain in the dustbin of history, which means ignored, and my writing is lost somewhere in the Central Los Angeles Library. I wake up with the greatest dread, knowing that I'm facing at least 12 or 13 hours of failure. "You know the horrible life of the alarm clock – it's a monster that has always appalled me because of the number of things its eyes project, and the way that good fellow stares at me when I enter a room." I feel time mocks me, and I know when my birthday just passed, people were thinking, "there he goes…"

Not long ago I purchased a six albums (on vinyl) box set of Buddy Holly's music. America has produced many talented people, but none is more important than Buddy Holly. He was a figure that was a modernist, specifically with his take on music-making as well as appearance. The heavy dark rim glasses, with the beautiful suits and sweaters that he wore, it had a profound effect on me, because I had trouble seeing without my glasses. His imperfections became a symbol of perfectionism. He turned the negative into the positive, why that boy was a magician as well as a superb musician. His death, to this day, is precisely what I can't take in. I cannot possibly understand why he went in that dinky airplane in a storm to get somewhere early, so he can do his laundry before the next show. Dandyism is a lifestyle, but it can also lead one to an early death. Yet, there can't possibly be a God, to let go such a brilliant talent. He tested against the elements and lost. I obviously don't have his genius, but I do have the expertise to lose, in a major and significant way.

"Hot water is my native element. I was in it as a baby, and I have never seemed to get out of it ever since." I'm not worthy of living in a world that makes such enormous demands on my ability to create chaos that is my poetry. "Poetry is the deification of reality," and I feel like I'm standing against a wind machine, that is blowing me towards another direction, that I care not to go. "ART does not exist - So it is useless to talk about it - but! people go on being artists - because it's like that and no way else - Well - so what?"

I never got over the death of Buddy Holly and especially Jacques Vaché. Two poets who I feel didn't finish their work. At this point and time, I have outlived both for many years. Holly was quoted in saying that "Death is very often referred to as a good career move." Perhaps he's right, but I feel I was left by the side of the road, and I don't have a compass to tell me what direction I should go to. The art is to wander. "I'm not trying to stump anybody… it's the beauty of the language that I'm interested in." - Buddy Holly.

Tosh's Journal - September 6

TOSH'S JOURNAL

September 6

The one film role that I wish I did, but didn't, for the apparent reason, is to play Count Orlok in the film "Nosferatu." I identify with the character because he's living death or known as "The Bird of Death." I live in a large home that was slowly decaying due to the lack of money and resources on my part. For instance, if I'm sleeping on my back, and at a certain angle, I can see the stars right above me in my bedroom. Luckily there's a drought in California, or I would be in terrible trouble. I tend to have sleepless nights, so I often wander from one room to another. Sometimes with a purpose, but mostly not. I own a DVD copy of "Nosferatu," and I tend to play it around 3:00 in the morning. Being half-asleep and permanently disturbed, I find a certain amount of peace watching this film.

To make savings on electricity and power, I rarely use any lighting in the house, except for the TV, and even that, I only allow so many hours to watch the set. I don't have cable, so what I watch on the TV is mostly my DVD collection. Rice, vegetable stock for soup, and beans are pretty much my diet these days. Thank God that there is a local library in my neighborhood, so I can, in a sense, read books for free. To remove myself from all the abstractions in the world sets me free to use my imagination. I often try to imitate the actor Max Schreck who played Count Orlok, to attempt to ground myself in a world that is shifting away from me. It has been noted that he lived in "a remote and incorporeal world" and that he spent time walking in the forest.

I don't have any paintings or images on the wall. Nor do I have mirrors. I tend to forget what I look like, and I sort of like being in a situation where I can never describe myself to anyone. My only desire is to look like Count Oriok, and therefore why do I need a mirror?

Before dawn hits the sky, I like to wander around my spacious backyard, which is so full of trees and bushes. I want to lie on the dirt and look upwards towards the fading stars, and the reflection of nearby neon lighting of Glendale, and imagining myself coming from this dirt, yet being part of the sky. As I get older, I try to imagine what death feels like. I don't see it being a painful experience, but neither is it an abstract plane. I sometimes think that I have died, and I'm just floating around the residence with not a purpose or plan. - Tosh Berman

Tosh's Journal - September 5 (John Cage & Yves Klein)

TOSH'S JOURNAL

September 5

It is hard work to do nothing. I'm always filling my day with things to do, to avoid the nothing. Once I wake up in the morning, there are a few minutes of dread where nothing is happening. I'm trying to set my mind on what the day will be like. I check my calendar, and like a lot of people, I'm obsessed with making lists. If I have less than five things to do that day, I feel depressed. Then slowly the feeling of guilt that you should be producing something, even if it's not essential. I open up my computer and look at the blank screen. Nothing is happening. I then look out my front window, facing Waverly Drive, and I see no one. Usually, people are walking their dogs at this time in the morning, but alas, I see only a fat furry cat walking down the sidewalk by him or her self. A dog when is either on a leash or free from it always walks without a purpose or direction. A cat walks going to a specific direction in mind and is rarely side-tracked by anything unless someone approaches it. There is one moment which becomes tense when I see the cat walk behind a parked car, and I wonder if I will see it again exiting that car. The moment I see the cat still, I feel a sense of relief. He or she then enters into an opening of the bush and disappears.

For me, there is no feeling of the cat being cute or beautiful. I like to see it walking down the sidewalk with a sense of purpose or plan. This inspires me to get back to my writing. There is a piece of music that causes me a great deal of anxiety, and it's John Cage's "4'33." It has a strict format where the piano player sits behind his keyboard and doesn't play anything for the duration of four minutes and thirty-three seconds. People think this is a work of silence, but it is the opposite of silence. When you are in a concert hall or theater "hearing" this piece, you are immediately aware of the sounds around you - perhaps a nervous cough, a clearing of the throat, a fart, or the fear of making a farting noise, air conditioner, heating vent, shuffling of feet, and so forth.

When I write, I need consistent sound around me — either music or outside ambient sounds. For instance, traffic noise, as well as a child, is screaming down the block from me. Each sound is like someone hitting me with a live electric wire, which gets my brain to jump. I work in a lonely place, which is pretty much my head. This is no longer a bad thing at all. To actually feel the space between yours truly and the world is an area that I can measure and fill up images with, but I also can subtract imagery as well. The thing is you have to control the noise around you, and something like "4'33" is chaos. Because you can't control the noise level of silence in one's life. So setting everything aside, you sit there for "4'33" in the quietness that is impossible, and also the anxiety or blissfulness knowing that things will happen again at 4 minutes and thirty-four seconds. It has a beginning and an end.

It's very work-orientated. We usually have 8 hours a day to work. Within those 8 hours, we have two fifteen minutes breaks, and often an half-n-hour lunch. Or it could be an hour lunch. Nevertheless, this sets a schedule for the entire day that one can't question or get out of unless you call in sick. Or like me, unemployed. When you don't have a job, you're facing a series of moments that cannot be filled. So one is left with the anxiety of confronting 'nothing.' Drinking is an effortless way of dealing with the sense of time wasting away. Because at least you are taking something that sort of comments on time passing, and you reflect on the failure or happiness of those moments.

-Tosh Berman



I'm trying to do away with my vices, so I focus on being on the entrance to nothing. I want to face that void, and be contented with the blankness that will come upon me. That hasn't happened yet. I remember seeing a performance by Yves Klein called "Monotone-Silence Symphony" in New York, and what the piece consists of is an orchestra of 70 musicians and singers performing a D major chord for 20 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of silence. The members of the orchestra are instructed not to move and sit on their seats. It's a tougher piece than "4'33" because we know that the silence will last exactly 20 minutes. So one is getting around 16 minutes of more silence. But we do get the contrast between sound and silence in this work. I have met someone who went to one of the performances and felt that the work failed because the silence part was not done correctly.



Daniel Moquay, who is in charge of the Yves Klein archive and the estate was quoted regarding the performance of the piece that took place in a Parisian church: "The door of the church was open, and a pigeon came in and sat where everyone could see him," he said. "During the 20-minute silence, he did not move at all. It was kind of incredible. And then when the silence was over, he left."

Tosh's Journal: September 4 (Artaud Special)

TOSH'S JOURNAL

September 4

Is there a more celebrated face than the face of Antonin Artaud? For my entire life, I have always been in the presence of his face. My father, along with portraits of Brigitte Bardot and Jean Cocteau, would have an image of Artaud by his work table in Beverly Glen, and later in his studio both in the Glen and Topanga. I was a teenager when I saw Carl Theodor Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc," and like others, I was very much impressed with the face of Renée Jeanne Falconetti as Joan. Like Artaud, Falconetti suffered from mental illness throughout her life, and eventually committed suicide in Brazil in 1946. When I was working at Beyond Baroque, Viggo Mortensen took me to see "The Passion of Joan of Arc," which at the time, he was obsessed with the film. He brought me along because he just liked to share his love for the film and who he considered the greatest actress. Falconetti! He also knew I was a huge Artaud fan, and the scenes in the movie, to me, are dueling faces at work, which is quite remarkable, because Artaud looks so calm, almost evil in a tranquil sense.

When I found myself in Tokyo, I was fortunate to see Kabuki theater in the Ginza.  What I found fascinating was how the audience re-interacts with the actors and what was happening on the stage. There were moments when it seems that the audience becomes part of the theater play. When one walks into the theater, the lighting on the audience side is not darkened. So one cannot only see what is occurring on the stage in front of you, but one is also aware of what the audience is doing. For instance, I was surprised to hear people talk in normal tones during the performance. After a while, once my ears and eyes become accustomed to the "new' environment, I accepted that the whole theater or building was a performance. One also notices how flat the Kabuki play looks on the stage. No one is highlighted, and it is like seeing a film of a John Ford landscape in Utah, where mountain peaks match the importance of the human figures traveling in that landscape.

When Artaud saw Balinese dancers perform at the Paris Colonial Expo, he must have been affected by the technique and aesthetic of accepting the audience as part of the performance. Also most important is the ritual aspect of the production and how the dancers use all parts of their body to express themselves, including head and eyes movements. Kabuki is over-the-top as well, and one follows the narrative by its grand gestures than say the quiet moments.

Artaud wrote a play called "Jet of Blood" which starts with a young man and a young girl repeating the lines, "I love you, and everything is beautiful," "You love me and everything is beautiful." They repeat the lines in different accents and styles to each other. Then when the man comments that "the world is beautifully built and well ordered" - a sudden violent storm appears, including a hurricane which separates the man and girl, with two stars colliding, and assorted objects falling from the sky — mayhem rules in the world of Artaud.

Artaud is an artist whose life is not separated from his art. An ill man all through his life, plus an addiction to hard narcotics made him vulnerable to the outside world. His mania got worse when he obtained a walking stick of knotted wood and was convinced that this cane once belongs to St. Patrick as well as Lucifer and Jesus Christ. He spent the last years in a mental hospital.  Artaud didn't do many performances either on film or on the stage.   His writings have become influential literature for poets, actors, and those who are abused by the system of living in a world of not their making. I, myself, can not escape his influence, especially concerning how he sees space, distance, and the performance that somehow falls between the different categories. To provoke an audience is one way of changing the world. To feel, to create, and throw oneself in the storm that is, society is truly wonderful. Unless that society is there to reject and harm you.  - Tosh Berman

Tosh's Journal: September 3 (Homage to Alan Wilson of Canned Heat)

TOSH'S JOURNAL

September 3

I remember Alan Wilson's death, from acute barbiturate intoxication, because I was living in Topanga at the time. He wasn't world-famous, but famous in Topanga. He was a member of the band Canned Heat, and although I never actually met him, I for sure saw him at the local market. The only Canned Heat song I liked was "On The Road Again." I love the minimalism of the recording. The consistent drum beat and the distinctive sound of the cymbal, with the additional tambura, which is an Eastern string instrument. It's the blues, but with an unfamiliar presence due to the instrumentation. I first heard that song when I was in bed, around 3 a.m. I had a transistor radio glued to my ear, and I remember this song, and it seemed so eerie and depressing at the same time.


When I have my moments of despair, the song comes to me from the back to the front of the head. Alan Wilson was a friend of depression as well. They found his body in the hillside behind the lead singer Bob Hite's Topanga home. Wilson loved nature and preferred to be in the outdoors as much as possible. He liked to take his sleeping bag, and finds a beautiful tree and sleep there. It was reported that Al had a hard time connecting with people, perhaps being on the Autism Spectrum. He was a passionate conservationist, and read books on botany and ecology. And of course, an academic on the subject matter of the blues.


Interestingly, a man who was so removed from human interaction would have a love and understanding of something so poignant as the blues. Yet, his blues was something that I feel was close to the bone for him. To quote the whole song:



"Well, I'm so tired of crying

But I'm out on the road again

I'm on the road again

Well, I'm so tired of crying

But I'm out on the road again

I'm on the road again



I ain't got no woman

Just to call my special friend



You know the first time I traveled

Out in the rain and snow

In the rain and snow

You know the first time I traveled

Out in the rain and snow

In the rain and snow



I didn't have no payroll

Not even no place to go



And my dear mother left me

When I was quite young

When I was quite young

And my dear mother left me

When I was quite young

When I was quite young



She said, "Lord, have mercy

On my wicked son."



Take a hint from me, mama

Please don't you cry no more

Don't you cry no more

Take a hint from me, mama

Please don't you cry no more

Don't you cry no more



'Cause it's soon one morning

Down the road I'm going



But I ain't going down

That long old lonesome road

All by myself

But I ain't going down

That long old lonesome road

All by myself



I can't carry you, baby

Gonna carry somebody else"


I find this song moving because it seems to be a tight circle, where one can't get out of its rhythm or structure. The actual drone of the music that is the foundation for the other instruments is relentless. The singer is in hell, and here in a small number of words describes the landscape that there is no escaping from. Throughout my life, I always find 'chance' as a 'free from jail' card, but here "On The Road Again" its permanent groundhog's day, where and when misery matches with the solid beat. Endless.


I imagine Alan Wilson looking out to the stars, in his sleeping bag and thinking, at the very least, a limitless vision that must have been an escape of some sort. Now eternal sleep.

Tosh's Journal: September 2nd

Tosh's Journal

September 2nd

I can't forget the night I met you. That's all I'm thinking of, and now you call it madness, but I call it love. Alone from night to night, you'll find me. I'm too weak to break the chains that bind me. For one command, I stand and wait now, from one who's master of my fate now." It is like you never died, or maybe you've been dead for a long time. No one told me that you left the earth. They played your records and said to me that these were recent radio broadcasts. The letters I read from you, till recently realized that they were not from you, but signed by another to give an appearance of your being near me. My dream is broken in two, but it can be made like new on the street of dreams.

You're too beautiful for words. Alas, that is all I could offer. I started to paint because I feel that it was my former language, where I can say things I can't say, but can on canvas. I often roam inside the Jardin des Plantes, and when I go into the glasshouses, and I see the strange plants of exotic lands, it seems to me that I enter into a dream.

I wait patiently for a letter from you, but I never know if it comes from your heart, or if it is even real. When you last wrote to me, you said, "goodnight sweetheart, may dreams guide you." Ever since then, I wait for the mailman to bring some news, but the bills and advertisement to the local shopping mall, remind me how empty I feel. Will you not come back to me and give me some reason to keep on living? And I do live, but only to count the days since you have gone.

You're my everything underneath the sun and moon. My only dream, my only reality - you're the song I sing, and the book I read. When I say this to you, or write to you, I sound so dumb, but if I can add Russ Colombo's croon, then I think you understand my words, as it should be voiced.

I don't know why I love you as I do. You appeared to be interested in touching me only when we are dancing. How I long for the music to stop, and never take my arms off you. Tears without measure, my life seemed so wrong - and with a smile, you banished sorrow. But that is all changed because together we will live in dreams. Even separately. - Tosh Berman

Tosh's Journal - September 1st (Izu Ōshima, Tokyo, Japan)

TOSH'S JOURNAL

September 1



Izu Ōshima, Tokyo, Japan



"If I live, I live, if I die, I'll die." There is very little here, except the ocean, which surrounds this island, and the mountains. All structures and shops are close to the water as if it has second thoughts being in the jungle-like the growth of nature. Once you're on the island, you are here forever. Even if you leave, the insect bites seem to stay with you for a long time. I have rashes on top of other rashes, and for sure, me being here, must have shortened my life by at least minutes if not longer. If I die on this island, I will haunt it forever. I don't believe death is the end, but a continuation of one's hell. Once you throw the dice against the wall and your numbers don't come up - you're fucked, and you're fucked for life.



I came to this island because I needed to test myself in the sense that I would choose life over death. To me, it is the same. The fact it is in the middle of summer, which means the weather is not only hot 24 hours a day, but also humid, where one's sweat seems to attract every insect in existence on this island. The most common insect I have here is an overlarge spider. When you walk down one of the paths or even the street that circles around the island, which is a two-lane road, one often walks into a giant spider web. If I take a ten-minute walk anywhere, I find my hair has cobwebs and an occasional living creature of some sort. The other animal I see here, and I see a lot of is cats. Most, if not all, are wild. They don't look approachable, but still, they are beautiful creatures. I wasn't sure if it was due to my exhaustion from the heat, but I could have sworn I saw a cat as big as a large dog. It was an orange kitty, and looked normal, except it was huge. I immediately walked the other direction, because for sure, I felt the animal would have approached and eaten me. I think it would go for the eyes first and then the hair of my body. I then imagined that the cat would drag me into the bushes and eat the rest of my body.



I did see an odd sight when walking down a dark road, there were two crows in the street, picking on something. As I slowly approached these flying rats, I can see they were eating a dead squirrel. Which amazingly enough, I never see these critters on trees or anywhere else. Only once, and this squirrel is quite dead, yet still, a meal for the birds. I even saw a deer with horns, but he or she pretended to hide from me in a bush. The deer never lost sight of me as I slowly walked down the street. As a human, I don't feel that I should be on this island whatsoever. It belongs to creatures and nature. I often felt this way when I walk around the dog park in Silver Lake. Humans take their dogs here, but it seems like a concentration camp to me. There used to be grass, but now it is nothing but dirt and dogshit. There is something depressing to me when I see humans playing with their pets - it reminds me of master and servant. One can't escape the horror of being human and being part of the social system where one looks for love wherever they can find it, even for a dog that is with you because one feeds it. The beast must conform to the human's point-of-view of what an animal is - in other words, their pet or animal must reflect the owner's ego. Here on the island, beasts (cats) run free and I find it beautiful because here they are - as they are meant to be — not a human's concept of a beast, but indeed a creature on their terms.



I spend my time writing, mostly at the abandoned elementary school. My wife and I set up a portable studio within the space, which is jammed full of images of students and teachers who are no longer working there, and more likely no longer alive. Even then, nature is taking over the room. Insects roam freely from one body to the next, and when I take my clothes off to take my daily cold shower, I look like a map, not made by human intelligence, but from an insects point-of-view. So if I do die here, I will become part of the natural world - food for the cats, crows, and a dessert for the insects. - Tosh Berman