Tosh Berman's Blog, page 207

November 12, 2014

November 12, 2014

For someone who is always on the front line of utter disaster, I’m pretty much in a good mood.  There is no question that I will one day die, and I find that comforting for some odd reason.   No matter what I will do, or say, I’ll still end up dead.  I’m not big on doubt or “why.” I pretty much take what is out there and ride it into the storm, or if I’m lucky into the calm.  Nevertheless I never could understand why people grumble about this and that, when in fact, there’s a beginning, the strange and sometimes wonderful middle, and then of course the end.  I’m hoping that someone will write a biography of me, after I am dead called “The Beginning, the Middle, and The End.” My only regret is that I’m not floating above people as they read the book - but alas, I think death is really nothing.  Nothing, like being blank.



On the other hand, I have a great deal of desire.  Mostly for the girls who are employed in banks, shops, and on the bus.  The more I don’t know about them, the more I plunge into love.   When I see a beautiful girl, contained in a shop, I feel like a visitor to a zoo.  They can’t go anywhere, but I, on the other hand, can come and go as wherever my desires lead me.  I often find myself humming the melody to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” as I walk from one shop to another - not for the merchandise, but for the woman who sells the goods.  I like to think of myself as a piece of merchandise, and these ladies are handling me with the care, because eventually the goal is to sell, and damaged goods are not good for retail.   Or the customer.   Salesgirls boredom is a turn-on for me, and I’m not sure why?  I suspect that I trust indifference over passion, because after a while it becomes a narrative that one can read miles away.  “indifference” is an empty canvas where one can fulfill their desires on the blankness.  “Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other.  It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words.  My language trembles with desire.”



Knowing that death is ahead of me, I fetishize the living, as a theater piece.   I get high just thinking that I’m the driver and it doesn’t matter how fast or slow I go, I can throw myself at the mercy of fate, and let the wind behind take me to where ever the desires are.  “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore), ” a song I remember hearing in a pub in East London called “The Blind Begger, ” and thinking how that could be the last song I’ll ever hear.   More likely it will be “My Death” by Jacques Brel (translated into English by Mort Shuman), but then, who knows?



So today, after writing this essay, I’ll go outside and wander through the town, perhaps to see the pretty girls who work in bookstores and imagine my life as a best-selling biography.   The map was made some time ago, yet I don’t feel compelled to follow that destination, or why not draw up a new map?  …”I am withdrawn from all finality, I live according to chance…”

November 11, 2014

November 11, 2014

“I came into the world very young, in an age that was very old.” Now that I’m old I remember when I was younger and I was told: “You’ll see, when you’re fifty.  I am fifty and I haven’t seen a thing.” With that in mind I was approached to appear in a film, as well as write the music to accompany the images.  I have been a piano teacher for the majority of my life - mostly instructing young children, in the hopes of bringing some culture in their lives.  Usually I find my own version of culture by drinking at the nearby bars, that time-to-time will allow me to use their piano, to work out some composition ideals.  I do have a piano in my living quarters, but numerous friends of mine successfully took the piano and put it upside down.  I don’t have the strength to lift the piano of course, and nor do I really have good friends to assist me.  In fact, I don’t have any friends.   I have nothing.  Except the skill in writing melodies and playing the piano.  Beyond that - nothing.



I met a painter by the name of Francis, who is friendly with me.  He told me “Good taste is as tiring as good company, ” which explains why he likes to hang out with me.    We seemed to be compatible in ways, that work out in my favor. For one, he’s rich, and I’m not.  Therefore he takes me out for an evening of drinking, and I like to drink.  So in that sense, we get along really well.  It was at one of these drinking sessions where he took a piece of paper out of his pocket and told me that this was a film script.  I was looking at it and it looked like poetry.  “Are you filming poetry?” He said to me “if you’re in the film, it will be poetry.” He then asked me to write the score for the film as well.  As he was paying my bar bill, it wouldn’t have been polite to turn him down, and I said “yes.”



A week later he picked me up from my little apartment (with the piano still placed upside down) and took me to a neighborhood that I wasn’t familiar with - and on to the roof top of a tenant building.  That is when I met the film director René, whom I found out that this was his first job as a director.   He and Francis introduced me to a professional chess player by the name of Marcel and his friend Man Ray, which I will always remember because of the weirdness of his name.   I sort of know him through others, because he’s a photographer, and some gossiped to me that he sells naked pictures of girls on the street - but I can’t tell if that is a male fantasy or truth.   These guys are professional bachelors - and they play with females like if Rome was on fire.




[image error]

I read the poetry (the script) and was told by Francis that this is actually a part of a theater piece - which again, they want me to write the music for as well.  The film will serve as an intermission entertainment between the theater acts.  This seemed highly ambitious in my opinion, but there is payment at the end of the carrot stick - paid by my best friend Francis.  And again, with this specific friendship, the word “no” is not allowed in this context of our relationship.   The one person who I met on the set that really impressed me, and sort of reminded me of myself when I was younger is a stand-up comedian by the name of Theodore.   He had strange logic, but when you chatted with him, he made complete sense.  He told me this: “What do we know about the beyond? Do we know what’s behind the beyond?  I’m afraid some of us hardly know what’s beyond the behind. “ This, I think is quite profound.



They had me dressed as a female ballet dancer, which was awkward, but my favorite part of the filming is the scene with me and Francis lighting a canon on the rooftop.  René told us to leap towards the canon, and what they intend to do is make the actions very slow motion.   The theme or the narrative of this film appears to be about a funeral march, where the corpse becomes alive in the end.   Which seems very opportunistic to me, yet when the film was screened during the ballet “Relāche” it caused a mini-riot.  Mini because it was actually me and Francis that stood up and booed.  I don’t know why we did that.  We were both drunk at the time.  “In this best of all possible worlds, everything is in a hell of a mess. ”

November 10, 2014

November 10, 2014

“I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.  My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness.  I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.  I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.” Those who know me, say I’m the kindest man on this planet.  That is their perception, and I think we all know that they’re wrong.  I can’t speak for everyone, but the one’s I know really wants to believe.  They don’t have any sense of doubt. In fact, they don’t trust doubt.  They accept what is in front of them, and you can’t really blame them.  If there is a malted vanilla milkshake at their table, why would they want to think about it as existence or not.  You drink it up and look outside the window, as the world collapses.  I imagine the soundtrack will be either Screaming Lord Sutch’s “Jack the Ripper” or Gruppo di Improvvlsazlone Nuova Consonanza’s “Azioni.” The two craziest sounds from the 20th century.  If I recognize the difference between truth and doubt, then I can clearly lick my lips to get the last taste of the malted milk and continue on to my inner-journey.



“Conquer yourself rather than the world.” The more I talk, I can clearly see that I’m talking to the wind.  The words are hitting against my face, and the pain makes me realize that I’m truly alive.  I only feel dead when I look in your eyes, and I get no response whatsoever.  Just a well-rehearsed glance towards me as I speak - and I what I speak is totally useless to you - but you’re kind enough to pretend that it may become of some importance.  “To know what people really think, pay attention to what they do, rather than what they say.” All I have to do is keep in thought that “the joke loses everything when the joker laughs himself.” I have been known to laugh on a consistent basis.   Even at things or incidents that are not funny.



“They tried to get me, but I got them first.” I have made that decision a long time ago, that when they come after me, and right before they break the door down… that will be the moment when I’ll end my life.  I’ll drink the entire bottle of Lysol. “Did you think the lion was sleeping because he didn’t roar?” If I don’t die, then I must at all costs, with respect “in order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of my life to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.” I remember once you told me that you love me.  I could never believe it, because you said that while looking out the window.   I was a little hurt, but I never allow the pain to overcome me.  What I see in the mirror is something magnificent, and if I believe it, then I become it.   “I think, therefore I am. ” What other choice do I have, but to endlessly doubt that you care?   “Let whoever can do so deceive me, she will never bring it about that I am nothing, as long as I continue to think I am something. ”

November 9, 2014

November 9, 2014

“The eye should learn to listen before it looks.” There is film history and then there is my film history.  In many ways film aesthetic finished when talkies came upon the scene.   When 8mm projectors came upon the casual consumer, where they can screen their home movies, some companies sold 8mm silent comedy shorts as well as vintage cartoons - I think Betty Boop and an early version of Mickey Mouse.  I have a strong memory of watching these films projected on the blank white wall in our house.  The noise came from one source, and that was the projector.  Sometimes the projector was faulty and caused the film to burn, which was at the same time, horrifying and fantastic to watch.   Watching Marie Dressler’s face as she burns on my parent’s wall, was in a sense my first version of an actual death.   No, she didn’t die, but her representation, what was projected, clearly died.  It was perhaps the first time that I experienced death.



I was always aware of death while watching films before 1928, because more likely these people that I’m watching are more likely dead.   I always believed in ghosts, but not the way that they are around to haunt us, or even aware of our existence.  I think of them as being a negative or maybe positive imprint on our memory, therefore they exist in our world as an image.   There is nothing more real than a location - and even if that location has been altered, there is something so important about the essence of “place” that one can’t erase its history.  Film I think is the practical working theory, where you go into a theater and watch a spectacle of death being played out in front of one’s eyes.   To listen, one needs to be aware of what they’re watching.  When I see film footage of someone I know, and they are now dead, it doesn’t bring their presence back to me.  It makes me realize that they are truly dead.    Whenever I see a photograph or a work on film, it is dead to me.   The past is death.  But the memory of the past is alive.  The difference is small, yet quite significant.




“I always say that I don’t want to be sentimental, that the ‘films’ shouldn’t be sentimental, and yet, I am conscious of my sentimentality.” I often acknowledged that Mabel Normand was the first person in cinema to actually throw a custard pie in someone’s face - I believe the first victim of the pie in the face is Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle.  That I used to watch as well, on my parent’s wall.  I never experienced a pie in the face, but it used to make me laugh.  Now, I feel a sense of tragedy, because that fleeting moment was one of happiness.   Both Fatty and Mabel had a sad ending in their lives, and the film they left was a memory of a moment’s blissfulness.   On the other hand, “excessive suffering brings with it a kind of dull insensibility and stupor.” I need to let the past go, so I can live.  Yet, there seems a need to preserve a past experience.  “I wish I could press snowflakes in a book like flowers.”

November 8, 2014

November 8, 2014

“In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy.” I have always lived with instinct, because everything else has failed me, including close friend’s advices.  In rare desperate times, I have asked advice from close allies, but always do the total opposite what they think I should do.  I have lost friendships, but on the other hand I’m still here and existing.  Everything has a value.  Once one appreciates something, then it can be readily changed into a product or something to sell.  When John Paul Getty III was kidnapped, his grandfather John Paul Getty refused to pay any ransom.  Because once he does, he knew it would make all of his grandchildren into sellable pieces of product.  Eventually after a period of months, and receiving a cut-off ear, Getty Sr arranged with his son, John Paul Getty II, to pay ransom for his grandchild.   Once freed, John Paul Getty III had to repay that amount plus interest to the grandfather.   And why not, it was nothing but a business transaction.



Alain Delon is a businessman.   He makes a variety of products sold under his name “Alain Delon, ” including perfume, wristwatches, clothing, eyewear, stationery and cigarettes.  Like many others, I have admired him for his male beauty, as well as for his choices in acting in specific films, such as works by Jean-Pierre Melville - a filmmaker by the way who knows how a certain type of culture works.   It’s a shadow world of gangsters, very much like how they are connected to the world of film making, Politics (Democrats and Republicans working for the same forces: Wall Street), and even family life, for instance the Gettys'.



 Also anyone who has a sense of aesthetic or beauty, is usually drawn to the right - perhaps due to the right wing world’s love for the surface.  Not so much the inner-beauty, but the beauty we can all see on the surface, and therefore more easy to admire.  John Paul Getty loved art.  But what did art tell or teach him?   John Paul Getty has commented: “The beauty one can find in art is one of the pitifully few real and lasting products of human endeavor.” He started a foundation to preserve art treasures and antiquities around the world, yet he was indifferent to his grandchild’s ear.   There is a beauty or a sense of lost when you look at a Greek statue, and there is a part missing.  Usually a nose, or at times, an ear.  Perhaps the grandchild reminded him of one of his statues?

Delon, has a great admiration for the Right, even though charmingly enough, he can work with well-known film figures of the Left.  The beauty of Delon is his sense of perfection. Often, I find him perfectly cast in these roles that magnify his beauty.   “Purple Noon, ” “Le Samourai, ” and so forth.   I surround myself with such beauty, that I have a tendency to ignore the ‘other’ world out there.   My friends represent that world, and I just have to keep in mind that they give me advise not to bury me, but to save me.



Marie Prevost, a great actress from the Hollywood silent era, was a hopeless alcoholic.  She came from a troubled environment, but her condition became worse when her life depended on numerous Hollywood studio chiefs, who basically wanted to control her.   In other words, she wasn’t even human, she was a product for Hollywood.  In many ways, she represented the “Jazz Age,” when everything seemed possible, but alas, it is all an illusion.  Ironically enough she was cast as the female lead in a film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Beautiful and the Damned.” Jack Warner arranged to have Marie marry the lead actor in the film, Kenneth Harlan, on the set of the film.  Not known to Warner, Marie was already (secretly) married at the time to her first husband Sonny Gerke.   Warner quickly arranged an annulment and when the scandal died down, Marie quietly re-married Harlan, after her divorce from Gerke.  She died alone in her apartment.  They found her body two days after her death.  She was surrounded by empty bottles and her pair of barking dogs.



“Despair has its own calms.” When I reflect on my life, I realized that I’m part of the world, and whatever it is right or wrong, I’m still attached to it.  Every decision I make, can cause certain ripples through someone else’s life.   Even if I move into a room, paddle and lock the entrance and exit, cover the windows with metal shades, and turn the electricity off - I’ll still be part of this world.  “Loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings.” I can accept all of that.  I often think that I don’t have any children, due to the fear of being attached to them for the rest of my life.  If it was a sellable product, like a record collection, I can easily remove it, of course there would be regret and perhaps even depression, yet, the removal of that “product” would be just that.  The end of the story.  “Though sympathy alone can’t alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable.” One thing I promise you, my dear readers, “I will not let you go into the unknown alone.”

November 7, 2014

November 7, 2014
“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?” Pretty much the first thought when I wake up in the morning.   Having the negative first, and then the positive second is much better than thinking “cup of coffee or should I kill myself?” Nevertheless the real damage is done if there is no coffee in the house.  Waking up in the morning is perhaps the most sensitive time you will ever experience.   If you wake up the wrong way, it can destroy the rest of the day.  And once the day is destroyed, there is no way of getting it back again.   So, I take extra precautions in the morning.  I refuse to be awaken by an alarm clock.   I pay a young girl on my block, whose duty is to come to my house around 6:30 in the morning.  Her instructions are to put her naked ass near my face till I fully wake up.  I have to admit lingering in bed for 15 minutes, just to enjoy her ass in such a fashion.  Once I’m fully awake, she leaves.  I can trust her, she’s a good sport, and is working her way through cal-arts, so therefore I can trust her with the house key.  


She also prepares the coffee before she comes into my bedroom.  So, in theory, I can live for another 24 hours.  For the past 311 days, I have been following a specific morning ritual, so I could write my daily narratives for my employee, Facebook.  The writing process is interesting because “there are some wounds that one can heal only by deepening them and making them worse.” People who have read my series of essays have commented to me “how far can you go into the depths of despair?” My stock answer is that I have an express elevator that goes from the top to the bottom of despair within seconds.   To able to write, in my own manner, is really to rely on my charm.  That’s the difference between ‘bad’ and ‘good’ writing.  “You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.” I’m good at that, and always have been.   Yet, we all know deep down that I’m quite a failure.  A friend of mine had commented to me “I expected better of you, Tosh.” I replied: “ Me too, but I got used to it.” 


If I’m at home in Los Angeles, I start writing around 7:30 in the morning.  I’m having the cup of coffee my ‘little helper’ made me, and as usual I have a nice black and white photograph of the British model Jean Shrimpton.   She is maybe the first female that made me aware that there is something sexual outside of my world.  Of course I was ten at the time, but I collected images of her in the film “Privilege” for whom she starred in with the pop singer Paul Jones.   I couldn’t articulate my feelings for her as a child, and oddly enough to this day, I’m still struggling with how I feel about Jean.   For whatever reasons, she was the first person who I reacted to due to her British accent.  For sure, I have heard the accent, but this was the first time where I attached a face to a voice, and to this day, when I’m in a sexual situation, I think of her voice.  I can actually hear it in my head.  I’m not a firm believer in the ‘Muse, ’ but when I type, it is her voice that comes through me.  What I find the most attractive about Jean, is “she genuinely didn’t care how she looked.  She honestly never understood what all the fuss was about. ”



I wouldn’t say I have a love for Jean Shrimpton, because I don’t believe that it is that.  Eros?  “My own, self-consciousness cries out to me coldly: how does one love zero?” Yet, when I'm empty that is when I am the most happiest.   Writing to me is a practice to empty one’s soul onto a page, and then forgetting about it.  “To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.” Sometime ago, I realized that Jean was just a symbol to me, not a real person.  In fact, I don’t have anyone around me that is real.   Even the four seasons that pass Los Angeles in such a manner that you can’t really notice it.  But I do, because “autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” But even that, the seasons are used to mark time is passing.  Most of my work is fiction, because I’m interested in the truth, whatever that may be.  “Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.” In other words, we need a narration of some sort.  I can’t write a narrative piece if my life depended on it, and at this point in time, it clearly does.  “I’m a man who knows nothing, guesses sometimes, finds frequently and who’s always amazed. ”

Broadway by Light (William Klein - 1958)

A fantastic film by William Klein. I have heard of this film, but I haven't seen it till now.  Mostly I know his photographs through his various classic photo books - all, beautifully designed by the way.  Nevertheless, this is a superb film.  I have the collection that Criterion put out, and in France there is a much larger box-set of his film works.  And i imagine this film is in that collection.  Boy-oh-boy, this is a treat.

TamTam Books List on D.A.P.

TAMTAM BOOKS ACTIVE BACKLIST TITLES Lun*na Menoh: A Ring Around The CollarTAMTAM BOOKSHbk, 8.5 x 11 in. / 48 pgs / 40 color / flexi disc. | 10/31/2014 | In stock
ISBN 9780985272418 | $59.95 The Death InstinctTAMTAM BOOKSPbk, 6 x 9 in. / 325 pgs. | 10/31/2014 | In stock
ISBN 9780966234688 | $16.95 Red GrassTAMTAM BOOKSPbk, 5.75 x 8.5 in. / 230 pgs. | 11/30/2013 | In stock
ISBN 9780966234695 | $15.95 In The Words of Sparks...Selected LyricsTAMTAM BOOKSHbk, 4.25 x 6.75 in. / 200 pgs. | 10/31/2013 | In stock
ISBN 9780985272401 | $24.95 I Spit On Your GravesTAMTAM BOOKSPbk, 5.75 x 8.5 in. / 177 pgs. | 10/31/2013 | In stock
ISBN 9780966234602 | $17.00 Evguenie SokolovTAMTAM BOOKSPbk, 7 x 5 in. / 137 pgs. | 2/29/2012 | In stock
ISBN 9780966234619 | $17.00 Foam of the DazeTAMTAM BOOKSPbk, 8.5 x 5.5 in. / 261 pgs. | 3/31/2012 | Awaiting stock
ISBN 9780966234633 | $18.00 Autumn in PekingTAMTAM BOOKSPbk, 8.75 x 5.5 in. / 284 pgs. | 2/29/2012 | In stock
ISBN 9780966234640 | $18.00 The Dead All Have The Same SkinTAMTAM BOOKSPbk, 8.5 x 5.70 in. / 137 pgs / illustrated throughout. | 2/29/2012 | In stock
ISBN 9780966234657 | $17.00 To Hell with the UglyTAMTAM BOOKSPbk, 8.5 x 5.75 in. / 200 pgs / illustrated throughout. | 2/29/2012 | In stock
ISBN 9780966234664 | $15.95 Gainsbourg: The BiographyTAMTAM BOOKSPbk, 8.5 x 5.5 in. / 400 pgs. | 7/31/2012 | In stock
ISBN 9780966234671 | $24.95

November 6, 2014

November 6, 2014

It has become a tough year.  First and foremost, I lost the Nobel Prize for Literature, and also lost the translation prize for my publication of Boris Vian’s “Red Grass, ” as well as most of my fortune, that I have spent without any qualms about my security.  My refusal to work for a living, as well as my snobbish attitude towards my fellow citizens, has not made me “likable” or “presentable.” My once earned public has been abandoning me by the droves. It is like I’m a theater and someone in the audience yelled out “fire.” My car broke down, and I had to sell it part-by-part, to make money to eat.  All I have left is the steering wheel.  I used to eat well, but now pretty much have my dinner, lunch, and a light breakfast at the local AM/PM market.  I tried to grow some vegetables in my backyard, but due to the water shortage in our state, as well as the gophers, the greens are pretty much gone.



“A man can’t be angry at his own time without suffering some damage.” I figure if I just lay on the couch and not move at all, I will find some peace.   One thing I do notice is the passing of time, which happens slowly.  I pretty much wait for the darkness to take charge of the room.  I could put some lights on, but I want to save money, so I sit in the darkness and think about my soul.  Lately I have placed special emphasis on eliminating a lot of objects and things around me.  For instance, do I need to hear music.  I have heard a great deal of music in my life, that I can probably hum melodies by the hundreds.  So I will sell my hi-fi as well as all the vinyl.   I’ll discontinue the Internet service, and focus on the paper and pen.  To be exact, I can go to Muji to buy a cheap notebook (you can purchase five notebooks at a discount when it is shrink-wrapped together) a ballpoint pen, and one or two pencils.   I’ll get rid of my bed, and just sleep on the couch.  Or is it possible to rent out the bedroom?  Perhaps I could rent it by the hour to the young gentlemen who need a bed to have sex on.



I used to be a movie fan, in fact my hero was Thomas Ince, because he was one of the first people to actually put a movie studio together.  He saw film making as a factory business.  It takes a man with a larger vision to become something important.  Since my resources are dwindling to nothing, perhaps I should organize my life as a studio and not as an individual.  By the end of the day, or sometime before the room goes totally dark, I should finish something.  Right now, I guess it will have to be some sort of writing.   On the other hand, I should do something modest and not too grand.  A page a day.  To save paper, I’ll write in pencil as well as corrections, and re-write that page with ink.



Thinking right now, it should be a journal.  Not much is happening around me, but my head is full of thoughts.  Sometimes I can’t stop them.   What I need is a good old-fashioned editor, but I don’t know anyone who could do that type of work.  I just have to think like Ince, in that there is one compartment in the studio that does a certain type of work, and there is another office that will finish it.  If I can just project my couch as one space, and the small table and chair across the room as another space, I think I’ll be fine.

November 5, 2014

November 5, 2014

“I found it difficult to reconcile success with humility.  I tried it first, but it meant avoiding the very essence of my career - total exhilaration and the ecstasy of creativity.” Then the failure happens, the rejection starts, and my once wonderful life is over.  I tried with all my talent to make a well-designed world, where one can find happiness or at the very least, contentment in a perfectly balanced landscape where design meets desire.  I tried to step-out when things got dicey, but one cannot run from their troubles or signs of danger, but alas, time will catch up with you.  It always did, and it always will.



“I was so far back in the woods, they almost had to pipe in sunlight.” My despair when I discovered that all I have worked for has come to nothing.  I tried to find the beauty in that, but what that is like is when you see an image of water in the desert, and you come upon it, and you realize it is just dry sand.  I live my life as a projection, and I’m OK if I don’t penetrate the screen in front of me.  “The world changed.  Hollywood changed. I think we’ve lost something, and we don’t know how to get it back.”



I walk into a room, and it is full of people I don’t know.  Clearly I don’t belong here.   The oddness of having a drink with them, and I think it will only be a matter of time, when they realize that I’m a foreigner here, as in, I don’t belong here.  “May the wind at your back never be your own.” I think I read that in a fortune cookie somewhere on Canal Street.   Or maybe from a Chinese wholesaler selling advice on the side.  I should be mature enough to take such warning, before I even entered that room.  “The world is filled with archaic objects - mailboxes which look like alarm boxes, banks which look like places to break out of rather than places to enter.” I had to excuse myself and I entered the restroom, and looked at my image in the mirror.   I didn’t recognize him, because what I’m seeing is a projection.  When I see a photograph of myself, I can hardly recognize my image.   It is always so different from what you see in a mirror and then when someone else captures your spirit - you are definitely not person.  But obviously you are, and therefore is the rub of the narrative.



Behind my back they called me the “Ace of Spies,” meaning that they don’t know who I am, and the secret is, I don’t know myself at all.   Honesty is a role that I play at that very precise moment.  When I say “I love you, ” it is only for the passing moment when the cloud goes through the moonlight.  Like a vampire facing daylight, I too must pass, and therefore I go back to my well-designed world, and try not to look back.