From Project Fantasy to Project Happpiness: Welcome back to Brooklyn

Back in my space in New York again, I feel innocent with experience, light with an understanding of heavy memories. I choose my thought patterning, or at least, I choose to acknowledge them for what they are, desiring not so much to tear them out or rip them apart, but to source their roots, contents, and consequences.

"Observe your thoughts, they become your words.
Observe your words, they become your actions.
Observe your actions, they become your habits.
Observe your habits, they become your character.
Observe your character, they become your destiny."

The self-reflexive eye of inadequacy and fear is like projectile webbing from spiderman's wrist--only you are spiderman, holding your power at an arm's length, having it glare at you and you stare and spit and holler back. DIRECTION and INTENTIONALITY. PERCEPTION of SPACE and RELATIONSHIP to SPACE. It's all a dancing. Step outside of yourself for a change.

FEELINGS 101
A curriculum for school of soft knocks and emotional warriors

How amazing, the subconscious! How amazing, memory! How revolutionary, the warping of time with memory! How wondrous, dreaming! How scandalous, the sabotage of unbelief! Luckily I have been advised: kick your evil twin's ass. Do it tenderly and compassionately...but don't stop kicking until you convince your evil twin to take greater responsibility for his or her personal share of the world's darkness.

What is believing?

Wind from the window makes my door open of its "own" accord. Tailwinds fight with an impassioned heart on flight 983 to cause a purposeful delay, a forced fortuitousness (code = I wanted to miss that connecting flight. Did I make it happen?). Wind on a sunny Paddington streetside pub bench makes fuscia teardrop flowers fall "from the sky" onto the crease of my sweater at the front of my sternum while I talk about love, risk, playing it safe, playing the game--future. Tit for tat. Why not tat for tit?

Believe a little!
Belittling, leave!
Bereave the riddle--resolve to breathe!

I regret the times when I am not awake to begin with, but perhaps instead of crying over spilled opportunity-milk, I can learn from my hesitations (caused by ignoring and disbelief) that these are the habits I recourse to (how windy does it have to be before you close the window? did I even stick my head outside to check?). Working backwards, I see myself in my snail's hut of fragile spiraling shell, again conducting the habit-forming action of yelling into silences that yesterday's room was louder. I see the molecular thoughts of fear-of-losing-so-defense-is-never-to-want-and-always-to-resist coalesce and sediment into a hard crystal nugget (which I would like to see whittled into a flat stone by breaking waves, which I would then like to skim across still water to make rectangular ripples. Tada!).

Melinda is a magician! An Italian magician! No, not quite, but MELINDA, FIRST LADY OF MAGIC is a regular showing at the Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas, ranked as one of the top three magicians in the world alongside David Copperfield and Siegfried & Roy.(1) MELINDA GOLDEN DELICIOUS is also an Italian brand of organic apples, coming not from a love affair in an orchard, or a dimpled girl with a bonnet (as on Melinda's XXX Super Hot Habenero Sauce label), but MELA + LINDA. Mela linda. Clean apple.(2) Can life be so sweet? Will you accept the premise of mission:project:happiness? Will you accept magic and clean apples?

There should be a more conclusive end to this self-reflection but my mind dived off a high board and is busy snorting water out its nose and dislodging its swimming suit from between its two round cheeks (hemispherical-mind-wedgie). This is a better situation than my mind chewing on yesterday's leftovers still stuck at the back of my brain-teeth, but luckily, however, when this happens, my head is already covered with...floss!

Footnotes:

(1) Las Vegas Entertainment Today reports:
Melinda, First Lady of Magic is the No. 1 female magician in history. USA Today ranks her as one of the top three magicians in the world along with David Copperfield and Siegfried & Roy. Melinda is the first and only woman to ever star in her own prime time magic television special, "Disney's Melinda, First Lady of Magic," which aired on CBS. The International Society of Magicians named Melinda "Magician of the Year." One of her signatures acts is to make a sports car disappear at the speed of 100 miles an hour.

(2) Italy produces about 2 billion tonnes of apples per annum, about 4.5% of world production. There is a MONDOMELINDA Visitors Centre in Taio in Val di Non, and MELINDA GOLDEN DELICIOUS are known for their signature "rosy face", a red blush said to be caused "by the rays of the early morning sun in late summer and early autumn: the apples, damp from the night dew brought about by the intense night excursion which is typical in the mountains at this time of the year, are “kissed” by the sun in the morning. Usually the rosiest apples grow on the outer branches, are more exposed to the sun and are sweeter and crunchier."

in researching for graduate school, i feel once again like i am being asked to choose a topic for my undergraduate thesis when i never really got to learn what i wanted there so i settled.

i don't even know how many hours were spent absorbing meaningful yet purposeless information that never had a career in mind; no one asked me about career, or what i wanted, or how i was feeling about it. was amanda bayer still my academic advisor at the time? i don't remember, although i do remember that she considered hiring me to teach her daughter tap during the summer.

i feel like an idiot. the only place my life makes sense is in new york and even then, partly, maybe because it's full of people who only partly make sense, and in this way it is a community that is interdependent. it is not a brave or noble statement to make with your life that you survived and had beautiful experiences, but then there is that taste of aristocracy in the desire to be brave or noble or Kim Basinger playing white savior/survivor Kuki Gallmann on a ranch in Kenya. this is what i mean by fantasies i have of myself in "serving the greater good".  I'll never be more civic-minded than a cop, for instance, yet I'll try to earn triple her salary by proving that i'm clever.

but i have a lot of knowledge.  what can i tell you? what do you want to know? 

i am the proudest idiot you'll find on this earth.

Letter to Elaina

My dear Elaina!

your beautiful email comes at such a poignant time. i keep much to myself in my room on this 5th floor berlin walk-up, battling demons and memories and phantoms of regret. I've felt on the edge and yet strangely at peace .... perhaps it's a process of dying to yourself .... in that way that is full of light, not darkness.

There are still many thoughts going through my head, fantasies of myself, realizations about chapters in my life and the wonderful people who have shared them that make them a chapter with a beginning ... and a necessary end. Being here I want to be in New York, finally, at a time when I am being questioned again where/how to stay there -- more specifically, in the service of what long-term vision? And who to serve? What is recreational and what is professional? What is it I want to do, and what is it I want to know?

I spoke with Sue earlier this morning and realized that with the opportunities we've been given at a school like Swarthmore, what you know becomes what you do. I suppose that's very clear to you, as a teacher?

I find myself free and then I find myself stuck again ... I have a venue on another mixed bill at the end of the year, I am finding comfort and joy -- finally! -- in my dance practice, and can't wait to go back to it in NYC. I am reconciling old blockages in myself to do with my family, my relationships with men ... I feel myself having a passion and wanting to share it and apply it for a greater good. Hmm! So I suppose things are not so bad! I think the only confusion remaining, then, is really what are the next steps and what is the real world applicability. I suppose, the confusion remains that my main love does not make a living. My love doesn't have ambitions. It's just love. But I have ambitions. So is it an unsustainable love? And in terms of knowledge, is it simply preservationism that wants to make authoritative my knowledges gained from this pursuit for so many years -- as a matter of justification?!? (sorry, concretely, getting an MFA for example rather than pursuing a separate line of academia which I find equally but very separately interesting and vital).

Doing a lot of research on graduate programs, this is the fuel for the wood burning in my brain. Otherwise, I'll be back in New York next week Thursday, with just more work to do on all fronts. I'd rather I didn't have to move to change so quickly. Naa Aku says that maybe there are no demons, but there is indeed inertia.

Lots of love -- liebe liebe

MEL

Letter to Daddy

Dear Dad,

It's been a strange and pondering time this last week. Since I came back from the Documenta Arts festival in Kassel--in a sleepy but amazed and art-filled daze--I spent a week and more almost entirely indoors ... the cold had me dropping the 'e' in this city in prefernce to "brrrrrrlin".

But today is sunny, in many ways. I just got an email from the curators at DNA (yes, same place where I was studying) with all the details of the performance this December -- I share the bill with 4 other choreographers. There is a little stipend, but otherwise its work, work, work -- and that's great news! I realize that I am looking at a lot of alternatives for my life right now in a bit of a panicky way, trying to prove to others that really I can "do it", but do what exactly? This show in December is just one more labor of love evidently already in the direction of my imagination and desire. It is true however that there are few foreseeable concrete rewards except for itself .... "dance as its own reward". I believe in that. I believe in the people that dedicate to that. It's work.

So I wanted to share that good news with you. Where ever I may end up after, later, in the future, there is this work to be done, and it is my job to make it sophisticated, thought-provoking, resonant, real. It is doubly my job to make sure I do this job, not to kill the baby of my creativity. Naa Aku wrote me today that maybe there are no demons, or if there are, the only solution is to pick something and work on it, to be satisfied with your accomplishments and let time judge the rest.

Another friend who is a visual artist was relating to me his affirmation of the artist path from Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. Have you read that? I started it in the bookstore years ago and didn't finish--I suppose it wasn't that ground-breaking for me at the time. But Rilke's work is often an inspiration to artists, because he puts it so clearly and gracefully that you do it because you can't live without it.

There's another popular book, The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron. Here's a publisher's description: "With the basic principle that creative expression is the natural direction of life, Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan lead you through a comprehensive twelve-week program to recover your creativity from a variety of blocks, including limiting beliefs, fear, self-sabotage, jealousy, guilt, addictions, and other inhibiting forces, replacing them with artistic confidence and productivity."

I think I'll join the "over 2 million copies sold!" at risk of jumping on a bandwagon. I'm sure that clearing my mind this way will allow for greater creative efficiency which will translate to any field.

So the concrete update for 2008 is that Sazali who brought me in to guest teach at NAFA is helping me link up with human resources at NAFA and Lasalle, so I will see if there are any opportunities there. When I think about home I get excited about the developments regionally that I was seeing from the Cambodian arts scene--neo-traditional performances (albeit somewhat trying, for a modern-dance viewer like me) Auntie Halcyon brought me to, and the producers of which I met at a function hosted by Keng Seng (they were off-season when I was in Phnom Penh, unfortunately). Of course, this is also tied into the work Pichet Klunchun has been undertaking to recontextualize traditional form, which you saw last year. So I imagine myself representing and/or advocating for artists, too, at some point--because I love artists. Maybe they will be artists attached to my art--a company?--or maybe my vision--students?--or maybe just my connections--a production house? Or maybe all, at different times?

Hope you are well, I'm sure busy. Mum mentioned you were travelling. She also mentioned that she's been having realistic dreams that confuse her--like emailing me that it was Oma's birthday (I thought it was yesterday, when it was the 6th!) but realizing that she'd only dreamed she did. Oh Mum!

Love you.

MEL

Letter to Angela

Aside: In New York it is high of 75, low of 60 degrees. In Brrlin, it is high of 65 degrees and low of 50. Mudder. Fudder.

Ang-hela, mi poomp-kin!

Thanks for you update and the long-ago email -- soo lovely to hear from you and that things are moving forward (ya big basketball!)! Every time I see a Madonna and child in NameYourEra Museum -- believe it or not, I think of you! Oh, also about pillage and how ugly the 16th century painters make life out to be (but it probably was, chickens, goats, blood, fat) and history and technique and how amazing that we've had hundreds of years of these techniques and development and West and East and audiences and everything else.

I miss New York. So far I have spent 6 weeks in festivals, 1 week+ in holiday, 2 weeks in depression in exile, and we'll see about my last 2 weeks. I come back on the 27th!!!!

I'm procrastinating from writing about the DANCE that I've been seeing, doing, I'm sort of (the usual) depressed / reluctant about this form. What keeps us so tethered to it? Vanity? Narcissism? Love? Spirit? Necessity? Dreaming? Are there unworthy dreams, that have the semblance of dreaming, but are not really, because they don't reach high enough? But now, writing this long-ago email reply to you, I am inspired - Ang-hela, poompkin, my muse, I will work today on DANCE DANCE DANCe.... oh have been trying to get clips of our work on YouTube but there is a 10 minute limit and god help me editing takes time, especially with kind of shitty footage. Sorry. I swore in front of your baby.

Miss you. AH I still have your lemurs video, I know how important that is for the pre-natal preparations (to tune into your already growing animal instincts). The minute I'm back I will steal a VCR and watch it and approach your new home on all fours.

Miss you. Give my love to Nate and the bellykins. Pre- or post-baby, we simply must work on a script dahling.

Love
MEL

Dürer's Melencolia I

Albrecht Dürer 
Melencolia I 
1514
engraving 
9 3/8" x 7 3/8"

"Yet in Melencolia I, the woman is unable to freely practice any art; the union of theory and practice required to do so evades her. She sits staring in a penetrating and thoughtful gaze, lacking the will or reason to actively make use of the surrounding items. Therefore, Dürer’s engraving is a representation of the "artist’s melancholy". Based on the writings of Agrippa of Nettesheim, which state that melancholy can affect genius in the three levels of "imagination", "reason", and "mind", the reason for Melencolia’s inactivity becomes apparent. She is the artist who can excel in the first level of "imagination", denoted by the "I" on the bat’s wing, but who, because of the limits of time and space, cannot attain the higher levels of thinking. Basically, she rejects what she can do, because she cannot do what she desires."

http://www.wfu.edu/art/pc/images/pc-durer-melencolia.jpg

The Many That Take Part in Me (Quote)

"I listened, I looked and I spoke from my mind. The ancient Greeks called parrhesia: telling everything, a sort of truth telling, a fearless speech, a speech in which one will say it all. It does not matter anymore where to starts, when it is about saying everything. Everything--that does not really start somewhere and it doesn't end elsewhere. ...

"That sounds like a confession. Let's try to follow this thin line between fearless speech and pathetic confession. Actually it is not the pathos of confession that I dislike, it is the duty of confession, the institution pulling the confession out of me. What is the place for secrets in a fearless speech? So, I repeat myself, until it curves, until I get out of it. It is about how we constitute each other. It is about property and invasion, or intrusion. We depend on each other. How to learn to live together?

"I have been told I might be fooling myself. Who is this 'I' that is fooling myself? I did what I thought would be true to myself. During two years I had the intention to follow those two rules whereever they would lead me: to not spend two nights in the same place anymore and to not use any money. Of course it is about not having to work. It is about living, it is about everything that I am trying to say. But then again, how true is it to live like that for a month and to then come back to graduate? I don't know. I am repeatedly addressing to you my doubts and the limits of my understanding, of my knowledge, only because they are a function of my beliefs and my actions, the oscillation of my awareness through the gap in between the two. I feel now too big a difference between holding a speech and writing a text addressed to an absent 'you'. I wish to meet you. Again or for the first time, to discuss everything again."

PAUL GANGLOFF, Department of Haunting,
Faculty of Invisibility Papers
June 15, 2007

Brrlin Ethnographies, Installment I

I lived for two weeks on Schesisches Strasse, a hot drag at the tip of Kreuzberg where it only took one week into the stay to come face to face with riot police silencing edgy youth attempting an illgal hip hop (?or punk?) concert in the Schesisches Tor U-bahn station. An Oberbaumer-bridge away from the East Side gallery and other graff-murals on remaining Wall, the busy road leading north towards Friedrichshain also overlooks high-rise riverfront condominiums and the hyped floating swimming pool that gets covered and becomes a sauna in the winter months.

If you accept the recent coinage of the area at the border of Kreuzberg and Neukoelln as "Neubeca" (by almost as recently decommissioned Wired writer, Momus), then this area is SchlesiSoHo. Symbols of well-aware gentrification of what is otherwise an immigrant Turkish neighbourhood, the converted storage facility I lived in is shared by the following 6 enterprising young adults:

ENA, 26?, has lived off government unemployment for at least 3 years while working on her art-lesbian-activist installation pieces, DJs, and co-organizes the Porn Film Festival (night life) coming soon to a theatre near you. Ena built the kitchen.

EMMA, recently 30, born of French and German parentage and raised in Spain (or did I get that mixed up?) is fully quadrilingual, speaking English with an American accent and holds trophy as general master at the telling of stories and classic German (bar-side) bear, fox, and rabbit jokes. A professional gaffer of some years, she's now headed to a renowned film school in Berlin that I hope launches her into imminent stardom. Emma took me all the way to Mehringdamm to introduce me to currywurst the right way, at Curry 36, rather than at our seedy but nearby Curry 7.

JOHEN, 30?, has a haircut, face, build, and belly laugh worthy of celebrity adoration. A Renaissance man to the 10th degree, Johen was raised in Portugal and Frankfurt, studied a melange of interests until settling on Geography, worked in Angola for a year, and now earns a living staring at a screen for an internet company in Berlin. Johen has travelled almost more of SE Asia than I have courtesy of visiting his parents there, and rightly thinks that Singapore is overpriced.

MARIAN, also 30?, is a glorious mad professor in the making, writing a masters and potentially PhD thesis on Propaganda Theories of the Third Reich. By the time he's done I doubt anyone would know much more of Goebbels than him; he also speaks more bahasa indo than I do (not difficult), since he's also a travel hound and has a heart for the little islands. Marian's grandmother's furniture peppers through most of the apartment.

BABA (Barbara), 23, is trained as a carpenter and currently interns with a school program that brings building (creative design technologies?) to elementary school kids. She lives half on unemployment also; has a girlfriend that is the only chick I've seen here can bust on the dance floor; has bright blue eyes and a faux-hawk haircut that somehow makes many people mistake her and Johen for siblings.

AXEL, ??, was out of town for most of my stay, visiting his girlfriend in DC.

Upstairs on a non-particular Friday night, Johen, Emma and myself brave the pounding noise with the invitation to free keg beer. Middle-aged band, black-clad with coal-miner-wrinkles exacerbated by wide-mouthed wailing. They actually perform the hold-the-mic one-legged heel drop, my favorite rock band move: dum dum dum dum dum. It is early in the evening, still. A blond baby-face bears a Che Guevara tattoo on his left shoulder as big as the entire deltoid; the man dancing next to him is dressed with a sailor hat and somewhat over-eager face.

The band plays original tunes that cannot be described in any other way than, "so bad it's good." Should someone write a new edition of volume 12 of the "How to Write a Good Rock Song" Fakebook, these boys deserve their own chapter: "How Breaking Every Rule In This Book Will Make For A Decent Song Too." At least, to the Che Guevara angel and Sailor.

At some point nearing the end of their set the band leader starts talking about how it's Friday, and how they came off work, and donch y'all just love work, lalaa. A voice that could belong to any of the multitude of bald-headed pale men in this large living room cries, "SCHEISS AUF ARBEIT!", yeah, "FUCK WORK!". I am in Berlin, and du ist ein Berliner, genau, genau ...

Breaks between bands results in a number not surpassing 3 of decent oldies but goodies: Hendrix, some chunky funk, something else. I start finding my dancing shoes. Then 2 shorter members of the band formerly known as Kiss walk in, or so it seems: BEATS looks like someone rubbed ash into his face, and MIC has a solid black crescent moon decal plastered to the right side of his face. The crowd builds on the dance floor, and the best of the worst of German arhythmic eurhthmy starts as Crescent Mic starts emoting ACDC 1984. Apparently these songs are all covers, but I can't tell: all we got in Hong Kong when I was growing up was Rick Astley.

I am fascinated. I am perturbed by the projecting flasher energy from the tall man with the trenchcoat who stalks me and others. I am beginning to slip on the wet floor. I am starting to draw attention from the teenage boys who have flocked to the smell of free beer from nearby clubs and who would all like to either b-boy or electro-glow stick expertly, only they are torn between generations of cool. Also, they probably don't know how to talk to girls yet. But I am grateful for the buffer company between myself and sleaze ball sore thumb not succeeding at being discreet with his pelvic directions.

It's getting hot and rowdy. Crescent Mic Kiss is taking off his shirt. His Crescent is taking off him. His floor is taking him off his standing. He is writhing on the floor, singing "GRRRLLLLS AND BOOOYYYSSSS .... BBBOOOOYYYSSS AND GGGRRRRRLLLLSSS"....this is amazing. I hope no one quite caught the expression of my face when an elegantly dressed brunette goes right up to Mic Kiss and his Mic and starts the airplane conductor double forearm thrust around his performer aura--my face, somewhere along the spectrum of pure wonderment. People do this!

Mic Kiss (no more Crescent, Crescent having been sweated off) now changes the space from proscenium to catwalk, almost soiling Johen's signature maroon leather jacket (and Johen within it) in the process. I almost reach out to touch Mic's slithery skin like some guru at a yoga festival. I'm not enraptured; I am just ceaselessly curious. KissMic recedes, and gradually these ABCD or ACDC or ADBC lyrics--whatever they are--concede to the amazingly awful and grating DJ beats of Ash Wednesday at console.

Enough of the ethnographic expedition (I believe in the academy they call this "participant observation"). I drink and dance and send off HISS-HISS-KAZAA anti-sleaze vibes to the probably very not-ill-intentioned trenchcoat. The only thing left remaining of scientific interest is the aftermath--I descended to our apartment around 5am, just missing the breaking of the masses and the breaking of windows. The smell and stain of the hallway the next day makes me think that Berlin is just some big campus and this, this became the commons.


NEXT INSTALLMENT: Examining the Robbery of Civilizations at Brrlin's Pergamonmuseum, Ethnography Museum, and others ... the inception of MEL invention #35(v.8, patent pending): The Museums Museum.

there is a lot of work to be done.

"I would now like to sing national anthem of Artisfartistan to the tune of national anthem of Dadalamaumfufuhlalaland"

I believe in art as therapy
(what's wrong with that)
I believe in art as empowerment
(what's wrong with that)
I believe in art as man-magic*
(what's wrong with that)
I believe in art as lifestyle
(what's wrong with that)
I believe in art as education
(what's wrong with that)
I believe in art as information
(what's wrong with that)

jiggajiggaWHA
WIKka WIKka WIKka
dum dum doom
zoom zum boom

*use of word "man", for rhythmic purposes not expanded to gender-neutralized word of "human", will still be used to indicate gender-neutralized concept of "human", although whether this is to be pronounced in footnotation as "hoo-MAhn" or a "hew-MAhn", or "HOO-muhn" or a "HEW-muhn" is open to negotiation.

jiggawiggaJAwehAHmenmanHOOman

I AM A BOURGEOIS

if loving the museum is a symptom of this sickness

boogie "boo-zhee" bourgeois (or "boo-zhay"?) bully elbulli is the restaurant in Spain that is the 7th venue of Documenta arts festival in Kassel, Germany.

Pretentious? Ironic? Clever? Joke? Just another graphic on the Documenta map? 

Ich liebe es. I'm lovin' it.  Art - detail - fabric - texture - coffee - spaces - old people - social reflections - questions - more questions - a tiger cub playing with a toy snake (video) - an octopus (sculpture) - 3 dogs (sculpture) - 1 giraffe (stuffed skin) - wood - paint - 9 Scripts From A Nation At War (video installation) - 2007 - 1964 - 1989 - a Name - Another Name - Big Names - Smaller Names - Geopolitical Names - Black Ink - print - naked bodies - assemblage - montage - collage - bondage (say, "bond-ahge"?) - did you know that in Spain alone the sex economy (including but not limited to prostitution, hustling, escort services, videos, toys) generates approximately 600,000 euro a day?

DOCUMENTA

A contemporary arts festival for every 5 years. Posits the idea of "contemporary" in its right, nebulous place.  14th century Islamic scripts next to 20th century multi-screen dance video from Rio next to 19th century Indian sketches (stolen? fair trade? purchasing power parity?) from the Victoria and Albert Museum.  There is nothing new, and this is the cause of massive celebration.  Every era has been almost just as prolific and promiscuous as this one is right now, or five minutes ago, or five minutes from now.  Maybe except for the 16th century Dutch masters.  Those scenes were exceptionally grotesque.

I am going to get food and a top-up for my phone and then write more about this fabulous event.

The gestapo of ambition ... "Hitler was a vegetarian" and everyone is a fascist

Alternate title: Who do you tie your shoelaces for?

The gestapo of ambition comes knocking at the door in the middle of the night, flashlights taking 2 seconds too long to find your eyes and fasten you to your bed--too long, because it allows your consciousness to emerge beyond your animal submission--"WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR THE WORLD? HOW WILL YOU RESPOND TO THE HIGHER CALLING? WHAT IS THE BASIS OF YOUR INTEGRITY? HOW IS THE SUSTAINABILITY OF YOUR LIVING? WHERE IS THE COMPASSION OF YOUR INSISTENCE? WHERE IS THE INSISTENCE OF YOUR COMPASSION? (what is the color of your damn parachute?) DO YOU BELIEVE, DO YOU TRULY BELIEVE, THAT YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL AND WORTHWHILE AND CAPABLE?"

I have hand-prints designed for black-and-white. All four crescent lines in the palms are scars of equal depth; i hold them up towards my face and squeeze to wrinkle: they are two bickering grandmas, Weegee's two fat ladies in hats with flowers and too-thick stockings, saying crassly, "What about class?!? What about it?!?!"

Maybe I am going to die soon. But there is a break in my lifeline at its tail that I don't believe I have encountered yet. Unless it happened already and I am at the moment at the wrist? Um.

Why is it a "negative" trait, to be "double-minded"?
What is the face of a "single-minded ambition"?
Is that fascist? Is that a fascist face? Is there anything that cute or clever about rhyming "facetious" with "fascist"?

Last night the moon reflected in a pane of window glass made the entire building from inside its courtyard look like a facade, and the window glass and moon inside that center frame a sky and satellite on the other side ... or a tunnel-like portal to another dimension with a whole other sky and moon (and a whole other people looking up towards a whole other window in a whole other block of flats). Now every building appears suspiciously 2-dimensional, like standing paper cut-outs shielding the edge of the world just beyond it. Berlin is a movie set.

Zen meditation: "The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon itself."

The man with grey eyes looks like a naked fox without a den when you mention the word, "ambition". Ambition is a spaceship that sends people far, far away; "spaceship", in Italian, has the comically futurist label, "navicella spaziale". Everything in Italian seems to have an upward lift, regardless of its true disposition towards the subject at hand. The Italian is a reluctant optimist, which makes for a desirous melancholic, which is to say, an excellent mid-19th century artist but living and making in the 21st. We are all at battle with our own natures. Many of my heroes growing up were extraordinary isolationists. Did I "ambit" to become this way? What is the difference between "ambition" and "desire of the heart"? Who do you tie your shoelaces for?

AMBITION
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French or Latin; Middle French, from Latin ambition-, ambitio, literally, act of soliciting for votes, from ambire
1 a : an ardent desire for rank, fame, or power
b : desire to achieve a particular end
2 : the object of ambition
3 : a desire for activity or exertion

Synonyms:
ASPIRATION, PRETENSION mean strong desire for advancement.
AMBITION applies to the desire for personal advancement or preferment and may suggest equally a praiseworthy or an inordinate desire .
ASPIRATION implies a striving after something higher than oneself and usually implies that the striver is thereby ennobled .
PRETENSION suggests ardent desire for recognition of accomplishment often without actual possession of the necessary ability and therefore may imply presumption .

DESIRE
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French desirer, from Latin desiderare, from de- + sider-, sidus heavenly body
transitive verb
1 : to long or hope for : exhibit or feel desire for
2 a : to express a wish for : REQUEST b archaic : to express a wish to : ASK
3 obsolete : INVITE
4 archaic : to feel the loss of
Intransitive verb : to have or feel desire

Synonyms:
DESIRE, WISH, WANT, CRAVE, COVET mean to have a longing for.
DESIRE stresses the strength of feeling and often implies strong intention or aim .
WISH sometimes implies a general or transient longing especially for the unattainable .
WANT specifically suggests a felt need or lack .
CRAVE stresses the force of physical appetite or emotional need .
COVET implies strong envious desire .

The gracious monkey on my shoulder (wagging his ball and chain) reminds me: one desires peace, one does not have ambitions towards it.

The Dutch woman who lives in this flat is learning Arabic, translates for a living, visits deportees in prison, organizes for prisoner and immigrant rights/reform. Change is small and difficult.