ten things sixteen
Posted by Joel's secretary at 22 Jan 2008 and is filed under uncategorized 
1.excerpt: varanasi
I stand on the steps that lead down to the bottom of the Ganges and people come up from out of the river and push against me, wet with holy shit water, ash dead water, dead people, fingernails and babies water, because babies can die too. I think that even people who know my name can die (Thank You). There is smoke in the air. I want desperately for the smoke to be so much incense, backyard barbecues, cheap cigars, but I know that the smoke is people. It stains the buildings where they cook rice and wake up in the morning and fight with their wives and husbands - they, the living, they, who carry stretcher-bound bodies through the streets wrapped in goldred sheets.
The heads on the stretcher bodies loll from side to side as they're carried down the alleys, covered. That's how you can tell. That's what I learned from TV. As soon as someone's head is covered they're gone and even Juliana Mgulies and George Clooney can't bring them back. In TV they cut to commercial. In India they carry them down to the holy Ganges to be burned.
Wealthy Indians who had fallen on hard times used to burn their clothes to extract the gold embroidery threads from them, they say.
They also say dying is like taking off one set of clothes and putting on another.
I need to pick up my laundry from that woman.
At the burning ghats on the bank of the Ganges there are a lot of bodies to be burned, a real pile up, so there is a fair amount of waiting around. Some of the young men (still soft) cry. Old men play cards, as old men often do while death is waiting just over there. They don't allow women here - death is men's business. I'm waiting too. I wonder, how does a wet mound of flesh ever burn away? Three hours or so. Sizzle and some spit, puff and collapse. Great green scales weigh the fire wood that will consume each body, pitting the fullness of a life against a few sticks. It's rigged - the sticks always win. Dead wood, dead weight on a scale. Waiting, also. Every once in a while a hollow pop shoots from the embers and the hollowness of my gut responds, like to like, ashes to ashes.
On top of the dead people, standing on every rooftop, kids fight tissue paper kites, laughing and dancing in the smoke to the rhythms of some New Smash Hit Bollywood Jams. The kids fight with the kites and the kites fight with the wind. A string snaps and a kite flies off toward the Ganges, then the fight is over - a looser and a winner. The kite flies over the river as some untouchable man below scatters ashes into it.
2. when the man on the platform told me that he would vote for ron paul if he could, I didn't think it was so strange. this guy was weird and british, so I didn't really question it. he started talking about the ron paul revolution and I conceded that it would be quite a change. then I said I wasn't so sure if the country was ready for a six-foot tall african american drag queen to be commander in chief.
oh.
ron paul. not rue paul.
my bad.
3. q: a b? a: a b.
4. prone
5. reading foucault, thinking about Darger
6. pooja pooja
pooja
on the
ganga
ganga ganga
7.
8.
10. why would anyone ever not eat another biscuit?
I stand on the steps that lead down to the bottom of the Ganges and people come up from out of the river and push against me, wet with holy shit water, ash dead water, dead people, fingernails and babies water, because babies can die too. I think that even people who know my name can die (Thank You). There is smoke in the air. I want desperately for the smoke to be so much incense, backyard barbecues, cheap cigars, but I know that the smoke is people. It stains the buildings where they cook rice and wake up in the morning and fight with their wives and husbands - they, the living, they, who carry stretcher-bound bodies through the streets wrapped in goldred sheets.
The heads on the stretcher bodies loll from side to side as they're carried down the alleys, covered. That's how you can tell. That's what I learned from TV. As soon as someone's head is covered they're gone and even Juliana Mgulies and George Clooney can't bring them back. In TV they cut to commercial. In India they carry them down to the holy Ganges to be burned.
Wealthy Indians who had fallen on hard times used to burn their clothes to extract the gold embroidery threads from them, they say.
They also say dying is like taking off one set of clothes and putting on another.
I need to pick up my laundry from that woman.
At the burning ghats on the bank of the Ganges there are a lot of bodies to be burned, a real pile up, so there is a fair amount of waiting around. Some of the young men (still soft) cry. Old men play cards, as old men often do while death is waiting just over there. They don't allow women here - death is men's business. I'm waiting too. I wonder, how does a wet mound of flesh ever burn away? Three hours or so. Sizzle and some spit, puff and collapse. Great green scales weigh the fire wood that will consume each body, pitting the fullness of a life against a few sticks. It's rigged - the sticks always win. Dead wood, dead weight on a scale. Waiting, also. Every once in a while a hollow pop shoots from the embers and the hollowness of my gut responds, like to like, ashes to ashes.
On top of the dead people, standing on every rooftop, kids fight tissue paper kites, laughing and dancing in the smoke to the rhythms of some New Smash Hit Bollywood Jams. The kids fight with the kites and the kites fight with the wind. A string snaps and a kite flies off toward the Ganges, then the fight is over - a looser and a winner. The kite flies over the river as some untouchable man below scatters ashes into it.
2. when the man on the platform told me that he would vote for ron paul if he could, I didn't think it was so strange. this guy was weird and british, so I didn't really question it. he started talking about the ron paul revolution and I conceded that it would be quite a change. then I said I wasn't so sure if the country was ready for a six-foot tall african american drag queen to be commander in chief.
oh.
ron paul. not rue paul.
my bad.
3. q: a b? a: a b.
4. prone
5. reading foucault, thinking about Darger
6. pooja pooja
pooja
on the
ganga
ganga ganga
7.
this is shiva, destroyer of the universe. someone knit him a sweet little cozy.
8.
8.
don't judge me if you don't know me: 2pac
bling buddies 4 life, ya hurd?
“–you know, I’ve either had a family, a job,
something has always been in the
way
but now
I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I’m going to have
a place and the time to
create.”
no baby, if you’re going to create
you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you’re on
welfare,
you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown
away,
you’re going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,
flood and fire.
baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.
-bukowski9. I'm your people.
10. why would anyone ever not eat another biscuit?
as i looked at image 8, i thought the caption would be "joel finds his indian doppelganger"
is that just me?
i also like how shiva w/ cozy is looking very Jawa from star wars episode four.
you can never have enough rue paul references.
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don't be such a sad sack joel. buzzkill!
bless,
.o.0.o.
princess Tiff
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Pretty amazing writing Joel. The emotive descriptions are great (as are the pictures). Are you aiming to get a Pulitzer out of this too?
Hope all's well- Happy New Year.
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evidently we are the most common looking people in the world
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