11/05/99

I keep losing track of ways
to apprehend durations, intervals
of time, relationships between
different types of time. Which
is why "Happy Birthday To
You" is the biggest hit of all
time. No matter what, it comes
down to relating it to your
age, the number of years gone
by.

What of the years when
time meant nothing at all?
When the only thing I could
relate to about the concept had
to do with how long I had
to wait for the adults to
finish whatever endless
thing it was they had to do.
This was "The Day The Earth Stood
Still?" But now it is the
opposite, it is so much better
when there is an opportunity to
slow down.

In a rush, it feels like
you have turned time's spigot
all lthe way. You are grabbing
time by the handfull, using
vast amounts of time to
attend to details- giving
time over to working things out with
or for other people.

11/19/99

Ah, response. So near and so
far away. I thought back to
times, times (unbelievably!)
even now sometimes are summoned forth by
the slenderest, the most gossamer
and opaque of details.

Each assertion actually comes
out to be a nod to somebody.
I climbed down the lines
of his poem as if I were
climbing down a ladder
into his most private
musings, musings which
appear at last on the
surface of a reflective surface,
some frozen liquid, ice
perhaps. Perhaps!
At last, a chance
to bathe in hesitations.
"Procrastination is the poetry
of our lives..." Charles
Bernstein- and a young
Bernstein at that.