Sounds Like Words

Do you reuse tissues?

And if so, what kind?

Do you eat to the bone?

to the peel? to the rind?

Is this like the people

who you seldom trust?

You must be criticized;

you must, must, must.

They shall consume you,

all those you won’t trust.

It’s you who they’ll gnaw at

right down to the crust.

And each line on your fingers,

each callous and tear,

will render you deaf,

unable to hear.

And when you can’t hear

you surely won’t trust

the wisdom of those,

of that which you must.

The corners of hands,

your idle hands,

will run away from you,

divide, and disband.

But there is yet hope,

have faith in yourself,

keep your mind in your head,

and not on a shelf.

So now can you see

the lies that are yours?

Put the used tissues

back in their drawers.

For me, my art (what I do, how I go about doing it, and what it results in) is therapy. Meditation. I have trouble dealing with the world around me, so I find a certain solace in repeated, mantra-like activities, however menial and redundant they may seem to the observer. Whether it’s 500 onions, or 100 moths, my work has taken on the form of swarms of little things, that when added together in a large enough amount, yield a greater overall mass to be taken in at once by the viewer. The process for each separate one was the same, practiced motion of bending wire, ripping and wrapping tape, tying knots, forming blisters on my hands until they hardened and callused—but it was all a beautiful meditation for me, and gave birth to 100 unique little creatures.

How I arrive at these meditative processes is simple: my childhood informs my decisions, content, narratives, and even materials. I fool around in the studio, in class, or at home making things, and once I come to one thing in particular that stands out, I try to duplicate it ad infinitum, ad nauseam, until I lose temporal perception and the action itself makes the world around me dissolve, then I become one with nothingness (or as close to it as I can get). I have always been searching for nothingness, the same way moths are searching for and are drawn to light. After all, isn’t light simply waves? invisible little forces flitting about in the universe? a certain nothingness?—that is, the concept of nothing exists, because it’s a word, but nothing itself is not something. And yet these waves of energy are still perceived. So too, sound is but invisible waves. And as one will observe, these waves can move things. Just as light waves move moths, so too do sound waves.

This is a Whomply. Oh, he’s

he is hisself mnn. hmm

nn–anxious! Oh, that he

blows a toobely horn, that

one! oh. And nnnd he dances, that one.

And gesticulates so, to rrrrattle suchly

my overalls-alls!

…where’s Wembly that wemm

whennn you nneed knead him.

I just could cry. Oh. wemmmmm!

Enter Christmastime: A man dressed as Babbo Natale stops to look over the menu outside of ristorante di Ciro and Sons. He sucks on a cigarette as his poorly-shaven, gaunt façade moves up and down, scanning what he’s not too pleased to be reading, hence his blanch dismissal of and walking away from. The bells hung around his waist jingle with each step he takes, piercing the usual hum of the strade fiorentine. As I pass him, humming methodically yet jovially to myself the great hallowing trumpet line from Tomaso Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor, a be-hatted man hobbling the roughly-hewn precipice between sidewalk curb and cobble stoned street on a bicycle sings aloud, “Oh, the weather outside is frightful…”

I climb the stairs in a swirling square until I reach my door; I enter and drape my coat and green scarf (it’s my favorite scarf; that and my llama scarf) on the coat rack, then immediately go to the bathroom. After relieving myself I continue to my room. Turning the creaksome knob, I enter into bliss—if such a word can describe a single cube of space. The walls are stark and white.  There is nothing in the room except for a chair and a lamp hanging from the ceiling. On one wall is scrawled a single word: NOTHING.

Resting on said chair is the very thing that is itself the only true reason for the chair being there in the first place; my trumpet (in other words: I have no use for the chair except as a seat for my horn when it is not in use).  There’s no bed, either. I suffer from insomnia. Plus, when I am able to sleep, I am terribly disturbed by notes and words flying around my head like moths to a lamp. I have a strange affinity to moths.

Emm, wemmmms’s

Wembley Trembly, he’s is

ist him, he’s back!

Back again, against

Is hence, hence it is

‘e’s back-ack

and this time with the gas!

Gasata-aha!

Wem-wem-wemmingly

Wembley’s ‘ere

And t’e’s singing isself a tune

A one-two noter to hisself

Up there, there on hisshelf

Sittin’ and a-singin’

Singe sand snuggin’ and tuggin’ on a song

A song o’ his

That good ol’

Gosh ol’

Wemmy-wen-wemmington

Sitting

Singing

Songing

Up there

To himself, self selfly selflington

On his shelf

‘twas a Thursday, twist ‘is day

up there

it was

still cold

Wem-Wembley

Bley Wembley

Trem-trembly

Trembling

Up-upon

Up on

Up on top of

His

How-house,

House

Sitting nothing doing

But watt-what-watching

The brid-bird brrrr

In the sun warmth-irmth

But was, ‘twas

It was

Still cold

Was ‘is day

It was his day

Wem-Wembleysday

When-wen

Wednesday

Wen-Wemmingly

It was

Still cold

Breton’s famous pig often lurched in a series of off-kilter jokes, flogging its backside with its tail to keep off the flies and pestilence of a thousand. And one day it stopped, and someone asked, ”Shall we? Shall we? Shall we…” almost a hundred times over and over. The pig gave no milk, only that its sucklings could inherit a sense of their own demise and fend off the creatures they would not create themselves.

Breton’s famous pig was large and girthy, and ate constantly; incessantly chewing its own feces and drool, which covered its slimy maw and most of the nostrils; these nostrils billowing out a constant stream of mucus with each putrid exhalation.

Breton’s famous swine was pink and green. It stood there smelling and hairy; it never danced or moved for that matter. Everyone who saw it immediately turned up their noses and began to vomit, not seeing the true nature of this porcine being. It could not be slaughtered, this famous big pig of Breton’s, but it still never died, ever, so it just kept on growing, and stinking, and putrefying the air and the ground which it inhabited.