Thursday, December 6, 2007

Moving Through Madness or "Einstein on the Beach"

Thoughts two minutes into the first scene of Einstein on the Beach: "This is music to go mad by." The quasi-hypnotic reiterations which only reluctantly allow you up for air, pummel you, coax, and finally suck you under. It is at that moment, when you feel you can't possibly take it any longer that it releases you with a suddenness that makes you gasp. You find you've passed some invisible threshold which allows you to breath without panicking, without drowning in the seemingly directionless frenetic repetitions. It is suddenly possible to see past all this static to the larger ebb and flow of the music as it bears you along, always in motion developing in monumental increments.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Collision

Going over the Brooklyn Bridge, watching reflections collide in the window. Fast, ruthless, and inevitable as life. My life. Controlled chaos, hurtling forward -barely evading disaster- on tracks I'm no longer sure are of my own choosing. There are entirely new vistas opening on every side and I'm moving too quickly to be sure of the choices I'm making. There have been turning points recently that seem altogether inevitable and perfectly reckless, a force or momentum drawing me irresistibly forward, and in my helplessness there has been a kind of wild joy and vulnerability . I have never felt this vulnerable in my life, this susceptible. Soon there will be a split in these tracks and I'll find out if I have the nerve to relinquish my death-grip on control and learn what it means to risk a collision and emerge -still breathing- on the other side.