Otherwise . . .

Or, why you should move a boat over a hill in the jungle.

Burden of Herzog

Nature is called a lot of things:  brash, bold, Mother, blind, amoral, unconcerned, and magnificent, for example.  I'm not sure if anyone has used "stupid", so I'll throw that one in. 

Consider, for example, Werner Herzog in the Amazon:

Of course we are challenging Nature itself, and it hits back. It just hits back that's all, and that's grandiose about it, and we have to accept that it is much stronger than we are.

[Klaus] Kinski always says it's full of erotic elements. I don't see it so much erotic, I see it more full of obscenity . . . Nature here is vile and base. I wouldn't see anything erotical [sic] here. I would see fornication, and asphyxiation, and choking and fighting for survival, and growing and just rotting away.

Of course there's a lot of misery. But it is the same misery that is all around us. The trees here are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don't think they sing, they just screech in pain.

Of course, you might be testy too if you were trying to haul a steamship over a jungle hill.  (See the documentary, up there with "Hearts of Darkness" for sheer what-the-hell-were-these-people-thinking?)

Back to Herr Direktor in the jungle:

It's an unfinished country, it's still prehistorical [sic]. The only thing that is lacking is the dinosaurs, here . . . It's like a curse weighing on an entire landscape, and whoever goes too deep into this has his share of that curse. So we are cursed with what we are doing here.

It's a land that God, if he exists, has created in anger. It's the only land where creation is unfinished yet.

Taking a close look at what's around us, there is some sort of a harmony -- it is the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder . . . And we in comparison to the articulate vileness and baseness and obscenity of all this jungle, we in comparison to that enormous articulation, we only sound and look like badly pronounced and half-finished sentences out of a stupid suburban novel, a cheap novel. And we have to become humble in front of this overwhelming misery and overwhelming fornication, overwhelming growth and overwhelming lack of order. Even the stars up here in the sky look like a mess. There is no harmony in the universe. We have to get acquainted to this idea that there is no real harmony as we have conceived it.

But when I say this, I say this all full of admiration for the jungle. It is not that I hate it -- I love it. I love it very much, but I love it against my better judgment.

Ja.  For full effect, watch the video.

The Octopus Has No Head, Part 1

This "Octopus" series of posts was drawn from emails I wrote during the last two months, in the wake of what may have been a tornado.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Hi Everybody!

So, last Tuesday night I come home around 10:00 pm, and see yellow tape over the outer doors of my apartment building. I'm thinking, what the FUCK?! So I go over to my landlord, who lives two blocks away, and he tells me a tornado ripped the roof off the building. Turns out, it wasn't officially classified, but some kind of "freak storm" (as the local paper called it) did rip the roof off the building, including the ceiling of two apartments -- my apartment missed similar damage by feet.

Pics are here: http://njherald.mycapture.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=806089&CategoryID=4460&ListSubAlbums=0

My building has been classified as uninhabitable, and water and power are off. Estimates range from days to weeks until I can get back in. And I may not want to, because in the interim there has been some water damage to the cieling of my kitchen, which may mean work will need to be done inside my apartment.

Thanks for listening, and if anybody wants to get drunk with me, please get in touch.

Friday, August 28, 2009

All,

I have been barred from my apartment for over a month now, except for moving stuff out. In this time there has been water damage to my kitchen ceiling, and there is a big hole where the ceiling of my bathroom closet used to be. Some estimates put it at two weeks until the building is declared habitable again, but I'm not going back.

I'm giving 30 days notice for the end of September, and will be using the time to move out and get the place in order. I may need someone to help me with a bed and a dresser, possibly just to move the items to the curb, possibly to move the items somewhere else (in which case a truck will be necessary). If you might be able help, please get in touch.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Hello.

Days after my last email, I entered my apartment to find three bad areas of water damage on the cieling -- two big sagging ones in the living room, and one in the bedroom. Two of these had cracked, dripping water onto the floor, ruining some papers in the living room.

I'm dealing with real geniuses here.

I gave 30 days notice on 8/31, and the very next day there was suddenly a hurry for me to evacuate. No one wants to be responsible for damage to my stuff, you see, so apparently 30 days notice only applies for the landlord's convenience.

Whatever. I'm shooting for the move-out to take a week . . .

Never, ever rent from a guy who answers the phone "Yeah?"