19 posts from April 2009

Stallion, step away.
Saddle up the width of an inch
I'm good where I am, I am good where I am

Wrote off the stray gold from the list I hold
And I wrote off all the gold from the list you hold
I'll be the grave with no name on the stone

And fight for your right to hate the night
Children singing like a choir with no taste for the wine
And the time winding down when the chiding eye falls upon you
You

First fall of light on the counterfeit ring
Lightens every face, some unknown glittering
The balancing of rider and steed can't be upon you
Y  o  u

Stallion, step away
Saddle up the width of an inch
I'm good where I am, I am good where I am
But my god, where I am, my god where I am
And you, you had a lot of flexing of muscles on the stage
Step away, step step away,   s t e p    a w a y

Saddle up the width of an inch
Stallion, step away
Ride off, the prospect of gold in my wake
Stallion, step away
The fluttering of wings in the trees can’t beat upon you

Disc 1: Magician

1. Pioneer To The Falls -- Interpol
2. Tiger Mountain Peasant Song -- Fleet Foxes
3. Magic Vs. Midas -- Sunset Rubdown
4. Fine Young Cannibals -- Wolf Parade
5. Pace Is The Trick -- Interpol
6. Hand At Dusk -- Swan Lake
7. Naomi -- Neutral Milk Hotel
8. Black Cross -- Herman Dune
9. Opium -- Marcy Playground
10. Rest My Chemistry -- Interpol

B Sides
1. Saint John -- Cold War Kids
2. Swimmer -- Broken Social Scene
3. Lacewings -- The Clientele

Disc 2: Tiphareth

1. Hey You Handsome Vulture -- Sunset Rubdown
2. Your Protector -- Fleet Foxes
3. King Of Carrot Flowers -- Neutral Milk Hotel
4. Vampire -- Pink Mountaintops
5. In The Flowers -- Animal Collective
7. New Soft Motherhood Alliance -- Frog Eyes
8. Middleman -- Bright Eyes
9. The Taming Of The Hands That Came Back To Life -- Sunset Rubdown
10. In A Dream -- Flying Tourbillon Orchestra

B Sides
1. This Love Is Fucking Right -- Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
2. I Only Want You -- Eagles Of Death Metal

Limited-Edition 7": Off The Path, Or Madmuse

1. Better Be Heaven -- Stars
2. Joseph Cornell -- The Clientele
3. Blue Ridge Mountains -- Fleet Foxes
4. Are You Swimming In Her Pools -- Swan Lake
5. California Dreamer -- Wolf Parade
7. Apollo's Frock -- Tori Amos
8. It's All Gonna Break -- Broken Social Scene
9. Dinu Lipatti's Bones -- The Mountain Goats
10. Donde Esta La Playa -- The Walkmen
11. You Are A Runner And I Am My Father's Son -- Wolf Parade

B Sides:
1. You Could Be Love -- TV On The Radio
2. Winter -- The Dodos

I'm still angry with Vega, on a practical level, although whatever it is that stirred me to actually feel it seems to have ebbed, been regulated. It's a dangerous emotion.

So I've decided on responding in a practical way. After all, the universe needs to remain in balance. If Vega wants to dredge up curses, I'll play ball.

--

Dear Aunt Luciana,

I'm sure Nettie's told you by now that you've become a grandmother at last -- don't fret, Aunt, you are still the family matriarch, and no one would ever accuse you of looking your age, either. I hear tell it's a beautiful child and the family is eager to see you again.

It concerns me that no one has extended you an invitation to visit with us, but you know your son is quite occupied following in the footsteps of his father in most of the good ways and none of the regrettable ones. I have, admittedly, been remiss in my obligations to the family, and as such it would be my honor, were you interested in leaving Sicily, to invite you.

Certainly your son would be glad to have you in the house again, if it's not too difficult for you, and I'll assume all expenses necessary to ensure your travel is comfortable. You must meet the baby's mother, too, and I imagine Antoinette would be pleased to have her Mama in town for her birthday. And, of course, it would be wonderful if you and I could visit together as well.

--

I don't think I've ever in my life signed a letter Aden Marshall, nor written with love, ever,  but it's appropriate, here.

There we go.

Vega appears unhappy that the first thing his cousin says on opening the door is, "Have you heard anything about some Bennett Estate?"

"Fuck yourself, Brande. Don't try to change the subject."

As different as they are, it's somewhat easy to tell they're related. Marius is slightly taller, hewn from stone like a beast -- built like a gladiator, ill-restrained in the finery of his clothes. And yet somehow, even with the waist-length black flag of his savage hair, Vega's cleaner-cut than the lean figure of his cousin, with the fey gilded eyes and swimmer's frame.

"What subject is that?" the alchemist says, droll, and a little cold, too. He just walks into the kitchen, turns his back.

"Want to try again, Brande?" Sharp, smoke-edged, thin patience.

In the end, Vega receives little more from his cousin than a peculiar darkness. Brande does recount to him, in terms of simplest facts, the circumstances of the night he'd found Jill at the penthouse. He makes no particular concession to discretion -- if it's upsetting to Vega to hear the graphic details, the full description of how she'd been when he'd found her, Brande is either ignorant of it, or deliberate about it.

"What I did was undo it," says the alchemist. "And I did it for myself, not for her."

 Vega knows his cousin well enough to tell when he's being made over, deftly, by that golden snaketongued gift for conversation. Knows that Brande's precise illustrations are engineered at making him simply glad that that, ugh -- was undone at all, and think less about the particulars, the aftermath.The sick dreams. The sick bond.

And there really isn't much Vega can do against it. Isn't much else he can say -- Brande ultimately deflects the conversation off of himself yet again, as he always does, so cleverly that Vega would only realize the intricacies of the technique later, the meticulousness of his cousin's revenge against him for even bringing certain things up.

Still, Vega now knows more of the circumstances than he did before. Understands, at least, that there's no deliberate arrogance in his cousin's unwillingness (inability?) to correct the situation. Remembers, now, why he so rarely asks Brande things -- there's nothing left but a vast fatigue, and an uncertainty about what is and isn't correct.

They hadn't talked about family at all, nor sisters nor fathers nor devils nor children, and actually, now that he knows most of what he needs to, Vega's actually relieved about that part.

Junior, it's your cousin, Marius says on the voicemail, and I can tell he's dead sober, and this message, for once, won't be him bragging about Jill's this or that.

Listen, he says. You know you're my blood and I love you, but fuck, you getting born was like a curse on this fucking family. From the minute your mama died.

Strange. Does he mean for that to hurt me?

Why was it Mercedes, Brande? And now I know something's up with him, because I don't know that he's ever asked me this, let alone over the phone. Maybe this is the only way he can ask it. They say plenty of girls liked you at the lake, and I could have introduced you to some women, so why was it your fucking sister? I mean, half-sister or otherwise, still --

To me, the bigger why here is why he's asking me this now. It's quiet in the background, so I know he must be alone. The time on the machine says 5:58 AM, and he's almost never up at that hour. He sounds strange, pained and for the first time in decades, I feel the faint ache of old, old anger. Like he takes Mercedes and me personally, like he's making it about him.

My sister had nothing to do with this ridiculous idea of family Vega clings to to excuse his own fucking sins. My sister belonged under my father's roof no more than I did; she belonged in this world no more than I do, and so I feel anger the sort of which I'd forgotten that he can take ownership of her, with this royal we he likes to use when discussing the plight of my poor parents -- and he's never had the stones to say this to me before. 

And maybe we shouldn't have handled it like that. Well, your father and Amelie. I know, I know you weren't happy as a kid, Brande, I'm not saying it's all your fault --

Jesus Christ, get to the point, Vega.

And, like, with Naomi -- don't you think about that, though? You never even seemed unhappy, you just moved.

Mm-hmm.

Look. You're not normal, we know, all right, and I've always tried to understand your ass, but this shit with Jill is a little much.

Oh. She must have told him something.

Whatever you did, I need you to fix it. Because, you know, we're the ones who've been paying for your curse for years, and I don't want it on her, I don't want it on my son.

Marius is being very superstitious. Maybe, maybe he's right, though. About me being a curse. Did the Ten choose me for this from the time I was born? I don't like the idea that I didn't choose this; that I didn't choose Mercedes, choose alchemy. I don't like this at all.

If you're going to go on doing this thing you do, there's nothing I can do about it. But frankly, Brande, there ain't shit you can do for me, whether you're the son of my Mama's sister or not, that makes it worthwhile for me and mine to suffer for it. So you either fucking change, Brande, or we're going to need to renegotiate some things, you and I.

Whatever you did to Jill, fucking fix it. I know better than to get you to give a shit about anything other than yourself, but when you start taking from my fucking house --

He's angry. He's really angry.

Get the fuck out of her head, Brande.

Wouldn't I like to. He's got no idea.

You and I are going to talk, Brande. And you're going to explain this shit to me, and then we're going to decide what to do about it, you and I. I'm coming over tonight, and I want you to be truthful, for once. The shit you don't like to talk about, you're going to fucking talk about, or else you and I are done, Brande.

Pause. Something like that is hard for him to say, even to me.

Sorry, he says. But I've done everything for you I can do, you know?

 There is nothing that can be done, Vega. There is nothing I can do, not for Jill nor for myself nor for any curses,imagined or otherwise. He'll be disappointed.

don’t get too close
you’ll detect in the west coast air in my chest
and the way I hold it in there
it’s the taming of the hands that came back to life
when she synchronized-swam on the ice in '03
oh, but enough about me

Took Milla out; we made an occasion of it, to be sure. I brought her to the Seiki restaurant -- quite surely, then, word will get back to Marius that I'm being quite normal, and they'll tell him she's beautiful, too.

Haven't properly been out with a woman for I don't know how long -- well, I know how long, and it was like surfacing for air after being submerged for the winter. It couldn't be that I expected it'd feel like that strange summer, and I'm fairly sure that if you asked Milla whether she was letting me date her or just indulging me, she might have a different answer, the clever thing.

Still. Girl was precious in that dress I bought her.

I can't, though, recall the last time I took a woman out without an ulterior intention, and this wasn't really different: She and I are both aware we're on this Path, now. Showed her the spare room and the mirrors I've made with the crucible; she might like to know the sand's imported, that I distilled all of the intrusive elements from it, the powder of man's decaying artifices, but that's a story for another time.

The story I told her tonight, though, is the fact of the Tree of Life. Did I really think she'd be able to understand it in words? Even though, certainly, she's a bright thing. I don't bother with the dumb ones --  not in this context, at least -- but it's a little much for anyone. I wonder if she's frightened. The only thing to do was to show her my back, as I promised.

And I let her touch me. This fortitude on my part surprised even me, that I could hold so still, even as she woke the Ten. Wanted to ask her what it felt like, what she heard, but with all that's been going on lately I couldn't bring myself to. Couldn't bring myself to speak much, actually -- god. God, fucking hell, I was so tired, suddenly.

Don't think I didn't want her. I did even as numb as I've been. Not to hurt her, but to make her smile like that for me. Well, all right -- both. In front of the mirrors.

But my need to sleep defied even that. I hadn't forgot the last time, when I'd gone to bed with her still in my foyer, and when I'd begun to be able to dream well just until she left. And when she put hands on me for those few minutes, although it maddened me, I knew nothing more than that I could sleep, if only tonight, with her in the house.

I trust you, she said. And she wasn't talking about my appetites, neither the arcane ones nor the base. She meant the things I've promised I can do, will do (can't help from doing, anymore), for her (for myself, for the Ten). But she trusts me more than she should if she asks to sleep in bed with me.

I can't tell if she's very brave or criminally innocent -- how lovely is either trait, she has no idea. Or maybe it's that, owing to some nature of hers, owing to how close I've let her already, she shares my awareness for the will and will not. Like she knew, even better than I did, that I wouldn't do things to her last night, unnatural or otherwise; knew it as well as I know anything.

Ha. And if I had to admit it, which of course, I don't care to, I'd guess Milla doesn't want me at all. Of course, I have been pragmatically careful to ensure I am especially disciplined with her, so that I'm not influencing her too much, and I don't usually bother with that.

Only as I'm nearly asleep do I wonder whether or not I could have been with her like that if I'd tried, with all this paranoid fucking superstition I've had lately.

But mother of god, I slept.

I fucking slept, almost the entirety of the night.

And I saw her. Mercedes, obscured in a reddish mist so that I couldn't quite see her, but for once it wasn't Jill, there were no babies, no cats and no blood, and there were flowers, sometimes, and I rested.

I could have wept if I had tears left. She said some girlish thing about how it's nice just to sleep beside someone, or some such thing, and I pretended I didn't know what she was talking about -- I can't have her thinking I'm safe when I'm sleeping. But suffice to say I remembered, on the fringes of my consciousness, being much, much younger, aeons ago, souls ago, and the little weight of my pale girl --

Not a full memory, not even a dream. But by this point, anything, almost any sacrifice, would've been worth that. I don't know if Milla understands, because there's no need to thank her more than once. But maybe she does -- after all, she slept, too, and words don't matter anyway.

I hadn't much else to say in the morning, but damn me, I was in a good mood when I drove her home. I did tell her not to mention to anyone that she spent the night at my place, though -- because whether she's a good girl or not, people would talk about her. Because of me.

and though explosions make debris
and catching it kind of suits you
it doesn’t suit me
she said: my sails are flapping in the wind
i said, can i use that in a song?
she said: i mean, the end begins
i said i know, can I use that too?

will you live in the physical world?
with the sun setting low and the shadows unfurled
will you live in the physical world?
can you live with the way they make you look  u n r e a l?

She said, I love you, Aden.

Preoccupying.

She meant it outside the romantic sense, and even still, it's just words. She doesn't know what she's saying. But it occurs to me objectively, like seeing myself from far away, that I can't remember the last time I heard it.

Naomi? My sister? Some in-between girl, some stupid thing? Did relatives say it? Stepmother? Luciana?

It's just words, anyway.

--

when you were small and crawled out the river
we thought you were an animal
then you were ten
your parents' house, it felt like a thousand years ago

and waters fall and living underwater
at the bottom of a great black sea
silent and floating there with my brothers
now it don't mean much to me

when we met our bodies remember when we were only animals
we'll build a house and keep out the water until it can't be felt at all

in the radio's hot sun
we knew nothing of the other side
we felt it's light right behind our eyes
we know nothing's on the other side
we felt it's light right behind your eyes

['the radio's hot sun,' handsome furs]

I wish I could believe in you
Crashing all the weddings wearing white
But we all hate the landlord, baby, it’s alright, it's alright

I wish I could believe in who you are
You held your cap in the air and you called it a guitar
You put your face on the glass and you call it good cinema
As if you didn’t know that it would sting 

--

Jill comes over last night and asks if she can sing me to sleep.

Yeah, right.

It's not just that she's never, since the day we met, wanted to do a damn thing for me without getting something in return, and I've made enough devil's bargains. It's not even that I don't think I'd ever ever close my eyes in front of her again, let alone sleep. It's not just that I don't trust her -- I don't trust myself.

Right now, she's got no idea how close I came to taking her the fuck apart for even the idea that I'd let her put me in that position. Like I'm her man. Or her child. Ridiculous.

Not only that, but I'm unstable just being near her right now. If she's got some fucking cosmic lullaby power as a result of the things I've done to her, does she really think I'd let her use it on me? There are a lot of strangenesses in this world, but I've never let anyone do anything to me.

Except Phina. And she didn't ask, damn it. If I'd hardly let Phin do things to me, I'm sure as shit not letting Jill.

And isn't Jill, too? Unstable, being near me? How can she be so fucking cavalier about it? Doesn't she know how hard it is for me to control myself? Aren't those fucking dreams vivid to her, too? How the hell can she sleep?

Probably because she isn't going to come apart, to lose, to cease to exist, if she loses her balance, if she gets off of her guard, if she's tempted, if she loses control. I can't blame her for not understanding me.

But you can't blame me for mistrusting her, either. Not that I'd give a fuck if she did blame me. She's lucky right now, to touch me right now and still walk away.

She didn't even leave the house immediately when I went upstairs -- ask me if I give a fuck. But why did she open and shut the front door, like she wants me to think she did? What does she want?

Couple weeks ago, I might've smacked her for mentioning my (our) business to Julien March. Now, though, I'm beyond pride -- maybe there is something he can do. If she prays on her knees to him nicely. If she keeps on behaving herself, if she does what he wants her to do in return.

After I lie still for three, six, ten hours sleepless, I stop being angry with her. There's no point. Said to call her if I change my mind. I'm exhausted. Let's see how long I can hold out.

--

I’m not a wild party
I’m just an evening at the show
Put the ring back on
And take your husband home and
Fire in the hole, fire in the hole, fire in the hole

['kissing the beehive,' wp]

 

 

In the closet of the guest bedroom, I had no idea there were so many women's clothes.

Persephone's two spare pinafores, this excess of smocks and stockings and sweaters that Eurydice picked out for herself, and some things I took from the penthouse when I sold it -- are these Jill's? Black and lacy and really made of nothing -- dresses, a fucking garter belt -- oh, I remember, she made me buy them for her when she was hiding out. Ha, and I remember I made Shannon come shopping with me for these.

Really, that was because that was the last opportunity I'd have to see Shannon for a while, but I thought it was pretty funny. She didn't. In fact, that was one of the few times I'd say I actually upset her, in the days before I methodically wore down her belief in me.

I think this stuff here is Naomi's. Must be. She had a few dresses left in that penthouse, and Jill wouldn't wear them. Not her style.

And here is the gold Lhullier I bought for Phin after she left. The tags are still on it, and I think this is the first time I actually look at them. I hardly ever think about money, but objectively, this is a pretty bloody expensive thing to buy for a girl just in case she comes back.

It's backless, but the way it hangs and is cut, I can't judge whether it would fit Milla. It seems to my mind that Phineas is shorter, tinier everwhere, but I can't really tell. Maybe my memory of Phin is refracted. If I'd put hands on Milla I'd probably be able to be sure, but while thinking about putting hands on Milla is interesting, it doesn't give me any information I can actually use.

And would I really give 'Phin's dress' to Milla, anyway?

I am spending an inordinately long time deciding what I ought to do with women's clothing. Eurydice's clothes are such that only patients on an anorexia ward could abide them (my mind strays into ideas about water treatments for hysteria, again). No one could wear Jill's clothes but Jill, and I think sending them to her would probably be an odd move, now. Marius would say fuck off with your shit, sister-fucker.

I suppose I could donate them, but I'm too lazy. Point being, none of it would be appropriate to put on Milla. I'll just throw it away.

I don't know what colors she likes, but I do have an idea what would look good on her, so I buy something on Madison and I have it sent over there in a parcel and then I put it out of my head for just a little more.

Will it just be like they're dreaming?
Will it be just like I'm dreaming?

If the wind is threatening
Maybe I should let them
Maybe we should let them
And I have a question:
Are you also frightened?
Are you also frightened?

No one will call you a dreamer now

['also frightened', animal collective]

Late, I went to the sea with Lark again. We hardly talked; just went swimming.

Floating the patient in water was supposed to have been a cure for affective disorders, back in the day. Only they fucked it up at the turn of the century, and just started dunking naked girls in cold, shallow bathwater. That probably drove them genuinely mad in time, when all that was wrong with them before was they needed to orgasm, or so the books on the fine fucking science of psychiatry say.

It wasn't the water that was curative. It was the weightlessness.

Maybe that's why I was a swimmer when I was young.

I wonder if Lark needs this, too, the weightlessness. Wonder if it'd do anything for Milla, incidentally. Lark seems as preoccupied as I feel, is as silent as I am. She looks at me the way I look at her, and on a normal day I would have taken my way with her regardless of what her damn name is or isn't, but this is not a normal day.

Lark and I know that neither of us are normal, and on a normal day I'd want to know. Only with all nine of her ladies could Phin keep me out of her head from the very first day -- I remember being unable to sleep at night for wanting to know what that child was made of. And yet it's not like that now. Of course, perhaps it was the fantasy that Phin was made of me that drove me. That was closer to a year ago than not, already.

The woman's unreal. I feel unreal, with her, and I feel neither fascinated nor hostile. Just tired.

The note she gave me, with the little symbol. Put it on my nightstand. I'm being superstitious when I say it helped me sleep faster, because the dreams were particularly awful. No Jill, no Mercie turning away -- just terrible noise, like anger being carved into the walls of my house, into the dirt of my back garden, grinding the windows, carving my walls. And that fucking cat.

I'm going to kill it and use its brain for poultice, I swear. If you can catch it, she said. I get suspicious of Lark's note and fold it into the Psychomanteum book.

elevator straight into my skull
the escalator rises as it falls
i swear our jet is crashing in my mind
you can hold on but i wouldn't waste your time

(l e t     t h e     w e a t h e r    h a v e    i t s    w a y    w i t h    y o u)