becoming that which you despise. happily.

 once

i scorned

happiness

      now

i have

 become 

       it

if this is me...

who the hell are you?

you introduced me to this song. sitting beside me in the car on our roadtrip you turned up the stereo playing your handcrafted mixtape & said "this is you" as i drove us, roof down 120 kms an hour into the uplifting winter breeze, hair flying. away from the city.

it's now the highest rotation track playing in the studio while i pretend to work, fastidiously analyzing lyrics, thinking about the sometime subjugation of independence when personalities come together, thinking about us. thinking about you. imagining psychotic as sexy. it is a sexy song.

you say you don't want to be you plus someone else. you want to be yourself. as if i would argue, i like you as you. surely we two don't have to be mutually exclusive.

history reveals that relationships can steal personal identity. that one must surrender independent self when fusing with another. but it's not a given. there need not be a reduction. even if egalitarianism is brushed under the carpet, the converse is equally valid.

why not embrace emotionally supportive growth & mutual betterment & inspiration FFS! our friendship, an inimitable foundation, a lifelong conversation. my bubble need not be greater than yours. in the end we're all alone. each erratically breaking the other's silence. or noise.

i come to you. as you came to me. then went. now come back. if not forever, stay awhile. perhaps we'll see out a few more incarnations together. everlasting love need not be a hypocritical sliding scale. energy does not die. it merely changes & shifts with the tide. we can be the moon together. yet polarized stars bound by gravity. read D H lawrence. fuck the religious zealots, poppy choppers & hallmark.

even hedonistic fredrich agrees. marry your best friend ie. a person who helps you become a better person through a shared higher thirst for an ideal above. when you gaze into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. don't look down. hold on...

so dearest defiantly independent nihilist, is your cup half empty or half full? bend time to refer to as yet unwritten pages within the IDTC manual & place our higher operational plane there. you will find passages which will invalidate your "there is no forever" theorem. in short there are too many possible worlds. perception is a malleable force. as are we. you & i. collective & separate.

please take this electric litmus paper test & come run amok in übermensch with me. we can laugh at the abyss together. and take turns in the lead if we can't always be side by side.

i'd like to be your psychotic girl. you need not be the lost boy.

haiku: reflection in your eyes

lying here restless 

your visage hijacked my core

consumed by love

a fine romance

a fine romance, my good fellow

you take romance, and I'll take jello

you're calmer than the seals

in the arctic ocean

at least they flap their fins

to express emotion

a fine romance with no quarrels

with no insults and all morals

i've never mussed the crease

in your blue serge pants

i never get the chance

this is a fine romance

the courtesan’s lot

skimming on a razor thin edge of the hooker with a heart of gold construct, the just ended sydney film festival delivered not one but two distinctly different but equally powerful films which explored with pathos the double edged sword that courtesans gracefully glide over when the worlds of business & pleasure collide. these two films were: the girlfriend experience [dir. steven soderbergh] and chéri [dir. stephen frears].

both films arguably delivered in a poignantly rich but cold environment the knowing detachment that is the pragmatic prostitute condition when regarding men in a contractual mode. this attitude inexplicably bleeds subtlely into the personal too. true romance comes at a price.

it is not the protagonists; cheri’s lea de lonval [michelle pfeiffer] or GFE’s shades of brett easton ellis’s patrick bateman, chelsea/christine [sasha grey] who are vapid or lacking in dimension: it is fundamentally their superficial relationship with their environment that the chilling separation stems from. like passing ships in the night they cannot afford to let the water breach their well-oiled duck's back seals. in the game of seduction it is dangerous to fall in love. there is an undeniable conflict of interest: the cost [financial & emotional] is high.

stylistically distinct and separated by timeframes/locations [chéri is set in early 20th century belle époque paris, whereas the girlfriend experience explores the wall street centric world pre-obama election win] both films deliver a visually stunning mixed bag of budget & cinematography style ranging from artistic verité, to jumbled chronological cuts, to classically choreographed mise en scène.

the two films are nonetheless so closely aligned thematically & similarly charged dealing with the emotional bankruptcy which ironically occurs in a world which is swathed in textural wealth. to the unfortunate detriment & decline of the women involved, there are no greater trade-offs. more often than not, the career choice, their life gamble, does not pay-off. winners of material fortune yet losers of idealism, despite being well-versed in the artifices of love. forearmed with this knowledge they still seek the impossible realm. for this reason, no other, they are fallen.

the men, clients/lovers, in both stories are rather inconsequential. their overshadowed almost caricatured weak identities lie where they must remain purely to illustrate their constant misdirected drain under another guise. the women’s alienation & strong internalisation renders the outside almost obsolete but at the same time the choice of the male characters illustrates the vulnerability and reality check that superwomen need not necessarily fall in love with supermen. they’re just "regular" guys with their own set of flaws. as are the women fundamentally.

these stories ultimately belong to the brave travellers who are the solo warrior women who dare battle in a loveless & socially misunderstood terrain. paradise is lost. beneath the polished veneer of nonchalance lies dire fragility & emotional heartache. like pandora’s box, it will probably one day be opened again.

love is the drug not even the artisans and purveyors of can avoid indulging in. they say one should never buy their own wares. it would seem in love we all want to believe. noone is immune. and nor should they be denied.

as lea de lonval says,"i'm probably making a fool of myself... but then again, why not? life is short!

both these films are extremely moving and compelling. they spoke to me and i hope others too in a way that realistically captures the dilemma which faces the much maligned woman of the night. she deserves to be humanised & allowed to stand basking in the light of her social achievements.

the greatest tragedy of the archetypal heroine, the tart with a heart, is the success of her projected illusion of happiness & glamorised independence. ultimately the greatest fear must be the reality of being completely alone.

[NB.all images are copyrighted to the relevant film productions]

point of entry

on days like this i wonder if i should study the evacuation plan --> before promptly getting into the lift & pushing "up". will i find you there?

fleeting love

today i fell in love when permanently sworn off it. but just for a moment it was all head over heels. 12 IS my favorite whole number, an ubiquitous contender of sacredness in ancient myth & mathematics.