probabilityfields

Deconstruction can be hilarious.

I wasn’t planning on going to this year’s Austin City Limits Festival, but Saturday morning I got a call from Zach that a free ticket was available. I had to work Saturday, so I went Sunday.

Bev, Zach, and I went to a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant and had micheladas, chips, a variety of salsas, and tacos, then hiked through the streets and woods to Zilker Park. We started off the festival with Rilo Kiley. Interesting little band, hot, talented chick, even hotter weather. It was 108 degrees, but it barely felt like 105. Thus much of the day was spent in the shade of the Gospel and Blues tent where I saw Ruthie Foster (Zach said, “Her voice is too big for that little band”) and Brave Combo, who’s performance of “The Hokey Pokey” was the best performance of the day…seriously, it was awesome.

I wandered over to the Arcade Fire who seemed to sufficiently enthrall a sizable audience, but to tell you the truth I don’t get it. They just fall into my hipness blindspot I guess. At 5:30 The Decemberists played. I love this band, but maybe it’s mostly because I want a band with a couple of girls that play accordian and violin respectively. Zach and Bev had never heard them so before the show I danced around singing “Legionaire’s Lament” and much to our delight it was on the set list. Though the soundman left something to be desired in the way of accordian, organ, and electric guitar levels the band lived up to my expectations.

Wilco came on immediately afterward and proved themselves once again to be the awesomest band ever. Well, not really, their show was pretty similar to the last time I saw them and they ended with “Spiders (Kidsmoke),” a very interesting but long and tedious rocker. The rest of the show was pretty great though and from the beginning Jeff Tweedy announced he was coming out of his shell and asked for audience participation to bring more “soul” to the performance. When the audience seemed heat-weary he asked for more enthusiasm and excused himself adding, “Grovelling…it’s the new cocky.”

Wilco was the last of the bands on our list so we got food, a Kenichi noodle bowl, and sat on the ground where grass had been before the dry heat turned it to dust to be kicked into the air and breathed into our noses making our nostrils black and our eyes water. Ahead of us Tortoise played music that made me want to kill myself and I was tired-trapped in my own head thinking about shit I didn’t want to think about.

We left as Coldplay took the stage at the opposite end of the park and heard about things that were “Yellow” as we walked through the gates towards the Barton Springs pool. At 9:00 the lifeguard that Zach sardonically called “Superdude” let us in without charge.

Sunburnt, exhausted, and covered in dust I stripped down to my boxers and twisted them to the side to avoid any overexposure and jumped into the 67 degree water that barely felt like 32. I surfaced and hyperventilated, felt faint and dizzy, like I was really dying with a smile on my face. I treaded and swam a little but I couldn’t feel my body. I floated on my back and stared at the sky and could hear Coldplay in the distance singing Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” but I didn’t mind. Floating there I tried to remember all the things that were making me feel bad and I tried to feel the pain of walking in the dusty heat all day but in that moment all I could think was that days that begin with micheladas and end in Barton Springs are the best.

Please do not destroy Anahuac.

<soundtrack>Bob Dylan’s “Down In The Flood”</soundtrack>

Crash on the levee, mama,
Water’s gonna overflow,
Swamp’s gonna rise,
No boat’s gonna row.
Now, you can train on down
To Williams Point,
You can bust your feet,
You can rock this joint.
But oh mama, ain’t you gonna miss your best friend now?
You’re gonna have to find yourself
Another best friend, somehow.

Now, don’t you try an’ move me,
You’re just gonna lose.
There’s a crash on the levee
And, mama, you’ve been refused.
Well, it’s sugar for sugar
And salt for salt,
If you go down in the flood,
It’s gonna be your own fault.
Oh mama, ain’t you gonna miss your best friend now?
You’re gonna have to find yourself
Another best friend, somehow.

Well, that high tide’s risin’,
Mama, don’t you let me down.
Pack up your suitcase,
Mama, don’t you make a sound.
Now, it’s king for king,
Queen for queen,
It’s gonna be the meanest flood
That anybody’s seen.
Oh mama, ain’t you gonna miss your best friend now?
Yes, you’re gonna have to find yourself
Another best friend, somehow.

Uuuuuuvvvvvuuuuullllllaaaaa, isn’t that nice to say? This morning I woke up and my uvula was resting on the back of my throat. Too much slack on the pendulum. When I sat up it swung forward and perched on the back of my tongue and I gagged. I got up and looked in the mirror, it was about five milimeters too long and four too wide and a few shades too red. Breathing was difficult and I didn’t eat until late this evening. Leftover chicken. The Cowboys lost.

Last night I was cooking two chicken leg quarters in a stainless steel frying pan. I stuffed a cilantro-parsley-cumin pesto under the skin, sat it atop some vegetables and put the pan in the oven at three-fifty for a couple of hours flipping the chicken over halfway then finishing it up with a broil to get the skin crispy.

I pulled the pan out and set it on the stove while I searched for a collander to drain the vegetables out to make a jus. When I found the collander I grabbed the pan by the handle and picked it up. It was three hundred and fifty degrees.

I held a frozen piece of meat until Tony told me that would only make it worse. I soaked my hand in water, but the pain was too much so I drank a bottle of wine with a vicodin and topped it off with one beer. I forgot about my hand, but when I woke up today my uvula was swollen.

And here I thought I was just talking to myself, which in retrospect made me type drunken dribble all too readily. But apparently my friends really do read my dribble (thanks Tim and Danielle). So I fixed the problem that prevented comments from appearing. So comment away!

.

Two cars passing at 2:14 a.m.
slow down at 150 feet and
then at 40 feet when the street light catches
the glimmer off the roof so that each
can see the absence of strobes and breathe
a sigh of relief, almost want to stop each
Other
even though they don’t know each
Other
and say, “Thanks for not being a cop.”
A tragic abnegation of social intercourse,
hastily both lean into their floors
no exchange but maybe none needed.
Thanks.

If your sexual preferences (and I don’t just mean gay or straight, but attraction in general) were contingent on things that happened to you in your life (and I don’t just mean being molested or something, but anything ever), would it be better to move beyond these preferences because they were contingent on an external force, or to accept it as part of who you are as a human being?

Example: You’ve only been attracted to a certain kind of woman with a certain kind of neurosis (not dangerous in any way) and you one day realize that it might have something to do with your childhood. What do you do? Comments please!

See, this all has to do with my big project this semester on philosophy and film. I go into greater detail later.