My Life With A Wave, by the great Mexican poet, Octavio Paz. I didn't even know he wrote prose...(wow) [link goes to google's html cache page]
When I left that sea, a wave moved ahead of the others. She was tall and light. In spite of the shouts of the others who grabbed her by her floating clothes, she clutched my arm and went off with me leaping. I didn't want to say anything to her, because it hurt me to shame her in front of her friends. Besides, the furious stares of the elders paralyzed me. When we got to town, I explained to her that it was impossible, that life in the city was not what she had been able to imagine with the ingenuity of a wave that had never left the sea. She watched me gravely: ¡°No, your decision is made. You can't go back.¡± I tried sweetness, hardness, irony. She cried, screamed, hugged, threatened. I had to apologize.
The next day my troubles began. How could we get on the train without being seen by the conductor, the passengers, the police? Certainly the rules say nothing in respect to the transport of waves on the railroad, but this same reserve was an indication of the severity with which our act would be judged. After much thought I arrived at the station an hour before departure, took my seat, and, when no one was looking, emptied the water tank for the passengers; then, carefully, poured in my friend.
BTW: After my studies in Mexico in 1989 I tried to read Paz in Spanish and it was my first glimpse of the impossibility of translating poetry - I could understand the words, but poetry digs it's bower in connotation, yo.
Also here's In Search of the Present, Paz' eloquent Nobel acceptance lecture (1990).
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Circuit-Bending a delightful and crowd-pleasing bio-electronic technique that provides endless potential. This page is a very good resource for information about circuit-bending. [link via Wilson Zorn]
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Seoul junk: I visited Sinchon yesterday. Bustling University district. I'm still trying to hook up with musicians/venues for free/creative/improvised music...(if you know anything you better email me: rasbliutto@hotmail.com)
posted by Brad Larcen 7/07/2002[edit]
