week3 (snapshot) She and I (on the platform)

foto:tony martorelli
at Termini station we come across a recording booth - just like those passport photo booths with the little curtains, but instead of a seat and a camera, a microphone and a slot from where a 45rpm will pop out.

Insert our coin, a green light comes on. We clap in unison to keep a beat, and sing together //I have t0 show an interest in their jokes//I have to (train pulls in to platform) show an interest in their lives (muffle of voices) deaths miracles//(clap clap) I have to show an interest if their (clap) shit of a dog (train roars away) eats avocados//. In a few seconds a floppy 45 will pop out.

Hot day in Rome we decide to visit the protestant cemetery ancestor-worship Gramsci and Shelley. Hot time of the day at Shelleys' tomb, the floppy vinyl rolled-up in my hand is beginning to annoy me. We offer it up to the ghost of Shelley and leave it on the hot stone.

And up the hill to pay our respects to Gramsci. Mumbling a prayer and considering the first words mumbled from outer space, by Yuri Gagarin: "I salute the brotherhood of mankind, I salute the struggle for world peace, and I salute Anna Magnani", and getting bored, and looking down the hill.

An apparition, Edward G. Robinson, goatee, hat and black coat in this heat, hands in pockets, approaches the poet's grave. He spots the vinyl cooking on the tombstone. Looks right then left, stoops to pocket our lament, our boredom and love, and off he races on short legs

tags: Memory balls, What's this? Gagarin, "For centuries society has been preparing for Victor Mature and Mickey Rooney" T. Adorno, Shelley, Gramsci, Edward G. Robinson, Anna Magnani

week 2

it comes to cut it on the street, skinthin and toe-fixation and hup to and nary a nary, watching each other watching each other. modulate, measured, spirit-levelling fratry orotund from the dark beyond the spotlight saying these are the little green men doing the corroboration. or even the unexpected, like the last letter of the alphabet mating with a killer whale that look of disgust on your face, before she turns in flight what a blister what mouth at low tide and what is left standing?

Yikes and yep and meanwhile the urge is out and out here, where the monstrous professor 2-brains and his little green henchmen roar and splutter gnomic invocations over all the heavens and hills, so they will speak, but they wouldn't want you to get the wrong message, sister. Orange you glad I didn't say apple? (hissing mingled applause)