Paul was explication of May writing.
Paul was a month of writing about constraints, as in each episode, daily diary update, new serialized session, or entry was a potential new constraint for Paul to follow. &, the whole month and its writings in itself become a containered constraint. Form within form; boxes in boxes.
Paul was a tiny zine written on the blank back pages of collected street advertisements. The photocopied flyers pasted together to make a spine, the sized shape of the zine based on these free billets; form before content.
Paul was a project that would build off itself in the continuation of commentary daily. A building process. Rather, the stacking of words as a record of the passage of time. Not necessarily the importance of observations, but, completion of a cycle of a post a day, for an entire year.
Paul was for the month of February, a serialized story, each episode having a cliffhanger ending. This idea was mostly inspired by POW BAM BOOM vintage Adam West Batman episodes.
Paul was return to the scene of the crime.
Paul was each week they choose a theme & invite producers, writers, documentarians, poets, musicians, et cetera to take a wack at that theme. While not formally invited, Paul took a wack at that theme as well.
This week’s theme: Return to the Scene of the Crime
Act 1: Hyperlink
Last week This American Life Live! was beamed to theaters. Paul was a review.
Act 2: I remember
Paul was unstuck in time. While riding the train home he blinked and was back in Bethlehem at Christmas. Not bible Bethlehem, Bethlehem, Pa. He was visiting his sister and together they were looking for a gift for their mother. The small shops were filled with tree ornaments, statues, and candlesticks. Lori fancied a teapot with a hand painted chicken on it. Paul inhaled some fake snow and sneezed.
He was in Holcomb Kansas. A place even Kansans call ‘out there.’ He walked into Hartman’s Café and was suddenly on the moon. Not the moon moon, but the firebombed ruins of Dresden which resembled a moonscape. Kurt Vonnegut almost always mentioned this city in the books he wrote. Even in an offhanded manner. Such as in Slapstick, the former President of the United States, Dr. Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain, living on the Island of Green Death, or Manhattan, is given a Dresden candlestick. He dies the next day. So it goes.
As a blog, Paul was subscribing to Vonnegut’s ideas of time not being a continuous line, but always was and always is being. The past is still happening in the present. You can try this by scrolling down or reading any archived post. And so on.
Paul blinked in time with gunshots. Lori said “I remember when on my birthdays you had to do whatever I said. Like get me a yogurt.”
Paul remembered repeating himself often. He found truth in that repetition. As in the gravity of one event that sets off a chain reaction. A firebomb for Vonnegut. Kansas for Capote. Playing “I remember” with Lori to fill in an absent father.
Paul was an ingredient in marshmallows, gummy bears, yogurts, Jello, Peeps, sour cream, hard and soft capsules for medicines, dietary/health supplements, syrups, jello shots, ice cream, frosting, lozengers, et cetera.
Paul was remembering on his sister’s birthday her non-candle wishes, or, the obligatory treatment one must assume toward the birthed person. As in, please colour with me today. And please get me a yogurt.
Paul was derived from mainly from pork skins, pork and cattle bones, or split cattle hides; contrary to popular belief, horns and hooves are not used in making Gelatin.
Paul was colouring with his sister. Fisherprice picnic table plastic and placed in the backyard grass next to a playhouse. In 96 colours. She always drew birds. Clustered in trees of neon orange and pink. Wavy squiggles on the page.
Paul was riding the bus. It was quiet. This, of course, was before the invention of portable personal music players that spilled soundtracks in public spaces. In busses and trains these sounds echo & amplify. Paul also did not know any intimate details about the other passengers because this was before the invention of mobile phones.
Paul was This American Life Live!
Paul was a radio program on in a movie theater, beamed live to over 430 cinema screens around the US of A on April 23 – This American Life Live!
Yes, a theatrical version of a radio show.
Spotlit at corner stage, a small desk with a mixing board and Star Trek tape machines (to Ira’s left music, to his right quotes) Glass effortlessly blended sounds, story, actual tape, and his narration. Visually seeing all the knob turning, and button pushing gives one the idea of all the production involved in the smallest snips of story.
Should music be under the narration here? Should a quote be here or can I explain it better in my own words? Should the other reporter’s voices be heard in the tape asking questions?
And these types of editorial decisions are not glamorous, they are tucked below the surface of a well made program. In noticing all the knobs and buttons, being mesmerized in the staging of behind-the-scenes editorial cutting and pasting, the listeners now viewers are transported to the scene of this crime — the making of This American Life.
With the help of a single visual cue (a carton by Chris Ware versus Ira Glass at his mixing station) the viewers can relax and be swept into the story. This is as it should be, each Act showing a story through the “intimacy of one voice talking to you” (Ira’s praise of radio see episode #100). This is a show about “Returning to the Scene of the Crime” not about producing the scene of the crime theme (for a show where production is explored see episode #38: Simulated Words). Yet that question is explored in the ending Act touching on fans want to understand the process, the creation of each magical movie or episode. Closing with Joss Whedon’s song story about the story frames the shows metaphor in this perfect application.
The whole premise should not be theatrical in any manner. “Why do this? Why run a radio show in live theaters? It is like entering a novel in a bake off.” Stephen Colbert noted the night before. But it works. In collecting dynamic stories from Mike Birbiglia, Starlee Kine, Dan Savage, Ira Glass’s assembling of a cinema performance of a radio show succeeds in both being seen and heard. An orchestral conductor making his music with the wave of a hand.
Paul was a new blog idea, Collecting or Things Found or Index or Users Guide or Field Manual or use a reference from a Siliman poem? or something along those lines. Mostly, a catalog of words/works/media encountered. Like a sentence summing up each Vonnegut novel read. Or a line about each This American Life episode listened to. & some links to things read. & a quote or two from the journals working on. Not a whole bunch of words stacking up in orders and paragraphs and topic sentences about subjects – pointed bits of discourse are welcome – but a collection of comments. Perhaps.
Paul was certain his sister’s side of the room had the pencils sorted by colour & the textbooks piled by day in which they would be used.
Paul was in the tiny concrete domicile outfitted with pairs of each furniture item; two desks, two beds, two chairs, two shelves above the two desks, one mirror.
Paul was “What are you up to tonight Lori?”
“Probably just TV in the room.”
“There is a party at Josh’s frat if you want to go.”
“Maybe. Where is there house again?
“Past Elm. Me and the girls can get you if you want.”
“Just knock.”
“OK. See ya.”
Paul was halfway up the stairwell when he heard a door open echo. This was followed by a succinct single cough. He turned & calmly moved downward toward the laundry room & closet.
Paul was “I will check the hallways to make sure you can come up. If I cough once move away and hide back here in the laundry room. There is a closet over there. If I cough three times come up and follow me.”
“Have you done this before?”
“No comment.”
Paul was “Do not speak with your mouth full.”
“You sound like mom.”
“You eat like dad.”
“Should I not use quotation marks when we speak? Mostly this need not be said verbally, or even transcribe to terms, as our previous commentary simply occurred as a natural reaction, a sneeze, when we come together, a ‘remember when’ in our glances.”
“This is why I like when you visit — you are a piece of home without actually being home.”
They are their food out of the divided plastic trays.
Paul was served in the student cafetorium, sneaking in the entryway behind a people pack. To stand in line & move with the crowd under florescent lights to the feeding stations. Foodstuffs dispensed in the anticipatory manner shown in TV & movies. Loriane’s cafetorium did not disappoint.
Paul was act natural, like you belong here, take a tray, enjoy the meatloaf, the macaroni & cheese, two sodas, a cup of milk; everything plastic, easily sterilized, contained, each word with purpose, a casual throwaway belong here not that impressed with this regular building, this protein routine.
Paul was Ford Ranger (blue) with extended cab, stickshift, & benchseat. The jump seat behind the driver’s seat had his duffelbag stuffed with sweatshirts & socks & a sixpack wrapped in teeshirts so that the bottles would not clink during smuggling. Cassette tapes were everywhere, though no music was playing as he cruised along 22.
This was the way to visit his sister Loriane, written on the back of a solenoid box in permanent pen; bridges over rivers, a road winding round a mountain.
Paul had never visited this neighbor city where his sister colleged. He only had a picture of it from a postcard she had sent. The old stone building set in a hill — this is what he would look for when he got into town.
Paul was the language of leaving; button up coat, pull sun glasses from purse, shuffle in bus seat, glance out window, paper in hand,
excuse me sir, could I get out?
Paul was put up in a nearby motel. As he traveled light, he had no tools of his own & borrowed a belt of slightly worn, but workable, tools for daily use.
He could take orders well, and work within the commands to get task completed in a creative and time effective manner. He could rethink repeated processes and improve upon energy expended. Assembly lines and such. Landscapes created.
Paul was on the carpentry crew. There were individual crews for each aspect of the home construction, surveyors, masons pouring concrete, framers, roofers, electricians wiring the places, crews insulating and sheet rocking, et cetera.
There was one guy who just put handles on the cabinets.
Each job the same repeated motion completing steps in one house, moving to the next. The work never done. As if always working on the same house, the same job, putting that stud in not quite at 16’’ on center, a nail bent at the same junction in each déjà vu.
Paul hit nails with a hammer.
Paul was a new suburb. Levittown cut through flat former farm field. Manifest destiny in poured concrete and ranch style homes.
Paul was comfortable with manual labor. Simple instructions; move this there; demo that room; conjugate the verb to fit the proper tense; three 2×4’s from the bile hoisted up to the second floor; get more nails; move the ladder.
& lunch from a pail.
Paul was field trip tomorrow. To see maple syrup made. The teacher had lessoned them on spigots stuck into tree trunks that tap sap from the maple’s core.
Paul was not in possession of boots. But you must wear boots. The teacher said it. You must wear boots. Mom didn’t buy me any boots. How can I see syrup made if I don’t have boots? I need boots. & all the other kids have boots. Mike, Bill, Fred, Ben, Mark — they all wear boots on snowy day. I just wrap up my feet it plastic grocery bags to keep the winter out.
How will I go if I don’t have boots?
