It's a weird run here, chucks. I've got two weeks left in Chicago. The furniture is gone from the ol' apartment, Casey is in Morocco, it's just me, a camping chair and the cable televizions. I am watching CSI as I type; it is awfully quiet without the TV on.
But the acoustics! Who knew this apartment was so damn echoey. I sneeze; the building rings with the rage of my respiratory reflex. It is as though I have shattered the sanctitude of a temple I did not realize existed, until I broke its stillness with my thoughtless fits of allergic hypersensitivity. It is dusty without the furniture here.
Speaking of resonance, I find myself bursting into song these days. Any place with promising acoustics, I try on for size: quietly, if I must; resounding, if I may. Deeply, richly, robustly, if I am drunk. (It seems to me that I sing well, when I am drunk. This feels like tautology, but it is too late for me to work that out properly.) I digress; location-location-location. Bathrooms, bathtubs, banks; all hold promise, some deliver on it. The public aspect of publicly bursting into song has yet to hit home; there is glorious anonymity in wandering a big city alone. Though I must say: good acoustics make me happy, but other people who notice/enjoy good acoustics make me even happier. (This is an invitation for you all to belt out a tune in my presence, should you wish to do so.)
Another topic: Some of you have noticed that my Facebook page has become a repository for E.M. Forster quotes. Truth. I have confessed to some already, and here I make a general statement: A Room with a View -- a novel, a 176 page comedy of manners and societal mores -- is the fountainhead of a good deal of my personal philosophy. I recommend it.
Let me first say: I do not identify with Mr. Emerson, certainly not with Lucy, nor with anyone else in the novel (though in Freddy Honeychurch, I declare a favorite). Rather, I appreciate the fabric, the environment of this story. Below the romantic current, there rests a riverbed manifesto against repression, restriction, the rubbish that cumbers the world. ("The rubbish that cumbers the world." E. M. Forster. A Room with a View. Hayes Barton Press, 1908. Chapter 13. I quote this book constantly, naturally. I lost the reflex long ago to make "air quotes" with my fingers.) This world-cumbering rubbish seems particularly appropriate food for thought in the present day. Though we speak freely about sex, bodily functions, and the letter "S" (stomachs), confusion, conflict, and willful self-deception abound as strongly today as in any other period of history. Though society as a whole may never move beyond the rubbish, as individuals, we would all do well to see across it.
Alright, that's enough philosophy for tonight ('"I say, what about this bathe?" murmured Freddy, appalled at the mass of philosophy that was approaching him.' Chapter 12. Echoes in my head). Spike has switched from a CSI marathon to a thinly-disguised infomercial for unnatural male enhancement, and I think this is a signal for me to wrap things up. Since I have made heavy use of quotation marks in this post, I will end with a sign we saw on the bus today:
"Do not drill here"
Electrical wires
Electrical wires
I leave it to you to puzzle out the rationale there. Farewell, and goodnight,
-RP
-RP
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