New York triptych
You guys have three days! Until I destroy the earth! I am the Sun God! Perfect! Release! Perfect! Release! Perfect! Release! He counts aloud to thirteen and stops. A man selling shirts by the Washington Square Arch mocks him—Why stop at thirteen?—and starts to count jeeringly from fourteen. The Sun God stands in the dead fountain, flipping him off. Nearby a woman dances on a large white piece of paper, smearing and swirling black ink with her feet and hands.
2
A red car drives through the snow in Hokkaido and suddenly there is no sound. You can barely hear people breathing, as if it’s snowing in the theater too, as if we are all awaiting the same thing. We cannot be but we are. Time is no match for the cinema. The car comes to a stop and reverses and rolls back down the road. The film is long and not nearly over. When it does end I feel stunned, like my whole body is holding back tears. We step back out into the cold City. I am tired, I have survived something, I am no match for the cinema.
3
The first song is a cover, an incantation: Big city / Everybody I know can be found here / Everybody I know can be found here. . . The stage is full of people hunched between amps and synthesizers. As they play I remember how many of their songs are wrapped tight around my heart. We set controls for the heart of the sun / One of the ways we show our age. . . The “All My Friends” encore goes on forever and when it ends I step back out into the cold City. I used to live around here. Waiting for my friends, I watch a man inhale an entire balloon’s worth of whippets in one breath. You think over and over / Hey I’m finally dead. . . The balloon is purple and then it is empty and then we are gone.
ben tapeworm