METROPOLIS

January saw me traveling between cities and meeting with different folks.

After seeing the arrival of a new year with Angelica, I was on an early train to New York City, where I was subsequently swallowed into the pit of concrete and artificiality. Strange, that humans see the obstruction of nature and natural light  as acceptable in order to be city dwellers, where towers of glass and steel and brick trap us like rats in a hell-like enclosure.

The Dutch architectural theorist and urbanist, Rem Koolaas writes in his book Delirious New York - "the metropolis strives to reach a mythical point where the world is completely fabricated by man, so that it absolutely coincides with his desires." This would be truly remarkable only if man's fabrications in pursuit of desire constructed morality at the foundation of such a fantastic dream, but then that would be a contradiction for the most part.

New Jersey, on the opposite side, sits in lowly depression just the same.

And then off to Philadelphia.

GOD IS IN THE DETAILS

I paid a visit to the MFA (Museum of Fine Arts) one night last week for an Architecture class assignment. I walked through the first level of the Arts of the America's wing looking for something interesting to draw.

Then walked back to the front of the gallery to where this Grecian Couch from the 1800's sat on display. It was the first object that had caught my eye when I first entered the hall. It also had very intricate detail. I stood there for a little over a half hour, sketching. There were a ton of sculptures and statues I could've opted to draw, austere and colorless, they stared down at me as I moved past them, but I wasn't looking for anything easy.

It was another moment of realization in this ongoing inner journey of self study I find myself in. Studying the Grecian couch made me understand why I gravitate toward the more challenging options, what requires attention to detail. A little more effort and close examination. I tend to think it is reflective of my own preferences of people, the few I want to look at a little longer, while wondering if the palm of their hands are rough or smooth. What were they like as children, and what principles do they live by, and why? What color are their eyes, and how many scars do they have beneath the layers?

ARCHETYPES

one of my many quirks is having spontaneous bursts of yearning, and because i am generally hanging out on my own when these bursts occur, like today after the Architecture class i'm taking, where i sat introspectively on the bench in the quad, observing the stream of students walking by me in segregated clumps - a gaggle of chirpy white girls, a cluster of designer-wearing Asian kids, a pack of athletic guys in baggy jeans and Red Sox caps, a group of freshmen reveling in their new found freedom, all of whom i feel no affinity toward, i direct the intent on sharing these aspirations toward my unsuspecting brother. But sometimes he doesn't answer my calls, so the yearning i experience slowly dissipates within the abyss of my mind, and that's that.

i'd never gotten sucked into the trend of cliques and all that bullshit, in high school or wherever, so i don't really have any horror stories that allows me to personally relate. but just observing these sort of things around me is fascinating. it's like people have restrictions, like they can only hit it off with people who look and sound just like them. last week i was talking to a girl from Saudi Arabia, and she was telling me how she was already in her third year and she calls her mom at the start of every semester to cry and ask to come home. she isn't weak or timid or anything, in fact she's pretty bad ass and easygoing. obviously, i was really surprised. she explained to me that because her English was a little broken she gets slighted by other students on a daily basis. when asking for help, to form study groups, that sort of thing. when she asks about the assignments just to clarify, they look at her like she's stupid.  "just imagine," she says to me at our table outside of the campus' Dunkin Donuts. "if they were in my country, or any foreign country, and did not understand something. and there was no one to help them. how would they feel?" ah, empathy. a lost practice. at least i think so. of course it never crossed the minds of those dipshits in her classes. why extend any courtesy to the foreign students sitting right in front of your face when you can do a study abroad in their country for a semester and only then suddenly be fascinated by their people and culture? why travel to distant lands like Saudi Arabia and the like when there's Europe with their sidewalk cafe's and Western brethren who are more recognizable?

BECAUSE EVEN ANGELS HAVE THEIR WICKED SCHEMES

DID THE CAPTAIN OF THE TITANIC CRY?

Andy: You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific?

Red: No.

Andy: They say it has no memory. That's where I want to live the rest of my life. A place with no memory.