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papalegbyrne's journal
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art is
pleasure is
connection is
juxtaposition is
completion is
liveness is
love is
talk is
pleasure is
connection is
juxtaposition is
completion is
liveness is
true is
nice is
pleasure is
connection is
juxtaposition is
completion is
liveness is
real is
new is
pleasure is
connection is
juxtaposition is
completion is
liveness is
now is
now
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THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:
Kevin
Kevin Michael Keating
Mr. Keating
THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:
papalegbyrne
cakeeating
sdaveseagull
THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
my optimism
my intellect
my love
THREE THINGS YOU HATE ABOUT YOURSELF:
my senses (or lack thereof)
my indecisiveness
my celibacy
THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:
Irish
Italian
French
THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
War
Committment
...
THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
email
ice cream (slowly weaning myself of this one)
"stillness"
THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
dark purple italian merino turtleneck sweater from express
one tan sock
one green sock
THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS OR ARTISTS AT THE MOMENT:
Air
David Byrne
Tulip Sweet and Her Trail of Tears
THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS AT PRESENT:
4am
I want to break free
raindrops keep falling on my head
THREE NEW THINGS YOU WANT TO TRY IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS:
relax
bartend (professionally)
make a film
THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP ( Love is a given!):
conversation
art
perpetual redefinition
TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE:(not in any particular order)
I am an ordained minister
My favorite alcoholic beverage is scotch
My father has a tongue ring
THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU:
eyes
neck
back
THREE THINGS YOU JUST CAN'T DO
Get angry enough
Play the trumpet
Sleep normally
THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:
directing/performance
reading
playing music
THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:
party
talk with someone
have sexual relations
THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING:
professor
director/artist
advertising
THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:
Europe
Canada
New York
THREE KID'S NAMES:
Miette
One
Paris Hilton
THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
write a few books
fall in love
change the world
bold if you've kissed someone...
on the cheek.
on the lips.
on their hands or fingers.
in my room.
in their room.
of the same sex.
of the opposite sex.
related to me.
younger than me.
older than me.
with jet black hair.
with curley hair.
with blonde hair & blue eyes.
with flaming red hair.
with straight hair.
smaller/shorter than me.
bigger/taller than me.
with a lip ring.
who was drunk.
who was high.
who I had just met.
who was homosexual.
who I didn't really want to kiss.
on a holiday.
who was going out with someone close to me.
who was my good friend's brother or sister.
who had been/is in jail.
in a graveyard.
at a show/concert.
at the beach.
in a pool, jacuzzi, or some type of water.
who was legally too young/old for me to have sex with.
with dyed hair.
with a shaved head.
who was/is my good friend.
who was/is in a band.
who has tattoos.
who is of a completely different race then me.
in the rain.
in another continent besides where I was born.
with an accent.
with an std.
on a boat.
in a car/taxi/bus.
on a plane.
at the circus/carnival.
with a missing body part.
in the movies.
eskimo style. (that's when you rub noses, right?)
It’s So Late
On the Subject of Experience as it Relates to Dogs, Cyber-Sex, Cavemen, and Sartre’s No Exit
By
Me (Kevin Michael Keating)
4 November, 2004
I. Experience
Hey heyhello heyhellomylove
There are thirteen dogs in a row And I am sitting on one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven too many syllables twelve Thirteen of the dogs are crying Don’t be sad doggies I am sad I can feel their tears in the sky I can see their tears changing the color of their face In their color-blindness the tears are changing the shade of my face through their eyes but how can I know that? I only assume That’s how it is for me when I cry the world changes colors and becomes a new world Tears should be a PhotoShop editing tool I want the picture of the airplane to look like it would when I am crying What if I were to just cry and look at the computer-generated image? How would that be like looking at the PhotoShopped image, how would it be like looking at a plane through the window at the airport and crying
How is the experience
DIFFERENT ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? How are each of these question marks different They’re not They are Each one is new Each successive mark is read with the reminder of the last, of the last two, of the last three, of the last four But this is not all This is not necessarily TRUE Can you look at one without seeing the others Did that happen the first time Once you have seen them is it possible to un-remember them there Cover them with your hand Do you not feel them burning through it Can you not see them on your skin Don’t you also remember the question marks in lines six and ten on this page Shouldn’t you Why are they in that line and not at the end of these questions Maybe they are, after all The question marks are on the page and on your hand and on your mind and on the desk table and in the room and everywhere and I did not create them Neither did the word-processing computer application Neither did the programmers who designed the word-processor Neither did God The question marks allowed me to see them Allowed you to see them Allowed you to experience their existence You chose to see them where you see them I chose to try to make you see them somewhere Maybe you didn’t see them there Maybe you were crying or sneezing or laughing or on a plane and saw them somewhere else Squint your eyes They move, do they not Nothing is static There is always moving always changing There are now fourteen dogs but there always were a million The counting is what messes us up What limits What stops experience What separates What do I mean when I say dogs when I plane when I say counting Do you not see dogs when I say dogs or planes when I say planes or ice cream when I say counting How often do you see the question marks The dogs, the plane, the counting, the words, are all on the page and on your hand and on your mind and on the desk table and in the room and everywhere and are real in all of these places They do not move from place to place as you see them in one place and then the next They are always there in all the places and allow you to see/feel/experience them when you make a choice or sometimes when you don’t make a choice (when you try not to make a choice, at any rate)
That was a bit of “empty” space but look closer Closer Touch it Smell it Imagine a plane and look at the space again How empty is it Not at all Everything in existence is living in that empty space, in every empty space Let us stop saying empty since it does not exist except in emptiness-fullness Everything in existence exists in every space in every time We change everything with our choices and our experience of the world is contained within these choices To see To think To feel Taste Touch Smell Imagine Dream We can make no choices that do not contain experience And no choices that do not change experience Not even silence, patience, seclusion, blindness Nothing is static The world will be experienced whether we want it to be or not Close your eyes You cannot help but see Cut off your head You cannot help but make people cry and become fertilizer for evergreens No choice fails to change experience and through experience the world To choose—to change—to create moment by moment by moment everything that is To see everything That is to experience To see nothing That is to experience To see a dog, to hear a dog, smell a dog, imagine a dog, smell an imagined dog—here, there, on a plane, in a room, on your hand, in the ground, in a dream—that is to experience To be the dog—to appreciate that you and the dog are not distinct spheres in a vast empty space but all part of the same great sphere of fullness, present at any moment in every place—connected by existence—THAT is experience Experience is living between “objects” living in the connection The moments when connection is recognized when the flesh between us is acknowledged when the only time is now—these moments are experience Hey heyhello heyhellomylove Hey heyhello heyhellomylove Hey heyhello heyhellomylove Hey heyhello heyhellomylove Hey heyhello heyhellomylove Hey heyhello heyhellomylove How close will we allow ourselves to get How fully can we embrace each other How far will we allow ourselves to descend into the flesh—giving up what we think to be our-selves—to become each other—to recognize that no matter what we think—we already are Heyhellomylovemyself
II. Art
Everything moves so quickly these days, wouldn’t you say? Even I can recall when things moved more slowly. Even at my young age. Things seemed to move more slowly, at least. Maybe they didn’t, but who’s to know that? I wake up, and it is no longer Tuesday. It could be no longer Wednesday. It is likely not even Anyday. It is only Now, but will I ever be able to catch up with it? Will I ever be awake—present—Now? Perhaps it is my fate—to always live behind what is. I wander from place to place, here to here, there to there, always behind. Sometimes my thoughts drift ahead to “could be” or “might be,” but I remain painfully conscious of my distance from Now. One might think, indeed, might hope, that this awareness might provide the necessary catalyst to beginning to live in the Now. No such luck. The memory of gaining this awareness affixes itself with an iron grip on my consciousness, so that in the act of being aware, I am aware of being aware—automatically removing any possibility of a present experience. Awareness is dangerous.
I am running, running, running, running through life, at every moment attempting to catch up to it, fighting the urge to pass it altogether and miss it when it runs past me again. I am running, running, running, and then suddenly—something stops. Something happens, and I am stopped. A moment, only a moment, but stretched for something like eternity. “This is living,” I think to myself, but only after it’s over. What is this moment? It is Art. It is Love. It is anything you want to call it because it has no name. It escapes definition, escapes signification, and escapes explanation. It escapes, because it is Now. It is present experience. Now. And after Now, it disappears. One cannot hope to re-experience it, for the simple fact that it becomes something new and different the moment it is remembered—the moment it is recognized as something desirable, it becomes nothing more than a memory, the past, nothing more meaningful than anything else. Further, one should not hope to re-experience it, for it is precisely its uniqueness, its specificity, its dependence on a very particular moment, which makes it special. If it is your intent to experience life in the present, you will always fail. Intent on top of Awareness is even more dangerous.
Art, or moments in which life is experienced in the present, exists perpetually, and in every inch of existence. It is not something which is created or destroyed, or happens when something is re-contextualized, or can only be seen by the “chosen few.” Art is. As a result, it is something that must be experienced in order to be “seen.” It is, therefore impossible to see Art unless one is living presently. Something that is cannot be remembered or imagined without drastically changing its nature—indeed, without it disappearing and becoming something different altogether, and less extraordinary. What I am not saying is that Art is something to be put on a pedestal, something to be “valued.”
This (perceived) separation from everything else will serve only to constrict the realm of possibility for the appreciation and recognition of Art. The quality that makes Art extraordinary is its closeness to what is real—the Now. When Art is experienced, what is actually being experienced is the present—unobscured by history, intent, awareness, definition, manipulation, hope, memory—the world in its fullness can be experienced in these moments, and we, humans, come as close as we may ever, to the true fabric of our existence—that which is.
The history of Art:
Once upon a time cavemen were hairy. Once upon a time cavemen made clothes. Once upon a time cavemen made simple tools. Once upon a time cavemen made fire. Once upon a time cavemen made baby cavemen. Once upon time cavemen were outside of their cave when it rained. Once upon a time they were inside when it rained. Once upon a time cavemen ate decaying meat and vomited. Once upon a time birds ate certain caterpillars and vomited. Once upon a time the clouds moved. Once upon a time the sky got dark. Once upon a time cavemen and birds and fish and mammals got wet in the ocean. Once upon a time they got hot and sweated and smelled. Once upon a time cavemen killed buffalo. Once upon a time the earth moved. Once upon a time there was no Canada. Once upon a time the leaves on the trees were red. Once upon a time there were Martians in Salt Lake City. Once upon a time Trinity College was a state-owned gentlemen’s club. Once upon a time you were running. Once upon a time I slept at night. Once upon a time we were vampires. Once upon a time the rocks were formed. Once upon a time the world disappeared. Once upon a time carrots were the cure to cancer. Once upon a time John Kerry became President of the United States. Once upon a time cavemen infiltrated Studio 54. Once upon a time cavemen died. Once upon a time we were all made of wood. Once upon a time there was no such thing as Daylight Savings Time. Once upon a time millions of people laughed simultaneously. Once upon a time it was cool to be a Fundamentalist Christian. Once upon a time we were all children. Once upon a time people thought there was a God. Once upon a time one caveman made a cave painting and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and so did another and…
III. Theatre
I like staying up late. I’ve gotten used to it, having been an insomniac as a child, and slowly recovering ever since. Very slowly, as a matter of fact, because I’ve grown to enjoy not sleeping. The countless hours I’ve spent awake when the rest of people in my area in the world are sleeping have been some of my most productive, my most enlightening, and certainly my most interesting. And it is during these hours that I experienced my most important recent theatrical moments. From October 29, 2004 at 10:00 p.m. until 4:15 a.m. on October 30, 2004 the Directing class of Trinity College, of which I was a part, directed and put on a production of Sartre’s No Exit with four separate casts.
The important theatre did not take place once the sections of the play were put together and performed end-to-end; rather, it occurred during the direction. [ ... ]
From the outset it was clear that drama would commence, but what of theatre? Theatre, though one might say it is what I do, is, I’m convinced, a kind of a hell. Theatre is the struggle to make Art, and comes the closest of the traditional forms (painting, poetry, etc…) in many ways of achieving its goal, due largely in part to its disappearance and refusal to be reproduced or contained. However, it is for this reason that the struggle is that much more painful for theatre’s creator. He is attempting to do the impossible—that is, create something which cannot be created, and do so in a similar way for everyone involved—performers, audience members, and sometimes the greater society (whom he may hope are changed and affected by his work—i.e., socio-political activism). One cannot create Artistic experience for another, for it is a completely subjective experience, which must be allowed to occur. Intention, awareness, and awareness of intention (which is exactly what spectators of theatre bring into the performance) are the foes of Artistic experience.
Thus, this eternal struggle, this hell, is the fate of the poor soul who creates theatre “because he must.” He fails to adequately realize that even if transformative moments of Art occur for himself, for actors, for audience members (all participants in the “event” which is, in actuality, an infinite quantity of subjective events) or for combinations of the three—even simultaneously—he did not create them. They existed—and were seen. His struggle is in believing that he can somehow inspire others to see what he sees, and see how he sees, which is an impossibility. This is the struggle that occurred on October 29 and 30. This is the theatre that took place.
I intended for the experience of directing the scene to be, in many ways, exactly the experience of creating theatre (which is, in my reading, also the experience of hell in Sartre’s play)—namely, struggle. Struggle to retain one’s Self and yet cooperate with the Others, struggle to communicate, struggle to understand, struggle to compromise one’s agency, struggle of subjectivity, struggle against causing emotional and physical pain to others, struggle within oneself, and the struggle against time. This struggle became real for the actors as well as for me, and our historical ties to one another affected this struggle in very real ways. Each of us had moments of comfort and discomfort with one another, and each had individuals we could turn to for relative safety. But these safeties were often betrayed, as well.
Theatrical experience exists in precisely these interchanges—the constant game of status played consciously or unconsciously with ourselves, with everything—the Sisyphean task of constantly attempting to see through anOther’s eyes and experience the world through them, while being relentlessly thwarted by the Other’s equal desire to experience our subjectivity. It is the struggle to see, to have seen, and to be seen that sustains theatre, and it is the experience of never achieving these things that makes it hell—a hell which is impossible to leave—not because it is not allowed, but because you cannot bring yourself to step out of the door. When all is said and done, it is too enjoyable to leave—it is the insomnia we all endure, complete with the productivity and enlightenment that comes with it. And sometimes, sometimes if you are really lucky, for an instant there is Art.
An instant later, of course,
it’s gone.
IV. Cyber-sex and God
"Has the internet driven a wedge between you and someone you love?"
Maybe. Well, it used to. I mean, my personal computer doesn’t start anymore, so…I mean, I guess it can’t in the same way that it used to. I…I used to talk to her online, using the instant messaging stuff…a little, as much as she would respond for….it got so that we would only talk about what we talked about online in real life….like, “I had a really great time writing with you last night…” Always the ellipsis, always the dot dot dot…the trailing off at the end of the sentence. Now, now I’m better…we’re better, I only check my email now…use it for business…and I type stuff—essays and stuff….no porn, no flash videos, no online games or dating services…it’s much better…I kinda hope that my PC doesn’t all of a sudden start working again, you know….because, well, I know…know that I would start right up again. And I like, I kinda really like actually really seeing people….her….in real life and not know what she’s been up to because I read her Away Message…I like people actually wondering what I’ve been up to when they ask me, because they don’t know because it doesn’t say on their screen….there’s something more real about the experience of being somewhere with someone, and feeling them there….I know distance is a weird thing having to do with perception, and stuff…but there’s definitely something to perceived closeness…definitely something more special…I mean, like, when I touch someone, when I can touch someone—not only do I know they’re there….but I know I’m there…at first, and you hardly ever get to touch someone past “at first” you can feel the difference…you can feel that they’re not you…in my room by myself with my computer, it was all me, and I couldn’t touch a single thing and feel different at all about it or about myself….I guess once you’re with someone long enough maybe the same thing happens…but yeah…so I guess the answer to the question would be it did, but now I’m better…I’m not sure who it is I love, but the internet is definitely not a wedge between me and that person…right now….
"At the end of the day, can online sex really satisfy you?"
Well, I’ve never really had sex online, exactly….does that mean that I’m like typing to someone, or that my genitals are somehow transmitted over the wires, and around the world and contacting someone else’s genitals? Or what? In a way I think that happens anyway, you know…without all the wires…I mean all parts of me are parts of everyone else, so it’s like one big orgy but if you mean masturbation to sexually explicit images, I don’t know for sure…it satisfies something, but it is satisfying, really? Like a Snickers satisfies? I don’t know that it’s even so much the online world, the internet that is what’s satisfactory about online sex…I mean, I think it must be the physical act of genital manipulation along with the imagined contact with a physical Other, and that imagination becomes something like a real experience right then and there…like in your dreams you can have an orgasm, and it’s like you lost your virginity or something but then you wake up and no one’s there, but you know it’ real because it’s sticky…and yeah it’s sexually satisfying, I mean, how different is it from some other person doing the same thing…physically not all that different, I mean, sure they have their technique, but it’s all pretty much the same…the difference, though, for me, and I think for most people, is in the mind, is your perception of what’s happening…it has to do with how we learn what’s supposed to happen with sex, how it’s supposed to be with someone else. Someone not us. And there’s supposed to be love, and there’s supposed to be protection, and consent, and all of these different things, and that’s why it’s different. That—and they can see you back, and you know it. You don’t know if the computer can see you. More and more I’m suspicious that it can, but I don’t have my own PC anymore so maybe it can’t see me now, but you know that the other person can see you, and what are they thinking? Who knows and that is what makes it different. You want to know what they’re thinking. Sure everything is connected, is of one flesh, one body, one existence, and always changing, but some parts of this everything are eyes and there’s something about them, maybe we’re taught it, maybe we realize it ourselves, or make it up, but there’s something about being able to see yourself inside them, and know that you’ve been captured, know that you are being seen (or at least think so)…something makes you feel a little more connected to those parts, and a little more afraid, too. Yeah, afraid.
"What does it mean to be made in the image and likeness of God?"
I think it means that God must be pretty interesting looking, and pretty normal looking, and always changing, like a great giant chameleon in the sky. He must also be about a step or two ahead of everyone else, like he must know exactly what choices everyone is going to make before they do in order to look like us before we look like him…But it think that maybe it’s the other way around…that God doesn’t know what choices we will make…that he is really just following whatever the current fashionable look is, and trying to make us think he was the original…I think that when I see the world it isn’t always in relation to what was before, to how God looked, but new and fresh and something that I had a hand in creating, that if I hadn’t done exactly what I did, it would look drastically different, and so would I…I see the world sometimes, I think—the entire world—in something as small as a leaf…and I sometimes feel as though time stops around me or doesn’t exist at all…or that I am the leaf, that part of me has just fallen from a tree…there’s something like peace in those moments…peace in the Now…I don’t know how to have more of those moments, but I think feeling connection might be a start. Ultimately it’s not about catching up to the world, but realizing the world is not something you exist within, but something you are a part of. I’m getting there, but it takes a lot of forgetting. What does it mean to be made in the likeness of God? It means that you alone are in control of everything that exists. You alone are responsible for creating a world that is right. You alone are infinitely free in the choices you make. And you alone determine what you allow yourself to see.
Why sleep, when you can see everything?
Why dream, when you can live everything?
Hey heyhello heyhellomylove heyhellomydream heyhellomyworld
heyhellomyself
07 August: 2 Shots Southern Comfort
1 Shot Jose Cuervo Tequila
1 Double Black Velvet and water
1 Malibu and Coke
1 drink made by the bartender with no name (rum, vodka, cranberry, pineapple)--all at Valley Bar--the shots before Karaoke, rest during and after (no one actually showed up to sing...so I played pool and tried out some new stuff and talked with Lee, who I went with to Sullivan's (see below)
1 Manhattan
1 Tanqueray and Tonic (at Sullivan's)
If there's anyone out there suffering Halitosis, I just received a copy of Dr. Harold Katz's "Bad Breath Bible" (I went on a binge of ordering free stuff from the internet a few weeks ago, and a bible sounded cool), and I'd love to give you advice from the scripture contained within....or something....lalala....
It's 5:55 according to my computer right now...nice...
<i>suenos, suenos, a ti te gusta sonar</I> (pretend those n's have cool squiggly things on 'em, k?)
You're
the United Nations!
Most people think you're ineffective, but you are trying to
completely save the world from itself, so there's always going to be a long
way to go. You're always the one trying to get friends to talk to each
other, enemies to talk to each other, anyone who can to just talk instead of
beating each other about the head and torso. Sometimes it works and sometimes
it doesn't, and you get very schizophrenic as a result. But your heart
is in the right place, and sometimes also in New York.
Take the Country
Quiz at the Blue Pyramid
You're A Prayer for Owen Meany!
by John Irving
Despite humble and perhaps literally small beginnings, you inspire
faith in almost everyone you know. You are an agent of higher powers, and you manifest
this fact in mysterious and loud ways. A sense of destiny pervades your every waking
moment, and you prepare with great detail for destiny fulfilled. When you speak, IT
SOUNDS LIKE THIS!
Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
