Phillips Malingerer

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-3-9816093-3-2
Verlag: GRIN Verlag
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 111 Seiten

Like its precursor, The Light is Alone, Malingerer is what might be called a discursive inverted cross. On one level, it aims to exhibit various manifestations of Satanic practice because, quite simply, the latter's representation in the horror genre offers a perverse but delectable pleasure; the liminality of horror always entails an element of fun. And yet the collection is also devoted to perpetrating a kind of violence against those evils that are distinctly unpleasant, specifically the Luciferian nature of religious and political fundamentalisms, abominations of conscience. Hence Malingerer's alignment with the aesthetic diabolism of Lovecraft's powerful oeuvre, among those of other esteemed writers and thinkers, while it carefully critiques and collapses the convoluted bigotry that, for better and most certainly for worse, found such sublime, unholy expression in the picturesque city of Providence.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Phillips, Thomas

Leseproben

MILLE PLATEAUX “A schizophrenic out for a walk is a better model than a neurotic lying on the analyst’s couch. A breath of fresh air, a relationship with the outside world" Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari The foreboding of Charles Ives’s stark composition “Central Park in the Dark” is certainly evident in its title. A slow, predatory string arrangement that cues the latent dis-ease of the listener. Not to be mistaken, however, for unchained morbidity. No, not at all. The musical phrases are too lush for that, too emblazoned by the transcendentalism that operated as Ives’s adopted philosophy. The transcendentalism of a Hawthorne in all of its speculative brooding around the pitfalls of human nature, for example. As opposed to the measured and genteel optimism of an Emerson. Perhaps it is the musical accompaniment to Goodman Brown’s fateful dalliance with Lucifer in the forest, or to the final breath exhaled by a female victim whose great beauty is marred by a birthmark and unfortunate association with a mad scientist’s compulsion to conquer nature. I myself hear the music as an invitation to peer into the mechanics of those interior landscapes that so often evade everyday awareness, those that direct us when we’re not looking. Most of us are well fortified against such direction, or misdirection, for better and for worse. I’m of two minds about this issue. The streets are teeming with people. One can’t help but respect the diversity; not merely in terms of ethnic flavoring, but in every sense of the word. The many lifestyles, colors, gender play; the things that go through a mind, a body, and oblige one to do this or that. Fashion. Instinct. Varying degrees of propriety. So many splintered lines that move through the city, the only common root being the need to tread carefully here, watch your step, look over your shoulder once in a while. Yes the city has seen gentrification but let’s not forget what happens to people, over the course of many generations, amid the towering architecture, convulsing underground trains, the vast hordes of city dwellers moving above and below to the sound of countless tunes between their ears, determining the mood of a stroll, a long-term or fleeting relation. What happens is they become sick. Or to be a little less melodramatic, they lose the capacity to occupy a free-floating moment, free of doubt, self-consciousness. They, we, are always being watched, even when the surveillance lacks clarity or intentionality. So watch your back, I always say. Even, and perhaps especially, in the park. Where eyes may be hidden as though peering from behind the many windows of the city. Without, of course, a solid wall, a pane of glass separating the observer and the observed. I myself take great pleasure in walking the streets and admiring the diversity. The park is less interesting to me, but this is only because I spent so much time there as a child. Being there is nostalgic, but not the kind of nostalgia that most people would identify as enriching. No. I do not enjoy revisiting childhood. Still, who can deny the value of nature at the heart of the metropolis? I tend to remain in the relatively populated areas of the park. Aside from the odd evening stroll, one that leads me deep into the interior landscape, where the need for solitude always seems to assert itself with such obstinacy, I do enjoy seeing the effect that nature has on people, if only temporarily, how they, we, commune with something other than brick, stone, steel, pavement. People smile more in the park. It’s nice to see. And I see everything. Fully cognizant, of course, that I too may be seen in my particular gait, my general countenance, my ordinary person that barely stands out to the average city dweller, much less to the tourist in search of a thrill in the wooded core of a metropolis. It’s difficult not to become attached to people. One of our shortcomings, as they say, that impulse to connect, and then to grasp at the other. Where were you when I needed you, and so forth. The one who used to listen to me said that we seek either to subsume or repudiate others, and that healing, health, has much to do with renegotiating these patterns. My body used to become restless in the horizontal position, eyes closed, in dialogue. Another mental phenomenon – restlessness – that determines a body and its movement through life, on the listener’s sofa. But the couple that I’ve enjoyed observing from a short distance of late seems to have evaded the trappings of conventional relationality. They appear as if entirely comfortable in one another’s company. They smile as much amid all the glass and concrete as they do in the park. An interracial couple. Light and dark. Diversity put into practice. I admire them for it, though it’s quite common these days. I’ve only witnessed them argue once, and even here, they did so respectfully, it seemed to me. They sat on a bench in the park and talked it through calmly, with no overtalking, they took turns. And in the end, she placed her hand very gently on his face – she’s the black one – and held it there until they were once again smiling and agreeing. They left the park hand in hand, and then arms around waists. Sometimes a hand ventured below the waist, a little caress, a little tap tap, very playful, when they thought no one was looking. Many walking blocks into the city, with a stop here and there for groceries or other necessities, among all the buildings and the people, the noise, prying eyes, and then they were home. Then again, what is health, healing? What’s so wrong with repudiation? There’s plenty to dislike in the modern world. The city in particular. As for subsumption, there’s something wonderful about crawling into a piece of music, or allowing it to absorb through the skin. On the bed or the floor, entering the music through headphones or speakers; or feeling it as the music locates itself between flesh and bone, behind the ribcage, back of and between the eyes. People are like music. Without, of course, the formal composition. In the right place, with the right mental and physical equipment, one takes a person in, or is held in the comforting, lyrical embrace. Identity becomes irrelevant. No need to worry about what’s being given up, lost. It all blends and melds to create something new. This is the way of productive relations. The one who listened didn’t agree. He made a fuss. Then he paid the price, as they say. I miss the sofa. But really, I should be the one sitting upright. Listening, dispensing insight. I have two nice suits where I used to live. Elegant isn’t the right word for them. Professional. Commanding. My gaze is piercing without being overblown or exaggerated. I know, I’ve seen it. I know how to gauge and listen, to music, to people. There’s the pleasure of anticipating where one will be led next, following others, provided that one has time for such activity. I have ample time. And then the more aggressive pleasure, another layer of oneself, of knowing that this is the day, or rather, the night, sensing this in the ether and in the inner workings of one’s mechanism. This is the night to disappear. Sometimes he carries a bag from some shop, or if it’s smaller, lighter, she carries it. I admire the gallantry. As unique as they are – not in their mixing of races, this happens all the time, but in what most would call their refreshing example of couplehood – they still adhere to certain formulas of domestic cohabitation, gendered politics. Their home appears warm and inviting. The core of their domestic milieu is less than visible, naturally, but a window might provide an eventful view, as they do when not obscured. People are far more open than they used to be here, an agreeable development in my opinion. In their kitchen, she tends to take on the responsibility of the cooking. He’ll chip in, maybe he doesn’t like cooking, fair enough, but they laugh and dance, music lovers, how could they not be, he chips in and they make a ritual of dinner prep. Later, he does the dishes. She chips in if he’s feeling tired. The only street-level window, looking in on the kitchen. So I don’t know what happens next. This evening they walk hand in hand in the park, after the dishes. A Monday. Why not? Let the pleasures of the weekend endure a bit longer. Before you know it it’s Friday again. I doubt they have unfulfilling careers that make them pine for the weekend. This circumstance would be apparent in their behavior and in the way they treat each other. Money. Moronic colleagues, stress. So they walk slowly, no hurry. It’s a clear night, a little chilly, but no harm done. He is elegant, here the word is applicable, and she is very simply and gracefully beautiful. Her darker skin slowly merges with the close of day. They finally sit on a bench. Evening becomes night. A few other strollers, runners. But their conversation on the bench has just begun and his animation suggests it will continue there as the night wears on and the spaces between approaching others become wider, more expansive. I myself become, contrary to the ways of the city, how do they say, imperceptible, in such moments. I am subsumed by the night, I wear dark clothes. I no longer exist as a man with two fully functional suits, the usual hang-ups, a guy in pur-suit of modest pleasures. No. I blend in and find all kinds of spaces, here in the park, where one such as myself, no longer a child, can calculate the scene, what is required, in peace. It strikes me in these moments, as I prepare the equipment and await the instant of release, that the Ives piece is ultimately about pleasure. That which most people don’t recognize as instrumental to a productive life. Being a little uncomfortable, living with some degree of...