Aleph

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Hand held radios on every wall called all eyes closer, beckoning inspection of the personal and public history some of us in the room had lived and others of us had studied. When the room filled, chairs were brought in, a trap set was assembled, and a dusty projector revved. It got quiet and the mumbling died slowly, giving way to the curator who owned the floor. The program was laid out, applause was given, lights faded, and we were in darkness, breathing in the silent, scattered images flashing before us. A cat, a woman, Hebrew letters, spikes in arms, a young boy in fields of pot, more hand held radios adorned with blank faces; a woman dancing, smiling and going closer to a mirror which revealed unkempt teeth. Hands opened, hands closed; a middle distance runner, stilled by image; a brunette danced, wild, naked, exposed to the red aura around her. Men taking tokes, and sax players whose muses were elusive jaunted past the eye. The naked brunette climbed out of bed to light a cigarette and crawl back between the covers; Mick Jagger’s ghost appeared. More dancing, more color, motorcycles moving on super-8 towards cosmic entrancement. We saw a man, in the final moments, making a tie of an old shirt and preparing a shot. We had forgotten about the boy, and for those of us who were ignorant of the story behind all of this, we could do no more than sit, stunned and disarranged, feeling something that we did not know.
*
The lights rose, and the young boy from the film (now old) came before us to read pages about his life and share stories about the images. We granted him attention, seeking to assign meaning to the broken stills; wanting to fix them in our minds. His information provided context, he smiled, and the lights went down once more. The musicians were introduced and the film began again, that time to the crash and clamor of free association. Everything became more raucous and clear. The dancing was personal: the woman was the boy’s mother; the cat once rode on the artist’s shoulders—was even doing so when the dancing woman met him. The radios were the same that hung around us on the walls, and Mick Jagger was still a ghost from the Tami show, though seen from a theater seat. The musicians pounded wildly and the information took shape. In my throat it all welled up, and I wanted to scream at them to stop, but no; it was only 8 minutes, and they were overflowing with life. It was then possible to understand what those inexpressible abstractions meant. Tosh told us that the film was for personal use, and played on the walls of his father’s studio for acquaintances: An ice-breaker which revealed all of the freedom and madness associated with the man and his time. Projected through an unhurried eye: Visions of despair and happiness, blanked, telling the story of the undoing of everyone present; a collage of the mind, telling us all that we need to know; sometimes, even more. We were meant to take these images, sort them, store them and relish in their music.
*
The final note had been blown, and we all began to cheer. A new understanding had been made, and we seemed to have lived as it was seen by the boy and his father. In the light, the poets had found and filled the corners of the gallery; the students were still sitting on the floor, scribbling to record their impressions for class, or for their quarterlies. And in between it all, we were still whirling with a humility bordering sadness. We smiled and said our goodbyes to everyone whose name we’d remembered from before the intimate spectacle; making one more round past all of the hand held radios, and their accompanying images. Off into the night, we walked for blocks through the cold New York streets, aspiring to find strong drinks and the warmth of California. ‘Not this night, but some day soon’ we actually thought aloud. It was all still coming together; the visions melting together and solidifying a purpose unlike the notions that once held fast, after the first visceral viewing, and then again by the second, loud and informed mystical mélange. We filed down avenues looking for familiarity. When we finally found and recognized faces, we treated ourselves like old oak barrels, working hard to un-furrow our brows and whet our pursed lips. In the room of red and black, light was not needed. It was like the images we had just seen. Music was creating a context for our experiences; new personal histories. Us, making our own messy collages of mind and body, meeting in the distance, shown the way by Scotch on the rocks, dancing through the letters we wrote and only understood later. From Aleph to Tav, we had begun to categorize the images; seeking a respective undoing.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3maJ6b0pBkg