Friday, March 09, 2007

Neon Sign McFly

If Fight Club was a mass of concepts we abandoned in our late teenhood, like "smash the state," like "Where Is My Mind?" Like "Embrace the lack of romance," like "Ikea is not beautiful," it left us with one glowing word construction we carry into our early-twentysomethings: "tourist."

It's a word that sums up everything wrong with so many of us. It sums up the boys and girls on "Next" we can't even stand to watch, visitors to Manhattan Island, the heartbroken who only feel after a breakup, the grievers who only mourn after a death, those who only feel the wind when the wind blows, who only hear thunder when there's lightning. Our lives are continual condemnations of the tourist, because they offend us with their transience, their lack of belief, their populism. They see themselves as casual explorers, plumbing the depths of the psyche through occasional experience and coincidental exposure. In reality, they're continual visitors to used car lots. They buy whatever experience is thrust on them and act as though it belongs to them because they forked out their time, their money, their emotions. The greatest we are not customers, we live in the same used cars all the time. Our shows transcend reality because we really are not in reality when we hear our eardrums strain, because we feel real shame at our erections, we could not be apart from our shame and our world dyslexia and our diamond headlights. Our sadness, our heartbreak, our grief, our wine glasses and thin friends are our indulgences in what we have, in knowing we live here and were born here. The wind blows at all times because we are thoughtful. Anything less than causing the sun to rise for those around us is a failure. We are lanterns and the cities we were born in are the light. Toronto is New York is Decatur iff you were truly born there instead of in yourself. We know the alleys, the rooftops, and we walk through the areas that cabs refuse to go. Our depression when we're not touching breasts is complete, and our happiness when we are is absolute. I currently have three ambitions: one to be a homewrecker, two to touch a fake breast, three to be a house husband.

I will miss dearly one thing about winter, and that is the synesthesia of extremely cold nights. Nights where it's minus thirty-two with the wind chill and nobody else ventures outside of their homes. The bitter taste of cold, the cacophonic wind, the angry sound, the ice stirred up by nature, the stinging skin. All become one glorious sense that somewhat resembles beauty, although I'll admit I like the sight of it the most. It's fucking pretty, you have to admit.

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