Jeremy Bowen.

The Human Line

2011-10-24T23:02:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure what it was this morning that threw me off. I got out of the car, and as I walked through the city, I imagined what a monk must feel like as he enters a city after a long time in his monkish seclusion. Amazement? The good kind or the bad kind? Maybe he wouldn’t be phased by it. I had a feeling of pending overwhelmedment. So many people we are. I’m not really sure why this throws my layers out of register, but it seems so difficult. Where the Jesuses and Buddhi of the world have expanded their hearts to love this sentient mass of needs, loves, joys, weakness, I am tipsy because I am responsible for them. I have to help them. I have to solve them and they are too many to solve. [Personal affects hanging in windows that I can’t relate to and don’t understand.] Perhaps they are even happy, and I am the broken one.

I am on my way to a loud, motivational, expensive tech conference in a stadium and I am stunned by a large charcoal drawing of two men looking the same direction as me—that is, away—at nothing, at something. I am happily stunned because it is art, and I walked by the galleries in hopes of being stunned by art, and I am succeeding. I am also stunned because it is made by a hand.* It wasn’t even worked by a hand, but drawn. And I'm not sure why there is love in it. Not love—a man—a man, I am assuming—why there is a man in it. Our relationship is so easy and filled with nuance, with that thing poetry seems to have. This is an artifact. It is a silent moment of a note to me, scribed by a mute in his oversized notepad, hung in this window, and I get it. I want to buy it. I want it to be in my collection. I want to have a collection. I want to collect single things—wordless writings that have been touched, marked, created, said by a person’s hands, to me. Antidotes to my theoretical virtuality—not ideas of things—reproductions, illusions, copies—but Things Themselves. The magic that makes me melancholy is this: this is real, and I am hoping it all up.

—

*I am also stunned because it reminds me of comic books—bold, graphic—which tugs on a certain pre-teen chamber of my heart, among other things.**

**It should also be noted that I just read the novel The Adventures of Cavelier and Klay by Michael Chabon, which has as a central theme the emotional merits of writing, drawing, and reading comic books, which stirred many of the aforementioned fond emotions.

—

2011-06-03T11:34:00.000-07:00

I met Mark Rothko in a dream last night. The details are fuzzy, but I recall that I spotted him in NYC somewhere, and had a chance to take a really great picture of him (something akin to the image above), but missed it. The next time I got a chance, he was coming down some stairs, so I just went for it, and my flash went off, which made him very upset. I quickly apologized, and told him that I’m a great admirer of his work—“In fact,” I told him, “I’m in the middle of your biography.”

“Oh,” he replied, with an I’m-rolling-my-eyes tone in his voice—not because he wasn’t impressed: “Have you gotten to the terribly depressing ending yet, where I kill myself in self-pity?”

I am, in fact, in the middle of his biography. Rothko was notoriously predisposed to being contrary. If anyone said something admiring about his work—despite being accurate—he would claim they’re missing the point entirely. He simultaneously desired fame and notoriety, and cursed the impersonal commercialization of his work that fame brought on. So, this dreamed-up response of Rothko’s, where he’s embarrassed by his own life, is quite fitting.

At this point, I start to get a little confused. After being invited by him to his apartment (dirty, messy), I have to ask, “What year is it?”

“1974.”

Rothko killed himself in 1970. It was as if he’d read his own biography, and was determined to rebel against his own status-quo. In the dream, he was sick and dying, but had managed to stick it to his own history.

There was another person there with us, a guy my age, who was constantly interrupting my questions—question, really. I had one question I wanted to ask him, that would have gone something like this:

“In our modern day, bright, saturated colors like those in your paintings are so commonplace—we have unnaturally vivid TVs, computer screens, phones—even print technology is much more vivid and accurate than it was in the 50s. Would you say that your paintings, in the cultural context of black and white tvs, muted color magazines, and centuries upon centuries of a more ‘natural’ use of color, were that much more violent, stunning, and other-worldly?”

But I never got the chance. I’m sure he would have answered it by tearing my question apart—which I think would have enjoyed.

—

2011-04-07T17:36:00.000-07:00

2010-11-20T00:45:00.000-08:00

There is a home video of me when I was about 6 years old that often pops into my head ever since I watched it back several years ago. It's one of those odd experiences where I actually remember doing it, and now I’m watching that moment back through the eye of the camcorder—it’s a weird kind of emotional stereo, I guess. But it sticks with me because it’s as if a sizable chunk of my personality is condensed into 3 seconds.

I’m making it seem a lot more serious than it is: it’s a video of my two older brothers (around 11 and 13 years old), dressed in denim jackets, sunglasses and spiky-combed-back-with-mousse hair, dancing and singing along to “I’m Fat,” by Weird Al Yankovic. They're having a grand ol’ time, doing their quasi-synchronized, mostly improvised dance, singing, “I’m fat! I’m fat! You know it—you know it” and then comes the moment: little Jeremy, in his Spiderman jammies, can’t resist the fun anymore, so he jumps up off the couch and starts gleefully dancing along! Wee! This is really fun! Dancing, dancing and then ohmygosheveryoneislookingatme and I jump back on the couch and shove my head between the cushions in embarrassment.

This funny little scene has reverberations throughout my little life history. It’s a poignant caricature of all the times, big and small, that I’ve wanted to break out and do something ridiculous or extraordinary or unexpected or drastic, but then coil back because of a lack of courage, or a resurgence of practical thinking, or laziness, or the fear of what others may think. I guess it’s a paradox: I love the idea of new, exciting things, but I recoil at the thought of drawing attention to myself—of being different, which is a characteristic almost any great idea requires. Often, there are perfectly good reasons why I recoil, and I rarely regret it. But sometimes, I think I’m going to go crazy with all these piles of unfinished, unexpressed Good Ideas in my brain.

Speaking of which, there are more ideas in my brain about this very subject, but because I’ve done this same little pattern about a dozen times with this very blog post (“Maybe I should say X or Y, or maybe I should just forget it...”), I’m just going to go ahead and post it now before I bury my head again in the proverbial couch-cushions...

Or am I burying my head by posting it now, unfinished and not fully expressed?

—

Dawn—

2010-10-06T07:54:00.000-07:00

I decipher the colors I see

behind my sun-lit eyelids—

it really is orange, not black—

A bridge,

Dawn, haze, lake, trees—

“‘You do not command us’

the Land says”

they must have thought—

the pre-machine people—

They probably did as they paddled canoes or whatever

looking at this.

But I think,

Aren't we just being creative?

and,

We kinda do.

—

Runners

2010-10-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

Time has joined the ends of Mercury's arrow-path—

no doubt he laughs

at our mobius-looped short-shorted messengers

urgently sweating through streets

sans-errand, no letter and

nothing retrieved but

relieved when they finally gasping achieve

their starting point.

—

Corporate Food

2010-10-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

I eat delicious though corporate food

with noise

and among us there are five men in striped dress shirts

no tie

saying words to each other like

“Chaos Creates Opportunity”

“The Fog of War”

“Horizon” with “Them Focused”

and I value them

because they are paid more

and they are talking to each other

Managing

and Money

and they are not talking to each other.

And I

catching my own gaze in the window glass

am talking to no one.

—

Tile Lines

2010-10-03T08:05:00.000-07:00

The orange lights of the tunnel

kaleidoscopic

prismatic

and rapid

on the dark hospital rubber blue bus floor.

The tile lines on the tunnel walls rise up fine

so precisely apart

and I watch mine

slowly like power wires

gracefully drooped between peaked downbeats

waiting to see if it will lift its littleness up up and into the ceiling

or air

or droop down again

or out to sea

or vanish

and so it does

and so it does.

I can't ask of these little things

anything more than the weight

of a feathered

though frantic

bird.

PULL. String quartet.

2010-01-22T03:40:00.000-08:00

As you play, imagine you are stretching something very thick.
Use vibrato for much of the piece.
Begin by playing your indicated pitch for roughly 4–8 seconds.
For following pitches, alternate between a consonant and a dissonant pitch.
Use accented attacks sparingly.
Durations are up to individual discretion, but should rarely (but sometimes) be shorter than 1 second.
Rests between notes should be from 1/2–1x as long as the previous note's duration.
Some notes should lean.
Some notes should be played straight.
Roughly 2 out of 5 pitches should fall.
Individual dynamics may vary.
Allow the collective dynamics to range from mp–ff.
The general pace of the piece should range from slow (but not meditative) to medium-tempo.
End when appropriate.

–

3.141592653589793

2009-09-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

everything.

one

quintessential

circumambulates

the open holy sanctuary

of yes

as our order leaks out

our circumscription

delicate

and nearly boundless

mocking through the intricacies

our failing comprehension of light

the crystalline smallness of

truth's patternless specificities

and so on

—

The Words We Wisely Swallowed

2009-09-08T08:55:00.000-07:00

The words we wisely swallowed

but stuck to our throats like sap

their letters black—

I'd extract them with a thick plastic syringe

the slow pull

the sudden suction of it

shocking and sublime.

It was the way it reached inside our fingers

we'd say.

I'd gather them up in a glass bowl

still warm

We'd spread them out

pour them out in a parking lot

our limbs light

our minds dry as a book

and we'd sing again.

—

While the bus is moving.

2009-08-28T11:25:00.001-07:00

While the sun is burning.

While your bones are growing.

While the children eat their breakfast.

As the bishop combs his hair.

While the bus is moving.

While the strings are singing.

While your money is exchanged.

While the movie's ending.

While the ice is melting.

As the news is spreading.

While the lady shakes her head.

While the clouds gather.

As the continents drift.

While your thoughts are rolling.

While the light is still good.

While you make your decision.

As you wait.

While you're waiting.

While you wait.

While the bus is moving.

—

The Warm Ancient Tree

2009-08-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

I'm laughing

wrapping my heart around

you

The warm ancient tree

caressed around my sleeping bones

is finding new water

in you

And fusing we

thank history

together forgetting everything

but the yanking delightfulness

of our inner-weaving.

—

Seventeen Skies

2009-08-06T11:34:00.000-07:00

Seventeen skies

over a glass house

glowing in shattered patterns

One red madrona

in an open room

gripping plaster earth

Five hundred fires

on tall stems

sleeping in dawn light

and dripping with youth water

between our mouths

Three songs

—

Why Writing

2009-08-05T07:42:00.000-07:00

The raw materials are free.
And easy to use.
And astoundingly diverse.
Writing is easy to share with people.
Words are much more efficient at communicating than colors or sounds. Practically everything is at language's fingertips. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but there's a whole universe in and between us that can't be photographed. This is really just a round-about way of re-stating reasons 2 and 3.
I could use a project.
I miss being naïvely creative. For me, when it comes to art/design/music, there's too much of a burden of history, teachers, and peers. It's probably a cop-out, and I probably could work through all that (and will probably need to), but I'm enjoying feeling uninhibited.
I want dialogue. I could've put my writing online in a more static format, but I wanted people to be able to comment—both for egotistical purposes as well as the exchange of ideas and thoughts. So please disagree with me, and feel free to ask or comment about anything. (I do plan on posting some opinions, questions and theories relative to art, art-making, and life in general, so this reason will be more relevant then. Maybe.)
I want critiques. You don't have to be nice.
I have some things I'd like to say.*

*Sorry to use this link twice. I couldn't help myself.

—

2009-07-27T10:42:00.000-07:00

Who knows where the time goes?

Maybe time goes down the devil’s throat

or haloes ‘round angel heads

or sprays out the now-nozzle

or long sinks upon its slowness—

What if time doesn’t know

where it’s supposed to go

and we have forgotten

to tell it?

—

Exodus

2009-07-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

The divisors

dissolved—

waters fell

into waters

firmament

upon sea

light

remingled with darkness

and earth and flesh

ungathered

dispersed

but I

here in a boat

at the center of light

of waters

am waiting

for my veins

to dissipate.

—

A Soft Book

2009-07-22T08:47:00.000-07:00

A soft book

full of tiny shapes

tells her things we'll

never know—

A tiny time-teller

tells me we're at least

sharing the same moments

tiny-shaped

and ticking.

—

Peace

2009-07-21T12:26:00.000-07:00

“Can you spare me sixty seconds of your time
for a 10,000-year-old forest?”
A missionary
tracting on behalf of this new Jesus
is doing his best
to testify—
or sad-faced they
(and you)
will self-martyr
limbs stretched
heaven-drawn
then felled—
and I

(and they)
in my feedless consumption
glutton them.

–

Love me, please.

2009-07-21T11:33:00.000-07:00

I've always been a little pretentious. I'd like to claim that it's the by-product of being raised in environments that all assured me I was special, gifted, unique, etc., but I think I just like to believe that I'm really good at things. For example:

I liked drawing comic book characters when I was a kid, so I decided I'd start my own comic company with my friend. We called it Prism Comics. Our first issue was going to be about a certain maniacal jokester named "The Jester."

I liked playing music, so in sixth grade I formed a band with some other friends—before any of us owned any instruments. We were called Exploding Batteries. Then Exploding Catfish. Then the Lovable Plush Toys. I cooked up a sweet album design in Mac Paintbrush, complete with awesome, evocative one-word song titles for songs yet to be written (I imagine "Alone" was among them). I'd imagine how I'd act when being filmed for our music video. (Should I grow dreads like Adam Duritz?)

I did later record an album, certain I was laying the groundwork for an exceptional career in instrumental-folk-jazz-fusion music. Amazingly, the project paid for itself and then some, thanks to the combination of a high school talent show appearance and a student body with large expendable incomes.

So I made another album (self-titled, of course) which, shockingly, didn't pay for itself. If you'd like a free handful of these, I've got boxes of them.

After my mission, I had a bunch of photography, drawings, poetry, and other writings I'd made over the two-year period. Of course, I felt like my experiences/observations deserved to be made into a book. But I'd learned my lesson. This book wasn't a money-making venture—I just made enough copies to give to family and close friends. Not that I would have objected if some publisher recognized that my work deserved wide-spread distribution...

Now here I am, starting a blog with the intention of sharing my recent poetry, writings and thoughts. However, I like to think my motivations are different this time. I'm still very proud of my work like I've always been (at least at the time I made it), but I'm more interested in dialogue and critiques than I am in praise or recognition. This time, I fully acknowledge that I'm just one more amateur in a very large ocean of mediocrity—but if there's one thing I've always believed through all my self-publishing, it's this: art that is not shared is not worth making.

—