the clownsuit melts into a rainbow, and other writings

Christian John Olsen


yester-yesterday, someone rather seriously said to me, "you just need to dumb your writing down. we want to get it, we like how clever it is, but right now, it's just too esoteric" (he didn't say esoteric, he said: too few people really get it) (which is what esoteric means)

today, someone wrote me an email. In it, they said "I enjoy your interpretations of your writings because I like to see the process of things".

I am reminded of a famous argument between 1) Ernest Hemingway and 2) F. Scott Fitzgerald. The former, poorer, man calling the latter, more extravagant man a whore for dumbing down his writing to appeal to the masses. Consequently, we have prob (you know what, who cares?)

So i think for the rest of this post, i'm going to be straight-up.

____- i love undressing women. i love looking at them naked, i love touching: hair, eyelashes, fingertips, ankles, i like to kiss: knees, bellies, eyelids, forhead

____- i want to be a good writer. i think i am a good writer. i think it's a shame i can't be a successful bohemian writer who travels and lives and lives to tell the tale.

____- i cannot manage to write a list of resolutions for this year. Currently, we are still living in late 2006. time seems to have frozen there. when it starts again, i'm going to force myself to commit to some resolutions.

____- i miss electronic music more than anything

____- i really want my suitcase in chicago back now.

____- having recently read the Seven Valleys i am unable to stop thinking of everything in life according to it. for moments at a time i can completely embody one or another of those states of being, but inevitably, i relapse back into some ambivalent ditch besides a tree that means i am in no valley at all, on no search at all, but merely sitting besides a trail, drinking from my canteen and watching the blue sky lick its own skin to black.

____- i walked down the promenade with Monza. a little girl passing me, put her hands up and growled at me. I turned around and errrrrrrrrr!!ed right back. she looked surprised (not as surprised as her mother). She smiled, then laughed. I smiled, then laughed. She walked away. I walked away. I was happier.

____- i have begun watching movies again. i seem to have found it in myself to concentrate on things other than my universe and it's many incongruous components. Since there are to be no drugs, drinking, throwing myself into work, alone time to write, or social distractions, i am simply going to have to numb the pain with film (i am relieved)

____- i am beginning to really really miss my friends in Australia

____- Dear God:
_____i hate to pester, but, this is not really a life.
_____mind if i do something useful for a change?
_____thanks dear god.
_____happy omnipotenting.

____- i suffered a mild-size disappointment two nights ago. it will either serve as a prelude to a much larger disappointment to come, or, as a reminder to appreciate the larger miracle at the end of this.

____- isn't it interesting that i am alive long enough to perfect the art of preparing-to-die?

____- i worry that this life is slowly extinguishing my enchantment with too many things. i am too young to know some of the things i know. if more people knew what i knew, no one would get married, have children, or expect to live happily ever after. i wish i didn't know those things.

____- i cannot seem to care too much about anything anymore. ____not in a depressed way... just in a... well..., whatever way.

____- i need to decide once and for all if i'm going to buy a recording of the Busoni piano concerto or not.

____- i miss dressing nicely, and having occasion to do so.

____- if anyone who reads this lives in LA, and is keen to be my superficial friend, who will use me merely for my wit; random assortment of strange tid-bits of knowledge; physical/sexual gratification; wing man for social/sexual escapades that will inevitably leave all involved feeling lonely, alienated, and absurd; senseless chatter that ends in meaningless giggling; then write me an email. i am looking to be somebody's nobody.

____- the better you know me, the more of my silence you will see. the greatest compliment i am able to give is: when i am with you, i feel alone. I feel this way, right now, with precisely two people. I speak perfectly through breaths, the wind signals i can send when my hand moves to turn the page of a book, the timing and precision of my turning onto my other side. Mar: we really miss you. I really miss you. lots. Also i love you. (also lots). I just felt the need to say that.

____- amongst my favorite things in life: stretching my legs out under the table after i'm done eating. Monz: thanks for being the only person in the universe that is not annoyed by this quirk of mine.

____- My grandfather's brother's wife told me stories today. Another of my favorite things in life: stories elderly people know. About distant cousins being burnt in fires in Lebanon, about angry souls that demand lesser.more.nothing.everything.starshine.moondust.angel wings.dragon's claws, about my grandfather. His moodiness. His depression(s). His laughter. His mistakes. The dreams everyone is having of him now, his head slouched against the wall by the telephone, perfectly dressed in the height of 1970's fashion, young, muscular, i'm exhausted. i am too tired he says in the dream. I am scared. Why do I miss him soo much?, a man I never knew? Why do I feel that no one knows me better? Why do i feel that from his vantage point, he sees me move as a blur of light too bright for others, too near, too human, too made-of-flesh to notice?

____- i am tired of my smudged, meaningless, static-dreams. i am tired of feeling like my time is wasted. i want clairvoyant faculties, i want to travel light-years away and sit on burnt-out stars, once fire-balls, now bone-dry rocks. i want to kick moondust with my foot and watch it rise and rise and rise and drift away like smoke. i cannot. i am trapped in my head all night long. dreams of people bleeding to death. dreams of conversations about nothing, casted entirely by cardboard cutouts of people: not a real soul in sight. i am trapped in this domain. i want sublimity!

____- i have to wait a little longer to see if the mild-disappointment is going to grow into a thing with three-heads, or fizzle out and leave a little baby pheonix for me to hold to my chest and rub my cheek against.

____- i am breathing faster. i hear it works for dogs, manages to cut the timeline down a fair bit.

____- my wit misses you.
_____the world is not the same.
_____(also, i'm giving up sugar. this morning's breakfast- the remaining 4 donuts that were supposed to be yours, for 2 hours put me into a diabetic coma)

____- i am 25 years old. except for the following, i have no real qualifications in life:
_____snow can make me cry; i can speak Female fluently; Bach and Brahms are as much my father as anybody else; i believe prayer can crack skies open, spit on bald-heads, make laughing babies dance, make dancing bears cry, reorganize the atoms in my heart to better accommodate my soul, refashion the universe to accommodate me

____- i prefer public transport and walking to cars. i dislike cars and find them very stressful. also i dislike the act of putting gas in the car. i dislike getting my car serviced. i dislike the noises it makes. i despise looking for parking. i can never seem to recall the process of driving anywhere once i notice i am there- i simply have zoned out the entire time. it is dangerous, and yet, i cannot make my mind stop.

____- Dear Body:
_____i am genuinely sorry about the 8 donuts.

____- Dear readers, Dear art of poetry:
_____no one understands my writing. i am sorry to have failed you both.

____- i used to dance. i used to lose myself in it. i used to numb my body in hopes of feeling my soul. i'd slouch into corners of laserlitclubs, music blaring (unable to distinguish light from sound from flesh), and with eyes half-open.closed, i'd bite my own lips, and rub my hands into one another, rocking off-beat from side to side. i would think: this is my soul! this is my soul! i felt like i had severed my body. i felt light.

____- i am speaking honestly: Dear World,
_____i am sorry to have failed you, i promise it was only 65% my fault.
_____i am trying to fix it... it's proving to be difficult.

____- i am proud to say: i haven't the slightest fear of death. should i die in 20 minutes, here is what i'd be thinking: finally. Monz better remember what i wanted for my epitaph.

I cannot be more clear than i have been.
this is clear as it gets.
this is who i am.
but,
cannot remain.