Attention, attention!
a shade of green, a lion, a bear hunt, a dance, an open application
Hello and welcome! Have a seat. Here are some snippets from the past months, trying not to make too much sense.
A shade of green
During lunch break I overhear two American women’s conversation. They sit maybe four metres away, dangling their legs down the canal wall like me. One shares a dilemma: “There are more floods, more fires, the earthquakes are no joke. Why would I want to live along that fault line? Then again, there’s this specific shade of green that I know I’ll miss for the rest of my life.” She immediately discredits herself: “These are real reasons. And then I’m like: Oh nO, tHis ShaDe oF gReEn”
A lion
Cycling eastwards past ARTIS, there’s some commotion. Cause: a lion perched lazily at the edge of an artificial cliff, across the canal behind a tall fence and yet, right there. A family stops, dismounts their bikes, Dad points out the lion, small girl says “no veo nada”, and then: “LEÓN!!” She keeps calling out at intervals, “León!”, she waves, “León!”, she clasps both hands in front of her heart and looks and looks and looks.
At the same time, a couple of houseboat residents prepare to take their black-and-white-speckled cat out for a walk.
A bear hunt
The only way through is through — swishy swashy swishy swashy swish — that man in a blue suit jacket wearing a panama hat pointing at sailing ships looks like my grandfather — stumble trip! stumble trip! — my grandfather used to live at sea for months on end — what was that like for him, the camaraderie, the awful jokes, did he fit in? Polite, reserved, unexpectedly dead-pan-funny, did he feel held by the sea, dwarfed, humbled, home-ish? Swish swash swoosh — if he were alive and well, he’d be cutting out newspaper clippings about job fairs for me — but I’m not falling through, you see — I’m wading, trudging, inching through — splash splosh splash splosh — I’ll find my bearings soon enough — this being a bear hunt and all — what a beautiful day! We’re not scared! squelch squerch stumble trip, don’t you see I’m here, I’m here, making a living good as I can while the world weighs heavy, heavy, and the swamp is alive, alive, alive?
A dance
Something about refusal is fundamentally attractive to me, as in, I’m drawn towards it, want to be near it, try it out. Is art always refusal, or just often? Or just within-the-system, and outside-of-system art is a yes yes yes? Whereas within it’s an ‘I’d prefer not to’, which nevertheless must be sustained. Sustained by non-refusers, so what are we doing? What are we doing?
Refusal makes space for drifting, unmoored unfiltered experience, recognising the optional nature of all designed structures and non-optional companionship with all living creatures, but also one kind of refusal is another kind of work, one kind of work another kind of refusal.
The reclaiming of attention comes first.1 Where is it, my attention? Here, next to peacock feather cup of tea open window elderberry tree green hill blue sky white clouds orange armchair buzzing fly (colourless green ideas). Here, nowhere extraordinary.
Am I doing this right? Am I not still trying to sell my thoughts before I even have them, is that not still making me tired tired tired? Care is refusal, and also its opposite. Woof woof woof ruff ruff ruff — couldn’t have said it better myself, much obliged for the interruption. Whose train of thought is this? Freight train, freight train and what freight do you carry, an earth-alien stowaway with a machine that kills fascists? Endless train of references rattling past, or disappearing behind clouds, or captured in a cloud, ha! I am not beholden to you! Nor to you, ha! Drift on past, I trust you to be back, it’s a world of come-arounds, of line dances our feet could kick and tap out in our sleep.
Oh, but also La Pizzica! A woman in a red dress with quick-quick feet, mouse-quick spider-quick woman-quick feet dancing out the poison barefoot tip tap riff raff clack-clack-clack-clack-clack!
A benediction: May we dance with woman-quick mouse-quick spider-quick feet to the percussive declarations of aliveness all around.
An open application (DRAFT)
OY! GOOD MORNING!
CAN YOU HEAR ME?!
I LOVE YOUR WORK. I HUMBLY OFFER MY SERVICES. USE ME TEACH ME. I’VE GOT A NIMBLE MIND, I SWEAR. I’VE GOT PIECES OF PAPER TO PROVE IT! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION! WHERE IS IT, YOUR ATTENTION? I’D REALLY LIKE TO KNOW!! I’D LIKE TO TAKE WORK OFF YOUR PLATE AND EAT IT MYSELF SO THAT YOUR ATTENTION MAY SPEND TIME WITH THOSE YOU LOVE MOST! !
CAN YOU HEAR ME?! ANYHOW, THAT WOULD BE ALL.
THANKS AGAIN AND HAVE A GOOD DAY!
YES, A GOOD DAY!
OFF YOU GO!
these thoughts partially come from reading ‘How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy’ by Jenny Odell