name the moon

I'm in one of those change periods. Every few years a new dictator takes control of my brain and replaces old axioms with new ones. Actually, every 1.5 years. I guess it's been about that time since the last one, and it was a doozy... but I think this one is going to be the opposite of a doozy. This one is about alignment... or at least that's the word I just came up with for it. Tires.

A few themes in my thoughts include: taxis, whales, the moon, hot air balloons, kittens, the french, suits, seersucker, text messaging, romance, hopelessness, booklets and manuals, choose your own adventure, swimming, vodka, personality, money, statistics, and games that you only play 10 minutes a day.

Romantic vs. Hopeless

Maggie told a story the other day about how hopelessness is romantic. For example, when a poor old woman describes to her poor old blind husband on his deathbed how one day they will be living in a beautiful cottage on the water. Hopeless promises, white lies essentially, can be romantic but primarily because they reveal the vulnerability of desire in our souls and also the weakness of our actual selves to achieve them. Somehow weakness, in this case, can be beautiful, and sweet, and romantic.

But I think this kind of romanticism can be really dangerous. When we find aesthetic something simply because it is impossible and futile... what are we doing to ourselves? Is that itself a weakness or a strength? Now I'm not so sure. Everything is futile in a sense... and I have equal prejudice against opposites: wanting things, and not wanting things. I need to find new ways of talking about happiness because I really don't like the cheesy tone of that word. But really, I think I'm obsessed. When in college I was obsessed with the idea of beauty, and that is an equally cheesy word. I wish I had an accent or spoke German because then it wouldn't seem so cheesy.

Seersucker

I've been watching Francois Truffaut's Antoine Doinel series and love it. I love the suits they wear. And the looks on their faces, and the way cars move down the streets, and the sound of their fighting. I've been reading Jonathan Ames's books--all of them, hungrily, chewing on the pages. Both the movies and the books make me long for the days of scrappy, well-dressed, well-read, grumpily happy, beautifully something, people. Now it's all too postmodern and it's impossible to escape. Though, I think there's a loophole at the very end that takes you to the very beginning. All I have to do is never look another person in the eye or else I would not be able to refrain from cracking up.

The Mooooon

Why doesn't the moon have a name? Why doesn't the sun? Why doesn't our fucking solar system have a fucking name!?!? I know that there are tons of science people out there that want to be immortalized on the canvas of the universe... why look deep into the telescopes naming specks of dust in your eye when you can name the bloody MOON? Until someone challenges me and kills me, I'm naming it Wisky.

Comments

[lele]

you're the one who speaks moonese, benson. so why don't you name it in its own language?

i'm reading Wake Up, Sir! on your recommendation, and i like it.

i also like everything you wrote here.

[Maggie]

I don't know if I would say that I found the hopelessness romantic--more that those people I overheard could still have that kind of hope despite everything. Is that the same thing? I just find human's capacity for hope sort of amazing--it carries us through so much. Maybe it is denial, not hope. Still, sometimes that is all we got.

I love love love how Antoine Doinel dresses, with his turtlenecks and scarves. I so want to live in a French New Wave film. I think that would suit you more than seersucker. I suggested both the Antoine Doinel films and Jonathan Ames to you. I think that earns me a pony.

[jana]

May I suggest you either get a cat or breed a baby Eben if you are so desperate to name something Wisky.

[Aegir]

The moon has a name. It's called Luna. The solar system has a name by default, as it's the system of our star, Sol. Sol, hence 'Solar System'.

[David]

wisky!

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