Twelve Months, 2024
March
The air temperature increases at this time of the year
and when he walks around he kicks the snow
to make it melt faster
Feeling like a kid
draining the ocean with a bucket
April
He just found a bunch of notes he thought were lost
and he is wishing he had written down where all the other notes are
Yet another note that could get lost too
Perhaps notes are not memory aids
On the contrary, they clear the way into oblivion
so that you can focus on something new
May
Look, he is using his notes as a carpet
as a blanket
a piece of garment
a playing mat for the children
a beach towel
to think about labour
So irretrievably disenfranchised from the succession of the seasons
June
He left this note for me
Focus on the plastic crudeness
of the ever-changing present
Rectify stone inscriptions on an atomic level
Produce additional temporalities
Ventriloquize past and future
in a perpetual reconfiguration of fragments
July
Ti ricordi i petroglifi della Grotta del Bue Marino
Gli ornamenti in ceramica a Dorgali
La luna pazzesca che sorge dal mare
in quelle tarde serate al Miraggio
con i bambini stanchi ed eccitati
dalla musica dal vivo?
August
Another one reads
Repudiating the uniform, unidirectional, and measurable concept of time
upon which myths of endless progress and growth are maintained
Committing to unlearning ideas of all-encompassing rationality
Pledging fidelity to production without immediate profit
Professing faith in the constitutive incompleteness of life
September
And here he is again
Hacking the pillars of his upbringing
Skewing the patterns he is able to recognise
Reweighing affections and affinities
Reflecting - to the extent this is possibleon
what “to the extent this is possible” means
And still forgetting to set time aside to read poetry
October
Horrified, dismayed
Left to post on social media while people are dying
So much hate, so much love
May they be doomed to eternal suffering
by the tribunal instituted on the ashes of their sadistic souls
I am swearing so much that I think it’s better I go to sleep
No dream can be worse than this
November
This is when autumn knocks down the door
When cold air makes atmospheric moisture nucleate
forming light-weighted ice crystals
that precipitate and accumulate on the ground
“Snow” as it is commonly known
and he is already counting the months to see it melting
And we repeatedly called for a ceasefire
and his parents came to visit
and we were all reminded of the impermanency
permeating our existence
(when did I become so dramatic)
December
Do you remember we were pondering the question of unproductive time
when the current economic model has pervaded all aspects of life
when leisure is coopted by market driven infrastructures
life enjoyment partaking in the experience economy
digital platforms monetizing the time we spend feeding them with content
When capitalism is unable to provide solutions to the crises it produces
and still we found ourselves frustrated for not using our time productively
What’s the problem with us
January
This is what I’m doing now
I mean, at the time of writing
editing those notes
the script for this film which I wonder if it’s worth it
If it is worth anything at all
Or if I should do something else instead
like reading the newspaper
Getting frustrated and sad and angry
for how things seem to unfold
And Feeling like doing something about it would be stupid and exploitative
And feeling stupid for thinking like this
for doing nothing is the worst thing to do
February
And now, in the present of my unresolved and still evolving contemporaneity
In this unattainable present, already receding into the past
I am reaching out to you to apologise
for addressing so vaguely yet so straightforwardly
For using redundant and imprecise temporal clues of presentness
For disrupting the suspension of disbelief
not even letting you enjoy a moment of relaxed fruition
See also:
- Twelve Months, 2023-2024