The Diary of Antoine Roquentin

I haven’t been writing much this week, despite an intense desire to do so.

I’ve been reading that wonderful book in literary criticism—just got to the really juicy bits on structuralism and post-structuralism.

Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, etc.

I was watching TV briefly when I was over at Jorge’s friend’s house in Hoboken, and it seemed like every commercial was trying to make some product appear “natural.”

This passage from Literary Criticism really resonated with me:

[S]igns which pass themselves off as natural, which offer themselves as the only conceivable way of viewing the world, are by that token authoritarian and ideological. It is one of the functions of ideology to “naturalize” social reality, to make it seem as innocent and unchangeable as Nature itself. Ideology seeks to convert culture into Nature, and the “natural” sign is one of its weapons. Saluting a flag, or agreeing that Western democracy represents the true meaning of the word “freedom,” become the most obvious, spontaneous responses in the world.

I felt like I had all this to write about—the last few weeks were a ton of stories flashing through my mind, but now as I sit here in front of the screen my mind is but ashes.

Perhaps it’s because I’m feeling a bit tired after the Kelis/Robyn show tonight. Kelis put on an odd act—it wasn’t as much a performance of her songs as it was just a big megamix with a bunch of songs obviously not by her mixed in.

Robyn, however, was an absolute powerhouse. The A/C at Webster Hall wasn’t working, so it was dripping hot in that room while she threw it down. Despite the fact she must have been burning up in there, she was dancing and singing like it was going out of style. Most of it was prerecorded, but she had so much stage presence it didn’t even matter. Unfortunately, due to the steaminess of the room, the fact of Matt and I being in the sixth or seventh row, and the fact that she kept moving around like mad, I didn’t get a single clear shot of her.

Matt and I are supposed to go to upstate New York for this wedding this morning (I get on the bus in an hour and a half and I haven’t even begun to pack). I’m dreading it. There’s no cell service, but apparently there is wi-fi? I think I’m just not relishing the idea of being surrounded by strangers in the middle of nowhere for two days. Also, I won’t get any work done. Also, staying up until 8am is going to fuck my sleep schedule up for at least a week.

I hate leaving New York. It gets harder every time. I’m going to miss the showing of Taxi Driver at the IFC Center. And the Yacht show. There’s always cultural events though. I still haven’t made it to the New Museum.

All the things I wanted to write about have vanished from my mind. I have such an awful memory.

I did finish the second volume of À la recherche this week. Before the show, I hopped over to St. Mark’s Books to pick up Volume III: The Guermantes Way.

I’m tempted to think I have a lot of time tonight, but I really don’t. I must catch the bus in 1.5 hours. Okay, just did most of my packing.

I’ve really been wanting to write these days, but anything I would write would make people angry. The only things I can write address uncomfortable truths in my life. Things that have to stay buried for everything to continue as it does.

This diary hasn’t had capital-”t” truth in a very long time.

One truth tonight: I got out my cutesy note cards and wanted to write someone—a long lost love, an old friend that I hadn’t spoken to in a long time, but there are no such people.

I don’t have anyone’s mailing address unless I specifically asked them for it. I miss sending letters to Taylor in Paris. I miss being in love with someone far away—the thrill of the air mail stamp, the joy of a long phone conversation (who has those any more?).

One of the things that Proust is supposed to comment on in the book is the proliferation of telephones, from interesting novelty to something people hardly take notice of. Proust wouldn’t be surprised by the phone’s death via texting.

There are no long-lost friends because of Facebook. Thanks to the wonders of the news feed, I nearly know when they all last took a dump. I miss letters.

I have exactly one hour until I board the bus.

I think I’m afraid of writing these days. I’m afraid of the truth. Did I mention I went to see the new Todd Solondz movie, Life During Wartime, with Yevgeny and Matt? The characters talk profusely about whether other characters are just pretending to be happy or not. It’s one of those questions that has no answer. As soon as you stop to examine the question, you are not happy. Or perhaps you are.

I know I’m a hundred times happier than when I lived in Sacramento, a thousand times happier than living in Crescent City.

I feel like I’m not as close with Sam as I once was. When you know you will only see a person for a few days a year, friendships enter this airless holding pattern that I am, sadly, all too accustomed to these days.

I sent Patrick a card a month or two ago, and it wasn’t until a month or two later when I texted him about something unrelated that he thanked me for the card. I miss when he and I were in love with each other. I miss how everyone I love is destined to this half-life in my mind. I don’t know any of my friends here enough to really consider them close (save for Yevgeny, of course). I get along quite well with Jove, but I feel awkward asking him to hang out. He’s in a capital-”r” relationship now, and it seems like the only activities I could do with Jove would be date-y things: going to museums, going for a walk in the park, going to the beach—things he should be doing with his boyfriend.

I may take the adorable wooden cat Mario gave me along as a good luck charm. I have grown to love that cat. The porcelain one Christen gave me last year watches over me as I sleep upstairs (in the room that, unforgettably, my late uncle occupied for a solid year). I can still picture his face, subtly receding hairline (despite the receipt we’d found when clearing his apartment out about his hair restoration surgery). When we’d go to the pool, he’d chat us up about who knows what—lies and half-truths (in his mind, could he even tell the difference?) about his girlfriend. What was her name? Gail. Gayle. Something like that. She came from money, a lineage my dear uncle was certainly envious of. He’d play pauper, damning her for her cultivation, then take on a conspiratorial air and seem to imply that they were still in (indirect?) contact.

I wonder if she knows he died.

I wonder if she shed a tear.

I never met her.

I need to read Virgil, but I think I’m going to make my first entrance into Roman literature through the back door (or, perhaps more appropriately, through the glory hole) with Petronius’ Satyricon. That’s next after the Search.

I need to open that tome that contains so much pain for me, The Mandarins. It’s the oldest thing sitting on my “to read” shelf. I need to just get back into it and not think about Keith (who, thanks to Facebook, I learned is singing the praises of a new beau). I wonder if he still reads me. Not think about Grammie.

Solondz is right. Sometimes it’s better to just forget and not have to deal with the pain of things.

Nobody wants Truth. They want truth.

I had such a great time tonight at the party Matt organized for the five year anniversary of his blog, The Music Slut.

The headlining band, Javelin, is kind of amazing live—tons of samplers, dead sexy—they’ve got it all. We were dancing like crazy all night as the boat went around Manhattan.

Such an amazing night. I took a video of one of the songs:

I had so much fun tonight! I saw Beach House tonight at Prospect Park with Matt. I’d never been to the Prospect Park Bandshell before, and it was a beautiful venue.

They did “Gila” (which was mindblowing live) and a bunch of stuff from Teen Dream.

It’s 2 a.m. and I’m just starting work. I don’t think I can get much done. I really shouldn’t have gone to the show tonight. Also, after Beach House, I had to stand through two hours of the anodyne, forgettable stylings of The National while these two drunk fools screamed the lyrics in our ears all night. I probably would have enjoyed the show much more if it weren’t for those Westchester douchebags, but I think I have to face the fact that I find most non-electronic music extremely boring.

Speaking of interesting electronic music, I’ve been listening to a lot of Autechre this week. They have such a vast discography that I was pretty daunted, but I decided to step in at “Gantz Graf” era. It’s great reading music—enough going on to keep your brain chewing on the hidden melodies, but no distracting lyrics or crescendos to distract from the pleasure of the text.

I’m writing this instead of the news items I should be writing. The long phone conversation with Christen, which I thoroughly enjoyed, didn’t help my procrastination either. I feel like I have no time to do work because my sleep schedule is so off-kilter with everyone I know (especially Matt’s). He goes to sleep and I’m up for hours and hours afterwards. I initially liked that because people that are night owls end up having a reinforcing effect on my insomnia (hello Marvin). Not that that’s a bad thing, but it’s bad if you hang out with the person a lot. (Thankfully, Marvin is a consummate flake.)

Speaking of people from the university, I might be going with Jorge to Nacoteque on Friday. I’ve never been, but they hold it so infrequently it might be a fun night out.

I’m drinking a big cup of Earl Grey to get myself pumped to write, but it isn’t happening yet (or is it?). I’m just going to open a document and write a title for each one. That’s it.

Tonight I’m gaying out listening to the new Kylie record. I suppose it’s been a pretty gay night— I went to see a showing of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! at the IFC Center. I hadn’t seen it since the first time, which was with Sam at this movie night that he curated at the Five Star. The film is hilarious and eminently quotable. I’m in love with the vaguely ethnic character with an impossible-to-place fake accent (the one on the left in the picture above). I saw Travis there, that director Mario knows who is working on this supposedly classy (artsy?) porno film, but I felt it indelicate to just approach him out of the blue and introduce myself. I’m also not of the disposition to just walk up and introduce myself to people.

I’m supposed to be working on news items tonight, but that’s not really happening. I spent all day fielding e-mails about the new message board on my work website. I almost wish I could link to it, I’ve outdone myself in terms of design. I’ve been tinkering with Apache, the ubiquitous server software that powers most of the web, and I think I’ve optimized the settings for the resources of my virtual private server. As soon as they have capacity, I think I may move to prgmr, where I can get four times the resources (a 1024MB slice instead of a 256MB slice) for the same price as SliceHost. We’ll see. I don’t relish the idea of setting up another LAMP stack.

So this weekend I went to visit Kelly in Philadelphia. It was the first time I’d ever been to Philadelphia, and I wasn’t sure what to expect (other than crazy black people). I tried to get as much work done as possible on Saturday afternoon, then took the train to Chinatown in order to try and catch one of the buses. It was so odd because every time I walk around Chinatown they are always trying to get you into those buses and the one time I actually need to go to Philadelphia I couldn’t find a single one.

So I walked to the B at Grand and took it up to Penn Station, thinking that if I couldn’t get to Pennsylvania from its eponymous station that there was no truth and justice left in the universe. I took a NJT train to Trenton and transfered to a SEPTA train for the rest of the journey. I think in total I may have spent $30, and Amtrak is nearly $70! America has no fucking idea how to make rail transportation work.

My trip was pretty painless, although I think I was most excited about taking the train because I knew there would be uninterrupted air conditioning the entire journey and it was melt-your-face hot out that day.

I didn’t get to Kelly’s house until about 10:30. She answered the door, and we said our less-awkward-than-I-imagned hellos. I met her roommates, and (as it was still sweltering) we went upstairs to her air-conditioned room and talked for a while as Turn on the Bright Lights played over the hum of the air conditioner. We tried, wholly inadequately, to summarize our last few years, trading an anecdote here and there about the East Coast/West Coast duality, eccentric professors, and ridiculous art school people at Kelly’s university (who we were to meet later in the night).

An hour later, there were sixty or so people at the house, including Devin and his girlfriend, who had come over early in the life of the party. Jello wrestling. Climbing up walls. Pissing people off with racism. Did I mention I got fantastically drunk? I’m really bad with awkward situations where I know no one—I invariably end up extremely drunk. There was a leak in the upstairs toilet that ended up leaking all over the ground floor, creating a sticky mess that ended up smelling a lot like a porta-potty. I woke up on Kelly’s floor cuddling a towel (Kelly had graciously covered me with a blanket after I lost consciousness).

As if the universe had answered our prayers, about halfway through the morning this deliciously cool rain started to fall, which lowered the temperature from the 90s to probably the 70s. Kelly and I were so happy to not be roasting that we made plans to go walk around the city in the rain.

I felt physically weak and borderline nauseous in the morning, but I felt stronger as the day went by. We got fried chicken around the corner, and after Kelly’s boyfriend went to work Kelly and I took the Philly subway to the city center and walked around the historic district.

It only ended up raining for a few hours, most of those we spent in this rather adorable Chinese restaurant (with extremely socially awkward waiters) talking about life. Things had changed and stayed the same. Both Kelly and Devin were flabbergasted that Taggart was still doing all of the things that they had done in their teen years. It’s so odd that someone I almost idolized in my youth has become, essentially, a loser. A sexy loser, but a loser nonetheless.

I’m glad that Kelly and I ended up meeting up. I invited her to come up some weekend, and to come up for holidays (for the drama-free holidays I’ve grown accustomed to here in Jersey).

As we were walking through one of the historic districts, Kelly mentioned “It’s weird to think that there will never be another Thanksgiving.” I didn’t really know what to say. I remember as a child I absolutely hated those family functions because they inevitably ended in a fight, but now as, essentially, a grown-up, I almost have this Stockholm Syndrome about those interactions because they were the only way I had of perceiving family. My subconscious thinks: without the feud, what is Thanksgiving? Also, that was the only time I got to see Kathleen, Kelly, and the gang—so it was almost an ordeal that had one payoff, which was time with the non-feuding part of my dad’s side of the family.

Family always brings with it complex emotions—I suppose that’s one of its charms.

UPDATE: It’s now 5:30 a.m. and I’ve written 80 percent of a story. Time to go to sleep.

I’m hanging on your words.
Living on your breath
Feeling with your skin
Will I always be here?

It’s far too late. 3 a.m. I’ve destroyed tomorrow by staying up this late. It’s my own fault.

I can’t even get excited about the idea of watching porn. I was listening to Depeche Mode while surfing Fleshbot, and as I was about to play a video, the beginning line of “Personal Jesus” came on: “reach out and touch faith.” I chuckled.

I didn’t do much today other than work. Met Abishek for dinner at Tiffin Wallah, which he didn’t remember recommending last time we met. I remember there was snow on the ground as I walked up Lexington because he was late, carrying my big tall canvas I’d bought at Utrecht that day. The Utrecht I was in when Jove’s friend called him telling him that he’d just tested positive for HIV. Manhattan is becoming a locus for memories, but not all of them are good.

Was late to Pianos to see Deluka with Matt, but we got some munchies and he came with me to do some shopping at Whole Foods before I went home.

Briefly noted:
Antoine Roquentin—who burst onto the arts scene at 26, earning the Prix Goncourt for his first novel Your Favorite Mirror — returns for the second volume of his yet-unnamed series, entitled Your Favorite Consciousness (Harper, $26.99). This series of novels, which seem, at this point, to be the beginning of a work epic in scope, follow Benoît, the young protagonist through his young adulthood. While based on Roquentin’s early life in Alsace and Strasbourg, a more deviant vein runs through the novel than ever existed in reality: indecent liasons on the EuroStar, a stint as an erotic slave with a wealthy Parisian businessman, an extended rape on the banks of the Seine. The reader gets the sense that what is happening, as often is the case, is less important than Roquentin’s precise, flowing torrents of prose. A black eye “gleams, glossy and fluent” the events of the rape “slid by, drowsy as smoked bees.” The sequence of events seems calculated to shock, but the narrator, Benoît, is aware of his own fate as a character bound by words.

As I moved down the aisle of the train, I could feel the still-yet-undreamt glow of a raucous, depraved sex act approaching. Not dissimilar to the satisfying feeling of sliding your finger down the length of the soft, creamy paper of a novel, I had to feel the sinuous curves of the Moor. It’s almost as if the paper in your hand were warm, soft, breathing, alive—responding, each paragraph, to your touch. A novel, writing itself to please you more and more, waves upon waves of sensuous letters and their seductive curves distorting your entire field of vision.

One of the novel’s biggest drawbacks is its episodic structure. While the novel does have an overarching plot—that of every bildungsroman—each of Benoît’s antics, such as the indecent train ride, the escape from the gang in the 20th Arrondissement, often seem hollow and staged. What sizzles is seeing the world through Benoît’s eyes. Perhaps he’s right about the world, that “c’est une blague vaseuse,” but he still must saunter on.

Now it’s 4 a.m.

I’m not sure what I’ve accomplished, but it feels like it’s time for bed. Nobody is ever on AIM any more. I don’t know why I bother.

I’ve been having problems logging in and such—I’m not thrilled with this new host but certainly don’t have the time or patience to switch everything again. I need to look through the Apache settings again.

Abishek was talking about writing programs to find out patterns in gene expression. It’s an incredible thing to do. Sometimes I feel like I’d have better prospects of getting hired if my bachelor’s was in engineering rather than writing.

But then I think that many of the engineers I’ve met are philistine bores.

My whole life revolves around whether I get into a grad school now. It’s just too much stress. I need to be a better writer. I need to know when to use “whom.” I’m getting better at my subject/object pronouns, or so I think.

Kelly invited me to a party at her house this weekend. I think I’m going to go. I need to cancel with Jorge. Now I’m being flaky, but he did cancel on me more than once. Now it’s 4 a.m. and I’m officially on a Bad Sleep Schedule. Well, now that I’m there, might as well enjoy it. I’m going to lay down and try to get some sleep.