“Then we’re stupid and we’ll die.” -Pris

Daniel Murtagh  June 2012

All kinds of ‘poisons’ coursed through my body when I stepped on a rusted nail not so long ago this month.

They say you can’t feel those things, but my experiences in a human body have shown me contrary. When I was administered an immunization shot in grade school, I had to sit for the rest of the day distracted by the throb of toxins and the production anti-bodies. Maybe it was my over-active imagination making a big deal of such microscopic things, but then, remember, people have died on account of such little things and I am sure they did not imagine themselves to death. I was not over dramatic enough to think that I, myself, was dying, but the sovereign state of my being was compromised by tiny barbarians and how is a person supposed to carry on like nothing is different?
I am grateful to have the learning experience of fighting and defeating such formidable enemies, but a human being cannot be  shot through with new kinds of information and take the processing of it so lightly. The body and the brain are very connected, but they each have their own speed and ways of doing things. All kinds of team work and negotiations and compromising go on the in universe of the human machine.

For me, and my level of awareness (as that level dips and rises) nothing about being a human is simple. Right down to the replication of DNA!
Hum… 
Can we ever attain Self Awareness when the Self is billions of individuals? Can we be aware of all within? No. Not really.
This is why I think humans are jokes. Miracles, sure. But jackass comedy all the same.
And I hate the way human-centric sci-fi (Star Trek anyone?) drivels on and on about the potential of mankind and how we have to survive because of all the good we are capable of doing, of how amazing we are… ha! Amazing clowns. We do everything ass- backwards. All the reports I hear in the news are of how we go about everything without logic.. even without emotion.. we just go like brutes. Even animals have more sense. Yet we are sentient and special. If that were so.. oh if that we so… I wouldn’t want to kill half the people in Brooklyn.

Cello and Voice

Bushwick- some thoughts.. I think..

I’m a bit fried (mentally and physically) after taking the long way around east to the bordering neighbourhood of Bushwick, Boswijck- the little town in the woods.The place where art is actually made around here. I was there surrounded by artists and art seekers. I felt like I was in in deep space; a great void where the light of only a handful of stars touched my eyes there in the infinite dark. 

Both Hugo and I have been making it a point to spend as little time as possible loafing in the apartment; especially now that the weather is much nicer. Yesterday we made a long journey by foot to the International Center of Photography in midtown to see the WeeGee exhibit there. We chose to take the subway back when  we both felt our throats getting scratchy from the ‘festive’ airs blowing around the city. We had every intention of visiting 950 Hart for a show opening, but it got too late and we did not want to get sick. 

Today would have been a visit to the Met except Hugo received and email from his agent urging that he go check out the hippest of the hip open studios in all of New York. I agreed to go and see for myself what has become of this blossoming gutter flower. For me, it was a mixed bag of valiant efforts, trivial crap, and modest accomplishments.  I felt like a complete alien there, though. Sooo many artists and I was drifting from studio space to studio space wondering why I was so disconnected. It would have been completely depressing were I not rescued several times throughout this adventure by the appearance of more than one familiar face- happy coincidental meetings that brightened my darkening outlook on the day. 

Hugo’s mind was caught up in trying to figure out how he could get one of those studio spaces to work in. All I wanted to do was run away from the cool, party people roving the streets. I  don’t know if I just needed to eat some dinner or what, but the worst building we went into was at 56 Bogart St. I felt some really bad energy there. It was not scary, but very wrong. Sure the people there where drunk and pretentious, but this feeling was bordering on demonic. I felt sick. The smell of various art chemicals did not help my situation either. My Human is immune to such feelings. He is, by far, saner than I am. 

Finally seeing all we could stand, we slogged back the straight way to Williamsburg, to the apartment, to a stairwell full of pot smoke and have crashed out for the night. I am forcing myself to write out something blog worthy while Human engages himself with Breaking Bad.. and now A.I. – as I can hear.

I feel like I have not done anything of my own work. I have not read. I have not studied. I do not compose. I fall behind while I try to catch up with office work. It never ends and there is no winning this game. The best I have done these days is wrestle fight and argue with sketchbooks and drink too much coffee… I will go curl up next to my Human and watch a movie before bed. I love my Human. And that is the happy note I will end with.