So we pour it in a Pernod bottle and start for New Orleans past iridescent lakes and orange gas flares, and swamps and garbage heaps, alligators crawling around in broken bottles and tin cans, neon arabesques of motels, marooned pimps scream obscenities at passing cars from islands of rubbish.

- Naked Lunch, William Burroughs

blue dot in white circle

blue dot in white circle

Chronicles of incoherence

In the beginning, would be my first three words, but there isn't. No, let us instead consider the following. A meaningless concept, I agree, but let us, for the sake of argument, pretend there to be a certain amount of linearity.

Association, coloration, kodak, bear, river, sliver, slum, roof, proof, concept, materialised, consternation, resolute, drink, wagers, bet, met, wet, distraught, compulsive, disorder.

A game, a mere exercise in futility no doubt. A wondrous thing no less. I speak of [association], that most divine of all the mind's abilities.

A packet of cigarettes had turned yellow over time, bleeched by the sun. Its [coloration] reminding me very much of the sad kitsch of the local hoi polloi.

Or how terms can stick even when the original [kodak] isn't anymore. A neologism for camera making me yearn for the days of yore when things were still sure.

Sometimes you eat the [bear], sometimes the [bear] eats you. And I puke metaphorically as the obvious truth rings through my mind.

Down the black [river] it floats, tik-tak against boulders on the shore. Futher and downstream, progressing with determined non-awareness. Meaningless and thus comforting. Driftwood in the water of complexity, emergence there is not. And we rejoice.

A [sliver] of silver is what comes to mind when the snake enters the confines of reason. A hint of mercury and perhaps the promise to enthuse.

Standing slanted against the side of the [slum] she draws constantly decaying glyphs in the pool at her feet. A solemn raindrop disturbs the picture; she laughs, kicks at the air and starts off into the rain. Fleeting.

I remember this [roof]. This piece of corrugated metal really, leaning tiredly against a wooden box. There is uncut grass proliferating at its base and I wonder. Whether this is memory or uninspired fantasy and if so, why.

We need [proof], solid, irrefutable [proof] that doesn't leave a shred of doubt. But of what? Sinking further into recursive madness, I switch off.

A black, oblong table in a bare room, several chairs dotted around it. A cone of pale light holding everything in place. A man leaning his elbows on the cold surface, his face a vague sketch of shadows, is explaining a [concept] in a steady, calm voice.

Out of thin air she [materialised], reappeared and was gone. Forever perhaps. We'll see.

Sudden [consternation] as I realised that I couldn't hold on to the things I remembered in that split-second of bliss. I tried to grab it, to reach for it, to revive its simmering footprint of delight but failed and whimpered.

My movements [resolute] and full of seeming confidence, but it's a sham. My destination is of no importance but I'd like to get there as soon as possible and with as little interference as possible.

Another [drink] I hear myself say and not too long afterwards a cold, black statue appears in front of me and I [drink].

...

I understand, all right. The hopeless dream of being--not seeming, but being. At every waking moment, alert. The gulf between what you are with others and what you are alone. The vertigo and the constant hunger to be exposed, to be seen through, perhaps even wiped out. Every inflection and every gesture a lie, every smile a grimace. Suicide? No, too vulgar. But you can refuse to move, refuse to talk, so that you don't have to lie. You can shut yourself in. Then you needn't play any parts or make wrong gestures. Or so you thought. But reality is diabolical. Your hiding place isn't watertight. Life trickles in from the outside, and you're forced to react. No one asks if it is true or false, if you're genuine or just a sham. Such things matter only in the theatre, and hardly there either. I understand why you don't speak, why you don't move, why you've created a part for yourself out of apathy. I understand. I admire. You should go on with this part until it is played out, until it loses interest for you. Then you can leave it, just as you've left your other parts one by one.

- Persona, Ingmar Bergman