Below are the 9 most recent journal entries recorded in Avishay's LiveJournal:

Friday, October 12th, 2001
5:08 pm	woman with flower basket there are forces pulling from every political direction and what i used to know is right i'm not so sure of anymore and the irony is that the books that make me question my beliefs are in opposition to moral and cultural relativism well that's fine but if you hadn't been there in the first place clawing and scratching to jumble up my beliefs the world would be a little more objective as far as i was concerned Current Mood: nerdy Current Music: cure - boys don't cry (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 26th, 2001
5:11 pm	body limbs and other trivialities Hmmm, I am ambivalent about what fasting will bring me tomorrow. it's Yom Kippur again, and I have plans to make it as spiritual as it has never been before. someone gave me a good idea for a meditation, a slow walk around the neighborhood. i might expand the idea to do everything in my life in slow motion. it will be the ultimate rejection of a technology-driven culture. i think i've found a new college major, "cultural politics." finally i can become unemployed but have a cool sounding degree. today my internship was so mind-numbing. it's either the fluorescent lighting or my 5 hour sleep schedule, but it was all i could do to not pass out at the computer monitor. i could imagine my supervisor coming back from her meeting and i'd greet her with the keyboard keys imprinted in my face. yesterday i had a very unique experience that jolted me out of my routine. i conducted the strangest interview of my life, with a man who couldn't speak. his name is sonny and he used to be an active member of the sailing center for whom i edit a newsletter. he has a nervous disease that has temporarily paralyzed most of his body, except for his head. a friend of his put a chart of the alphabet on the wall opposite his bed, and made a pair of glasses with a laser pointer attached. i would ask him questions and he would spell out the answer by pointing to the letters in rapid succession. in this way he related to me his desire for women (that was a little weird) but also how much he'd learned about himself while lying immobile for nearly a year. we talked about sailing, about his family, and even about the political situation. he watches a lot of tv ("i've realized how much i hate tv," he told me, "the commercials are insipid.") the whole thing reminded me of a cross between stephen hawking and the narrator in "johnny got his gun," who as a paraplegic, learned to communicate by tapping his head on the pillow to spell words in morse code, or the guy in "the diving bell and the butterfly" who could only move one eyelid and in the same way wrote an entire book. also milton, who was blind when he wrote paradise lost, had to dictate to his daughter. i hope that throughout my life i will be continually inspired by people who can overcome hardship and maintain a sense of humor. here was a guy strapped into a bed and on breathing support, and when i left he smiled and winked at me. Current Mood: contemplative Current Music: weakerthans - left and leaving (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 8th, 2001
8:34 pm	newness ends i've been playing guitar notes that evoke a beach covered with debris from an atomic blast. they have a sadness that resonates like the hum of a falling tsunami, like a little death wrapped in gold leaf. this summer has become a reservoir of misaccomplished potential. i've opened all my windows and found only stifled insects, crumpled like balls of tin foil on the ledges. beads of iced tea form at the shoulders of my forehead, slowly tearing their way down my ruddy cheeks, catching like dreams in my bird's nest of a beard. this afternoon a dark-skinned man was caught smoking a tobacco pipe near government center. the scent which floated like a song from that man's mouth caught passersby in their tracks. One man, dressed in suit and tie, paused for a moment and considered his fiancee, and would she mind if he tore off his clothing and fanned himself by falling from the steeple of the old north church. that perfume of invisible strength, it clutched my heels and swept me off a path too caught up in its own forward movement. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, June 23rd, 2001
8:00 pm	foreign accents this morning i kissed jamie goodmorning and took a train to east boston. the sailing lesson i thought was at 9am turned out to be at 1pm, so i walked the streets and had tea in a latino coffeeshop. at one point i was listening to miles davis' "in a silent way" on my walkman and above the music heard the roar of a jet engine. i looked up and saw a bird, and in that moment of confusion i felt lighter and young again. about half an hour later i felt something brush against my foot and it was a dead baby bird, and i was filled with disgust and dismay. the lesson was difficult, the wind at about 15 knots and i had to rig the masts, heave-to, jibe and tack. i sailed with a man named sergio, who was from el salvador. i had an italian dinner at the american ice cream and sandwich shoppe. on my walk from the T stop to my house i made perfectly steady eye contact with this beautiful middle eastern girl sitting on her concrete front step and wearing a blue-and-white striped shirt that hung over only one shoulder. i took a long and conscious drag on my cigarette and immediately felt very phony, knowing i was copping my style from jean-paul belmondo in "breathless." but i doubt she picked up on it. i have more energy than i should. elinor will be coming to boston tonight, it should be a fun time. i hope she enjoys the "college lifestyle," even though ours is far from exemplary. but i don't think i there is a life i would prefer over mine right now. Current Mood: indescribable Current Music: billy bragg - talking with the taxman about poetry (Comment on this)
Monday, May 28th, 2001
2:00 pm	the winter my heart froze i decided i could never go back to being a vegeterian, but i'm pretty happy to eat seitan when ever i get a chance. it might rain this afternoon, i might go play billiards or skateboard and pretend i'm in high school again. i went to a hard core show with my parents the other day, my sister helped set it up through amnesty international, but instead she had skipped out to go to her boyfriend's house. the singer said "can someone turn up the mic? i can't hear my own voice" and my mom, a little French lady, yells back, "you are not missing anything!" (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 22nd, 2001
12:16 am	slow and mellow music in drum casket orange stems stapled fiercely to the back of her father's trucker hat she found herself a reason but it wasn't yet the season for ice fishing but she was surely wishing it would be someday (Comment on this)
Monday, May 21st, 2001
11:46 pm	sing me to sleep only two days ago i returned to america from ghana. the transition was not as seamless as i had hoped, in fact it is a bumpy ride through culture shock hell. i am still recovering from what might turn out to be a life-altering experience. right now its just fucked with my head because i'm not sure where i stand on a lot of things. i've decided punk rock doesn't make sense to me anymore, and the big dig in boston will never be completed, and target should not sell 18 different kinds of peanuts. my sister is writing raunchy journal entries that my mom read over my shoulder without me noticing and she freaked out. some topics of conversation, like sex with your boyfriend, should not appear on the world wide web. i could really go for some honey nut ice cream. my gums taste like green onion. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 9th, 2001
8:18 pm	hearts of oak A terrible thing has just happened in Accra. At a football match between Accra Hearts of Oak and Asante-Kotoko, some people were throwing chairs and bottles on the field, and to stop them police shot tear gas into the crowd, which led to a stampede toward the exit. Twenty people are already confirmed dead and there may be many more. It's strange to hear it in a newsroom at the Daily Graphic, where the most important concern is if we have photographs or not, and when the writer will be back at the office. In the meantime the editors are watching a game on TV and yelling "deflection" and "it's a goal!" What a funny place to be in. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 1st, 2001
10:00 am	my mona lisa yesterday i got a roll of photos developed and although some were very funny only one redeemed the roll for me. the photograph is of a girl on a beach drinking from a plastic bag of water. She has small braided dreadlocks and her hands are all sandy, and her eyes look very honest and also mischievous. She is holding the bag in front of her mouth but you can see where the lips turn in a mysterious acquiescence. The only word you can read on the bag is "Zion" which works because she looks a little Rastafarian, and also because for a while I've been thinking of Ghana as a personal Zion. I may not be African by immediate descent but there is an air of homecoming to a journey like this one. I think my favorite subjects for portraits are young girls, for the air of innocence without experience. I think it reflects my own conflicted feelings about sexuality and sin, and socially acceptable forms of sensuality. Maybe its stupid to deny yourself anything, maybe not. Sometimes I feel that young girl on the beach knows more about it than I do. (Comment on this)