“crooks” music video
Like Trains and Taxis- Chris Harris- Vocals
Owen Susman- Bass
Mike Del Priore- Drums
directed by pillis 2009
“work in progress/unfinished”
Finished- published- temporary
post-script/accident
audio replica- sound recording
poetry reading
febuary 2nd
zimmerli art museum
thank you,
sincerelypillis
she left before the last sentence
un-modulated movement, or fiction, was the second best guess at a word combination. I chose to end that sentence due to my inability to understand the impetus for its construction. I have overhead two catch phrases- “comparative literature” and “debt-dumping” from the face of a couple to my left- a tall, de-flated woman with concentrated arm movements- mentioning graduate school. I intended to write a screenplay proposal, if that is what i would ultimately end up calling it.
“do a monologue for me” laughter from the lady sitting across from me.
When parking my car earlier, I was rather lucky to find that the driver directly behind me became suddenly conscientious of my desire to parallel park, and due to this, the speed of his vehicle became gradually less intense- properly allowing me to put the car into reverse and glide at an angle backwards- finally resting in the space as the car behind me gradually accelerated and continued moving forwards.
I parked my car directly next to a bench. To my left, a young mexican man was kneeling casually on the left end of the bench, directly parallel to my window, which i rolled up slowly as he remained motionless looking away from me. This is content, i have to remind myself.
I crossed the street rather easily and began to investigate the existence of store display aesthetics, literally- this was my most intent desire- and through this, realized that i had no idea where i was- i had merely parked without acknowledging the location of where i was parking in relation to where i had intended to go- Suddenly I found myself staring at a display of plastic molded baby jesus statues. I found myself entranced. There were four or five statues hurriedly arranged in the front display, each one positioned slightly differently than the last. I became absolutely enamored by these forms, in a manner that was foreign to me, since I did not want to view them as cultural objects- specifically denying their effectively functional spiritual purpose- and instead became concerned primarily with their relationship with human representation, as they were all created with a specific physical orientation in mind, as if they were mid movement – an accidental dance- with wide, inset eyes emblazoned with long, attached black lashes. I entered the store and suddenly felt as if I was doing something wrong. This is a store that exists with a fundamental consumer base in mind. I felt comfortable inside the store. In the very back of the room, there were two cubicle partitions for apparently no particular reason. After leaving the store
I was standing on the corner taking into account the traffic patterns and i started to cross the street, only to find myself informed of the continued movement of two different directionally bound traffic cycles, so i paused, stepping back. At this point I noticed that a small elderly lady was approaching from the back of me, also attempting to cross the street. due to the rapid movement of cars in various directions, I made a subtle movement in her direction to acknowledge her proximity, as if to inform her that i would effectively “help her cross the street”. She had shoes the size of fingers. The moment I became cognizant of her aesthetic irregularity, the lofty fur coat, the rounded plastic glasses, the fluorescent green fingernails- she reacted to me- with an unfocused yet absolutely aversive sensibility, moving somehow backwards while saying in a grave and recalcitrant tone that she was fine and she would not be crossing the street at the same time as me- and yet this communication was fundamentally latent, said through a combination of vibration and innuendo as she faded back away from me. This struck me as an incident worth recognizing. this elderly lady with shoes the size of fingers refused to let me help her cross the street.
This incident led me to cross the street quickly, very embarrassed from this experience of rejection.
Upon entering the tobacco store, I once again felt like a foreigner. There were several middle aged blue collar men standing in line turning in lottery tickets to get checked. They are attempting to gain money.
Listed above is a transcription of events leading up to the current moment. At the current moment I am in a cafe, which also contained two fundamental details. Initially, a female employee was organizing and placing bags of potato chips in a very particular manner onto a platter. She ceased this repetitive process when I approached, and i encouraged her to continue, which she found odd, asking me for my order. The male at the register mischarged me and I pointed it out to him. He charged me two dollars for a five dollar drink and I only pointed this out to him since I was prepared to pay with a ten dollar bill, but i could have very easily used singles. We discussed this mis-charge, and i only later considered it to be possibly intentional to some degree, as if i ruined my chances at a deal by being conscious of its transaction. Following this, I sat down and wrote all of the preceding events, during which I overheard fragments of a conversation between a young couple-apparantly on their first date. Below are pieces of the young ladies dialogue, since her voice was sharp enough to hear clearly. She is still currently talking. After I leave here, she will continue talking. Meanwhile, a well dressed man, very tan, came into the cafe with four large brown portfolios. He is currently processing information and I believe he is aware of my intentions.
“i thought i would go cross country between colleges”
“thats just real life- you want to get to that point. social worker from point pleasant”
“it was getting harder as i was watching my peers go through the year”
“now i should be doing something- i’m working, what am i doing with my life, nothing, and my face got covered with this-
it’s cool, fine- i’ll go back to college. but i’m super stubborn, i’m not sorta stubborn, but if i tried, i’d fail- its hard to watch everyone around me- “
“old people are going to really look down on me, why can’t you get your life together and just do what your going to do- i can’t practice what i preach.”
“thats just real life- you want to get to that point. social worker from point pleasant”
“Gone are the days when I would cross the street while pregnant and cars would stop miles in advance and look at me adoringly.”
b o d y n e w s
human loneliness or
the half emptied carriage, whereby
we accept three
obligatory assumptions.
a- you are not the wind
and you are a living thing,
moving, the world is smoke
and that is sound, and this
is earth, underneath, surfaces- corners.
because that is people sleeping,
several motionless soft things.
love is a crater or the center
of our back, between, the
smaller things, air all around
her, where one body bleeds
into another and that is
breathing slowly.
you are lines through areas,
organisms, actions and temperture.
any and every other memory is
ordinary, automatic- her nifty
thoughtful movements – a small
monitor connected by wires traced
through her contour.
i love my parents organs, the
saddest instant surface- smother,
the act whereby we grind/gasp
(separation- you have been given
several options, simple guidelines and instructions, you are tragic sad emotion, we love you when you throb the most.
is the door closed
its closed now
is the door closed
its closed now
is the door closed
its closed now
“your self loathing is very un-attractive”
i encourage the survival
of the frayed mr. in-betweens,
i’ve torn off the tin mans hedges
and I have ended all of the deliberate
evasions of air in order
to allow
the length
of a few hours,
or several years
lined up against your
position – to inform you
of somber- to remind you
why words-
or you are two
aches, the only angle
cracked through the
middle, de-centered
and terrible flowers,
tired, tired, tired but
this leg, touch again.
dance, down where
bones grow
breaking.
i see all of this happening.
seeing, born falling- light
organized into you as an
area, an intermittent
change in temperature-
the history of the lie, and
absolute reality mute,
while all of us
write without
even a word
worth
erasing.
we biting clocksmith and childishly went out to the bar for a bit services vasodilato
i can’t feel right, through this, or even get a glimpse.
a codification is an arrangement of morals, the deeply
seated threshold wound around itself, a peak of curve,
when stretched, to the extent inherent. and there are never
even any birds anymore, soft, flattened soft sheets speak and
say “you gave up the ground, and-” cut off, building thoughts-
but, four words, and then your seams thirst, all there are
are a lot of corners anymore, tight, crude edges that send me
into the language of my mouth, the organs that send me the shapes
of these scenes, letters languid oriented lazy around the means we have
available – and i will not say anything to you, i will not say anything//-=
an·tith·e·sis
///////response/////////
Prof. -
Thanks for your quick response. First and foremost, you never explained the basis of the “grades” in the course. Never. You said, and I quote, several times that “If I write good on your blog post, that means you’re doing alright, maybe okay. If I said, “alright, but it could be better” that means you’re doing fine, but maybe, you could do better.”
This is the only real information I ever heard in class, apart from various inconsistent comments on the topic. Most Academic courses put forward a rubric by which one can understand the valence of each individual assignment, and yet, as far as I can tell, each aspect of the course has equal weight?
Additionally, the information you have given above still seems to be organized rather arbitrarily. How is it that a single blog post is equivocated with a thesis proposal? How do these assignments work in proportion, in relation to the over arching grade? So, out of roughly 22 points of contention, I had 12 “Yes”s and “4″ lates, with “6″ no’s. So you expect me to believe that you have added up all of these yes’s and no’s and somehow arrived at a C+, without encountering arbitrary or subjective rules of logic? I came to class, I missed roughly three all together, I did blogs, I handed in the major assigments. There is no inherent system to your grading. “Overall I have given you a C for your course work, given the gaps in attendance and the missing and late postings.” Gaps in attendance? Were you not advised that there is a flu outbreak this year? Were you not given a memo, urging you to tolerate certain absences? The standard Mason Gross Policy concerning absences changes an A into a B after three absences. Often, three lates count as an absence. Unless you intend to propose that you give equal credit to attendance as well as work, then I have two lates, and two absences, so I’m afraid I don’t see where a C comes from. Unless there is some latent rubric by which a numerical count of posts/assignments is assigned a letter value, then I am afraid i am still confused as to how you have created a sound system of grading.
My conduct in this course was, as far as I’m concerned, a direct response to the quality and content of the course. I received one comment from you on a blog post, and due to its terse, frugal nature, felt as if the work that I was putting into my blog posts was irrelevant due to your lack of mediation and interest. After all, this course is not intended to teach students how to blog. It simply isn’t, no matter how you look at it. There is another course at Rutgers offered in the Fall semester called “Blogging- History & Practice”. If I was in that course, I would expect to have my grade mediated by my blogs.
Accompanying a class with a required text is often a very good policy, given that the text is relevant to the class. Is this a class on the Art World? Is there a chapter in “Seven Days In the Art World” on writing a thesis proposal? Other thesis programs at Rutgers require their students to read, obviously, it’s not too much to ask, but I am not writing my thesis nor creating my art based off of “Seven Days in the Art World”, and as such, I fail to see its relevance. If this were an introductory class for art students, such an assignment would make sense. Alas, this class, unless I’m incorrect, is about (ME). It’s about (ME) as a student, completing my education and creating a work of art that is based on my own interests. If anything, “thesis” is the only course in existence that is focused on the student as a person as opposed to an external corpus of knowledge. I’ve already started building and pursuing the completion of my thesis project. Isn’t that what this course is about? Apparently I was misinformed.
If you recall, during the third class I inquired to you as to how one would understand their progress in terms of grades, and I distinctly remember you shrugging off my question, claiming that you did not want to treat us like children. Due to this attitude, I refrained from inquiring about grades, and you refrained from giving them, as all of our assignments this semester lacked any numerical grading, including all of the major assignments, which I completed. No grade was given on the resume, the interview, or the proposal, which to me, remain the only meaningful elements of this course. I completed a video for my interview, which was clearly above and beyond the expectations, and yet this is irrelevant, because you refrain from giving any students feedback. I was confused about the Proposal assignment, and incorporated 15 images and references into the proposal itself, which, despite the fact that they were “not annotated” was still inclusive of your requirements. I cited images and texts and referenced the way in which they are incorporated into my thesis plans. I put a great deal of work into this course, and ultimately you have deemed my work meaningless by failing to adequately aid me in its improvement , and as such, I’m put off.
Finally, if nothing else, it saddens me that a course such as this is prone to such juvenile difficulty. You claim to treat your students as adults, but the way in which you interact with us is consistently alienating, and I’m not alone in my sentiment. My expectations of this course were based on the development of a thesis proposal as well as a discursive approach to the status of gallery shows in contemporary art. Instead, each class consisted of a long, tedious discussion regarding blog posts and your insistent and consistent condescension towards the class due to our inability to meet your demands. I’m a BA student who is trying to graduate, attempting to survive in an increasingly complicated world, and at the end of the day, all i’m trying to do is put a few pieces of my art in a little gallery at our school. This course was consistently disappointing to me, as well as my fellow classmates, since we did not expect to be treated like children and given busy work which detracted from our ability to focus on our art, the real reason why we are here.
Why are you doing this? What type of underlying satisfaction do you gain from hindering your students from the very thing they’re trying to accomplish? I’m here by choice, I’m paying for an education, I’m choosing to deal with an institution that puts forward consistent obstacles, and at the end of the day, it is deeply saddening for me to be dealt with as if I’m incompetent simply because I failed to write several blog posts. I’m not writing this because I feel like I was graded inappropriately, I am writing this because i feel like i was taught inappropriately. I feel as if the entire course has been a work in progress for the students as well as you and XXXXX, (as it is the first time you have taught Thesis and it is XXXXX first semester in Grad School). As such, I had expected a tad more compassion/understanding on your part, as you also missed two classes and you also failed to be responsive in the blogosphere, giving me feedback on only one out of multiple posts. If I am expected to accept a C, I need my teacher to at least earn a B. I thought we were in this together, learning together and jointly cooperating as a group with the same end in sight, and yet, ultimately, you seem to have turned your role as a teacher into the job of a manger. It’s a shame, because many of us used to look forward to thesis as the benchmark of undergraduate achievement. At the end of the day, it felt like a desk job.
Hopefully we can get together some time and talk this over. I’m trying to be as civil as possible, but I’m courting disaster. I’m very emotionally involved in my actions, and I also tend to be incredibly annoying when agitated. I’ll be around campus for the majority of winter break if you are available to meet. Thanks again for co-operating.
See you in the Spring-
Happy Holidays!
-DP
don’t show you your self
but the reality is, your jaw
slides along with turns, you
are regular, morning and decent-
this white knuckled post card
prayer-bot calls me common/
i heard him whine “you never
do that all for me that no- i said no
no one overheard your size
or the way in which you sequence
so well- this is an image of a large collapsing
man in the morning, on white sun lit
sidewalks with feet wrapped- four layers
cross carbon cover copys collapsed.
you are perfectly
regular and you fit into
this background- this
is an organ, this is a line-
you are perfectly regular and
you walk out the door
nobody comes here anymore-
i run a booth of shapes.
sliding text and sitting
still.
the future finds you flattened
Machines trembled, pink throbs
of fabric. you’ve got curves, green
lights or red, reverse-
decision maker- inverted rub
this secret grammar-
i am healing blindness
by sleeping with a breath removed
system of cloth, filtered down layers
of thin isolation, that is the heaviest type
of sleep, drowsy movements of lashes,
cold organ endings, over outside
and thats close, slower-
over.
luddite
writing is mediated by thinking, but that wasn’t even the thought
that i just had, taking the time to think of the “i just had” took as long as thinking of the next sentence, which was in reference (when i refer) upwards, upstairs, to the statement concerned with “taking the time” the time, whatever time, it took to think, which was long, (prolonged, false edit) and then i heard my mother growl, (which occurred in a very specific, inarticulate way, the thought of which becomes only specific when i tell myself that the means of transcription of said thought require specificity, a sentence whose construction was slowly gestured towards during its initial appearance- and that’s how sentences are, regardless of the exterior framework- look, lets say, that if someone speaks a certain way, whether its poetic, prosaic, or etc, there lies within the interlocutor some sort of conscious assumption that the speaker themselves is manifesting a system of delivery with an inherent reaction, that is to say, perhaps the speech itself is considered contrived, if so, one would assume that i have a taste in my mouth, or that all sentences are built from individual, parsed apart parts, disbelief, in accuracy and that is the question, lungs are yellow lines that run down my back. but i never touched it, completely, that is, the topic.
I AM THE END OF THE GODDAMN WORLD
in memory of maud gonne
—————-///———————–
this is what a cock can do.
you could turn a flower
into a gun and i
wouldn’t even
notice
the difference.
and then.
there is that world that
enforces a certain fiction
of folded napkins- borrowed
ambition- cradled against an
impossible humor
which twists
me, turning lips to laughter.
one moment for moaning,
and then more, one more,-
moaning.
and even cocks are
cool birds, (i remind myself)- limbs of
leftover lines, el’s , the
letter L, cocks, letters
and exits, cogs and
divots.
we are discussing the
history of
the versatile soft metal
of biological
masculinity-
rupture-
cut against me – you love to watch
birds explode, i hold two in either
hand, our arms are anger- i lie to your
face, imagining that my love is god.
and you are only perfect when i
decide that you lack perfection.
when
i set you up
against your absence- mouse trapped
transaction.
almost, at times enough.
a bulb collapsed
to have, not want
a center, an instrument
of passion and anger-
the arm of invention,
levered-
and then you
leave me in
this white room
and i’m all
alone.
and i will
watch men ride bulls
and i feel
like there
are worlds where
you make sense.
II.
i’m dealing with burning things-
four slender hinges, tucked under the
socket- and that’s the sound of entrance-
“the radio sounds like morning”-
“the red is coming off of it” :
that’s awkward, don’t even come in here-
and that’s two doors closing, swinging.
the beginning and the end of it.
i’m kept in,
closed out
two walls
and one room
views-
a hello or
nobody says
goodbye now-
and you see
that the fingers
are clapping
not the whole
not the hand- only
the tendons bending-
and that’s when the roof
slowly peels away, smart
and wide as suns, shapes
multiplied, my organs,
an envy, a to b-
escaping, aberrations
sit still, sit and feel.
roll over me, man as
movement, moving.
a thick skull,
a dumb leg
i am screaming
and.
`iii.
you came in here and you broke
down all the hard parts of the room.
and i don’t even live here anymore i
think you need to get out of here.
two words left lying next to a
few solid flower pots.
loud, white and wide.
humbled by the motion.
(a brief interjection, a record of each movement)-
bare knuckle boxing. two pistons turning. elevation, a hand (maybe?) swinging
through the grid. Tar and feathers, mis-perception, my mother never noticed
that when she became a mother she stopped being a person.
(and i’m not going to erase
that part, the process of
tracing out your foot
prints through the
language used
to displace
the
image.
since you force me
to earn and
deserve my own
gravity, that succulent
web that fizzles and spits,
a rhododendron, your feet don’t even
touch the ground- i am lifted, broken-
and sex injuries could occur in
mid fog, (the axis of the poem)
you as your lips-
you slur, slowly
saying sounds.
the moment
where we both doubt, while
walking, the reality of our
walking as walking and not
merely running, masquerading
as that act, the other act of
walking.
i know how to do
the world- i remind you, mid-motion
one fissure slip,
socket grasp and pluck
and i am worn out from
the earth’s cunt, mirrors
spit in my eye’s reflection-
moby dick, bellys blood.
and
this- is
a chain of
questions
attached to
the end of this
poem-
is this really what it is?
if it is, why?
if there are reasons, are
they reasons, or are they
also questions?
this is not what it is.
that is why it is.
and then
you would
dare to think
of yourself
as the
backbone of a dead
or dying
animal.
and
that is enough
material.
/pity, pariah/
Hello Starbucks-
I am a frequent starbucks customer, visiting the one nearest me daily to enjoy both the sense of community it offers as well as the delicious coffee. I’ve been there so often that I know all the Barista’s by name, and I had recently heard that some of them were being laid off for various, non-work-related issues. I went into the store this morning and inquired about how I could contact the company to make a complaint, and the new manager on duty was not co-operative in assisting me. She insisted that I tell her my complaint, there, on the spot, while there were numerous customers behind me. I told her that I felt that her buisness was losing its connection with the Rutgers community by firing students, and she immediatly began to speak in a harsh and demeaning tone to me, informing me that employees are fired when they do not meet the “business needs” and i responded by saying that I supply them with their business, and Rutgers needs their employment. She responded by saying that I am not the only customer, and she began to get angry with me, making me feel very un-comfortable. The new manager at the George st. Starbucks has made my vision of Starbucks tainted and un-satisfying, and I will no longer go there due to the experience I had this morning with the new manager.
Sincerly,
Daniel Pillis
—————————————————————-
Hello Daniel,
Thank you so much for taking the time to write to us.
I am truly sorry that you had such a disappointing visit because of poor service. This is obviously not the experience we want you to have at our stores.
I want you to know that we take your concerns seriously and that I will share this not only with departments here in our corporate office, but also with the manager and district manager of the New Brunswick store to address this.
I would love to invite you back into our stores for the chance to make up for a visit that you did not enjoy. What I will do is mail you some beverage coupons so that your next drink will be on us. I realize that you have not written in simply for some coupons, but if you reply to this email with your mailing address, it would be my pleasure to have them sent to you.
Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to fix something that is wrong. If there are any questions or concerns that I have not been able to address, please don’t hesitate to call us at 800 23-LATTE (235-2883), we are here Monday through Friday from 5:00 AM to 6:00 PM (PST).
Thank you again,
Christopher T.
Customer Relations Representative
Starbucks Coffee Company
I know money when I hear it, and you got it kid you got it
“EXPERIMENTS IN THE REVIVAL OF ORGANISMS”
(poster-psuedo-letter)
“The way we think of you…it is the uh, how do you say…we still admire…the idea, we think it is a land of dreams, of opportunity you know we uh…but we see you in the movies, the james dean, we know only so much, and that…impression…I don’t know I think I believe in it…I come here and I ride my bicycle, I used to have the motorbike, now I ride the baby bicycle you know he hee, the uh with the bells but In the winter, when it just oh it is raining and there is mud everywhere and I was riding my bicycle home and I stopped into this cigar store..and I think he’s going to throw me out, get rid of me or something, the carpet is so clean and everything is in glass cases and I am a so dirty but uh…I talk to the man behind the counter and he is so friendly..then he teaches me so much about cigars…he gives me a ride to work for awhile…and now I enjoy it, I used to work at the Wawa, I didn’t feel like uh…how do you say… um I felt like the machine, the register, the people don’t even look at you, they just give you money and walk out the door.”
