This Week's Laughter #16
An archive in joy and laughter
The roads have this serpentine copperback checkerboard to them. Light comes sparsely in the colder months. I have a greater astigmatism lately, so the lights from vehicles and overhead are especially fractalized. When you are walking the roads these evenings the darkness doesn’t necessarily encroach but keeps its respectful distance, an empire without ambition. There are others out and they keep hands in their pockets. The men still brazenly displaying their thighs typically have some type of tattoo on them. A square is not always a rectangle though and cover-up does not guarantee you unpainted skins. I can see new pairings — the individuals who’ve grown together because in darkness and in cold warmth is easier. When there’s less pressure to go or stay outside there’s less potential for negativity when together. They do not acknowledge me though I take stock.
Sometimes I make habit of peeking through the windows, if there are lights. It’s always thrilling to watch someone walking around their kitchen — I like to see the decorations that others have on their walls as I have always found it admirable to hang a thing on walls. It shows a bravery. It shows a faith. That damage is impermanent. That a wall will maintain its stability even with holes.
It’s been some time since I wrote to you all of my laughter. I haven’t exactly been lacking. Let me walk you through some of the specifics of my life recently: Heather and I selected our wedding venue which always fills with a certain type of dreaming and thinking that’s hard to pin to a tangible, trackable reality; I and dear poet love Ally Ang hosted our first poetry reading in our new Seattle series (@SeattlePoetry) titled Other People’s Poems; I received news that I’ll be getting my first poem published in four years; and I’ve been abandoning my morals and typing away at a queer, coming-of-age, anticapitalist, magic-based fantasy novel of which at the time of my typing to you currently sits around sixty-five-thousand words out of my target goal of around eighty-thousand words. October for me has been marked by the aesthetic of discipline. There are many things to be done, many things to continue doing, and many things I hope to do anew.
As a respite, I offer these glimpses into the giggles I’ve had lately.
Sunday soccer continues to delight me. I’ve had many a meme as a result of my antics there, though. If you can believe it, I have a difficult time in playing gently enough to avoid hurting myself. Or should I say playing casually enough. Or should I say I lack the technical and fitness levels required to accomplish the playmaking I envision for myself which results in my body falling or bending in ways that it is unused to. In total since I began Sunday soccer, I’ve: sprained an ankle, scraped the hell out of my knees, thrown a hip out, and dislocated a thumb. And every time Heather asks me how it went I tell her how much I loved it. Most recently was a longer session of games with food and drink provided for the intent of dressing in costume and goofing around for the Halloween spirit. I wore a little fuzzy bear hat with ears and ran around in the rain for three hours. When I was on the sidelines I was heckling the goalkeepers closest to me into stepping out of their goals, to roaming up. I’d whisper sweet nothings like all you have to do is run in a straight-line back, so surely you could win a foot race against anyone who might get past your defense. I played mostly center-back and found myself often in a situation where I was one Cody versus two or three oncoming, but Sunday league is reliable in how greedy attackers often are — everybody wants their shot at glory — and so playing defense in these situations where a pass or two would be an all-but-guaranteed goal was often a fun game of chicken and firm stepping to block the oncoming onslaught. Oh I love this sport. I love how caked into the DNA of its play is the notion that one-versus-one battles both do not matter at all and are the only things that matter. I love that it forces you to contend with your breathing and patience in order to succeed rather than sheer strength and speed.
There’s a business that’s advertising on instagram and has made its way into my suggested content called CJ’s Italian Ice and Custard. Their videos always open with, “What are you filling this hole with?” and provide some rich, indulgent image of lewd displays of cream. Oh I laugh and laugh every single time and have no desire to rupture the antagonism dairy has on my stomach for the sake of a meme but I laugh, I do.
Fascination is probably the easiest way of describing my interest in the very recent trend of lookalike competitions. I saw the quote, “There was police brutality at the Timothée Chalamet lookalike competition,” which is, surely, the first time that arrangement of words had even been considered. Jeremy Allen White, I saw. And there are signs for others: Hannibal Burress hired a ‘lookalike’ to attend a Spiderman movie opening who looked nothing like him but did conduct an interview on Burress’ behalf. Perhaps I should find a Cody lookalike. Just for safekeeping. You never know when someone decides they’re sick of my laughing.
I saw the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds for the first time this past weekend. Truthfully, I loved it because it dared to answer the question I always secretly suspect whenever I see the variable gathering of too many birds. I also tend to enjoy movies where humans don’t win. I don’t find a tremendous amount of horror in the defeat of humanity because it feels representative of the reality we’ve been conducting ourselves toward for some fifty or sixty years now, preventably. I also really like movies where a protagonist’s problem is being too hot. Like I’m fairly confident that was Tippi Hedren’s character’s primary fault? She was too hot and then the birds were like I’m going to fuck with her and everyone she’s encountered and everyone else too. Anyway, truly, I think about the scenario of ‘what if they united and waged war on us,’ with regard to most creatures that outnumbers humanity extremely. Thrilling and evocative and so fun.
Recently I experienced the distinct pleasure of explaining the DJ phenomenon of HorsegiirL to some interested parties. I appreciate the blending of cultures where you can bring the energy of an impassioned powerpoint presentation to the clurb. In related energy, I discovered I have a geographical tie to clubs that I can take seriously. Clubs I can’t take seriously I want to call them something else — clurbs, venues, bars, scenes, etc. — not to say that club as an aesthetic is something inherently necessary to take seriously, but that certain regions-slash-areas simply don’t have a nightlife that I’d warrant serious enough to really call a club scene. Like I don’t think North America really has clubs, and I think that got absolutely annihilated by New Jersey representation. But I posited the idea of — would you go out dancing in Winnipeg, for instance, and call it going to the club? It’s all faux-snobbery; I don’t gatekeep the idea-slash-aesthetic of club out of some need to elevate club to some pantheon of vibes but rather that club is extremely fun to me as a nearly 31 year-old enby to the extent that it is, for many people, the one outlet for aesthetic expression and intuitive-slash-vibes-based energies because it is only so loosely-coded with what one needs to be in order to enter the space. No derision, only delight.
At Other People’s Poems we got to witness recitations, personal canons, exercises in theme, and more. After a certain point when someone would come to me for hosting-duties or some form of affirmation or some question or another, the only words I could confess were I am so socially-and-emotionally whelmed at this moment that all I want to tell people is I love them for being here. Later, as Ally and I debriefed and discussed what we liked, what if anything we wanted to change or address, and planning for future events, I mentioned how I am aware that I can be a little intense — that my intensity can be off-putting for first-time-Cody-interactors. I don’t have a cogent story to tie these two moments together other than that the juxtaposition of them makes me smile and laugh softly.
And, finally, Brandon Taylor is a writer who finds themselves in the midst of some odd contention of opinion in social media spaces. I don’t really have an opinion on him at the personal-emotional level, but as a philosopher of aesthetics, I certainly admire him — he curates a vibe about himself that feels very art, extremely thinker. Recently he posted something to the effect of transcribing the marginalia and underlines in the books he read. It struck me. So simple and so effective. The delight in notetaking, I think, is such a dual-edged conflict for me, as I do not enjoy taking notes for sessions or events, but I do love making notes of works. I laugh back-and-forth about these types of things.
I’ll add a few links to publications, as usual, I’ve been enjoying that I think would be worth a shout for you all. Thanks for sticking with me, and as always, I appreciate any and all support you might send my way whether that’s a like or a share or a subscribe.