This is Benjamin

Archive for the ‘chatter’ Category

Overheard: Doctor/Patient

December 16th, 2010 | benjamin

“What’s the date?”
“October 23rd.”
“Do you know what year it is?”
“Well I did do. Ok, hang on. Sorry to say, I couldn’t tell you.”
“That’s okay.”
“I’ve never had a question like that in my life. Some of the questions you ask, they’re so unexpected.”
“Can you count backwards from 20?”
“Oh yeah,” he said, more confidently. He started with reasonable success but got stuck around 13. “It’s all the noises, they distract me.”
“Do you know who the queen is?”
“Yeah.”
Pause.
“What’s her name?”
“Victoria.”
“You mean Elizabeth?”
“What did I say?”
“Victoria.”
“Oh, that’s the kind of day I’ve had.”
“Do you know the Prime Minister?”
“No, not really.”
“Can you remember an address for me?”
“Sure.”
“42 West Street. Can you repeat it back to me?”
“42 er West Street.”
Some laughter from across the ward.
“What’s that?”
“Just some of the nurses having a laugh.”
“Good for them.” And then he imitated them cruelly.
“When did you last have a poo?”
“When did I last have a poo?”
“It may seem a strange question.”
“No it’s not,” he said, pleased there was a question he could easily answer. “Um, must be Wednesday.”

a narrative of struggle

September 14th, 2008 | benjamin

A narrative of struggle has settled upon the perceptions I have of myself, my potential, and at the same time, the ecological and economical survival of myself and my species.

Two things have occurred at the same time: my reluctant acceptance of the ‘reality’ of climate change, despite persistent concerns that its ideological dimensions have not been entirely narrated as yet, and despite an uneasiness at buying into a supreme scientific discourse that has a simple and bleak answer to everything.

My reluctant acceptance of my own limits, that it is not possible to do all things at once, and to do them all well, that self image does not equate with self-actualisation, that people may not, after all, scream my name out in the streets, or at least not in one united chorus of adoration.

From these twin epiphanies comes a tension which unites the story of myself and of the society I live in. Fear, utter fear and immobilisation, the temptation to withdraw. And at the same time a temptation to throw myself against my limits, and the institutional limits, like a rock against a window.

Or perhaps a better metaphor is to quarry away with a quiet determination.

time loops

September 6th, 2008 | benjamin

I watched La jetée recently and was captivated. Oddly enough, the experience closed a time loop that I’d been caught in since some time in the late nineties.

We used to visit a comic store down an old arcade in the suburbs, myself and mike, and maybe some others on occasion. I had little interest in comics, more of a fascination in Mike as some kind of brooding teenager par excellance.

Phil, who ran the store, would talk for ages to us. He was, apparently, a University science drop out. It seems peculiar that he would want to spend so much time with people of our age, not peculiar in that sense. Just odd.

He insisted that we watch this magnificent film, told in photos, about time travel, upon which the Terry Gilliam film Twelve Monkeys was based. This is La jetée.

La jetée depicts a man sent to the past in order to save the future. The realness of his world is never firmly established, he could be mad. In any case his obsession with the past, and of a woman in it, eventually has him killed.

So, I’ve been returning to this moment, in which I am advised to see this film, in which my interest is aroused over and over for probably a decade, and I’ve come close to watching the film many, many times, and have returned to this moment over and over, but have been stopped by some sort of deep-seated reluctance and dread, like Freud, who for years could not bring himself to visit Rome, a city that held such fascination to him.

Anyway, the loop has been closed, along with its more recent sub-loop, in which my brother also advises me to watch this eery and sad piece.

As for the myriad others, I live in them still.