Holed up in my little space cutting away the images contained in the pages of newspapers that were talked about in the press preview previously. Listening to the live news stream beaming through the interwebs displaying the latest news and the week review over and over again. Good thing I also had some music playing. A music festival playlist on shuffle and repeat although there is sixteen hours of the thing. But it’s digital so it can’t be held. It is in the background playing. My consciousness only transitionally paying attention to a song that comes on. 

For the most part it’s the sound of the blade passing through the newsprint. With a new blade the sound is almost silent. The blade moves through the piece of paper like a knife passing through soft butter. Over time the blade dulls and he sound it makes through the paper gets a bit louder. The sound jumps in loudness as the initial contact with a corner is made. It quiets as the motion slows at the other end of the line. That straight border of each picture serves as my line. So many images, so many faces in my hierarchy of picking priorities about what to keep. Faces with smiles but also many faces with all the many different expressions that we all display at different parts of our lives. Faces of grief after any of the recent tragedies are poignant. Many of those faces you can’t see though as their faces are in their hands their grief that great. 

There are all those scenes of all those interesting places that I’ve never seen with my own eyes yet. There are diagrams and cartoons that sometimes make me laugh. More than anything there is the sheer volume of pages that I have to get through. I’m walking a fine line if I’ll be able to get through it all. I haven’t worked this hard at a project in a while. I’ve begun and given up before but this time I’m determined to do it. Time is a precious commodity and since I’ve spent so much time doing this I’ve not done other things like relax. I’m beginning to wonder if the newsprint is causing my congestion to continue as I continue to sit over this work. The pulp released from each cut rising and now covering all the surfaces. The dust picked up and transported by the air currents stirred by my open window. 

Aspects of a meditative state wash over me as each cut represents movement in time. Themes swirl like vortexes from moving currents. The breaking news story quickly fills the airwaves indicating that yet another event will grip their attention. Questions will be asked again about how such a thing could have happened and what could be done to prevent it. There is a hard line being drawn and as it moves along the landscape it crushes everything in its path. The finger is being pointed straight at a group whether rightly or wrongly in preparation for something. Like a baseball on a tee before a swing. 

There was a vociferous takedown of the republican candidate by the former host of Comedy Central. He pointed out hypocrisy that that party now has to endure as the criticisms they had against the current president are pointedly applicable to their nominee. That acceptance speech was short on substance but tall on the message that he won’t fuck around. Dark times are coming and they found their form. Each time the concluding lines of this address were played it became apparent that he didn’t want to get the order wrong. Their sound and tone hollow but the words are what his audience wants to hear. 

That repetitive news cycle filled with the most newsworthy stories cycled on and on throughout. Maybe it dampened the mood a little bit or maybe it was just the isolation of the room finally catching up with me. It made me think of the stories that have flashed in front of me and how these lonely males felt the need to lash out. First in Germany at youth at an American fast food joint and then later on again at some musical gathering. These stories have spiked in recent times. They will lead to a clamping down on people in order to keep them safe. It’s becoming a summer of discontent. 

In the room filled with stories of the past the images I extract are from events that happened over the past several months. The faces of criminals and the faces of normal people intertwine. I try to avoid keeping any identifying notes so as to make them anonymous to me. Some faces will stick to me though. Their crimes especially heinous. In this isolation with no time for much else it makes me wonder at how these lonely souls get to this point in their lives. The point at which they feel like the only way to solve their pain is to lash out. This cycle perpetuates itself. The virus propagates through the population with a strange vector acting as the means to this end. 

I’m determined to finish this project of mine. It will serve as the basis for another piece that will only be put together when I’m back in North America. For now it is something that just needs the work put into it. I am slowly approaching the present time with my collection of free newspapers. These sheets of paper that are just sitting there waiting to be picked up. Their pages filled with the most distilled information. What is deemed the most newsworthy. The things that just have to be known. A continuation of what’s cycled on tv. 

The impending reunion with my love has given me a strange motivation that has a name inspiration. If there is an antidote to all of this it is the prospect of bonding and love. We will see how our little experiment is going to play itself out. How the initial and ongoing intellectual relationship evolves from the platonic back to the physical. No longer hidden behind a screen or filtered by typed words. Being immediate after a period of isolation will bring with it a new appreciation. Everything new again but different after our individual periods of growth. 

There is still so much left to do and so little time.