Chop Suey

(Originally posted on Nov. 14, 2013*, but I’ve amended the published date so it fits into the post timeline better)

I was looking through old files and found these
Here is a collection of the little draft anaimations I made of Rod playing the piano in 2005.

Our Vision of Ourselves  is a fragment of an animation I never made of Takahashi’s precursor, failure, arc of beauty. It features Gilbert Kong, me, Rod, and Sergio Gato.

This is me serenading Rodrigo Constanzo. I made this in Miami when we were just dating and I had just bought my first violin for $80.

Water the Living with Dreams of the Dead.
I made this when I first moved to England in 2007, either in March or April.

This is the painting inspired by a dream that birthed the name Takahashi’s Shellfish Concern. I painted it in 2006. I immediately gave it to Raul Takahashi to make amends for whatever it was I did that caused him to unleash that nightmare on me.

These are instructions I wrote in 2004:

Define a reasonable space in a language you understand.
Do not consider the language–this has already been chosen for you.
Consider what is reasonable as it applies to the familiar and unfamiliar.
Your frame of reference does not extend itself to the unfamiliar.
Do not consider how to overcome this obstacle–I will decide for you.
Define personal boundaries so you are prepared in a similar fashion for these unfamiliar factors.
Do this because despite your inexperience with them, they lean on your boundaries none the less and, in effect, shape them. You share the opposite side a very thin line.
You have defined this reasonable space and your concept of this won’t be negated here. Nothing that you or I decide can change this now.
To illustrate, now remember how as a child you were told not to touch hot things.
Touch a hot thing.
You’ve done it before and it is familiar to you now. You are an adult.
If you can recall the first time you did this, recall it with as much clarity as possible.
Be aware that that is definitely NOT the way it went down. Things were different. Relevant things–important things–like every moment that comprises the whole event.
What do you know?
Know that the sensation you feel now when you touch a hot thing is only a spectre of how it felt [years ago] to become aware of the concept of “hot” for the first time.
Touch a hot thing.
That’s how it felt to exert your will on that particular line–your known/unknown boundary. This happened years ago and does not happen now when you touch the hot thing.
Touch a hot thing. It is both memory and signal. You can recall it at anytime.
Know that the degree to which you are familiar with it has altered your memory of how it felt for the first time.
Consider that for a moment [years ago] you were uncertain whether it was painful or not. The pain you felt was how it felt to gain familiarity of that particular formerly unknown factor. Be aware that the fact that it would be painful was already decided for you. What did you decide?
Touch a hot thing. Lie to yourself in a language you understand and decide that’s how it feels to exert your will on a boundary that has to do with something much more pleasant. Do not consider this pleasantry–I will decide for you: This is how it feels when you decide to fuck someone for the first time. This is how it feels to exert your will there.