luminous work -- laylage courie

I make things from words. Poetry, sound, theater, collage.

i make things from words.  things that intend towards light.  here is that round box from the attic.  inside, letters, photographs, unlabeled cassette tapes.  some embossed invitations to my imaginative parties, which are select and increasingly irregular.  like you, i grow old.  i keep my hands busy and my mind occupied.  if it would be better to hold something in your hands other than a machine send me a message and i will send you something real.

dream dream the long dream

Believe it or not, I’ve never had internet access. I didn’t want the distraction at home: better to read or write or cut up pictures or cook. The pandemic changed that. I was lucky: I had a job that worked from home. But to keep it, I had to stick my home, at last, into the world wide web.

For the first time, I binged something other than fantasy fiction. I watched everything in the Marvel cinematic universe, all of which was new to me. I watched the LotR director’s cuts multiple times. This isn’t exactly binging: it’s more decadent feast. My true binges were like main-lining sugar candy: a frothy suspension into the air-angst of the gen z v log.

To redeem the time redeem the dream (till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew), I vlogged myself to burn off the sugar high. It’s a favorite device of mine: take an banal, almost non-form (I’ve used power-point presentations, training videos, memorandums, bad pop songs…) and alienize it with my choice of words.

<Insert clickbait here>

You’ll see some familiar editing tricks, and the vlogger version of Brecht: sitting obviously before a computer camera with recording gear in plain sight. If you’ve ever watched anything on youtube you’ll recognize the opening music. In fact, the whole less-than-5-minute video is pure vlogging trope. Except everything I say.

I say: you could stay here in this shimmery blue scroll, or…you could go down down the deep well…

I suspect the jewel-in-the-well image is from The Rescuers of which I have disturbed childhood memories . I’ll re-watch it soon; “it’s in my queue!”

don’t forget to like and subscribe!~!!”

is the only possible way to close.

Image from The Rescuers: girl with a skull at the bottom of a well.

Still from The Rescuers


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