Ashlandsblog

Project Title: TBD

Shoot Location: WPG Concourse

Director: Ash

Compensation: My absolute care (conditional)

Seeking:

An individual who can authentically portray a regular customer who is constantly performing a “nice guy.” Must look handsome from all angles; tall, 6 feet and up, no more than 6’1”. Dark hair, wide-eyed. We want dispassion, a mute sense of exhaustion.

Must order a cortado. Sometimes forgets to say thank you, but still asserts goodwill through expression rather than words. Half-hearted approaches only- don’t act too eager for the part.

Our last guy only pretended to like coffee.

“I mean it’s strange, isn’t it? Worrying about what people think? Anyone that says that is lying too. You can’t care what everyone thinks anyway. There’s about 8 billion people and I definitely don’t care what all of them think. All details of life are-“ 

she pauses for a moment and interrogates her surroundings. And quickly adjusts her crown. Eyes narrowing, a takes a mighty drag of her cigarette, like we’re in smoking lounge. Long earrings, swaying like chandeliers “- consequential and inconsequential at the same time. The answer is in everything, born one day, decaying since then. Something sweet like milk to something bitter, smiling ear to ear then slowly your cheeks are too heavy to smile like you once used to. You can make your life mean something or nothing at all, if it doesn’t mean anything? do fuck all. Who cares and maybe you’ll feel a twinge of misery. Maybe persistently, or you can make everything mean something and have a latent comforting thought that it all matters. Both come with pain. I can convince someone to go on a little longer, to grab on a little longer, to see things a different way, if that doesn’t work? Burn your eyes, and rely solely on other senses. You better appreciate what’s before you, even if you’re used to it. I can be cruel too, I can wonder. There’s better out there, but I know there isn’t. Better is in me, and it’s in you. You’ll go searching for something, you’ll definitely find something but nothing becomes part of you like what’s already made of you.

There really are no more lessons, I’ve been kind, and forgiving, passive and confrontational, direct and mean, silent and reticent, sharp and ambitious, clear and concise, calm and collected. There’s no reward but the self.

So yeah I do think- wait what was the question Ash?”

“Do you like Taylor Swift?”

Imagine me clearing my throat before I say this … one of my favorites came to tell me, actually- 

how it really happened :

In the underground tunnels of Downtown Winnipeg, measured footsteps blessed the orange tiles with his steps. His cape, long as hell. Crown blinding bystanders, shiny particles of dust wafting off of him, slicked back hair, and an unreadable face. Stylish on overdrive. Walking towards me. At this point I was poetically bent down and when he was right at the counter, instead of bending, the platelets of the world titled down- and so did he- to tell me, “haven’t read your blog.”

The lights went out for a moment, not just in the tunnels, the world. Monitors and screens, zapped out of life, and something inside me too. 

It’s not the fact that he hasn’t read my blog, it’s how casually he hasn’t read it. And how okay he is. In fact his life is better without my blog. 

“A morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs” – from some book by someone.

Friendship with me is tax heavy, it feels good till the deadline. I’m selfish. There’s no way around it. I’m expecting you to read my mind, sense my mood, adjust, tie my shoelaces. My mom and dad used to do it for me, happily. My friends still offer to do it. These days, I’ve learned to tie them poorly but it does the job. 

I won’t text back. I’ll wait for an invite, and won’t show up. I’ll make fun of you, it’s worse if I don’t. Then I don’t bother at all to observe you at all. I’m different, and then I’m not different at all. If we’re walking together, I’m walking ahead, if you want to stay longer, I’m complaining. If you’re wanting to leave early, you’re not going anywhere. Everyone’s on thin ice, and when someone’s waiting for the tepid heat to burst, I go ; cold.

But it gets worse, as more time goes on you’ve invested too much mental effort into me and I’m that thing under the bed you’re reaching for, and just as you touch it, you’ve knocked it further away. Ofcourse I’m not totally self serving, I’ll have an inviting and deep enthralling conversation with you. Remember things about someone they’d never expect and they always experience it as a form of care. Then it’s worse if you know I care and I’m choosing not to. 

It’s far worse to encounter someone you know is good and chooses otherwise. And if you’re planning on running away, my claws are into deep, you’ll leave with your back scratched. 

It’ll still feel like a privilege to know me. You’ll never have met someone who’s so bound to who they are, no one but me. And just when you think at least he’s self aware, I always was. It’s not a matter of being of devious or emotionally extractive, it’s about how many of you believe you only matter if you’re of service. I never do.

If I sound corrosive and unbecoming, know that I am bound to a character written for me, for reasons I can’t say or don’t know. If I did, I wouldn’t be here amongst all living things, I’d be a star in the sky. But for now I’m amongst you all, a little fragile than most. And if you can sense that, and you’re around, thank you, I love you. 

Now, let’s tie my shoelaces.

I wasn’t granted enough care to be taught, and now my fingers turn to laces and the laces into fingers. And I’m allergic to asking for help.

Wall. What do you do if you’re on set, and we agreed to play these roles and never break character but you do? Or I do, and you forget there are people watching?

I’m in another movie this time. Low light, noir, smokey, cold. All this happened so long ago, all of this agreed upon so long ago, and when you arrived, Wall, you still gave me the look. Yes, that look- the endearing look of someone who wants to remind you that he’s just playing a character, and he’s also giving you the look that look to give you a step ahead. There’s no clapperboard in real life, but your look is one. And now our story together begins.

My lovely fool, you think I’m acting. Sure, it’s Hollywood. But I’ve been in many films of many languages. When you think I’m breaking character, Wall, you laugh a little. I’m a method actor, and then another one inside of it- the snake eating the snake, the eight-turn horizontal infinity. So when it seems like the scene was tense and you couldn’t find the actor in my gaze, turn around- or actually wait for an extra to hand you a mirror.

This movie was named after you.

This part is acting too.

“No, I didn’t. I mean, I looked at the book and knew I wouldn’t like it, so I picked up something else. You should read that one. It’s great,” the self-proclaimed people pleaser says. Here I thought I had coasted the seven seas and would never again feel the glee of amusement. It’s no surprise his name rhymes with smart.

A couple of days ago, I recommended a book to one of my customers. The Picture of Dorian Gray. He said he’d read it. He said he’d also read my blog. A week goes by, and he comes back and tells me he looked at the book, realized he wouldn’t like it, bought something else, and then recommended I read what he’s reading.

I’m quite thrilled. This proclaimed people pleaser has a lot of backbone for someone who’s always bending down to other people. It’s not an insult that he judged the book by its cover and therefore me. He had the faint idea that he could recommend something to me. 

As an act of God, I went to the store and found the book he was talking about. As soon as I went to grab it, it dropped. I tried to pick it up but my shoes kissed it, and stomped on it and kicked it and it slid right under the shelf. I walked out of the store with nothing. No surprise my name rhymes with rash.

I have never seen him shy.
When I was young, he would swift away The curtains deftly, without a word — Urging.


Just before we would leave the hotel,
He would pat down my coat,
Summon a tissue to wipe an invisible stain.
Always preoccupied, him and me.
We spoke different languages,
And I could barely stand to look him in the eyes,
Though he demanded.
I learned to draw out the details in the silence we shared.


I’m at the Blue Hotel in San Francisco, Gently drawing the curtains open—
Though it makes no difference; the room is grey.
I’m hoping she takes the hint that the sun
Hides behind its own curtains on this side of the world.
Elevator music escapes the revolving doors,
Rain-slicked roads are wearing the night lights.
My sister and I are ready to head out, And I’m fighting the urge to wipe
The stain off her coat.

Soft sunrays breached the curtains of Mrs. Aritzia. Specks of light on her powdery comforter, and when she opened her blue e-

Woah, wait. No. She wakes up way too late for that. The sun was already out, and she woke up.

She had her dog fetch her coffee. Dressed like a butler, the dog sets the breakfast tray down on her bed and resumes being a dog after he’s left the room. After she’s done with coffee number one, she goes into her phone and deletes the alarms she missed. All 14 of them. Headed to work, exactly late. Few moments setting things down, and now it’s time for coffee. Her first one of the day before the one at home. Pavement and floor amassing as she takes a step—she could walk on clouds.

And she’s here. She’s going to try something different today.

She doesn’t. She never does. Which is to say, how poetic and philosophical—she’ll try something different today, she’ll engage a part of herself that she usually doesn’t. But she actually doesn’t. The latte makes itself. The barista’s head is a coffee pitcher, and he’s pouring himself down. When she leaves, the coffee shop fades out. Her desire for change fades out. Till it rises again when she’s back.

And my god, she’s back. Two hours later for her FIRST coffee. But this time she took the alleyways to another coffee shop, so it’s the first one of the day.

And when she gets home to the front door that’s a decoupage of coffee cups made to look like a door, she walks into her butler-dog holding her first cup of coffee for the day.

My dad used to take me to his office. He’d have his meetings, and I was in the room next door, drawing. There was a stack of printer paper ready for me, and I’m sure I’d use up 500 of them a day. You could say we were both working at the same time.

Interestingly, you’d think someone so crass and heavy handed, and business minded would encourage someone to be more practical and less creative, but he never intervened. Even today, he never questions it. I remember him telling me one day that, before there was any language, there was art. On the walls of caves and trees and so on.

Eventually we’d go onto hire a resident artist from Iran. She was the quintessential foreign artist. Painting portraits of everyone in the family. She’d take me shopping with her, I never took shopping for oil paints seriously. The whole process of oil and paint seemed to industrial to me, then and now.

In High-school, where that picture is from, I never attended any of my other classes. I only went to the art class, 8am to 2. Never-mind getting in trouble for it, I was too sharp with my tongue and too intentional for someone to put me in time out. When the principal, questioned it? I said I’ll attend all my exams, but I need to only go to the art room and focus on that. And that is what I did. Ofcourse I passed, and ofcourse I had the best art teacher. She helped me not just with technical skills but with style. She would say, if you’re going to draw, or paint, don’t make it look like it’s a drawing or a painting. Exaggerate. Lean in. And so I did. Though I had trouble.

You know, you almost never have to teach a child the definition of art. They understand what it is. They might not be able to explain it to you, no better than any adult but they can feel it. Art is like that exact moment the universe is reflected back to itself with style it couldn’t have imagined.