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Combinatorics

by Mad Kate | the Tide

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1.
A lotta times I am sitting with my father silently. Today I was sitting with my father at lunch at the Clifton General Store, and I had a dark, dark thought. I thought today, for instance, perhaps it would be right if I discovered that he’d died on the riding lawn mower. Perhaps it would be right if he died today as he and I are working on the lawn. Because this is one of the things we enjoy most doing together. It might be right if he just runs out of air driving in the pickup truck, as I sit next to him, the hot sun on my legs and arms, my hair blond, me not wearing much makeup: the way my father likes me. Sweaty and dirty with lawn work. From wearing the gloves, from pulling at the Virginia creeper. From sweeping the back porch, from clearing the weeds with the wheelbarrow. From crawling back into the hiding spaces under trees, magical crawl spaces of little girl time, my legs scraped and red with cuts, a tick on my neck perhaps; this is how my father likes me best. Capable, boyish, yet a girl. Perhaps it would be okay if today he died, because that is one of the things we enjoy most doing together. My father and I stay silent with each other quite a lot. I can almost remember everything he says, because he says so little. It is nice not to speak, sometimes, it is just right. I wish that I could stay in the garden a little while longer. I wish that my father would stay with me, just watching me weeding, not speaking to me, just watching. Though he has never said so, this is how he likes me best. I was thinking, hold on to this moment, hold onto it. I would use my fingers and my claws just to take him into me, and to keep him. I would put him in my pocket and keep him. I would put my arms around him and keep him with me in my calmest way. I would take him to die with me in Germany; he does not want to die. I want to rescue him, he doesn’t want to be rescued. I always thought that he was better than any mean word he spoke; I always thought it was a fluke, how passive he could be, how mean he could be. I trusted him somehow. His few words. You are all around me Sometimes I just look into his blue eyes and smile at him. I don’t want to be too overbearing or treat him strangely now that he is dying. He has not changed all that much. Today I cleaned, and weeded and cleaned. What kind of person never throws out a rake with only three spikes? And what kind of person never throws out a wind chime when all of the chimes have fallen off and just the wires hang in the wind? That makes me think that a person doesn’t live there, that a family doesn’t live there anymore. “These tasks are so easy I could do them any day, I could do them any day and now,” he trails off and looks down at his skinny legs and his oxygen tank. It makes a sucking sound when he breathes in and I have to remind him to leave it on. “And now … look at me, I can’t do it, I can’t do it any day.” I did not fight him, I cannot, but I was thinking to myself: Why was there green mold in the kitchen sink, why, when you came to the house week after week, didn’t you do the three dishes in the sink, why did you let them get moldy? Why haven’t you repaired the staircase, or the brick landing? Why did you let maggots grow in the garbage can, why are bugs crawling on the sill? I looked into his blue eyes. We don’t say much to each other, and when we do we think long and hard in between. I do not know what my father knows...searching to dis-prove the theorem—that occupies his time. These stacks of papers, each page lacking ... lacking the answer. I do not know what my father knows. I wish that I could stay in the garden a little while longer. I wish that my father would stay with me, just watching me weeding, not speaking to me, just watching. Though he has never said so, this is how he likes me best. I wish that I could stay in the garden a little while longer… him on the porch with his x and o notebook, playing the guitar, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. I was thinking, hold on to this moment, hold onto it. I can’t get enough, even his silence, I would hold on to it. I was thinking, hold on to this moment. I would use my fingers and my claws just to take him into me, and to keep him. I would put him in my pocket and keep him with me in the calmest way ... I want to take him to die with me in Germany; he doesn’t want to die. I want to rescue him … he doesn’t want to be rescued. I always thought that he was better than any mean word he spoke; I always thought that it was a fluke, how passive he could be, how mean he could be. I trusted somehow his few words. I can almost remember them all. Why buy a peony if you’re not going to plant it. Why let it sit there. Why soil if you’re not going to plant in it, why leave it in the grass until the weeds punch right through the bag, searching the soil, growing in and through and out again. Weeds are strong, so strong that when you pull them, they do not break in your hand; they carry with them the entire train of their long thin bodies. But they are not as strong as the plant that they are trying to overtake, to strangle, because that plant will bend and it will sway underneath the weed as you pull it. It will stay planted until you remove the weed completely. I was sitting there at the Clifton General Store and I was thinking, Jesus Christ, when you let a wind chime fly about in the wind without chimes on it, that's a sign of sadness and neglect and unlived in. When the maggots are taking over your trash can, that's a sign of neglect. What do you mean, UNLIVED IN? Take down your Christmas decorations! Why are you wanting to die staring at the TV screen? Why buy a peony if you’re not going to plant it. Why let it sit there. Why soil if you’re not going to plant in it, why leave it in the grass until the weeds punch right through the bag, searching the soil, growing in and through and out again. Weeds are strong, so strong that when you pull them, they do not break in your hand; they carry with them the entire train of their long thin white bodies. But they are not as strong as the plant that they are trying to overtake, to strangle, because that plant will bend and it will sway underneath the weed as you pull it. It will stay planted until you remove the weed completely. I got away with throwing out the pan and the dishpan, the entire green moldy apparatus stuck in his sink. I got away with throwing out all the chips and old food. I got away with throwing and throwing and trashing. The Christmas decorations from 4 years past—I took them down. Too painful to think why they’d never been removed. The wind chime, with only the hooks of the chimes tangled and hanging; I had to throw it out. And as I'm carrying out this gigantic bag of trash my father says to me, well don't make the place look too unlived in. This is all that he’s said to me that day.
2.
To understand my father is like to understand the universe. When he is dead, he will still be the gas that his bones were, the matter of his body will still occupy a place, like the matter of his body must have occupied a space before he was born, but this matter came from inside the matter of his parents. In this perspective, we are all like Russian dolls: the universe is infinitely large to enclose all of our matter, past and future, inside each other and it all already exists. The future already exists inside of all of us and in some sense our “deaths” already exist inside of us as well. It is as though our lives are like black holes, a kind of curve in our own space time, in this curve, we experience consciousness, we exhibit some kind of feeling of time endlessness, we observe something of the rest of the continuum, but before us and after us we exist but without boundary. There on the horizon we are endless, we observe -- We are all things at one time; we are insignificant, and we are profound. Our time is endless; it is finite; our time is everything inbetween. We live as an asymptote, never nothing—approaching zero, we feel the weight of our smallness. And yet, how massive. We are multiple. These numbers are … illusion … Endless. we observe ... The Continuum I am spinning in circles ... Of my own black hole I create in space time There on the horizon it is endless ... (sung) Keep him in, keep him to the place keep him too late, keep him to the way we are--there-- Like ... Like an instance borrowed from your fine-bounded space Keep him in that way So like a star shines Endless upon your horizon we fall Infinite vacant and round Keep him to your horizon Ah naked before your Golden span Spinning in circles … But one thing I can say Is all the progress we've made Til we open Ah naked before your –

credits

released April 3, 2013

Kathryn Fischer (aka Mad Kate) – vocals, text
Jacopo Bertacco (aka the Tide) – guitars, ukelele, loops
Recorded by Alexander Ott at Paul Linke Studio, Berlin.
www.paullinckestudio.com
Engineered and mixed by Jacopo Bertacco at Tideofsound HQ, Berlin.
Mastered by Gregg Janman at Hermetech Mastering, Milan.www.hermetechmastering.com

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Mad Kate | the Tide Berlin, Germany

Mad Kate (vocals text movement) and the Tide (guitar loops electronics) collaborate in a perpetual adventure pet that touches the multiplying ways we access music and performance. From electro-folk to Afro-noise to punk-word, they speak with an urgent voice as they explore the concept of ALIVE:ness. ... more

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