Go visit my new blog at-

http://www.butalas.wordpress.com

Here is an excerpt from a short story I've been working on. Enjoy the pictures and the writing.


Chapter 2
“On Forgetting”

There do exist a certain people in this world who are, as I would like to call them- forgetful. Other people may use more brash words, but I’m making a firm decision to stay with forgetful. These forgetful people are a difficult bunch to befriend. You have plans for dinner with them- they don’t show up. They say they will come by in a few minutes and they call you an hour later to see if you are busy. Although at times you really wish you could write them off, for some reason you keep them around. Well, I keep them around at least- I can’t really speak for you can I? I keep them around for reasons beyond my own head. It could be the stunning simplicity of the idea of forgetting that intrigues me. All that we know in life is memory and the present, well, everyone knows that present only exists for only a fleeting moment. The present exists for such a brief period, that the amount of time elapsed is simply inconceivable. Here is a challenge for you- gather up the worlds best scientists of all types: physicists, engineers, bio mechanical- whatever you want, and assign them with just one task; assign them to calculate the duration of the present. I bet you they can’t do it. I’ll even fund the project for you. All the brain power in the universe could not conceive the present, because, it simply does not exist. The moment that the present happens it is swallowed by the gluttonous notion of the past. But imagine now a world where the past did not exist. At first we are in a universe where the present does not exist- all is the past, but now the past is slowly fading as well. This is the life of the forgetful mind. The mind that says and does with no feeling or meaning behind it besides the most animal of urges. The mind that reacts to situations and its surroundings but does not act on its own accord. The forgetful mind puts its keys down because it got back to its house, but where the keys were left- the mind does not remember. The forgetful mind speaks and speaks to entertain, but does not realize what it is saying.
With all of this, we will have to put down on paper that yes, the forgetful mind is a bleak existence- where the only existing thing is that small fraction of the idea of a moment, and the past is if not instantly, soon forgotten, but! with all of this, the life of the forgetful mind is the life of bliss. What better way to live than to demolish time? Time only exists because the past exists, but if we destroy the past, than we also destroy time. The forgetful mind will be the only mind capable of shedding the chains of time that we are all shackled to. So long as our leaders: all the presidents, dictators, clergymen, Gods, priests- tell us to remember our past, the sole idea occupying our mind will be death. The threat of death. What better way to stay in power exists than to intimidate with the threat of death? All learned people are concerned with death, and in reality, all being learned, in the scholarly sense and in the pious sense, means that you are aware of death. I have met a few forgetful minds, and they are the types who don’t fear death. They live, as they say, they live every moment as if it were their last. For them the moment is the moment, thats all. While all of us “smart” people sit around on our high horse, we let that moment of now, of the present- essentially disintegrate. We live in a world of the past. We can remember, oh yes we can remember, but we can’t actually live. It makes me wonder if it is the smart one who does not feel, or if it is the forgetful one that does not feel.

A couple more from Mexico.

Some color shots from Mexico D.F. and a few from surrounding areas. These are long overdue; it took me weeks to find the right scanner and make it work. More will follow in the coming days. Enjoy.



Ben shows us brain, on his fork, at a seriously under-par/sketchy restaurant.



Carlos looks out from the roof of his building in Condesa, Mexico D.F.

On The Conviction Of The Innocent

What is it that allows the law, that is, the police- and their word, to have a much higher standing than my own, or your own? Why is it that one officer’s word can make null the words of the masses? I’ve been pondering this issue over the past week as I’ve watched a friend, a student here at Purchase College, go from top to bottom. We are always infatuated with the notion of the fall of people- we spend many hours watching those crime shows and reading novels that culminate in a grand court scene. The ultimate judgement. The final judgement. There is something so apocalyptic in the judge, the jury- deciding our fate. What is to come of me? Will they allow me my freedom, or will they throw me into a jail cell? Will they open the gates of heaven, or will they cast me into hell? When our freedom rests on the minds of the unaffected, surely hell is the most obvious option.
And hell is what the main character of my story is destined to experience. We shall call him Hart Seely: for that is his name in this story, and in real life as well. This is a story about the injustice of our court system, and to talk about this I have to adapt a new voice, that is, the voice of the court itself.
On the night of Friday, April 17th, Hart Seely was arrested. It was dark, it was chaotic- it was Culture Shock. We all know about Culture Shock. The once a year festival at our university where we get a chance to celebrate the spring, the upcoming summer, the completion of (hopefully) a successful semester of learning, thinking and working. We all want a celebration for a job well done, and this is what we hope to accomplish through this great music festival. Back to the narrative. It was during Streetlight Manifesto. It was wild celebration and there was a mosh pit. Emerging from this setting there are three stories: Hart’s story, the story of the police at the time of the arrest, and the story of the police the day after the arrest. We will examine Hart’s story first.
Hart was standing by the edge of the mosh pit during Streetlight Manifesto. The police kept stopping the band and telling the crowd that they must move back. “Take three steps back” was the catch phase of their set. The band was forced to stop playing multiple times in order for the cops to tell everybody to move back. Implied with this is that the crowd was too close to the barricades and the police that were positioned directly in front of the stage. Conversely, the police were too close to the crowd and needed some room- from the students, and from the mosh pit. Hart was pushed back by someone in the mosh pit, and accidentally hit into deputy King- a Westchester County police officer. More specifically, Hart’s hand hit into the officer’s hat. The officer immediately pulled Hart out of the crowd while he was pleading to know “What did I do?”, and the officer replied, “You know what you did”. Hart was arrested.
Now, just after this, that is, after he was pulled out of the crowd, I watched the arrest. Once Hart was put into a squad car, I walked up to the group of officers talking about what just happened. This is the story of the police of the night of the arrest. One officer, who I later found to be deputy King, was telling the other officers how Hart had hit into his hat, and it (that is, the hat) got pushed over his face. I caught the tail end of this story, so I asked another officer what happened. He conveyed the same story to me as I stood there in disbelief that Hart would do something like this on purpose. And yes, I know that if he had any drinks at all that night, he was not drunk enough to make a decision as dumb as that.
The next day, Hart gets back from jail. Yes, from jail. He accidentally hit into a person and spent the night at UPD, where he shared the facilities with a student who had taken psychedelics, and was vomiting all over himself for hours. In response to this, the a UPD officer came into the room, and told the student who was repeatedly vomiting on himself to “Get in the bathroom.” and threatened that if he didn’t, he would “break his neck”. These are the people who decide our fate- people who use physical intimidation and death to get their point across. I think maybe a word for this type of person is a “thug”. Listen, I’m not a scoundrel, I’m a student with rights.
Hart spent the next morning in jail cell in Valhalla. He was shipped to a cell outside of our humble campus at around 11:00 AM, where he was finally informed of what he was being accused of. Bear in mind, this is about twelve hours after he was dragged out of the crowd, while being told “You know what you did.” This cell was shared with a few people, some coming and some going. Among these were real criminals, you know, people who had actually done something wrong, such as being found with pounds of illegal drugs. And this is our Hart Seely, innocent and wrongfully accused. Now, overnight he became even more wrongfully accused, if you could imagine such a thing. Overnight, the police changed his story to not only purposefully hitting the cop’s hat, but added, yes in addition to this, that he was attempting to steal the officer’s gun. This new charge became so much the emphasis that the original offense, in which he was arrested for, has faded into the background.

“Hart Seely is accused of assault on a police officer, and attempted robbery of a police officer’s firearm”.

Hart Seely has been suspended from school. He is allowed to finish out his classes for this semester, but is not allowed in any residence area. He is not allowed to go into his room. This presents a large set of problems for someone whose home is in Syracuse and does not own a car. Next semester he is completely suspended from school. From this, what can we deduce? He is allowed on campus- and therefore is not a real threat. Even the administration knows that he is not a real threat, or else he would be never allowed at the university again. If Hart was someone who legitimately had criminal intentions, he would rightfully not be welcomed at a place where we advocate safe learning, and yet they still attempt to ruin his clean streak at Purchase College. At his hearing within the school, deputy King did not even show up. He has ultimately condemned a student, but does not care enough to come to his hearing and say “he is guilty”. Yet, with the lack of the accuser, or, the lack the police officer, the judicial board did not listen to my own story of the arrest, or the multiple character witnesses that included two professors. His criminal court case is on May 12th. Read that again- “His criminal court case.” Is Hart a criminal? You tell me. Tell them. Whether or not you are a detractor of the police- whether you are an anarchist or a fascist- surely you can see there is something wrong here. Something here is not right, something here is not just. As a student body, we can not let these charges stand. We must act, because it could be me who stumbles on the wrong person. Because next time it could be you who stumbles on the wrong person. I hope that when that happens you will be there for me, because I will be there for you. If we let the police get away with these false accusations, we are affectively letting them take a shit on us, as students and believers in justice, as a whole. This is the same justice that these police are installed in order to protect. Read this. Think about this. Do not let this story go, because it is more than a story, it is someone’s life. There has not been a moment in my time at this university that has been more urgent- and I can’t say for sure in yours, but I’m sure you can still see the importance. We are students. We are forward thinking. We are educated. We don’t just accept things, it is our tradition as students- from Europe in the mid 1800s to the United States in the mid 1900s, to Greece just a few months ago, to Purchase now? Only if you want it. Only if you care.

If you want to know what you can do, if you are dedicated, if you have an idea of what to do, no matter how large or how small, e-mail me. There is a petition that will be sent to our school’s president along with anyone else it should concern. Sign it.

alex.moskowitz@purchase.edu

-Alex Moskowitz

Thought Process

How can we just sit here and let everything just pass by? There is something ingrained in our culture that allows us to not participate; there is something that allows us to sit and to not think.

Tell me. Teach me. Gimmie gimmie gimmie.

While some lay in their hospital beds, IVs connected, food tube in their throat, others will always have their fork and knife ready to pick apart their meat. Some will sift through the good and the bad. "I don't want this, but this, oh this looks good". Some of us will eat what is good and some of us will allow others to decide what we eat. I would never let somebody else decide what I eat.

Of course this is just a metaphor, but I'm hoping you get the idea. When you read the news, you are sitting up in your chair, folk and knife handy, with a giant plate of food for you to devour. This sounds good to me. I have the luxury of doing away with the bad news, taking what I want from the plate. When you watch the news, you are in that hospital bed, unconscious, with the food being shoved down your throat- letting those fucks in suits telling you what you should believe. Do you want to choose what you want to believe or do you want to be told what to believe?

There is something in our culture that makes this okay. How many people have you met today that you are sure they haven't picked apart a single thing? Are you one of these people? Am I one of these people? How easy is it to not think? Here, in America, it's really easy- I can tell you that. In fact, it would be much easier to not pick apart each word, each letter, as if it didn't have some other meaning. Sometimes your words don't. And sometimes I think they do. For me each phrase is something else, it's alive. In my world, nothing can stand on its own. There is something behind it. It's in the way you look at me, one leg crossed while I talk looking at the ground, not afraid- but ashamed to meet your eyes for more then a second or two at a time. What am I ashamed of you ask? I would not be sure how I could even answer that. Ashamed is that feeling. You know it, when the only place your head goes is down. You are hiding your face. We identify each other through our faces, and so we hide them when we do not want to be recognized. I'm guessing this means I don't want to be recognized by you, but the ultimate irony is that I want nothing more than to be recognized, and nothing more than to be recognized by you. And yet I am ashamed. Did this occur to you at all? Although I can recall times, even dreams from years ago and still have them affect my thinking, I do not expect anybody else to be in a similar disposition.

But we still don't second guess a single thing that happens. We don't think. And maybe it is for the better. I doubt that much of anything would ever get done if we were all subjected to this chronic issue. If we all spent our minutes speculating on word choice from the middle of a nonchalant conversation, I'd imagine all of us sitting in our chairs, thinking. But what is more fascinating than looking at someone deep in thought. You attempt to get their attention but it is to no avail. That fictional voice in their head is a thousand decibels louder than your loudest yell. Do you know what we are talking about here? Your yell. Your scream. The way in which you make physical air molecules vibrate; the way in which you make real things move could never compare to whatever is going on in there. Sometimes it's just not worth the trouble. Listen, it really isn't worth your trouble; I'm a lost cause.

The Berlin Wall Tune

Twenty-five years ago, if you saw this, it would probably be the last thing you saw before you were gunned down. Now we can look, touch, take. We can do whatever.

Here is a little Joseph Brodsky for you. Ill get off this "other people's poetry" kick soon; I promise.

Dull is the day here. In the night
searchlights illuminate the blight
making sure that if someone screams,
it's not due to bad dreams.

For dreams here aren't bad; just wet with blood
of one of your like who's left his pad
to ramble at will; and in his head
dreams are replaced with lead.

Given that, it's only time
who has guts enough to commit the crime
of passing this place back and forth on foot:
at pendulums they don't shoot.

That's why this site will see many moons
while couples lie in their beds like spoons,
while the rich are wondering what they wish
and single girls eat quiche.

Come to this wall that beats other walls:
Roman, Chinese, whose worn-down, false
molars envy steel fangs that flash,
scrubbed of thy neighbor's flesh.