(Brooklyn Art Haus, 11:15 am -12:15 pm, “Shut up and write”)
A group of people trying to do things in the same room but definitely not together
no collaborative process except that their chairs look the same, and that they are all using the fine muscles of their fingers within the same hour
what are they doing?
One guy takes out his laptop, uses his sweater to polish the apple logo on his computer
a girl walks in, 4 minutes after the rest of us, the window for introduction for her has closed and she says nothing, looks at no one…-
except she looks to her right and catches the eyes of another girl, mouths “oh hi!”, smiles quickly and then starts to unpack her things. Untangles her wired earphones. She has the exact same earphones and computer as…-
a young woman in a neon bright pink tank top. She keeps looking up like she’s expecting something more to happen, or to make eye contact with all the other ones before starting. She eventually looks down and begins to write something, but her eyes keep flickering up towards the other ones. She stops typing, removes her bracelet from her right wrist and continues writing. She looks up as a small noise from the person on her left distracts her…-
the person, another woman, older, ruffles a stack of hand written papers. The woman, wearing round glasses, introduced herself as Johanna, had a small lisp, and grew up in Queens. She’s working on her novel. She didn’t mention what the novel was about.
The man on Johanna’s left is clutching his mouth looking at his screen, like something terrible had happened. There’s no way of telling whether he accidentally erased something, or the plot of his “inter series” is just phenomenally thrilling, or if he was hiding a yawn.
It is 11.26 on a Saturday morning and no one is saying a word.
Most of the individuals in the group have similar looking cardboard or plastic cups of something. Coffee, orange juice, something that looks like a smoothie.
A woman in the corner, closest to the door, wears dark red glasses and looks down on to her computer. The computer looks expensive, new, like it’s meant for video editing and not for writing words.
The woman sitting across from the guy who polished the apple-logo is using white apple ear pods. She’s staring blankly at her closed laptop. Next to the laptop is a notebook that she has turned 80 degrees, and her open phone lies on top of the open pages. She’s looking at the phone, a vaper next to it. She doesn’t use the vaper.
The guy with the apple logo scrambles to get up to place a charger in the wall, leaves his phone on the high, rectangular table, plugged in. He returns to his chair and sits up straight. His beard looks like he recently trimmed it, and his computer reveals itself to be the same sort that the two earphone-woman has.
Hands on paper, blue and black pens scribbling tiny things that none of us could tell them another.
You might see a few post-it notes but the writing is in cursive, you think, cursive? In 2024?, and then you realize well that doesn’t mean anything. You might think, is this like that horror movie where they have to guess why they’ve all been put into the same dungeon room or they’ll all be killed? And even though you know the answer to that, I’ll tell you,
no. that’s not what this is.
This is for you to decipher. I’ll only tell you what I think is important, or even what I only observe myself. There could be more. The woman from Queens might have an interesting looking bug bite on her exposed ankle, but maybe I didn’t see that. Maybe you did.
Another guy, a young man, walks in. He sits next to the only person I haven’t described to you yet. They’re both dark skinned and are now sitting so close to each other that everybody in the room would be able to tell that they knew each other, if they looked up.
Most of them don’t look up.
So no one sees that the woman of the two mouths something to the man – something that could either be “what’s the wifi password?” or “do they have oat milk?” or “I should have brought my sweater” or “grandpa just texted me back” or “is Simon ok?” or “how was the demo?” or “can’t deal with this honestly” or “why are you so super late?”
Johanna removes a faint yellow post-it from a page and tears it up, methodically, sticking each piece on top of the other so the tiny stack grows tiny taller.
No one has said a word since the logo polisher entered and the non-vaping woman uttered “I’ll get you a chair”. It’s 11:41 and at one of these tables, something extraordinary could be happening. Maybe multiple. Possible all, perhaps none. As you read these words, you might think, does the world even need another novel? or else you’re maybe thinking I wish I could write something spectacular or maybe you’re just contemplating which was the last book you read, perhaps it was the forewords to the new Kamala Harris biography or maybe it was the one with the green cover that your partner’s little sister bought you or it was your favourite paperback for the 4th time this morning or it was “grapes of wrath” in your third year of high school or it was never.
I thought your question was actually rather interesting. Does the world even need another novel? I guess one answer could be
well, if not now, have it ever?
You won’t know how to answer this except for art is obviously important but its not the definition of life and death,
and I’ll agree, everybody in the room would agree except for Gideon, the guy writing the “inter series” , he will argue that life is nothing without art, to which the woman in the corner will stare down into the table, keeping her mouth a straight line.
You’re starting to contemplate what you would say, which philosophy you would adopt for the sake of argument, calculating how to be not annoying but at the same time true to your opinions and perhaps even vaguely interesting to the others. But no one would ever let you know how they felt about that potential sentence you’re about to say. They’re not going to say anything at all.
Nobody in this room would openly disagree to anything. They’re not here to argue or agree or disagree, the event specification was very clear, this is not for feedback or reading, this is to activate the ego of the writer and let it run amok. You know this. I’ve told you this.
Do you not remember?
The earphone woman, the one I first described to you, not the one who removed her bracelet but the other one who’s in the couch and realized she knew one of the other women in the group, is clearly a bit restless. She’s rearranged her seating position 6 times during the time we’ve spoken. She looks very serious, somehow more serious than all the other people who are also just being quiet and focused. Maybe it’s the fact that she will stare very directly at nothing for two seconds and then return to her tool. You think, is that a bit sexist maybe, you’re describing the resting bitch face and we don’t really use that phrase anymore,
I am whatever you are thinking
Do you not remember?
The voices in your head have been rather loud recently, a bit harder to shake off. It takes you multiple minutes to realize they’re there, and once you have, they’ll return at least two times before you are finally able to shake them off. This all happens during the course of the walk from the super market back to your apartment, and once you finally look at the colour of the fence you’re walking by, you think, if only I could look at this blue colour all the time, which of course has nothing to do with the blue colour, but rather the fact that you’re noticing it, noticing anything,
are you noticing it?
Everyone stopped writing. No ones’ hands are moving. They’re all staring at different directions. At least two of them are staring at the dried flower decorations on each table, but none of them are really looking at them. This makes you feel both safe and uneasy – how come they stopped? But you think, at least they’re thinking, trying to come up with new words, at least they’re not actually looking at a dried flower decoration,
you’re not looking
the voices in your head have been very, very mundane
they’re not having interesting conversations
they’re what you’re about to say once you enter the bar,
once you make it to the register and take out your credit card,
they’re the phone call you won’t be having with a friend later today,
they remove their empty glances from wherever and redirects them towards whatever’s on their tables. Johanna is writing vigorously. She’s bending her back, face inches from the paper. As she finishes what you’d assume to be a sentence, she snaps back, looking at the paper from a distance. You think, she should get glasses, but you’re not looking carefully,
she’s already wearing glasses,
do you not remember? I told you this. Scroll back up. Rewind. However you’re getting this, adjust your system. You’re not doing great.
The man next to the woman who could be his friend or sister or partner or something else that your imagination isn’t capable of coming up with, starts to pack his computer back into his backpack. He starts ripping of thin plastic from a notebook. I know this, you think, that’s a moleskine and they’re always overpriced. That is correct,
but what use do we have of that observation?
He stops removing the plastic. It’s not come all the way off but he stopped doing it. They’ve all stopped doing what they were doing. And now they’re looking at you.
The sentences you’ve involuntarily rehearsed in your mind won’t do you any good now, because this hasn’t happened before. You’ve got no reference points and all the voices are telling you now is I’m 32, I have 1 cat and have had two abortions, I’m about to get married and my brother’s job just told him he had to relocate from San Francisco to Austin…-
I need you to pay attention now
no one is asking you to say anything
no one is saying anything
they’re all staring at you,
or looking at you
but it might be because the voices in your head have been insistent and you’ve been mouthing answers, frowning your eyebrows, smiling with relief as the non-conversation has been going on and now they’re looking at you,
wondering why you’ve started to speak
why you’ve been saying that the milk have probably gone bad and that the best case scenario really isn’t any good and it hasn’t been since Obama and even more so,
they’re clearly wondering why you’re now
letting them know that you’ve had two abortions and am about to get married
and hey,
stop,
no one is asking you to say anything. No one is asking anything from you. But you’re already up and walking towards the smoothie woman, trying to hug her and telling her how it’s been so great hanging out and that you love her and am so thankful for her taking you to this club, the dj was amazing, I don’t know anything about music but I’m just really so glad you took the take to sort of, you know, adopt me as a friend, it’s been strange not knowing a lot of people and
she’s not responding, not with words or with her arms, you might be scar…-
this is such a meaningful experience and I can’t believe we’ve literally seen each other grow up, how sick is that, we were 9, how lucky are we
you need to get out of here
why should I leave
You’re scaring her
she’s my best friend
the other ones have gotten up as well and know people are talking,
they’re talking to you,
their words have migrated from the pages and screens and are now directed at you,
“are you all right?” or “back off” or “what’s wrong with you?” or “should we call someone?” and now,
Johanna is rearranging her stacks of paper, adding light blue post it notes one at a time.
the coffee cardboard cups seem empty because no one is touching them anymore, they’re scrolling through what they’ve been writing for the past hour,
so are you
the earphone woman, not the bracelet one, is hiding a yawn behind a lazy hand and Gideon is still typing
you might think, where did I go, but one of the voices will tell you that you weren’t here, the other ones will already be speaking to you about groceries and subway lines and you’re bored, bored, bored, but at least I didn’t hurt anyone , that’s true, at least you didn’t hurt any of these people in this room, they’re still writing , and their imaginations are unreachable to you, unattainable forever but not to worry, you’ve got me and your father telling you to not forget to do your taxes soon or your childhood friend or the people you might meet at the bar later or the runner you might accidentally bump into the next time you’re walking down the street
