Legendary. And other words used this weekend.

Our Survival is Contingent Upon Joy

Today's guest-wit is Dalia Yedidia, regular Thick Wit contributor and writer. A Bay Area Native and one-time New Yorker, she is currently living in Chicago. Dalia has worked on a number of civic and political campaigns and was one of the millions who attended the ceremonies in Grant Park. Here she shares an open letter to those of us living in the argument of activism in these United States.
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Companer@s, friends, family, people of the world living and breathing today,

Earlier, I received this email (excerpt pasted below), and my first reaction was an anger I am not familiar with, as I do not feel it often.

[If you don't want any rain on your Obama-parade, do not continue reading; if you are willing to read what you already know, but may have succeeded in quieting its powerful truth into a small dark corner of the brain, especially considering the raucous tears and screams last night from people like my mother, who immigrated to this country from Bogota during the McCarthy era, and the father of my baby cousins, who bought inauguration tickets back when Obama announced his candidacy in 2007 with the feeble hope that he and his daughter (my Mia) could be in DC for the inauguration of the first president that "looks kinda like Papa" (Mia commenting on Barack Obama's resemblance of her own father), then please proceed.]

EXCERPT:

Compas, I think it is important to remember what Obama's role is. This is a man who
a) was running to be the commander and chief of our imperialist, military (thats what the president is).
b) has all the tools from the Bush administration (patriot act, momentum towards un-ending war in the middle east) with none of the criticism from the people that the Bush admin had.
c) is not trying to pull out of the middle east, and has said that he is going to escalate in Afganistan (bombing of civilians and villages), and has said that he is ready to go into Pakistan and Iran (2 more countries in this protracted war for control of whole people groups and countries)
d) has said that 'the law must be upheld' when asked about the Sean Bell shooting (Bell was a young black man shot 50 times by the police on the night before his wedding at his bachelor party, you guys have heard of this). Obama didn't say a word about police repression, the disproportionate number of black people incarcerated, nothing. He said 'the law must be upheld"
e) He blamed Black families and fathers in his 'Fathers Day Speech' for the number of Black youth that are on the streets and in jail, rather than say anything about how the system demands that their be the under and un-employed to further capitalist ends, rather than say anything about the school-to-prison pipeline and privatized prisons gaining from the huge prison population
f) he hasnt said shit about immigrants or the raids waged by the ICE to deport huge amounts of people without documents.
Obama isn't a reason for celebration at all...

Like I said, my first reaction was utter resistance to the words and their meaning, a frustration and seething incoherence that could only be healed by writing this blog entry: Why can't we just celebrate for one day? Why does this have to mean so much of our hope and momentum toward believing in change must be rendered false, inaccurate, or merely a product of a government-controlled media that preys on contrived "historic moments" that in reality signify empty paradigm shifts and the same old system with a new fresh face?


After walking with my initial anger, I began to process it more clearly, and link it to a dissatisfaction, firmly rooted irritation, and subtle fear I have relating to social actors, activists (self-identified), movers, shakers, party people with an eye on radical change, and all those who believe that another world is possible, in my life. This annoyance on a good day, and bottomless sadness on a not-as-good day, spawns from my observations and conversations with so many people around the idea that we, people working toward change in whatever capacity, are hypercritical, soul-sucking individuals who are ultimately unable to be satisfied due to our sharpened involuntary reaction to dissect, and therefore, destroy, any ounce of potential forward-movement. And while we could argue about happiness and joy's worth or actual clout in a world shrouded in white supremacist hetero-patriarchal smog, for me at least, laughter, fun, celebration, and all those other seemingly meaningless and trite words of yesteryear are vital to my survival. Denying that fact is dehumanizing, on an individual and collective scale.

This idea that 'us rads can't never be happy', or we just criticize everything to the point of disintegration, disinterest, or disbelief, is not new. Contrary to being an original thought, it's a topic I've spoken with many of you about many times, though clearly it does not cease to plague my daily judgment with meta-judgment, or to allow my unconscious knee-jerk bickering with the world each morning go unchecked as I routinely switch to bickering with myself about bickering. This fear of our collective ability to extend beyond critique and dissatisfaction, in the end though, truly relates to me (read: PROJECTING) and my worry that I, too, am individually unable to just be happy, be okay, be satisfied, be.

Relating my emotional (and therefore entire) state of being back to Obama--because he seems to be all anyone's talking about today, Wednesday, November 5, 2008, which also happens to be my own brother's 24th birthday, as well as the day that election results confirmed that California, my home state, voted to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry (the right was passed almost 6 months ago, in May of this year): As it stands, today it is impossible for me to just feel one thing, and that thing be overwhelming positivity, because of who was elected president of a country I still don't know if I can call my own on November 4, 2008. As much as I would like to blame the email I received (excerpt above) as the source of my internal conflict, that is false. As much as I want to say that the email was written by some cynical anti-capitalist who hates everything and is incapable of feeling happiness due to not having enough love, support, delicious food, good sex or people they admire in their life, I know I cannot because their face, politics, and sentiment are too often reflected in my own. I could have just as easily written that email and included reasons from a-z about why "Obama isn't a reason for celebration at all…"

So why am I, are we, so goddamn critical? What gave me the self-righteous privilege, and time and resources, to never want "to settle"? Could it be because I'm young, and, unlike my parents, I don't and will never know what life was like prior to the Civil Rights Movement? Or is it because I just have that youthful vigor and still have the ability to expend all that energy on demanding higher standards and being willing to say that good enough really is NOT good enough? Or maybe it's a combination of those possibilities (a big maybe) along with the idea that "People are complicated," which is a favorite saying that means absolutely nothing and everything all at once that someone I know happens to use too much. That someone also said that what matters is what we do the other 364 days of the year, because voting takes 5 minutes (or 5 hours, depending on your geographic location) out of your day, and then we got the rest of our lives to act (or not).

I have received so many emails in the last 24 hours from friends and random folks I must be cosmically connected to, that wrote emails, blog entries, poems and little snippets of truth beautiful, eloquent, and incredibly inspiring forms. The words, aside from actually igniting some petty jealousy in my choosy-heart that is always aspiring to become one of those people who says that "writing just comes easily to me," moved and challenged me deeply. Your words have pushed me not just to write this mediocre, unfocused post-Obama bandwagon banter you are currently trudging through, but to keep writing and dialoguing about these issues that are layered in ways I'm only starting to uncover, thanks to your probing eyes. I am grateful to you, who constantly push me, and in turn all of us, to be resilient, open warriors and artists who are forgiving in all the ways I still must learn because you are firm in your ideologies, but more than that you believe in the human capacity to change. Maybe you're saying, "Who is this 'you' Dalia is talking about? Is she about to get all vague and hippy-dippy and pull the s-word (society) out on our asses too?" But I am talking to you, to anyone who found one reason to be grateful today, to be giddy, to thoughtfully offer criticism and worry not without hope and care, to believe in the possibility of our coalescing spirits while remaining rooted in the knowledge we gain, and have gathered since birth, everyday through our lived experiences.

In closing, I will speak directly to my birth-state: Oh, California. Above all, you are the momentous proof of the work to be done that anyone who maintained their semi-melted brain throughout Obamania constantly references. California, you are my strongest witness to another world being possible (The Bay), and to the fact that this process building our many other worlds is neither pure nor linear.

But the joy and the connection I felt last night to others, as I have on countless other unsung days and nights, including with many of you at rallies, marches, in kitchens, backyards, backseats of old Volvos and on the street, was real. It confirms that we will continue as strong people, regardless of charismatic leaders who claim to guide us toward change or fundamentalist propositions that threaten our identities. We have been, and can only continue, to do good work every day of the year. If anything, the first Tuesday in November this year allowed me a space to acknowledge all of the beauty I have been fortunate enough to participate in or hear about through those I love, and I can only hope it offered the same for you.

Lastly, let us not forget that it is not just easy, but crucial towards our acceptance and celebration of our own humanity--of that need to connect to and with others, to believe in our capacity to change, to become a part of an energy, a movement that is larger than the self and the truest testament to our belief and action toward real transformation--it becomes more than a mere need, to rejoice. Our survival is contingent upon our ability and the opportunities there are to express joy.

I pray for more in all of our lives.

love and pieces,
dalia.

Three Videos to Save Your Life.

I've been on hiatus for a while, swamped in work. I realize that if you've been coming here to get my opinions on things election related I have failed you. Failed miserably. You've met and hated Palin without me. You've already voted No on 8 by absentee ballot. So, I'm not going to preach Barack to the converted. That would be a bridge to nowhere.

What you might not know is exactly how some of my compatriots have been organizing in the past weeks to inject their own voices into electoral politics. Errytime I look up, a friend of mine is shining in an issue-related web based video. Through the gMagic of embedding, I can share their brilliance with you.

Take a look see, and I promise promise stick a needle in my eye promise I'll get back on my Thickwit grind this week.

My girl Kelly Tsai's "Black White Whatever"



My people at 247townhall.org present
"If I Were President" Starring Mos Def.



Oakland's Own Lee West with Generation We

the break/s nyc.

Thickwit Fam--

I know I haven't written anything in a while. That's mostly cause I'm on my hustlin ass grind. I promise to write more if the NYC people come out to see the break/s. My mentor and best friend at his absolute finest. Dance Theater Storytelling. Hip Hop Theater Festival has a special $25 rate, and the show runs Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this week at NYU.

See the Hip Hop Theater Fest site for details.

Evaluating Eracism (brought to you by the Clorox Corporation)

Two times for your mind: Jose Vadi is the first guest wit to write twice. He's originally from the 909 but has spent time in Washington, DC, and makes his home in the San Francisco Bay Area. This makes him, undoubtedly, an All-American Thick Wit. Like Forrest Gump in The White House. Don't drink the Dr. Pepper, Jose. Here's his second posting. And a new flick of him. Holler Black youngins.
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it was a night for walking and thankfully i was in oakland.

an evening for aimlessness, i found a new pizza spot, walked through some construction sites (why not?), checked out all the graf pieces on Valdez by the basketball courts, even saw my friend's name on one of the backboards...and then i passed by this bus stop on grand and harrison --



however pissed, i knew i had to just get my eracism kit together. it erases racism. literally. not like the slogan on the t-shirt, nor the record label, but like some actual wax-on-wax-off-racism-shite. peep --



there's some sponges and a dry towel in there for cleaning purposes as well. you don't want the city to think you're dirtier than the filth you're trying to erase.

here's the skinny: spray, scrub, clean. three steps, no more n-bombs dropped at your local bus stop. i'm not the biggest advocate of non-gang-related-graffiti removal or incarcerating taggers (or calling them 'taggers'), just as i don't advocate skate stoppers, or any form of city-sponsored public defamation that makes the city only uglier, however more 'safe' in the process. but i am an advocate of taking things upon yourself and doing something, or at least trying, and however general or vague that may sound, it becomes quite specific when encountering something like the subject of this blog: a bus stop.

7.98 counter-clockwise swipes later...



...i quickly and reluctantly realized that my custodial activism did very little to change the world. at least not immediately. i would have had to put out a press release that someone wrote something i didn't like on a random bench in oakland and that i had the gusto to make a change (which is bullshit), which would all probably garner more attention for the unknown author who might play off the whole incident as "just joking around" with a sharpie en tow. maybe i ran back with a bag full of cleaning products for the hypothetical parent who would have to explain to his inquisitive child what the N-word really meant. all in all, yes, it was a selfish act -- i was wiping out an opinion that I deemed racist and appalling (which it is) and just did not want to see that in the neighborhood where i live.

to be honest, even by attempting to make a change, i was still slighting some part of my social conscious. i used a few sprays of Formula 409 and Ashby-Bart-Windex to erase the sharpie scribbles. a quick google search revealed how Clorox, who owns Formula 409, was named as one of the "dangerous dozen" chemical companies, according to the Public Interest Research Group in 2004. so there's my small contribution to the global warming problem, in the name of eracism.

eventually i had to ask myself, If the words were the same but somehow bent toward the absurd and sarcastic, would i have laughed it off as comedy and walked past? If the dialogue was surrounded by a speech bubble and the 'artist' indicated that the white commentators were saying such racist lines, that it was their speech bubble, would i have deemed that opinion okay?

the odd thing is that this scribbling on this bus stop was contextualized to contemporary events, but mixed with old racist ideologies; theologies that have taken generations and bloodshed and entire wars to even attempt to reconcile on paper as law, let alone see the effects resonate in our daily thoughts as Americans. even white supremacists are contextualizing their movement in response to the 2008 election, many believing that Obama's possible victory will be the catalyst for a white uprising.

political or politicized public art has always had an effect on the populace -- look at the controversy Banksy started when he hit up the West Bank. If you know anyone from Cuba or who has visited, they will tell you about the murals decrying capitalism, one of the few places where you will see DEATH TO IMPERIALISM emblazoned and unscathed on a public wall. granted, these types of images are state-sponsored, but nonetheless public visuals that are imbued within the minds of the daily populace. and on a local government level, go to any small suburb from my hometown in southern California, the Inland Empire, and you will see banners in most towns with the names of every kid from that town who is fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. how can't the images we see everyday outside our doorstep affect our perceptions and opinions?

as i was walking home, a man with a green jacket that i believe used to be once white and new asked me for change and i apologized and walked by. at the end of the day the only thing you're left with for sure is not the effects of your actions, but whether or not you acted in the first place. i walked home realizing i would much rather garner my merit badge for liberalism by applying 409 to AC Transit property than giving a buck to dude by the lake. and really, what did i do instead? what replaced that five second exchange of dollar-bill-to-hand? i took a picture of the lake. and walked away. with a new found sense of confusion/guilt chased with whatever accomplishment i could hear swishing from my man purse with every increasing step i made steadily, towards home.

C+ :: A New Day's Risin'

Today's Thickwit is an entrepreneur, political organizer and style genius. He writes today about his burgeoning enterprise and social movement, C+. He likes more old school jams than he cares to admit and hob nobs with first graders and future first ladies alike. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you thank you, you're far too kind. A legend in his own time-- Christopher Mueller.

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I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how its going to begin.

The Matrix ::

What is this "matrix" we so often speak of? Ah yes, the system. That perpetual treadmill that is so difficult to step off of. No need to waste time defining it, since we seem to have this intuitive sense of what that system is, though a comprehensive definition is seemingly elusive, since the network that binds the matrix together is so shrouded in darkness. How, then, does the matrix maintain?

Culture ::

Our capitalist system survives by (among many things) the existence of a capitalist, consumer culture. This consumer culture acts as a design to living and is patterned for interpreting the world around you. In other words, it is constructed specifically to serve as a lens through which you come to interpret and understand your reality.

Brands ::

Brands develop pseudo spiritual meaning systems by appropriating human qualities, emotions, characteristics, and ideals, attaching compelling visual and sound elements, and associating their symbols with them. Ultimately, in a consumer society, this mediates our ability to construct authentic identities and communities. We are a nation of Saturn Families, Safeway Club Members, Nike Athletes, Toys R Us Kids and Starbucks Communities. We consume to belong, and as an outer-directed people, we come to reflect and project the images that exist most immediately in our visual landscape.

Imagemakers ::

Our ability to construct an attractive appearance is done with First World advancement, yet our inner world is impoverished like the Fourth, Fifth and Six. We are an outer-directed people, trapped so close to the surface that we have become exiled there. We cultivate a pedagogy of exteriority, but where does that leave us? Commodity rich and spiritually poor.

We Live to Work. We Work to Consume. We Consume until nothing is left. And it all goes back in the box. We are masters of the Monopoly Board, bored out of our minds, mind's eye wide Lasik surgeried shut.

So what is the answer?

(among many)

See Plus.

See More.

See Beyond Context.

Enhance our vision.

What we visualize is what we become.

"Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak. But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled." - Jon Berger, Ways of Seeing

The thought process gives rise to actions. If it is behavior we hope to change, we've got to revisualize and reframe the images and ideas that govern that thought process.

Vision as an ancient metaphor for human spiritual insight, has a history so robust, that it doesn't need much explanation. I was blind but now I see. Seeing the light. Where there is no vision the people perish. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. These are just a few examples of how vision comes to signify transformation and enlightenment.

Even your favorite rappers spit it to you. Jay-Z says, "I wish you insight so you can see for yourself." Nas says, "As I grow yearly, I can see things more clearly, thats why they fear me." The metaphor is everywhere. Think about it. Look for it.

C+ = See Plus. C+ is hidden in the form of a letter and a symbol because we have a tendency to look no further than the surface, proving a mediocre sense of symbol literacy. What did you think C+ meant? Maybe a letter grade? Maybe that computer language?

In retaining the philosophical depth beneath the letter and symbol, C+, we hope to begin a habitual process to question all images and seek the meaning beneath all surfaces. It is our belief that seeing beyond the boundaries of difference, to see the commonality of "us," and the humanity we all share, will begin a process of social and cultural transformation, in a very positive direction.

Are you serious?? ::

We know its an ambitious idea. We also know its a bit contradictory to house such a progressive idea into such a regressive entity, a brand. But you have to experience the game in order to have any idea about how to improve it. If it were up to us, we'd have written a few books, but not enough young people read. We'd have developed a school curriculum but not everyone has the privilege to attend quality schools. And besides, we're so much better at cultivating ignorance.

Everyday we are bombarded with visual messages. Those messages piece together to form our perceptions of the world around us, ultimately governing our behavior. Again, improving the quality of the image, improves the thought process, which improves the actions that arise from that thought process. We thought to slip our ideas into the conversation, since the language of consumption seems to be the most proliferated.



So we began a project, called C+, based on the universal sensory experience of vision. We seek clarity in our sight. We seek a more worldly, humanitarian perspective. We seek to break old paradigms, and uplift new ones. We seek to re-frame our visual dialog. We seek sight beyond context. We seek circumspection. We seek to beautify our visual landscape, and to diminish the overwhelming clutter. We seek to construct new, positive imagery. We choose light over darkness.

We serve you, in hopes that you will seek forward progress with us.



The product is a conduit for an idea, and the enterprise of selling the product sustains our dialog with you. What were once the building blocks of our creative identity and imagination, now in a new context, become a metaphor for visual enhancement. Have a look.



A New Beginning ::

Improvement begins when we question the assumptions that form the foundation of our worldview, to deconstruct the perceptions we have, to challenge the limitations of our vantage point, to see beyond the surface of an image, to seek alternative perspectives beyond our own, to look past the boundaries of ideological divisions...to seek clarity in our vision.

Re-visualize your notion of what is truth, and bear witness to it, in all its neckidness.




I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world...without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries...a world...where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

It all depends on how you see it.

C+



visit C+ Jewelry to participate in the effort to reframe our visual dialog, and for some fresh jewelry.

The night is dark before dawn. And day is coming.

Bear Witness.

C+

Why It's Okay to Write About Deceased Peoples from the 1960s: Jimi & Me

Dalia Rubiano Yedidia is a mixed(up) kid who likes matching, organizing--not of the Excel spreadsheet variety, and has an unhealthy yet loving relationship with fried foods of all kinds. She has made a habit of (un)inhabiting multiple places that she desperately uses as remedy for her perpetual feeling of lack. Having moved 8 times in the last 2 years, she currently finds herself in Chicago, writing for the first time in a while and loving sticky summer. She is painfully insightful and an uncanny judge of character. Dalia is the epitome of thick wit. Curvy and no holds barred, we're honored to have her featured.
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Some artists control my inspiration thresh-hold, altering every book and movie and song and image I ingest thereafter, like the first time I witnessed the witching hour and watched the sun wash out the stars, or excruciatingly realizing that my mom, like the rest of us, surrenders to pain and mortality sincerely, quietly . After the 7th grade or so, these geniuses, with crippling thoughts that they manage to generously share and poignantly impose, have rarely been musicians. However, using up my one-time only 'free pass' to write about a dead rocker from the 60s, here's my ode to Jimi Hendrix and his supernatural power over me. Go ahead: add it to the list. Diverging from one of our favorite pastimes as writers, which is one of the most common motivators for us to actually get down to business and write for once, I am not trying to 'stroke the ego' combining my nimble fingers and fast internet connection. This is not Dalia trying to subtly scream the "oh-my-god-let-me-tell-you-all-the-reasons-why-I-love-him-more-than-you-
and-am-more-familiar-with-his-discography-than-you-ever-could-be-and-am-
far-superior-to-any-other-fan-because-I-know--that-he-hated-trimming-his-
toenails-and-was-allergic-to-night-shade-vegetables [eggplant, tomato, mandrake, and the like]" type of intellectual masturbation. Nope, my relationship with Jimi, though it does include a number of rotations around the sun since the first time I heard Voodoo Child, has nothing to do with a hardcore authentic pure fanatic blood-spilled-willingly history. I've only owned one album of his my entire life, and, inflaming my already infamous rosy cheeks, it's a compilation.

Yet, something within my tangled hair and archetypical teen desire to belong is wrenched raw with each measure of precariously balanced guitar and drums that clasp their lyrics steadily, soothing my longing and confusion unlike any piece of writing, carton of McDonalds' fries, or execution of my frequent impulse to flee to a new city. My first exposure when I was five years old was not a random and beautifully romantic personal choice that we sometimes stumble across in our childhoods, and now share with pride on first dates or Facebook. Nope, it was actually an involuntary listening to Electric Lady Land via my older brother's tape player. How's that for a big bro watching out for his hermanita?

Since this un-noteworthy (and clearly undeserving of a piece of writing) primary encounter and subsequent purchase of the Jimi Hendrix Experience during my record-buying middle school days, Jimi has entered and exited my life quietly, and yet noticeably, many times. Growing up in San Francisco, my next door neighbor's ex-husband invented the Light Show, the ingenious visual orgy that mixes colors and fluid formations with music and pulsating body movements; an 'art experience' whose soundtrack easily included a Hendrix song or two. Naturally, Hendrix was on frequent rotation next door, in addition to the few tepid hits (comparatively to his full library) like Foxy Lady and Purple Haze on the local old white rocker radio station. And yet, as I non-challantly dismiss his popular anthems, I can't help but allow the little hairs that dot my forearms begin to raise just thinking about the guitar intro to the latter and its impending epic explosion of poetry and riff and mayhem.


He also became a facet of my daily listening and tonal memory to the Freedom Summer of 2007, where a good-friend-turned-more-turned-tragedy put, in my humble (literally, as you now know) opinion, one of his most powerfully written and gorgeously vibrated ditties, Bold as Love, on a mixtape dubbed the soundtrack of that Summer. While this majestic musical magnum opus of a mere 4 minutes is now quite obviously and painfully connected to a loss deep and familiar like July Chicago heat or the wrinkles around my Abuelita's eyeballs, I refuse to believe that this is the only reason Jimi affects me so.

Listening to him is an urgency wound into words too tight and fragile to mention. It is a change in mood, breeze, a captivating hurt that won't let go of the wrists and ankles; it is not easy-listening. Even as I lay here, attempting to write about music -- which we all know is like 'dancing about architecture" -- I cannot play him unassumingly in the background, fading in and out of my Sunday night thoughts that include calculating how long I'll actually have to stay at work tomorrow, or what the "..." really meant in that ambiguous text message from someone whose face I can't quite pull together from my Friday night excursions (?). No, Jimi demands complete attention of my body, my ears, my sensory memory and my willingness to surrender control. Digesting his vibrations is like watching the sunset fracture the Pacific Ocean from Taraval and 48th Avenue with Nano and his dad, a frantic, wired professor who trails off chaotically about how sunsets are one of those rare collection of moments that only get prettier as time stretches forth. He claims that only the older generation, bruised by nostalgia and dripping with the desire to impart knowledge, can truly discern them. The clouds fade into a limitless foam and the sky folds deep into its own routine of detaching and allowing night to cloak us with possibility.

I've recently found myself wishing life into a more linear course, only becoming more beautiful with each inch of time she reluctantly reveals to us. But somehow, while Jimi is just like the sunset and my unsatisfied youth, which currently lies within my unanswered--and typically selfish and implausible--prayer for a manageable life path, he is also the epitome of that capricious pattern of longing, knowing, mourning, melding, falling, and shaping that all of us are too familiar with before we even wake up each day, before we remember we are breathing. He holds me down in a way that is incomplete, vast; each bar is filled with waiting and fragmented disbelief, making it both unsettling and wholly transformative. No one will ever have me quite like he does, but then again, despite my certainty of his now familiar grasp, each chord beckons the nameless, spirals of seconds determined to unfurl. Until that twisted and bitter root called love finds its way into this half-step shuffle to complete that paradox, I'll have to keep giving myself to a rainbow like you.