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epistle log 4our
severe thunderstorm warning
you know, a lot goes down in a week and a half . . . but i get ahead of myself (so eager i am, so long ago it seems i last had this release [which also caused much tension and many questions], but, enough, forward)
i was watching the x files (one of the few things i will still watch, but enough of the parentheticals, i need no justification for my actions) and a severe thunderstorm watch advisement rolled across the bottom of the screen. this sort of thing is more common than breathing in the ohio river valley from late winter to late fall, so i didn't much notice it, except to wonder if i should unplug all of the expensive equipment i have plugged into the wall of this fine piece of engineering i call kuhlman hall. but, fez (who i should hate but can't help but like [sound familiar?]) almost jumped out of his seat rejoicing. i was more than puzzled until he pointed out that he hadn't seen a thunderstorm YET in cincinnati; and, in that light, since he had left home.
this hit me for two reasons. 1) i realized that i hadn't seen a good thunderstorm since . . . i don't know when and 2) i had come more and more to see cincy and louisville as essentially similar towns with opposing politics and cultures, but geographically and meteorologically almost identical. all this gone to naught with some cheesy letters obscuring the sensory delight of the x files (has anyone seen one of those advisories during a commercial? it seems to me i only see them during shows. hmmmmm . . .). but, now with the windows open and the lights off, the flicker of lightning casting macabre shadows across the angular landscapes and figures of egon schiele (anyone else reminded of aeon flux?) and the "delicate sound of thunder" mixing divinely with the sounds of david pajo noodling (aerial m = good idea) brings back a certain nostalgia.
for what? power outages and loss of cable tv?
no. for the cleansing power of hard rain: not a shower, but a good downpour, with all of the fire and brimstone of old testament wrath (and probably a new box office failure) (hard rain? the sequel: severe thunderstorm warning? i bite my nail in anticipation!) for the way the sky turns purple, not from the glow of the city, but it seems from the restless static energy in the air, binding everyone within its barometric reach, anxious stillness surrounding.
i wrote this once: "it's a really strange day: overcast but only drizzly. a tension wraps everything i see, as if i'm waiting for some cataclysmic action to rend the binding pressure like a single drop of rain that strikes your face the instant before a sky opens itself and looses a torrent upon the hard baked dirt and scorched grass."
my view of art is based on tension and release. it is evident in my musical tastes as well as pathetic compositions (impasse tapes and 7" singles still on sale) but explains my love of any project involving j noble, j mueller, tj oneal, r cox, ks ritcher, d scharrin, b weston, and any of the tortoise/5ive style/the sea and cake guys.
well, my midwestern fixation with the weather is based on the same obsession with tension and release. the incredible tension when you can taste the latent energy of the air, feel the pressure of descending clouds, smell the rain over the river: this delicious tension, pierced by a single rain drop, cutting through all of this stasis, exploding the tension into a catharsis of cleansing rain.
plop.
like crying i guess. or maybe it's my vicarious substitution for crying, as that release has been gone from me for so long now. i've always loved to stand and watch the rain come at me, the reverse vertigo of watching an accelerating ball of liquid fall through the layer of potential, to release its calculated surface tension across your face, windshield, window, glasses. release and release and release.
this tension has been building within me: multiple fronts converging over the river valley of my soul, slowly descending, increasing the pressure, reveling in the tension.
waiting.
it seems to me now that this has gone on for so long, an unrequited desire for release filling me so completely that my only prayer, my only wish, my only desire is "for resolution with a spit of sincerity." the pressure is mounting, i can taste the tension, and i smell the rain on the air.
so i issue a severe thunderstorm warning for the following counties: anywhere i can reach.
03|09|98