Pareidolia, 2008 |
Audio transcript for Pareidolia – read by Siobhan and Young 1. (Siobhan) My hair is wild as a banshee; my bones are calcified from salt that lines the Carrickfergus mines; my eyes are made from the peat of muskins, pocosins and mires there’s stout, whisky and cabernet franc in my veins my lips are rouge, dearg, reid the shape of my mouth is an unidentified star, mysterious and illicit as a coupling within, my tongue knows languages that aren’t my own: gaelic, francaise, deutsche, norge this is the skeleton of my story; and here is the skin: my childhood wore secondhand clothes my sole bore 50 pence black pumps made in China my closest acquaintances were a balled fist, a wooden shoe, a belt. At 3, I was launched across the kitchen. Hitting the wall, I passed out At 5, an argument with my sister over how to play the game of Snap led to my father punching me in the face. At 10, I was raised in the air by my feet, shaken like a tumult, then let fall. In My Invented Country, Isabel Allende writes, “the natural unhappiness of childhood was aggravated by a mass of complexes so tangled that even today I can’t list them. Fortunately they left no wounds that time hasn’t healed.” 2. (Young) My hair is dark as a chimera My skin is the colour of a white-naped crane My blood is the mugunghwa’s core Spilled across divided mountains My eyes are a clenched fist, soaked in a well of ink. they gaze and drip in the moon of my face my lips please men, tight and stretched the vessel of my mouth sails across an expanse, that is their desire. within, my tongue knows languages that aren’t my own: english, hangul, deutsche, español this is the skeleton of my story; and here is the skin: my childhood received lavish comforts, my soul bore the hopes of villagers from Korea my closest acquaintances were books and secrets math, comic books and daydreams. At 3, I crawled across the kitchen floor. Sunlight hit the wall, my father smiled. At 10, I felt the touch of another man, his hands moved in, and pulled away. At 20, an argument between my parents over gambling and broken promises led to my mother coiling a belt around her throat. In Imaginary Homelands, Salman Rushdie writes: “It may be that artists in my position, exiles or emigrants or expatriates, are haunted by a sense of loss, some urge to reclaim, to look back, even at the risk of being mutated into pillars of salt. But if we do look back, we must do so in the knowledge – which gives rise to profound uncertainties – that our physical alienation from our homeland almost inevitably means that we will not be capable of reclaiming precisely the things that was lost; that we will in short, create fictions, not actual cities and villages, but invisible ones, imaginary homelands, habitats of the mind.” 3. (Siobhan and Young) We are different. We are: (Young) male (Siobhan) female (Young) American (Siobhan) English (Young) Irish (Siobhan) Korean (Young) French (Siobhan) Scottish (Young) A question-mark (Siobhan) A black hole We are: (Young) Artist (Siobhan) Poet (Young) Photograph (Siobhan) Pen (Young) Metaphor (Siobhan) Image (Young) tabula rasa (Siobhan) blank canvas We are: (Young) Straight (Siobhan) Gay (Young) Happy (Siobhan) Depressed (Young) Blue (Siobhan) Pink (Young) White (Siobhan) Yellow (Young and Siobhan) Gold (Young and Siobhan) We are old (Young and Siobhan) We are young We are: (Young and Siobhan) hair and skin, epithelium and keratin, our bodies meld into any location, taking on the properties of that landscape, like chameleons, blind spots, black holes. (Young and Siobhan) We are timeless. (Young and Siobhan) We are newly arrived. (Young and Siobhan) We have been here forever (Young and Siobhan) We are outsiders. (Young and Siobhan) We belong Recorded at The University of Auckland sound studio. Mixed by audio technician, Jeanette McKerchar. |