that harvard kid

Nominal

The compulsion to write is embedded in the doctrine of human affairs. It is in our psychology, the impulse to communicate. And to share stories, true, false or otherwise, is in that evolutionary condition. We innovate like young lieutenants on a warfront, trying to convey the distinctly novel while timidly assimilating the knowledge of years past. Authors, television anchors, corporate figureheads have all appreciated that bitter struggle between apprentice and master; between reading and writing.

An excerpt from a student in my Social Economics course at Millson College. Despite the regurgitation from lecture, the poor use of simile, the confusing and possibly contrived set of three workers, I sense he is approaching a real thought towards the end of his blue book, a shame perhaps that the exam only ran for an hour and a half. What clever deduction about the human condition might have escaped his hands?

We discuss the conventional topics in our marble floored halls. We employ the dichotomy of nominal and real to its extreme and question it. What we affix to things, that power we give it by naming it, possibly Biblical, is fundamental to existence. It is fundamental like the struggle between reading and writing: our names in themselves mean nothing believed only by a rogue; only with a compliant cohort does it become relevant. Then these nominals take on real value, extinguishing themselves only as the language and society themselves erode. Symbolic generation. The creation and destruction of meanings in markets, Schumpeterian, keeps the underlying social contract relevant and understood.

The students often file in quietly to my lectures, aware of my sternness, my acrimony for ignorant questions and unabashed hand-raisers. Lectures are an escape from interaction. I speak and they listen, annotate, record. Those who do not want to come are not welcome. I speak with the precision of a physicist exhorting the finer points of his incisive proof and the rigorous dullness that becomes inescapable at forty-three. I imagine that there are more exciting speakers, but no more exciting material than we cover. Hear the voices of science churning to answer the questions of life, of dynamic social interactions, of government and psychology. In mid-lecture I sometimes become passionate, my striding pace quickens, my hands wave more fluidly. Then I see the students smile their attending curious smiles. They type or write in their code, bulleted and in Times New Roman or perhaps with loopy o’s and undotted i’s. They wear the shirts of contemporary bands, of their respective dorms, of their culture expressed through the market system, itself excited to innovate with progressively more imitative art. The shirts in particular are a fascinating time-series. The frequency of collared-shirts, densely populated in the front rows contrasted with the cliques of girls hiding towards the sides beneath Millison sweatshirts. In a few weeks, they reorganize as the girls in sweatshirts begin dating those with a need to declare their musical preference with clothing; they separate from their herd only to be reunited with them after Spring break. The collared shirt crowd sometimes puts on the suit and tie, ostensibly for an interview with a financial firm. Sometimes one or two stop coming altogether, disappointing me most. These are not my contemporaries, they are more important. These are those who in their casual judgments decide the life expectancy of my thoughts. Despite my disregard, I am dependent. I fear they know this, too.

In the background of my life there is a murmur of solitude. Perhaps it explains my compulsion to write. Perhaps it explains the absence of my wife, long separated now. The solitude is in bed with my personality, the two conniving pieces of my life that have worked in unison, feeding upon one another. A positive feedback mechanism, my students would tell me. I have meaning because of my contributions to the literature. My contributions to society are tangible in the papers written and cultural analyses that have made my students a self-selected and prestigious group. They are mine. I know their names and histories, their stories. They are the ones I will give anything to. At office hours, I hear their academic struggles and they hear my personal ones. At lecture I become the analytic animal; in person, the social animal.

Still, loneliness pervades my life. After the year passes and my select seniors graduate, the most I hear from them are what is written in the college newspaper. The college paper, the unimaginatively named “Times,” has the cloudlike sensation of ivory-tower delights. It bears the burden of fact with the restless guile of indolent, casual sensibilities borne in the undergraduate ethos. Sparkling champagne and cheap beer, discarded pizza boxes, uneaten cafeteria food, ambiguous regretful hookups and misguided after-school events litter the social scene. Nothing here pretends to be more than camp for the well-educated and the well-endowed.

I was wrong, it does pretend. I pretend. I pretend for the sake of advancement, that if I redefine the environment; if I write a constitution, contribute in to the ethos, it will change. Let it become something.

The letter from my wife that night said, “The papers have been filed today. I missed you Eric, but I am not going to let my life go by.” That was real.

Wanderer

The peaks lay with valleys in between
Where the daughters are thrown at night,
Thinner blood on the mortal scale
Hollow bones and a hollow life.

Faded

Camera lens, find me:
See my hairless skin, my soul
Touch upon my back,
With a hard flash.
The obscurities in focus,
A bargain model.

answers shortly thereafter

Frozen, in dim curtain time
Pale and black we wait, we pray
For company, in the parlor
A wrinkled toddler whines, aged
Whispers and breathing, mildly
Because death is among us,
Raspy and foreign.

Redemption

“it was just a kiss? darling, what is just a kiss?”

I waited for you by the patio steps
Holding a bouquet of flowers and keeping my breath
When I saw you with him
You looked straight through me,
There’s redemption in those eyes,
I braced for the lies,
Because there’s nothing to share,
He’s standing right there
At the door to our house,
She buttons her blouse..

There is something to be said for love,
Something to be said for many things,
I don’t know where the trouble is,
But my troubles sure found me.

I opened the door from the patio steps
Holding flowers for a heart that already left,
I remembered you, and what you’d said
About not being satisfied.
Commitment slurred by the wine,
Our kids are resting their heads
As you slip into bed,
I figure out where to go,
It’s your silhouette on the window.

There is something to be said for love,
Something to be said for a lot of things,
I don’t understand much of this,
What am I supposed to be?

I opened the door to the local hotel,
Where I found Mary Jane ringing the bell,
Booked a room and Jane came inside,
I told her “no,”
At least for tonight,
Passed her my flowers,
We lay there for hours
She told me everything
Married and divorced, living the American dream
In a duplex house on 120 Penny Street.

There is something to be said for love,
Something that eludes me,
Softer now do our voices call,
So much more quietly

For the girl of my dreams,
The boy of her fantasy,
All the more quietly

Piano Keys

Quietly, we turn, we dance
To drown ourselves in a room so full of others,
I am blue, the saint of doting mothers,
For a porcelain world I could not see
So pale and wistfully passing
Cast to appeal, things on the side,
Listen to children because they have
Nothing sinking, only suffered cries.

One, I’m not sure what Larry Summers said wrote all those years ago. I read the transcript today and was kind of hoping for something scandalous. Instead, the worst is that, by a back of the envelope estimate, differences in proportions of women in math and science might be due to differences in variability. “I don’t know the answer, but I think that if people want to move the world on this question, they have to be willing to ask the question in ways that could face any possible answer that came out.” - From “Remarks at NBER Conference on Diversifying the Science and Engineering Workforce” Or: How I Learned to Say Quasi-Offensive Things and Lose My Harvard Presidency.

Two,  

*Before I myself become a pariah (not that I’m well-known enough to be one), I want to establish my view of the sentiment of the comic. That is, that group generalizations are made when it comes to women but men are treated as individuals. There’s also an undercurrent of truth, dynamically related between the social perception of girls in high school math (the intro calculus in the comic), the reinforcing experiences of seeing mostly boys in math, and so many other things someone should write an essay or a speech about where to begin studying the issue.

Blood is red like love.

She was the kind of girl who makes you write. Write after a long day, sitting in your threaded shirt that you wear three days in a row because it’s her favorite and nobody minds. And you find yourself missing out on essays and poetry in favor of a diary entry that hopes to catch what happened in that blur of hours where we’d done what – hold hands? talk about life? do the simple things? It’s like eating vegtable soup with a fork. Oh, yes, see these entries tend to devolve into freshman metaphors and simile.

My favorite scene: wire-iron chairs seating the contented couple outside some small-city café, they are discussing the laissez-faire ethos. Let’s get a little closer, not enough to interrupt but to hear Jean tell me, “Why for the world would you dare give up something wonderful now for something just as good later? Only the most patient man does not see a difference between having x now and x later.” Please notice her smile, curiously hidden behind a bookish take on something simple. My reply, reflecting my not being a philosophy major, “but sometimes, I think, we wait for something because we enjoy the pursuit.” Haven’t we all chosen not to sleep with someone we could to enjoy the space between first kiss and comsummation? as if the climax portends the inevitable decline.

Again, on an airplane turning miles and I wonder what was it that made soda taste better in the cabin upon the sky than at a restaurant on ground. I’m noticing that, unlike margarine and butter which were once indistinguishable, I’m losing the ability to taste air-Coke as better than regular. Was there really no difference: was it merely a childhood imagination back when flying was novel? Or was there a genuine difference: something to do with consistency and air pressure and tiny carbonated water molecules? Look at Jean drink her Coke; she does not think about it and there is no need to. Like many others, I will not share this story. I will not complicate her life.

I can hear Jean’s voice put me to sleep after a long day; she had compassionate instincts, a warm eye for distress. Only when I couldn’t respond would she open up to me. In the restaurant, only when food was served and my mouth full. In the bed, when I was half-asleep. And in that moment, the one where our timelines crossed paths and mangled each other before cutting free.

The insolence of life’s brevity! How insistent it is! see this moment wind up like a pitch: with that exhilarating still surprising delivery landing upon such expectant tongues. She walks on the stage, entering from the right: she cannot see me yet. She asks the waiter if there is a reservation. There are none for a party of two. She sighs a modern sigh, an attractive twentysomething relegating her free time to internet-arranged dates. She looks around, skipping her eyes over me, and in them I see a string of one-night stands, dinners alone, and window-staring on empty mornings. Those glass orbs reflect pains, old abuses, unborn children, unwritten diaries, and still, behind them even further I saw a woman who prided herself on small personal successes. Who carries with her a knowledge, a confidence that eclipses the shadow of the past. Each flitting glance before introducing myself was a peek at the answer key before the exam. Before the defenses would go up. And, yes, fall down.

“Hello, Jean my name is Lacome.” She smiled, her cheeks pushing a little too hard. Her eyes lit up, her smile grew more genuine. Though I had never seen the woman before in my life, and there is no other way to put it: we remembered each other. Then, without warning, she collapsed and we were on the way to the hospital.

Untitled #5

And if Mary, you’re afraid,

Come home.

A summer’s stone throw,

Strikes me in the face - romance,

A woman’s appall, man’s appeal,

Illegitimacy and daring, run run deep,

Deep into the caves of our sinewy core,

And Mary, if it strikes you badly,

Come home.

—-

Untitled #6

Dreams, postmodern

Debts, quite real,

God indifferent,

A life sans zeal.

Love you too mom.

—-

Untitled #7

Did I become too much? Too much a fiend?

A student dancer, a striking scene,

Sigh, haven’t you realized?

I, girl, am none of these things.

—-

Untitled #8

Noises! A cry from a cell!

And she takes that call, anyway in the middle of lecture,

And the teacher, oh he’ll love this,

He laughs at her and drags her onstage,

And still oblivious she presses her ear to the phone,

And we all laugh and jeer and still she hears,

Until we and she are done and she returns to her seat.

From which she never came back.

—-

Untitled #9

All alone, a bone colored rose

Blends with the ground-up ice.

Left there by some wintered bride,

Some human being that could not embrace

That false solace brought by thoughts material.

—-

Untitled #10

You, integrate my hearts. Try.

The drippy numbers unkindly slip on by,

Making mistakes and the eraser has

already burned through my page.

—-

Untitled #11

Angry thoughts, sin, and tables Turned.

Altruism incarnate, God’s own flesh,

Did himself sin by his own admission,

And it makes him all the more human, see

I understand Him a fair bit more,

When I see some of God in me.

Been very busy.

Right now we’re discussing the Big Mac index in International Political Economy, which if you haven’t heard of it I think you’d best check out wikipedia or the Economist (I’m sure they’ve got it covered). We talked about it last year.. And purchasing power parity and yawn. I have to do reading and I’m covering this base before tonight so I don’t procrastinate later. It’s like multitasking my future laziness along with my learning (when I’m not really learning). Let me emphasize that I don’t do this often. And never in multivariable.

I’m considering becoming an Applied Math concentrator. Or Economics. And a secondary definitely in Psychology, although I might be able to switch that into a joint concentration with Econ and get a secondary in pure math (and combine the three). Math bothers me because I both enjoy it and am good at it, but simultaneously not nearly (in any respect) the best. Anyway .. please feel free to input. Oh and the money argument only  works against psychology. Where w(x) is the wage from a major, I’m fairly sure (having seen these investment bankers) is that w(math) > or = w(econ) >> w(psych).Alright, back to the exchange rate. 

Itio 

Cherished function, unknown variance,

Oh cellophane ripple and velvet fold,

Unbridled senescence and decaying adolescence,

Wet, sinewy dawn.

A character scorned, though through thinness passing

Through and through a simplicity:

Like the rules that govern our favorite colors,

Or those that create our portentous histories

Simple, like a gleam too soon in a baby’s eye.

The challenge, I suppose, is not by hands two’s creation

Or by minds some imperfect invention,

Instead to accept the fate of billions,

Whirling atoms becoming and unbecoming

For a brief moment to think! to render what dreams

We may so profess as our own. And it is not some lofty feat.

So soon we post upon the walls, having suffered the same scorn,

Taking photographs in these same places ..

To what if these spinnings are merely vapor,

They are to me, my complex. The question abridged

Is this, to pacify the mind’s fears of the mind’s fate.

There - there! listen! hear the wars and cannon-shot,

The quiet dagger spilt into a back, or that pistol fired,

Pumice-lidded eyes and crowny smiles, unsuspecting.

Terrible is the chorus posthumous, 

Peaceful are the sorrows of the survivors with whom rest

Still more years to study. Still I find myself edging closer:

In water, there! lies the wintered answer I now muse upon.

Something in the way we might be one.

Found on Craigslist.
- - - -

My final club has a reunion this fall, and my relationship of two years ended disastrously earlier this summer. I have an invitation for myself plus one, and am willing to show you a great time. It is a private party, in an extremely classy setting. There is no real way to describe how ornate the club is, but I guarantee that it will be the most upscale experience of your life. Think back to your high school prom, take away the terrible music, and multiply the experience by ten. You must be white, 5′6″ - 5′9″, young, blonde, attractive, and intelligent. You must be in school, preferably Tufts or Wellesley but BU and BC are acceptable (definitely not MIT). You should be able to hold a conversation, know when to be quiet, and polite in all your behavior. I have seen unruly guests embarrass members before, and I hope this won’t be a problem. This event is black-tie, and I am willing to procure an evening gown for you. I hate to sound so harsh, but I have expectations to live up to. No Asian, overweight, or unattractive women please. Ages 18-22 only.Picture required.

- - - -

Spider

Originally uploaded by Kevin V.

Crawl by, please don’t notice me.
I’m just a giant in your eyes. Nothing
but giant that goes by
(and takes pictures of you while you eat).

In other news,
Hello, world. New camera: Rebel Xti!
(There are ~15 new pictures including one of my (messy) room).
Also, apologies for not writing for so long.

THE WALLFLOWER BLOOMS: Part One

Speak, silence: for now I listen. This girl knows she is not alone. Books dissected on the floor represent not what has been made for the world, but what she has done to find herself. Everything is written on the subject of cleverness, on lovers, about dawdling little feet that fail to float on the dance-stage. On any subject, scientists and novelists can better explain my own experiences than this account. Yet in a string, these chance coincidences become me. This silence you are is my emergence, quiet – a head pushing up, out from a watery vacuum.

Then I am. Suddenly flailing about, arms thrashing while papers flutter beside me. An essay, there: a novel’s opening. And there: my life, scattered diaries. And there: a photo of the Oceanside pier. Stuffed animals line the walls and start a dance as I spin, a girl only seventeen aspiring. I forget why I am crying and  then three things happen in sequence to remind me.  Click, I stop crying, click mother opens the door, click my cell phone vibrates. She must’ve noticed the tears not yet evaporated. She knew, I think, before I did. She saw my teenage years come and, like me assuming, figured they’d pass by uneventfully, short-circuited by my early graduation from high school (finished when I was sixteen, I could barely drive). The poetry slows down here: the meter breaks down: and down on a piece of paper (now framed and fading) says Jennifer L. Sanel, Class of 2010, Harvard College. Which places me in sophomore year at seventeen.

Class president, not me. Captains of the cheerleading, soccer, and math team. No, no, no. Grades were a saving grace, I suppose; but being driven to learn the material (I was desperate to find out all of the things more important than myself), the grades were not hard-earned. I managed to pass through high school universally known of, but not known well. I kept to myself, I passed by quietly committing the social sins of eating alone (many times), avoiding conversations (more than a few times), and meeting with teachers out of class (it was nice). Who I was then is merely the stirrings of what would be, notes jotted down to flesh out a fictional character. Somewhere along since those notes, like a baby born a mistake, Jen the mistake rupturing from the wall, alive. Sigh.

Colors are more vibrant now. The blues, bluer; the crimson, darker, the yellow sharper. My eyes weave around the room, floating from painting to painting, instrument to instrument, inwardly expressive devices lying listlessly. And each elevated to life by my casual glances, memories almost painfully searing to consciousness: reminders of the pseudo-introvert. I preferred company; the happiest moments in high school were those when I flirted with boys I liked, discussed philosophy with a girl before the bell, conversations worth remembering; and better were the events: dances, trips to theme parks, sleepovers. More, I wanted. Less, I got. Over time, I learned to expect less and desensitized myself whole. The child in utero, remember, does not live. Does not feel or breathe, think or amalgamate. Only grows, waiting for a birth that it cannot know to expect. And then, life in color: two months ago during the middle of my internship at Calnext Financial, I meet Rose Salinas and Ivan Literski. The first, a timid amicable brunette and the second, a laid-back (read: lazy) intelligent black-haired man. Rose, the secretary from the fourth floor who underwent a divorce last Christmas and still wears her ring. Ivan who is currently dating a girl from Seattle, spends more hours at work playing games than anything else while managing to outproduce the others in his department. Rose, pained goddess wearing plaid. Ivan, simple cherub wearing denim. I fall in love with both. 

Harry dies to save Ron, and has a love affair with myrtle after the dark lord kills him and continues to ravage the magical world.

Voldemort is eventually tracked down and killed by the RIAA for downloading the Kill bill theme to play in the background while he Avada Kedavras.

yes, you 

the ice begins to fall apart,

ellis island stories unlock

girls pressed out copy-made,

this one taking more time

the glass held drops shatters

your paperback novel surprises

children cobbled dramatic ways

this child less contrived

the reflection held dear

this homeless emotion

a shameless grace

this girl a city underworld

(the dreams hide me inside)

The Lover Writer

I am the lover writer
I write the poems that unlock hearts.
I can fold my kiss-words to taste like thoughts,
Their shrill chorus is a first-date’s perfume.
Where I dip my pen I melt the ice-
My papers could handle this waltz.

And there we begin to see,
That behind locked doors,
The story of a lover writer,
Is an untold tragedy.

Another Word for Being

The lights flicker and the music is heavy, she holds a glass in her hand waiting to dance. This is not complicated, this is not difficult; the girl there, Isabel, is my date - the slender shine of youth streaking down her brown hairs. The glimmer of light reflected by the disco ball lit her face in spots, making her steady pose appear to change from annoyed to content to blasé to expectant. I noticed the glass was empty; so to stall, I offered to get it refilled. She smiled and said she was grateful, “pink champagne.”

Walking to the barstand where a few drunken chaperones traded stories of their childrens’ exploits, I tried to compose myself. I wanted to impress Isabel, prove to her that I was equally well-connected. I asked the barman (who I’d never seen before) if I could “have another glass of champagne” hastily adding “sir.” I met the girl at a party at most two weeks ago. Isabel immediately was charmed by my reserved, quietly self-confident demeanor; she saw in my wallflower smile not some fraction of me but instead the boy who was awkwardly moving the hands, arms, and legs of a garishly lanky man. He poured me the drink which I brought back to the table, the table covered in the cafeteria’s white tablecloths.

I thought about lunchtime, about her high-spirits- the laughing that accompanied discussions of high school romances. Last Tuesday, the invite to be the boy at the table; this is one of two things, it is either the best opportunity for a boy to get to know several girls intimately, to know their secrets and share your own, to express a sentimental side. Or if you’re too sentimental then you become a girlfriend to them, not date-able, not a boyfriend but a best-friend - the wrong “bf.” I treaded carefully in this distinction with Isabel, being curteous, thoughtful and considerate, but not relinquishing self-confidence, not falling into the nice-guy trap. I handed her the glass and sat down.

She tasted it and I could see something was amiss. She put it down and looked like she was about to yell, then suddenly she started laughing. “You realize, Austin, that this is actually champagne? I watched you the whole time, figured they’d laugh at you or some silly thing like that.” A joke; unexpected, but I wasn’t played and I still made her laugh — good so far. She explained, “Alright, maybe I should just come clean about this whole thing. I have had a crush on you since we met — maybe before, but I’m not going to get into that just yet — and I had no idea who you were, really, so I invited you to sit with me, but you didn’t talk much. You really haven’t said much about yourself, and I figured you were either taken or gay. [At this point my face must have appeared to fall] No, no, I was just waiting for you to make a move. Waiting for you to do something, anything really. And you asked me to prom, but still we haven’t really said much. We needed some kind of icebreaker. I figured if I waved my glass around enough, your silly chivalrous conscience would offer a refill. I figured if I asked for champagne then you’d get rejected, maybe even thrown out and we could go do something more .. fun.”

At that point I had to kiss her. She had played a little game with me, something I’m not usually fond of, but her face during the miniature confession was adorable, two large brown eyes looking up at me seeking approval. I kissed her with a grace I had not felt surge through my body before; it was the concerted contraction and extension of muscles that pushed my face close to hers. At last, merely inches apart, our faces themselves propelled lightly forwards and I could feel upon the skin of my lips the ridges and valleys of hers. Two wallflower eyes locked together once again in a speechless understanding. I could smell the passionfruit perfume, the vanilla shampoo, the ambrosiac smell of liquor, and even my own cologne wafted out of hiding.

She brought her hands forward to touch my face and we were there, the two of us and not a living breathing soul otherwise — and suddenly we were outside racing to the car, beneath the broken streetlamp — suddenly escaping life’s myriad complications, exchanging years of ardent meditation for the moment of spiritual surrender.

Chasing

They came with machete justice,
Fingers, children, the soft parts of my face,
Knives and a grimace that hallows death himself,
Forty three then ninety four and on, races
Lives as the lives weigh less,
And less, and less.
Until the blood runs dry.

This is not a novel, by any stretch of the imagination.
This is your life story. I would like it very much for you to see it that way.
It begins with a letter.

Kevin,
It has been a week since we’ve started seeing each other and already I am in the mood to write love letters.

. . .

Today I found out what is wrong with the human race. Or maybe the life that lives around me. The problem is that all of who we are and what we do, rational and otherwise, is so similar. We are bound by the appeals and assaults of common institutions to our desires, the accepted drugs that they are. We do what we do because it is, out of a wide variety of potential options, the optimal choice for us. This optimal choice, the “best thing,” tends to be the same thing. Yes, I remember from third grade: “We are all different. Everybody is special.” True. But we eschew that individuality in the light of simple pleasures. The post-modern housewife insists that she chooses this life, that she enjoys it. The businessman insists that his job is his personal pursuit. And if these things themselves do not bring us joy (as we will sometimes admit behind closed doors), then it is “for the greater good” in some respect. For family. For her. For him. For us. Again, what brings us joy tends to make us all similar in the aggregate.

I feel like I have been married for an interminable number of years.
I have cheated on my girlfriend a total of zero-and-onehalf times.
I spent all my money on trying to make her happy.
I spent all my money on trying to make us happy. She would like that sentence more.
I work all day in a chair bound to the tedium that I cannot escape.
I listen to all different kinds of music and don’t admit that I really do have like five or six favorite groups.
I enjoy reading about fame, fortune, and scandal.
I am pretty much anyone.

Outline

She was born.

She lived.
Being American,
she died.