sickass dog :: 10/5/00
Ten am. The store is open. Denise is manning the register, quiet and self-contained in her usual way. I wish she would take off those sunglasses. Freya wants Denise to like her; she likes to envision herself as the “cool” supervisor and she wants this selfvision to be confirmed by her actual experiences with the employees “under” her. But Denise’s brain is like a circular labyrinth that Freya cannot find her way into. She does not know what goes on in there but she suspects that it is complex. The two of them don’t talk much. Freya doesn’t tell Denise to take off her sunglasses but that’s about the only concession she knows how to make.
Freya holds a stack of CDs, about six, a thick sandwich of plastic and data. The first handful drawn from the pile of stuff that the night crew didn’t put back out on the floor. Freya’s days begin this way, five times a week. Reorganizing information. The CD on top of the pile. Extreme Music From Africa. The illustration on the cover: a woman with onyx skin, tubes coming out of her mouth, head wrapped in bandages, white bandages with a red ideogram of blood splattered upon them. Experimental Compilations. I’m not impressed by this. She can remember what it’s like to be hit, in the face, yes, in the stomach. Stand up, bitch. It wasn’t that long ago. She could do without the whole extreme music thing. Like Merzbow and his imitators, collections of scraping sounds wrapped in pornographic liner notes. There are certain frequencies that hurt for her to hear. A violence in the ear. Music For Bondage Performance. She can see why those sounds might appeal to someone who hadn’t experienced much pain. Operating as reminders that one has the capacity to feel. But she has the feeling, in her past, of being kicked across a floor. It wasn’t that long ago. And it is not a thing that she feels likely to forget in the future. Drunk; fetal on tile. Stand up and face me. Words in the air: sickass dog, sickass dog. A bell clatters, interrupts everything: the first customer of the day. She looks up. Hey— it’s that guy.
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Further Reading ::
Information Prose : A Manifesto In 47 Points ::
A manifesto, outlining some of the aesthetic goals behind Imaginary Year, can now be read here.
