The Punchline In the long day (a full spread of time slopped out and doled by larger forces) there are smaller punctuations — beats and breaks, spasms that portion it all up for me. I’m of an irregular beat so I’m always keeping an eye on my own distraction, that mounting urge to look away, and have a keen sense for the shape of time: how long it takes to do something, how efficient I can be, how many words a story needs. Too many things overstay their welcome – guests, novels, so many smells – and you can only judge this by them crossing the invisible threshold of time you were willing to give. When something is timed just right you can sense it by the mark it leaves behind, how its goodbye leaves you feeling, how much it smarts on your cheek. So it's all about the set up, the cradling of borrowed attention, the making you look, the keeping you there – and then it’s all about the punchline.
A Personal Anthology, by Aea Varfis-van Warmelo
A Personal Anthology, by Aea Varfis-van…
A Personal Anthology, by Aea Varfis-van Warmelo
The Punchline In the long day (a full spread of time slopped out and doled by larger forces) there are smaller punctuations — beats and breaks, spasms that portion it all up for me. I’m of an irregular beat so I’m always keeping an eye on my own distraction, that mounting urge to look away, and have a keen sense for the shape of time: how long it takes to do something, how efficient I can be, how many words a story needs. Too many things overstay their welcome – guests, novels, so many smells – and you can only judge this by them crossing the invisible threshold of time you were willing to give. When something is timed just right you can sense it by the mark it leaves behind, how its goodbye leaves you feeling, how much it smarts on your cheek. So it's all about the set up, the cradling of borrowed attention, the making you look, the keeping you there – and then it’s all about the punchline.