How do YOU spell glamor — glamour or glamor? How much of us is in the way we spell words? How much of our perception is shaped by the way others spell, speak, look, whatever, you get where this line of thinking is going.
It’s going out to sea, where I am right now, evidently adrift on a ship on which I don’t belong, judging by the looks I’ve been getting from the crew, who say words like “aft” and “bow,” words that make me want to have a look around, learn more about this seafaring life. Words that make me forget that I have no idea how I came aboard this ship in the first place. Maybe I’m a stowaway. Maybe I’m the captain.
Beyond words, there must be other stories. I see visual evidence of it all around the ship. Scuffed rails, thick white-painted bricks. Golf cart crashed at the bottom of a narrow staircase. Crumpled-up suggestion slips covered with complaints about sustained injuries. Shuddering shortwave signals emanating from distant canals of insanity. Other things that never get picked up: stainless steel platters, rotting fruits and vegetables, a broken oar. Unwatered plants.
But you know how these guys are. The captain wouldn’t let me look around, in fact I was banned from any sort of semblance of access. So I asked questions. And those questions led to answers.
Questions like: when will breakfast be served? Will it be served the same time every day? How do YOU spell glamor? This made things happen, some answers.
OK. I did not get too many answers. But I got enough to figure out how to navigate — not the seas, but how to navigate carefully around the other crew members. Together, we drifted past the point of no return, into an untreatable state of collective confusion.
None of us knew how we got there. An ocean, to me, resembles a great hornets nest. I did not survive it and now I haunt the ship so come see me sometime. Or check out Mock Identity’s music video for “Glamour” directed by Patrick Cain.
More about: Mock Identity, Patrick Cain
