“Love is the answer,” the wall insists, like a palimpsest of exhausted certainties — a phrase so over-circulated it has become almost apotropaic in its repetition.

And yet, standing here, I think of the writers who arrived at the same conclusion only after circling the perimeter of despair — after anatomising cruelty, entropy, and the quiet attrition of human relationships.

There is a difference between the sentimental and the salvific.

Between the facile injunction to “be kind” and the unadorned recognition that tenderness is the last remaining instrument against annihilation.

Sometimes a cliché endures because it is all that survives after the rest of the language has collapsed.

Even William Burroughs saw it, eventually.

In one of his final journal entries, he writes:

“Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is. LOVE.”

(Photo: d.)

// UP MAIN STARTING

More perception as palimpsest experiments: vintage railway lever plates, re-seen through acetate, CRT texture and camera sensor. “3 / UP MAIN / STARTING” felt like an obvious hinge—both a literal signal plate and a quiet instruction to begin.

Plan is to use one of these frames (probably the cleanest “STARTING” shot) as the opening image for the full 3:16 BETWEEN_LINES₍v0.1₎ video: CRT off → click on → phosphor bloom → this plate resolving out of static, as if the film itself is being switched on. The final frame of the piece will loop back into the same image, so the track never really leaves the station.

Working notes for the longer video from here:

Parallel lines that never meet – tracks as mute subtitles for two lives that don’t quite sync.

Arrival ↔ departure, redshift ↔ blueshift, signal ↔ echo – trains coming and going, but meaning lagging behind.

Two viewpoints: inside the carriage vs on the platform. Faces smear into noise either way. Nobody fully “lands” in the other frame.

Self-encounter as misreading – the lone figure and their reflection in the passing windows: seeing yourself and still not understanding.

Loops: birth / transit / departure / return – the whole piece breathing like a recurring dream rather than a straight timeline.

Relativity: gestures (a thrown ball, a turning head) only visible as streaks and arcs – motion remembered more than seen; perception as the only “real” track.

Captions as failed explanations: [INDISTINCT], [STATIC], [SIGNAL LOST] – language that never quite resolves, echoing APD and our habit of living off half-heard soundbites.

Signs that almost help but don’t: fragments of text, mirrored words, cropped lever codes – instruction without instruction.

i am an exit (the Bucky Barnes fanfic you've all heard so much about)

summary below

A broken, disillusioned Steve Rogers is afflicted by a delusion that the mysterious assassin who nearly killed him is actually his best friend, who died 70 years ago. SHIELD wants to lock him up and return him to being a perfect, sparkling nationalist symbol as quickly as possible. Sam Wilson, who has wrestled with his own disillusionment and his own ghosts, knows that Steve needs compassion and the support of a true friend, not a forced regime of recovery that takes away what is left of his shattered autonomy. Meanwhile, as Natasha tries to track down the Winter Soldier, her discoveries get more and more disturbing. She uncovers footage of the Soldier being subjected to, and forced to commit, horrific acts to maintain Hydra's cruel hierarchy. What's more, his resemblance to Steve's dead friend is too close to be coincidence. Sam and Natasha grow determined to stop the Soldier from being recaptured by his abusers, but how will Steve react when he learns the true extent of the Soldier's torture, and the true horror of what he was twisted into? Is the Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes? Or is he something wearing Bucky Barnes's face? Which of those things is worse?

My Wikipedia poems

Black Hole

Legend

Stranger

Hotel

Asteroid

Abyssal Plain

Lightning

Monster

Polar Night

Dragon

Sometimes the world feels harsh and indifferent — and then you come across a sign like this.

A seal, resting. Monitored. Protected. Given a name by someone who cared enough to write it in pen:

“Benny the Seal”

For a brief moment, the universe feels a little kinder than I expect it to be. And that's when loves comes to me. True beauty.

(Photo: d.)