give people less access to my life. I am interested in the intersection between all the public interaction we have in private & the paradoxes which exist because of this divide in logic & space. I teach a class on Internet & intimacy at Baruch College that endeavors to make the same connections, especially between a rise in narcissism & an accompanying decline in em- pathy. I think this poem came out of my girlfriend’s belief about privacy, or the lack thereof, but also Freud, something he theorized that has always haunted me: humanity’s innate compulsion (& desire) to repeat. This poem moves from the desire to repeat specific mo-
ments in a life to repetition as a form & a means to an end. Where does this end? Wish ful-fillment? Voyeurism as un mode de vie? The century’s mistakes & our mistaking communion with cannibalism? Before I began teaching, I worked for several years as a model, a role that required my image be repeated, proliferated, & sold as any other commodity. I think these issues are at the heart of a piece that is very much a “Personal Statement,” ending as such in a moment of cultural & familial clarity. I don’t know what replaced Hackensack’s Fun Time Pizza after it was torn down, but in the early nineties it was a sort of sanctuary for me when
my parents moved from the city to the North Jersey suburbs. Robotic animals performing on stage became friends with whom I could share the most intimate details of my life, even though we never actually spoke out loud. Has anything really changed?
All the best & thanks again for your consideration,
cc
