█Quantum Entendre

█𝙌𝙐𝘼𝙉𝙏𝙐𝙈 𝙀𝙉𝙏𝙀𝙉𝘿𝙍𝙀

→ → → → →

a necropastoral flattening of

textual games

&

emanations,

induced hallucinations

without resolution,

REVELATIONS

&

OBSCURINGS,

superposited meanings

guesses and seemings

for

a

dwindling readership

→ → → → →

as realized by

JAMES QUENTIN DEVINE

𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗯𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗹

in negotiation with

the UNIVERSE

𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋/𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄

m.v.d.

▲

▲

▲

𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚝 𝚘𝚗 𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚗

⎳𝙊𝙎𝙏 𝙀𝙍𝙊𝙎, 𝘾𝘼 →

MMXXV

💙

- - - ᴬˡˡ ᴮˡiᵍʰᵗˢ ᴰᵉˢᵉʳᵛᵉᵈ - - -

“It seemed to him a thousand times worse to stand there as the only one unmasked amid a host of masks, than suddenly to stand naked among those fully dressed.”
― Arthur Schnitzler, Dream Story

---

𝐼.

OPEN

---

Day composed.

Siege the gates of the senses.

Make an entrance.

---

𝐼𝐼.

A THROAT

---

Exhausted gospel.

The sound of the tension in the instrument.

Divinity and divination.

Release doves.

Songs from the back of the body.

Fully.

---

𝐼𝐼𝐼.

THE MOVEMENT OF YOUR MOUTH

Fuck lowed.

Under covered sky.

Unloved.

Leaving.

Brokehart.

Hurt art.

Hate.

Cliche.

Barefoot.

Blunderclot.

Saysooth.

Mouthsock.

Fucksake.

Wayward.

Revenge.

Hazard.

A face.

Arranged.

Hollow code.

Swallowbone.

Tame.

Taut and timid.

Emit myriad.

Red-writ.

Spark of a start.

Ends with a period.

---

𝐼𝑉.

DEAD DUBYA DUBYA DUBYA

---

You’re on an Intranet now.

The web is dead.

Bot infill.

They killed links.

No messiah shall rise.

Nothing new.

Late-born novelist.

After you.

---

---

𝑉.

USED IDEAS (SOLD ASS IS)

---

ON OPENING NIGHT THE SUPERSIZED WALL TEXT OF MY DEBUT GALLERY EXHIBITION PROCLAIMED ‘Q: ISN’T THIS ‘JUST MARINA ABRAMOVIC?/A: YES, BUT or NO AND, SHE IS SOMEONE ELSE AND SO I AM'

Gazing sessions.

Mostly standing.

I seldom sit.

Station.

I often stalk.

A constant pace.

A thoughtful walk.

Hey —

The artist’s not present but they’re gifted anyway.

Acting.

Camera-free.

Sail my seas.

The audacity.

Blind blue-eyed.

Bare behind.

Drunk or high.

Or both.

Crosswise.

Hump bogus on the bottle or the boat.

Any storm’s an excuse.

Saintly loose.

Elegant in a suit worn moderate-obnoxious.

Patchy profile.

Couple days obvious.

Cultivation sloppy cropsircle.

Whatever works.

And whoever.

Elliptical.

Like,

TOSSING OBSERVATIONS:

“How can I calibrate this financial instrument to my benefit?”

Look me in the eyes fucker.

Is a hole in the wall the proof of your punch?

You’re not being rational.

We’re cash only.

---

𝑉𝐼.

ROUNDOWN MIDNIGHT

---

I couldn’t tell if he was shitting or jacking off but he had his white sweatpants at his knees and he was about half a block away from me.

I don’t have the best vision so I’ve Gotten Good at pattern recognition.

Watch the waist.

See who’s wasted.

See who’s feisty.

Sheisty.

Who’s unpredictable.

Shifting.

Who’s cruising and who’s using.

Who’s pushing.

And who’s pulling.

---

𝑉𝐼𝐼.

IF YOU WISH (GROANERS FOR GONERS)

---

fluent in nuance

florid in nonsense

neon erroneous

wondering,

“do Artaud and Baudrillard rhyme?”

in a slanting sort of way,

if you’re stupid?

if you squint just right . . .

and they described me as “Joycean,”

“Lynchian,”

“Beckettian,”

et cetera,

and all I could-had to say was

“I am not Armenian.”

---

𝑉𝐼𝐼𝐼.

THE RETIFIST

---

Maybe we should have a Man-Making Contest.

(maybe we kind of are)

One way I got rich was making a movie called ‘The Retifist.’

I time travelled to 1971 to do it.

Famously,

(as you know)

a slowed cover of “Moving in Stereo” by the Cars featured prominently in it.

(despite the song being released in 1978)

Which doesn’t make sense.

(as you know)

A mesh of fetishes.

YES —

‘The Retifist.’

Saying:

“Who is that man?”

Dreaming:

“Who is that man?”

Wondering:

“Who is that man?”

Worrying:

“Who is that man?”

Keening:

“Who is that man?”

And then he’s

captured,

cloned,

exploited,

milked,

and

made into a plastic god.

---

---

“As we are a doomed race, chained to a sinking ship, as the whole thing is a bad joke, let us, at any rate, do our part; mitigate the suffering of our fellow-prisoners; decorate the dungeon with flowers and air-cushions; be as decent as we possibly can.”
― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

---

𝐼𝑋.

A STORY THAT DOESN’T LAND (TOLD TO A DISINTERESTED PARTY)

---

IMAGINE SOMEONE SHOVING AN UNWANTED PHONE IN YOUR FACE —

A few days ago, I saw some video on the Internet.

The end of an MMA fight.

I think some guy’d just beaten some other guy’s ass.

I don’t know.

(here I looked it up)

Anyway, the winning fighter was talking shit to the camera.

And he made some kind of call-out.

I forget who.

I don’t know.

Some sacred cow.

I forget.

I’m not good at telling stories.

💙

Anyway.

At the end of it, in an inducement to the viewing audience to share his message,

(whatever it was)

(I forget)

he said “VIRAL THIS!”

as in "share this,”

And FUCK,

Now I can’t stop thinking about “viral this.”

And so it’s “viral this” all day long.

Echoing echoing on.

---

𝑋.

(the) ART IMPULSE

---

Make whatever.

It doesn’t matter.

Get some paint on the canvas.

Just splatter.

---

𝑋𝐼.

THE PATTERNING INSTINCT

---

Refrigerator hum.

60 Hz. B1 - 49 cents.

3 AM white noise.

Broadband noise, no specific pitch.

Something almost —

not quite❗️

a word.

Familiar.

Unplaceable.

The mind reaching.

Trying to make sense.

Listen harder

Listen-in.

Breaks almost-sound.

New layer of drone.

(could be tinnitus?)

120 Hz. B2 - 49 cents.

Rhythmic.

Pulsing.

(could be a stroke,

or a heart attack)

Almost a voice now.

SAYING —

Focusslips.

Static lips.

Gone again.

Now.

Electricity from next door.

Broadband noise, no specific pitch.

Endless traffic outside.

100 Hz. G2 + 4 cents.

Winds.

250 Hz. B3 + 45 cents.

Brain stitching sounds.

Wound.

Weaving meaning from nothing.

A name?

A warning?

A secret?

Lean in.

Strain to hear.

Nothing.

Everything.

Soundshift.

Mindrifts.

Dawnbreaks.

Gulliver.

Was anything ever there?

Shower runs.

Water-on-tile.

1000 Hz. B5 + 38 cents.

Echoes.

Vowels in the spray.

Voyelles.

Voyage.

Consonants in the drain.

A message forms.

Dissolves.

Foam nothing.

Coffee’s made.

500 Hz. B4 + 38 cents.

Toast pops.

2000 Hz. B6 + 4 cents.

Noise?

Or code?

Car horn outside.

Insistent.

440 Hz. A4.

Birdsong.

3000 Hz. F#7 + 2 cents.

Always almost hearing.

Almost always hearing.

Never quite.

High alert.

Lexical.

Auditory world alive.

A blur.

What is real and imagined?

What does it matter?

When everything speaks?

---

𝑋𝐼𝐼.

NOT TO BE

---

I’m someone’s dream woman.

But it didn’t work out that way.

Dick and balls I’m afraid.

Dick and Jane’s how it’s played.

---

𝑋𝐼𝐼𝐼.

IRREDEEM

---

Bedamned redemption.

Bullshitter shudder.

Philos and phobos.

Lunglossed brothers.

---

𝑋𝐼𝑉.

CONSTANT COMPLAINTS

---

Honeycombs, cobwebs,

tunnels,

and spirals.

Uneven horns,

the chimera’s chiral.

---

𝑋𝑉.

FEMUR SHIV

---

I’ve been contemplating sinusoids.

Spinal curves and cellular noise.

Anomalies accumulate.

Red teeming.

Ill omens augured.

A cardinal error.

Ordinary.

---

𝑋𝑉𝐼.

MONTAGUE BLUE

---

Soothe yourself in the music.

Suit yourself if you can use it.

Trance and transience.

Amplified ambience.

Ideas of reference and ides of march.

A paper plume and a basin parched.

Physiognomic.

Pareidolic.

To exceed yields excess.

Altered consciousness.

Debased ganglia.

Solo in gangland.

Solidified delusions.

---

𝑋𝑉𝐼𝐼.

VAVILON (IN THE ABSENCE OF CONCRETE)

---

Dullgrimage.

Prell.

Umbral threm.

Cloined aloy.

AND I’M UP AT 5 AM —

Beyond meaning.

Littering letters.

Inferior redness.

Blueness better.

---

𝑋𝑉𝐼𝐼𝐼.

AW FUCK

---

In the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ), 41 represents the score threshold indicating a high likelihood of schizotypal personality traits. Scoring 41 or above suggests significant potential for schizotypal characteristics and may warrant further clinical assessment.

a a a a a A A A H—

OH SHIT.

---

𝑋𝐼𝑋.

A PLACE TO LEAP FROM

---

And you’re acting fucking crazy again.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Muttered.

Maybe louder than a mutter.

Loud mutter-fucker.

Dumb-ass, stupid ass.

Out of body.

Out of pocket.

Disjointed.

Out of socket.

Razor thinness.

Blade’s edge.

An autonomic flood.

Scraping gait.

Shuffling like shoddy botched magic.

Beating yourself in the head.

Rhythmic blows.

Groundown.

The too much everything.

This again.

Vertigo dizzy.

Hearing goes in and out.

Your phone died a while ago.

Think your battery’s stronger?

Think again.

Sweat yourself.

---

𝑋𝑋.

ONE SHOT

---

Slang’s language slung low.

Don’t.

---

𝑋𝑋𝐼.

BONUS EXERCISE:

The 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique

Name 5 things you can see,

4 you can touch,

3 you can hear,

2 you can smell,

1 you can taste —

SEE →

1. wired Sony studio headphones

2. rough-torn dotted paper scrap w/ phone number e-mail & accompanying recommendation for a Japanese jazz act called PE’Z

3. a printed bandana

4. an old hard-bound book about Enrico Caruso

5. a downward-angled mounted shotgun-style condenser microphone

TOUCH →

1. a wireless computer mouse

2. a flexible chairback

3. thick cashmere on skin

4. the subtle choke of a pullover sweatshirt

HEAR →

1. a teleconference

2. tinnitus

3. the distant clatter of what may be construction or destruction

SMELL →

1. aerosolized chemical simulation of “fresh linen”

2. the heaviness of a clothed body

TASTE →

1. espresso

☕️

---

Goodbye.

James Quentin Devine

💙

Unless . . .