I’ve lost this post to the tug of a nude man swimming in the 𝓑𝓪𝓼𝓼 𝓟𝓻𝓸 𝓢𝓱𝓸𝓹™ aquarium. I suppose I found the affair too ≋m≋o≋v≋i≋n≋g≋, in the end. Not ≋m≋o≋v≋i≋n≋g≋ in the inspirational sense — more in the way that lava moves to the surface from the depths of the Earth's core. A movement pushing islands out of the sea with the blunt tools of heat and havoc. Lava is a rare type ≋m≋o≋v≋i≋n≋g≋ — a glimpse of the 9392° plasma churning for thousands of miles beneath the Earth’s thin, cool exterior. A reminder that this ball is 99.9% formless interiority, despite 99.9% of my surface experience of it feeling so formed. It’s the same with a person, I think.
The swimmer's name is George. On January 4th he ran his car into a pole in the parking lot of a 𝓑𝓪𝓼𝓼 𝓟𝓻𝓸 𝓢𝓱𝓸𝓹™ in Leeds, Alabama. From there, he pulled one of those strip-as-you-run moves. He sprinted into the store fifteen minutes prior to closing and cannonballed, nude, into the fish aquarium.
He spent a pleasant look minute swimming about, taunting the customers and the quick-to-scene cops (𝓑𝓪𝓼𝓼 𝓟𝓻𝓸 𝓢𝓱𝓸𝓹™ police response times are commensurate, it would seem).
After a cop-taunting out-then-back-in the water, George flips over the edge of the glass, landing on the wet cement floor eight feet below, knocking himself unconscious.
The police approach him, sheathing tasers as his out-cold docileness becomes apparent, but George comes to as he is being cuffed. He thrusts his legs out and lands a donkey-kick bullseye on the cuffing cop testes, earning him an ᴀɢɢʀᴀᴠᴀᴛᴇᴅ ᴀꜱꜱᴀᴜʟᴛ ᴀɢᴀɪɴꜱᴛ ᴀ ᴘᴏʟɪᴄᴇ ᴏꜰꜰɪᴄᴇʀ charge.
“We are truly fortunate that our officer was not more severely injured during the assault.” – Police Chief Paul Irwin
Arms painfully contorted, George is dragged off like a hooked marlin.
That is where the videos cease, but news accounts state George was brought out to the Police 𝓒𝓱𝓮𝓿𝔂, 𝓣𝓪𝓱𝓸𝓮™ with some difficulty, where he allowed his wife slide his boxers back on — a detail I found touching.
On the way to the station he kicked a good sized dent into the 𝓣𝓪𝓱𝓸𝓮’𝓼™ interior paneling, earning him a of one of my favorite charges, ᴄʀɪᴍɪɴᴀʟ ᴍɪꜱᴄʜɪᴇꜰ.
Consuming the phone videos of the event, it’s easy to dismiss the display as a viral stunt (the fish of the 𝓑𝓪𝓼𝓼 𝓟𝓻𝓸 𝓢𝓱𝓸𝓹™ aquarium being an oft-abused silent victim of TikTok stunts). I figured George was another causality of the attention economy that incentives dangerous work for low-to-no pay. A sort of【pseudo-ᗰᗩᗪᑎEᔕᔕ】that facilitates LARPs of lunacy for the rewards of a brief moment of our collective gaze.
But no one is recording George at his bequest, and though it is safe to assume that anything public and odd will be videoed in 2024, I don’t think that was George’s goal. I believe his streak was pure spontaneity, the ancient goalless spontaneity of real deal ᗰᗩᗪᑎEᔕᔕ.
The image of George, splayed naked and unconscious from his fall, ≋m≋o≋v≋e≋d≋ me. In front of the towering corporate faux-nature facade, he appears so pale, small, and vulnerable on the cold cement floor. I found him reminiscent of a newborn, thrust from the warm aquarium of the womb — that first safe haven shared by all of humanity – into the harsh fluorescents and shrill cacophony of human construction. If we aren’t born wailing, they’ll spank us until we do.
I saw a meme that said the scene . . .
‘so strongly evokes Lucifer's fall from heaven’
. . . which I assume refers to the etching’s of Gustav Dore.
I see it, but what first jumped to my mind though was ‘Landscape with the Fall of Icarus’, by Pieter Brugel.
It’s a painting of an idyllic agricultural coast. The farmer is at his plow, the shepherd guides his flock, and a port town in the distance is faint with atmospheric lazy haze. All is right with the world, except, down in the corner — small enough to miss in a casual glance of the painting — is the tiny splash of Icarus’ mythical death. His melted wing tips jutting from the water sinking as an unnoticed teaching moment among the Earthly realm of folks doing, unremarkably . . .
Just.
As.
They.
Should.
Perhaps the painting it a meta-teaching moment on the punishment for ego driven Sun striving. The reward is Crash-and-burns not even large enough to warrant a cautionary tale.
The painting is discussed in Eric Steel’s 2006 Documentary, The Bridge, which chronicles the 2 dozen suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge that occurred the year prior. Fatal leaps dwarfed by the enormous architecture and natural beauty of this world tourist attraction. 24 small splashes, unnoticed in the backs of vacay snapshots. A suicide net was finally completed just last year. A crude measure that, has me wondering why the leaper would not then leap from the net that catches them. It’s a . . .
‘change your mind?’
. . . net, I suppose
The painting also appears in the music video for the song, ‘Blood, Sweat and Tears’, by Korean supergroup, BTS, as one of the members looks back, grins, and leaps from a balcony of unknown height. A【pseudo-ᗰᗩᗪ】act attempting to capture a sad sincerity of a high leap . . .
“I’m ready, come and get me!”
But this might be my favorite part . . .
“I’m ready, come and get me!”
. . . George shouts at the cops. He gets out of aquarium, then, as they approach, he jumps back in.
“The madman is comedy to the second degree: the deception of deception; he utters in his simpleton’s language which makes no show of reason, the words of reason that release, in the comic, the comedy: he speaks love to lovers, the truth of life to the young, the midding reality of things to the proud, to the indolent, and to liars.” - Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization
“I’m ready, come and get me!”
*SPLASH
A splash taunting power with a truth.
The news blurbs quip that he ‘snapped’, ‘lost it’, or was ‘out of his mind’.
ᔕᑎᗩᑭ - ᒪOᔕT - OᑌT
. . . heuristics dismissing fathoms.
【Ruminating again on what a trash heap of a post idea this all is . . . then doubt the doubt on reflex. A critic has crept into my practice — an imagined reader that feels preemptively bored. The silence of digital publishing underscores this boredom profesy. The【POST】icon feels like the button for【CRICKET SONG】 on my soundboard. But I treat all this self-pity as another【pseudo-ᗰᗩᗪᑎEᔕᔕ】, one arresting my inner streaker with a fear of (っ◔∩◔)っ【 no attention 】. I have to remember the order of operations. George creates his display then is arrested.】
And above George’s list of official crime is the mad meta-crime of committing crimes for no discernible reason or gain. He exploded his life for a nude dip in a 𝓑𝓪𝓼𝓼 𝓟𝓻𝓸 𝓢𝓱𝓸𝓹™ aquarium. For a moment, I was ≋m≋o≋v≋e≋d≋ .
ᗰᗩᗪᑎEᔕᔕ
ᴄʀɪᴍɪɴᴀʟ ᴍɪꜱᴄʜɪᴇꜰ.
*SPLASH
“Madness is the false punishment of a false solution, but by its own virtue it brings to light the real problem which can then be truly resolved. It conceals beneath error the secret enterprise of truth.” - Michel Foucault Madness and Civilization