My Jandek Plague Journal: 5/3/20 "It Seems Forever"

"I’ll hold out a light/Let it shine for you/If nobody sees it/I still do what I do/I tried to be happy/What a foolish thing." My Canadian friend says they've been having strange, vivid dreams, bordering on nightmares since the lockdown began. I had my own batch last night including the rapist I met in grad school. When I woke up, I looked him up online. He has his PhD now and a full-time teaching job. His published papers use the language of organizing and solidarity. It feels like he's living an echo of the life I once aspired to, like he crept in by hiding in the shadow I cast and seized it from me. Right now I'm in the midst of Adorno claiming the modern world, infected with fascism, perverted "solidarity" from the noble human impulse to a code word indicating loyalty to a team. There's a hollowness to institutions populated by shadows, even if I once aspired to membership. -5/3/20. "It Seems Forever" from I Threw You Away (lyrics) (one week earlier) (one week later)