Aporia Brahs
Tomorrow’s event:
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January 6th, 2021
Adriano Celentano, an Italian musician, released a song in 1972 called “Prisencolinensinainciusol.” For native Italian ears the song was intended to sound like American English, but in reality the words are gibberish. Here is Celentano from an NPR interview:
So at a certain point, since I like American slang - which, for a singer, is much easier to sing than to sing in Italian - I thought that I would write a song which would only have as its theme the inability to communicate. And to do this, I had to write a song where the lyrics didn't mean anything.
I read somewhere that he wanted to troll Italians at the time, because they loved any song that was in English, despite not knowing what the lyrics meant. I was just watching the music video for the song. Celentano, who is known as “il Molleggiato,” or the flexible one, has so much sex in his dancing, so does his wife who was also in the video.
The song, the video, and the back story, inspire me. Our inability to communicate, the troll job, the sex. Daddy likes. If my journals had a theme song, it would be this song. I like the kind of art where the artist creates to make themself smile. I also like things, and people, with layers. Do not hand me your personality, make me work for it.
I was connecting with Tada Hozumi over Zoom last night, and we were discussing certain people who we enjoy, these are people who have a “je ne sais quoi” about them, or “funk” as he would put it. People whose personality you have to work for, and cannot easily pattern-match with whatever social taxonomy you have. When you come across people like this, you've found an authentic person. You've found a live player.
I sense there is a metapattern here amongst these folks. A high tolerance to be disliked by others, and a high tolerance for uncertainty, seem to be two traits. Aporia, the fancy Greek word for philosophical doubt, is related to the latter. I was talking with Nicolas Benjamin, who recently came back from Willow, the Canadian branch of the Monastic Academy. He was telling me he left his retreat with new-found aporia. We riffed on Frank Yang’s “Infinite Brah” phrase, and called ourselves the “Aporia Brahs.”
Being an Aporia Brah is about leaning into uncertainty, and not collapsing into knowingness out of fear, or desire to impress. It is staying in the mystery, like Malcolm Ocean does. This is one part, and the other part is about bringing all of yourself into the mystery, including the sex, and whatever brah proclivities you may have, which Nicolas and myself playfully do have.
If the word brah does not resonate, because it is gendered or silly, then pick your own phrase, and own it. Like the flexible one, be flexible. Bring the sex, create for your own smile, and lovingly troll those who flex with certainty.
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