Deaf People Never Play Crossword Puzzles with Subtitles at WIERD...

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

This week at WIERD the theme will be Alien Spacecraft and the History of India. On behalf of WIERD Records NYC Pieter and I would like to asssure you that by the end of the evening you will understand the important connection between the two...Having such knowledge will thus make you Very Rare... for just one day...?

The WIERD was dreaming last night and in the dream everyone was looking through a window of a room with transparent walls and they would all over and over keep asking each other 'hey do you know who that guy all alone in that room is?' Noone seemed to be able to figure IT out which became quite frustrating. For whatever reason WIERD suddenly (unknowingly) awoke from ITs dream to get a glass of water and ran into a drunk friend sleeping on the floor in the other room and as IT thought IT was stil dreaming said to the guest, 'Hey man you know who that guy is all alone in that room?'...'What room man, the hell you talkin about, I can't see whatever room yr talkin about cause ITs in yr head? Go back to bed'...'Oh shit I thought I was still dreaming sorry dude.'...So the WIERD went back to bed and as sometimes happens the dream started right up again and strangely now IT became clear that the 'dream guy' WAS in fact the guest in the other room. The strange thing that had changed as a result IT supposed of 'knowing' the riddle was now the dream appeared with subtitles, the subtitles mearly saying exactly what the characters were saying in the dream - 'do you know who that guy is...?'...

Subtitles are generally used by 3 groups - people who don't understand 'foreign' languages in films, deaf people and people watching TVs in bars where IT is too loud to hear(who are also thereby 'deaf', oddly enough because of all alcohol's VR effects, making you lose your hearing is about the only thing IT cannot in fact do). For the first group the titles work as a 'translation' of the 'unknown' language and for the latter 2 as simply a 'reinscription' of the 'spoken' dialogue. IT would seem if subtitles appeared in a dream they should work as 'translation'(a la Freud's 'dream-decyphering' techniques et al), but in the WIERD dream they worked like the latter 2 groups, just as they do on TVs in bars...This was puzzling to the WIERD, and a puzzle IT was literally to become...

WIERD went down to the bar where Yvonne, 'the dream guy' who crashed on the floor the previous night worked, and upon entering discovered that amazingly enough the walls were covered in black and white Deco Style tiling, and upon hanging out a bit IT discovered apparently that this leads drunk young punks and the like to treat such walls as Crossword Puzzles - writing in the expectable 'Fuck Off'/'Eat Me' etc. in the white boxes. So in a way the 'walls' of the room were in fact a linguistic puzzle keeping the contents of the room impermeable, and inside these walls alone behind the bar was Yvonne, the answer to the 'puzzle' just as his name was in ITs dream. Somehow this made amazing sense, almost like the 'yet-to-be-filled-in' spaces on the walls embodied the fact noone knew who Yvonne was. Above Yvonne's head at the bar was indeed also a TV set with the volume off and subtitles running across the bottom, which made the WIERD realize that subtitles and crossword puzzles(i.e. the walls of the room/dream work in the same way - words are 'inserted' to decode or 'name' the meaning of other words)...'Hey whats up man, sorry about babblin to you last night, I had the WIERDest fukin dream'...'Yeah you figure out who IT was in the room Mr. Sleepwalker?'...'Yeah turns out IT was you man, and strange thing was the second I figured IT out the dream suddely had subtitles like the ones on the TV over your head.'...'Wow that's WIERD man cause all these chics keep askin me my name but I act like I cant hear them cause I'm too wrapped up in watching the (subtitles on)TV, they usually get the picture and I then do this killer trick where I offer them a free shot of 'Evan' Williams, which is our shitty well bourbon.'...'AH Very Rare man I get IT cause 'Evan' is yr name TRANSLATED into english, you're a witty young man. Funny thing is the subtitles you're watching aren't translated, ITs just what you can't hear cause you're drinking, and then you in fact 'act deaf' and respond by giving them a 'translation' by handing them the 'English' version of your name to drink, and even though your name goes INTO them, they never know who you are, just like in my dream.'...'Whoa dude slow down there, damn you're nuts. OK let me give you a shot of my name so you'll drink me AND know who I am, HA!'...'Naw man, that stuff sucks, hey by the way why is your top shelf Scotch so cheap? Damn.'...'Yeah Its WIERD man, noone orders IT so owner calls IT our 'well' bourbon, and I'm not supposed to give free shots of EVAN, which is the well booze cause ITs so cheap IT is actually more valuable to the bar than top shelf stuff cause everyone's so fukin cheap - so the only time I give free shots of IT is when IT is someone who wants to know who I am, only happened 5-6 times'...

'Wow that's interesting man, because 'well' bourbon isn't in fact 'good', but here IT IS good as its single malt shit, and the WIERDer thing is that in fact 'Well' always means 'Good' anyway - they literally have the same meaning, and in fact most people who don't 'speak very good English' use 'Good' when they should use correctly use 'Well', which is exactly what you do when you give free shots of GlenFiddich, you're actually speaking BAD English simply by giving them GOOD booze.'...'Yeah and you know what man, more they drink, drunker and worse their speech gets, and drunker they get, they either totally 'Space Out' and watch TV(and thereby 'read' the subtitles), or they get way aggro and write all over the walls, so damn predictable the stupid fucks in this place are, ughh...I'm really bummed right now cause there's actually this beautiful girl down at the end of the bar I actually really like and is the only one I wish would ask me my name, she couldn't care less who I am.'...'Ok dude, here's the plan, give me that Sharpie, and I'm gonna leave the bar and when you see me go outside and look back in through that window, you go over to her and offer her a shot of 'Good' bourbon which is NOT 'Well', and because I'm watching, I guarantee you she'll ask you your name.'...'Huh?, what are you talkin about you freek? Ok whatever I'll try anything at this point...'

You see the WIERD realized the key - for because it was becoming dark, 'EVE' was coming 'ON', and IT ws thus time for the WIERD to go back to bed and dream. So WIERD went over to the tiling below the window and wrote 'EVAN' in the four little white boxes, then exited the bar, went around the corner and looked back through the window and into the dream, just as IT had the night before...and just as IT had planned Eve-On appeared as the WIERD fell asleep, and he finnaly was shakin hands with the lovely young girl, who now finally knew 'who the guy alone in the room was...beneath the subtitles and now 'translated' out of the dream and thus no longer...Very Rare...WIERD.

Pieter and Glenn use Subtitles to play Crossword Puzzles with Deaf Children
Wednesday, June 20th, 10pm - 4am
WIERD @ Home Sweet Home
131 Chrystie St. @ Delancey
J train to Bowery, F to Delancey
Info:(212)226-5708
http://www.wierdrecords.com