My Life in the Violence of Water 1950s In camp swimming underwater in a lake and almost drowning. 1950s There was also Hurricane Hazel and I went out and walked around in it with a lantern I had found while waiting outside the gradeschool grounds for footballs to show up so I could throw them back to the team and the rest of the time I did nothing but think about things. This was my first hurricane and I was with my father, one of the few good times I remember with him. 1959 The Knox Coalmine disaster, the Susquehanna flooding the mines, people dying, surface cave-ins, our house cracked Then skip to 1960s and my instruments in Teri Wellman's closet soaked when a pipe broke, lost then all. 1972 and Hurricane Agnes flooding my parents' house, I lost everything from my childhood as well. I was in Halifax at the time and didn't know whether they survived. What a mess. We got down later. President Nixon came secretly to assess the damage and I filmed him from a distance of eight inches, making a piece that was shown at the Paris Biennale, called The Assassination of President Nixon because it looked like that and I hated the Vietnam War. 1973 or so feel into the ocean at Peggy's Cove in Nova Scotia, in the winter, and almost drowned. There you are. 1980 body surfing at Kitty Hawk and a wave caught me and slammed me into the ocean floor and I broke my nose and almost passed out permanently because without glasses I couldn't see its height which was something I should not have been body-surfing in. 1983 or so returning from Tasmania and later opening my freight container in Los Angeles, finding it soaked due to a roof leak and I lost almost everything as did my wife at the time. I forgot sometime in the early 1980s my girlfriend and I almost - another almost - got caught in a flash flood in Death Valley. Water is my enemy. 1992 Moved to Brooklyn and my ceiling heavily leaked onto the bed and the shower gave out and water went everywhere. 1998 Or so and the outer wall of our building had to be replaced because it was falling down and the new mortar leaked and everyone's place flooded more or less and it went on like this all the way to around 2009 or so. Then there was Hurricane Irene and our place flooded and Azure and I had to put buckets everywhere and then go onto the roof and repair it with duct tape, bungee cords, and shower curtains. Then there was Sandy and I went outside and videotaped and I had done this in Irene as well, and between them there was a tornado and I went out and stood under the tornado and made a videotape of it from below and you can hear the windshear and everything. 2011 and my father died almost to the day that the waters rose higher in the Susquehanna than ever before and my brother and sister-in-law had to seek higher ground and Azure and I came down later and found a lot of milder in the house and later my brother and I went to look at the damage in the neighboring towns where Azure's cousin's house had been flooded out but she had died beforehand and an angry homeowner tried to hit me with some sort of iron tool I saw while running away. Water is my enemy, water is my enemy, I shall not drink water. 2013 and there was new flooding in our space and there was some flooding in the basement as well because the new owners weren't taking care of anything because they wanted us out. 2014 and I went back to see our old place in Brooklyn, and the windows were open and rain had to be streaming in there and the roof damage had to increase because we had to repair the bungee cord arrangement before any serious rain or snowstorm, and it was clear no one was doing that and so the place was most likely flooding again. Now I hate water more than ever and know in my heart that it will kill me in the end, it as tried so many times, and has destroyed so much, and it will continue until it succeeds and I will be washed away. Historical Floods: Susquehanna River at Wilkes-Barre Period of Record: 1786-Present Flood Stage: 22 ft Number of Floods: 94 Latitude: 41.251 Longitude: -75.881 Last Flood: 9/8/2011 http://www.erh.noaa.gov/marfc/Rivers/FloodClimo/Pointfloods/Msu/WilkesBarre-MSU-%20PointFloods-Table.pdf _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
