dead as disco, alive as disco
a very short piece on being misread by choice
disco in latin means i learn, i get to know. there's gratitude in the phrase, in the word.
it's not for no reason that i have three disco balls in my apartment and a huge tattoo of it on my hand. but, of course, it is a signifier without a stable signified. signifier with a different signified. to others, it is discothèque. to me, it is discere. i don't always correct or explain it. being misread in a way i choose to by carrying a sign whose meaning is private.
someone sees my disco ball tattoo. they say something about the exclusive manhattan studio 54, their obsession with it. i am glad to learn that about the stranger, and i am glad there's a connection without a real connection. sometimes, i am also glad that this earns me random tidbits about discothèque. i learn. the two signifieds stop being separate there momentarily. wrong reading delivering the right meaning.
it also involves luck, the luck of getting to learn anything at all; i get to know. and sometimes, the luck is bad luck. part of the process, i am learning not to mind it.
when the daylight is waning, i turn on my warm lamp in the living room of my studio. then the warm fairylights that dance around the two disco balls hanging over the dining space. & when i am cooking, the warm kitchen light brings the third disco ball on the counter to life. it is my private space. where nobody misreads.
meaning makes home.
