Werner Barnsdall. “Ketameme,” (2015). New Hive. Courtesy the artist.
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Flaunt Plays Itself: While Having Taken Ketamine by Mistake and Henceforth Struggling to Remove This Lampshade
Playlists for the Most Scandalous of Situations
An apartment, a small party. Friends, pals, frenemies, and an assortment of stragglers. It was any kind of night. But tonight you took the blue pill. You thought it'd mean something. Then you found out it was a blue capsule filled with ketamine.
That's okay. It happens. To some more than others. But that's besides the point. The point is you were feeling it. And feeling it led from the record player (you were playing Patti Smith), to the bookshelf (you were reading Patti Smith), to the kitchen (you were Googling Patti Smith). Then you wrote back to that forsaken Tinder match (you quoted Patti Smith). That's when you noticed the lampshade.
It was on the opposite side of a narrow hall. Light emanated from the top, a warbling amber cone. More light dripped from the bottom. Motes of dust swirled and climbed, up and in, in. It was like a murky-translucent barbershop turnstile, of dead skin and flecking detritus. Of course you realized this was your hat.
A hat! That's what this night lacked. So you walked up and took off the beaming lampshade. Light flung itself upon every surface. You fought the brightness, and it sort of won because you jammed the lampshade over your head, wedging your forehead between two crossing pipes until you were snug. Snugly fucked that is.
Normally you'd slide right out of this predicament. But that blue pill (filled with white powder) was feisty. It was more like circumstance had slid over you, and made it difficult to navigate a small flat. You stumbled into a friend that would be soon be a frenemy, then a frenemy who would go on to ignore you, finally a straggler who was glad to never meet you. You banged a cupboard and a soup can plopped on your toe. This settled it: you were the party pariah banished to the kitchen.
It would eventually work out. People put things on. People take blue pills (some with tranquilizing powder). It happens. Though flippantly linking every phenomenon to Patti Smith, that was on you. You were wearing a lampshade as a hat, too, so there wasn't much else to put on you.
**FLAUNT Plays Itself: While Having Taken Ketamine by Mistake and Henceforth Struggling to Remove This Lampshade**
#### 1\. "Weight" - ISIS
#### 2\. "Weight (Fennesz Remix) - ISIS
#### 3\. "Carry" - ISIS
#### 4\. "Carry (Second Version) \[Tim Hecker Remix\]" - ISIS
#### 5\. "A Minor" - Kid606
#### 6\. "Iambic 9 Poetry" - Squarepusher
#### 7\. "Dream Nail" - Sebastian Rochford, Brian Eno
#### 8\. "They Won't See Me" - The Field
#### 9\. "Vatican Vibes" - Fatima Al Qadiri
10\. "An Ending (Ascent) - 2005 Digital Remaster" - Brian Eno
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