The long and short of a mosh pit (1994)

In the Spring of 1994, while living in Iowa City and commuting to Cedar Rapids for work, I took an evening, creative non-fiction writing (yes, non-fiction can be "creative") class at the University of Iowa. Why? At the time, part of me wanted to know if I could do more than just be yet another dutiful, underpaid, underappreciated monkey in yet another nondescript, parochial architecture firm churning out more banal building designs and dumping them into the world. At the time, the Iowa Writers' Workshop was experiencing a resurgence due to the recent success of Jane Smiley winning the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with A Thousand Acres (1991). It was an opportunity, for low cost, to try stretching my creative muscles and see if I should further pursue joining the graduate program... which I never did. Life got busy... things changed... priorities changed... an opportunity, well, maybe squandered?

Anyways, our third writing assignment in the class was to explore the description of one scene, one moment, in two forms - (1) a single sentence (aka "the long") and (2) a series of short sentences (aka "the short"), of nearly equal length in word count. We had two days to work on them. We had to be quick and decisive. The teacher wanted "stream of consciousness" style of writing in these exercises... she wanted to see what our initial verbal instincts were... later we would return to these and revise them into a single, more conventional form.

I decided to use a mosh pit as my subject. For those who can appreciate the experience (I miss Gabe's... I hear it is still around!), it can be completely different vibes, dependent on the band, the song, the crowd, the night... the drugs/alcohol. I sought to capture two such experiences through the opposing prescribed structures.

I present these to you as a request from a friend. Whether they are actually any good or not... I leave it to you to decide for yourself.

The long of a mosh pit... a dirge

We usually find ourselves stumbling into some dimly lit, shabby, little hole-in-the-wall joint with cheap, dilapidated, yet nearly indestructible, furniture and a crowd of people, people of various sexes and sizes and social and sexual orientations, all fliting or floating about an expanse of wood or cheap vinyl tile they call a dance floor like some really cheesy flashback scene in a two-bit, "B" grade, film noir movie or some usually unusual, dark, disturbing and confusing episode of Twin Peaks where the characters fall into dreamlike trances and parade about in places with no walls, no air, no sound except for the mumblings of some midget who sounds like he is being reversed looped through a forward recording of a reversed monologue, indecipherable at the moment of performance but later absorbed through one's unbelieving, curious hungry ears, via some technological translator, hidden from sight, yet ominously present, like that foreboding guilt of knowing how often you really masturbate but continually deny or laugh off when some awkward moment of conversation thrusts the topic forward looking for the brave and stupid and prudish souls who dare to challenge the conversation with their dull wit and unbearable egos, a crowd of people lacking much in common yet sharing in either some moment of pure relentless pleasure derived from the neo-athletic endeavors of writhing and wriggling amongst each other as the music, a music of great audible volume and enormous emotional and psychological volume, grinding on and on like the waves of the ocean lapping against the shore of some distant virgin beach which eventually grow into frothing, muscled blasts of brine and debris as the tide rolls in and later falls away leaving large swaths of tired wreckage behind as if coughed up in some giant vomiting urge by the earth to purge itself of all the shit it's continually force-fed, or communing in some cesspool of despair derived from witnessing the ills of the world around us as it grinds along with unregulated, uncontrollable abandon with no regard for who or what it runs over or through in its path, and succumbing to the only means of pleasure which embodies itself in the tumultuous mass of individuals struggling to hold a presence in the crowd, the fury, with an intensity, almost rage, yet without animosity, passion without direction, a masturbation of emotion and energy, self-directed, self-gratifying, yet exhibitionist in nature, there for the whole world to witness one's expression of belief, faith, hope, anger, despair, denial, in pursuit of true, total control amidst the flailing, flopping and flogging extracted from the depths of our souls by a demanding, hypnotic groove, like a junkie's smack, no less addictive, no less exhilarating, no less poisoning to a perception of reality, if one can argue what is really real and what may just be the figment or construction of an imagination, where when you're spit out you dive back in, resisting being thrown, pushed, shoved, beaten down and at the same time yearn for escape, flight, freedom, like the phoenix rising from the ashes, the ashes of a fire which has not only consumed the creature itself but everything, yes everything that surrounded it, destroying that which prevented its escape, its freedom, its pleasure to live unfettered, unburdened, and like the phoenix, physical pain and weariness are rejected, the mind and spirit take over inducing a state, a trance, like the trance of a shaman, a witch doctor, a possessed body in which the truths hidden from one's day-to-day consciousness are revealed with such clarity as to be completely unintelligible to the intellectually conscious, for it is a visceral reality, devoid of learned reason, argument and discretion, a reality in which the lines between pain and pleasure, life and death, order and chaos, are blurred, distorted, even destroyed and reassembled in unprecedented constructions so as to continually keep one's sanity off-kilter, swimming in the sea of acrid air, polluted by the smoke, sweat and saliva expelled from the conglomeration of lungs and pores and glands mixing about like the ingredients in a bowl of your favorite chili, exchanging aromas, flavors and textures in an ungovernable swirl of heat and moisture,  continually grinding along without regard for any sane measure of time until that moment of utter despair and agony as the world outside, with all its ludicrous rules and limitations and prejudices and fears and anxieties stomps in, like the undesirable excessively muscled and insufficiently intelligent ogre who crashes a perfectly cool party which he thinks would be cool to be a part of not realizing that its cool, in the first place, because he is NOT there, rearing its ugly head of impending termination to this all to brief moment of escape from a world which had driven us here in the first place, seeking some refuge from the chaos and insanity of every day in our moment to create our own chaos and insanity and survive, even thrive in it.

The short of a mosh pit... a rollick

It is dark and smoky.  It is hot and damp.  The air is heavy and thick.  There are many people.  We are all strangers.  We are all the same.  Our differences bind us.  We know each other's stories.  Some stories are good.  Some stories are bad.  Some are lies.  Some are too true.  Truth rings loud and clear.  The music is loud.  The music is LOUD.  We don't care how loud.  It can't be loud enough.  Sometimes the truth is a lie.  Silence isn't silent enough.  LOUD is as good as silence.  LOUD is better than silence.  We can't think if it's too loud.  We can't feel if it's too loud.  We can't speak if it's too loud.  We can shout.  We can't speak.  We can't listen.  We can hear.  We can't listen.  We can act, though.  Instinct takes over.  We move.  We jump.  We run.  We push and shove.  We struggle against the tide.  We flow with the tide.  We let ourselves go.  We have to retrain ourselves.  Restraint is a rule.  We hold to the rules.  The rules are unspoken.  Breaking the rules is dangerous.  We like to flirt with danger.  Chaos is dangerous.  Chaos makes us high.  Getting high lets us enjoy the chaos.  Getting high lets us forget the real chaos.  We would like to forget.  Remembering is too painful.  Pain is not desirable.  Pain from pleasure is acceptable.  Pleasure from pain is something new.  Pleasure from pain is forbidden.  Pleasure from pain is dangerous.  We like to flirt with danger.  Chaos and danger and pain are part of living.  We like to know we are alive.  Chaos and danger and pain are part of death.  We like to know we are not dead.  Death is even more futile than life.  Futility surrounds us.  We battle futility. We fight back.  We fight futility with futility.  We fight futility with angst.  We fight futility with cynicism.  We fight futility with anger.  The anger is not focused.  We are angry at everything.  Everything is futile.  Life and Death and Music and Dance are futile.  Hope is often futile.  Hope is too easy. Easy to have, easy to destroy.  Anger takes energy.  Anger takes strength.  Anger hates futility.  Anger requires action.  Anger requires manifestation.  Anger requires attention.  Anger requires recognition.  We demand recognition.  We demand to be heard.  Listen to us.  Listen to our anger.  You heard it before.  You didn't listen.  You heard it.  You didn't LISTEN.  This time there are more of us.  This time we are pissed.  We are not angry.  We are PISSED.  Our older brothers were angry.  Our older sisters were angry.  They danced.  They shouted.  They expressed their anger to the world.  The world shrugged.  The world sighed.  The world shook its head.  The world heard.  The world did not listen.  The world didn't change.  It didn't want to.  This time is different.  The world has to change.  There are more of us.  More are pissed off.  Action is necessary.  Dance and music are our action.  Action is not violence.  Violence is an action.  Violence is directed.  Violence is focused.  Violence is dangerous.  We like to flirt with danger.  But, we know the rules.  Violence is dangerous.  Violence is not chaotic.  Violence is focused.  Chaos is dangerous.  Violence is more dangerous than chaos.  Violence causes pain.  Pain from pleasure is acceptable.  Pleasure from pain is dangerous.  The music is LOUD.  The loudness is painful.   We enjoy the music.  We push and shove.  The dance is angry.  The dance is painful.  We enjoy the dance.  We know the rules.  We push the rules.  Violence is a rule.  Dance can be violent.  Dance can be painful.  Restraint is a rule.  Restraint makes the violence desirable.