Editor's Note: Someone famous once said that just because everything is different doesn't mean that everything has changed. How true. Here we are: A new year, a new president...and still the same story. When this blog was committed to archival memory in 2008, Feelgoode had completed his second tour of the Afghan badlands. The last, we thought, of his adventures in Pashtun country. We were wrong. He's back in combat gear and desert boots.
So the Chronicles continue.
Leon,
Greetings from the front. This deployment has remained painfully unproductive; as of now I've done little more than print, frame and hang a plethora of photos, none of which have been taken by us.
A week or so ago, I had Arthur Rimbaud: Complete Works sent to my mailing address here, which arrived yesterday. It's a rather daunting volume of verse consisting of 349 pages of Rimbaud's poetry, letters and police testimony regarding his relationship with Paul Verlaine. Included are a few letters from Verlaine to Rimbaud. The book is divided into eight "seasons" highlighting major periods of Rimbaud's life. I've been reading from it continuously, interrupted only by work, sleep, or a smoke — I've just finished Season Six. His influence on Jim Morrison is apparent in his dark, highly sexual and occasionally vulgar writings. I highly recommend this enjoyable read.
I myself haven't written much, although I often contemplate possible prose over a cigarette (though I still prefer a cigar or pipe). Sometime in the future, I believe I'd like to try my hand at composing an epic, though the thought is slightly frightening in its boldness — being somewhat of the amateur poet that I am. We'll see soon enough I suppose.
A few nights ago, two in fact, I dreamt that the world was burning and it seemed that all I could do was laugh myself to tears amidst the maelstrom of flames. I need a drink.
Sincerely,
Feelgoode
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The amusing digressions of Doctor Feelgoode, straight from the front in Afghanistan.
History
Editor's Note
Corporal Adobe, a.k.a. "Doctor Feelgoode," isn't your run-of-the-mill grunt. He's what the Army calls a "multimedia illustrator" – a pen-and-mouse wielding computer graphics maestro in combat boots. Although combat really isn't part of the job description.
Feelgoode's been dispatched to the frontlines to draw pictures. Not frenzied sketches of nerve-racking street battles or grim portraits of war-torn faces contorted in anguish, but as the rock band R.E.M. might put it, pictures of shiny happy people holding hands.
(Yes, "propaganda," I can hear you all collectively sneer).
The often uninspired art finds its way onto leaflets and posters, sometimes strewn about the place like sandy toilet paper. It's not a very gratifying business, Feelgoode will tell you.
So, on this, his second tour of northern Afghanistan within the space of a year, the disgruntled twentysomething has turned to more fulfilling pastimes, like journaling and pipe smoking.
Ever the eager publisher, I asked Feelgoode to send me his deadpan epistles from the Middle East. They will be reproduced here, unedited and unvarnished, as hard proof of the crippling boredom that is the lot of many as the Bush administration's momentous-sounding "War on Terror" grinds on.
Feelgoode's been dispatched to the frontlines to draw pictures. Not frenzied sketches of nerve-racking street battles or grim portraits of war-torn faces contorted in anguish, but as the rock band R.E.M. might put it, pictures of shiny happy people holding hands.
(Yes, "propaganda," I can hear you all collectively sneer).
The often uninspired art finds its way onto leaflets and posters, sometimes strewn about the place like sandy toilet paper. It's not a very gratifying business, Feelgoode will tell you.
So, on this, his second tour of northern Afghanistan within the space of a year, the disgruntled twentysomething has turned to more fulfilling pastimes, like journaling and pipe smoking.
Ever the eager publisher, I asked Feelgoode to send me his deadpan epistles from the Middle East. They will be reproduced here, unedited and unvarnished, as hard proof of the crippling boredom that is the lot of many as the Bush administration's momentous-sounding "War on Terror" grinds on.
1 comment:
Hello Mr. D'Souza!! Because I can't comment on your other Blog, I commented on this one since you jumped off facebook. Rumor has it from a mutual friend (D) that we work in the same building now! So we must have lunch together sometime!! You can e-mail me and then I will let you know more specifically where I work. I'm so glad to have found your newest blog. I swear, for every 5 minutes I speak with you, my current events IQ must go up at least 5 points! It's been a while since our days chatting it up in S-1. ~Erika Anderson
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