Saturday, December 25, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
At some point in his career he was designated the unofficial figurehead for the booming Anti-Intellectual movement in America, a movement that he both had a hand in creating and nurtured from its inception. His philosophy was this: big ideas occur when little planning is involved. Simply writing is enough to carve out and establish an identity. Style over substance, because substance comes naturally--effortlessly.
His style was recognized as "profoundly, powerfully simple"--no frills; no fluff. He wrote as a means to expel the insidious thoughts inside his head, for fear that they may possess him entirely otherwise--voices that accumulate and collect, like lent-traps, day-to-day ephemera and threaten mental illness should the keeper of these voices refuse to translate the persistent obsessions onto paper. He was a prisoner of his own mind, though he liked to think of himself as a "free-thinking" spokesperson for the intellectually apathetic.
His whole life was a sham.
Perhaps the most famous quote attributed to him was from a book he wrote at the start of his career (which was widely considered "promising") but which he could no longer remember writing. The quote goes like this: "I try to be well-spoken. Itry to be well-read. But it somehow always comes off as well-rehearsed." This is the quote talking heads liked to bring up in television and radio interviews with him, citing it as the penultimate creed of the Anti-Intellectual--the three terse sentences that set the movement in motion.
To tell you the truth, he had no idea where this quote originated. He certainly didn't remember writing it, so he had only a vague idea of how or in what context it was used in his book. It seemed to him that it was a female character who said this, but he couldn't be sure. Maybe it was an old man. It didn't matter. Everything he wrote, he wrote because it felt right or looked right on paper next to neighboring ideas, images or words. A lot of critics liked to point out that such and such a book, passage, quote, idea meant something profound, usually in relation to some concurrent social issue or event, to which he would just shrug his shoulders and say: "Oh, you think so?" And this is more or less how he went about his days--the apathetic figurehead shrugging his shoulders at the possibility of or provocation for deeper insight.
One day, he met a girl. She was very beautiful. He thought she favored his preconceived idea of what it meant to look like a "New York Jew," an idea--a look--he'd always been attracted to. He thought it would be offensive to tell her this, so he kept his mouth shut and simply told her that she was "beautiful" instead.
He kept his mouth shut about a lot of things with her. This is how he felt it was necessary to interact with her in order to maintain their peaceful, easy-going relationship. When she told him once that she loved him, he parroted the same affectation back to her. But what he really felt was that she was beautiful and fun to have sex with and easy to talk to. He knew he could find others like her but he didn't want her to know this. Saying "I love you" was a way for him to make their relationship sound exclusive and unique when, really, it could be replicated a million times plus. It was a very big secret that he felt he may blabber at any moment--thus, he stifled his natural inclination to talk openly and freely about whatever thought might manifest itself in his head.
on long drives, trips through the country, trips to the country, trips through familiar cities and strange ones, too, he kept his focus on the world outside the driver's side or passenger side window, depending on the arrangement. he would allow her to gush about whatever topic she chose because he knew she would never dare bring up something that might offend him. she may talk incessantly about things he only pretended to care about, but she would never say anything to intentionally hurt his feelings. therefore, he appreciated it even when she went on and on and on about back-stabbing co-workers or unremarkable (to him) childhood memories. he appreciated them solely on the merit that they weren't offensive or taboo topics, but things he could easily listen to and selectively remember.
once, she asked him about his work. they had stopped off at some mom-and-pop owned restaurant in the deep south with an adjoining old-time filling station. she complained that she was hungry and tired of driving--they'd been on the road for an extensive period of time, headed to florida, of all places, and although he wasn't hungry, himself, he complied because the prospect of an unfamiliar detour excited him.
she asked him if he'd run dry on ideas. he looked out the window, at a large yellow billboard with big bold black lettering advertising one of many anonymous smut shops that you find in growing numbers the further south you travel in America. he told her he didn't know. maybe he had. or maybe he'd stopped writing (a decision he made a few years back) because he felt an immediate compulsion to explore other facets of the human experience--travelling, relationships, food, etc.
you know what? she said. i think you're a hack. i think you've lost it. you used to be someone important--someone i gave a damn about.
he was obviously taken aback by this. this was one of the offensive things she never brought up around him. he looked at her, half-amused but mostly startled.
why do you say that? he asked.
you haven't written anything in years, she said. she took a nasty bite of her chicken-fingers, grease adorning the lower part of her mouth and chin like smeared chapstick. he found this funny. he laughed.
why are you laughing? i'm sick of supporting you--a writer that doesn't write. how am i supposed to be in love with someone who can't even afford to take me out for a fast-food dinner? i used to brag to all my friends that you were someone important, a notable literary figure. but now--you're nothing. you're just some poor loser, on his way to florida with his embittered girlfriend.
you're right, he said. if it bothers you, maybe we should break up.
and that's another thing. you don't even care. you don't give a damn. about anything.
there was a momentary silence--one that was tense and new. he found this exciting, though he was afraid to show it. finally, a little drama. a heated argument, the kind normal couples have. it was refreshing--he wondered why he'd been avoiding this sort of thing for so long.
you know what, he said. i was on a book tour once, in Thailand.
i don't give a goddamn about your stupid book tour, she interjected.
well--hold on, now. just listen, he said. i was on a book tour, in Thailand. my publisher sent me there, to do press for either my second or third novel, i can't remember which. i was told that the book was selling well in Thailand, and most of Asia. i was important enough, then, to be translated in languages that weren't my own. imagine that! have you ever had something to say that someone felt was vital enough that people on the opposite side of the world should hear it?
she wasn't amused.
anyway, as soon as i got there--i was running late--they rushed me to a local bookstore. they had a table set up for me and everything. i was supposed to be signing copies of my book from noon until four. then, it was off to the radio stations to do some publicity. the weird thing, however, was that when i got to the bookstore, no one was there. i mean: my pr people were there. but no fans. yet they'd convinced me of my celebrity beforehand. i mean, that was the reason i'd gone over there--because i was told i was famous enough to do so. i ended up drinking free coffee for about an hour at my lonely post--a rickety old aluminum card table dressed in red cloth--until i had this big epiphany. here, in Thailand, i meant nothing. i meant absolute dogshit to these people. i was just another stupid self-obsessed American trying to promote myself in a country that was better off or just fine without me. they didn't need to read my books. they didn't need my ideas. they were all ideas that they could and probably had come across already. who cares if i was the first one to document them in print. who even knows if that's true. here, i was no one. and it was great. you have no idea how liberating it is to see your own self-importance vanish so suddenly before your very eyes.
immediately following this revelation i called my publisher and told him that i was going to explore the country a little bit--the book tour be damned. i'd earned it. of course, he wasn't pleased with the news. but there wasn't much he could do. i was in a different country. i wandered the streets of Thailand all afternoon, all night and well into the morning until i felt no sense that i was in a foreign country at all but a place that very well might have been America had the cards been dealt again and certain variables reversed.
so? she said. what's your point?
he paused. he wasn't sure there was a point. or, if there was, he was having trouble making sense of it, finding the right words to articulate it.
honestly, he said. i don't know. i don't know if there is a point. it just sounded right. like something you needed to hear.
His style was recognized as "profoundly, powerfully simple"--no frills; no fluff. He wrote as a means to expel the insidious thoughts inside his head, for fear that they may possess him entirely otherwise--voices that accumulate and collect, like lent-traps, day-to-day ephemera and threaten mental illness should the keeper of these voices refuse to translate the persistent obsessions onto paper. He was a prisoner of his own mind, though he liked to think of himself as a "free-thinking" spokesperson for the intellectually apathetic.
His whole life was a sham.
Perhaps the most famous quote attributed to him was from a book he wrote at the start of his career (which was widely considered "promising") but which he could no longer remember writing. The quote goes like this: "I try to be well-spoken. Itry to be well-read. But it somehow always comes off as well-rehearsed." This is the quote talking heads liked to bring up in television and radio interviews with him, citing it as the penultimate creed of the Anti-Intellectual--the three terse sentences that set the movement in motion.
To tell you the truth, he had no idea where this quote originated. He certainly didn't remember writing it, so he had only a vague idea of how or in what context it was used in his book. It seemed to him that it was a female character who said this, but he couldn't be sure. Maybe it was an old man. It didn't matter. Everything he wrote, he wrote because it felt right or looked right on paper next to neighboring ideas, images or words. A lot of critics liked to point out that such and such a book, passage, quote, idea meant something profound, usually in relation to some concurrent social issue or event, to which he would just shrug his shoulders and say: "Oh, you think so?" And this is more or less how he went about his days--the apathetic figurehead shrugging his shoulders at the possibility of or provocation for deeper insight.
One day, he met a girl. She was very beautiful. He thought she favored his preconceived idea of what it meant to look like a "New York Jew," an idea--a look--he'd always been attracted to. He thought it would be offensive to tell her this, so he kept his mouth shut and simply told her that she was "beautiful" instead.
He kept his mouth shut about a lot of things with her. This is how he felt it was necessary to interact with her in order to maintain their peaceful, easy-going relationship. When she told him once that she loved him, he parroted the same affectation back to her. But what he really felt was that she was beautiful and fun to have sex with and easy to talk to. He knew he could find others like her but he didn't want her to know this. Saying "I love you" was a way for him to make their relationship sound exclusive and unique when, really, it could be replicated a million times plus. It was a very big secret that he felt he may blabber at any moment--thus, he stifled his natural inclination to talk openly and freely about whatever thought might manifest itself in his head.
on long drives, trips through the country, trips to the country, trips through familiar cities and strange ones, too, he kept his focus on the world outside the driver's side or passenger side window, depending on the arrangement. he would allow her to gush about whatever topic she chose because he knew she would never dare bring up something that might offend him. she may talk incessantly about things he only pretended to care about, but she would never say anything to intentionally hurt his feelings. therefore, he appreciated it even when she went on and on and on about back-stabbing co-workers or unremarkable (to him) childhood memories. he appreciated them solely on the merit that they weren't offensive or taboo topics, but things he could easily listen to and selectively remember.
once, she asked him about his work. they had stopped off at some mom-and-pop owned restaurant in the deep south with an adjoining old-time filling station. she complained that she was hungry and tired of driving--they'd been on the road for an extensive period of time, headed to florida, of all places, and although he wasn't hungry, himself, he complied because the prospect of an unfamiliar detour excited him.
she asked him if he'd run dry on ideas. he looked out the window, at a large yellow billboard with big bold black lettering advertising one of many anonymous smut shops that you find in growing numbers the further south you travel in America. he told her he didn't know. maybe he had. or maybe he'd stopped writing (a decision he made a few years back) because he felt an immediate compulsion to explore other facets of the human experience--travelling, relationships, food, etc.
you know what? she said. i think you're a hack. i think you've lost it. you used to be someone important--someone i gave a damn about.
he was obviously taken aback by this. this was one of the offensive things she never brought up around him. he looked at her, half-amused but mostly startled.
why do you say that? he asked.
you haven't written anything in years, she said. she took a nasty bite of her chicken-fingers, grease adorning the lower part of her mouth and chin like smeared chapstick. he found this funny. he laughed.
why are you laughing? i'm sick of supporting you--a writer that doesn't write. how am i supposed to be in love with someone who can't even afford to take me out for a fast-food dinner? i used to brag to all my friends that you were someone important, a notable literary figure. but now--you're nothing. you're just some poor loser, on his way to florida with his embittered girlfriend.
you're right, he said. if it bothers you, maybe we should break up.
and that's another thing. you don't even care. you don't give a damn. about anything.
there was a momentary silence--one that was tense and new. he found this exciting, though he was afraid to show it. finally, a little drama. a heated argument, the kind normal couples have. it was refreshing--he wondered why he'd been avoiding this sort of thing for so long.
you know what, he said. i was on a book tour once, in Thailand.
i don't give a goddamn about your stupid book tour, she interjected.
well--hold on, now. just listen, he said. i was on a book tour, in Thailand. my publisher sent me there, to do press for either my second or third novel, i can't remember which. i was told that the book was selling well in Thailand, and most of Asia. i was important enough, then, to be translated in languages that weren't my own. imagine that! have you ever had something to say that someone felt was vital enough that people on the opposite side of the world should hear it?
she wasn't amused.
anyway, as soon as i got there--i was running late--they rushed me to a local bookstore. they had a table set up for me and everything. i was supposed to be signing copies of my book from noon until four. then, it was off to the radio stations to do some publicity. the weird thing, however, was that when i got to the bookstore, no one was there. i mean: my pr people were there. but no fans. yet they'd convinced me of my celebrity beforehand. i mean, that was the reason i'd gone over there--because i was told i was famous enough to do so. i ended up drinking free coffee for about an hour at my lonely post--a rickety old aluminum card table dressed in red cloth--until i had this big epiphany. here, in Thailand, i meant nothing. i meant absolute dogshit to these people. i was just another stupid self-obsessed American trying to promote myself in a country that was better off or just fine without me. they didn't need to read my books. they didn't need my ideas. they were all ideas that they could and probably had come across already. who cares if i was the first one to document them in print. who even knows if that's true. here, i was no one. and it was great. you have no idea how liberating it is to see your own self-importance vanish so suddenly before your very eyes.
immediately following this revelation i called my publisher and told him that i was going to explore the country a little bit--the book tour be damned. i'd earned it. of course, he wasn't pleased with the news. but there wasn't much he could do. i was in a different country. i wandered the streets of Thailand all afternoon, all night and well into the morning until i felt no sense that i was in a foreign country at all but a place that very well might have been America had the cards been dealt again and certain variables reversed.
so? she said. what's your point?
he paused. he wasn't sure there was a point. or, if there was, he was having trouble making sense of it, finding the right words to articulate it.
honestly, he said. i don't know. i don't know if there is a point. it just sounded right. like something you needed to hear.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
market strategy
i hate to beat a dead horse, here. i know this is something i've talked about extensively in the past, but it's so true and it's something i think about with great frequency. compelling art--great art--is about sucking the listener, the viewer, the reader, etc. into your own little world. it's almost entirely mythology--creating an entire universe that follows its own logic, its own set of rules, has its own feel, its own essential qualities.
a lot of times i'll hear a band and think: wow. these guys are really good. but they just don't have it--they don't have that all-elusive it factor that draws people in, that keeps people interested--that seemingly inexplicable quality that turns separates the important from the expendable. and i'm pretty sure what i mean by that is that they don't have that mythology--that idiosyncratic pull.
nirvana was a great band because they had that mythology. you know a nirvana song when you hear it. you've heard other songs that sound like nirvana songs but you'll always know the original when you hear it. they created their own little world--defined the seattle sound so that when people think of "grunge" they think of nirvana. they think of kurt cobain--the quintessential tormented artist--his cardigan--his addiction to heroin--his eventual suicide--all of these things add up to the nirvana mythology. they make the band stick out from the rest of the seattle musicians and subsequent imitators, so that they're able to stand entirely on their own.
the same can be said for any number of bands or artists i like. radiohead. the arcade fire. pixies. sigur ros. they all have that thing that people can point to and say (or perhaps not say because they don't think they can find the words): yeah, that's a sigur ros song. that sounds like radiohead. or: that is soooo the arcade fire. and this is ultimately what sets these bands apart from the pack. why it's so easy to get lost in the world of in the aeroplane over the sea vs. a spot-on imitation of neutral milk hotel. it's not just that these bands are innovators or that they're completely original. for one, i don't think that is entirely true. everything is derivative, in one way or another. these bands were just able to take different elements and reconfigure them into one exploitable and very definite sound or image.
at times, i think this is gimmicky or one-dimensional. but then--i'm not entirely convinced this is a bad thing. i mean, that's what people naturally gravitate towards--things they find accessible, relatable, easy to pinpoint. so why shouldn't art be the same way? it's nice when things make sense. when things come in a neat little package. the illusion of order is so damned alluring. it doesn't have to be shallow, necessarily. there's always something deeper under the surface, but it's nice to have an attractive exterior to barrel through. i'd say both are vital to any great piece of art. you need depth but the appearance, no matter how deceiving, of organization is also important. it's like the ideal person: relatively smart, relatively attractive. brains and beauty. a good balance of both.
a lot of times i'll hear a band and think: wow. these guys are really good. but they just don't have it--they don't have that all-elusive it factor that draws people in, that keeps people interested--that seemingly inexplicable quality that turns separates the important from the expendable. and i'm pretty sure what i mean by that is that they don't have that mythology--that idiosyncratic pull.
nirvana was a great band because they had that mythology. you know a nirvana song when you hear it. you've heard other songs that sound like nirvana songs but you'll always know the original when you hear it. they created their own little world--defined the seattle sound so that when people think of "grunge" they think of nirvana. they think of kurt cobain--the quintessential tormented artist--his cardigan--his addiction to heroin--his eventual suicide--all of these things add up to the nirvana mythology. they make the band stick out from the rest of the seattle musicians and subsequent imitators, so that they're able to stand entirely on their own.
the same can be said for any number of bands or artists i like. radiohead. the arcade fire. pixies. sigur ros. they all have that thing that people can point to and say (or perhaps not say because they don't think they can find the words): yeah, that's a sigur ros song. that sounds like radiohead. or: that is soooo the arcade fire. and this is ultimately what sets these bands apart from the pack. why it's so easy to get lost in the world of in the aeroplane over the sea vs. a spot-on imitation of neutral milk hotel. it's not just that these bands are innovators or that they're completely original. for one, i don't think that is entirely true. everything is derivative, in one way or another. these bands were just able to take different elements and reconfigure them into one exploitable and very definite sound or image.
at times, i think this is gimmicky or one-dimensional. but then--i'm not entirely convinced this is a bad thing. i mean, that's what people naturally gravitate towards--things they find accessible, relatable, easy to pinpoint. so why shouldn't art be the same way? it's nice when things make sense. when things come in a neat little package. the illusion of order is so damned alluring. it doesn't have to be shallow, necessarily. there's always something deeper under the surface, but it's nice to have an attractive exterior to barrel through. i'd say both are vital to any great piece of art. you need depth but the appearance, no matter how deceiving, of organization is also important. it's like the ideal person: relatively smart, relatively attractive. brains and beauty. a good balance of both.
Monday, November 1, 2010
a letter
dear indie/art-film directors and screenwriters and anyone else associated with this now-corrupt (it had to happen sooner or later) movement (movement?),
pleez stop making the same "understated" melodramatic doggerel films--quirky characters and even quirkier soundtracks. the joke is no longer funny to me.
sincerely,
bored film-fanatic with no access to the necessary resources to remedy the sordid state of film
pleez stop making the same "understated" melodramatic doggerel films--quirky characters and even quirkier soundtracks. the joke is no longer funny to me.
sincerely,
bored film-fanatic with no access to the necessary resources to remedy the sordid state of film
Thursday, October 28, 2010
some ideas
came up with two story ideas today. may try to fuse them into one.
the first one is about a man who vaguely anticipates the arrival of a stranger. he doesn't know why, but he has a feeling--some kind of psychic hunch--that someone he's never seen or met before is going to arrive at his front doorstep--he even knows when it's going to happen--on what date and what time.
he waits in bed all morning (this is when he expects his visitor) while his wife is busy cleaning the house. the doorbell rings and he rushes down the stairs. there is a bearded man waiting outside (in the movie-version of this story i imagine this part being played by zach galifianakis). he opens the door and the two lock stares. the bearded man begins to cry. he lunges forward and hugs the man, whose wife is watching from some vantage point behind the door and is by now completely confounded at the whole spectacle.
the second story--i can't remember. i thought of it in the shower when i got home from work this morning. i think it involved a father and a son. my mind is foggy right now. i'm sure it will come to me later.
the first one is about a man who vaguely anticipates the arrival of a stranger. he doesn't know why, but he has a feeling--some kind of psychic hunch--that someone he's never seen or met before is going to arrive at his front doorstep--he even knows when it's going to happen--on what date and what time.
he waits in bed all morning (this is when he expects his visitor) while his wife is busy cleaning the house. the doorbell rings and he rushes down the stairs. there is a bearded man waiting outside (in the movie-version of this story i imagine this part being played by zach galifianakis). he opens the door and the two lock stares. the bearded man begins to cry. he lunges forward and hugs the man, whose wife is watching from some vantage point behind the door and is by now completely confounded at the whole spectacle.
the second story--i can't remember. i thought of it in the shower when i got home from work this morning. i think it involved a father and a son. my mind is foggy right now. i'm sure it will come to me later.
Monday, October 25, 2010
more crap
i wish i knew what it was that kept me from expressing myself as fluently as i'd like to. my mind is filled--chock-full--of pretty images and words but i can't seem to find the right way to articulate it--to translate what i see. it could just be that i'm thinking too hard about--that i've dug myself into a hole (constantly fixated on writing the perfect song, the perfect lyric, etc.). i don't know.
every time i set pen to paper or start to type something out it comes out as scrambled and amateurish. perhaps i need to disrupt my routine--get out and walk; start talking to people; about things i have no interest in. maybe then i'll come back to whatever it is that allowed me to be creative in the first place. it seems like there always needs to be a contrast--a reaction to something. maybe that's what i need. less stimulation of the senses, trivial indulgences. more of the mundane.
lately, it's been hard to tell the difference.
every time i set pen to paper or start to type something out it comes out as scrambled and amateurish. perhaps i need to disrupt my routine--get out and walk; start talking to people; about things i have no interest in. maybe then i'll come back to whatever it is that allowed me to be creative in the first place. it seems like there always needs to be a contrast--a reaction to something. maybe that's what i need. less stimulation of the senses, trivial indulgences. more of the mundane.
lately, it's been hard to tell the difference.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
every girl you know is a photographer
i've been having a sort of recurring realization this past year or so. it comes every now and then, when i find the time to actually stop and concentrate on myself and my future trajectory. not that i don't already spend a lot of time thinking about myself, this sort of self-reflexive thinking is different. it's not so much rooted in the present--what i lack and what i have now--but where i'll be in the future--how this current way of living will shape me so many years down the road. the thing that really scares me is this feeling that i have no idea who i am--that i am so vulnerable to outside influences. i feel like, though my identity may be there, tangible as something of this nature can be, it's never really definite. there's a constant voice in my head which informs a lot of who i am but there's this other part of me that thrives on vicarious reinforcement--imitating qualities i find great in others--attempting to make them my own.
it's something i've been called out on. in fact, i'm pretty sure it's something a lot of people get called out on. "quit acting like so-and-so!" "you know who you remind me of?" etc. etc. i just wander if i'll ever develop my own sense of self. or if i'll constantly be redefining myself, my entire life, adjusting to the transient ebb and flow of things, constantly modifying, self-editing, changing what i believe to match up with some new ideal.
i want to locate my voice and exploit it. i want to feel comfortable in my own skin, as they say. i guess it just takes a fair amount of observation--picking up on things i like, noticing when and what i like and then adding these things to my repertoire.
i don't know.
i don't know.
whatever.
it's something i've been called out on. in fact, i'm pretty sure it's something a lot of people get called out on. "quit acting like so-and-so!" "you know who you remind me of?" etc. etc. i just wander if i'll ever develop my own sense of self. or if i'll constantly be redefining myself, my entire life, adjusting to the transient ebb and flow of things, constantly modifying, self-editing, changing what i believe to match up with some new ideal.
i want to locate my voice and exploit it. i want to feel comfortable in my own skin, as they say. i guess it just takes a fair amount of observation--picking up on things i like, noticing when and what i like and then adding these things to my repertoire.
i don't know.
i don't know.
whatever.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
sketch
There was something familiar about her. Familiar and alluring. Alluring, perhaps, because she did seem so familiar. Seeing her now, for the first time, didn't feel like the first time at all. He felt like he'd seen her before--somewhere, in some other time. It was a trite feeling--one he'd expect to find in a romantic comedy (films that were neither romantic or funny)--and he acknowledged this, but he still felt something profound stirring up in his being and he completely indulged this feeling to its full sap-flooded limit, letting it consume him wholly.
She got up and sat down at his table. She was smoking a cigarette--in a way he wanted to imitate, in a way that made him forget entirely that he was already a smoker, himself. It was attractive enough to make him want to pick up the habit all over again, from the beginning, when it was still a fairly new and unexplored sensation. He lit a cigarette--half out of nervousness (to have something occupying his hands--a distraction just in case) and half because he wanted to feel what she must have felt, emanating the essential lifeforce of all mankind at the other end of the table, the smoke almost an extension of her physical self which he couldn't separate from her radiant energy.
She got up and sat down at his table. She was smoking a cigarette--in a way he wanted to imitate, in a way that made him forget entirely that he was already a smoker, himself. It was attractive enough to make him want to pick up the habit all over again, from the beginning, when it was still a fairly new and unexplored sensation. He lit a cigarette--half out of nervousness (to have something occupying his hands--a distraction just in case) and half because he wanted to feel what she must have felt, emanating the essential lifeforce of all mankind at the other end of the table, the smoke almost an extension of her physical self which he couldn't separate from her radiant energy.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
a letter to my best friendz in the advertising game
dear hulu, mediafire, youtube, netflix, amazon, google and other sites i frequent on a near-daily basis,
pleez pleez pleez
could you pleez continue to ruin my daily browsing experience with more advertisements i don't and probably never will pay attention to. i've come to depend on your ineffective marketing strategies in recent years and i don't know where i'd be or which products to purchase without your helpful intervention. thanks for pointing me in the right direction. nothing makes me want to rush out and buy buy buy something more than having my favorite programs and content interrupted by irrelevant advertising no doubt pushed by greedy suit-sharks with no concept anymore of how the human mind works--being so detached from the human experience themselves as a result of having spent the last thirty years of their lives cooped up in board rooms devising ways to dupe the general consumer. as a general consumer, myself, i just want you to know, that it's working. it's really really working. not only are your ads highly relatable and funny and quotable and cutting-edge and provocative (believe me, i talk about them everyday at work with all my best friends for life by the water cooler--i'm probably going to name my first born "wassup!"), but they're totally working. i swear. they really are.
i don't know how you do it. some say subliminal advertising is a sham. but i for one can attest that it is in fact a reality. i catch myself sleepwalking, in the middle of the night, sometimes, to the local supermarket, inexplicably in search of the latest holiday-themed corn chips.
thanks for carrying on that great american tradition of wrongfully taking what was once free and more or less the property of someone else (the internetz) and corrupting it with archaic ideals that have proven historically not to work; conquering vast stretches of free content and commodifying it in the name of enterprise. you truly are pioneers.
fuck you
-working class rube
pleez pleez pleez
could you pleez continue to ruin my daily browsing experience with more advertisements i don't and probably never will pay attention to. i've come to depend on your ineffective marketing strategies in recent years and i don't know where i'd be or which products to purchase without your helpful intervention. thanks for pointing me in the right direction. nothing makes me want to rush out and buy buy buy something more than having my favorite programs and content interrupted by irrelevant advertising no doubt pushed by greedy suit-sharks with no concept anymore of how the human mind works--being so detached from the human experience themselves as a result of having spent the last thirty years of their lives cooped up in board rooms devising ways to dupe the general consumer. as a general consumer, myself, i just want you to know, that it's working. it's really really working. not only are your ads highly relatable and funny and quotable and cutting-edge and provocative (believe me, i talk about them everyday at work with all my best friends for life by the water cooler--i'm probably going to name my first born "wassup!"), but they're totally working. i swear. they really are.
i don't know how you do it. some say subliminal advertising is a sham. but i for one can attest that it is in fact a reality. i catch myself sleepwalking, in the middle of the night, sometimes, to the local supermarket, inexplicably in search of the latest holiday-themed corn chips.
thanks for carrying on that great american tradition of wrongfully taking what was once free and more or less the property of someone else (the internetz) and corrupting it with archaic ideals that have proven historically not to work; conquering vast stretches of free content and commodifying it in the name of enterprise. you truly are pioneers.
fuck you
-working class rube
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
zombie punchline
lily white and all-teeth grinning
the retching and the drool
pick apart a single line
and see that it's no use
here they come to skulk among us
here they come to feast
to resurrect an empty vessel
and sing you off to sleep
disenchanted lullabies
and saccharine for the swill
a single drop of toxic waste
they'd rather see a spill
my head's a mess of heavy fog
my mind's already made
i'm gonna join the cause, i guess
at least i might get laid
hare-brained schemes in the
godless hours
the longest stretch of night
ill-conceived in the cemetery
by the darkest light
the retching and the drool
pick apart a single line
and see that it's no use
here they come to skulk among us
here they come to feast
to resurrect an empty vessel
and sing you off to sleep
disenchanted lullabies
and saccharine for the swill
a single drop of toxic waste
they'd rather see a spill
my head's a mess of heavy fog
my mind's already made
i'm gonna join the cause, i guess
at least i might get laid
hare-brained schemes in the
godless hours
the longest stretch of night
ill-conceived in the cemetery
by the darkest light
ideaaaaaaa
here they come
to skulk among us
to impart upon us
words too vague
to analyze
or pick apart
and all the same
it's filth
it's rotten
vulgar to the bone
separate the meat
and maggots teeming
find it on your own
there is no use
in dwelling in it
stewing in your filth
there is no use
in comprehending
anything at all
here they come
with all-teeth grins
to sing you off to
sleep tonight
vomit-caked and
lily white
to send you off again
they walk among us
with a taste for blood
moving slow but when they
assemble
there is nowhere to run
to skulk among us
to impart upon us
words too vague
to analyze
or pick apart
and all the same
it's filth
it's rotten
vulgar to the bone
separate the meat
and maggots teeming
find it on your own
there is no use
in dwelling in it
stewing in your filth
there is no use
in comprehending
anything at all
here they come
with all-teeth grins
to sing you off to
sleep tonight
vomit-caked and
lily white
to send you off again
they walk among us
with a taste for blood
moving slow but when they
assemble
there is nowhere to run
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
metacognition
tonight, the moon is full of closeted ideas and repressions of thought
of memories, too difficult to communicate
still, it radiates, it glows
over everything
leaking mystery everywhere
showering the world in a threadbare
hardly visible
but still recognizable
spray or mist of inspirational fluff:
the hack-artist's most treasured dream-vision
the lifeblood of the high-art mongoloid
he situates and/or positions himself in front of
a typewriter
he imagines a monitor screen where an open window, a drawn curtain,
contaminates his head
with stock imagery
recycled debris and ash from
far greater poets
far greater writers
still, he persists.
he lets his hands float above the letters, anticipating the click, the quick dragon-snap
of ink on or at paper
he wonders why he's never investigated the inner-workings
of the typewriter
the mechanics
he's never been one to investigate machinery, so why does this interest him now?
finally, a strand of words appear:
i am/no/this/this is me
i am me/typing this/no matter how unlike myself/
these words may seem/
they are me/try as i might/
i cannot abolish myself/
what is essentially me/
anything/any idea/that leaves my body/
never wanders far/
it is bound and shackled to my brain/
like a dog on a leash chasing a boomerang/
back to me/marked by own stubbornly persistent/
voice--
he waits a second and reviews what he's just typed. this is
crap, he decides. pure and simple crap. he rips the paper from the
typewriter and crumples it up into a little ball.
for just a second, he contemplates throwing it--far--out the window, perhaps,
imagines
the thick thud it will make on his neighbor's side-panelling.
finally, he just drops it on the floor--less of a drop and more of a
simple letting go or releasing from his grip (note: this is not a metaphor--unless you'd like it
to be, in which case, it's completely relevant).
he leans back in his chair and lights another cigarette
i know so little about writing, he decides. i know so little about myself.
he looks back over the poem, to the best of his ability, in his brain,
he keeps coming back to the dog on a leash line
the line about the frisbee
(or was it a boomerang?)
being bound and shackled
he can't stand it--the lack of inventiveness
the exhausted metaphors
the cliched cliches
he thinks briefly about a dream he had: dead babies stuffed between the mattress and the wall, under a heap of bedsheets and trash, dumpy girls with dumpy flat asses and dumpy personalities, the shimmer of fur
that might make a good poem, he thinks. if only i knew how to put into words.
he reconfigures his body once more in front of the typewriter, the open window, the only thing
different now being the crumpled ball of paper beside his chair
i've been thinking about thinking about thinking, he writes, and i've acted out of pure selfishness, killing everything i loved....
of memories, too difficult to communicate
still, it radiates, it glows
over everything
leaking mystery everywhere
showering the world in a threadbare
hardly visible
but still recognizable
spray or mist of inspirational fluff:
the hack-artist's most treasured dream-vision
the lifeblood of the high-art mongoloid
he situates and/or positions himself in front of
a typewriter
he imagines a monitor screen where an open window, a drawn curtain,
contaminates his head
with stock imagery
recycled debris and ash from
far greater poets
far greater writers
still, he persists.
he lets his hands float above the letters, anticipating the click, the quick dragon-snap
of ink on or at paper
he wonders why he's never investigated the inner-workings
of the typewriter
the mechanics
he's never been one to investigate machinery, so why does this interest him now?
finally, a strand of words appear:
i am/no/this/this is me
i am me/typing this/no matter how unlike myself/
these words may seem/
they are me/try as i might/
i cannot abolish myself/
what is essentially me/
anything/any idea/that leaves my body/
never wanders far/
it is bound and shackled to my brain/
like a dog on a leash chasing a boomerang/
back to me/marked by own stubbornly persistent/
voice--
he waits a second and reviews what he's just typed. this is
crap, he decides. pure and simple crap. he rips the paper from the
typewriter and crumples it up into a little ball.
for just a second, he contemplates throwing it--far--out the window, perhaps,
imagines
the thick thud it will make on his neighbor's side-panelling.
finally, he just drops it on the floor--less of a drop and more of a
simple letting go or releasing from his grip (note: this is not a metaphor--unless you'd like it
to be, in which case, it's completely relevant).
he leans back in his chair and lights another cigarette
i know so little about writing, he decides. i know so little about myself.
he looks back over the poem, to the best of his ability, in his brain,
he keeps coming back to the dog on a leash line
the line about the frisbee
(or was it a boomerang?)
being bound and shackled
he can't stand it--the lack of inventiveness
the exhausted metaphors
the cliched cliches
he thinks briefly about a dream he had: dead babies stuffed between the mattress and the wall, under a heap of bedsheets and trash, dumpy girls with dumpy flat asses and dumpy personalities, the shimmer of fur
that might make a good poem, he thinks. if only i knew how to put into words.
he reconfigures his body once more in front of the typewriter, the open window, the only thing
different now being the crumpled ball of paper beside his chair
i've been thinking about thinking about thinking, he writes, and i've acted out of pure selfishness, killing everything i loved....
Friday, September 17, 2010
never never never
sample dialogue from a movie i'd pay full admission to see:
guy a: sometimes--i'm talking to people and it doesn't feel like i'm talking to them at all. it's more like--i feel like i'm playing a game of chess.
guy b: you don't know how to play chess.
guy a: exactly!
guy a: sometimes--i'm talking to people and it doesn't feel like i'm talking to them at all. it's more like--i feel like i'm playing a game of chess.
guy b: you don't know how to play chess.
guy a: exactly!
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
smut
so, i've calmed down a bit lately--i haven't felt as neurotic or anxious. i think a lot of it had to do with work slash over-thinking. too often, i try to pick apart every facet of my being and it always results in me spazzing out because i feel like i'm losing myself, in one way or another--that i'm somehow losing control over what makes me essentially me. generally, these are qualities i treasure--things that come naturally to me, usually having to do with some form of self-expression (i.e. my ability to write, to talk, to make people laugh). the problem is, once i start thinking about how i do something, the actual process itself, i feel like i can no longer do it. and this might have something to do with me forcing something that otherwise isn't forced or doesn't need to be forced--like i said, things that come naturally--so that, i'm no longer doing them automatically, but trying--actively trying--to do them in a self-reflexive state of mind--like a severely debilitating incarnation of metacognition. really, though, i think i just need to relax. indulge myself by going with the flow, so to speak. i need to stop trying to control everything and just let it happen. it doesn't do me any good to consciously deconstruct my own essence because, at that point, it dies.
a friend of mine put it this way: try to dissect something and it dies instantly on the table. we were talking about art--specifically, the science of aesthetics and trying to pinpoint the universal quality of "good art" but i think it's still applicable in this case. the moment i stick the knife in, i die. i lose my train of being--my momentum. maybe it's not immediate--there's a brief period of intense pain before finally succumbing to a fatal wound--and maybe i can still recover, but it's still something i'd like to avoid.
i'm not going to say i cease to be myself the instant i start to question why and how i do things, that self-reflexive contemplation necessarily leads to the murder of the self, because, even when i try to act out of character, i'm still me, i'm still performing out of character as myself--that's something i learned a long time ago. try as you might, you cannot abolish the self. still, it'd be nice to not have to worry about these things. i guess deliberately avoiding my own neurosis sort of contradicts my whole "go-with-the-flow" argument, but...whatever. no matter what i do, i will always be me. nothing will change that. maybe i'm just supposed to be fucked-up. but i know i can get better, that i've felt better, less anxious, than i do now and i'd like to feel that again. it's hard to put into words--my strategy--but i'm going to try so i can avoid getting into scraps like this later--so that i'll know how to deal with them when the time arrives.
anyway...
a friend of mine put it this way: try to dissect something and it dies instantly on the table. we were talking about art--specifically, the science of aesthetics and trying to pinpoint the universal quality of "good art" but i think it's still applicable in this case. the moment i stick the knife in, i die. i lose my train of being--my momentum. maybe it's not immediate--there's a brief period of intense pain before finally succumbing to a fatal wound--and maybe i can still recover, but it's still something i'd like to avoid.
i'm not going to say i cease to be myself the instant i start to question why and how i do things, that self-reflexive contemplation necessarily leads to the murder of the self, because, even when i try to act out of character, i'm still me, i'm still performing out of character as myself--that's something i learned a long time ago. try as you might, you cannot abolish the self. still, it'd be nice to not have to worry about these things. i guess deliberately avoiding my own neurosis sort of contradicts my whole "go-with-the-flow" argument, but...whatever. no matter what i do, i will always be me. nothing will change that. maybe i'm just supposed to be fucked-up. but i know i can get better, that i've felt better, less anxious, than i do now and i'd like to feel that again. it's hard to put into words--my strategy--but i'm going to try so i can avoid getting into scraps like this later--so that i'll know how to deal with them when the time arrives.
anyway...
Friday, September 10, 2010
update: why do i feel like shit every time the seasons change?
well. i can't begin to describe how terrible this week has been. i woke up for work last night and thought for sure i'd gone crazy. my thoughts were going spastic. i felt like i'd lost it. and maybe i have. i just need to remember that, no matter what i do, i will always have it in me--the potential to be what i need to be in order to be happy--productive and in-tune with myself. it's always there. i just need to focus less on the mechanics of it--the why's and how's--and just start letting things happen. because, once you start thinking about how you do something--something so natural--you start to lose it.
i strongly believe in the theory of entropy. at a certain point, yes, everything deteriorates. nothing lasts forever. before it goes away completely, it has to decompose. wilt away and rot. before it finally dies, it has to turn ugly. i wholeheartedly believe that. but i've become so preoccupied and obsessed with this idea that i can't allow things to naturally run their course, i have to interfere, so that it's impossible for me to hold on to anything. it's like, once i acknowledge that i have a sort of knack for something--whether it be writing or talking or thinking--my mind will form an attack against it. and i don't know why. it's like trying not to think about something. if it's already in your head, you're going to think about it. that's just how it works. the brain--actually, i shouldn't generalize; maybe it's just my brain--is so self-destructive, sometimes it's unbearable.
i shouldn't say this, but...
i really want to die.
i just want it to be over.
i can't handle this.
i've tried everything. pills, therapy, talking it out, devising strategies in my head....nothing seems to work. i wish there were a quick and easy solution. some amazing magical pill. maybe a whimsical encounter with a vagrant hypnotist. who knows? i just want to be ok. enough to not feel stressed all the time. anxious. i don't want to have to sleep all the time because i'm too afraid to be awake, too afraid to confront my own thoughts. that's not the life i want to live. but it is the life i live. and i feel like it's only going to get worse. just when i think it can't, it always does. it always gets worse. never better. i just continue to spiral down and out of control. i wish it would stop.
i strongly believe in the theory of entropy. at a certain point, yes, everything deteriorates. nothing lasts forever. before it goes away completely, it has to decompose. wilt away and rot. before it finally dies, it has to turn ugly. i wholeheartedly believe that. but i've become so preoccupied and obsessed with this idea that i can't allow things to naturally run their course, i have to interfere, so that it's impossible for me to hold on to anything. it's like, once i acknowledge that i have a sort of knack for something--whether it be writing or talking or thinking--my mind will form an attack against it. and i don't know why. it's like trying not to think about something. if it's already in your head, you're going to think about it. that's just how it works. the brain--actually, i shouldn't generalize; maybe it's just my brain--is so self-destructive, sometimes it's unbearable.
i shouldn't say this, but...
i really want to die.
i just want it to be over.
i can't handle this.
i've tried everything. pills, therapy, talking it out, devising strategies in my head....nothing seems to work. i wish there were a quick and easy solution. some amazing magical pill. maybe a whimsical encounter with a vagrant hypnotist. who knows? i just want to be ok. enough to not feel stressed all the time. anxious. i don't want to have to sleep all the time because i'm too afraid to be awake, too afraid to confront my own thoughts. that's not the life i want to live. but it is the life i live. and i feel like it's only going to get worse. just when i think it can't, it always does. it always gets worse. never better. i just continue to spiral down and out of control. i wish it would stop.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
it's impossible for her to talk without fiddling with the closest object in sight
my head is fucked. i just played a show--smoked way too many cigarettes and drank way too much caffeine. it always happens when i have caffeine. mostly, when i have caffeinated soda.
there was one point, on the drive home--i was talking to andrew and i sort of lost my train of thought not just midsentence but mid-word. it was really scary--like a bad acid-trip or something. there were several moments where i couldn't find the right words, i could feel them, i could feel the neurons misfiring in my brain, but i just wasn't making the connections. and it's been like this for a couple days. i'll start to talk and, where i once thrived off that feeling of not knowing for certain what i was going to say and how it would sound coming out of my mouth, i just draw a blank now. it could just be my mind making me second-guess myself--over-thinking it. but it could be something else, something serious. and that's what frightens me.
i think the pills i'm taking may have something to do with it. i can feel myself slipping, in little increments. there's always a period where i freak-out--i feel like i'm losing my shit--and then i recover, i adapt, adjust myself. i find that little groove where i can feel, at least, semi-decent--well enough to function. my worst fear, though, is losing myself altogether--somehow going crazy or retarded. and i feel like it's happening. but it's probably just me being irrational. it's really hard to describe what exactly takes place up there--i don't really have the language to articulate to anyone what goes on in my brain--it's just not something that can be communicated. but i want it to stop. i want to feel normal again. not dumb. just OK. that's all i want. getting there is the hard part. actually, figuring out a way to get there--that's the big challenge. but i have a meeting with my psychiatrist coming up and i'm going to see if he can do anything for me, if only he were more than just a prescription-writer--throwing pills at problem that never seems to get solved. and not just throwing any pills but the same ones that haven't been working for a year now.
oh well. i guess it helps to write it all down. we'll see, though.
there was one point, on the drive home--i was talking to andrew and i sort of lost my train of thought not just midsentence but mid-word. it was really scary--like a bad acid-trip or something. there were several moments where i couldn't find the right words, i could feel them, i could feel the neurons misfiring in my brain, but i just wasn't making the connections. and it's been like this for a couple days. i'll start to talk and, where i once thrived off that feeling of not knowing for certain what i was going to say and how it would sound coming out of my mouth, i just draw a blank now. it could just be my mind making me second-guess myself--over-thinking it. but it could be something else, something serious. and that's what frightens me.
i think the pills i'm taking may have something to do with it. i can feel myself slipping, in little increments. there's always a period where i freak-out--i feel like i'm losing my shit--and then i recover, i adapt, adjust myself. i find that little groove where i can feel, at least, semi-decent--well enough to function. my worst fear, though, is losing myself altogether--somehow going crazy or retarded. and i feel like it's happening. but it's probably just me being irrational. it's really hard to describe what exactly takes place up there--i don't really have the language to articulate to anyone what goes on in my brain--it's just not something that can be communicated. but i want it to stop. i want to feel normal again. not dumb. just OK. that's all i want. getting there is the hard part. actually, figuring out a way to get there--that's the big challenge. but i have a meeting with my psychiatrist coming up and i'm going to see if he can do anything for me, if only he were more than just a prescription-writer--throwing pills at problem that never seems to get solved. and not just throwing any pills but the same ones that haven't been working for a year now.
oh well. i guess it helps to write it all down. we'll see, though.
Friday, September 3, 2010
gestalt swirls
it's easier to be impressive when you don't have to be
sketch idea:
guy crashes at co-worker's place for the weekend--shows up at his house unexpectedly. he only speaks in three phrases: hi, jim/yeah, jim/yeah (variations of those three phrases), think papa lazarou. the co-worker, who is a bit of a p u s h ov er, takes him in, because he can't say no. the whole time, he's uncomfortable. makes multiple attempts at reducing the awkwardness. tries to start conversation. goes nowhere. it's hard to talk to someone who only says three things. he puts in a movie. the guy stares at him, maniacally, through the opening credits. he thinks better of it and turns it off. at night, he sleeps on the floor, next to the co-worker's bed. but he doesn't sleep. he just hovers over co-worker's bed. co-worker asks him if he's ok. if there's anything he can do, to which he responds with yeah or hi, jim. endless cycle. co-worker wakes up to crazy guy still staring at him, in the same exact pose as the night before. end.
then there's the poo guy idea. which, i'll get around to later. basically, guy sells pet turds--his own--setting up stands at local flea markets and street fairs. charges astronomical and absurd prices for his feces (ex. one jillion dollars) and gives each one a name, something high-flown, like a fancy-pants french or latin designation. people walk past his stand and they're caught off guard. it takes a while to register, but eventually they get it. and they can't believe their eyes. each turd has been staked with a cardboard sign attached to a mint-flavored toothpick, crudely marked with the price and "official" name of each specimen. after a few h i l a r i o u s encounters, someone decides to make an offer, just as an offer. yeah, he says, i'd like that one--the one for a million gazillion dollars. the guy hesitates, mutters something incomprehensible under his breath. it's not for sale, he says. and why not? the man asks. it has a price and everything. i mean, that's why you're here, right? to sell? the guy can't bear the thought of parting ways with any of his merchandise--he's become too attached, in the way one might with a child, the separation would be too painful. he makes up some excuse and the man walks away, laughing at having outwitted this oddly eccentric stranger. the thing that really makes it funny, though, is that the guy selling the turds lives in his own world--a world in which it's conceivably plausible and accepted that people would pay outrageous and made-up prices for turds, which he's developed an abnormal reverence for. kind of juvenile, but still kind of funny.
i guess i won't get to that later.
that was easy.
sketch idea:
guy crashes at co-worker's place for the weekend--shows up at his house unexpectedly. he only speaks in three phrases: hi, jim/yeah, jim/yeah (variations of those three phrases), think papa lazarou. the co-worker, who is a bit of a p u s h ov er, takes him in, because he can't say no. the whole time, he's uncomfortable. makes multiple attempts at reducing the awkwardness. tries to start conversation. goes nowhere. it's hard to talk to someone who only says three things. he puts in a movie. the guy stares at him, maniacally, through the opening credits. he thinks better of it and turns it off. at night, he sleeps on the floor, next to the co-worker's bed. but he doesn't sleep. he just hovers over co-worker's bed. co-worker asks him if he's ok. if there's anything he can do, to which he responds with yeah or hi, jim. endless cycle. co-worker wakes up to crazy guy still staring at him, in the same exact pose as the night before. end.
then there's the poo guy idea. which, i'll get around to later. basically, guy sells pet turds--his own--setting up stands at local flea markets and street fairs. charges astronomical and absurd prices for his feces (ex. one jillion dollars) and gives each one a name, something high-flown, like a fancy-pants french or latin designation. people walk past his stand and they're caught off guard. it takes a while to register, but eventually they get it. and they can't believe their eyes. each turd has been staked with a cardboard sign attached to a mint-flavored toothpick, crudely marked with the price and "official" name of each specimen. after a few h i l a r i o u s encounters, someone decides to make an offer, just as an offer. yeah, he says, i'd like that one--the one for a million gazillion dollars. the guy hesitates, mutters something incomprehensible under his breath. it's not for sale, he says. and why not? the man asks. it has a price and everything. i mean, that's why you're here, right? to sell? the guy can't bear the thought of parting ways with any of his merchandise--he's become too attached, in the way one might with a child, the separation would be too painful. he makes up some excuse and the man walks away, laughing at having outwitted this oddly eccentric stranger. the thing that really makes it funny, though, is that the guy selling the turds lives in his own world--a world in which it's conceivably plausible and accepted that people would pay outrageous and made-up prices for turds, which he's developed an abnormal reverence for. kind of juvenile, but still kind of funny.
i guess i won't get to that later.
that was easy.
zombieeee
it's happening again and i don't know why. i feel powerless to stop it. part of me wants to say it's absurd--it's only in my head. it's happening because i let it happen. but there's another part of me, the part that i can't control, that refuses to believe this, even if it is completely irrational.
i wish i knew what triggers it. then, i could possibly come up with a ready-made solution, a process of dealing with it. i mean, i want to shrug it off, but something won't let me. my mind fixates at on it. it becomes an obsession, where days before, it meant nothing. it was so easy to just block out, to dismiss as ridiculous and carry on with my life. i guess all i can do is look for recurring trends--try to analyze it by pinpointing certain events or modes of thought that cause it to happen. it seems like it always happens when i'm just on the verge of a major breakthrough, when i'm finally content enough with myself to not feel any anxiety whatsoever, when the world seems so easy, finally, to figure out--words pour out of me so effortlessly, i feel as though i'm speaking through some divine medium. it's when i become conscious of the process, wishing to hold onto it, for fear that i may lose it (like now), that i do in fact lose it. like hemingway's butterfly analogy (a butterfly becomes conscious of its flight and, therefore, forgets how to perform something that came so naturally). like the butterfly, i am grounded. and it's always just as i'm taking off. finally, feeling my way around. getting my bearings. then, i plummet to the ground, nosedive into the pavement. and i'm helpless. there's nothing i can do to stop it. at least, i don't think so. i get so excited. finally, i think, i'm flying. i'm really doing it. but how? and it's at that moment, that i fuck up. because i realize that i have no idea how i ever left the ground and therefore there's no guarantee that i'll ever be able to sustain myself, to keep myself from falling, crash-landing. it's scary.
what it all boils down to, i think, is metacognition, the same affliction, i believe, responsible for jung's mental collapse--documented, apparently, though never published for the public, in his red book. he tried to understand how the mind worked and went crazy. thinking too much about thinking inevitably leads to insanity. it just does. trying to pick apart and analyze why your mind works the way it does and how it works is something, i feel, shouldn't be explored. it's like the tower of babel all over again. one of those things we were never meant to understand. it truly is the great and vast unknown. it's too much to take on, too limitless. we're treading in unsafe territory--infinite openness, wander out too far and there's no way to find your way back. it may sound trite, but it's true. and i don't care.
there is truth in pop knowledge. it's standardized, it's widely accepted and often cited for a reason. there's a critic in my head, an amalgamation of some of the most cynical people i've known in the past, that simply refuses to let me say the obvious. but i need it. i think that's part of the problem. unlike most people, i have no foundation from which to veer. i'm constantly veering, wandering off in my own direction because i simply will not allow myself to return to what almost instantaneously becomes familiar. i have to be different at all times. i thrive on the unexpected. and, frankly, i'm sick of it. i'm a little burnt out on the creative life. maybe i need a break. but then, do i stop growing at that point? do i lose everything i've worked so hard to gain, a well-established voice, whittled from so many painful hours of deep insight? or do i just pick up where i left off? do i start all over again, at square one? i don't know. i really don't. and i'm fine with that. or, i wish i was fine with that. but i have to know. i have to subject myself to misery and i don't know why. i'm a glutton for looking when i don't want to. and every time i flinch, my mind goes blank. i black out and it's the same thing all over again, ad nauseum.
maybe i just need to sleep.
i wish i knew what triggers it. then, i could possibly come up with a ready-made solution, a process of dealing with it. i mean, i want to shrug it off, but something won't let me. my mind fixates at on it. it becomes an obsession, where days before, it meant nothing. it was so easy to just block out, to dismiss as ridiculous and carry on with my life. i guess all i can do is look for recurring trends--try to analyze it by pinpointing certain events or modes of thought that cause it to happen. it seems like it always happens when i'm just on the verge of a major breakthrough, when i'm finally content enough with myself to not feel any anxiety whatsoever, when the world seems so easy, finally, to figure out--words pour out of me so effortlessly, i feel as though i'm speaking through some divine medium. it's when i become conscious of the process, wishing to hold onto it, for fear that i may lose it (like now), that i do in fact lose it. like hemingway's butterfly analogy (a butterfly becomes conscious of its flight and, therefore, forgets how to perform something that came so naturally). like the butterfly, i am grounded. and it's always just as i'm taking off. finally, feeling my way around. getting my bearings. then, i plummet to the ground, nosedive into the pavement. and i'm helpless. there's nothing i can do to stop it. at least, i don't think so. i get so excited. finally, i think, i'm flying. i'm really doing it. but how? and it's at that moment, that i fuck up. because i realize that i have no idea how i ever left the ground and therefore there's no guarantee that i'll ever be able to sustain myself, to keep myself from falling, crash-landing. it's scary.
what it all boils down to, i think, is metacognition, the same affliction, i believe, responsible for jung's mental collapse--documented, apparently, though never published for the public, in his red book. he tried to understand how the mind worked and went crazy. thinking too much about thinking inevitably leads to insanity. it just does. trying to pick apart and analyze why your mind works the way it does and how it works is something, i feel, shouldn't be explored. it's like the tower of babel all over again. one of those things we were never meant to understand. it truly is the great and vast unknown. it's too much to take on, too limitless. we're treading in unsafe territory--infinite openness, wander out too far and there's no way to find your way back. it may sound trite, but it's true. and i don't care.
there is truth in pop knowledge. it's standardized, it's widely accepted and often cited for a reason. there's a critic in my head, an amalgamation of some of the most cynical people i've known in the past, that simply refuses to let me say the obvious. but i need it. i think that's part of the problem. unlike most people, i have no foundation from which to veer. i'm constantly veering, wandering off in my own direction because i simply will not allow myself to return to what almost instantaneously becomes familiar. i have to be different at all times. i thrive on the unexpected. and, frankly, i'm sick of it. i'm a little burnt out on the creative life. maybe i need a break. but then, do i stop growing at that point? do i lose everything i've worked so hard to gain, a well-established voice, whittled from so many painful hours of deep insight? or do i just pick up where i left off? do i start all over again, at square one? i don't know. i really don't. and i'm fine with that. or, i wish i was fine with that. but i have to know. i have to subject myself to misery and i don't know why. i'm a glutton for looking when i don't want to. and every time i flinch, my mind goes blank. i black out and it's the same thing all over again, ad nauseum.
maybe i just need to sleep.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
did i ever tell you the one...
every night, at approximately the same time, he stepped outside to take a piss on his own front lawn. the neighbors complained. they said they could smell the stench all up and down the street. it was especially bad, they said, in the summertime, when the piss had time to sour in the hot sun all day, taking on a new stench, more deadly, they said, than carbon monoxide and more potent than the most pungent of cheap filling-station knock-off perfumes, imitation sleaze at a quarter-a-squirt. no one on the whole street knew his real name. though, they had a wide variety of names for him. no one had ever had any sort of interaction with him, not even a simple hello. he stayed inside all day, except for that one designated point in the evening when he walked outside to relieve himself.
when he died, the stench lingered. it lingered for days and days. you can still smell it, they say, on especially hot days in the summertime, when the sun is out and playing tricks like deja vu on the easily amused.
when he died, the stench lingered. it lingered for days and days. you can still smell it, they say, on especially hot days in the summertime, when the sun is out and playing tricks like deja vu on the easily amused.
Friday, August 27, 2010
this is what i'm feeling today
i don't want to be an emperor.
-charlie chaplin, from a speech entitled "the great dictator"
-charlie chaplin, from a speech entitled "the great dictator"
Friday, August 20, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
let's strip away all the bullshit and fuck like human beings
you must realize, cher ami, that i only say these things and i only make these accusations because i see them in myself. i see your infirmities, your lies, however honorable they may be, because i know them in my own mind and in my own life.
all the same, i think it's rude. and presumptuous as hell.
maybe so. but i realize the duplicity of human beings and you are my friend and i want you to realize it, too, and revel in its glorious decadence.
you're an asshole. that is so so so absolutely pretentious.
there you go, now you're getting the hang of it.
all the same, i think it's rude. and presumptuous as hell.
maybe so. but i realize the duplicity of human beings and you are my friend and i want you to realize it, too, and revel in its glorious decadence.
you're an asshole. that is so so so absolutely pretentious.
there you go, now you're getting the hang of it.
Monday, August 2, 2010
tangential
i'm listening to the arcade fire's new album, the suburbs, right now. in less than a week, i will be in attendance at lollapalooza where i will wait for hours in the grueling sun amidst grubby yuppies posing as hippies and hipsters just to see a compromised set from the band. i will probably enjoy myself. still, in the back of my mind, i can't help but think: is anyone else tired of indie rock?
every week it seems like the internet is trying to push some new young hirsute band from canada onto me. sensitive bearded men in flannel and cute girls with tight pants and striking haircuts. the music is always bland. the lyrics, always the same--ten cent words and ten cent concepts masking a lack of depth.
i want something new. something ridiculous and abrasive. something my parents don't understand. something they might, gasp, find offensive. everything i hear fails to impress me (not that it's anyone's job to do so), but, damn, looking around--hollywood remakes, sequels, exhausted tropes, indie culture--it all seems kind of static.
maybe i should do something about it. but what?
where do we go from here?
i get the feeling something's on the horizon, something mind-blowing. for now, i guess, i'll just have to wait.
every week it seems like the internet is trying to push some new young hirsute band from canada onto me. sensitive bearded men in flannel and cute girls with tight pants and striking haircuts. the music is always bland. the lyrics, always the same--ten cent words and ten cent concepts masking a lack of depth.
i want something new. something ridiculous and abrasive. something my parents don't understand. something they might, gasp, find offensive. everything i hear fails to impress me (not that it's anyone's job to do so), but, damn, looking around--hollywood remakes, sequels, exhausted tropes, indie culture--it all seems kind of static.
maybe i should do something about it. but what?
where do we go from here?
i get the feeling something's on the horizon, something mind-blowing. for now, i guess, i'll just have to wait.
Friday, July 23, 2010
salivate, ye fools!
he awoke to the sound of his cb squawking, an incessant chant, through the flaring static:
old cars buried halfway in the mud
the urgency of this message was enough to jar him, even if it was impossible to decode. so, thought he,
this is what the future looks like:
information ad nauseum, a disembodied message trying so very hard, yet, because of it's very cryptic nature, not hard enough, to be communicated.
language has been reduced to the arbitrary system of symbols and subtext that it always has been, always was, always is: we are looking at things in all their natural and unflattering glory, finally
no more well-composed fluffery, trickery in verse, lilting songs or frantic lullabies
if you flinch, you miss it
and that's the worst
old cars buried halfway in the mud
the future is random
and expected
entropy chaos and entropy
again and again
we fall another rung and settle like mongoloids orphaned after one bowl of porridge and a contant/endless cycle of shit-eating
cuz something about the scent
still makes them drool
old cars buried halfway in the mud
the urgency of this message was enough to jar him, even if it was impossible to decode. so, thought he,
this is what the future looks like:
information ad nauseum, a disembodied message trying so very hard, yet, because of it's very cryptic nature, not hard enough, to be communicated.
language has been reduced to the arbitrary system of symbols and subtext that it always has been, always was, always is: we are looking at things in all their natural and unflattering glory, finally
no more well-composed fluffery, trickery in verse, lilting songs or frantic lullabies
if you flinch, you miss it
and that's the worst
old cars buried halfway in the mud
the future is random
and expected
entropy chaos and entropy
again and again
we fall another rung and settle like mongoloids orphaned after one bowl of porridge and a contant/endless cycle of shit-eating
cuz something about the scent
still makes them drool
Sunday, July 18, 2010
hmm
i'm not a very emotional person. not on purpose anyway. i'm all brains. no heart. that's not to say i'm smart or that i'm a genius or anything, i'm just fascinated by concepts. ideas. things of that nature. they're the one thing that can distract me from my own crushing inability to relate to other people.
i decided a long time ago that i was going to leave.
the first time was when i was seven. i think. it's all kind of fuzzy looking back at my childhood. the years sort of run into each other, five being just as plausible as eight.
i decided that i would run away then because my sister was running away and i'd rather she had a companion than face the elements alone, those elements, of course, seeming a lot more frightening at the time than they actually were. we lived in a fairly safe suburban setting. i doubt very much she would have made it to the end of the street without someone phoning my parents. in my head, however, i imagined her growing old, abandoning the family forever, living like a bum somewhere in california. and that's what frightened me the most: the thought of never seeing her again, assuming the worst possible fate had befallen her. honestly, though, that tiny glimpse of the life she might have had had she successfully made it all the way to california, or wherever she was going, actually ended up becoming at least half true. she's no better for sticking around here. and i'm no better for trying to stop her, in turn establishing a crippling trend in my selfish motivation for keeping people around, what you might call clinginess. it's the thought of them without me. not to say i complete them or anything or that they're better off with my influence. i just can't stand, absolutely cannot stand, to lose tabs on people. so that's why i followed my sister. and that's why i finally convinced her to come back home, trailing her the whole bike ride home, waiting anxiously for her to finally get inside and unpack her things because that meant she might be staying for good or, if not, at least it would buy me some time while she reconfigured all of her essentials into that tiny backpack again, more an accessory at that age than anything, she didn't really need it for school, she never carried anything in it, and perhaps taking off for good. that was the first time i tricked myself into believing i could just walk away from something, no matter how half-assed and incompletely.
i decided a long time ago that i was going to leave.
the first time was when i was seven. i think. it's all kind of fuzzy looking back at my childhood. the years sort of run into each other, five being just as plausible as eight.
i decided that i would run away then because my sister was running away and i'd rather she had a companion than face the elements alone, those elements, of course, seeming a lot more frightening at the time than they actually were. we lived in a fairly safe suburban setting. i doubt very much she would have made it to the end of the street without someone phoning my parents. in my head, however, i imagined her growing old, abandoning the family forever, living like a bum somewhere in california. and that's what frightened me the most: the thought of never seeing her again, assuming the worst possible fate had befallen her. honestly, though, that tiny glimpse of the life she might have had had she successfully made it all the way to california, or wherever she was going, actually ended up becoming at least half true. she's no better for sticking around here. and i'm no better for trying to stop her, in turn establishing a crippling trend in my selfish motivation for keeping people around, what you might call clinginess. it's the thought of them without me. not to say i complete them or anything or that they're better off with my influence. i just can't stand, absolutely cannot stand, to lose tabs on people. so that's why i followed my sister. and that's why i finally convinced her to come back home, trailing her the whole bike ride home, waiting anxiously for her to finally get inside and unpack her things because that meant she might be staying for good or, if not, at least it would buy me some time while she reconfigured all of her essentials into that tiny backpack again, more an accessory at that age than anything, she didn't really need it for school, she never carried anything in it, and perhaps taking off for good. that was the first time i tricked myself into believing i could just walk away from something, no matter how half-assed and incompletely.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
gatorade sickness
i don't profess to know much
but what i do know
is enough to get me by
it's enough to get me through
a typical day
in the life of myself
and, perhaps, someone else's
life
though, i'm not sure
i have my doubts
a good deal of my friends know
a good deal more than i ever will
and i'm fine with this
though, it's a bit discouraging
i see the way they pull seemingly
random facts and obscure place names
and obscure words
and obscure concepts
out of nowhere
their backpockets, maybe
and it's enough to make me want to
devour all the useless information i can
get my grubby little hands on
images and images and images
and sensations
and images and information
i'm a glutton for it
i want to understand string theory and
incorporate its tenants into my everyday
conversation
but, then again, i like what i have
like i said, it's enough to get me by
and there's no one i really need to impress with trivia
what i need is a better way of communicating
myself and my views and my philosophies
and i don't need the views or philosophies of
others, greater men of greater intellect, to corrupt
any conclusions i might naturally come to myself
and relate in my own unique way
a lot has been made of america's propensity for
embracing ignorance
as a source of empowerment
we don't know and we don't want to know
in some cases, this is absolutely sickening
we make mistakes because we simply don't know
the other alternatives or better solutions
we turn a blind eye to any idea we feel too lazy and/or
too unwilling to wrap our minds around
regardless of its merit
we shy away from controversial subjects
dinner-table taboos
because we made our minds up a long time ago
on the matter and we hate to be wrong
that's fine, i guess, but at some point we need to start thinking
deeper about things
if it's too unbearable to consider options posed by observing history
or science or painful concepts introduced by painful personalities
if it's too damned bothersome to confront these opposing forces
then we need to take it upon ourselves to arrive at the same conclusions
with the limited knowledge and understanding we do have
and that's what it's all about, i think, but i don't know
and part of me doesn't care
it's fleeting, really
and there i go preaching again
but what i do know
is enough to get me by
it's enough to get me through
a typical day
in the life of myself
and, perhaps, someone else's
life
though, i'm not sure
i have my doubts
a good deal of my friends know
a good deal more than i ever will
and i'm fine with this
though, it's a bit discouraging
i see the way they pull seemingly
random facts and obscure place names
and obscure words
and obscure concepts
out of nowhere
their backpockets, maybe
and it's enough to make me want to
devour all the useless information i can
get my grubby little hands on
images and images and images
and sensations
and images and information
i'm a glutton for it
i want to understand string theory and
incorporate its tenants into my everyday
conversation
but, then again, i like what i have
like i said, it's enough to get me by
and there's no one i really need to impress with trivia
what i need is a better way of communicating
myself and my views and my philosophies
and i don't need the views or philosophies of
others, greater men of greater intellect, to corrupt
any conclusions i might naturally come to myself
and relate in my own unique way
a lot has been made of america's propensity for
embracing ignorance
as a source of empowerment
we don't know and we don't want to know
in some cases, this is absolutely sickening
we make mistakes because we simply don't know
the other alternatives or better solutions
we turn a blind eye to any idea we feel too lazy and/or
too unwilling to wrap our minds around
regardless of its merit
we shy away from controversial subjects
dinner-table taboos
because we made our minds up a long time ago
on the matter and we hate to be wrong
that's fine, i guess, but at some point we need to start thinking
deeper about things
if it's too unbearable to consider options posed by observing history
or science or painful concepts introduced by painful personalities
if it's too damned bothersome to confront these opposing forces
then we need to take it upon ourselves to arrive at the same conclusions
with the limited knowledge and understanding we do have
and that's what it's all about, i think, but i don't know
and part of me doesn't care
it's fleeting, really
and there i go preaching again
Sunday, July 11, 2010
little something
here's to another calculated risk
for the sake of itself
here's to guns and here's to fists
here's to using all your wits
to fend them off
and fend for yourself
the television's on and it's telling me you're wrong
it's telling me i'm never
no, never alone and
and just like the stars
they'll endure
and just like the stars
so unsure
they know no better
yeah, they don't know any better
for the sake of itself
here's to guns and here's to fists
here's to using all your wits
to fend them off
and fend for yourself
the television's on and it's telling me you're wrong
it's telling me i'm never
no, never alone and
and just like the stars
they'll endure
and just like the stars
so unsure
they know no better
yeah, they don't know any better
passing flirtations with an electric soul
when it's you they want
it's a different story
all the confusion
and the illusion of glory
i want nothing more
in this little old life of mine
than to feel
absolutely relevant
more importantly, i'd like
and i want
and i desire
to fade into interstellar obscurity
blocked by the moon
as if it made a difference
anyway
that's what i want and
for gods sake
pleez pleez pleez
let me believe it's plausible
i lack the foresight to
prepare myself properly
for disappointment
just tell me i'm wrong
and i'll believe it for a while
because i want to
because i know
you've taught me before
just how exhilarating that can be
of course, we're merely replicating
what is natural and in agreement
with the natural order of things
things like routines, sound loops and
literary motifs/though not exclusively
bound to the world of literature
these constant feelings of deja vu
slash sensational familiarizations and
adapting to the larger structure
as we'd like it to be and how we'd like to
imagine it indicates only that we are
fooling ourselves and doing a piss-poor
job of it
i see a friend and first order of business:
start with the inside jokes
i hope he remembers cuz it's my
only means of reminding him of our past
and how i'd like our future to be and
carry on in the same tradition
and pleez: verse chorus verse chorus bridge
becuz it reminds me why i
get up in the first place/why i pantomime
the circles i see myself spinning
it's always the same and that's the way i like it
but you're a threat to the routine
the established order
skim the meniscus/the excess riff-raff
cuz i need that driving beat
polyrhythms when i'm feeling extra saucy
i need structure and order and
you provide with your four chord progressions
don't get all schizo on me
just keep it the same/ that's what i need
a mirror that reflects life like i want to see it:
perfectly in order
like a novel
arranged by chapters
there is no logic to the way this is being written
the only way to read it out loud is to read it the
way i intended it to be read and understood:
in my head and directly to yours
but that's impossible
it's a different story
all the confusion
and the illusion of glory
i want nothing more
in this little old life of mine
than to feel
absolutely relevant
more importantly, i'd like
and i want
and i desire
to fade into interstellar obscurity
blocked by the moon
as if it made a difference
anyway
that's what i want and
for gods sake
pleez pleez pleez
let me believe it's plausible
i lack the foresight to
prepare myself properly
for disappointment
just tell me i'm wrong
and i'll believe it for a while
because i want to
because i know
you've taught me before
just how exhilarating that can be
of course, we're merely replicating
what is natural and in agreement
with the natural order of things
things like routines, sound loops and
literary motifs/though not exclusively
bound to the world of literature
these constant feelings of deja vu
slash sensational familiarizations and
adapting to the larger structure
as we'd like it to be and how we'd like to
imagine it indicates only that we are
fooling ourselves and doing a piss-poor
job of it
i see a friend and first order of business:
start with the inside jokes
i hope he remembers cuz it's my
only means of reminding him of our past
and how i'd like our future to be and
carry on in the same tradition
and pleez: verse chorus verse chorus bridge
becuz it reminds me why i
get up in the first place/why i pantomime
the circles i see myself spinning
it's always the same and that's the way i like it
but you're a threat to the routine
the established order
skim the meniscus/the excess riff-raff
cuz i need that driving beat
polyrhythms when i'm feeling extra saucy
i need structure and order and
you provide with your four chord progressions
don't get all schizo on me
just keep it the same/ that's what i need
a mirror that reflects life like i want to see it:
perfectly in order
like a novel
arranged by chapters
there is no logic to the way this is being written
the only way to read it out loud is to read it the
way i intended it to be read and understood:
in my head and directly to yours
but that's impossible
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
tripe
i've been reading a lot of political and social criticism lately--chomsky, mailer, vidal and the like. it's got me to thinking about my own views, as murky as those may be. i definitely feel passionate about certain topics (personal freedom, equality, fair distribution of power, etc.) but i wouldn't identify myself as one group or the other. i guess, for lack of a better term, i'm a libertarian, though conservatives have recently pretty much corrupted that word, as they do with so many other things, so i'm a bit hesitant, as you might imagine, to throw it around without first considering my audience--that is, assuming anyone gives a damn (and they don't).
one of the things i've been thinking about is the idea of power. furthermore, how it is often, if not always, misrepresented in every political system. it's terrifying, not to mention, fundamentally wrong, how accepting we have become of the current system. we elect officials, other human beings masquerading as moral demigods, to police our own private affairs--to govern our world and enact principles which we are forced to believe in. i say "forced" because, if we had it our way, things like taxes and legislation on certain issues wouldn't concern us in the least bit. they are government-made ideas, yet they affect us, because we let it. we allow the government to play the role of mommy and daddy anytime we run into a crisis. rather than solve it ourselves, we rely on our leaders to decide what is right or wrong in each particular case. to me, that is a very scary notion.
what would happen, i wonder, if we all just stopped participating in elections and so forth? like a child, if we stopped encouraging the government by paying it attention? would this empower them stop performing for the people and decide things amongst themselves, no longer having to prance around in their little game of magical pr theatre? or would it dissolve altogether, become obsolete, finally restoring, and forgive the cliche, power to the people? i don't know. and part of me really, genuinely doesn't care.
thus far in my life i've managed to avoid politics on any direct level, that is through actual participation, and it's resulted in no great loss on my part. i pat attention, of course, watching the constant political metamorphosis unfolding all the time, always in flux, and i sometimes offer critiques, generally accepted by my like-minded, similarly-oriented friends, but i never get my hands dirty in it, so to speak. i just let it happen. and, honestly, it's never affected me in any tangible way. i've never felt the long dick of the law first-hand even when so many others have. it makes me wonder if it even matters at all. i'm sure it does. but until i experience it, bodily, personally, i will never know. then again, we all know what happens when you tempt big brother. we all know what happens when you direct your frustrations at god and start to question his existence. you get struck down. by lightning. maybe just a little taste of electricity, a little spark, is all i need to fucking rail.
the point is: i know i'm getting screwed. i can feel it. something's not right. something in my mind tells me i'm getting hosed. but i don't know how.
one of the things i've been thinking about is the idea of power. furthermore, how it is often, if not always, misrepresented in every political system. it's terrifying, not to mention, fundamentally wrong, how accepting we have become of the current system. we elect officials, other human beings masquerading as moral demigods, to police our own private affairs--to govern our world and enact principles which we are forced to believe in. i say "forced" because, if we had it our way, things like taxes and legislation on certain issues wouldn't concern us in the least bit. they are government-made ideas, yet they affect us, because we let it. we allow the government to play the role of mommy and daddy anytime we run into a crisis. rather than solve it ourselves, we rely on our leaders to decide what is right or wrong in each particular case. to me, that is a very scary notion.
what would happen, i wonder, if we all just stopped participating in elections and so forth? like a child, if we stopped encouraging the government by paying it attention? would this empower them stop performing for the people and decide things amongst themselves, no longer having to prance around in their little game of magical pr theatre? or would it dissolve altogether, become obsolete, finally restoring, and forgive the cliche, power to the people? i don't know. and part of me really, genuinely doesn't care.
thus far in my life i've managed to avoid politics on any direct level, that is through actual participation, and it's resulted in no great loss on my part. i pat attention, of course, watching the constant political metamorphosis unfolding all the time, always in flux, and i sometimes offer critiques, generally accepted by my like-minded, similarly-oriented friends, but i never get my hands dirty in it, so to speak. i just let it happen. and, honestly, it's never affected me in any tangible way. i've never felt the long dick of the law first-hand even when so many others have. it makes me wonder if it even matters at all. i'm sure it does. but until i experience it, bodily, personally, i will never know. then again, we all know what happens when you tempt big brother. we all know what happens when you direct your frustrations at god and start to question his existence. you get struck down. by lightning. maybe just a little taste of electricity, a little spark, is all i need to fucking rail.
the point is: i know i'm getting screwed. i can feel it. something's not right. something in my mind tells me i'm getting hosed. but i don't know how.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
vague projection for the not so distant future:
a world in which it had exceeded high-fashion, becoming the norm, for men and women and everyone in between and off the grid to make routine visits to the personality modification center for some fine-tweaking of their less than charming intellectual and idiosyncratic make-up. a world in which people paraded around stupid and proud of their mutant genitals, balloon size tits and farm animal dicks, prolapsed labias, unfolding like exploded cauliflower, cruelly subjected to the microwave, statuesque gods and goddesses with cut abs and high foreheads and broad pecs, a cartoon world of likable/fuckable walking advertisements, pornographic souls, fucking without purpose.
a world in which it had exceeded high-fashion, becoming the norm, for men and women and everyone in between and off the grid to make routine visits to the personality modification center for some fine-tweaking of their less than charming intellectual and idiosyncratic make-up. a world in which people paraded around stupid and proud of their mutant genitals, balloon size tits and farm animal dicks, prolapsed labias, unfolding like exploded cauliflower, cruelly subjected to the microwave, statuesque gods and goddesses with cut abs and high foreheads and broad pecs, a cartoon world of likable/fuckable walking advertisements, pornographic souls, fucking without purpose.
Monday, June 21, 2010
well
there's a widely accepted belief, outside of the church, that in order to be a christian one must believe the creation story literally as it is ostensibly documented in the bible. in fact, as a christian myself, i even believed this. which, for me, was always pretty problematic as there are a number of obvious glaring inaccuracies in the biblical account.
after reading the first two chapters of genesis tonight, however, and doing some additional research, i've come to accept the view held by the catholic church that the creation story is nothing more than an anachronistic interpretation presented by people (both the author of genesis and the latter translators) with a very particular and limited notion of cosmology and science. the original text, or the earliest known source, alludes to a firmament (heaven) dividing what was believed to be the "celestial waters," probably what they believed to be something akin to a leaking river--the source of rainwater--and the terrestrial waters (i.e. seas, oceans, rivers, etc.--bodies of water found on earth). when i first read the passage i was confused. obviously, we all know, now anyway, that there is no celestial body of water--and that rain is a product of condensation. but this was as of yet undiscovered in the time genesis was written.
equally problematic is the notion of "the firmament," which most sources define as a dome or shell. this is what the author of genesis believed to make up heaven and, furthermore, to divide the two bodies of water. perhaps this notion still holds up and heaven is unable to be seen. maybe it's its own invisible atmospheric structure, containing undiscovered matter which exists in some other dimension or what-have-you--matter which makes up its very physical (or something other than physical) structure and the inhabitants therein. maybe even, in a eerie instance of prescience, whoever wrote genesis knew about the atmosphere and this is what he means when he says "firmament" and that heaven itself is not visible to the naked eye, like i said, it could be composed of some sort of strange physical make-up. who knows? it could be made up of anything. either way, the important thing is that the catholic church, as i'm sure other churches do as well, openly acknowledges that the creation story is nothing more than some old dude's best guess at how things actually happened. it is not to be taken literally. they even say, on the website i found, that, in the vulgate interpretation of the text, at the time the bible was translated into either latin or hebrew and greek (i forget) it was believed that the stars were hung from the ceiling of this massive dome-structure (the firmament) and strung all around the earth. we know though that this is not true and that the stars are far more vast and reside in a realm far beyond our solar system. therefore, we are able to disprove certain historical interpretations of the creation story and also the primary text, as it does not align with scientific fact. that's not to say, however, that the entire bible is completely false or that christianity is wrong because inaccuracies can be found within this primary text. we have to understand that the bible was written by humans, restricted by their own time-particular worldview with their own notions of how the world and universe operate and that they were only trying their best to make sense of what they felt compelled to write. what they were trying to communicate, the spirit of the text, is essentially rigid and unable to be scrutinized, not unlike a poor adaptation of a very complex script.
anyway....
after reading the first two chapters of genesis tonight, however, and doing some additional research, i've come to accept the view held by the catholic church that the creation story is nothing more than an anachronistic interpretation presented by people (both the author of genesis and the latter translators) with a very particular and limited notion of cosmology and science. the original text, or the earliest known source, alludes to a firmament (heaven) dividing what was believed to be the "celestial waters," probably what they believed to be something akin to a leaking river--the source of rainwater--and the terrestrial waters (i.e. seas, oceans, rivers, etc.--bodies of water found on earth). when i first read the passage i was confused. obviously, we all know, now anyway, that there is no celestial body of water--and that rain is a product of condensation. but this was as of yet undiscovered in the time genesis was written.
equally problematic is the notion of "the firmament," which most sources define as a dome or shell. this is what the author of genesis believed to make up heaven and, furthermore, to divide the two bodies of water. perhaps this notion still holds up and heaven is unable to be seen. maybe it's its own invisible atmospheric structure, containing undiscovered matter which exists in some other dimension or what-have-you--matter which makes up its very physical (or something other than physical) structure and the inhabitants therein. maybe even, in a eerie instance of prescience, whoever wrote genesis knew about the atmosphere and this is what he means when he says "firmament" and that heaven itself is not visible to the naked eye, like i said, it could be composed of some sort of strange physical make-up. who knows? it could be made up of anything. either way, the important thing is that the catholic church, as i'm sure other churches do as well, openly acknowledges that the creation story is nothing more than some old dude's best guess at how things actually happened. it is not to be taken literally. they even say, on the website i found, that, in the vulgate interpretation of the text, at the time the bible was translated into either latin or hebrew and greek (i forget) it was believed that the stars were hung from the ceiling of this massive dome-structure (the firmament) and strung all around the earth. we know though that this is not true and that the stars are far more vast and reside in a realm far beyond our solar system. therefore, we are able to disprove certain historical interpretations of the creation story and also the primary text, as it does not align with scientific fact. that's not to say, however, that the entire bible is completely false or that christianity is wrong because inaccuracies can be found within this primary text. we have to understand that the bible was written by humans, restricted by their own time-particular worldview with their own notions of how the world and universe operate and that they were only trying their best to make sense of what they felt compelled to write. what they were trying to communicate, the spirit of the text, is essentially rigid and unable to be scrutinized, not unlike a poor adaptation of a very complex script.
anyway....
Sunday, June 20, 2010
omg
Dear Walt Disney Pictures and John Revolt-a,
Please cease distributing intellectual smut to Baby Boomers.
Thank You.
http://www.warpigsmovie.com/about.html
Please cease distributing intellectual smut to Baby Boomers.
Thank You.
http://www.warpigsmovie.com/about.html
shadow
well, admittedly, she said, it is thrilling to see how far or detached from yourself you can get and still manage to return. i guess that's why i do what i do. that's why i drink and that's why i smoke.
pot? he asked.
yeah. pot. cigarettes. i mean, i'm young. i'm carefree. so why not, right?
she took a drag off her cigarette. he watched the thin smoke escape from her dry lips and into the dry air, getting tangled in the simple design of the gate. he adjusted himself to a more comfortable position on the bleachers and tried to make peace with the sun which was bearing down on them now, in the middle of the afternoon, in full force. he tried to convince himself that he was benefiting from its cruel heat--that, if nothing else, at least he'd walk away from this a little more tanned--worked over/upon just as a grunt is subjected to many grueling physical challenges upon entering the service and enduring boot camp. it was a rite of passage, in a way. but to what? and for what? he didn't know.
so, tell me about literature, he said. do you like it? i mean, what are you hoping to do with such a--.
but the words did not come. they rarely did. it could have been the heat. it could have been any number of things, relevant, causal or otherwise.
with such a ridiculous major? she asked. i'll tell you what, i don't know. i really don't. i'll probably wind up at a burger joint or some crappy entry level whatever, but that doesn't really bother me. the time came for me to choose a major, a life path, one that would determine the direction of everything for me and i choked. i chose literature. because i like to read. if you ask me, it's too much pressure, you know, for someone to just sit down, especially so young, and decide the rest of their life depending on how they feel on a particular day when they're eighteen.
yeah. he said. but you had a few years to think it out.
true. but, all the same, how the hell am i supposed to know what kind of job or, heavens, career, i'm going to find rewarding or fulfilling or distracting enough when the only jobs i've worked are shitty waitressing jobs. how am i supposed to know, to just know, when i'm 17 what i'm going to find enjoyable at 27 or 37 or 47 and so on and so--.
i don't know. that's a good point.
...later....
pot? he asked.
yeah. pot. cigarettes. i mean, i'm young. i'm carefree. so why not, right?
she took a drag off her cigarette. he watched the thin smoke escape from her dry lips and into the dry air, getting tangled in the simple design of the gate. he adjusted himself to a more comfortable position on the bleachers and tried to make peace with the sun which was bearing down on them now, in the middle of the afternoon, in full force. he tried to convince himself that he was benefiting from its cruel heat--that, if nothing else, at least he'd walk away from this a little more tanned--worked over/upon just as a grunt is subjected to many grueling physical challenges upon entering the service and enduring boot camp. it was a rite of passage, in a way. but to what? and for what? he didn't know.
so, tell me about literature, he said. do you like it? i mean, what are you hoping to do with such a--.
but the words did not come. they rarely did. it could have been the heat. it could have been any number of things, relevant, causal or otherwise.
with such a ridiculous major? she asked. i'll tell you what, i don't know. i really don't. i'll probably wind up at a burger joint or some crappy entry level whatever, but that doesn't really bother me. the time came for me to choose a major, a life path, one that would determine the direction of everything for me and i choked. i chose literature. because i like to read. if you ask me, it's too much pressure, you know, for someone to just sit down, especially so young, and decide the rest of their life depending on how they feel on a particular day when they're eighteen.
yeah. he said. but you had a few years to think it out.
true. but, all the same, how the hell am i supposed to know what kind of job or, heavens, career, i'm going to find rewarding or fulfilling or distracting enough when the only jobs i've worked are shitty waitressing jobs. how am i supposed to know, to just know, when i'm 17 what i'm going to find enjoyable at 27 or 37 or 47 and so on and so--.
i don't know. that's a good point.
...later....
hunched up in a blanket with a coffee and the tube for society
it's comforting
to leave the tv on
it's not just familiar voices
but the images
millions of scrambled images
waiting to be half-digested
as i'm dozing off
the best way to learn anything
about yourself
or the world
is to write about it
to think about it
and thereby define
your limitations
i wonder if anything
is truly inexpressible
to leave the tv on
it's not just familiar voices
but the images
millions of scrambled images
waiting to be half-digested
as i'm dozing off
the best way to learn anything
about yourself
or the world
is to write about it
to think about it
and thereby define
your limitations
i wonder if anything
is truly inexpressible
Sunday, June 13, 2010
an unfortunate way to die
when they found her
her skin hanging loosely
from her skeleton
her bones wrapped
entangled in the steering wheel
her brain had been
punctured
by her index finger
which was lodged crudely
through her right nostril
i don't know how it happened
they said
but she was definitely
digging for gold.
her skin hanging loosely
from her skeleton
her bones wrapped
entangled in the steering wheel
her brain had been
punctured
by her index finger
which was lodged crudely
through her right nostril
i don't know how it happened
they said
but she was definitely
digging for gold.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
parametrization
parametrization is the key to making good art
humans need limitations
self-imposed restrictions
see: the 5 obstructions
humans need limitations
self-imposed restrictions
see: the 5 obstructions
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
looking still still looking
she never admitted publicly that she was fat. on internet dating sites, she always described herself as "more to love" or "a little extra." the truth, however, was that she had reached that point of obesity where gender no longer matters. to remedy this, she had experimented with several haircuts which she described as funky--the type of risky hairstyle ventures that make or break the careers of hollywood it girls but which, on the wrong person, almost always manage to look unsightly--like some sort of defect and not the long-thought-out decision made by someone desperate for affection but willing, finally, to settle for attention.
she was not opinionated. she had no reason to care one way or the other about anything. there was no one to impress. no potential suitors to weed through. she couldn't afford to be choosy--about anything. instead, she made compromises to her fickle worldview with the introduction of any new character in her life. if, for instance, a guy she liked--a guy whom she'd almost certainly been forced to study with the careful eye of a voyeur--believed in abortion, she allowed herself to feel as he did and adopt or assimilate as harmoniously as she could with his set of convictions. her own self-worth was determined by her current crush's opinion of her worth. but it didn't matter. because happiness and peace of mind played a minor role to the things she believed would make her happy--she often dismissed these things, which she had to know intuitively to be good for her, as non-important, nothing more than second-fiddle meditations.
because she held no convictions, regarding anything, she didn't mind the pandemic-like presence of starbucks coffee shops in her area. whereas most people might find this phenomenon to be some sort of pestering ethical violation or a clear example of corporate hegemony or enforced servitude, she saw it as more opportunities to sit and wait for true love to find her one day, sitting anxiously and sipping her mocha frappe like a slob while devouring a book she felt only half-interested in, truth be told.
this is what she did most nights. she sat and she waited. and if no one showed, she'd set her sights somewhere else--the starbucks down the street, perhaps. during the day, she'd go to various shops where she felt she was guaranteed to find someone with similar sensibilities--as meaningless and ever-changing as these sensibilities were. she especially liked the pet store, not because she liked animals, but because she had a seen a boy there once with devil tattoos and gaged ears who called her "chubs" and asked for a blowjob. she complied, forcing herself to believe that he had an unconventional sense of humor and that she might one day, though it didn't matter now, learn to love him--to reconfigure her then ideal to his overall being.
she was sitting there, at starbucks now. she had just gotten off work--a menial position at a local factory where she was treated, not like dirt, exactly, but like one of the guys, their interest in fucking her being somewhat unlikelier than fucking the least attractive man in their group. when she got home, she'd performed her nearly daily ritual of masturbating to pictures on the internet and in one particular gossip magazine of johnny depp. mostly, she liked all that he stood for, the way he had of unifying all women under his spell--she built her fascination and fantasies around this notion--her aspirations to be accepted. that, to her, was sexy.
around two, a young-ish-looking guy, with the simulacrum of a goatee and a greasy muscle shirt walked in. as he was ordering, she looked up from the trash-fantasy novel she was reading. her eyes were fixed, intently, on his. pleez, pleez, she thought, pleez look over here and notice me. already she had ideas. maybe they'd fuck and he'd be so overcome when she unveiled her mostly-fat-tits that he'd be forced to find himself stricken with her and then they'd get married and she'd have something he wanted and then everyone could take a piss because she had an influence over someone. they could all go fuck themselves.
he looked over at her and she told herself not to break eye contact--maintain, lure him in, hypnotize him with your gaze. he quickly looked away, not interested. finally, he looked back, realizing that she was still looking. he smiled at her.
"you smoke?" he asked.
"yeah," she said, lying.
"let's go out to my car," he said. she followed.
as she was raising her shirt, excitedly awaiting his reaction to what she considered her greatest asset, he stopped her. suddenly.
"it's not going to suck itself," he said.
he undid his pants and removed his boxers. he had a slightly-less-than-average-size penis which looked in proportion to the rest of his body not unlike those members gracing some of history's most recognized sculptures. it made perfect sense, too: given that he exhibited so many of the characteristics particular to the alpha-male. it was not what you expected to find under that seedy veneer of idiot tattoos and macho accessories, but, then again, it kinda was.
"it's so big," she said.
he violently grabbed the back of her head and forced it down. face to face with it, she told herself that she would swallow this time. yeah, she thought, he'd probably like that a lot.
she was not opinionated. she had no reason to care one way or the other about anything. there was no one to impress. no potential suitors to weed through. she couldn't afford to be choosy--about anything. instead, she made compromises to her fickle worldview with the introduction of any new character in her life. if, for instance, a guy she liked--a guy whom she'd almost certainly been forced to study with the careful eye of a voyeur--believed in abortion, she allowed herself to feel as he did and adopt or assimilate as harmoniously as she could with his set of convictions. her own self-worth was determined by her current crush's opinion of her worth. but it didn't matter. because happiness and peace of mind played a minor role to the things she believed would make her happy--she often dismissed these things, which she had to know intuitively to be good for her, as non-important, nothing more than second-fiddle meditations.
because she held no convictions, regarding anything, she didn't mind the pandemic-like presence of starbucks coffee shops in her area. whereas most people might find this phenomenon to be some sort of pestering ethical violation or a clear example of corporate hegemony or enforced servitude, she saw it as more opportunities to sit and wait for true love to find her one day, sitting anxiously and sipping her mocha frappe like a slob while devouring a book she felt only half-interested in, truth be told.
this is what she did most nights. she sat and she waited. and if no one showed, she'd set her sights somewhere else--the starbucks down the street, perhaps. during the day, she'd go to various shops where she felt she was guaranteed to find someone with similar sensibilities--as meaningless and ever-changing as these sensibilities were. she especially liked the pet store, not because she liked animals, but because she had a seen a boy there once with devil tattoos and gaged ears who called her "chubs" and asked for a blowjob. she complied, forcing herself to believe that he had an unconventional sense of humor and that she might one day, though it didn't matter now, learn to love him--to reconfigure her then ideal to his overall being.
she was sitting there, at starbucks now. she had just gotten off work--a menial position at a local factory where she was treated, not like dirt, exactly, but like one of the guys, their interest in fucking her being somewhat unlikelier than fucking the least attractive man in their group. when she got home, she'd performed her nearly daily ritual of masturbating to pictures on the internet and in one particular gossip magazine of johnny depp. mostly, she liked all that he stood for, the way he had of unifying all women under his spell--she built her fascination and fantasies around this notion--her aspirations to be accepted. that, to her, was sexy.
around two, a young-ish-looking guy, with the simulacrum of a goatee and a greasy muscle shirt walked in. as he was ordering, she looked up from the trash-fantasy novel she was reading. her eyes were fixed, intently, on his. pleez, pleez, she thought, pleez look over here and notice me. already she had ideas. maybe they'd fuck and he'd be so overcome when she unveiled her mostly-fat-tits that he'd be forced to find himself stricken with her and then they'd get married and she'd have something he wanted and then everyone could take a piss because she had an influence over someone. they could all go fuck themselves.
he looked over at her and she told herself not to break eye contact--maintain, lure him in, hypnotize him with your gaze. he quickly looked away, not interested. finally, he looked back, realizing that she was still looking. he smiled at her.
"you smoke?" he asked.
"yeah," she said, lying.
"let's go out to my car," he said. she followed.
as she was raising her shirt, excitedly awaiting his reaction to what she considered her greatest asset, he stopped her. suddenly.
"it's not going to suck itself," he said.
he undid his pants and removed his boxers. he had a slightly-less-than-average-size penis which looked in proportion to the rest of his body not unlike those members gracing some of history's most recognized sculptures. it made perfect sense, too: given that he exhibited so many of the characteristics particular to the alpha-male. it was not what you expected to find under that seedy veneer of idiot tattoos and macho accessories, but, then again, it kinda was.
"it's so big," she said.
he violently grabbed the back of her head and forced it down. face to face with it, she told herself that she would swallow this time. yeah, she thought, he'd probably like that a lot.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
flock
they came out in fleeting shadows
sweeping across his right side
then disappearing
like the film negative versions of ghosts
he'd just finished his cigarette
and finally motivated himself to
leave the car when they
emerged unexpectedly
he didn't even flinch
finally, he thought, as he lay there
bloody and bruised
savoring every last blow of
the chains and aluminum bats
and tire irons
finally, this is the intervention he'd hoped for
a barricade between him
and the two-storey house
no more than twenty feet away
that long trek he always dreaded
sweeping across his right side
then disappearing
like the film negative versions of ghosts
he'd just finished his cigarette
and finally motivated himself to
leave the car when they
emerged unexpectedly
he didn't even flinch
finally, he thought, as he lay there
bloody and bruised
savoring every last blow of
the chains and aluminum bats
and tire irons
finally, this is the intervention he'd hoped for
a barricade between him
and the two-storey house
no more than twenty feet away
that long trek he always dreaded
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
hesse: intellectual skittles
on my drove home from work, i stumbled upon a dark and familiar sky. to call it overcast, would be a broad generalization--and that's what i'm all about: broad generalizations, simplifying the world, finding a happy medium between the world i envision and the world as it is--a network of sensational ephemera. though, because i've found it important enough to write about it, it begs digging deeper.
what it mostly reminded me of--that is, my split-second assessment--was a memory from when i was younger. to this day, i'm not even sure if it really happened. as far as memories go, it's rather mundane--with all the marks of a dream. highly impressionistic and, like most memories from my youth, a perfect vignette in the bulging anthology of sensory information masquerading as linear history. i don't know why i remember the things i remember, but i do.
anyway, the story goes like this:
the sky was overcast. nearly pitch-black, as if the day decided not to break. i remember being shuttled over to a companion elementary school and taking part in a mini-planetarium exhibit. i remember crawling on my hands and knees through a tent, through a maze of tunnels and the disembodied laughter of my fellow classmates. finally, in the center of it all was a seemingly infinite (there's no doubt in my mind that it was tall enough so that i couldn't reach it) and vast display of stars--like the real thing. i remember looking up at it and hearing a voice explaining to me typical trivial babble about the solar system--facts which only an idiot savant could ever commit to memory without the proper influence of experience. from there, i can remember getting back on the bus and the sky still dark as before. in fact, the one thing that i always run back to in my mind, is the contrast between the artificial light indoors and the early morning pitch black sky outside. it was almost as if i'd never woken up that morning, that i'd somehow wandered into or dreamed my way to school. either way, it's the reason i'm obsessed with overcast skies today and things like dreams and feelings--the inexplicable qualities of experience. and that's exactly what the sky reminded me of today. being young and stupid. taking for granted a world that i would one day miss. a world that i am somehow bound to chase for the remainder of my days. i guess that's the way it goes with formative experiences. you can't appreciate them while their happening because it's their mystery that eventually inspires you to seek them out again or recreate their atmosphere. you have absolutely no idea at the time but one day it will be everything you actively pursue. you are the images you keep inside your head. and it's generally the most elusive ones, the ones that you could never, in a million years, thanks to chance or circumstance, hope to ever experience again that keep you chasing them.
mostly, this is how i feel. i can't remember the last time i had a truly remarkable experience. everything just kind of whirls right past me. i've hit all the major milestones. i'd explored nearly everything i hope to discover--with the exception of fame and death--and its left me wanting more--something impossible to articulate. but i keep chasing it, blindly, feeling my way around until i hit upon some temporary pleasant distraction.
in an attempt to remedy this confusion i've taken some time recently to sort of figure out who i am, in an essential sense, and what i hope to achieve. mainly, i just want someone who gets me. i know i've talked about this in great depth in the past, so it's hardly worth belaboring here. i don't even care if this person takes the form of a sexual partner or a bestie. all i want is someone i can open up to or, at least, listen to and admire. first, though, i have a lot of lost time to make up for--to figure out who i am, for real. i wasted a lot of time in high school trying to please people--conforming to their personalities without ever taking the time to discover who i am and what things i like. i was too easily swayed by popular opinion. that's not to say i was a complete sheep, i just never asserted myself or took a stand for what i felt, intuitively, to be an essential part of my make-up. all along, i've been there, but it's going to take some time and a lot of effort to bring this person, this shadow, to the surface. i feel stronger each day in learning new things about myself. it's painful sometimes to look in the proverbial mirror and see what the world sees or what i was too afraid to acknowledge myself, but i feel like, in the end, it's a good exercise because it brings me closer to a less deferential and self-empowered version of myself. from there, i'll be able to find friends or at least devise strategies to find friends based on shared interests. right now, it's not working. i've had the same friends since high school, with the exception of jim and amy, and although i love these people, i feel like there's something else out there, just beyond my reach. i can almost voice it. but i can't see it. i can't make it a reality in any tangible terms. but that's what i'm after: a new life. one which i'm better suited for.
the way i look at it, it's like okcupid, the popular dating site. the concept behind okcupid is that you take a number of tests and answer a number of questions and the system is better able to match you with someone based off your criteria. the more questions you answer, the better okcupid is able to understand and find someone similar for you. it's the same thing. the more i learn about myself, the better able i'll be to find what it is i'm looking for--to play third-party and intervene in my own affairs in a way that profits me in a way i've never experienced.
of course, the alternative is probably just as rewarding--to simply sit back and take a passive role. i mean, sometimes it is better to not try to force something, i understand that. but i've submitted myself to chance too often in the past to know that something needs to change. in fact, that's all i've done--sort of let life happen--unfold naturally. maybe though it's possible, i'm thinking, to change what is natural. to transpose the natural order into my own orchestrated set of principles--in effect, to make my own natural disposition one which clashes with nature. it's all very heady--more a concept than anything at this point. but i'm working on it.
i'll have more to write about this later, especially as it relates to Steppenwolf, which i am currently reading. sometimes i feel a very magical kinship with hesse and i wonder how it's possible for someone to anticipate my own being so many years before my time.
oh well. it's probably just a bunch of hippie new age bullshit.
what it mostly reminded me of--that is, my split-second assessment--was a memory from when i was younger. to this day, i'm not even sure if it really happened. as far as memories go, it's rather mundane--with all the marks of a dream. highly impressionistic and, like most memories from my youth, a perfect vignette in the bulging anthology of sensory information masquerading as linear history. i don't know why i remember the things i remember, but i do.
anyway, the story goes like this:
the sky was overcast. nearly pitch-black, as if the day decided not to break. i remember being shuttled over to a companion elementary school and taking part in a mini-planetarium exhibit. i remember crawling on my hands and knees through a tent, through a maze of tunnels and the disembodied laughter of my fellow classmates. finally, in the center of it all was a seemingly infinite (there's no doubt in my mind that it was tall enough so that i couldn't reach it) and vast display of stars--like the real thing. i remember looking up at it and hearing a voice explaining to me typical trivial babble about the solar system--facts which only an idiot savant could ever commit to memory without the proper influence of experience. from there, i can remember getting back on the bus and the sky still dark as before. in fact, the one thing that i always run back to in my mind, is the contrast between the artificial light indoors and the early morning pitch black sky outside. it was almost as if i'd never woken up that morning, that i'd somehow wandered into or dreamed my way to school. either way, it's the reason i'm obsessed with overcast skies today and things like dreams and feelings--the inexplicable qualities of experience. and that's exactly what the sky reminded me of today. being young and stupid. taking for granted a world that i would one day miss. a world that i am somehow bound to chase for the remainder of my days. i guess that's the way it goes with formative experiences. you can't appreciate them while their happening because it's their mystery that eventually inspires you to seek them out again or recreate their atmosphere. you have absolutely no idea at the time but one day it will be everything you actively pursue. you are the images you keep inside your head. and it's generally the most elusive ones, the ones that you could never, in a million years, thanks to chance or circumstance, hope to ever experience again that keep you chasing them.
mostly, this is how i feel. i can't remember the last time i had a truly remarkable experience. everything just kind of whirls right past me. i've hit all the major milestones. i'd explored nearly everything i hope to discover--with the exception of fame and death--and its left me wanting more--something impossible to articulate. but i keep chasing it, blindly, feeling my way around until i hit upon some temporary pleasant distraction.
in an attempt to remedy this confusion i've taken some time recently to sort of figure out who i am, in an essential sense, and what i hope to achieve. mainly, i just want someone who gets me. i know i've talked about this in great depth in the past, so it's hardly worth belaboring here. i don't even care if this person takes the form of a sexual partner or a bestie. all i want is someone i can open up to or, at least, listen to and admire. first, though, i have a lot of lost time to make up for--to figure out who i am, for real. i wasted a lot of time in high school trying to please people--conforming to their personalities without ever taking the time to discover who i am and what things i like. i was too easily swayed by popular opinion. that's not to say i was a complete sheep, i just never asserted myself or took a stand for what i felt, intuitively, to be an essential part of my make-up. all along, i've been there, but it's going to take some time and a lot of effort to bring this person, this shadow, to the surface. i feel stronger each day in learning new things about myself. it's painful sometimes to look in the proverbial mirror and see what the world sees or what i was too afraid to acknowledge myself, but i feel like, in the end, it's a good exercise because it brings me closer to a less deferential and self-empowered version of myself. from there, i'll be able to find friends or at least devise strategies to find friends based on shared interests. right now, it's not working. i've had the same friends since high school, with the exception of jim and amy, and although i love these people, i feel like there's something else out there, just beyond my reach. i can almost voice it. but i can't see it. i can't make it a reality in any tangible terms. but that's what i'm after: a new life. one which i'm better suited for.
the way i look at it, it's like okcupid, the popular dating site. the concept behind okcupid is that you take a number of tests and answer a number of questions and the system is better able to match you with someone based off your criteria. the more questions you answer, the better okcupid is able to understand and find someone similar for you. it's the same thing. the more i learn about myself, the better able i'll be to find what it is i'm looking for--to play third-party and intervene in my own affairs in a way that profits me in a way i've never experienced.
of course, the alternative is probably just as rewarding--to simply sit back and take a passive role. i mean, sometimes it is better to not try to force something, i understand that. but i've submitted myself to chance too often in the past to know that something needs to change. in fact, that's all i've done--sort of let life happen--unfold naturally. maybe though it's possible, i'm thinking, to change what is natural. to transpose the natural order into my own orchestrated set of principles--in effect, to make my own natural disposition one which clashes with nature. it's all very heady--more a concept than anything at this point. but i'm working on it.
i'll have more to write about this later, especially as it relates to Steppenwolf, which i am currently reading. sometimes i feel a very magical kinship with hesse and i wonder how it's possible for someone to anticipate my own being so many years before my time.
oh well. it's probably just a bunch of hippie new age bullshit.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
cruel cruel theatre
there's a buzzsaw buzzing in my ears
it reminds me that there is better noise
by comparison
a single sustained and discordant
note
i let it serenade me to sleep
and in the morning
i welcome radio station riff-raff
with loving arms and an open heart
it reminds me that there is better noise
by comparison
a single sustained and discordant
note
i let it serenade me to sleep
and in the morning
i welcome radio station riff-raff
with loving arms and an open heart
Friday, April 30, 2010
i dont understand commercials. has anyone ever seen an advertisement and actually been compelled to invest money in that product? most of the time, theyre just a nuisance. especially when im trying to watch programming. i rarely pay attention to them, out of principle. it makes me wonder, because i know im not alone in this mentality, why these big corporations spend so much time and money in the first place.
i was actually watching the office today, on the internet. an advert popped up. a smooth-talking voice-over calmly reassuring me that my program is brought to me with limited commercial interruption. i like how they had to qualify that statement. first off, limited. its not maximum commercial interruption. its limited. why, apparently is a good thing. otherwise, they wouldnt specify. tbd
i was actually watching the office today, on the internet. an advert popped up. a smooth-talking voice-over calmly reassuring me that my program is brought to me with limited commercial interruption. i like how they had to qualify that statement. first off, limited. its not maximum commercial interruption. its limited. why, apparently is a good thing. otherwise, they wouldnt specify. tbd
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
verbal punching bag
i don't know what's wrong with me--why i feel so disenchanted lately. i think it may have something to do with an overdose on experimental faulkner. i've immersed myself in a world too brilliant for my eyes. i need sunglasses. painkillers.
it' s the weirdest thing:
i'm driving to work and it's not me making those sharp turns but it's in that narrow maneuvering that i'm aware of my head--metacognition times one million.
work is unbearable. i can't see the words anymore. my mind is a mess. i need a doctor. or better pills than the ones i've been prescribed.
read an excellent editorial by steve albini today dealing with the shady nature of the music business. stuff i'd already kind of suspected but never looked into, for fear my dreams would come crumbling down. alas, they have.
even if we get a contract (which is highly improbable, i know), our projected cut is absurd. in theory, we'll making the business millions while accruing massive debt for ourselves. and that's how it works. unless you're freaking radiohead.
i don't even know why i bother with it at all. there's no market for the kind of music i want to make. even my closest friends hate the songs i write.
i'm just so sick of all the rocknroll cliches--the excess, the stupid formulaic songs, the girls, the drugs, the classic rock tropes which have been exhausted, taken out, bloodied and beaten and bruised, thrown back on the fryer, reconfigured, reprocessed, repackaged and sold to the hipster-centric consumer time and again.
there are about five bands i listen to--all the others are just variations of these bands. if you can't do something innovative, your best bet is to plagiarize the shit out of someone you like. but that's not the kind of music i want to make. i want to make something that people can connect to--something heartfelt and not off-the-cuff rehashing, plug-n-chug indie-pop. i'm so sick of these bands that get recognition simply for sounding like other bands people like. where's the innovation in that? i know people notice because they tell me all the time: dude, you've got to listen to so and so, they sound just like neutral milk hotel! if i want to listen to a band that sounds like neutral milk hotel, i'll listen to fucking neutral milk hotel.
we live in a remake culture.
i wouldn't have a problem with this except that these carbon copies offer nothing new. there's an extent to which you can rip off somebody and still manage to produce your own signature sound and, more importantly, leave room to expand upon or improve the foundation laid down by the original artist--to take what someone else has done and make it better--yet these bands and these artists don't seem to grasp this concept. they simply take what's been done and mimic it, parrot it right back to the idiot public who preys upon this kind of garbage. i just don't get it. i want to say it's wrong--that they're being taking advantage of, but i'm not sure that's the case. and if it is, i'm not sure i really care. it's hard to feel sorry for anyone that retarded.
anyway.
yeah.
it' s the weirdest thing:
i'm driving to work and it's not me making those sharp turns but it's in that narrow maneuvering that i'm aware of my head--metacognition times one million.
work is unbearable. i can't see the words anymore. my mind is a mess. i need a doctor. or better pills than the ones i've been prescribed.
read an excellent editorial by steve albini today dealing with the shady nature of the music business. stuff i'd already kind of suspected but never looked into, for fear my dreams would come crumbling down. alas, they have.
even if we get a contract (which is highly improbable, i know), our projected cut is absurd. in theory, we'll making the business millions while accruing massive debt for ourselves. and that's how it works. unless you're freaking radiohead.
i don't even know why i bother with it at all. there's no market for the kind of music i want to make. even my closest friends hate the songs i write.
i'm just so sick of all the rocknroll cliches--the excess, the stupid formulaic songs, the girls, the drugs, the classic rock tropes which have been exhausted, taken out, bloodied and beaten and bruised, thrown back on the fryer, reconfigured, reprocessed, repackaged and sold to the hipster-centric consumer time and again.
there are about five bands i listen to--all the others are just variations of these bands. if you can't do something innovative, your best bet is to plagiarize the shit out of someone you like. but that's not the kind of music i want to make. i want to make something that people can connect to--something heartfelt and not off-the-cuff rehashing, plug-n-chug indie-pop. i'm so sick of these bands that get recognition simply for sounding like other bands people like. where's the innovation in that? i know people notice because they tell me all the time: dude, you've got to listen to so and so, they sound just like neutral milk hotel! if i want to listen to a band that sounds like neutral milk hotel, i'll listen to fucking neutral milk hotel.
we live in a remake culture.
i wouldn't have a problem with this except that these carbon copies offer nothing new. there's an extent to which you can rip off somebody and still manage to produce your own signature sound and, more importantly, leave room to expand upon or improve the foundation laid down by the original artist--to take what someone else has done and make it better--yet these bands and these artists don't seem to grasp this concept. they simply take what's been done and mimic it, parrot it right back to the idiot public who preys upon this kind of garbage. i just don't get it. i want to say it's wrong--that they're being taking advantage of, but i'm not sure that's the case. and if it is, i'm not sure i really care. it's hard to feel sorry for anyone that retarded.
anyway.
yeah.
Monday, April 26, 2010
caddy
in media res: he is outside or inside a familiar place, prattling on about something near and dear to his very heart--something very specific about a production company and their money-shark hold on the american audience's sensibilities. you're being exploited, he says, in a nutshell, the prophet preaching. he wonders, mid-sentence, if they even care cause he can see them looking away and almost rolling their eyes. he endures, like the stars, because he doesn't know any better.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
chompski
they lived in little houses, like humans, except that these houses were carved out in the trees. they never wondered why they were so inclined to mirror the path etched out by us. and i honestly couldn't care less. they had a mouse father, a mouse mother, a mouse baby and a mouse brother. and, sometimes, if you were really sneaky, you could wander through the woods and peep in on them and their fingernail-reality. if you made eye contact, they would reciprocate, pestered, annoyed, irritated. father would resume his newspaper and mother her apple pies, or at least that's how they smelled. baby never cried. but lay there still. they were projections. that much is easy. but why?
can't sleep
his sleep-function is broken
off the charts
we're not getting a good reading
it appears that's he's accessing
foreign chambers
as if re-wired
auto-programmed
someone stop that dog barking
it's interfering with my
frame of mind and besides
barking never drove any storm away
please, kindly illustrate that
there is a barrier
between itself and the raging sea
that violence is intangible
barring no one opens a door
you don't plan on going outside in this
weather, do you?
no, sir.
good.
did you ever think that she may be barking
because she's marooned inside?
don't be trite, lenny. i'll smack that smirk right off
your idiot cheeks.
off the charts
we're not getting a good reading
it appears that's he's accessing
foreign chambers
as if re-wired
auto-programmed
someone stop that dog barking
it's interfering with my
frame of mind and besides
barking never drove any storm away
please, kindly illustrate that
there is a barrier
between itself and the raging sea
that violence is intangible
barring no one opens a door
you don't plan on going outside in this
weather, do you?
no, sir.
good.
did you ever think that she may be barking
because she's marooned inside?
don't be trite, lenny. i'll smack that smirk right off
your idiot cheeks.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
seizure tv: the Ugly Spirit
his name had become synonymous
though never explicitly acknowledged
with the theory of dreams
the myth and the mighty
the familiar spirit entangling
ensnaring
earth's gravitational pull
he came from somewhere vague
and void of time
his pallid face
a white of a different kind
he crept into my room
every night to talk with me
and sat by my side and
in exchange for travels
i gave up dreams
to know just what my
fantasies could not confirm
there is no validation in his
studied speech
his out and out
bold-faced lies
he tells me angels never
think to react
that we are idiot children
orphaned by our misconceptions
and the vagaries we construct
all violent and vulgar
in their very nature
though we're quick to
turn our heads
this is all you see he says
and all you see is wrong
this is all you see he says
and what you see is wrong
though never explicitly acknowledged
with the theory of dreams
the myth and the mighty
the familiar spirit entangling
ensnaring
earth's gravitational pull
he came from somewhere vague
and void of time
his pallid face
a white of a different kind
he crept into my room
every night to talk with me
and sat by my side and
in exchange for travels
i gave up dreams
to know just what my
fantasies could not confirm
there is no validation in his
studied speech
his out and out
bold-faced lies
he tells me angels never
think to react
that we are idiot children
orphaned by our misconceptions
and the vagaries we construct
all violent and vulgar
in their very nature
though we're quick to
turn our heads
this is all you see he says
and all you see is wrong
this is all you see he says
and what you see is wrong
Friday, April 23, 2010
an attempt at a start
i've taken three separate tests within the past two years all confirming that i am an INFJ personality. if you don't know what an INFJ personality is, look it up. it's part of the Myers Briggs Personality Test--too lengthy to get into here.
basically, though, what i find so astonishing about this phenomenon is that, despite my frustration over the years in trying to understand myself, the computer can reduce me to four little letters in less than ten-minutes and thereby provide me with a more definitive solution than i could ever hope to achieve through meticulous introspection and soul-searching. i know it's probably bullshit, but...i've taken three of these things. and they all say the same thing. that's gotta mean something right?
anyway, this whole ordeal has prompted me, though it may seem somewhat counter-intuitive, given the information i just provided you with, to re-examine and define exactly what it is i want (out of life, out of love, etc.) and sort of meld this together into a more comprehensive understanding of who i am.
first, i need to look at why i'm so lonely. why i so often desperately seek the approval and acceptance of others. what am i looking for and i can i provide this for myself?
i've always complained about being single, but i think the problem is that i don't know what or who it is i'm after or chasing. is it some sort of ideal? a specific type of person? do i want highly passionate albeit fleeting romances and flings or something with a little security?
the truth is, i don't know. at this point, i'd be up for anything. when i fill out questionnaires on dating sites, most of my responses are "unsure" or "i don't know." i don't want to speak prematurely. i don't want to settle for something without entertaining every possibility. it's not that i'm indecisive. i just don't know that i want anything definite and i figure if i give off the impression that i'm a person of convictions, this is what i'll end up with. maybe i just want someone as clueless as myself--someone with the same "what happens, happens" mentality. but i'm not sure of that. i mean, am i after someone just like myself? or do i need contrast to be happy? i don't know. i've dated girls with similar tastes and values as myself, but i've never dated my opposite or my twin. so, i have no clue what that's like. and i think a lot of it has to do with never taking the time to really think it out and assess what it is i'm looking for or what fundamental qualities i find attractive--most of this, i feel, has been determined by friends or society. i'm such a people-pleaser, that i'll often go out of my way, betray myself, just to find acceptance. in this way, i compromise a lot of valuable insights into my true self--what jung calls the shadow. then again, maybe that is my true self--everyone else. maybe that is who i am--a reflection or a mirroring of my peers' sensibilities. i just wonder if there are others like me out there, because i've always felt sort of alone in that aspect.
it seems that i tend to gravitate towards people who make it easy for me to just sit there and listen--and not have to give anything of myself. sometimes, it's irritating. i just want to lash out, freak out and blurt every last little jumbled mess of head confetti swimming around in my skull. most of the time, though, i don't mind. i like listening to people. it's oddly mesmerizing, like watching television. i love people that like to talk, domineering personalities. i'm not an assertive or vocal person, so these people make my life a whole hell of a lot easier. i know i'm being used, as an audience. but i don't mind. the less they know, the more they love me. actually, i don't know that "love" is the right word--but something bordering on love--lust, maybe.
knowing this, being fully aware of this dynamic, i really have no reason to be upset when my so-called friends inevitably sell me out or turn their backs on me. it always happens. and i always get upset, feel betrayed, but, really, i'm asking for it by refusing to advertise the person inside of my head vs. the person everyone else sees, the shy, reserved, easy-going art-fag (or whatever it is that they think).
i believe in cooley's construction of identity--the looking glass self. i believe in it whole-heartedly. and that's what makes the struggle to realize myself that much harder. my identity is so tightly entangled in how others see me and how that affects the persona i project, that it's nearly impossible to get back at square 1--where it all begins. if, of course, that truly is where it begins. it could be a case of the chicken and the egg. for all we know, they arrived at the same time. or, it's all relative. or, blah blah blah. basically, i just want to find out who i am because that's something i feel like i missed out on in high school and even now. i know, it's kind of a typical twenty-something thing to do: to feel directionless and lost and wonder where to go to next, but i am a twenty-something. forgive me.
oh well.
i don't know that i've clarified anything tonight. but i've at least made an attempt at a start.
basically, though, what i find so astonishing about this phenomenon is that, despite my frustration over the years in trying to understand myself, the computer can reduce me to four little letters in less than ten-minutes and thereby provide me with a more definitive solution than i could ever hope to achieve through meticulous introspection and soul-searching. i know it's probably bullshit, but...i've taken three of these things. and they all say the same thing. that's gotta mean something right?
anyway, this whole ordeal has prompted me, though it may seem somewhat counter-intuitive, given the information i just provided you with, to re-examine and define exactly what it is i want (out of life, out of love, etc.) and sort of meld this together into a more comprehensive understanding of who i am.
first, i need to look at why i'm so lonely. why i so often desperately seek the approval and acceptance of others. what am i looking for and i can i provide this for myself?
i've always complained about being single, but i think the problem is that i don't know what or who it is i'm after or chasing. is it some sort of ideal? a specific type of person? do i want highly passionate albeit fleeting romances and flings or something with a little security?
the truth is, i don't know. at this point, i'd be up for anything. when i fill out questionnaires on dating sites, most of my responses are "unsure" or "i don't know." i don't want to speak prematurely. i don't want to settle for something without entertaining every possibility. it's not that i'm indecisive. i just don't know that i want anything definite and i figure if i give off the impression that i'm a person of convictions, this is what i'll end up with. maybe i just want someone as clueless as myself--someone with the same "what happens, happens" mentality. but i'm not sure of that. i mean, am i after someone just like myself? or do i need contrast to be happy? i don't know. i've dated girls with similar tastes and values as myself, but i've never dated my opposite or my twin. so, i have no clue what that's like. and i think a lot of it has to do with never taking the time to really think it out and assess what it is i'm looking for or what fundamental qualities i find attractive--most of this, i feel, has been determined by friends or society. i'm such a people-pleaser, that i'll often go out of my way, betray myself, just to find acceptance. in this way, i compromise a lot of valuable insights into my true self--what jung calls the shadow. then again, maybe that is my true self--everyone else. maybe that is who i am--a reflection or a mirroring of my peers' sensibilities. i just wonder if there are others like me out there, because i've always felt sort of alone in that aspect.
it seems that i tend to gravitate towards people who make it easy for me to just sit there and listen--and not have to give anything of myself. sometimes, it's irritating. i just want to lash out, freak out and blurt every last little jumbled mess of head confetti swimming around in my skull. most of the time, though, i don't mind. i like listening to people. it's oddly mesmerizing, like watching television. i love people that like to talk, domineering personalities. i'm not an assertive or vocal person, so these people make my life a whole hell of a lot easier. i know i'm being used, as an audience. but i don't mind. the less they know, the more they love me. actually, i don't know that "love" is the right word--but something bordering on love--lust, maybe.
knowing this, being fully aware of this dynamic, i really have no reason to be upset when my so-called friends inevitably sell me out or turn their backs on me. it always happens. and i always get upset, feel betrayed, but, really, i'm asking for it by refusing to advertise the person inside of my head vs. the person everyone else sees, the shy, reserved, easy-going art-fag (or whatever it is that they think).
i believe in cooley's construction of identity--the looking glass self. i believe in it whole-heartedly. and that's what makes the struggle to realize myself that much harder. my identity is so tightly entangled in how others see me and how that affects the persona i project, that it's nearly impossible to get back at square 1--where it all begins. if, of course, that truly is where it begins. it could be a case of the chicken and the egg. for all we know, they arrived at the same time. or, it's all relative. or, blah blah blah. basically, i just want to find out who i am because that's something i feel like i missed out on in high school and even now. i know, it's kind of a typical twenty-something thing to do: to feel directionless and lost and wonder where to go to next, but i am a twenty-something. forgive me.
oh well.
i don't know that i've clarified anything tonight. but i've at least made an attempt at a start.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
mannikin
No. 5
she took his hand and led him down the steep hill and to the open bank.
i like you, fonzie, she said. i like you, you understand?
sure, he said.
let's play a game, she said.
ok.
she started removing her dress, the one garment he promised himself to remember her by.
well, take off your clothes, fonzie. we're going to go swimming.
swimming? but it's night and i don't have my swimming trunks.
this is a different kind of swimming, she said. this is called skinny-dipping. ain't you never heard of skinny-dipping before?
is it like lover's leap? he said.
sure, she said, not quite understanding.
you mean you want to play lover's leap with me? in the name of fonzie and everything.
i guess so, she said.
fonzie felt that he understood now. the excitement was unprecedented.
take your clothes off, fonzie. that's all part of the game. we have to be naked. that's what makes it fun. it's not a game if there's no fun in it, right?
fonzie started at his shirt, removed each button slowly. he wanted this to happen. he liked the idea of sharing his nakedness with another human being. but he was also very protective of his body.
well, hurry up now, fonz. you can't delay the inevitable.
without thinking, or allowing himself to entertain his reservation, fonzie quickly undid each button. he started at his belt when he caught a glimpse of miss traum's glimmering flesh. he liked that her body was so structurally different from his own and that there was so much yet to see. it would take days to fully comprehend the sight in front of him and the absence of light, the flattering moonlight only made it that much more exciting because it deprived him of the opportunity to look and really see everything. he thought back to the story of adam and eve--how it had affected him as a child and how it had informed his conception of sexuality in the present. he had a fundamental knowledge of the female form, but until now, no real-life experience.
there it was, in front of him. he tried to take it all in, contrasting in his mind the disparities between the crude and speculative sketch he'd always envisioned and the image now standing before him, a transient model for study. it was cruel, he thought, that she could provoke these feelings within him, simply by being naked, a different kind of naked, not the kind that stared back at him in the mirror when he showered or changed clothes, but a new kind, and not feel them herself. there were one or two glaring differences in their physiological make-up, though it was essentially the same, but it was the one or two differences that sent fonzie's head swirling. she was furry in places he thought unusual for women to be furry. she had breasts and jutting hips. and none of this seemed to faze her. this is what set fonzie off more than anything: that she had grown accustomed to this image and that it was so intrinsically a part of who she was and that, try as he might, he could never truly know what that was like. she would be a mystery forever.
come on in, she said.
fonzie discarded his pants into the collection of clothes sparsely scattered around the bank.
he jumped in.
she took his hand and led him down the steep hill and to the open bank.
i like you, fonzie, she said. i like you, you understand?
sure, he said.
let's play a game, she said.
ok.
she started removing her dress, the one garment he promised himself to remember her by.
well, take off your clothes, fonzie. we're going to go swimming.
swimming? but it's night and i don't have my swimming trunks.
this is a different kind of swimming, she said. this is called skinny-dipping. ain't you never heard of skinny-dipping before?
is it like lover's leap? he said.
sure, she said, not quite understanding.
you mean you want to play lover's leap with me? in the name of fonzie and everything.
i guess so, she said.
fonzie felt that he understood now. the excitement was unprecedented.
take your clothes off, fonzie. that's all part of the game. we have to be naked. that's what makes it fun. it's not a game if there's no fun in it, right?
fonzie started at his shirt, removed each button slowly. he wanted this to happen. he liked the idea of sharing his nakedness with another human being. but he was also very protective of his body.
well, hurry up now, fonz. you can't delay the inevitable.
without thinking, or allowing himself to entertain his reservation, fonzie quickly undid each button. he started at his belt when he caught a glimpse of miss traum's glimmering flesh. he liked that her body was so structurally different from his own and that there was so much yet to see. it would take days to fully comprehend the sight in front of him and the absence of light, the flattering moonlight only made it that much more exciting because it deprived him of the opportunity to look and really see everything. he thought back to the story of adam and eve--how it had affected him as a child and how it had informed his conception of sexuality in the present. he had a fundamental knowledge of the female form, but until now, no real-life experience.
there it was, in front of him. he tried to take it all in, contrasting in his mind the disparities between the crude and speculative sketch he'd always envisioned and the image now standing before him, a transient model for study. it was cruel, he thought, that she could provoke these feelings within him, simply by being naked, a different kind of naked, not the kind that stared back at him in the mirror when he showered or changed clothes, but a new kind, and not feel them herself. there were one or two glaring differences in their physiological make-up, though it was essentially the same, but it was the one or two differences that sent fonzie's head swirling. she was furry in places he thought unusual for women to be furry. she had breasts and jutting hips. and none of this seemed to faze her. this is what set fonzie off more than anything: that she had grown accustomed to this image and that it was so intrinsically a part of who she was and that, try as he might, he could never truly know what that was like. she would be a mystery forever.
come on in, she said.
fonzie discarded his pants into the collection of clothes sparsely scattered around the bank.
he jumped in.
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