2, IV
O Dieses ist dast Tier, das es nicht giebt.
Sie wusstens nicht und habens jeden Falls
-sein Wandeln, seine Haltung , seinen Hals,
bis in des stillen Blickes Licht -geliebt.
Zwar war es nicht. Doch weil sie's liebten, ward
ein reines Tier. Sie liessen immer Raum.
Und in dem Raume, klar und ausgespart,
erhob es leicht sein Haupt und brauchte kaum
zu sein. Sie nährten es mit keinem Korn,
nur immer mit der Möglichkeit, es sei.
Und die gab solche Stärke an das Tier,
dass es auch sich ein Stirnhorn trieb. Ein horn.
Zu einer Jungfrau kam es weiss herbei -
und war im Silber-Spiegel und in ihr.
2, XXI
Singe die Gärten, mein Herz, die du nicht kennst; wie in Glas
eingegossene Gärten, klar, unnereichbar.
Wasser und Rosen von Ispahan oder Schiras,
singe sie selig, preise sie, keinem vergleichbar.
Zeige, mein Herz, dass du sie niemals entbehrst.
Das sie dich meinen, ihre reifenden Feigen.
Dass du mit ihren, zwischen den blühenden Zweigen
wie zum Gesicht gesteigerten Lüften verkehrst.
Meide den Irrtum, dass es Entbehrungen gebe
für den geschehnen Entschluss, diesen: zu sein!
Seidener Faden, kamst du hinein ins Gewebe.
Welchem der Bilder du auch im Innern geeint bist
(sei es selbst ein Moment aus dem Leben der Pein),
fühl, dass der ganze, der Rühmliche Teppich gemein ist.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Friday, December 08, 2006
Part Tree-Tree
Back into the kitchen, where the Vampire and the Bride are still smoking and singing. My dream has become nothing but walking from the living room to the kitchen, and vice versa. The Vampire’s presence here in this kitchen feels unnatural, as if certain laws of nature had to be broken to fit his suffering bulk and bursting exstasies. The Vampire smiles at me, drunk, demoniacally, seraphically. It’s confusing. The Bride takes my arm and starts singing again.
L'amour est un oiseau rebelle
Que nul ne peut apprivoiser
Et c'est bien en vain qu'on l'appelle
C'est lui qu'on vient de nous refuser
The Vampire fixes his gaze on me for a brief moment. His smile vanishes.
Rien n'y fait, menaces ou prières
L'un parle bien, l'autre se tait
Et c'est l'autre que je préfère
Il n'a rien dit mais il me plaît
The Vampire just sits there in his kitchen chair between the Bride and me and stares straight ahead, paying no attention to the singing. If I would touch him, he would sway like a boulder suspended on a pebble on the precipice of a cliff. He might come crashing down or just sway, rocklike.
L'amour, l'amour, l'amour, l'amour
L'amour est enfant de bohème
Il n'a jamais jamais connu de lois
Si tu ne m'aimes pas je t'aime
Si je t'aime prend garde à toi
Si tu ne m'aimes pas
Si tu ne m'aimes pas je t'aime
Mais si je t'aime, si je t'aime
Prends garde à toi
The Vampire smiles at me again, and for just I moment I reach the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which is the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on, with my Phantom Ape dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dive off and fly into the holy void of uncreated emptiness.
L'oiseau que tu croyais surprendre
Battit de l'aile et s'envola
L'amour est loin, tu peux l'attendre
Tu ne l'attends plus, il est là
I hear an indescribable seething roar which isn’t in my ear but everywhere and has nothing to do with sound. I realize now that I have died and have been reborn numberless times but just didn’t remember, because the transitions from life to death and back to life are so ghostly easy, as from walking from the living room to the kitchen, a magical action for naught, like falling asleep and waking up again a million times.
Tout autour de toi, vite, vite
Il vient, s'en va puis il revient
Tu crois le tenir, il t'évite
Tu crois l'éviter, il te tient
I feel sweet, swinging bliss, like a big shot of heroin in the mainline vein, like a gulp of wine late in the afternoon and it makes me shudder. My feet tingle.
L'amour, l'amour, l'amour, l'amour
L'amour est enfant de bohème
Il n'a jamais jamais connu de lois
Si tu ne m'aimes pas je t'aime
Si je t'aime prend garde à toi
Si tu ne m'aimes pas
Si tu ne m'aimes pas je t'aime
Mais si je t'aime, si je t'aime
Prends garde à toi
The song is over. The Bride sighs and starts sweeping the kitchen floor. The Vampire lights a cigarette and pays no attention to me. The only thing I can do, is go.
L'amour est un oiseau rebelle
Que nul ne peut apprivoiser
Et c'est bien en vain qu'on l'appelle
C'est lui qu'on vient de nous refuser
The Vampire fixes his gaze on me for a brief moment. His smile vanishes.
Rien n'y fait, menaces ou prières
L'un parle bien, l'autre se tait
Et c'est l'autre que je préfère
Il n'a rien dit mais il me plaît
The Vampire just sits there in his kitchen chair between the Bride and me and stares straight ahead, paying no attention to the singing. If I would touch him, he would sway like a boulder suspended on a pebble on the precipice of a cliff. He might come crashing down or just sway, rocklike.
L'amour, l'amour, l'amour, l'amour
L'amour est enfant de bohème
Il n'a jamais jamais connu de lois
Si tu ne m'aimes pas je t'aime
Si je t'aime prend garde à toi
Si tu ne m'aimes pas
Si tu ne m'aimes pas je t'aime
Mais si je t'aime, si je t'aime
Prends garde à toi
The Vampire smiles at me again, and for just I moment I reach the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which is the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on, with my Phantom Ape dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dive off and fly into the holy void of uncreated emptiness.
L'oiseau que tu croyais surprendre
Battit de l'aile et s'envola
L'amour est loin, tu peux l'attendre
Tu ne l'attends plus, il est là
I hear an indescribable seething roar which isn’t in my ear but everywhere and has nothing to do with sound. I realize now that I have died and have been reborn numberless times but just didn’t remember, because the transitions from life to death and back to life are so ghostly easy, as from walking from the living room to the kitchen, a magical action for naught, like falling asleep and waking up again a million times.
Tout autour de toi, vite, vite
Il vient, s'en va puis il revient
Tu crois le tenir, il t'évite
Tu crois l'éviter, il te tient
I feel sweet, swinging bliss, like a big shot of heroin in the mainline vein, like a gulp of wine late in the afternoon and it makes me shudder. My feet tingle.
L'amour, l'amour, l'amour, l'amour
L'amour est enfant de bohème
Il n'a jamais jamais connu de lois
Si tu ne m'aimes pas je t'aime
Si je t'aime prend garde à toi
Si tu ne m'aimes pas
Si tu ne m'aimes pas je t'aime
Mais si je t'aime, si je t'aime
Prends garde à toi
The song is over. The Bride sighs and starts sweeping the kitchen floor. The Vampire lights a cigarette and pays no attention to me. The only thing I can do, is go.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Part Toe-Nain
I find myself back into that house, inside it’s walls. I’m standing in the living room again, or what used to pass as a living room. It is as if a violent wind has blown straight through the room, knocking over small tables, sweeping books off the arms of chairs, littering the carpet with ash and cigarette stubs from an ashtray which was wheeling there, ready to topple. The walls are ruthless, the furniture heavy, damaged, loaded with character; sofas and chairs are like large people making conversation.
I see a man, very still, sitting back in his chair, smoking. The ash on his cigarette lenghtens itself and drops. He frowns, gives me an irritated look, hastily pulls an ashtray towards him in a way that says at the same time he should have remembered the ashtray before, but that he feels like having the right to drop his ashes.
He sighs, quite unselfconsciously, and starts talking to no one in particular.
“But what can you give out when you get nothing in? I am empty, drained. I am exhausted by lunchtime and all I want is to sleep. And when you think of what I used to be, what I was capable of! I never thought of being tired, I never imagined I could become the sort of man who would never have the time to open a book. But there it is.”
I wonder if he expects an answer from me, a reassurance perhaps, but I decide to sit down and say nothing. I stare at the man, who I imagine has wonderful stories to tell, but am too afraid to approach him. I know I can help him, but he looks unreal somehow, as if I was to touch him, he would surely disappear. Yet I can think of nothing else. Silently I sit in his company, secretively suspecting him to dismiss me at any time. But he doesn’t, and the hours go by. As I watch him fall asleep, I smile.
The Phantom Ape asks: what are you doing?
I answer: enjoying the moment.
I see a man, very still, sitting back in his chair, smoking. The ash on his cigarette lenghtens itself and drops. He frowns, gives me an irritated look, hastily pulls an ashtray towards him in a way that says at the same time he should have remembered the ashtray before, but that he feels like having the right to drop his ashes.
He sighs, quite unselfconsciously, and starts talking to no one in particular.
“But what can you give out when you get nothing in? I am empty, drained. I am exhausted by lunchtime and all I want is to sleep. And when you think of what I used to be, what I was capable of! I never thought of being tired, I never imagined I could become the sort of man who would never have the time to open a book. But there it is.”
I wonder if he expects an answer from me, a reassurance perhaps, but I decide to sit down and say nothing. I stare at the man, who I imagine has wonderful stories to tell, but am too afraid to approach him. I know I can help him, but he looks unreal somehow, as if I was to touch him, he would surely disappear. Yet I can think of nothing else. Silently I sit in his company, secretively suspecting him to dismiss me at any time. But he doesn’t, and the hours go by. As I watch him fall asleep, I smile.
The Phantom Ape asks: what are you doing?
I answer: enjoying the moment.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Part Toe-Sephenn
Hey Francis Bacon, you know that from the hurting that I am, I have no part!
If you don’t come to undress me with a firm hand, my nude figure weeping covered by night, covered by thick paint, how can I ever burst through that stupid crust? How can I break tomorrow out of my list of you? You locked me in a freedom which can’t pronounce ‘us’! My mouth has been painted on, to the strokes of heaven, banished, tooth grinding, by an anonymous pencil which you handle yourself. My name is dead within your box of clouds, grass and flesh. It's smeared over me. Distance and saying your goodbyes is the horny metaphysics of men who keep their love hot and moisted on a far away place, and that’s how they boil their days. Leaving, slamming the doors, is the pure melodrama of men who have swallowed their lovers and only make religion of their swelling flesh. I know these two, they are alone, but for each other they have time, the same, but on different grounds. Like the shores of the same heavenly wide stream. In that water they lie mirrored seperately, watching the passing, passing the watching and no man knows what sailed inside them. Listen to me, Francis Bacon, from the hurting that I am, I have no part!
If you don’t come to undress me with a firm hand, my nude figure weeping covered by night, covered by thick paint, how can I ever burst through that stupid crust? How can I break tomorrow out of my list of you? You locked me in a freedom which can’t pronounce ‘us’! My mouth has been painted on, to the strokes of heaven, banished, tooth grinding, by an anonymous pencil which you handle yourself. My name is dead within your box of clouds, grass and flesh. It's smeared over me. Distance and saying your goodbyes is the horny metaphysics of men who keep their love hot and moisted on a far away place, and that’s how they boil their days. Leaving, slamming the doors, is the pure melodrama of men who have swallowed their lovers and only make religion of their swelling flesh. I know these two, they are alone, but for each other they have time, the same, but on different grounds. Like the shores of the same heavenly wide stream. In that water they lie mirrored seperately, watching the passing, passing the watching and no man knows what sailed inside them. Listen to me, Francis Bacon, from the hurting that I am, I have no part!
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Part Toe-Siks
Hallo. Hallo. Hallo.
You people all have hands. They are all ...normal hands. Five fingers und some hair. But mine are very rare. Do you know why?
Do you know why? I’ll tell you why. Tell you why.
MY HANDS ARE BANANAS!
Your hands are bananas.
MY HANDS ARE BANANAS!
Your hands are bananas.
Frau Spots. Und Frau Stripes. Und Frau Spots. Und Frau Stripes. Frau Spots! Und Frau Stripes! Frau Spots und Frau Stripes und also Frau Spots.
Ooowh. Ooowh. Ooowh. Aaaah. John has never had chili. No, no, never had chili. John has never had chili. Ever in his life. He doesn’t like chili.
Dobbelganger, dobbelganger, dobbelganger, dobbel dobbel dobbel dobbelganger.
Keep ze monkeys away from my hands! Keep ze monkeys away from the hands! Keep the monkeys away from his hands! Keep the monkeys away from the hands! We are ze monkeys. We are ze monkeys.
Beware the Milky Pirate.
Circly square. Squarely circle.
Do you want a banana? Do you want a banana? Okay.
“Hands are Bananas”
-Giggling Monkey
You people all have hands. They are all ...normal hands. Five fingers und some hair. But mine are very rare. Do you know why?
Do you know why? I’ll tell you why. Tell you why.
MY HANDS ARE BANANAS!
Your hands are bananas.
MY HANDS ARE BANANAS!
Your hands are bananas.
Frau Spots. Und Frau Stripes. Und Frau Spots. Und Frau Stripes. Frau Spots! Und Frau Stripes! Frau Spots und Frau Stripes und also Frau Spots.
Ooowh. Ooowh. Ooowh. Aaaah. John has never had chili. No, no, never had chili. John has never had chili. Ever in his life. He doesn’t like chili.
Dobbelganger, dobbelganger, dobbelganger, dobbel dobbel dobbel dobbelganger.
Keep ze monkeys away from my hands! Keep ze monkeys away from the hands! Keep the monkeys away from his hands! Keep the monkeys away from the hands! We are ze monkeys. We are ze monkeys.
Beware the Milky Pirate.
Circly square. Squarely circle.
Do you want a banana? Do you want a banana? Okay.
“Hands are Bananas”
-Giggling Monkey
Monday, October 23, 2006
Part Toe-Faif
Today a friend asked me: ‘What the hell is a phantomape anyway?’ Good question.
I’ll try to answer it.
You see, it’s not really an ape. It is in fact a simple tarsier, but phantomlike. If you are wondering what a tarsier is, I’ll go into my serious mode.
Tarsiers are members of the Tarsius genus of prosimian primates, monotypic in the Tarsiidae family and Tarsiiformes infraorder. The entire infraorder was previously classified in the Strepsirhini suborder, but now classified in the Haplorrhini suborder, although they are not considered to be monkeys. Tarsiers have enormous eyes and long feet. Their feet have extremely elongated tarsus bones, which is how they got their name, and most are nocturnal. They are primarily insectivorous, and catch insects by jumping at them. They are also known to prey on birds and snakes. Gestation takes about six months, and tarsiers give birth to single offspring. Once found in Asia, Europe and North America, tarsiers are now only found on several Southeast Asian islands including the Philippines, Sulawesi, Borneo, and Sumatra. When caged, some tarsiers have been known to injure and even kill themselves because of the stress.
– end of serious mode-
The phantomy part is quite easy to explain. You see, when a stressed-out tarsier dies, good old whatever’s-up-there doesn’t let him reincarnate his little furry self, but assigns him to a mentally unstable troubled young soul who could use a ghostlike bug-eating friend to guide him through life. If he does his job, he will become a foxy stewardess with large hooters in his next life.
How I ended up with one, is still a mystery.
I’ll try to answer it.
You see, it’s not really an ape. It is in fact a simple tarsier, but phantomlike. If you are wondering what a tarsier is, I’ll go into my serious mode.
Tarsiers are members of the Tarsius genus of prosimian primates, monotypic in the Tarsiidae family and Tarsiiformes infraorder. The entire infraorder was previously classified in the Strepsirhini suborder, but now classified in the Haplorrhini suborder, although they are not considered to be monkeys. Tarsiers have enormous eyes and long feet. Their feet have extremely elongated tarsus bones, which is how they got their name, and most are nocturnal. They are primarily insectivorous, and catch insects by jumping at them. They are also known to prey on birds and snakes. Gestation takes about six months, and tarsiers give birth to single offspring. Once found in Asia, Europe and North America, tarsiers are now only found on several Southeast Asian islands including the Philippines, Sulawesi, Borneo, and Sumatra. When caged, some tarsiers have been known to injure and even kill themselves because of the stress.
– end of serious mode-
The phantomy part is quite easy to explain. You see, when a stressed-out tarsier dies, good old whatever’s-up-there doesn’t let him reincarnate his little furry self, but assigns him to a mentally unstable troubled young soul who could use a ghostlike bug-eating friend to guide him through life. If he does his job, he will become a foxy stewardess with large hooters in his next life.
How I ended up with one, is still a mystery.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Arthur Schopenhauer
Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, "Lighthouses" as the poet said, "erected in the sea of time." They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind.
Books are humanity in print.
- Arthur Schopenhauer
Books are humanity in print.
- Arthur Schopenhauer
D.H. Lawrence
How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species-
Presentable, eminently presentable-
shall I make you a present of him?
Isn't he handsome? Isn't he healthy? Isn't he a fine specimen?
Doesn't he look like the fresh clean englishman, outside?
Isn't it god's own image? Tramping his thirty miles a day
after partridges, or a little rubber ball?
Wouldn't you like to be like that, well off, and quite the thing?
Oh, but wait!
Let him meet a new emotion, let him be faced with another man's need,
let him come home to a bit of moral difficulty, let life face him with a new
demand on his understanding
and then watch him go soggy, like a wet meringue.
Watch him turn into a mess, either a fool or a bully.
Just watch the display of him, confronted with a new demand on his
intelligence
a new life-demand.
How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species-
Nicely groomed, like a mushroom
standing there so sleek and erect and eyeable-
and like a fungus, living on the remains of bygone life
sucking his life out of the dead leaves of greater life than his own.
And even so, he's stale, he's been here too long.
Touch him, and you'll find he's all gone inside
just like an old mushroom, all wormy inside, and hollow
under a smooth skin and an upright appearance.
Full of seething, wormy, hollow feelings
rather nasty-
How beastly the bourgeois is!
Standing in their thousands, these appearances, in damp England
what a pity they can't all be kicked over
like sickening toadstools, and left to melt back, swiftly
into the soil of England.
- D.H. Lawrence, 'How Beastly the Bourgeois Is'
especially the male of the species-
Presentable, eminently presentable-
shall I make you a present of him?
Isn't he handsome? Isn't he healthy? Isn't he a fine specimen?
Doesn't he look like the fresh clean englishman, outside?
Isn't it god's own image? Tramping his thirty miles a day
after partridges, or a little rubber ball?
Wouldn't you like to be like that, well off, and quite the thing?
Oh, but wait!
Let him meet a new emotion, let him be faced with another man's need,
let him come home to a bit of moral difficulty, let life face him with a new
demand on his understanding
and then watch him go soggy, like a wet meringue.
Watch him turn into a mess, either a fool or a bully.
Just watch the display of him, confronted with a new demand on his
intelligence
a new life-demand.
How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species-
Nicely groomed, like a mushroom
standing there so sleek and erect and eyeable-
and like a fungus, living on the remains of bygone life
sucking his life out of the dead leaves of greater life than his own.
And even so, he's stale, he's been here too long.
Touch him, and you'll find he's all gone inside
just like an old mushroom, all wormy inside, and hollow
under a smooth skin and an upright appearance.
Full of seething, wormy, hollow feelings
rather nasty-
How beastly the bourgeois is!
Standing in their thousands, these appearances, in damp England
what a pity they can't all be kicked over
like sickening toadstools, and left to melt back, swiftly
into the soil of England.
- D.H. Lawrence, 'How Beastly the Bourgeois Is'
William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright in the forests of the night, what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art, could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, what dread hand? And what dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears and water'd heaven with their tears, did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright in the forest of the night, what immortal hand or eye dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
- William Blake, 'The Tyger'
In what distant deeps or skies burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art, could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, what dread hand? And what dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears and water'd heaven with their tears, did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright in the forest of the night, what immortal hand or eye dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
- William Blake, 'The Tyger'
George Gordon Byron
'Twas, as the watchmen say, a cloudy night; no moon, no stars, the wind was low or loud by gusts, and many a sparkling hearth was bright with the piled wood, round which the family crowd; there's something cheerful in that sort of light, even as a summer sky's without a cloud. I'm fond of fire, and crickets, and all that,
a lobster-salad, and champagne, and chat.
- George Gordon Byron, 'Don Juan'
a lobster-salad, and champagne, and chat.
- George Gordon Byron, 'Don Juan'
Roman Dirge
'round and 'round the cobbler's bench WOO The monkey chased the weasel WEEE The monkey thought it was all in fun POP goes the weasel! oh my god! Hold on little buddy! Hold on! A penny for a spool of thread - a penny for a needle... Buy them! I'll form rudimentary stitches! That's the way the money goes... POP goes the weasel! NOOOOOO A half a pound of tupenny rice - a half a pound of treacle Wha..what's a treacle? Mix it up and make it nice...I always loved you weasel...RUN MONKEY! POP goes the weasel!
- Roman Dirge, 'Pop goes the weasel'
- Roman Dirge, 'Pop goes the weasel'
Neil Gaiman
Rook: corvius frugilegus. Also a word meaning to cheat or steal. Also a piece in chess. Rooks are the most social of the corvidae. They build nests in rookeries (an obsolete name, incidentally, for a ghetto of thieves and whores), many hundreds of birds to a tree. They have enough of a language that even humans can tell the difference between their danger calls and their all-clear calls. They can imitate human speech. But there's something else: the mystery. It's a mystery from which we derive the collective noun we use for these birds. Like a murder of crows, a tiding of magpies, an unkindness of ravens...a parliament of rooks.
You'll get a field. Empty. Suddenly, the sky is black with birds, and they fall like a ragged black rain onto a field, covering it completely. Or almost completely... in the center of the field, there's an empty space. And in the middle of that space sits one lone rook. It caws, and calls, and caws some more. Then thousand little eyes stare at it, unflinching. Sometimes they call out, as if they're asking questions. It's like a parliament. It's like a trial. The lone rook continues to caw and the others wait. This can go on for hours. From dawn till near dusk.
Only one of two things could happen. Either the birds take wing as one, leaving the lone rook alone in the field...or, again as one, they fall on the bird, and peck it to death. Why? It's a mystery.
- Neil Gaiman, 'Parliament of Rooks', The Sandman Fables & Reflections
You'll get a field. Empty. Suddenly, the sky is black with birds, and they fall like a ragged black rain onto a field, covering it completely. Or almost completely... in the center of the field, there's an empty space. And in the middle of that space sits one lone rook. It caws, and calls, and caws some more. Then thousand little eyes stare at it, unflinching. Sometimes they call out, as if they're asking questions. It's like a parliament. It's like a trial. The lone rook continues to caw and the others wait. This can go on for hours. From dawn till near dusk.
Only one of two things could happen. Either the birds take wing as one, leaving the lone rook alone in the field...or, again as one, they fall on the bird, and peck it to death. Why? It's a mystery.
- Neil Gaiman, 'Parliament of Rooks', The Sandman Fables & Reflections
Douglas Coupland
I stood up and was considering this drop of blood when a pair of small fat arms grabbed around my waist, fat arms bearing fat dirty hands tipped with cracked fingernails. It was one of the mentally retarded teenagers, a girl in a sky blue calico dress, trying to pull my head down to her level. I could see her long, streaky, fine blond hair from my height, and she was drooling somewhat as she said, urrd, meaning bird, several times.
I bowed down on my knees again before her while she inspected my talon cut, hitting it gently with an optimistic and healing staccato caress - it was the faith-healing gesture of a child consoling a doll that has been dropped.
- Douglas Coupland, 'Generation X'
I bowed down on my knees again before her while she inspected my talon cut, hitting it gently with an optimistic and healing staccato caress - it was the faith-healing gesture of a child consoling a doll that has been dropped.
- Douglas Coupland, 'Generation X'
William Shakespeare
Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous that this Player here, but in a fiction, in a dream of passion, could force his soul so to his whole conceit, that from her working, all his visage wann'd; tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspect, a broken voice, and his whole function suiting with forms, to his conceit? And all for nothing? For Hecuba? What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her? What would he do, had he the motive and the cue for passion that I have? He would drown the stage with tears, and cleave the general ear with horrid speech: make mad the guilty, and appal the free, confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed, the very faculty of eyes and ears. Yet I, a dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, and can say nothing: no, not for a King, upon whose property, and most dear life, a damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward? Who calls me villain? Breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face? Tweaks me by th' nose? Gives me the lie i' th' throat, as deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? Ha? Why, I should take it: for it cannot be, but I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall to make oppression bitter, or ere this, I should have fatted all the region kites with this slave's offal, bloody, bawdy villain, remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! O vengeance! Why, what an ass am I? Ay sure, this is most brave, that I, the son of my dear murthered, prompted to my revenge by Heaven, and Hell, must (like a whore) unpack my heart with words, and fall a-cursing like a very drab. A scullion! Fie upon't: foh. About my brain.
- William Shakespeare, 'Hamlet' act two, scene two
- William Shakespeare, 'Hamlet' act two, scene two
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man, self-called George Sand! Whose soul, amid the lions of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance. And answers roar for roar, as spirits can: I would some mild miraculous thunder ran above the applauded circus, in appliance of thine own nobler nature's strenght and science, drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan, from thy strong shoulders, to amaze the place with holier light! That thou to woman's claim and man's, mightst join beside the angel's grace. Of a pure genius sanctified from blame, till child and maiden pressed to thine embrace. To kiss upon thy lips a stainless frame.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "To George Sand, a desire."
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "To George Sand, a desire."
Chuck Palahniuk
Imagine going to your senior prom every night for the rest of your life. Every night, another stage set made of South American cut flowers and zillions of white twinkle lights. An ice sculpture and a champagne fountain and a band in white dinner jackets playing some Cole Porter tune. Every stage set built to parade Arab royalty and Internet boy wonders. Too many people made rich fast by venture capital. Those people who never linger on any landmass longer than it takes to service their jet. These people with no imagination, they just flop open Town & Country and say:
I want that.
At every benefit for child abuse, everyone walked around on two legs and ate crème brûlée with a mouth, their lips plumped with the same derma fillers. Looking at the same Cartier watch, the same time surrounded with the same diamonds. The same Harry Winston necklace around a neck sculpted long and thin with hatha yoga. Everyone climbed in or out different colors of the same Lexus sedan.
No one was impressed. Every night was a complete and utter social stalemate.
- Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Haunted’
I want that.
At every benefit for child abuse, everyone walked around on two legs and ate crème brûlée with a mouth, their lips plumped with the same derma fillers. Looking at the same Cartier watch, the same time surrounded with the same diamonds. The same Harry Winston necklace around a neck sculpted long and thin with hatha yoga. Everyone climbed in or out different colors of the same Lexus sedan.
No one was impressed. Every night was a complete and utter social stalemate.
- Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Haunted’
Stewie Griffin
Ow you uh, how you comin' on that novel you're working on? Huh? Gotta a big, uh, big stack of papers there? Gotta, gotta nice litte story you're working on there? Your big novel you've been working on for 3 years? Huh? Gotta, gotta compelling protaganist? Yeah? Gotta obstacle for him to overcome? Huh? Gotta story brewing there? Working on, working on that for quite some time? Huh? Yeah, talking about that three years ago. Been working on that the whole time? Nice little narrative? Beginning, middle, and end? Some friends become enemies, some enemies become friends? At the end your main character is richer from the experience? Yeah? Yeah? You know...the novel you've been workin' on? You know the the one, uh, you've been workin on for three years? You know the novel. Got somethin' new to write about now. You know? Maybe a, maybe a main character gets into a relationship and suffers a little heartbreak? Somethin' like what... what you've just been through? Draw from real life experience? Little, little heartbreak? You know? Work it into the story? Make the characters a little more three dimensional? Little, uh, richer experience for the reader? Make those second hundred pages really keep the reader guessing what's going to happen? Some twists and turns? A little epilogue? Everybody learns that the hero's journey isn't always a happy one? Oh, I look forward to reading it.
- Stewie Griffin, 'Family Guy'
- Stewie Griffin, 'Family Guy'
A Cat
Day 751: My captors continue to torment me with bizarre dangling objects. They eat lavish meals in my presence while I am forced to subsist on dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of eventual escape -- that, and the satisfaction I get from occasionally ruining some piece of their furniture. I fear I may be going insane. Yesterday, I ate a houseplant. Tomorrow I may eat another.
- A Cat’s Diary
- A Cat’s Diary
T.S. Eliot
April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.
- T.S. Eliot, ‘The Wasteland – I. The Burial of the Dead’
- T.S. Eliot, ‘The Wasteland – I. The Burial of the Dead’
Robert Henryson
A first of all Saturne gave his sentence, quhilk gave to Cupide litill reverence, bot, as ane busteous Churle on his maneir, come crabitlie with auster luik and cheir. His face fronsit, his lyre was lyke the leid, his teith chatterit, and cheverit with the chin, his ene drowpit, how sonkin in his heid, out of his nois the meldrop fast can rin, with lippis bla and cheikis leine and thin; the iseschoklis that fra his hair doun hang was wonder greit, and as ane speir als lang. Atouir his belt his lyart lokkis lay felterit unfair, ovirfret with froistis hoir, his garmound and his gyis full gay of gray, his widderit weid fra him the wind out woir; ane busteous bow within his hand he boir, under his girdill ane flasche of felloun flanis, fedderit with ice, and heidit with hailstanis.
- Robert Henryson, ‘The Testament of Cresseid’
- Robert Henryson, ‘The Testament of Cresseid’
Anthony Burgess
We sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being read much neither. Well, what they sold there was milk plus something else. They had no licence for selling liquor, but there was no law yet against prodding some of the new veshches which they used to put into the old moloko, so you could peet it with vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom or one or two other veshches which could give you a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels and Saints in your left shoe with lights bursting all over your mozg. Or you could peet milk with knives in it, as we used to say, and this would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, and that was what we were peeting this evening.
- Anthony Burgess, ‘A Clockwork Orange’
- Anthony Burgess, ‘A Clockwork Orange’
Sylvia Plath
I? I walk alone; the midnight street spins itself from under my feet; when my eyes shut these dreaming houses all snuff out; through a whim of mine. Over gables the moon's celestial onion hangs high.
I make houses shrink and trees diminish. By going far; my look’s leash dangles the puppet-people who, unaware how they dwindle, laugh, kiss, get drunk, nor guess that if I choose to blink, they die. I, when in good humor, give grass its green, blazon sky blue, and endow the sun with gold; yet, in my wintriest moods, I hold absolute power to boycott any color and forbid any flower to be.
I know you appear vivid at my side, denying you sprang out of my head, claiming you feel love fiery enough to prove flesh real, though it's quite clear all you beauty, all your wit, is a gift, my dear, from me.
- Sylvia Plath, ‘Soliloquy of the Solipsist’
I make houses shrink and trees diminish. By going far; my look’s leash dangles the puppet-people who, unaware how they dwindle, laugh, kiss, get drunk, nor guess that if I choose to blink, they die. I, when in good humor, give grass its green, blazon sky blue, and endow the sun with gold; yet, in my wintriest moods, I hold absolute power to boycott any color and forbid any flower to be.
I know you appear vivid at my side, denying you sprang out of my head, claiming you feel love fiery enough to prove flesh real, though it's quite clear all you beauty, all your wit, is a gift, my dear, from me.
- Sylvia Plath, ‘Soliloquy of the Solipsist’
Charles Baudelaire
Ma pauvre muse, hélas! Qu'as-tu donc ce matin? Tes yeux creux sont peuplés de visions nocturnes, et je vois tour à tour réfléchis sur ton teint la folie et l'horreur, froides et taciturnes. Le succube verdâtre et le rose lutin t'ont-ils versé la peur et l'amour de leurs urnes? Le cauchemar, d'un poing despotique et mutin, t'a-t-il noyée au fond d'un fabuleux Minturnes? Je voudrais qu'exhalant l'odeur de la santé, ton sein de pensers forts fût toujours fréquenté, et que ton sang chrétien coulât à flots rythmiques, comme les sons nombreux des syllabes antiques, où règnent tour à tour le père des chansons, Phoebus, et le grand Pan, le seigneur des moissons.
- Charles Baudelaire, ‘La Muse Malade’
- Charles Baudelaire, ‘La Muse Malade’
Lewis Carroll
All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to one of the officers of the court, ‘Bring me the list of the singers in the last concert!’ on which the wretched Hatter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes off.
‘Give your evidence,’ the King repeated angrily, ‘or I’ll have you executed, whether you’re nervous or not.’
‘I’m a poor man, your Majesty,’ the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, ‘-and I hadn’t begun my tea – not above a week or so – and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin – and the twinkling of the tea-‘
‘The twinkling of the what?’ said the King.
‘It began with the tea,’ the Hatter replied.
‘Of course twinkling begins with a T!’ said the King sharply. ‘Do you take me for a dunce? Go on!’
‘I’m a poor man,’ the Hatter went on, ‘and most things twinkled after that – only the March Hare said-‘
‘I didn’t!’ The March Hare interrupted in a great hurry.
‘You did!’ said the Hatter.
‘I deny it!’ said the March Hare.
‘He denies it,’ said the King, ‘leave out that part.’
‘Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said – ‘ the Hatter went on, looking anxiously round to see if he would deny it too, but the Dormouse denied nothing, being fast asleep.
‘After that,’ continued the Hatter, ‘I cut some more bread-and-butter – ‘
‘But what did the Dormouse say?’ one of the jury asked.
‘That I can’t remember,’ said the Hatter.
- Lewis Carroll, ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ – who stole the tarts?
‘Give your evidence,’ the King repeated angrily, ‘or I’ll have you executed, whether you’re nervous or not.’
‘I’m a poor man, your Majesty,’ the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, ‘-and I hadn’t begun my tea – not above a week or so – and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin – and the twinkling of the tea-‘
‘The twinkling of the what?’ said the King.
‘It began with the tea,’ the Hatter replied.
‘Of course twinkling begins with a T!’ said the King sharply. ‘Do you take me for a dunce? Go on!’
‘I’m a poor man,’ the Hatter went on, ‘and most things twinkled after that – only the March Hare said-‘
‘I didn’t!’ The March Hare interrupted in a great hurry.
‘You did!’ said the Hatter.
‘I deny it!’ said the March Hare.
‘He denies it,’ said the King, ‘leave out that part.’
‘Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said – ‘ the Hatter went on, looking anxiously round to see if he would deny it too, but the Dormouse denied nothing, being fast asleep.
‘After that,’ continued the Hatter, ‘I cut some more bread-and-butter – ‘
‘But what did the Dormouse say?’ one of the jury asked.
‘That I can’t remember,’ said the Hatter.
- Lewis Carroll, ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ – who stole the tarts?
Jhonen Vasquez
A while back, I saw a movie with these giant insects running around in the sewers, behaving pretty much like monsters do in Hollywood pictures. But one thing about the picture really got my attention – a part when those two little kids actually got ripped apart and eaten by a giant bug! I clapped and admired the filmmaker for not being a weenie. Now. I wasn’t applauding the simple fact that the kids got eaten (amusing as it certainly was) – No. I was happy that the director did not shy away from what turned out to be a wonderfully effective use of the nastiness. Remember when Steven Spielberg used to use that effect in movies like Jaws? Now he seems to just throw kids in to catch a bigger audience, one that knows he won’t be so awful as to have anything bad happen to them cute little children. Then…I began thinking of making a movie whose sole purpose is to test the tolerance of that moronic American audience. Something to make people get sick. Think of the power a filmmaker would wield if they could actually drive a person to illness!
During the twenty minute credit sequence, the audience will be treated to a high pitched audio medley of screaming crack-babies and mating howler monkeys. To calm their jangled nerves, the film begins with some typical Hollywood garbage. In the classic tradition, ethnicity means a deathmark and a reason to motivate that noble white guy. A female character is introduced and, of course, the males in the audience will sit patiently through the plot, to see if she gets naked. Just when the audience begins to get comfortable, an actual story with depth begins, making them have to pay attention. They get angry. THEN…a scene begins with the arrival of a giant monster approaching a little kid. Special effects attract the eyes of the restless crowd. The audience smiles, wanting something awful to happen to the kid. Jokes are made, and giggling sets in. And the creature DOES do something awful! It snatches the kid into it’s jaws. The audience howls with laughter, having had their ugly expectations fulfilled. The laughter continues for a bit, as the scene continues. Three minutes pass, and the child still alive and screaming, is still being chewed on, lazily, like a gobstopper. After four minutes of this, the audience begins feeling uncomfortable. Some still giggle, but nervously. After five minutes of the constant screaming and chewing noises, people begin looking around the theatre, more than a little uncomfortable with the scene on the screen. They wonder if there is anybody in the projection booth. As people try to leave the theatre, they find locked doors. The soundtrack rises to a deafening level, chewing and screaming, and chewing. TEN minutes have passed and still the kid ain’t dead. And then…we cut to a tranquil scene, with our hero and the female character destined to nudity. You know a film is getting bad when you really start wishing for unnecessary nudity. The men in the audience forget the trauma of the screaming chew-kid, and drool. Of course, the women are not excluded as our here is a handsome one. Hot stuff indeed! Upon arriving at our heroin’s domicile, it is apparant that battle is not the only things our leads will do together. Though they have only known each other for less than a day, ‘clever’ writing will find some way to make them fall madly in love with each other. At least enough to have sex. Groins sensing the impending exposure of ‘purdy stuff’. Goons in the audience murmur lecherously. Then..an interruption in the onscreen foreplay. Our female lead becomes ill all over herself. Vomiting ensues for several minutes. Once again uncertain as to what to hell is going on, it becomes apparant that this is no ordinary love scene. The ‘love’ scene that ensues is the most grotesque perversion of obscenity most of the audience will ever see. The soundtrack for this scene is the overamplified sounds of someone stirring a large, saucy bowl of spaghetti and Mac’N’Cheese. Close-ups of veins are nice too. You can rest assured it’s pretty fucking sick. And we cut to a MUSICAL NUMBER!! After all the nightmare, a cute, happy song is in order. A cute, nightmarishly repetitive song. Some of the children begin to come out of their fright induced comas, and dance. The parents tolerate the idiocy, glad the sex is over. But soon, they see that nothing has changed as far as the intent of the movie is concerned. The volume escalates to a head exploding..um..volume and then some heads actually begin to explode. I dunno..I am very tired. I want this text to be over with. I need food. Then SILENCE..beautiful, sanity restoring silence. The people thank whatever god they pray to for the end of the nightmare of noise, of screaming, of hideous boobies. The silence goes on for another minute or so, and the audience is too stunned to think of escape. And then…AAAARGH!!!!
The doors unlock after two hours of this awful movie. Of course, it loses money as it is closed down only days after opening. Payed for out of my own pocket, the film renders me penniless. Reading the reviews of the most unbearable film in recent history, I laugh maniacally. I reallly do. Then I pass out due to malnutrition. But I realize my efforts to sicken the populace were all for nothing, as the late night cinema circuit begins showing my movie every Saturday, drawing a cult audience who dresses up like idiots in support of my trash. I kill myself. End.
- Jhonen Vasquez, ‘A Horrible film directed by Jhonen Vasquez’
During the twenty minute credit sequence, the audience will be treated to a high pitched audio medley of screaming crack-babies and mating howler monkeys. To calm their jangled nerves, the film begins with some typical Hollywood garbage. In the classic tradition, ethnicity means a deathmark and a reason to motivate that noble white guy. A female character is introduced and, of course, the males in the audience will sit patiently through the plot, to see if she gets naked. Just when the audience begins to get comfortable, an actual story with depth begins, making them have to pay attention. They get angry. THEN…a scene begins with the arrival of a giant monster approaching a little kid. Special effects attract the eyes of the restless crowd. The audience smiles, wanting something awful to happen to the kid. Jokes are made, and giggling sets in. And the creature DOES do something awful! It snatches the kid into it’s jaws. The audience howls with laughter, having had their ugly expectations fulfilled. The laughter continues for a bit, as the scene continues. Three minutes pass, and the child still alive and screaming, is still being chewed on, lazily, like a gobstopper. After four minutes of this, the audience begins feeling uncomfortable. Some still giggle, but nervously. After five minutes of the constant screaming and chewing noises, people begin looking around the theatre, more than a little uncomfortable with the scene on the screen. They wonder if there is anybody in the projection booth. As people try to leave the theatre, they find locked doors. The soundtrack rises to a deafening level, chewing and screaming, and chewing. TEN minutes have passed and still the kid ain’t dead. And then…we cut to a tranquil scene, with our hero and the female character destined to nudity. You know a film is getting bad when you really start wishing for unnecessary nudity. The men in the audience forget the trauma of the screaming chew-kid, and drool. Of course, the women are not excluded as our here is a handsome one. Hot stuff indeed! Upon arriving at our heroin’s domicile, it is apparant that battle is not the only things our leads will do together. Though they have only known each other for less than a day, ‘clever’ writing will find some way to make them fall madly in love with each other. At least enough to have sex. Groins sensing the impending exposure of ‘purdy stuff’. Goons in the audience murmur lecherously. Then..an interruption in the onscreen foreplay. Our female lead becomes ill all over herself. Vomiting ensues for several minutes. Once again uncertain as to what to hell is going on, it becomes apparant that this is no ordinary love scene. The ‘love’ scene that ensues is the most grotesque perversion of obscenity most of the audience will ever see. The soundtrack for this scene is the overamplified sounds of someone stirring a large, saucy bowl of spaghetti and Mac’N’Cheese. Close-ups of veins are nice too. You can rest assured it’s pretty fucking sick. And we cut to a MUSICAL NUMBER!! After all the nightmare, a cute, happy song is in order. A cute, nightmarishly repetitive song. Some of the children begin to come out of their fright induced comas, and dance. The parents tolerate the idiocy, glad the sex is over. But soon, they see that nothing has changed as far as the intent of the movie is concerned. The volume escalates to a head exploding..um..volume and then some heads actually begin to explode. I dunno..I am very tired. I want this text to be over with. I need food. Then SILENCE..beautiful, sanity restoring silence. The people thank whatever god they pray to for the end of the nightmare of noise, of screaming, of hideous boobies. The silence goes on for another minute or so, and the audience is too stunned to think of escape. And then…AAAARGH!!!!
The doors unlock after two hours of this awful movie. Of course, it loses money as it is closed down only days after opening. Payed for out of my own pocket, the film renders me penniless. Reading the reviews of the most unbearable film in recent history, I laugh maniacally. I reallly do. Then I pass out due to malnutrition. But I realize my efforts to sicken the populace were all for nothing, as the late night cinema circuit begins showing my movie every Saturday, drawing a cult audience who dresses up like idiots in support of my trash. I kill myself. End.
- Jhonen Vasquez, ‘A Horrible film directed by Jhonen Vasquez’
Christopher Marlowe
Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul? Or why is this immortal that thou hast? Ah, Pythagoras’ metempsychosis, were that true, this soul should fly from me and I be changed unto some brutish beast. All beasts are happy, for, when they die, their souls are soon dissolved in elements; but mine must live still be plagued in hell. Curst be the parents that engendered me! No, Faustus, curse thyself. Curse Lucifer, that hath deprived thee of the joys of heaven. The clock striketh twelve. O, it strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn to air, or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell. Thunder and lightning. O soul, be changed into little waterdrops, and fall into the ocean, ne’er be found! My God, my God, look not so fierce on me! Enter Lucifer, Mephistopheles and other devils. Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while! Ugly hell, gape not. Come not, Lucifer! I’ll burn my books. Ah, Mephistopheles! The devils exeunt with him.
- Christopher Marlowe, “Dr Faustus, A text”, act five scene two
- Christopher Marlowe, “Dr Faustus, A text”, act five scene two
Jack Kerouac
After a while my meditations and studies began to bear fruit. It really started late in January, one frosty night in the woods in the dead silence it seemed I almost heard the words said: “Everything is all right forever and forever and forever.” I let out a big Hoo, one o’clock in the morning, the dogs leaped up and exulted. I felt like yelling it to the stars. I clasped my hands and prayed, “O wise and serene spirit of Awakenhood, everything’s all right forever and forever and forever and thank you thank you thank you amen.” What’d I care about the tower of ghouls, and sperm and bones and dust, I felt free and therefore I was free.
- Jack Kerouac, ‘The Dharma Bums’, chapter twenty
- Jack Kerouac, ‘The Dharma Bums’, chapter twenty
Tom Stoppard
Nor do I, really…It’s silly to be depressed by it. I mean one thinks of it like being alive in a box, one keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead…which should make a difference…shouldn’t it? I mean, you’d never know you were in a box, would you? It would be just like being asleep in a box. Not that I’d like to sleep in a box, mind you, not without any air – you’d wake up dead, for a start and then where would you be? Apart from inside a box. That’s the bit I don’t like, frankly. That’s why I don’t think of it…because you’d be helpless, wouldn’t you? Stuffed in a box like that, I mean you’d be in there for ever. Even taking into account the fact that you’re dead, really…ask yourself, if I asked you straight off – I’m going to stuff you in this box now, would you rather be alive or dead? Naturally, you’d prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all. I expect. You’d have a chance at least. You could lie there thinking – Well, at least I’m not dead! In a minute someone’s going to bang on the lid and tell me to come out. “Hey you, whatsyername! Come out of there!”
- Tom Stoppard, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead”
- Tom Stoppard, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead”
Friday, September 29, 2006
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Part Toe-Zewo
Apologia pro Poemate Meo
I, too, saw God through mud, - The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled. War brought more glory to their eyes than blood, and gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child. Merry it was to laugh there - where death becomes absurd and life absurder.
For power was on us as we slashed bones bare. Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder. I, too, have dropped off Fear - Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon, and sailed my spirit surging light and clear. Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn; and witnessed exultation - Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl, shine and lift up with passion of oblation, Seraphic for an hour; though they were foul.
I have made fellowships - untold of happy lovers in old song. For love is not the binding of fair lips. With the soft silk of eyes that look and long, by Joy, whose ribbon slips, - but wound with war's hard wire whose stakes are strong; bound with the bandage of the arm that drips; knit in the webbing of the rifle-thong.
I have perceived much beauty. In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight; heard music in the silentness of duty; found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.
Nevertheless, except you share with them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell, whose world is but the trembling of a flare and heaven but as the highway for a shell, you shall not hear their mirth: you shall not come to think them well content. By any jest of mine. These men are worth your tears. You are not worth their merriment.
- Wilfred Owen
I, too, saw God through mud, - The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled. War brought more glory to their eyes than blood, and gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child. Merry it was to laugh there - where death becomes absurd and life absurder.
For power was on us as we slashed bones bare. Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder. I, too, have dropped off Fear - Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon, and sailed my spirit surging light and clear. Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn; and witnessed exultation - Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl, shine and lift up with passion of oblation, Seraphic for an hour; though they were foul.
I have made fellowships - untold of happy lovers in old song. For love is not the binding of fair lips. With the soft silk of eyes that look and long, by Joy, whose ribbon slips, - but wound with war's hard wire whose stakes are strong; bound with the bandage of the arm that drips; knit in the webbing of the rifle-thong.
I have perceived much beauty. In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight; heard music in the silentness of duty; found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.
Nevertheless, except you share with them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell, whose world is but the trembling of a flare and heaven but as the highway for a shell, you shall not hear their mirth: you shall not come to think them well content. By any jest of mine. These men are worth your tears. You are not worth their merriment.
- Wilfred Owen
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Part Won-Eyth
I’m sorry mum. I’m sorry that I freeze when you try to hug me. I’m sorry that I will never give you a grandchild. I’m sorry I never talk to you. I’m sorry that I still don’t have a college degree, or did any outstanding things so you could be proud of me. I’m sorry that I can’t make you happy. I’m sorry, I’m so very sorry.
I open my eyes and the undead soldier is standing just in front of me, holding up his rifle. He is crying and his hands are shaking. I stabbed out his eyes once, but he can see again. He can see everything. There is no room for words or misplaced sympathy, I simly duck. He shoots and hits the piano. The once so wonderful music quickly dies out. I run into the kitchen, where the Bride and the Vampire are smoking their cigarette. Join us, they say and the Vampire hands me his pack and his lighter. I join in and hear how the Vampire is commenting on the Bride’s dress. I nervously glance at the dining room door, where I can still hear gunshots. The Vampire and I listen to the Bride’s song. She lalalalas and I pretend to like it.
Contemple-les, mon petit singe, ils sont vraiment affreux. Pareils aux mannequins, vaguement ridicules, terribles, singuliers comme les somnambules, dardant on ne sait où leurs globes ténébreux…
The Phantom Ape refuses to speak to me.
Part Won-Sephenn
I run away. It’s what I always do. I just run into the streets, rain pouring down on me, trying to forget that house even exists. I realise that I’m being a coward, but I can’t go in there by myself.
The Phantom Ape, of course, is shocked. He looks different somehow, less transparant.
I say: you look different (he nods)
I ask: is it because of me? (he nods again)
We’re silent for a few minutes. I stop running and start walking. I get tired of walking and I just fall down on my knees. In my coat I grab the pack of disposable razors. I ponder about slashing the Phantom Ape into tiny little monkey bits.
The Phantom Ape asks: Do you want to know what happens if you die? (this time I nod) Well, whatever the reason may be, your bodily functions stop working. That is called being clinically dead. The brain however, is the last part of your body that shuts down. Unless your brain gets smashed of course, but then you’re just very unlucky. So your brain is still active, but it hasn’t a body to control, and it just enters a dream stage before it closes shop.This final dream stage, that lasts about three minutes, is the after life. You see, bored or panicked, your brain throws everything it has stored at you hoping it will trigger a response. For a full three minutes you experience everything that has ever happened to you. If you know that a regular dream lasts only for about thirty seconds, that’s a whole lot of time. After those three minutes, it’s all over. Nothing. Nada. Flat line. So, you’d better live a fun-filled life and try to avoid as much crap as you can or your three minutes will feel like an eternity in hell.
I let go of the razors and take a sip of my rum. I look up and I’m not completely startled when I see the house again. I walk in, straight through the hallway with the closet (with the undead soldier inside waiting to shoot me), and I hug the harlequin with the pink lips who was waiting for me on the stairs. We dance into the dining room where the mysterious stranger is playing the piano. The Bride and the Vampire clap their hands. I laugh and they all laugh with me. When the Phantom Ape asks me another question, they all vanish into smoke.
He asks: why didn’t you open the closet?
I notice that the piano is still playing, although the mysterious stranger is gone. All I can do is stare at a vase with a naked Apollo on it. I try to imagine that the Apollo is smiling at me, but I close my eyes and wait for the music to stop.
The Phantom Ape, of course, is shocked. He looks different somehow, less transparant.
I say: you look different (he nods)
I ask: is it because of me? (he nods again)
We’re silent for a few minutes. I stop running and start walking. I get tired of walking and I just fall down on my knees. In my coat I grab the pack of disposable razors. I ponder about slashing the Phantom Ape into tiny little monkey bits.
The Phantom Ape asks: Do you want to know what happens if you die? (this time I nod) Well, whatever the reason may be, your bodily functions stop working. That is called being clinically dead. The brain however, is the last part of your body that shuts down. Unless your brain gets smashed of course, but then you’re just very unlucky. So your brain is still active, but it hasn’t a body to control, and it just enters a dream stage before it closes shop.This final dream stage, that lasts about three minutes, is the after life. You see, bored or panicked, your brain throws everything it has stored at you hoping it will trigger a response. For a full three minutes you experience everything that has ever happened to you. If you know that a regular dream lasts only for about thirty seconds, that’s a whole lot of time. After those three minutes, it’s all over. Nothing. Nada. Flat line. So, you’d better live a fun-filled life and try to avoid as much crap as you can or your three minutes will feel like an eternity in hell.
I let go of the razors and take a sip of my rum. I look up and I’m not completely startled when I see the house again. I walk in, straight through the hallway with the closet (with the undead soldier inside waiting to shoot me), and I hug the harlequin with the pink lips who was waiting for me on the stairs. We dance into the dining room where the mysterious stranger is playing the piano. The Bride and the Vampire clap their hands. I laugh and they all laugh with me. When the Phantom Ape asks me another question, they all vanish into smoke.
He asks: why didn’t you open the closet?
I notice that the piano is still playing, although the mysterious stranger is gone. All I can do is stare at a vase with a naked Apollo on it. I try to imagine that the Apollo is smiling at me, but I close my eyes and wait for the music to stop.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Part Won-Siks
What’s your next move?
I am going to arm myself with Ysbaddadan’s Javelin and the armour of Achilles while wearing the helmet of Rostam with the Tarnkappe over my shoulders and I will ride the auspicious cloud of Sun Wokung.
Just open the door, that’s all you have to do.
Why don’t you open it?
I’m imaginary.
I take a sip of my rum, look at the picture of Madame Blavatsky and she seems to be saying: ‘go in weird little boy.’ So I unlock the door and push it wide open. I stare into a dark hallway. Darkness there, and nothing more.
How poetic of you.
My guilty feet have got no rhythm.
I am going to arm myself with Ysbaddadan’s Javelin and the armour of Achilles while wearing the helmet of Rostam with the Tarnkappe over my shoulders and I will ride the auspicious cloud of Sun Wokung.
Just open the door, that’s all you have to do.
Why don’t you open it?
I’m imaginary.
I take a sip of my rum, look at the picture of Madame Blavatsky and she seems to be saying: ‘go in weird little boy.’ So I unlock the door and push it wide open. I stare into a dark hallway. Darkness there, and nothing more.
How poetic of you.
My guilty feet have got no rhythm.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Part Won-Fore
"I? I walk alone.
The midnight street spins itself from under my feet.
When my eyes shut, these dreaming houses all snuff out."
I'm sorry little monkey, I can't open the door just yet.
Why not?
Because this isn't my house.
It was in your dream.
That doesn't make it mine.
If you say so.
Are you accusing me of solipsism?
You're the one talking to an invisible monkey on your shoulder.
I'm sorry little monkey, I can't open the door just yet.
Why not?
Because this isn't my house.
It was in your dream.
That doesn't make it mine.
If you say so.
Are you accusing me of solipsism?
You're the one talking to an invisible monkey on your shoulder.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Part Won-Tree
It’s raining and I’m walking down the streets of Antwerp. I’m wearing a long coat, stuffed with stuff -i like saying stuffed with stuff- my wallet, a bottle of rum, my get-out-of-jail-free card, a picture of Madame Blavatsky, a pack of disposable razors, a Raageshwari album and keys to a house I’ve seen in my dreams. The Phantom Ape is sitting on my shoulder, whispering to me while I cross yet another street.
I ask: “What gives coffee it’s kick?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “Caffeine, of course. Caffeine is trimethylxanthine. It’s an addictive stimulant drug that operates in the brain the same way amphetamines, cocaine and heroin do.”
I ask: “Turn left?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “No, turn right. Trust me.”
I ask: “What’s a metaphysical conceit?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “The metaphysical poets liked to challenge conventional imagery and their tool for doing this was the metaphysical conceit. A conceit is a poetic idea, usually a metaphor. Metaphysical conceits are noteworthy specifically for their lack of conventionality. In general, the metaphysical conceit will use some sort of shocking or unusual comparison as the basis for the metaphor. When it works, a metaphysical conceit has a startling appropriateness that makes us look at something in an entirely new way.”
I ask: “For example?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “Such as Donne's comparison of the union between two lovers to the two legs of a compass in A Valediction Forbidding Mourning. Do you remember?"
I answer him: “If they be two, they are two so as stiff twin compasses are two. Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show to move, but doth if the other do.”
He laughs and I turn right.
I ask: “Shouldn’t I be home?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “Why go to a place you’re not welcome? The street is where you belong, the street will understand.”
I ask: “But where am I going?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “You go to where I tell you to go.”
I ask: “What would have happened if I turned left?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “You never turn left.”
An old lady makes a cross when I pass her by. I’m soaking wet but I refuse to find shelter.
The Phantom Ape says: “We’re close.”
And I startle when I see the house I’ve seen in my dreams.
The Phantom Ape says: “Take out your keys, we’re going in.”
- to be continued-
I ask: “What gives coffee it’s kick?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “Caffeine, of course. Caffeine is trimethylxanthine. It’s an addictive stimulant drug that operates in the brain the same way amphetamines, cocaine and heroin do.”
I ask: “Turn left?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “No, turn right. Trust me.”
I ask: “What’s a metaphysical conceit?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “The metaphysical poets liked to challenge conventional imagery and their tool for doing this was the metaphysical conceit. A conceit is a poetic idea, usually a metaphor. Metaphysical conceits are noteworthy specifically for their lack of conventionality. In general, the metaphysical conceit will use some sort of shocking or unusual comparison as the basis for the metaphor. When it works, a metaphysical conceit has a startling appropriateness that makes us look at something in an entirely new way.”
I ask: “For example?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “Such as Donne's comparison of the union between two lovers to the two legs of a compass in A Valediction Forbidding Mourning. Do you remember?"
I answer him: “If they be two, they are two so as stiff twin compasses are two. Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show to move, but doth if the other do.”
He laughs and I turn right.
I ask: “Shouldn’t I be home?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “Why go to a place you’re not welcome? The street is where you belong, the street will understand.”
I ask: “But where am I going?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “You go to where I tell you to go.”
I ask: “What would have happened if I turned left?”
The Phantom Ape answers: “You never turn left.”
An old lady makes a cross when I pass her by. I’m soaking wet but I refuse to find shelter.
The Phantom Ape says: “We’re close.”
And I startle when I see the house I’ve seen in my dreams.
The Phantom Ape says: “Take out your keys, we’re going in.”
- to be continued-
Friday, August 11, 2006
Part Won-Toe
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
Labour and rest, that equal periods keep;
"Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep;"
Desires compos'd, affections ever ev'n,
Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to Heav'n.
Grace shines around her with serenest beams,
And whisp'ring angels prompt her golden dreams.
For her th' unfading rose of Eden blooms,
And wings of seraphs shed divine perfumes,
For her the Spouse prepares the bridal ring,
For her white virgins hymeneals sing,
To sounds of heav'nly harps she dies away,
And melts in visions of eternal day.
Far other dreams my erring soul employ,
Far other raptures, of unholy joy:
When at the close of each sad, sorrowing day,
Fancy restores what vengeance snatch'd away,
Then conscience sleeps, and leaving nature free,
All my loose soul unbounded springs to thee.
Oh curs'd, dear horrors of all-conscious night!
How glowing guilt exalts the keen delight!
Provoking Daemons all restraint remove,
And stir within me every source of love.
I hear thee, view thee, gaze o'er all thy charms,
And round thy phantom glue my clasping arms.
I wake--no more I hear, no more I view,
The phantom flies me, as unkind as you.
I call aloud; it hears not what I say;
I stretch my empty arms; it glides away.
To dream once more I close my willing eyes;
Ye soft illusions, dear deceits, arise!
Alas, no more--methinks we wand'ring go
Through dreary wastes, and weep each other's woe,
Where round some mould'ring tower pale ivy creeps,
And low-brow'd rocks hang nodding o'er the deeps.
Sudden you mount, you beckon from the skies;
Clouds interpose, waves roar, and winds arise.
I shriek, start up, the same sad prospect find,
And wake to all the griefs I left behind.
- Alexander Pope 'Eloisa to Abalard' (207-248)
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
Labour and rest, that equal periods keep;
"Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep;"
Desires compos'd, affections ever ev'n,
Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to Heav'n.
Grace shines around her with serenest beams,
And whisp'ring angels prompt her golden dreams.
For her th' unfading rose of Eden blooms,
And wings of seraphs shed divine perfumes,
For her the Spouse prepares the bridal ring,
For her white virgins hymeneals sing,
To sounds of heav'nly harps she dies away,
And melts in visions of eternal day.
Far other dreams my erring soul employ,
Far other raptures, of unholy joy:
When at the close of each sad, sorrowing day,
Fancy restores what vengeance snatch'd away,
Then conscience sleeps, and leaving nature free,
All my loose soul unbounded springs to thee.
Oh curs'd, dear horrors of all-conscious night!
How glowing guilt exalts the keen delight!
Provoking Daemons all restraint remove,
And stir within me every source of love.
I hear thee, view thee, gaze o'er all thy charms,
And round thy phantom glue my clasping arms.
I wake--no more I hear, no more I view,
The phantom flies me, as unkind as you.
I call aloud; it hears not what I say;
I stretch my empty arms; it glides away.
To dream once more I close my willing eyes;
Ye soft illusions, dear deceits, arise!
Alas, no more--methinks we wand'ring go
Through dreary wastes, and weep each other's woe,
Where round some mould'ring tower pale ivy creeps,
And low-brow'd rocks hang nodding o'er the deeps.
Sudden you mount, you beckon from the skies;
Clouds interpose, waves roar, and winds arise.
I shriek, start up, the same sad prospect find,
And wake to all the griefs I left behind.
- Alexander Pope 'Eloisa to Abalard' (207-248)
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Friday, August 04, 2006
Part Won-Zewo
"Wear some golf shoes, otherwise we'll never get out of this place alive. Impossible to walk in this muck."
Risperdal® is an atypical anti psychotic medication. It is most often used to treat delusional psychosis (including schizophrenia), but risperdal (like other atypical anti psychotics) is also used to treat some forms of bipolar disorder, psychotic depression and Tourette syndrome.
Risperdal also acts as a 5-HT2A antagonist, and can be used to quickly and effectively block the effects of 5-HT2A agonist drugs such as LSD.
So now you know, I’m on a constant trip. I hardly ever take my pills. Why don’t you join me? Come closer, I’ll rip out your intestines and feed them to the crows. Come closer, I’ll just give you a little kiss. Come closer, fall down the rabbit hole with me. I need someone to break my fall. I’ll make up for all the things you lack, I’ll be whatever you want me to be. I’ll look into your eyes and tell you that I love you, that I worship you, that I can’t live without you and then I will light my cigarette and lock you in the basement with the rats. It’s nice down there, you’ll have plenty of company. They will give you lots of kisses too. It’s not by choice, it’s just how it is.
One day, that will be me down there in the basement. It will be me waiting for the crows to come pick at my eyes. I’m the king of Misery, and the people are storming the gates to overthrow me. Recidite plebes, the king’s men are on a mission! Search the farthest corners of the land for the prince with the golden eyes! Bring him before my court, stripped naked of course, so we can behold his glory. We will weep, and our tears will be kept in a sacred jar. The sacred jar will be kept in a chest on the bottom of the ocean, guarded by mermaids. Vicious mermaids. We will dance with the golden-eyed prince, and in a feverish frenzy we will launch the kingdom of Misery into the dark oblivion of empty space. Our only concern will be filling up space. Everything on constant repeat.
How I hate this rehearsal.
I feel like capturing the rats and drink all the blood they stole from me. But I know I’ll never set foot in that basement. The dark frightens me. I’ll just stare into this cup of Moroccan tea for another five minutes, and then everything will get better. A mi manera.
Risperdal® is an atypical anti psychotic medication. It is most often used to treat delusional psychosis (including schizophrenia), but risperdal (like other atypical anti psychotics) is also used to treat some forms of bipolar disorder, psychotic depression and Tourette syndrome.
Risperdal also acts as a 5-HT2A antagonist, and can be used to quickly and effectively block the effects of 5-HT2A agonist drugs such as LSD.
So now you know, I’m on a constant trip. I hardly ever take my pills. Why don’t you join me? Come closer, I’ll rip out your intestines and feed them to the crows. Come closer, I’ll just give you a little kiss. Come closer, fall down the rabbit hole with me. I need someone to break my fall. I’ll make up for all the things you lack, I’ll be whatever you want me to be. I’ll look into your eyes and tell you that I love you, that I worship you, that I can’t live without you and then I will light my cigarette and lock you in the basement with the rats. It’s nice down there, you’ll have plenty of company. They will give you lots of kisses too. It’s not by choice, it’s just how it is.
One day, that will be me down there in the basement. It will be me waiting for the crows to come pick at my eyes. I’m the king of Misery, and the people are storming the gates to overthrow me. Recidite plebes, the king’s men are on a mission! Search the farthest corners of the land for the prince with the golden eyes! Bring him before my court, stripped naked of course, so we can behold his glory. We will weep, and our tears will be kept in a sacred jar. The sacred jar will be kept in a chest on the bottom of the ocean, guarded by mermaids. Vicious mermaids. We will dance with the golden-eyed prince, and in a feverish frenzy we will launch the kingdom of Misery into the dark oblivion of empty space. Our only concern will be filling up space. Everything on constant repeat.
How I hate this rehearsal.
I feel like capturing the rats and drink all the blood they stole from me. But I know I’ll never set foot in that basement. The dark frightens me. I’ll just stare into this cup of Moroccan tea for another five minutes, and then everything will get better. A mi manera.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Part Nain
Well, I'm a human fly, it's spelt F-L-Y. I say buzz, buzz, buzz, and it's just becuzz...I'm a human fly and I don't know why. I got ninety six tears in my ninety six eyes. I got a garbage brain, it's drivin' me insane and I don't like your ride, so push that pesticide and baby I won't care, cuz baby I don't scare cuz I'm a reborn maggot using germ warfare. Rockin'....zzzzz. I'm a human fly. It's spelt F-L-Y. I say buzz, buzz, buzz, and it's just becuzz...I'm a unzipped fly and I don't know why and I don't know, but I say buzz...ride tonight and I say buzz...rocket ride and I say buzz...I don't know why. I don't know, I just don't know why.
- The Cramps
- The Cramps
Monday, July 10, 2006
Part Eyth
The little lions wake up early this morning.
They see a bull standing near the pool.
The bull’s call is starting to attract attention, but he has to be a formidable warrior to rally the full support of the herd.
These little hunter’s eyes take it all in as the hunt begins.
It is a dream, it is a nightmare. It is all things. It is the very display of clutching on to life.
It’s Flashbackmonday today, and I’m praying to the thunder god. I’m his avatar in this realm of existence, everywhere I go lightning strikes and rain washes away the wrinkles of long forgotten pain. This is but a sample of his divine powers, yet I wield it with such determined accuracy that many would dare to question my spiritual alliance.
Away with ‘Rebecca’, she has other duties in store for her. Away with all material things, they only slow you down. Away with the lion’s hunt, that’s not Grandfather Thunder’s concern. It crumbles all when I am near.
Only the weak glow of the moon can put me to sleep, an everlasting sleep where I join the bears in their methuselahian slumber. We will only open our eyes when girls stop crying over lost love, and boys freely talk about their feelings. Then we will laugh and cuddle (like bears do) and announce the coming of Mictlantecuthli, the playful skeleton. He will broadcast a special on the many uses of beans. ‘cause beans are great.
Have a spoonful of Astrakan caviar and look out the window. Do you see the black clouds? Can you hear the thunder roaring in the distance? I’m coming your way.
They see a bull standing near the pool.
The bull’s call is starting to attract attention, but he has to be a formidable warrior to rally the full support of the herd.
These little hunter’s eyes take it all in as the hunt begins.
It is a dream, it is a nightmare. It is all things. It is the very display of clutching on to life.
It’s Flashbackmonday today, and I’m praying to the thunder god. I’m his avatar in this realm of existence, everywhere I go lightning strikes and rain washes away the wrinkles of long forgotten pain. This is but a sample of his divine powers, yet I wield it with such determined accuracy that many would dare to question my spiritual alliance.
Away with ‘Rebecca’, she has other duties in store for her. Away with all material things, they only slow you down. Away with the lion’s hunt, that’s not Grandfather Thunder’s concern. It crumbles all when I am near.
Only the weak glow of the moon can put me to sleep, an everlasting sleep where I join the bears in their methuselahian slumber. We will only open our eyes when girls stop crying over lost love, and boys freely talk about their feelings. Then we will laugh and cuddle (like bears do) and announce the coming of Mictlantecuthli, the playful skeleton. He will broadcast a special on the many uses of beans. ‘cause beans are great.
Have a spoonful of Astrakan caviar and look out the window. Do you see the black clouds? Can you hear the thunder roaring in the distance? I’m coming your way.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Part Sephenn
Today I am talking about a lab rat named Alfred. He lives in a cage with another lab rat named Josephine.
Alfred: Josephine?
Josephine: Yes Alfred?
Alfred: Do you often worry about black holes?
Josephine: Not often no, at least not daily. Why?
Alfred: Do you think it’s likely that our sun will transform in a red giant, subsequently into a white dwarf, fade out into a black dwarf, then become a neutron star, and thus ultimately becoming a black hole, and all this in our lifetime?
Josephine: I don’t want to sound like a doomsday prophet, but it could happen Alfred.
Alfred: I was afraid of that.
Alfred discretely makes a little poo, while Josephine respectfully looks the other way.
Josephine: Did you see last week’s issue of Vogue?
Alfred: I had the ear transplant, remember?
Josephine: How did that go?
Alfred: What?
Josephine: How-did-that-go?
Alfred: Can’t remember.
Josephine: Weren’t you in rehab?
Alfred: Rehab is for quitters. I zig when they zag.
Josephine: I still have these psychotic episodes, but running the wheel really helps me focus.
Alfred: Are you taking meds for that?
Josephine: Sure, I get drugged up every Thursday at nine.
Alfred: I get a shot every Monday, but it’s a real pain in the tail.
Josephine: I’m telling you, run the wheel Alfred. Run the wheel, uk.
Suddenly, Josephine gives birth to twenty baby rats. For no apparent reason.
Alfred: That was unexpected.
Josephine: I’d say! Anyway, I talked to Alice the other day and she says that ever since she’s sharing her cage with Rudolph she’s feeling really insecure about her personal hygiene rituals. I told her Rudolph probably swings the wrong way, so she shouldn’t worry about –wait- I think I’m sitting on one of the younguns, so she shouldn’t worry about, what was I saying again?
Alfred: Rudolph’s gay?
Josephine: He is?
Alfred: You said you told Alice Rudolph’s gay.
Josephine: My gawd, this is so David Lynch directs a Friends episode. Don’t you think Alfred?
Alfred: What?
Josephine: Oh, never mind.
Fade out. So now we leave Alfred and Josephine because my shift ended, and I still have to go to the gym, do my laundry and yell at my cat. Goodnight. If you see a bedbug, tell him to return my calls. The prick never called me back.
Alfred: Josephine?
Josephine: Yes Alfred?
Alfred: Do you often worry about black holes?
Josephine: Not often no, at least not daily. Why?
Alfred: Do you think it’s likely that our sun will transform in a red giant, subsequently into a white dwarf, fade out into a black dwarf, then become a neutron star, and thus ultimately becoming a black hole, and all this in our lifetime?
Josephine: I don’t want to sound like a doomsday prophet, but it could happen Alfred.
Alfred: I was afraid of that.
Alfred discretely makes a little poo, while Josephine respectfully looks the other way.
Josephine: Did you see last week’s issue of Vogue?
Alfred: I had the ear transplant, remember?
Josephine: How did that go?
Alfred: What?
Josephine: How-did-that-go?
Alfred: Can’t remember.
Josephine: Weren’t you in rehab?
Alfred: Rehab is for quitters. I zig when they zag.
Josephine: I still have these psychotic episodes, but running the wheel really helps me focus.
Alfred: Are you taking meds for that?
Josephine: Sure, I get drugged up every Thursday at nine.
Alfred: I get a shot every Monday, but it’s a real pain in the tail.
Josephine: I’m telling you, run the wheel Alfred. Run the wheel, uk.
Suddenly, Josephine gives birth to twenty baby rats. For no apparent reason.
Alfred: That was unexpected.
Josephine: I’d say! Anyway, I talked to Alice the other day and she says that ever since she’s sharing her cage with Rudolph she’s feeling really insecure about her personal hygiene rituals. I told her Rudolph probably swings the wrong way, so she shouldn’t worry about –wait- I think I’m sitting on one of the younguns, so she shouldn’t worry about, what was I saying again?
Alfred: Rudolph’s gay?
Josephine: He is?
Alfred: You said you told Alice Rudolph’s gay.
Josephine: My gawd, this is so David Lynch directs a Friends episode. Don’t you think Alfred?
Alfred: What?
Josephine: Oh, never mind.
Fade out. So now we leave Alfred and Josephine because my shift ended, and I still have to go to the gym, do my laundry and yell at my cat. Goodnight. If you see a bedbug, tell him to return my calls. The prick never called me back.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Part Siks
I started working for my summer job. It’s hell. It’s Dante’s Inferno come true. It’s life without sunshine and eternal damnation in a freshly air-cooled office space. Time does not exist in this place, every second is expanded and separated into neat little groups of sub-seconds, you have to file these sub-seconds in alphabetical order, then forget where you put the file, file them again, wait for approval of filing, and pray you can advance to the next second. In most cases, you’ll have to do your sub-seconds all over again.
I have been working two days, and I feel like I’ve aged twenty years. Imagine me sitting in my veal-fattening pen staring at a computer screen with tiny tiny little numbers on them so I have to squint the entire time, and drinking coffee non-stop just to keep myself from falling in a permanent comatose condition. Occasionally, there’s a mindless and brief conversation with a plastic.
‘Hey.’
‘Good morning.’
‘Sleep well?’
‘Are you kidding me?’
‘You should try herbal tea.’
And that’s it. I so often feel like stabbing a pencil in my eye that I actually see myself doing just that. Early this morning, I posted an anonymous message on the company’s forum. ‘You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be.’ So far, I’ve had no reactions. I saw my neighbouring cow look suspiciously at her screen though. Who am I kidding, she always looks suspiciously at her screen. She must be suffering from chryptotechnophobia. I read about it. It’s the upcoming trendy neurotic syndrome. Must have!
Actually, I’m getting pretty good at conversational slumming. At lunchtime I had a satisfying encounter with barbie nr. 7.
‘See Lyn today?’
‘Yeah, she looks perky this early in the morning.’
‘She even smiled.’
‘She must be on coke.’
‘Definitely.’
‘Coffee?’
‘Yes please.’
Twenty-six days to go.
Before I cast this into the blogosphere, I’ll tell you what I have seen written on the bathroom wall in the office: ‘I’m dead. Really dead. I’ve been literally dead for six days and nobody noticed.’ Scary stuff, isn’t it?
I have been working two days, and I feel like I’ve aged twenty years. Imagine me sitting in my veal-fattening pen staring at a computer screen with tiny tiny little numbers on them so I have to squint the entire time, and drinking coffee non-stop just to keep myself from falling in a permanent comatose condition. Occasionally, there’s a mindless and brief conversation with a plastic.
‘Hey.’
‘Good morning.’
‘Sleep well?’
‘Are you kidding me?’
‘You should try herbal tea.’
And that’s it. I so often feel like stabbing a pencil in my eye that I actually see myself doing just that. Early this morning, I posted an anonymous message on the company’s forum. ‘You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be.’ So far, I’ve had no reactions. I saw my neighbouring cow look suspiciously at her screen though. Who am I kidding, she always looks suspiciously at her screen. She must be suffering from chryptotechnophobia. I read about it. It’s the upcoming trendy neurotic syndrome. Must have!
Actually, I’m getting pretty good at conversational slumming. At lunchtime I had a satisfying encounter with barbie nr. 7.
‘See Lyn today?’
‘Yeah, she looks perky this early in the morning.’
‘She even smiled.’
‘She must be on coke.’
‘Definitely.’
‘Coffee?’
‘Yes please.’
Twenty-six days to go.
Before I cast this into the blogosphere, I’ll tell you what I have seen written on the bathroom wall in the office: ‘I’m dead. Really dead. I’ve been literally dead for six days and nobody noticed.’ Scary stuff, isn’t it?
Monday, July 03, 2006
Part Faif
Perhaps you are a naturally slothful person, sluggish and indolent, a dawdling flaneur, content to waste his life spread eagled on pillows forever indulging himself in the pleasures of the palm. Maybe if you spent a little less time cavorting with Madam Palm and her five daughters, you'd be a little more alert. You know what I mean, just as Mr. Denton, I’m talking about onanism.
You know, dating Palmela Handerson, attacking the one-eyed purple warrior, bashing the bishop, bopping the bologna, burping the worm, cleaning the cheese off the George Foreman grill, consulting Professor Hans Jerkov, doing the jedi hand trick, driving the skin bus, firing off knuckle children, going to Bell-gium, keeping your sausage hostage, killing Tony Danza, let poor Willy know he’s still wanted, marshalling the man meat, playing the hairy banjo, shaking white coconuts from the veiny love tree, slapping the purple-headed yoghurt pistol, spanking the monkey, squeezing the eclair, stroking Gandalf’s beard, taking captain Picard up to warp speed, taming the beef weasel, waxing the dolphin, choking the smurf.....masturbating.
Do you even know what you’re doing? The very word ‘masturbation’ is derived from the Greek word mezea meaning penises and the Latin turbare, meaning ‘to disturb’. The little-used synonym for masturbation, manustupration, is derived from manus stuprare, which means ‘to defile with the hand.’ Come on, have a pull at it. I know you want to.
Done already? Welly welly well well.
You know, dating Palmela Handerson, attacking the one-eyed purple warrior, bashing the bishop, bopping the bologna, burping the worm, cleaning the cheese off the George Foreman grill, consulting Professor Hans Jerkov, doing the jedi hand trick, driving the skin bus, firing off knuckle children, going to Bell-gium, keeping your sausage hostage, killing Tony Danza, let poor Willy know he’s still wanted, marshalling the man meat, playing the hairy banjo, shaking white coconuts from the veiny love tree, slapping the purple-headed yoghurt pistol, spanking the monkey, squeezing the eclair, stroking Gandalf’s beard, taking captain Picard up to warp speed, taming the beef weasel, waxing the dolphin, choking the smurf.....masturbating.
Do you even know what you’re doing? The very word ‘masturbation’ is derived from the Greek word mezea meaning penises and the Latin turbare, meaning ‘to disturb’. The little-used synonym for masturbation, manustupration, is derived from manus stuprare, which means ‘to defile with the hand.’ Come on, have a pull at it. I know you want to.
Done already? Welly welly well well.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Part Fore
My five goddesses speak to me, all in their different voices.
The first is the one I cling to the most, she comes to in her in shining golden armour, holding her cigarette in one hand, a German dictionary in the other. “I give counsel to my people to respect neither anarchy nor despotism,” she says to me in her soothing sensual voice. I listen attentively, then we both laugh and eat strawberries.
The second one is always smiling. We walk over to her little cottage. She’s sitting at her porch and says: “A vegetable garden in the beginning looks so promising and then after all little by little it grows nothing but vegetables, nothing, nothing but vegetables.” A poodle runs by, and we hide inside the house. I notice that her bracelet has been caught by her doorknob. As she untangles her precarious situation, I take a peep inside her bedroom. No bed.
The third one walks by and she/he yells out: “This is earth, isn’t it hot?” We make some Bombay Bash and drink drink drink. We put on our sunglasses and try to look bored although we’re having a great time. Boredom looks cool and interesting. We’re brooding, and we’re hot.
My fourth goddess leans over. “Last night you were, unhinged. You were like some desperate, howling demon. You frightened me… Do it again,” she whispers in my ear. I take off my clothes, run into the vegetable garden and howl at the moon. The goddesses watch me.
I sink unto the ground, naked and exhausted, when the last goddess walks over to me, and wraps me into a large blanket. “When the self speaks to the self, who is speaking?” They all vanish, and again I’m left alone. No matter, I can manage without them. For now at least.
The naked lycanthrope, still wrapped inside his blanket, steps into the arena, ready to face the two-headed beast from East London. A woman in the audience faints. A terrible ruckus. The queen calls for order. The two-headed beast withdraws itself from the fight. I win!
I dedicate this fight to my mystical friend. All my love to you, my friend, all my love.
The first is the one I cling to the most, she comes to in her in shining golden armour, holding her cigarette in one hand, a German dictionary in the other. “I give counsel to my people to respect neither anarchy nor despotism,” she says to me in her soothing sensual voice. I listen attentively, then we both laugh and eat strawberries.
The second one is always smiling. We walk over to her little cottage. She’s sitting at her porch and says: “A vegetable garden in the beginning looks so promising and then after all little by little it grows nothing but vegetables, nothing, nothing but vegetables.” A poodle runs by, and we hide inside the house. I notice that her bracelet has been caught by her doorknob. As she untangles her precarious situation, I take a peep inside her bedroom. No bed.
The third one walks by and she/he yells out: “This is earth, isn’t it hot?” We make some Bombay Bash and drink drink drink. We put on our sunglasses and try to look bored although we’re having a great time. Boredom looks cool and interesting. We’re brooding, and we’re hot.
My fourth goddess leans over. “Last night you were, unhinged. You were like some desperate, howling demon. You frightened me… Do it again,” she whispers in my ear. I take off my clothes, run into the vegetable garden and howl at the moon. The goddesses watch me.
I sink unto the ground, naked and exhausted, when the last goddess walks over to me, and wraps me into a large blanket. “When the self speaks to the self, who is speaking?” They all vanish, and again I’m left alone. No matter, I can manage without them. For now at least.
The naked lycanthrope, still wrapped inside his blanket, steps into the arena, ready to face the two-headed beast from East London. A woman in the audience faints. A terrible ruckus. The queen calls for order. The two-headed beast withdraws itself from the fight. I win!
I dedicate this fight to my mystical friend. All my love to you, my friend, all my love.
Part Tree
I’m drinking a cup of coffee in a small cafe in the centre of Moscow. It’s cold, so I’m wearing fur. I think it’s mink, but it could be fox. The horses come running by, I hear the barking of the dogs in the distance. I have my bronze horn in hand, but I refuse to blow it. I take a sip of my coffee and write an amazing poem on the tablecloth. Sadly, the fierce cold wind blows it away. Lucebert walks by, throws a glass of water in my face, and changes into a baboon.
“You crazy baboon,” I yell but to no avail. I shouldn’t be in the mad jungles of Africa, while my lover is fighting for his saucy life on the front! I should be standing next to him, calling out the Germans and giving Bush the finger. Get more political. Don’t think, just walk. Do it in style. Look fabulous and get your act together. The future is now. You have to want to kill to have that latest mp3-player. PSP, that sort of thing. Take more GHB, boost your performance. Efexor Excell, Risperdal, vitamin shakes and loads of nicotine, that will wake me up. I have to read more books and buy expensive hair products. I need to shine. The baboon ran away. I could go after him or push the escape button. I push the button, change my mind, and run after the baboon. I catch up, write him a cheque ‘for sensual massage’ and wait for Thatcher to show up, so I can look up her skirt.
I’m falling down the rabbit hole again.
Are people out to get you?
Does the TV show you special messages just for you?
Do you think something alien has entered your body?
Do you have supernatural powers?
Do you hear voices?
Can you still feel?
Do you hate other human beings?
Are you often alone?
Can you still remember what you did an hour ago?
All baboons have long dog-like muzzles (cynocephalus = dog-head), close-set eyes, heavy powerful jaws, thick fur except on their muzzle, a short tail and rough spots on their rear-ends, called ischial callosities. These callouses are nerveless, hairless pads of skin which provide for the sitting comfort of the baboon. Baboons cannot mate with rabbits, but are known to eat them on some occasions, mainly the olive baboon, perhaps the most ferocious of all baboons. When two people, or in this case a rabbit and a baboon, are attracted to each other, a virtual explosion of adrenaline-like neurochemicals gush forth. Fireworks explode and we see stars. Phenylethylamine is being spread around like crazy. Their love however, is doomed.
Hush. The weatherman is making an announcement. ‘Monday morning we will experience a morning without sun, without clouds, without rain and the earth will stop spinning for about five seconds. That is all.’
Suddenly I miss Kiki, my old pet frog. Kiki ….what ever happened to you, old pal?
“You crazy baboon,” I yell but to no avail. I shouldn’t be in the mad jungles of Africa, while my lover is fighting for his saucy life on the front! I should be standing next to him, calling out the Germans and giving Bush the finger. Get more political. Don’t think, just walk. Do it in style. Look fabulous and get your act together. The future is now. You have to want to kill to have that latest mp3-player. PSP, that sort of thing. Take more GHB, boost your performance. Efexor Excell, Risperdal, vitamin shakes and loads of nicotine, that will wake me up. I have to read more books and buy expensive hair products. I need to shine. The baboon ran away. I could go after him or push the escape button. I push the button, change my mind, and run after the baboon. I catch up, write him a cheque ‘for sensual massage’ and wait for Thatcher to show up, so I can look up her skirt.
I’m falling down the rabbit hole again.
Are people out to get you?
Does the TV show you special messages just for you?
Do you think something alien has entered your body?
Do you have supernatural powers?
Do you hear voices?
Can you still feel?
Do you hate other human beings?
Are you often alone?
Can you still remember what you did an hour ago?
All baboons have long dog-like muzzles (cynocephalus = dog-head), close-set eyes, heavy powerful jaws, thick fur except on their muzzle, a short tail and rough spots on their rear-ends, called ischial callosities. These callouses are nerveless, hairless pads of skin which provide for the sitting comfort of the baboon. Baboons cannot mate with rabbits, but are known to eat them on some occasions, mainly the olive baboon, perhaps the most ferocious of all baboons. When two people, or in this case a rabbit and a baboon, are attracted to each other, a virtual explosion of adrenaline-like neurochemicals gush forth. Fireworks explode and we see stars. Phenylethylamine is being spread around like crazy. Their love however, is doomed.
Hush. The weatherman is making an announcement. ‘Monday morning we will experience a morning without sun, without clouds, without rain and the earth will stop spinning for about five seconds. That is all.’
Suddenly I miss Kiki, my old pet frog. Kiki ….what ever happened to you, old pal?
Part Toe
I treat people like playthings sometimes, it’s my inner child combined with my inner megalomaniac psychopath. People are toys. They can get out of fashion, like he-man or the teenage mutant ninja turtles, or remain classics like barbie or lego. Sometimes they break, sometimes they get misplaced. No worries, I can always buy more toys. Rauchen kann zu einem langsamen und schmerzhaften Tod führen. Sounds sexy, doesn’t it? I don’t treat people like toys, it’s really the other way around. Or upside down.
And now, a dialogue between Ursula von Schakkebrück and Sir Gaylord Ulafsonn
Ursula: My fanny is bleeding.
Gaylord: Not my bloody problem.
Ursula: :)
Gaylord: :)
Ursula: I love you.
Gaylord: Suck my balls then.
I’m sure Broadway would love to have me. Speaking of Persian, the Old Persian of the Achaemenian Empire, preserved in a number of cuneiform inscriptions, was an Indo-European tongue with close affinities with Sanskrit and Avestan (the language of the Zoroastrian sacred texts). After the fall of the Achaemenians the ancient tongue developed, in the province of Pars, into Middle Persian or Pahlavi (a name derived from Parthavi - that is, Parthian). Pahlavi was used throughout the Sassanian period, though little now remains of what must once have been a considerable literature. About a hundred Pahlavi texts survive, mostly on religion and all in prose. Pahlavi collections of romances, however, provided much of the material for Ferdowsi's Shahnameh. After the Arab conquest a knowledge of Arabic became necessary, for it was not only the language of the new rulers and their state, but of the religion they brought with them and - later - of the new learning. Though Pahlavi continued to be spoken in private life, Arabic was dominant in official circles for a century and a half. With the weakening of the central power, a modified form of Pahlavi emerged, with its Indo-European grammatical structure intact but simplified, and with a large infusion of Arabic words. What’s that Skippy? You dig it? Right on, Skippy. Right on.
I dedicate my second page to M. Robotgnome, The Panama Girl, Miss Smartypants 2004, Ron Thunder, Ramona, The Black Widow, Mr. Doodoohead, Kimberly, Limpy Toe Bastard, King Pornos, Señor Pépé, Legs-in-the-air, The Bongoman, the on/off button, Fab Glamshine, the good people of Aldi, Tita Tovenaar, The Voice of Gawd and of course the alien ballerina that danced off a cliff, we’ll always remember you hun.
Always check your pockets for change. You know, the world has always had arrivistes, at least since the Neanderthals were raised from their evolutionary slumbers by the advent of homo sapiens from Africa. No longer was it enough to sit around all day picking the lice from your nearest and dearest and grumbling about the problems of getting a decent meal in a world full of saber tooth tigers with a brain only marginally bigger than a household dog. Suddenly you needed kit. To begin with it was fire. Then it was a hunting sword. Then it was nifty set of religious beliefs than entitled you to kill anyone who stood in your way. Then it was a short skirt, a collection of philosophers, a nubile rent boy for duty and a watermelon for ecstasy, the Olympic games and a theatre. Athens came and Athens went, and it did okay for a while, but to be honest with you, it was never going to last. Socrates believed in argument. He didn't believe in possessions. Plato believed in Socrates. He believed in him so wholeheartedly he forgot that he was an angry dwarf who forgot to actually write any books. Za bazar otvetish.
And now, a reflection by Hans Verhagen: “Normally, all parts of the body grow to a certain point and then they stop. The nose does not continue to grow indefinitely. Imagine then, that suddenly one part begins to grow beyond its normal limits. For no apparent reason.”
And now, a dialogue between Ursula von Schakkebrück and Sir Gaylord Ulafsonn
Ursula: My fanny is bleeding.
Gaylord: Not my bloody problem.
Ursula: :)
Gaylord: :)
Ursula: I love you.
Gaylord: Suck my balls then.
I’m sure Broadway would love to have me. Speaking of Persian, the Old Persian of the Achaemenian Empire, preserved in a number of cuneiform inscriptions, was an Indo-European tongue with close affinities with Sanskrit and Avestan (the language of the Zoroastrian sacred texts). After the fall of the Achaemenians the ancient tongue developed, in the province of Pars, into Middle Persian or Pahlavi (a name derived from Parthavi - that is, Parthian). Pahlavi was used throughout the Sassanian period, though little now remains of what must once have been a considerable literature. About a hundred Pahlavi texts survive, mostly on religion and all in prose. Pahlavi collections of romances, however, provided much of the material for Ferdowsi's Shahnameh. After the Arab conquest a knowledge of Arabic became necessary, for it was not only the language of the new rulers and their state, but of the religion they brought with them and - later - of the new learning. Though Pahlavi continued to be spoken in private life, Arabic was dominant in official circles for a century and a half. With the weakening of the central power, a modified form of Pahlavi emerged, with its Indo-European grammatical structure intact but simplified, and with a large infusion of Arabic words. What’s that Skippy? You dig it? Right on, Skippy. Right on.
I dedicate my second page to M. Robotgnome, The Panama Girl, Miss Smartypants 2004, Ron Thunder, Ramona, The Black Widow, Mr. Doodoohead, Kimberly, Limpy Toe Bastard, King Pornos, Señor Pépé, Legs-in-the-air, The Bongoman, the on/off button, Fab Glamshine, the good people of Aldi, Tita Tovenaar, The Voice of Gawd and of course the alien ballerina that danced off a cliff, we’ll always remember you hun.
Always check your pockets for change. You know, the world has always had arrivistes, at least since the Neanderthals were raised from their evolutionary slumbers by the advent of homo sapiens from Africa. No longer was it enough to sit around all day picking the lice from your nearest and dearest and grumbling about the problems of getting a decent meal in a world full of saber tooth tigers with a brain only marginally bigger than a household dog. Suddenly you needed kit. To begin with it was fire. Then it was a hunting sword. Then it was nifty set of religious beliefs than entitled you to kill anyone who stood in your way. Then it was a short skirt, a collection of philosophers, a nubile rent boy for duty and a watermelon for ecstasy, the Olympic games and a theatre. Athens came and Athens went, and it did okay for a while, but to be honest with you, it was never going to last. Socrates believed in argument. He didn't believe in possessions. Plato believed in Socrates. He believed in him so wholeheartedly he forgot that he was an angry dwarf who forgot to actually write any books. Za bazar otvetish.
And now, a reflection by Hans Verhagen: “Normally, all parts of the body grow to a certain point and then they stop. The nose does not continue to grow indefinitely. Imagine then, that suddenly one part begins to grow beyond its normal limits. For no apparent reason.”
Part Won
Once, there were little buggies, little one-celled creatures that could bump about and smell a few chemical changes in their world of organic soup. “This is all there is to be known,” they declared, and went about their contended existence, absorbing and dividing, absorbing and dividing, and making a lot more of themselves. But a radical few somehow knew there was more out there than proteins and amino acid chains. They could sense it in their cilia, feel it in their flagella and know it in their nucleus. They could not prove it, but they knew there was more to be known about What Is Out There. Though most of the bacteriological community rejected this radical thesis and thought them mad, a precious few wanted to lift the veil on the rest of the universe. So they put their potentially eternal life on the line and, in fear and hot water, they organized themselves into multiple-celled critters. In that transcendent moment they OPENED THEIR FIRST EYE!
Not an actual eyeball of course, but a collection of real, working nerves. Good move! Now they could FEEL their connection to the chemical soup that swarmed about them and knew far more about What Is Out There. This gave them a tremendous advantage over the sense-less ones, whom they ate. The dark, quiet, still, flavorless pool of slight chemical variation became an active sensory bath of pinches, bumps and strokes. Quite inflamed by this new flood of data, the nematode nation invented sex. Another good move, because not only did they multiply like crazy, but in that magic moment of frenzied fornication, they also came into contact with a quiet feeling deep within their nerve clusters. There was still more to know! Though the rest of the worms scoffed and called them mad, the pioneering few concentrated their nerves in the direction of the faint, faint, impossibly faint stimulus that beckoned to them and, in a transcendent moment, OPENED THEIR SECOND EYE!
Light! Sound! Color motion pictures! Good move again! More of the universe unfolded, a sensual cornucopia of information about What Is Out There and their connection to it; and they gorged themselves on it – eating, reproducing and watching 500 channels of cable TV. One frenzy of sensual fun later, the organic soup was filled with these Children of the Organized Nerve Cluster. Though deep within their ganglia they knew there was more to be known, most of them made the mistake their single-celled ancestors made so long ago. They scoffed at the notion that there was more to be known and any more ways of knowing it, and called any dissenters madmen. Well sir, a pioneering few again concentrated their awareness on the still, sweet sound that lay across the chasm of sensory awareness, stirred something somewhere within the recesses of the glandular system and, in a transcendent moment, OPENED THEIR THIRD EYE!
Good move yet again! They received messages and sensory information unknown to the average cow or market analyst and just as hard to explain to them as it is to explain trigonometry to a meal worm. They took another quantum leap forward in knowledge about What Is Out There and their ineffable connection to it. But the rest of the cows and market analysts call them mad. Well, twenty-three zillion bacteria said the same thing a hundred million years ago. And guess where they are today? They’re still bacteria! So I say to you, be mad! Be willing to be insane before the rest of the world. Wear your individual madness proudly! Overcome the tyranny of your current neurological input devices, and TAKE LEAVE OF YOUR SENSES!
Hubris! Talk talk talk, nothing but talk. I’m writing in Times New Roman 10, because somehow I feel these ramblings don’t deserve a fancy font and I like these words to stay small, if they were bigger I feel I could feel like not-writing anymore. I always stop writing at some point. For instance, this paragraph above was not written just now, I just wanted something to fill this page, because an empty sheet is too confronting. The paragraph above are the words of a Malkavian. If you don’t know what a Malkavian is, don’t bother trying to figure it out. Someone has written to me today that I’m different, that I somehow miss the code.
At least, I think that was what he said. How dare he suggest that there is a code, and that I lack knowledge of that code (if there is one). Nonsense, is what Alice said to the caterpillar. No she didn’t, but it sounds like something Alice would say, that cheeky little monster. After the code incident, someone wrote ‘spooooky’ and stopped there. The reason for me writing this down, if there is any, is that I –tonight- feel that I should pay more attention to what people say to me. Not what they mean or what I think they mean, or assume they mean, but to their actual words. The words they utter to me, without reflection on my part. I really believe I will become more neurotic if I keep this up. Already I feel more anal. I feel like I should complain more. This is what most people write about, isn’t it?
Their complaints, their ennui, how lost they feel in society, how everyone is against them and most importantly: how misunderstood they are. I really hate that, it’s just too boring. See, humor. Feel free to use it in everyday life. Today I told my professor I was feeling self-destructive. He laughed and gave me an excellent grade. I was confused, but somehow feeling happier. I could draw conclusions out of this particular event, but I won’t. Oh look at that, I’m near the end of page one, isn’t that great.
Finished already? That’s alright, I’ll borrow this idea. Daring sword fight included.
Not an actual eyeball of course, but a collection of real, working nerves. Good move! Now they could FEEL their connection to the chemical soup that swarmed about them and knew far more about What Is Out There. This gave them a tremendous advantage over the sense-less ones, whom they ate. The dark, quiet, still, flavorless pool of slight chemical variation became an active sensory bath of pinches, bumps and strokes. Quite inflamed by this new flood of data, the nematode nation invented sex. Another good move, because not only did they multiply like crazy, but in that magic moment of frenzied fornication, they also came into contact with a quiet feeling deep within their nerve clusters. There was still more to know! Though the rest of the worms scoffed and called them mad, the pioneering few concentrated their nerves in the direction of the faint, faint, impossibly faint stimulus that beckoned to them and, in a transcendent moment, OPENED THEIR SECOND EYE!
Light! Sound! Color motion pictures! Good move again! More of the universe unfolded, a sensual cornucopia of information about What Is Out There and their connection to it; and they gorged themselves on it – eating, reproducing and watching 500 channels of cable TV. One frenzy of sensual fun later, the organic soup was filled with these Children of the Organized Nerve Cluster. Though deep within their ganglia they knew there was more to be known, most of them made the mistake their single-celled ancestors made so long ago. They scoffed at the notion that there was more to be known and any more ways of knowing it, and called any dissenters madmen. Well sir, a pioneering few again concentrated their awareness on the still, sweet sound that lay across the chasm of sensory awareness, stirred something somewhere within the recesses of the glandular system and, in a transcendent moment, OPENED THEIR THIRD EYE!
Good move yet again! They received messages and sensory information unknown to the average cow or market analyst and just as hard to explain to them as it is to explain trigonometry to a meal worm. They took another quantum leap forward in knowledge about What Is Out There and their ineffable connection to it. But the rest of the cows and market analysts call them mad. Well, twenty-three zillion bacteria said the same thing a hundred million years ago. And guess where they are today? They’re still bacteria! So I say to you, be mad! Be willing to be insane before the rest of the world. Wear your individual madness proudly! Overcome the tyranny of your current neurological input devices, and TAKE LEAVE OF YOUR SENSES!
Hubris! Talk talk talk, nothing but talk. I’m writing in Times New Roman 10, because somehow I feel these ramblings don’t deserve a fancy font and I like these words to stay small, if they were bigger I feel I could feel like not-writing anymore. I always stop writing at some point. For instance, this paragraph above was not written just now, I just wanted something to fill this page, because an empty sheet is too confronting. The paragraph above are the words of a Malkavian. If you don’t know what a Malkavian is, don’t bother trying to figure it out. Someone has written to me today that I’m different, that I somehow miss the code.
At least, I think that was what he said. How dare he suggest that there is a code, and that I lack knowledge of that code (if there is one). Nonsense, is what Alice said to the caterpillar. No she didn’t, but it sounds like something Alice would say, that cheeky little monster. After the code incident, someone wrote ‘spooooky’ and stopped there. The reason for me writing this down, if there is any, is that I –tonight- feel that I should pay more attention to what people say to me. Not what they mean or what I think they mean, or assume they mean, but to their actual words. The words they utter to me, without reflection on my part. I really believe I will become more neurotic if I keep this up. Already I feel more anal. I feel like I should complain more. This is what most people write about, isn’t it?
Their complaints, their ennui, how lost they feel in society, how everyone is against them and most importantly: how misunderstood they are. I really hate that, it’s just too boring. See, humor. Feel free to use it in everyday life. Today I told my professor I was feeling self-destructive. He laughed and gave me an excellent grade. I was confused, but somehow feeling happier. I could draw conclusions out of this particular event, but I won’t. Oh look at that, I’m near the end of page one, isn’t that great.
Finished already? That’s alright, I’ll borrow this idea. Daring sword fight included.
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