after some sloppy consideration of Time and its spinnerets, I naturally thought of a girl. I hadn't really thought of her for a while, which was strange, for at one stage, oh, perhaps 8+ years ago, I would've said it's been a while since I really hadn't thought of her. and to what can a Timefly turn when it's abuzz over someone it once cared for? obviously Google. so I googled her, and, because of a remembered conversation we'd once held about there not being many with her last name, fancied my chances. it kind of gave me the heebyjeebies to actually find her: a career woman running an independent business in Quebec City; a freelance writer; self-promoting instead of self-effacing; 'my age' rather than 'a year younger'; a familiar stranger rather than the strange familiar; over there... man, Time's also got a big pair of gleaming mandibles.
I don't miss her. I have already, and though there's a contact email and phone number, I really have no desire to use them. not to say they don't make me vertiginous, but not this Time. I do, however, have a different idea... I decide now to place a little Time capsule, just like Bruce Willis leaving messages for the future on the dry-cleaning company's answering machine in 12 Monkeys (was that before or after eating the spider?), except here and, as Steve pointed out in Corpus Collapsum's Colosseum, Bruce Willis' mankind-saving services are likely needed elsewhere. so no Bruce.
my thinking is this... I reckon she'll soon google herself, oh perhaps in two months (during the season of change) to see her business site pop up. now because she's always been a curious one, i wager she'll check out the few other names that come up. one will be this one. hopefully she'll read this.
ok then, here goes: Michelle O'Brodovich
hi Mo!
how are you? i'm well. could afford to be a little richer (though how I can't afford to be any poorer beats me), but you know, i gots plans. so i lied, i do kinda miss you, in that wistful, cloudcocooned memorial kind of way. i do hope you are well and merry. please let me know if you ever run across this, like, you know, drop a comment or whatever. er, ok then, bye again!
Tom
ps. today's Sunday, July 30th 2006, 12:47AM...
ok, well, I guess I'm off to go stare at my static ceiling fan some more. and perhaps think about the people currently in my life. this Time.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Friday, July 28, 2006
State of Emergency pt.2
A story from last summer. I tightened a few bolts, left the eery, respective overlap it has with a portion of my current situation (which I only just discovered), changed the title and still worry over the ending (it's too brusque and doesn't quite instill the elliptical ambiguity I wanted.) I post it with the awsome Bjork tune 'Play Dead' playing in the background.
MIND THE MINDFUL “People lie. Some yell annihilate the lying nation, but philanthropy is based on the lie, rolling around the bowl of conventional boundary like so much unset jello mix. How can you ever expect to become who you want to be if you don’t lie? Besides, the practice of honesty eventually leads to social immolation: lying is sad, but not lying is sadder. Both are transparent to me and because of that I’m the simplest person I know.
My learning disability transmuted to antisocial behaviour, and from that to a new identity known as Asbergers. Such a designation would normally terminate there, with me fleshing out and owning it. But it progressed, even flowered.
My story would be a lot funnier if I could be my own anecdote and claim to have first assumed my career running between adult legs wearing only a soggy diaper held up only by pudginess, yelling ‘bullshit, bullshit’. But the truth is I still don’t understand that word.
I am very impressionable. Not a true telepath, as I can’t convey mind. Only receive. So forget any of that Stan Lee/Roald Dahl twist of collective fantasy. Though they’re on the right path, unlike most of their stories, there was no before to me… my ‘moral’ growth was shaped by my affliction. It’s not like I realized my predatorial instincts by throwing myself at a wall to see if I could cling. It’s more like I threw myself at the street and kept missing. I didn’t need a re-education.
Course, you might say, someone in my position could capitalize drastically with their ability. But what is my role? Empath? Neuropath? Sociopath is the snuggest fit.
My father stared at me. Even the slightest glance from him felt like a stare.
‘I know you know…’
‘What you’re thinking.’
More stare, maybe angry? Embarrassed. His right fist opens and closes.
‘That’s why I asked you here.’
‘Dad. I know.’
‘Son, this is slightly… unorthodox. Poker is a game of men, and, well, you’ll hear man-talk.’
He did look embarrassed. I don’t recall replying. I only saw green confetti.
‘Just stay focused. A lot is said… God, where to start? OK, you’ll hear a lot of macho clatter. Derogatory talk about women close to us. Sh…tuff we might take personally. But it’s meant to get a rise out of competitors, to make us more transparent. Make no mistake, this is a competition. And control takes control takes control. Son, take control.'
Fingers on latches. Doors slamming. Dad swearing. Jangled keys. Rolled window. Door closing. Mismatched footsteps. Dad’s chin ascending.
‘Dad…’
‘Yeah?’ Open-close.
‘You don’t believe in God.’
You’d imagine me a millionaire. A litigator. Broker. Even condescend to call me a psychologist, PI, guru, hotline operator, prognosticator, politician, Republican, prosecutor. But they all create value. The best name for me is terminal slut. I did spend some time in marketing. Worked with such luminaries as Andie MacDowell. Yeah, with two Ls. Her. But marketing is the art of directing desire. Taking away what people need and then telling-selling them what they want. I wasn’t very good at that. It was too emotional: I found myself in the dank corners of peoples’ heads. Film was no escape either. It was that bustle of fiction, but I still Flashed on people. It records their thoughts!
OK. I’ll try and relay a description of the typical Flash: It’s not a first-person swap. Perhaps it is closer to being a smell… but without a range of intensity: more of proximity. From how I’ve compared it to others’ experiences, it’s like a superimposition of image. A HUD in my head… the imagination of the other ghosting over what I see. Under most circumstances disparate images ravel up into a central thought, which either expels itself with a wheezing, jellyfish lassitude or condenses into a thread to be knotted up further. This forms a larger, composite image of language, colour and abridged time: Horror's hidden u lends rrs its cap, thus birthing its co-conspirator, humor.
Imagine those soft ciphers of nuance that play across a person’s face when in conversation. Even the most affected, wildly kinetic muscle patterns a communicator can make seem near-static when layered beneath the psychic diorama and rolling drama of their thoughts. People’s emotional characters are still opaque. It’s their intentions that are thrust into me. The more reserved a person is, the more pronounced their thoughts. The more violent.
Way back when, I went to a foundry and had a lead helmet made so I could ride the bus in peace. And it struck me blind. It wasn’t like losing one sense, it was like losing five. With it on, I was a claustrophobe, with it off, I was an anthrophobe. That’s how I stumbled across what I thought at the time was a more tempered solution. One night ambling around a loft-party, looking a bit like a German storm trooper emerging from his time-bunker in that wretched head-gear, I gladdened to get this close to a crowd without losing my mind. Eventually ushered against a wall by the collective recoil of drinking elbows, I leant my shoulder to it, sipping my drink pleasantly. Suddenly, a cacophony swept upon me and felt like it blasted the helmet right off my head. Stricken, I flailed around, slapping where it’s warm heaviness had been just moments before. Reeling around desperately, I found a delicate witness holding it like a garish fruit bowl. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I screamed at my quiet assailant, her eyes smiling with the pinch of impish glee. The jellyfish swamped me as the closest quadrant of party wheeled towards my distress. ‘Satiating curiousity, flirting, looking at your naked head and trying on its chastity belt.’ With that, she plopped it on and clasped the straps beneath her chin. She reclaimed a pink drink, and looked at me, her tongue reaching for the drink’s straw. I grabbed my evening jacket by the tails and pulled it over my head and hers so that we were nose to nose. Unaffected, I heard her gurgle the ice cubes merrily. ‘Who are you?’ I pleaded. She giggled pink. ‘Are you like me? Do you know? Why are you so quiet to me, even before you put on the helmet, you were… quiet.’ She rolled her wide eyes over the rictus of our polyester cavern. Then she spoke, each word a droplet: ‘I think I understand you, at least, I recognize you. You found me just in time. You know, I want to be quiet to everyone. And you… you want the opposite? The converse...’ She fussed her purse briefly and then pushed two kernels into my face. ‘Swallow these pills’ she said, nudging the straw around to me with her nose. With two sips, I did. ‘My name is Lucy. Have your helmet back until you’re able to take it off and then we’ll talk.’ Twenty minutes later, I gave her back the helmet along with the strong recommendation that we dance. And, arms flapping, we danced raucously, in quiet.
MIND THE MINDFUL “People lie. Some yell annihilate the lying nation, but philanthropy is based on the lie, rolling around the bowl of conventional boundary like so much unset jello mix. How can you ever expect to become who you want to be if you don’t lie? Besides, the practice of honesty eventually leads to social immolation: lying is sad, but not lying is sadder. Both are transparent to me and because of that I’m the simplest person I know.
My learning disability transmuted to antisocial behaviour, and from that to a new identity known as Asbergers. Such a designation would normally terminate there, with me fleshing out and owning it. But it progressed, even flowered.
My story would be a lot funnier if I could be my own anecdote and claim to have first assumed my career running between adult legs wearing only a soggy diaper held up only by pudginess, yelling ‘bullshit, bullshit’. But the truth is I still don’t understand that word.
I am very impressionable. Not a true telepath, as I can’t convey mind. Only receive. So forget any of that Stan Lee/Roald Dahl twist of collective fantasy. Though they’re on the right path, unlike most of their stories, there was no before to me… my ‘moral’ growth was shaped by my affliction. It’s not like I realized my predatorial instincts by throwing myself at a wall to see if I could cling. It’s more like I threw myself at the street and kept missing. I didn’t need a re-education.
Course, you might say, someone in my position could capitalize drastically with their ability. But what is my role? Empath? Neuropath? Sociopath is the snuggest fit.
My father stared at me. Even the slightest glance from him felt like a stare.
‘I know you know…’
‘What you’re thinking.’
More stare, maybe angry? Embarrassed. His right fist opens and closes.
‘That’s why I asked you here.’
‘Dad. I know.’
‘Son, this is slightly… unorthodox. Poker is a game of men, and, well, you’ll hear man-talk.’
He did look embarrassed. I don’t recall replying. I only saw green confetti.
‘Just stay focused. A lot is said… God, where to start? OK, you’ll hear a lot of macho clatter. Derogatory talk about women close to us. Sh…tuff we might take personally. But it’s meant to get a rise out of competitors, to make us more transparent. Make no mistake, this is a competition. And control takes control takes control. Son, take control.'
Fingers on latches. Doors slamming. Dad swearing. Jangled keys. Rolled window. Door closing. Mismatched footsteps. Dad’s chin ascending.
‘Dad…’
‘Yeah?’ Open-close.
‘You don’t believe in God.’
You’d imagine me a millionaire. A litigator. Broker. Even condescend to call me a psychologist, PI, guru, hotline operator, prognosticator, politician, Republican, prosecutor. But they all create value. The best name for me is terminal slut. I did spend some time in marketing. Worked with such luminaries as Andie MacDowell. Yeah, with two Ls. Her. But marketing is the art of directing desire. Taking away what people need and then telling-selling them what they want. I wasn’t very good at that. It was too emotional: I found myself in the dank corners of peoples’ heads. Film was no escape either. It was that bustle of fiction, but I still Flashed on people. It records their thoughts!
OK. I’ll try and relay a description of the typical Flash: It’s not a first-person swap. Perhaps it is closer to being a smell… but without a range of intensity: more of proximity. From how I’ve compared it to others’ experiences, it’s like a superimposition of image. A HUD in my head… the imagination of the other ghosting over what I see. Under most circumstances disparate images ravel up into a central thought, which either expels itself with a wheezing, jellyfish lassitude or condenses into a thread to be knotted up further. This forms a larger, composite image of language, colour and abridged time: Horror's hidden u lends rrs its cap, thus birthing its co-conspirator, humor.
Imagine those soft ciphers of nuance that play across a person’s face when in conversation. Even the most affected, wildly kinetic muscle patterns a communicator can make seem near-static when layered beneath the psychic diorama and rolling drama of their thoughts. People’s emotional characters are still opaque. It’s their intentions that are thrust into me. The more reserved a person is, the more pronounced their thoughts. The more violent.
Way back when, I went to a foundry and had a lead helmet made so I could ride the bus in peace. And it struck me blind. It wasn’t like losing one sense, it was like losing five. With it on, I was a claustrophobe, with it off, I was an anthrophobe. That’s how I stumbled across what I thought at the time was a more tempered solution. One night ambling around a loft-party, looking a bit like a German storm trooper emerging from his time-bunker in that wretched head-gear, I gladdened to get this close to a crowd without losing my mind. Eventually ushered against a wall by the collective recoil of drinking elbows, I leant my shoulder to it, sipping my drink pleasantly. Suddenly, a cacophony swept upon me and felt like it blasted the helmet right off my head. Stricken, I flailed around, slapping where it’s warm heaviness had been just moments before. Reeling around desperately, I found a delicate witness holding it like a garish fruit bowl. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I screamed at my quiet assailant, her eyes smiling with the pinch of impish glee. The jellyfish swamped me as the closest quadrant of party wheeled towards my distress. ‘Satiating curiousity, flirting, looking at your naked head and trying on its chastity belt.’ With that, she plopped it on and clasped the straps beneath her chin. She reclaimed a pink drink, and looked at me, her tongue reaching for the drink’s straw. I grabbed my evening jacket by the tails and pulled it over my head and hers so that we were nose to nose. Unaffected, I heard her gurgle the ice cubes merrily. ‘Who are you?’ I pleaded. She giggled pink. ‘Are you like me? Do you know? Why are you so quiet to me, even before you put on the helmet, you were… quiet.’ She rolled her wide eyes over the rictus of our polyester cavern. Then she spoke, each word a droplet: ‘I think I understand you, at least, I recognize you. You found me just in time. You know, I want to be quiet to everyone. And you… you want the opposite? The converse...’ She fussed her purse briefly and then pushed two kernels into my face. ‘Swallow these pills’ she said, nudging the straw around to me with her nose. With two sips, I did. ‘My name is Lucy. Have your helmet back until you’re able to take it off and then we’ll talk.’ Twenty minutes later, I gave her back the helmet along with the strong recommendation that we dance. And, arms flapping, we danced raucously, in quiet.
But that is exactly why I’m here now, talking to this forlorn looking group. Because I have a dependency. A dependency, do you hear? A dependency as well as an addiction.”
Possession
If you were to flash-freeze one moment and then somehow add up all the physical space as seen by every person on the plane (that is, perceptual space), what area/volume do you think there'd be? What do you think the average would be? Right now, around the computer, beyond the foosball table, inside all the empties, I've got about 1500 cu. feet in my head. Some of that is 'filled' in by my learnt understanding of mass. If I look out the window, I have a horizon of maybe 45-60 feet. I reckon that's pretty good for city living. Visit the park or walk in the middle of the street at night and you might find some restorative distance (to satisfy that pervasive 'my head's at the top of me so's to see over the high grasses and know when to hunt/hide' feeling.) Montreal's good like that, for all its angular, in-your-faceness, it does give you the opportunity to take a different perspective now and again. (Funny how humans went trees-to-caves/Bifteks-to-plains-to-boats/markets-to-cities. And also not funny.)
Next question: ownership of said 'space'... what percentile of the average person's headspace is 'branded'? What percentage is outright owned by someone else? Qualitatively, how much this cultural topology contributes to our own sense of well-being? Should we not be using our well-being to create our culture (are we stuck pursuing corporeal tokens rather the requisite skills necessary to create and impregnate our world with our own meanings?) Or is culture a type of residue? How much are we oblivious to how we are affected and thusly imbued with the want to own more of it ourselves (as an extension of the senses?) Memetically, I opine, we leak our values into/onto our surroundings, marinading the inanimate, finding our children rail against the values that ooze back out. Is this dysfunctional? How can we reclaim our space without upsetting (but, er, beneficiantly morphing) our conceptions of ownership? Is the will to do so a form of 'freedom'?
Next question: ownership of said 'space'... what percentile of the average person's headspace is 'branded'? What percentage is outright owned by someone else? Qualitatively, how much this cultural topology contributes to our own sense of well-being? Should we not be using our well-being to create our culture (are we stuck pursuing corporeal tokens rather the requisite skills necessary to create and impregnate our world with our own meanings?) Or is culture a type of residue? How much are we oblivious to how we are affected and thusly imbued with the want to own more of it ourselves (as an extension of the senses?) Memetically, I opine, we leak our values into/onto our surroundings, marinading the inanimate, finding our children rail against the values that ooze back out. Is this dysfunctional? How can we reclaim our space without upsetting (but, er, beneficiantly morphing) our conceptions of ownership? Is the will to do so a form of 'freedom'?
@ @ @
If all is meat, then most of us are TV dinners.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Please do check out Mr Warren Ellis. I can't believe how infrequently I check his site these days. That bit on the eggs cracked me up. Oh, the price of puns these days.
Nul Si Découvert
This phrase bobbed around in my head yesterday like the last, lonely pickle in the brine. I couldn't figure out how it got there, it just seemed 'apt'. Like a feint at maintaining the mystery of identity, or the answer (not that I hold much stock in those) to an unpronouncable question. Today, lo! what do I see but a Mtl hip-hop group holding session under that very same name. And so I decided not to write a blog about this, because that'd be some drivelly-shit.
Instead, I'd like to shimmer this around the day itself. Perhaps leaking a little of it into today as well. I got up. Made some coffee. Checked the blogs (Alas, before email these days. But not before making the day's first water: I've taken to not peeing-empty before going to bed, so as I can actually have some purpose in the mornings. I always wake up alarmed.) Mulched up some old cigarette butts so's I could reroll them and smoke. Drank that coffee. Worried over Lebanon a bit. Plonked on some headphones, wrote a few comments. Saw one arrive on the Who from Rogering Me. Good writer that guy (Seriously man, that 'decry the masturbatory wink and end up with Jeez on my hands' just split me in two. I'm sorry to've been so belicose, I hadn't eaten for close to 2 days, and though hunger, they say, is the best spice, it also gives me a mild bloodlust. My sister and I call it The Hanger. A question... why do you mention East Van? Funnily, I've only ever been swept through there by Lindz herself on the most comprehensive Couve-tour I could've ever ask for. With this, do you 'découvert' some of your you? I really would like to know more about that. Your you. You write how I always imagined my Pre-Socratic Phil prof, Eric Lewis, would.) Belligerated back to him once. And did a quick scouring of the kitchen. Found some festering tomatos with enough flies to've perked the maggot-interest of even the most inviolate of all-boy choral directors. I certainly didn't want to attract any of them into our house, so chucked that. Then cleaned some beer bottles and returned them for the jinglingly round sum of $7. And went straight to the grocer's. Whilst in the dairy aisle, I noticed a dark, winged shape crawling circles on my favourite tshirt (type 'Erik Bloodaxe' into google image, and look at second from left. I can't upload it for some reason.) It was a queen and prince (?) ant mating. He was at most a tenth her size, clinging to her abdomen like an all-boy choral director weeps on his driveway, folded over the trunk of his black Hyundai. Put my basket down -though I must admit I was tempted to see what copulating ants would feel like on my tongue- and went to the exit, pointing at my sleeve so's the checkout lady wouldn't think I was pulling a fast one. She said something like 'jusque faites le 'smoosh'', and I smiled benignly. I put them on a leaf in the alley behind the store, hoping they'd perhaps cuddle after, while reminiscing about their respective colonies. Then I bought some eggs ($1.90), spicy hungarian salami ($2.04), hamburger buns ($1.09!) and baby spinach ($1.79) and went home to make a pair of sarnies. Gobbled them up good, like a choral director ***segment retracted after editorial reflection*** and tucked in to reply Rogering Me again (Lindz, must've been sad, that exchange, like being 8 and having your mum talking about you to another mum, and craving to yell something like 'hey! fuckfaces!' without then knowing what a fuckface really was, going on only what some kid with a rat-tail named Brad told you was a bad word one day behind the portables.) I was smoking a cigar by then, as I had already rererolled all the cigarette butts. I smoked that nasty nub all the way to a sushi restaurant where Lori and her beau, Ben, sat with Gill and her beau Ben. We dug into a few morsels of sushi and then Carolyn came and we ate some more. We worried about Lebanon together. Lori foot my bill, the darling. It was delicious and the dumplings smelt like Tokyo. Then we went to Dieu de Ciel and I had to quietly marvel at Lori's presence (like an aurora had walked into the room). Then I pretty much went to bed.
Today: I worked a bit. Languidly. Looking out onto Hotel-de-Ville, smoking on the green just below Rachel where a silent trio of portuguese ladies sometimes go to swing away their hot flashes, smelling torturous Romado's chicken fumes from upwind, wondering if the remote controlled air-plane kid ever got his aircraft off the roof of the Franciscans', and wondering in turn how'd they've managed that (convince a bird to do it?) Then I got off work early, bought a 6pack of Tremblay (wanting to surprise Steve with a little something special) and wrote a blog entry. Then it got weird as I started outwriting myself, trapping myself forever in the last few words of the b-logos. Those last few words... Nul Si Découvert.
Instead, I'd like to shimmer this around the day itself. Perhaps leaking a little of it into today as well. I got up. Made some coffee. Checked the blogs (Alas, before email these days. But not before making the day's first water: I've taken to not peeing-empty before going to bed, so as I can actually have some purpose in the mornings. I always wake up alarmed.) Mulched up some old cigarette butts so's I could reroll them and smoke. Drank that coffee. Worried over Lebanon a bit. Plonked on some headphones, wrote a few comments. Saw one arrive on the Who from Rogering Me. Good writer that guy (Seriously man, that 'decry the masturbatory wink and end up with Jeez on my hands' just split me in two. I'm sorry to've been so belicose, I hadn't eaten for close to 2 days, and though hunger, they say, is the best spice, it also gives me a mild bloodlust. My sister and I call it The Hanger. A question... why do you mention East Van? Funnily, I've only ever been swept through there by Lindz herself on the most comprehensive Couve-tour I could've ever ask for. With this, do you 'découvert' some of your you? I really would like to know more about that. Your you. You write how I always imagined my Pre-Socratic Phil prof, Eric Lewis, would.) Belligerated back to him once. And did a quick scouring of the kitchen. Found some festering tomatos with enough flies to've perked the maggot-interest of even the most inviolate of all-boy choral directors. I certainly didn't want to attract any of them into our house, so chucked that. Then cleaned some beer bottles and returned them for the jinglingly round sum of $7. And went straight to the grocer's. Whilst in the dairy aisle, I noticed a dark, winged shape crawling circles on my favourite tshirt (type 'Erik Bloodaxe' into google image, and look at second from left. I can't upload it for some reason.) It was a queen and prince (?) ant mating. He was at most a tenth her size, clinging to her abdomen like an all-boy choral director weeps on his driveway, folded over the trunk of his black Hyundai. Put my basket down -though I must admit I was tempted to see what copulating ants would feel like on my tongue- and went to the exit, pointing at my sleeve so's the checkout lady wouldn't think I was pulling a fast one. She said something like 'jusque faites le 'smoosh'', and I smiled benignly. I put them on a leaf in the alley behind the store, hoping they'd perhaps cuddle after, while reminiscing about their respective colonies. Then I bought some eggs ($1.90), spicy hungarian salami ($2.04), hamburger buns ($1.09!) and baby spinach ($1.79) and went home to make a pair of sarnies. Gobbled them up good, like a choral director ***segment retracted after editorial reflection*** and tucked in to reply Rogering Me again (Lindz, must've been sad, that exchange, like being 8 and having your mum talking about you to another mum, and craving to yell something like 'hey! fuckfaces!' without then knowing what a fuckface really was, going on only what some kid with a rat-tail named Brad told you was a bad word one day behind the portables.) I was smoking a cigar by then, as I had already rererolled all the cigarette butts. I smoked that nasty nub all the way to a sushi restaurant where Lori and her beau, Ben, sat with Gill and her beau Ben. We dug into a few morsels of sushi and then Carolyn came and we ate some more. We worried about Lebanon together. Lori foot my bill, the darling. It was delicious and the dumplings smelt like Tokyo. Then we went to Dieu de Ciel and I had to quietly marvel at Lori's presence (like an aurora had walked into the room). Then I pretty much went to bed.
Today: I worked a bit. Languidly. Looking out onto Hotel-de-Ville, smoking on the green just below Rachel where a silent trio of portuguese ladies sometimes go to swing away their hot flashes, smelling torturous Romado's chicken fumes from upwind, wondering if the remote controlled air-plane kid ever got his aircraft off the roof of the Franciscans', and wondering in turn how'd they've managed that (convince a bird to do it?) Then I got off work early, bought a 6pack of Tremblay (wanting to surprise Steve with a little something special) and wrote a blog entry. Then it got weird as I started outwriting myself, trapping myself forever in the last few words of the b-logos. Those last few words... Nul Si Découvert.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky, up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made, or only just happened - Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so many. Jim said the moon could a laid them; well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it, because I've seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done. We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them streak down. Jim allowed they'd got spoiled and was hove out of the nest.
- Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Monday, July 24, 2006
I BEAT CANCER! (BY CANCER I MEAN CHILDREN) - tshirt slogan from tshirthell.com
Please welcome the lady with the most to say on any subject: our friend, ally and proto-blogger (she's been at it for years, just never realized there was a codified format), the Lindztigator.
Friday, July 21, 2006
self-phone(y)
To muse some more on self-deception... I think it's definitely a coping mechanism and, if under frequent enough review or self-scrutiny, necessary for esteem and protection from adverse psychic elements. But like all things that sour at the extreme, it can become critically negative when it impinges upon another's well-being (or challenges their own manners of delusion). Only when another is affected detrimentally, I believe it should be confronted. Or to prevent harm coming to the deluder. Sticky sticky sticky, as what gives me (bonded to my own formative deception) the ability or right to review another's? Perhaps this is where we begin to notice things in others that we don't like in ourselves and bulldoze them with criticism directed only at ourselves... "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, er..."
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Deception
The offshoot (splinters) of my favourite group: Plaid. That was the assemblage, this is the dissemblage: Pork Corp. And then there's those wackos, the Chemical Brothers.
@ @ @
A lady asked me yesterday what I find myself obsessed with these days. I had no answer last night. Today I think I do... self-deception. Every one does it, and it's the devil that's convinced you he doesn't exist. A few things were pointed out about my character by someone, and though I tried damned hard to outright reject them, the nature of their attribution couldn't allow me to deny their validity (cryptic enough? okok, I was told I don't take responsibility for my emotions. Which is kind of unfair, as to a degree, their purpose and very existence is impossible to be underwritten by your culpability. And perhaps that's all that selfcontrol is, adjusting your response to the stimulus. But people can overcompensate and become rigid, lock it down and quiver unhappily till the original feelings fester and become illness.) And so, I don't really have much to say about self-deception. Or rather, I have a lot, but I'm midobsession. I will come back to 'er later.
@ @ @
ps. Miss the world cup? Here's a montage of England's striker Peter Crouch after his risible attempt to roundhouse a cross during the Trinidad and Tobago game.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Stand By What You Don't Say
um, today just one or two questions:
---how do astronauts shave in space?---do you get wetter when running in the rain than when walking?---does riding a bike cost you as much energy as walking (by time, not distance?)---one nerd's tshirt said: shrodinger's cat is dead. is it?
and now a video rodeo:
sigur ros - children running through a place where people grow rocks, apparently following a shitty drummer. try not to focus on said shitty drummer and it's pretty ok, though it didn't end exactly the way i'd've liked
massive attack - a singing fetid fetus. one of my alltime favourite songs, until i saw this video
peter gabriel - through the hormo(ro)nic haze of my early teens, i seem to remember this winning MUCH music's 'video of the year' several years running (mid 90's), and probably the years before
bjork - bjork
coolio - one of the best cocktail-party conversation killers is to drop the rumour that coolio allegedly has an IQ of 180
shpongle - crosspollination, i get the feeling this video's a bit illegit
white zombie - for you jordman
garbage - yay!!!
aha - take on me, how could i not
catatonia - The Ballad of Tom Jones
amon tobin1 - 4 Ton Mantis
amon tobin2 - proper hoodidge (for fans)
amon tobin3 - one of THOSE houseguests...
goldie - innercity life (my first shroomusic experience)
leftfield - alright! that one from the Hackers soundtrack
daft punk - da punk (it's a dog's life)
chemical brothers - skeletonic
chemical brothers - very good dance video
smashing pumpkins - rocket. shitty video (pre-release?). great song.
---how do astronauts shave in space?---do you get wetter when running in the rain than when walking?---does riding a bike cost you as much energy as walking (by time, not distance?)---one nerd's tshirt said: shrodinger's cat is dead. is it?
and now a video rodeo:
sigur ros - children running through a place where people grow rocks, apparently following a shitty drummer. try not to focus on said shitty drummer and it's pretty ok, though it didn't end exactly the way i'd've liked
massive attack - a singing fetid fetus. one of my alltime favourite songs, until i saw this video
peter gabriel - through the hormo(ro)nic haze of my early teens, i seem to remember this winning MUCH music's 'video of the year' several years running (mid 90's), and probably the years before
bjork - bjork
coolio - one of the best cocktail-party conversation killers is to drop the rumour that coolio allegedly has an IQ of 180
shpongle - crosspollination, i get the feeling this video's a bit illegit
white zombie - for you jordman
garbage - yay!!!
aha - take on me, how could i not
catatonia - The Ballad of Tom Jones
amon tobin1 - 4 Ton Mantis
amon tobin2 - proper hoodidge (for fans)
amon tobin3 - one of THOSE houseguests...
goldie - innercity life (my first shroomusic experience)
leftfield - alright! that one from the Hackers soundtrack
daft punk - da punk (it's a dog's life)
chemical brothers - skeletonic
chemical brothers - very good dance video
smashing pumpkins - rocket. shitty video (pre-release?). great song.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Monday, July 10, 2006
Death is the Counterweight to Meaning
I'm afraid of death. I'm not afraid of death. I don't believe people that claim they aren't. I used to be one of them, but then I realized that I'd just stopped thinking about it. How would I measure Life's value without that fear? One of the first nightmares I can remember (and possibly even my first memory) was a recurring dream: a pulverizingly massive and uniform black particle sucked up and swept down and slowly rolled over a brightly painted English cottage. Alone in that house was a small girl with curly tresses. She frantically locked the windows and stuffed towels under the doorgaps, but the house began to shrink under the infinite weight. To implode evenly. The sensation was of a zoom out on this one spark of light, leaving only this impossible thickness of black. Some nights I woke myself up with my screams, having absolutely no idea just why I was so frightened. Other times, my mum would tell me I'd had another nightmare while my face was in my morning cereal. She suggested at the time that it was some residual memories of the complications I'd had in the womb (I'm a breech baby), but I think that she was trying to soothe me. hahaha. I later learnt about death from our tortoise that came out of hibernation too early one year, and passed. I think I have to learn about death each time I ponder it, it slips away so quickly by the rote passage of time. Thinking about death restores meaning. It also hurts so very terribly.
I saw the new Nature of Things last weekend and it was suggested that primal humans created art as a means of tribute to -and understanding of- the death of members of their clan. Seems obvious enough, but the idea struck me with some force. Art as a method of coping? Get me some paint and safety scissors!
Somewhat related. I won't pass comment on this other than, if I understand this correctly, this is fucked up: collective punishment.
I saw the new Nature of Things last weekend and it was suggested that primal humans created art as a means of tribute to -and understanding of- the death of members of their clan. Seems obvious enough, but the idea struck me with some force. Art as a method of coping? Get me some paint and safety scissors!
Somewhat related. I won't pass comment on this other than, if I understand this correctly, this is fucked up: collective punishment.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Friday, July 07, 2006
London's 7/7
Luckily my cousin Simon was down with the flu or likely hungover from the night before and so had to miss work. He might not be here otherwise. It took 4 days of worry (he'd left his cellphone at a friend's house and not returned home) before we found out he was alive. He is my sister's Godfather. King's Cross station (Simon's stop) has been hit by tragedy too many times, the first I remember being an escalator fire in 1987. 27 people died then. This bombing, the victims, and the global repercussions demand not only our grief but the truth, which as of yet has not been forthcoming. If you can, please consider the incident and let it affect you. Terrorism is not an event, but a psychological grooming, and the only way to decipher the cause is to investigate who truly benefits. I believe the 4 men involved were patsies, and otherwise gormless and convenient agents. This is why there has been no success in the investigative process, as there is no pattern to recognize. I feel for their families' sorrow. The best investigation of events in these days is your own. Mediated grief is not grief at all, but spectacle and sensational whitewash. Terror is psy-ops and acts as a system-shock or TILT in the weapons of informational warfare. Advertising uses the same 2-step technique: 1) ellicit peak emotional response, 2) sell story/political agenda. Media, then, is in collusion with the perpetrators.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
This time last year I was plonking floor into a house square in the middle of an immense development project on Vancouver Island. I'd eat egg mayonnaise sandwiches and watch the neighbouring construction workers clamber material over each other, resulting in instant houses. Entire domiciles were built faster than I could install a 3 room floor. Of course, the floors'll probably outlast the rest of the house (most houses're given maybe 25-35 year lifespans these days.. criminal). In this house there was a painter called Wayne. Wayne was a self-professed redneck and spoke long about utter crap while drooping a perpetual Player's cigarette under his ratstache. I didn't pay him heed until he complained about his old scar. He said it was the humidity up and getting into the bone, or some such, and that it hadn't been the same since he'd been hit by the second train. I stopped what I was doing, turned off the rattley compressor and asked him if would recount both that and the first time as well. First time, he a was in a car. They got stuck on the tracks. They were drunk. Second time, he was on foot, but managed to SOMEHOW prove that the engine driver was all coked up (on a diesel train..?). He was drunk. I suddenly realized that this was his decade-old bar story and stalked back to my floor prickling with annoyance at those who big-up their idiocies, if not out and out lie. I think Wayne also stole my outdated Blockbuster card. It was for a Montreal address.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Lux Anacletus
apples and sunshine
your smile your kindest wound
a glee jester on a bended knee
you are mael, i am strom
wheez the juicy
no wheeheez in the juhuhuice
who has beautiful eyes?
synesthesiaura
now how bout that?
your smile your kindest wound
a glee jester on a bended knee
you are mael, i am strom
wheez the juicy
no wheeheez in the juhuhuice
who has beautiful eyes?
synesthesiaura
now how bout that?
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