I read somewhere that Will Smith had recently divorced and posted his profile on Millionairematch.com
That meant it was ok for me to sign up, so I did. If only to take a peak at "I, Will Smith". Perusing it while I ate take-out Phad Thai, I found it to have a delightful inital pr[e/o]mise: "#1 site for finding wealthy men and gorgeous girls, and women."
After squeezing the lime and sprinkling some peanuts on my noodles, I went and initiated a profile. Soon I was finding 39 year-old girls from LA, FL and Oakville, ON and guys from NY or TX or NY. But I soon discovered that if I truly wanted to email them I'd have to be a Gold member. All I wanted to do was see Will, so I typed in Will for a match. I got sirwilliam, willgivethisatry, willowyblonde, and WILLtoPOWER (who co-wrote the 1989 smash: Baby, I love your way). So I tried Smith and got Smithers123 or something.
And then I got bored of looking at 39 year-old social drinkers who are confident and compassionate and merely very good looking and looking for 22-22.5 year old spontaneous homebodies who love children (working for them), and stopped.

cone of sound and fury

i am in a spot, once again, where i can understand things way beyond me and yet, Cassandrastyle, can't understand others or things present to me. let alone meet them. what to do?
ask you...
what do you do to pick yourself out of a depressive place? practices? consortiments? people? websites? please (a) suggest things, i.e. help and (b) buy Boxcutter's latest album (then think you've been ripped off, then get drunk and lonesome and listened to it full-volume and then told all your friends about it)...

i'll wake up embarrassed for this one...

we are farmed to dis/arm.
becoming a kettle of lickspittle to better belittle the speakers less-special.
from original sin to societal din to redivisible individuals too remediated to rebegin.
we dress up to stay in.
or come out so stout in the self, that our society stays thin.
rubbing itself with deep-shelf unguents and linaments spun out from the latest in-thing spin.
ever mediated, ever expediated, ever inebriated, ever experiencing.
enjoyment sipped lustily through gripped teeth and belief stripped by flipped grief.
and where's the story read to me not through me?
if you're proudly rowdy, my larynx'll loudly reverse and upend, defaulting muscles to send your messages again to my brain... injecting insects and larvae and perfidious pain, through the one reign that remained and kept my self sane.
my voice, it belongs to you, but not how i meant it to.
bred to bleed and needing to seed, and in constant alarm are made to dis/arm and make stupidly stooped ids and entities and IDs. might as well wear shoes on your knees. or say sorry when you mean please. or say nothing when you mean sorry. or resent them for making you say nothing. and hate them for resenting them for saying nothing for saying sorry for saying please.

BLinks

After some careful munching, I decided to ameliorate my other blog's name to of murk and sky. This was originally to be the name of a pirate radio story I was going to write a few years ago, but eventually put on the 'recyclable material' pile.

Also new or updated on the blogroll are the following links... Goodnight and Sweet Byzantine Dreams,Once upon a day..., and ...and hijinks ensued.

Enjoy...

Fried Rich...

About all I'm good for tonight is the delivery of the devilry of my bathroom book du jour: Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil... here's Walter Kaufman's 1966 edition, not that I know of any others...

After such cheerful commencement, a serious word would like to be heard; it appeals to the most serious. Take care, philosophers and friends, of knowledge, and beware of martyrdom! Of suffering "for the truth's sake"! Even of defending yourselves! It spoils all the innocence and fine neutrality of your conscience; it makes you headstrong against objections and red rags; it stupefies, animalizes, and brutalizes when in the struggle with danger, slander, suspicion, expulsion, and even worse consequences of hostility, you have to pose as protectors of truth upon earth - as though the truth were such an innocuous and incompetent creature as to require protectors! and you of all people, you knights of the most sorrowful countenance,* dear loafers and cobweb-spinners of the spirit! After all, you know well enough that it cannot be of any consequence if you of all people are proved right; you know that no philosopher so far has been proved right, and that there might be a more laudable truthfulness in every little question mark that you place after your special words and favourite doctrines (and occasionally after yourselves) than in all the solemn gestures and trumps before accusers and law courts. Rather, go away. Flee into concealment. And have your masks and subtlety, that you may be mistaken for what you are not, or feared a little. And don't forget the garden, the garden with the golden trelliswork. And have people around you who are as a garden - or as music on the waters in the evening, when the day is turning into memories. Choose the good solitude, the free, playful, light solitude that gives you, too, the right to remain good in some sense. How poisonous, how crafty, how bad, does every long war make one, that cannot be waged openly by means of force! How personal does a long fear make one, a long watching of enemies, of possible enemies! These outcasts of society, these long-pursued, wickedly persecuted ones - also the compulsory recluses, the Spinozas or Giodano Brunos - always come in the end, even under the most spiritual masquerade, and perhaps without being themselves aware of it, sophisticated vengeance-seekeres and poison-brewers (let someone lay bare the foundation of Spinoza's ethics ans theology!), not to speak of the stupidity of moral indignation, which is the unfailing sign in a philosopher that his philosophical sense of humour has left him. The martyrdom of the philosopher, this "sacrifice for the sake of truth," forces into the light whatever of the agitator anc actor lurks in him; and if one has so far contemplated him only with artistic curiosity, with regard to many a philosopher it is easy to understand the dangerous desire to see him also in his degeneration (degenerated into a "martyr," into a stage- and platform-bawler). Only, that it is necessary with such a desire to be clear what spectacle one will see in any case - merely a satyr play, merely an epilogue farce, merely the continued proof that the long, real tragedy is at an end, assuming that every philosophy was in its genesis a long tragedy.

*reference to Don Quixote...

Ch 25, p35-37, Nietzsche, F. (trans. W. Kaufmann).

Burning Down The House

The Rules:

1. Put your iTunes/ music player on Shuffle
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER WHAT
(this is in capital letters, so it is very serious. No hiding your showtunes, folks!)

After you’ve answered all of the questions, tag 5 other people and then let them know they’ve been tagged to do the meme themselves!

IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY?
Bullyshit - Quasimoto
(this meme is spot-on so far!)

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Underground Communication- Bassnectar
(cloak and dagger!)

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
The Aircrash Bureau - Gary Numan
(true! drama feels like it chooses me, but i guess choice is a choice)

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
I Want To Relax, Please! - Tei Towa
(hobble the damned hamster already!)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
Laundry Baskets - Aqueduct
(the L key's nowhere near the W key. i'm in trouble...)

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
It's Her Factory - Gang of Four
(no comment)

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Song Against Sex - Neutral Milk Hotel
(someone stole my mojo baby...)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
Beat the Odds - Dj Numark & Pomo
(hahaha... HA HA HA!)

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Panic - The Smiths
(-otine... if i don't get it!)

WHAT IS 2+2?
Juju Space Jazz - Brian Eno
(actually, no matter what the stumper, i'll reach that conclusion)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Fat Ass Joint - Amon Tobin
(the fucking Oracle of Delphi this is!)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Angel - Massive Attack
(this question, if that's what it is, demands a stupider answer than it got)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
You Were There With Me - Four Tet
(awwww. wait. who was? wait further. where were we?)

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
24 Hour Party People - Happy Mondays
(I grew up aaaages ago)

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Lycanthropy - Patrick Wolf
(ahahahahahahahahaha... ha)

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Down Down Down - The Presets
(that many downs... must be a syndrome)

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
True - Spandau Ballet

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Slipping Into Darkness - Dayton Sidewinders
(that's what i'll hear at least)

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Faded Coat of Blue - Jolie Holland
(old things? beggary? i do like blue, but what kind of hobby is 'liking blue'?)

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Fire Your Guns (Live) - AC/DC
(I guess so)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
WWIII - KMFDM

WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS?
Burning Down The House - Talking Heads
(well, works for Monday night procrastination at least)

And the 5 Taggees Are:
James, Eve, Amy, Lucy and I don't think anyone else reads this...

posterchild for democrazy

i don't post much these days. and i'm not going to post about how i don't post post this 'post'.
i'd like instead to turn to freeverse to help thaw some anxiety here.

clackclack the crow goes
clack
grey cold gnawing on the house,
fielded nearby,
chewed stalks under thick clouds
pushed to a brittle surface
like the sad skin of a spurned lover
black feathers see such a compromise of air
and speak on the spoken
clackclack the gate shows
clack
a wind of dark trees
moans a door moans a window
as they approach
like the hearth of your parents,
it issues around the words
which are warmer when you are not there
clackclack the door goes
clack
the sound of a trick
you play on yourself
when you finally pull open

strangely, i feel more anxious than ever

squeal

I fought the law and..............[soft sound of someone passing gas in the middle-distance].
Had the prelim today at the municipal court. Checked my name on the roll, the day's list of procedures, and it wasn't there. Went to the reception, she typed in the case number, nothing digital so she called up to the clerks office and fed them all the information that was on my summons. Nothing. She even said: They don't have anything filed. So she stamped the citation and said to watch the mail, they might designate a new day OR, if nothing happened, I could consider the procedures recinded (or some such buggery). So I did a few laps of the building and saw Sven, who had been identically charged. He had experienced the same 'whoopsie'. A 'whoopsie' that he'd rented a car and driven up to Montreal from Toronto for, inconveniencing both him and Liz, who'd come for support.
???
Relief is intermingled with indignation here.
Now also, because I'm neither guilty nor not-guilty, what happened that night between us four and the 2 divisions of cops all happened outside of the law. In other words, it never happened. I can't begin to describe how an event that now never happened has fucked with me for 2 months straight...
But do I dare ask for satisfaction? That's actually quite scary.

cell is other people

do you remember when there was cellphone etiquette? when the one person you knew owned a phone would blush at a squawking 2-bit Old Macdonald ringtone, whisper apologies in every direction and hurry to the nearest permissible area as if suddenly suckerpunched by stage 2 of Montazuma's revenge? do you remember when people were exhorted to leave tables? go into other rooms? leave the house? remember when they were treated as pariahs and not as if they were the 110 decibel rallying point of convergent 'future technology'? remember when they were the only brain-tumor you had? remember when one person checking their phone led to people rolling their eyes as opposed to inducing them to check their own? when your Mum didn't have Giving the Dog a Bone as her personal ringtone for Gerry from her darts-league?
remember that? when you thought that you invented the 'they look like crazy people' joke? when PDAs held up the mini-putters behind without making you look like a total shithead?
...i just realized i could go on a long time about this one...

boasting on posting

because i've had a rat-gnawed watermelon serving as an excuse for a head this last 10 days, it is with great aplomb that I provide my first post at Architext (that name just has to go... its a smelly name, as if the teeth of my thoughts thunken have a periodontal disease). It's a snobby, self-congratulatory story, but one that'll yield to softer pastures, I'm sure. I'll stay here, for what boredom now passes as here, and try for naught but exclusive whimsy.

After deliberating through a mild spell of depressed sensibilities and general lassitude, I came up with the awkward www.liminalumen.wordpress.com... while I pondered crumbs I'd heard from elsewhere (Architorture, Anarchitecture) I settled on the facile 'Architext' as the interim title. Why would I stop here at this lacklustre inauguration? That's right! I haven't even posted on it yet. The first post'll concern the person who's work I stolenated as the banner picture. And also how 'sustainability' as a word is the new 'enemy combatant'. And also why I chose liminalumen as a domain name in the firstplace.

Left Angles

But the straight line has become an absolute tyranny.
The straight line is something cowardly drawn with a rule, without thought or feeling; it is a line which does not exist in nature.
And that the line is the rotten foundation of our doomed civilization.
- Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Our buildings are machines built by machines and designed around their convenience. We have the choice now either to willingly climb into the machine, and integrate with it the rounded edges of our dreams, or to just let the machine be built around us. Our babble is realizing its parallel process, and media is the towering superstructure. What can we do? What can we do?

The liminal space is now private: your doorstep, your school, your communal area. You have been programmed to live in this liminal space: your car, your television, your credit card. Liminal space used to afford you expansion, was your theater of transcendence. Now you cannot let your children play in the streets. Someone will sell you your power, will you stand for that? But what can we do?

Engineer = ? = Angina

!!!Inside Outside!!!

The End Is Sigh

There is a worm in your moon
nibbling at each eye you cast to it
There is a leaded net, sunken dark
far from the shattered shore
There is a phrase that brought you joy
that will never utter itself again
And you'll be lost in the same woods that you once loved so dearly

{pruned}

Again, this site Pruned offers observations most observational!
Commodification of the Sublime? Hmmmm. HMMMM!

Sting's on fire!

The Name Blame

Hello.
Amidst the turbid effluvium of school-gas and life's subtle but profound semantic shifts, I intend to start a complementary blog. Inspired by Pruned, mine will pick up those seashells I step over when writing essays and the like. It'll be part archival, part vanity, part fascination and be very pictoral. Architectural landscapes will be its focus (how this is distinct from landscape architecture, I do not know) and it will be a simple way to chronicle some of the airier and more ephemeral interests of mine. Like pruned, pictures of stuff will be the preferred information package. And for you Sparky, it will also be a discrete exercise in vitalism.

Despite the borrowed bricolage of underpinned ideas, it needs a really good name. I was thinking of "echoscapes", because it infers resonance and broad ecology and symbolic depth, but I looked it up, and blogspot already has it (founded in Montreal, no less)... This'll be a wordpress supported blog, but still, I'm not a big fan of doppelgangers (one of my few superstitions). I might yet do it, but it still bothers me, even though there hasn't been any movement on it since 2005. Meanwhile, "escapes" does not yet exist, but i do prefer the first former...

Help me please, and have a good think about it. Qualities valued in the name are: subject association, compactability, novelty and a mystic twinge.

The Ploughed

Had to stop myself attempting to lock my bike to an old guy's leg yesterday. Slept too long today. Ran myself over with my own plough. Should change my name now to Doug. I just want to read comics.

'The Plough'

Day 1 - 10.53am EST
There seems to be a hole in my marble bag already: I actually caught myself looking up the word 'synonym' in the thesaurus this morning. What next? I say phrases like 'I wish I said envious phrases more often'? THE PLOUGH!!!

wheezed rhapsody bellows

In this cafe/bar there is...

• one couple with half-pints staring off in opposing directions, apparantly lost in contemplation. it's not a fight, it's not a grudging autumn-ending, it's just life.
• Paul Spence/Deaner from Fubar. He has a moosestache, not a moustache these days.
• a couple of the steely locals diligently climbing into Tuesday's bag.
• someone who's got a wirebrush goatee and expressive eyes, like a blue-peepered Don Cherry as puppeteered by William H. Macy.
• a Swede hipster
• the ambipresent Vic Vogel (here and Barfly are the only places I ever see him)
• and a guy who looks like hes doing pretty much the same thing as me, though he's got a pint in front of him. I don't have anything in front of me save the Plough, which I'm trying to put my hand to now and generate an instant work ethic. My fields have lain fallow long enough...

...but first, butt first!

Perhaps one of you three dear readers will this about me, likelily not, but I want to be a landscape architect. There, I said it. I love writing, but I feel it should be like happiness, "not the destination, but the path" and I found setting writing as a goal in itself somehow made it unobtainable and obscured some pretty good ideas, if I do say so myself, (which I do, which is hardly ever a good idea and so obviously they're not all good ideas...) and I'm going to out-wit myself by moonlighting as something I can inter myself with, and that's this. Landscape architecture.

Curse the pragmatics for now, I just 'like' greenery and design. I want to see ecological integration as a course of technological innovation, and though GREEN is voguish right now, it's almost always how I've always thought, I want to help blur the delineation between interior/exterior (perhaps a tough thing to do in this climate, with the coils of private security tightening around public consciousness), and believe that paradise can be meted out to all in large enough increments for everyone to be involved, and thus responsible, but in small enough parcels that planning for it does not get glassy-eyed under utopiates. There's enough of a movement now to join in professionally and not struggle (like I have been - thank my kind makers for keeping me kept). And we seem to now at least have the diagnostic tools to appraise and inform a better approach to our planet, if not the economic will or tomorow's imagination (but those will be here in short order, if only for the money). Which leads me to a fairly crucial point: Not to sound like a money-grubber, but right now is also a time of speculation. Ecological values necessitate economical tenets, and so, once we're on the right path, Green "alternatives" will also be the most cost-effective... But now, well right now and over the next little while, it's going to yield a different green. So I guess I literally am a money grubber: play with dirt for cash. Oh yes.

I expressed my interest in this area to a classmate when I first met her, and she told me about a decent landscape architecture site: Pruned. I haven't fully explored it yet, but I had seen this installation in Chile before, featured in a landscaper's magazine. How classically sublime.

Since writing the paragraph above, I've dipped into Pruned even more and found that the writing's tight and the issues compelling. I saw something there that I'd heard of before, but not known much about... this post made me see more things... For the shock value found in its disturbing immediacy, there is a picture on this post that really delivers the message about the garbage centered gyres (the currented oceanic systems the sea-dwellers use to migrate) and their rapid growth.

My other friend in that class, leaning towards architecture proper, informed me of his architectural crush, Paolo Soleri who founded this multidisciplinary field experiment/tutelage center which envisioned this drawjopper.

immediations

Nicole used to wield a quote by George Costanza's dad, Frank, who, finding that he had high blood pressure, was instructed by the cardiologist to say "serenity now".
Instead, he screamed it.

Nicole, right now, I feel the exact same way.

The trick to belief is not to notice it. It needs to be examined, of course, but the examination necessitates the suspension of the belief - and forgetting that belief is a dynamic process, will stop it all together.

As Paul Atreides says to the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother in Dune: 'A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it'.

But what happens when events challenge your beliefs and make them opaque? The casual individual may claim they have no beliefs, but that's because they're systemic: an augmentation of the mind, a vessel of extension... necessarily transparent. It takes but one confidence artist, but one mistaken attribution of character to make the believer pause and examine how their beliefs failed to uphold their view of the world (naught but projection of a personality to create a planet). And examination of belief, though perhaps clumsy and earnest and inexperienced, has a like form to belief itself: it is cast onto and informs the examiner of their world. And may cause them to question other things. One bad thing that interrupts a person (for belief IS that: a segment of person) can cause many more bad things to follow (a new tension of values allows a new world-scape to be envisioned).

Who's to say then that beliefs aren't the most dangerous thing we are dressed in? Maybe they should all be beaten on, cheated on, lied to, stolen from, let down, spat at, shat at, defrauded, denuded... so that real design of purpose takes their place? So our worlds are truly a process of choice, rather than a reflexive kick of seemingly inherited character projection?

But we all have vision, and we can all imagine... and in place of believing, in place of witnessing our beliefs in process, we can envision to become what we want. Maybe then we can imagine our serenity, even if we can't imagine our now.

intermission

more fun with statcounter... some recent keywords that brought people to whomunculus...

* ngumuntu ngumuntu - a person is only a person through their relationship to others
* real cat stuck in the refrigerator magnet
* toilet taboos
* bungstarter definition
* ferrets tail partly bitten off
* cyclonic elevator dredge
* accidentally ejaculated
* commercial uses for ocelot
* english poem oni will use my power to stop litter
* pong-go dog disposal
* what to do in a hostage situation
* farts and carbon monoxide detector
* my ferret has a swollen anus
* dromedary costume
* the thumb strengthen
* use the globe and mail's newstype for the hostage note

the top two hits i get are: "tickle monster" and "greek word for planet means"

How can you be arrested for resisting arrest?

Lucy paused to observe a police officer talking to a girl and guy sitting in a doorwell. I walked up a few doors and found my own alcove and started to choke, then snivel, then cry... I was a little bit drunk and a lot bit maudlin: I was in search of fun and connection and it seemed increased efforts in pursual made me feel sadder and lonelier. While the details don't need to be mentioned here, I'd had a shitty week and I basically needed to reconverge with my people. It usually takes about 5 minutes for this kind of blitzcry to work, so I came back out of this creche feeling collected and relieved. I blinked away the last few sparkles and looked around to find Lucy talking to the same cop, but this time he was in his cruiser. Sven and Katherine had caught her up, and were flanking Lucy in querying the policeman...
I heard her say, very clearly: "What is the ticket for? What am I getting a ticket for?"
He refused to acknowledge her, so she approached the car. This he noticed: "Get back to da sidewalk, or else I gif you anudder ticked"
She complied and reiterated her question from the sidewalk. Sven joined in: "Sir, what is she being given a ticket for? You have to tell her."
The cop heard that: "I don't haf to tell you."
"Yes, but you have to tell her. Lucy, ask again."
"Sir, what am I being given a ticket for?"
"If you don't lower your voices I will gif you da ticked for da noise."
And this is where I chimed in: "They are forced to raise their voices in order to have this dialogue. If you don't tell her what the ticket is for before you give it to her you will be littering."
Sven says: "Guys, we could just walk away here, he has refused to explain the reason and so Lucy is free to go. Let's just go."
Then the cop got out of the cruiser empty handed. That is, without the aforementioned ticket or Lucy's identification card.
He approached Lucy directly. And then wheeled on me: "Show me a piece of ID."
I replied: "I know I do not have to unless you tell me why."
Sven said much the same: "No he doesn't."
Sven has a law degree.
The next words fell heavy:
"You are under arrest."
My vision flashed and he was grabbing for my arm, so I pulled away and said: "Not unless you declare reason." He grabbed for my arm again, this time making contact, but I broke the hold by pulling away.
He actually had a little mini-tantrum, a quick exhalation and stamp like a pouty child, then put his head to the right and spoke into his walkietalkie. And then grabbed for me again. His platinum blonde partner had somehow materialized beside us and tried to grab me from the other side. I evaded her hand too, saying: "I know you have to present probable cause before you do this, therefore you cannot. Do not touch me." Lucy and Sven were now shepherding me away from them. Then a second cop car pulled up and a uniformed man and woman approached in the process of putting on black latex gloves. And pushed past Lucy and Sven to extract me. Lucy's glasses were broken in the process.
They pulled apart our circle and somehow plucked me out. I was brought down to my knees, but I got back up. Each was trying to get a leg out from under me, not realizing that they were rooting me with their combined weight, so much so, they were falling over each other trying to do it. Then more weight was added and I went to all fours. Excruciating pressure was suddenly applied to my neck and armpits and I fell onto my face. They were still trying to get my arms behind my back, the left side by thumb manipulation, the right by force. My right shoulder was taking all the weight. My legs had somehow been pinned, then a hand came down on my head and I heard a crack against the pavement. A knee came down on my back and the strength faded from my arms, they came round like toffee. My neck was pinned, the weight of the assailant pushing my chin round. I was starting to get dizzy. My wrists were cuffed, and then my legs. I heard someone ask, "can you breathe?" And I couldn't say no. I literally couldn't say no.
This query made me focus on my breathing and my breathing alone. I was held there for what felt like a while. I regained my breath and told the man who had my throat that he was hurting me. He didn't budge.
I'd repeatedly asked "why?" and asserted "you have no right unless you give me reason" during the course of the whole event, which could've been eight seconds or half a semester for all I knew.
Then I was repositioned and I saw the maelstrom. Everything seemed a bit achronological and I reasoned I'd either been concussed or throttled out as I couldn't really comprehend what was happening. The street was cordoned off, gaggles of ogglers all stood watching down at me stoically. Cop boots marched past in all directions. I could hear Lucy's voice somewhere, but couldn't see her. I saw Sven getting directed into a cruiser. Then I my vision tilted as I was lifted to my feet by the handcuffs. I took the opportunity to look around, to look for friends, to look for sympathy, to just make eye contact, to see if I could tell what the DJ was playing at the Green Room, to see if I'd urinated or anything. I just needed my bearings. About a dozen cruisers and minivans gagged the street. Then I was thrown into the back of a cruiser, the seatbelt pulled across me and I was left there, I guessed at the time that it was to psych me out somehow. But I had no idea why.

At first I laughed a bit, looking at my situation. I still hadn't been given a reason. The cuffs had made my hands numb, and the manacles (I later asked a cop if they were called pedacles) just seemed absurd. I popped the seatbelt and looked through all the windows. I could see Lucy, I wondered what had happened to her pink wig. And where had her glasses gone? I tried to get her attention, but she couldn't see me. So I counted the cop cars. Ten that I could see. This is just a stupid waste of resources, I thought, and beat my head against the window. The cops were all leaning against the cruisers, and a few came over to peer in. "You still have not declared yourselves. I want to talk to the supervisor." They jeered and I started crying again. "You have no idea what you are doing, do you? You inept fucks! You are obliged to let me know what is happening." One cop, member of the glove-squad said "stop crying" and plugged in my seatbelt again. I immediately undid it. It was all I could do.

Time passed, and then glove-squad guy got in before his partner, saying "Shut up, bitch" as he sat in the driver's seat. I was quiet at that point, saving my water, and so I said: "What did you just call me? Did you just call me a bitch?"
"I don't understand you" he quipped.
"I don't understand you either, maybe because of the cock in your mouth" was my awkward and ungainly reply. "So if you don't understand me and I don't understand you, I will not be speaking to you at all. I will be speaking to your partner."
He rounded to retort, but he was chided by his partner in French. He winced out the window.
So I spoke to her instead. "Nothing has been explained to me here."
"It will be," she said, and closed the divider.
"Hey, I know now's not a good time, but while you're protecting my rights, can I file a report for a bike that was stolen a few days ago?" No response. But it lightened my mood some. This whole thing was just so damn absurd. Then we started to drive away. I tapped at the window with my foot. "Ey, wat are you doing?" Said Cockinmouth.
"Can you please tell him that I'm waving to my girlfriend."
"Stop dat!" He yelled.
I did, but only to sit up to see if she'd heard. She hadn't. I watched her as we left. She seemed distraught.
For some very peculiar reason, I didn't feel quite as lonely anymore.

TBC....

semidiotics

as yoinked from the BBC

My bike was thefted...

my right pant leg flies at half-mast for thee...

what to do in a hostage situation

the most frequent question i get asked on whomunculus is 'what do i do in a hostage situation?' and each time i stress that of foremost importance is that you don't let the victim see your face and to make sure that you regularly apply deodorant to the detained's top lip. Right Guard is the sensible choice if you reside anywhere in the Eastern Bloc; Old Spice if you are a United States Armed Forces officer posing as a black-ops insurgent; and a urinal mint if you are a cop (i don't want to make this too complicated for you, but the top lip is usually right where most people's moustache isn't, just above the bottom lip.)

other important considerations follow:

1. Don't state your demands on your blog, commentor's witticisms will just exasperate you. For example, 'no more reshelving fees at Blockbuster' might be confused as political activism, and that's obviously not why you're doing this... remember, political activists are bad people, while you're just a modest kidnapper with a fervent belief system and a questionable taste in attire. If you do, you might not be able to demand a plane to fly you to Lima, because you'll've been placed on the International No-Fly list, and won't be let on-board. Besides, Blockbuster will find you. Meanwhile, the comment's might get off-topic, such as attempting to get you to relinquish your hostage or by using potentially hurtful language, or, most likely, just talk about their own hostage-taking experiences and how they failed and were sentenced to work at Blockbuster to learn how to hold someone hostage successfully.
2. Don't let your boyfr-... I mean hostage... watch anything other than what you want to watch. and if you do, tell him it's stupid. Don't worry, Stockholm Syndrome will confuse him into thinking you had an equal relationship. "I know sometimes I was the kidnapper, but I miss watching America's Next Top Model with you soooo much. Since my remote-control finger atrophied, I need you baby... I mean, I miss you, faceless aggressor with the considerate backhand." Also, hog the popcorn bowl.
3. Make sure you laugh at your other hostages' jokes more.
4. Upon request, loosen only the most useless bonds. "I took the apron off you, didn't I? Next you'll be asking me to use the glue solvent on your nostrils. WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!"
5. Continue life as normal. If no-one sees you for a while, they might think that you're too busy kidnapping someone to hang out. "Ever since she started pistol-whipping that city-worker in that abandoned grain-silo, she just hasn't found the time to send me a Superpoke. That slimebag's really been the worst thing for her." Pet dogs outside the photocopier's like you're not a kidnapper. Wear a different coloured balaclava when you go out so that no-one makes any undue correlations.
6. Use the Globe and Mail's newstype for the hostage note so that the authorities think you can be reasoned with. Don't use the National Post's, they'll think they'll be able to send in an unhousetrained golden retriever puppy or budgerigar or some other commited NP subscriber to negotiate with you.
7. Make sure to split the cost of the day-time minutes you expend on the hostage's behalf with them. If not, at least use it in your next argument. "It was 33 cents to call the electrician in to exchange the electrodes. Don't think I'm not counting the tax. And I've no idea how to split the advanced 911 accessibility fee."
8. No field trips: that means no zoo, no black-light bowling, no cocktail parties... Possible exception: you might want to 'invite them along' in order to use the commuter lane such as when picking the gags up from the drycleaners, or to return the Babysitter's Club books you've been reading out-loud to show that you have a delicious sense of irony. Say 'we never go out anymore' once you get back home.
9. Blame all your farts on him. This goes without saying.
10. Make waffles one morning, and make him eat them all, saying you're not hungry but implying that you feel he thinks you are fat.
11. Read your own horoscope aloud. Then read his, but make it up: 'you will be dropped off the end of a pier encased in concrete up to your elbows. a small article you thought lost will be returned to you tomorrow. lucky numbers are: YOU'RE FUCKED!'
12. Don't be too hard on yourself, its tough going living with anybody, let alone with a helpless prisoner lying prone in a corner covered in their own excrement. If you have difficulties today, just remember, tomorrow will be brand new. Get up early, stretch a bit, kick the detainee in the groin, go water the plants... take it step by step, you know?
13. Consider bio-sustainable or 'green' hostage-taking. It's a little more expensive, but you'll feel better about leaving a smaller footprint on the planet!

This comprises just the smallest selection of criteria you should try to meet in a hostage situation. It can also double as a list of successful parenting/keeping-alive-the-romance tips.

nightling

perhaps around us, linked by some softly crackling oneiric thread, there are those who counterpose others' dreams. on the cirri of the dream's milky table, the redreamer will see what the dreamer forgets: the redreamer the dreamt-of to the one, and the one the dreamt-of to the redreamer. two subjectives assembling a conjective. i'd like to think, that tucked behind sleeplucent walls, asprawl sweat sweetened sheets, that sleepers form a quiet quilt of images... flickered one to the other and more, meeting gently in the night to form dreamscapes, bobbing ebbed and flown together, in complement.

i've been calling on older sources lately, to help me peer around a monolithic case of writelessness. can't even scribble notes for the shadows it lashes out. i woke yesterday, from a fried chicken induced nap, to look up the petrified lightning that once seemed so prescient. called fulgurite, after the latin, it consists of fused-glass sky-roots left behind in sandy areas after lightning. it can be triggered by the amateur meteorologist with a bucket of sand, a long spool of wire and a charged rocket. but i think the make-up may be different, as true fulgurite is hollow, like a vent-worm's tusk. it can't truly be replicated. and so, to dig through the deserts and high-bluffs and to excavate the old lightning's molds seems very telling to one so uninspired (fallen from the height of it? or just unimpressed?). i must go back and reveal the evidence, retinal echoes just weren't enough. i need that fulgurite. i hope unearthing it doesn't untether the heavens. pull on one stitch and you'll pull on them all.

pretty funny

statcounter's 'keywords used in search engines' that brought the querent to whomunculus... now printing these could set off a perpetual search engine feedback loop...

bumpy skull
greek word planet
chantal's stained glass
chainsaw mishaps
thales tale
spine wave fuck the company
michelle o'brodovich
planet greek word
greek word planetes means
chubby
foreskin, biggest,
greek word that means planet
the word planet comes from a greek word that means
the name planet comes from
prehensile toes
consciousness and thermodynamics
word for wanderer
marbles in foreskin
powaqqatsi, pronunciation
pore on my ear
axe commercial porcelain
10 things about me
russian tickle torture
tom jarjour photo
the word planet comes from a greek word that means:
staggers and jags origins
lenny kravitz swearing
adopt-a-word
the oddest person ive ever met
cancer i mean children
why are skulls bumpy
stm tickle monsters
maskadon
meaning of the carcass by charles baudelaire
dorset's motto is 'who's afear'd'.
greek word for planet
the word planet comes from what greek word
becky stage

groan shot

Frozen pizza. It has been on my mind a lot. I've been paying attention to the fluctuating prizes of the readily available commercial grade frozen pizza, and I should mention that now appears a good moment to buy in bulk. Delicio just SLASHED its prices, and a pizza offered at the previous price of $8.49 is now attainable for the dimunitive one of only $4.99. HOLY SHIT-SOCKS, you say? Gross, I say, sensible shit should really wear nylons for the obvious advantage that fleshtones would present, and also for its swingability.

So, with the over-cooked efforts of someone who's been thinking of blog material all day, I offer some alternative uses by which you can use frozen pizza to ameliorate the tedious human condition people are condemned to (ending on a preposition is like a lizard's tail-stump sucked on).

• TIMER: nail the frozen pizza (the crust must NOT be precooked) above an ON lightswitch, when it thaws, it'll turn off the light.
• THUMB STRENGTHENER: place your fist on a table, place frozen pizza on your thumb, lift pizza with your thumb. repeat. [NB: start off on a simple pizza, like four cheeses... within a week you'll be ready for the Deluxe.]
• CURRY-STAIN REMOVER: rub frozen pizza on affected article until the curry stain magically disappears.
• SHOWER-IS-TOO-HOT/COLD PROTECTER: have a frozen pizza handy for those moments when you hear your neighbour's flush. ha! foiled!
• SERVING DISH FOR PIZZA: oven-fresh pizza ready? no implement with which to offer it to your guests? use a frozen pizza!
• WEDGIE DETERRENT: how can Tyler Radmeister give you a wedgie if you've got a frozen pizza in the way?
• DRIVING ARM-TAN PREVENTOR: preheat pizza on sun-warmed dashboard to allow some flop to develop. put floppy pizza on arm nearest open window (usually the left one).
• FRIDGE MAGNET USER-UPPER: too many latent fridge magnets? use them on a frozen pizza.
• ECLIPSE CREATOR: why wait until the day after an eclipse to realize you missed it... again? eclipse the sun with your very own frozen pizza and then inform others that they missed it. the dicks.
• SNOW SHOES: put snow in your shoes and then, with both hands, hold a frozen pizza above your head and yell SNOW SHOES!!!

and now onto something completely different... today I walked along Ste. Catherine to do a 'tween-class perimeter check and saw a sight most peculiar... some bespectacled old dude was on a street corner using a stair-master. garbed in gym wear, I honestly thought he was raising money for the derelict pub he was exercising in front of, until I saw the popped trunk of the cab parked beside him... then the story materialized: it was a bored cabbie, who, concerned about his health - or trying to work off the viagra he'd been popping recreationally - doing cardio on the street corner! it made too much sense to be funny. 'can you take me home? and step on it!'

Kung fu monks outraged over ninja remark.

Giant wasp nests perplex experts.

Giant spider webs baffle experts.

Bush porn picture.

Reptile Posh already caught him though.

Crab.

• Father Dougal McGuire might also be called Ghostbuster as he makes the 'meeaw... meeaw' sound of the stationwagon. That or Peter Venkman.
• My good friend was telling us that his lab coworker grows foreskin in a tub. A foreskin. Just one immense foreskin. The donor might now have the largest foreskin on the planet, albeit decapitated. We tried to come up with possible commercial uses for it. Or any use at all. Coinpurses? Skin-tight yoga pants? Alternatives to plastic shopping bags? Biodegradable/edible murder weapon? Detachable turtleneck? Baby sling? Goes on really... The potential uses are limited only by the size of some guy's foreskin. There should really be a service that helps reunite people with their biological foreskins.
• My sisters house in Victoria recently got raided by a SWAT team. Well, raided is unfair, more like infested: they used it as a sniper platform to contain some unruly neighbours who were waving a BB gun around. Someone in the local area had been shot and the police went bonkers. My poor sister came back from her day-job, which I hear is pretty intense and scarcely rewarding, to full-body armored adrenalin junkies with tactical weapons setting up Field Operations in her kitchen, probably watching Entertainment Tonight and eating the catfood.
• Speaking of police, somebody I know just called the cops on me. They asked if my name was Warren (even though they had my ID that states pretty clearly that my name is Thomas) and checked my arms for hypodermic scabs. They actually paused on a wincy kitten scratch, saying: Dat der, what dat der? I explained the situation, that the lady who called me was just as responsible in the incident as me. After the inquisition, they took a shine to me and were extremely sympathetic to my position. I actually felt protected for once. I hope they come back, as I need 3rd party arbitration from this person's unreasonable accusations.
• Anyone know where I can buy some adult-sized Heely's in Montreal? Oh, nevermind... just found out: http://www.heelyscanada.com/
• Also, this movie really impressed me... Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon ... kinda fell apart at the end, but hey, at least it went meta. Or morelike, started meta and then fell to constraint. A very clever, unbelievable concept.

swearwords... not just for fucking assholes

ok, so what the fuck is up with swear words? i remember hearing my first in-song swearword (Lenny Kravitz's "Mr Cabdriver"... Mr Cabdriver, fuck you, I'm a survivor...) and freaking out. i thought that was the coolest shit ever. i remember the first time i got told off for swearing (such a nipple twist that one, i was watching Aliens at Marc Guillet's house and Sigorney'd just taken the flamethrower to the Queen's eggs and was trying to get out of the terraforming factory before the fusion generator blew with the pubic-lice-to-the-Nth-degree looking Queen on her tail (pretty bileraising scene and totally swear-worthy) and i commented on it: 'that mother looks so pissed off'... Marc Guillet's dad bollocked me: no swearing in my house tiger, and i asked what? what did i say? and he said pissed was a swearword. and i was like no fucking way, you dirty french dick discharge. not really. i said. oh, sorry, because i was actually pleasant in those days. thing is i'd learnt all the plumper, more poignant words from his own son, Marc, who could've gotten a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts for his ribald loquaciousness)...

swearing welded my puberty together. it was literally an oath, a ward of protection, a structured and gassily semantic frame for a scream... nicely packaged format for angst... it seemed the most appropriate form to express my pain and hurt this overcooked shit-pie my world seemed to be... when my parents divorced, we took to swearing avidly around the house... my mum was fine with it, actually revelled in it, i believe, colouring it with more creative adjectives than i could muster at that point. finding out she could strip the mussel's from a cargoliner's hull with naught save an oral flourish impressed the everliving shit out of me. i was like 'fucking right'. and started calling her maw instead of mum, like how i imagined a trailor park kid would call his mum when finding the finger he'd blown off his brother's hand the week before behind Uncle Duke's stereotype... "fuck maw! gitouthere... Mullet just barfed up the rest of it..."

and there's wider patterns to swearing...
remember the 'douchebag' fad that stormed through public awareness a few years ago? people were like 'Bono? that guy's a douchebag...' and 'redouche, reuse, recycle' and 'Sup, douchers?'... ad nauseam... it was incredible, perhaps because it held its valency, like the 'retard' wildfire that'd ripped through the planet a few years before that. the phrase 'retarded douchebag' is still pretty funny, even though it don't mean shit and we're all a bit desensitized to them now... maybe that's even why these things are funny? i mean, really, what is a retarded douchebag?

so now i query and prompt for the latest swearwords out there... any new euphemisms you know of? want to just swear in the comments? at me? at some prick you know? go on, let's pretend swearing is cool again, like we're on a grade 8 field trip to Sault Ste. Marie with fuckwits for chaperones again... my maw's cool with it and shit, don't worry...

for inspiration:
THE BIG LEBOWSKI - THE FUCKING SHORT VERSION

The Deluge...

As I see it, the world could be better... here's my list of how:

• Wireless could be routed through yours and other people's laptops, recreating the web instead of relying on the lockable single central server... Strengthened by numbers, it would be free and more easily sustainable... if not, the central tenets of the Internet start to erode... This is my current current...
• Batteries could be way better. And mobile energy sources are now creating the biggest lag-time in technology... invest in that now and you'll retire unwrinkly...
• The personal SONAR helmet... see in the dark, underwater... this could be available now, so why isn't it?
• Developers holding on to vacant plots (levelled buildings, gaps between housing rows, old tenements slated for refurbishment etc.) could be petitioned, with reduced land-tax as incentive/collateral, to allow impermanent homeless shelters to be erected in situ... This would engender some sense of proprietal engagement for the homeless; give them an address (if they want it); obviously allow safety and involvement; be a place to commune and recollect... Unfortunately, due to the degree of mental imbalance amongst the disenfrancised and the leery approach the Authorities take towards street-dwellers, this happy refuge could too easily be warped into a place of unofficial internment... so volunteers and ombudsmen would be needed to orchestrate and manage each site's balance... anonymity be permitted, regional political suffrage be established... etc...

Also, people who read this and care, should attend here or visit there...

dogs, logs, bogs, loose cogs, no frogs and a cat: a blog

So this installment'll be more like the sauce-splattered post-meal placemat than a dish of edible food... I'll try and give it legibility with time-estimate annotation...

Tuesday 14th, 6pm EST... NORDIA Call Center...
Tapping happily away at work, relaying deaf people's conversations when...
-"Thomas Corcoran?" Says a lady dressed in a Trinity-esque pleather suit holding a clipboard...
-"Yes?" Says me, muting the call... Call ends so I hang-up...
-"Come with us..." "Us?" I think, then notice the hulking behemoth with axe-blades for hands guy behind her...
-"Ok... bring my stuff?"
-"Yes"...
That's how my employment was - and they used this word - terminated... I was too tardy for their liking and so got pushed out by the numbers (they also unionized lately, putting the pressure on the peeps in probation... before 3 months, you'll get canned so you can't enter the collective bargaining process that they're so deafly afraid of...)

6.05pm, bike rack outside of NORDIA
-"It turns out I can come to the cottage this week! Best day ever!!!"

9.30-10pm, Bark Lake
-"Ahhh, I'm at the cottage. Thanks Rob Mason, you're my hero..."

Wednesday 15th
Sailing in a Tasar with 2 of my favouritest people ever, in shards of golden sunshine on a summer-simmered lake...

Thursday 16th
Ate a lot. Talked about going to the Spa in Mount Tremblant. Didn't. Bought $500 worth of beer, groceries and beer. Ate more. Pet Maverick the dog. Slept like a Bedouin prince.

Friday 17th
Sanded the steps to the dock... Sailed, smoked a spliff and then SAILED, feeling everything: the curling fingers of wind, the swells licking the center-board, the hum of the mast-stays, the resistance of the tiller... became the boat... Made a burn-pile/bonfire a la the Inquisition. Watched stuff happen. Helped make stuff happen (weekend's mission was to straighten the boathouse by repairing its founding beams) Ate lasagne. 3 helpings. Garlic bread. Salad. Chatted amiably with the hosting family.

Saturday 18th 9ish-noonish AM
Watched two 40 plus footer cedars get felled by chainsaw. Carried them back to the cottage via swamp and septic field.. 'Hid' them from the Lake's biggest squealer who was round for a visit. Ate bacon.

noonish - 8pm
Helped raise a boathouse. Cut old wood. Started my first chainsaw. Pet the dog. Carried logs. Nailed stuff. Removed nails from stuff.

OK THIS IS CRAZY, SOUNDS RIDICULOUS IN THIS MANNER. THE ABOVE IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED BUT A LIST OF WHAT HAPPENED...

cutting to the quick here... there was a cat that apparently wandered out of the bushes... kinda gawky spring-born juvenile cat (5-6 months?)... needing a home... so i opted mine for at least the time being... he's a darling... black with a little priest's collar on his neck.... and we're trying to generate a name here... so here's a few... what do you think?

Corona (pronouced, co-ro-NAH... after being transported back from the lake in an empty 24 of corona... also means the ring seen around the sun during an eclipse - perfect for his african canadianess - also related to the CROWN)

Limerick - (word that got stuck in my head this weekend... but James is looking for a name for his bike and i though Limerick'd be more fitting attached to that... so I suggested it there)

Priest/Reverend (I like that one... call him Revvy...)/Dougal (from Father Ted... you should watch Father Ted... it's funny britcom humour)...

So right now, I'm leaning towards either Reverend and Dougal (especially Dougal)... any suggestions for an awkward cat with a big purr and loving tendencies, black coat with a punched-flat looking nose and a white little bowtie on his collar?

blogging pushups...

Rejected Children's Books manuscripts (because sometimes taking advice from them is like taking advice from your highschool guidance counsellor):

"The Ocelot, the Crone and the Hutch with the Everything-Drawer... You know, the one with the broken headphones, lost Risk pieces and your uncle's old speedos in it..." by Perry Sprayberry

"A is for Assault-Rifle" by Magnus Flexor

"Hector the Myopic Groundhog and his Magical High-Fives" by Llelowyn Glanddisorder

"How to draw... blood" by Porty Dubai

"Helen the Anxious Porcupine and the Too-Tight Spacesuit" by Lynn Onwelfare

"How to be Awesome" by Captain Awesome

"The Adventures of Grumbles the 9-Volt Battery" by Tom Corcoran

"The Continuing Adventures of Grumbles and the Carbon Monoxide-Detector of Doom" by Tom de Plume

"Rigor Mortis and You" by GSL

"Hippo Displacement" by Lavender deMentia

"Why Your Parents Have Broken Blood Vessels on their Faces" by Yo Ma Ma

"Barry Blogger and the Philanderer's Kidneystone" by Sue N. Ilecountersue

"Texas Hold'em and Why You Don't Have Any Toys" by Maxim Magazine

"The Forest Bunny Senate's Amendment to Chapter 7, Subsection F, of the 3rd Charter of the Statute of Glee-Rights" by Someone Who Thinks About Bunnies Way Too Much

"Tumescence" by Correspondence


Ok... I really could go all day. I feel ill though, so I will stop.

the small/medium/large is the message

oh packaging and presentation... how you've left our planet discholarated...

i intend this entry to be all about the cats i know.

when youtube initally swept through and caught people's fancies, i remember ____ telling me how she got bored and went looking for videos all about cats. it made me laugh to think of her typing 'funny cats' and 'silly cats' and 'crazy cats' into the search field. but then, one day not too long after, i closed the drapes or angled the screen from the rest of the cafes view, turned off my phone and, likely blushing, commanded youtube to bring me videos of 'funny cats'. i just did it again, but this time just had to type 'fu...' and 'funny cats' automatically appeared in the search field. so i thought i'd share a few personal experiences of 'funny cats' with you...

Marbles, so named for her mottled turtle-shell and big eyes, was a little cat with big dreams. and an even bigger temper. and she'd stalk around our backyard in Oakville, her pride keeping her dismissive of any human activity... a bit of a thug she was, arrogantly patrolling the perimeter with disdain. one day, after a rainfall, she concentrated her prowess on the pool-area, (we once had a freakin pool!) leaping up the ladder of the slide in two bounds... but she overshot her landing at the top, and slipped onto the slope... for some reason it was timed so well that we were all looking at her when she did it. her paws splayed in front of her, trying to stop the inevitable, she made a pathetic mewl and then went very uncat-like into the pool. we fished her out, not too quickly mind you, and she skulked off for a pout somewhere. perhaps the most embarassing part of the story is that i wrote a poem about it for my grade 6 english class (i was in grade 6, ok?).

Cricket chirps when she's happy. and she likes warm spots. and suckling on wool. and sitting in the sink. and sitting on top of things. last winter, ____ and I were in the middle of a 72 hour Civilization 3 binge (we consulted each other about most everything, setting up impromptu war cabinets with each other etc) with Cricket sitting on top of the monitor for days at a time. halfway through, probably at 4 in the morning, she came back from a litter-scrape and made her way over us and prepared to hop back onto the monitor. she misjudged the firmness of the surface she was jumping from and launched herself at the screen itself, barely managing to get her paws over the top edge. she plastered herself to the thing as ungainlily as a pie in the face, waiting for about 20 seconds before letting out the most pathetic little mew i've ever heard. it was likely the first time ____ or i had blinked in about a half hour... that really cracked me up.

Ziggy has a foot fetish. Domino/Sushi/Fidel quacks when she's happy (the chillest cat ever). Steve's friend Chantal's cat has a really small head. Gribbles has an attitude and sleeps in the bathroom. ____'s neighbour's cat gets stuck on the flyscreen. Their downstairs neighbour's cat wears wifebeaters occasionally. A cat broke into my room last year and I caught it chewing on my dirty laundry. Brian's cat Scar needs anger management coaching. Graham's cat once returned with no fur on its tail. Chewy once ate Sammy the Ferret's tail. Sammy the Ferret once dragged Chewy behind the couch.

Ok, I'll stop, but I must close with this picture..

Another typical day at work...

Just to jog your memory, I moonlight as a relay operator wherein I type what I hear and voice what I read... this service is ostensibly for the deaf...

Caller: Operator, I am calling in sick at work. Please dial the USPS...
Operator: One moment... (thank you. dialing number)
Ringing 1...
2...
[Automated Machine]
Operator: Please enter your United States Postal Service Employee Identification Number...
(entering number provided)
For status of vacation hours press 1. To provide a reason for possible absence press 2. To hear a list of...
Caller: Press 2 pls.
(pressing 2)
Operator: For absence due to... Illness, press 1. Emergency, press 2. Community Disaster, press 3.
Caller: Press 1 pls.

The call went on a bit longer, the machine prompting for dates and shift times etc. (wherein it became evident that you could call in sick a week ahead...) But my perplexity stops at the pithy phrase Community Disaster...

First... they imply that you have to call in if you have a community disaster. Assuming that would be in your hastily sketched list of priorities... "Oh fudgeyfingers! The reanimated corpses of the Jehovah's Witnesses have trapped us in the cellar and there's me leaving my cell phone in my other pair of slightly-less-soiled pants. How am I possibly going to inform my work about my impending absence?"
Can you imagine getting called on that by your Team Manager? "Well Todd, we're very sorry about the cyclone and all but we did provide an opportunity to call ahead and let us know. Help us help you Todd."

Second... what in the name of Zeus's foreskin IS a community disaster? A rained-out bake sale? A blackout during American Idol? I can just see a Postman telling the operator:
Caller: Press 3 please operator.
(pressing 3)
Operator: Please state the nature of the community disaster after the tone (beep)
Caller: Say Me, motherfuckaaa!!!

Tickle Monster

So I'm researching a story by entering "Tickle Monster" into search pages, and other than being marginally titillated by the hits that come up (from fetish sites to mommy-blogger posts), I am also stumped.

I KNOW that there's a russian tickle monster myth out there somewhere, but I just can't find it. I get returns on Tickle Me Elmo (which I remember thinking 10 years ago would be funny if there was a Tickle Me John Paul II), the differences between knismesis and gargalesis, why it is impossible to tickle yourself (efferent and afferent nerve synchronicity), tickle-torture, kinship bonding, foreplay and combat. And these are well and good and feed 'the source', but I really need the myth to draw upon...

In the meantime, here's some etymology for both of you...
tickle could've arose from middle english kitillen which could've giggle forth from old norse kitla...
and then there's the clitoris...
Greek verb κλειτοριάζειν kleitoriazein "to touch or titillate lasciviously, to tickle," but that could also be taken from the greek noun for 'little hill'...

now to approach the idea of tickling again takes on a curious dark overtone: there's a fine line of consensus in tickling... people moderately like to be tickled, associated as it is with youth... but people like to tickle more, and they generally like to tickle 'downwards' = older tickle younger... but then what does this say about the gender divide? statistically heterotickling happens more than homotickling... and when polled, guys liked both to tickle and be tickled more than girls... some researchers link it to phylogenic behaviour of learnt combat, but codified by the heavy panting sounds associated with rough-housing that have been ritualized into vociferous laughter... and tickle-mobs readily happen, one person being the bladder-strained victim while the others chant 'tickletickletickle'. and sometimes just the chant is enough to make someone squirm.

ok, i'm way above my head here... i can provide information on the tickle poll later if its needed...

weary repose... pound for pound a hammer is the tool most economical

this summer is a strain. i feel diplomacy dissolved by lactic acid wracked muscle groups resulting in severed social ties. and the bitter sense of betrayal it promotes. the ebb and flow of creative tides, the warp and woof of life beyond the maniacal 'me', with scant time to sacrifice a few gizzards to. a physical landscape harried by staggeringly poor reconstruction. unending pennilessness. a deep hollow of missing friends and lover. a carpet of sharded mirror-glass, razors of future. it goes on.

but there's shoots of loveliness peeping through the entropic fields. snatched moments in transcanadian bbqs and long-distance party-parties. oases of pool dips. herb gardens. meandered strolls down the alleys. the rain. and the glory of others' efforts... loopy's opened a blog which i can't help but whoop over: www.thinkingintype.wordpress.com. baby's got blog!

whoop.

as junk as a drudge - the mortal coil

So I was thinking today. And for some reason it was the phrase 'the lord only knows' and it made me think that really, the lord only knows what the lord only knows; and please note my judicial use of lower-case here, because then I came over with a queasy palpatation, as when I repeated the phrase, the capital L started encroaching a little.

I think that if we each truly had the capacity to judge our self we would have a workable moral system. But we can't, so instead we have to resort to some inherited ethical debate still rooted wholly in loose-jointed theology and revised animal-husbandry (read: religion as reframed pastoral institution). Join in. And since the democratization of the individual has - through all the corollary capitalist schemes riding pilot-fish - reduced us to base units of personality, the most pernicious of philosophical problems (for all our fleshy bits, we're the least corporeal of units).... we are at immediate and consistently imminent conflict with ourselves.

Because the individual is not fit to judge her or himself, almost by definition (how can consciousness see consciousness, cause what then does the seeing?), then each needs a judge (why is a judge needed?), but if noone is fit to judge themself, then who is fit enough to judge others? I'll be damned if I tackle THAT heavy-breathed subject here (perhaps literally), but I do kinda want to use the question to bounce off of radially.

I would like to review 2 posts ago... this guy's the limit... as that's really what all of the above is about, a postamble.

It was warped and reactive. Warped because it was based on a particular perspective, twisted by brooding doubts and the self-righteousness that they yield. Warped because of the emotion that bore the post into postage... a perspective that feels 'right' because of its experiencial power-mass. Warped because, well, there's no way to argue, because after all, that's how I felt.

Reactive as it was because I felt threatened. By others and then by myself. It was an induction of the pointy end of self-preservation. Not physical self-preservation, but worse... self self-preservation. This found readily in the post's tone of victimization. Which I guess makes this post rereactive. Because really, I know I have people in my life who have faith in me. Well they simply have faith and choose to have me in their lives. Who give me love and safe harbour. Who I respect and know respect me. Who sometimes I post for.

The 2 comments to that post I couldn't agree with more: i) that failure is a self-fulfilling prophecy ii) that thoughts are tangible (what in god's name are you blathering about? i'll string this all together right now...) and iii) that agreement is needed. And I totally agree! So much is self-fulfilling, the first-person is all prophecy... but if it weren't for other people would you ever know? Thoughts are tangible and tangibility is thought, but how would you know? How do you know when inspected doubts (life would be a waste without their dutiful inspection) begin forging what you see? And become being evident in your personality?

In lieu of being able to judge oneself, and with the corner-of-consciousness wherewithal of wondering if anyone else is fit to judge, and the sheer common sense not to go to the authorities about it... what do you do? You place yourself with people who will ride the tension of agreement/disagreement with you. Who check you and who ask you to check them. Who will assist you in judging yourself and need the same from you. And you gotta agree to let them... Ok, now I'm just muddying the spokes here.

This is all to say, I'm sorry. In This Guy's the Limit I was at the mercy of my own judgement, and emanated it as if I were origin. Onto others. It was the bluster of a hay-pitching hero. I leave it because it's been helpful, but really I'm quite ashamed. I was weak and I was weak.

To get back at the skirted Absolute, I do believe that if a common vision, perhaps one even quite small (like a meme or CNS viral parasite), were to infect the entire planet, then we'd be able to do it. And that's exactly what we're trying to do. And the lord only knows we've tried before. No, I think I can admit now that I believe its the ethical imperative that we do share vision. I don't think we'll be able to leave this planet before we do, and that would be the saddest thing in the world.

I'll probably retrace this post in a few days too.

wouldn't it suck if every time you started writing an email an animated paper clip popped up and said: i see you're writing an email! and blinked and then wiggled a prong at you? i think it would suck.

this guy's the limit

am i that infuriating? when i know that consciousness is a time-machine that has no idea where time goes to die. there are some occasions that open you, as if you find yourself the cumulating cloud run into the catalyzing pressure system that blows you up or down or adds one speck of dust too much to break the membrane and cause you to unleash the massed group of agitated ions... and the fury persists, each rumbling, sky-churning bolt lashing down one at a time.

when all you are and can be is conceptual, and then you get accused of it... there's nowt of substance, that it feels like lip service to speak of your future, and how you see it... tell me, how does one manifest? really, i need to know. it's very important to me. have i failed me? is failure a curse, a gallowed thief bound to eternal neck-taut resurrection? the moments when you're most vulnerable is when they pounce. never. and never again. i now choose martial arts of the mind to contain and project. to take you fuckers out.

when all you want is someone to write to you. to think of you. to understand. to send a coded message that only you can decipher. and this elaborate place of receptivity, or support and empathy proves to be undone casually and at stride. becoming the most material and superficial and fickle-bound of structures. a house of tarot cards. contain yourself and preject.

what do i want? someone who'll finally take the time to let me learn, and teach not preach. someone to respect and respect me. harmony. love. i want to be able to dream with someone else. to feel like i can become my own twin. i wish to correct this planet. i wish to provide haven for me and my closest. to teach others how to do so too. to live on a boat, a vessel, an accepted place to chart madness and build back from there... to form life. i want to write and to create from there. i want to collate and build a graphic novel, i want to help plan the construction of bio-sustainable environs. to help dredge the harbour so the storm-weary can finally dream and repossess enough of themselves to do so to. to see the importance of such. to say: it is horrific. you have yours. i have mine. horror.

the horror starts in my fridge. in my gut. in my bed. in my arms. i can hold you if you choose to hold me too. i am tired of being undone by those i put my faith in. i am poor. i am ok with it, i can weather it and form from it. i don't choose to be poor, i just am right now. and i won't be in the future because i will learn and gather and work it away. i am a slow crab, i feel deeply and tend to relay by eduction not by direct expression. if you can't handle it, if you don't feel it, it is no fault of either of ours. it just isn't. think away... it's what i'm doing...

The Sky's The Limit / Hyperion

Abstraction: Was gonna post a page of a sci-fi novel thats really striking me.. will, but, first must say thank you to Ann, for much and much more, but this in particular... the bandied phrase The Sky's The Limit... this, in regards to what we were talking about at the time, is too good to let go. This will be the name.



Further into the abstract... first my first real haiku...



be yond the be yond

me the you and you the me

yond be the yond be

Excerpt from Dan Simmons' Hyperion

"

The twentieth century's most honored writer, William Gass, once said in an interview: "Words are the supreme objects. They are minded things."

And so they are. As pure and transcendent as any Idea cast a shadow into Plato's dark caves of our perceptions. But they are also pitfalls of deceit and misperception. Words bend our thinking to infinite paths of self-delusion, and the fact that we spend most of our mental lives in brain mansions built of words means that we lack the objectivity necessary to see the terrible distortion of reality which language brings. Example: the Chinese pictogram for "honesty" is a two-part symbol of a man literally standing next to his word. So far, so good. But what does the Late English word "integrity" mean? Or "Motherland"? Or "progress"? Or "democracy"? Or "beauty"? But even in our self-deception, we become gods.

A philosopher/mathematician named Bertrand Russell who lived and died in the same century as Gass once wrote: "Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it." Here is the essence of mankind's creative genius: not the edifices of civilization nor the bang-flash weapons which can end it, but the words which fertilize new concepts like spermatoza attacking an ovum. It might be argued the the Simamese-twin infants of word/idea are the only contribution the human species can, will, or should make to the raveling cosmos. (Yes, our DNA is unique, but so is a salamander's. Yes, we construct artifacts but so have species ranging from beavers to the architect ants whose crenellated towers are visible right now off the port bow. Yes, we weave real-fabric things from the dreamstuff of mathematics, but the universe is hardwired with arithmetic. Scratch a circle and (pi) peeps out. Enter a new solar system and Tyvo Brahe's formulae lie waiting under the velvet cloak of space/time. But where has the universe hidden a word under its layer of biology, geometry, or insensate rock?) Even the traces of other intelligent life we have found - the blimps on Jove II, the Labyrinth Builders, the Seneschai empaths of Hebron, the Stick People of Durulis, the architects of the Time Tombs, the Shrike itself - have left us mysteries and obscure artifacts but no language. No words.

The Chinese poet George Wu, who died in the Last Sino-Japanese War about three centuries before the Hegira, understood this when he recorded on his comlog: "Poets are the mad midwifes to reality. They see not what is, nor what can be, but what must become." Later, on his last disk to his lover the week before he died, Wu said: "Words are the only bullets in truth's bandolier. And poets are the snipers."

You see, in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was made flesh in the weave of the human universe. And only the poet can expand this universe, finding shortcuts to new realities the way the Hawking drive tunnels under the barriers of Einsteinian space/time.

To be a poet, I realized, a true poet, was to become the Avatar of humanity incarnate; to accept the mantle of poet is to carry the cross of the Son of Man, to suffer the birth pangs of the Soul-Mother of Humanity.

To be a true poet is to become God.

"

BB Gun

i AM being targeted at work. somebody in our 12-storey building toots in the elevator just before getting off, cunningly trapping the putressence in the elevator for the next unwitting fool. effectively me. the elevator arrives, i get in solo, a button IS pressed, the doors close and... rauncho. then, inevitably, when i get to the lobby, there'S a gaggle of elevator would-bes waiting, most of whom i work with, and they get in unaware just how much they'll be gaggling, and leaving me with the onerous odorous-anus onus. this has happened twice and i've had enough. but i don't know what to do. except this. blog. and perhaps plan my own revenge/problem to escalate (elevate) the situation unecessarily. i'm talking flaming paper bag here. or pointedly dangling an air freshener in the middle. or finally constructing my idea, patent pending, of the fart-tracking goggles and tracking that impenitent squeaker down. i think that would make some secretary's day, having some ghostfartbuster come into the lobby and head straight to her boss' office.

considering it has been a whopping 3 weeks since i've squatted over this page, you'd've thought i'd've come up with something a little worthier of blathering inanely about. and i haven't at all. um, the grammatical liberties the deaf take is about all... actually, you know what i do find very interesting IS that (i might BE wrong here, as this IS hearsay, but i do know this of arabic too... so its not that big a leap of credibility here) ASL has no verb To BE. existence IS taken as a given. i know that doesn't mean that inexistence doesn't exist for them, because i'M sure that that's all they here (ok... that's a weak pun + a mean spirited joke... nice). but the ramifications on languages that DO have words that act to confirm something's existence ARE incredible. ramification IS a funny word. also, would not BE, in all its glorious and morphologically wacky oddity, also BE a preposition? (a wee aside here... i personally believe that prepositions define and even determine mind. i'M not sure how quite to relay that, at least, not now... but that IS something to get back to for a later date) um, where WAS i? ok, i AM a dork. i went back and changed all the BEs i could find while the idea WAS interesting to caps.

perhaps our unconcious overusage of the word BE has over confused a few things, philosophically speaking, or even allowed the hyper-real a litle too much access to us all. perhaps, like all concepts, it WASn't a problem until it WAS. now defend yourself, think about what it is to BE. hamlet out.

Strangers are Truer than Fiction

I work at a call-center that processes operator-assisted calls. In a nutshell, I speak whatever people type to me and type whatever people speak to me. I am a voice and conduit, my head a resonance chamber loaned out for the conversations of others. The company's contract encapsulates the entire United States, so my ghost gets to travel, haunting various terminals, injecting.. I get insulted, praised, ignored, patronized, bullied, beguiled and humored in drawls, brogues, nasally honked whinnies, shuffling consonants and lassoed vowels.. I am a temporary organ donor and sanctioned eavesdropper, a windowlicker and string-wiggled appendage. A vociferous prosaia and choral echo to narcissisms' gall. And all this is housed behind a confidentially agreement I signed to protect the privacy and security of our guests/hosts. However, I can speak anecdotally... provided the IDENTITY of the client is not compromised... So here are some of the more unbelievable snippets I or others have had to say or type, that is, either experiences of mine or my co-workers... and to make it funner, I will fabricate a few examples, see if you can pick them out... Please keep in mind that I've only worked a week so far and that we are obligated to repeat everything verbatim...

- Our chihuahua puppies have had an allergic reaction to the vaccine... they are all swollen... my husband is rushing them to you...
- He just hasn't been the same since the place-crash...
- Sperm monkey!
- Do you ever jump off Jetskis for fun and just float there?
- Dude, you is buggin...
- Have a blessed day...
- I cussed a lot today. [Well, the lord forgives all, but you must repent.] - I'm kneeling right now...
- The car must have tilt steering so it doesn't rub against my belly...
- The operator says that there's the sound of a baby gurgling and laughing in the background... who's making all that noise back there? [Er, that's my father] - HAHAHAHA LOL!!
- I am a two-pump chump...
- All I is is sex to you...
- They charged 28,000 dollars on a gas-card... those identity-theft people ruined our life...
- Pig-humping sperm monkey!
- The reason it was funny was because his head was on fire... you get it, right?
- Hello, I am Mr. Stickrod...
- He is a tool! [A tool?] - A tool! [A tool... a... tool...] - A TOOL A TOOL A TOOL!!!
- Operator, can you leave a message like the axe commercial... you know, biaow chicka wa waaaah!?
- Lv this message: 'najp igoogigoo nyama-nyama-nyam-nyam tittitty booboobeboobubbba!!' Tnx.
- These operators are fucking idiots...

But how can you blame us?

Mind the Business

Its a few weeks until Facebook reminds me of my birthday and it correlates closely with a mean material aquisition streak that I've been enjoying lately... So I innocently post things I want to aquisite here in the near future (whistling adorable innocence)... this is the wishiest wish-list of all time...
houseplants (palms, creepers, fruit-bearers); vibraphone; windchimes; microphone; digital camera; aquarium; a frying pan; a plot of land; career; amplifier; a motorcycle; a haircut; a dog; long bedouin-esque tent material; rooftop access (and license/permit to rebuild); a cruising boat (a small wooden cruising ketch'd be awesome, yawls strike me as ugly); a beefier computer without screen issues (my screen is red right now); a nice scar so i can tattoo it (only way i think i'll get a tat); a toothbrushing tutor who teaches me how not to fleck the mirror; a longbow; climbing harness and shoes; scuba gear; a cerebral implant allowing me to actually learn other languages...
So I'd better start saving... I think I'll start with the houseplants, camera and aquarium... haircut'll have to wait...

The above picture is the cover of a comic I downloaded called Shaolin Cowboy... it's gruesome and hilarious, pointless and fantastically illustrated. I'd recommend it. (I've got a collection now... other recommendation include some of Oni press: Spooked, Borrowed Time, Wasteland... Two called Steampunk: Manitmatron & Steampunk: Drama Obscura... Alan Moore's From Hell... The Filth by Grant Morrison and Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Tragicomic...)

The Mighty Post of Boredom

If I were a fictional prepubescant child with a name like Edgar or Reginald, I'd be bored enough right now to qualify for the locating of at least 3 fantastimagical kingdoms in various articles of furniture. "Wow, theres a transdimensional rift into a land of sentient and happy single-serve vanilla puddings hidden here in this recycling box!" (yes, recycling boxes do constitute furniture at my place).

Perhaps its not rightly boredom, but more an escapist reaction to my evil step parent, _______, which makes me be employed. I eat microwave dinners that leech plastic into my soul, swipe cards in doorways, crave stimulants (even Valium would be an upper), get grumpy at inanimate objects, start glowering at people and generating irrational and fairly arbitrary dislikes of various traits of coworkers:

[I dont like him he sounds like a speak 'n' spell][her elbows are ugly i bet theyre sticky i will give her a wide berth in the cafeteria][his eyes are shifty hes the type to fart in an elevator]...

I think I am just really tired... Lucy left on Sunday to summer in Toronto with a job that was so perfect for her it seemed custom tailored to the cut of her psychic disposition, and she's overjoyed to be back in proximity of her sister and best friend Liz... really makes me miss Becky... makes me wonder what I'm doing here and makes me wonder what I'd do anywhere... sometimes I feel like I have the goods, a certain flair for things, enthused and buoyant... at other times I feel like all the angles of this city carve me down and gouge my senses... my truest are scattered across the globe, somehow with the money and inclination to travel, to live, to project...

Someone I met yesterday gave me good, if not stoned (?) advice: "don't work too hard, or else you'll die before you die" ... thats never really been a problem for me before, in all manners of speaking, the biggest problem for me is being able to project past the immediate point of contact. I believe that in "our" culture, there is some pressure now for guys to be dude-like, that is adaptable, and girls to be self-rather-than-other oriented, that is adapting... this is a gender schism, and while I basically agree with self-centering habits -and realize that we all opt and act at the leisure of our own decisions- our silent habits are approbated by those around us (those that influence us the most)... next thing you know, you are caught as the mooring rope between the dock-cleat of 'who I am' and the cruise-ship stanchion of 'who I want to be'.



Everybody is lonely... but how can this be? I type out background noises (I put them in brackets) at work. This apparently helps facilitate the conversation between the typing and speaking parties (I am a relay operator), but I'm seeing it more right now as capturing an obscured and near-poetic glimpse of habit... I write things like (sound of accordian in a hollow place)(door slamming)(windchimes)(a background conversation about mashed potatos)... It is one of the more beautiful aspects of the job, other than knowing that about 1/10th of what I do is actually helpful and chips away at peoples monolithic stores of grasping loneliness. So I am going to buy a little fish and put it in a creched tank and contemplate existences possibly lonelier than ours...

Green Space 1

This page needed some green, as I needed to practice some custodial and archival skills for a minor alley-way project I've endeavored to begin for years... here's one of the first installations...

rue Rivard x Roy/Marie-Anne

picker flicker

recent randoms:
- cucumber plants enjoy accelerated growth with the occasional sprinkling of 2-day old beer

- i have a compulsive and barely restrainable need to tell people about boogers, i actually noticed it when i caught myself REACHING UP TO A STORECLERK'S NOSTRIL, unconsciously it appeared i was compelled to remove it myself.. i should watch out for that (i was disciplined for such behaviour back in kindergarten)

- i changed my 'potential' dj name from Robotommy to Mangleloid... not that it really matters

- would anyone suggest a photo manipulation software suite?

- volunteering is one of the most direct actions in which you can positively involve yourself in yourself (and claim it as self-determination)...

- silk blouses billow the most when you ride a bike the wrong way into traffic

- absence and presence are ambivalent in each other's absence_presence

- some 'comics' suck, others will warp the way you look at reality... and the only way to know (other than by others' commendations) is to read them

- and, sadly, another to the blogbituary: methesequel.wordpress.com... dashes to dashes, dots to dots, RIP... miss you... T