my girlfriend pointed out to me the astrological fact that the planet responsible for communication and ideas, mercury, has appeared to trail 'backwards' in its orbit across the sky---a condition also known as 'retrograde' by ancient astronomers/astrologers. if the planet ruling communications and other 'mercurial' fiefdoms is appearing to move in the opposite direction, what effect could, almost logically [in a medieval way] be anticipated? that all one's communications can be botched, undone, untied? yes. no wonder my head has felt turned 180 degrees...
i don't know if a small planet very far away is responsible, but i do know that this past week had been a communications DISASTER with my said girlfriend as well as with my attempts to find an apartment at the jersey shore. other co-varying factors most surely are: the fact that i'm using craigslist almost exclusively in my housing search; that i'm searching in new jersey...after two solid months of banging my head against the wall [to make myself feel BETTER], hours of driving, being told off and blown off, this morning i've finally had a moment of closure in my housing search!
dare i share my most interesting housing search snafu?
the listing was modest and no-frills enough: share my beautiful home. large, wi-fi, your own kitchen, yard, friendly black lab, etc. i think the black lab had me sold on it before anything else. the owner was difficult to understand over the phone due to her accent [or was it mercury?] but we talked and worked out a time to see the apartment. i pull up: very nice neighborhood! grand, new house! very promising! i meet the landlady, the kids, the dog...everything great so far. the space is expansive---the whole basement floor, in fact. the landlady tells me she isn't a private person---leaving me to wonder about the significance of having said so...though the comment verged on classic-segues-into-pornography, i didn't dwell too much on it.
next day, i left a voice mail message, informing her of my decision to take the place. then i waited a number of days for a reply. then she leaves me a voice mail message, asking me what my decision is...and that she can only accept the rent in cash, being that she isn't supposed to have tenants in her house. didn't she get my message? cash?! red flags! next, i e-mailed her saying that i wouldn't want to put myself into such a precarious housing situation, in a place where i'm not supposed to be. she writes back: no one can tell me who can or can't live in my home. i want someone to live in as a family member, who i can rely on when i'm not here...[and charge them CASH for the privilege?]
translation: she wants help with her two children since she works so much....er, don't people get paid to do that, not pay to do it? after a sherlock holmes-ian line of questioning, i discover her true motivation! in the same way, my girlfriend and i needed hours of telephonic emotional archaeology to unearth what we really have been trying to say to each other during the past few days...[we're better now, thank you!]
damn you, mercury, moonwalking across the sky!
Friday, August 27, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
can run, but can't hide from the hive mind!
maybe it's just me...or my changed perceptions since having joined the 'blogosphere' in my minor way...
or...
that the decline of our higher education has hit the journalistic marketplace, to which would-be hopefuls aspire and therefore imitate...
but...
these days, at this time, i'm finding it truly difficult to read [practically] any journalism!!! mostly, i skip to the comments section of most articles. through the noise and blather and asian knockoff product spam, i can usually recognize some intelligent debate and interesting personal perspectives, which i would expect the journalism to provide. metaphorically, i'm thinking of articles as we've known them as photographic stills. the wiki [comments] appendage to the article creates a more 4d-time-based medium, say, like video...
i'll boldly venture here: metaphorical photographic stills, no matter how well done---even though they may be beautiful or accurate----can't really tell us in a comprehensive way about how we live at this moment, at this time...on the face of it, it's presumptuous that a single mind can have anything even remotely accurate or interesting to say about the multitude that is---and always has been---the american experience. even a cursory flip through de tocqueville's 'democracy in america' reveals the chaos which still defines us today. love it, hate it, or love-hate it: america's main export to the world [besides treasury notes and the military] is a barely-contained game of bloody-lipped dodge-ball!
but, i thought you just said that a single author can't say anything accurate or interesting, never mind prescient, about the american experience?!! what about that singular french aristocrat you mentioned?
well....that was soooo 1835-40....
and what about you? you are a single author, aren't you?
that remains to be read....
here i'm touching upon a sentiment about which i have mixed feelings----about the only ethos i feel in common with conservatives and even tea partiers...that i'd rather be governed by the first 2,000 people out of the boston [or anywhere] telephone book, than by the ivy-league elite that has ruled us since the beginning...
and what's the connection between the previous paragraph and the ones before that?
that i think the leaders and the journalists are way out of touch with the lives of their subjects! notice that the word 'subjects' is appropriate to both...
yes, very clever! how long had you been planning that wordplay?
not very...and that the subjects are losing interest and even becoming hostile towards their subjugators!
ha! same word root: latin sub=under+jugum=yoke. is it me or has this blog entry split into a dialogue between plain and italic fonts?
no, it's me too...
and how does that make you feel?
i'm of two minds about the whole thing...
besides that? oh, i get it...you're trying to illustrate your original point of writing this entire blog entry: about the inadequacies of journalism, politics and the necessity of honest, even chaotic, dialogue in the intellectual marketplace?
ooo, good point! in trying to grasp the multitude i've splintered off into renegade sub-personalities....mmmm.....
well, isn't that the logical corollary of what you're saying? that if embracing multiplicity, one must become multiplicitous?
mmm....that i'm suggesting a schizophrenic state is the one [or many] truest-to-reality?
sorry, i'm not taking the bait...
good. my point is proven.
or...
that the decline of our higher education has hit the journalistic marketplace, to which would-be hopefuls aspire and therefore imitate...
but...
these days, at this time, i'm finding it truly difficult to read [practically] any journalism!!! mostly, i skip to the comments section of most articles. through the noise and blather and asian knockoff product spam, i can usually recognize some intelligent debate and interesting personal perspectives, which i would expect the journalism to provide. metaphorically, i'm thinking of articles as we've known them as photographic stills. the wiki [comments] appendage to the article creates a more 4d-time-based medium, say, like video...
i'll boldly venture here: metaphorical photographic stills, no matter how well done---even though they may be beautiful or accurate----can't really tell us in a comprehensive way about how we live at this moment, at this time...on the face of it, it's presumptuous that a single mind can have anything even remotely accurate or interesting to say about the multitude that is---and always has been---the american experience. even a cursory flip through de tocqueville's 'democracy in america' reveals the chaos which still defines us today. love it, hate it, or love-hate it: america's main export to the world [besides treasury notes and the military] is a barely-contained game of bloody-lipped dodge-ball!
but, i thought you just said that a single author can't say anything accurate or interesting, never mind prescient, about the american experience?!! what about that singular french aristocrat you mentioned?
well....that was soooo 1835-40....
and what about you? you are a single author, aren't you?
that remains to be read....
here i'm touching upon a sentiment about which i have mixed feelings----about the only ethos i feel in common with conservatives and even tea partiers...that i'd rather be governed by the first 2,000 people out of the boston [or anywhere] telephone book, than by the ivy-league elite that has ruled us since the beginning...
and what's the connection between the previous paragraph and the ones before that?
that i think the leaders and the journalists are way out of touch with the lives of their subjects! notice that the word 'subjects' is appropriate to both...
yes, very clever! how long had you been planning that wordplay?
not very...and that the subjects are losing interest and even becoming hostile towards their subjugators!
ha! same word root: latin sub=under+jugum=yoke. is it me or has this blog entry split into a dialogue between plain and italic fonts?
no, it's me too...
and how does that make you feel?
i'm of two minds about the whole thing...
besides that? oh, i get it...you're trying to illustrate your original point of writing this entire blog entry: about the inadequacies of journalism, politics and the necessity of honest, even chaotic, dialogue in the intellectual marketplace?
ooo, good point! in trying to grasp the multitude i've splintered off into renegade sub-personalities....mmmm.....
well, isn't that the logical corollary of what you're saying? that if embracing multiplicity, one must become multiplicitous?
mmm....that i'm suggesting a schizophrenic state is the one [or many] truest-to-reality?
sorry, i'm not taking the bait...
good. my point is proven.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
decisions, decisions
technology/marketing has spoiled us for choice...figuratively, by, of course, offering us stunning, numbing numbers of slight variations on a theme...just try buying shampoo at your ubiquitous, local cvs. unfortunately, politics suffers from the exact opposite problem! i wish it would catch up to market economics already....yes, power relies on concentration, not dispersion...
as our attention is dispersed, so is our power....
spoiling our choice, literally, too, suits the purposes of business perfectly! by blasting us with the said options, companies can make us worse and worse at making decisions...and making the wrong decision we have to buy another proposed solution to our created problem, i.e. a product...a product always stands by, ready to rid us of our problems...
why do we seem to have so many problems? well, to borrow from my favorite adulterer of fat, ugly women: it's the economy, stupid! problems keep us trying to buy our way out of them. repeat like a gang of four lyric.
elsewhere, across the corpus collosum, i can picture an evolved future where ever-youthful, gorgeous, pale and pasty, hyper-rational beings can parse stacks of bifurcating charts of options with cpu-ease...i can picture it....but would i want to photoshop myself and/or loved-ones into this pixel-perfect picture?
why does the mechanism of choice and discrimination/discernment not seem like a muscle; that the more one 'flexes' it in a healthy manner, the stronger it gets? perhaps, the hinging, operative word is 'healthy'?! that market forces are ripping our muscles of decision-making, rendering them weaker...what would a decision gym be like? [minus the lab rats]
moral relativism wriggles in the back door to this discussion and ominously laughs, 'how do you know what's right when evil and good depend on your perspective?' let's just choose the cheepest bottle of shampoo and get the hell out of the store....
as our attention is dispersed, so is our power....
spoiling our choice, literally, too, suits the purposes of business perfectly! by blasting us with the said options, companies can make us worse and worse at making decisions...and making the wrong decision we have to buy another proposed solution to our created problem, i.e. a product...a product always stands by, ready to rid us of our problems...
why do we seem to have so many problems? well, to borrow from my favorite adulterer of fat, ugly women: it's the economy, stupid! problems keep us trying to buy our way out of them. repeat like a gang of four lyric.
elsewhere, across the corpus collosum, i can picture an evolved future where ever-youthful, gorgeous, pale and pasty, hyper-rational beings can parse stacks of bifurcating charts of options with cpu-ease...i can picture it....but would i want to photoshop myself and/or loved-ones into this pixel-perfect picture?
why does the mechanism of choice and discrimination/discernment not seem like a muscle; that the more one 'flexes' it in a healthy manner, the stronger it gets? perhaps, the hinging, operative word is 'healthy'?! that market forces are ripping our muscles of decision-making, rendering them weaker...what would a decision gym be like? [minus the lab rats]
moral relativism wriggles in the back door to this discussion and ominously laughs, 'how do you know what's right when evil and good depend on your perspective?' let's just choose the cheepest bottle of shampoo and get the hell out of the store....
Thursday, August 19, 2010
no...but seriously...
why don't writers write 'cover' novels in the same way that musicians play cover tunes? they could keep the same form in tact while perhaps radically revamping the style and 'point of view'...maybe expanding on different characters, giving different narrators a shot...foreshadowing...epiloging...think of a literary analogue of tony bennet covering ozzy's 'crazy train' or....hendrix's 'star spangled banner' from woodstock...
why the hell not?
[besides the fact of the auteur-solo-genius fortress that surrounds the act of writing which could only kill the act of making music---which is necessarily a more communal, interpersonal endeavor...]
are we still in the grip of bible-mania? that a text is somehow 'sacred'? unalterable? from the hand of god? [or king james...] not to be desecrated by the vulgar restylings [that i am suggesting]? that it's forever? immovable clay tablets for the ages? commandments for living? [i think i just heard a stone tablet falling...]
or that, since books require so much effort to read and to write, that the ping-ponging interplay of references and influences which come so readily to music, as you hear it in time, would be too painfully slow to sustain anyone's interest?
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
parking lot incident
she frightened me!
a friendly woman
who knew what
i was thinking,
without knowing
what she knew.
in the parking lot,
she said her friend
loved fish too...
almost backed over her
flattened her
like flounder...
but how did she know
and not know what
what she knew;
that i was then
pondering
sardines in a can
i ought to have bought?
distraught, i thought,
"oh, the stuffed
orange clowfish on my dash..."
so, for something to say,
i said, "so, there's
someone else?"
she replied,
"yes, and i'm telling her!"
an inner depth grabbed
by an easily available handle:
out of the fire
and
into the frying pan.
a friendly woman
who knew what
i was thinking,
without knowing
what she knew.
in the parking lot,
she said her friend
loved fish too...
almost backed over her
flattened her
like flounder...
but how did she know
and not know what
what she knew;
that i was then
pondering
sardines in a can
i ought to have bought?
distraught, i thought,
"oh, the stuffed
orange clowfish on my dash..."
so, for something to say,
i said, "so, there's
someone else?"
she replied,
"yes, and i'm telling her!"
an inner depth grabbed
by an easily available handle:
out of the fire
and
into the frying pan.
Monday, August 16, 2010
artisan fantasy
workshop dreams
grant me tools
to work on things
and not with fools.
something actual,
proof in the hands--
non-outsourceable
to foreign lands...
in corpore sano
keeps me sane.
the whole body
as embodied brain.
grant me tools
to work on things
and not with fools.
something actual,
proof in the hands--
non-outsourceable
to foreign lands...
in corpore sano
keeps me sane.
the whole body
as embodied brain.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
a spasm of poetry
home
away with your stuff!
your stuff stuffed away...
anywhere it can go,
except wherever it is...
the right to be
or the right not to be,
there is no question:
be elsewhere, but not here.
out of one's mind with
'out of sight/out of mind'.
one minds when one
is in sight, in mind.
an insight into the making of my mind...
music
we all know
it used to
mean so much more
and
feel like
the victims
of cliterectomy!
our capacity
for being moved
moved away...
like a beloved
childhood friend.
it was love
and language,
married
eternally!
and
dancing hellfires
burning
infernally
a
sound
mind
ravishing
a
sound
body...
even if...
the song's
sad:
isn't anything
so much happier
when singing?
'authenticity'
how great to all be fakes!
all equal in thievery
under the law of creativity.
the search for pure aurum
and novo ordo seclorum
makes us '49ers
on the fool's gold trail.
make an element
if you will it...
replace a fly
if you kill it...
if you will to make,
you won't!
if replace you must,
kill you don't!
away with your stuff!
your stuff stuffed away...
anywhere it can go,
except wherever it is...
the right to be
or the right not to be,
there is no question:
be elsewhere, but not here.
out of one's mind with
'out of sight/out of mind'.
one minds when one
is in sight, in mind.
an insight into the making of my mind...
music
we all know
it used to
mean so much more
and
feel like
the victims
of cliterectomy!
our capacity
for being moved
moved away...
like a beloved
childhood friend.
it was love
and language,
married
eternally!
and
dancing hellfires
burning
infernally
a
sound
mind
ravishing
a
sound
body...
even if...
the song's
sad:
isn't anything
so much happier
when singing?
'authenticity'
how great to all be fakes!
all equal in thievery
under the law of creativity.
the search for pure aurum
and novo ordo seclorum
makes us '49ers
on the fool's gold trail.
make an element
if you will it...
replace a fly
if you kill it...
if you will to make,
you won't!
if replace you must,
kill you don't!
Thursday, August 5, 2010
obamacare infographic
note to paranoid conservatives: illegals WILL NOT BE COVERED!!! i repeat, 'WILL NOT BE COVERED!!!'
Monday, August 2, 2010
boost the junk in your trunk
last week, i had the pleasure of momentarily being a man in the way most of us contemporary males miss, but could hardly admit in fluffy-white, over-processed company---both personal and commercial. to wit[less]: with the help of my father's car club which provided a lift, tools and some eager manpower, i got to replace the faulty air suspension of my 1990 lincoln town car with a relatively cheap but effective spring and shock conversion kit! see it here on the strutmasters site.
being a 'man'? yes. getting dirty and not caring. cursing [ditto]. skinning a knuckle or two [used to be an animal hide]. sometimes joyously employing brute force to solve a problem before rational detachment could even stir its toussled, [fluffy-white, over-processed] head. having a physical problem to solve in the 'real' physical world----not one that is mediated by the now ubiquitous over-feminization with its overemphasis on feelings, process and process of process...and process of process of process, etc. a typical joke about lesbians writ large in giant bubble letters across the face of our schools and workplaces.
by no means do i sentimentalize manual labor, having done many years of it [still am] myself. however, my feelings about satisfying work with one's [my] hands are persistent. these feelings could not be put any better than matthew crawford's 'shopclass as soulcraft'! these feelings inform my decision to train as a stringed instrument repair tech after 10 years as a massage therapist-----manual labor's most literal epitome! [though one surrounded by a stubborn crust of feminization and downright fear of men and 'maleness', from which i hereby declare my personal secession]
what does the continued virtualization and soft-skill-ification of the world hold for maleness? prognosis: not good. patient lost interest in the said world long ago. fails to see relevance of self to world and world to self.
for femaleness? finally time for them to be understood? and heard? to play in a cooperative way? and touched appropriately [as only someone with similar anatomy and psyche can]? finally free from oppression? not if my experiences of female bosses with female employees is any indication!!! no, ma'am!!
moribund maleness not only effects females who want to breed and/or have a relationship with a man...but also due to the fact that women have a male aspect to their psyches...well....had...past tense...we're in this together, tethered to each other for better or worse; till divorce do us part...and this separation will be the worst one yet!
being a 'man'? yes. getting dirty and not caring. cursing [ditto]. skinning a knuckle or two [used to be an animal hide]. sometimes joyously employing brute force to solve a problem before rational detachment could even stir its toussled, [fluffy-white, over-processed] head. having a physical problem to solve in the 'real' physical world----not one that is mediated by the now ubiquitous over-feminization with its overemphasis on feelings, process and process of process...and process of process of process, etc. a typical joke about lesbians writ large in giant bubble letters across the face of our schools and workplaces.
by no means do i sentimentalize manual labor, having done many years of it [still am] myself. however, my feelings about satisfying work with one's [my] hands are persistent. these feelings could not be put any better than matthew crawford's 'shopclass as soulcraft'! these feelings inform my decision to train as a stringed instrument repair tech after 10 years as a massage therapist-----manual labor's most literal epitome! [though one surrounded by a stubborn crust of feminization and downright fear of men and 'maleness', from which i hereby declare my personal secession]
what does the continued virtualization and soft-skill-ification of the world hold for maleness? prognosis: not good. patient lost interest in the said world long ago. fails to see relevance of self to world and world to self.
for femaleness? finally time for them to be understood? and heard? to play in a cooperative way? and touched appropriately [as only someone with similar anatomy and psyche can]? finally free from oppression? not if my experiences of female bosses with female employees is any indication!!! no, ma'am!!
moribund maleness not only effects females who want to breed and/or have a relationship with a man...but also due to the fact that women have a male aspect to their psyches...well....had...past tense...we're in this together, tethered to each other for better or worse; till divorce do us part...and this separation will be the worst one yet!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)