Apology

sorry, i can't help you

let me forward you to my supervisor
see the next available teller
we don't have any more of that in stock
move along, nothing to see here   
all events have been canceled 
we're closed 

Nothing Something Everything: Overture

Note: The following tripartite prose poem takes place on three parallel tracks (Nothing, Something and Everything) which one may read in several sequences:

A. From start to finish, including each track (as in a traditional poem)

B. One track at a time (i.e. only italics, standard or bold)

C. Two tracks at a time (e.g. standard and bold but not italics)

D. Repeating some lines, skipping others, reading backwards, etc. (for complete reader control)

Overture

This is about one thing, one thing that we don’t have a word for

You need three angles to describe this one thing

The answer is somewhere in between

Nothing & something & everything

Something & nothing & everything

Everything & nothing & something

Separate & at once

Each existing at once

Everywhere & at once

Pressing against each other

Codependent, defined in opposition

If not for the others, all would fall

Three tangled strands in one ball of yarn

Three streams in one river, not together and not apart

There are two sides to the same coin & also a bit in the middle

We move circularly, simultaneously, paradoxically

Three. The balancing act. The most stable of structures.

Nothing Something Everything. The history of the universe.

Everything Something Nothing. The history of me. Why go on?

Something is in here, after everything & nothing

Read between the lines

It’s hard on the eyes and the mind

Just bear with me

Pause to mull

It’s unreadable. It’s unlivable. And yet I lived it.

You’ll just have to trust me

Go digging

Don’t start here because it looks like the beginning

Glance anywhere & get something

Anyplace is as good as any

When you meet someone, you can’t go back to when they were born

Like you could pick out any memory & learn who I am

So dance to the beat of your own conundrum

You move sideways & backwards in history though forced forward temporally

Feeling around in the past for clues to the present

The mind fills in the gaps

We don’t know what we’re doing

A jigsaw has no objective beginning

We are a process, a never-ending middle

A person is a jigsaw never finished

& one day we’ll realize we’re all part of the same puzzle

We replace pieces & scribble over pieces & lose the pieces we’re looking for

Walking the length of the razor-sharp edge between perfection and oblivion

Playing with pieces selected by life and finished by death

& we dance on the blade of a jigsaw

The straightjacket's coming back in style

Insanity is in this season---

---because we all know, while there are many ways to go crazy, there really is only one to go:

In style!

Juxtaposed Politeness

A Conversation that Reads like a Cut-Up but Actually Happened

A & B pass C & D in a hallway. It is evening.
A (to C): Morning.
C does not respond.
B (to D): How are you?
D (to B): Thank you!
B (to D): You're welcome!

Somewhere, somehow, somebody's wires got crossed.

I blame society.

Addendum to previous

I did not mean to suggest that that was all there is.
There is more.

Emotion emerges.

This is how we create life

Log = word, thought, speech
Logic = sequence of facts, arrangement of circuits, proceeding automatically in a series
Automatic = self-acting
To program = to outline a series of operations to be performed
Reproduction = to copy & pass on information
Communication = to exchange information
Log on = to establish communication

A complex, interrelated series of parts.

A human being.

A computer.




I programmed this poem.

A butterfly flapped its wings

A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A butterfly flapped its wings. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. A brick wall. 

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

If I ever get my PhD, my thesis will elucidate the Jester to Jerk phenomenon in pop culture: the inversion of harmless, unassuming goofballs into cruel, embittered assholes, as demonstrated by comedic actors who play both sides of the coin.

To wit:
- In Freaks and Geeks, Martin Starr plays sweet, kindhearted, mentally challenged Bill Haverchuck. In Party Down, he plays caustic, cynical & cranky Roman. The former is a guileless geek who feels no shame that others label him inferior, the latter a nasty nerd who looks down his nose at everyone---everyone, that is, who would look down their nose at him. Whereas Bill seldom explodes at the unfairness of life, Roman is ever-seething at iniquity.
- On BBC's Jeeves and Wooser, Hugh Laurie is Bertie Wooser, the dumb, wide-eyed protagonist, perpetually exploited, yet always willing to be used for the greater good, the status quo or the love of his friends. On House, M.D., he is the titular epitome of rudeness, crassness & genius. Their mental & physical* appearance could not be more dissimilar. Bertie trips over himself as he dashes to help others; House lurches off in the opposite direction or pushes obstacles in their path.
- In The Lady Eve, Henry Fonda is a scatterbrained but chivalrous heir obsessed with newts. In Once Upon A Time in the West, he is a sadistic, calculating gunslinger who kills men, women & children.
- In Caddyshack, people avoid Bill Murray because he is a moron. In Groundhog Day, people avoid him because he is a jerk. Both are self-absorbed, but the latter actively pushes people away.

The difference between Jester & Jerk is razor-thin. You only need a little push to go over the edge. 

*Played by the same actor, I know, but I'm talking about facial hair & dress.

The Tyranny of Images

Reality is too banal to behold.
Images are easily consumed. Shat out. Recycled. 
(Text is distinctive from other images. You see the words but you think their idea.)
Cinema is crass. Hypnotically so.
Why film that tree? Why this tree, of all trees?
(The same could be said for whatever you see, anywhere. This screen. This room. This world outside.)
The ideal is better than the reality. All of the potential realities together are better than this one reality alone. Why this: the worst question because there is only this. 
The eye does not edit.
Film is inescapably insular.
(All art is.)
Filmed objects appear to move. Too often we mistake movement for actual movement. Actual movement flows, whereas frames are fundamentally chopped; the static masquerading as dynamic.
We mistake film for life because we see movement unfolding. We see something moving & so we believe that it happened.
Sound & vision are two separate channels. Should they remain separate?
When we can do too much, we do too much.
Silent film, uncorrupted by words, stripped of color, elevated by music, cast in emotion. Primal. Strength through simplicity. 
But a camera should move. A person must move, swoon, dive, turn, crouch, spring, spin, burrow, dance.
Images dance on (our) heads, press (their) boots on (our) brain, & we stare up at them (with our) eyes unblinking & we call the dance pretty but we can't move. Numb & paralyzed & we can't move.
,,,,?,,,,

Phase-sing

Music for 18 Musicians and more:
Reich is pure movement. The joy of discovery transcends the clarity of composition: Thinking becomes feeling. The beginning contains the end but extrapolation surprises: The reasoned becomes the spontaneous. Organic.

In The Cave and others:
Reich makes the unsung sing. He kneads out the melody & key. He finds the music underneath.

Electric Counterpoint and elsewhere:
His pieces extend in chronos (quantity of time) & deepen in kairos (quality of time). Engaged with time & yet timeless. Point & counterpoint. Harmony. Synchronicity. Symmetry. Divergence & convergence. Permutation. Growth. Swimming, dolphins through currents. Submergence & emergence. Renewal. Energy. The flow, the change, the interaction, the variation. A better world to live in, where chaos turns to order but remains in beautiful flux. 

Colors flutter through skin

The cliche is that Bowie is a chameleon; the myth is that chameleons change color to fit in with their surroundings. 

In The Book of General Ignorance, John Lloyd & John Mitchinson write, 
"Total lie. They change color as a result of different emotional states. If they happen to match the background it's entirely coincidental. Chameleons change color when frightened or picked up or when they beat another chameleon in a fight. They change color when a member of the opposite sex steps into view and they sometimes change color due to fluctuations in either light or temperature."

In this way, David Bowie is totally like a chameleon: shifting in response to an alarming environment.

In an interview in 2003, Bowie said,
"My entire career, I've only really worked with the same subject matter. The trousers may change, but the actual words and subjects I've always chosen to write with are things to do with isolation, abandonment, fear and anxiety---all of the high points of one's life."

Perhaps the only sane response to excessive stimulation & rampant alienation is constant change. Splintered by schizophrenic reality, you hurtle through a flurry of hues, shapes, textures, belief systems, philosophies, movements, hair styles, costumes, literary modes, sexual orientations, technological innovations, on the search for peace amongst the pieces, only to discover that your skin was yours all along, channeling the flux inwardly, constructively, to combat the anxiety of external disorder.

The placement & coloration of his eyes, too, evoke the chameleon.

More informative chameleonic fun from General Ignorance: 
"A chameleon's skin contains several layers of specialized cells called chromataphores---from Greek chroma (color) and pherein (to carry)---each with different color pigments. Altering the balance between these layers causes the skin to reflect different kinds of light, making chameleons a kind of walking color wheel...The word chameleon is Greek for 'ground-lion.'"

Gauging our position with the power of song

Music is the most enjoyable standard by which we judge ourselves. 

A song is a moment extended, reproducible at any moment---dips on the long timetable of your lifespan (if we were drawing this, it would look like notes on a staff).  

Compare yourself to the person you were at first listen. The song doesn't change, but you do. (You may find new corners to turn within the song, on a deeper layer down, each time it unfolds for you, but you know what to expect.)

Whereas people change (or stay the same in a different way), making perfect timing between two people impossible (well, any kind of perfection is impossible---but you can get to some very nice things that are imperfect yet correct in their own way), CD, tape & vinyl are set in stone.

Does music degrade? What is the half-life of a three-and-a-half minute song? Can you sustain that peak level of enjoyment for the rest of your life? Or does the melody coat itself around the perimeter of your head like wallpaper (as with all comforts & luxuries, fading from our perception)?

We may ignore a song, but it's always there, waiting to be appreciated, even (especially) when we're distracted to do so.

Songs are wiser than we are.

In Transit, to, Somewhere

Words are a public transportation system that you get on when you are a young child & it takes you where you need to go, fast, & you may see something outside the window that you can't get your lips around, but it's all right, you're safe inside, & you can point out the window.

These words never vibrated. I never spoke, spokes on a wheel that turned a cog in your mind. What was changed, when these marks were made, I made not a whisper, not a shout, nothing moved in the air other than the friction of fingers over keys. 

I know why my recording career never took off---I didn't understand that all rooms have a sound, a feeling, & I was content to speak into a microphone [in that one room] or play a synthesizer that never really made a sound, never really vibrated: rock 'n' roll, jazzzzzz, POP, these are sounds, & they need to be released. A synthesizer synthesizes but you need something to start out with, something real, something that actually happened.

Then you can change it.

Searchers

The ones who are searching are the ones who have given up what they had; e.g. apostates (abandoned the comforts of their original religion) & Americans (abandoned the comforts of their original countries & cultures).

Searchers strain for something that may never be. 

Why not take what is?

Searchers turn their backs & walk but may yet return the other side.

Prayer App: Downloadable Deities

- Download the god of your choice for Mac or Windows (Linux version coming soon)
- Send prayers through IM, e-mail, Facebook or Twitter, or use the app's special "Supplication" key (Note: Preview version allows only five supplications per month) 

- Use our thesaurus feature to select superlatives for your deity   
- To complete a worship service, cycle between recitations of praise and humility
- It's easy to change gods; just click "Convert" and export your settings
- Tag your prayers to increase traffic towards your account
- Don't forget to set your religious profile as "Tolerant" or "Intolerant"

*(Bowie quote: "I guess it's just this Greco-Roman notion of turning something  nebulous into a personification that you can recognize, like a deity. You know, back then, they would transform a set of emotions into a god. I just convert ideas into people. It's just easier to handle that way.")

Scratching a niche

Painters, musicians, artists, sculptors, athletes, sports fans, geeks, druggies, lawyers, preachers, politicians, astronauts, cowboys, soldiers, baristas, skateboarders, managers, librarians, designers, cartoonists, writers, entertainers, scientists, farmers, philosophers, teachers, personal trainers, waiters, clerks, cooks, consultants, marketers, doctors, concierges, engineers, movers, factory/construction/sanitation workers...

Where is your 
                            longing?
Where is your 
                        belonging?

Broke up with my BF Skinner

It's over. I'm through with Behaviorism.
I used to love him. Now I wonder if he wasn't just keeping me down.
"It's all reward & punishment," he would tell me over dinner. "You are not in control."
"That's great, baby," I'd say. "Are you going to finish that?"
We stopped going out anymore. The romance had died. We just stayed in & took part in psychological studies.
We even stopped having stimulus & response.
He refused to see me for everything that I am. No, he just wanted to watch me twitch my arms, blink my eyes & hit computer keys.
"My little automaton," he'd call me. He encouraged me to think of him in the same way.
But who wants to date a mindless bunch of motor functions?
His reductionist approach reduced our relationship to nothing. In the end, I just found him boring.
Even though I'm enjoying being single, I'm excited to get back into dating game.
I've already got my eye on this cute guy named Emergence.

Or, alternately...inescapably...: "Careful, you may wind up in my memory"

His shirt, worn proudly, read: "Careful, you may wind up in my memoirs." 

During memoir-ization, real people become stand-ins, shadows, wisps of smoke. 

Any attempt to provide an accurate, three-dimensional portrait of a real person in prose ultimately fails. All we can give is a shorthand.

During the production of autobiography, writers' ability to distinguish reality from nonfiction deteriorates, & they press themselves between their pages.

If they're not careful, they could wind up in their own memoirs.

X-Ray Memento of a Moment

X-ray: innocence, encrusted by rotten, misshapen, discolored grime

Grains of Sound

An exchange between two young men overheard while walking downtown: 

"What do you listen to?"*

*(Actually, what I think the inquisitor, who had a thick Russian accent, said was, "What do you listen?" which is a much different question & a much better one at that. I also suspect that he didn't know the person he was asking---just pulled up on his bicycle next to a stranger with headphones.)

He received the safe, evasive answer: "Oh, everything."

Well, yes. We hear everything. In a manner of speaking (listening), this is true.

We hear everything, though isolating only small pieces---clutching small handfuls of sand from the beach of ambiance, tones rescued or washed away by the waves---yet every grain of sound escapes our grip, to return to the cacophony where one grain means nothing but many encompass the shore. Our toes impress upon the soundscape, concretizing vibrations. Echoes.

E{{{{ECHO}}}}O

E{{{ECHo}}}O

E{{ECho}}O

E{Echo}O

EechoO

EchO

O

Photograph

Old photographs are leaves. 

We trace the subject down the bark of their history & into the past

where the branches of previous possibility appear like prints in a darkroom.

Photographs fade, just like potential.

Prose is Noise

Prose is noise
Noise is prose
Proseisnoise
Noiseisprose
prosisnois
noisespros
(pr)O(s)I(sn)OI(s)
(n)OI(s)I(spr)O(s)
(pr)(s)(sn)(s)
O I OI
(n)(s)(spr)(s)
OI I O
O I OI OI I O
O I OI OI I O
O I OI OI I O O I OI OI I O
o.i.oi.oi.i.i.o.o.i.oi.oi.i.o.o.i.oi.oi.i.o
O.I.OI.oi.i.o.O.I.OI.oi.i.o.O.I.OI.oi.i.o
o.i.oi.OI.I.O.o.i.oi.OI.I.O.o.i.oi.OI.I.O.
oioioiiooioioiiooioioiiooioioiiooioioiio
01010110010101100101011001010110 0101011001010110 
01010110010101100101011001010110 01010110010101100101011001010110
01010110010101100101011001010110 010101100101011001010110010101100101011001010110

Stymied & Astray in the Hallways of the Mind

An elegant & amusing passage from Colin Ellard's You are Here:

"As legend has it, the building where I work, the psychology building at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, was designed so that its shape corresponds roughly to the shape of a brain. Many visitors or even longtime students complain that they have difficulty finding their way about because of the lack of distinguishable landmarks in the corridors."

Do you get why that's funny? Think about it. But don't get lost.

Answered poem

Fall 2008: I moved on to poetry from pottery. I spent my days spinning clay on a wheel and filling my room with pots. Then I started to treat each pot as a poem, as a life, and what are we but vessels that hold ideas, opinions, information? A pot has a purpose—to hold a substance—but you always need an opening to get it back out again. I transfer my essence to you, but it never leaves me. The liquid doubles, flowing, over the rim of my mind, the dam of my ego. My cup runneth over, and I add more clay, more grey matter, to my self, my pot, the vessel, the container. I wonder why we’d ever need containers to survive—why not lay everything out so nothing is hidden, compartmentalized, hidden? Why not pour out our liquid into a common river and comingle, together, forever linked in chemistry by the molecules of our souls? How can I change the course of the salmon in my stream, find the way back to my course. One day I’d like to point at something and say: That is my soul.
Remove the shadows. All is light. Everything is water, everything is liquid, and once we decide that we are not under water, but that we are water, maybe we can bond in spiritual cohesion. No, it won’t be just spiritual. I think one day our water will break and we’ll give birth to ourselves. We’ll give birth to ourselves and we’ll enter the womb, forever floating, thoughtless and safe. We will be. And we will be together, without a pot to hold us.

Fall 2010: Then I was mud / Slipping, babbling, sloshing, giggling, sticking unto shoes / Joyously lapping up every drop of rain / Feeling myself flowing & expanding into the infinite // & now I am baked, I am cracked, I am formed but fragile & cold / The kiln has burned the soul & the searching right out of me / If I were mud you could bend me with your hands, we could embrace between your fingers / Our forms could meld together until distinction became inapplicable / But I am dry, I am rough / I am closer to being finished but I am further from being whole

Mell, Myself and Isaac: A One-Man Play

MELL, MYSELF AND ISAAC
A One-Man Play

A table surrounded by five chairs. This is Isaac’s mind. ISAAC #1 sits at the head of the table with a piece of paper and a pen in front of him. He glances at his watch and peers around to look for the others. Moments later, ISAAC #2 enters from stage right.

2: Sorry I’m late.

1: I better be.

2: I got distracted.

1: Were you helping an old lady cross the street?

2: Very funny. No, I was helping an old man with his groceries.

1: Ha ha. We’re such a comedian.

2: It’s one of the things we have in common.

1: But punctuality isn’t. Where’s Isaac and Isaac?

2: Don’t you want to know where Isaac is?

1: Well, I know obviously he’ll be late, but I don’t understand where Isaac and Isaac are. (ISAAC #3 and ISAAC #4 enter from stage left.) Oh, there I am.

3: Yep, here we am.

4: Sorry we’re running late.

2: No problem. Some of us just need to learn to relax.

1: I don’t appreciate our tardiness.

4: Sorry. I was talking to someone.

3: Me, too. I was talking to Isaac.

1: You could have done that at the meeting!

2: But now I’m all here.

4: Well, except for Isaac.

1: Yeah, but he’s always late.

3: Yeah, he’s always the last of me to show up.

2: So what do I say you get started?

1: Fine, we will. (He looks at his paper.) First order of business: memory recall. (He turns to ISAAC #3). Isaac, you were going to write up something about that.

3: Damn it! We forgot I was supposed to do that!

1: Well, that’s exactly the thing that I’m talking about. Our recollection ability is subpar.

3: We just don’t remember as much as I should.

2: I don’t really think that’s a big deal. I actually think we’ve got a fairly good memory.

1 (to ISAAC #4): Isaac, what do you think?

4: I think we should get a second opinion.

1: That’s why I’m asking you.

4: No, I meant someone other than Isaac.

1: Someone other than—but we should be able to figure this out on my own!

4: Well, we probably could, but it might be more fun if we didn’t.

3: Oh, we should do that other thing then. We should try to have fun.

1 (sighing): I’m not going to get anywhere arguing with myself. I’ll talk about this again when the three of me are willing to compromise. OK, second order of business. (He looks at his paper.) Nighttime consciousness. We’ve got too much of it. In other words, it takes us a really long time to fall asleep at night.

3: Oh, we know. We’re awake far too long.

1: It’s bad enough I’ve got problems of my own—I’ve got to listen to the rest of me chattering amongst myself, too.

2: I don’t like me very much, do I?

1: What? No! I like me! I really like me!

2: Are we a narcissist now?

3: Is it monotonous being monomaniacal?

1: Do I get a choice between self-obsessed and self-loathing?

2: Make that selves-obsessed and selves-loathing.

4: If we have a problem living with us, what about bringing in a guest?

1: Are you suggesting that we sublet Isaac to another person?

4: No, no. Just invite them over for a visit. The air is a little stale in here. We need to liven up the atmosphere.

2: We could use the company.

1: You can’t be suggesting that we’re lonely in here.

3: But sometimes it gets too crowded with so much of me around.

1: I can’t believe all of me are ganging up on me! This is how you repay us for all my hard work?

2: You know what our problem is? You’re a control freak.

3: Yeah! Who do I think I am? I’m not the boss of me!

2: You’re scared that we can only be myself when we’re alone and inside our own head.

4: Third order of business: intimacy problems.

2: You’re afraid to let people in because you can’t control what they think of us.

4: You can’t stand that people could think of us as someone we’re not.

1 (sighing): I admit it. All of me are right. I have difficulty being around others because I’m afraid of losing me.

2: But it’s not all about Isaac.

3: It’s not all about me-saac.

4: Other people are just as important, if not more.

2: We understand our problem. We’re scared that people will hate us.

4: We’re scared of the pressure of people loving us so much.

2: We’re afraid we’ll fuck it up.

4: We have trouble believing in us.

1: There’s too much of us to believe in.

4: But maybe if we got out more, we’d feel better about ourselves.

2: Look, we’re an interesting guy on our own, but we can’t be more interesting than the rest of the world combined.

4: It’s time to get out of our own head.

2: Clear the air a little bit.

3: I’ll go crack open a window. (He exits stage left.)

2: I’m going on a walk. (He exits stage left.)

4: I’m going to go find someone to talk to. (He exits stage right.)

1: But there’s people to talk to here! Isaac? Hello? Isaac? Where did I go? Am I still here? (He jumps up from the table.) Wait for me! (He exits stage right.)

Moments later, ISAAC #5 enters from stage left.

5: Sorry we’re late!

Curtain.

This Moment in Grammar

Conjugate:
Disconnect. Disconnected. Disconnection.
Disembody. Disembodied. Disembodiment.
Discorporate. Discorporated. Discorporation.

Synonyms:
Unemployed. Underemployed. Self-employed. Less-than-employed. Pursuing employment. Lacking employment. Seeking employment. The opposite of employed. Deployed. Open for employment. Employable. Employful. Empty of employment. Emptployed. Employ-void. Employee potentially. Employtential. Empotent. Ex-employed. Exployed. Exposed for employment. Embarrassed about employment. Emploded. Un-employded. Unimpeded by employment.

Anamnesis

I am the Houdini of memory
I bear the iron impossibility of escape
Because memory pulls you down deep into the sea, chains tight & dragging you
But the key, the metal in the back of my mouth, is forgetfulness
One day I may choke on it & die
Not from the failure to escape
But from the knowledge that trying to makes me a fraud

Low notes

I was inspired to listen to David Bowie's Low for the first time in years after reading Hugo Wilcken's treatise for Continuum's 33 1/3 series. The following are [basically] verbatim from notes taken while performing sit-ups:

Jagged guitar shreds scribbled over by sine waves
Drums: locomotion, changing phases, imploding into itself, hurling forward, swept into & swallowed by a cyclone
Motions of a rock record, but only as passage through a tunnel to altogether more interesting territory
“You” as often as “I”
Hope!
The sound of a band playing together, subverted, splintered, defaced
Hooks in service of sound, not traditional song structure
Layers built up [1. band 2. overdubbed effects 3. vocals] & then stripped back down. [Isolating the middle invents tension organically]
Apex of experimentation: Throw everything in, see what works
Plenty of previous works that were darker, grimier, infused with more self-hatred. Here, the flames of hell lick at his heels [as he runs towards the horizon]
Salvation through creation
Forged from fire
1. Speed of Life: Hurtle into positive atmosphere
2. Breaking Glass: Insular blues
3. What in the World: Loopy joy
4. Sound and Vision: Dance, funk
5. Always Crashing in the Same Car: Finally some terror
6. Be my Wife: Lyrics and music most successfully at odds
7. A New Career in a New Town: Then, finally, throw out words altogether
8. Warsawza: Hope despite desolation---the majesty of survival after devastation. Rediscovery of ritual? [Primordial, before language & meaning] Jettison content from language, substance created in the absence of objective truth (substance and subjectivity)
9. Art Decade: Decay creates art
10. Weeping Wall: Beautiful. Riding flow of melody. Voice producing sound instead of imparting meaning
11. Subterraneans: Again, beautiful

Sound and vision
Sound: texture
Textures creating pictures (vision)
Vision: foresight

{End of album; end of notes}

Blank

Allow me to fill in the blanks. 






Between being lonely & being alone.






Forgetting causes pain.






Even immediately forgotten experiences affect us & color our current state of being. 






A good day ends with a good feeling.






Listen, & fill in the blanks.






...

Worstsellers

1. Pterodactylephathy: Inside the Mysterious World of Mental Communication with Dinosaurs
2. Oedipus Wrecks his Home: Incest and Murder in Suburbia
3. Ecstasy Spot Run: Sexy Lessons in Literacy
4. Comma Sutra: New Positions in Grammar
5. Punnilingus: Pleasuring your Partner with Puns

Benjaman's Memory

This amnesic believes his name is Benjaman with an a. He chose Kyle for a surname because he was found by a Burger King & the initials "BK" stuck.

The common conception is that his loss of memory is a tragedy, but let's think of the benefits. He can be whoever he wants to be. Furthermore, he can imagine himself to have been whoever he wants himself to have been. He has cast off the shackles of the past.

But the moral of the story is that it doesn't matter who he is or who he was. He is content with his life. Best of all, people care for him, despite lacking any facts about his background. All they know is he's a fellow human being, & that's reason enough to care.

Sex on the Beach

Low

Wave

As

Tide

Arc

Crush

Hum

Murk is

Slip

Pulse

Well oh

Way vast tired

Dark rush

Um irk

Kiss lip

Pulse swell

Low wave as tide arc

Crush hum murk is slip

Pulse well oh way vast tied

Dark rush um irk kiss lip pulse swell

Low wave as tide arc crush hum murk is

Slip pulse well oh way vast tied dark rush um irk

Kiss lip pulse swell low wave as tide arc crush hum

Murk is slip pulse well oh way vast tied dark rush um

Irk kiss lip pulse swell low wave as tide arc crush hum murk

Is slip pulse well oh way vast tied dark rush um irk kiss lip pulse swell

Lowavastiedarcrushumurkislipulswelowavastiedarcrushumurkislipulswell

Low wave as tide arc rush hum murk is slip

Pulse well oh way

Vast tied

Dark rush

Um

Irk

Kiss lip

Pulse swell

Low

Wave

Chicken Colossus of Roads

Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?
A. To get to the other side.
Q. Why have you spent so much time wondering about this joke?
A. Because it seems like there should be more to it than that.
Q. Is this joke funny? Is it even a joke?
A. I'm not sure. That's part of why it bothers me.
Q. Does the joke say anything fundamental about the human [or chicken] condition?
A. Maybe something about the banality or futility of existence, about there being nothing underneath the surface. Or maybe the joke has a didactic, pro-pragmatist purpose: to focus on concrete behavior, to uphold action over thought. Or maybe something about the pointlessness of desire, about how your overall situation does not particularly change no matter the state of your circumstances, regardless of how much you wanted to get there.
Q. Why would the original writer have thought that any of those concepts could possibly produce a laugh?
A. Probably only because of the chicken. If the joke is humorous at all, it hinges on the inclusion of an animal that we as a society have collectively agreed is amusing. But I don't think I've ever heard anybody laugh at this joke.
Q. Does the joke follow any of the rules of comedy?
A. I believe that humor derives from a revelation of the unexpected, whereas this joke hinges only on a revelation of the obvious. So no, I don't think so.
Q. If one fails to expect the obvious, wouldn't the obvious be unexpected?
A. Sure. And it's probably too late to point out this out, but there is, of course, a danger of analyzing a joke to death. Any examination of humor invariably kills the comedy.
Q. So if the joke wasn't funny before, how could it possibly be funny now?
A. It still isn't.
Q. Why did you even write this blog post?
A. To get to the other side.

Contradiction = contra diction = agaist effective communication?

Is paradox a permeable threshold? Embrace contradiction --> emerge on the other side? 

Possible to get past language through language?

Let me soothe you with disorientation. Let me interrupt you with peacefulness.

Get "off narrative"?

The poetcis of typos

Imperfection is life is flow is nto stopping to fix yoru mistakes
Pure feeling, unedited, 

I turst a typo, a brust of enthuisasm creatign new combinations
This is how evlotuon works. A mutattion leading to strength, or at least an intersting abomincation

Whne eveyr littel statemetn is oen lettre off
Yuo haev to wokr a littel harder to understadn me
Btu it brinsg us closre togethre
My spellign may be dreadflu but yuo know that I maen evrey word.

I believe “I loev you” but not “I love you”
Lov is messy, emotinal
Fingrs can’t even keep up wiht the sentiment

I’ve alwyas wantde to sqyush somthing: letters, sounds, imagse, aynthing. I am tactiel.
And thsi is hwo I doit.

Just Like Honey on a Hammer

To ancient people I never met, "Mell" meant both "hammer" and "honey." This encapsulates my ideal writing style: to hit like honey. No interest in languorous-ness. Viscosity is the enemy. (Resistance to flow.) You have to flow, but flow fast, & keep flowing.

Say little, but express much. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. (Bees make honey.)

Write like a hammer laced with honey.

Your skull is melting

Inspired by the following line from this story about melting glaciers: "For the tribes that live in that area, the glaciers are the head of the skull of the god and the mountains are the arms and the legs," he says.

Today we are gods, & your skull is melting. Dwindling neurons worship you; impulses run the mountains of your legs, tiny synaptic tribes on ice sliding wordlessly into ocean. Your skull is melting, & we are the dying gods.

(By this I mean to say, we destroyed our gods, which was our right & all, since we created them, & we raised ourselves up, Nietzsche-nly, onto the old, infinite, divine platforms, but even then we did not realize that neither invention nor destruction will grant us immortality---all of us, & the universe, decay. Yes, the glacier is melting beneath your feet, but what the article fails to report is that your feet are disappearing, too.)

Honor your heroes

The forefront...the vanguard...

Honor your heroes who threw their weight against the wall.
Honor(your)heroes(who)threw(their)weight(a)gainst(the)wall.
Honor heroes threw weight gainst wall.
Hnr hros thrw wght gnst wll.
Wght gnst wll.
Wht nst wll.
Wall.

We call this a wall.

Word syrup

Word soup, weird syrup of vowels and consonants, swallow the alphabet, eat up the content.

This sentence is taking up space just to say that it's here.