Sunday, October 31, 2010

Imagining a Beautiful Girl Named Dyslexia

Eye dew this sew I can sea ewe

Won day will meat
Four the first thyme
Won step I'll take, followed buy another
Awl the weigh two the end

Aye through these words fore yew
Due ewe like yore present?

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Beautiful Work

It's beautiful work
It's something to do
A stone thrown in your path
A cabinet to file
A libretto to write
It could be anything
Anything to appease the authoritarian part of you
But some part of you won't fall for that
And you can't help thinking
There was something else

(Half-written) Writing Manifesto

Place the description in a region, mingle the senses, synthetic synesthesia, metaphor, connections, association
A new language—a simultaneity of the senses
A whole
Run the gamut
Conjunction construction…certain words & letters as links…compound…
Words that balance between LMB & TKP
Evoke enough so that the reader completes the picture. Triangulate the position through association. You can identify the thing without describing the thing.
Pure block of text?
Why say lamp when you could say lighthouse?
Why say cathedral when you could say closet?

 How to write:
1. Find the right words—select for intent & sound
2. Put them in the right order—arrange for rhythm & precision

Intuition
Describing an image without there being an actual image?
Subtitles
To describe a thing by describing something else…this is what a metaphor does…what about evoking a visual, calling up an image, out of clusters of words
Free (?) Association (Actually expensive?)
Dense
Dictionary…thesaurus…
Meaning erased. No explanation to find.
Scannable

Plucking a word of unexpected ripeness out of its context & planting it deep within the language

Friday, October 29, 2010

/Break the Pattern/

Break the pattern
Break he pattern
The
Pattern the break
baidps fj appsssq

There is no code
But for those who figure that out
There is a prize
dkfa pijsa pq[azkjc

Break on through

(

On the museum wall, Marcel Duchamp:
"   I contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste   "

 )

Randomness

I can’t explain everything. Because that would take forever.
To know my life, you would have to have lived it. A ratio of one to one.
You exist because it is impossible to represent you in a way that is not you.
You contain so much information that you cannot be condensed.
This is joy.
(The more information, the higher the possibility for entropy)
(More information is harder to control)
Control isn’t everything
There is no shorthand for your being. You are too messy. You cannot be simplified.
I cannot describe you. I can only behold you.
No one can understand me as a whole. No one can understand you as a whole.
We can’t even understand ourselves.
& yet we feel...

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Nothing Something Everything (fragments)

I was in a bad place over the summer and I took a lot of notes. The following is only a small fraction of my output. I had hoped to turn it into something a little bit more together, but I believe that there is value to presenting it in fractured form, because let's face it, that's the form I was in: fractured. Thus, I have refrained from a major editing of the text. While I recognize that it is probably unfair to dump all of this here without additional explanation, I hope that the sooner I present this, the more time we will have for it all to sink in...

And so, without further ado, I present:


EXCERPTS FROM THE "NOTHING SOMETHING EVERYTHING" NOTEBOOKS


Full disclosure
I tried to survive in a vacuum
In lieu of everything, I tried to be nothing
I held my breath & lost consciousness & when I awoke, there was no I
Remove that which forms you & you will be formless
Kill every hornet in the swarm & you are left with air
Like shedding a succession of nesting dolls
…repeating into infinity, or nothingness?
…or are you left with a core?
I hoped to unpeel memory, identity, idiosyncrasy, to get at the core beneath
Only to gasp for breath as each disposed rind uncovered nothing, not even air
We have no core because we are everything at once
The core means nothing without the surrounding layers
Connections. Interdependence.
The layers create the core
One thing is just as important as everything else
We invent the center
Is our core nothing but a magnet attracting experiences and interests?
A pole as a point in the spectrum, determining perception
(Who wrote these words? What being, what consciousness?)
(To break out of the squishy box. Break through. Break out of oneself.)
(What would be left—a self tied to the body, lashed to the mast of a ship without a captain?)
I’ve been throwing away memories…finally I may throw away my self…
I isolated myself. I closed myself off and I widened the gaps in my self & I fell through
I must place a sign at the edge of consciousness: Go no further.
My memory has many holes
I am forgetting who I was & now I don’t know who I am
Who is in this skin?
I am a snake eating its own head. I am a snake shedding its own self.
(The self eats the self)
Will I even forget my self?
One day I may forget the last drop of me, squeezed out through a narrowing mind
I stripped away everything. Now I am barely anywhere.
Every morning when I wake up, I’ve forgotten a little bit more of who I was
(Days bleed)
and a little bit more of who I am.
I slowly poisoned my body with solitude
Sweating ideas, each bead escaping a fragment, a concept
(In turmoil)
The night I convulsed, & writhed, & lost
Lost breath & lost senses, eaten up by the mind
(I ferment)
(Nervous system)
(Divert blood flow from the brain)
(Send electrical circuits sparkling somewhere else, shuttling somewhere else)
(Tossing and turning)
I collapsed & suddenly realized I had been running
My past beat my persona into being & my present beat my persona to a pulp
I erased people/places/things; I went over & over the same material until it screamed
My drive to know/experience everything became a drive to know/experience nothingness
My body isn’t the one with the death wish
My mind has disconnected from my body (& this is not a good thing)
(Communication breakdown between body & head. Head takes control but doesn’t know what it’s doing, needs body, needs to order body where to go, but body doesn’t need the mind, but a mindless body doesn’t know it’s alive)
I blanked out fighting to fill in the blanks.
Leaping across the void, no longer lingering
Parallel facedown on barren darkness
An interloper in the palace of my mind & the intruder is myself
We can’t break out of the mind
What to clear away to get to this—raw, scary—a beating heart or a throbbing brain
The beating of the wings of a bird straining against its cage to fly away
(Words recurring, neurons revolving, writing revealing the mind uncoiling)
What is the choice? To avoid all people? To cast off life? To dissolve into thought?
No choice? We have no choice?
To read minds, to walk through walls, to be invisible.
To be not here. To be not there. To be nowhere.
I blocked your signal
I established distance
Why did I feel more within myself than I felt for others?
Now I am no one
Out of touch will drive you out of mind
I thought, if I am removed from reality, I can objectively question it
Not realizing that a self can think objectively, but there can never be an objective self
A self is, by definition, subjective
You need others to obtain your objectivity
Between their subjectivity & your subjectivity, you have objectivity
One can bring up objective criteria, but everything is processed through the self
I stopped moving. And I forgot.
I vowed to exist as little as possible. Not a vow of silence, but a vow of non-presence.
Self-imposed exile. Not only from others. Exile from the self, imposed by the self.
I wanted to take myself out of the equation, remove my effect on others. Damage control.
We are all time bombs.
Bombs, fragments, prisms, blood jewels, facets, flak, shards, pieces, parts, cogs,
(Bomb defused = suicide)
Bystanders are collateral damage—contain the explosion—
Brain exploding. What identity? Too hot. All in head.
My connections are eating themselves
Unhinged but understandable…
An explosion without direction (moving in every direction at once—burning itself up)
Big Bang; sperm hits the egg; lava birth of the island
Expanding, overtaking. No center. All points/parts moving away from each other
I am chemicals. Sloshing around in my brainpan. Tides.
(Loop.)
(Against itself.)
(An unspooling tape.)
(The guards are down)
My stream of consciousness turning to steam
A throbbing burn. If we could leave our bodies. Neuroses. Mind and body connected/flayed/splayed tightly against/to a nervous system. This all comes from the system, from connections…
How dare you call me cold—this is raw thought, these are twitching nerves
When the conscious mind works against its own will, twists
Facilitating and hindering at the same time
I did not want to be a cliché. I did not want to be predictable.
I did not want to be quantifiable & yet I reduced myself to pieces
I did not want anyone to have to sacrifice their time for me…to experience no frustration over my actions.
I will be absent. I will not change. I will remain a memory to them. Yet I forget.
When we are distracted, we do things we shouldn’t
Never dispose of the necessities
(Call me a sea squirt)
(We all have our essentials)
We may mistake a distraction for an essential or never notice a necessity at all
I wanted to remove all the distractions, but then I started removing the supports
Then the pieces crumbled, sunk away into the deep, went back to spread out
In the end, I leapt from one piece to another to preserve the connection
Now I sit on a patch of ice on the surface of my mind
Stranded on melting islands of ice in the diminishing sea of my mind
I drop my hand in the water trying to draw the ice back together
so that they may approximate for before, while still not being whole
I analyzed myself right out of existence
Wringing my twisting mind dry
Away from everyone, suddenly, I had nothing to do. The bottom dropped out.
Others help us get over ourselves
I know I’m losing it. I want to lose it in the best possible way.
I am a book. I am the story.
Trying to channel an explosion. To turn a scream polysyllabic.
I am silt
Apocalypse Nowhere—my destruction/revelation is not based in geography
(Or rather, it is based in mental geography. I ventured deep into consciousness to try to emerge on the other side)
I could hear myself think I could feel myself split
There is no unified self. I’m looking to collect all the crumbs.
I need a context…
My epiphany, post-catastrophe
Self-conception: I conceived myself?
Away from friends—unsure of their existence—and so afraid of mine
Thought of my future as my past—like there was no choice
Place should be irrelevant
Push on through break on through rubble’s on the floor maybe the wall’s the floor---what’s the gravity of the situation?
What would it feel like to go mad?
To glimpse reality—is reality too banal to behold? The magnificence of homeostasis and cycles and entropy…a closed system—which cannot transcend itself
Inhibition. Constriction.
Disconnect. Disconnection. Disembody. Disembodiment. Discorporate. Discorporation.
My self was my best friend but I got rid of all my friends, including my self
System crashed, mind forgot.
Am I coherent?
I strained for passage to unvisited skies
Spent years stretching back the catapult
And now I’m flying, flailing, falling
Is this what I wanted?
My thinking took over and strove to numb my feeling
I used to be torn between wanting to help others and wanting to be alone
Then I was torn between myself—between sanity and insanity
Turning reptilian, reclusive, remote
My consciousness played cruel jokes on my subconscious
My body gave up—seceded from the tyranny of my mind
Until slumbering deep reeled back & reined me in
I wanted to be a recluse getting my daily dose of society by hiding in the bushes & listening to people as they go by but moving away the second before I see them or they see me—bungee jumping, where the bungee cord is my depression and other people are the ground
I wrote, letting pen carry me, keeping me afloat, as perspective submerged & I observed in third person, pen snakes across the page, carrying me, carrying me, swooping across the page like an aerial attack with kamikaze inkblots, planes flown by demons, mental legs stretch and run, pens swoops down and bears me up, carries me out, scribbling, scribbling, mind a blank as pages are filled. Ink spilled and this happened.
This is how it feels to stretch yourself thin
Poured my self out and left with emptiness
Even the vessel cracked
The basest element of the self will pull you down
I thought, escape the self’s gravity & you will feel clean
Caught in orbit, or free to roam space… pulled by a strong force perhaps collapsing in on oneself…
Ink spilled and this happened
My body is a marionette and only sometimes do I hold the strings.
I’ve got demons. Might as well make my demons dance.
Twitch, limbs! Curl, lips!
I knew it was time to run when I was scared of little children.
One wrong move & you’re 80 years old alone in a sad little house on a dismal street.
I don’t have to explain where I came from
I don’t know what I am, or what I am going. Mad?
Does it even matter who I am? You either agree with me or you don’t.
I didn’t care where I came from—I thought it restricted me
Who cares where we came from? We’re here.
A concise history
(I used to be positive about everything. The best would come for everyone. Now I don’t think anything works the way we want it to…
I used to believe that everything they wanted would happen)
I like another way out. Just in case.
A backdoor out of the prison/palace of the self, an escape clause in the restrictions on consciousness.

Searching
In this jumble, who can isolate the beginning?
The beginning is hard to find. Because nothing ends?
From nothing we came & nothing we become
(They say it’s the journey that matters, dismissive of the starting point…)
I needed to leave, to see, objectively, who I was
But I was who I was with, and now they are gone
If you turn your back on your friends, you invite them to turn their backs on you
Rather than committing to others, I committed myself to the mind’s insular institution…
I followed the thread, which led me to a frayed edge
Better to buttress a self than to obliterate it—blobs of jelly can’t help anyone
Create a better person (more compassionate, empathetic)
Deconstruction at the service of reconstruction
Away from my friends, it was easier to believe they never existed
I have slid into solipsism
I retained my capacity for experience—but I have nothing left to experience
Location changed, left me enjambed
across the dark, vast continent of consciousness
imagining meaning in the absence of melody
I can’t tell if I love or hate humanity, or only certain specimens
I can’t tell if I hate the person I was or if I want to be him again
The memories in my mind resist the face in my mirror
(I decay)
I thought I could avoid choice—but this is itself a choice
Dancing on the buzzing light of a life in paradox…when everything speeds up so fast that it evaporates, or maybe freezes…enjoy the treat…
My very being expresses a giant question mark. ? the fuse to a bomb which will explode when I find out there are no answers…so I travel up and down its length to distract myself from the end…
I would be happy with a lobotomy—if I finally got that lobotomy I always wanted…
I am unfinished. I thought I could finish me, but the only finish comes with death
The best thing for me would be to like myself and respect more people
Turns out I’d rather be at peace than in pieces
Concentrated, not distracted
Not scattered, but amassed
How much can I give up, what can I give up, sacrifice…
We are not whole, but then again, nothing is
We can always advance…
There may be no everlasting peace so enjoy what pieces you find
Feeling your pulse and seeking your friends
Maybe I missed something
Maybe I need to trick my self. But where did that thought come from?
I proved (to my self) that the self cannot (should not?) transcend itself
The self dissolving itself…
I have failed in my quest. I thought that destroying my self would make me pure. I forgot that it was my self that made people respond—it was my self that people loved. Now I am in pieces, and the self I construct will be a piecemeal creature. Something in my subconscious is a janitor, forlornly sweeping the detritus of my consciousness back into a whole. Glue together the shards of a bowl. It’s a mockery, an imitation. When I am no longer myself, I cannot even imitate myself as I once could. I have failed.
The world of the finite is the world of boundaries. To exist, you need limits: shape, mass, form. It is only the separation from everything that allows you to exist. Even if the elements among everything are the same, you are a very specific combination.
Though you are separate—and though you cannot communicate with other beings on a one-to-one ratio, to know/feel whowhatwhenwherewhyhow they really know/feel—you have an obligation to help them…to try to know/feel them. Because it is better than the alternative: to disappear into the self. We can embrace others and go beyond our self, or embrace our self and devour our self.
I got tired of people. I didn’t want to interact with them anymore.
This is the reason why my identity is scattered, why I seem like so many different people
It’s because I even bore myself. & so I change myself to excite myself.
(Oscillate. Channel surfing.)
I cleaved myself from my friends
I was trying to perform the least violent act—
—to remove myself naturally. Let body run its course and mind run to…
The reason I strayed away from others was because I didn’t want to surrender my self—because I thought that when I was with others, I was not me…
I thought this whole thing was about surrendering my self.
But now I realize that I have clung ever tighter to my self. I have surrendered to my self.
This whole time that I have been lying here, I have been no one but me. I have wrapped myself in a cocoon of self.
And my self is selfish. I am solipsistic.
I never reached out to grasp anyone because I knew I would hurt them when I recoiled
Not realizing that I never had to recoil
You can be your self and be with other people. You expand your self. You open up, and contain multitudes.
I wanted to be myself, but whatever I do is being myself because it comes from me.
While playing a role is not being ourselves, the choice of that role reveals ourselves
Who you want to be is the negative space that reveals who you are
I sensed the inner argument among the pieces of my brain. I thought (and wondered who was the “I” who thought it thought) that I could easily rip myself apart at the seams. …
When is it better to bend & when is it better to snap?
…after one has torn oneself, one can begin the much-needed repairs…
Peeling back the layers…
I learned to distinguish between what was inside and outside my head, but then I retreated inside, making the point moot.
(A long adolescence)
(Extended self-discovery?)
(Or a slow death, or a drawn-out suicide—if I don’t change)
I am who I always was. Environment set off the traps inside me.
My environment allowed insularity.
You follow along a logical line of development.
I contained myself. Spiraling inwards..
Years of staying inside. Only taking, never giving. All input, no output.
If I remove the filter my input is my output
People can only see your output
What you see now is all of that input, through a thin film…
(No one cares about your input, only your output…)
Break through to the next line on the step-graph
As if I winked out of existence and back in again
I objected to dancing around the issue. I didn’t realize we were dancing around a hole, or a fire, that you can dare to dance around or leap over or come right up to, but if you dance within it, you die.
Looking in one direction blinds you to other directions.
Sometimes, skirting the issue reveals the issue
Like skimming over the surface of the water
Whereas facing the issue directly is like shooting a fire hose at an ice sculpture, where the shape of the sculpture may be revealed, but the water glances off
Looking away, you can see it in the corner of your eye
I have intimacy problems. I have difficulty being with others because I’m afraid of losing me. I acted differently with different people. I thought that meant that I was not enough/ nobody, or too many/everybody. I did not realize that any way I act, by definition, is me. I am the one acting a certain way, and so…
(To play a character versus be somebody)
I think therefore I am: unhappy? confused? aching? doomed?
I think it, therefore it is? It is, but not as I perceive?
The imperfection of perception
The terror of mental territory
Mind-expanding? No, mind-stagnating. Circular. Won’t get the answers from one’s own
mind, but rather outside stimuli (including other people). Circumvent one’s personal
filter/sieve. Be friends with the uncomfortable feeling of being wrong. Embrace it and
learn to accept it.
Can’t run from the center. You move but are always equidistant from the center. You
take the center with you when you run…you scuttle along on the (shape? Inner
surface?) of the globe…
I’m a reflective guy. I’m like a Hall of Mirrors.
(…looking for escape and seeing only more me…)
I’m out there. Anyone want to join me?
I had wondered, do we need something to believe in? Not necessarily. But we need something to serve as solid ground. When I no longer trusted in the essentiality of—
—when I no longer believed in—
—the self, everything dropped away. We need basic principles. Our perception, our filter, our hole-filled yet solid sieve, keeps us from sluicing through and splashing out into the abyssal ocean/oceanic abyss
I long for experiences during which I forget to count down the seconds until it is finished…
The ability to be, to be whoever, free of expectations and other hindrances (what about when expectations are positive? Very highly positive expectations may not help—you can only meet expectations of you that are within immediate reach)
Did I display much promise? I never promised anything. That’s why I must hide.
To avoid disappointing, I must disappear.
I have hated myself. Being thought of as perfect spoiled me.
It got claustrophobic, being in a box: people’s expectations of who I was.
(Bury it)
I failed. Raze the ground. Let no future me return to plant seeds.
I was paralyzed because I didn’t know what I was doing. Now I know what I’m doing. I’m decomposing.
Burning the soil of my self
Fertilizing with humility?
Something is hidden. Maybe the next sentence will be a revelation. Maybe this one. Or the next one.
Even if you see me with perfect clarity, there is still distance between us.
You can’t circumvent the process of learning.
In this existence, balance can only be preceded by imbalance
It is a process of transformation
You must go through all the steps
(Technically, you might be able to speed it up, but you wouldn’t be getting my point)
We’re never finished
I plan to get better as I get older
I give this to you, like anything else you’d experience, for you to interpret
For you to pick out the patterns
I wish more people cared
Increasing caring
Care
One moment. (Everything in one moment.) (All of this in one moment.) (Now imagine, all of this, in one moment.)
“Anyway,”
Stop second-guessing
Don’t be alone
Find others.
Follow and lead
Put down the book
I could be wrong about all of this
Some of this may be incorrect
Exactness is impossible
I don’t know
You don’t know
No one knows what to do
Hope and regret
What more can I say?
There is so much more to say.
The unsaid can still be known or felt.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Influenzapalooza!

Your influences
…are not enough
…need to interact with experience
…shape your aperture
…bounce off a surface, the subject
…do not exist in a vacuum
…load the torpedoes
…can be completely unconscious
…are you

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

The Commute [scrawled into a tiny notebook]

Fallout
Leaves bleed, drip like fire
Rapid transit through reclaimed wilderness
Numb buzz clung to the tin of the tongue
Low in the grove lizard pressed against the mold
Architectural carcasses, vacant textures
Mud of life scooped out in clumps
Sunset paint splayed veins of plants
The opulent helicopter from bunkers' shape of mansions
Flares of forges smoldering
Hollow old electronics howled epileptics
Houses cast dull aqua
Minor players roll like dice across a rusted table, dusting a stage
Old factory smell
Wires string gonorrheal landscapes
Emergency evacuees await secreted instructions

Monday, October 25, 2010

verbs for use in reviews

Defenestrate absorb elucidate illuminate devastate destroy bounce simulate activate adjust diminish analyze/synthesize/evaluate gather calibrate conduct confront consolidate design diagnose dispense filter expand contract figurate?! Inspire index guide thrust visualize double/triple/quadruple tabulate supply speak reduce categorize order postulate model hammer cut/slice/hack/ scratch/slash/sever sew perform pilot prescribe project shape spark comb plug shatter splinter explode confront sting squat squish touch push pour burble gush agitate slip track pulsate fuse descend blend rise repel repulse resist sizzle charge bathe place shine burn ferment ripple glow map stretch shrink nudge nullify embed sculpt chart contrast break bubble swarm adhere coagulate pollute preserve encapsulate bind archive attract handle skim revert dangle droop trap manipulate trick splash skin soak overflow swirl contain implode scratch pierce inject spray drip patch suspend release pop fly float crackle sop drain drink vomit rail sprinkle leave weave braid rest wrestle haggle nag lust wander love despise infiltrate invite foster favor swing loop restore revise reload harness collide polarize storm (a fortress) singe thresh grasp grind coil curve grow wiggle flush lift swim tread inflame strain dissemble restrain string surge scald govern stain tarnish slather glide conflate jack dowse

Sunday, October 24, 2010

"Outrage"

T h eworl dha salway sbee nfucke d.
Don' tac tlik ethi si sa ne wdevelopmen t.

S helte ri nth estor m.

I t' sno tenoug ht osa y"Id on' tkno w."
Y o unee dt osa yi twit himager y.

Y o uca nleav eth eeart hknowin gi twil lremai nfucke d.
B u tyo uwil lmis sou to nth ejo yo ffindin gou te xactl yho w.

An ytim eIo pe nm ymout hi ti sa li e.
U nti lIc a nbecom ewha tIm ean...

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Breakdown of Language Part III

Cal l i t impotenc y, a n inabilit y t o sa y wha t w e mea n
I hav e t o deconstruc t becaus e otherwis e I'v e give n u p
W e don' t mea n wha t w e sa y; w e don' t mea n anythin g

H ypocrisy i s t he t erritory t hat c omes w ith h umanity
T her e i s n o an swe r o u t he re o r i n th e re

Breakdown of Language Part II

TRAIN VARIATIONS
.
Lept off the train 'fore it came to a rest
 [held] my breath

l lept phfrum a movvng train
iY didnt reelyz it would keep movvng
EVn now with wndswept hair I brace myslf toe jump

Train n never r rested
I rolled d downhill

I i h have e a always s tried d t to o r run
C h e c k k k s h u t t t t e r r r s p e e e e ddd

W?here d?oes o?ne w?ord e?nd a?nd a?nother b?egin?
Tr_ai_n Var_ia_tions

different TrainsDifferent trains differentTrains

i can c my lungs
o sa y ca n yo u se e

tra in  var iat io ns
SP          A          CE     
O            U            T

therE iS nO languaj jin ourl lungs
Words sfollow wwords
One esound dfollows sanother rsound
W edon' treall ymak ebreak sbetwee nou rwords
bu tI haf ft ot ayk ka abrea k

Breakdown of Language Part I

Translate this
TRANSlate this
ranslae his
TRANSL8 this
trnslt ths
siht etalsnarT
Translayt thes
TrAnSlAtE tHiS
trAnslAtE thIs

Friday, October 22, 2010

Seamlessly, Seam lessly, Seem less ly

Words succeed insofar as they inspire wordless moments.
Mindless meditation
Thoughtless comprehension
A moment, an instant
A beginning & end within a breath
Passing across a given plane
Like gossamer or
String of dewdrops
So delicate it breaks itself

Thursday, October 21, 2010

.][..

.][..
b[racket.dance[.[.[.]
[...] [.[.[.
m.o.r.s]e co[d.]e b[oogie
[..][..][..]
.]2-step[...tango
.[.[][]..
[]funk][tu8n fox.trot.
]]]].[[[[... 

Titled, then Untitled, then Retitled: Tilted

Artists are accountants of accidents. Headlines they happen to see. People whose paths they cross. Songs heard as their hands turn the dial on the radio. (Anachronism.) Artists are anachronisms from the ancient future. (Plagiarism.) Artists are plagiarizers like the farmers are the tillers of the field. (Analogy to agriculture). Artists are like analogies. Artists like analogies. (Apologies.) Artists never apologize. Eyes of artists appalled by lies. Between the lines. 

Tilt.

Fake Resume

Isaac Fake Mell
3250 Faker Street
Faketown, North Fake 00000
Cell: 555-555-5555

1932 BFA in Fakeness from Fake Institute, Paris, Fake
1921 BA in Fake-ology from University of Fake, Fakington, FK

1807 Invented the Fake Telephone
1990 Received Fake Award from Society of Fakers
2073 Faked own death to come back to fake life
5 B.C. Discovered Fake Fire
2002 Became Fake Mayor


Fake References available on request
Contact fake@fakefakefake.fake

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Psychic's Retreat

the psychic left the stratosphere, moved out past the vibrations of the painful, set her rocket to low orbit behind the rings of Neptune
blocked from the subwoofing of the future, the rumbling of the slouching of the spiraling downwards, earthquakes draining clockwise
protected from premonitions, the tremors of incoming terror
the full force of the outcome of events
she floats, swimming in the silence of shadows
bathed in the vacuum---she heard them not listening
she heard the echoes bounce off back to the beginning from the end
the low tone of doom
hell is a decibel
hell is a decibel & she chose to hide out between tones
she left
she left them so that when they fell
there would be no one around to hear
her rocket, borne to the skies on the ripples of individuals' ignorance
now sits in the ink
she saw the future
& that's why she left
she saw the future
she saw them fall
but worst of all
she saw herself not save them

Sunday, October 17, 2010

diffuse

dif-fuse 1: being at once verboseverboseverboseverboseverbose and iLl-0rgAnized
2: not CON
                    CEN
                    TRA
                    TED
or localized

envelop

en-ve-lop 1: to enclose 
                                      o
                                      r
                    letely with
                    p    or as with     e
                    m   a covering     n
                    o                f
                    c       d   l   o

2: to mount an ATTACKon(anenemy'sflank)

Saturday, October 16, 2010

tenebrous

ten-e-brous 1: shut off 
                                    from the light : DARK, MURKY 2: hard to uhndhehrsthahnd : OBSCURE 3: causing gl((O))((O))m

anomie

an-o-mie : social iNSTAbILITy resulting from a b rea k dow n of standards and values; also : personal unrest,










alienation








, and ?un?certainty? that comes from a lack of purpose or ideals

Friday, October 15, 2010

cliff

                             or over                                  
                         l            hanging face of rock, earth or ice :  PRECIPICE  
                         a
                         c
                         i
                         t
                         r
                         e
                         v,      
cliff : a very steep,

allotropy

al-lot-ro-py : the existence of a substance and esp. an element in two or more different forms (as of crystals) usu. in the same phase
the existence of a substance and esp. an element in two or more different forms (as of crystals) usu. in the same phase
the existence of a substance and esp. an element in two or more different forms (as of crystals) usu. in the same phase

transparent

trans-par-ent :

ductile

duc-tile 1: capable of being dddddrrrrraaaaawwwwwnnnnn ooooouuuuuttttt or hammered th!n
2: easily /ed or /nf/uenced
3: capable of being fashioned into a new form
capabl % Bng fash~ond -> a neu 4m

glue

glue 1: to cause to sticktightly with or as if with glue
2:  to fix (as with the EyEs) on an object........steadily........or.........with........     ........concentration
                                                                deep        

deteriorate

de-te-ri-o-rate: 1: to make inferior in quality or value: IMPAIR
2: DISINTEGRATE
D I S I N T E G R A T E
D  i  S  i  N  T  e  G R  a T  e
D     S     N     T     G     R     T
 d         s         n        t         g         r
s            n            t            g              r
(-)           (-)           (-)           (-)           (-)
(           )                                             (          )
(                                                                         ) 

to become impaired in quality, functioning, or condition
to bxcxme xmpxirxx xn qxalxty, funxionxxg, xx cxxxitiox

Thursday, October 14, 2010

The secret life of a syncope

 "Loss of consciousness resulting from insufficient blood flow to the brain" (or too much?): "FAINT" (is that an order?)
Blanked out & missed something
In between frames
"The loss of one or more sounds or letters in the interior of a word"
Aphasia
Fainted & lost something
Amnesia
Becoming less
"The los  of one or more sounds or letters in the interior of a word"
Is the piece greater than the whole?
Is one piece greater than another whole?
Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?
"The los  of one or more sounds or l tters in the interior of a word"
Actors' characters have lost their memories & do not realize they were someone else---some piece of them having painted another story over the canvas of a preexisting history
"The los  of one or more s unds or l tters in the interior of a word"
Does the piece contain DNA of the whole?
"T e  l s       on     r      re s u     o  l         n  h   i   e   or     a w r   " 

Mood pools

Like chlorine into pools, spewed through pipes, vents, chemical tendrils dissipating
The long distance swimmer immersed in mute euphoria or melancholy

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Shooting blanks

A _______ draws attention to the surrounding area.
(                                                                                 )
Context determines the missing content.
(                                                                                 )
Notation for 4'33": ________________________
(                                                                                 )
A silent piano.
(                                                                                 )
We do not live in a vacuum. Silence / blanks cast the attention somewhere else.
(                                                                                 )
(                                                                                 )
(     Or the attention can dwell within the bubble             )

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

.you complete the Piece

.the piece begins after you have experienced It .let your senses absorb every side of it, and feel it all at Once .turn it over in your Mind; your mind is where it all Happens

Visions of splinters

I don't know.
Do we thrust ourselves towards & through the holes in our knowledge, like play-doh through a grate?
The more we specialize, the more we compartmentalize.
See, we can scatter ourselves, which approximates how scattered we truly are inside our heads, but maybe we are supposed to be better than how we are.
Should we be more conscious, or less?
Preserve that which is not explained. Tension, mystery, paradox. 
I'm drawn to the forest because there is still a mystery there, but not a mystery that can (or needs to be) explained. 
Yet if we stop questioning, we've given up.
We will never have a final answer.
And that's the final answer.
Language makes us stronger. But maybe we don't need strength. But maybe a life without language is a life lived in fear, made the worse because you can't even label what you're feeling fear
You either keep going or you don't. But you can go too far.

Cliff notes for this post: Maybe. But! Then again: no; Yes! On the other hand (could be), in  a way: And yet---

Monday, October 11, 2010

Variations on a Mneme

We lose our identity only if we lose our memory. Otherwise we are propelled along, tied to the underside of our "self"-imposed story. We are drawn, quartered & reassembled every second.
We lose our identity only if we lose our memory. Yet the people who know us carry a part of us with them, a copy of a copy: their memory of who they perceived us to be. Our memory is gone, but their memories of us create a kind of a back-up.
We lose our identity only if we lose our memory. If some recollections remain, we may fill in the gaps ourselves, but others may reject our extrapolation. In the previous scenario, our loved ones are free to imagine us as they remember, but if we are still alive, and act differently than they remember, then we will appear to them as the hauntings of a corpse.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Middlegame

Deep Blue sees every potentiality but the Grandmasters know tactics. There is no fun in seeing everything. There is no fun in watching the only possible outcome play out. The fun is in the guessing. The fun is in remembering & inventing tricks, schemes, strategies, histories, inversions, deceptions, revelations. Do I  do this because it is fun, or out of obligation to the next move, the next move, the next move. I feel it somewhere between the squares, in the lifting of an arm. My fingers are still on the piece.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Dancers who speak

Dancers who speak, pose for your prose
The noises you make, the speeches you choke
Without an oasis, thirsting for oaths
Too heavy to hold, overflowing the throat
Tongue pushing upwards, braiding the rope
Forming a pearl from the vocals of ghosts

Beehive Head (My Brain Is)

HORNET'SNESTBUZZINGTHICKETZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZDRONINGDOGFIGHTCANNIBALISTICQUEEN
HYPERSHARPSTINGERSSUPERTHICKHONEYZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
ZZZZZZZZZZZDOUBLEBARRELSHOTGUNBLOWOUTTHEHONEYCOMBS

Friday, October 8, 2010

Mechanic Sentience

It's not that computers reveal themselves as computers by failing to approximate the way that humans answer questions: they reveal themselves as computers by failing to approximate the way that humans fail to answer questions.

Asking someone a direct question is like firing a cannonball at the ocean: Scattered speech splashes in alarm; the question submerges under placid immaculate surface, cannonball sinking to ocean floor, black, buried, silent, but present, displacing water & the currents of thought.

Listen to machines.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Coin poem

Written & then reversed (read this forwards): 

And begin again,
I will flip,
But if (tails) I should have focused on the torso,
Heads, I win,
I always think with my head first,
Head first,
Bottom's up,
Tumbling down,
Again & Again,
The beginning is the end,
Long-playing,
Revolver,
The thought returning to where it's from,
The bullet returning to the gun,
Powder imploding,
I shouldn't have done it, I know I shouldn't have done it,
Why didn't you just blow me away with a shotgun right then & there? 

Now read this backwards, from the last line up

Nothing Something Everything: Words

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)

Words
Words are false. Words will always leave something out &
We have too little breath to speak every word at once
No one word can encompass all words
Even if we could say all the words we would exclude all the nonwords
Words leave something out & we see the shape of the something
Words create the negative space
Where is meaning? In or out of words? Inside or outside of experience?
Words create both the meaning and its opposite
There is no final word
Words were not enough to make them understand
I’m looking forwards, for words
This is the chorus
Words say nothing
Words say something
Words say everything
These pages produce nothing. They are inefficient.
Words on a page are surrounded by silence
A page is an invitation
These pages don’t work
My voice, my silence, words on a page
Given the words, you invent their message
These pages do not exist without you
If I could write these words in clay—in plastic—in wind—
Words are static on the page but shift & change shape in your mind
Why do I write about you & not talk to you?
I’m still searching for the words
Speaking in the silence
Private conversations inscribed in town squares
I arrange the page into armaments, architecture
Translate the page into being, feeling
Strokes, dots, arranged & interpreted
Words create meaning & we have to keep talking
Language, alive, an eating creature, fed by our words, & us, in self-sacrifice
How can the words so many others used before me somehow describe me?
Each word only lingers so long—the empty space must be filled again
Yet life is not filled to the brim with words. Observe the silences.
We are forced to filter ourselves into existence through a finitude of words
Written words are preserved. Spoken words expire but leave a smell.
Words leave a residue. Written words, though unspoken, echo.
I place words on a page to erase them from my brain
Words on a page make me think I have no body
We give words form to take our impression
I write to disappear, I give birth to them to die
Writing words makes me think I’ll never die
But humans & languages change & die
Words are worms in the brain
Ideas burrow further inside
& the words need us
Primed for a feast, I am host & main course
Yet you are the one who gives life to the words
Our expression survives, rising from dead tongues
Mind, nutritious mush, I am stuffed & wriggling with words
Our hands grip the tools, together, we plant the meaning of us
Others will scratch at the ground of our unintelligible legacy
& so I return to the dirt of the page to be meat for the creatures I made
& loving our sustenance we return to the dirt of the page
& mine new words from the dirt of the page

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Depreciation

There's a coin in the road but it's nobody's lucky penny
Just a testament that Lincoln's copper profile has lost its worth
"A poem is never finished, only abandoned"
Paul Valery
Abandoned nature, abandoned industry, abandoned gray & green
Abandoned people, used up but unspent
"This land was made for you & me"
Woody Guthrie 
The first stares from the undergrowth but holds up her hand when I wave
The second circumvents the fence & asks for the time; it could be anytime
"It's ten to three"
Isaac Mell 
Fallen from a pocket, pushed out of a mind
Even the bridge will leave this flat-line road, raising up & returning to heaven 
"ROAD CLOSED"
The City of Cleveland
I fail to stop to stoop to pick up the penny
Is a poem considered abandoned if it has never been begun?

The long road going around.

You connected the dots.I lost the dots.Needles to say, needless to say, need less to say.Dig its digestible digits.Aerosol, sock, comb, cornea.The condemning animal.Illustrations of the mezzo-soprano.Trilling drill.Thorn.The crossbow, the decimal system.The fishing reel, the flamethrower, the iron plow.Hot air balloons, negative numbers.Seismographs & silk.Bromthymol blue.The common muscle.

The cloud chamber, color photography, electromagnetism, fingerprinting, the fountain pen, hypnosis, hypodermic syringes, insulin, the kaleidoscope.Paraffin, piano pedals, pneumatic tires, gunpowder.The lawn mower.Vacuum flasks & wire rope.

Anagnorisis!

Comma, cutting off: limbs.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Voyeuristic

We love the characters we watch. They comfort us. But would we want to know them in real life? Many of our favorite characters probably wouldn’t get along with us. No, we can only admire them from afar—or from very, very close, as the case may be. 

We see their struggles. We watch them strive to be good, to overcome their flaws. This is a privilege we do not have with our acquaintances.

Characters on television can restore our hope for humanity…but the specimens we see on TV are special. They are more interesting than most of us, better looking than most of us, more articulate than most of us. Their lives arc, while ours putter. They are streamlined, energized, entitled. We want to be them.

Replacement

I'm not who I used to be
Each not who I used to be
Each piece who I used to be
Each piece was I used to be
Each piece was removed used to be
Each piece was removed, changed to be
Each piece was removed, changed slowly, be
Each piece was removed, changed slowly, subtly
Until piece was removed, changed slowly, subtly
Until finally was removed, changed slowly, subtly
Until finally now removed, changed slowly, subtly 
Until finally now the changed slowly, subtly 
Until finally now the difference slowly, subtly  
Until finally now the difference is subtly
Until finally now the difference is clear
I finally now the difference is clear
I look now the difference is clear
I look different the difference is clear
I look different than difference is clear 
I look different than I is clear 
I look different than I really clear
I look different than I really appear
Yet look different than I really appear
Yet something different than I really appear
Yet something within than I really appear
Yet something within me I really appear
Yet something within me measures really appear
Yet something within me measures my appear
Yet something within me measures my size
Comparing something within me measures my size
Comparing the within me measures my size
Comparing the me me measures my size
Comparing the me it measures my size
Comparing the me it does my size
Comparing the me it does not size
Comparing the me it does not recognize

Sunday, October 3, 2010

GAPSAREALL

GAPSAREALLBUTYOUCHOOSEWHERETOSEETHEM
GAPS ARE ALL BUTYOUCHOOSEWHERETOSEETHEM
G APSAREALLBUTYOUCHOOSEWHERETOSEETHEM
GAPSAREALLBUTYOUCHOOSEWHERETOSEE THE M
GAPSAREALLBUT YOU CHOOSEWHERETOSEETHEM
GA PS AR EA L LB U TYOUCHOOSEWHERETOSEETHEM
GAPS AREA LLBU TYO UCH OO SEW HERE TOSEET HEM
INFAITHINKNOWLEDGEINTHEBIBLEINTHEATOM
INFAI THINK NOW LEDGEINTHEBIBLEINT HEAT OM
INFAITH INK NOWLEDGEINTHEBIBLEINTHEATOM
INF AITHINKN OWL EDGEINTHEBIBLEINTHEATOM
INFAITHINKNOWLEDGEINTHEBIBLEINTHEATOM
INFA ITHI NKN OWLE DGEINTHEBIBLEINT HEAT OM
INFAITHINKNOWL E D G E INTHEBIBLEINTHEATOM
PUNCTUATIONIMPLIESCOMPLETION
PUNCTUATIONIMP LIES COMPLETION
PUNCTUATIONIM PLIES COMPLETION
PUNCTU AT I ON IMPLIESCOMP LET ION
PUN CTUATIONIMPLIESCOMPLETION
PUNCTUA TI ONIMPL IE SCOMPLETION
P UN CTUATI ONI MPL IESC OMPL ETI ON
GAPSAREALLBUTYOUCHOOSEWHERETOSEETHEM
GAPS ARE ALL BUTYOUCHOOSEWHERETOSEETHEM
G APSAREALLBUTYOUCHOOSEWHERETOSEETHEM
GAPSAREALLBUTYOUCHOOSEWHERETOSEE THE M
GAPSAREALLBUT YOU CHOOSEWHERETOSEETHEM
GA PS AR EA L LB U TYOUCHOOSEWHERETOSEETHEM
GAPS AREA LLBU TYO UCH OO SEW HERE TOSEET HEM

& we will talk until we have no more mouth

A piece succeeds insofar as it inspires talking points.
A piece inspires talking points insofar as it addresses issues that can hardly be articulated.
A piece addresses issues that can hardly be articulated insofar as it strains against language.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

How to Disappear

The best way to disappear is to give yourself to someone else. 

Make sure you select the right person.

We are air. We are air inside balloons. 

Give them your air; deflate your self; transfer everything you can do; watch their circular walls expand outward; feel yourself swell even as you shrink.

The final sacrifice is to throw yourself away. Because you have nothing more to give. 

All we can give is our self.

How to Win in a Fight

To win in a fight:

1. Become the other person
2. Kill yourself
3. Go back to being you again

Possible side-effects: You may suffer from identity vertigo & a lack of self-confidence [confidence that "the self" exists].

Friday, October 1, 2010

Nothing Something Everything: The self

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)

The self
The self is unstable, as eternally changing an entity as the ocean
The self is an ocean of waves, existing within certain bounds
Within the space of the sea-self, there is movement
We are empty vessels, separated by our sides
Identity, the liquid that fills us, the substance that is us
Our liquid a pittance compared to the collective ocean we could become
My self became a strainer & I couldn’t hold on to anything
Some people, thimbles, need only a drop, & yet
Doubling fluid, exchanging essence
I fell through the gaps in my self
How stable is a vessel on a raging sea?
The fantasy of stability maintains our sanity
We are houses of cards, shaken by whispers
A building collapsing on amorphous foundation
Our limited framework is expandable, replaceable
& still we create because the barrenness scares us
& still we construct on the scaffolding of self
& still we conspire of our constancy

Wanted

"Do you spend most of your time:
- Listening to your favorite music?
- Thinking?
- Searching for good books & movies that won't waste your time?
- Trying not to be depressed?
- Enjoying being/hoping to be creative?
- Yearning for something more?
 
You are not alone.
You are wanted.

Contact mell.isaac@gmail.com
Be part of a project so big we don't even have a word for it yet."

It's not art.