At airports in the U.S., liquids have been banned from being carried on board. Yeah, I see: a bottle of water is potentially dangerous, and nobody wants to spend all day testing and swapping spit from the ends of the Earth to ensure security.
But what about wax? Wax is a solid that does not require high temperature to melt.
Banned or not?
Well, according to the brilliant airport security personnel (pick any U.S. airport), wax is not allowed on board a plane because it is a liquid in solid form.
A liquid in solid form.
Are these people listening to themselves?
For that matter, my belt buckle should not be allowed on board, because steel is a liquid too. No rocks either; we know they're just liquid within those things called volcanoes.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
This Country's Biggest Hypocrisy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/washington/08inquiry.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
I have said it and thought it many times: The hypocrisy of these people. When will the ignorant Christians open their eyes to realize that Republican values do not conform with Christianity?! Or maybe that is not it, maybe it is something more essential. It is Republicans that tend to go to war, that prefer war over diplomacy, that have no qualms in fighting against a system of basic welfare in favor of corporate profit, that discriminate against homosexuals as if they were not human. Republicans who every Sunday go to church to praise the lord. Republicans who love to preach the word of god and like to place their god in the forefront of world cultures. They fail to understand that they themselves have placed christ as a god, have taken a man and made him divine, have placed their hopes and faith in that man god; that man, who among his deeds, befriended the lepers and the whores, broke the law by working on the Sabbath in order to feed the people, preached the kind of love that is reflected in the meaning of agape- the selfless love, the kind of love by which you forgive your enemies, by which you place the other cheek when they hit you, beat your one cheek. They are hypocrits, this Republican Christians, supporting war and vengeance, prideful, dishonest, greedy Republicans. They should not call themselves Christian, if they will rely on the Old Testament for their truth. Out with the old, in with the New. Else, call yourself a Jew. It is only until the Gospel, until the breakaway from the Jewish Law of the O.T., that we begin to see the titled Christians. But now, 1,980 years after, we see the resurgence of the Torah as the dictating text for Christian thought, the leading source for mores and world perception. The ignorant, blind, Christian Republicans source of knowledge and choice.
Do not call yourself a Christian and a Republican. As long as Republican values equate close-minded, out-dated Calvinistic + Barbaric notions and Christians seek Republicanism as the political representation of their values and mores they CANNOT call themselves Christians, but rather "Christians" or simply "Hypocrits."
I have said it and thought it many times: The hypocrisy of these people. When will the ignorant Christians open their eyes to realize that Republican values do not conform with Christianity?! Or maybe that is not it, maybe it is something more essential. It is Republicans that tend to go to war, that prefer war over diplomacy, that have no qualms in fighting against a system of basic welfare in favor of corporate profit, that discriminate against homosexuals as if they were not human. Republicans who every Sunday go to church to praise the lord. Republicans who love to preach the word of god and like to place their god in the forefront of world cultures. They fail to understand that they themselves have placed christ as a god, have taken a man and made him divine, have placed their hopes and faith in that man god; that man, who among his deeds, befriended the lepers and the whores, broke the law by working on the Sabbath in order to feed the people, preached the kind of love that is reflected in the meaning of agape- the selfless love, the kind of love by which you forgive your enemies, by which you place the other cheek when they hit you, beat your one cheek. They are hypocrits, this Republican Christians, supporting war and vengeance, prideful, dishonest, greedy Republicans. They should not call themselves Christian, if they will rely on the Old Testament for their truth. Out with the old, in with the New. Else, call yourself a Jew. It is only until the Gospel, until the breakaway from the Jewish Law of the O.T., that we begin to see the titled Christians. But now, 1,980 years after, we see the resurgence of the Torah as the dictating text for Christian thought, the leading source for mores and world perception. The ignorant, blind, Christian Republicans source of knowledge and choice.
Do not call yourself a Christian and a Republican. As long as Republican values equate close-minded, out-dated Calvinistic + Barbaric notions and Christians seek Republicanism as the political representation of their values and mores they CANNOT call themselves Christians, but rather "Christians" or simply "Hypocrits."
Monday, September 22, 2008
The shadows are beacons of optimism.
I sometimes wondered, when I pondered upon shadows when thinking of the atomic arrangements of those objects that make us believe in reality, that when a shadow affected an object, it somehow somewhat changed that object's atomic arrangement. Say, it made it a different object from what it was before the shadow was projected upon it.
And so my scientific friend says it does. And it is clever the way he says it does. The shadows, you see, are a product of the game between photons and dimensions. In a two dimensional world, there would be no shadow, but there would only be height and length, no depth, no surface except one upon which light, or photons, could be projected upon.
With the addition of depth, in its play with time, we find the basic elements of reality. We find reality as we know it, life as we know it, its rocks and its plants and its people. A basic thought: Without light, there is no photosynthesis. Without photosynthesis, there is no oxygen. Without oxygen, there is no life. Just carbon, carbon, carbon.
Shadows are the product of three dimension intruding upon the path of photons. Photons are the bearers of life. To recognize -emphasis on recognition- a shadow from surrounding objects, means somewhere somehow photons are impacting 3-d surfaces. When these surfaces are plants, the result is photosynthesis, oxygen, life, and its shadows.
I sometimes wondered, when I pondered upon shadows when thinking of the atomic arrangements of those objects that make us believe in reality, that when a shadow affected an object, it somehow somewhat changed that object's atomic arrangement. Say, it made it a different object from what it was before the shadow was projected upon it.
And so my scientific friend says it does. And it is clever the way he says it does. The shadows, you see, are a product of the game between photons and dimensions. In a two dimensional world, there would be no shadow, but there would only be height and length, no depth, no surface except one upon which light, or photons, could be projected upon.
With the addition of depth, in its play with time, we find the basic elements of reality. We find reality as we know it, life as we know it, its rocks and its plants and its people. A basic thought: Without light, there is no photosynthesis. Without photosynthesis, there is no oxygen. Without oxygen, there is no life. Just carbon, carbon, carbon.
Shadows are the product of three dimension intruding upon the path of photons. Photons are the bearers of life. To recognize -emphasis on recognition- a shadow from surrounding objects, means somewhere somehow photons are impacting 3-d surfaces. When these surfaces are plants, the result is photosynthesis, oxygen, life, and its shadows.
Friday, September 19, 2008
meditations 9/19/08
I took a cantaloupe and split it in half. I ate that half with a spoon. The fruit was delicious; the seeds plentiful; I left the seeds in the empty fruit shell, and covered them with dirt. I placed the pot out on the front garden, to settle under the sun and rain. Within days, little green things began to sprout.
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That man was a mystery. Everything he did was mysterious. He would come home and throw himself on the floor. He would stare at you with his pale eyes and skin from the depths of darkness. Who knows what thoughts occurred in that mind of his. He sometimes howled and sometimes yelped without reason; and in conversation would blurp out facts on some erotic practices conducted by some isolated ethnic cultures. I always thought it was the way the man made his women. He was a mysterious man, after all.
In fact, the word ‘mysterious’ was bestowed upon him by someone else. I told him one afternoon, as he lay sprawled out on the front stairs. He didn’t care whether there was dirt, cigarette ashes, and possibly spit on the ground on which he lay. He was mysterious you see, and I told him how someone had said precisely that about him, about how he was ‘mysterious.’
Naturally, he asked me who said it. And I, the clever beast, said,” That, too, my friend, is a mystery…”
----------------------------------------------------------------
By the time the lizard hit 15 it didn’t speak to its mother. Sunken in the slivery strings of drug addiction, the silent mourning gulps of alcoholism, the heavy smoke of misbehavior, the deviation, the perpetration, the insolent derision and contempt with which he viewed the state of affairs, the apathy, the antipathy, the anarchy of his actions; all that, consequently, had opened a gap so wide between himself and his mother the lizard no longer spoke to his mother, by the age of 15.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Take some flour, as much flour as you want, then add a proportional amount of baking powder and salt. You got your grain and your rising agent. Use some oil for the shortening, so that the flour, wet, does not stick to your hands nor the surface on which you bake it, and also so it holds all the contents of the mix together. Add some water. Mix. Add some more water. Mix. Mix until you have bound all the flour in the bowl into a ball. Then add a little more water and knead. If you add too much water, to the point when the dough is sticky, then you can either add more flour or knead it until the moisture has dissipated or evaporated. If the right amount of water has been used, where only a little sticks but the rest can be manipulated, then knead, knead, knead until you know that all the contents of the mix have been mixed together and proportionally in all its parts. Any bit of flour that is left unknead will attack you after it has been baked. It will be like the cocoa powder than didn’t quite mix into the hot milk. You have to therefore knead, twist, cut, punch, knead, twist, cut, punch, cut, stretch, knead, twist, press, pull, press, crush, twist, knead, punch, ever so much, until it has all been mixed proportionally into a beautiful, moist little ball. Then punch it some more till flat, and bake.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
That man was a mystery. Everything he did was mysterious. He would come home and throw himself on the floor. He would stare at you with his pale eyes and skin from the depths of darkness. Who knows what thoughts occurred in that mind of his. He sometimes howled and sometimes yelped without reason; and in conversation would blurp out facts on some erotic practices conducted by some isolated ethnic cultures. I always thought it was the way the man made his women. He was a mysterious man, after all.
In fact, the word ‘mysterious’ was bestowed upon him by someone else. I told him one afternoon, as he lay sprawled out on the front stairs. He didn’t care whether there was dirt, cigarette ashes, and possibly spit on the ground on which he lay. He was mysterious you see, and I told him how someone had said precisely that about him, about how he was ‘mysterious.’
Naturally, he asked me who said it. And I, the clever beast, said,” That, too, my friend, is a mystery…”
----------------------------------------------------------------
By the time the lizard hit 15 it didn’t speak to its mother. Sunken in the slivery strings of drug addiction, the silent mourning gulps of alcoholism, the heavy smoke of misbehavior, the deviation, the perpetration, the insolent derision and contempt with which he viewed the state of affairs, the apathy, the antipathy, the anarchy of his actions; all that, consequently, had opened a gap so wide between himself and his mother the lizard no longer spoke to his mother, by the age of 15.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Take some flour, as much flour as you want, then add a proportional amount of baking powder and salt. You got your grain and your rising agent. Use some oil for the shortening, so that the flour, wet, does not stick to your hands nor the surface on which you bake it, and also so it holds all the contents of the mix together. Add some water. Mix. Add some more water. Mix. Mix until you have bound all the flour in the bowl into a ball. Then add a little more water and knead. If you add too much water, to the point when the dough is sticky, then you can either add more flour or knead it until the moisture has dissipated or evaporated. If the right amount of water has been used, where only a little sticks but the rest can be manipulated, then knead, knead, knead until you know that all the contents of the mix have been mixed together and proportionally in all its parts. Any bit of flour that is left unknead will attack you after it has been baked. It will be like the cocoa powder than didn’t quite mix into the hot milk. You have to therefore knead, twist, cut, punch, knead, twist, cut, punch, cut, stretch, knead, twist, press, pull, press, crush, twist, knead, punch, ever so much, until it has all been mixed proportionally into a beautiful, moist little ball. Then punch it some more till flat, and bake.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Migration
The bird flew fairly low in the sky. Its song was weak and muffled in the cold, grey tree. It looked thin, haggard, and lost, as if it had taken a greyhound bus to a different town than expected; as if its instincts were somewhat off-kilter and its fate therefore out of balance.
The bird was red with bright, black shining eyes. Each eye seemed enveloped in a tear; tears that never fell from the eye. The bird looked haggard, weak, and cold chanting softly to the burning wind, hanging on to the branch with little claws that gripped with its last strength.
"Poor cardinal..." I thought, as I observed it from the foot of the tree. It peered at me from the depth of its avian soul. It seemed to ask me to retrieve it and store it in an empty shoe box to the warmth of my room, or basement. In my own eyes I answered that I had no box to place it in, and no food to feed it, and that my roommates might or might not enjoy the sight of a cardinal. Perhaps if you had been a chickadee… I told it with my eyes.
I remembered my errand and walked away from the sad sight of the lost cardinal. I left it to its fate in that cold, grey winter afternoon. By the evening I had forgotten about it. We had Cornish hens for dinner, which I ate down to the bone without question nor regret. The taste did nothing to allude the memory of the forgotten bird...
The following week, I walked the same route of the previous week. I ran the same errand from before which carried me next to the selfsame tree. The branch on which the cardinal once stood was now empty, but the day remained cold and the wind strong and merciless.
I looked around on the ground to see if I could find its fragile little body. I found nothing but the wet grass where it would had fallen had it fallen. I continued the errand, keeping the bird in mind. To my surprise, a small cardinal lay a few yards from the tree, along the trail. It had no feathers. Ants had supped off its tender skin and beady eyes. The bones appeared dusty and trampled.
The sight inspired but a single thought: "Wherever it migrated this time, even if lost, would have much better weather..."
The bird was red with bright, black shining eyes. Each eye seemed enveloped in a tear; tears that never fell from the eye. The bird looked haggard, weak, and cold chanting softly to the burning wind, hanging on to the branch with little claws that gripped with its last strength.
"Poor cardinal..." I thought, as I observed it from the foot of the tree. It peered at me from the depth of its avian soul. It seemed to ask me to retrieve it and store it in an empty shoe box to the warmth of my room, or basement. In my own eyes I answered that I had no box to place it in, and no food to feed it, and that my roommates might or might not enjoy the sight of a cardinal. Perhaps if you had been a chickadee… I told it with my eyes.
I remembered my errand and walked away from the sad sight of the lost cardinal. I left it to its fate in that cold, grey winter afternoon. By the evening I had forgotten about it. We had Cornish hens for dinner, which I ate down to the bone without question nor regret. The taste did nothing to allude the memory of the forgotten bird...
The following week, I walked the same route of the previous week. I ran the same errand from before which carried me next to the selfsame tree. The branch on which the cardinal once stood was now empty, but the day remained cold and the wind strong and merciless.
I looked around on the ground to see if I could find its fragile little body. I found nothing but the wet grass where it would had fallen had it fallen. I continued the errand, keeping the bird in mind. To my surprise, a small cardinal lay a few yards from the tree, along the trail. It had no feathers. Ants had supped off its tender skin and beady eyes. The bones appeared dusty and trampled.
The sight inspired but a single thought: "Wherever it migrated this time, even if lost, would have much better weather..."
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
IN a Depression, the majority suffer. One would (or wouldn't) like to think everyone suffers. One would think that everyone suffers equally. But nothing, absolutely nothing, is done equally in this world. The development of civilizations has never favored equality, and it seemed only later, after the Revolutions, that the world equality>egality>egalite', began to sprout in certain places. They like to think the Greeks and the Romans lived a true democracy, where everyone was equal. Notice, however, that Ovid's amatory poems describe the mind of a man very much in touch with his carnal desires, such as today. I do not bring this without connection. It has always been this way: we have never all been focused on the same things. Money, or a form of survival, has always been a concern of humans, but the ways to acquire have never been the same. The distribution of ideas has never been the same. Some first knew how to produce and trade and sell and price and buy and invest and all these matters while others focused on the carnal or the spiritual. Some with great ideas, perhaps even ridiculous ideas, such as the pet rock, saw once the earnings of their mind.
I hate to think that no one who has much money deserves to have it taken away or stolen from them. On the contrary, I believe that one earns what one works for. There is a moment, however, when I believe the quantity of property possessed by a single man outnumbers the survival limit for several lives, nay, many many many lives. It transcends the idea that this money is being saved for the individual's children, for it could persist for several generations without seeing loss. I do not know precisely of who I speak with this amount of power, but I am sure as I breath that there that person exists.
Do the immensely rich suffer in time of Depression. Does their fortune ever approximate relative poverty? My question, in a time of depression, is WHERE IS THE MONEY? Has the world been conformed of so many people that the distribution of wealth has left all with a meager quantity? Nay, the development of society has never been equal...
In the 1930's, did the few merely enclose themselves in their castles while the majority perished? If the majority perished, would the few be happy? The few could perhaps hire enough to sustain a society of their own, but these lesser humans working for them, what benefit can they derive from the wealth? Who do they find to serve them, to cultivate the food for them while they cultivate the others' food?
I hate to think that no one who has much money deserves to have it taken away or stolen from them. On the contrary, I believe that one earns what one works for. There is a moment, however, when I believe the quantity of property possessed by a single man outnumbers the survival limit for several lives, nay, many many many lives. It transcends the idea that this money is being saved for the individual's children, for it could persist for several generations without seeing loss. I do not know precisely of who I speak with this amount of power, but I am sure as I breath that there that person exists.
Do the immensely rich suffer in time of Depression. Does their fortune ever approximate relative poverty? My question, in a time of depression, is WHERE IS THE MONEY? Has the world been conformed of so many people that the distribution of wealth has left all with a meager quantity? Nay, the development of society has never been equal...
In the 1930's, did the few merely enclose themselves in their castles while the majority perished? If the majority perished, would the few be happy? The few could perhaps hire enough to sustain a society of their own, but these lesser humans working for them, what benefit can they derive from the wealth? Who do they find to serve them, to cultivate the food for them while they cultivate the others' food?
Monday, July 14, 2008
...
Although it might seem like the perfect moment for enlightenment, begging for it on the crapper just plain won't work.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Toad
Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Toad
one day walked up the road
Down by the lake they met Mr. Snake
looking all bloated and cold.
"I suddenly feel so old..."
said Mr. Snake with a sudden shake,
so Mr. Toad pat his back
and out of his sack
he took out a gram of crack.
Mr. Rabbit, excited, feeling invited,
retrieved from his pocket a pipe
but with sudden gloom
he told them both
he forgot the light in his room.
"I got shrooms!"
said Mr. Toad!
as he hid in his shoe the cocaine
and swore the day
was not wasted in vain!
So each took their own shroom
and once they were stoned
together they sang Purple rain.
Mr. Panther, who came
looking haggard and lame
found the three idly high as a kite,
and in less than an hour
though the toad tasted sour
he had munched each
in less than
one bite...
the end.
one day walked up the road
Down by the lake they met Mr. Snake
looking all bloated and cold.
"I suddenly feel so old..."
said Mr. Snake with a sudden shake,
so Mr. Toad pat his back
and out of his sack
he took out a gram of crack.
Mr. Rabbit, excited, feeling invited,
retrieved from his pocket a pipe
but with sudden gloom
he told them both
he forgot the light in his room.
"I got shrooms!"
said Mr. Toad!
as he hid in his shoe the cocaine
and swore the day
was not wasted in vain!
So each took their own shroom
and once they were stoned
together they sang Purple rain.
Mr. Panther, who came
looking haggard and lame
found the three idly high as a kite,
and in less than an hour
though the toad tasted sour
he had munched each
in less than
one bite...
the end.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
irony at its best
According to staff at one of the Kansas City Public Libraries, the most frequently stolen item is, get this: the Bible and similar religious texts.
That, without a doubt, is hypocrisy-turned-comedy.
That, without a doubt, is hypocrisy-turned-comedy.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
the vision
It came to him as he sat in the toilet, reading Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. He was having trouble with it; meaning wasn't coming to him easily. In order to clear his mind from the confusion, his attention shifted to the bookmark: an old receipt noting the purchase of a rolling tobacco pouch. The receipt showed the place it was purchased, Easter Tobacco House, the date, and the amount he paid for the tobacco. There was also the last four digits of his debit card; the rest had been replaced by asterisks. There were sixteen numbers total, four which were printed out on the receipt.
He was a thoughtful young man, some considered him idealistic. He had ideals on utopian society, socialism, equality and justice. He hated the war overseas, and sometimes hated the people who preferred getting shipped out to kill people on the other side, than being put in jail for refusing to kill. Because of this idea, James could sometimes be cruel. He believed that ultimately they are given two choices, and they always choose the easiest one, the one that won't harm them.
"That is the problem with the world!" he thought, "The selfishness! The f*cking selfishness!" He felt bad for the families praying every morning and night for the safety of their children, parents, friends who were out there killing people, protecting a supposed freedom which they couldn't define but knew existed. Bush had used 'freedom' like churches have used 'God' for centuries and Obama had recently used 'change'. It was all so vague and deceitful...
His mind went back to the receipt, the four digits, and the unknown 12 digits preceding it. He smiled when the idea came to him. He had just watched the film '21' which spoke about the MIT students busting casinos in Las Vegas by counting the cards at the blackjack tables. All they did was practice counting, device a system for being able to keep tally of the cards on the table and the cards on the deck. Once they mastered it, they went home with thousands of dollars every night. But where did all the money go? To fill their pockets- again the selfishness resurfaced in his mind.
He lived in a rich neighborhood a few blocks south from the poor neighborhood, one cut from the other by the wide Broad Street. Every time he walked the blocks he would be reminded of the fact. Every time he met people on the street he would be reminded of the poor bastards playing with drugs and guns at the other side of town. They all seemed so happy here, as they walked their aristocratic little dogs. He felt somehow, that the only reason these rich people walked dogs around the place is because they couldn't own slaves. He was certain that if it were legal to put some black or immigrant child on a dog leash and parade it around town they would do it.
He had read Robinson Crusoe once, the Robinson the Calvinist, the old Capitalist, stranded on an island stashing away all the treasure money he found, and always repeating the fact that he had no use for the money. The book was odd in how it resisted the call to humility. The man could never settle and be happy for the little he had. He had to catch, master, tame, enslave what he could, from the animals to the native Friday and his father.
Sitting on the toilet, all these thoughts flooded his mind as he pondered over the significance of the figures on the receipt. They came quickly like winds over a plain, and molded his state of mind as they came to him. He determined he would be different from all those people, he would use the money he made to help make the quality of the services to the poor in his city and in other countries better.
His mind was the kind of mind that could never stop rolling. It was a generally unfocused mind, it surfaced through multiple possibilities at a single moment and could thus never decide on any. But this time his thought process became crisp and clear, following a linear path towards this goal.
If the rich didn't want to contribute, somebody else would have to contribute for them. He knew they would notice the money missing from their accounts. James knew he would be committing a crime every time he did it. But when they noticed the purpose to which the money would be used, he hoped the people would just reclaim their lost money from the banks and receive the praises of their donation. He knew they would come out victorious in the end, because that is usually how they turn out, having so much power at their disposal. James knew, in his heart, that the process to this goal had been a gift rather than a curse; it was so simple yet it had taken him 24 years to think of it.
He closed his book, cleaned up, washed his hands, and left. There was something glorious mixed in with the stench in the bathroom; it was the smell of the justice he was about to commit.
-----------------------------------------------
He remembered from psychology 101, in the chapter on memory, more specifically short-term memory, how an experiment conducted had involved memorizing long strains of numbers. The experiment spoke of runners who began by memorizing units, which once grouped, became a unit on its own; these group-units then were paired up with other group-units to make longer group-units. It had to do with the fact that short term memory could only hold 5-9 files or pieces of information at a given time in order to pass them on to the long term memory, where they could be later easily retrieved.
Another similar method involved the Greek method of recreating in the mind the memory of a familiar place, and writing upon its walls the information he wanted to retain. Nevertheless, he preferred the former method. He didn't like vandalizing the walls of his memory.
These files could be any size as long as the mind understood them to be units, so if James could group every four digits from the card he would already have four units in mind, the name on the card would be another unit, the exp. date, would be the sixth unit and the three numbers in the back would make up the last units. Sometimes he did not have to memorize as much, since the receipts sometimes held some of the information for him.
He adapted it to the Consonant peg system, which he found looking for different methods on the Internet. It was a similar concept to the one used in the movie 21, as they both involved replacing numbers with words in order to create an image which would be easier to remember.
He was a thoughtful young man, some considered him idealistic. He had ideals on utopian society, socialism, equality and justice. He hated the war overseas, and sometimes hated the people who preferred getting shipped out to kill people on the other side, than being put in jail for refusing to kill. Because of this idea, James could sometimes be cruel. He believed that ultimately they are given two choices, and they always choose the easiest one, the one that won't harm them.
"That is the problem with the world!" he thought, "The selfishness! The f*cking selfishness!" He felt bad for the families praying every morning and night for the safety of their children, parents, friends who were out there killing people, protecting a supposed freedom which they couldn't define but knew existed. Bush had used 'freedom' like churches have used 'God' for centuries and Obama had recently used 'change'. It was all so vague and deceitful...
His mind went back to the receipt, the four digits, and the unknown 12 digits preceding it. He smiled when the idea came to him. He had just watched the film '21' which spoke about the MIT students busting casinos in Las Vegas by counting the cards at the blackjack tables. All they did was practice counting, device a system for being able to keep tally of the cards on the table and the cards on the deck. Once they mastered it, they went home with thousands of dollars every night. But where did all the money go? To fill their pockets- again the selfishness resurfaced in his mind.
He lived in a rich neighborhood a few blocks south from the poor neighborhood, one cut from the other by the wide Broad Street. Every time he walked the blocks he would be reminded of the fact. Every time he met people on the street he would be reminded of the poor bastards playing with drugs and guns at the other side of town. They all seemed so happy here, as they walked their aristocratic little dogs. He felt somehow, that the only reason these rich people walked dogs around the place is because they couldn't own slaves. He was certain that if it were legal to put some black or immigrant child on a dog leash and parade it around town they would do it.
He had read Robinson Crusoe once, the Robinson the Calvinist, the old Capitalist, stranded on an island stashing away all the treasure money he found, and always repeating the fact that he had no use for the money. The book was odd in how it resisted the call to humility. The man could never settle and be happy for the little he had. He had to catch, master, tame, enslave what he could, from the animals to the native Friday and his father.
Sitting on the toilet, all these thoughts flooded his mind as he pondered over the significance of the figures on the receipt. They came quickly like winds over a plain, and molded his state of mind as they came to him. He determined he would be different from all those people, he would use the money he made to help make the quality of the services to the poor in his city and in other countries better.
His mind was the kind of mind that could never stop rolling. It was a generally unfocused mind, it surfaced through multiple possibilities at a single moment and could thus never decide on any. But this time his thought process became crisp and clear, following a linear path towards this goal.
If the rich didn't want to contribute, somebody else would have to contribute for them. He knew they would notice the money missing from their accounts. James knew he would be committing a crime every time he did it. But when they noticed the purpose to which the money would be used, he hoped the people would just reclaim their lost money from the banks and receive the praises of their donation. He knew they would come out victorious in the end, because that is usually how they turn out, having so much power at their disposal. James knew, in his heart, that the process to this goal had been a gift rather than a curse; it was so simple yet it had taken him 24 years to think of it.
He closed his book, cleaned up, washed his hands, and left. There was something glorious mixed in with the stench in the bathroom; it was the smell of the justice he was about to commit.
-----------------------------------------------
He remembered from psychology 101, in the chapter on memory, more specifically short-term memory, how an experiment conducted had involved memorizing long strains of numbers. The experiment spoke of runners who began by memorizing units, which once grouped, became a unit on its own; these group-units then were paired up with other group-units to make longer group-units. It had to do with the fact that short term memory could only hold 5-9 files or pieces of information at a given time in order to pass them on to the long term memory, where they could be later easily retrieved.
Another similar method involved the Greek method of recreating in the mind the memory of a familiar place, and writing upon its walls the information he wanted to retain. Nevertheless, he preferred the former method. He didn't like vandalizing the walls of his memory.
These files could be any size as long as the mind understood them to be units, so if James could group every four digits from the card he would already have four units in mind, the name on the card would be another unit, the exp. date, would be the sixth unit and the three numbers in the back would make up the last units. Sometimes he did not have to memorize as much, since the receipts sometimes held some of the information for him.
He adapted it to the Consonant peg system, which he found looking for different methods on the Internet. It was a similar concept to the one used in the movie 21, as they both involved replacing numbers with words in order to create an image which would be easier to remember.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Pater Nostrum Virgilium
Padre nuestro, que estas en el cielo,
o solias alli estar, antes que Copernico
aclarara el antiguo misterio...
Entonces corrijo: Padre nuestro, que estas en el universo,
pero como saber si eres hombre, dios mio;
por mas pienso pareces mas madre, en el amor
compasion y ternura con que cuidas a tu manada,
con la lluvia que se esparse en los cielos y que da de nacer
en la tierra nuestro pan de cada dia;
Santificado sea tu nombre,
sea Krishna, Cristo, Buddha, Allah o Y'hw'h,
Vishnu, Zeus, Dios o Quetzalcoatl,
o sean todos tus nombres juntos, o sean todos los dioses
que habitan el universo en el cual tanto se mueve.
Venga a nosotros tu reino,
en vez de llegar a ti nosotros,
pues a pesar de crearnos parejos,
nos creaste algo perezosos,
o se te olvidaron las alas, pues como vez, los angeles,
con alas, van de un lado al otro.
Pero no te critico, pues tu eres perfecto,
y el imperfecto soy yo, con esta logica de hambrientos.
Hagase tu voluntad aqui en el cielo, como en la tierra,
ya sea ser poligamo entre los mormones o los musulmanes,
o ser monogamo entre los cristianos y los hindues,
ya sea bautizarse entre los catolicos y los evangelicos,
o pelarse un poco el pene como los judios;
ya sea amar, y perdonar, y respetar, y no desear,
y querer, y no robar, y no mentir, y rezar, y dar de alimentar
a los que no tienen, y trabajar, y encender lirios a los muertos,
ya sea todo esto tu voluntad.
Aunque una cosa, diosito, te lo digo de veras,
que en el cielo no he visto voluntad tuya
mas que fiero sol que nos quema en verano
o el frio de invierno, o las epocas de lluvia,
que tantas casas se llevan al rio,
y tantas vidas se roban. Hagase tu voluntad,
por favor, asi en el cielo como en la tierra.
Danos hoy el pan de cada dia,
y para acompañarlo un poquito de mantequilla;
no me pienses pedigueño señor que bien podria
pedir mas, pues el hambre es perra.
Perdoname la broma señor, tu que todo perdonas,
si bien entiendo que el pan es una metafora
por todo lo que crece en los arboles y todo
cuya sangre cae sobre los suelos de Perdue y Tyson
y las tantas otras carnicerias de tu mundo.
Perdona nuestras ofensas, como perdonamos a los que nos ofenden,
es decir, como a veces perdonamos,
ya que hay villanos tan fregados
que se hace dificil perdonarlos. Es por esto que muchos
buscan otras creencias, y consideran la fuente de esta
demasiado idealista. Sin embargo, es muy cierto,
perdonar es cosa buena,
y realmente es una pena,
que no se perdonen las deudas.
No nos dejes caer en la tentacion,
a pesar que este buenota,
y posea unas nalgotas
y unas curvas la malvada,
pa' que uno no mas las vea...
Señor, de haber sabido que seria pecado,
hubieras escogido una costilla mas fea!
Pero bueno, que se le hace,
con corazon puro se aprecia,
y se admira mas la decencia
que aquello que causa demencia.
Libranos de todo mal, diosito,
del mal olor, y el mal humor, y el mal de amores,
del malvado, y el malboro, y la malnutricion,
y la malinconia, como dicen los italianos,
y los que son maleta, y la malicia,
y los mosquitos, porque traen malaria,
y los malditos y los maleantes;
pero no nos libres de las malteadas,
ni los malabaristas, que a nadie molestan,
y libranos de todo malestar,
amen.
o solias alli estar, antes que Copernico
aclarara el antiguo misterio...
Entonces corrijo: Padre nuestro, que estas en el universo,
pero como saber si eres hombre, dios mio;
por mas pienso pareces mas madre, en el amor
compasion y ternura con que cuidas a tu manada,
con la lluvia que se esparse en los cielos y que da de nacer
en la tierra nuestro pan de cada dia;
Santificado sea tu nombre,
sea Krishna, Cristo, Buddha, Allah o Y'hw'h,
Vishnu, Zeus, Dios o Quetzalcoatl,
o sean todos tus nombres juntos, o sean todos los dioses
que habitan el universo en el cual tanto se mueve.
Venga a nosotros tu reino,
en vez de llegar a ti nosotros,
pues a pesar de crearnos parejos,
nos creaste algo perezosos,
o se te olvidaron las alas, pues como vez, los angeles,
con alas, van de un lado al otro.
Pero no te critico, pues tu eres perfecto,
y el imperfecto soy yo, con esta logica de hambrientos.
Hagase tu voluntad aqui en el cielo, como en la tierra,
ya sea ser poligamo entre los mormones o los musulmanes,
o ser monogamo entre los cristianos y los hindues,
ya sea bautizarse entre los catolicos y los evangelicos,
o pelarse un poco el pene como los judios;
ya sea amar, y perdonar, y respetar, y no desear,
y querer, y no robar, y no mentir, y rezar, y dar de alimentar
a los que no tienen, y trabajar, y encender lirios a los muertos,
ya sea todo esto tu voluntad.
Aunque una cosa, diosito, te lo digo de veras,
que en el cielo no he visto voluntad tuya
mas que fiero sol que nos quema en verano
o el frio de invierno, o las epocas de lluvia,
que tantas casas se llevan al rio,
y tantas vidas se roban. Hagase tu voluntad,
por favor, asi en el cielo como en la tierra.
Danos hoy el pan de cada dia,
y para acompañarlo un poquito de mantequilla;
no me pienses pedigueño señor que bien podria
pedir mas, pues el hambre es perra.
Perdoname la broma señor, tu que todo perdonas,
si bien entiendo que el pan es una metafora
por todo lo que crece en los arboles y todo
cuya sangre cae sobre los suelos de Perdue y Tyson
y las tantas otras carnicerias de tu mundo.
Perdona nuestras ofensas, como perdonamos a los que nos ofenden,
es decir, como a veces perdonamos,
ya que hay villanos tan fregados
que se hace dificil perdonarlos. Es por esto que muchos
buscan otras creencias, y consideran la fuente de esta
demasiado idealista. Sin embargo, es muy cierto,
perdonar es cosa buena,
y realmente es una pena,
que no se perdonen las deudas.
No nos dejes caer en la tentacion,
a pesar que este buenota,
y posea unas nalgotas
y unas curvas la malvada,
pa' que uno no mas las vea...
Señor, de haber sabido que seria pecado,
hubieras escogido una costilla mas fea!
Pero bueno, que se le hace,
con corazon puro se aprecia,
y se admira mas la decencia
que aquello que causa demencia.
Libranos de todo mal, diosito,
del mal olor, y el mal humor, y el mal de amores,
del malvado, y el malboro, y la malnutricion,
y la malinconia, como dicen los italianos,
y los que son maleta, y la malicia,
y los mosquitos, porque traen malaria,
y los malditos y los maleantes;
pero no nos libres de las malteadas,
ni los malabaristas, que a nadie molestan,
y libranos de todo malestar,
amen.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Awakening
Basking in the light of the afterlife
Lies the road of Earthly knowledge.
Of supposed wisdom. Of hubris.
Down, down its scattered stones,
To the cold edge of nothingness.
In death you see the winding path
In all its deceitful glory!
As the veil is lifted, flesh cast aside
Nothing more than a withering trail
A joke for the awakened dreamer.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
nocturna
Sobre la pared suena el reloj
con su pulso monotono rompe el silencio
mas que nunca se siente
la presencia del tiempo
especialmente
en las noches sin sueño.
Suena, suena, sigue sonando,
los latidos del corazon se sincronizan
a los lejos el mar recoge las cenizas
de algun pobre marinero echado al viento.
Al fin el beso marca el fin de la tortura,
los cuerpos se evaporan en el tacto
se enredan como hiedras que
al tocar la piel del arbol
se aferran y se trepan con ternura.
La mente se extingue en la cabeza
y las almas surgen a tocar el cielo;
el cielo, comprendiendo, abre su verja
para saciar el fiero fuego
que los quema.
Al concluir su danza divina
las almas exhaustas caen a la tierra
en sus venas oscila el pulso de la vida
y en sus sonrisas se nota aun
la miel eterna...
Sobre el muro de la noche titilan mil estrellas,
sobre el mar la brisa carga las cenizas,
en el cuarto un reloj aun despierto
marca las horas en
azul monotonia.
con su pulso monotono rompe el silencio
mas que nunca se siente
la presencia del tiempo
especialmente
en las noches sin sueño.
Suena, suena, sigue sonando,
los latidos del corazon se sincronizan
a los lejos el mar recoge las cenizas
de algun pobre marinero echado al viento.
Al fin el beso marca el fin de la tortura,
los cuerpos se evaporan en el tacto
se enredan como hiedras que
al tocar la piel del arbol
se aferran y se trepan con ternura.
La mente se extingue en la cabeza
y las almas surgen a tocar el cielo;
el cielo, comprendiendo, abre su verja
para saciar el fiero fuego
que los quema.
Al concluir su danza divina
las almas exhaustas caen a la tierra
en sus venas oscila el pulso de la vida
y en sus sonrisas se nota aun
la miel eterna...
Sobre el muro de la noche titilan mil estrellas,
sobre el mar la brisa carga las cenizas,
en el cuarto un reloj aun despierto
marca las horas en
azul monotonia.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Of all the things that piss me off in the world, is a loudmouth when I am trying to concentrate (Disclaimer: This does not by any means mean I am exempt from occupying that hateful position) or a shifty person constantly disturbing my peripheral vision, and I stare at them with all that concentrated hate, and hope they see me and read into me. Cartoons would show daggers busting out of my eyes.
Here's the catch. Today, as I was sending waves of hate to this loud mouthed (her voice was itchy) human being as she babbled and babbled and babbled on and on about someones virtues and defects, I thought to myself (on one occasion when her eyes actually seemed set on mine) whether she might remember me in her future as the one who stared at her with so much hate.
You know, the kind of situation when you are 30 years old and you think back on your twenties and say, "Hey! remember that time that mexican guy stared at me with so much hate?" You might ask how this thought came about... Well, as she babbled like a turkey, I thought to myself whether she'd be babbling thus in ten years, and what a waste that would be for everyone having to bear with it. I thought about her children, and how it would corrupt their perception of the world to come to think that all mothers babble so. How her friends would babble like she did and how they would have little babbling parties where they would talk about the virtues and defects of decent, respectful human beings. In short, I felt sorry for much of what would happen in the universe as this creature grew up unchanged.
And when I do what she does, to call someone's particular attention, I hope the world accepts my prescribed apologies.
Here's the catch. Today, as I was sending waves of hate to this loud mouthed (her voice was itchy) human being as she babbled and babbled and babbled on and on about someones virtues and defects, I thought to myself (on one occasion when her eyes actually seemed set on mine) whether she might remember me in her future as the one who stared at her with so much hate.
You know, the kind of situation when you are 30 years old and you think back on your twenties and say, "Hey! remember that time that mexican guy stared at me with so much hate?" You might ask how this thought came about... Well, as she babbled like a turkey, I thought to myself whether she'd be babbling thus in ten years, and what a waste that would be for everyone having to bear with it. I thought about her children, and how it would corrupt their perception of the world to come to think that all mothers babble so. How her friends would babble like she did and how they would have little babbling parties where they would talk about the virtues and defects of decent, respectful human beings. In short, I felt sorry for much of what would happen in the universe as this creature grew up unchanged.
And when I do what she does, to call someone's particular attention, I hope the world accepts my prescribed apologies.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Ego-12:14pm Saturday, Jun 30
Ego mi absolvo.
Ego mi absolvo.
Ego mi absolvo.
Three dot, space dash zoom
comma word dot dot dot
f
a
l
l
.
.
.
splat flat flatter gun
laser tazer type pity
olive liver hue embalmed
I am sound
not meaning.
sound.
not meaning.
psychodelic dystrophy
tropical fall
desiduous fall
mysterious fall
splat.
i am sound,
not meaning.
egg yolk
bull yoke
sleeping yak
burning oak.
fluffy daffy duck
quacks in quizzical fashion
fashions an aluminum knife
and stabs donald on account of
discrimination
intimidation and
baseless humilliation.
I've oft stargazed long nights
while cicadas rolled drums in the blackness
I then travelled a million light years away,
flew that way, towards those stars I gazed
like a fly into an electric lamp,
except I disappeared, or rather
fused into its essence, and combusted
to be seen solely by souls in the desert
and souls at sea, and souls tired of cities
who sought shelter within the mountain green.
I am sound.
not meaning.
was meant to be meaningless
with this mind that perceives
dot dot dot
its self from above
dot dot dot
and its self from below
dot dot dot
I should have been an ant or a cicada
. . .
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
blind in the apocalypse
Everyone died yesterday. Yesterday everyone died. Even words are meaningless now, since there is no one to hear them nor read them. There are no blind beings to touch them. They have no conscience to touch. No one is left. I mean, everyone is left, just that their chests don't move and their eyes are empty. The tears that once made them shine have dried up, and the retinas have been drawn into the pupils. Their lips are wrinkles and their skin is cracked. They are all there, it is just that no one breathes. And how did I escape this death, I do not know how I escaped it... It doesn't really matter now, I guess. It is only I and the future from hereon, and a lot of canned food. How sad will be it when it all boils down to Spam...
I do not think of attempting to save anything from the world that has been given me upon awakening. I will use and waste, use and waste, use and waste. If only there were children to save things for, so they may take it all down the line and into eternity. Ha! Eternity! Look around me, you, I, we, both inside me, look! This is eternity petrifying in the empty streets and in the desolate homes. It is all so empty, it echoes when I speak, and you cannot imagine how terrifying it all is. I have been deceived of hearing others speak when it was only my own words calling out to someone. Everything we do, we somehow do for the future. Even when we eat, we eat for a future. Where we born with no belief in the future, do you think there'd be a need to eat?
How sick must I be in the head! So many dead, and I speak of eating! And yet, I am hungry, and most of these people are strangers. And yet, lying there, all shriveled up and translucent, all sad and humble, all... gone... god... do You still exist? After all your churches have been reduced to caves, and those lips that prayed recede into the bones, do You still exist? Can you exist for ONE MAN?! GOD!!!!! GOOOOOD!!!!! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU???? I cannot take this silence anymore... i can't... please... please...
Silence is misery. Loneliness is misery. I hate to be alone, with all these people watching me. I cannot stand it. The day is waning and the birds have begun to shriek. At least they're still around. What a strange strange thing... this. Why did it have to happen to me... And yet, despite it all, as the sun sets, am i not still living? Should I die because they all died? They didn't choose this fate, and I am willingly to give in to it. I makes no sense. And if in heaven, they all recognize me, as the one who had the choice to keep on living... They would put my ass in hell for stupidity, for being an ingrate. I owe them nothing. Nothing.
It is all mine. Everything. Even the corpses decomposing everywhere I look. Damn these glasses. Why do I even wear them? Here... take this... I don't need to see! I'd rather live in a blur and ignore everything around me than have to care to look into every single face reminding me of my solitude. Hence I crush you in my hands, little glasses. You served me well when you mattered...
I do not think of attempting to save anything from the world that has been given me upon awakening. I will use and waste, use and waste, use and waste. If only there were children to save things for, so they may take it all down the line and into eternity. Ha! Eternity! Look around me, you, I, we, both inside me, look! This is eternity petrifying in the empty streets and in the desolate homes. It is all so empty, it echoes when I speak, and you cannot imagine how terrifying it all is. I have been deceived of hearing others speak when it was only my own words calling out to someone. Everything we do, we somehow do for the future. Even when we eat, we eat for a future. Where we born with no belief in the future, do you think there'd be a need to eat?
How sick must I be in the head! So many dead, and I speak of eating! And yet, I am hungry, and most of these people are strangers. And yet, lying there, all shriveled up and translucent, all sad and humble, all... gone... god... do You still exist? After all your churches have been reduced to caves, and those lips that prayed recede into the bones, do You still exist? Can you exist for ONE MAN?! GOD!!!!! GOOOOOD!!!!! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU???? I cannot take this silence anymore... i can't... please... please...
Silence is misery. Loneliness is misery. I hate to be alone, with all these people watching me. I cannot stand it. The day is waning and the birds have begun to shriek. At least they're still around. What a strange strange thing... this. Why did it have to happen to me... And yet, despite it all, as the sun sets, am i not still living? Should I die because they all died? They didn't choose this fate, and I am willingly to give in to it. I makes no sense. And if in heaven, they all recognize me, as the one who had the choice to keep on living... They would put my ass in hell for stupidity, for being an ingrate. I owe them nothing. Nothing.
It is all mine. Everything. Even the corpses decomposing everywhere I look. Damn these glasses. Why do I even wear them? Here... take this... I don't need to see! I'd rather live in a blur and ignore everything around me than have to care to look into every single face reminding me of my solitude. Hence I crush you in my hands, little glasses. You served me well when you mattered...
a memory
Of the things I recall, I remember the tiny holes in my grandmother's tiled roof. She lived in a valley, which meant the sun shone fiercely and the vapor could be seen ascending in the places where one could spot the horizon.
At noon, or circumscribing that hour, the light would find its way through the tiny holes in the roof, and it would seem as if laser beams fell at angles from the ceiling onto the floor. The dust that was swept everyday, that would rise and remain latent in the air, would then appear; like snowflakes they would cross the beam and then merge back into the dusk interior.
I remember playing with the beams of light as a child. I would deposit the golden spot in the center of my palm, as if expecting it to uncover some divine secret. I would try to drink it. I would bounce it off walls with the aid of a mirror. Sometimes, I would put my eye right under it, to find closed after one second. The sun of the valley was a strong sun, and the spot shone brighter and more valuable, I now find, than any golden coin.
Comayagua, the name of the valley, was my childhood soul place. It was the place where the child I once was remains. And as most things past, nothing is left but its remains; lest we were born without memory, the warmest feelings would be irrecoverable...
At noon, or circumscribing that hour, the light would find its way through the tiny holes in the roof, and it would seem as if laser beams fell at angles from the ceiling onto the floor. The dust that was swept everyday, that would rise and remain latent in the air, would then appear; like snowflakes they would cross the beam and then merge back into the dusk interior.
I remember playing with the beams of light as a child. I would deposit the golden spot in the center of my palm, as if expecting it to uncover some divine secret. I would try to drink it. I would bounce it off walls with the aid of a mirror. Sometimes, I would put my eye right under it, to find closed after one second. The sun of the valley was a strong sun, and the spot shone brighter and more valuable, I now find, than any golden coin.
Comayagua, the name of the valley, was my childhood soul place. It was the place where the child I once was remains. And as most things past, nothing is left but its remains; lest we were born without memory, the warmest feelings would be irrecoverable...
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
anarchy
I knew of a girl who said she majored and got her degree in anarchy, in order to do activism, and that was waiting for the next vegan product to appear in the market.
My mind which constantly bothers me with petty thoughts, remarked several things within the next few seconds after this rant. For one, it asked how one can major in anarchy. Then i realized in order to major or get a degree in something one has to go through an educational system, which slightly resembles that of our government. Then I noticed the iMac, and realized that she had bought into some of the material goods provided by the capitalist system. I understood that there can be no completely anarchy, unless we were all drunk and the trees shifted in our path. Then I remembered the monkeys that live in some beaches, such as jamaica, and often steal the drinks from the napping tourists to get drunk in or around some palm trees, and that's probably how the term 'drunk as a monkey' got coined. Then, as my mind wandered in the animal realm, I reminisced on the beauty of slug sexual intercourse, as the british guy spies on them and disrupts their intimacy while they are pending from a tree making the translucent mushroom*, and as the thoughts mount up I ended up in the logical depository: do i suffer mild schizophrenia? and finally, does she? do we?
My mind which constantly bothers me with petty thoughts, remarked several things within the next few seconds after this rant. For one, it asked how one can major in anarchy. Then i realized in order to major or get a degree in something one has to go through an educational system, which slightly resembles that of our government. Then I noticed the iMac, and realized that she had bought into some of the material goods provided by the capitalist system. I understood that there can be no completely anarchy, unless we were all drunk and the trees shifted in our path. Then I remembered the monkeys that live in some beaches, such as jamaica, and often steal the drinks from the napping tourists to get drunk in or around some palm trees, and that's probably how the term 'drunk as a monkey' got coined. Then, as my mind wandered in the animal realm, I reminisced on the beauty of slug sexual intercourse, as the british guy spies on them and disrupts their intimacy while they are pending from a tree making the translucent mushroom*, and as the thoughts mount up I ended up in the logical depository: do i suffer mild schizophrenia? and finally, does she? do we?
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Squeezing the juice out of reality.
We possess five explicit senses: sight, audition, touch, taste, smell. In other instances I would add intuition as the implicit sense, but it is not important for this monologue. Given this, assume four situations:
In the first situation, you are walking down the street, when you hear a whistle blowing at your right. You look to your right and see a thick, brick wall. You assume the noise is coming from inside. You alternately hear a buzz like that of a bumblebee, flying closer to your ear and then disappearing. You wave the noise away, as it comes from no apparent thing. You take a few steps when you hear the same whistle as before blow in your other ear. You try to find its source, staring at the passing cars and across the street at the shops and cafe'. Nothing there.
In the second scenario, you are still walking in the sidewalk in the autumn dusk. The air smells of the dust raised by the hustle and bustle of the day. And the lamps set against the trees set against the pale sky have a surreal quality that catches your eye. You walk down the sidewalk and something makes you trip. It actually does more than that. It cuts your shin, and blood runs down into your sandal; the few steps back to the place of the darned object feel sticky on the left foot. You see nothing where you are sure to have tripped on something. In fact, as you sweep your foot across the sidewalk, it is again hurt by a blunt object. You are surprised to find nothing by way of sight. You seek with your hands and feel the object. You lift it, it is quite heavy, and with your fingers you trace its contour to determine its form. Those who see you carrying it home think you are playing a joke on the world. When you arrive you place it somewhere where it is soon forgotten and never found again.
In the third scenario, you are back out in the city doing what you usually do. In one of the blocks you sense this smell drifting from an alleyway. You pursue it to its source. Again, as the sound, you find nothing, but the smell is so strong and so delicious it makes your mouth water, it infuses your saliva and creates in your mouth something similar to nectar. It is all a mystery. You cannot account for the smell nor the taste.
Finally, after you have satiated your appetite on the invisible feast, and you have gone to bed for the night, and woken up in the morning to work till late, and returned home, you find yourself in the same sidewalk as before, without experiencing deja vu, and in your path you almost step on a strange, curvy, colorful object. You try to stop the step but it is too late. Your foot falls right on it, and through it; it feels like air. You try to pick it up but you cannot grasp it. It just sits still, morphing very slowly, like pudding in heat. You convenientely carry a notepad and pencil, and you depict it to the best of your ability. You wake up the next morning and find the object still depicted on the notebook, and you are quite sure you did not draw it in your sleep, as the level of detail is excellent.
So tell you me, which of these cases holds most reality for you? My assumption is the latter, as we are visual creatures. My conclusion is that we are not getting an equal amount of information (later to be processed as reality) from the world. Were we blind, the primary three would all seem more real to us that the last. If we were blind, I think, we would be able to perceive more of the world. While we see, much remains subliminal. So much myth has been created around the sun, around sight, in order to make some superior and others inferior. The ability to see has often been misconstrued to mean knowledge, when these example show much of what we do not sense. The absolute nature we attribute to the deceitful sight should be undermined, and the other senses exalted. Tis true, sight is not to blame for the failings of humanity, as these arise from intention, rather than sense (i.e. the ability to see skin color in relation to racism); and had we been blind we would not have been deaf to the cries of victims, or the ferrous smell of blood, or the bitterness of food, or the viscous feel of viscera. The main idea, nevertheless, is that the other senses are undermined to favor sight, and that it should be interesting to undermine sight to experience the world in a new 'light'.
In the first situation, you are walking down the street, when you hear a whistle blowing at your right. You look to your right and see a thick, brick wall. You assume the noise is coming from inside. You alternately hear a buzz like that of a bumblebee, flying closer to your ear and then disappearing. You wave the noise away, as it comes from no apparent thing. You take a few steps when you hear the same whistle as before blow in your other ear. You try to find its source, staring at the passing cars and across the street at the shops and cafe'. Nothing there.
In the second scenario, you are still walking in the sidewalk in the autumn dusk. The air smells of the dust raised by the hustle and bustle of the day. And the lamps set against the trees set against the pale sky have a surreal quality that catches your eye. You walk down the sidewalk and something makes you trip. It actually does more than that. It cuts your shin, and blood runs down into your sandal; the few steps back to the place of the darned object feel sticky on the left foot. You see nothing where you are sure to have tripped on something. In fact, as you sweep your foot across the sidewalk, it is again hurt by a blunt object. You are surprised to find nothing by way of sight. You seek with your hands and feel the object. You lift it, it is quite heavy, and with your fingers you trace its contour to determine its form. Those who see you carrying it home think you are playing a joke on the world. When you arrive you place it somewhere where it is soon forgotten and never found again.
In the third scenario, you are back out in the city doing what you usually do. In one of the blocks you sense this smell drifting from an alleyway. You pursue it to its source. Again, as the sound, you find nothing, but the smell is so strong and so delicious it makes your mouth water, it infuses your saliva and creates in your mouth something similar to nectar. It is all a mystery. You cannot account for the smell nor the taste.
Finally, after you have satiated your appetite on the invisible feast, and you have gone to bed for the night, and woken up in the morning to work till late, and returned home, you find yourself in the same sidewalk as before, without experiencing deja vu, and in your path you almost step on a strange, curvy, colorful object. You try to stop the step but it is too late. Your foot falls right on it, and through it; it feels like air. You try to pick it up but you cannot grasp it. It just sits still, morphing very slowly, like pudding in heat. You convenientely carry a notepad and pencil, and you depict it to the best of your ability. You wake up the next morning and find the object still depicted on the notebook, and you are quite sure you did not draw it in your sleep, as the level of detail is excellent.
So tell you me, which of these cases holds most reality for you? My assumption is the latter, as we are visual creatures. My conclusion is that we are not getting an equal amount of information (later to be processed as reality) from the world. Were we blind, the primary three would all seem more real to us that the last. If we were blind, I think, we would be able to perceive more of the world. While we see, much remains subliminal. So much myth has been created around the sun, around sight, in order to make some superior and others inferior. The ability to see has often been misconstrued to mean knowledge, when these example show much of what we do not sense. The absolute nature we attribute to the deceitful sight should be undermined, and the other senses exalted. Tis true, sight is not to blame for the failings of humanity, as these arise from intention, rather than sense (i.e. the ability to see skin color in relation to racism); and had we been blind we would not have been deaf to the cries of victims, or the ferrous smell of blood, or the bitterness of food, or the viscous feel of viscera. The main idea, nevertheless, is that the other senses are undermined to favor sight, and that it should be interesting to undermine sight to experience the world in a new 'light'.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Hermit Crabs of the Universe
There was that day, the one day he felt it. He felt it around him, enveloping him in a cozy prison of matter and interpretative information.
Gazing outward -- or inward, as it may be -- he felt the cold and clammy touch of reality caress his earthly coating. It felt odd, almost alien. Inescapable but for the moments when the curtain drops and time expires in the dark state of nonexistence.
It was moments such as these when he wished he could retreat into a haven of pure feeling, a place only his imagination was capable of crafting.
Emotions ablaze, he shone like a dying star, a shock wave of desperation tearing through the space around him. Curled tightly into a ball, he wanted nothing more than to squeeze himself out of his pervasive realm of consciousness...*blip*...and into the singularity of a conjectured after-death.
Gazing outward -- or inward, as it may be -- he felt the cold and clammy touch of reality caress his earthly coating. It felt odd, almost alien. Inescapable but for the moments when the curtain drops and time expires in the dark state of nonexistence.
It was moments such as these when he wished he could retreat into a haven of pure feeling, a place only his imagination was capable of crafting.
Emotions ablaze, he shone like a dying star, a shock wave of desperation tearing through the space around him. Curled tightly into a ball, he wanted nothing more than to squeeze himself out of his pervasive realm of consciousness...*blip*...and into the singularity of a conjectured after-death.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Friday, March 7, 2008
Thursday, March 6, 2008
academia
And once in a while, after all the hosh posh fluff of freudian and lacanian interpretations, of jungian archetypes, of hermeneutic (a word that relates solely to the academic context) codes, and the realization that the rest of the population lives perfectly happy lives ignorant of all these things... the academia, to fight back, invents yet another new word to isolate themselves even more from the common, ordinary, banal, characterless, commonplace, conventional, dull, fair, familiar, generic, habitual, homespun, household, humble, indifferent, inferior, mean, mediocre, modest, normal, pedestrian, plain, plastic, prosaic, quotidian, routined, run-of-the-mill, second-rate, simple, so-so, stereotyped, undistinguished, uneventful, unexceptional, uninspired, unmemorable, unnoteworthy, unpretentious, unremarkable, usual world. Nay, they write yet another ten books full of phallic notions to interpret yet another obsolete, bucolic, 18th century sonnet.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Bunny
You came to me subtly like the first day of spring. you asked me what the homework was assigned in class on friday. I told you I had skipped class too, and you smiled. You then said "I'll see you later" and I said "peace."
Then I saw you on saturday, and I tried to say hi, but it was almost like you didn't recognize me. When I waved my hand and noticed you didn't see, I immediately transferred it to my hair, and made as if i was curling it.
Then on sunday, you looked at me in church. I felt your pupils stir in my periphery. You walked up slowly after service. You said you had something to say about your past.
You were afraid you had committed a great sin, and were afraid to tell your parents or your brother. So instead you picked me, to help you with your cross. I wanted to say 'whatever it was, I was sorry.' but talking when I should has never been my style.
You spoke of a night that seemed almost too old to remember. It was six months ago and a warm June evening. You're boyfriend back then, Brian, had wounded you deeply. You had caught him sleeping with your best friend, Darlene. You looked down at the space between my chest and the sidewalk. The atoms, or memory, seemed to weigh in your mind.
Darlene instead had been sleeping with Marcus, and Marcus in turn had slept with a whore, about two weeks before. The hoe in his story didn't really have a name, he had christened her Bunny, and paid her the money, and done what he wanted to do. There was pride in his voice when he boasted the story, but said nothing of what was brewing in his pants.
His confidence got to Darlene, who was drunk off Bud light from the keg in the bathroom. Naturally, her legs were loose by the liquid infused in her bloodstream. When they did it, it had been like a dream, not because it was good, but because she forgot it when she woke up.
She didn't know she, too, carried it in her pants when she met Brian at the game. He kept holding your hand but kept talking to your friend. You noticed something was wrong, when, after your team had won, the three of you went home, to your home, and around 10 pm the other two left and they left you alone. You thought nothing of it, but something told you to check. So you picked up the keys and you got in the car, and you picked up the streets towards his house.
Oak street was quiet and cool and ordered, each car took each spot it could take. You turned on the corner to find your own space right before the the stop sign. It was there: Darlene's car, a white Jetta with pink mardi gras pearls hanging from the rear view mirror.
After it had all occurred and the nerves had been shattered, you forgave him in your innocent blindness. He stayed the night, and left the next morning, then he pulled off the same move at the bar. You called him a jerk and you swore to hate him. And though the thought of him never left your mind, up to this day you haven't called.
In between, you visited the health center, some guy saw you as you read the magazine. You yawned, and he yawned, then the doctor came in. When you came out, your life had been changed and you knew it.
I couldn't see it yet, but I knew it hurt. I couldn't put myself in your shoes. I felt deep inside that I was the wrong stranger, incapable of sympathy, cold to pain and anguish.. the usual, casual egotist.
After that night, I saw you once and or twice some time after. You knew I knew and, embarrassed, evaded me. You became one with Jesus, started speaking the word. A few months passed and you were holding the sign. You condemned the lascivious and you yelled 'dirty liberals!' and screamed 'repent for your sins!"
I looked in your eyes and saw no trace of myself in them, no recognition, nothing, just a blind pair of dots that saw nothing but knew much about despair.
Then I saw you on saturday, and I tried to say hi, but it was almost like you didn't recognize me. When I waved my hand and noticed you didn't see, I immediately transferred it to my hair, and made as if i was curling it.
Then on sunday, you looked at me in church. I felt your pupils stir in my periphery. You walked up slowly after service. You said you had something to say about your past.
You were afraid you had committed a great sin, and were afraid to tell your parents or your brother. So instead you picked me, to help you with your cross. I wanted to say 'whatever it was, I was sorry.' but talking when I should has never been my style.
You spoke of a night that seemed almost too old to remember. It was six months ago and a warm June evening. You're boyfriend back then, Brian, had wounded you deeply. You had caught him sleeping with your best friend, Darlene. You looked down at the space between my chest and the sidewalk. The atoms, or memory, seemed to weigh in your mind.
Darlene instead had been sleeping with Marcus, and Marcus in turn had slept with a whore, about two weeks before. The hoe in his story didn't really have a name, he had christened her Bunny, and paid her the money, and done what he wanted to do. There was pride in his voice when he boasted the story, but said nothing of what was brewing in his pants.
His confidence got to Darlene, who was drunk off Bud light from the keg in the bathroom. Naturally, her legs were loose by the liquid infused in her bloodstream. When they did it, it had been like a dream, not because it was good, but because she forgot it when she woke up.
She didn't know she, too, carried it in her pants when she met Brian at the game. He kept holding your hand but kept talking to your friend. You noticed something was wrong, when, after your team had won, the three of you went home, to your home, and around 10 pm the other two left and they left you alone. You thought nothing of it, but something told you to check. So you picked up the keys and you got in the car, and you picked up the streets towards his house.
Oak street was quiet and cool and ordered, each car took each spot it could take. You turned on the corner to find your own space right before the the stop sign. It was there: Darlene's car, a white Jetta with pink mardi gras pearls hanging from the rear view mirror.
After it had all occurred and the nerves had been shattered, you forgave him in your innocent blindness. He stayed the night, and left the next morning, then he pulled off the same move at the bar. You called him a jerk and you swore to hate him. And though the thought of him never left your mind, up to this day you haven't called.
In between, you visited the health center, some guy saw you as you read the magazine. You yawned, and he yawned, then the doctor came in. When you came out, your life had been changed and you knew it.
I couldn't see it yet, but I knew it hurt. I couldn't put myself in your shoes. I felt deep inside that I was the wrong stranger, incapable of sympathy, cold to pain and anguish.. the usual, casual egotist.
After that night, I saw you once and or twice some time after. You knew I knew and, embarrassed, evaded me. You became one with Jesus, started speaking the word. A few months passed and you were holding the sign. You condemned the lascivious and you yelled 'dirty liberals!' and screamed 'repent for your sins!"
I looked in your eyes and saw no trace of myself in them, no recognition, nothing, just a blind pair of dots that saw nothing but knew much about despair.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
hero
i wish i found a village full of little people, with three foot tall doors and little chimneys lit in the winter. i wish i could find this village while hiking in the Appalachians, hiding there for a couple of centuries amid the trees and the bears that once in a while come to feed. i would find the village fenced up in relatively tall sharpened timber, broken only by a gate on the west side of the village.
i would like to have a friend with me and conspire against the village. He could maliciously break into the village by jumping the fence and snatch one of the little people from its home in the middle of the night. It would be a full moon night to make it more mysterious.
i would claim to hear the screams and would come to the rescue. i would punch my friend in the face, and the little people would tie him to the ground. Then i would tell them to release him and let me take him to the cliff, where i would rid them of this devil for eternity.
Only then, could i be able to fulfill my childhood dream: to be a hero, just for one day.
i would like to have a friend with me and conspire against the village. He could maliciously break into the village by jumping the fence and snatch one of the little people from its home in the middle of the night. It would be a full moon night to make it more mysterious.
i would claim to hear the screams and would come to the rescue. i would punch my friend in the face, and the little people would tie him to the ground. Then i would tell them to release him and let me take him to the cliff, where i would rid them of this devil for eternity.
Only then, could i be able to fulfill my childhood dream: to be a hero, just for one day.
Monday, February 25, 2008
some guy
one day, he lost his eyes, but he learned to appreciate darkness. He knew that he would no longer see a sunset, but one night he stayed up all night through the cool of the early morning hours and at around 5.46 a.m., he felt a warmth different than anything he'd felt before begin caressing the follicles of his skin. He heard the sound of birds that welcome the sunrise, and their music struck the chords of his soul many degrees deeper than before. He could have sworn he tasted the taste of the morning, that taste that bees gorge on when they gorge on the flowers in the bushes and trees. He smelt the fresh air and thanked god for his breath.
Walking in the city, he tripped on the cracked sidewalks and bumped into other humans. Someone told him to get a stick. That person didn't know his past, how recently he had lost his eyes. Those who knew him spoke only about things that could be seen, movies they had seen, or places they wanted to see. They flipped through magazines and read books that spoke of how things looked.
He couldn't see the wars on t.v. but he could still hear the pleas of the interviewed. The television still reproduced an accurate representation of the bombs and shots ringing in the distant lands beyond his reach. As his ears grew sharper, he listened to the words of those around him, and the contempt they felt for others as they destroyed others images in gossip.
"They aren't all bad..." he repeated to himself, and he smiled as he heard the longing in someone's voice, or the laughter of another, or the word love, and the word peace, and the word brother. In time he learned to tell hypocrisy from sincerity. Somewhere beneath the images and colors, there was a palpable soul in the words they spoke.
Then one day, as he crossed Main Street from 7-11 sometime in the evening (he couldn't tell what time it was, exactly, except for the atmospheric temperature), a man demanded someone else's wallet, said give or I'll shoot you motherf---er, and the rustle of the victims hands struggling for his wallet in the back pocket got intertwined with the gasps and sighs of the people around, and the thief, as to make them all look away, shot the victim, and he, blind, was right there, three feet away from the gun and the thief and the victim falling in the dark of his eyes, except, he could not hear him falling, not beneath the awful ringing that seemed to reverberate in the empty temple of his mind.
After the ringing subsided, he heard no more voices nor bird songs in the early morning. And people generally left him alone, for in the early weeks he yelled to be heard, and later on he refused to speak, as when he spoke nobody seemed to be listening.
How he made it after that, deaf and blind as he was, beats me. I never knew the guy. I just knew of him through the friend of a friend...
Walking in the city, he tripped on the cracked sidewalks and bumped into other humans. Someone told him to get a stick. That person didn't know his past, how recently he had lost his eyes. Those who knew him spoke only about things that could be seen, movies they had seen, or places they wanted to see. They flipped through magazines and read books that spoke of how things looked.
He couldn't see the wars on t.v. but he could still hear the pleas of the interviewed. The television still reproduced an accurate representation of the bombs and shots ringing in the distant lands beyond his reach. As his ears grew sharper, he listened to the words of those around him, and the contempt they felt for others as they destroyed others images in gossip.
"They aren't all bad..." he repeated to himself, and he smiled as he heard the longing in someone's voice, or the laughter of another, or the word love, and the word peace, and the word brother. In time he learned to tell hypocrisy from sincerity. Somewhere beneath the images and colors, there was a palpable soul in the words they spoke.
Then one day, as he crossed Main Street from 7-11 sometime in the evening (he couldn't tell what time it was, exactly, except for the atmospheric temperature), a man demanded someone else's wallet, said give or I'll shoot you motherf---er, and the rustle of the victims hands struggling for his wallet in the back pocket got intertwined with the gasps and sighs of the people around, and the thief, as to make them all look away, shot the victim, and he, blind, was right there, three feet away from the gun and the thief and the victim falling in the dark of his eyes, except, he could not hear him falling, not beneath the awful ringing that seemed to reverberate in the empty temple of his mind.
After the ringing subsided, he heard no more voices nor bird songs in the early morning. And people generally left him alone, for in the early weeks he yelled to be heard, and later on he refused to speak, as when he spoke nobody seemed to be listening.
How he made it after that, deaf and blind as he was, beats me. I never knew the guy. I just knew of him through the friend of a friend...
Thursday, February 21, 2008
sympathy
We were sitting in the waiting room, alone. she and I were sitting there; she flipped through a pop magazine, I twiddled my fingers. She didn't know who I was, and I didn't know who she was. Neither was I sure of who I was. It was the reason I was visiting the Student Health Department. I was almost sure they would send me to a school counselor at another building fifteen minutes away.
The doctors were busy. I admired their ability to tolerate sick people. Sick people... something about them made me want to stay away from them. But the doctors loved them. We had to wait for them to come out and call one of our names.
She and I had to wait for them. She had brown thick curls, soft lips and a gentle frame. She wore a grey shirt and blue jeans, and old, black Chucks. Her brown eyes moved from side to side of the magazine.
I wondered about her past, like I wondered about everybody's past whom I wondered about. I came up with nothing. I didn't care. My fingers were more interesting. I knew more about them than about the girl sitting there. I touched the scar on my right hand. I touched it and remembered. Then I looked up and she was still there.
She probably read some of that ordinary, superficial crap that makes cynics out of intellectuals. Her pale fingers slept down the edge of the page towards the corner, gripped and turned. She read a little more into the article, then she yawned. Naturally, I yawned.
It was the closest thing to sympathy I ever felt...
The doctors were busy. I admired their ability to tolerate sick people. Sick people... something about them made me want to stay away from them. But the doctors loved them. We had to wait for them to come out and call one of our names.
She and I had to wait for them. She had brown thick curls, soft lips and a gentle frame. She wore a grey shirt and blue jeans, and old, black Chucks. Her brown eyes moved from side to side of the magazine.
I wondered about her past, like I wondered about everybody's past whom I wondered about. I came up with nothing. I didn't care. My fingers were more interesting. I knew more about them than about the girl sitting there. I touched the scar on my right hand. I touched it and remembered. Then I looked up and she was still there.
She probably read some of that ordinary, superficial crap that makes cynics out of intellectuals. Her pale fingers slept down the edge of the page towards the corner, gripped and turned. She read a little more into the article, then she yawned. Naturally, I yawned.
It was the closest thing to sympathy I ever felt...
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
i am entering a state of confusion, which is not the dandiest thing one can enter. The State of Confusion borders Insanity, the land of chaos. It is paradoxically the moment of greatest artistic expression, although at the sacrifice of the more immediate responsibilities, which are at the source of the stay in the State of Confusion.
We spend our entire lives putting and keeping things in order, but when we die, it all returns to chaos. Why bother?
The smell of Chinese food attaching to your clothes, hydrogenated oil atoms floating from the pan onto your woolen coat and my face. Let us toast, cup in hand, cigarette in fingers, to the remaining days. There is money, and there is culture. Money laughs at culture, it says culture doesn't feed. "I feed the soul and free the mind, whereas you imprison" it responds. At the end of the day Culture starves to death and Money lives up to 87 in a state of emptiness and depression.
Life, life, life, life, life... The less you worry, the more you live. The less you think, the more you do. The more you do, the more you risk. The more you risk, the higher chance you might pass. The more you survive, the more life means. Or you could be a Quaker and be happy.
We spend our entire lives putting and keeping things in order, but when we die, it all returns to chaos. Why bother?
The smell of Chinese food attaching to your clothes, hydrogenated oil atoms floating from the pan onto your woolen coat and my face. Let us toast, cup in hand, cigarette in fingers, to the remaining days. There is money, and there is culture. Money laughs at culture, it says culture doesn't feed. "I feed the soul and free the mind, whereas you imprison" it responds. At the end of the day Culture starves to death and Money lives up to 87 in a state of emptiness and depression.
Life, life, life, life, life... The less you worry, the more you live. The less you think, the more you do. The more you do, the more you risk. The more you risk, the higher chance you might pass. The more you survive, the more life means. Or you could be a Quaker and be happy.
Origins
The other day I was talking to a fundamentalist who believed the Book was completely literal in its ideas, including that of Genesis. He disproved of evolution, while I defended evolution. But when I defended evolution I thought to myself 'what crap is flowing out of my mouth' so that I ultimately reached a conclusion: that I believed in neither, but rather, that the distant past is meaningless. Sure, many would argue that Genesis gives man a purpose in life as he is created by the Dude, and evolution, well, evolution just wanted to say that the Dude didn't make it, but rather that we naturally came to be. Nevertheless, for both I conclude that we are and what are you gonna do about it? To be or not to be, that is the question, not necessarily how we came to be. It matters enough that I came from a human to know that I am human, and that now that I am human I have a responsibility that goes with it: the responsibility of surviving with the least amount of pain or suffering.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Capitalistic Greed, WiFi and Bad Coffee
I heard from my brother (Mysanthropist) that Starbucks[TRADEMARK!] and T-Mobile[TRADEMARK!] have joined corporate forces to charge customers for WiFi services ($19.99 a month or $10 for a day-pass).
You mean to tell me that two of the biggest corporations in the world are unable to afford complimentary WiFi?! And it is especially so when there is a small mom-and-pop coffeehouse down the block, with a fraction of the monetary clout that these two business leviathans possess, offering free wireless Internet.
*Inhale* Ahhh, I love the smell of unstoppable capitalism and bad coffee in the morning...
You mean to tell me that two of the biggest corporations in the world are unable to afford complimentary WiFi?! And it is especially so when there is a small mom-and-pop coffeehouse down the block, with a fraction of the monetary clout that these two business leviathans possess, offering free wireless Internet.
*Inhale* Ahhh, I love the smell of unstoppable capitalism and bad coffee in the morning...
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