Can't you hear me...I'm beating on the wall?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX-S4sIjEeg&feature=related
25 November 2010
16 November 2010
life
he held life in his arms. his own face contorted into half-smile as he looked around the room every so often so as to not be seen lost staring into the liquid, blinking eyes of the babe - the allure, blue, fresh and new and innocent and naive and understanding and knowing, somehow, and welcoming and incapable of judgment. just blinking and...trying.
the once lively and angular shape of his own face had been naturally deformed and aged, from the fast-living manner in which he navigated his own trashy life, and was no longer a pleasure to see in the mirror - never mind actually making eye contact with himself, a long since extinct act of confidence. only ever shifting between orange-peel, bulb nose; melting candle cheeks; bag of water chin; and carpeted staircase forehead. the eyes jaundiced from self-inflicted mental maladies and sufferings and attempted escapes of internal repressions and always squinting painfully at this point anyway.
"life is a black hole" he said to the babe.
and so he tried then to think of something more profound to say, because how many times in your life do you hold life in your own arms? something memorable that could be etched into stone and told by his friends to other friends or by his parents to their friends as a statement of pride of a grown-adult-and-well-composed-and-spoken son. but his mouth was bone dry nervous and his speech patterns vacuous and; anyway, his knotted dustball thoughts disallowed anything in terms of statements with stellar quotational status: "life. you-fuck." he said then as he touched it, life, with back of his bony, scaly fingers. "you-little-Fuck." whispering.
the once lively and angular shape of his own face had been naturally deformed and aged, from the fast-living manner in which he navigated his own trashy life, and was no longer a pleasure to see in the mirror - never mind actually making eye contact with himself, a long since extinct act of confidence. only ever shifting between orange-peel, bulb nose; melting candle cheeks; bag of water chin; and carpeted staircase forehead. the eyes jaundiced from self-inflicted mental maladies and sufferings and attempted escapes of internal repressions and always squinting painfully at this point anyway.
"life is a black hole" he said to the babe.
and so he tried then to think of something more profound to say, because how many times in your life do you hold life in your own arms? something memorable that could be etched into stone and told by his friends to other friends or by his parents to their friends as a statement of pride of a grown-adult-and-well-composed-and-spoken son. but his mouth was bone dry nervous and his speech patterns vacuous and; anyway, his knotted dustball thoughts disallowed anything in terms of statements with stellar quotational status: "life. you-fuck." he said then as he touched it, life, with back of his bony, scaly fingers. "you-little-Fuck." whispering.
14 November 2010
de minimis tons and tons
And frigging life settled down right on his chest, with its huge ass and weighing tons and tons. Forcing exhalations to the point of panic. And it made him appreciate the light-switch immediacy of death...
But he could childishly never accept that his thoughts would also end with the light switch...as if they were somehow disconnected from the watery flesh of his brain. Idiot child.
...Anyway, the incessant weight on the chest and uncontrollable panic are de minimis when coupled with the dozen or so lightning flash moments of bone-melting happiness that the weight, life, grants. And so he pours himself into his wife's lap and smiles through his tears under her hands on his head.
But he could childishly never accept that his thoughts would also end with the light switch...as if they were somehow disconnected from the watery flesh of his brain. Idiot child.
...Anyway, the incessant weight on the chest and uncontrollable panic are de minimis when coupled with the dozen or so lightning flash moments of bone-melting happiness that the weight, life, grants. And so he pours himself into his wife's lap and smiles through his tears under her hands on his head.
quote:
Twain on "progress" and "contribution" of man...
"'you perceive,' he said, 'that you have made continual progress. Cain did his murder with a club; the Hebrews did their murders with javelins and swords; the Greeks and Romans added protective armor and the fine arts of military organization and generalship; the Christian has added guns and gun-powder; a few centuries from now he will have so greatly improved the deadly effectiveness of his weapons of slaughter [the atom bomb?] that all men will confess that without Christian civilization war must have remained a poor and trifling thing to the end of time.'"
- Mark Twain, 'The Mysterious Stranger', c1910 -
he had just finished a collection of Mark Twain's short works - stories, letters, speeches, etc. 'Old Times on the Mississippi' had taught him something, 'The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County' had made him smile legitimately, 'The Private History of a Campaign that Failed' had made him laugh out loud, 'The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg' had made him think, and 'The Mysterious Stranger' had blown him away, igniting a reconsideration of tenets.
The whole act - of reading by one's volition an author that had been forced upon him and ignored as a student and being genuinely and consistently moved was itself a moving experience.
so he sat back and staring at the junction of his ceiling and far wall with a knowing smile on his face, and appreciated for the first time the John Lennon quote: "The first time you hear (Bob) Dylan, you feel like you're the first person to discover him."
...and but so then he ran off to tell all his literary friends about the magical Samuel Clemens...
"'you perceive,' he said, 'that you have made continual progress. Cain did his murder with a club; the Hebrews did their murders with javelins and swords; the Greeks and Romans added protective armor and the fine arts of military organization and generalship; the Christian has added guns and gun-powder; a few centuries from now he will have so greatly improved the deadly effectiveness of his weapons of slaughter [the atom bomb?] that all men will confess that without Christian civilization war must have remained a poor and trifling thing to the end of time.'"
- Mark Twain, 'The Mysterious Stranger', c1910 -
he had just finished a collection of Mark Twain's short works - stories, letters, speeches, etc. 'Old Times on the Mississippi' had taught him something, 'The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County' had made him smile legitimately, 'The Private History of a Campaign that Failed' had made him laugh out loud, 'The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg' had made him think, and 'The Mysterious Stranger' had blown him away, igniting a reconsideration of tenets.
The whole act - of reading by one's volition an author that had been forced upon him and ignored as a student and being genuinely and consistently moved was itself a moving experience.
so he sat back and staring at the junction of his ceiling and far wall with a knowing smile on his face, and appreciated for the first time the John Lennon quote: "The first time you hear (Bob) Dylan, you feel like you're the first person to discover him."
...and but so then he ran off to tell all his literary friends about the magical Samuel Clemens...
05 November 2010
a friend of his always carried around an elastic band. in his hands, stretching it between his fingers and out into an oblong ellipse and so on, and on his right wrist when not in use. probably a 70/30 use to non-use ratio. this latest one was red originally but now nearing a shade of pink for fading. he had to change them often - once or twice a week (likely due to the ratio) because the edges get all frayed and the elasticity weakened and stiffened and cracked and so on. he let people know that the reason for the elastic was "as a reminder of tighter times" and no one ever knew what he meant, not even his closest friends - who never even bothered to ask in the first place because they knew him well enough to entirely not give a shit.
he chewed gum too, as you probably already imagined him to be the type of person to do. mostly cinnamon because not many people like cinnamon gum so he never really ever has to share any of his pack with anyone. he chews two at a time - like most annoying cinnamon gum chewers do anyway. but does not put them both in at once. he instead slowly unwraps the first, folds the piece in half, and takes a bite of it, then the second bite of the first piece. then puts the pack of gum away but never for more than a minute before taking out a second piece and inserting it the same way as the first.
with the elastic and the gum he sounded like a bowl of rice krispies. and he always dropped these non sequiturs like "fuck the city" or "objectivity is a falsehood" that he thought philosophical but no one gave a shit about.
he also loved those movies that chicks dig. the ones that start as cartoons during the opening credits and segue perfectly from cartoon to some "real life" city scene for the opening act. and the cartoon woman character turns into a real woman, the main character, but a fuller shaped and with more realistic hip-to-waist ratio version than the cartoon.
he chewed gum too, as you probably already imagined him to be the type of person to do. mostly cinnamon because not many people like cinnamon gum so he never really ever has to share any of his pack with anyone. he chews two at a time - like most annoying cinnamon gum chewers do anyway. but does not put them both in at once. he instead slowly unwraps the first, folds the piece in half, and takes a bite of it, then the second bite of the first piece. then puts the pack of gum away but never for more than a minute before taking out a second piece and inserting it the same way as the first.
with the elastic and the gum he sounded like a bowl of rice krispies. and he always dropped these non sequiturs like "fuck the city" or "objectivity is a falsehood" that he thought philosophical but no one gave a shit about.
he also loved those movies that chicks dig. the ones that start as cartoons during the opening credits and segue perfectly from cartoon to some "real life" city scene for the opening act. and the cartoon woman character turns into a real woman, the main character, but a fuller shaped and with more realistic hip-to-waist ratio version than the cartoon.
the thing about this guy was that he ate his boogers. licked the wet ones right off his finger with a stiff tongue and scraped the dry, harder ones onto the back of his bottom front teeth.
he also indulged himself often in children snacks, though this was of considerably less social consequence. those gummy, sugary fruit snacks that come in little packs of 10 or so - red, orange, green, yellow, and sometimes blue. he would punish three or four packs right in a row. open the pack, pour the entire contents into his palm, and eat colors at a time.
he was doing 'Bron-Y-Aur Stomp' from III on repeat. everyone knows the story (from Nehemiah) where the inventor of stringed instruments upon hearing Zeppelin III for the first time shakes G awake from a nap in heaven to say "Behold, man approaches divinity!" and G just rolls over.
he generally tries to listen to full albums - enjoying the art of piecing together 10 - 15 songs into a coherent unit. many of the artists he enjoyed crafted albums. as opposed to singles and filler and he felt as if he was ignoring an important piece of what they had worked so hard at if the album was not enjoyed as an album. but there were those times man when immediate gratification ruled the fort and there was only one perfect song to be enjoyed for that moment. and caution and restraint be damned, that song was getting enjoyed and enjoyed probably five or six times before it was done with him. he loved the ones, songs, that exercised his emotions. a rolling mania being his favorite and the most enjoyable.
man. he was in a bit of spot where creativity was just not coming to him and so he supplanted with boogers and mediocrity.
he also indulged himself often in children snacks, though this was of considerably less social consequence. those gummy, sugary fruit snacks that come in little packs of 10 or so - red, orange, green, yellow, and sometimes blue. he would punish three or four packs right in a row. open the pack, pour the entire contents into his palm, and eat colors at a time.
he was doing 'Bron-Y-Aur Stomp' from III on repeat. everyone knows the story (from Nehemiah) where the inventor of stringed instruments upon hearing Zeppelin III for the first time shakes G awake from a nap in heaven to say "Behold, man approaches divinity!" and G just rolls over.
he generally tries to listen to full albums - enjoying the art of piecing together 10 - 15 songs into a coherent unit. many of the artists he enjoyed crafted albums. as opposed to singles and filler and he felt as if he was ignoring an important piece of what they had worked so hard at if the album was not enjoyed as an album. but there were those times man when immediate gratification ruled the fort and there was only one perfect song to be enjoyed for that moment. and caution and restraint be damned, that song was getting enjoyed and enjoyed probably five or six times before it was done with him. he loved the ones, songs, that exercised his emotions. a rolling mania being his favorite and the most enjoyable.
man. he was in a bit of spot where creativity was just not coming to him and so he supplanted with boogers and mediocrity.
age-ed and sick-lee
aged and sickly he sat and read from the yellowed pages of his own journals.
"Hindsightal lessons to a more junior self:
- read this again and again: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.
- listen to this three times before passing judgment: Kid A by Radiohead.
- do not quote from this movie during youthful, precoital relationships: The Big Lebowski.
- appreciate this band's ability to force emotion into sinusoidal waves: Sigur Ros.
- let this change your life: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
- and let this change it back: Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
- note the catalog of an artist or author and study its progression.
- enjoy a relationship with words.
- appreciate genius.
- listen to music through headphones.
- lay with your wife."
"Hindsightal lessons to a more junior self:
- read this again and again: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.
- listen to this three times before passing judgment: Kid A by Radiohead.
- do not quote from this movie during youthful, precoital relationships: The Big Lebowski.
- appreciate this band's ability to force emotion into sinusoidal waves: Sigur Ros.
- let this change your life: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
- and let this change it back: Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
- note the catalog of an artist or author and study its progression.
- enjoy a relationship with words.
- appreciate genius.
- listen to music through headphones.
- lay with your wife."
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