I think the best love songs are the irrational ones, for obvious reasons.
It's why Barry Manilow or Celine Dion will never move me all that much, because they're so smooth and polished and flawless. But honestly, who acts that way when they're in love? "Oh baby, I want to take you to a castle filled with champagne and pillows made of kittens and you'll be in my heart forever, darling," all with a calmly smug look on their face, like they know exactly the right thing to say.
Who the hell could be that pompous and self-assured if they were really in love? (Self-love, maybe). That's why I realized Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" is one of the best seduction songs ever written, because it's so wild and off-kilter. The feeling is so enormous and genuine the words become secondary. It's like he's sweating and testifying the things you'd really feel.
"I kick the habit,
Shed my skin...
This is the new stuff,
I come dancing in"
What the hell does that mean? Who cares? Is he really singing "I will chauffeur you" or "show for you"? Doesn't matter. Or think of Brian Eno. He'll wait patiently for his longed-for one, and when they arrive, he'll come running... to tie your shoe. Tie your shoe? Yes. It works. Carla Thomas-- she's so overwhelmed when he walks by, all she can say is: Gee Whiz. Or who can forget that primal voodoo incantation: A whomp bomp a loo bomp, a whomp bam boom.
Anyway, maybe it's a testament to my instability or irrationality or immaturity. But when it comes to love songs, not making sense makes more sense than making sense does.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Destruction.
I was watching videos of Charles Manson and Aileen Wuornos (an abused prostitute who killed seven men) and I knew that it was crucially important to relate to them on some level, to understand. Because if we say, "Ah, the dangerous people are all safely locked up!" then we are lying to ourselves, as a society. "I didn't kill anyone", insists Charles Manson, and he's right. "I didn't kill anyone", says George W. Bush, and he's right. Where is the blood? Does it rest on your hands? And if we act like the malignant things are to be ignored, shut away, not listened to-- this is so dangerous. We are asking to be deceived.
Evil men smile and wear suits. If you are being punished, then your crime was not flagrant enough. That's the only different. You forgot to cloak your crime in the robes of righteousness. If you had, you would have gotten away scot-free.
Those with autism, schizophrenia. Some people look at them and say that they babble, they make no sense, they are raving madmen. But those with insight, imagination, those who are willing to expand their minds-- of course they make sense! They are not inconsistent, they obey rules, even if those rules are obscure to others. For example, reading Bettleheim's "The Empty Fortress", I am so impressed and amazed at him and his institute's ability to use imagination, creativity, lateral thinking, compassion. The cries of the pained are often in code. Do we ignore them if they aren't immediately accessible? I fear the answer is yes.
If something is beyond you, you have two options. One is to ignore it and say that it is nonsense, or belittle the person or the opinion. The other option is to change yourself. Grow towards that which is beyond you, don't ignore it. If you do that, you'll be stuck in a little dark hole for the rest of your existence.
The phoenix. I realized, a little while ago, that there was something I had never considered-- namely, that the phoenix is not exactly happy to set itself on fire. One of the worst things has happened to the phoenix-myth-- namely, that is has become all too well-known. That is one way of making something invisible-- to show it to everyone.
No, the firebird is not happy or thrilled with the idea of setting itself on fire. As a matter of fact, this hurts. This had never occurred to me before. I had always taken it as a matter of course. But there came a time, writes Anais Nin, that the pain involved with remaining curled up became greater than the pain blah blah blah. Again, this quote is a marvelous example. If you want something to be stripped of all meaning, expose it to the light. It is only when something is unknown that it can be truly known. If something is hidden then it can be seen. If something is dark then you can see all of its edges and angles. True for me but not true for others.
If you are having problems in your personal life it is probably because you are not thinking like a god. As gods, what we envision casts its shadow on reality. This is why contradictory points of view are still valid. If you think there is a God, then in your life, it will come to be so. If you think there isn't, then it will not. This is why people are so hard to persuade away from their points of view-- their believing makes it so.
And what I wish to emphasize here is that it is not so objectively, but subjectively. If I believe my house is green, who are you to tell me differently? You cannot, if I have made my mind up. It is irrational, but the behaviors of human beings is nothing if not irrational.
So to return to an earlier point, realize (or at least pretend) that you are a god and life will begin to make more sense. Not God, not the Judeo-Christian boondoggle, but something a little older, like the Grecian gods. They were a little more forgiving, I think. Every one of your actions is irreproachably correct, imagine if that were true! There might as well be! A little dark house! There is nothing, nothing at all, that does not serve either life or death. As far as I'm concerned, that's true. One roughly as powerful as the other. Don't be afraid to destroy things! Rain hellfire and destruction, if you like! The crops were burned and the farmers lost their livelihood. They put the Hungarian on a burning, smoldering throne of iron, with a red-hot crown on his head and a scepter in his hand. His brother was cut into three pieces, right before his eyes. How to reconcile this with any code of ethics whatsoever? You cannot. The only explanation is that the dark and the light are present in all people. One will never win, the other will never lose, at least as far as human experience goes.
Having problems? Burn them to ashes in your eyes. Violence. Construction. Make children. The fallow fields, the fertile fields. Where Zeus lay with Hera, the grass sprung up, freshly green and sparkling with dew. If not for the machinations of Aphrodite, all would come to naught and the war of Ilium would rage until the end of time.
I was watching videos of Charles Manson and Aileen Wuornos (an abused prostitute who killed seven men) and I knew that it was crucially important to relate to them on some level, to understand. Because if we say, "Ah, the dangerous people are all safely locked up!" then we are lying to ourselves, as a society. "I didn't kill anyone", insists Charles Manson, and he's right. "I didn't kill anyone", says George W. Bush, and he's right. Where is the blood? Does it rest on your hands? And if we act like the malignant things are to be ignored, shut away, not listened to-- this is so dangerous. We are asking to be deceived.
Evil men smile and wear suits. If you are being punished, then your crime was not flagrant enough. That's the only different. You forgot to cloak your crime in the robes of righteousness. If you had, you would have gotten away scot-free.
Those with autism, schizophrenia. Some people look at them and say that they babble, they make no sense, they are raving madmen. But those with insight, imagination, those who are willing to expand their minds-- of course they make sense! They are not inconsistent, they obey rules, even if those rules are obscure to others. For example, reading Bettleheim's "The Empty Fortress", I am so impressed and amazed at him and his institute's ability to use imagination, creativity, lateral thinking, compassion. The cries of the pained are often in code. Do we ignore them if they aren't immediately accessible? I fear the answer is yes.
If something is beyond you, you have two options. One is to ignore it and say that it is nonsense, or belittle the person or the opinion. The other option is to change yourself. Grow towards that which is beyond you, don't ignore it. If you do that, you'll be stuck in a little dark hole for the rest of your existence.
The phoenix. I realized, a little while ago, that there was something I had never considered-- namely, that the phoenix is not exactly happy to set itself on fire. One of the worst things has happened to the phoenix-myth-- namely, that is has become all too well-known. That is one way of making something invisible-- to show it to everyone.
No, the firebird is not happy or thrilled with the idea of setting itself on fire. As a matter of fact, this hurts. This had never occurred to me before. I had always taken it as a matter of course. But there came a time, writes Anais Nin, that the pain involved with remaining curled up became greater than the pain blah blah blah. Again, this quote is a marvelous example. If you want something to be stripped of all meaning, expose it to the light. It is only when something is unknown that it can be truly known. If something is hidden then it can be seen. If something is dark then you can see all of its edges and angles. True for me but not true for others.
If you are having problems in your personal life it is probably because you are not thinking like a god. As gods, what we envision casts its shadow on reality. This is why contradictory points of view are still valid. If you think there is a God, then in your life, it will come to be so. If you think there isn't, then it will not. This is why people are so hard to persuade away from their points of view-- their believing makes it so.
And what I wish to emphasize here is that it is not so objectively, but subjectively. If I believe my house is green, who are you to tell me differently? You cannot, if I have made my mind up. It is irrational, but the behaviors of human beings is nothing if not irrational.
So to return to an earlier point, realize (or at least pretend) that you are a god and life will begin to make more sense. Not God, not the Judeo-Christian boondoggle, but something a little older, like the Grecian gods. They were a little more forgiving, I think. Every one of your actions is irreproachably correct, imagine if that were true! There might as well be! A little dark house! There is nothing, nothing at all, that does not serve either life or death. As far as I'm concerned, that's true. One roughly as powerful as the other. Don't be afraid to destroy things! Rain hellfire and destruction, if you like! The crops were burned and the farmers lost their livelihood. They put the Hungarian on a burning, smoldering throne of iron, with a red-hot crown on his head and a scepter in his hand. His brother was cut into three pieces, right before his eyes. How to reconcile this with any code of ethics whatsoever? You cannot. The only explanation is that the dark and the light are present in all people. One will never win, the other will never lose, at least as far as human experience goes.
Having problems? Burn them to ashes in your eyes. Violence. Construction. Make children. The fallow fields, the fertile fields. Where Zeus lay with Hera, the grass sprung up, freshly green and sparkling with dew. If not for the machinations of Aphrodite, all would come to naught and the war of Ilium would rage until the end of time.
Monday, October 18, 2010
What's the Opposite of the Blues?
I went to go see the seal rescue facility near San Francisco with the family.
My li'l packet-of-adorableness cousin was there too!
Sharin' the love while perusing pinnipeds. Love you sweetie!
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Gnosis Knows This
Suddenly seized by a particular kind of intellectual terror, I realize-- I don't know nearly enough about any thing there is to know about. I demand the immediate and fresh injection of ideas, 500 cc's or so.
For example, amazon.com. Where did they come from? How does the public perceive their persona? (Are they too recently arrived to elicit the kind of gut reactions from, say "Wal-Mart" or "McDonald's", for example.) How big are they, in terms of revenue, people employeed? How does one even go about starting an online franchise? How many books address the burgeoning social issues of online commerce?
Is e-commerce the equivalent of intercontinental trade, or finding a resource? Do former economic principles apply? Which ones? Who is best poised to write the definitive study, among the strata of our academic society?
And so on. Dammit, why the fuck did we have to lose David Foster Wallace. We, as a nation, really needed him. I believe this. He was the clearest pairs of eyes up in the crow's nest. Every time I unravel one of his works, I find: he has described, in advance, some trap that I am currently caught in, or he has marked the path I find my feet on. The finest since Dostoyevsky, and since I haven't read Dostoyevsky, just the Finest.
For example, amazon.com. Where did they come from? How does the public perceive their persona? (Are they too recently arrived to elicit the kind of gut reactions from, say "Wal-Mart" or "McDonald's", for example.) How big are they, in terms of revenue, people employeed? How does one even go about starting an online franchise? How many books address the burgeoning social issues of online commerce?
Is e-commerce the equivalent of intercontinental trade, or finding a resource? Do former economic principles apply? Which ones? Who is best poised to write the definitive study, among the strata of our academic society?
And so on. Dammit, why the fuck did we have to lose David Foster Wallace. We, as a nation, really needed him. I believe this. He was the clearest pairs of eyes up in the crow's nest. Every time I unravel one of his works, I find: he has described, in advance, some trap that I am currently caught in, or he has marked the path I find my feet on. The finest since Dostoyevsky, and since I haven't read Dostoyevsky, just the Finest.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Borne Away
The moon takes forever to crest above the ground
Because the night never ends.
Now I put entropy away in a drawer,
Along with a neat little drawing.
And as the night draws down it explains,
Pushes down, falls apart,
Ages like dark gold and a ways apart.
My daughter alights on the couch,
Her face shines out through the fields--
This is the evening I give to her
And the dark drafts bear it away.
Because the night never ends.
Now I put entropy away in a drawer,
Along with a neat little drawing.
And as the night draws down it explains,
Pushes down, falls apart,
Ages like dark gold and a ways apart.
My daughter alights on the couch,
Her face shines out through the fields--
This is the evening I give to her
And the dark drafts bear it away.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Oh Heck, Why Not
This post is made of the purest, most unadulterated ego, and for that I apologize. But I wanted to show you-- I've been exercising pretty consistently over the past however long, and I think it's begun to show:
I also managed to set a new deadlift record yesterday: 325 lbs. I feel good about that. It's an appreciable amount to get off the ground, I can tell you.
I also managed to set a new deadlift record yesterday: 325 lbs. I feel good about that. It's an appreciable amount to get off the ground, I can tell you.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
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