scagway

--at night
warm rustling leaves under the porch
where our hanging seat creaks on its chains
and our cider steams up

--in the moonlights
candle glows across the street and children out
too late and mothers calling two blocks down
we smile and sip, shoulders together

--with the spooks and spectres
charmed by the season of harvests and feast
your arm around my shoulder as I shiver
leaning in, your lips curl

the mountain goats

we gots a coupla alma maters' sons round herez re knox c. whats up in tha g-burg so heres a lyrk 4 u:

the land's opening up like a blanket,
and the dandelions spread themselves thickly out
along the fields, which are, evidently, endless;
and we are hotly in love with one another.
we've got an unquenchable thirst in our throats.
we are, for some reason, all the time, bleeding,
and we are friendless.

and we love these dogs that roll on the lawns here in galesburg --
because they seem to know something nobody else knows.
it is written in the smiles on their faces,
and it rings in their high young voices
we are burning up all of our choices up here
where the tall grass grows, up here in galesburg.

the sky's opening up like an old wound,
and the rain on our bodies is warm tonight
and the ground underneath us shakes in the cracking thunder.
we can taste fresh blood in our mouths again:
there is no chance of getting enough of it,
and we tally up all our possessions, we're going under.

but we love these dogs that loll in the rain here in galesburg
as the new season rocks them in its terrible arms.
yeah they howl as though the world were ending,
and we are watching the sky unwinding
and some of our promises were binding up here where our dreams take form
up here in galesburg.

thx Mountain Goats u magnifesick basteds. dying town word yo.

Notes

A few very rough musings for you today, from some notes jotted down last year.

After two and a half millennia, we are still without an answer to Thrasymachus, or at least so it seems. The ability to ask the question "Why should I be moral?" still exercises us to formulate an answeer. For it seems that any moral theory, to be adequate to ground the normativity of its judgments, must be such that it can give a motivating reason to everyone for acting in ways prescribed by the theory, on the grounds given by the theory. We could call this the motivation test (MT). The test merely sets a minimum level of justification for action that a moral theory must provide. The theory gives grounds of some sort justifying moral behavior. If someone understands these grounds, and if that person takes them to be reasons for action that do justify moral behavior, but do not take them as (at least some of) their own reasons for action, the theory fails the MT.
That, at least, is the sort of story one might tell; a Kantian moral theorist will surely like this idea, since the categorical imperative's own justification seems to contain a claim similar to the MT. A rational creature, as such, if it does understand the justification of the categorical imperative, cannot help but take some sort of universalizing principle as a reason to act in one way rather than another. The creature, understanding, thinks to itself I am a rational creature and This principle applies to the actions of rational creatures as such and then This principle applies to my (thinking about my) actions and I am doing something wrong if I fail to act in accordance with the principle. The rational creature may not thereby actually act in accordance with the moral imperative, but the creature, in understanding the theory, on a view like this, must thereby take it as justifying at least some reasons for action.
Some modern theorists working in a deontological vein have suggested that a Humean moral theory cannot meet such a test. One way to crudely characterize such criticism is to say that it takes the idea that moral utterances are expressive of attitudes toward (proposed) moral behaviors and shows that if such is the case no justification for any particular reasons will come about from a general moral theory since attitudes are merely subjective and without any necessary persuasive force. In his argument in the Treatise for why we necessarily need moral rules, Hume imagines a world full of human beings but in which there are no moral rules. He concludes that one could not have a coherent self-identity, since there could be no "relations" motivating prudential behavior, because the future self–like other people in such a world–must be connected to by the very relations that Hume says are necessary and necessarily for moral behavior in order to be cared about (in order for the future self to be me in a more than purely intellectual understanding), and the world without moral rules cannot have such relations in it. So, the claim goes, Hume's moral theory justifies acting in some ways rather than others, even after the theory has been explained, for those who understand the theory, because they must relate in ways that entail moral rules being taken to exist for themselves on pain of not being able to have a coherent self-identity. So they will say These are rules that apply to me and are reasons for me to act morally even if they do not actually end up acting on those reasons.

What these accounts suppose is that the MT can only be met on grounds that convince a "rational" being that the justification given by the moral theory actually gives that being reason to act in so far as it actually is a "rational" being. But what then of the immoralist, the egoist who holds no allegiance to moral rules as such? The egoist will claim that their actions and reasons are "rational," in some sense, and so if they do not take moral reasons to be any of their own reasons, they are going to provide thereby a counterexample to any such theory's meeting the MT. I want to agree that the presupposition that a theory's passing the test on pain of the being's "irrational" reasons leads to a failure to actually pass the MT, but I do not want to do so in such a way that allows the egoist off the hook for immoral behavior.

What I propose is that the test, as conceived, requires to narrow a view of what counts as having a reason to act, such that those to whom the question of whether or not to act morally applies can deny of themselves that they necessarily actually have reason to act morally even while understanding the theory justifying said reason. This means, basically, that the MT fails as a test of minimal adequacy for a proposed moral theory, because it gets wrong how moral reasons apply to agents. A first indication how moral reasons do apply is this: observe first the difference between saying "Barbara acted morally" and saying "That lion acted morally." It is not clear what we could mean by the second statement. Now suppose we have an intelligent Martian of whom, having flown to earth and taken up residence, we say "That Martian acted morally." I propose that this third statement is as difficult to understand as the second, because moral rules do no attach to us qua rational being, but rather qua human being.

One point to note is that the problem Callicles and Thrasymachus present is not the same problem (though related) as the problem presented by Prichard, and again different from that posed by Nietzsche. Yet, it would appear, those problems are lumped to gether in some of the thoughts presented here. They are, I suppose, most useful as a spur to further consideration rather than solid proposal (in effect, my standard caveat for philosophical musings posted to this space).

But, a question for private consideration: do you require justification to be moral or, to change the terminology to be more suitable for humanities students, to do what is right or, on the contrary, do you do what is right because it is right (and based on a particular reason salient to an example situation), or some third option? Intuition check, in other words, before you begin to argue.

AAAAAAARERRRRRrrrrrr ggh

Yeah, umm I just got back form the haloween party, was all crazy like with the MFa's. ENglish MFAs likie fiction and shit, poetry. They can party I like went to this other thing first that was corwded and all that with a keg and noo cups! so as my pirate costume part of it i had a flask of rum to drink. so walked out of that (had engineers i think?> and over to the grad studens you know theyy can trink. uh

MFAs anyway and dancing and marylyn monroe got me to drive her home bu ti knew her from before and but anyway i guesss cowgirl also a propular costume and there was also januarygirl or, like i guess a faximile or simulacrum or somthing anyway doing the wholedevil in a reddress think plus wipping people. funny Shit gotta pass out to much fuckin fun.. rum

orange + green

You seen a St. Paddy's day shit around recently I thought not that's ~6 mo. from now. But anyway around here's like Syracuse an' shit all with orange shirts and whatever. If you never seen a baboon wearing a green sweater out of spite now is a good time. I'ma bite some skulls.

Plus bonus abuse: Halloween, bitches. I'll take your candy and your baby so don't fuck with the Pirate Monkey Robot. Because I will eat your muthafuckin' brain.

Right

So Libby was indicted. Can you say "Roll over" anyone? Rove is in the crosshairs. Fucker.

Also: watch Bush get a real ideologue on the Supreme Court because his stalking horse was cut down. Now, any "qualified" nutjob will be able to take the Assoc. Justice position. Thanks, jerk. And thank you, Democrats, because you're going to allow it.

a bit of free asociation

today's word is:
conflagration.

calypigian, ants marching steam drill over awalled

oak tree (Fight club: searing flesh) whose hands are these?

typing

as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
my thanatos, denatos, eros
thenatos
death wish
kill me
this is nothing more than anything no one ever wanted
escaping and he said why what will you do now
this was all I ever wanted and more i replied

end of baseball season celebration it was a cousin's hometown and that of my best friend's dad for third grade and holy hell is that Jesus in my rearview

look back over that how will you self-criticize and scar
yourself, abuse yourself, use yourself, infuse yourself diffuse this
guilt shame fear all forced into that single point underpressure,
and suddenly ablaze a
matchstick lit in the deepest cave subway station abandoned bench by
the hobos

standing around warming hands
stories we tell all stories to each other,
reconstructing self and other
reconfigure reconsider, deliver
yourself unto me
O Zion,

(for this is all and ever and forever, and ever, so move over)

cracked, crack, rock, smack slap snort sniff sniffle tears and
giggle wiggle, give you the finger can't you see
this ultratudinousmonstrositerriflyrificsaurus rex?

no: have you got a light? monkeyfuck.

Heads up all you Xian rockers!

Hey so I've been out awhile what with Thoth doing his "ooh I'm so special look at my introspection" writer-thing. Whatever whatever, I'm just putting in my $.02 about high-up Republican indictments (or should I say, Rethuglican, ha ha--God that is so fuckin' stupid): hell yeah, bitches! Hell. Yeah. But as I said a while back, and glad that I was right from the get-go here and here, Rove is the sweetest plum. Yes, although Bush's downfall would be more beneficial and satisfying.

As for the christian music-listeners of a modern variety, you'll have to hurry up and get this for real actual buyable product.

I'm gonna get you, Copper!

I surely endorse checking out Copper.

End to the tangent

Well so the current diversion has played itself out as much as it can, for the moment. There is a second section fully formed in my mind, and an idea for a third and forth floating somewhere. I suppose, constant reader, it is a bit tedious for you to wait for dribs of story each day. But there it is: a use of structural features of blogging itself as formal aspect of narrative. (It would be nice to set it up so as to have folks start at the bottom of the webpage and be able to go back (up) and scroll down as they read, to fit better with the natural reading style of English speakers, but then one can't have everything...) Anyway, the concept of putting the 1st person perspective into a story like this is interesting to me. Sort of a window into that moment of the mind where conscious understanding happens. Of course the transmission is intermittent, so we don't perhaps get the whole story. I also recognize that the whole thing is rather opaque. What's going on gets a bit clearer later, but suffice it to say that there is nothing remotely similar to normal experience happening except in the phenomena. That is, the feelings and thoughts are real but the setting and "plot" are unreal in the extreme. What that means is itself part of the point, however. And speaking of points the point of this sort of work is entirely direct and assertive but the mode of presentation, as with all the purely creative mediums (not to be confused with media), is entirely indirect. Hopefully as this project comes to completion a point is made; otherwise, I'll just have to keep writing until I've come up with "Infinite Jest 2" or some junk like that.

Pop back to the beginning using this link or you can look at the Oct. 05 archives to find it as well.

Floating now. A cloud.

Like respiring swampwater.

Footsteps like tears.

Annointed in the Dead Sea.

Fasting season visions.

Internal organs crushed together
tremendous pressure

brain bawling.

Stumbling
fuzzy feeling





like
*********************************** FA

L



L







I









N
















G

































.

Here walking along along walking along footsteps can you hear can't hear breathing footstep another another sweating salt licking where is the end can't go back need to drink or eat or fuck or what bleeding are my palps ruined salty is that sweat blood dripping pooling splashing soaking cold skin too hot the walls burning up nearly can no longer reach across this passage just too wide walking along need sleep can't pooling sweat drping tired so tired back to the
barrier
don't let go of the wall hugging the wall one step in fron of the fingers hurting feet stepping another another can't see anything can't hear breathing foggy damp like water can't step away from this solid wall all that is left a touchstone burning sensations slowly out of finger what is off to the side empty maybe only inches away the other wall or empty breath ragged feeling in the chest but no sound lungs empty sweating into empty mouth what is out there keep walking here.

Slick salt

skin loose




losing it.




Thirst.

Getting
warmer

?






















Yes, the walls/floor.

Feet starting to sweat.

i'll be back
sure

Turning slowly to that great space. Too deep. Came in through that door to the right. The other way's to the left.

Narrow, stones larger, rougher. This cloth keeps the trickles of sand from above off my shoulders.



A smaller chamber now. Round.


How long?


Minutes and years are identical here.

Steps away on the other side a doorway, not an open passage. The top is just an arch across those walls rising into...

But there is a ceiling in that tunnel.




Darkness, and not large at all.









Nothing ventured--

No pain--

Necessity is--




I'll be one of those statues before long, gray and dusty waiting for matter to crumble into leptons. For protons to decay. For the icy wastes of Ragnarok. For space, infinitely hungry, to swallow everything.


Fear.

Need.











The first foot planted inside and suddenly all is dark. Back behind there's a slow draft, and this shadowswallowed hall feels to stretch to the vanishing point. Or it would if it could be seen.


Back on the path then, turning around. One foot so slowly in front, lean, land, repeat on the other side.

Fingers to the wall. Raw after traveling. Neither closer nor further from anything.

Tired, so tired, why don't I sleep.

Onward.

A mirror? Teen feet high and wide, bottom on the floor, against a wall between two corridor entrances and in the fourth direction that same
fog
deepening space that sight cannot penetrate, like above.

Wipe away some of the dust. A darkling glass indeed. But not me there, no reflection at all.

Looking down the body remains. A figure in the glass though, and moving.

Turning there is no one behind.





Nothing worth thinking about is out in
that.



Moving closer, clearer but smokey, obscured. A face. My nose near enough that mist should form. Too dry for that, must be. (Still can't hear breathing.)

Speak up. I try to answer. Raise your voice.


Still cannot hear.

Shout. Yell scream howl. Who are you? Speak up
to me
you are real but this flawed veil
between us
vibrates at strikes of a fist, kicks and
shoulders
but we can't break it though the other seems to be trying
as hard.



Answer the question. Ask. Ask/answer. Ask/answer.







Exhaustion. Vocal chords burning. Hands up to the glass. The figure on the othersideunclear the same. Signs--visible--yes, that's it.

Semaphore. hello
hello

who are you ?






what will i find behind the glass ?
you won't find me i am in another place
just a wall ?
maybe or maybe you will see me without this The barrier.
that would be well
would it ?
we will be together where there are none else
i would like that but
what
did you meet a child with the emptiness on him
the void on his chest ?
yes marked everywhere on the floor in languages
the child lay beneath Gilgamesh
praying to give life away?
yes selfskinseparation marked with what was it
void
yes that poor child
alone
sent me away
but you want just the opposite
yes
whatever i am whatever you are ?
of course i can see well enough














...

Up another step. Another. Aches. Climbing for how long? Stairwell to
something or
nothing above or below
even by this light.

My fingers are trembling, shaking. Legs shaking.
The stairs are bending, bucking. Silence but vibrating wildly. Internal organs flying upwards and the whole structure is falling now. Jarring reversal and my cheeks sting with the bite now struggling to right myself as upward acceleration increases.

Down again and my feet can't reach down to the floor. Up and I slam against the stairs, skull bouncing from the steps.

Nothing broken but the torch is

out of my hand

reversal

and it

flutters away

into

the

center
of
the
stair
well


and
then
some
how
falls
out
of
sight


as
I
flail
hovering



the movement stops and the floorstones rise up much too quickly
























Ouch.
"Hello?" Like the tongueless.

Pews stretching away amidst thin columns reaching up into that... space. Basic, stone, facing the alter away away.

A long time to reach it.


Light. There

is someone

standing

right where I'm headed.




Silent breaths move my ribs. I move my ribs to breathe. No feel of the air in my throat, so dry, clay coated, sour.


I feel sorry for you. Why?



Step
one
foot
after
the
other
foot.

Alter a stone slab. I never expected a cross. Not a glyph in the place. Dusty like a year's disuse. Must be a speaking stone, cult of the Voice; a display table, cult of Ishtar, Isis, Jezebel, Yoni--am I angry?




That glow again, at its feet. Too bright to see either clearly. Warmth on this tight cold skin and a sound like gusts through thick leaves and rhythmic.



"There is a--"


"--child." Really. There should be a memory but everything is faded, inkstained or incomplete.

Look at you. Naked. Sneering contempt now, not sympathy. Don't you know anything?



... "What should I know?" Quietly, eyes downcast, bare feet dirty and bruised, knees skinned somewhere, hands black with clinging dust. The rest of me goosepimpled, nothing wrong. Naked. Something wrong. Skin. Dirty.

You'll need this.

"A torch." Yes, that's what it is, a torch. Torch. Bright and warm--not food but it's better than nothing. Cursed stomach.

And this.





Drape it over yourself.





Like this.











Timid; still can't see this
person
well.

"You must have brought this from... out-side." Funny word.

Outside?

Looking at the stone block now. I take the
torch
and look closer. Still not a glyph to be found. I trace
0
in the dust and glance around. Darker now and the figure is gone. Everything beyond this light is impossible to see at all. The doorway where I came is much to far.



A stairwell behind the
altar
illuminated by the
torch
round and steep with an outline like
0
and a draft. Cold dusty smell, empty.




Are You there? No echoes. Descent on slowly padding soles.

"Hello?"

Don't touch me.

"Sorry." I cough, spit. Is that white baby's pap--I'm hungry? Licking my lips stinging and cracked.

You sound familiar.

"Isn't it cold down there?"

Yes. Well, why don't you come around here so I can get a look at you. Not a request, not a demand. Bare toes grip the rough floor as I pad counterclockwise to stand at four o'clock to its body's five. A male, then. Prepubescent. I know that face.

"A lot of blood." No kidding. "Yours?"

Don't know. I'm very tired, but I don't--can't--sleep.

"What's that you've written there?" Too calm. Why don't I react? Something is wrong; no, nothing is right, there's a difference.

Oh. That. I didn't write anything.

"But your hands--" Fingertips bloodies and concave, the flesh jagged and oozing viscious cold blood.

No, I didn't write anything. A smile, first on one side and then spreading over white teeth, tight and slow. I thought maybe I could get back to...

"Do you know a way out?" No excitement in me but the voice says otherwise.

Out?

The plinth at his head has the statue but it's not weeping anymore.



Wait.




Not the same statue at all. Cruel eyes. Marduk or Gilgamesh? That eye did not just move. It did not. No.

Tell me how you found me.

"It was on my path, I guess."

Do you have food?






Leave
me be. Light flares deep in the hall opposite. There
you are. My eyes catch nothing but a fading glow like a cool
star.

"What..." But he is silent. And not dead, index finger tracing the symbol on his chest again and again like a

caress.




"Who are you?"

Who are you?

I set off after the light, stymied. Eyes in the shadows high up. Ears on those statues, surely. Him, me, an assailant or one assailed, too. Odd, that. A voice floats behind me.

Watch out for feathers falling on clay.

Perhaps he wants to return to diving the sea.

Another hall, round with concentric rings carved into the floor. The balcony is above me now. A statue of Adam weeps blood that runs onto its wide gray plinth, pooling and dripping over the edge onto my toes.




My growling stomach clenches hard at the brackish, rotten flavor of it. Pain. Hear the
gutteral


e ch
oe s of my slime-coated vocal chords. I hack hard, then spit into my palm and annoint the feet.




Dizzy. Did someone just defile a grave? Did Lazarus break the spine of a rabbit? Like a dream at false dawn after shuddering awake, thought slips from me. Who knows how long my body has lain here.


I never sleep.



















I recognize these walls, now. Bloody fingertips trailing along to mark the path.





There is

something

in a heap, ahead. At the end of this trail of footsteps.

These footprints look just like mine, crossing in front of my path, now. Just like mine, in the dust on the rough shale floor.

Thirsty. Have I slept... When have I ever slept... I never sleep, I am myself at all hours.

Orange light again, like a dying leaf hiding the sun, fluttering on the stone around a corner two turns ahead.

My legs churn away. Running is out of the question. Could something be watching me from those heights up where the ceiling ought to be?

The stone feels cool on my bare toes. I can't see the roof. No windows. That doorway...




I see a light, an angry orange light scuttering along the floor. I'm on a balcony (?)


within


the belly of an abandoned cathedral.






I am an obelisk of flesh, a monument to hestitation, a procrastinator's headstone.

Where am I now?



A great cloud, like a fog at sunset.



I can't even hear myself breathing.









Are You there?

Yom Kippur

And, well, sometimes you have things on your mind for which attonement is necessary. But you can't find the words--so you let someone else do the talking; even if they're making a point to someone you don't know at all and never heard of before--that will get you started. Which btw I'm happy to just borrow other people's holy days when it suits me, sure.

Why do I feel like the world is floating my body away from me?

Let's be frank

[Probably not safe for work. --f.]

Or Tom, Richard, or Hairy, whatever. Finally (?? well not really) a lusty lady lays it all out there. Quite entertaining indeed. Yeah, being frank's hot hot hot as they say.

Oh yeah: more frankness of the how-to variety. (ha ha) Why in the fuck'd I link to that, you ask? Gee, I hope it makes you uncomfortable--the question or the site, whatevs.

Or, if it gets yer engine revving, call 800-YOUDOME. (again, ha ha)

Weather Report

Fog early, clear late, a blizzard of unnecessary paperwork due to hit the region by nightfall; in the runup to Autumnal Equinox expect unusually high levels of poltergeist and/or pirate activity.

Sleater muthafuckin' Kinney

rockin rockin rockin concert 1:15 long about. 12-15min seque fr one song 2 their newest hit (u know tha 1 on mtv2 etc.) was tha best intrumental jam-out i've seen since Ween did a 25min. vers. of "LMLYP" in milwaukee about 4 yrs ago.

rockin










rockin










rockin








plus also saw lotsa peeps @ tha show wuz a good tyme 4 all i bet. only tha 2 6'3" stiff in fronna my friendz ruint anyfin' but they was not enjoyin' tha show so much so their $ticketmoney forfeit is tha price they payz for being so inconsiderable. inconsiderate.

been a long time for some folks like thoth 2 see shows, was good 4 him ta come out etc. plus all cool C-U ppl wuz their; if u missed u bin Dissed. [The pictures above are not from last night's concert, but rather one from the same venue in 2003. Apparently the pictures Gdog obtained of the show were useless. --f]

pie

momma always loved dis recipe. filling fr local orchard.

1cup flour
1tsp salt
1/3cup shortnin'
3tbsp h2o
1tbsp half&half
pinches sugar

sift flour&salt into bowl; cut in shortnin'; very slow add h2o mixin. handle dough as little as possible. flatten on flour'd cuttin' board & put in freezer 4 a couple min to cool. preheat oven ta 450F. roll out efficiently as poseeblay, make sure 30% wider'n pan. add 2 pan (u cn grease if u want 4 mo' easier servin) & scissors extra. fold up edges. poke w/fork a coupla times all round. put in foil (hold down w/somethin' nobakeable, or another pan to hold shape. put pan on bakin' sheet, bake 7-9min. (turn oven to 425F.) add fillin', use xtra crust 2 make lattice etc. on top; brush w/half&half & surgar. bake 30 min @ 425, or til crust browns considriblee.

serve 4 brunch w/coffee. mmmmmm.

apple picking

she's a porcelain tile, this leaf. cold wind over still, warm earth. your childhood leaps up from the crackle underfoot. high clear sun, shading your eyes with a sweatered arm you walk. valleys of the orchard, friends arm in arm. in arm, in arm, the fruit trees' twig fingers interlock. their heart lockets drop into our palms. red, ochre, saffron, rust. granny smiths yet unwizened grin carefully, waiting for the frosts. granny and her child, wobbling and skipping, in the next row.

a pumpkin patch sighs under its own weight, sinking slowly into the crusted soil, ready for long slumber. heavy-gorged on the star so pallid now. like a candle guttering at the bell for second. vines like shephard's crooks, and a spill of milkweed fluttering. where are the friars with their meaty brews and barefoot hymns?

each tuft of grass gone to roots. each shivering butterfly waiting its turn, eggs laid up for the next tilting of the earth, wet and early-morning motionless, like a music box without a spring. the baking smell of the dough, the sugars, maple sap rendering, jars clattering on the shelves. not a farmer amongst the throng. they lay in the signs of proserity and good harvest. they lay in traditions they cannot understand. a scarecrow watches the last rows of corn drying, waiting the pire, waiting the black earth and hibernation. we stand on this floor of leaves, arm in arm.

Over Now

So it's about a year after the end of my engagement. How do we score the aftermath? Well, let's not put points on it. But, as I was listening to Third Eye Blind the other day, I started laughing--that loud belly-laughing you can only do sort of ironically. I mean, sincerely I was laughing from surprise and pleasure but still there is a hint of... So but I was hearing this song and I realized the pain, like all those emotional wounds and scars we carry in the back of our deepest selves, that little box we all hide in the back of the closet with those tiny sharp-bladed momentos, is less. Lots. And this is sort of surprising; and so this realization comes due to a comparison with what was going on with me last winter. And I laughed and laughed, but I didn't cry (that's another story, constant reader).

Yeah, yeah, I lost you at "Third Eye Blind" but look, if someone is allowed to like Matchbox 20--and they are--I think my guilty pleasure(?) compares favorably.

But the abstract notion of healing doesn't help when that person is right in front of you. The Ex, I mean. And the first thing that happens when she opens her mouth is, everything that contributed to the breakup comes back, like a comet, burning fire in the sky. The words don't even matter. And you still aren't sure how this happens but you're trying to escape this and you're trying to breathe and you're trying not to make a scene and you're trying to explain how this is the worst possible moment and then... Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

I saw the pain on her face, but I couldn't stop it, and I wanted to tear out my beating heart in front of her eyes and scream that she couldn't touch it anymore. That would've been a lie. (For, constant reader, how familiar is the feeling of presence just behind every door and under every slip of paper--everyone left behind.) And my narcissism contributed. And my violence. And my blood. And my faith. And my naive belief that the truth, as much as it hurts, should not hurt us.

Trudging home, I thought What next, we wonder, what next behind that door or buried in this haystack of possibilities. The needle is infected, the boogey-man waits. Then I slept, and my dreams were weird and phantastic. Morning brought those messages on my phone. You know.

We spent a pregnant term together after the break (don't ask, dear reader, but unfortunate circumstances of various origin contributed to that travesty), and our supposed friendship is a stillbirth. I suspect, sadly, that we were never more than playacting at friendship. Which doesn't mean that nothing equitable may come every after, no, but rather that a fresh start is all that can be allowed. It is all I will allow.

But isn't this just another start, O Author? Good question. Another "fresh start" begun as a stale imitation of reinvention. Wax fruit with rotten core. I don't know, maybe. But this is me after months living alone, truly alone, for the first time in... a long long time (5, 6 years?) Maybe I'll tell you about it later, if you ask real nice. It's hard. (And this is the part maybe I'll rehearse another time: I've spent my entire life trying to find something at which I can fail...) And as the man says, I've never been so alone, and I've never been more alive.

...Uh-yup. The beginning of next month, sometime, I think, is the date, though I don't care to remember it.

fri lyrek

u name tha band w/o lookin' up u win a kewpie d011.

i beat my machine it's a part of me it's inside of me
i'm stuck in this dream it's changing me i am becoming
the me that you know had some second thoughts
he's covered with scabs he is broken and sore
the me that you know doesn't come around much
that part of me isn't here anymore
all pain disappears it's the nature of my circuitry
drowns out all i hear there's no excape from this
my new consciousness
the me that you know used to have feelings
but the blood has stopped pumping and he's left ot decay
the me thgat you know is now made up of wires
and even when i'm right with you i'm so far away
i can try to get away but i've strapped myself in
i can try to scratch away the sound in my ears
i can see it killing away all my bad parts
i don't want to listen but it's all to clear

philosophers' brunch

What the shit?

So I'm borrowing a nit comb from fizhburn this morning and we're talking about the new Iron & Wine album while he's whipping up this meal. And now he sends me a picture. Ironic fuck.

Quesadilla, oil-cured olives, apple, three W.V.O. Quine books, coffee. Academics=nutty. (Wtf?)

mo lyrx

so sad songz dis week K? wordz.

Another day is gone
Some other time maybe I'd come out
And step into the sun
A little time ago
I didn't wanna see us falling out
but everything has gone

I wish I could, Sometimes I wish I would
Always your way
You want it all, I did everything I could
Always your way

I'm talking to the walls
I guess it seems that all the wait is gone
But everything is numb
And in my broken jar
All the remains are watered down
And I'm starting to drown

I wish I could, Sometimes I wish I would
Always your way
You want it all, I did everything I could
Always your way

thx My Vitriol best grungesque band still funxionin'.

delish

dish what recreates tha feelin i 'magine u get onna crisp evenin' on the northern foothills uv tha himalayz w/pines about.

1 bell pepper (i use 1/2sweet 1/2not) diced
1 lerge shallot (about a cup) diced
1 squash (a yellow zuchini maybe) cubed
1/2 cup carrot cut small, frenched or rounds or whatever u like (heirloom carats w/woody/nutty flavor 'f u got 'em)

1/2cup basmati rice
1 cup h2o
salt
light olive oil

1/3cup rice wine (or very mild flavor white wine)
1tbsp five spice powder (im not gonna tell you how 2 make this, just go buy some in tha 'oriental food' section)
pinch rosemary (dried bits, not powder, not fresh)
dash(es) cayanne (opt.)

procedure (if cooking entree only)-
you don' hafta soak basmati usually tho' sposedly us should. just put a cup h2o w/ 1/2cup rice & bring 2 boil for 1 min, pinch of salt and 1tbsp light olive oil. 'f u r adventurous use 1/2olive an 1/2sesame oil. stir, cover, simmer for 15-18min.

wash, clean & cut carot. put fryin' pan on med-high. wash & cut pepper. oil pan (i uze olive butt u could use cookin olio, NO butter). add carrats 2 soften 'em. peel squash & cut. cut shallot. toss in veg, get coated w/olio. add wine, cover & braise until squash soft all thru (5min or so). lift cover, heat to hot hot hot. oil, wine left & carmelization should make glaze (+ mo wine if needed for thickness), add 5 spice powder (& cayanne but not much 'f u mant it). stir fry a bit.

rice oughta be done. heat off tha veg; plate rice; toss rosemary bits into veg & flip, plate semi-on top of rice. rosemary should give bursts uv sharpness that responds 2 tha slight anise of the 5-spice to give a pan-asianish pine-sap snap. (rosemary & 5-spice don' go together, that's why it has 2 go in @ tha last minute; u want a contrast) serves 2.

2 tha peepz

bittersweet dayz uv fallz. yo i'z not postid no lyrx recemptly soz here:

say what u need
i kick u down
no i'm fine
an don't u hang around
an i find myself
here in another home
where everything moves so slow
so tired

take th longest day
throw it all away
i can't stand it
but I can't do anything
every day's th same
nothing ever change
i can't stand it
but i can't do anything

u should know by now
we're all liars
take me where u go
only higher

take th longest day
waste it all away
i can't stand it
but I can't do anything
everyday's th same...

anything u want, anything u want, anything

take th longest day
throw it all away
i can't stand it
but i can't do anything
everyday's th same...

here in another home
where everything moves so slow
so tired

thx Toad tha wet sprocket.

Have you seen the trailer for the new Harry Potter?

How about in hi-def?

graft

i am a tree hugger
(arms wrapped
bark in my fingernails,
smiling into the veins of sunfed leaves)

a cafe table by the south window where she sits
crying into her telephone
"frustration" and tears I can hear
as they crash like niagara
fingers sandpaper rasp them away into a sleeve

fire engines bursting forth their alarums
(7:04
before my alarm,
might as well)

a couple, meat and potatoes*
hovering near the checkout lane with their baskets
heads together and muttering gently
"more than twenty" and so were they, but not by much
temples brushing minds, eyes with the look

honey in his crystalline coffee
(affectation cum affection
hides it from clients,
whom he swindles)

Weather Report

Sunny, warmer and a good week for harvesting apples; as the air cools on a high pressure front expect the first whif of autumn proper.

Tidbits

Writing sucks. Both non- and fiction. (Maybe creative nonfiction is the worst?) I mean, it's difficult to get the right words... thoughts are amorphous, ephemeral, yet sometimes dazzlingly sharp in what we nowadays call resolution. The story has taken shape, the outline, the writing is 60-70% of a draft (so far, 5000 unprecious words). Enless agonizing. What about the motivations--why why why? Rearranging sections. I enjoy a nonlinear story arc, or to intercut sections of different times within a linear story arc. The technical challenge is much easier to resolve, however, than the language. Each word like the only four-leaf in a clover patch, hidden amongst familiarities. To make a song in the reader's mind. Find the voices.

I'm not there yet. Here, however, is a bit of the rough cut:
[snippet 1: setup=the story follows the narrator from the present to his childhood via a series of relationships with the opposite sex; the main action of the most recent of these liasons takes place during a cross-country vacation.]

Rejected? Titles: Cascade; Mnemonie; The Foodening [kidding!]; The Life of Young Circe; Your Hand in Mine; Hotwater Gift

And then I was throwing myself against the wall of the hall and stumbling into the living room onto the couch, trashed. This was after sitting quietly at the kitchen table, drinking poorer and poorer Rob Roys and staring at the papers spread before me. It’s a true-life story, there is the magazine in front of me, another underneath, pretentious drivel. Photocopies—ink blacks my fingertips—from the latest news in the tiny specialized discipline I inhabit but don’t like to talk about. That would take too long. I’m too enthusiastic and I can already see her eyes focusing ten thousand miles behind my head, maybe on the [scratch first choice, European landmark?].

The floating underwater music I’d put on earlier had run its course and sunset, long over, hung only in my brain over the scintillating and erratic patterns of neuron communications I somehow experience. The experience of a heavy drunk, left hand numbed by the icy tumbler, with the whirl of words before me but unattended. I was wondering whether if I lifted the hem of my shirt I would find dripping blood, like when years ago a knife slashed me (loose rib flesh) in those wild children’s days.

Wait: this is later. I’m not making sense. Earlier, before it was more.

[snippet 2: setup=the narrator just rehearsed, in mind, meeting the woman breaking up with whom caused the intoxication of the last passage; he remembers a PG-rated meeting of the minds in an empty room during a party]

Or so I remember it. She liked to tell the story differently, and we were wild animals copulating with grunts and whimpers on that dusty desk, dripping out life onto that abandoned regretful corner of Mrs. ________’s life. Rutting like feral cats mewling our frustrations into bruised hipflesh, roughed elbows and bitemarks, stinging sweat in the eyes, hair sticking to our lips, finally escaping from the monstrous normalcy imposed by each slightly unsquared croner and not-quite-carelessly placed knick-knack by blotting out the acquaintances mechanically faking entertainment below and seeking only pure mindless attainment of life’s goal. I think you get the gist, anyhow.

“Where are we?” she asked, eyes unsure whether to open. My throat squeezed. “Still North Dakota?”

“Yes,” I croaked, and sipped some lukewarm lemonade. “Tomorrow, too, probably.” The we were silent for a while.

“Do you want to stop?” Lids still fastened.

“I’m okay,” I said.

“When are we going to stop?”

“Did you want to stop—is that why you’re asking?

“No, I just thought you might be tired of driving.”

“No, I’m fine. You hungry?” I asked because I could feel the useless twisting begin in my stomach. She made a noncommittal sound.

We were howling through a public sanctuary, dark humps of land black on indigo beyond the headlight flare. A flicker of movement caught my eye as a car ahead tapped brakes and swished side-to-side, then back true to the lane lines. What, I wondered, and then a Doe with two yearlings sped 85mph along the blacktop right at us. My head was frozen, eyes measuring the gaps between twelve legs, neck arched and cocked, straining. I twitched the wheel slightly hoping to only kill one of them, bringing demise to only one pair of black empty eyes. Then we slipped in the gap between the yearlings, our draft fluttering the ears of one and the tail of another. I saw the tiny movement of their passage into gully on the southerly side of the road through the rearview, eyes wild on their silhouettes in the last of the fading sunlight, my shoulders tightened to support the marbled stillness of my skull.

This is what I’ve given myself to, I thought, this machine we’ve built. I know what it can do and yet I ignore it for an hour, and another hour. I’m steering death, and only luck keeps me from donning the black mask. My mind was sour, sure. This road we've chosen contains the machine. A driver is a rider on the lion’s back. Probably mutterings were dribbling out my gob.

“You sure you’re alright to drive?” She asked, finally looking over at me with concern lightly touching her mouth. Concern for her safety. The previous week had seen me behind the wheel more than otherwise.

“As well as ever,” I replied, “As well as can be. Trust me.”

“I have to shit.” She was, by this time, far beyond any sort of modesty, with me.

[end snippetage]

Actually, another part of the story revolves around some pretty base "humor." I can't tell what of this is useful, what is just the effluvia in which the story escapes the deep plumbing of the brain.

I wonder how I can be sure to have the intended effect. I'm trying to say something, sure. But my readers are people who know me, and they will read into the work things from my life... Although some of the events in the story are based directly on things that have happened to me or I have witnessed, still the whole is an utter fabrication. The truth lies in the weave. Yeah, yeah, rewrite, edit, rewrite again, etc. and so on, sure, sure.