Barkster preened gently in the moonlight; stretching his cat-legs to the extremities of their limits. His soft purrs echoed off the shadowy walls of the alley. Barkster knew this town like he knew the little rough spots on his tongue. Without question, Barkster was thoughtful. There were a few suspicious characters in town tonight, however, and Barkster knew what he had to do.
Barkster strode down the sidewalk, cat-like. The street was empty, still shiny with rain from the day before. Barkster’s cat-like eyes spotted the headlights of a car, a Pickle car. The morbidity of Mrs. Pickle’s race as they had entered the automobile age struck Barkster at the moment, until he was nearly soaked by spray from a particularly profound puddle when a befuddled Mrs. Pickle careened past, crossing from her lane opposite Barkster into the lane near him. Barkster, saved from this soaking by his cat-like reflexes, compounded his list of complaints with the Pickle race.
Leaping into the comforts of a cushy blueberry bush, Barkster began to review the events of the night. He had begun his nightly rounds through the city, and at first everything proceeded as usual. Then, near the edge of town, he had spotted a fire. There were never fires in Barkster’s quiet town. Since the town had been destroyed during the last war, it had been carefully rebuilt in a Utopian model, as depicted in the tracts of famous turtle philosopher Depictatus, and entrance had been strictly limited. The town was covered in foliage, designed for multiple purposes and for optimum ergonomics. For example, the bench Barkster had settled on was padded with the leaves of the blueberry bush, which also fed users of the bench.
Predictably, a program of this scale used on the whole town was quite expensive at first, despite its future self-sustainability. This unfortunately required the town to resort to tourism during these early formative years. The town had become rather isolationist in light of recent events, so this was a bit of an issue for many people. You see, the area had lost a great deal of learning and development during the last war. Barkster’s town meant to rebuild the area much better than it had been before, but this meant that they could not allow themselves to devolve into the state of those around them, who they would eventually educate as they themselves grew stronger.
Barkster’s job was an integral part of this plan, as he protected the town from the negative influence of people like Mrs. Pickle, and, more acutely, from fire. Thusly, Barkster advanced toward the fire at the edge of town, seeking to end its unjust imposition on the night. He halted in his tracks, however, when he saw he was surrounded on three sides by torchbearing animals, who did not appear to have seen him yet. He fled the area and regrouped with a few other night watchanimals and jumped back in towards the firebearers. They observed the bacchanalian ceremony of epic proportions
On the outskirts of the town, in the midst of a dense broccoli forest, the animals, led by a thick Rhinoceros, began to sing and dance to the beat of the war drums in the center of the circle. Colors swirled and body parts flailed as the beat grew quicker, more frenzied. The animals took up their torches again, careening around the circle in seeming ecstasy. Several fell to the earth, shaking in fits of passion, as the drummers left all semblance of rhythm behind and rolled through the climax of the ceremony.
As all the animals writhed in ecstasy on the ground, the Rhinoceros signaled the drummers, who took up a regular, martial beat. The animals recovered themselves and took up their torches again. They formed into lines and left the forest, with the look of those who just want to be fiends in their eyes, heading towards the innocent civilians in Barkster’s town.
Barkster and his companions hesitated not a moment to execute their plan. The alarm was sounded, and the town was evacuated to the designated safe haven. The soldiers prepared to do their duty and meet the threatening animals, an army from the surrounding area come to steal the town’s wealth, and Barkster and his crew of Detective Cats headed out to do the most important job: Barkster’s crew was in charge of rounding up the leaders of the animal cabal.
Barkster’s personal job was to capture Black Spycat, who had looked suspicious ever since he had moved to town. He was accompanied by two dogs, each piloted by moth pilots and loaded with moth shock troops (dogs had been exterminated in the war, but their carcasses were prevented from decay where possible and coopted for use in defense by the town). They arrived at Black’s house just as he was sneaking out the back entrance. Caught between two moth-driven dogs and Barkster’s long talons, he fled up an invisible tree and hid in an owl’s nest, where he was soon fast asleep.
Barkster knew not what to do at this impasse. He himself could climb trees but his nightvision did not extend to invisible trees, which he could only barely see in the daylight. Nor could he speak owl. Of course, his dogs could not climb trees at all. Looking about in a search for ideas, he saw a moth coming over the hill, followed closely by one of Barkster’s cohorts. The moth, named Admirable Goodmoth, flitted here and there, and, upon reaching Barkster and his dogs, it darted daringly into one of the dogs’ open mouths. The fight for control within the DogBrain was clearly evidenced by its erratic motions, and Barkster’s enemy seemed to have won the fight.
Barkster acted swiftly, opening the belly of the dog to free its complement of moths, hopefully before they could be stolen by the enemy moth. Unfortunately, this was not to be. The moths Barkster had released flew up to the owl’s nest and awakened Black Spycat. Spycat leapt from the tree onto the back of Admirable Goodmoth’s dog and they fled together. Barkster’s remaining dog released its moths to hold off Goodmoth’s moths and gave chase itself.
Meanwhile, Barkster and his companion cat positioned themselves to ambush Spycat and Goodmoth. When he passed, they leapt together, Barkster knocking off Spycat, whom he captured and brought to prison, and his companion, Actual Catster slicing Goodmoth’s dog’s neck open and killing Goodmoth.
The town was safe again, and the mess was soon cleaned up. No one ever threatened the village again, because they learned how to be good animals; everyone except for the Pickles, who never learned to be good animals because they liked their drink just a tiny bit too much.
Plot Idea in part contributed by Alex Hiatt and JT Ketterer, and Barkster the Cat Detective
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
To reuniting the flames of this
It was 7:30 when Beth arrived in the airport. She settled herself into a stiff airport chair quietly and awaited her plane. She had a long while to wait; she had been unable to get a ride any other time, but she had prepared by bringing her mp3 player and a paperback copy of Siddhartha. As a budding Buddhist and longtime reader, she was exploring her newfound spirituality through classic books like those of Kerouac and Hesse.
As the beat came in on The Island, things began to go awry for Beth. There were still but few people in the terminal; hers was the first leaving there that day, but among them were a few who threw Beth off her ease. Not knowing what exactly did this to her, she turned back to her book.
At a sharp pain in the back of her head, she whirled around to face behind her, her long hair sweeping in a wide arc to settle on her shoulders. She reached her hand up to touch her head, but felt nothing. Realizing the pain was internal, she began to turn around again, but something caught her eye. Down the hall, standing by a newspaper stand that had not opened yet, was a man in a tan suit, carrying a briefcase. He felt her gaze, and turned away.
Beth looked away and dug in her purse for a bottle of painkillers. Sliding her things under her seat, she got up and headed for the bathroom. The bathroom, smelling of cleaning chemicals and still slightly shimmery from its recent mopping, was not out of the ordinary for airport bathrooms.
However, for Beth, it had the odd, almost dead atmosphere that modern buildings have when one is alone and tired. An atmosphere created by the silence, silence that is very much worse than the silence one finds outside or in old buildings because it is the silence created by the soft padding of the air conditioning. And the floors, the floors are not meant to be warm and inviting; they are cold and lifeless. The near-perfect maintenance of the bathroom gave it the impression that Beth could have been the first person to enter; there were no echoes of voices long dead here.
Of course Beth would never have noticed these things were she in the middle of a busy day, well awake, with friends perhaps, or even strangers. Beth’s friends were a very vibrant sort, the kind of women you might have seen in fabric stores or other sorts of social gathering places; the type who catch up extensively on frivolous gossip at the supermarket and loudly pass ignorant opinions to whoever could not avoid hearing them.
Beth did not associate with these people by choice; they were really the only people she could be seen with in public; the small town she lived would not permit her to hang out with the few artistically and spiritually awake people in town: those who were not old enough to leave it.
Throwing the pills in her mouth, Beth cupped her hands together and got a drink from the sink. Just then, another woman entered the bathroom. She was tall, with black hair and black and white clothes. Gesturing quietly, the sink opened up before her, and, plugging her nose, she took the plunge. Reddening at first around the mouth, the corpuscles spread broadly around her face, not concentrating in any one area. This of course troubled Beth, because this woman had died a very long time ago
“Why, whatever are YOU doing here? ” inquired the aghast Beth.
The woman, rubbing her womanly thighs against Beth’s purse, replied “This is MY home, Beth, dear. I don’t see why you can’t understand all that; you’ve known this would happen since we were in school together ”
At this point, the man Beth had seen earlier emerged on the scene. It happened as quite a surprise for Beth, when the man’s head emerged seemingly from the woman’s hip, although it was soon apparent to her that his entire body was there as well, hiding behind the tall woman’s billowy dress. The man spoke up to Beth from his hip position.
“Do you know who I am, Beth? You remember the stories, don’t you?”
“Yes, Beth you really ought to remember the stories, from school, dear.”
At this point the memories came flooding back to Beth: She knew the man and his mythic stature, and the woman, and how she came to be here, even after her untimely death at Beth’s side decades ago. She knew why the woman had not aged, and she knew what exactly was in the man’s briefcase. . .
As the beat came in on The Island, things began to go awry for Beth. There were still but few people in the terminal; hers was the first leaving there that day, but among them were a few who threw Beth off her ease. Not knowing what exactly did this to her, she turned back to her book.
At a sharp pain in the back of her head, she whirled around to face behind her, her long hair sweeping in a wide arc to settle on her shoulders. She reached her hand up to touch her head, but felt nothing. Realizing the pain was internal, she began to turn around again, but something caught her eye. Down the hall, standing by a newspaper stand that had not opened yet, was a man in a tan suit, carrying a briefcase. He felt her gaze, and turned away.
Beth looked away and dug in her purse for a bottle of painkillers. Sliding her things under her seat, she got up and headed for the bathroom. The bathroom, smelling of cleaning chemicals and still slightly shimmery from its recent mopping, was not out of the ordinary for airport bathrooms.
However, for Beth, it had the odd, almost dead atmosphere that modern buildings have when one is alone and tired. An atmosphere created by the silence, silence that is very much worse than the silence one finds outside or in old buildings because it is the silence created by the soft padding of the air conditioning. And the floors, the floors are not meant to be warm and inviting; they are cold and lifeless. The near-perfect maintenance of the bathroom gave it the impression that Beth could have been the first person to enter; there were no echoes of voices long dead here.
Of course Beth would never have noticed these things were she in the middle of a busy day, well awake, with friends perhaps, or even strangers. Beth’s friends were a very vibrant sort, the kind of women you might have seen in fabric stores or other sorts of social gathering places; the type who catch up extensively on frivolous gossip at the supermarket and loudly pass ignorant opinions to whoever could not avoid hearing them.
Beth did not associate with these people by choice; they were really the only people she could be seen with in public; the small town she lived would not permit her to hang out with the few artistically and spiritually awake people in town: those who were not old enough to leave it.
Throwing the pills in her mouth, Beth cupped her hands together and got a drink from the sink. Just then, another woman entered the bathroom. She was tall, with black hair and black and white clothes. Gesturing quietly, the sink opened up before her, and, plugging her nose, she took the plunge. Reddening at first around the mouth, the corpuscles spread broadly around her face, not concentrating in any one area. This of course troubled Beth, because this woman had died a very long time ago
“Why, whatever are YOU doing here? ” inquired the aghast Beth.
The woman, rubbing her womanly thighs against Beth’s purse, replied “This is MY home, Beth, dear. I don’t see why you can’t understand all that; you’ve known this would happen since we were in school together ”
At this point, the man Beth had seen earlier emerged on the scene. It happened as quite a surprise for Beth, when the man’s head emerged seemingly from the woman’s hip, although it was soon apparent to her that his entire body was there as well, hiding behind the tall woman’s billowy dress. The man spoke up to Beth from his hip position.
“Do you know who I am, Beth? You remember the stories, don’t you?”
“Yes, Beth you really ought to remember the stories, from school, dear.”
At this point the memories came flooding back to Beth: She knew the man and his mythic stature, and the woman, and how she came to be here, even after her untimely death at Beth’s side decades ago. She knew why the woman had not aged, and she knew what exactly was in the man’s briefcase. . .
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Saturday, March 31, 2007
My Dreams, PART the second.
A gang of kids, teenagers that is. We’re walking through a city, downtown. There are no people here, and no lights. Who we are as a group and our purpose walking here is entirely unclear. There is one girl though, she is our leader, and she knows the way. She leads us down a set of stairs similar to those leading to subway stations. A big door at the bottom bars our way. It is massive, iron, and has an impossibly complex lock. Our leader knows exactly the sequence to open it, and she makes no mistakes or hesitation in doing so. Inside, there is a large hallway, that goes straight as far as we can see. We start exploring it; it is dark, and there are a few rooms opening off of the hallway. There are not doors to these; they are not rooms per se, they are long and slender, one has a sink and some tubs, like a kitchen or laundry room. The entire hallway and all these rooms are dirty and dark, as though they have been uninhabited for many years. There is plenty of clutter about. We explore the hallway. Towards the end, it begins to open up. We can see sunlight through a big, but open, structure. It is a parking garage. It opens up to the sky, but the bottom levels blend seamlessly into our hallway. Quick, hide! The police are in the parking garage, we can see their flashing lights and cars. Everyone scatters, back towards the door. I hide under the kitchen sink with one other kid, whom I have not yet seen specifically. We tell stories in this comfortably tight place for hours, waiting to be discovered by the police or set free to go home by our compatriots. No one ever comes, but we are happy.
Me, Alex, and JT were exploring this small, two story white house. We were in the second floor, which was only one floor. The room was full of ambient light from the numerous windows. It was dirty and cluttered, full of broken wood and rubble. The front of the house has a strong, black-shingled overhang over the front door. There is a window immediately above this. We are aware of a something, a monster, climbing this overhang, about to enter through the window. Someone gets a piece of wood and makes ready to kill it as it enters. But stop! It’s a policeman, run! We drop our things and flee to another window. Alex and JT jump to the ground, they are fine. I jump-and die. This feeling is indescribable, and I know I will do it no justice conveyed here. Nevertheless. I learn intuitively that I have time to spend with Alex and JT before I leave. We walk down the street with big green trees along the side, in a nice friendly neighborhood (no one is around, it is simply a visibly friendly neighborhood). We are in a big building, full of chairs and bookshelves, just like a bookstore. It is clean and warm and welcoming and we spend hours there, enjoying each other. The carpet and walls, and everything there is colorful, yellows and reds and some greens and blues, in a pattern that is not unusual, something similar to things I’ve seen before. Colors are organized in various shapes and sizes, in an irregular pattern. The feeling of inevitability here is not sad, but. . .appropriate? There is no anger, sadness, or anything of the kind. Time is not felt as slipping away. Only happiness, tinged with an odd feeling of . . .? It is like the cosmic flow of things. There is no emotion regarding this passage, but it feels very cosmic. This is not meant in an “infinity of the universe” sort of sense, but in a sort of mythic death ritual cosmicness. This is the most profoundly spiritual experience I’ve ever had.
Me, Alex, and JT were exploring this small, two story white house. We were in the second floor, which was only one floor. The room was full of ambient light from the numerous windows. It was dirty and cluttered, full of broken wood and rubble. The front of the house has a strong, black-shingled overhang over the front door. There is a window immediately above this. We are aware of a something, a monster, climbing this overhang, about to enter through the window. Someone gets a piece of wood and makes ready to kill it as it enters. But stop! It’s a policeman, run! We drop our things and flee to another window. Alex and JT jump to the ground, they are fine. I jump-and die. This feeling is indescribable, and I know I will do it no justice conveyed here. Nevertheless. I learn intuitively that I have time to spend with Alex and JT before I leave. We walk down the street with big green trees along the side, in a nice friendly neighborhood (no one is around, it is simply a visibly friendly neighborhood). We are in a big building, full of chairs and bookshelves, just like a bookstore. It is clean and warm and welcoming and we spend hours there, enjoying each other. The carpet and walls, and everything there is colorful, yellows and reds and some greens and blues, in a pattern that is not unusual, something similar to things I’ve seen before. Colors are organized in various shapes and sizes, in an irregular pattern. The feeling of inevitability here is not sad, but. . .appropriate? There is no anger, sadness, or anything of the kind. Time is not felt as slipping away. Only happiness, tinged with an odd feeling of . . .? It is like the cosmic flow of things. There is no emotion regarding this passage, but it feels very cosmic. This is not meant in an “infinity of the universe” sort of sense, but in a sort of mythic death ritual cosmicness. This is the most profoundly spiritual experience I’ve ever had.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Furries
President Sergeant Grim was a slim bastard. Always had his chips in line. He was a man you could set your watch to. In the later years of his career, he moved and spoke so straight and sturdy that they used to stack him up like some stairs to walk on.
That's when the trouble started:
IMPORTANT:
***We were in The Jungle in Bad Axe. I was looking through the comic section, which had a plethora of really old comics that I've never heard of. There were also some furry comics. I forgot the title after leaving the store. However, upon further investigation, I've discovered that they were several issues of "Furrlough," (http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/Furrlough) some stupid ass anthology - apparently, the most succesful furry comic ever published, and the series is over 16 years old, which is cool. Either way, I'll probably buy em' the next time I'm there, unless they're expensive.***
Adam, am I "going" (my ghost, of course. You know) to Saginaw tomorrow or not? Are you going? Are you even home?
That's when the trouble started:
IMPORTANT:
***We were in The Jungle in Bad Axe. I was looking through the comic section, which had a plethora of really old comics that I've never heard of. There were also some furry comics. I forgot the title after leaving the store. However, upon further investigation, I've discovered that they were several issues of "Furrlough," (http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/Furrlough) some stupid ass anthology - apparently, the most succesful furry comic ever published, and the series is over 16 years old, which is cool. Either way, I'll probably buy em' the next time I'm there, unless they're expensive.***
Adam, am I "going" (my ghost, of course. You know) to Saginaw tomorrow or not? Are you going? Are you even home?
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Some Thrift/ Some Exercise
Some people might already be aware of this. But the other night, I carried a forty pound (or so) chair on my fucking neck from a curb a block away from the library to my house. It is fucking a killer. Where day at? Down with a frown/ on the town/ a sad clown. Moses, 'cept keepin' it real. Shit. Adam fucking Kranz, are you going to Saginaw on Sunday or not? I could have you *cough* pick me up something *cough*. Secret the Message Decoded. BTW, Adam, have you ever seen Dr. Strangelove? It is absolutely phenomenal. We should *cough* get together and watch it sometime *cough*.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Summertime babes!
De facto is good first day of summer music;
Today began summer, the sun and the warm wind on your face
riding in a car down the main drive
The sun pulls negative rain out of snow, towards the sky
We found this cat, you see
He's a bit of a cat detective, as it were.
He solves cat mysteries under the name of Cat McGruff.
This is only an alias, of course; his real name is Barkster
He likes being petted on his stomach
He's grey and white, with a few other colors mixed in
he's a bit thin and a bit dirty, cleans himself about his flist.
Today began summer, the sun and the warm wind on your face
riding in a car down the main drive
The sun pulls negative rain out of snow, towards the sky
We found this cat, you see
He's a bit of a cat detective, as it were.
He solves cat mysteries under the name of Cat McGruff.
This is only an alias, of course; his real name is Barkster
He likes being petted on his stomach
He's grey and white, with a few other colors mixed in
he's a bit thin and a bit dirty, cleans himself about his flist.
Monday, March 12, 2007
The Show!
Young RJ Kestler moved lithely through the jungle. He was on the tail of a Mandingo Flyster, the most dangerous variety of the Yubunub family. Mandingo called back to Kestler "Get the hell off of my roof!" Kestler had amounted himself to a servile black spearstress, in order to anger the tenacious Flyster. Flyster, you see, had long held a job at the local greebe factory, where he had a boring job. Over time there he had acquired more than his fair share of patience, if I do say so myself. Thus, he was not one to go head over heels at a silly Turista on his rooftop. Thus, Kestler disguised himself as a black spearstress of one of the local Puerbee tribes, which regularly hunted Flyster for his food.
Kestler leapt deftly from Mandingo's roof. Mandingo, clever devil as he is, pulled the earth out from underneath Kestler. Kestler landed in a pile of unjuiced, soiled juicers and juiced, unsoiled soilers. Immediately the juicers and soilers set to work, and soon Kestler was both juiced and soiled. However, the juicers and soilers did not escape unharmed: they both fell victim to Kestler, and became quite thoroughly Kestled.
At this point, Kestler left his pit of Mood for a cool pouch of ORGANIC MILK. He paid hat over collar for the milk, which he claimed was delicious. Later, strolling through the urban jungle, he fell into a stupor unaware. He had been poisoned by a series of long poisonous darts, which grew profusely in the urban jungle. Mandingo Flyster had followed him here!
Overcoming his stupor, Kestler drilled into Flyster's seventh stomach to find the succulent juice he was after. This juice was the final key he needed to get permission to attend that night's concert. The concert was a bunch of young hooligans performing Blink 182's "What's my age again?" on couchs, drumsets, guitars, and telephones. There were bound to be ensuing shenanigans.
Kestler brought the juice back to his mother, who began malleating it. She manipulated it into a doughlike consistency after boiling it on the stove. She formed a doll the size of a small child. She put the thing in her pottery oven. After a few hours, it was done.
Kestler took his mother's carkeys and hopped in the bus. He got to the concierge soon after, where the Floisties had just begun their extensive cover. As soon as he reached the precarious edge of the amphitheatre, where he nearly toppled over. He brought out his camera and filmed the proceeding:
One girl was dressed extravagantly in period clothing, and was dipping a steel infant in oil. A man, about 33, gave a shout. The man was bedecked as an island, and the sun shone brightly on him. His sunny aura seemed to attract the others on the stage to him. A young man in a prudish sailor suit was posing exoticly for pictures. He used a dormant volcano and a city, coated in ash for thousands of years and full of seemingly fossilized people, as his props. The pictures were being taken by a very picturesque gorge.
Ensonced in a cave in this gorge were the chorus. There were several of these. The first were loosely dressed, and played primitive drums and flutes. The second were romantic troubadours with candles and dressing, playing guitars and lutes. Finally, the largest chorus were robots, who spoke haltingly but without hesitation. Their voices lacked emotion.
The drama commenced when Island Man, in his shroud of emotion, had fallen ill, and landed in the fossilized village, near Posing Man. This dramatically upset Picturesque Gorge, who tried to stand up, shaking all the chorusi about. The cavemen, troubadors, and robots got all mixed up, and the robots began ordering everyone into rows based on penmanship.
In the meantime, Posing Man and Island Man had fallen in love, and we all know how THAT is. Thoroughly coated with oil, Steel Baby had been dropped in the oil!!! His mother, not wishing to spoil her dress, grabbed the edges of it to keep them from the floor, and hurried about bustlyingly. Not to fear, the troubadors had fled their robot-ordained lines to save the poor child. However, each of us know how many troubadors it takes to save a steel baby drowning in oil, am I right?
At any rate, there weren't enough, and the troubadors had to call in help from their erstwhile companions, the cavemen. This didn't work, as cavemen don't speak language. The robots, however, showed eagerness to gain access to the oil, to which they were voraciously averse. If a robot could gain control of the oil, he could use it as a weapon and threat against all the other robots, and use them to take over the stage. However, the robots had been programmed for politeness, and they were unable to interrupt Island Man and Posing Man's ferocious bickering. Instead, they had to climb the volcano, which was due to erupt any minute!!!
By this time, however, the troubadors had succeeded in wooing the Dipping Woman, and after making love languidly, they fed her several branches of grapes and fanned her with palm leaves.
They were all spent.
Kestler leapt deftly from Mandingo's roof. Mandingo, clever devil as he is, pulled the earth out from underneath Kestler. Kestler landed in a pile of unjuiced, soiled juicers and juiced, unsoiled soilers. Immediately the juicers and soilers set to work, and soon Kestler was both juiced and soiled. However, the juicers and soilers did not escape unharmed: they both fell victim to Kestler, and became quite thoroughly Kestled.
At this point, Kestler left his pit of Mood for a cool pouch of ORGANIC MILK. He paid hat over collar for the milk, which he claimed was delicious. Later, strolling through the urban jungle, he fell into a stupor unaware. He had been poisoned by a series of long poisonous darts, which grew profusely in the urban jungle. Mandingo Flyster had followed him here!
Overcoming his stupor, Kestler drilled into Flyster's seventh stomach to find the succulent juice he was after. This juice was the final key he needed to get permission to attend that night's concert. The concert was a bunch of young hooligans performing Blink 182's "What's my age again?" on couchs, drumsets, guitars, and telephones. There were bound to be ensuing shenanigans.
Kestler brought the juice back to his mother, who began malleating it. She manipulated it into a doughlike consistency after boiling it on the stove. She formed a doll the size of a small child. She put the thing in her pottery oven. After a few hours, it was done.
Kestler took his mother's carkeys and hopped in the bus. He got to the concierge soon after, where the Floisties had just begun their extensive cover. As soon as he reached the precarious edge of the amphitheatre, where he nearly toppled over. He brought out his camera and filmed the proceeding:
One girl was dressed extravagantly in period clothing, and was dipping a steel infant in oil. A man, about 33, gave a shout. The man was bedecked as an island, and the sun shone brightly on him. His sunny aura seemed to attract the others on the stage to him. A young man in a prudish sailor suit was posing exoticly for pictures. He used a dormant volcano and a city, coated in ash for thousands of years and full of seemingly fossilized people, as his props. The pictures were being taken by a very picturesque gorge.
Ensonced in a cave in this gorge were the chorus. There were several of these. The first were loosely dressed, and played primitive drums and flutes. The second were romantic troubadours with candles and dressing, playing guitars and lutes. Finally, the largest chorus were robots, who spoke haltingly but without hesitation. Their voices lacked emotion.
The drama commenced when Island Man, in his shroud of emotion, had fallen ill, and landed in the fossilized village, near Posing Man. This dramatically upset Picturesque Gorge, who tried to stand up, shaking all the chorusi about. The cavemen, troubadors, and robots got all mixed up, and the robots began ordering everyone into rows based on penmanship.
In the meantime, Posing Man and Island Man had fallen in love, and we all know how THAT is. Thoroughly coated with oil, Steel Baby had been dropped in the oil!!! His mother, not wishing to spoil her dress, grabbed the edges of it to keep them from the floor, and hurried about bustlyingly. Not to fear, the troubadors had fled their robot-ordained lines to save the poor child. However, each of us know how many troubadors it takes to save a steel baby drowning in oil, am I right?
At any rate, there weren't enough, and the troubadors had to call in help from their erstwhile companions, the cavemen. This didn't work, as cavemen don't speak language. The robots, however, showed eagerness to gain access to the oil, to which they were voraciously averse. If a robot could gain control of the oil, he could use it as a weapon and threat against all the other robots, and use them to take over the stage. However, the robots had been programmed for politeness, and they were unable to interrupt Island Man and Posing Man's ferocious bickering. Instead, they had to climb the volcano, which was due to erupt any minute!!!
By this time, however, the troubadors had succeeded in wooing the Dipping Woman, and after making love languidly, they fed her several branches of grapes and fanned her with palm leaves.
They were all spent.
Friday, March 9, 2007
Doublethink
I recently reread George Orwell's 1984, and while reading it I had several conversations about politics with people who seemed to me at the time to be exhibiting Doublethink. This led me to write the following essay, which lacks a decent introduction.
One can hold two contradictory opinions unknowingly; cognitive dissonance only takes effect when one is confronted with holding two contradictory opinions or sees something they believe to be real that contradicts their previously held opinions. Thus, the difficulty in doublethink is not allowing cognitive dissonance to rectify itself. This can be done in the simplest way by simply denying the evidence shown to you that your opinions are false. More difficult is avoiding the realization that two completely contradictory things that you believe actually contradict each other. This is achieved by such a strong emotional investment in beliefs that one becomes unable to question them logically.
This is the challenge set to propagandists: to make people believe things, things which run counter to their nature as decent humans, so strongly that they cannot question them logically. For example, many people have been inundated from birth with the percepts of some moral code, the Ten Commandments and their extensions in Judeo-Christianity, and analogous constructs in most every religion. These codes nearly always include some provision against killing others, and usually go so far as to mandate kindness and hospitality to others. In addition to religious codes, nations often have principles on which their Revolution was made and that their government was founded on. In America these are called the “Core Democratic Values.”
Political figures often play to these sorts of moral codes when running for office or simply trying to garner trust from the people. They are made to seem sympathetic to these causes and promise to enforce these sorts of moral codes over the populace if they are elected into office. In more powerful offices, primarily here those that deal with foreign policy and the military, politicians even promise to spread our moral precepts to other nations.
Kings and Popes launched Crusades to bring Christianity to the Muslims; European and American Imperialists invaded nearly half the world to bring industrial civilization to heathens. Now, Presidents and Prime Ministers stockpile nuclear weapons to “deter” opponents, and invade both right and left wing countries to bring them democracy, or, in some cases, simply to fend off the possible advances of unwanted Communists. Of course, almost without exception, these have been merely emotional justifications for economic motivations.
As the people are the ones who have the power to stop unwanted wars, they are the ones that propaganda is directed against. They have almost certainly been indoctrinated by their parents, teachers, and religious leaders with one of the aforementioned moral codes. This gives propagandists a good base to appeal to when making their pleas, but they must somehow avoid allowing people to realize that someone is using their moral code to persuade them to condone something fundamentally opposed to it.
At this point, propagandists most often invoke a cruel combination of fear and racism. Intense fear is generated by excessively exaggerating the threat to the people. This can be done by either using an incident such as the sinking of the Lusitania or the USS Maine to convince people that they are actually under attack, or by developing mass hysteria, as was done about the Soviet Union during the Cold War and about “Terrorism” today. Usually this entails hype in the media that suggests the enemy has super weapons, like the fictional “dirty bomb” that can supposedly be made from radioactive metals, Iraqi, North Korean, and Iranian nuclear weapons programs, and the hundreds of different absurd weapons the Soviet Union was accused of possessing during the Cold War.
In addition to a direct threat or general fear, propagandists create racial stereotypes and attempt to dehumanize their enemies. These two efforts are vitally tied, because their enemies are the basis for the stereotype, but the effect is to apply that stereotype to all racially similar people. This allows people a slight psychological leeway in which they no longer feel obligated to defend the lives of a certain group. Often, as in the case of the Jews in Nazi Germany, the enemy is assigned blame for a particular ill. Sometimes, a real attack is used to cast the entire race of the perpetrators as terrorists or enemies.
There are two dangers associated with this already cruel doctrine. The first is that an artificial sense of fear of other races can lead a populace to allow their government to enact laws they think will protect them. These sorts of laws in general allow percieved enemies of the state to be denied all sorts of rights, which the populace's moral code has set out in the constitution and otherwise. The problem with these laws is that they can be applied to anyone; usually there is no control over the execution of these laws because the matters they deal with are "sensitive." Thus, a law intended to allow the government freedom in abducting and torturing suspected terrorists can be used just as effectively against political dissidents or even normal citizens exhibiting suspicious behaviors or aquintances. Even worse, the entire thing could be based on a mistake. Overall, these laws are specifically intended to avoid having to deal with consitutional rights.
The other issue brought about by artificially created racial hatred is that it is the basis for the propagandists' creation of doublethink. The fear and hatred people feel for whomever the government and the corporations have directed it against prevents them from realizing how much this feeling runs counter to their personal moral code. When this dichotomy of feeling is presented to them, people often don't rethink their decisions because they are so afraid of the artificial enemy. They have been presented with a mortal danger to themselves and their children, and in the face of this, they cannot realize that the danger does not actually exist.
The final task left to propagandists is to give people an intellectual way to conform their two contradictory feelings. This allows them an avenue to pour their doublethought into when confronted with it by another. That is, it is not the reason they believe what they do; it is simply a shield for it; if it were lacking, they would not change their beliefs immediately upon reflection, but it does supply them with an excuse that allows them to not think when provoked to do so. When someone confronts a victim of doublethink, they do not have to resort to ad hominem attacks, because now they have a reason that actually responds to the criticism being levelled. As we've noted before, a justification such as this usually involves an appeal to the person's moral code. Almost inevitably it claims that the victims of the government's actions will either benefit from them, or that they are not actually human at all, sometimes both.
Thus, propagandists create doublethink by creating an intense hatred of some race or group, drawing on the populace's shared moral code when justifying their actions, which clearly cross the boundary of this moral code. People have an extremely strong feeling invested in both the hatred and their moral code, and somehow do not question the fact that the two blatantly contradict each other. This is because they have such a strong emotional investment in each that they manage to avoid logically thinking critically of either. They are provided with an intellectual justification, but this is simply a mask for their feelings, not the actual justification for them.
One can hold two contradictory opinions unknowingly; cognitive dissonance only takes effect when one is confronted with holding two contradictory opinions or sees something they believe to be real that contradicts their previously held opinions. Thus, the difficulty in doublethink is not allowing cognitive dissonance to rectify itself. This can be done in the simplest way by simply denying the evidence shown to you that your opinions are false. More difficult is avoiding the realization that two completely contradictory things that you believe actually contradict each other. This is achieved by such a strong emotional investment in beliefs that one becomes unable to question them logically.
This is the challenge set to propagandists: to make people believe things, things which run counter to their nature as decent humans, so strongly that they cannot question them logically. For example, many people have been inundated from birth with the percepts of some moral code, the Ten Commandments and their extensions in Judeo-Christianity, and analogous constructs in most every religion. These codes nearly always include some provision against killing others, and usually go so far as to mandate kindness and hospitality to others. In addition to religious codes, nations often have principles on which their Revolution was made and that their government was founded on. In America these are called the “Core Democratic Values.”
Political figures often play to these sorts of moral codes when running for office or simply trying to garner trust from the people. They are made to seem sympathetic to these causes and promise to enforce these sorts of moral codes over the populace if they are elected into office. In more powerful offices, primarily here those that deal with foreign policy and the military, politicians even promise to spread our moral precepts to other nations.
Kings and Popes launched Crusades to bring Christianity to the Muslims; European and American Imperialists invaded nearly half the world to bring industrial civilization to heathens. Now, Presidents and Prime Ministers stockpile nuclear weapons to “deter” opponents, and invade both right and left wing countries to bring them democracy, or, in some cases, simply to fend off the possible advances of unwanted Communists. Of course, almost without exception, these have been merely emotional justifications for economic motivations.
As the people are the ones who have the power to stop unwanted wars, they are the ones that propaganda is directed against. They have almost certainly been indoctrinated by their parents, teachers, and religious leaders with one of the aforementioned moral codes. This gives propagandists a good base to appeal to when making their pleas, but they must somehow avoid allowing people to realize that someone is using their moral code to persuade them to condone something fundamentally opposed to it.
At this point, propagandists most often invoke a cruel combination of fear and racism. Intense fear is generated by excessively exaggerating the threat to the people. This can be done by either using an incident such as the sinking of the Lusitania or the USS Maine to convince people that they are actually under attack, or by developing mass hysteria, as was done about the Soviet Union during the Cold War and about “Terrorism” today. Usually this entails hype in the media that suggests the enemy has super weapons, like the fictional “dirty bomb” that can supposedly be made from radioactive metals, Iraqi, North Korean, and Iranian nuclear weapons programs, and the hundreds of different absurd weapons the Soviet Union was accused of possessing during the Cold War.
In addition to a direct threat or general fear, propagandists create racial stereotypes and attempt to dehumanize their enemies. These two efforts are vitally tied, because their enemies are the basis for the stereotype, but the effect is to apply that stereotype to all racially similar people. This allows people a slight psychological leeway in which they no longer feel obligated to defend the lives of a certain group. Often, as in the case of the Jews in Nazi Germany, the enemy is assigned blame for a particular ill. Sometimes, a real attack is used to cast the entire race of the perpetrators as terrorists or enemies.
There are two dangers associated with this already cruel doctrine. The first is that an artificial sense of fear of other races can lead a populace to allow their government to enact laws they think will protect them. These sorts of laws in general allow percieved enemies of the state to be denied all sorts of rights, which the populace's moral code has set out in the constitution and otherwise. The problem with these laws is that they can be applied to anyone; usually there is no control over the execution of these laws because the matters they deal with are "sensitive." Thus, a law intended to allow the government freedom in abducting and torturing suspected terrorists can be used just as effectively against political dissidents or even normal citizens exhibiting suspicious behaviors or aquintances. Even worse, the entire thing could be based on a mistake. Overall, these laws are specifically intended to avoid having to deal with consitutional rights.
The other issue brought about by artificially created racial hatred is that it is the basis for the propagandists' creation of doublethink. The fear and hatred people feel for whomever the government and the corporations have directed it against prevents them from realizing how much this feeling runs counter to their personal moral code. When this dichotomy of feeling is presented to them, people often don't rethink their decisions because they are so afraid of the artificial enemy. They have been presented with a mortal danger to themselves and their children, and in the face of this, they cannot realize that the danger does not actually exist.
The final task left to propagandists is to give people an intellectual way to conform their two contradictory feelings. This allows them an avenue to pour their doublethought into when confronted with it by another. That is, it is not the reason they believe what they do; it is simply a shield for it; if it were lacking, they would not change their beliefs immediately upon reflection, but it does supply them with an excuse that allows them to not think when provoked to do so. When someone confronts a victim of doublethink, they do not have to resort to ad hominem attacks, because now they have a reason that actually responds to the criticism being levelled. As we've noted before, a justification such as this usually involves an appeal to the person's moral code. Almost inevitably it claims that the victims of the government's actions will either benefit from them, or that they are not actually human at all, sometimes both.
Thus, propagandists create doublethink by creating an intense hatred of some race or group, drawing on the populace's shared moral code when justifying their actions, which clearly cross the boundary of this moral code. People have an extremely strong feeling invested in both the hatred and their moral code, and somehow do not question the fact that the two blatantly contradict each other. This is because they have such a strong emotional investment in each that they manage to avoid logically thinking critically of either. They are provided with an intellectual justification, but this is simply a mask for their feelings, not the actual justification for them.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Vantrilaquism/Vantrilaquist
Everyone listening to an album frequently, that has really liked? Start, what it is:
I've been listening to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea a lot. Not sure if I can get over it. The Same God-Dammed Thing Happens with The Soft Bulletin, too. Two Damn Contesters For My Favorite Album.
I've been listening to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea a lot. Not sure if I can get over it. The Same God-Dammed Thing Happens with The Soft Bulletin, too. Two Damn Contesters For My Favorite Album.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
You're... Very Pretty
Has nobody besides me listened to John Vanderslice? Boy, I really like Pixel Revolt.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Hitting my hand on a door knob
I want to know
what it feels like
as a spiral.
Velcro, for instance, spin spinning
concluding at the center, or never.
A dog in the air. A small dog, a scottie dog, floating, not speaking, there are two pine trees in the scene, the sky is clear, and he is barely above the trees, no humans present.
what it feels like
as a spiral.
Velcro, for instance, spin spinning
concluding at the center, or never.
A dog in the air. A small dog, a scottie dog, floating, not speaking, there are two pine trees in the scene, the sky is clear, and he is barely above the trees, no humans present.
Zaney and the Chocolate Mystery: Part the Flist
Zaney had posted an advertisement in the classifieds one day in hopes of selling his beat-up old car. The God Dammed thing overheated like All Hell, and he'd had Enough Already. But when push came to shove, it was a pretty Dammed Good Sidekick. He had trouble letting go, to tell you the truth. Ahhhhhh, dammit Tetsuo, it's not fair! Fight with your bare hands! Ehehe, haha, ehaahaahaahaa!
KanedA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AND NOW YOUR BOSS TO, OF THIS PILE OF RUBBLE!
BeeeeeeeeeeshoWWWooooo
ooooooooooooooooooMMMMMMMMMMccccccccccccccccccccccccccrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
A low din.
Case Closed.
KanedA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AND NOW YOUR BOSS TO, OF THIS PILE OF RUBBLE!
BeeeeeeeeeeshoWWWooooo
ooooooooooooooooooMMMMMMMMMMccccccccccccccccccccccccccrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
A low din.
Case Closed.
Monday, February 26, 2007
The Sudden Death of Mr. T.S. Alexis
The Black Iron Kebbels stood tall over Mr. R.J. Kestler, as though it were a strong, tall woman. This woman was not your typical titties 'n milk mother, though, not by any means. She was in fact an imposing, chilling meanie. The building was constructed of iron extracted from the blood of purebred black cats (these cats had no white patches, believe you me!) Throughout the premises were laced the thought "These Iron towers, They're to be the death of me!"
This thought, of course, thoroughly enthused Mr. Kestler, who, although having undergone a rather "liberal" education in college (Thompson Island Business University), was a cold, heartless, shrewd dealer at heart. He sympathized with the emotionless and fear-inducing image the building presented. This is evidenced by the following conversation with his erstwhile encumberance, Laury Herdenbrurger.
"R.J., why don't you ever take out the garbage when I ask you to!?!?" said Kestler's unfortunate fixture.
"Pluto's jumpers! Lemme getta loada this here work, Johnny!" replied the important and thoughtful Kestler.
"George Q.B. Kestleman (her pet name for him), you come take this garbage out right now!"
"I've this important communique to write for my counterpart in the Former Soviet Republic of Belgium," hoping to pull one over on the (presumably) uneducated Joanie (Kestler often forgets Laury's name. For immersement, I will do the same).
"Shoobie doobie blunt, catcher in the blunt," ended Jublee."
Hopefully this doubtful excerpt from Kestler's personal life will help to shed some light on Kestler's character.
After Kestler's first impression with the Black Iron Kennel, he was approached by several nosy (denoting the fact that they were dogs with long snouts) security guards. One introduced himself as Kenneth Hezzlejew the third. The other, Kestler intuited was to be called Flabbergaster the Firedog.
Kestler, a well-known lover of dogs, made passionate love to each dog in turn, then both together in a rather smooth menagerie a trois. This act brought him into the viscous cycle that eventually lead to an awful fate for him and everyone around him.
For, at that very moment, the woman at the head of the Black Iron Kennel, Flisty McMysjacobs (the j is pronounced as a Y here, so the pronunciation would be something like "Mickmissyacubs"). Lustful Flisty watched with awe at Kestler's passion and skill. She respected Kestler’s physical prowess, but she was filled with anger by his actions.
Without hesitation, she rose from her seat overlooking the premises of the Black Iron Dog Kennel and flew down on the wings of thirty thousand undead bluebirds. At once she unleashed her hidden hipster, who took the fight to Kestler. Kestler was bowled over by the hipster’s sudden onslaught, but fought back valiantly. However, he was quite undermatched against his hip foe. Launching one last donkey kick to the hipster’s soft underside, he fled the alley in haste.
Lubels the woman stood frighteningly above the doorstep as Kestler crept thoughtfully home. She was worried, worried as a son of a bitch. Kestler hadn’t taken this long to come home since he was a boy with short legs.
Finally, Kestler, bloodied and bellyful, crept into Korplie’s waiting soft expectant flesh. They embraced.
“Oh my hezzlebelt, bristlies!” cried the upset Wendy.
“[Kestler attempts to speak, but is unable to make meaningful sounds]”
Keslter continued gurgling and Ayisha resumed her soft mother-noises.
As they cried in each other’s arms, the personified abstract concept of consumerism entered the room. It had been staying with Kestler for a few weeks, as its dad had kicked it out of the house. The two had gone to university together, and had been good friends. Now, however, it was starting to get on Kestler and Laury’s nerves, and she had been pestering him for months to kick it out. Kestler still had a soft spot for the poor guy, though. May this be the straw that breaks the Jubel’s back, as they say?
Consumerism looked pretty embarrassed as it walked in and saw the two embracing, Kestler bleeding profusely. It walked awkwardly and stiffly to the refrigerator and got a Coke. “I was just, uh. . .gettin’ a coke. I’ll be on me way, then. . .” It audibly let the sentence trail off into the void, as noted by the ellipses.
This seemed to have no immediate effect on the mourners, but it had worked itself dangerously into July’s subconscious.
This thought, of course, thoroughly enthused Mr. Kestler, who, although having undergone a rather "liberal" education in college (Thompson Island Business University), was a cold, heartless, shrewd dealer at heart. He sympathized with the emotionless and fear-inducing image the building presented. This is evidenced by the following conversation with his erstwhile encumberance, Laury Herdenbrurger.
"R.J., why don't you ever take out the garbage when I ask you to!?!?" said Kestler's unfortunate fixture.
"Pluto's jumpers! Lemme getta loada this here work, Johnny!" replied the important and thoughtful Kestler.
"George Q.B. Kestleman (her pet name for him), you come take this garbage out right now!"
"I've this important communique to write for my counterpart in the Former Soviet Republic of Belgium," hoping to pull one over on the (presumably) uneducated Joanie (Kestler often forgets Laury's name. For immersement, I will do the same).
"Shoobie doobie blunt, catcher in the blunt," ended Jublee."
Hopefully this doubtful excerpt from Kestler's personal life will help to shed some light on Kestler's character.
After Kestler's first impression with the Black Iron Kennel, he was approached by several nosy (denoting the fact that they were dogs with long snouts) security guards. One introduced himself as Kenneth Hezzlejew the third. The other, Kestler intuited was to be called Flabbergaster the Firedog.
Kestler, a well-known lover of dogs, made passionate love to each dog in turn, then both together in a rather smooth menagerie a trois. This act brought him into the viscous cycle that eventually lead to an awful fate for him and everyone around him.
For, at that very moment, the woman at the head of the Black Iron Kennel, Flisty McMysjacobs (the j is pronounced as a Y here, so the pronunciation would be something like "Mickmissyacubs"). Lustful Flisty watched with awe at Kestler's passion and skill. She respected Kestler’s physical prowess, but she was filled with anger by his actions.
Without hesitation, she rose from her seat overlooking the premises of the Black Iron Dog Kennel and flew down on the wings of thirty thousand undead bluebirds. At once she unleashed her hidden hipster, who took the fight to Kestler. Kestler was bowled over by the hipster’s sudden onslaught, but fought back valiantly. However, he was quite undermatched against his hip foe. Launching one last donkey kick to the hipster’s soft underside, he fled the alley in haste.
Lubels the woman stood frighteningly above the doorstep as Kestler crept thoughtfully home. She was worried, worried as a son of a bitch. Kestler hadn’t taken this long to come home since he was a boy with short legs.
Finally, Kestler, bloodied and bellyful, crept into Korplie’s waiting soft expectant flesh. They embraced.
“Oh my hezzlebelt, bristlies!” cried the upset Wendy.
“[Kestler attempts to speak, but is unable to make meaningful sounds]”
Keslter continued gurgling and Ayisha resumed her soft mother-noises.
As they cried in each other’s arms, the personified abstract concept of consumerism entered the room. It had been staying with Kestler for a few weeks, as its dad had kicked it out of the house. The two had gone to university together, and had been good friends. Now, however, it was starting to get on Kestler and Laury’s nerves, and she had been pestering him for months to kick it out. Kestler still had a soft spot for the poor guy, though. May this be the straw that breaks the Jubel’s back, as they say?
Consumerism looked pretty embarrassed as it walked in and saw the two embracing, Kestler bleeding profusely. It walked awkwardly and stiffly to the refrigerator and got a Coke. “I was just, uh. . .gettin’ a coke. I’ll be on me way, then. . .” It audibly let the sentence trail off into the void, as noted by the ellipses.
This seemed to have no immediate effect on the mourners, but it had worked itself dangerously into July’s subconscious.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
The Sudden Death of Mr. R. J. Kestler's unfortunate female companion
John Bullshit snacked a bit before midnight, alighting onto the fiery rooftop just before dawn. He threw down his meteoric shellacking glove and leapt into song (Alex Hi@'s ghost on the dawntide) Throughout his mysterious travail, the unassailable Bullshit flew gloriously, his slippery tresses flowing like soft mad children, smug in the soft black hearts of infancy. You think you know better than John Bullshit? You don't KNOW Bullshit!
"I apologize for that," lapsed RJ's thoreau onbullion Kelli, "while T. S. Alexis maybe be a genius, he's most certainly also insane. I'm not insane though, surely not. Not even a bit."
It was the first time Alexis has tasted fear. He was in shock therapy, receiving his regular induced epileptic seizure.
Perhaps I'd better explain. You see, Alexis was a doppelganger. The curious thing about doppelgangers is that they originally exist in other universes created by extremely powerful emotions. The occurrence of doppelgangers in our universe was rare, occurring only when women learned to play the ghost song on the baby grand, stuttering cheering, smattering wildly. However, several people knew of secrets that would allow one to bring doppelgangers from one universe to another. These people were the witchdoctors of yore.
In the historically accurate story of the witchdoctor I told earlier, the souls of the murdered pagans created an alternate universe in which the inhabitants were limited to the tortured souls, the witchdoctor, and the murderous crusaders. Time was distended, and as such, did not factor into things in the traditional sense. Also, the universe spread only the size of the shrine during the fire, but in reality it is not possible to limit the size of a universe. Therefore, the infinite size of this universe was forced inside the building. There is no limit or set plan to the passageways and catacombs of this enflamed shrine.
The Christians gained power over the world, and they believed doppelgangers to be evil spirits, out to get us, and witchdoctorism a form of necromancy. Therefore, they tried to rout out the intentional transversal of doppelgangers into our universe. However, the underground managed to keep the knowledge alive, and eventually, through a backstory I'm sure I'll explore later, Kestler discovered the secret.
My period; it's Catholic heaven.
Lying on wretched sheets with a bloody virgin, we could start a religion.
Kestler modified the knowledge and created a machine. This was far more efficient than magic, but it caused unfortunate mental side effects. You see, machine-grabbed doppelgangers can see beyond the universe.
This may not make much sense to you, since you could never do it, but it is certainly possible and true, believe you all to me.
Her cunt gripped him like a warm friendly hand.
Impossible concentration.
The ability to see beyond the universe showed the doppelgangers the transitory nature of everything, and also the insignificance of practically everything. They were nihilists in the most extreme sense to all of us, but in truth, they sought a meaning for things far beyond what we could perhaps ever comprehend.
This is what allowed T.S. Alexis to become a fascist; he held no stock in human rights because humanity is nothing for him; he is a metauniversal traveler.
A further note on machine-grabbered doppelgangers. They are not sealed into our universe through the normal magical measures. This is why they can see beyond the universe. However, not only can they see beyond the universe; they can also move beyond it. This is bad business for R.J. Kestler! He forces each and every one of his doppelgangers to recieve regular shock therapy. The weakest among them go completely insane; those slightly stronger lose the ability to see or travel outside the universe. Stronger still, some can still see out of the universe. T.S. Alexis, however, was the strongest of them all, and could actually maintain his ability to travel beyond the universe. He remains in our universe for purposes yet to be revealed to the gentle reader.
"I apologize for that," lapsed RJ's thoreau onbullion Kelli, "while T. S. Alexis maybe be a genius, he's most certainly also insane. I'm not insane though, surely not. Not even a bit."
It was the first time Alexis has tasted fear. He was in shock therapy, receiving his regular induced epileptic seizure.
Perhaps I'd better explain. You see, Alexis was a doppelganger. The curious thing about doppelgangers is that they originally exist in other universes created by extremely powerful emotions. The occurrence of doppelgangers in our universe was rare, occurring only when women learned to play the ghost song on the baby grand, stuttering cheering, smattering wildly. However, several people knew of secrets that would allow one to bring doppelgangers from one universe to another. These people were the witchdoctors of yore.
In the historically accurate story of the witchdoctor I told earlier, the souls of the murdered pagans created an alternate universe in which the inhabitants were limited to the tortured souls, the witchdoctor, and the murderous crusaders. Time was distended, and as such, did not factor into things in the traditional sense. Also, the universe spread only the size of the shrine during the fire, but in reality it is not possible to limit the size of a universe. Therefore, the infinite size of this universe was forced inside the building. There is no limit or set plan to the passageways and catacombs of this enflamed shrine.
The Christians gained power over the world, and they believed doppelgangers to be evil spirits, out to get us, and witchdoctorism a form of necromancy. Therefore, they tried to rout out the intentional transversal of doppelgangers into our universe. However, the underground managed to keep the knowledge alive, and eventually, through a backstory I'm sure I'll explore later, Kestler discovered the secret.
My period; it's Catholic heaven.
Lying on wretched sheets with a bloody virgin, we could start a religion.
Kestler modified the knowledge and created a machine. This was far more efficient than magic, but it caused unfortunate mental side effects. You see, machine-grabbed doppelgangers can see beyond the universe.
This may not make much sense to you, since you could never do it, but it is certainly possible and true, believe you all to me.
Her cunt gripped him like a warm friendly hand.
Impossible concentration.
The ability to see beyond the universe showed the doppelgangers the transitory nature of everything, and also the insignificance of practically everything. They were nihilists in the most extreme sense to all of us, but in truth, they sought a meaning for things far beyond what we could perhaps ever comprehend.
This is what allowed T.S. Alexis to become a fascist; he held no stock in human rights because humanity is nothing for him; he is a metauniversal traveler.
A further note on machine-grabbered doppelgangers. They are not sealed into our universe through the normal magical measures. This is why they can see beyond the universe. However, not only can they see beyond the universe; they can also move beyond it. This is bad business for R.J. Kestler! He forces each and every one of his doppelgangers to recieve regular shock therapy. The weakest among them go completely insane; those slightly stronger lose the ability to see or travel outside the universe. Stronger still, some can still see out of the universe. T.S. Alexis, however, was the strongest of them all, and could actually maintain his ability to travel beyond the universe. He remains in our universe for purposes yet to be revealed to the gentle reader.
Friday, February 23, 2007
The Spooky Bastard: A Glowing's Beyonder
This is a short, politically satirical, work I wrote some centuries ago:
A small, stringy Red Coat shifted down Memory Lane one evening, every so often sipping from a pouch some certifiably delicious organic milk that I bought last week - costing $4.29 for a half gallon! He gribbled (?) and groaned, remembering a Spirited Philosophical Debate that he had with another Red Coat, JT Ketterboobs earlier that night. Ketterboobs undoubtedly had won, and while our protagonist understood this, and did not particularly mind this, Ketterboobs' demeanor that night angered him. Ketterboobs was then a ghost, and nobody had warned our protagonist of this, whom it turned out was certifiably mortified of ghosts. And as if that weren't enough! Ketterboobs had poked fun at our protagonist the night through, whom had done seemingly nothing to provoke the attacks. Our protagonist, after sucking out the last drop of milk from his pouch, and shaking it desperately in the air in an attempt to siphon even a little bit more, threw it frustratingly over the railing of a bridge as he walked over it - well, on it.
"Hey, Adam Shiverbelt!" came a shout from the river. Adam - our protagonist - peered over the bridge railing into the water. "Oh, it's you," said Adam. He began to move faster. "Come on, Adam, stop," said JT, as he floated up from the water and on to the bridge. "And why should I!" exploded Adam, spinning around to face his pursuer, "you've done nothing this night but barrage me with your Catapult Tongue!" "Now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now," JT repeats, "I meant not to Kalashnikov your glappers." "Well you did a right good job at that!" whimpers Adam, "I did nothing to provoke your attacks!" "No?" JT asks, menacingly and playfully, simultaneously. Suddenly, and with relatively little warning, JT grew to the size of a Demon Windmill and thundered "YOU'VE MURDERED ME!" Adam slammed his face into his hands, and tears streamed down his face. He started to run from the Ghost Fiend of his Former Friend, but was no match for the specter's asteroid-esque speed. Before long JT had overwhelmed him, and, picking him up by the top of his top hat, threw him over the side of the bridge into the fiery torrent of the Nile River in Egypt.
Well, what have we learned?
A small, stringy Red Coat shifted down Memory Lane one evening, every so often sipping from a pouch some certifiably delicious organic milk that I bought last week - costing $4.29 for a half gallon! He gribbled (?) and groaned, remembering a Spirited Philosophical Debate that he had with another Red Coat, JT Ketterboobs earlier that night. Ketterboobs undoubtedly had won, and while our protagonist understood this, and did not particularly mind this, Ketterboobs' demeanor that night angered him. Ketterboobs was then a ghost, and nobody had warned our protagonist of this, whom it turned out was certifiably mortified of ghosts. And as if that weren't enough! Ketterboobs had poked fun at our protagonist the night through, whom had done seemingly nothing to provoke the attacks. Our protagonist, after sucking out the last drop of milk from his pouch, and shaking it desperately in the air in an attempt to siphon even a little bit more, threw it frustratingly over the railing of a bridge as he walked over it - well, on it.
"Hey, Adam Shiverbelt!" came a shout from the river. Adam - our protagonist - peered over the bridge railing into the water. "Oh, it's you," said Adam. He began to move faster. "Come on, Adam, stop," said JT, as he floated up from the water and on to the bridge. "And why should I!" exploded Adam, spinning around to face his pursuer, "you've done nothing this night but barrage me with your Catapult Tongue!" "Now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now," JT repeats, "I meant not to Kalashnikov your glappers." "Well you did a right good job at that!" whimpers Adam, "I did nothing to provoke your attacks!" "No?" JT asks, menacingly and playfully, simultaneously. Suddenly, and with relatively little warning, JT grew to the size of a Demon Windmill and thundered "YOU'VE MURDERED ME!" Adam slammed his face into his hands, and tears streamed down his face. He started to run from the Ghost Fiend of his Former Friend, but was no match for the specter's asteroid-esque speed. Before long JT had overwhelmed him, and, picking him up by the top of his top hat, threw him over the side of the bridge into the fiery torrent of the Nile River in Egypt.
Well, what have we learned?
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Mutualist Economic Theory Part One
I wrote an essay on Mutualist Economics for the website http://www.theanarchist.org. I'll post it in parts because I don't want to flood this place with all of my SHIT. If anyone sees this that doesn't know already, please visit TheAnarchist. It's a fine site with a lot of info that a good friend of mine is working quite hard on. I've also been asked to be a co-editor/contributor, so I'm sure there will be more from me there in the future.
I. Basics: When is property right, and when is it wrong?
Human beings have a set of self-imposed standards or “rights” ingrained in themselves by whatever force any of us choose to believe placed us here on this Earth. Among these include the right to live and the right to voice oneself under any circumstances. Also among these is the right to have something to hold. Anyone old enough to earn money by any means knows what its like to hold something in ones hands, and think, “this is mine, damn it, and I’ve earned it”. The experience is the same for almost everyone at first. You’ve perhaps gotten your first paycheck from your first part time job, and you’ve gone and treated yourself to a new CD, book, or whatever you would choose to purchase. This feeling is right, and it is good.
But we must pose the question: Where is the line drawn between earning and taking? A sixteen-year old boy works for eight hours in the back of a grocery store, and he has earned whatever he has purchased. A thirty-eight year old Wall Street savvy business man who makes the decision to fire a couple of hundred people so his stock will go up 25 percent is taking whatever he acquires (this is aside from the fact that his “stock” is essentially imaginary anyway). But the exploitation doesn’t have to be on such a grand scale, either. A fourty-year old, five foot eight inches tall white male forces African American slaves to pick his meager amounts of cotton for him to sell at the market, and he is taking what he gets no less than the savvy business man is.
Property is right when it is earned through an amount of labor equivalent to the value of said property. A man builds a small cabin next to a stream, and that small cabin is his and his alone, and he has the right to do what he wishes with it. He may live in it, and so may his sons, and so may the sons of his sons. Or he may trade the house away for something of equal base value. The decision is in his hands, the same ones that built the house.
Property is wrong when it is gained by conquest or exploitation. A man rides in on a pristine white horse, slaughters countless natives, and claims the land as his own. This is wrong. A man wrings another man for all he is worth via an insurance scam and then purchases his house when he puts it on the market for next to nothing. This is wrong. Now that we have done something so bold as to clearly define right and wrong (though admittedly in a limited context), we’ll move on.
TO BE CONTINUED
I. Basics: When is property right, and when is it wrong?
Human beings have a set of self-imposed standards or “rights” ingrained in themselves by whatever force any of us choose to believe placed us here on this Earth. Among these include the right to live and the right to voice oneself under any circumstances. Also among these is the right to have something to hold. Anyone old enough to earn money by any means knows what its like to hold something in ones hands, and think, “this is mine, damn it, and I’ve earned it”. The experience is the same for almost everyone at first. You’ve perhaps gotten your first paycheck from your first part time job, and you’ve gone and treated yourself to a new CD, book, or whatever you would choose to purchase. This feeling is right, and it is good.
But we must pose the question: Where is the line drawn between earning and taking? A sixteen-year old boy works for eight hours in the back of a grocery store, and he has earned whatever he has purchased. A thirty-eight year old Wall Street savvy business man who makes the decision to fire a couple of hundred people so his stock will go up 25 percent is taking whatever he acquires (this is aside from the fact that his “stock” is essentially imaginary anyway). But the exploitation doesn’t have to be on such a grand scale, either. A fourty-year old, five foot eight inches tall white male forces African American slaves to pick his meager amounts of cotton for him to sell at the market, and he is taking what he gets no less than the savvy business man is.
Property is right when it is earned through an amount of labor equivalent to the value of said property. A man builds a small cabin next to a stream, and that small cabin is his and his alone, and he has the right to do what he wishes with it. He may live in it, and so may his sons, and so may the sons of his sons. Or he may trade the house away for something of equal base value. The decision is in his hands, the same ones that built the house.
Property is wrong when it is gained by conquest or exploitation. A man rides in on a pristine white horse, slaughters countless natives, and claims the land as his own. This is wrong. A man wrings another man for all he is worth via an insurance scam and then purchases his house when he puts it on the market for next to nothing. This is wrong. Now that we have done something so bold as to clearly define right and wrong (though admittedly in a limited context), we’ll move on.
TO BE CONTINUED
The Sudden Death of Mr. R. J. Kestler
One blimey day, as the fanciful doppelganger magnate R.J. Kestler walked home from his job micromanaging the numerous doppelgangers of him and his close friends and relatives, he was torn asunder (emotionally) by the sight of several identical dogs marching in lockstep from the newly installed Black Iron Dog Kennel. The dogs were driven by a frothy woman in several human hair coats, who wielded a well-concealed hipster. As they marched, they sang cadences to stay in step with each other. These cadences were all inspired by the works of well known Fascist poet T. S. Alexis.
Mr. Kestler recognized the inspiration of these cadences immediately, as he was responsible for the administration T.S. Alexis. The reason for this is simple. T.S. Alexis is the doppelganger of T.S. Elliot, whose poems about cats inspired the Broadway musical Cats. Mr. Kestler continued home, slept calmly through the night, and returned to work in the morning. He had forgotten the incident entirely by the time he arrived there.
That night, he walked home again by the same route, and saw a much greater number of dogs this time. The increase in their numbers could be explained by the mere accumulation of dogs in a kennel, not overnight. Astute Mr. Kestler noticed this curiosity, and decided to take a trip by the Black Iron Dog Kennel.
The Kennel had been built on a location many considered haunted. The history of the location was certainly a suspicious one, and many urban legends had arisen about it over the ages. In actual fact, the location was originally the site of the consecration of the town during pagan times. This consecration had been performed with the sacrifice of a number of animals, and, more importantly, many of hostages taken from nearby tribes. After the consecration, the pagans' shrine was built on the spot.
Of course, when the town was Christianized, the crusaders, in their usual cruel manner, herded all the pagans who refused to recant their beliefs into the shrine and locked them in it. They then lit the shrine on fire. As shrieking townspeople rushed to the shrine to attempt to save their loved ones, they were slaughtered by the crusaders. After this had been done, and all the surviving townspeople had fled to the forest, the crusaders discovered the town's store of wine. They became incredibly intoxicated, (This is where legend comes into the story, and the proceeding events were long thought to be exceedingly unlikely by snooty intellectuals until the recent disturbing occurrences.) and fell into an extremely long and deep sleep.
During this time, the bodies in the shrine were picked at and decomposed by various creatures, until a rabble-rousing witchdoctor came to town to hawk his wares. Seeing the massacre that had occurred in the town, the witchdoctor, a sly con man, saw his chance to make some money.
He intended to cast a spell on the crusaders and ransom them back to the church. He intended to use the souls of the dead pagans to power and seal his spell. However, the spirits were hostile to his intentions, and he was not powerful enough to control them. They turned his spell into an entirely different one, locking the crusaders and the witchdoctor into a self-contained Hell, in which time had frozen and space had become reduced to the area of the shrine.
Mr. Kestler had heard this story and many variations of it, but had also discounted them. He was a strict pragmatic realist. That is, he refused to believe in anything unless he saw it or he could gain an advantage from it. Therefore, he had no trouble believing what he saw at the site of the Black Iron Dog Kennel.
Mr. Kestler recognized the inspiration of these cadences immediately, as he was responsible for the administration T.S. Alexis. The reason for this is simple. T.S. Alexis is the doppelganger of T.S. Elliot, whose poems about cats inspired the Broadway musical Cats. Mr. Kestler continued home, slept calmly through the night, and returned to work in the morning. He had forgotten the incident entirely by the time he arrived there.
That night, he walked home again by the same route, and saw a much greater number of dogs this time. The increase in their numbers could be explained by the mere accumulation of dogs in a kennel, not overnight. Astute Mr. Kestler noticed this curiosity, and decided to take a trip by the Black Iron Dog Kennel.
The Kennel had been built on a location many considered haunted. The history of the location was certainly a suspicious one, and many urban legends had arisen about it over the ages. In actual fact, the location was originally the site of the consecration of the town during pagan times. This consecration had been performed with the sacrifice of a number of animals, and, more importantly, many of hostages taken from nearby tribes. After the consecration, the pagans' shrine was built on the spot.
Of course, when the town was Christianized, the crusaders, in their usual cruel manner, herded all the pagans who refused to recant their beliefs into the shrine and locked them in it. They then lit the shrine on fire. As shrieking townspeople rushed to the shrine to attempt to save their loved ones, they were slaughtered by the crusaders. After this had been done, and all the surviving townspeople had fled to the forest, the crusaders discovered the town's store of wine. They became incredibly intoxicated, (This is where legend comes into the story, and the proceeding events were long thought to be exceedingly unlikely by snooty intellectuals until the recent disturbing occurrences.) and fell into an extremely long and deep sleep.
During this time, the bodies in the shrine were picked at and decomposed by various creatures, until a rabble-rousing witchdoctor came to town to hawk his wares. Seeing the massacre that had occurred in the town, the witchdoctor, a sly con man, saw his chance to make some money.
He intended to cast a spell on the crusaders and ransom them back to the church. He intended to use the souls of the dead pagans to power and seal his spell. However, the spirits were hostile to his intentions, and he was not powerful enough to control them. They turned his spell into an entirely different one, locking the crusaders and the witchdoctor into a self-contained Hell, in which time had frozen and space had become reduced to the area of the shrine.
Mr. Kestler had heard this story and many variations of it, but had also discounted them. He was a strict pragmatic realist. That is, he refused to believe in anything unless he saw it or he could gain an advantage from it. Therefore, he had no trouble believing what he saw at the site of the Black Iron Dog Kennel.
Alex's Review of JT Ketterfool
The Fountain -------> "RIPOFF of Jodie Foster's film 'Contact'," at least, according to JT Ketterer."
Has nobody seen 2001: A Space Odysius?
Has nobody seen 2001: A Space Odysius?
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Those Fucking BioPorts/BleedThroughs
300 is getting some very spiny reviews. March 9th it comes to theaters, I think. I'm going to see it alone, and nobody goes with me, this time. Zodiac also looks really, really good. One review I read said it's Fincher's BREAST.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Notes on "Raga Bageshwari" from "Call of the Valley"
Many, many years from now
black hairpin and false wood grain
one will enter the other
the way which doesn't matter
and it'll all be one.
black hairpin and false wood grain
one will enter the other
the way which doesn't matter
and it'll all be one.
Monday, February 12, 2007
The Funeral
Dancing around a body
that once held them together.
Sipping at old feuds,
That keeps the status queue.
A room full of people,
Giving each other one last chance,
While dancing around a body,
To bite the bullet, at last.
that once held them together.
Sipping at old feuds,
That keeps the status queue.
A room full of people,
Giving each other one last chance,
While dancing around a body,
To bite the bullet, at last.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
A Conversation Between Schizophrenics.
The following is an excerpt from The Politics of Experience by Ronald David Laing. It's an actual conversation between two diagnosed schizophrenic patients (That is, two separate people, not merely two "split personalities.").
Go:
Jones (laughs loudly, then pauses): I'm McDougal myself. (This is not actually his name)
Smith: What do you do for a living, little fellow? Work on a ranch or something?
J: No, I'm a civilian seaman. Supposed to be high muckamuck society.
S: A singing recording machine, huh? I guess a recording machine sings sometimes. If they're adjusted right. Mm-hm. I thought that was it. My towel, mm-hm. We'll be going back to sea in about-eight or nin months though. Soon as we get our-destroyed parts repaired.
J: I've got lovesickness, secret love.
S: Secret love, huh? (laughs)
J: Yeah.
S: I ain't got any secret love.
J: I fell in love, but I don't feed any woo-that sits over- looks something like me-walking around over there.
S: My, oh, my only one, my only love is the shark. Keep out of the way of him.
J: Don't they know I have a life to live? (Long pause)
S: Do you work at the air base? Hm?
J: You know what I think of work. I'm thirty-three in June, do you mind?
S: June?
J: Thirty-three years old in June. This stuff goes out the window after I live this, uh-leave this hospital. So I lay off cigarettes, I'm a spatial condition, from outer space myself, no shit.
S: (laughs) I'm a real space ship from across.
J: A lot of people talk, uh-that way, like crazy, but Believe it or Not by Ripley, take it or leave it-alone it's in the Examiner, it's in the comic section, Believe it or Not, Robert E. Ripley, Believe it or Not, but we don't have to believe anything, un-less I feel like it. (Pause) Every little rosette-too much alone. (Pause)
S: Could be possible. (Phrase inaudible because of airplane noise)
J: I'm a civilian seaman.
S: Could be possible. (Sighs) I take my bath in the ocean.
J: Bathing stinks. You know why:? 'Cause you can't quit when you feel like it. You're in the service.
S: I can quit whenever I feel like quitting. I can get out when I feel like getting out.
J (talking at the same time): Take me. I'm a civilian, I can quit.
S: Civilian?
J: Go my-my way.
S: I guess we have, in port, civilian. (Long pause)
J: What do they want with us?
S: Hm?
J: What do they want with you and me?
S: What do they want with you and me? How do I know what they want with you? I know what they want with me. I broke the law, so I have to pay for it. (Silence)
The End
Apparently, this book is a life-changing, existential look at society. But I haven't gotten very far, so the review will have to wait.
(Hey JT, maybe a short for Giavonni III?) ;(
Go:
Jones (laughs loudly, then pauses): I'm McDougal myself. (This is not actually his name)
Smith: What do you do for a living, little fellow? Work on a ranch or something?
J: No, I'm a civilian seaman. Supposed to be high muckamuck society.
S: A singing recording machine, huh? I guess a recording machine sings sometimes. If they're adjusted right. Mm-hm. I thought that was it. My towel, mm-hm. We'll be going back to sea in about-eight or nin months though. Soon as we get our-destroyed parts repaired.
J: I've got lovesickness, secret love.
S: Secret love, huh? (laughs)
J: Yeah.
S: I ain't got any secret love.
J: I fell in love, but I don't feed any woo-that sits over- looks something like me-walking around over there.
S: My, oh, my only one, my only love is the shark. Keep out of the way of him.
J: Don't they know I have a life to live? (Long pause)
S: Do you work at the air base? Hm?
J: You know what I think of work. I'm thirty-three in June, do you mind?
S: June?
J: Thirty-three years old in June. This stuff goes out the window after I live this, uh-leave this hospital. So I lay off cigarettes, I'm a spatial condition, from outer space myself, no shit.
S: (laughs) I'm a real space ship from across.
J: A lot of people talk, uh-that way, like crazy, but Believe it or Not by Ripley, take it or leave it-alone it's in the Examiner, it's in the comic section, Believe it or Not, Robert E. Ripley, Believe it or Not, but we don't have to believe anything, un-less I feel like it. (Pause) Every little rosette-too much alone. (Pause)
S: Could be possible. (Phrase inaudible because of airplane noise)
J: I'm a civilian seaman.
S: Could be possible. (Sighs) I take my bath in the ocean.
J: Bathing stinks. You know why:? 'Cause you can't quit when you feel like it. You're in the service.
S: I can quit whenever I feel like quitting. I can get out when I feel like getting out.
J (talking at the same time): Take me. I'm a civilian, I can quit.
S: Civilian?
J: Go my-my way.
S: I guess we have, in port, civilian. (Long pause)
J: What do they want with us?
S: Hm?
J: What do they want with you and me?
S: What do they want with you and me? How do I know what they want with you? I know what they want with me. I broke the law, so I have to pay for it. (Silence)
The End
Apparently, this book is a life-changing, existential look at society. But I haven't gotten very far, so the review will have to wait.
(Hey JT, maybe a short for Giavonni III?) ;(
Friday, February 9, 2007
Alex's Review of Norbit
Eddie Murphy plays characters three. "Like to slip me off a big of that cake."
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Come On Tangiers
Heroic couplet, crabgrass dreamt of it
walking in a pseudo dawn, with the leeches.
field of tall grass bringing about
a new
painfully ideal ideal
only to later conflict
with the plan,
spurred on a stretch of highway
with trees on both sides.
Changing my eyes, knowing billboards told lies,
And here is the merger.
walking in a pseudo dawn, with the leeches.
field of tall grass bringing about
a new
painfully ideal ideal
only to later conflict
with the plan,
spurred on a stretch of highway
with trees on both sides.
Changing my eyes, knowing billboards told lies,
And here is the merger.
Intro to Lauren
I'm the only fmaele on this blog. crap. you jkres.
I'm dyslexic, sorry.
So I work at a local grocer. a FAMILY grocer. They incorporate families into their food somehow, I have yet to witness it. Its full of the horrors of the service industry (where oncsumers, instead of saying, "ok, what else do you have" complain and insult and throw their soda cans on the floor) and horrors of the human race (where people take something off the shelf and stick it into a bag hwen they think no one is watching and try to return in for being deficient). A lot of interesting thoughts occur while I am servicing these people. A lot of swear words occur too. I'll write them down to share with you if I remember and this will hopefully allow you to be more polite to the person who works in your local grocer.
I try and follow taoist teachings, since buddhism became too nonsensical for me to follow. I reccomend The Tao of Pooh, since JT reccommended it I think it makes more sense than most of my teachers. I'm not an anarchist, ufnortunately, since everyone else is. I like socialism and capitalism (liking both the same amount). I am a vegetarian and fast food....is gross.
And I do have to defend myself from Adams post since I kind of like the fact that my BREASTS are so sexualized, since what else am I supposed to do with them? They're there, they may as well have a use, and it may as well be confusing guys enough for me to escape. Like a parachute.
In closing, my middle toe is flipping me off. I would assume he is mad that I allowed a hole to grow on my sock.
I'm dyslexic, sorry.
So I work at a local grocer. a FAMILY grocer. They incorporate families into their food somehow, I have yet to witness it. Its full of the horrors of the service industry (where oncsumers, instead of saying, "ok, what else do you have" complain and insult and throw their soda cans on the floor) and horrors of the human race (where people take something off the shelf and stick it into a bag hwen they think no one is watching and try to return in for being deficient). A lot of interesting thoughts occur while I am servicing these people. A lot of swear words occur too. I'll write them down to share with you if I remember and this will hopefully allow you to be more polite to the person who works in your local grocer.
I try and follow taoist teachings, since buddhism became too nonsensical for me to follow. I reccomend The Tao of Pooh, since JT reccommended it I think it makes more sense than most of my teachers. I'm not an anarchist, ufnortunately, since everyone else is. I like socialism and capitalism (liking both the same amount). I am a vegetarian and fast food....is gross.
And I do have to defend myself from Adams post since I kind of like the fact that my BREASTS are so sexualized, since what else am I supposed to do with them? They're there, they may as well have a use, and it may as well be confusing guys enough for me to escape. Like a parachute.
In closing, my middle toe is flipping me off. I would assume he is mad that I allowed a hole to grow on my sock.
Monday, February 5, 2007
A Short Introduction to Anarchism
As an associate editor of an up-and-coming website, dedicated to raising awareness of the pervasively misunderstood philosophy of anarchism, I've furnished an elementary introduction to the philosophy and politics of anarchism.
Tell me what ch'all think:Anarchism is a diverse, idealistic, and often disparate grouping of political philosophies that, despite common presumptions, has a solid historical and scientific basis. Rather than slinging firebombs and breaking the law for the sake of breaking it, anarchists argue peace, cooperation, and freedom, and desire a future society based on these principles. There are very many different shades of anarchism: there are socialists and capitalists, collectivists and individualists, theists, deists, and atheists. Because there are so many politically motivated groups today that brand themselves "anarchist," there is no single uniting doctrine or manifesto. However, all of the various denominations share some core ideals.
To be considered a proper anarchist, one must necessarily hold to at least one very fundamental tenet. This is the complete opposition to authority; more specifically, hierarchal authority. Anarchists call hierarchal authority "irrational authority." (Some that label themselves as anarchists claim to oppose all authority, but this is a rather immature stance, and is fortunately a pretty uncommon one.) Irrational authority is authority that is achieved and maintained not through merit, consensus, and circumstantial appropriateness – this could include for instance a doctor, a parent, or a movie director – but through force, deception, inheritance, or a combination of any of these. This type of authority – whether in government, the workplace, the highschool classroom, or the church – is restrictive and unnecessary (see Bakunin, God and the State, Liberty and Authority). It transforms man into a mindless tool; of production in the case of wage-labor, of death in the case of compulsory military service, or whatever. Then this tool, a human being, is to be exploited for the material enrichment of those that direct him from above. So long as any man is controlled by the whims of another, anarchists hold, a just, truly democratic society simply isn't possible. So, anarchists demand that these exploitative relationships be removed from every facet of social organization.
Then, the anti-authority treatment is applied to the state: the anarchists' common enemy. The state in any form is an unnecessary, and necessarily restrictive, institution, existing not for the maintenance of general order, but in fact primarily for the maintenance of the status quo. That is, the maintenance of the current distribution of wealth and power, which is to say the very least, quite unequal and arbitrary. Unlike "liberals" and mere libertarians, anarchists deny that the state's inherent despotism can ever be sufficiently restricted, whether through precautionary mitigation (the US Constitution, for instance), or through the periodic election of so-called "representative." All governments eventually become - if not exist in the first place as - primarily self-interested plutocracies, looking only to perpetuate through force and/or mass deception their own wealth and power. An angrier description of government can be found, among many other places, in the writing of WM C Owen. He writes that the government is a "machine; dead to all human sympathy, as are all machines; bent only on increasing its efficiency as a machine, and enlarging its power; organized expressly to keep things, in all essentials, precisely as they are. It is the arch-type of immobility, and, therefore, the foe of growth. It is the quintessence of compulsion, and, therefore, the enemy of freedom. To it the individual is a subject, of whom it demands unquestioning obedience. Necessarily we Anarchists are opposed to it… we hate the State because it deprives men of personal responsibility, robs them of their natural virility, takes out of their hands the conduct of their own lives, thereby reduces them to helplessness, and thus insures the final collapse of the whole social structure." (Anarchism Versus Socialism)
The capitalist socio-political-economic system receives perhaps the most intense opposition from anarchists today. Opposition to capitalism of course is nothing new, and certainly not original to the anarchist tradition. Anarchists, even if some would rather not admit it, often borrow their criticisms of capitalism from Marx. The cases made against capitalism by anarchists are usually the same ones made by socialists: they acknowledge the class struggle, the problems in economics, the evils of property and capital, and the exploitation of the masses through wage-slavery. If socialism means, as one dictionary defines it, as "a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole," then anarchists are most certainly socialists. Indeed, as the anarcho-syndicalist historian Rudolf Rocker wrote, "Anarchists demand the abolition of all economic monopolies and the common ownership of the soil and all other means of production, the use of which must be available for all without distinction." For, he argues, "personal and social freedom is conceivable only on the basis of equal economic advantages for everybody." (Anarchosyndicalism) Along the same lines, Alexander Berkman wrote that "true liberty is based on economic opportunity. Without it all liberty is a sham and lie, a mask for exploitation and oppression. In the profoundest sense liberty is the daughter of economic equality." (The ABC of Anarchism) An anarchist economy would be based on cooperation and mutual aid. It would be egalitarian, assuring an equal distribution of material goods to all participants.
It might be true that for every anarchist there is a different idea of what an anarchist society might look like. Just as there has not been a unity in ideals or practice among the many denominations of anarchism, there has been no real "blueprint" of sorts, of what exactly the anarchist movement of a whole is actually looking forward to. While most of the major anarchist thinkers did have rough pictures of what "their" societies might entail, it is generally acknowledged today that not only is "planning" a future anarchist society an impossible and unnecessary feat, but in fact might be a careless, dangerous thing to do. Anarchists, rather than adhering to strict doctrines of revolution, prefer a more progressive, experimental approach to social change. Concerning some of the possibilities of life under an anarchist system, there are a few aspects that most anarchists would probably share. There would of course be no governments, no national borders, no multinational corporations or super-national financial institutions. There would be no concentrations of wealth anywhere to be found. There would be no social classes: no rich, and of course more importantly, no poor.
Obviously (hopefully), this all sounds very nice, but is such a seemingly utopian future plausible? This is one of the most difficult and pervasive skepticisms anarchists today face. It would be an awful shame to witness a global anarchist revolution dissolve into decades of bloody chaos, after all. Past socialist revolutions have often turned out this way, which, rightfully or not, has haunted romantic visions of populist uprisings since. Either way, there have indeed existed societies in the past that are often considered anarchistic in nature. Perhaps the most famous example of anarchism in action was the creation of autonomous collectives in Spain, during the civil war, in the 1930s. In places such as Catalonia, entire cities were collectivized and life carried on very decently, given the surrounding context of war. The infamous novelist and revolutionary socialist George Orwell fought against the fascists during the revolution, and in his writing describes a scene in Aragon, a city he visits during his travels: "I had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites. Up here in Aragon one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly though not entirely of working-class origin, all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory it was perfect equality, and even in practice it was not far from it. There is a sense in which it would be true to say that one was experiencing a foretaste of Socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing mental atmosphere was that of Socialism. Many of the normal motives of civilized life – snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc. – had simply ceased to exist. The ordinary class-division of society had disappeared to an extent that is almost unthinkable in the money-tainted air of England; there was no one there except the peasants and ourselves, and no one owned anyone else as his master." (Homage to Catalonia) This should provide at least a preview of what anarchists look forward to.
And, be sure to check out the site. Read some material, join the forum, and be part of the community! www.theanarchist.orgWednesday, January 31, 2007
I would kindly like to inform each and every of our faithful readers, and, more importantly, anyone who loves a good pair of nice, juicy titties, that my colleague and fellow writer Alex Hiatt has confided in me that he is plotting to desexualize said titties.
In the course of a discussion, Alex told me that he thought it to be absurd that a woman (with titties!) could be put in jail for revealing said titties in public. I told him, I says, "Alex, there's a real safety concern here, because if a guy who reallly reaaaaaaaaaally liked a good set 'a titties (and who doesnt?) was driving a car and saw a really nice pair of scrumptious titties, he'd get a really big boney and couldn't drive anymore." To which Alex responds, "Well, it would become commonplace."
This of course is an outrage:;: This would mean, we'd lose our precipitous, precipitous titties! We'd see some titties and think, boy, NOT VERY SEXUAL, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, ALEX HAIKU.!
In the course of a discussion, Alex told me that he thought it to be absurd that a woman (with titties!) could be put in jail for revealing said titties in public. I told him, I says, "Alex, there's a real safety concern here, because if a guy who reallly reaaaaaaaaaally liked a good set 'a titties (and who doesnt?) was driving a car and saw a really nice pair of scrumptious titties, he'd get a really big boney and couldn't drive anymore." To which Alex responds, "Well, it would become commonplace."
This of course is an outrage:;: This would mean, we'd lose our precipitous, precipitous titties! We'd see some titties and think, boy, NOT VERY SEXUAL, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, ALEX HAIKU.!
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Crumbles, a Restatement; Or, Alex's Review of A Fountain
I very, very much enjoyed Darron Aronofsky's latest shipwreck, The Fountain. I thoroughly liked it.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Crumbles
JT seems to have CORNWALLED me into being his resident expert of dreams, as it were. So, "Here goes nothing!" as Birchman Russell famously wrote on the wall in the bathroom of the San Francisco State Gushy Factory.
Dream Sequence #!
Driving down a road in the right lane, it's dark and stormy, white lightning highlights the dark blue clouds, brown and gray fields, trees. See two eagles, as wide as the road, proportionally tall. One closer than the other. Try to stop, can't, Oh God You're Afraid, hit the one in the right lane, !crunch! How guilty you are!
Dream Sequence #!!
In Greek auditorium-esque place, stone steps, like you'd imagine a Greek tragedy or comedy would have been performed, with a group of kids in the seats (college students?). It's dark all around, but the floor is visible, although there seems to be no artificial light. A woman, naked from the waist down, holding a small child in her hand, lowers it down below her legs, it crawls into her vagina. Students studiously observe, take notes.
Dream Sequence #!!!
Walking along a country road, with a ditch on the left. Turn around and look behind, see a hippy bus, decorated with peace signs and lots and LOTS of color, mostly greens and blues and browns, but everything else as well, and the letters ERIC IDLE. Approach, with a modicum of excitement, see Eric Idle and a woman, presumably his wife or girlfriend, smoking marijuana out of a very long bong, reminiscent of a vacuum cleaner, decorated in the same colors and peace signs as the bus. See the door, lime green, opened by Eric, who offers a hit, take one, euphoria. Get in, drive around, but you're no longer in the country, but the city, endless neon lights all around, long curvy on-ramps and off-ramps.
Dream Sequence #!
Driving down a road in the right lane, it's dark and stormy, white lightning highlights the dark blue clouds, brown and gray fields, trees. See two eagles, as wide as the road, proportionally tall. One closer than the other. Try to stop, can't, Oh God You're Afraid, hit the one in the right lane, !crunch! How guilty you are!
Dream Sequence #!!
In Greek auditorium-esque place, stone steps, like you'd imagine a Greek tragedy or comedy would have been performed, with a group of kids in the seats (college students?). It's dark all around, but the floor is visible, although there seems to be no artificial light. A woman, naked from the waist down, holding a small child in her hand, lowers it down below her legs, it crawls into her vagina. Students studiously observe, take notes.
Dream Sequence #!!!
Walking along a country road, with a ditch on the left. Turn around and look behind, see a hippy bus, decorated with peace signs and lots and LOTS of color, mostly greens and blues and browns, but everything else as well, and the letters ERIC IDLE. Approach, with a modicum of excitement, see Eric Idle and a woman, presumably his wife or girlfriend, smoking marijuana out of a very long bong, reminiscent of a vacuum cleaner, decorated in the same colors and peace signs as the bus. See the door, lime green, opened by Eric, who offers a hit, take one, euphoria. Get in, drive around, but you're no longer in the country, but the city, endless neon lights all around, long curvy on-ramps and off-ramps.
Alex's Review of Snakes on the Plane
This is brand new movie. Have y'all good. Become the quote, "I've had it up to here with you fucking frosties on this frosty fucking plane!" Overall - 4.8/10
Bless
Bless
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Floor Haiku
It's Nick Drake pouring from the television
Carpet's coarse and filled with sex
That car in the garage thing
Good opportunity for your family and loved ones
An owner's club, damned of God
Take me out
The blitzkrieg will make it up to you---
Carpet's coarse and filled with sex
That car in the garage thing
Good opportunity for your family and loved ones
An owner's club, damned of God
Take me out
The blitzkrieg will make it up to you---
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