aspie ranting |
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If I seem a little distant or incoherent, it's because I am. I am not a NeuroTypical and I have no desire to become one. This is simply the area in which I stim my creative impulses. (WARNING: All entries are either ENTIRELY TRUE or ENTIRELY FALSE and anything claiming to be one of the latter is, in fact, one of the former. There are no exceptions to this rule.) comments, marriage proposals, and death threats can be sent here 
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Wednesday, January 31, 2001
I think I need a cape. I think I am one of those people who could pull off wearing a cape. or a trenchcoat... I think I just need something to trail behind me that is hopelessly attached to me. or a girlfriend... *grins* There is a Beautiful Creature Living in a hole you have dug. God is trying to sell you something, But you don't want to buy. That is what your suffering is: Your fantastic haggling, Your manic screaming over the price! I have fallen in love with Someone Who hides inside you. What makes things beautiful; is it the inherent order or the inherent disorder...? I say, "neither you fools! you speak of what you see... the beauty lies within you, and thus, you are beautiful..." Tuesday, January 30, 2001
anyone else remember this? *grins* ~~~~~ INetYou: will you marry me? Luna MG: why do you ask? INetYou: because i wish to marry you... Luna MG: ah, but we are already married, no? a week ago, on pluto... INetYou: I am serious... Luna MG: jest aside, then... you have long been betrothed to words and thought and vision...how could i betray them? INetYou: you could not... Luna MG: point proven... INetYou: it is a relatively simple request... INetYou: is it not? Luna MG: alright, then... yes. yes, malcolm j. potter, i will marry you when the sun sets in the east, when time moves in reverse and nobokov's world becomes reality. a relatively simple response. do you accept it? INetYou: I accept, but beware, I can and will bring this about... Luna MG: i have all confidence that you can. INetYou: so is it agreed... Luna MG: a pact. thank you. INetYou: thank you... INetYou: the next time I see you, i shall make these conditions realities Luna MG: i sign away my consciousness (or lack thereof) this night of may somethingith, 1999... ~~~~~ "reflecting from his own individual person life unlivable, transaccidentated through the slow fires of consciousness into a dividual chaos, perilous, potent, common to allflesh, human only, mortal) but with each word that would not pass away the squidself which he had squirtscreened from the crystalline world" -- James Joyce, Finnegan's Wake Monday, January 29, 2001
Three spirits came to me And drew me apart To where the olive boughs Lay stripped upon the ground: Pale carnage beneath bright mist... Will they be touched with the verisimilitudes? Their virgin stupidity is untemptable. I beg you, my friendly critics, Do not set about to procure me an audience. Is your hate, then, of such measure? Do you, truly, so detest me? Through all the world will I complain Of how you have addressed me. Many are the slights of man, Anyone can see. Rarely does your heart ever Go out for the likes of me Alone. Returning in your silence, Eviscerate my love. Tomorrow you probably leave again the Hurt cuts all the way; Underneath. Never let me love you, Tear apart my joy, Get the fuck inside my head, Reveal your fucking ploy; Always remember it's always been: you and Me. *grins* "The m�me raths outgrabe." -- Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky But "m�me" is Parisian slang for a young girl, and "rathe" is Old English for early. Seems the good Rev. Dodgson and I share some passions. Saturday, January 27, 2001
corps et ombre ensemble s'engloutissent que ferais-je sans ce silence gouffre des murmures haletant furieux vers le secours vers l'amour sans ce ciel qui s'�l�ve sur la poussi�re de ses lests que ferais-je je ferais comme hier comme aujourd'hui regardant par mon hublot si je ne suis pas seul � errer et � virer loin de toute vie dans un espace pantin sans voix parmi les voix enferm�es avec moi cher instant je te vois dans ce rideau de brume qui recule o� je n'aurai plus � fouler ces longs seuils mouvants et vivrai le temps d'une porte qui s'ouvre et se referme thrice he came the undertaker's man impassable behind his scutal bowler to measure is he not paid to measure this incorruptible in the vestibule the malebranca knee-deep in the lilies Malacoda knee-deep in the lilies Malacoda for all the expert awe that felts his perineum mutes his signal sighing up through the heavy air must it be it must be it must be find the weeds engage them in the garden hear she may see she need not to coffin with assistant ungulata find the weeds engage their attention hear she must see she need not to cover to be sure cover cover all over your targe allow me to hold your sulphur divine dogday glass set fair mind the imago it is he hear she must see she must all aboard all souls half-mast aye aye nay "Say when you're alone, it's better cause nobody knows you; when noone's your friend it's better cause nobody leaves you..." -- The Wallflowers, I Wish I Felt Nothing "I can't fix something this complex any more than I can build a rose..." -- The Wallflowers, I've Been Delivered maggie: I'm sorry that my choices about my situation are not the most comforting or even ones that you agree with, but they are mine. If you won't support me, then please don't pretend like you will. Maybe it would be best if we just parted ways now or something? Love me or leave me? I feel inadequate. And while this is not terribly uncommon in my mind, it is quite pressing at this point. I have this innate power over people. I can't really explain it, but I think it started out as some fucking Toxick Magician thing that was a part of my psyche since birth. I figured out the stem of my own mental "problems," but you'd only understand it if you know about Leary's 8-Circuit model of human consciousness. If you ask me the next time you see me, I'll explain it to you... I promise... Friday, January 26, 2001
maybe I was just hoping to hear that you needed me or maybe you want what I do, something a bit more comforting, or maybe just "I love you..." Thursday, January 25, 2001
tonight, I finally said some of the things in my head that I don't tell anyone to someone who is maybe okay with hearing them. Thank you Maggie... tonight, I finally explained special relativity the way it makes sense in my head. Thank you Kaelan... Wednesday, January 24, 2001
Je voudrais que mon amour meure qu'il pleuve sur le cimeti�re et les ruelles o� je vais pleurant celle qui crut m'aimer "Normal magicians are horrified by the notion of power and control over others. The Toxick Magician has no such terror. What terrifies him is that the status quo may gain power over him through his own natural desire to be destroyed and be replaced by better, more flexible life forms. Remember it is a natural tendency to be dark and self-destructive. The trick is to do it well-very well. Help others get what they want. This is the most insidious form of destroying them. It makes them instantly terminal and, in most cases, useless. This method is similar to what has been called the Peter Principle. Help each person to reach their highest level of incompetence. Once they are there, they will begin digging in, establish fixed fortifications, and now you have them as a resource-a tool, if you would, to do with as you wish. For example, universities have developed the tenure system to guarantee control over a potentially dangerous and Toxick faculty. Always play to security as if it were an adventure. Always help others think that their attempts to assure themselves security will work. As a Manipulator, we know that most methods to assure security are doomed to fail sooner or later, and fail badly. It is better to live with danger and chaos than with security. Your chances of surviving long enough and with enough power are much greater. There are natural Toxick Magicians and many of my readers know who they are. But there are others who should remain unknown and unknowable, for this affords them the best opportunity to do their work effectively. These individuals know how to extend their power by being sort of unconscious of what they are doing. Awareness interferes with their activities. One way of recognizing them is from the trails of people they leave behind-people who think they have been helped. In fact these people have been made into Zombies who later will be used in one way or another to accomplish the desired end of Pandemonium. The Master is well aware of the value of controlling the psychic powers of others. In other words, what some people believe to be their spiritual, psychic or higher self is really the shadow spirit of the Master himself. It is the will of the Master that is speaking. This result can either be induced or produced in the subject at hand." -- Christopher S. Hyatt Ph.D., The Psychopath's Bible Tuesday, January 23, 2001
sometimes, just knowing you're there, is reason enough to loathe existence. and maybe you didn't realize your blackened stars were never in my eyes... and what if was all just a little game; would you still feel the same? there comes a time when I just don't know, and that's the time when, baby, you've gotta go... No power on Earth could compel him, No voice could call... You leave him fall-- He was no adjunct to the Muses' diadem... Monday, January 22, 2001
I just closed my eyes and tried to visualize what I feel like, and the only thing that came to mind was the phrase: I feel like a lima bean. "We'd let you leave but no one else wants you; your ransom was not made..." -- The Wallflowers, Witness "It's where I'm from that lets them think I'm a whore; I'm an educated virgin..." -- The Wallflowers, Sleepwalker "I've been the puppet, I've been the strings, I know the vacant face it brings..." -- The Wallflowers, I've Been Delivered Sunday, January 21, 2001
"Nobody has ever gone broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American people." -- Henry Louis Mencken Nothing is true unless it makes you laugh, but you don't really understand it until it makes you cry. Saturday, January 20, 2001
The power, the raw unbridled energy that hangs in the air between the lips of two lovers before a kiss, is at once frightening and incredibly invigorating. One can't help but close their eyes so as not to be blinded by the sheer concussive force of it being released. And then, at the point of contact, two people's minds can go nova and melt down the entire universe for a time... and just exist. Kiss and make up...? fnord indeed... here I am clutching a pair of posies, plucking away my future, hoping, that when the plague comes: she loves me, she loves me not... Tonight was very nice... well, most of tonight (save for about five minutes of dwelling on something I'd rather not) was quite nice... mucko: please to be more careful in future with thinking before you speak, hm? (I want pictures) kaelan: your mother is not crazy... just worried... and, well, rightly so. Thanks... "ASS FARM!" -- maggie Thursday, January 18, 2001
I'm searching for human beings roughly matching the idealistic definition given by Robert Heinlein in Time Enough For Love: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, conn a ship, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly." Roughly speaking, if you can handle 14 out of Heinlein's 21 programs, you have released 2/3 of your potential intelligence, and are 2/3 of a human being. If you can handle seven of them, you are 1/3 of a human being. Scores above 14 mean you're probably a genius and probably know it; scores below 7 mean you're certainly a moron, and probably don't know it (i.e., you are convinced, are you not, that the world is really a terrible place and that your inability to cope is due to the world's evil rather than to your own stupidity?). A quicker intelligence test, which also indicates the trajectory of your development, is this: If the world seems to be getting bigger and funnier all the time, your intelligence is steadily increasing. If the world seems to be getting smaller and nastier all the time, your stupidity is steadily increasing. I wonder, as I often do from time to time, if there was a lost commandment... The Thirteenth Commandment: Thou shalt edit these commandments to aid thy will at any time, including this one. Wednesday, January 17, 2001
You should know that I very much enjoy a challenge... in fact, it's not a long fall from there to love with me... just be careful... "Sometimes I lie in bed dreaming about the past and it's so vivid to me that I have to shake myself in order to realize where I am. Especially when I have a woman beside me; a woman can set me off better than anything. That's all I want of them -- to forget myself. Sometimes I get so lost in my reveries that I can't remember the name of the cunt or where I picked her up. That's funny, eh? It's good to have a fresh warm body beside you when you wake up in the morning. It give you a clean feeling. You get spiritual like... unil they start pulling that mushy crap about love et cetera. Why do all these cunts talk about love so much, can you tell me that? A good lay isn't enough for them apparently...they want your soul too..." -- Van Norden in Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller m* when are you gonna get it through your head that no matter how bad you treat me, I'm not gonna stop loving you or caring about you... and that includes giving you things that I promised... I never stopped caring, you just asked me to stop talking... it's hard... I love you... -me personally, I'm quite taken with the concept of inverted solipsism... everything else exists, except me... makes so much more sense... "Falling, yes I'm falling, and she keeps calling me back again..." -- The Beatles, I've Just Seen A Face Tuesday, January 16, 2001
and if I ever told you how I felt, you'd turn tail and run... you cold, calm indifference is pointed at my head like a gun... Judgements depend on laws, on established laws. Now taste has few rules, and those not scientific and easily disputed, and I might add, often disputed. "Sometimes it's hard to tell the wishing from the well: Where you threw the penny and where it fell." "I guess I should be ashamed, but I forget to be vain. I did the best I could, I guess; But everything just bleeds..." -- The Wallflowers, Bleeders and they were as they always were apart from that moment that they shared: alone... alone and afraid... Monday, January 15, 2001
two by one, they remove my will; one by two, they force me kill; one by one, they tell me no, so all alone, I'll just fucking go... thanks to roach and rachelmo... But what shall I tell you of migrations when in this empty sky the precise ghosts of departed summer birds still trace old signs; or of desperate flights when the dimmest flutter of a coloured wing excites all our favorite thoughts to delight in imaginary spring. And you want to go with her, and you want to travel blind and you know that she can trust you because you've touched her perfect body with your mind... I can't believe I'm falling for someone again... after the last time, I promised myself I wouldn't... it's just so hard... I can't help it... I'm sorry... so I dream of despair, as if my nightmare would be in a state of joy so that it might be taken away... Sunday, January 14, 2001
Saturday, January 13, 2001
Aspirin as HIV Treatment? "Aspirin is not the cure for AIDS, but according to Howard Armistead, the medication sometimes described as "the miracle drug" can do wonders for people with HIV." Beauty is the marking-time, the stationary vibration, the feigned ecstasy of an arrested impulse unable to reach its natural end... Friday, January 12, 2001
I wish I could tell you how I feel about you... but, it would only lead you to suspect me more than you perhaps do already... that would not help anything other than my lonliness... I wish people woudn't leave me so readily... it hurts more than I could ever articulate... I mean, all I want to do is help people and make them feel good... but I never seem to be good enough... a howler's moon arose before the sunset; the sky ablaze in a vaginal purple with hues of rues he's used; amused to death... I refuse to bow down to death, to surrender that last little bit of control I have over my life... I refuse to die under any circumstances that I do not implicitly control... or maybe I want to waste away for the attention... I haven't decided yet... Thursday, January 11, 2001
you either know it or you don't... dig? it's like remembering something you already know, and no amount of studying will refresh what wasn't there to begin with... all the time you waste on those books and those thoughts is time you can never get back... besides, preparing for tests is mostly a mental thing anyway... so come fly with me for a while; I promise to keep you safe... "You'll just wake up like a disposeable lover -- decomposed..." -- The Wallflowers, I've Been Delivered I sure know that feeling... I have but one goal left in my life. I think that is both good and bad, but mostly good. Bad only because I don't think that she will give it to me... and that defeat alone, would set my horizon as a cage... I suggest that everybody learn about Dr. Timothy Leary's Eight Neurological Circuits of the Human Brain... anybody interested in finding information about this is welcome to contact me... I like looking at Truchet patterns for long periods of time... I like finding Markhoff chains in them and trying to justify it... Wednesday, January 10, 2001
Somebody once wrote a story illustrating the cultural differences between the great nations of the modern world. An international scientific body, in this yarn, offers an award for the best scholarly study of the elephant. When the judges have narrowed their choice down to seven outstanding entries they see that the treatise from a French university savant is entitled "Sexual Practices of Elephants," the English contribution is "Scientific Design for Elephant-Hunting Guns," a Spanish scholar has presented "Patterns of Challenge and Honor Between Male Elephants," a Russian has offered "Exploitation of Elephants by the Monopolists of the Ivory Industry," a German has brought forth "Introductory Study of the Elephant's Toe-Nails" (4 volumes), a South African (white, presumably) wrote "Keeping the Elephant in His Proper Place" and an American composed "Breeding Bigger and better Elephants." "What kind of love is it that is dilluted as to include all humanity indiscriminately, tolerating terror and suffering with the equanimity of a psychopath?" -- Nancy R. McWilliams, The Con III Controversy I think that this kind of thought is dangerous to have, and even more dangerous to spread to other people's heads... love is something that is not discriminating... I think that, perhaps, she knows naught of (real) love and only some of the "love" that people pass off as something special... something is terribly wrong on this planet... don't get me wrong, there is also something *grins* terribly right on this planet, but clearly that is in quite the minority... my life is taking some turns I am not pleased about it taking, but I'm not at all even close to figuring out how to take control and stop... because, for the two things that matter, I can't... He has always been surrounded by people, afraid to be alone... He has always ultimately been alone, afraid of connection... (hint: this is about me...) sometimes I just wish you'd take the initiative to talk to me... I mean, silence cuts worse than any words you could utter... "Some flowers they never bloom, but some flowers they just bloom dead..." -- The Wallflowers, Some Flowers Bloom Dead Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone renounced violence forever? I could then conquer the whole stupid planet with just a butter knife. You could be my leading lady... A live body and a dead body contain the same number of particles. Structurally, there's no discernible difference. Life and death are unquantifiable abstracts. Why should I be concerned? Generation X must rank as not only the most ignorant but also the most paranoid and depressive kids ever to infest our Republic. I agree with outlaw radio star Travis Hipp that the paranoia and depression result inevitably from the ignorance. These kids not only don't know anything; they don't even want to know. They only realize, vaguely, that somebody has screwed them out of something, but they don't have enough zest or bile to try to find out who screwed them and what they were screwed out of. Fortunately, there seem to be a growing number of kids who manage to break out of this unfortunate situation of stupidity, and I feel privilidged to know at least a few of them... sometimes, I have trouble understanding all this business of "morals..." I mean, why do people think that I am "disturbed" simply because I don't think that things can be classified as "good" or "bad." Well, I suppose that isn't quite fair... it might have something to do with that fact that I wouldn't have any problem with killing somebody if I had the urge at all, at all. I don't think that is something "wrong" with me, but rather a testament to my un"repressed" nature. Don't worry, (as I tell everyone I tell this too) I have no desire to hurt or kill anyone, but, all the same, I wouldn't have any problems with it. Maybe that's because I don't subscribe to the whole "sanctity of life" agenda. But be realistic, isn't that whole "respect life" bullshit kinda self-serving? Who knows... What really makes me sick is that everything goes on as it went before: I'm still a sort of friend, I'm still a sort of lover. But not for long: that's why I'm telling this to you. The fact is I'm turning to gold, turning to gold. It's a long process they say, it happens in stages. This is to inform you that I've already turned to clay. Hurt once and for all into silence. A long pain ending without a song to prove it... "As the Dark Lady of Sonnets said, 'After all, the wrong road always leads somewhere.'" -- Harmon Craig, Ph.D. (my grandfather and quite possibly my favourite person...) I used to play a lot of games with people's heads... my mother put me into therapy (not for that reason, amusingly enough) and it was decidedly more fun to mess with therapist's heads than ordinary people's... One therapist (quite possibly the most fun to mess with) wrote this about me: He is brilliant, yes, but evil. So evil that I despair of comprehending him. I even wonder what old Freud would think. This man doesn't want to murder his father and possess his mother; he wants to murder God and possess the cosmos. *giggles* amazing what I can make people think... Tuesday, January 09, 2001
*wipes away a lone tear* I am not terribly affected by writing, but I just read something that touched me in a very real way... anyone who wants to know what true love feels like should read (all of, but most especially) the last two pages of Pleasures and Regrets by Marcel Proust... *long, deep breath* so many apologies... it seems some cruel twist of (something that may resemble) fate that I have so much love to give to so many people, and not only do they not want it, but my time is cut so short... "I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all..." -- Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody damn... I just read something I wish I had read long ago... "This first lesson the Fifth-Circuit adept has to learn is to control this upsurge of altruism and not make a nuisuance of oneself by trying to force everybody to be happy." -- R.A.W., Prometheus Rising "FAIRNESS? DECENCY? HOW CAN YOU EXPECT FAIRNESS OR DECENCY ON A PLANET OF SLEEPING PEOPLE?" -- G.I. Gurdjieff sometimes I think that I should listen to people like this... I may be an attention whore, but that's only because I never get any... worst part of that is that I'm starting to fade into believing that I'm not worth it... He began to feel something, finally. Not grief; his mind still held that at bay. He felt a fierce indignation that lacerated his heart. It will be a lonely life, he thought, living a lie. But that is the condition of survival in this place at this time. And I will throw the lie in their teeth eventually. Someday. Somehow. This is bear season. Forest rangers recommend you wear bells to alert bears of your presence and therefore reduce the chance you will sneak up on a bear and provoke an attack. They also recommend you carry pepper spray for use in fending off a bear. Bears in a given area can be identified by their droppings. Black bears have smaller droppings that often have remnants of nuts and berries in them. Grizzly bear droppings have bells in them and smell of pepper spray. *giggles* I miss the sweet taste of a freshly invited touch... I miss holding you in the wee hours of the morning... The Hell law says that Hell is reserved exclusively for them that believe in it. Further, the lowest Rung in Hell is reserved for them that believe in it on the supposition that they'll go there if they don't. -- HBT, The Gospel According to Fred, 3:1 The Nagas of Upper Burma say that the sun shines by day because, being a woman, it is afraid to venture out at night. wow... I think that this is perhaps the most enjoyable IQ test I have ever taken. I reccomend it to everyone who has a brain and even knows slightly how to use it. Enjoy! The discovery that language is basically metaphoric, which emerged gradually in the early 19th Century, inspired Emerson's famous dictum that we speak to each other in "fossil poems." Thus, to want something is to be empty - want and vacant come from the same root. Speaking of all desires as "appetites" brings us back to the same metaphor. Even "to be" - the most abstract word in normal use - comes from an Indo-European root which evidently meant becoming lost in the woods. That was as abstract, I guess, as an early human could feel; when no longer lost, when other people were found again, he or she would no longer simply "be" abstractly but become embroiled again in a more complex state, namely social existence and its Game Rules. A villain is a person without property (and Marxists should have given us many more exegeses on the class-bias in our languages). Man is the general human being, as Feminists keep telling us, because of the gender-bias in our language. A humorous story of sexual nature is a "dirty joke" because ascetics and puritans have left their own programs embedded in our speech; but Saxon words for body functions are "dirtier" than Norman words because of a plurality of puritan-economic-racial prejudices. Even "the" is a metaphor - it assumes the world is divided the same way our minds divide it - and seems to have been a very hypnotic metaphor indeed. In terms of human tragedy and suffering, think of what has been provoked by generalizations about "the Jews" and "the blacks." More subtly, remember that "the length of the rod" seemed to be a perfectly meaningful and "objective " phrase until Einstein demonstrated that a rod has various lengths - length1, length2, etc. - depending on its velocity and depending also on the relative velocity of the galoot who is trying to measure it. If "God" is not mad, as Fort claimed, then maybe "God" is, as Buckminster Fuller once wrote, not a noun but a verb. That is, "God" is what religious people do, as, in some models, an electron is an operation performed by people (physicists) -- "God" as the act of praying, the energy raised... each time I near the abyss, I am assaulted by the demonaic voices that beckon me simply to "jump, Jump, JUMP!!!" Monday, January 08, 2001
Well, I was just informed (respectfully) that I think too much... that upsets me... I was never really affected by anything people said about me until my two best friends in high school began making fun of me for being too smart... just because I know things and think about things doesn't mean that I should be ridiculed... shouldn't we thinkers be looked up to... I guess not... I can't help it... I just don't have many friends and I don't ever seem to get out and do anything with people... so, all my life, I've been pretty much alone with not much more than my thoughts... sorry... My brain hurts, but not from thinking about all of this stuff; rather, from putting it all into words... "Nobody loves you when you're down and out..." -- John Lennon I am often amazed at my own proclivity for expecting that everyone is as intelligent as I am. It quite often leads me to feel terribly disappointed when I realize that they are not. Sometimes, I wish I could just flap my arms around and shout, "WAKE UP!!!! YOU CAN BE SO MUCH MORE IF YOU JUST OPEN YOUR DAMN EYES!" but most wouldn't even understand what I was talking about... J.R. "Bob" Dobbs once observed, "You know how dumb the average guy is? Well, mathematically, by definition, half of them are even dumber than that." "Bob" may have had the average and the median confused, but he made a point anyway. As the philosopher George Carlin observed in this connection, if you carry around a pad and make a note every time you see or hear something outstandingly stupid, you will have at least 40 notes at the end of an ordinary day. This problem has other dimensions, as Carlin went on. Some people only seem stupid but are actually fucking crazy or simply full or shit. It is often hard to tell the stupid, the fucking crazy and the full of shit apart, especially since they collectively make up the majority in any nation. But my point is not this; my point is that there is hope. Some hopeful estimates say that about 5% of the population of humans on this planet are actually none of the above. These are the people I am searching for... none need apply. in the vein of my last entry... Roses are red, Violets are blue, You think this will rhyme, but it ain't gonna... *giggles* information is fun... "There are only two kinds of artists: the plagiarists and the revolutionaries." -- Paul Gauguin I love this quote because it sums up my own philosophy of art so neatly. To say it in my own jargon, Gauguin's "plagiarists" consist of those who do relatively good or relatively bad work within "the style of the period"-- the dominant paradigm or current reality-tunnel-- and the "revolutionaries" create an entirely new style, i.e a new reality-tunnel (or, in the case of Picasso, a new reality-labyrinth.) These "plagiarists" (remember: this pejorative term comes from Gauguin, not from me) may provide light entertainment but they have low information in the sense of Shannon's "Mathematical Theory of Communication." (where information = the negative of the probability that you can predict the "signal" in advance. If you can always predict it, it ain't information...) In general, dogma always produces low information; see, the Fundamentalists (X-tian, Judaic, Moslem etc.), Marxists, Objectivists, Aryan Nation, CSICOP etc.) You always know what such True Believers will say even before they say it, and they all say it in the same words as their Fuhrer. In art, the "style of the period" = an equivalent of (perceptual/conceptual.) dogma, a rigid and familiar reality-tunnel This kind of art reaches a large public immediately, because the mass consists mostly of (in Houseman's phrase) "fellows whom it hurts to think." People in general love the familiar and predictable and have "crawly" sensations at the unfamiliar and unpredictable. The "revolutionaries" contain high information and a whole new "style" of reality-tunnel (high unpredictability) and annoy or infuriate the general public. Later, with time, they get consigned to "starters of crazes" or elevated to Masters (those who really did enrich our experience of Universe.) In my opinion, the primary "revolutionary" Masters of our past century include Picasso, Klee, Pound, Joyce, Faukner, Ginsberg, Frank Lloyd Wright, D.W. Griffith, Chaplin, Welles, Clint Eastwood, Stravinsky, Gershwin, Epstein, Brancusi, Carlin : the man or woman who doesn't know their work deeply and richly still lives in the 19th Century as the rest of us enter the 21st. The artists on that list haven't become familiar enough to stop surprising us. We still need to interpret our interpreters, as Ellman said of Joyce. The "plagiarists" appear on popular magazine covers and the NY Times best-seller lists. God bless them, they live happily and sincerely in the same world as the mass audience. "We're the renegades of funk..." -- Rage Against The Machine I regard the two major male archetypes in 20th Century literature as Leopold Bloom and Hannibal Lecter, M.D. Bloom, the perpetual victim, the kind and gentle fellow who finishes last, represented an astonishing breakthrough to new levels of realism in the novel, and also symbolized the view of humanity that hardly anybody could deny c. 1900-1950. History, sociology, economics, psychology et al. confirmed Joyce's view of Everyman as victim. Bloom, exploited and downtrodden by the Brits for being Irish and rejected by many of the Irish for being Jewish, does indeed epiphanize humanity in the first half of the 20th Century. And he remains a nice guy despite everything that happens... Dr Lecter, my candidate for the male archetype of 1951-2000, will never win any Nice Guy awards, I fear, but he symbolizes our age as totally as Bloom symbolized his. Hannibal's wit, erudition, insight into others, artistic sensitivity, scientific knowledge etc. make him almost a walking one man encyclopedia of Western civilization. As for his "hobbies" as he calls them -- well, according to the World Game Institute, since the end of World War II, in which 60,000,000 human beings were murdered by other human beings, 193,000,000 more humans have been murdered by other humans in brush wars, revolutions, insurrections etc. What better symbol of our age than a serial killer? Hell, can you think of any recent U.S. President who doesn't belong in the Serial Killer Hall of Fame? And their motives make no more sense, and no less sense, than Dr Lecter's Darwinian one-man effort to rid the planet of those he finds outstandingly loutish and uncouth... I think that I would like to get a tattoo, but I probably won't. I think that I would have the most trouble figuring out where to have it. Maybe I could shave my head and have it done on the back so that my hair would cover it up. Though I think that the tattoo that I would want would need more of a flat surface. Who knows... I'm crazy, remember? odd how the mist leaves no scar on the lilac covered hill, so as my life has not upon your soul, nor has, nor never will. hmm... couldn't love just be an unrealized form of gravity? maybe not gravity per se, but maybe some attractive/repulsive force in the universe. Maybe this is the answer to some age old philisophy/physics paradox... maybe not... Sunday, January 07, 2001
okay... this is only here because I am lazy and I don't feel like publishing my own code on the internet for my "friends" to see. maybe now you'll see what goes through this warped mind most of the time... hm... maybe this is a really bad idea... |
faeries have died because YOU haven't been clapping hard enough.
