If if if

Then then then

Not content

Not content to let nature take its course, we brought in all of the fallen leaves and ironed them individually.

I fed you

I fed you oranges, but told you it was tiger meat.

Despire

to have negative aspirations, i.e. despirations.

As in: wanting to slum.

Once upon a time

a butterfly escaped from a storybook and entered the world. The real butterflies immediately noticed something was funny about it. It seemed too substantial to be a real butterfly, because of its traces of paper and ink. But it also seemed to only half-exist, having been created from the imagination of its book's author.

Although the real butterflies sensed something odd about the book butterfly, they were kind to it, treated it well, and helped it look after itself. The book buttefly needed the help, because lacking natural instincts it often needed to be told what to do. Despite the friendly reception from the real butterfly, the book butterfly desired to become real, and went about asking everyone how it could do so.

A toad suggested that it should just wait because the passing of time would render it real. But time passed and nothing happened. A bird suggested (while trying to eat the book butterfly) that the problem was that it had never been a caterpillar, nor even spent time in a coccon. "Perhaps", speculated the bird, "if you behaved as a caterpillar, and made slept in a cocoon, acquiring these experiences would make you real."

The book butterfly tried its hardest to emulate caterpillars. But they were unable to tell that it was not a real butterfly, found its behavior very odd, and most refbuffed it. So after a few days the book buttefly gave up, concluding that it would not be able to acquire the experiences of real butterflies.

Then one day, the book butterfly was flying by the base of a tree when it heard an new sound, the cry of a cicada. Cicadas are very wise, spending years meditating beneath the earth. The book butterfly presented its problem to the cicada. The cicada buzzed for several moments and then suggested that the book buttefly must find the author of its book. Perhaps if the author were to write more about it, perhaps writing that it were real, or writing about its days as a caterpillar, perhaps then it would be real.

The butterfly heeded the cicada's advice, and took years seeking out the author of its book. Eventually the author was found and the butterfly presented its case. The author was remarkably happy to fulfill the request, and the butterfly soon felt very real. But it was never sure about whether it was real and in the world, or merely back where it had started and in a book.

Lepidoptera

Sometimes the prettiest caterpillars turn into the plainest little moths.

From:
"I like butterflies" by Gladys Conklin (Holiday House. New York, NY. 1960)

The wind...

I could not understand anything he did. It made no sense, was all to no purpose. He was always reeling about, never staying in the same direction for more than a day or two. Years had passed, with endless pursuits begun, none finished.

"I don't know why I live this way" he said, "It can't be helped. I'm just carried about by the wind within."

Food comma

It signals a momentary break between the eating of different foods in a meal, as when slightly pausing after biting into the potatoes after taking a bit or two of the meat.

Some irony

about a group of people whose adventures in trying to see a performance are far more amazing than the adventures featured in the performance itself.

I find

things changed.

But this morning I awoke from a dream of some complexity, but so dim that I could barely remember anything. Maybe, the whole dream was like that: Too dim to make out, but hinting of a greater complexity. If so, my dream was not complex, but I dreamt of complexity.

Why am I not

a Norwegian sailor?

A bookish man.

"BF94," he mutters in wonder, "that call number is new to me."

The snakecatcher

had been hired to remove all snakes from the king's vast palace garden. He labored for hours, searching the garden for snakes, scooping every snake found with a net. By the end of the day over a hundered snakes had been dropped into the snakecatcher's basins, and the snakecatcher was certain that he had searched all areas of the garden, had found all the snakes.

But then he noticed a certain nook he had overlooked, just into some bushes near a tree. Perhaps another snake might wait there. He went under the tree and looked into the bushes. He saw an enormous purple snake, staring out, so that its face pointed towards the kings palace. The snake was much larger than any other snake in the garden, larger than any of the snakes known to grow in that country, larger than any snake the snakecatcher had ever seen. Not having moved, it spoke, "There will always be snakes". Oddly calm, the snakecatcher said and thought nothing, turned, and left the garden.

His final clinic

had no real medicine. Neither did it have herbs, obsecure teas, or any exercises to be conducted. The doctor had concluded that most ailments can be treated through the application of water in its various states and temperatures: boiling, as steam, frozen into ice or snow, as a cold vapor, and so on.

Dialogue while walking to work

Me to stranger: We seem to walk at the same pace.
Stranger to me: It's our eagerness to get where we're going.

The reawakening

of the second mind, brings responses to things not here. A little jelly fish at ocean's bottom whispers.

When I was a child I actually imagined things. Now I just have thoughts, sometimes about things not here. A part of the mind withered.

We are

always chasing after phantoms and visions. The prudent tell us to ignore the call of ghosts and dreams, to attend to the present.

My wife says:

The oldest one is still alive. And he will be the last to die.

Headquartered

in the fortress, I survey my domain.

So maybe

you don't really believe in any particular religion, or maybe you do, but either way:

If you could choose which religion were TRUE, which would you choose?

The new simplistic

psychology, invented to replace or add on to Freudian id, ego, supergo.

I present three gremlins of the psyche:

1. The Negato, who firmly says "no" to thoughts, ideas, opportunities, and so on. Maybe you should draw a picture? No, says the negato, and you don't draw it. Maybe you should go out tonight? No, says the negato, and you stay home.

2. The Affirmito, or Creato, or some better name, who is the one who comes up with all those ideas of what you just might do. If you always listen to him you'll be constantly active, and constantly doing new things. Perhaps there will be no direction to your actions, and maybe nothing will get finished, because each idea must be acted on, each opportunity taken.

3. The Schmego or Shmego, who doesn't really make this a nice trichotomy, but has to be included anyway. A sort of internal guardian angel, who sometimes has the solution, does the right thing, when nothing ought to work -- the thing-inside that brings the dead-drunk home safely.

The idea was

that there was such a thing as a room of ultimate significance, though now it strikes me that a better name would be room of maximum resonance, but that's all a matter of naming.

About the room: It is a sort of final destination. Though you could leave, go elsewhere, and so on, the room would push some important aspect of experience to a maximum. Maybe that aspect of experience is significance, or maybe meditiveness, or maybe some feeling of resonance, but now I'm getting vague or iffy. Just combine a sense of calmness with deep significance, and that's the part of experience that the room is attuned to, or is so likely to bring you to.

Is that what I used to think the room was (or maybe there are several of them)? Or has the idea changed along the way. And maybe you can wonder, is it really a room? Couldn't it just be some other place, like maybe a field somewhere? But no, it is a room.

Do you know

the true meaning of Kitchener?

It's elusive, but somewhere a bit on the outskirts of the city I began to feel it, the meaning of Kitchener coming on me like a sort of emotion that will somehow transform itself into knowledge. But all I'm left with now is the word "ramshackle" and that can't be all there is to it.

Shinjo, you

say this blog reveals something about me... What?

This

is written in a room that seems devoted to dark brown, for it collects all the dark brown things in the house. Tomorrow, we'll come home from somewhere and somehow in the room will have materialized a large pile of dark brown corduoroy pants.

Ummm, ya...

...So how is your sense of totality? Cause, somehow it matters, even if you never stray far, that all that stuff is out there. That is, you may stay here, but that won't make everything else (and there is apparently so much everything else) go away. And even if you go far and wide, can you really take it all in? Maybe. I don't know. But even if not, surely we can have a sense of how big things might be.

Or maybe nothing matters too much but what is here around us right now.

Swamp mind

sets in. Better swing about like the swamp man, and trundle back and forth to the true swamp ryhthm. Get to know the swamp. Swamp things. Swamp stride. Swamp thought? No! Swamp lack-of-thought.

Listen, you'll hear it.

I

can't help remembering the William Blake quote: If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

It spins around my head a bit, even though I'm not so interested in wisdow. And just because he said it, it might mean nothing, or mean something while being plain wrong. But still it spins around my head. Does it imply that we should seek folly? That prudence and good judgement are somehow not adviseable. That many of our good decisions are bad decisions?

So it means none of this. Barely suggests any of it. But something drives these skewed interpretations.

Suddenly last

supper, was the title of a lesson in an advanced ESL book for Japanese learners of English, who pretty much already speak the language. This lesson was the true story about a group of people who were evicted from an apartment. On their last night there they had an eviction dinner party, and left the apartment for the last time towards the end of the party, with the party still going on.

Some guy I told all this to mentioned that the name "Suddenly last supper" was a nod to the title of a movie "Suddenly last summer". But there also seem to be other "Suddenly last supper" things out there.

Time to clear out

the pickled head grime.

We called it

space based aqua pop. It was music from outer space, only underwater. Listening to it freed you, loosened connections, opened possibility. Soon to be a necessity for creative ventures.

And the rest of the time its the baroque certainty of Bach.

Some guy

at a party once told me that "Einstein on the Beach" by Phillip Glass was music from 50 years from now. This guy was somehow involved in the music industry, as a composer of movie music, or something like that. I went out and bought the CD, and haven't been able to listen to it at all, though some other music by Phillip Glass I like.

But the idea was the interesting part, the music of the future. Right now I've been listening endlessly to "Silent Shout" by The Knife, and half felt that it was from the future. As I listened to it the phrase music from the sterile world came to me, not as if it were music from a world where everyone was sterile, but from music from a place that is very modern, but also very under-populated.

The vast

underground corridoors lie ahead. I know that there is a stairwell going a level further down, and there await special treats. I find it and go down.

This skeletal outline describes a dream, partially recurring, from when I was a child. It doesn't recurr as a dream anymore. But it does in memory, and it sort of even does in airports, because some have hired commerical artists to create these strange tunnels with odd lights and sounds to connect various terminals.

And for another time (or have I mentioned it already?): The Terminal Terminal.

There is the split

between those who say that the actor is ultimately responsible for his deeds, and those who say he is not, because other factors matter and they matter more.

I can't seem to get as much work done as I'd like. There are no background factors. I see my limits. And yet, perhaps I shall change them.

"Has all

the blood been drained out of me? " thought the kelp as it saw its reflection in the pool. "Why, I'm only green, now."

It's time

to go to Moss Farms, and see how the moss is growing and how far it has spread -- seems to be out further now.

"Once," says the old farmer indicating the vast moss field, "these rocks were bare. But now you can't even see them for the moss." I'd never even known it was rocks under the moss. Hadn't really thought about that. He continues, "They said it wouldn't work, but it has, it has..." He's done talking for the day. Now its time to just stare out at the moss.

Muhshroom belts, moss fields, dingy canals? What is it that I'm asking for?

One wall

of my office is entirely cork. Why did the builders stop there? Why not four cork walls? ...then I could have giant tacks to pin my books to the walls.

Do you think

that "Satanic Impulse" would be a good name for a brand of coffee?

There is

an inconsequential canal running through your city. The canal is narrow, but spacious enough for a small boat, and there is a walking path next to it. Very rarely you pass by it and you hardly notice it. Or if you do notice then it strikes you with a moment's oddness, and you wonder why you never noticed it before, but you wonder this (or overlook it) every time that you see it.

On the back of "Upwingers"

a book by one Esfandiary, it says:

"I am Universal. I translive all over the planet. Learn via Unicom. Have many professions. Am involved with many people. Consider all children as mine also. Neither Right nor Left - I am Up."

This (the bold) reminds us of a song. Which one?

A day of borrowing...

because I am not the painter of this, its "Sinbad the Sailor" by Paul Klee.

On re-looking at stuff by Klee lately I haven't liked much, but this one I still do.

Mystery

First, this picture was not taken by me, but stolen from the vast reaches of the web.
Second, it's awesome.
Third,...

The past

has become unscrewed from the present.

Today's

question was: What is the single most important thing you can know about another person?

And I haven't a clue anymore. Somehow this question might have seemed important to me a few years ago (how many I'm not sure) but now it just feels faded, irrelevant, stale. Maybe new people just don't matter all that much anymore, and the people I already know, well I already know them. Or maybe new people matter plenty but not for any predictable reason or in any single way. Or maybe its just that I'm not 17 or 23 anymore, and haven't been for some time.

You might just keep going

till one day you think, "I'm playing a losing game". And then its time to change ways.

Discrimination

is the basis of taste.

Not so much

movement. This is not a voyage on a boat. This is not trip of the bicycle, nor a long hike. It is sitting at the desk. Sitting, sitting, sitting. And now for a song:

Six little ducks that I once knew
Fat ones, skinny ones, fair ones, too
But the one little duck with the feather on his back
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack
Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack
Down to the river they would go
Wibble, wobble, wibble, wobble, to and fro
But the one little duck with the feather on his back
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack
Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack
Back from the river they would come
Wibble, wobble, wibble, wobble, ho, hum, hum
But the one little duck with the feather on his back
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack
Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack.

For a more sophisticated version:

Six little ducks that I once knew
Sad ones, happy ones, some like you
But the one little duck with the feathers on his back
Waddled to his mama with a quack, quack, quack

Quack, quack, quack. Quack, quack, quack
Waddled to his mama with a quack, quack, quack

Five little ducks that I once knew
Silly ones, funny ones, some like you
But the one little duck with the feathers on his back
Waddled to the shore with a quack, quack, quack
Quack, quack, quack. Quack, quack, quack
Waddled to the shore with a quack, quack, quack

Four little ducks that I once knew
Jolly ones, bright ones, some like you
But the one little duck with the feathers on his back
Waddled through the water with a quack, quack, quack
Quack, quack, quack. Quack, quack, quack
Waddled through the water with a quack, quack, quack

Three little ducks that I once knew
Old ones, young ones, some like you
But the one little duck with the feathers on his back
Waddled up a hill with a quack, quack, quack
Quack, quack, quack. Quack, quack, quack
Waddled up a hill with a quack, quack, quack

Two little ducks that once knew
Play together, just like you
But the one little duck with the feathers on his back
Waddled by a frog with a quack, quack, quack
Quack, quack, quack. Quack, quack, quack
Waddled by a frog with a quack, quack, quack

One little duck that I once knew
A happy little duck. the same as you
This one little duck with the feathers on his back
Waddled to his family with a quack, quack. quack
Quack, quack, quack. Quack, quack, quack
Waddled to his family with a quack, quack, quack

The tale

wherein a man leaves home, hoping to find his footprints.

After weeks on the road he declares, "I'ts unbelieveable! I've been travelling around, visiting old houses, places I used to spend time, former workplaces, the whole bit... And I haven't found my found them yet. Its as if I haven't left the slightest trace of myself."

You

may have been too hungry to sleep. And perhaps you've been too tired to eat. But what if both happened at once: Can't fall asleep cause you're too hungry, but can't eat cause you're too tired. What then?

Reading fiction

means being transported to other worlds. Does love of fiction imply...?

a) Adventurousness.
b) Proneness to daydreaming.
c) Tendency towards vicarious living.
d) Add your own option.

Scavenger hunt

I am on a private scavenger hunt. The list of items to be obtained is internal, somehow incscribed in me, written in childhood and later. Fragments of songs remembered beg me to obtain a copy of the song; book titles barely remembered to be found, and maybe read; foods I've heard of but not eaten to be tasted.

Next item may be tea from tundra climate.

The goat

walked down the road, eyes on either sides of his head.

"I represent alien perspectives," he says.

You peer at him with uncertainty, and think, "I always thought their was some sort of occult-goat connection, but now that he mentions it, goats really do have more of an alien, other-worldly look. It's a shame, though, that they are quadrapeds. It really diminishes their impact. A biped goat, now that would really be something... Perhaps that explain Pan, satyrs, and all that. Um, no... satyrs don't have goat faces."

And the goat? He's left.

I sense

time passing now, and will turn around one of these days quite a bit older, and there isn't as much shock in it now, knowing that yes I really will be older. But everything else about it remains unknown, like what the exact circumstances will be like. And so, although there is some sense of inevitability (I will be older) there should be none at all, because I know nothing about what it will be like.

It has long

been my ambition to go North of the North Pole -- that'll show them!

This place

has a few underground tunnels connecting some of the buildings. I walked through them for a lunch stroll. If only they were deeper underground, somehow it would be even better.