The Toothurts

Perchance to Dream

2010-02-23T09:02:00.000-08:00

"The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than to fly to others we know not of?" --W. Shakespeare- Hamlet

So I am now girding myself for round 2 in my fight with sleep disorder. Apnea? Hypopnea? Something like that. It's the snoring is what it is...and it bothers the Wife. Yeah, there's all kinds of reasons to get a Good Night's Sleep. And not a few involve serious health issues. I can't argue with peer-reviewed clinical studies, and besides that, who doesn't wanna sleep better if not more?

This will be, as I said, Round 2. Memory of the first bout is not a good one. As our local hospital is lacking a "sleep study center" they rely on a "portable" one from a hospital a hundred miles away. Yes, portable. As in "it has tires on it".

So this is what went down; on the coldest night of the year in Northern Michigan I was told to report (with my Jammies) to a semi-trailer parked out back, behind the hospital's dumpster. Truly. I should point out at this juncture that I have, indeed, slept in a semi before as well as having had the opportunity to also nap behind a dumpster. Hell, I ain't proud.

Inside of this super-camper I met "Dave". He was the sandman. The technician. The s.o.b. that was paid to watch me sleep. But a nice guy, really-- if you could manage to ignore how his skewed circadian rhythms had now rendered him a ghoulish remnant of his former self...But that is not important. He showed me his console of machinery-- the video monitors, the oscilloscopes, the machines that go "bing". He led me to the aft cabin on his Ship of Dreams.

So I changed into my mis-matched pajamas, read a lttle bit of Conrad, and waited for Dave to knock on the door and tuck me in. When he did show up (about the time that Jim jumped ship) my angst was just getting warmed up. It is important to note that my "normal" sleeping environs are isolated and insulated-- no light, no noise, no strange man sitting just outside an unlocked door watching me on cctv...

Dave tried explaining to me what all the wires were for. Something like thirty-two of them were glued to my noggin, my face, chest, back, and legs, then bundled behind me in some sort of electrified Avatar ponytail which, I was assured, rarely posed any problems for the subjects being studied as they slept. There I was--all wired-up and ready for slumber.

Lights out? Not. Musta been a dozen or more LED monitor lights in that "bedroom", some of them blinking. Lights out? Not. The crack under the door was about the size of those to be found on an outhouse door. Quiet time? You mean besides the ambient noises from the machines that go "bing" just outside the door? How about that rattle and hum from the electric heaters which just managed to keep the center of the room from freezing while the sides maintained a temperature just below the frost threshold? And then there was the fact that what I was sleeping (trying) in, essentially, was a tin can? The night's cold and the heaters' so-called "heat" were duking it out all night, and the blows they landed on each other resonated with the screech-POP of metal expansion/contraction.

And then there was the ponytail. Exactly how many vignette-length nightmares which featured strangulation I endured that night is unknown. I recall about a half-dozen "untanglings" throughout the course of the study. Between the lights, noises, and near-throttling it became a study in sleeplessness.

It was followed by the ultimate awakening-- one of those mornings when you could swear you had just lain down-- NO WAY it was morning already! But there it was, and there I was, listening to Dave telling me how many events occurred during my night's sleep. Dave would say things like "And here was an interuption of REM that caused an arousal." or "This graph shows that your brain waves show the excitability lines of a completely awake state". And over and over again I thought "No shit, Dave! Here was where the sheet-metal next to my head snapped, and here was where you knocked-over your thermos, and here was where the blower-bearing on the heater was drying out." But I did not say such things, for I was aware that a well-deserving MD was relying on her commissions on yet another $2000 C-PAP machine sale in order to get the fuck out of this frigid arctic air-- get herself to Belize.

I guess I've got it. Apnea, that is. Soon to find out if I'll be spending 1/3 of my life wearing a mask. But if that don't do it, there's always that DSM V. When that book hits the shelves we'll all be wearing one.

Conspiracy Resolved, pt I.

2010-02-22T12:19:00.000-08:00

"You're shooting your food!" -- Kate Hepburn in Rooster Cogburn

Yes, there is Something Wrong with shooting food. I don't mean that Jed Clampett thing with the rabbit-- hunting good! Me like hunting! I mean there's something inherently evil in shooting food that has already been successfully hunted or gathered.

But hey. Forget all that. It's FUN dammit. Ritz crackers are great for plinking with a .22, and overripe melons are a hoot to assault with a 12-gauge, and an aged-on-the-porch institutional size container of yellow mustard just beckons to be blasted with a .357 magnum revolver.

Such was the case on Sunday. The mustard was mellowing (fermenting) for years on the back porch, the case of Coors beer for a week or so. The beer was the correct temperature, the condiment was asking for it, and all three of us went for a walk out behind the chicken house.

I set the barrel-o-mustard on top of a bank of snow and marched-off twenty paces. Aiming low, in military fashion, I touched-off the big Ruger to hear it's response of "DOOM"!
The plastic jug leapt in the air at the impact of the hollow-point round, and, no lie--came towards me! "Hunh?" says I. Then a "*burp* Huunnh?"

Walking back to the "target" I was met halfway by the awful offal of the cannister-- yellow-brown stains covering an area of snow as large as my living room-- and nearly all of it on my
side of the impact zone. Having expected a "fantail" of mustard beyond and behind the spot where I had placed the jug, I was more than a little surprised.

Then I remembered that Zapruder film, and it was OK.

Venal Vernacular

2009-10-24T05:39:00.000-07:00

Obama signs another "HateCrime" bill, and George Orwell turns again on his sepulchral spit. It does not seem to be satisfactory to simply punish crime-- we must now have "new and improved" crime. In name, at least, we have festooned our more odious behaviours with prefixed embellishments...a more descriptive taxonomy with which to describe the angels of our darker nature.

It is not the fulfillment of Orwell's prophesies, nor the growing use of Newspeak as a nuevoEsperanto that worries me. Rather, it is the backlash from those for whom retreat into a world where primitive (?) discriminations (which are probably hard-wired into our Homo-tribal brains--the other meme) are still valid and relied upon to color a world view. It remains to be seen whether the mobile-intellectual-elite have actually "evolved" an intra-species homogenity gene--some organic means for "ignoring" or "accepting" differences in appearance or behaviour, or if education and/or "worldliness" suffice to engender the learned equivalent. No matter, really, but for the fact that a much more tenuous grip is maintained (in terms of humanity in toto) by an acquired perspective than is by genuine evolution.

Perhaps this is a specious species specification-- to allude to a "forced" evolution-- but that does seem to be the case. That today's definition of being "truly human" includes optional equipment not appearing on the original blueprint-- equipment for coping with a shrinking planet. Fear and distrust, even aggression, toward the "other" was a meaningful survival mechanism for our ancestors. Nature selected for a certain level of intolerance, and, truth be known, still does.

This precept drags in it's wake the awful realisation of further division. Just as the "splitters" of the "splitters-vs-lumpers" tug-of-war are on the ascension in the labelling of our misdeeds*, so too are they forever gaining ground in the field of biological taxonomy. When I was still in school we learned the Linnaeus lineage of life: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species--with occasional forays into "sub-species", or, perhaps, "variant"or "race". It was simple. It was ordered. And if you described something well enough, and if it was "different" enough, you got to name that something after yourself. Now there are "sub" categories throughout. Sub-orders, sub-classes, etc. --then there is the proliferation of species. From blooms to birds to bats to baboons the smallest of differences now seem to qualify, to entitle a brand new freshly minted nom de scientific.

That is, unless you are speaking about the naked ape(s). We are family. Whereas the appearance of a few red feathers on the cheek of a sparrow may be cause enough for a separate distinction, description, and latin name, the "lumpers" have long held ground in regards to a single genus: Homo. A single species, though we will allow for "race" somewhere in the back of our minds. Never at the forefront when speaking biologically or in terms of "differences".**

In the forest live squirrels. There are Fox squirrels and there are Gray squirrels. Both of them eat acorns, build houses of leaves and twigs at least thirty feet up a tree, mate at the same time. Interbreeding is possible, but infrequent. And they don't really get along in the same territory. Too much overlap. Too many differences in the DNA.*** One must even say they are in competition for resources and mating opportunities. They, being controlled by genetic code, attach great significance to the concept of the "other". This is not wrong****, this is nature. And it is across-the-board true for any similar "species", indeed, right down the level of the "individual" are the protective/combatative impulses which are mysteriously manipulated by that double helix.

It will be interesting to note, in the years to come, how closely the refinement of the labelling of our crimes might parallel the human genome project. Will "hatecrime" function be discovered at the molecular level? Will "sexcrime" appear as an allele analogous with a quantifiable level of testosterone production? Will there be a pill?

*By which I refer to increasingly specific descriptive prefixes.
**Of course we may discuss "cultural diversity" when affirming the value of "race"--but woe unto he who would illuminate obvious differences in appearance, predilections, competence.
***Always have been fascinated by the postulation that we are merely vessels for the reproduction of a complex molecule, rather that vice-versa.
****Fuck you, Walt Disney.

MmmooOOO...corrupts absolutely.

2008-11-10T16:27:00.000-08:00

When the sufferer has passed-on it is very difficult to determine if they died from Alzheimer's or Mad Cow Disease without performing an autopsy. This is NOT a screed aimed at the Beef Industry (hallowed be thy name)- I remember what happened to that Winfrey woman. But desperate for an analogy, I happened on hamburger. (And only the most peculiar habitues of maladies bizarre have the proper respect for Kuru.)
Hamburger, that staple of the American board-of fare, ain't what it used to be. Time was (and I'm really NOT that old) when "ground beef" was purchased from a local butcher. You knew this butcher, he knew you, and he may have had a relationship with the bovine he butchered. (Certain areas of the country...) What I'm trying to say is that A cow- singular- was converted from ruminant to omnivore biomass. I saw blood as a kid- not just that watery "meat juice" in it's little pinkish pool in it's little pinkish styrofoam tray under the pinkish flourescent lights. The butcher was just this guy, you know? Some guys went to work and got grease on their clothes. Others got flour or coal dust or soot or just plain dirt. The butcher wore a white apron with blood stains. Not human, but you had a better understanding just what it took, beyond family finances, to put food on the table. Whoa...bit of a tangent there. Apple Polly Loggies.
Todays hamburger didn't come from Elsie- harvested after her milking days were over. It didn't come from Big Red- some surplus bull too mean to let live. Todays ground red meat came from Elsie, Big Red, Laverne, Tornado, Bessie, #1754, #42C, #181358, and #47G10032 thru #47G10908 inclusive. A single family portion could, and often does, contain bits and pieces of hundreds if not thousands of individual animals.
Aha! exclaims our pragmatist. Not everyone wants a slaughter house in their backyard! It only makes sense to centralise, to consolidate- to place those massive feedlots and slaughter houses in a convenient locale. Not only should factories be where folks don't feel the effects, it's just more efficient.
Granted. And I won't even belabor that whole source-point pollution thing.
The point I've taken so long to arrive at is how consolidation=anonymity. Not that cows neccesarily require or would request non-recognition (this, of course, does not apply to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe) but rather that their flesh, after "processing", becomes quite indistinguishable from their corral mates'. Even this, on a good day, is not a bad thing. But then bad days befall us, as when a cow suffering from Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis (sp?) is culled into the mix. We've all witnessed what happens next. I'll spare you a replaying of all the rigmarole, the media circus and the frantic moms. My heart is torn asunder by ONE frantic mom, so I couldn't do it anyway.
I keep promising to make a point, so here it is- Consolidation ain't always good.

Now for the analogy bit. More melancholic musings about our downward spiral- caught in the vortex of the Two Minute Warning at the end of a Zero Sum Game.
Capitalism is in deep doo-doo. The Houses of Finance, like the Houses of Slaughter are becoming fewer and fewer (This may be a better analogy than I thought!) as our masters and our betters give them money to buy each other to share their names. (Yes, I DO KNOW how simplistic that sounds, but now I also know the sound of my bile duct draining.)
Banks, businesses, brokerage houses, insurance companies, pleaders and distressed gamblers, oracles and their temple priests are all hanging from our tit. We suckle and succor them in fear for they have promised us and they have warned us in the same breath and with the same words "We will grow up and get bigger." And the cure is also the disease? We have met the enemy...? Further consolidation of money/power as a curative? Considering the Surveillance Society we are now in will anonymity be part of the newest CEO perquisite package?
How can they tell us (with straight faces!) that we are still a Capitalist society?
If the recent chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States of America confesses to that country's top elected officials that his "worldview was wrong" on the very eve of our descent, what "indicator" remains? What needs to be said or done-and by whom or what- in order for us to realise that the upward limitations on the growth and power of corporations must again be addressed? Or, are we buying our way in to what amounts to nuevo-socialism with stock dividends to replace a ration of rice and new bootlaces? I'm gettin' that good ole "taxation without representation" feeling again, and if it sounds like a blues tune to you too, goodonya.
So welcome all to the New America. This is the land of the fee. If I am beginning to sound like a tax protester or a commie, well, I profess that I am neither. Perhaps an affliction eight years in the making. Eight long years of being subjected to the most inept and incompetent and secretive "rule" in this nations history. I do share in that Audacity of Hope, and yet our Ministry of Love holds that reservation in my name still. Room service to 101...room service to 101...
(It starts when you're always afraid.)

Meet Me at the Back of the Blue Bus

2008-11-09T06:24:00.000-08:00

"...in short that, just as on the material side of human culture there has everywhere been an Age of Stone, so on the intellectual side there has everywhere been an Age of Magic?"
J.G. Frazer

A slip of the tongue? Freudian faux pas? At long last...some Obama Drama? Our PeOTUS Barry-O is nearly as adept at impromptu speaking as he is at following teleprompters, and I thank the Almighty that we finally will have a leader who can "think on his feet". But then gaffes are gonna be unavoidable, aren't they?
Obama does nothing in a small way. His first post-election, pre-inauguration press conference offered up his first doozy. When Barack was queried about any confabs he may have had with our prior presidents he didn't feel constrained by the boundries of this, our dimension, and almost apologetically claimed that he and the Widow Reagan hadn't summoned the ghost of Ronald Wilson. (Personally I don't understand why, unless Noonan wasn't up to channeling.)
As we watched and heard Obama use the word "seance" my Good Wife gasped while I pulled a ROFL and a couple inter-rib muscles.
At first she thought me mad (not uncommon) then realised it was merely my mordant and macabre sense of humor. She knew that neither I nor Barack intended injury to NancyPants.
It didn't take the press long to understand this either- the response was immediate. Not only were they willing to revive the Reagan's reliance on the occult, but that they might seem "fair and balanced", had to conjure cryptic Clinton connections to the afterlife and "communications" therewith. All this as straight-faced journalism. No note of derision, not an excision charged against deviation from reason...just in case, you know. For is it unreasonable to make a conjecture, just a wild guess mind you, that indeed Mrs. Reagan has made not one but many attempts to "talk with" her dearly departed RonnyKins? I shouldn't think so.
What did Barack apologise for when he made that ex post facto call to California?
"Hello?"
"Um, yes hello. Is this Mrs Reagan?"
"This is."
"Ahhh...Mrs Reagan this is Barack Obama."
"You're that boy moving into my other house?"
"Yes ma'am that's right. Mrs Reagan I..."
"Now you're all paid up? The first and last month's?"
"Mrs Reagan I think I said something on TV..."
"Oh! You're calling about that seance thing?"
"Yes ma'am. Now I don't want you to think that-"
"That's OK, Brock. You know I'm pretty sure that I
felt the table move last Friday, but with those tremors
you know...well you just can't tell!"
"Ummm. Yes. So Ronnie hasn't...?"
"Listen Brock, when He decides to contact us I will be sure
to let you know. You will keep that phone bill paid?"

It wasn't just the Widow's toes that Obama trod upon. He's messing with the Myth. Just never-you-mind if the Great Communicator isn't quite up to the task of communicating from the other side; the legend is still alive. All of the Zodiacal social planning, the Voodoo economics, the incessant invocation of the Christian triumvirate/singular Deity were part and parcel of the Reagan Years- the Gilded Age of Republican Rule. Ah yes, remember when.
Remember when we smilingly went beyond flirting with fascism and started playing footsie?
Perhaps the afterlife does play a part in the present. Maybe it was the ghost of Karl Marx that used the invisible hand of Adam Smith to slap us upside the head. Maybe Ronnie Raygun is being gagged by a noodly appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Almost seems anticlimatic to say "To Be Continued".

Don't Panic !

2008-11-07T17:40:00.000-08:00

The unemployment figures came out today. The Bad News just keeps compounding. It is said that 11.8% of Americans are un-or-underemployed. Not to worry say the optimistic investment brokers. At some point in the future they might declare that we are, indeed, in a recession. The dreaded "R word". Markets and financial sectors are in turmoil, sales are down everywhere and consumer confidence in this largest of confidence games has fallen right off the chart. The oracles proclaim that our dire straits are definately not comparable to the disaster of 1929. (That would be the unmentionable "D" word)
Largely their reasoning falls back on the employment figures. We are told (and some remember) that our country suffered a 25% unemployment rate for a period of time. Horrible stuff. They tell us we have, at present, a 6-1/2% rate with a "worst case scenario" seeing that figure rise to as high as 8-1/2%. Bad enough, to be sure, but nowhere near our worst in history.
Really?
I have a hard enough time understanding percentages, much less statistics. When the basis for establishing statistics become malleable I am utterly lost. Remember when we had a GNP? It was traded-in for our newer model, the "GDP". This, I suspect, may have been an effort to paint for us a rosier picture. Likewise am I suspicious of reportage of such "indicators" as unemployment. At some point in the not-to-distant past (Reagoncine Epoch?) the ranks of the military were added to the "employed" side of the economic ledger. Things got a little rosier with that move too. On second examination we might say "so what"- after all we're not talking about a whole heck of a lot of heads to be counted anyway. But on a third examination we have to wonder- do we count all of those of us who work for the government as "employed" in the same sense that we tally those who toil in the "private sector"?
Consider- anyone employed by any public agency; be it astronaut to zookeeper, fireman to French teacher, cop, constable or court clerk takes a slice of the commonwealth pie. Not that I would, in a personal sense, ever consider these folks non-productive or a "drag" on economic growth or any derogatory categorization- but in a practical sense (defined in economic parameters like GN/DP or whatever) how can we not? I'm talking strictly figures here, not value to society! For the fact is, the number of us employed by taxpayers has grown exponentially since the Great Depression and they earn their daily banana not by leaping tree-to-tree like the mass of us competing monkeys, but are fed by those we are "forced" to relinquish through varying degrees of "inducement". Not a good analogy I'll readily admit. Far too simplistic...to the point of sounding like the Grinch or Gingrich. (Are they the same? Separated at birth?)
My point, if I have one, is simply that I don't understand economics (or at least certain formulas) worth a darn. And I wonder, as usual, if we are being told the Truth.

At Long Last; Election Day Thoughts

2008-11-04T10:07:00.000-08:00

Not a single original thought in my head today. Like any good automaton I'll go and pull that lever today, perhaps dreaming of Dr. Guillotin and hoping my chads don't dimple.

"My fellow Americans our long nightmare is over."

Gerald Ford's most famous quote

(after "Ooops")

"That whole evil Bush clan, from Texas, should be boiled in poison oil."

Hunter S. Thompson

(always ahead of the curve)

"The foundation of happiness is mindfulness. The basic condition for being happy is our consciousness of being happy. If we are not aware that we are happy, we are not really happy.

When we have a toothache, we know that not having a toothache is a wonderful thing. But when we do not have a toothache, we are still not happy. A non-toothache is very pleasant. There are so many things that are enjoyable, but when we don't practice mindfulness, we don't appreciate them. When we practice mindfulness, we come to cherish these things and we learn how to protect them. By taking good care of the present moment, we take good care of the future. Working for peace in the future is to work for peace in the present moment."

Thich Nhat Hanh

(much as I loved Ford's fabulous gaffes and Dr. Gonzo's unique perspectives,
it was a Buddhist monk's musings for which I named my blog.)

Happy election day. I hope everyone gets what they want. Or at least what they need.

And We Can't Build Our Dreams...

2008-11-03T07:58:00.000-08:00

Hey, suspicious minds! Ain't that what we're all about?
Just read a news article about "lucky charms" in the Obama campaign. Masters of the Universe and their lucky shirts. One campaign manager is afraid to shave, another carries a lucky stone given him by a woman who "seemed to have an aura about her". Whether to change your cowboy boots or your underwear- whether to shoot some hoops? The Man himself carries a pocketful of charms- a medicine bag of trinkets and totems to ward-off the Evil Eye.

This is the "secular humanist" party? The Rational Thought party? The same camp honest enough to characterise much of the heartland as "clinging bitterly to...religion"? And to think that Barry's mom was an atheist. I had such high hopes.

I should quit my bitchin'. On the "other side" is that divisive character Sarah Palin. Divisive in many respects, but the wedge she is driving within her own "party" intrigues me most. It seems that the saner elements within the Party of Lincoln tend to see her for what she truly is; she is
a "God-fearing Christian", a charismatic power-seeker, a beauty pageant runner-up, a Walmart-shopping intellectual lightweight who compensates with the viscious, viscous venom and vitriol in the petroleum jelly the make-up people have smeared on her perfect orthodontics.* That's all well and good. There is a recognition in the ranks that there is a loose canon on deck.

The trouble, as I see it, doesn't lie with that segment of the GOP. These folks may have hyper-active greed glands and atrophied empathy genes, but they could be called "intellectually honest" in the same breath. The Trouble on the horizon is like the drum-beat of a Viking ship just BVR. You know it's out there...you just hope it beaches on another shore. Sarah is pulling on her oar, has taken-up the rhythmic chant. (Go ahead- get a visual on this- horned helm, rough animal skins, pitbull with lipstick...)

This could be our ship of state. This could be our state of affairs. This could be an affair of superstition and hatred and fear and loathing. The ship of fools? Only a fool would dismiss it as such. A vessel of vassels of the Lord? Maybe. The Lord envisaged as the correct amalgamation of Old Testament anger and retribution and New-er "thief in the night" and "I come not to bring peace but a sword" temperment viewed through a Penatcostal-apocalyptic lens. What a Revelation.

She's got a full crew amongst that other segment of the Grand Old Party, but they want a full boat before making landfall. The Horse Latitudes have seen them already jettison reason and compromise- critical thinking and scientific discovery will gladly go overboard to make room.
The desperate wall-eyed Believers are swimming out...

*Hey! She's "one of us"! Whatever happened to aspiring to "the better angels of our nature"?
Is his name Barack?

Second Most Popular Holiday

2008-11-02T16:07:00.000-08:00

William said...
Happy Hallowe'en. A fascinating holiday where the sons and daughters of the Welfare State ask for handouts under threat of retaliatory hijinks ;)How did we get here? Druidic customs of wearing "the skins of animals", the shamans opening the lines of communication between this plane of existence and the next, how cool is that?! And then some pope goes and usurps the power of yet another pagan whoop-de-do.Speaking of popery- this also marks the anniversary of a certain teutonic monk's bulletin board brashness. Yup. On todays date Martin Luther pegged his "Theses" to that church door- inciting the Reformation and what amounts to a revolt against the hegemony of the Church of Rome. A little history factoid there, but for the rest, I must beg your Indulgence (sorry Marty).Hegemony, domination, despotism, totalitarianism are pretty much synonymous across the spectra of the Human Condition. Time was when it was easy enough to tag a dictator as "despotic" and claim that he ruled a "totalitarian state", or that Standard Oil was "dominant" in its market, or that any given religious sect held "hegemony" in a culture. What has become difficult in our time is not understanding the images or concepts behind these terms, it is in how to apply them.When Eisenhower tried to warn us about the emergence of the "military-industrial complex" his brilliant prescience was limited by his life experience. One supposes that if he had chewed on that cud of collusion between Hollywood and the War Department with those WWII propoganda films,he may well have hit upon "Military-Industrial-Infotainment Complex" and all the power consolidation extant in that Hydra's manifestation.So. What to make of the "illusion of choice" in our two party political system? What will happen when our "money flow" is charted by a handful of omnipotent banks? Will it make any difference whether we call ourselves capitalist or communist when we have only one or two car makers, one or two airlines one or two media outlets? If our politicians serve at the beck and call of non-corporeal corporate interests, and those "interests" become so few and so powerful as to dictate our dispensation, the fate of commonweal, what then? Are we there yet? Did I unwittingly take the Blue Pill?Perhaps it is not quite Orwellian. Perhaps not quite Atwoodian. But perhaps we have arrived after all.
October 31, 2008 1:18 PM

Zen vs. Mind-Numbing Tedium

2008-11-02T10:08:00.000-08:00

The Sabbath (goyim version) is a great day for wood splitting. Yeah. I'm still at it. Putting up my winter heat in November instead of May. What's to say? I'd rather play in May than put wood away. (Go ahead, read it again. Oy vey.)
Came in the house long enough to take the chill off. Make a half pot of coffee, make myself feel a little better through blogging(?)
Had planned to wax eloquent about the zen-like virtues of wood splitting until I realised that a true "zen state" should be avoided while doing what I'm doing- if you desire to retain the originally specified base-ten digit configuration.
Some concentration may be required...
Perhaps Persig's road-trip book was still on my mind. Forgot to call my boy on his birthday so that we could both pretend to have taken that motorcycle ride that never happened.

Ripped

2008-11-01T16:57:00.000-07:00

While I was splitting wood today there were several times when some piece of flotsom- bark, twig, whatever- would fall through one of the holes in the knees of my bluejeans. It's still warm enough for there to be creepy-crawlies in the logs so every time that it happened I did a little "shake a leg" dance. There never was any entymological excitement, I guess it was just habit.
At one point (and after several Hokie-Pokies) I went in the house for a glass of water. Before I put my coat back on to head back to the wood pile, I tried to remember if there were any safety pins left in my sewing box. I'd been meaning to pick some up, but I thought there might be three or four rattling around in there. (My sewing box, like my fishing box exists in a highly entropic state. Both are ongoing scientific experiments designed, so to speak, to determine what is the least disturbance required to prevent sedimentation/petrification.)
I almost went for the pins when I remembered an advertisement. (Ah-Ha! It's just the durndest thing when snark imitates life.) There was this "dudes'" magazine on the back of the crapper at work (no, not that kind- it rhymes with Wax Him) and it had one of those full-page glossy fashion ads. Some young feller with those hollow cheeks those violent puppy dog eyes and those
pre-washed, pre-faded, pre-grunged, pre-ripped bluejeans.
Hell's Bells thought I. I have an honest-to-Madison Avenue pair of stylish dungarees.

I'll admit it, at this point I languished in indecision. Should I change my pants and save these haute couture togs for my next night on the town? Are chainsaw oil stains au courant?

In case you're wondering; Yes. I do have a smug, self-righteous smirk on my face. In any event
it was time to go back to the wood splitting...with my ripped jeans. I was still on this train of thought when ripped entered my mind again- different context. Don't they call a human body "ripped" as well? Like when said body exhibits "well defined" musculature? Someone who is "in shape", so to speak?

Both instances- the togs and the torso- are a veneer (this word too came to me whilst playing with my wood) A facade if you will. Reminds me of an old essay by Umberto Eco from Travels in HyperReality about a European perspective on Disneyland.

Look. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with shelling out money for clothes that look like they were pulled from a Salvation Army dumpster. And there is certainly no reason to denigrate folks who spend time at the gym, far from it! I'd just like things to be a bit more, more....more real. I mean what is the "look" we are going for here? The ripped jeans signify a sympathy with folks who wear-out their clothes doing stoop labor? Same thing apply to that banker with those ripped biceps? "Well, you see, I could just as easily been a steelworker/longshoreman/crab-fisherman/bouncer/intrepid explorer/porn star..."

Perhaps my angst derives from a source not unlike the spring from which bubbled forth Persig's elusive Quality? Could it be source similar to the Spaniards' Fount? The liquid in the lamp of Diogenes? I flatter myself in the dream aqueous, more likely mine is a case of the "vapours"- of the nebulous and erratic breezes which turn (slowly, slowly) Don's windmills.

At one time another "fashion" held my attention. The beltless, gravity-defying low-slung trousers of "hep youth". The stumble-shuffle gait induced by those sub-sub hip-huggers, I learned, was similar to that walk used by prisoners. In fact many of the trappings of urban kids, from the low-slung drawers, laceless shoes, askew caps- were identical to what would be found on the other side of the wall.

Surely I thought; these kids are exhibiting empathy with the Forgotten Man. It was some kind of a Johnny Cash/Man in Black sort of phenomenon that I wasn't privy to. So many questions remain...and hope springs eternal.

But for the lack of a bottle of bubbly...

2008-10-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

At long last, with a grateful nod to Diogenes- my first blog.
Noteable, perhaps, is the fact that this day also marks the anniversary of Mr. Wells' (in)famous
faux-reportage of the Martian Invasion. Awe-spicious indeed. Whether or not it is actually of any significance remains to be seen.

This is my only caveat- that the Gods of serendipity or happenstance, the muses who flit about the ethereal and ill-defined boundries between coincidence and conjuration, may well bless or curse this, this my intentional foray into a realm I will never understand. May I never play Kurtz through my acclimation, may I never suffer to propagate prideful pontifications, and may I never cause or suffer to cause stagnation of thought or the malignancy of self importance.

Welcome.