prairie dogs

the problem with apathy is i've never felt it.

Cowards Bend The Knee

pop quiz, who said:

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

this post brought to you by the letter A:

apathy

1603, "freedom from suffering," from Fr. apathie, from L. apathia, from Gk. apatheia "freedom from suffering, impassability," from apathes "without feeling," from a- "without" + pathos "emotion, feeling, suffering" (see pathos). Originally a positive quality; sense of "indolence of mind, indifference to what should excite" is from c.1733.

academy

1474, from L. academia, from Gk. Akademeia "grove of Akademos," a legendary Athenian of the Trojan War tales (his name apparently means "of a silent district"), whose estate, six stadia from Athens, was the enclosure where Plato taught his school. Sense broadened 16c. into any school or training place. Poetic form Academe first attested 1588 in sense of "academy;" 1849 with meaning "the world of universities and scholarship," from phrase the groves of Academe, translating Horace's silvas Academi; in this sense, Academia is recorded from 1956. Academic "relating to an academy" first recorded 1586; sense of "not leading to a decision" (like university debates or classroom legal exercises) is from 1886.

the things she carried

differ

c.1375, from O.Fr. diferer, from L. differre "to set apart, differ," from dis- "away from" ferre "carry" (see infer). Two senses that were present in L. have gone separate ways in Eng. since c.1500 with defer (transitive) and differ (intransitive).

in 30 minutes i imagine things will be different.

i have a headache, i have taken 4 ibuprofen, i expect to feel relief in one half of an hour. generally i feel a bit postcoital at the break of a headache. there is something simple and delicious about the end of pain to my brain. i am at work on a saturday in an airless and warm office, this might mitigate my sense of euphoria. if it was cooler outside i might lay down with a book in the grass and nap but there is too much light and heat today for the likes of me.

if i could be doing something differently right now, i would be:

• more comfortable in my skin so i could wear just it
• sitting inside of a barrel on the underside of a floating dock looking at the sun go down while the lake licks my back
• on a ferry ride, shyly sharing stories with a boy who is falling in love, starting the best of my life
• holding hands
• alone in a new city, living quietly this time
• climbing a tree
• feeling strong hands cup my head and thumb my neck
• playing tetherball
• talking to someone every day until time starts to pass and that saturday morning spent cradled in my father's arms watching cartoons feels like yesterday

life should not be a holding pattern, spent waiting for the pain to subside. i need some fresh air.

sense and sensibility

sense (n.)

c.1400, "faculty of perception," also "meaning or interpretation" (esp. of Holy Scripture), from O.Fr. sens, from L. sensus "perception, feeling, undertaking, meaning," from sentire "perceive, feel, know," prob. a fig. use of a lit. meaning "to find one's way," from PIE base *sent- "to go" (cf. O.H.G. sinnan "to go, travel, strive after, have in mind, perceive," Ger. Sinn "sense, mind," O.E. sið "way, journey," O.Ir. set, Welsh hynt "way"). Application to any one of the external or outward senses (touch, sight, hearing, etc.) first recorded 1526.

The verb meaning "to perceive by the senses" is recorded from 1598. Senses "mental faculties, sanity" is attested from 1568.

many of my friends will be turning 30 this year. i myself will turn 30 on my next birthday. presently, i have absolutely nothing i need to get done before then. there's plenty to be done but no pressure implied in hitting a three decade mark. i wonder why i have such little care but as i get older i have less need to care about anything i can't be bothered to care about, as there's already ever so much demanding my attentions and sympathies.

i have very little to say right now. i wish i could feel bold enough to just say it without this rather pointless exposition, i just get a little less willing sometimes to fall into pendantic mode since i know people stop listening. but i named this blog bluestockingism for a reason, so here goes...

if maturity brings anything and if i am to consider myself mature, i wish merely to ask the following: people, why ever do we say anything that we do not mean? is there any need? for if we realize ourselves having said something that perhaps we did not quite mean or we had not quite made up our minds about, how hard is it for us to slightly adjust our actions midstream to match those words we said?

that's all. you can wander into chicken and egg conversations with this, but either way you break it...to me, there's ample room for our actions to better match our words or vice versa. especially when lies can be such weapons of mass destruction against each other. words and meaning are ever so important to me. most of the time i like to think i am not alone.

irrepressible

1811, from in- "not" + repressible (see repress). First attested in "Sense and Sensibility."

sensible

c.1374, "perceptible to the senses," from L. sensibilis "having feeling, perceptible by the senses," from sensus, pp. of sentire "perceive, feel" (see sense). Meaning "aware, cognizant (of something)" is recorded from c.1412. Meaning "having good sense, reasonable" first recorded c.1530. Of clothes, shoes, etc., "practical rather than fashionable" it is attested from 1855. Sensibility "capacity for refined emotion" is from 1756.

reflections
alienation requires l i e.
changing courses midstream is not nearly as common as the phrase changing horses midstream.

careful, johan

yesterday there was a lot of remembering, reminding me how important it is for me to write things down. please remember that i actually have very little upstairs. or if i do, i'm not quite sure where everything is in storage.

i was trying to remember the friend of helium. for some reason i thought it might be baudelaire. it appears that baudelaire and helium were never acquainted. later in the day i actually had reason to read a little more about baudelaire. it appears baudelaire and i should be better acquainted.

a little more about my new friend:
The painter of modern life has a specific task: 'he makes it his business to extract from fashion whatever element it may contain of poetry within history, to distill the eternal from the transitory'.

and

"The modern 'hero' is the one who, while embodying the tendencies of modern capitalism to the highest degree, is simultaneously engaged in an inevitably doomed struggle against them. The heroism of modernity as endurance and as impotent rage takes the form of self-deception (the flaneur, the gambler) and self-negation (the prostitute, the worker and the ragpicker). For B, the ultimate hero of modernity is the figure who seeks to give voice to its paradoxes and illusions, who participates in, while yet still retaining the capacity to give form to, the fragmented, fleeting experiences of the modern. This individual is the poet."

and

SPLEEN
by: Charles Baudelaire

I'm like some king in whose corrupted veins
Flows agèd blood; who rules a land of rains;
Who, young in years, is old in all distress;
Who flees good counsel to find weariness
Among his dogs and playthings, who is stirred
Neither by hunting-hound nor hunting-bird;
Whose weary face emotion moves no more
E'en when his people die before his door.
His favourite Jester's most fantastic wile
Upon that sick, cruel face can raise no smile;
The courtly dames, to whom all kings are good,
Can lighten this young skeleton's dull mood
No more with shameless toilets. In his gloom
Even his lilied bed becomes a tomb.
The sage who takes his gold essays in vain
To purge away the old corrupted strain,
His baths of blood, that in the days of old
The Romans used when their hot blood grew cold,
Will never warm this dead man's bloodless pains,
For green Lethean water fills his veins.

'Spleen' is reprinted from The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire. Ed. James Huneker. New York: Brentano's, 1919.

absinthe is green. strindberg, who is the true friend of helium, liked his absinthe. strindberg was also a librarian. a little more about helium's friend:

Johan (August) Strindberg
To escape the uproar which he had stirred up, Strindberg moved in 1883 to France with his family. Between the years 1884 and 1887 he lived with short interruptions in Switzerland. During this time he corresponded with Friedrich Nietzsche, and became interested of the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Under financial and marital difficulties, Strindberg started to show symptoms of emotional crisis. Feelings of persecution were suppressed by heavy drinking of absinthe. Eventually he started to believe his wife wanted to have him locked away in a mental institution.

[aside: Strindberg's friend Poe says "And I said -- "She is warmer than Dian: She rolls through an ether of sighs -- She revels in a region of sighs. She has seen that the tears are not dry on These cheeks, where the worm never dies, And has come past the stars of the Lion, To point us the path to the skies -- To the Lethean peace of the skies -- Come up, in despite of the Lion, To shine on us with her bright eyes -- Come up, through the lair of the Lion, With love in her luminous eyes." in his Ulalume]

[oh, another aside: do remember to use august as an adjective more often. i will do the same. note also that august birthdays are the lion and the virgin. i should remember to write more about the lion as i have often thought of doing. and it seems i should visit Lethe...oh wait clearly i already have.]

all these new friends like to go by their middle names. granted, i like august, but johan is a lovely name as well. which is surely why Guy Maddin selected it for an important character in Careful. Guy Maddin has another film, Cowards Bend the Knee aka The Blue Hands. i read the screenplay for this film long before i saw it, it has some sticking power with me. as does the film Mad Love, which surely Maddin harks back to in The Blue Hands. Mad Love has a murdering knife-thrower, a wax statue, peter lorre *and* hand surgery. i thought perhaps that might be 3-4 different movies, but no it is all thankfully one.



which i was reminded of when i saw this [i heard it from a friend who...]:


oh my stars. karl freund directed mad love and i just realized that guy maddin and i have the same birthday. what a nice world. my horoscope says i will make perfect sense to at least one person today (it also told me to write things down). this is the best i could hope for on any day.

remind me there is more to remember, lest we forget, and that i have poetry to write.

i felt that

yesterday i felt a breeze on the small of my back and turned to look outside right as the hail started rapping on the window. i realize this indoors breeze sent anticipation fluttering into my belly, averting my gaze. looking away must, by definition, always lead to seeing something else.

-----

-----

A Letter to Tatiana Yakoleva
by Mayakovsky


Dedicated to I...


In the caresses of lips
or hands
in the tremblings of bodies
near and dear to me
the red colour
of my motherland
must also
burning be.

I dislike
the love
that Paris boasts
of females one adorns
with silks and fashions;
who stretch out dreamily,
saying:
"Tu es beau!"
with a bitch's
animal passion.

You alone
equal me in height,
stand now beside me,
brow to brow,
and about that
oh so important night
let's talk
like human beings now.

Five p.m.
and since that time,
let people
of the dreaming pines
depopulate
the inhabited city
I hear only
argumentative whines
of trains
for Barcelona quitting.

On the heaven's black
lightning acts,
thunder
tamed
in the drama of heaven.

That's not thunder,
simply the fact
of jealousy
moving mountains even.

Don't believe the raw stuff,
stupid words and idle.
Don't be frightened
by these reelings.

I'll tame,
I'll bridle
gentry-offsprung
feelings.

Passion's measles
scabs only leave,
but happinesss
unwitherable ever.

I'll be long,
I'll be brief,
talking only in poetry's fever.

Enough
of jealousy,
wives,
tears, --
Eyelids swell
fittingly I weave.

I'm not myself,
but I'm jealous, dear,
of Soviet Russia
even.

I saw on shoulders
rags and tatters,
TB
licked them
with a sighing cough.

We're not to blame,
so what's the matter?

A hundred million
were badly off.
We can only rectify
a few
for such a gentle sport.

We're needed in Moscow,
me and you,
there're not enough
of our long-legged sort.

But with those legs
you won't be passing
through snow
and typhoid-typhoons.

Here they give them
for caressing
at banquets
for oil-tycoons.

You furrow your forehead
dont be afraid
eye-brow arcs straighten to bands.

Come to me so,
or in the cradle
of my great
big
clumsy hands.

You don't want to?

You'll stay behind and winter there?

Well that insult
to the general account
is gathered.

Just the same,
sometime or other,
I'll take you, dear,
from Paris
single
or together.

-----

neighborhood #4 (7 kettles) arcade fire

I am waitin' 'til I don't know when,
cause I'm sure it's gonna happen then.
Time keeps creepin' through the neighborhood,
killing old folks, wakin' up babies
just like we knew it would.

All the neighbors are startin' up a fire,
burning all the old folks the witches and the liars.
My eyes are covered by the hands of my unborn kids,
but my heart keeps watchin'
through the skin of my eyelids.

They say a watched pot won't ever boil,
well I closed my eyes and nothin' changed,
just some water getting hotter in the flames.

It's not a lover I want no more,
and it's not heaven I'm pining for,
but there's some spirit I used to know,
that's been drowned out by the radio!

They say a watched pot won't ever boil,
you can't raise a baby on motor oil,
just like a seed down in the soil
you gotta give it time.

-----

deluge (n.)

c.1374, from O.Fr. deluge (12c.), earlier deluve, from L. diluvium, from diluere "wash away," from dis- "away" -luere, comb. form of lavere "to wash" (see lave). The verb is from 1649.

x marks the spot, love

when asked which is my favorite movie, i might two months ago have replied the falls, but the eternal answer is and always will be Xanadu [aside: i've just noticed they're both directed by people with "green" in their name].

why xanadu? i could say that i have a fondness for bad movies (and it is, honestly, quite horrible) in the same way i prefer rainy days to sun. these things like bad films and cloudy skies come with lowered expectations and therefore they can never disappoint, but they can pleasantly surprise us.

there's much more to it than its promising absurdity; however, or lambada the forbidden dance would be my favorite film. i was four the first time i saw xanadu. i was easily awed by roller skating, disco, wardrobe changes, time travel, terry cloth short shorts and the dulcet tones of olivia newton-john.

Kira: Have you ever heard the expression "kissed by a muse"? Well, that's what I am. I'm a muse.
Sonny: Well, I'm glad someone's having a good time.
Kira: Oh, don't make jokes; I'm serious.

but i think, even as a four year old, i sensed the deeper truths underpinning all that glitz on wheels. when i was small, i connected most with two particular moments in the film. i noticed the first time i watched again as an adult, my heart still quickened during each of these scenes even though i wasn't processing them as particularly memorable or meaningful now that i'd attained reason. i've always assumed that visceral response was simply related to accessing those positive childhood memories. but now i wonder...

Sonny: I've come to take you out of here.
Kira: It can't be done. No one's ever taken anyone out of here. Not in the whole history of... the whole history!
Sonny: I'll make them let you go. Zeus! Zeus, you hear me?
Kira: Oh, God.

the two scenes of mention are the opening sequence when the muse sisters emerge, dancing resplendent with technicolor light trails, from a mural on a brick wall (electrifyingly set to ELO's "i'm alive") and the scene where a lovesick, distraught sonny skates himself hard into this same brick wall (to the tune of ELO's "the fall" - my favorite song of the soundtrack) to see if he can reconnect with his beloved muse. sonny miraculously travels through the wall and arrives on mount olympus (which is a nifty plane of tronesque laser lights and disembodied divine voices). in a nutshell, love--aided by Zeus and Hera's semantic inversion of "eternity" and "a moment"--conquers all.

i think in a land where time is meaningless and brick walls are permeable, love most certainly can conquer.

---

there are no non sequiturs and if someone built a foam house with a champagne glass bed for the grownups and a swiss cheese nook for the children, i'd buy a ticket and i'd try to get locked in. where would i sleep? outlook hazy.

In Search of Xanadu
"Hearkening back to Coleridge's poem Khubla Khan, Ted Nelson (the creator of the Xanadu in question) strives to create "the magic place of literary memory where nothing is forgotten". It's a beautiful concept, and if you've got a modem or if you're on the Net, it's a concept you can take part in."

Basically, Project Xanadu was simply the work I have been trying to do for hypertext that would allow freedom to collage, freedom to quote and inter-comparison of different versions - ease of editing that allows you freely to see what you've left in and what you've left out.
Ted Nelson

Xanadu: In Search of God, Man, and Machine
I do believe that image harks back to taking me on, taking on me.

But X Marks the Spot...
"The scope of our paper is to analyze the problematical status of x as a sign in the logic of a literary text. A concise text addressing and releasing the semiotic energy of x is a recent song by German industrial band Einst�rzende Neubauten, conveniently titled "X". "X" is the third song on Supporter Album #1 (2003), which EN recorded without the backing of a record label, relying instead upon supporter participation. We will argue that "X" chronologically recounts the different stages of a love affair gone wrong. Our interpretation will be based on a semiotic analysis which follows the narrative pattern of the song closely."

feeling good was good enough for me

cab
1826, shortening of cabriolet (1763) "light, horse-drawn carriage," Fr. dim. of cabrioler "leap, caper," from It. capriolare "jump in the air," from L. capreolus "wild goat." The carriages had springy suspensions. Extended to hansoms and other types of carriages; applied to public horse carriages (of automobiles from 1899), then extended to similar parts of locomotives (1859). Cabby is from 1859.


i like cabbies. and cabbies like me. i must conclude i am liked by cabbies to a point swiftly approaching grace. i've had more free or heavily discounted cab rides than seems naturally possible, including a 12 mile one from lakeview to hyde park one time. many a cab driver has also volunteered to let me pay on a sliding scale dependent on the amount of cash i have on my person. i have a bit of a tendency to hail a cab and hop in only to realize i am a good few dollars short of the fare, but i always check right off and say i'm going to need to pop out when we reach $4 or so on the meter. most cab drivers then volunteer to take me the full $6 away. i try to make up for it by tipping two dollars on cab fares under ten dollars as a rule. while i know this isn't very effective in making it up to those particular individuals i short-changed, the cab karma still seems heavily tipped to good.

tonight my cabdriver bought me a cup of coffee. we arrived at the coffee via this route:
cabbie[rolling down window]: are you cold?
me: no, no i am fine.
cabbie: so you do not want me to buy you a cup of hot soup or something?
me [laughing]: oh no, no thank you. it is not cold out tonight, much nicer than last night.
cabbie: yes but you sounded cold.
me: oh i did? not cold, tired i guess.
...silence for three blocks...
me: you know now you've got me thinking that coffee sounds good.
cabbie[holding up cup from cariboo]: i've got coffee, it's the fancy stuff.
me: i prefer the cheap stuff from dunkin donuts myself.
cabbie: where is the nearest dunkin donuts?
me: clark and montrose [i did not decide in this moment to reveal my near encyclopedic knowledge of the location of over 100 dunkin donuts on the north side--which certainly does merit me a free cup of coffee; however, this cup should be paid for by dunkin not by a kind stranger if you ask me].
cabbie: let me take you to get the coffee.
me[laughing]: oh no, that is not necessary it is so late but thank you.
cabbie: no come on, let us go, no worries the cab will go off for this trip.

so he turned the meter off, drove the one block to dunkin donuts, bought me a cup of coffee and insisted on going inside to get it for me, drove back up to where we were, turned the meter back on and dropped me off at home. i did say thank you and tip nicely. i said yes because well i never say no to kindness.

in here

today i confronted my sadness.

lately i've been struck by the fact that the sense of sight has entered my dream world. in the past few months i have noticed that in a few of my dreams i have been cognizant of my sight, or lack thereof. i've never really noted vision as part of my dreams previously. in one dream i was trying to look out a giant picture window at a mountain vista to see someone far off and to figure out how to close the screen door that was letting in rain. i did not have my glasses in the dream and i expressed frustration at how blurry everything was and how much trouble i was having figuring out the door mechanism. just last night i was, in a dream, telling a friend about the dreams i had had to counteract her retelling of bad dreams she had had. all of this, yes still within a dream, led her to pull out a book on dreaming to look up a passage on how two people having the same dream with different emotional connotations could be analyzed. after finding the passage she handed me the book to read it and also handed me reading glasses to put on. however, as in life, in the dream i was nearsighted and the glasses only made the words blurry. lastly one time i dreamt about waking up in my friend's apartment and in the dream i was waking up feeling disoriented and unsure of where i was and in the dream i rolled over and slowly in my head figured out where i was and decided, my eyes in the dream were still closed, to open my eyes. i was shocked, in the dream, to discover that the wall i knew would be there (and is in reality there) was suddenly transparent and i was looking instead through the wall into the closet (which is also in reality there) directly at a mirror (also there) and seeing myself as i would appear laying on my side. i promptly woke up.

this could be really interesting to explore more i imagine. in the meantime, i started my reading with aristotle.

That the sensory organs are acutely sensitive to even a slight qualitative difference [in their objects] is shown by what happens in the case of mirrors; a subject to which, even taking it independently, one might devote close consideration and inquiry. At the same time it becomes plain from them that as the eye [in seeing] is affected [by the object seen], so also it produces a certain effect upon it. If a woman chances during her menstrual period to look into a highly polished mirror, the surface of it will grow cloudy with a blood-coloured haze. It is very hard to remove this stain from a new mirror, but easier to remove from an older mirror. As we have said before, the cause of this lies in the fact that in the act of sight there occurs not only a passion in the sense organ acted on by the polished surface, but the organ, as an agent, also produces an action, as is proper to a brilliant object. For sight is the property of an organ possessing brilliance and colour. The eyes, therefore, have their proper action as have other parts of the body. Because it is natural to the eye to be filled with blood-vessels, a woman's eyes, during the period of menstrual flux and inflammation, will undergo a change, although her husband will not note this since his seed is of the same nature as that of his wife. The surrounding atmosphere, through which operates the action of sight, and which surrounds the mirror also, will undergo a change of the same sort that occurred shortly before in the woman's eyes, and hence the surface of the mirror is likewise affected. And as in the case of a garment, the cleaner it is the more quickly it is soiled, so the same holds true in the case of the mirror. For anything that is clean will show quite clearly a stain that it chances to receive, and the cleanest object shows up even the slightest stain. A bronze mirror, because of its shininess, is especially sensitive to any sort of contact (the movement of the surrounding air acts upon it like a rubbing or pressing or wiping); on that account, therefore, what is clean will show up clearly the slightest touch on its surface. It is hard to cleanse smudges off new mirrors because the stain penetrates deeply and is suffused to all parts; it penetrates deeply because the mirror is not a dense medium, and is suffused widely because of the smoothness of the object. On the other hand, in the case of old mirrors, stains do not remain because they do not penetrate deeply, but only smudge the surface.

dreams. shrug. dreams.

in addition to dreaming about discussing dreaming and having poor vision, i also started my day with someone telling me i do not suffer from a lack of sense of self. mispelling actually suggested more "cents of self" and i wanted to say i live richly. it is not so.

my life is good, better than many, and i feel blessed. and yet i can look at someone like myself, albeit younger and happier and see them say that life is beautiful and not feel truth resonating in me. how sad i have become.

at night i see streetlamps shining through trees and i think that simple things can be so unbearably beautiful. i don't have anyone to tell this to, at least anyone who will nod and hold me...dear for saying such a thing. at least anyone i've let within arm's reach. everyone i have let in has left.

i could open my arms to everyone and no one and write. i keep waiting to write until i am happy enough with the possibilty that no one is reading. i have a fear of bitterness.

i have a stronger fear of sadness. when i was seventeen my mother wanted to die, she has not been very happy ever since. i spent seven years not understanding what depression was, i thought it was sadness. i have spent five years knowing the difference between sadness and depression. i want to say it is like this:

and

but that seems too simple. it is hard to contemplate, and to look at. i do not want to be sad. i am, in fact, deathly afraid of it. afraid of it for myself and for its spoiling of all i hold dear. love has been the surefire way to turn my back on the gaping maw. when love goes awry i'm left alone with the mirror of rejection. i stare the maw in the face and wonder if i am staring down my own gullet and if this dark, silent scream caught far far back in my throat was somewhere behind my words of affection, my smiles and this reflection? no wonder they run.

why can't we know what people see when they look at us? some of us can. funny thing is i think those are the people that end up the most protected in life by others --the weak, the judged and the insecure, easily molded. while others have had such forces of persuasion at our disposal, bred possibly through the random happenstances of neglect, that no one bothered to create a version of us to hold up, show us, spoon feed with a bit of sugar added to ease the swallowing. instead we're out here, alone, struggling to make it up as we go along, waiting for the one person who sees the same thing. but perhaps, it seems, no one really likes looking into mirrors. it startles us into waking.

out there

i was wondering about the equation 1 picture = 1,000 words last night. i wanted to see what 1 picture that is worth 1,000 words looks like, and i wanted to compare it to 1,000 words. so i looked.

these pictures didn't strike me as particularly valuable. the only one i really like is a vintage postcard that says "the mysterians", which may or may not refer to this japanese film i think i'd like to see.

lacking pictures of worth, i wondered where "1,000 words" alone might take me. nowhere very exciting. drats.

ever persistent, i went looking for the origin of the phrase "a picture is worth 1,000 words". astonishingly, i haven't found it yet. i'll look in my books when i get home later tonight. feel free to elucidate me if you've got something handy.

how utterly unintriguing in its ubiquity is this phrase. the only point of interesting inquiry was my discovery, back in the image search, of this webpage about a course in heraldry. it says "the specialised vocabulary includes 1000 words, amongst them the most frequently used ones. The interest in heraldics lies within the vast poetic nature of the language, but also in the illustrations." i never knew there was a whole heraldic language, and here we find a fitting bridge between words and pictures. i wonder if this language has only 1000 words, and if this explains our phrase. but i doubt it.

it's ever so hard for me to accept not finding what i've been looking for.

so in lieu of nothing, here's an observation i made after searching on ["a picture is worth a 1,000 words"+word origins]: people everywhere are wondering if there is intelligent life out there.

why is the first search return looking for the origin of this phrase a link to this contest: "AlienAlmanac.com is sponsoring your written or artistic depiction of the Neilans and their first six months on Earth."?

why is another search return this very strange thing, which i believe might be called a story, bearing the title: "After Eve [Conte Philosophique] Part One (Chapter One): The First Ballad"? there's atlantis, aliens, gilgamesh and the garden of eden (oh and demigods) waiting for you if you choose to go there.

aliens, once twice and thrice. hmmm.

i like how aliens appear in the song "diner girls" by ill lit. one of my favorite songs by what may be my favorite band. i like this reference because it notes that the "aliens, they're coming for us. and yes, we're aliens, they're only part of us. well, aliens will eat the heart of us, my baby."

exactly my sentiments and perfectly on point with why i've never been particularly concerned with life out there. there's so much intelligent life right here. last time i checked, you were here too. do you understand why i hate it when people say things like "good luck out there"?

Q: am i the only that notices the noticing of loneliness components?
A: thankfully, no.

drowning in meaning

"semiotic fluid"

these two words came together in my head this morning. i think they glanced at each other during that time i spend each morning sleeping in 9 minute increments trying to repeat any pleasant dreams. i was riding the bus and looking at the lake when they decided to really give it a go as a couple. of course then i was just hoping a special spam with both of them would be waiting for me in my inbox so i could use the phrase in a poem.

Q: what does wendy do when words mate in her mind?
A: she investigates other minds that had the same thought.

Q: does wendy enjoy employing the third person?
A: sometimes.

[aside: "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" by The Human League is annoying in its repetition, rather hard to make any real sense of, and yet I like it immensely when the deep voice says "and so the conversation turned until the sun went down, and many fantasies were heard on that day."]

i'll trust you're competent enough to go to google or some such place and search on "semiotic fluid" if you're really that interested in all of the results. in the meantime, here are the two that intrigued me the most.

(1)

there's an article [citation: Milburn, Colin "Nano/Splatter: Disintegrating the Postbiological Body" New Literary History - Volume 36, Number 2, Spring 2005, pp. 283-311 The Johns Hopkins University Press] which you cannot read online. i can because i hobknob with librarians. if you ever need a full text academic article, give a ring to your local library. if you'd like to read this particular article let me know. i haven't read it yet but i found the instance of my words:

"Splatter," in the vocabulary of literary and cinematic horror, has come to refer to a representational moment in which the human body is violently torn asunder, shredded, sliced, hacked, dismembered, melted, and transformed, splattered as semiotic fluid into ghastly forms of monstrous abjection. As the defining motif of "splatterpunk" fictionrepresented by the wettest productions of auteurs such as Clive Barker, Poppy Z. Brite, John Shirley, Edward Lee, George Romero, Lucio Fulci, David Cronenberg, and Peter Jacksonsplatter is the figural mechanism through which narratives of "extreme horror" create meaning: in these texts, "mutilation is the message." By disrupting the body's boundaries and the social codes adhering to them, splatter viciously unsettles the economies of corporealization, and Jay McRoy has argued that at the moment of splatter, the "spectacular and graphic deconstruction/transformation of the 'human' form" enacts a radical revision of normative embodiment, suggesting possibilities of somatic experience other than those encountered in the historical accident of human morphology. Or, as Judith Halberstam has written, the bodies that "emerge triumphant at the gory conclusion of a splatter film are literally posthuman, they punish the limits of the human body and they mark identities as always stitched, sutured, bloody at the seams, and completely beyond the limits and the reaches of an impotent humanism.

this is pretty darn interesting to me given i've spent the past two years focusing most of my film watching on cronenberg, giallo (italian horror genre), and miike(japanese horror director) films. neat coincidence, and for now unfathomable.

(2)

there's something called the "book of knots" which is the manual for an RPG (role-playing game if you're not as familiar with nerds as am i) called Wonderland based on the writings of lewis carroll. i find myself musing about the writings of lewis carroll often. i cannot plumb this manual's text well enough to find my "semiotic fluid", if you do please let me know. i did glance at the secret history of the end of the universe. i did brush against the person known as the clear widow and wonder if i am she. i saw the words We Know It is Called The Department of Works in bold and was reminded of the book "the third policeman" and the movie "the falls" in a pleasant fashion. i noted the words "vacuum" and "common sense". but the only thing that grabbed me for more than a few pages was a sidebar about the caretakers. lesson learned: sidebars have sticking power. i believe that everything that follows references back to Caretakers. as a frame of reference, i believe everyone that alice meets in her adventure is considered a Caretaker. i believe that humans meet Caretakers during their "descent", and that this is known as The Royal Drama. are you ready?

A caretaker is
Mad
Because he sees the world, not
as it is but as he wishes it would
be. And for millions and millions
of years, the world has bent to
conform to his delusions.
The Eye of the Storm
Because she believes herself
to be physical thing, while her
infl uence roars around her,
corrupting, perverting, and
degrading everything within her
sphere.
Munifi cent
Because he has everything he
could ever desire and yet can
still be bigger by demonstrating
his largess.
A Petty Bastard
Because she knows she has
limits and they make her furious
and when she sees weakness and
mortality in others it reminds of
things that she hates in herself.
Paradoxes with Opposing Poles
Each Caretaker is obsessed
with something and repelled by
something else. Sometimes these
are polar opposites. Sometimes
these are the same things. And
these things are represent deep,
universal truths that would be
enlightening if one could see
through the
pageantry, rage, and distortion.
The Queen of Hearts has
sacrifi ced millions upon the altar
of the rules, but violates their
spirit with every psychotic deed.
The Duchess of Knots is
ensnared in storm of
maddening change and
tumultuous chaos, but
sponsors a massive, dark
bureaucracy whose rules and
bylaws and dusty fi les consign
those caught in its grip to stasis.
The Liebrarian worships the
sanctity of truth, while residing
over an infi nite collection of
blasphemy and perversity. She
seeks ordinal mastery over
the un-ordered and cardinal
understanding of the unnumbered.
She is a keeper of
knowledge so wrapped in lies, it
provides uncertainty.
Darker things less human rule
over chasms dedicated mirth that
are fi lled with weeping.
The Factory is, in itself the
means of production the
engines of capitalism, but they
vomit up resources without
scarcity: the utopian dream.
Full of Hatred
In a refi ned, civilized way, they
hate everything, and it gnaws at
them.

well, that's about it.

woe-illumed rabbit holes

there's a lot swirling around in here. let's say it began yesterday morning when i was riding the bus and i had a thought about motherhood. real motherhood, and possibly my first real thought about motherhood as creation. i simply thought what if i am on my deathbed and i find myself regretting that i've left nothing behind? assuming i never produce anything real and lasting in the way of art, and assuming i never end up going through with the "easiest" creation of another life, will i sit at the threshhold between here and something else and find myself feeling remorse at having left nothing behind to remember me by? i know this is a common fear and a common reason people choose to have children. i'm not sure it is a concern of mine now in the common way, i am just wondering how it would feel to get to the point of no return and realize something you never knew you wanted has been left undone.



it continued when, last night, i went out for drinks and meaningful conversation with two older women. amazing, smart, accomplished, childless and currently single older women. conversations such as this always leave me feeling affirmed and fearful of my future. [an aside: have you ever had those moments where you feel like some sort of deep transformation was supposed to have taken place but the routines of your life sink in before anything seems to change?] during the conversation, i blurted out how i needed always in my life to have at least one arena where i was able to hold onto my ideals and my romantic allusions or i would resort to heavy substance abuse. they pushed my martini glass away from me. i laughed but i think i was speaking the truth. when every ounce of my innocence or faith is squelched, i think something bad may happen. innocence and faith are thoughtfully vague and interchangeable words.

by stealing the image directly above i have justified the consumption of my first born child.
all of the images in today's blog post were arrived at by image-searching on the word "unadulterated". i've been chewing on that word since i used it in a poem yesterday.

SYLLABICATION: a·dul·ter·ate
TRANSITIVE VERB:Inflected forms: a·dul·ter·at·ed, a·duter·at·ing, a·dul·ter·ates
To make impure by adding extraneous, improper, or inferior ingredients.
ADJECTIVE:Spurious; adulterated. 2. Adulterous.
ETYMOLOGY: Latin adulterre, adultert-, to pollute

i suppose this all means i don't want to entirely grow up. i was also very adult as a young child. now i'm thinking about all my life being about meeting somewhere in the middle, and this rings some bell in my head. a bell that is tied to a string which seemingly, in my mind, has a ribbon of text re-minding me of Alice in Wonderland. so off to google i have gone, and here's what i've found:

"Food: Food is the used in this novel as a metaphor for growth. Carroll is literalizing the old notion that food helps you grow big and strong, that food is the path to adulthood. Ironically, Carroll is also pointing out that growing up is only half the way to adulthood. Alice can control her size and therefore her position as an adult with the food provided by the Caterpillar, but it isn't until the Cheshire Cat shows her the dangers of adulthood that she is able to be truly adult. Food can make you big in Wonderland (as in life) but only mercy and experience can make you wise.

Red: Red is the symbol of adulthood (literally it can be taken to refer to menstrual blood, and thus fertility and vigor). The Queen and Alice are on opposite sides of this color, Alice just growing into her adulthood, the Queen just growing past it. It is over this place, this wise middle ground, that the novel fights. Red is, hopefully, a place (or an age) of balance between rules and mercy, between young and old, between wisdom and nonsense."

there's an article about Alice and Wonderland and the Shroud of Turin that also appeared in my results. it is Easter weekend. happy easter if it is a happy time for you.

milking (more)

my fingers smell of softly souring milk as i begin this post. only mildly strange as i did take my coffee with cream this morning and i've not had cause to wash my hands since. but fitting and not unpleasant.

as i'm wont to do, i've been thinking about boys and men.

so much so i stumbled today onto a most absurd party idea and have invited some blokes i think i like quite a lot, but not per se in that way, to a sausage fest. yes i called it a Sausage Fest in the invitation, and i referenced Kubla Khan (another thing you may know i am quite wont to do). so i've offered to grill bratwurst for 8 men and ply them with beer. i've asked them to bring a film along that, in their opinion, best encapsulates "the plight of masculinity". discussion is optional. while on some level i see how this appears to be a gang-bang waiting to happen or an exploration of latent homosexuality. it isn't in the least. i think this speaks volumes about the men i have invited and the height of my regard. i won't, however, be nonplussed if nobody decides to attend.

what could or should be surprising, but isn't--perhaps because i'm the type of person who searches on the word "nonplussed" when she is writing about sausage fests (go back and follow)--is that while writing this post today somebody i don't know well is simultaneously telling me about his sex life of late which includes recent encounters with a woman he doesn't know well and the routine is that he arrives at her home, simulated breast-feeding occurs for an extended period of time and then mommy has sex with her little boy. i'm not stricken by this story, nor can i hope to explain how this conversation i'm having isn't charged or dirty to me. i'm just struck by the synchronicity of my current thoughts on a metaphorical level and another person's concrete admission. reality is a strange thing. i'm also reflective on how i prompt these stories from other people, men i mean. the stories from women always seem to flow out of our conversations and the depth of our relationship more organically.

during this reflection, i've so far paused on this essay:

Four Loves, No Loves:
The Four Greek Loves in Ulysses

---

"Amor vincit omnia" writes Virgil in his Odyssey-esque Aeneid -- "Love conquers all." James Joyce remained conscious of his classical heritage during Ulysses' seven-year composition, drawing on sources from Homer to Dante to Thomas Aquinas to Shakespeare, and love was naturally one of his topics. Greek has words for four kinds of love: agape, or spiritual love; storge, or familial love; the love between friends, or philia; and sexual love, the familiar eros.

All four figure in Joyce's massive novel, gamboling about in his tapestry of words, yet all eventually evade the two male protagonists, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom: Ulysses proves ultimately to be a love-less work.

Agape -- spiritual love, the charitable love among coreligionists or between Man and God -- seems sure to appear, given Ulysses' protagonists' backgrounds and the host of Christian symbols that flock about them. Yet Stephen Dedalus is torn with doubt in his Catholicism, and we find in the course of the novel that Bloom renounced his Judaism, first to convert to Protestantism with his father and then, conveniently, to convert to Catholicism to marry Molly: both have fallen from their original faith. Within two paragraphs of Ulysses' opening we see a mock Mass -- "Introibo ad altare Dei" (p. 3) -- and hear the lurking Stephen scornfully called a "fearful jesuit" by mocking Mulligan. Stephen is certainly no recipient of agape here! Interestingly, Simon Dedalus identifies Mulligan as Stephen's "fidus Achates" (p. 73), a glancing Virgil image to set Stephen up as "pius Aeneas", "pious Aeneas", Virgil's hero of proper behavior to gods and men. But, as we see, home-stealing, ever-jeering Mulligan is no more "fidus" than whoring, drunken Stephen is "pius".

Stephen Dedalus is a prolix speaker, an engaging theorist and theologian, well versed in ecclesiastical history, particularly in the Church's early heresies. Yet, for all his knowledge and cogent arguments, he shows little inclination for belief. His arguments on Shakespeare's Hamlet are innovative, but he freely and "promptly" (p. 175) admits that he does not believe them -- what, then of equally intricate Catholic doctrine? Is it also only a tissue of lies, good for nothing but entertaining arguments? "You behold in me... a horrible example of free thought." (p. 17) Stephen sees only "the playwright who wrote the folio of this world and wrote it badly... hangman god... [who] would be bawd and cuckold." (p. 175) Trapped in such cynicism, Stephen feels charitable impulses towards his destitute sister Dilly ("Save her," (p. 200)), but holds back to guard himself instead ("She will drown me with her," (ibid)): again he rejects agape. In the climactic "Circe" scene in the brothel, Stephen becomes a perverted Cardinal Dedalus, attended by the seven "cardinal" sins and wearing a rosary on corks and a corkscrew cross -- distorted faith and agape again.

Leopold Bloom seems more gifted with agape� than his younger companion, but even he seems never to fully realize his charitable impulses. Bloom's mind turns all his philanthropic impulses into practical commercialism. His help to the blind stripling crossing the street (p. 148) is filled with critical examinations ("Stains on his coat. Slobbers his food, I suppose...." etc. (p. 148)) and followed by one of Bloom's pseudophilosophical musings, this time, of course, on blindness. Similarly, the sight of Dilly Dedalus outside Dillon's auctionrooms (p. 124) prompts some pity -- "Good Lord, that poor child's dress is in flitters." -- but no action aside from ruminations on Catholicism and contraception. Even Bloom's early-morning care of Stephen receives rationalization: it is all for "intellectual stimulation," the possibility of making money by writing an article, or opportunities to exploit Stephen's literary and musical talents on Molly's tours. Even Bloom's social agenda, as explained to Stephen over early morning coffee (p. 526), is to "see everyone... having a comfortable tidysized income...." -- with no hint of how to achieve it. Again, we see empty charity, thought without action -- lack of agape.

Familial love, or storge, receives similarly short shrift in Joyce's novel. Stephen describes his parents as "the man with my voice and my eyes and a ghostwoman with ashes on her breath. They clapped and sundered, did the coupler's will" (p. 32) -- hardly a flattering picture. Stephen passes by his cousins' cottage during his walk on the beach, dismissing it and his parents' home as "houses of decay" (p. 33). And even among his first recollections of Paris, Stephen mentions that "Belluomo rises from the bed of his wife's lover's wife" (p. 35), a complicated perversion of normal family structure and relationships which mirrors Stephen's own unhappy thoughts. Throughout Ulysses, Stephen is tormented by the thought of his mother as "beastly dead," in part because he disobeyed her last wishes by not praying at her bedside. At last, amidst Circean revelry and hallucination, Stephen's father calls a foxhunt after his son, and his mother appears to torment him to the Luciferian exclamation "Non serviam!" -- "I shall not serve!" (p. 475)

Bloom, too, undergoes both memories of and hallucinatory reunions with his parents. Bloom's father committed suicide, a grim rejection of the family and of storge, and Bloom's son Rudy died in infancy -- his family has been cut off at both ends. Only wife Molly and daughter Milly remain, but they are both distant: Bloom has not had sex with his wife since Rudy died, and Milly lives away from home, only writing the occasional hurried letter. Bloom's parents reappear, however, to rescold him for a childhood accident (p. 358), and his grandfather Lipoti Virag "chutes rapidly down the chimneyflue" in the brothel to discourse scientifically and pedantically on sex, then to acquire a parrotbeak, turkey wattles, a "glowworm's nose," wings, and more: a horrid and unpredictable sequence. Even Bloom's locked drawers, home of his "Henry Flower" letters and legal documents, prompts unpleasant memories of his father's age and decline. Admittedly, Bloom's son Rudy appears, idealized and presented as he might have been had he lived (p. 497), and seems to link Bloom and Stephen in a father-son relation of sorts -- but Bloom's commercial mind drives out all possibility of storge� or charitable agape.

Philia, or the love between friends, is less common in Ulysses' Ireland than one would hope -- at least for Stephen and Bloom. Bloom is an outsider, and constantly made to feel it, from the newspaper office of "Aeolus" to the pub of "The Cyclops" -- in both places he is excluded, ignored or insulted. Even in "Oxen of the Sun," the narrator asks "with what fitness... has this alien... constituted himself the lord paramount of our internal polity?" (p. 334) when Bloom merely wonders over the medical students' immaturity. Even Bloom's attempts to give philia are met with a cold rebuff, such as Menton's stony coldness when Bloom points out the dinge in his hat (p. 95). And Bloom seems not to be the only one lacking friendly treatment -- Stephen is teased and ridiculed by housemates (Mulligan) and medical students (Lynch puts the boastful poet in his place, asking for "something more, and greatly more, than a capful of light odes" (p. 339), and the others attack Stephen's "perverted transcendentalism" (p. 341)).

Indeed, the world of Ulysses as well as its main characters seem bereft of philia. The intense political discussions in the newspaper office and bar show not so much a love of Ireland as a hatred of England: a love of violent battles and martyrs, hatred and killing. Bloom tries to explain: "Force, hatred, history, all that. That's not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that that is really life.... Love.... I mean the opposite of hatred." (p. 273) But he is mocked and derided by the others in the bar, even to the point of barely escaping from some violent ruffians led by the bigoted Citizen. The men of Ulysses have little agape, and Bloom sees women as scarcely better off: after masturbating on the beach, he muses on them "Picking holes in each other's appearance. You're looking splendid. Sister souls. Showing their teeth at one another. How many have you got left? Wouldn't lend each other a pinch of salt." (p. 302)

Bloom does eventually imagine a world where he is recognized and loved, in his grand hallucination of "the new Bloomusalem in the Nova Hibernia of the future" (p. 395), ushering in the "Paradisiacal Era" (p. 397). But it is, after all, a fantasy, little different from his masturbation on the beach. The first act of "the world's greatest reformer" (p. 392), the self-contradictory "emperor-president and king-chairman" (p. 393), is, Caligula-like, to "nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix ["good screw"?] hereditary Grand Vizier," then to repudiate Molly and take to wife "Selene, the splendour of night" (p. 394). There follows the most frenetic string of promises and reforms, a literal attempt to be all things to all people regardless of contradiction, all too clearly summed up in his "free money, free rent, free love and a free lay church in a free lay state" (p. 399). So starved is Bloom for care and affection that he weaves into his falsehoods even a pregnancy for himself, bearing eight successful sons. But so accustomed is he to rejection that his dream comes around to that at last, and he is martyred, burned at the stake.

Last but far from least, Joyce weaves eros, or erotic love, into his tale. As with his dreams of Bloomusalem, Bloom's fantasies of eros are idealized and unfulfilled. He has not had sexual intercourse with his wife Molly for ten years, since the death of their infant son Rudy. He carries on an almost-erotic correspondence with Martha Clifford, but takes pains to keep her at a distance, unresolved and idealized. He masturbates to Gerty MacDowell on the beach when she lets him see her underwear, but that, too, is imperfect eros, not communal but casual, a still-distant, imaginary act more in the imagination than the physical, real world. Like the temperance service in the nearby church with its mere display of the communion, it is mere appearances, not the act itself. Fittingly enough, when Bloom's alter-ego Henry Flower takes shape in the "Circe" episode, he makes love to a severed female head: an unbodied, eros-less relationship.

Erosalso appears in Bloom's fantasies, but always as perversions or prettified past events. Josie Powell (now Mrs. Breen), one of Bloom's early romances, appears in his dreams in the slum street, and chuckles "You were always a favorite with the ladies" (p. 363). But when the Nymph of his bedroom picture interrogates Bloom about his sex life, he complains of his youth that "no girl would when I went girling. Too ugly. They wouldn't play...." (p. 448). Which should we believe? The latter seems more likely. Mrs. Breen implies several romantic encounters with young Bloom, but on the verge of a more informative, definite part of the story ("you asked me if I ever heard or read or knew or came across...." (p. 367)), she fades from Bloom's dream with nothing but a tantalizing series of "yes"'s: the reader is left as unfulfilled as Bloom. In Bloom's imagined trial, his former scullery-maid Mary Driscoll comes to accuse him of "a certain [lewd] suggestion" (p. 376), but again it appears that nothing happened between them. As if to underscore Bloom's separation from eros, when the whore Zoe tries to fondle his testicles she grabs his potato talisman instead, and her request for a "swaggerroot" sends Bloom off onto an anti-smoking diatribe, hardly a fit conversation for a hopeful bed-partner.

Bloom's entire sexual identity seems warped, at least by the standards of Joyce's period. Several ladies of polite society materialize during his imagined trial to accuse him of sending them "improper letters" (p. 381) praising their underwear, offering to mail them erotica, and asking to be horsewhipped. When one of the dream-figures offers to fulfill the final request, Bloom "quails expectantly" (ibid) in eager anticipation -- not of a sexual encounter, but of a pseudo-erotic beating. Similarly, a Circean Bloom-dream metamorphoses the whorehouse madame into masculine Bello and Bloom into a submissive female to be beaten and ridden, and Bloom recalls lounging in bed wearing second-hand womens' undergarments, fantasizing over being ravished. When Bloom at last returns home, Molly complains to herself of her husband "never embracing me except... the wrong end of me... any man thatd kiss a womans bottom Id throw my hat at him" (p. 639), yet that is exactly what Bloom does -- kiss her buttocks, the most anonymous and androgynous part of her body.

In fact, Molly's final thoughts in Ulysses only underscore the lack of eros which has afflicted Bloom throughout the book. She begins to menstruate ("this bloody pest of a thing" (p. 642)) even as she considers trying to re-establish sexual relations, and moves in her thoughts to their tryst on Howth Hill -- the same rendezvous Bloom has recalled so fondly before. Yet, like all too many of the happy occasions in Ulysses, this one is in the past, dead and gone. Indeed, the book ends in Molly's "yes I said yes I will Yes." (p. 644), but the "Yes" is in the past, only another sad comment on Bloom's lack of love. Love is a thing of the past, dreams are sick counterfeits and cheats: agape, storge, philia, eros, the four loves, are forlorn.

emphasis added by me and written by, i think, joseph lockett

it's an honest mistake, made often enough, to think that someone that ponders men and boys as often as i do, and speaks so often what she thinks...well to think that i might hate them. i don't think this is true. i remain hopeful that it isn't, as i keep writing with my milky fingers which while a bit sour still mainly smell sweet. yes I said yes I will Yes.

boy, oh boy

i wish i could quit articles that reference contemporary films, but gee i suppose these films are supposed to reflect on the times. and, well, i've been reflecting on the times. failure to launch...please check out the forthcoming plog post about sex. yes, sex. so don't read it if you're faint of heart or under the age of 4.

What's Happening to Boys?

Young Women These Days Are Driven -- but Guys Lack Direction

By Leonard Sax

Friday, March 31, 2006; Page A19

The romantic comedy "Failure to Launch," which opened as the No. 1 movie in the nation this month, has substantially exceeded pre-launch predictions, taking in more than $64 million in its first three weeks.

Matthew McConaughey plays a young man who is affable, intelligent, good-looking -- and completely unmotivated. He's still living at home and seems to have no ambitions beyond playing video games, hanging out with his buddies (two young men who are also still living with their parents) and having sex. In desperation, his parents hire a professional motivation consultant, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, who pretends to fall in love with McConaughey's character in the hope that a romantic relationship will motivate him to move out of his parents' home and get a life.

The movie has received mixed reviews, though The Post's Stephen Hunter praised it as "the best comedy since I don't know when." But putting aside the movie's artistic merits or lack thereof, I was struck by how well its central idea resonates with what I'm seeing in my office with greater and greater frequency. Justin goes off to college for a year or two, wastes thousands of dollars of his parents' money, then gets bored and comes home to take up residence in his old room, the same bedroom where he lived when he was in high school. Now he's working 16 hours a week at Kinko's or part time at Starbucks.

His parents are pulling their hair out. "For God's sake, Justin, you're 26 years old. You're not in school. You don't have a career. You don't even have a girlfriend. What's the plan? When are you going to get a life?"

"What's the problem?" Justin asks. "I haven't gotten arrested for anything, I haven't asked you guys for money. Why can't you just chill?"

This phenomenon cuts across all demographics. You'll find it in families both rich and poor; black, white, Asian and Hispanic; urban, suburban and rural. According to the Census Bureau, fully one-third of young men ages 22 to 34 are still living at home with their parents -- a roughly 100 percent increase in the past 20 years. No such change has occurred with regard to young women. Why?

My friend and colleague Judy Kleinfeld, a professor at the University of Alaska, has spent many years studying this growing phenomenon. She points out that many young women are living at home nowadays as well. But those young women usually have a definite plan. They're working toward a college degree, or they're saving money to open their own business. And when you come back three or four years later, you'll find that in most cases those young women have achieved their goal, or something like it. They've earned that degree. They've opened their business.

But not the boys. "The girls are driven; the boys have no direction," is the way Kleinfeld summarizes her findings. Kleinfeld is organizing a national Boys Project, with a board composed of leading researchers and writers such as Sandra Stotsky, Michael Thompson and Richard Whitmire, to figure out what's going wrong with boys. The project is only a few weeks old, it has called no news conferences and its Web site ( http://www.boysproject.net ) has just been launched.

So far we've just been asking one another the question: What's happening to boys? We've batted around lots of ideas. Maybe the problem has to do with the way the school curriculum has changed. Maybe it has to do with environmental toxins that affect boys differently than girls (not as crazy an idea as it sounds). Maybe it has to do with changes in the workforce, with fewer blue-collar jobs and more emphasis on the service industry. Maybe it's some combination of all of the above, or other factors we haven't yet identified.

In Ayn Rand's humorless apocalyptic novel "Atlas Shrugged," the central characters ask: What would happen if someone turned off the motor that drives the world? We may be living in such a time, a time when the motor that drives the world is running down or stuck in neutral -- but only for boys.

Leonard Sax, a family physician and psychologist in Montgomery County, is the author of "Boys Adrift: What's Really Behind the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys," to be published next year.

thrums

σειρήτια - that's greek

1. I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink your fill, O beloved.
2. I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.
3. I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?
4. My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him.
5. I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dripped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock.
6. I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.
[song of solomon, chapter 5, snip]

there is more to come.

path of least existence

I just had that phrase pop into my head earlier this morning. On a somewhat related and certainly topical note:

Decoding 'Brokeback'

Why women get it and men don't go

By Brendan Tapley. Brendan Tapley is writing a memoir on masculinity. His work has appeared in The New York Times and Carolina Quarterly
Published February 26, 2006

WOMEN AS THE WEAKER SEX? Not at the 3:40. Definitely not at the 7:15. And, by a good margin, not at the 5:30 or 8:30 shows either. This is how many times I've seen "Brokeback Mountain," and each time I've checked out the crowd. The audience for the film-a film about men and masculinity, a film that can be hard on women-is curiously female. As the pre-show begins, they are still coming-often five-wide, with pocketbooks and gloves, cell phones out while bathroom visits are taken in turns. "Gail," the woman behind me whispers. "Should we call Kate? There's still time."

Ever since I discovered Annie Proulx's short story, I've regarded the work as a gift to men, an illuminating translation of masculinity, a revealing playbook for all its codes and quirks. And while reading is a solitary thing, the movies are usually a group outing. Upon learning the story was to become a film, I briefly entertained the fantasy of men dropping their snowblowers and weedwhackers, powering down their laptops, setting aside their beers and getting together for screenings at the nearest Cineplex. A Male-a-palooza.

But it shouldn't surprise me that row upon row keeps filling up with women. Maybe what should surprise me is the tsks, the sighs and the audible ache coming from these women. Their reactions to this cowboy connection-a connection that doesn't appear to include them-are as urgent and personal as mine.

In college I was invited to a different kind of cinematic outing in a friend's dormitory room. On the quad I had been told that everyone was getting together for some pizza. That wasn't a lie; there was pizza. There was also a bootleg copy of some X-rated film scrolling before five pairs of eyes. Male pairs of eyes.

I'm considering this on the way back from watching "Brokeback Mountain." If I were still in college, how many of those men would have joined me and the women for a showing of this film? Recalling each of their faces, I can hear the conversation go down:

"Feel like going to a movie?" I'd ask. It would have been a similar kind of Sunday, snowy and inert, the kind made for matinees.

"Sure, which one?" my roommate would call from under his covers.

"I'm thinking, 'Brokeback Mountain.' "

"The gay movie?"

"It's not a gay movie."

"C'mon, man. I've read about it," my second roommate in the bunk above me would dispute.

"I mean, yeah, it's got gay characters."

"Are there two guys in it that screw around with each other?"

"Yeah, but . . ."

"Yeah, we're not into seeing that," he'd speak for the other. "The movie or the other stuff." They'd both chuckle at that one. "What else is playing?"

I wasn't sure how long the film would stick around the rural wilds where I live, so even though I had hoped to go with someone, I didn't wait around. Now, thinking about those college guys again, I find myself relieved to have gone alone. Just like they wouldn't have been seen in the company of the "Brokeback" audience, I realize I didn't want company at all. I wanted the pleasure of undivided attention.

"Brokeback Mountain" deserves such quiet. It is a film that feels like a Catholic confessional-private, solemn, intimate. Even though it's an anonymous encounter for the moviegoer, it singles out everyone watching. Every time I've gone, the walls of the room fall away. Even though there's a sellout crowd, there's no one else around you. The movie provokes the silence of internal confrontation. The kind summoned on long drives and 3 a.m. wake-ups.

In the dorm room for the other matinee, there was no quiet. In fact, any quiet was quickly dispatched by the raucous and ribald. Jeers and posturing. The dark compact of a movie theater was gone too. It was plainly obvious whom you were joined by and what parts appealed to (or disappointed) which people. And, as you might suppose, the afternoon offered the opposite of interiority. No one was soul-searching in that room.

But more than all this was the fact that there were no women. I realize the strangeness of expecting the company of women while watching an X-rated film featuring them; that's not what I mean. What I'm talking about is the strangeness of men having no problem watching an X-rated film with other men. That's more of a sexual situation than you'll find in the two-plus hours of "Brokeback Mountain."

Which begs the question: How is it that men can be intimate with each other when it comes to sex but not love? The Monday morning following my seeing the film, a co-worker tells me she is eager to go. But, she says, she will go alone; she won't even bother asking her husband. "You know, I honestly don't understand. What's the big deal? I mean, he has no problem going to a bachelor party with some hooker performing in front of him and a bunch of friends, doing God knows what . . . but this is somehow more troubling?"

Troubling. It's an interesting word choice. It would be easy to argue a man's resistance to the movie stems from the depiction of homosexual sex. But why is that such a widely accepted explanation? Again, there isn't much sex in or on "Brokeback Mountain." Compared with the minutes and positions-and positions in minutes-of the dorm film, it's positively demure. No, I don't buy that. But I do buy the word. Troubling.

For something to be troubling, I'd argue, it has to be possible. The possibility of terrorism might be remote where you and I live, but it's troubling all the same because it's not impossible. It could apply. While there isn't the kind of X-rated sexuality in "Brokeback Mountain" that men are comfortable gathering around, there is a lot of something else more taboo. In fact, it's in almost every scene.

It arises when the limitations and aspirations of two people's longing lay siege to one another. "Brokeback Mountain" is a war film without the bullets, the patriotism, the acceptable camaraderie of boys loyal to one another. Its allegiance is to a principle much more universal and much more dangerous for men: the bravery of submitting to the heart. I believe that's what's troubling to guys.

Along those lines, what also may be troubling for men is that the people who are seeing "Brokeback Mountain" may come to expect their husbands, boyfriends, brothers and sons to raise an army equal to this mission: the one that recognizes the fear in love but loves fearlessly anyway.

And yet, in my multiple viewings of the movie, I've come away believing this is precisely what men secretly want. The problem is not the object of affection but the obstacle of it.

We're alive in a time where there is no masculine identity. Men define themselves by what they are not. Not female, chiefly, and by extension, not gay.

The emotional "trappings" both women and gay men personify become areas to avoid for men, who fear guilt by association in the eyes of their friends. Even watching a film whose central question is not gayness but the culture's permission of male love risks the manhood of the men in the audience.

It's wonderfully deft that a film about the archetypal male-the cowboy-exposes the central weakness of masculinity. When it comes to connection, men are the weaker sex.

Still, human connection is the human condition. How can we sidestep it and not expect profound consequences? Such a taboo-such a weakness-may be a mountain, but until it's conquered, our culture will suffer more generations of men looking to be men in the wrong places: dorm rooms, bachelor parties, Friday night wings at Hooters, corporate boardrooms. Or, more tragically, in another kind of theater: war.

Every man should have a "Brokeback Mountain," some moment in time where our desire for connection outweighs our preoccupation with perception. I don't think a woman can address this particular male desire, because the connection I mean isn't about sex or sexuality. It's about identity. And the identity of a man seems most naturally derived from intimate fellowship with other men.

Judging from the women in the audience, I don't think they'd mind being left out of that connection. I can't speak for all of them, but Kate got there on time. During one moving scene, I heard her whisper about Jake Gyllenhaal's character, Jack, "That's my man!"

Maybe, in the daring involved in connecting with other men-fathers, brothers, best friends, old roommates-in ways previously off-limits, the occupying force of masculinity will give way to a liberating one. And by men submitting to the heart, wives, mothers, sisters and best friends should benefit too. Then, there would be no weaker sex.

At the end of the film, there's a scene where Heath Ledger's character, Ennis, the reluctant romantic, tacks a postcard of Brokeback inside his closet door. For the first time, the scale of the film is reversed, and the great outdoors is overshadowed by the great indoors. Here, the grand myth of American masculinity finds its last frontier not in the vastness ahead but in the boundless inside. He seems, for the first time, triumphant.

instant gratification

alright, so i've read a lot of romance novels and today i was inspired to begin holding im conversations in romancespeak. here, for your reading pleasure, are some snippets (as well as something a bit more risque i quickly threw together for an erotic fiction gathering). i heard it from a friend that march 3rd is national romance novel day...perhaps you should grease and flex your writing muscles so that i might have a firm adversary for a sparring match.

"away"
pummelled only by the blows of his indifference raining down on her like so many unspoken words, she gathered his silences close to her like a mantle against the rising winds. afterall, wasn't hiding only part of being seen...

"brb"
was his retreat irrelevant, a storm brewing on distant horizon...a backdrop for some battle fought on a far off land with enemies she knew nothing about? a challenge he faced alone because he let no one in, he was without allies but armored to such an extent it took her breathe away each time she crashed against him. or was this a response to the intensity of the seige she had waiting, an ambush on an unsuspecting heart? one thing was for certain, his air of abstraction thinly masked the mustering of a powerful strength. a strength that had withstood her advances for many moons, shattering her own defenses all while lighting within her a secret longing...the longing to join forces and follow him into the darkening night.

"ttyl"
finally, the torrent of her gentle protestations pierced the thick veil of distraction he lingered under. a light of understanding dawned in his eyes like a ray breaking through slowly dispelling clouds. but was it too late he wondered as his softly shining eyes--those icy depths she'd plunged into so many times searching for currents that might lead to warmer waters--traced the outline of her back in the dim glow of the doorway.

"btw"
words flow from my molten core like the stirrings of desire he sparked each time he placed his quill firmly to the pad. the delicate but insistent scratch of its inked ball sent lightning bolts of recognition through her spine, which carried the electric current of his penned thoughts to that dark and mysterious place deep inside her...that jungled shore where drums still beat an ancient rhythm. a rhythm older than words and yet one he accessed every time he spun that seductive web of language around her. a web that caught her in sticky tendrils where words spun in deadly circles that frenzied the drums until the waters overflowed their banks, wetting her thighs and rendering them as silken and as inescapable as the gossamer strands still clinging to her mind.

and now for the hardcore stuff

"geography lesson"

i'd begin by running the tip of my tongue along the coast of sweden, starting at the border with finland and slowly licking up to linger at stockholm. repeat. then i'd swirl past oslo and lower my mouth, gently placing my upper lip against the seaward side of norway and taking both countries into a warm moist kiss. my tongue just can't get enough of stockholm. in my excitment i might just engulf the entire peninsula until my lips land firmly at the base, i mean border of norway, sweden and finland.

i think that's how demark is made, but i can't be sure. we don't learn very much about these things in school.

to gladiate

someone asked me if i am a gladiator, being cheesy i wanted to reply, "no, but i gladiate"...i.e. i like to make people glad...did i really need that i.e.?

anyway, i wanted there to be an etymological relation between gladiator and glad. alas. what you see here is the beginnings of a false etymology. someday i will get a few more degrees and i will spread my false etymologies to the WORLD. or maybe, just maybe, to the moon.

glad
O.E. glaed "bright, shining, joyous," from P.Gmc. *glathaz (cf. O.N. glaor "smooth, bright, glad," O.Fris. gled, Du. glad "slippery," Ger. glatt "smooth"), from PIE *ghledho- "bright, smooth" (cf. L. glaber "smooth, bald," O.C.S. gladuku, Lith. glodus "smooth"), from PIE base *ghlei- "to shine, glitter, glow, be warm" (see gleam). The modern sense is much weaker. Gladden is O.E. gladian "be glad, make glad" + -en. Slang glad rags "one's best clothes" first recorded 1902. Glad hand "the hand of welcome" (often used cynically) is from 1895.

gladiator
1541, from L. gladiator, lit. "swordsman," from gladius "sword," supposedly from Gaul. *kladyos (cf. O.Ir. claideb, Welsh cleddyf, Breton kleze "sword"), from PIE base *qelad- "to strike, beat."

gladiolus
c.1000, from L. gladiolus "wild iris," lit. "small sword," dim. of gladius "sword," so called by Pliny in reference to the plant's sword-shaped leaves. The O.E. form of the word was gladdon.

if we extrapolate!

let's meditate on "slippery," "smooth, bald," "to shine, glitter, glow, be warm" and ease into thinking about the wild iris and the little sword, then let's remember that vagina comes from sheath. [follow that link or face the tiger].

yes. i am a gladiator.

p.s.
glade
"clear, open space in a woods," 1529, perhaps from M.E. glode (c.1300), from O.N. glaor "bright" (see glad). Original meaning would be "bright (because open) space in a wood" (cf. Fr. clairiere "glade," from clair "clear, bright;" Ger. Lichtung "clearing, glade," from Licht "light"). Amer.Eng. sense of "marshy grassland" (e.g. Everglades) first recorded c.1796. this means i waxed.

p.p.s.
ye olde friendster profile once upon a time read:
"Gwendolyn is blended with natural fragrance oils to create uniquely inviting fragrances for your home. Gwendolyn is available in a variety of fragrances that were...Created by Nature. Captured by Gwendolyn."

signs of life?

miracles and tourniquets

i was really struck by the convergence of headlines this morning, especially after thinking all weekend about this image:

let me go home, let me go to him.

if you were trapped under 150 feet of mud, who would you want working up above?

Enthusiasm wanes for people power
MANILA It was 20 years ago this month that Corazon Aquino coined the term "people power" to describe the thrilling popular uprising that drove Ferdinand Marcos from the presidency of the Philippines.

In its iconic image, nuns knelt in the paths of huge tanks as hundreds of thousands of people massed in the streets of Manila with prayers and songs and courage to face down a dictator.

"A new life starts for our country tomorrow," said Aquino, who took office as president when Marcos fled to the United States on Feb. 25, 1986, "a life filled with hope and I believe a life that will be blessed with peace and progress."

It is almost painful to look back today at that moment of celebration and optimism. After two decades of continuing political turmoil - partly fueled by repeated attempts to recreate people power - this nation of political romantics seems to have sunk into a mood of weariness and disillusionment.

A new term has been coined for it: people power fatigue.

"I'm not getting emotionally involved any more," said Sheila Coronel, the country's leading investigative journalist, who was among those who faced the tanks 20 years ago. "It makes me too angry."

"It was miraculous," said an American diplomat who was in the streets during the people power uprising against Marcos. "But you can't live on miracles."

i'd like to believe in miracles, but maybe they only come into play when you've lost your arms and legs and all you've left to live for is to see the person you love one more time before you die. or perhaps they keep you breathing for four days under a mountain of mud. i'm more concerned with what happens when the people with two arms and two legs digging stop believing.

Philippines Rescuers Hear 'Signs of Life'
GUINSAUGON, Philippines - Rescue workers refused to give up hope of finding survivors in an elementary school buried by up to 100 feet of mud, digging into the night Monday after detecting what the provincial governor called "signs of life."

Sounds of scratching and a rhythmic tapping were picked up by seismic sensors and sound-detection gear brought in by U.S. and Malaysian forces.

"To me, that's more than enough reason to smile and be happy," South Leyte Gov. Rosette Lerias said. "The adrenaline is high ... now that we have seen increasing signs of life."

Still, it was hard to imagine survivors under the wet muck nearly four days after a mountainside collapsed and covered the farming village of Guinsaugon, killing up to 1,000 people. No one has been pulled out alive since just a few hours after the disaster Friday morning.

you can read more about the complications associated with arterial tourniquets. you can also make all the anagrams you can out of tourniquet and leave them as a comment.

i have ongoing, growing appreciation for the arcade fire. wake up:

something filled up my heart with nothing, someone told me not to cry. now that i'm older, my heart is colder and i cannot see that it's a lie. children, wake up. if the children don't grow up, our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up. i guess we'll just have to adjust.