Search Party

Here are a few more recent search queries that brought seekers to this temple of scribomania.

albert einstein attire

Early search for a Halloween costume? I think he mostly wore wrinkles and tweed. But it's the fright wig that will make it.

is claritin a deliriant

Not in my experience. Too much of anything can alter your consciousness though. Too much water can kill you.

caffeine hand cream

For those tired fingers. Apply for a patent! You are going to be sooo rich.

greek dragging stone uphill

Uh, Sisyphus? He's always pushing (rolling) that rock up the hill, not dragging it. And it's always rolling back down again. It's a drag, I know.

playboy mansion sculpture

You've given me an excuse to repost this R-rated masterpiece I photographed. But I wasn't at the Playboy Mansion (or, at least, not at that playboy's mansion). Click it for a close up when no one's looking.



hungry trees

Beware. Their bark is not worse than their bite.

Random Acts of Poetry

Time Travelers

Travelers in time constitute incomprehensible questions. Their bead-like eyes see heaps of ashes, a world formed, polished and ignited but always relative. You can see the space between the ellipses on their window-shade faces, always less animated than ours, and drained of perplexity. Their eyes may glow with an icy fire, but their mouths hang open like zeros. These wanderers presage a smooth cancellation of all money lust and other bubbling desires; their humanity has been crystallized. Give them a kiss and they will analyze it, turn around that affectionate moment and reject it for lacking exactitude. They see cribs and coffins as emblems of a predetermined rotation -- a paradox to be admired for its supreme inanity.

Brain Dump

Psychologically speaking, consciousness as conveyed linguistically is no longer pure consciousness, since it is impossible for subjective experiences to be objectively interpreted via symbols that function, mentally, as signs inscribed on the "blank slate" of synaptic phenomena. Consciousness, therefore, is ineffable and is experienced, by the isolated subject, as something transcendent but incommunicable. Any event that appears to take place in the world outside of an individual awareness will seem to embody the transcendent from the point of view of pure subjectivity, which can never know itself with absolute certainty.

The timeliness of all material existence transcends the functioning of the body, brain, and indeed, the mind of the knower, defined and experienced as an infinitely imploded but free-flowing point of cognition. Each mental object is perceived as an ideal system for closed-truths that must remain faithful to preconceived definitions if they are to be comprehended at all. On the other hand, any ideal system of possible psychical processes that are defined as truths will remain subject to potential cognitive epiphanies that may reconfigure the mental image, defined as the revelation of perception qua perception. Consequently, the unstable subject will "believe" himself to be engaged in "clear thinking", cogitating (and indeed, conjugating) all the essential moments of the absolutely immanent. How do you like them apples?

Word of the Day: squintifego

squintifego (adj or n)

Squinting; one who squints.

"Having lost his glasses in the fight, Clive stumbled home squintifego, bumping into light posts, parked cars, and trash cans, as if in a drunken stupor. Finally reaching his door, he stepped on the cat, which let out a piercing cry that could be heard all over the neighborhood."
--Leahcim Setag, Strange Loops

I even squint while wearing my glasses, as if it will somehow make the words I read on screen all day (I'm an editor) make more sense than they do. I used to squint when I wore contact lenses, too, but that was mainly because it actually made them focus better.

Evil doers on TV and in films tend to squint while hatching their diabolical plans. And people assume you're thinking cynical thoughts when you squint at them -- as if squinting somehow gives one the ability to "see through" facades and deceptions. Next time someone says something unpleasant to you, try cocking your head a little and squinting at them. Chances are, the better angels of their nature will take over, they'll sputter a bit, and then recant.

Or maybe they'll just ask you if you forgot your glasses.

~~~

Meanwhile....

The world's greatest mystery? (Thanks, Gil)

Link Mania

Nota Bene

New Van Gogh Painting Discovered

Van Gogh apparently never sold a painting during his lifetime, and he probably couldn't hustle this one either. It would probably sell now for millions, even though it's not in his usual charmingly psychotic style.

The History of English in 10 Minutes

This humorous video tells the story of the world's most illogical language (with the possible exception of Chinese), from its Anglo-Saxon origins to the present day. "It has very little to do with England anymore."

Obsessed: Coffee

David Lynch explains his fixation on the damn-fine bean. There are worse things to be obsessed with, I suppose. Like blue velvet.

The 15 Most Trippy Dream Sequences in Film and TV

Including a certain red-room reverie. But surely Rosemary's Baby was aborted here?

The Wizard of Oz, circa 1902-3

It's interesting to see how this story was envisioned before the 1939 movie. The costumes look closer to the original book illustrations, I think.

Yoko Ono's 1966 Indica Gallery Show

The fateful meeting place of John and Yoko. One of the pieces pictured is an apple on a clear plastic stand. You were supposed to watch it decompose. That's ironic if this is where the idea for the Beatles' Apple Corps came from.

Photo of the Week

Here's the view from the rooftop solarium of my townhouse in what everyone calls "the ritzy part" of Jersey City Heights. That green building is the rear of the house belonging to my dear friend Wardpetra B. Hopficus, author of one of my favorite books, The Brotherhood of the Unraveling Cargo Pants. Sometimes we wave or shoot suction-cup-tipped arrows at each other's windows when we're bored.

Actually, I just made that up. This is a photo I snapped from a warehouse in Hoboken, New Jersey, last summer. Don't ask what I was doing in a Hoboken warehouse. Let's just say the space had been repurposed.

I'm thinking of making this, or a slice of it, my cover photo when that fascistic Book of Faces forces us all to accept their Timeline profile-page layout at the end of the month. This photo has a nice urban feel without being too gritty, don't you agree? It represents me well. You'll have to click on the photo to see it at full size and fully appreciate what I mean. Do it now. That's an order.

Search Party

Here are a few recent search queries that brought seekers to this temple of scribomania.

forgotten buicks
What has happened to the Buicks of yesteryear? At least they're still around, which is more than I can say for the forgotten Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles of yesteryear.

magnifique vinyl
That's an odd fetish... unless your referring to retro-cool phonograph records. That would be a good name for a record store that specializes in such.

redneck neighborhood
Mine sort of is, which is why I can afford to live here, although not all the necks are red. Metaphorically speaking, it's more of a pink-neck precinct.

dusty windshield art
This could well be my medium, considering how often we wash our car.

being sure of yourself means you're a fool
Well, instant karma will get you if you're overconfident. As soon as you start thinking "what could possibly go wrong?", you're tempting the gods, as any sitcom writer will tell you.

bullwinkle with a cup of coffee
It's astonishing how many coffee emporiums have a moose as a mascot. (See here) I don't get the connection. A caffeinated moose sounds extremely dangerous. (And that's a sentence I never dreamed I'd write.)

Head Rattle

I.
Strange hoops: My wyfe recently started taking an exercise class that involves hula-hooping. I had forgotten that hula hoops still existed, but okay.... except that she practices at home sometimes, along with a DVD of vacuous-looking women twirling their hula hoops to some synthetic-sounding disco/lounge music. (Come to think of it, is there any non-synthetic disco/lounge music?) That would be tolerable, I suppose, except that the exercises don't just involve whirling a hoop around one's waist. They also require twirling one around one's arm -- which means the hoops are apt to go flying off around the room at certain critical points. I'm learning to duck.

II.
The New York Times, in its infinite wisdom, is now reducing the number of free articles that someone can peruse online from 20 per month to 10 before their toll booth pops up. You're then blocked from reading another thumb-sucker about whether or not America is divided or if a "sense of wonder" is lost because Encyclopedia Britannica is no longer publishing itself in print. We have a subscription to the Times at work, so it's not that much of a problem if I really want to read something. I prefer to read about East Timor at home on my couch, though.

III.
The checkout girl who flirts with me at Stop 'n' shop told me I owed $18.24 for my groceries, then quipped that she thought maybe something happened in that year -- meaning 1824. "Some revolution?" I said, stupidly. Later, I thought I should look it up. No revolution, but the "Chumash Revolt" took place in that year, against the Spanish presence in the Californias. (You remember the Chumash Revolt, don't you?) That same year, Simón Bolívar was proclaimed dictator of Peru. Symphony No. 9 premiered in Vienna. And Joseph Aspdin patented Portland Cement. So, if I buy the same comestibles this coming week, she'll ring up $18.24 again, and I'll be prepared to mention Chumash. "Aisle seven," someone will say.

Word of the Day: mooreeffoc

mooreeffoc (n or adj)

Something that appears strange when seen from an unusual angle.

"In addition to making humorous puns on cliches, Anthony was here allowing us to perceive a natural phenomenon from a new direction; he was fabricating in essence a mooreeffoc vision."
--Robert A. Collins, in The Scope of the Fantastic

The word comes originally from Charles Dickens, who used it in his abandoned autobiography. He was sitting in a London cafe one day and noticed that "Moor-eeffoc" is "coffee room" spelled backwards; Dickens was looking at the establishment's name from the "wrong" side of the window. G.K. Chesterton and J.R.R. Tolkien later used "mooreeffoc" in print to mean something suddenly seen in a strangely new way. (You might say that David Lynch films are full of mooreeffoc places, objects, and people.)

It's one of those words that is more commented on than actually used, but I feel up to the challenge: "Her face transformed into a frightening mooreeffoc as he looked up from the floor, with her spiked heel pressed firmly against his chest."

I'm no Dickens.

Fish Food for Thought

Agree? More clip-art philosophy by me (and Gabrielle Hamilton). You can catch the BIG fish here.

More Philosofish ~ More Twists and Turns

Much Ado about NOTHING

I was thinking today that I need some mood music, an extra-diegetic soundtrack for the quiddity of my daily existence. Feeling vexed yesterday, I could have used thumping, repetitive grunge rock. Today was busy as hell, and the hypothetical soundtrack should have included a Bach fugue or a Mozart sonata. Speed walking to the train station each morning? A loop of that amphetamine trumpet from "Penny Lane". Sleeping or meditating or daydreaming could be scored with Eno's Music for Airports. Low-grade frustration (a frequent companion) demands something minimal and repetitious. An excerpt from Glass's Koyaanisqatsi maybe? Feeling calm and self-possessed brings to mind the Twin Peaks instrumental theme, also called "Falling", although I find it uplifting. Writing, blogging -- just some random piano noodling, "tickling the ivories”, I think it's called, would do -- the sound of fingers tapping on a very different kind of keyboard.

Random Acts of Poetry

Improvisation

We, man and woman,
decided last evening
to impersonate dark trees.

Our elbows
were the crooks of branches.
Our feet disappeared in the dirt.

My thoughts hardened
to wood. You hardly breathed for fear
of roosting nightbirds.

We went too far in the forest.
By morning our fingers
scratched at the sky.

To the whack of an ax
we drank our warm rain,
mindless and mum to the root.