Tangled Up In Blue

I've got one ongoing
relationship, and that's
with depression.

Oh, it's off and on,
but yeah, it's always there;
I belong with Pooh and
his friends, probably.

I guess it's anxiety
more than anything,
an inability to match
reality with my
expectations, which
I don't think are really
so impossible.

But for some people,
even simple things
are hard to find.

Jovo Redux

Maybe this is just fate
declaring itself or
the words of a coward,
or accepting coincidences
when I shouldn't, but
I gotta say, Jovo, it
really does feel
as if we just aren't
meant to be together.

Maybe I'm just saying it
because that's how it felt
yesterday...

This Rolling Stone Gathers Moss

I may be wrong, but
if you want to be an
authority about
something, you probably
ought to be able to see
beyond your preconceived
prejudices about the 500
best songs.

Or you know, I may
simply be upset
because you ignored
so many of my favorites,
so you could cover
some fairly familiar
territory, which, still,
just feels wrong...

Twilight of the Old Morality

There comes a time
when all things
must fail.

There comes a time
when the inevitable
becomes, well...

There comes a time
when all the old barriers
fall apart and reassemble,
back to the forms they
once held, but better.

There comes a time
when the things that
begin come to an end.

There comes a time
when endings produce
new beginnings.

There comes a time
when, yeah, even time
doesn't seem so important.

There comes a time.

Book Terrors...! VII: The Advanced Genius Theory

If anyone I've encountered
recently would qualify
as the antithesis of DFW,
it would be Jason Hartley,
co-founder of the
Advanced Genius Theory.

Anyone familiar with my poetry
over the past four idylls
will recognize a certain amount
of similarities between this
theory and my own thoughts,
but suffice it to say,
Mr. Hartley figures it's
about time to stop
worrying about reasons
to hate something and
start figuring out why
you can probably like it.

So it was pretty awesome
to read his thoughts,
discover another Stossel,
a kindred soul made of rubber
(making it easier to
bounce around, naturally).

It makes me want to write
a lot more about
all the things I like,
and all the reasons
to like them, no matter
what other people say,
how many reasons
there are to think
anything but what
I've been for some
thirty years now
(yes, being my own
kind of genius,
I was formulating
my interests straight
from the womb).

I would like to refine
Hartley's theory,
broaden it past just
those recognized geniuses
and consider those never
given their due, but who
still deserve it, or maybe
I'll just carve a tree
so as to guarantee
that I will make your library
at some point.

...What was I saying?

Book Terrors...! VI: Continuum

It's funny to hear
DFW describe
entertainment as
filling a void like
an addiction, and
certainly how he
talks about his own
habits, because he
truly doesn't seem
to have any reason
or interest in his,
and so certainly
for him, his reasoning
is sound; for some
points of view, maybe
I could be seen as
similar, but I would
disagree.

I don't use it to substitute
social interaction, or
to glut on it (even when
I was at my "worst," I
never just watched
for the sake of
watching, but because
I was legitimately being
entertained, and this
is not even to count
all the hours I have
spent reading any
number of a thousand
things, in print and
online).

I am not inherently
someone who will
benefit a great deal
from extended
interactions with
other people, and
that has little to
do with "shyness"
or social anxiety,
so much as a lack
of basic common
demonitators that are
anything less than,
well, entertainment.

It just so happens
that I benefit more
from experiencing
what other creative
voices have to say,
and if I happen to
be entertained along
the way, then so much
is the better, and really,
why should I complain
about that? Where
would it improve my
circumstances to belittle
the results of what I
think is a perfect
culmination of mankind's
potential, when all the petty
differences are truly set aside
(like every two years
at the Olympics)?

Particularly as an American,
where it has become our
national drive to engage
in these activities?

Louis Hartz apparently
thought to note that
Americans tend to
avoid extremes, which
I would say is exactly
what helped forge
our country in the first
place, and no matter
how many examples
you can think of
that would contradict
this, just within
the counterculture
and the void it's left
us for the past forty years,
I would still argue that
we're still driven by it,
and the only way the
American Dream will
ever truly be broken,
when we trade
bread and circuses
for coliseums and empire,
is when we change that.

Yet I don't see that happening;
where would be the fun in that?

Natural Selection

Of all the rational ways
to express oneself,
I believe the majority
of us choose to do
so in irrational ways.

I think it's why nature
has a way of avoiding us,
not because we're
the top of the food chain
(because I hardly believe
anyone really wants
to boast about that,
whether or not it's
even true, so much as
easy to assume, because
we have so many more
ways to kill things
in abundance)
but because nature
is inherently rational,
even all the weather
we find so inconvenient.

Our greatest form of
expression is irrationality,
the ability to know what
the right thing is and decide
not to do it.

I wouldn't particularly call it
evolution, and in that way,
I've never subscribed
to "survival of the fittest,"
because any fool can survive,
and any fool can make
a considerable collection
of things (even trash, and
not just metaphorically,
counts, I might add, and that
shit is free), but it's how
we treat each other, how
we refuse to accept
that our lack of rationality
impedes us, and I say
this from the perspective
of a considerably irrational
mind, because that's
the only way I know to
confront the irrationality
around me.

Yeah, that really doesn't make
any sense, and yet, that's what
I do, out of sheer frustration,
because I keep hoping
and expecting that people
will learn to be less selfish,
and I'm not talking by way
of symptoms, of material things,
but in the way they approach
others, about knowing that
they can't just assume the world
will accept every ill-considered
thought they have.

That's what school ought to do,
if parents won't, instead of
cramming "knowledge" only
intended to act as an example
(and yet graded as though
life depended on it), try
and see what wisdom,
a little common sense,
can accomplish.

I'm not saying people
are stupid, but they
sure like to act like it.

Predictably
irrationally.

Book Terrors...! V: Deep Survival

As long as a thing is possible,
it lasts forever; there is no
such thing as extinction
for creativity, for what
the human mind
is capable of.

This is why I must scoff
at the traditional beliefs
that continue to suggest
that what we have can
be lost, because it's
not in what we have
but what we can do
where our greatest
treasures lie.

As hard as it is to believe,
all that we have now is
not even the beginning
of a pinnacle of
human civilization,
because that pinnacle
is in our minds.

I am not a pessimist.

I am a sorry realist,
an unfortunate dreamer
of impossible things,
forever restless,
unsatisfied with
what I see around me,
because all I see
is potential.

It makes me somewhat surly,
but I would rather be that
than to accept things
and settle for what's easy.

If I were a recent movie,
I would be The Imaginarium
of Doctor Parnassus, and I
am always fighting Mr. Nick.

That's why I believe in war,
because only in destruction
can new things be made,
and it is in a million little
battles every day that
all things are achieved.

If we stopped
just for one second
to acknowledge that,

we might have the beginnings
of true wisdom among us.

Book Terrors...! IV

Here's where we get to
Deep Survival.

The Great American Novel
isn't about laboring over
your story, but rather about
simple inspiration,
whatever form that may take,
if it happens to be
immediately relevant,
or a grand spectacle
that can't be appreciated
until decades later.

I guess I simply don't understand
how DFW fretted so much
over writing, whether it
was some sense of obligation
he'd picked up (growing
into all sorts of apparent
privilege that allowed
him to be singled out
before he'd actually
accomplished anything)
or his own psychoses.

Because for me, ideas
just seem to float around.

I don't get how any writer
ever begs for material,
because I guess I assume
that writers write
because they can think
more creatively than others.

But that's not really the case,
because the arts are too
alluring to pass up as
a vanity, which is a comment
I direct not at DFW,
but for all the sycophants
in general, who take it
for granted, rather than
from inspiration, that
they can make a living
doing this stuff.

But I'm not bitter;
I'm with ED.

You don't need to be
acknowledged
in order to do this.

Book Terrors...! III

Here's the deal:

The Hungry Mind consumes all,
the Hungry Mind is like a sponge,
the Hungry Mind will never give up,
and quite frankly, I simply
don't understand
how the Hungry Mind can ever
be sated.

The Hungry Mind is what we think of
when we consider literary fiction,
the kind of storytelling that isn't
satisfied with anything less than
an expansive view of even
the most common things.

The Hungry Mind is what turned
the Trojan War, the legends
of great heroes like Beowulf,
King Arthur and Robin Hood,
the Three Musteteers,
Sherlock Holmes & Hercule Poirot,
Doc Savage & Superman,
Jason Bourne & Jack Bauer
into folklore and literature.

The Hungry Mind cannot be
turned off or lost;
it's Crime & Punishment
in the year 2666.

Even if everyone stops reading,
someone will still tell stories,
and all of it will come back.

The Hungry Mind is mankind's
indomitable legacy.

The Hungry Mind
is a state of mind,
the incurable mind,
the precocious
and pretentious
and that little voice
inside all of us,
goading us on,
the devil and the angel
sitting on our shoulders,
waiting to see which side
will win, the battle
of good & evil,
a game of backgammon.

The Hungry Mind
is constant as the Northern Star,
and makes all the world a stage.

I feel pretty good about it.

Book Terrors...! II

The problem that literature
faces is that its most popular
elements are duplicated
and improved upon
in film, television, and comics.

If you want to know the real
reason why Harry Potter became
so huge, it was because
it was so unusual for books
to create something new
and enticing, because for
so long, we've buried their
impact within mounds
and mounds of obscurity,
so that, sure, people will
read, but only because
they consider it
a cultural necessity.

It's the same thing
that happened to poetry,
which has become such
an isolated activity
(which, again, DFW observed),
it might as well not be
taking place at all,
or in secretive cults,
for anyone cares.

It's just not relevant,
and that's what we've
done to it ourselves.

That's the sort of thing
that really needs
to be addressed,
or I will continue
to be depressed...

Book Terrors...! I

More poetry inspired by DFW:

It's uncomfortable to suggest
that literate reading is somehow
in danger when I'm not sure
it's ever really been in fashion.

I believe that we've always been
far more interested in popular
material, and that's how it
all got started in the first place,
what the bards sang about.

The problem seems more,
to me, about the extreme
abundance of such material,
that everyone can get this
stuff published, and that
there's no room and hardly
any real attention outside
out ladies reading circles
to anything that might
actually challenge you.

We start it in school,
scaring students into
thinking there are right
and wrong ways
to read the serious kind,
sober minds that must
be suppressed in order
to forget how much
of a pain it was
the first time around.

The problem with literate
reading and writing is
that it's stuck in the same
traps as everything else,
exclusive, constricting circles
that don't know what they have
and therefore hurt more
than help what they're
fighting to save.

But as I said,
the situation is
not as dire
as it seems.

But we are all
alarmists.

To His Coy Mistress

(Sue me, dead white poet, I like the title)

The only real version of romance
that I've gotten to enjoy
are the women I've had
the pleasure to dance with,

oh, not real dancing,
but the metaphorical kind,
where the only movement
is a game of mental chess,
which I suppose I must
thank them for, because
I do enjoy that sort of thing,
and this is the only real way
I get to do that.

Such interested parties
seem to come rather
plentifully, because,
rather secretly, I think
that's the kind of everyday
magic that romantics
are looking for, maybe
not the sweeping off
of feet that people seem
to believe in, but
the kind that can be
practiced to no significant
harm, so long as it's
amusing. Now,

I may be wrong about that,
and maybe that explains
a lot of things, but for now,
I will continue to indulge
this delusion.

Samaritan Snare

I sorry, but there's really
nothing more idiotic
than trying to do
the right thing without
actually thinking it
all the way through.

I much prefer an
analytical approach,
one that calculates
the actual benefits
to all involved, rather
than the one that
merely appears
to be good.

I'm a walker, and yes,
I understand among
many other things
it's easy to find people
who can't do that
very intelligently,
but to give credit
where it's valuable,
how about stopping
to wonder if whether
it's really worth anyone's
time to try and give me
the right of way, when
if you just went, we
would both benefit
exactly as it should
have played out.

David Foster Wallace,
to go back to him,
believes it's inevitable
to depend on some sort
of domineering leadership,
and that's another thing
I vehemently disagree
with him on.

To my philosophy,
that kind of reasoning
is the same as
the samaritan snare,
the belief that assinine
thinking actually
making its own
kind of sense.

Leaders only exist
to help guide us -
I would more properly
call anyone who aspires
to such a position
a guardian, but then
where would be
the glory?

It wouldn't be as
prestigious, just
as doing the unnecessary
good deed would
not make you feel
good about your own
supposed charity.

Well, we don't need
charity, and we don't
need greedy leaders,
all we need
is a little common sense.

12 Marks

These are some of the superstitious marks
I try to remember along one of the final
stretches on my hour+ walk to work:

I. the metal wheel rims someone
used as part of a fence, and recently
covered with wire gating, thanks
to new puppies, on S. Hancock

II. 1135 Rockwood, where the Mr. Roboto/
Tin Man/Woodsman/Nick (as I've variably
called him, in part thanks to my new
renewed enthusiasm for Oz) hangs
from the top of the porch

III. the phallic crack that seems
to have weathered noticeably
over the past few months

IV. 1125 Rockwood, where the terriers
guard the inside of the picture window

V. Chamberlin Academy on Slater,
where the events board must be observed

VI. the sneakers hanging
from the power lines on the same avenue;
there had briefly been a second pair

VII. 1106 Florence, where
there's a green ramp, which I
only noticed recently
(green being my favorite color)

VIII. 1101 Florence, the brick house
with its guardian ladybug

IX. 1065 Florence, right next
to te brick house, ith guardian ants

X. 1059 Florence, the infamous
"Not For Sale" car rotting
into the dirt driveway

XI. 1057 Florence, with its collection
of aging cars, right next to "Not For Sale"

XII. 1037 Florence, which is
indicative of how ephermal
all these landmarks are, because
it's a house that was for sale,
at least when I started taking
this route, seemingly for
the longest time, but has now
been occupied for so long,
I started confusing it with
a similar house a little earlier
on the avenue

Sleeping Dogs

There's nothing more peaceful
about a dog than the sleeping state.

Sometimes, when I'm looking
at a sleeping dog, I think
that dogs are best when
they're sleeping.

I know that's not very kind,
and really, dogs are very charming,
but they never look better
than when they're asleep.

They seem to reach
their most noble state.

It's also cute
to hear them snore,
or to see them squirm,
and to speculate
as to the cause.

Is it some happy dream,
so lovely treat,
or perhaps a fitful hunting?

I don't like the barking,
but as to the running,
I think that's second best.

I don't care to think of dogs
as our guardians - why the hell
make them our best friend
and bodyguard at the same time?

No, they're too friendly,
and far too kindly,
in a sweet and restful
repose.

Rich People

The problem with rich people is they
mistakenly believe everyone wants
to live like them.

***

The pseudo riche
are drunk on their
class model, crumbling
like a house of cards
with no real support
at its base and
the stock market
as its bored game.

Living the New Fade

Here’s how to define the New Fade:
it’s the Age of Mouldwarp,
in which everything new is
being worn into old very quickly,
so that it’s very hard to keep up.

That’s it, really,
that’s your whole
explanation right there.
Everything else is
in the details.

Imagine, as David Foster Wallace does,
this phenomenon as what
you can view on your
television, but take away
what I perceive to be
his cynicism, because
as a citizen of this Age,
of Mouldwarp and Entertainments,
I view it as opportunity,
not like the American Dream,
but rather the chance to step
beyond that, to wake the
sandman and explore
the Metaphysics of Value,
to shatter all the old
expectations and forge
an Age of Possibility.

I don’t know what Peter Ackroyd
was thinking, but when
he first coined the term
Mouldwarp (or at least
as far as I can tell),
he seemed to grasp
exactly what the New Fade was;
he let the Glass Walls Be
and he watched as Smiley
toiled in the field, because
that’s what needs to be done,
theoretically the last time
anyone will really be able
to tell the difference
between reality and
what the Great Bird of the Galaxy
saw when he hitched the wagon train
to the stars.

I’ve been struck, recently,
by how Rowling and Clarke
produced a new age of magic
(which Ackroyd sees
as the successor to Mouldwarp,
some three hundred years hence,
right before all our present
knowledge becomes a jumble,
a sphinx, guarding the knowledgeable
from the ignorant, as all
good stories do, where the
idea of imagination
comes from) where no
males have bothered,
conjuring Potter and
Norrell and Strange,
masters all of the art
of rediscovering lost things
almost by accident
(if careful study
may be called that),
are all themselves
male. What that says,
I don’t know.

The New Fade is an age
that seeks to eliminate
and illuminate,
cross-pollinate,
create a new state
that does not
recognize the ability
to ignore new things
simply to mollify the old.

It is not meant simply to howl
against perceived injustices,
but it spins like a widening gyre,
and it sings of itself,
and in the valley of Elah,
where the mad god Ellah waits,
forever perched between
a constant battle of good and evil,
which can be overlooked
but never underestimated.

In the New Fade,
it’s possible to
walk in grey lines,
which are the blurs
between black and white,
yin and yang,
to everyone become
a bodhisattva,
because there are
no longer limitations,
only invisible
barriers meant to be
pushed aside,
dream states
to waken from,
games of chance
to play, whether
you understand the rules
or not; you can be mad
if you lose, because
there are always
other pursuits.

In the New Fade,
you can watch as
others cling to
their old rules,
the ones quickly becoming
irrelevant.

In the New Fade,
there are no classes,
only those struggling
to maintain them.

In the New Fade,
there are First Worlds
and Second Worlds
and Third Worlds,
but there is a far better
fight now to abolish
them than ever before.

Instead of exploiting
everyone, there is war
to try and set it right;
is the price so high
to condemn those
going about this
selfishly?

What would be the point in that?

It’s the New Fade;
this too shall pass.

Life’s not perfect
in the New Fade;
I never meant to
suggest that,
but where would
you rather live,
where there is
possibility and hope
or where it’s
interesting to talk about,
where it might make an
interesting story,
but a misery to
actually be?

The New Fade is like
a challenging story,
which few might
actually appreciate,
but is far better
and more likely to
be remembered
than the most popular and
bestselling material.

The New Fade is
memory, that aspect
in all of us that
sees death as something
that brings an end,
rather than as a challenge,
and memory is our
effort to meet it,
in whatever way we can.

The New Fade is the culmination
of every doomsday prophecy.

The New Fade is the End Times.

The New Fade is 2012;
writing this in 2010,
yes I repeat, the New Fade
is 2012 -

It is a cycle,
and in that sense,
I do agree that
Tolkien was a genius,
that all he spent his time
on, when he labored
on everything that
wasn’t The Hobbit
or The Lord of the Rings,
it was fruitful scholarship.

The New Fade will be,
in hindsight, an Index,
just another page of history,
something to glance over
and probably forget all about,
how important it was,
how quick, how fleeting;
indeed, every bit the
quickened pace its
name is meant
to suggest.

It is every bit
ephemeral.

It can be blown out
like a candle,
it is as fragile
as an alliance
of musicians,
like the Beatles,
or the lease on life
of Mozart, why
so many of the greatest minds
live fast and die young,
scrambling to complete
themselves.

Maybe baby;
no, for sure!

It’s why so many
great talents are
overlooked; yes,
observed, but passed by
as the search continues,
because the New Fade
is hungry, far hungrier
than can be sated.

Is it any wonder
that we live in such
a robust time
for waistlines?

You will find the great girth of Henry VIII here!

The New Fade comes with clews,
which tie the masts of the pirate ship,
and we’re all playing the game of larceny,
as we dance to the beat
of whatever we’re listening to now.

It’s simple economics.

The only conceivable
problem is trying to
maintain the Self in the New Fade,
because that’s both the risk
and reward to be had.

Common Sense IV.

It's hard to have Alex Karev tact
in a tactless world.

It's hard not to be Gregory House,
who has all the respect and still
thought too forthright.

It's hard to live in a world
with no tact, because
Alex Karev is the devil.

Common Sense III.

The only thing
worth fighting for
is common sense.

Common Sense II.

A boss is an employee
with a big head, and
only a veneer of
common sense.

Common Sense I.

I swear, I didn't know
I was a goddamn wizard
until I started using
magic that befuddled
and bewitched colleagues
and customers in a bookstore.

Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself

It's strange to consider
how someone defines
themselves, because
that's what a lot of
our existence ends
up being about.

It can sometimes
seem as simple as
the labels "rich"
and "poor," but
on the everyday
average, most
people are really
thinking in more
subtle terms,
their likes and
dislikes, of which
there are so many
as to make it useless
to try and index here.

The point is, it
becomes still more
strange when you
begin to consider
that the way you
view yourself
really is far more
subjective than
you can begin
to consider yourself.

It's the problem
of existence,
the existential angst,
that bothers so many
people, why we ever
consider death at all,
why we fear it, why
we think of some
lives as wasted
or so significant,
what distinguishes
our perceptions
of happiness
from those of
sadness.

You know who
you are (or, at
least, really
ought to) but
for other people,
it's an entirely
different matter.

That's why it's such
a great game to
track celebrity,
because it seems
to be the sport
where we convince
ourselves that we
have an excellent
chance of really
knowing a complete
stranger.

How often are
we successful
in that pursuit?

I wonder if there's
a branch of study
about that?

Anyway, it's
a fun thing
to think about,
and maybe even
might help define
yourself, if you
were looking
for something.

Quiche

That's another thing
I'd like to try for no
other reason than
Jeff Smith inadvertantly
made it sound so
appealing.

(Stupid, stupid
rat creatures...)

The Uninformed Observer

There's nothing so pernicious
as a person asked for an
opinion and gives one
without being the least bit
informed about the subject at hand.

It's the same as leaders who
govern themselves by the standard
of being strongly advised
against strong opinions.

I don't understand why
we've allowed ourselves
to believe those with
the most power ought
to be the "least offensive."

I understand that it's
good to have someone
in authority who is
capable of being diplomatic,
but when you instead
choose that person
only on the basis that
they won't rock the boat,
then what you're really
building is a boat
that can hardly be expected
to withstand even
the tiniest of storms.

One wave and they're gone;
who cares how friendly they are?

That's the reason why
we find ourselves in a
continual economic
bear-and-bull tug,
because everyone's
too drunk on their
own stupidity to notice
that there are smarter
ways to do things.

People should be able
to do what they're hired
to do. Right?

Jovo

Jovo,
it certainly
was glad
to know you,
but I'm
basically
a pessimist.

I don't know
that we'll get
that chance.