My Little Monster

Magikano

Fallen Angels

Fragments

He wasn't happy in high school and he didn't speak to people often. When he did, he spoke of angels.

or

By the time the company decided to offer a large salary to retain the employee, he had already turned to a mist, cascading backwards, exiting between the atoms of the walls.

Kyoukai no Kanata

Wittgenstein's Habit

Life is more enjoyed with risk. People sky dive and use strange drugs, for something different and the uncertainty of what may happen next. Other sorts of risks can be taken that are as dangerous but without action. Some people, dependents, or things inadvertently anchor you. Loosening anchors in order to experience a disengage from reality bears risk. Slowly letting the string run between your fingers, you kite upward into the atmosphere, gliding and hovering. Below, one small anchor holds down the end of the string, this thin filament that is the only way back. The ecotone between fugue and non-fugue states. It's the sky diver just before pulling the chute cord; it's the drug beginning a road trip on the body's interstate.

Ashes of Time Redux

Tale of the Phone Scammer

Under dim lights, the scam artist absentmindedly dialed the next phone number on a wrinkled piece of paper. It rang and went silent.

"Hello? Are you the homeowner? Am I speaking to the homeowner," he asked.

The phone was silent for a moment before a quiet, short-breathed whimpering came through the receiver.

"Nothing is real nothing is real nothing is real nothing is real..."

The scammer pulled the phone from his ear and looked down on it ("Nothing is real nothing is real nothing..."). He slowly looked around the room filled with dim light, which made the night coming in from the window seem even darker. He raised the phone back to his ear, and heard silence.

"AYEEEE! HAH-HA-HA-HAH-HA!"

A cackling laughter, followed by a click and a dial tone.

The scam artist called the number a few times over a period of years. There was always a busy signal.

More Things Seen & Felt

Nothing feels real here
besides the sky
like wandering onto a movie set
outlines of things propped by boards
nothing behind them
facades dyed red-blue by a volcanic sky

Chungking Express

Musaigen no Phantom World

Work (Fragment)

I work between hallucinations; alternating between ecstasy and anguish.

The Shell

The boy saw the violin on the table. He knew what it was and what it does, and he also knew he could not make it do it. He sought to understand it in his own way. So he picked it up close to his face and looked at the planes of wood; he tilted it and looked at the thin width that made up the perimeter of the F-hole. He could not see any tree rings. Holding it away from himself, he tried again. He saw the sleek curvature of the wood and the spines that were the tuning pegs and the darkness of the F-hole. He brought the violin to his ear and found he understood. He heard the sound of the forest.



*** Note: While very high, I was reading a psychology book that mentioned a test where an image is shown and the patient must make up a story about the image. The example mentioned was a boy and a violin. This is the story I made up.

Dogs of New York

Dogs of New York

Nisekoi

Mushishi: Belldrops

Dogs of New York

Images of Love

Dogs of New York

Stardust

Eromanga Sensei

Decisions

Part of me wonders if I will get to the end of my life without having made up my mind about staying in it to begin with.

The Upshot

Broken Flowers

Chungking Express

Chungking Express

Sleeping In

A Small Happiness

One thing that causes a surprising spell of happiness is a squirrel's hop.
Horses and dogs have a gallop where the front and rear limbs alternate touching the ground - the visual effect being that of a seesaw, or an animal shaped rocking seat attached to a large spring, found on many playgrounds.
When a squirrel moves in a straight line toward or away from me, it's almost like the limbs never leave the ground - the visual effect is of vibration, skittering. And it makes me happy.

Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale

On Watching and Memory

One of the ideas in D. F. Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again is the idea that the process of recording an experience removes one from the actual experience; one becomes a watcher of themselves recording an experience, much like watching television (which Wallace states on its most basic level is watching furniture). Looking back on the picture or watching the film becomes the reliving of having watched something; therefore, one was never truly there to begin with. The example in the book is a cruise “participant” actively filming every, to the most mundane, detail of the experience thereby creating ‘this Warholianly dul thing that is exactly as long as the Cruise itself.’ Photographing something involves thinking about the presentation of the subject rather than the subject in and for itself. This train of thought cannot quickly jump tracks to actively experiencing the subject. After taking a picture for social media of one’s well-presented food, one may find themselves with a mostly empty plate by the time one is able to enjoy the meal.

Jorge Luis Borges mentioned in an interview that his father had brought up the idea that the repetition of remembering a memory distances one from the true memory; each subsequent reliving becomes a new image of the memory, more distorted than the last. This idea is being formally researched by the scientific community in the field of false memories. Pairing this idea of distorting memories by recollection with the idea of never having had the experience due to archival tendencies, every time they review their images and films of events, each person essentially becomes an author of fiction.

I don’t watch television and I’m rarely filming or taking pictures; I do spend a lot of time thinking about the future, and planning contingencies, out of a weak form of fear. In the former, I am arguably living in the present, even when sitting still (what some would consider doing “nothing”), and focused on the small pleasures and intrigues. In the latter, it could be said I am not enjoying the present enough. Paradoxically, a difference exists between what is said (viz. what people believe I must be constantly thinking about) and everyday action. External judgements aside, I think both are necessary for taking care of oneself. To use a trite analogy: sailing can be nice in each moment, but a boat without direction is drifting, potentially toward trouble. An additional nautical quote (using Paulo Coelho’s phrasing) is “a ship is safest when it is in port, but that's not what ships were built for.”

Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!

Scenes from "The Somnambulist"

Ralph Gibson

Random Dialogue

[an office with five rooms]

"Do you know who the previous tenants of this space were?"

...

"It was Amnesiacs Anonymous - an organization dedicated to the forgetful."

...

"It's obvious to any observer. Where else would you find an Exit sign above the only door in or out?"

Fading Light

Eromanga Sensei

Here Comes the Rain Again

Musaigen no Phantom World

Refraction

The shadow of a raindrop is light.

Images of Love

Individual (fragment)

Individualism plays a big role in the US, from the founding of the country to the way companies advertise in the present day, and is the zeitgeist upon which capitalism and meritocracy rest. The evolution of society is greater than the accomplishments of any one individual¹; arguably, humans need to cooperate in an almost ant-like way, though, with the added psychological complexity that comes with all parties feel they are receiving something more immediate than the longer-term, bigger picture goal.

Industrialization continues to progress with robots and AI performing increasingly complex tasks, in some cases, more affordably than a human being. If new jobs are created in the process of more simple jobs being replaced by machines, it's unlikely that the person who filled the replaced role would have the education, skill, or opportunity to fill the new and more complicated role. There is fear as to what humans will do when machines replace them in the majority of jobs; however, I believe that is the moment when Individualism and the individual will truly reveal itself². When meaning and purpose are no longer fed through a job, and basic services are still provided in an almost effortless way, people will need to individually confront their existence. A grouping mentality, though satisfying in a shallow and short-term way, will likely be just a psychological band-aid in coping with a radical change.

---

¹ Admittedly, the accomplishments of multiple individualistically-minded people yield the result of advancing society, even if their pursuits are performed out of single-mindedness.

²  The individual may come about sooner than a machine driven society through virtual reality. This may be Individualism in a more Solipsistic sense.

Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem

Kyoukai no Kanata Movie: I'll Be Here - Mirai-hen

Love and Life (fragment)

It's one of those decisions you make, like a fork in the road, consciously or unconsciously. You end up far along one of the paths and if it turned out to be the wrong one, you have to hope that it loops around at some point. Maybe it will rejoin the main path prior to the fork. It goes something like this, and I wind up in my head more than my body.

Summer's Close

Eric Nash

Images of Love

Spirit of Winter

I was once in love with the Spirit of Winter.

Long legs leading to long slender arms,
small hot center of a dying star
within the cold space of body,
a bare twig in one hand,
withered spring buds in the other.

I'm at my weakest in Summer, he said.
And he smiled, though warmed through like a stone,
those arms embracing the plants he cared for
with a touch not hot or cold, but like the air,
without them shrinking back from frost.

In Winter I could touch you only briefly
before the warm roots within me cooled.
You stood apart, head lifted to the passing of woodsmoke,
delicately stepping over Summer's bones.
You shook the snow off to no avail.


(In the style of Dorianne Laux)

Tonight, Tonight

I'm leaving this here as a buoy, a stake dropped that sinks halfway in the sand of time.

Jessica said she's getting married.

Kyoukai no Kanata: Shinonome

Icebreaker

The inevitable question comes up: What do you do? The intended meaning being for a "living" (viz. for money). The answer will be interpreted under that Western societal assumption¹.

'I'm a writer.'
'Oh, what have you published;' or, 'Have I heard of your work?'

The conclusion drawn from the answer is that the activity must result in receiving compensation, in this case through the act of publishing, or acknowledgment within certain circles. "Fame and fortune" is very much a Western obsession², and through Google Books one can see the phrase itself has been consistently publicized going back to 1800³.

There is also an identity crisis in the answer. Rather than responding with what one does, the activity becomes the self-definition of who that person is and not simply an activity. 'I am a writer' instead of 'I write.' This also isn't a very accurate portrayal of a personality. Writers may share some common traits, but their chosen genre and syntax reveals much more about their personality than the overarching theme of writing.

---

¹ Admittedly, other geographic cultures may be focused on income or fame inducing activities. All cultures likely have activities that are enjoyed without producing income or fame. The question is if discussion centering around remuneration and renown is a ubiquitous human trait or something culturally specific. I would venture that most cultures consider such discussion impolite, which is why Western society dances around what it really wants to know with banalities such as 'What do you do.'

² Although it's probable that each term may hold a different meaning in other cultures, or that the English meaning referenced here is attached to a different word in other languages. In fact, upon translation of the phrase, one can see the following: a steady decline in use in French, negligible usage in Russian, no usage in Hebrew, and peak usage in German in the 1940s followed by a steady decline. Spanish usage showed a steady increase through time, and simplified Chinese ran hard with the phrase beginning in 1980.

³ Consistent over the long-term with a very gradual and bottoming downtrend. Since 1960, the phrase has enjoyed a steady increase in literary use and is currently close to a peak usage not seen since the early 1900s.

Daft Punk's Electroma

A movie about being unable to handle the failure of being something other than what you are.

 

 

 

Substance D

"I saw death rising from the earth, from the ground itself, in one blue field, in stubbled color."
- Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly

 

Frisbee by Atey Ghailan

Runaway

Bonny Doon by Aron Wiesenfeld

and they still control the world

. . . I open the mail,

drinking delicious coffee, delicious music,

my body still both light and heavy with you. The mail

lets fall a Xerox of something written by a man

aged 27, hostage, tortured in prison:

My genitals have been the object of such a sadistic display

they keep me constantly awake with the pain . . .

Do whatever you can to survive.

You know, I think that men love wars . . .

And my incurable anger, my unmendable wounds

break open further with tears, I am crying helplessly,

and they still control the world, and you are not in my arms.

- Adrienne Rich, Love Poem IV

“It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Images of Love

No One Claps Anymore

Granted, we have become accustomed to many conveniences, it is our current environment. Although granted, not to be taken for granted.

Every day, people sit on cushioned seats and are Aladdined through the air, safely to their destination:

Picture someone using an airplane bathroom mid-flight.
Now strip away the airplane.

We have mastered the art of controlled explosion, and are able to go long distances in a few hours or a day. We have coded sand and used it to communicate around the world.
How could anyone not clap?

There is always an old man cursing at his smartphone.

*******

I would like to accept pleasures when they present themselves and have the willpower to say 'no' or 'enough,' to enjoy pleasure without attachment. I would like patience to allow situations to become what they will.

Things are always what they seem - at first
At an appropriate time,
a bad thing may serve a good use
and a good thing becomes a curse
And after that time, none of it will matter
in the same way pieces of water,
replaced by other pieces of water,
are all still the stream
Context is everything

The world is very tolerant and forgiving. It will produce something like tobacco, without connotation, and the world will allow someone to use it until cancer and poison destroy function, and the world will take that body into itself, and even cancer and poison can become a flowering bush, a fruiting tree.

Using Apartments as an Example

What we have is a culture that fills its balconies up with outdoor furniture and cooking appliances and aesthetic artifacts, then places a satellite dish in order to stay indoors.

It felt as if one's entire world was one, long Sunday afternoon. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go.

Atey Ghailan

Say "I Love You"

R.O.D.