Selection from Post Card Collection 12

I had a deal with a penpal consisting of only sending each other "wasted" postcards.  I would have enjoyed the Sartre discussions, but I don't think she moved back.

Selection from Post Card Collection 11

I really enjoyed The American Astronaut a lot.

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My apartment neighbor April mailed me this postcard from next door.

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Selections from Post Card Collection 5

Becky was our babysitter when we were little.  She was right about the museum.  I would have enjoyed it had I ever gone there.

documentation

I'm interested in documenting a story.  I don't know all the details.

Catherine and Earl liked to dance.  They lived on a farm in central South Dakota.

Earl didn't really like to dance: he preferred to get drunk and drive home and crash his car.  But that was another time where such things were, if not accepted, then allowed.

Anyway, so I imagine:


Catherine got her dress on, looking like a bad-ass farm mother ready to go dancing.  Green dress down passed her knees; Earl would have been wearing a suit.

It's Saturday evening, and they are standing in front of a screened, open window.  A light breeze blows in, ruffling the curtains that had been pulled to the side.  Those curtains move slowly back and forth, very slowly, slowly ruffling.

Judy, their daughter, is standing in the kitchen watching them.  She must have been seven or eight.  They pose for her, Earl putting his arm around Catherine, and Catherine with her hands folded neatly in front of her.

A second passes, or maybe two, and the breeze--a true breeze, complete with light flecks and soft noise--flows in, ruffling the said curtains.

And then something else: a water hose, finger positioned perfectly over the nozzle, sprays with such a force that it drenches Catherine (but not Earl).  It continues for just a second, through the screened window, a straightshot powerdrive waterfall through the window.  She throws her hands up and says something--something, I'm not sure what.

It was their son Bill.  He's little.

Catherine runs outside.  Bill runs from her.  She chases him, green dress clinging to her.  They run run run into the long grasses with the thick stems, and she pushes him to the ground.  She rips a handful of long grass from the ground and starts whipping him with it, harder, faster, until he's red and sore and hurt.

panic attack city

"How would you describe the temperature of your eyes?"

"Would you say they feel warm?"

"If they feel warm, do you feel worried about that?"

"Do eyes ever feel cold?  Do your eyes ever feel cold?"

"I know what a cold eye feels like," said the farmer.

"Really?  Like what?"

Well, like a cold eye.

"What does a warm eye feel like?"

"I know what warm eye feels like," said the scientist.

"Really?  Like what?"

"It feels warmer than usual.  You notice it.  You wonder about it.  You think it might have something to do with something else.  A warm eye is never just a warm eye.  A warm eye is always something else, a symbol of some greater disease or disorder."

"What disease or disorder?"

"You name it," said the scientist.  "It could be cancer.  It could be diabetes, HIV, bird flu, swine flu, something dangerous, something lurking.  Something you would worry about even though you know you don't have cancer, HIV, or influenza."

"Why would I worry if I know I don't have all of these diseases?"

"Because you have warm eyes, and warm eyes always point to something.  It's like eyesight.  You can never see yourself seeing, even if you look in a mirror.  You can only see the fact of your retinas, corneas, etcetera.  The first-person part is concealed.  Warm eyes are like that.  They point beyond themselves.  Symptoms.  Symbols.  You starting to understand?"

"No, I'm only confusing myself.  Symptoms, symbols."

"symbols, symptoms"

"Is this an etymology lesson?"

"No," said the scientist.  "You have warm eyes.  I'm trying to show you explicitly that you consider them a symptom immediately and not afterward.  You don't wonder about warm eyes as a fact.  You wonder why you have them.  That's the problem."

"Is that really a problem?"

The scientist pondered for moment.

"It might be something bigger, a way of doing things," said the scientist.  "Why 'immediately'?  Maybe because it's a symptom, it's how you live.  Everything is a symptom of something else, of something lurking behind it.  You wonder what things point at, what they do, how they are.  Everyone notices things. Sometimes the nearest things--like warm eyes--are the hardest things to notice, or they're only noticed when things go wrong."

"Exactly!  Why would my eyes be warm?  What's wrong?"

"I don't have answers," said the scientist.  "I only have remedies."

The scientist paused. He outstretched a hand.

"Want a valium?" he asked.

[Further note, 2/9/10: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8505998.stm -----exactly.]

[on a side note, looking at the spelling of "symptoms" almost gives me a panic attack in itself]

Work Schedule

I made 6 different gestures at this piece of paper before I scanned it in.  Then I stepped on it twice and left it alone on the floor for about five seconds.

Merry Christmas from Judy and Steve...and Judy and Steve and Tim and Carrie (Circa 2001)

Those apples in the background: my dad got one for teaching Sunday school from our church every year when we were young.  Some of them might be mine: I helped teach Sunday school sometimes, too!  They were three year olds.

Walgreens is making a killing off our family.

A World of Ignorance

At work, I deal with credit card transactions all the time.  Learning about them and the process involved in actually transferring money from one place to another has been a strange experience.

Could you tell me what happens when you swipe your card at a gas station?

You may know the difference between an authorization and a capture.

It's slightly messed up: all day I deal with people who have absolutely no idea what's going on.  They have credit cards, they use them, they apply for them, they pay down their balances and run them right back up again.

But they have no idea what's going on behind the scenes, which is a complete jumbled mess of information flying every which way, sometimes missing its mark (I only deal with the people where problems occur).  And it's frustrating explaining to people the processes involved: they simply don't understand, don't want to understand.  Ends are set.  Goals.  "Give me it by Christmas."  Who cares about how it arrives, the processes involved?

A little care might go a long way, a little slowing-down sometimes.

Dewey on "The Great Stand Back"

Thinking begins in what may fairly be called a forkroad situation, a situation which is ambiguous, which presents itself as a dilemma, which proposes alternatives.  As long as our activity glides smoothly along from one thing to another, or as long as we permit our imagination to entertain fancies at pleasure, there is no call for reflection.  Difficulty or obstruction in the way of reaching a belief brings us, however, to a pause.  In the suspense of uncertainty, we metaphorically climb a tree; we try to find some standpoint from which we may survey additional facts and, getting a more commanding view of the situation, may decide how the facts stand in relation to one other.  (John Dewey, How We Think)

Twins World Series Tapes

I just bought these tapes as a present for someone.  It's really inspirational watching them.  I get choked up.  I cry.  When the '87 grand slam plowsoars over the fence...oh my.  My first plan was to take a nap while I watched the 1987 series but I couldn't because of the emotional overflow of watching the twins actually win.

I wish it woulda happened here, this last year.

Ah.

Corky Romano Movie Review

You wanna know how fucking stupid this movie is?  This movie is so fucking stupid...I have no words.  There are no words.  "You know how we ..."

It's not even worth quoting a bad joke, even ONE BAD LINE from that movie.

Corky Romano is the fucking ...

I'm done.

I have nothing else to say.

Sioux Falls Canaries

Official scorecard.  Date unknown?  Looks like the shortstop had a real shitty night, too.

Selection from Post Card Collection 4

That was in 1991.  Now those "efforts at modernization"?--well?  I thought this was the "Chinese Century."

The Holiness of Reading: don't put your blinders on.

Yes, Lukacs has the instruments to understand Heidegger, but he will not understand him; for Lukacs would have to read him, to grasp the meaning of the sentences one by one.  And there is no longer any Marxist, who is still capable of doing this.  Finally, then, there has existed a whole dialectic--and a very complex one--from Brentano to Husserl and from Husserl to Heidegger...All this adds up to what one could call an area history.  Ought we to consider it a pure epi-phenomenon?  According to what Lukacs says, yes.  Or does there exist some kind of movement of ideas, and does Husserl's phenomenology--as a moment perserved and surpassed--enter into Heidegger's system?  In this case the principles of Marxism are not changed but the situation becomes much more complex.  (Sartre, Search for a Method pg 38)

READING NOTES: "Room 34", the second chapter of Part I of The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

READING NOTES

"Room 34", the second chapter of Part I of The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
12/6/09


What do you think about numbers?

Do you believe in numerology?

Do you believe in coincidence?

Kismet?

Fate?

Would you like to do a numerological reading of chapter 2 of Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" with me?

I think it might be interesting. Join me.

READING NOTES: BEING AND NOTHINGNESS by JEAN PAUL SARTRE. Pages 619 through 629.

12/1/09 through 12/2/09


Reading notes on BEING AND NOTHINGNESS by JEAN PAUL SARTRE. Pages 619 through 629.
"Part II. Freedom and Facticity: The Situation"

Part 1: The problem is set forth.

"Much more than [one] appears "to make [oneself]," [one] seems "to be made' by climate and the earth, race and class, language, the history of the collectivity of which [one] is a part, heredity, the individual circumstances of his childhood, acquired habits, the great and small events of life" (619 BN).

An Inexplicable Walk Back to Campus

I was walking around campus on an absolutely sparkling December day. I had to make my way to the bus stop, as I had to go to work, but I ran into my friend Karl, who had just finished a math class. He looked terrified: his eyes were wide and his face was twitching--in fact, as I looked at his face more closely, it was perpetually contorting and seizing, and his nose wouldn’t stay put in the middle of his face. Instead, it floated around, circling his mouth a few times before turning upside down. Then, it took a little excursion to his right ear, where it took a little sniff, the snub quivering a bit and the nostrils contracting inwards. It seemed to be interested in some odd scent in the air, and for a moment I thought I could smell something too--perhaps a sweet, icy scent. But I began to doubt myself, and indeed then I didn’t think I could smell anything at all, save for the cold air, which sailed into my lungs with each breath.

Karl’s mouth was turning like a pinwheel, and his lips kept bursting in the cold air and then repairing themselves just as quickly. They seemed to bleed, with red, steaming blood oozing and slipping from cracks in his flesh; but then the cuts would disappear as if an invisible surgeon were suturing them with infinite speed. The frigid wind ruffled his hair, and his blond bangs flew in every direction--but every so often a clump or two would stand straight up on his head, seemingly ready to strike at me like a cobra. Then they would relax and fall back into place, forgetting what they were doing.

“Karl, you look terrible,” I said. His eyes shifted places, the left moving upwards and out of the way of the right, which took its place. Then the left shot straight down and over to the right’s previous position. I gave him a puzzled look.

“I had a horrible math test,” he said, but the words came out backwards--and then they froze! A few of them fell onto the ground and shattered like icicles. I became slightly disoriented and bent down, trying to pick up a few of the pieces. I got a few whole words, but “horrible” was impossible: the best I could get was “ribble,” the rest having been smashed beyond repair.

“My girlfriend just broke up with me,” he continued. I looked up at him before trying once again to find the rest of “horrible.” I now had “orhible,” which was nowhere near “horrible,” if anyone has ever tried to put together a shattered word. I was quite enthralled in the process, and soon I had “rorblehi” before accidentally losing the “i” and the little “b,” leaving me with “rorleh.” I contemplated giving up.

“It’s easy to fuck it up,” I said, and Karl looked at me. He bent down to my level--and his pin-wheeling mouth, shifting eyes, and adventurous nose all became perfectly still for one long second, and we looked each other in the eyes, our gaze held like the resonance of a mighty church bell fading slowly, impossibly slowly!

“I know,” he said. Then, Karl shot me a wicked smile, and I was taken aback with his happy sarcasm. “Isn’t it weird how my face keeps doing this?” he said, beaming. I looked at him, and his nose now appeared to be dancing, leaping off his face (nearly halfway to my own!) and then jiggling around above his mouth (at least now it was in the correct position).

“Yeah, but help me find the rest of ‘horrible,’ ok?”

Within a few seconds Karl had found and arranged the rest of the word in his hand. It greatly impressed me how quickly he was able to accomplish this goal. He grabbed me with his other hand and pulled me up, and I nearly had to leap to my feet. A cold, blue tinted breeze brushed against my cheeks, and I could feel myself blushing.

“By the way,” I said, “how are you doing otherwise? I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Karl paused for a moment, and his nose, eyes, and mouth all slowed down their movements for a moment, as if they too were lost in thought, or at least were responding to Karl’s own thoughtfulness, which he showed merely by pausing, as naturally I couldn’t read his face.

“Horrible,” he stated simply, after a second. “Simply horrible.”

Mailboxes

Philadelphia coasters.

Thanks Della!

Daft punk meets crappy philosophy? Found on this page.

THE GIFT OUTRIGHT

"Frost" by Thomas Bernhard

There was construction going on down there on such a scale that you couldn't say "how it was possible." The engineer had told him some numbers. Dates. Dimensions. "Staggering," said the painter. "Over a thousand workmen are crawling around like ants down there." And indirectly the work would occupy and pay the wages of tens, of hundreds of thousands. "The money invested here goes into billions." The state knew how to exploit its sources , and apply its science. It was "glorious." But down there, "and not just down there either, there is a development in progress that will turn everything upside down." Technology was continually revolutionizing itself. "Come on," he said, "let's step outside. Perhaps we'll be able to see something."

We went outside. But there was nothing to be seen but a thickening pall of gray in front of our eyes. "I want to see the funeral today, from my vantage point over the pass," he said. "They're burying the grocer."

"Frost"

Thomas Bernhard 1963

Selection from Post Card Collection 3

South Dakota

Thanksgiving, Dad, and a Rilke Poem

A game I call "quarters"

A job evaluation

Possibly the truest thing ever written about me.  One should consider the source, however (which I won't reveal).  What "change" are we talking about?  (The firing/transferring of people who worked there, maybe?  The complete de-humanization and corporate-tization of all work relations?  Who wouldn't be cynical or resistant?)

My dart throwing accuracy.

As you can see, I never actually hit it.

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Possibly the most interesting thing about this postcard is that my grandmother spelled my last name wrong.

How I didn't get health insurance.

Tolstoy the Existentialist

The pain "in the side" refers to Christ.  In a sense, it is a reinterpretation of Christ's story filtered through a modern, banal perspective.  Good stuff.

Chess, 1956 Style

Sharing about work

cci cld me a btch

Albert Hofmann in the Clearing of Being

Albert Hofmann in the Clearing of Being

There are experiences that most of us are hesitant to speak about, because they do not conform to everyday reality and defy rational explanation. These are not particular external occurrences, but rather events of our inner lives, which are generally dismissed as figments of the imagination and barred from our memory. Suddenly, the familiar view of our surroundings is transformed in a strange, delightful, or alarming way: it appears to us in a new light, takes on a special meaning. Such an experience can be as light and fleeting as a breath of air, or it can imprint itself deeply upon our minds

One enchantment of that kind, which I experienced in childhood, has remained remarkably vivid in my memory ever since. It happened on a May morning—I have forgotten the year—but I can still point to the exact spot where it occurred, on a forest path on Martinsberg above Baden, Switzerland. As I strolled through the freshly greened woods filled with bird song and lit up by the morning sun, all at once everything appeared in an uncommonly clear light. Was this something I had simply failed to notice before? Was I suddenly discovering the spring forest as it actually looked? It shone with the most beautiful radiance, speaking to the heart, as though it wanted to encompass me in its majesty. I was filled with an indescribable sensation of joy, oneness, and blissful security.

"When the evening light, slanting into the woods somewhere, bathes the tree trunks in gold,

dream american

walking through a sunlit meadow, the colors of wildflowers swirling around your feet, bright blues and soft greens; in the air little pinpricks of light dance, and in the middle of this meadow a wooden plank stands resolutely, having been stuck in the ground some time ago. Barely weathered, the corners are smooth, but otherwise the plank is unimpressive. It’s just THERE and not in the roofing of the nearby farmhouse, so pretty and cozy. Hands out now, passed the plank, feeling the grasses creeping slowly up to waist-length feeling every stem and no stem

back home dinner is set “did you feed the dog?” asks mom, and yes, you did feed the dog. The air inside is sticky-hot and you wash up, lathering the bar soap onto your face and arms but still now sweet sweat beads around your elbows and one drop falls to the floor. “I did ___ today,” you say. Dad looks at you between bites and doesn’t smile, his jaw chewing cud in big closed circles, you smile, he smiles, he takes his fork and in one deft motion stabs a piece of meat and chews it up like some

you say “Mommy, can we talk to ___ today?” and Mommy doesn’t even look up, her eyes are on her food and she’s not even eating. Her red potatoes sit on her plate, arranged perfectly precisely by the meat. The forks and knives. Finally she closes her eyes and puts her napkin on her legs. Her eyes focus on your dad

SON, there’s something we have to talk about. We can’t call ___ tonight because he’s gone,

at this point dad looks straight at you and holds your gaze

SON, he died, someone killed him in the war, so he won’t be coming home

a light breeze wafts in through the window and ruffles the off-white curtains

you are young, and your dad is telling you something that will change everything, and your mouth is open, his lips pursed, his arm now resting on the table by your red potatoes, fingers lightly clenched

SON, this will be hard but we will have to make the best of this

mom cries

SON, you’re going to have to help more now, keep working and we’ll all get through this

dad’s rock-hard jaw quivers

SON, we have to work our way

the drapes puff

SON, it will be ok

mom is shaking

SON, gone

DAD, I know

A Debt

Peregrine Falcon

The peregrine. Soaring comes to mind, but he’s not soaring. He’s cutting, floating, drifting, repositioning himself in the air, making minute changes to wing attack angle, lifting them up to come to a stopping land. His eyes see you. You don’t know if they understand or not, but you know he can see you, can make at least small judgments about you. His yellow feet sit flat, grasping awkwardly the cement he chose to land on. His wings are tucked behind him and his tail feathers stick out, shifting directions like a large arrow pointing different ways behind him. He makes these strange hopping movements, picking one foot up and moving it, then doing the same with the other. This reminds you of how a chicken walks. His neck feathers are a pure white; the underbelly is spotted but his top feathers are a darkish gray. He knows what he’s doing and what his element is. He’s calculating, just, you know, lookin around.