The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of paraheliotropic trees

what is the what and who is asking and why does one care to know? whose being is the being? twinkle in daddy’s eye, aye, ‘I’ was willed and now I will and on and down and back and up through jiggly chains of willing and wonting and rocking and rolling serving the primordial itch lolling in prioracle ooze – love is a nonapeptide with a sulphur bridge, the journeyman courier of ancient prioric priapic desire — is it pain that spurs us on or loves promise that leads us — pain I should think and a promise of an end to pain, of safe harbors in arms like mom’s, of warm bodies in cold darkness, of meaning out of chaos, light from night.

why does it will and how does it will and who does the willing and the wailing and the whiling and for what? the question is unanswered and as soon as man spoke he lied and after the lie he blamed it on a woman — typical we say as if the action follows inevitabilty from the type — and its unclear why that Old Wise-Lover Playdoh Graycoh seemed to think that the shapes preceded the clay, seems like wearing your shoes on your hands to this little cavedweller, or why Mr. Ari T. Tottle the Aristocrat thought the clay hid some transcendant clayness, or why such silly linedrawing could be adopted by that Fat Saint, Twinsies Horsies to explain how god got in my cracker — higher forms are higher forms and Neetches got it right, that all that stuff is tripe and gristle laid out like a garnish, a function of plating to make the peas more palatable — hiding behind the Oracleman to fool us into thinking that the world is Lit and not Dark, but bring the Chaos, says Neetch, the World is Dark, and the will is a small thing to stand against darkness, and little campfires singing to the the night only betray your presence to the hunters who hide there.

but doesn’t stop the WZL or the Machtlust, because the Machtlust, even if a lie, is a useful lies and useful lies are remembered in the place of not-so-useful truths. Evillution baby, the christolers are right to dislike, its cold and amoral and has nothing to do with their Hanging Apollo.

Maybe baby, maybe, but we’re all just children of the universe, every little willed and willing, and Hanging Apollo and Crazy Dionysus are children of the universe too, and you can’t fear the darkness because that’s where the Touch is, that’s where the Other Sits, and it’s Other-Touch that gets, that sends chills down spines and children down tunnels and its where the magic happens — the lie itself a bit of magic, in that it sketches the edges of ontology and shows you where I end and Yous begin — and that there is the sacred — Unity of God, but Divisibility Therefrom, the Universe revolves around the Eternal Dialogue not the One-Toned Monologue, and in the Dialogue, God hides, and in the Dialogue, Telos emerges, from foreheads and mortal souls like Pallas laughing at her self in the mirror.

Will to live; will to power; will to know;

Will to touch the other, see the other, to tremble and being looked at; not to see but to be seen; eyes of some great presence, some soul equal to yours or better, glancing and knowing; knowing the gods of your fathers and the gods of your mothers and gods of your brothers and sisters and lovers; walking in the world together, talking.

such is love.

the real american revolution please stand up?

8.14.04, Coventry, VT

Walls of the Cave > Runaway Jim > Gotta Jibboo, You Enjoy Myself > Sample in a Jar, Axilla, Poor Heart, Run Like an Antelope, Fire 

Walls of the Cave 

JS sits on the ground, legs crossed, his back against the rear door of the black car, wrapped in the white and green Indian blanket he’d bought from the small brown woman with mistrustful eyes. His eyes are closed and he’s trying to keep his mind empty. Around the edges, discomfort keepes pressing in, trying to distract him  — I’m wet, he thinks, the ground is still damp from the rainstorm — but these thoughts can only capture his attention for the briefest of moments before he loses interest and dispels them.

 When they’re gone, he goes back to his business of waiting. It is this business that will save him, for if he waits long enough, the concert will end, and his friends will come looking for their car, and they will find him waiting there.

In the far distance, past the rows of cars arrayed before him, down the paved road they’d come in, JS could hear the music coming from the stage, where JS’s favorite band was playing their second-to-last concert ever. At this distance, JS couldn’t make out songs, or voices. He couldn’t hear the instruments – he couldn’t hear the melody –

If pressed to tell someone exactly what it was he could hear, JS would be unable to answer except to say “music, softly playing.” It existed at the edge of perception, but nevertheless, it existed. JS latched onto it, and wrapped his mind around its existence. Around that center, a calm space sprang up, a flat sea of self and self’s absence, and across that sea, thoughts appeared, wind on the water.

First — the campsite itself, indistinguishable from a parking lot, arrayed itself on the back of JS’s closed eyes. He could see the cars, see the tents and the roll of hills, see the lights from the vendors down the road. Around this patch of human traffic, great evergreen trees rose up, sheltering the makeshift car city. A voice – was it real, he thought, or a memory – asking another voice for gear. JS knows what gear is – he saw it in a movie, or a book, he knows it’s slang for a needle and a belt —

JS breathed out, and the image of the campsite was gone.

Instead, it is two nights prior. JS is standing at the top of a great grassy bowl, looking down at the people watching, looking down at the band on the stage. The guitarist is playing the drums, and the drummer is playing a vacuum cleaner, and the people on the lawn giggle and begin to talk amongst themselves, and then the guitarist comes down and asks the people to take a vote on whether or not they like the vacuum cleaner or not.

Democracy, JS remembers. This vacuum cleaner trick is very very old. The band had been doing it for many years. JS remembers his dad doing it in their first house, when he use to vacuum the sofa. JS was always terrified of vacuum cleaners.

His eyes open for a second, and he is back at Coventry, sitting against the car, still waiting. It’s not over yet, he thinks, and closes his eyes again.

*** 

Runaway Jim

JS is back in Philadelphia, a mile from the house he grew up in, waiting for a train with a duffel bag on his back. He is going to war or he is going to Woodstock — the latter more likely given the length of his hair. That being said – there is a war going on.

He’s on an airplane. He goes up and he goes down. He reads the Economist, perfectly suited for short airplane trips. By the time the plane touches down in New Hampshire, he knows everything that’s happening everywhere in the world. In this particular issue of the Economist, they have a trio of academics analyze