Ten Thousand Days – Day 8645
Day 8645 was the day I finally gave it away. 23 years and 7 months. Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve?
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Day 8645 was the day I finally gave it away. 23 years and 7 months. Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve?
When I was a kid, growing up among the rowhouse duplexes of Benson St in Northeast Philadelphia, behind the rowhouses, there was what seemed to me as a child a great dark wood, and once a year, on a day between the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement, my parents would take me into the wood, with bread crumbs in my hand, and we would walk along a dark dirt path until we came to a swiftly moving stream of clear water. Then, we would take the bread, and throw it in the water — the bread was supposed to represent my sins, but being three years old, I had few sins, and imagine I was more interested watching the crumbs ride the streaming water out of sight.
Walking along that stream, my legs growing longer as I walked, the baby fat falling from my cheeks, my eyes growing sharper, I followed that stream to where it joined another, and then another, and then emptied into the great gray Delaware River, north of the great industrial shipyards and refineries, where the the far distant bank was clothed in evergreen trees.
Walking farther, taller again, I take the river past the great Post-Industrial City of my youth and young adulthood. I stand over the river in a cemetary, burying my uncle in January snow and mud. Older now, full of some fiery intensity and a madness of eyes kept too wide open, I followed the river to a great long-reeded marsh. Children are calling to each other from within the long grass. Trash floats by on the water. I put a cigarette to my lips.
Farther now, over the marsh, I stand on sand, heaped up ground up rock and stardust, standing there, beneath the scattered blue starlight of day, the water dragged towards me by some great invisible satellite. I sit amongst the grains of sand, counting a few, moving some from here to there, engaged in great industry, trying to forget all I know of sandcastles, tides, and time —
I have not yet seen the ocean. Many waters, and many seas, but I have not yet seen the ocean.
A teacher asked him to think about nuclear weapons 11 months before Hiroshima. His understanding has been shaped by this privileged view ever since.
Unhappy with where I left that idea of the mind creating a stone it cannot lift — I wanted to source the paradox — Internet failed me, but — Wikipedia rescued. The “Can God create a Stone He Can’t Lift?” paradox is a variety of the omnipotence paradox, which, in its fundamental form could be, and often phrased as “what happens when an irresistable force meets an unmoveable object?” and the clarification is important — for perhaps the mind, while it is living and struggling against non-being, is the irresistable force, and the universe is the unmoveable object — and what we’re faced off with is a classic dilemma, a good old-fashioned almost Mexican stand-off —
Of course, I do have one thing going with me. I have a mind, and freedom. Therefore, though nothing can resist my thoughts, I can choose to not exercise such force. Or, if I am the unmoveable object, perhaps I can choose to move.
Islands in the stream. Why do I torment myself? The world is there, out there, waiting, waiting to begin. Raise high the roofbeam, carpenters.
Malcolm Gladwell says it takes ten thousand hours of practice to become a master at anything. That’s three hours a day, every day, for a decade. MB has done it or almost done it — he picked up a bass somewhere around my Day 7800, in the aftermath of a drug-induced hallucination where he latched on to the dynamic reflective bass line of a Grateful Dead show. I seem to remember watching a poster dissolve on the wall, then losing my capacity for speech, and returning to my bedroom to rave one out.
Funny — I think the thing is that I’m very attached to my ego, and it’s hard for me to let it go. On the other hand, it’s also a great relief to escape from myself. Me and GS had a conversation about that once — the smart man is always thinking, always talking to himself, and whiskey or the soft smudge of marijuana smoke quiets the chattering.
I went to a Happy Jewish Law Party yesterday, Engrish translation of Simchat Toirah, some standard Pro-Bush skullcap-wearers, lots of lovely Jewesses with curly hair, my element, my element, right, except for my insane politics (insane to them), my radical free-thinking, my atheistic nihilism — how come Obama won the Nobel Prize? By not being Bush, maybe? Fat Jew with checked shirt and dumb eyes hungering for Bibi to be able to drop a bomb on Iran. Really? Really? I think that would be a terrible idea.
Ghosts and Shadows of Ourselves. Or myself, I’ll speak for myself, these things — RG’s friend was there, but unsure if her name was Laura or Lauren (not true, almost positive it’s Lauren) did not say hi. Still. Nevertheless. No interest in the OverJews. OverJews. If Hitler comes again, and rounds us up, I will march with my people proudly, with the great dignity of our race, our history, our covenant with the Unknowable Spirit That MaKes Us Real. Till then — how much intercourse can I have with them?
Oh, Josh. You consider yourself so enlightened. Like you’re the only one who has ever figured it out. How can that be so? And why are you so unhappy then? If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? (answer to that, of course, which is that riches too require a sort of an animal blindness, a privileging of the future over the past, and for us few preterite with no future at all, that would not make sense, I am happy now in my middling wealth — could I be happy with less? No doubt — )
Perhaps I am unhappy because my gaze is longer than my reach — my mental mind grapples with infinity and annihilation (annihilation — coming to nothing); yesterday, in the apartment across from me, I watched a woman or a girl get dressed. A girl — anyone my age or younger must be a girl — since I, almost ten thousand days old as I am, am clearly not a man. Where there are no men, be a man. Thank you for not making me a woman — the Orthodox Men say that, in their prayers on rising, to wet their day with the sweet liquid of misogyny — putting the pussy on a pedestal — benevolence towards women is not the same thing as respect for women — not stopping JF from annoying those girls — they’re big girls — quite capable of taking care of themselves —
Out my window a soft song is playing — a woman singing, a piano. (a little looking, a little thinking tells me that I think the song is Sunrise, by Norah Jones, from the album Feels Like Home)
The hypothesis is that my extracurricular, extramural activities creates a floor of knowledge others are not privy too, and playing in this broader realm, it is extremely limiting to come back down and speak with the hoi polloi who fill their days I don’t know how — exhausting to always be trying to catch everybody up — similar to my Days from 2000-3000 range, where continuing to play with Castle Legos and Castle Legomen, all the blocks and blockmen, after my friend went home, I gave birth to an elaborate evolving world and backstory — by the time my friend returned, cooperative play was no longer as interesting as the world of play I’d created by myself.
Such a life is lonely, for sure.
I think that is why I prefer, with a preternatural visceralness, those who share the same floor as me — where I can say Rawls and they say, yes, or Bolano, and they say yes. It makes me feel less alone, that all my vain intellectual sailing has not, at least, left me completely stranded and exiled from the Continent of Man —
(but isn’t that laziness?) (or am I now making excuses for a lover who did not know Rawls or Bolano and did not care to?)
Funny. After we had that telegraph conversation where she said Bolano and I said Bolano, Older Sister Steinsteen tells us the story of the boy who purports to reread Jack Kerouac in order to win the love of a girl who puts On the Road as her favorite book on Facebook, that Omnipresent Everchanging Yearbook in the Sky. What’s the lesson? Only that we should not do that, certainly —
The dilemma is this. There is no judgment on the hoi polloi. There is much much that I do not know. I cannot judge one who has never heard of Rawls — and if Older Sister Steinsteen had said “Who is Rawls?” or Bumblebee says “Who is Rawls?” or my own Mother Goose said “Who is Rawls?” what? I wipe my hands of them? Surely I brought up Rawls for a reason — surely I can explain the reason while standing on one foot? If not, what am I? How did we get where we are? We are not born fully formed. If what I have to say is interesting, so be it. If not, so be it. Not a criteria to judge others.
I can play. And when with someone, I can force them to listen to my rantings, and they will listen because they want to. A case in point, this record, which my Great Love, the Great Love, has read regardless of the twists, turns, and dodges I put within it, trying at hiding myself from myself.
My gaze exceeds my reach? Or is my reach only limited by my imagination? Or perhaps, like the paradox, I’ve created a stone I can’t lift? The Contemplation of the Infinite — is it good or is it bad — it must be good — it must be good — it must be good — ash I was (when) and ash I’ll be (when) —
— not me — not me — when I die, plant me in a field with an acorn in my mouth and the tree that grows, that will be me, or almost me — and those that love me will come and sit beneath that tree — and maybe — maybe when I think about my inevitable unavoidable deceasing, instead I’ll think about that tree, about what comes after — about a beautiful wife and a beautiful son and a beautiful daughter, standing beneath an ever taller tree.
Sexual conflict may lead to sexually antagonistic co-evolution, in which one sex (usually males) evolves a “manipulative” trait which is countered by a “resistance” trait in the other sex. For example, male bean weevils (Callosobruchus maculatus) have spiny genitalia that are thought to allow them to copulate for a longer time without getting dislodged and hence transfer more sperm. However, this damages the female and reduces her fitness, so females have evolved the counteradaptation of kicking at males during mating, which reduces the time spent in copulation [1].
By the way, I’m older than Cobain was when he pulled the trigger. He only made it to Day 9906. Jimi on the other hand made it to Day 10,157.
Couldn’t wake up this morning. Was up all night last proving political legitimacy by algebra, showing that Shakespeare was his own grandmother, digging up a bone under the Mulberry Tree. Woke with the noon, sun high — then did various administrative arrangements — texted an ex or two — ate a sandwich — watched a couple televisions show.
Friday night, date night, no plans, no nothing. Sat on the daybed, pondered my absence of a future. My roommate is in the room next to mine listening to loud loud music — I don’t mind — it’s Aerosmith now, it was Smashing Pumpkins before — Despite all my rage, I’m still just a rat in a cage — great song, I’ve liked that once since Day 4878 — for 13 years, 11 months, and 9 days.
Have not yet showered. Eaten once. Would like to walk walk around a little bit before the sun goes down — it sets in two hours. The Library of Alexandria sits at my fingertips. Radiowaves to coaxial cable to repeater station, to fiberoptic mesh, and everyone is thinking about everyone else —
A defense of Poetry —
Everything Sings. Poetry is not the Singing of the Everything, but the Listening. But the Listening Sings too, and adds to the Song. Art + World = World. Bruce Nauman neon-light painting, seen in the Philadelphia Art Museum with Miss EV.L. (no subliminals there, did always have a crush on Evil-Lynn like Woody Allen and the Queen in Annie Hall) on Day 7396 (9/21/02) – what else was done that day — morning at her apartment, meet GScheerness there, I had a crazy newsboy cap from the 1960s on my head, joints were rolled, absolutely, cab was taken or possibly the subway?busway?, went to the Rodin Museum, saw the Thinker and the Burghers and possibly the Gates of Hell, then to the Great Grand Temple in the Sky, Former Reservoir, PMA, where the cool kids walked through the contemporary art exhibit, EV.L. was and is an artist, a painter, I was too once, when I was five or six or seven, I think it was Bob Ross that got me into it, those paintings, they must have been done sometime around Day 2750, 2nd Grade, I remember we looked at the De Chirico, Ariadne, and I thought about all the many women left behind, and De Chirico’s trains of modernity in the background, perhaps EV.L. explained it to me, perhaps not, afterwards we went out the gazebo behind the museum, the three of us, I imagine, Me, the Lady, and My Friend GScheerness, the Past is Still Very Pregnant in My Mind is what I’m trying to put forth, we lit the joint, a family and a child came too close, and I got awfully nervous about corrupting the young child’s experience or smell-buds or something something like that — —
We smoked the joint, we walked around high — ironically, I don’t remember much of the rest of the day — I think we took a cab to a house on 40th and Pine St. maybe, EV.L got a bag of maryjane from some frat brothers, or men, Zeebs maybe — ironic — at dinner last night, with the Sisters Steinstein (pronounced Stein | Steen of course), two young men from Penn appeared, and after a quick little game of Do You Know Ted we all adopted our various Greek Letters — though only the sisters had any — I was misidentified as a Zeeb on account of my association with the Our Holy Jewish Sisters of Venereal Pathologies — also made a joke back referring to Day 6787 when rushing the Zeebs I plied myself with their whiskey, was thrown into an upright mattress (for unknown reasons) was talked to by a nice blond-haired girl and then got up to go throw up on myself in the bathroom. After that, like is common-common-common-for-me-in-these-situations, I decided to sleep it off, in the bathroom — just in case — looking like a corpse no doubt — JK found me lying there later, helped me to a cab (not sure why — someone else should have or could have — I had no friends in this situation — lost my jacket I think — ) JK left with me, helped me to my bed — laid there for a day — people coming in and out — hmm — what a noob, what a boob, what a rube —
water under the bridge, part of that great ocean —
Thoughts about the turbulent ocean — I seem to sail upon the choppy surface of my mind — but I know or should know that deep beneath the waves it is or should be tranquil, shouldn’t it, perhaps I need to be less the sailor (gentle ego trying to navigate my self) and more the ocean (full self, ego merely avatar to my greater contingent being);
I stand on one leg and expound the Torah in a lyric; I type 789 words and call it Art. Liquid crystal display refreshes and rearranges itself 60 times a second. What subliminal messaging are they attempting to get across? Conspiracy Theories and the End of Days. My days stretch out like butter on toast — like paint on a knife, swirling into other days, bleeding through, my borders and walls and rules and anti-rules and anxiety are are bleeding breaking down —
winter is coming, the sun is setting, where do I go from here? Day 9971 fades away. What do I have to show for it? Nothing. Another wasted day. Of these almost Ten Thousand Days, how many were great? In how many did I play the part of Hero of My Life, of Self-Author? Two hundred? Less? I was a slug today, I’ll be a slug tomorrow, no difference, no future at all — and if there was a God who had a Book of Life and a Book of Death, what single thing have I ever done to earn the Ten Thousand Days I have, and the Twenty Thousand more I want.
I have not earned it. I do not deserve it. Not yet. But if on Day 17,771, a Sunday in February in the year 2031, I do one thing, one Great Thing, one Great Priceless Immeasurable Thing, I will have earned all the days that came before for without those days that day would not have come, nor my one Great Thing.
Could I do more? Yes. Should I do more? If I want to. But is it sufficient? The answer would have to be yes.
I am exhausted — not sleeping — writing writing, pulling virtual law books off of virtual shelves, grabbing a puzzle piece here, a puzzle piece there, and my puzzle piece whittling knife, with which I use to shape the edges and slip them together — cunningness and cleverness — the things — the things — memory — memory gone — exhausted —
Inching closer and closer and closer and closer to my Ten Thousandth Day — all vim and vigor gone, pithed, that time of year again, Day of Atonement came and went <BOOM> and now after repentance, the emptiness that sits on porches in brisk autumn weather watching the days shorten —
Shadows grow longer. The Phillies are in the Playoffs, third year in a row. Double Rings? Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, the undiscovered country — what to do — where to go — who to help, who to hurt, there is a small soul inside my chest cavity, it is shaped like a chestnut, one day I will put it in the ground and an Oak will grow. Ironwood Tree. Ironwood Tree. It will be close close close — flying to California — hope I make it — what are these dark clouds over my head — what are these dark clouds — repeating — over and again — over and again — the things — the memories — the thoughts — two ravens — Great Big Emerald Gods with Industrial Light and Magic Pyrotechnics — who what who what who are these people — these words these images on the MagicBox, what day is it, what year is it?
Babies with earings. Access Hollywood. Who cares? Not I. Not I. What? When? How? How? How?
Ten thousand days. I hope I make it. It will be an accomplishment. Merely to have lived. Jamie Foxx — Blame it On the Jews. Curb Reunion Show. Eleven Years. Eleven Years. The Nineties. The Aughts — nameless decade. Next decade will be nameless too. The Teens? I don’t think. Will people refer to it as the 20s in 2020s? I’d like to see that as well. I pray we won’t be eating each other by then.
Transformers in live action. Baseball in technicolor. No mind left. Words — words — I am a soulless writer, pithed. I said that already. I coil back around upon myself, chewing on my tail, chewing on my tail, $25 an hour, I hope, I am, $25 an hour, not very much, not very much at all
Apparently the French did not love Lohan as fashion muse to Emanuel Ungaro; one can just imagine professional designers looking at Lindsey Lohan playing Crackwhore Barbie dress-up, scratching their heads, and scribbling their pencils furiously.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/fashion/shows/05lohan.html?hp
The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of paraheliotropic trees 