be the monolith

when you quit a thing, all the other things that you used to do that involved the quitted thing must be relearned or abandoned. In my experience, I have found that, more or less, that this process takes one full year.

There used to be plenty of years laying around so I wasn't bothered so much. But not anymore. Now I would like to find a way to accelerate this process, as a whole year is too much time to spend quitting anything.

So I turned, as I always do in times of crisis, to astrology. However, there isn't much in the way of praxis-based solutions on this subject. There are only warnings and omens and soft prophecies. Which I fully love, for sure. But what I'm after here is a way to collapse the withdrawal phase to a few short weeks. Philosophy quells somewhat the panic; either by confirming that there is utterly no hope to existence anyway, or by making me so confused that i forget about the problem i was originally attempting to alleviate. But again, I need to utterly extinguish all longings and temptations.

So I realized that I could look to no outside agency. It's up to me. So I came up with an idea called:

Temporary Psychic/Organic Transference, aka: T-POT
Basically what this involves is the complete transfer of all mental, psychic, and motor control to a trusted, trained, expert proxy. The timeline for control return obviously is agreed upon prior to the transaction. I'm not sure how much this would cost. It works like this, I think: Using some sort of transfer architecture/technology (like that saliva/hydro sucky thing that dentists use to suck the spit out of your mouth) a trained professional would connect the two parties -- the patient and the proxy -- and, like osmosis i guess, the patient's 'life control system' would be vaccuumed out of their body/brain and stored in optimal conditions (say like a sanitized mason jar in a cool place) for its return. Then the proxy's 'will' would be 'uploaded' into the patients emptied compartments. The proxy then would assume full and complete control over the patient, assuming completely all stored knowledge (memory, personality, ticks, etc) but would retain autonomous decision-making power over the host. The host would have monitoring capabilities, but no ability to at all influence the proxy's piloting of their body.I think that the proxy would not be able to control themselves at the same time they are controlling a patient, so their body would have to be stored and supplied with nutrients and evacuation systems pending the return of themselves to themselves.

So, now that I've been able to surrender myself to another person totally, they get to go through all the shit I don't want to. And because they don't have the same issue that I'm enduring (of course, a screening process would be neccessary to ensure that this is true. I can forsee some complications here.) and because they aren't emotionally or psychologically attached like I would be, they can manage to do all the usual things I would do during my day, but without the anxiety, pressure and pain I experience due to all the associated, vestigial issues surrounding the quit. For instance: I quit smoking, but can't seem to shake the need for a cigarette when I drink. I sure don't want to have to stop drinking just because I quit smoking. So, with my proxy, they could take my body out to the bar, have drinks and laugh it up (totally just like my personality, no one would ever know that I was actually in stasis in a mason jar somewhere) and everything and never feel the need for a smoke! I believe that this could work for almost anything. For example, if you broke up with someone and you see them all the time because you have common friends and they won't stop hanging around your spots, so why should you right? Well, sign up for T-Pot for a month or so and you can still do all those things, but via your proxy. So you never feel any of the usual breakup pains or awkwardness. You're able to acclimatize yourself, via the proxy, to this new dynamic and then when your 'life system control' is returned to you, everything is totally no problem. I mean there are tons of applications.

shit, more later...doorbell

And even once people become comfortable with the process and it actually works reliably, you'd even use it to like, zone out for a day. Like a spa, but even better because someone can do the workout for you. Unless you like working out. Even so, everybody's got their own particular fence to whitewash.

Challenge To Myself: Determine what possible negative side-effects, collateral damages, possible malfunctions, existential crises, quantum impossiblities etc... may occur.

The O.C.

Ornette Coleman, Massey Hall. Ok, but first, I have to tell a story about O.Coleman that I don't know myself. I heard it from D while we were walking out of Massey Hall after the show, and I read another part of it later on. So I'm second-hand here. Anyway, so Coleman was playing at a place called the Five Spot in NYC in 1959. It was like 'a turning point in history' and everyone is totally going to this show and Ornette is freaking them out. Miles Davis said after catching his set that he thought Ornette must be "all screwed up inside". Dizzy Gillespie supposedly walked up to the bandstand after a performance and said "you're fucking kidding me, right?" Also, another night, Max Roach got so mad at what he was hearing that he punched Coleman in the mouth at the show, then showed up in the middle of the night at his home and yelled for him to come down so he could kick his ass some more. So, what have you seen like that? Know what i mean? But I'm just repeating shit everyone already knows.

telephone call. more later

ok. so there were two double-bass players - Greg Cohen and Tony Falanga -- and his son, Denardo, on drums. Ornette played saxophone and violin for one song (he dropped it at the end and it broke) and also a trumpet briefly. He wore a black wizard suit with gold symbols all over it, shiny pointed black shoes and a plain porkpie hat. When they came out on the stage, the audience errupted and applauded and yelled out for a long time; then Ornette whispered hello and then they played and noone spoke after that.

It was tremendous. It was crazy. I couldn't stop laughing at times it was so outrageous and good. I swear, it seemed to me like they just played whatever they wanted to play, i mean, individually. Just random progressions and notes from who knows where they got them. Though, slowly you could tell they had certain phrases they'd return to. Like thin anchors in the storm. Oh yeah, and the double-bass pizzicato player, his plucking hand turned beet/beat red by the second song he was going so fast. Thinking about how it would throb made me feel sick for a while.

The songs, which I didn't know a one, were like strings of digressions or falling down stairs or like walking by turning in a new direction for every step. But it made sense if you looked at it like it was a longer thing. And it was mesmerizing. They'd seem to shift you around somehow so you'd hear each instrument just slightly featured; and it was great because the crowd would float in appreciative applause after these features, sort of like a gentle awakening. And then you'd sort of reset to the next adventure. Travelling around the stage, inside each player, until then you'd feel like you were outside the Hall, maybe back in time, or thinking of a thing you want to have happen. Transported. That's how it felt. But so random and even out of tune and sometimes I couldn't connect at all together what each player was playing. It was like different songs at the same time. Sometimes it seemed that they couldn't actually play their instruments. I mean, they were unbelievable musicians, but it came off liked they resolved to not at all pay attention to anything about scales or harmony or whatever and make like that's how they wanted music to be. Like studied savants. Still, they played at times from sheet music, so you know at least some of the chaos has order. And also, Coleman came up with a name for how and what he plays, 'Harmolodics'. So that's what I'm hearing I guess. Even though I have no idea what it means when I read the explanations of it. It's like if you decided you'd play poker by showing everyone your cards, but still you beat them. Ornette Coleman, man.

blah blah. telephone again

let the sleeping dan lie

some more 'favourites+hated', courtesy of catalina and stout:

eradicate
linoleum
acrobat
crotch
trundle
milky
anomaly
licorice
petulant
tomorrow is the last golf day of the year for me. i've been fading the driver so i'm a bit worried about hitting the fairway off the tee. and lately the short game is my murderer. still, i'm confident in my putter (as should we all be) so we'll see. I think I have a good chance to break 100. (Also, I am going to Ornette Coleman. I will try to remember it enough to tell some of it.)


PS: “captain, we believe that they're using their phonetic skills to attack new words.”

cohen's

come down to my room
i was thinking about you
and i made a pass at myself

...

i am punished when i do not sweat
or when i try to invent something
i am one of the slaves
you are employees
that is why i hate your work

my favourite words list

rabbit
twirls
dunk
mammoth

e.e.

2 little whos
(he and she)
under are this
wonderful tree

smiling stand
(all realms of where
and when beyond)
now and here

(far from a grown
-up i&you-
ful world of known)
who and who

(2 little ams
and over them this
aflame with dreams
incredible is)

to know it is to kill it

Is it true that you'd have to cut down a tree to find out how old it is? when does life as a tree begin exactly? From the seedling? Sprout? I don't know.
sidebar(a):
A list of words i've never said out loud (or only recently):

digestif.
non pareil
sensual massage
agape
physiognomy
riposte.

sidebar(b):
A (short) list of words that gross me out:

pantyhose
pork
yoghurt
moist
yeast

jesus creased

the dunnville theory

dial m for pocky

the unsuspecting pals enjoyed their pocky, without anxiety, until...
gotcha'! give us the pocky!
run for it!
leave me, save yourself!
stupid pumpkin. you should have given us the pocky!
the end.

dude, quit it

kensington before the fall

war party

Incredibly, no one got hurt tonight.

dirty secrets

4am is full of trouble.

all my lies are only wishes

mandelbrot and juliet

drift, wait and obey

when your demon is in charge, do not try to think consciously. Drift, wait and obey.

before they make me run

even though
i didn't want to
i did

graceland

We drove to Graceland a few years back. J was living on Euclid; I'm still where I was then. Don't think it doesn't bother me. Anyway, we didn't expect to see Elvis. We're not like that. But pictures don't lie right? So you see it for yourself. There's me, J and Elvis right there all thogether in his car. Crazy.

The place was impressive. The whole house seems like it's cocooned in shag carpet; floor, wall and ceiling. We saw no vaccuum cleaners however. I was looking. My favourite part was the shooting range. You could put your fingers in the bullet holes that had been shot outside the target area. There were alot of these holes. I thought drunk elvis shooting off revolvers with richard nixon. We didn't go in the airplane (the 'Lisa Marie') but we did buy special chocolates from the gift shop. And magnets.

derision

If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and sabbath breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.

The Incompleteness Theorem

xxx xxxx xxxx x xxxxxxxxx xxx xxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxx xx xxxx xxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xx x x xxxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxxx xxxx xx xxxx x xxxxxx xxxx xxx.

xx xxx xxxxxxxx xx xxx xxxx xxxxxx xx xxxxxxx xx xxxx xxxxxxxxx. xxx xxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxx xxxx. xx x xxxxx xxxx xx xxxxx.

Vestibule Longing

So we drank a couple of car bombs and then I went and shot 77 million on Sopranos. I know what you're thinking, but I swear to you, I had nothing to do with the squished peanut butter cup. That happened way before I got there.

Anyway, I don't let myself get hung up with these things anymore. It's like my new mantra, courtesy of old man Churchill: When you're going through hell, keep going. But seriously, 'what do I miss?', you ask. Ha, I miss it all brother. I miss it all.

for jessica jackson, age 18

Galactica

ES of the SM

i'm back to loving highways. Though, I am afraid that I am beginnging to distrust astrology.

rocktober

Suddenly all I want to hear is “Across the Universe”. I read a girl’s blog all about how she is in love somehow at 21 with someone named Michael. But they’ve got problems.

S from the bar was hosed and put her arms around me. Then later she made out with some tall guy and later still he was in the bathroom with her while she vomited.
I haven’t slept in 37 hours.

My life is escaping me. I think all the time if I could just get the right perspective. I have to have something to accomplish. Don't I? Watch the world go by? Make dimes? Sure. Everday I feel guilty for something. This can't be good.

Coffee Pot Sunday

I know it’s Saturday so it’s kinda' like how the Big10 actually has eleven teams in it. My friend J says that it’s a phenomenon how guys all seem to like Nicholson Baker. I sure would like to be able to stop and start time. Couldn't you use a little more space to think? Like you, I’m obsessed with death. I also thought at one time that love meant finding your heart’s sparticle. But until the results are in from the Large Hadron Collider, it will be difficult I imagine to prove that super-symmetry applies to romance let alone elementary particles. There isn’t much time scientists! Godspeed.

I’ve been on the look out for extra-dimensions. Are you doing your part?