I SAY FEVER

FIVE YEARS

Halloween Cookie

Halloween Monster Mash

Parla Italiano?

one minute as an hour a day or maybe more
care forget even for a minute tonight
one minute for a minute more...
a minute to react with the head or the heart
one minute more to hate and not forgive
one minute for a minute more...

a minute's silence will light the eye
please take a minute to remove evil
a minute to think about death and laugh
one minute for a minute more...
one minute as an hour a day or maybe more
care forget even for a minute tonight
another minute and then an eternity
one minute for a minute more ...

OJ from Concentrate

Back away from that, [she said]
And steady on [ ]

Wayward and wildly pounding heart,
There is a girl who lives among us
Who watches you with foolish eyes,

A slender, lovely, graceful girl,
Just budding into supple line,
And you scare her and make her shy.

O daughter of the highborn Amphimedo,
I replied, of the widely remembered
Amphimedo now in the rich earth dead,

There are, do you know, so many pleasures
For young men to choose from
Among the skills of the delicious goddess

It's green to think the holy one's the only.
When the shadows go black and quiet,
Let us, you and I alone, and the gods,

Sort these matters out. Fear nothing:
I shall be tame, I shall behave
And reach, if I reach, with a civil hand.

I shall climb the wall and come to the gate.
You'll not say no, Sweetheart, to this?
I shall come no farther than the garden grass.

Neobulé I have forgotten, believe me, do.
Any man who wants her may have her.
Aiai! She's past her day, ripening rotten.

The petals of her flower are all brown.
The grace that first she had is shot.
Don't you agree that she looks like a boy?

A woman like that would drive a man crazy.
She should get herself a job as a scarecrow.
I'd as soon hump her as [kiss a goat's butt].

A source of joy I'd be to the neighbors
With such a woman as her for a wife!
How could I ever prefer her to you?

You, O innocent, true heart and bold.
Each of her faces is as sharp as the other,
Which way she's turning you never can guess.

She'd whelp like the proverb's luckless bitch
Were I to foster get upon her, throwing
Them blind, and all on the wrongest day.

I said no more, but took her hand,
Laid her down in a thousand flowers,
And put my soft wool cloak around her.

I slid my arm under her neck
To still the fear in her eyes,
For she was trembling like a fawn,

Touched her hot breasts with light fingers,
Straddled her neatly and pressed
Against her fine, hard, bared crotch.

I caressed the beauty of all her body
And came in a sudden white spurt
While I was stroking her hair.”
--Fragment of a poem by Archilochus of Paros (650 BC)

Staring Into the Abyss?

... or just staring? Coming this Nov. 5...

Flashing Back to the Summer of Love

...the son of Pisistratus brought back to Thasos aulos and lyre, bearing pure gold as a gift for Thracian dogs, and for personal profit they did public harm.--Archilochus of Paros

New Millenial Parenting

All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.--Friedrich Nietzsche

Generation from Opposites, a simple alchemical formula applicable to both First Person Shooters and Guitar Heroes.

But I digress. Must be time to return to my wall staring duties...

Teacher's Pet

Soul, my soul, don't let them break you,
all these troubles. Never yield:
though their force is overwhelming,
up! attack them shield to shield...
--Archilochus of Paros

Interlude

...his prick, full as a corn-stuffed jackass,
a Prienian jackass...overflowed. --Archilochus of Paros (Fragment 43W)

Saying Grace

We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers. -Lucius Annaeus Seneca

In Greek mythology, a Charis (Χάρις) is one of several Charites (Χάριτες; Greek: "Graces"), goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility. They ordinarily numbered three, from youngest to oldest: Aglaea ("Beauty"), Euphrosyne ("Mirth"), and Thalia ("Good Cheer"). In Roman mythology they were known as the Gratiae, the "Graces". In some cases Charis was one of the Graces and was not the plural form of their name.

The Charites were usually considered the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, though they were also said to be daughters of Dionysus and Aphrodite or of Helios and the naiad Aegle. Homer wrote that they were part of the retinue of Aphrodite. The Charites were also associated with the underworld and the Eleusinian Mysteries.

The river Cephissus near Delphi was sacred to them.

Phryne, the inspiration of Praxyteles

h/t to Nietzsche's Girl for the inspiration... and one possible answer to an age old question, "What do our friends and lovers owe us?"

Sorrow

Playing Truth or Consequences

Clarity of thought, or its' lack...

Finding Redemption in Reasoned Constancy

Shakespeare, "King Lear" (Act III Sc I):

SCENE I. A heath. (Storm still. Enter KENT and a Gentleman, meeting)

KENT - Who's there, besides foul weather?

Gentleman - One minded like the weather, most unquietly.

KENT - I know you. Where's the king?

Gentleman - Contending with the fretful element:
Bids the winds blow the earth into the sea,
Or swell the curled water 'bove the main,
That things might change or cease; tears his white hair,
Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage,
Catch in their fury, and make nothing of;
Strives in his little world of man to out-scorn
The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain.
This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,
The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,
And bids what will take all.

KENT - But who is with him?

Gentleman - None but the fool; who labours to out-jest
His heart-struck injuries.

Image in the Flaneur's Rearview Mirror

Amid the deafening traffic of the town,
Tall, slender, in deep mourning, with majesty,
A woman passed, raising, with dignity
In her poised hand, the flounces of her gown;

Graceful, noble, with a statue's form.
And I drank, trembling as a madman thrills,
From her eyes, ashen sky where brooded storm,
The softness that fascinates, the pleasure that kills.

A flash . . . then night!--O lovely fugitive,
I am suddenly reborn from your swift glance;
Shall I never see you till eternity?

Somewhere, far off! Too late! never, perchance!
Neither knows where the other goes or lives;
We might have loved, and you knew this might be!
(Baudelaire 118)

The Lure of the Left

Who in their lifetime is good on Earth
and will become an angel after death
you look to the sky and ask
why can't you see them

First if the clouds have gone to sleep
you can see us in the sky
we are afraid and alone

God knows I don't want to be an angel

They live behind the sunshine
separated from us, infinite expanse
they must cling to the stars (very tightly)
so they won't fall from the sky

First if the clouds have gone to sleep
you can see us in the sky
we are afraid and alone

God knows I don't want to be an angel

First if the clouds have gone to sleep
you can see us in the sky
we are afraid and alone

God knows I don't want to be an angelPaying the Price for Intellectual Perfidy...having to drag your mind out of the gutter, kicking and screaming to dive back in.

Beaten Down but Never Broken

That which does not kill me, makes me stronger!

We, Not I, are Ducking the Old Idols

Fighting my own Best/Worst Instincts
Nietzsche, "Will to Power" 481 (1883-1888)

Against positivism, which halts at phenomena--"There are only facts"--I would say: No, facts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations. We cannot establish any fact "in itself": perhaps it is folly to want to do such a thing.

"Everything is subjective," you say; but even this is interpretation. The "subject" is not something given, it is something added and invented and projected behind what there is.--Finally, is it necessary to posit an interpreter behind the interpretation? Even this is invention, hypothesis.

In so far as the word "knowledge" has any meaning, the world is knowable; but it is interpretable otherwise, it has no meaning behind it, but countless meanings. --"Perspectivism."

It is our needs that interpret the world; our drives and their For and Against. Every drive is a kind of lust to rule; each one has its perspective that it would like to compel all the other drives to accept as a norm.

482 (1886-1887)

We set up a word at the point at which our ignorance begins, at which we can see no further, e.g., the word "I," the word "do," the word "suffer":--these are perhaps the horizon of our knowledge, but not "truths."

483 (1885)

Through thought the ego is posited; but hitherto one believed as ordinary people do, that in "I think" there was something of immediate certainty, and that this "I" was the given cause of thought, from which by analogy we understood all other causal relationships. However habitual and indispensable this fiction may have become by now--that in itself proves nothing against its imaginary origin: a belief can be a condition of life and nonetheless be false.

---

We are NOT a-mused (a quodrophenic rant).

ps - When NG rants against "binaries"... I think that this is one of the reasons why. Our instincts are not 1 or 2... they are many. The 1 and/or 2 is a fiction... albeit perhaps a necessary one. This is why I/we "prefer" the Freudian (and evolutionary) "triune brain" models. Id, Ego and SuperEgo merged with evolutionary reptilian (Id), paleo-mammalian complex (limbic)(Intermediary emotional-instinctual processing for subconscious "blind-sight" etc.), and neo-mamalian complex (neo-cortical - conscious/dream state)(L hemishpere Ego, R hemisphere SuperEgo). The result: a "functional" quodrophenia. ;)

Unlimited Forms

I easily go beyond all bounds, when I have a go at it
I consume enormously
The aim is to feel things
So I go overboard, and I like
to exagerate
it irks
brave and reasonable people
who keep within the bounds

Hey this is no dream, I know
when I stop, I’ll be
Leaving Paris
I know, later I’ll pay for this*

I overstepped the bounds
Easily
Readily
Yeah, I overstep the bounds
Without problems of ethics

*refrain

I will pay for that
I’ll end up in hard labour
I’ll be breaking stones in Guyana

I overstepped the bounds
Easily
Widely
When I start I finish
My job
properly
I consume of course
the most liquids possible
and sometimes even solids
nicely plump and chubby

*refrain x3

I will then ... hand out the change this way

I am the Sea

There are men high up there fishing,
Haven't seen quite enough of the world,
I ain't seen a sign of my hero,
And I'm still diving down for pearls.


Let me flow into the ocean,
Let me get back to the sea.
Let me be stormy and let me be calm,
Let the tide in, and set me free.


I'm flowing under bridges,
Then flying through the sky,
I'm travelling down cold metal
Just a tear in baby's eye.


Let me flow into the ocean
Let me get back to the sea
Let me be stormy and let me be calm
Let the tide in, rush over me.


I am not the actor
This can't be the scene
But I am in the water,
As far as I can see...


I'm remembering distant memories
Recalling other names.
Rippling over canyons,
And boiling in the train.
May Love Reign O'er Me!

Ode to Pain

Jowett Summary of Plato's "Philebus"

What is the origin of pleasure? Her natural seat is the mixed class, in which health and harmony were placed. Pain is the violation, and pleasure the restoration of limit. There is a natural union of finite and infinite, which in hunger, thirst, heat, cold, is impaired—this is painful, but the return to nature, in which the elements are restored to their normal proportions, is pleasant. Here is our first class of pleasures. And another class of pleasures and pains are hopes and fears; these are in the mind only. And inasmuch as the pleasures are unalloyed by pains and the pains by pleasures, the examination of them may show us whether all pleasure is to be desired, or whether this entire desirableness is not rather the attribute of another class. But if pleasures and pains consist in the violation and restoration of limit, may there not be a neutral state, in which there is neither dissolution nor restoration? That is a further question, and admitting, as we must, the possibility of such a state, there seems to be no reason why the life of wisdom should not exist in this neutral state, which is, moreover, the state of the gods, who cannot, without indecency, be supposed to feel either joy or sorrow.

The second class of pleasures involves memory. There are affections which are extinguished before they reach the soul, and of these there is no consciousness, and therefore no memory. And there are affections which the body and soul feel together, and this feeling is termed consciousness. And memory is the preservation of consciousness, and reminiscence is the recovery of consciousness. Now the memory of pleasure, when a man is in pain, is the memory of the opposite of his actual bodily state, and is therefore not in the body, but in the mind. And there may be an intermediate state, in which a person is balanced between pleasure and pain; in his body there is want which is a cause of pain, but in his mind a sure hope of replenishment, which is pleasant. (But if the hope be converted into despair, he has two pains and not a balance of pain and pleasure.) Another question is raised: May not pleasures, like opinions, be true and false? In the sense of being real, both must be admitted to be true: nor can we deny that to both of them qualities may be attributed; for pleasures as well as opinions may be described as good or bad. And though we do not all of us allow that there are true and false pleasures, we all acknowledge that there are some pleasures associated with right opinion, and others with falsehood and ignorance.

Xenophon, "Memorabilia" (Against Paid "Professors" of Virtue aka "Sophists")

...Returning to the charge at another time, this same Antiphon engaged Socrates in conversation thus.

Ant. - "Socrates, for my part, I believe you to be a good and upright man; but for your wisdom I cannot say much. I fancy you would hardly dispute the verdict yourself, since, as I remark, you do not ask a money payment for your society; and yet if it were your cloak now, or your house, or any other of your possessions, you would set some value upon it, and never dream, I will not say of parting with it gratis, but of exchanging it for less than its worth. A plain proof, to my mind, that if you thought your society worth anything, you would ask for it not less than its equivalent in gold. Hence the conclusion to which I have come, as already stated: good and upright you may be, since you do not cheat people from pure selfishness; but wise you cannot be, since your knowledge is not worth a cent."

To this onslaught Socrates replied: "Antiphon, it is a tenet which we cling to that beauty and wisdom have this in common, that there is a fair way and a foul way in which to dispose of them. The vendor of beauty purchases an evil name, but supposing the same person have discerned a soul of beauty in his lover and makes that man his friend, we regard his choice as sensible. So is it with wisdom; he who sells it for money to the first bidder we name a sophist, as though one should say a man who prostitutes his wisdom; but if the same man, discerning the noble nature of another, shall teach that other every good thing, and make him his friend, of such a one we say he does that which it is the duty of every good citizen of gentle soul to do. In accordance with this theory, I too, Antiphon, having my tastes, even as another finds pleasure in his horse and his hounds, and another in his fighting cocks, so I too take my pleasure in good friends; and if I have any good thing myself I teach it them, or I commend them to others by whom I think they will be helped forwards on the path of virtue. The treasures also of the wise of old, written and bequeathed in their books, I unfold and peruse in common with my friends. If our eye light upon any good thing we cull it eagerly, and regard it as great gain if we may but grow in friendship with one another."

As I listened to this talk I could not but reflect that he, the master, was a person to be envied, and that we, his hearers, were being led by him to beauty and nobility of soul.

Again on some occasion the same Antiphon asked Socrates how he expected to make politicians of others when, even if he had the knowledge, he did not engage in politics himself.

Socrates replied: "I will put to you a question, Antiphon: Which were the more statesmanlike proceeding, to practise politics myself single- handed, or to devote myself to making as many others as possible fit to engage in that pursuit?"

Limbic Candymen for Hire

Poetry

He sits at the table and writes.

"With this poem you will not take power," he says.
"With these verses, you will not make revolution," he says.
"Nor with thousands of verses will you make revolution," he says.

And what's more, these verses won't make peons, teachers, or carpenters live better, eat better, or he himself eat, live better.
Not even for wooing a woman can they be used.

He won't make money with them.
He won't get into the movies for free with them.
They won't give him clothes for them.
He won't get tobaco or wine with them.

Nor parrots, nor scarves, nor boats, nor bulls, nor umbrellas will he get from them.
If it were left to them, the rain would get him wet.
He won't reach forgiveness nor grace because of them.

"With this poem you will not take power," he says.
"With these verses you will not make revolution," he says.
"Nor with thousands of verses will you make revolution," he says.

He sits at the table and writes.

Food for Worms

Simonide's (of Ceos) lament

Being a man you cannot tell what might turn up when tomorrow comes
Nor yet how long one who appears blessed will remain that way,
So unpredictable even a long-winged fly
Veers around less suddenly.-Simonides of Ceos

Undead Ophelias

In Awe of Ra

Walter Benjamin gave the name "auratic perception" to the aesthetic faculty through which civilization would recover a lost appreciation of myth

Re-tying (re-legio) the ring of eternity to the rod/staff/scepter of power...

Nietzsche, "Twilight of the Idols" (The 4 Great Errors) (aka- Vaseline for the Camera Lens)

1) confusing cause and effect
2) false causality
3) imaginary causes

4) The error of free will

"Mistrust those in whom the urge to punish is strong." --Friedrich Nietzsche

Angelus Novus

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress. --Walter Benjamin