another year gone, another digit flipped, another micron calcified on the stalagmite of self.

“what do mean, thank god it’s over?” it asks good-naturedly. it wriggles about as it asks though it ought not to. it knew what he meant.

“you know what i meant.” he manages. his tongue feels giant, a wet wad in his mouth, tracing the edge of a hundred teeth at once. the rain is unstoppable. his socks are wet. the paper bag in his hand clings tight to its bottle.

“you realize time does not stop on january 1st walter. nothing has actually changed.” it says this matter-of-factly. it does not mean to be cruel.

“you know what i meant.” he repeats with even less feeling if that’s possible. what comes out sounds like “yuh-noh temint.”

“it’s just that the whole thing is so unsubstantial. demarcating one discrete portion of time, titling it, filing it away from the rest; as if the act of re-numbering actually created a new reality. these lines are drawn specifically to cross…”

“please, please, stop talking.” he interrupts. “i have to sit down.”

he does not so much sit down as crumble into pile right there beside the road. his wet coat makes a slapping sound on the sidewalk. his bottle clanks against the curb but does not break.

“careful!” it complains, twisting its prostomium away from its anus, setae bristling.

walter isn’t listening, propped there on one elbow, his eyes closed. headlights and neon flash his eyelids. he imagines a massive sun burning off its hydrogen into helium and wonders whether the aliens who live nearby must talk in those funny high-pitched balloon voices.

“anyway, as i was saying,” it continues “you might argue a case for the astronomical basis of calendars, going as far back as the babylonian through the julian and the current gregorian, thus inferring a concrete meaning for these subdivisions you romanticize, but in point of fact…”

the rain is falling hard against the back of walter’s hand. the paper bag is disintegrating and peeling away from the bottle he’s holding. it feels as if it were molting, the shed skin flopping over his knuckles; bunching between his fingers. a group of revelers on the opposite side of the street are singing and blowing plastic horns.

“...january 1st has no astronomical nor agricultural significance. It is purely arbitrary. the calendar attempts to follow the tropical year, but to make a strong argument for a deeper significance i’d say you’d also need to take the equinoxes and solstices into account, not to mention synodic months…”

walter feels sick.

christ he thinks, what time is it?

he opens his eyes in a futile attempt to steady the wobbly world, he may as well be sitting on a waterbed, strapped to a spinning helicopter blade, itself connected to a out of control ferris wheel. he looks at his wrist but he’s not wearing a watch.

“...i suppose i understand the desire.” an involuntary shudder moves over its segments. ” the new year as a clean slate. the chance to begin again, to start over and do it all better. the notion of progress. the feeling of being part of the continuum. a witness to history. etc. there is a certain naive poetry to the whole thing. the dancing, the libations, the saccharine old songs. i imagine the familiarity of the ceremony is comforting.”

walter shudders as well.

“isn’t it somewhat ironic walter that each new year is celebrated in exactly the same way? the desires for tradition and renewal butting heads as it were…”

strange guttural sounds answer, as walter’s stomach clenches into a sailor’s knot and he hunches over, vomiting against the back tire of a honda mini-van. he sets the bottle down and vomits a second time, then a third; a long thick line of spittle composed of equal parts saliva, bile, and fermented agave stretches from his lower lip to the road.

“...whoa. you alright walter? you still with me there champ?”

he groans and lays his forehead against the cool wet blacktop. directly in front of him, two inches from his nose, is the bottle. its protective bag has totally disintegrated by now. walter looks at it a bit dazed. looks at its gold label. looks at the sun icon, the red and black lettering. 

“walter?” it asks sounding concerned.

he closes his eyes. he imagines something is looming over him. its a huge tapir, balanced improbably on its back legs. holy sheet! it looks angry. it’s eyes are beady but wild. what’s it doing?! walter thinks, horrified. it’s pissing gasoline all over walter’s chest, that’s what. and in one nostril of its prehensile nose it’s holding a lit match.

his eyes snap open. he sees the words monte alban hovering in front of him on the bottle. it’s nearly empty. he realizes he is quite literally laying in the gutter, in the rain, beside a pile of his own vomit. he looks at the juicy worm which seems to wriggle about in that last warm inch of mescal.

“parties over dude.” he mumbles, grabbing the bottle and tipping it sideways toward his mouth. it sound like “ptsys o-er’dd.”

between the sounds of his palm slaps, tapping hard at the bottle’s bottom, he can just make out the over-talkative worm’s last words before falling into the shuddering gastric tumult that lay below-

“¡sí y Feliz Año Nuevo a usted también, usted mono mudo pobre!” it said, tumbling toward the uncertain future.

the show was put together by drs. phyllis and eberhard kronhausen (two psychologists who began collecting erotica years before when they were preparing another book, a theoretical investigation of “obscenity” from a legal standpoint called pornography of the law.) the drs. pitch to the public, as contained in the books (which were published after the show) is both quaint and somewhat comical reading it now. it goes to great lengths to make the reader feel at ease with the subject matter.

it begins with a chapter heading: how nice people like us got involved in erotic art. further on there is a section called the public speaks in which visitors to the show are interviewed for a reaction, including “an american professor” (read: see? it’s intellectual) “a businessman” (read: respectable people have seen it) and an entire section about children who saw the show (read: it’s innocent and natural.) in between nuns, police officers, a widow dressed in a smartly tailored mourning outfit, an elderly man with two canes, academic dignitaries, and members of her royal majesties navy are made mention of. all in all pretty funny. i guess in 68 the general public still needed some hand holding when it came to the inky nether regions.

(side bar: there is one especially comical bit in the foreword of the second volume, put out in 1970, which begins like this: “the era of pornography is coming to an end for pornography is possible only where censorship exists.” haha. i guess in 1970 it looked as if things were really a’changin. it then mentions that “victorian england produced more ‘hard-core’ smut than any other period in western history.” i wonder whether more recent editions of the book amend this statement? in any case after looking for more info on the drs. this foreword on the mutation of pornography into something “less smutty” struck me in a totally different light. perhaps as a soft sell for future ventures? yup, turns out the good drs. have directed a few porn films themselves. most notably the hottest show in town, from 1973, the synopsis of which goes like this- The circus is going to close its doors, the public’s no longer interested in it with so many porno films in town… Unless!... Desperate acrobats, clowns, lion tamers, and tricksters go naked on stage in their circus acts. hahaha. anyway…)

the book continues on with artist interviews (including one with warhol in which his being shot earlier that same year is mentioned.) the show was a true survey across many cultural traditions and with many heavy weights of western art represented, including: chagall, dali, dix, ernst, johns, klimt, oldenburg, picasso, rauchenberg, rembrandt, rodin, warhol, etc. the work runs the gamut from classical, to raunchy, to beautiful, to bizarre, to grotesque. interesting stuff. want to see?

i’m going to leave aside the big names above and instead share the work of just a few less well known artists which i liked. keep in mind, these are most definitely nsfw, and if any young’ns or whippersnappers snuck in here under the curtain then scat! ‘cmon now, i’m talkin’ to you. git! skidaddle! i don’t want to have to whoop you now! damn kids. o.k. now that it’s just us grown-ups… click the numbered links for full size works

viset


1 | 2 | 3
viset was a pseudonym of belgian painter and illustrator luc lafnet. more of his work (under the pseudonym jim black) can be seen here.

jules pascin


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quote: the french painter Jules Pascin today is best known for his paintings of prostitutes in various states of undress and melancholy. his engravings are of a mostly black and white world of sordid languor, frenetic partying and heavy dues-paying. you can see many of his paintings here.

hans bellmer


1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
hans bellmer is best known for his life-sized surrealist female dolls. you can see more of his etchings (in poor quality) here.

ramon alejandro


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alejandro is a cuban exile painter still working today. you can see more current works here.

mario tauzin


1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
i could find almost nothing about tauzin. he’s french and he did a book in the 1930’s with henri breton called the devil’s whisper. i think rita ackermann’s early work is remarkably similar to tauzin’s (and just as with him i can’t find a decent site representing her body of work.)

tomi ungerer


1 | 2 | 3 | 4
tomi ungerer is an extremely accomplished illustrator doing everything from ad campaigns, to children’s books, to erotica. you can see lot’s of his work at his official site and you can see the rest of the series i’ve shown here in in the online version of his book fornicon.

if you’re interested in the books they were reprinted in a single volume which can be found (where else?) here.

well folks, hope you enjoyed this little dab of art trivia. until next time…

ha.

it lasts for a few seconds at most.

the tall man with white teeth and a long coat is standing beside him. his white teeth part, are hidden by his lips, and he says, “i hope you didn’t just miss your train?” the last three words are emphasized just enough to make the statement sound like a question. in his right hand there is a small book, in his left 4 thin pamphlets.

the man with the yellow teeth looks at the evidently fleet footed interloper and thinks, it is rather counterproductive to try striking up a conversation with a rhetorical question isn’t it? were it the old west a stream of brown chaw-juice would likely pass those yellow teeth as answer, and finding no spittoon, would splash against the interloper’s boots.

it being christmas the man with the yellow teeth answers as pleasantly as he can manage when being called upon to state the obvious. “yes, in fact, i did.” only as the tiny cloud of condensation is already escaping his mouth does he notice the book and small pamphlets… 

just as the vampire needs to be invited in to strike, so too does the jehovah’s witness. and just as it is with “they of the neatly punctured neck” realization dawns too late for he of the yellow teeth. he has sent his invitation as surely as if with a fountain pen, on a little lavender card, in looping and immaculate script announcing: you are cordially invited to a conversion attempt!

the man with the white teeth

wearing a white hat as it turns out, the discorporate, but so proudly donned as to be almost visible, white hat of self righteousness. if that hat could speak it would say. “i am the good guy! i’m on the side of right because i know the truth.” of course hats can’t speak, least of all discorporate ones; unfortunately the men who wear them can.

the man with the yellow teeth grinds them against one another slightly and resigns himself to the inevitable.

“do you think people can make the world a better place?” asks the man with the white teeth. as an opening volley it’s harmless, a spitball fired from a bendy straw.

the man with the yellow teeth has been down this road before, as surely everyone has. having made the initial mistake of a standing open in the town square, it is at this point a partial retreat is made back into the mental saloon, from where endless rounds of “i’m not interested. (head shake, reload) sorry, i’m not interested.” can be fired. it’s a siege mentality, and uncomfortable as it may be, it is generally an effective tactic.

the train platform was silent save for the squaws of some circling gulls. it being christmas the man with the yellow teeth decided a fair fight was called for. rather than firing off cold shots from behind the saloon’s busted windows he’d face ol’ white teeth right out in the open, ideologies at high noon.

“in theory i believe people could make the world a better place. in practice i don’t think we’ve had much success.” he says.

the man with the white teeth asks “events have become worrying haven’t they? is it reasonable to expect human governments to be able to sort it out?” rather than waiting for an answer he opens a pamphlet and points to a passage of scripture, saying, “in the bible god says…”

the man with the yellow teeth listens and nods occasionally.

if it’s to be an honorable encounter the interloper must be allowed his say. allusions and assumptions fly every which way ricocheting off lamp posts. passages are quoted, shaky corollaries are drawn, god’s wisdom is praised. finally the man with the white teeth asks, “are you a religious person, by any chance?”

were it the old west this would have been an opportune moment for some tumbleweeds to roll through.

the man with the yellow teeth is cold. the train station is right on the hudson and the wind chill makes it feel about 30 degrees out. the gulls have stopped squawking and are gathered in a ragged group poking their beaks into the dirty snow. he thinks, it’s too late to tell this guy “i’m not interested” isn’t it? i’ve got at least 45 minutes till the next train…”

the man with the yellow teeth decides that though “i’m not interested” would have been an honest answer, in its way, he is beyond the point of no return, and must now explain his position in more detail.

he thinks, crap, here we go

he says, “no, i’m not a religious person. of course the question itself is somewhat loaded in that “religion” is universally understood today as being a method by which humans address certain moral and metaphysical questions; questions of “the spirit” which are too often thought to be the providence of religions alone. by asking if i am a “religious” person you are in a sense asking whether or not the great thorny questions of our “being” are important to me. as it happens they are.

what i have no use for is organized religion. i am compelled to say i am not “religious” specifically because organized religions have had the audacity to name and codify the mysteries of our universe and ourselves. because they have anthropomorphized nature’s workings i am compelled to say i am “an atheist.” were it not for this audacity on the part of religions i could simply be a curious, uncertain, person, horrified by my own mortality and wanting answers, like every single other human on the planet.

in my estimation “person” is the base level value. what constructed denomination or sect you choose to cling to is secondary, an addition to the base level, and one which thus requires a “label.” people who do not believe in your gods or your truths ought not to be labeled at all. they’ve not chosen one of the prefabricated brands on offer, so there is no need, they’ve stuck with the baseline and ought to remain simply “people.” 

on the same general principle it is this competition between brands which causes a huge portion of the suffering in the world. where as we are united in our fear and our curiosity and our wonder as people we are driven apart when we seek to trade those qualities for the wholesale security and truth of a particular religion. furthermore it is exactly the rigidity and unbending nature of each religion’s claim on truth which demands that people reject one another. in fact many religions are most accurately differentiated by what they reject rather than what they encourage. “thou shalt not” is an all too popular sentiment. 

you asked whether i thought it reasonable to expect human governments to be able to “sort it out.” the context of your question intimated that you yourself would answer no. on that we may agree, but what is an organized religion if not a human government of the spirit? is it reasonable to expect human religious bodies to be able to sort out matters of the individual spirit? i think not.

as for this providence of religion over the great questions of life and the human heart, i contend that organized religions are in fact totally unqualified for the task for many reasons.

- they do not ask questions as such but rather offer a set of answers which one’s questions must seek to fit.
- they demand faith rather than encouraging further exploration.
- they offer broad rigid dogma as answer to the unimaginably rich and varied experience of all humanity.
- lastly they lay claim to ultimate truth, with knowledge of man’s creation, existence, and demise, and are thus closed systems, which are theoretically unadaptable. yet you will notice that each religion has in fact adapted considerably, a fact which i believe reflects quite clearly the “divinity” of their collective brands of truth.

isn’t it accurate to say that once a question is “answered” the question no longer needs to be asked? this is what religions offer humanity. the promise of an accepting, obedient, stagnant, uncurious, existence in which questions need not be asked because ultimate truth need not be questioned.

at bottom i feel that the claim of organized religions to ultimate truth is the highest arrogance imaginable. i feel that each and every human is exactly as qualified (or unqualified) to answer the big questions for themselves. the generations of people who have shaped these religions have no higher claim to “truth” than a homeless junky nodding behind a dumpster. there are no qualifications other than being a sentient homosapien. in fact i feel that accepting someone else’s interpretation of life and spirit rather than attempting to discover one’s own is tantamount to a rejection of life.

i feel that each religion’s habit of ignoring it’s own political roots, of ignoring its own will to power, of conveniently forgetting its own brutality and cruelty, of pretending its tenants and rules have not been an endless flux of human interpretations but are rather the solid and immutable “words of god” is inexcusably hypocritical.

most of all i feel a world populated with open minded, curious, people who humbly admit their ignorance but seek understanding, individually and collectively none the less, would be by degrees preferable to one we find ourselves in today with warring, murderous, factions and sects, either hypocritically wrapping the “words of god” as a shroud over their own greed or actually believing that they and their kind have somehow hit upon the one unquestionable set of truths about the universe which just happens to involve a huge bearded man living happily in a utopian sky who loves them best…”

the man with the yellow teeth pauses a moment, thinks back to what the man with the white teeth had actually asked him and says, “so the answer is no. no, i’m definitely not a ‘religious’ person.”

were this the old west the man with the yellow teeth might have blown a bit of lingering smoke from the barrel of his six-shooter. as it is he just blew into his hands to stave off the cold.

the man with the white teeth was perceptibly flustered. you could almost see his white hat fall to the ground, a single tiny hole piercing it straight through. perhaps he thought better of his decision to seek a convert on this particular bench on this particular cold christmas morning, or perhaps he’s so used to the ol’ “i’m not interested” tactic that he’s out of practice. he says, “well, i can respect that.”

a draw then. no converts to be made on either side unless one of the gulls below was uncommonly suggestible.

the man with the white teeth offers the man with the yellow teeth a couple of pamphlets and says, “you might find something of interest in one of these?” the last three words are emphasized just enough to make the statement sound like a question.

the man with the yellow teeth has no more beef with this cowboy of jehovah and says, “yeah, sure, thanks.”

the man with the white teeth wrapped his long coat more tightly around himself then and walked off, down the steps, toward the parking lot.

silence had returned but who knew how long it would last. passengers for the next train would start ambling up onto the platform soon. only a half hour now, he thinks. turning to open his black duffel bag and retrieve a book the man with the yellow teeth imagines a white hat there on the ground beside him with a single shot through it, imagines picking it up and putting it on… nah. not my style at all he thinks, as below a white toyota leaves the parking lot and heads off into the day.

So that’s what fudley wrote, and tbuckner is pretty well in full agreement with him. I replied as follows:

Most people, in discussing free will, assume it’s boolean: either you have ‘it’ or you don’t. And most seem to assume free will is something ineffable and unbounded, when in reality there are many constraints on our behavior. I don’t think it’s useful to think about it that way.

I prefer to think about “degrees of freedom” in a behavioral sense, by analogy to mechanical degrees of freedom (you probably know the term, but here’s a good explanation: degrees of freedom.

“In total, your arm has seven degrees of freedom: three in the shoulder, one in the elbow, and three in the arm below the elbow. Three degrees of freedom are sufficient to bring the end of a robot arm to any point within its workspace, or work envelope, in three dimensions.”

So think of that as a metaphor for the possible choices and mental states a given entity can have. Until somebody shows me different, I assume a rock or an ice cube or my couch have exactly zero degrees of freedom. They have no mental states and only behave according to what physics and chemistry make them do. There are inanimate objects which can do pretty complicated things: a bucket of gasoline can sit quietly, and then burn down my garage; my computer can do lots of stuff I don’t understand, but since it doesn’t quite have a mind, it’s still an inanimate object.

Degrees of freedom begin to crop up when an assemblage of inanimate matter becomes complex enough to behave as if it had a self, however primitive. It’s generally agreed that prions are dead matter, viruses are (barely) alive, and bacteria are fully alive since they take full responsibility for their own metabolism. Fully alive entities may lack consciousness, but they do have tropisms, toward light or food, for example. Still, the degrees of freedom we find in single-celled creatures are so slight as to be barely worth mention.

Plants and simple animals have more complex behaviors, and animals with bigger brains have increasing degrees of freedom. By the time we work our way up to mammals, we have beings who actually do have some concept of freedom; they are capable of caring when they don’t have it. I had a pet rat named Houdini (he was an escape artist). When kept in a cage he couldn’t get out of, he would lay there with his chin on his paws. He was truly depressed! Eventually, he ended up living in the cellar, uncaged. He had the run of the place, and would kill mice when they tried to steal his food. He liked it there; I would go down and call him, and he’d come (he loved steak tips). The point of this story is that, although a rat may not have an unlimited behavioral repertoire, it has enough intelligence and enough of a self-concept to have preferences. Are we therefore to say that a rat has zero free will?

Now, a hard-ass determinist can say, “But rats and humans are ultimately just more complex molecular machines, and if each mental state is fully dependent on previous states, and if our behavioral space is not infinite, then WE DON"T HAVE FREEE WIIIILLLLL! EEEEEEEEEEEK!!!” We’re just Chinese Rooms? Ah, that’s the problem with denying free will entirely; you’re telling people they have no feelings, no inner lives, no choice. So we are forced to imagine what magical quality is lacking that a being with free will would have, when any yak farmer can tell you he’s got free will.

So consider humans: there are no creatures we know of that have a wider behavioral repertoire than humans. From helpless, speechless, half-instinctive babies we have the potential to become astronauts, concert pianists, BASE jumpers, sex fiends, embezzlers, computer programmers, Buddhist monks, war criminals, comedians, and guys who hug wild grizzly bears until they get eaten. Humans have a LOT of free will. Some more than others; does a garment worker trapped in Saipan with her passport in the boss’s safe have as much free will as the centimillionaire designer whose name is on the labels she sews? Obviously not!

There’s more than one dimension of free will in humans, anyway. There’s freedom of movement, what you can afford to buy, who you can sleep with, whether you can get that sex-change operation, who will take your calls, who will obey your orders. In these areas (power, basically), that rich fashion designer has it all over our poor seamstress. But perhaps there are things she can do that he can’t, or at least things she could do if she had time and leisure. Perhaps she is a lucid dreamer, knows three languages, and so on. Having potential freedoms means nothing if one lacks the imagination or intellect to pursue them. As practically everyone is stupid in some areas, so everyone is unfree in those areas, even if they don’t know it.

I recall a story about Gurdjieff, the Russian mage, behaved toward a particular woman who arrived at the Priory to study there. She, as I recall, was very intellectual (or wanted to be seen as such) and rather an impatient type A person. Gurdjieff was nasty to her, wouldn’t give her the time of day. He hounded her until she left, and one of his disciples asked him why. Gurdjieff replied that she was a waste of time, and she would never change. The disciple met her ten years later, and found her to be close-minded and insufferable; her worst qualities had grown, but otherwise, Gurdjieff had been exactly right. For some reason, she could not change.

So what sense does it make to say “Do humans have free will or don’t they?” As doctors now know there are many completely different diseases under the heading of ‘cancer,’ and many different rhinoviruses under the heading of ‘common cold,’ so are there many not-quite-the-same freedoms under the heading of “Free Will.”

he’s out there friends. he’s out there. watching and waiting…

all the best. see you soon. -jaime

now all these weeks later i find, to my relief, i am not permanently changed. the bile-tide has receded to normal levels. today those positively longing to see the interior of a subway car number in the high thousands, and yet when the picket lines are scattered and the wage-militia has disbanded, the subway experience will revert back instantaneously to its familiar and horrible shape.

here are some things 10 trips in a day brought vividly to light which 2 trips a day for 15 years only hinted at-

1- the subway is hell on earth. it is sartre’s hell of other people. it is simultaneously another hell. the hell of the self. each physical detail of the self which we find privately horrifying and do our best to ignore in the mirror is revealed in its gory detail on a crowded subway car. pores, rashes, sores, dandruff, pustules, liver spots, varicose veins, halitosis, tartar, osteoporosis, tumorous growths, body odor, ingrown hairs, pot bellies, camel toes, razor burn, ear wax, the sounds of chewing, spittle, facial grease, stomach rumbles, clumped make-up, sweat stains, fecal stinks… the list goes on. a subway ride is a carnival of competing repulsions and minor horrors. had hieronymus bosch been painting today i expect his paintings would have been crowded interiors rather than landscapes.

2- people are overwhelmingly ugly. statistically and literally. a good long look around a subway car almost always reveals this. i’ve often assumed that i simply have the bad luck of always getting on what i dub “the ugly car.” but 10 trips in a day seems to reveal that they are all in fact “the ugly car.” looking around nary a remotely attractive human is to be found; and truly, “remotely attractive” is not even the proper phrase. it would be more appropriate to say nary an un-hideous human is to be found. whatever the “universal” qualifications for beauty of form, symmetry, certain proportional relationships… they are in short supply. this would seem to point to the fact that people, on the whole, are unattractive and yes it reflects on you as well. you can’t escape the statistics. you’ve just boarded the ugly train and you’re right where you belong.

3- people are overwhelmingly assholes. it’s true. a good long marathon run in the subway system reveals the one true unifying factor for humans across all ages, races, creeds, and both sexes is assholishness, a face-punching, eye-spitting, expletive peppered assholishness here defined as a complete and utter unwillingness to act in anything other than a selfish uncivilized manner. every single one of the lumbering forms you jostle against in the subway system is operating under a simple imperative: me first; alternately called the fuck you imperative. you might try naively to “lead by example” and be courteous, unselfish, and follow the rules of well-ordered mass transit (allowing others to exit, standing away from the doors, moving into the car, staying to the right side on staircases, etc) but for your efforts you will inevitably be rewarded with elbow jabs, shoves, huffs, and repetitive refrains of “ex-cuse me!” with accompanying eye-rolls. the point is civilized behavior on the subway is a kind of momentary vacuum which the crowd of assholes seeks to fill instantly.

4- advertising is revolting, damn near retarded, and under the right conditions can lead to bloodshed. the subway trains are so packed with advertising, and passengers are so keen to avoid eye contact, that a subway ride is often a long crowded smelly commercial. (a common trope which needs forever to be retired is the “subway pun” in which every ad message must somehow be a double entendre cleverly playing off the fact you are standing in a crowded space with strangers who you despise. “yes thank you kind people of time warner, or viaccom, or whatever multinational conglomerate you shill for, but i am well aware of my position at the moment and no amount of your tiresome wordplay is going to make me think more kindly of your shitty product. in point of fact ‘cleverness’  under these circumstances is most likely to result in a black eye so back off!”) the ads which line the length of each subway car are so poorly designed, so inane, so repetitive that the captive audience should feel a debt to existing gun laws. i assume they are all that stands between a boring subway ride and a mass suicide.

5- the m.t.a. is despicable. “how can you say that?!” well i’ll tell you how. for a while now on each car there have been ads explaining that the m.t.a. has a multimillion dollar surplus (read profit) and urging people to vote on a certain recent proposition which effected their ability to spend that money. likewise there are many ads which say something to the effect of “hope you like our new kick-ass futuristic subways cars, cause we bought a whole shit-load of them.” here’s the thing- you can shove the money up your asses for all the good it does the passengers. the hike in fares (which was “so urgently needed” post 9/11) supplied you with that surplus and yet 4 years later your workers feel they need to strike to get a piece of that pie. assholes one and all i say. from top to bottom. why? because your basic nuts-and-bolts service still sucks! we still stand on platforms for 20 minutes in the middle of rush every morning and every evening, service is still endlessly interrupted, cars are still way overcrowded, they are still filthy, buzzing speakers still don’t work, air-conditioning still malfunctions, ceilings still drip, and your people are still unhelpful and annoyed at the prospect of have to do their jobs. so in short stop touting your fucking multi-million dollar surplus until you make your system work better. “but it’s the largest system of its kind and it runs 24 hours a day seven days a week! i’d like to see you run it!” actually that’s your job. how about doing it? how about some competence? either that or as far as i’m concerned you can divide your surplus up among your customers. maybe we could each afford to take one cab ride, which as you’ll no doubt notice would be very useful at the moment.

lastly a few specific subway related tid-bits which boggle my mind-

1) eating a full mcdonalds or kentucky fried chicken meal on the subway. could there be a more disgusting thing for either the eater or the onlookers? who in the hell… aw fuck it.

2) contacting the pole in the middle of the car not with the 3-odd inches of your hand’s palm but with the entire length on your back. yes business man i see you’re intent on reading your wallstreet journal article, which evidently requires two hands for the full money-rific experience ,but if you don’t make room i’m going to have to break your glasses and muss your comb-over. seriously.

3) bicycles. what the fuck? you’ve got a bicycle… what are you doing on the subway? choose one.

4) standing in front of the doors either inside or outside the car. when those doors open you need to move your ass. the way i see it if you’re over the age of 10 and you’re standing in front of an open door either you’re retarded or it’s an explicit challenge.

5) entertainment at 34th street. listen, this is not star search! it’s not show time at the apollo! what in the fucking hell are you forming a huge crowd for? is this your entertainment for the evening? are you on a date? how many times can you see the bucket drumming or the guy dancing with a mannequin before you get bored? this is a subway station for christ sake! move your feet!

6) why of all places are you standing there?! right there where you are clogging foot traffic in each direction? why? of all places?

i guess that about does it, though the unpleasantness is so wildly varied, such a cornucopia, that i’m sure i forgot something. (and i’m sure the ladies among you have a whole other set of circumstances to bemoan, roving hands… i can only imagine).

so just remember, yes, having to walk-it sucks horribly but that subway your shivering-self is so longing for needs to be taken in moderation! once your allowed back into its belly don’t over do it! 2 rides a day at most! your opinion of humanity is at stake.

actually now that i think about it… perhaps this whole transit strike thing is a smokescreen thrown up every few decades in an effort to make you forget how shitty the subway actually is… the fact we are so dependent on such a miserable excuse for public conveyance… well it shows how degraded our urbanite expectations are.

‘course, it’s all easy for me to say since i’ve been off this week. haha!

One I really love is U2’s razor-sharp cover of Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), and then there’s the magnificent Happy Xmas (War Is Over) by John Lennon and the execrable Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney. googling for info on the U2 song led me to a Best Xmas Albums list and Trent McMartin’s comment farther down which anticipated my view exactly.

Not to diss Sir Paul, but the thing which set Lennon apart was not being smarter or more melodic or catchier, but his gut-level commitment to emotional truth even at the expense of angering his fans. Lennon’s honesty was not cheap; it helped get him killed. It made him immortal. Where Macca’s Christmas tune is a lightweight, toylike arrangement carrying a lyric of insular domesticity and comfort, Lennon’s is a soaring waltz and a cry from the heart against conflict. He’s not pretending the world is beautiful one day a year; he’s asking why we can’t make it beautiful all the time. McCartney’s problem is that he’s not that tough on himself and nobody else can tell him what to do. Memo to Paul: pack one guitar, camp out on Rick Rubin’s doorstep, and await further instruction.

In earnest of all this, I wrote my own Christmas song. It’s obviously not in the league of Lennon, Bono, Vince Guaraldi, et al; but at least it’s honest enough from my bilious vantage, and I don’t know what else you can ask. It starts out with a riff in the flavor of Jingle Bell Rock and goes rapidly downhill from there. In a time when fascists are accusing liberals of ‘waging a war against Christmas,’ it says a bit about what kind of Christmas they’re giving us to celebrate. I guess it’s called:

All Lit Up
2005 Tom Buckner fuck copyright

All the apple cheeks are gathered to the sound of clinking glass
We will sip suburban bourbon and discuss the year that’s past
All your friends are home for Christmas, so let nothing you dismay
Yes, there may be bombs a-falling, but that’s half a world away

Through eponymous foundations the beautiful people share a bit
With the hungry and the hopeless from whom they’ve stolen most of it
For the cloak of great compassion is the fashion’s finest fit
They’re so proud they can pretend to give a shit

We may be running out of antibiotics, drinkable water and oil
We may be led by stone psychotics, but that’s no excuse to spoil our time together
(Spoken) But who needs an excuse, anyway?
(Chorus)
And the snow is blowing deeper across the sleepers in the ground
You can feel it getting colder, boys and girls
But the stores are all lit up just like it’s Christmas coming ‘round
You just hope it’s not the last one in the world

We’re killing our mother earth with chainsaws while praising our father above
We turn her into televisions, toasters, hats and gloves
We push it all to the shops in the mall where we hustle and shove
Can you point me to the shop where they sell love?

So the north pole is all melting and it’s full of al Qaeda cells
And the reindeer caught the bird flu and they gave it to the elves
And the Christians kidnaped Jesus and they’ve brainwashed him as well
We were happy-go-lucky, now it’s happy-go-fuck-yourself

Now the Constitution is necrotic, the founding fathers are roiled
And Pharaoh’s reign has grown so despotic, Moses would send us boils
And lotsa locusts
(Spoken) And about ten other things you don’t want…
(Chorus)
And the snow is blowing deeper across the sleepers in the ground
You can feel it getting colder, boys and girls
But the stores are all lit up just like it’s Christmas coming ‘round
You just hope it’s not the last one in the world
Yes, the stores are all lit up just like it’s Christmas coming ‘round
You just hope it’s not the last one

I worked out the chords, and it don’t sound bad, but I couldn’t motivate myself to get out to an open mike and play it. Maybe next year. But maybe I’ll do a demo and e-mail an mp3 out.
I should note that I blatantly stole that swell pic of old Saint Nick blowing his brains out from My Miserable Christmas, so somebody go look. It’s only fair to send some eyeballs over there.

And, what the hell, at least it looks like somebody’s having fun this Xmas:

here is the cover

mike’s existence is technically not part of the 123 reasons though it grabbed the cover. he and his artwork are listed as reason #124.

quote: Michael De Feo, a.k.a. Flower Guy. Street-art veteran Michael De Feo has spent more than a decade pasting whimsically uplifting silk-screened prints around the city; except for his trademark flower, he never repeats an image. His first giant flower, painted eleven years ago, still stands on East 23rd Street, between Second and Third Avenues.

(he’s also the creator of the delightful book alphabet city, mentioned here previously,  which if you missed you ought to check out.)

it warmed my small black heart to hear his first giant flower was still up near s.v.a. brought back memories…

anyhow, continuing-

reasons #1 & #2. Because Bush Is Not Our Fault… But we have nothing against Republicans

quote: After every malapropism, every inadvertent display of incuriosity, every heartbreaking show of incompetence, we can remind ourselves we had nothing to do with Bushís reelection. It’s some consolation, small though it is.

(mayor) Bloomberg is a perfect politician for this moment. Who loves him? The list can’t extend that far beyond his mom. The most charismatic thing about him is his checkbook. His most important virtue is his adulthood. It’s a quality one would like to see our national leaders grow into.

yes, yes. all well and good. we hate bush but we’re alright with bloomberg. hate bush because he’s an incompetent ideologue whose every assholeish facial twitch makes our blood boil / tolerate bloomberg because he’s so no-nonsense, so like an honest c.e.o. in his dealings (if there is such an animal) but this same logic can very well backfire on us if that other republican pictured above ever gets into a position of true power. we won’t be so blameless then will we? 

reason #35. Because a Guy from Ecuador Can Sell Soda Off the Back of a Donkey, Then Come Here and Build a $120 Million Business. All It Takes Is a Few Mattresses and an 800 Number

this story is a capsule about entrepreneur Napoleon Barragan, the ecuadorian born protagonist of the classic rags to riches story. he created 1-800-mattress (“leave the last ‘s’ off for savings”) and became a multi-millionaire.

it ought to really be titled “because a guy from ecuador Can Sell Soda Off the Back of a Donkey, Then Come Here and realize the real american dream.” the real american dream, of course, meaning not just rising above poverty but becoming wealthy enough that your penance for the obligatory tax evasion conviction will consist of nothing more than a handful of hours in the clink followed by a fine. in short becoming wealthy enough to avoid the ass-rape which your earlier, poorer, self would have suffered through.

true success.

reasons #64-100. Because Christians and Kabbalists, Wiccans and Zoroastrians, Have a Home Here

this is to my mind indeed a good reason to love new york. to be clear though it’s not really because of the warm fuzzy ideals about tolerance and melting pots (which are nice) but rather because of the brute mathematical reality. i am an atheist but i say the more believers, cult members, and religious sects the better. the greater the dispersion across multiple sects the lesser chance there is for an overwhelming majority, which means the lesser the chance that i’ll have to contend with that majority’s particular brand of madness, and can be left happily to my own.

i happen to think that if this country were more truly the land of religious freedom and diversity which it has always claimed to be, which is to say in practice like new york, we’d be

batter off. specific interests would hopefully provide checks and balances for one another, staving off more effectively the sickening christian theocratic tendencies we have to swallow from the highest levels of our government today… barring a complete collapse of all organized monotheistic religions that is.

reason #123. Because, Well, Look Around.

this title is slightly misleading. the capsule is really about photographer susan wides’ new shots of the city.

quote: Susan Wides took her camera and tripod to familiar sites, looking to shoot them in unfamiliar ways. Her large-format view camera and depth-of-field manipulations give these photographs a retro quality, evoking the mid-century masters who first documented skyscraper culture in black-and-white. Her photographs are fluid rather than static: Her lens swings, tilts, and pans, giving the images a dynamism that they share with the city they capture, itself an ongoing act of imagination.

susan wides has done interesting workfor a while now and these city shots are no exception though i think the magazine’s characterization of them as “evoking the mid-century masters” falls flat. more than anything i think the odd depth of field in wides’ photos serve to make the city feel uncommonly small, adding an interesting sense of otherness to the familiar sights. to me they look like miniatures shot with a macro lense. nice any which way you describe them.

lastly nestled within the rah-rah of reasons 7-33 is the unlikely but i think deserving nod to

Grace Bonney, 24, blogger. design* sponge keeps 10,000 design insiders informed on where to score the coolest, hippest new objets. Next up: a TV show for design-savvy travelers.

congrats to grace.

in an odd way the story does highlight a very important reason to love the city. they went through the trouble of listing 123 things about new york which they felt were of interest but which i found mostly uninteresting. does that mean that i disagree with their sentiment? not at all. the fact is i could be totally bored stiff by, or even disagree with, their 123 reasons, i could think to myself, “what a coincidence, these are exactly the 123 things i dislike about new york!” but still be utterly smitten with this city. that is because i’ve got at least 123 reasons of my own, and so does every one of the city’s 8 million residents.

each is available in a small size for emailing and a larger size for printing, click the links to see both versions. the large files will print fine on an 8.5” x 11” page, and with the help a bit of tape or a glue stick can be folded into a small postcard all set for your stamp. as far as their actual print quality goes… no idea. happy holidays!

glory to the new born king web version / print version

better not cry web version / print version

piggies web version / print version

santa laughs web version / print version

conspiracy against christmas? web version /print version

you’ll shoot your eye out web version / print version

and with that i skulk away into the snowy evening…

That being the case, our universe has laws that allow us to exist, shocker!! But billions and billions of other universes exist in which we could not possibly exist.  I’m sure glad I didn’t grow up in one of those universes, not existing and stuff would suck.  Although, when I was growing up my grandpa would allways tell me that when he was a kid electrons weighed as much as protons, in a snow storm, both ways, up hill, and a loaf of bead was a nickle.  Oh grandpa!

I find the tone of the interview somewaht odd, Susskind seems to say our universe is somehow extra special, which I greatly doubt.  I think we are merely an effect of our universe.  The best analogy I can think of is darwin and his finches.  The finch might say, “look at my universe it is perfectly suited to my size, plumage and beak shape.”  Move the finch to the antarctic and those uppity penguins would have the last laugh.  The finch is a product of its environment, not the other way around.  Why is life in our universe any different?

first off i want to present some entries which, for some reason or other, instantly brought to mind bush and his language mangling “bushisms.” these are all real words they just sound wrong somehow:

TO ARGUFY. To import, to have weight as an argument; to argue.
possible bush usage: “certain folks in the press want to argufy every decision i make! (smirk)”

CIVILIZEE. A civilized man; one advanced in civilization.
possible bush usage: “i’m fightin’ hard for the freedoms of every civilizee here! (smirk)”

DOOMAGE. A penalty or fine for neglect in New Hampshire law.
possible bush misusage: “he’s got weapons of mass doomage! (pause, smirk)”

DUBERSOME. Doubtful. A vulgarism common in the interior of New England.
GALLOWSES. Suspenders; braces.
possible bush usage/misusage: “torture? that’s dubersome. (squint) it ain’t like we’re out there sending people to the gallowses. (smirk)”

GROGGERY. A place where grog and other liquors are drunk.
possible bush misusage: “did i take too long to act? it’s hard work and i just woke up! everyone’s groggery when they wake up. (smirk)”

HAPPIFYING. Making happy. This mongrel barbarism is sometimes heard in our pulpits.
possible bush usage: “did we make mistakes? (squint) what i can say is this- it’s hard happifying everyone! (smirk)”

TO LOGICIZE. To reason.
possible bush usage: “scientists want to logicize everything but i want to hear all the possibilities. (smirk)”

SANCTIMONIOUSLYFIED. This queer word explains itself.
noted usage: “I recollect an old sanctimoniouslyfied fellow, who made his negroes whistle while they were picking cherries, for fear they should eat some.—Crockett, Tour down East.
possible bush usage: This queer word explains itself. (smirk implied)

SLANTENDICULAR. Aslant; oblique. Used in low language.
possible bush misusage: “we’re doing all any nation can in the fight against aids, bird flu, and slantendicular cancer. (squint)”

TO TITIVATE. To dress up. ‘To titivate oneself,’ is to make one’s toilet.
possible bush misusage: “decent people don’t want their kids seeing the obscenity and adult tittivation all over the internets. (squint)”

TWISTICAL. Tortuous; unfair; not quite moral.
possible bush misusage: “i don’t talk like an elite intellectual (smirk), sometimes my words get all twisticaled around (smirk), that’s because i’m not an elitist, i’m an average guy. (smirk again)”

lastly a word bush might want to look up-

DOUGH-FACES. This term may be regarded as nearly or quite synonymous with another not very much unlike it in form—the English “nose of wax.” Generally it means a pliable politician—one who is accessible to personal influences and considerations.
definite usage: bush is a dough-face.

__________________________________________________

another natural grouping which seemed to suggest itself was words whose original usage might be of interest to the word-smiths of the hip-hop community:

FRESH. Forward; as, ‘don’t make yourself too fresh here;’ that is to say,
not quite so much at home.

FUNKIFY. To frighten; to alarm.  New England.
noted usage: “Scared! says he, serves him right then; he might have knowed how to feel for other folks, and not funkify them so peskily.”

GAT. (Dutch.) A gate or passage. A term applied to several places in the
vicinity of New York.

GEE. A term used by teamsters to their horses and oxen, when they wish them to go faster. It is also used in directing oxen to the right or off-side.

HOE-CAKE. A cake of Indian meal, baked before the fire. In the interior
parts of the country, where kitchen utensils do not abound, they are baked
on a hoe; hence the name.

ILLY. (as in: illy-illy killy-killy rappers) A word occasionally used by writers of an inferior class, who do not seem to perceive that ill is itself an adverb, without the termination ly.

TO MIZZLE. (mah nizzle) To run away; to abscond. A low word.

NINE-KILLER. The popular name of the Northern Butcher-bird (lanius) of ornithologists. “The name of nine—killer,” says Dr. DeKay, “is derived from the popular belief that it catches and impales nine grasshoppers in a day.”

PIMPING. Little; petty; as, ‘a pimping thing.’ Used in the interior of New England.
noted usage: “Was I little? asked Margaret. Yes, and pimpin’ enough. And I fed your marm with rue and comfrey-root, or ye never’d come to this.”

PIPE-LAYING.This term, in political parlance, means any arrangement by which a party makes sure of a certain addition to its legitimate strength in the hour of trial—that is, the election. In other words, to lay pipe means to bring up voters not legally qualified. The term pipe-laying is a synonym for negotiations to procure fraudulent votes.

SCRATCH.  No great scratch. A vulgar, though common phrase, implying not
worth much—no great shakes.

TO SHOOT ONE’S GRANDMOTHER, is a common though vulgar phrase and means to be mistaken, or to be disappointed; to imagine oneself the discoverer of something in which he is deceived. The common phrase is,
‘You’ve shot your granny.’ It is, in fact, synonymous with ‘You’ve found a mare’s nest.’

SHOT IN THE NECK. Drunk. A Southern phrase.

SLANG-WHANGER. This curious word is defined as signifying “a writer or noisy talker, who makes use of that sort of political or other cant, which amuses the rabble, and is called by the vulgar name of slang.”

TO SMOKE. To find any one out; to discover anything meant to be kept secret.
noted usage: “The two free-booters, seeing themselves smoaked, told their third brother he seemed to he a gentleman and a boone companion; they prayed him, therefore, to sit down with silence.”

noted usage b: “The fellow takes me for a country dealer. Good! I’ll smoke him. Ahem!”

SPOONEY. (as in spooney gee, who would likely rethink his monicker had he read this book) A man who has been drinking till be becomes disgusting. A stupid or silly fellow.

__________________________________________________

did you know the moneyed word-makers of the 19th century had a seriously weird obsession with people’s shins?

TO SHIN. To borrow money. A word well understood in New York in times when
money is scarce. The author of the amusing work, entitled Perils of Pearl
Street  thus describes it:

“By shinning, in mercantile phrase, is meant running about to one’s acquaintance, to borrow money to meet the emergency of a note at bank. It is doubtless so called, because in the great hurry of picking up cash to meet the hour of three, which perchance is just at hand, the borrower, not having the fear of wheelbarrows, boxes, barrels, piles of brick, before his eyes, is very apt to run furiously against them with his shins, the bark whereof is apt to he grievously battered off by the contact ..... So fares it with the poor merchant.

TO BARK ONE’S SHINS. To knock the skin off the shins by stumbling or
striking against something.

SHINPLASTER. A cant term for a bank-note, or any paper money. It probably came into use in 1837, when the banks suspended specie payment, and when paper money became depreciated in value.

BLACK-LEG. (almost certainly due to all them “barked shins”) The common term for a gambler.

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here’s one for them damned hippies out there:

DEAD HEADS.  Persons who drink at a bar, ride in an omnibus, or railroad car, travel in steamboats, or visit the theatre without charge, are called dead heads.

suck on that long-hairs.

__________________________________________________

here is a hodgepodge i found interesting presented all willy-nilly:

ABSQUATULATE. To run away, to abscond. Used only in familiar language.

AFTERCLAPS. Unexpected events happening after an affair is supposed to be at an end.

BAD BOX.  To be in a bad box, is to be in a bad predicament.

BLATHERSKITE. A blustering, noisy, talkative fellow.

NOT BORN IN THE WOODS TO BE SCARED BY AN OWL. Too much used to danger, or threats, to be easily frightened.

BROWN STUDY. Deep thought; absence of mind. “He is in a brown study,” i. e. in deep thought, or intent upon his book. The adjective is here used in a metaphorical sense; brown being considered a dull, sober color.

TO BUNDLE. Mr. Grose thus describes this custom: “A man and woman lying on the same bed with their clothes on; an expedient practiced in America on a scarcity of beds, where, on such occasions, husbands and parents frequently permitted travelers to bundle with their wives and daughters.”—-of the Vulgar Tongue.

CALLITHUMPIANS. It is a common practice in New York, as well as other parts of the country, on New-Year’s eve, for persons to assemble with tin horns, bells, rattles, and similar euphonious instruments, and parade the streets making all the noise and discord possible. This party is called the Callithumpians, or the Callithumpian Band. On wedding nights the happy couple are sometimes saluted with this discord by those who choose to consider the marriage an improper one, instead of a serenade.

TO CASCADE. To vomit—from the resemblance to a waterfall.

CATAWAMPTIOUSLY CHAWED UP. Completely demolished, utterly defeated. One of the ludicrous monstrosities in which the vulgar language of the Southern and Western States abounds.

TO DEACON A CALF, is to knock it in the head as soon as it is born.

DICK’S HATBAND. a comparison for what is obstinate and perverse. Ex. “As curst as Dick’s hatband, which will come nineteen times round and wont tie at last;” “As contrary as Dick’s hatband;” “As false as Dick’s hatband;” “As cruikit as Dick’s hatband;” “As twisted as Dick’s hatband;” “All across, like Dick’s hatband;” “As queer as Dick’s hatband.”

FRENCH LEAVE. ‘To take French leave,’ is to depart without taking leave; to run away.

GADABOUT. One who walks about without business.

TO GIVE HIM JESSY, is to give him a flogging. A vulgarism of recent origin.

TO GIVE HIM THE MITTEN. This phrase is used of a girl who discards her sweetheart. She gave him the mitten means that she gave her lover his dismissal or discarded him. In England the phrase to give him the sack or give him the bag, denotes the same thing.

LEG BAIL. To give leg bail, is to run away.

SAVAGE AS A MEAT AXE. Exceedingly hungry.

WAMBLE-CROPPED. Sick at the stomach; and figuratively, wretched; humiliated.

__________________________________________________

lastly here is a good example of… well… something:

SOME PUMPKINS. A term in use at the South and West in opposition to “small potatoes.” The former is applied to anything large or noble; the latter to anything small or mean.

well, we’ve still got “small potatoes” but what happened to “some pumpkins?”

i can hear the taters whispering… what’s that they are saying?

whose “small potatoes” now?

__________________________________________________

anyhow, it really is an interesting document. if you’re interested in language or just looking to mine some cheap joke about bush or hip-hop be sure to check it out.

of interest to me is this: how do people’s dreams compare through the ages?

what did humanity’s evolutionary ancestors (covered in fur, living in caves, tearing out gazelle throats with their teeth) dream about? not ‘showing up to the office in their underwear’ it’s safe to say. lightening and deep growls from the darkness perhaps? what did homo-erectus dream about? what did ‘lucy’ dream about? what did the first people to sail open water dream about (other than sea monsters and dry land)? what did the earliest inuits dream about? or the aborigines? what did the stone carvers on rapa nui dream of (other than ever broadening brows and, later, food)? what did the egyptians dream about? the sumerians? the aztecs? the gauls? the vikings? the greeks? you get the point. and how do these visions compare to the things which fill our heads today?

what does a linebacker for the packers dream about? what does a shoe salesman dream about? how about the woman who sells ground rhinoceros horn in china town? or a secret service agent? or an accountant’s secretary? or the guy who mops up the monkey cage? what does a las angeles dermatologist dream about? or a pakistani mathematician? how about a ‘librarian-schtick’ hooker perched in a thin amsterdam window? what does a transsexual dream about the night before the operation? what does a c.e.o dream about as, night after night, tiny sums of money are funneled off shore?

i realize these modern examples have no particular meaning being so narrow, which is to say they are not appropriate analogs to the broad ancient cultures i mentioned above. then again, in a certain sense, as the world grows smaller, and cultural differences shrink (we’re all capitalists under the skin) shared cultural signposts become more common. whose to say a man in the deepest congo is not dreaming about being doggedly pursued by an army of tiny tom cruise penises at this very moment?

the point is no matter the root cause of dreams (strictly neurological, spiritual, baldly functional, or accidental) i think it is safe to say in that our cultural experience form us (our ideas, our sense of self, our fears) and if so then they also directly, explicitly, without question, effect the content and quality of our dreams. seems intuitive, no? if we we are products of our individual cultures then so are our dreams. fair to say? is it also fair to say then that in some way our dreams effect the world around us?

of interest to me is this: are our modern dream lives less “interesting” than those of our ancestors? did the dreams of shamans and priests and ancient philosophers result in the bizarre mythologies which then formed their world views? what do our dreams, which are taken as a sort of amusing or fearful “late show,” contribute to our cultures? (the odd mathematical proof aside.) will we invent small computer chips to embed in out ass cheeks that beep out warning when we head off to work without clothes on?

of interest to me is this: does knowledge, as a species, of the workings of the world around us, make our dreams more banal? does more perceived security make them less affecting? less exciting? less rich? does intelligence and success as a species drain our dream world?

of interest to me is this: does language, and the relative complexity of language, alter that feeling of “meaningfulness” many have concerning their dreams? what is the difference between a flash of nameless images and a succession of definable and analyzable events?

i imagine that the dreams our ancestors had were far different from my own. to be more specific i imagine they were more bizarre, fascinating, scary, wild, portentous, illuminating, and affecting. that could be strictly romanticism i admit. in any case i’m sure the dream life of humans has evolved along with us. or perhaps it is more accurate to simply say “changed” since i suspect they may have actually devolved in some way. the import given dreams certainly has.

an exercise: look at the images below and try for a minute to imagine what kinds of dreams these people had.

do you get the sense they were different only in particulars but similar in the broad strokes? do you get the sense they were wildly different on every level? are there any similarities? even within cultures? are similarities less about culture and more about personal temperament? or is each individual truly and really “individual” with dreams appropriately unique? just curious.

now the admission: i have an extremely empty adult dream life, which is to say i almost never remember any dreams. it’s always bothered me. i feel cheated. when i do remember them they are usually crowded, very crowded, but utterly banal. which brings me to my last question-

of interest to me is this: being on the nicotine patch has resulted in -many- more dreams than i can remember having in the years previous. “intense dreams” are a known side effect of the patch. so here’s what i want to know- if the pharmaceutical industry have the ability to synthesize substances which result in “intense dreams” why haven’t they marketed a product specifically for this purpose? isn’t there a market for drugs that make you dream while you’re asleep rather than when you’re awake?

first a history of anagrams as offered by francis heaney in the preface to the second edition:

Since the dawn of time, man has anagrammed things. Before there was written language, primitive man would anagram sticks. Some have postulated that a particularly enthusiastic anagram session led to the discovery of fire, and when I say some, it is entirely possible that I am referring to people whom I have made up, because ‘some’ is such a delightfully ambiguous word. We may never know.

Certainly, though, the development of language was a turning point in the evolution of the anagram. The earliest practitioners of language-based anagrams would take the letters of a word and rearrange them, but would rearrange them to form the same word, switching the two A’s in salad, for example. Fortunately, as language increased in complexity, so did anagrams.

now a few entries (with cover art by yours truly, couldn’t help myself)

IS A SPERM LIKE A WHALE?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Shall I compare thee to a sperm whale, sperm?
Thou art more tiny and more resolute:
Rough tides may sway a sea-bound endotherm,
But naught diverts thy uterine commute.
Sometime too fierce the eye of squid may glint
And make a stout cetacean hunter quail;
Methinks ‘twould take much more than bilious squint
To shake thee off the cunning ovumís trail.
Yet still thou art not so unlike, thou two,
Both coursing through a dark uncharted brine
While fore and aft there swims thy fellow crew;
And note this echo, little gamete mine:
As whales spray salty water from their spout,
So with a salty spray dost thou come out.

HALT, DYNAMOS
DYLAN THOMAS

Do not work harder than required to work,
Young men should sit around and drink all day;
Laze, laze, ignore the pressure not to shirk.

Though poor men may apply to be a clerk,
Because their jobs are not exciting they
Do not work harder than required to work.

Rich men, who sell and buy, eat at Le Cirque,
And take their ‘business trips’ to Saint-Tropez,
Laze, laze, ignore the pressure not to shirk.

Old men around retirement age who lurk
At desks and hope no tasks will come their way
Do not work harder than required to work.

Smart men, in school, who learn with blinding smirk
That coasting through a class still earns an ‘A’,
Laze, laze, ignore the pressure not to shirk.

Donít visit every world like Captain Kirk;
Picard knows that the bridge is where to stay.
Do not work harder than required to work.
Laze, laze, ignore the pressure not to shirk.

BRR, FOOTREST
ROBERT FROST

This ottoman is in my way.
I tripped on it again today;
It chills me with a nameless fear
To think it sees me as its prey.

My loving wife must think it queer
That I am always falling here
As I am walking past the chair.
How comical I must appear.

When I remember to beware
The wicked footrest lurking there,
I do not stumble in a sprawl,
And yet such instances are rare.

My house is cozy, warm, and small,
With just one thing that wrecks it all:
The ottoman that makes me fall,
The ottoman that makes me fall.

nice smug me
e. e. cummings

this here verse’s
disjunct
  i used to
  stick to regular metered
      poetry
now i write onetwothreefourfive poemsjustlikethat
      Jesus

but this is simple work
    and what i want to know is
how much am i going to get paid for this
mister editor

well, there you have it.

it strikes me that this particular genre, litterary satire, must be sharing the same sad fortune as litterature itself. with everyone reading “chick-lit,” self-help, thrillers, rags about da vinci, and childrens books about be-scarved and be-spectacled magicians i have to wonder what the market for intelligent literary satire might be? who would even get the joke? if you’ve liked what you’ve read why not go to amazon and reward mr. heaney for being such an exceptionally silly fellow.

a quote from the library of congress page on w. duke & sons’ tobacco advertising:

The tobacco companies used trade cards (similar to business cards), tin tags and posters to advertise their products. Color lithography developed in the late 1870s, and businesses could now promote themselves with a variety of attractive colorful images, some having nothing at all to do with any of their products.

Taking advantage of the development of color, James B. Duke revealed his marketing talent with the creation of a whole new way of advertising tobacco and cigarettes. With each pack of cigarettes, a small cardboard insert was added to stiffen the box. Duke employed a little imagination and turned these simple work-horses into a powerful marketing tool by printing the brand name of the cigarettes along with a picture that was part of a larger series and which was meant to be collected. Series of birds, flags, Civil War generals, and baseball players were employed, frequently with historical or educational information on them.

anyhow, that last bit about presenting “historical or educational information” brings me to the cards i wanted to share, the “coins of the world” series. these are ostensibly meant to be educational (more properly edutainment in modern ad speak), depicting the likeness of coins from all over the world. now rather than simply show the coin and call out in large text the coin’s country of origin, the coin is instead shown in tandem with a “typical” denizen of each country. seeing as how these were put out sometime in the late 1800’s this means the coins are shown with over the top, stereotypical, illustrations that manage in their way to insult very nearly every country and race on the planet. admittedly some come off as innocent charicature but others are blatantly offensive. see below for some examples-

where as every facet of advertising has ballooned and mutated out of proportion the use of straight forward ol’ fashioned racism has been tempered and sublimated, made infinitely more subtle if it’s going to be employed at all, which many would argue it is. i can’t help but wonder if this is a blunt force marketing tool which the suckers of satan’s cock (as bill hicks labeled anyone in marketing) sorely miss today? is it harder to drill the coins of the world into people’s heads without the additional visual cue of their accompanying stereotypes?

it strikes me that were this sort of thing still done today the entire set, as seen here, could all have pennies on them with the united states listed beside the offensive character… and how, pray tell, would the geniuses at w. duke & sons show the euro i wonder?

the nypl site has many of this series up to view in more detail, as well as the related series of coins of ancient cultures.