"Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. How did it come to this? "
- King Theoden, The Two Towers (movie quote)
Thursday, 27 August 2009
A Story, Sophistication Based on Depression
A Sophistication Based on Depression
Half full bottle of wine, lit cigar, pensive look on his face, and nothing inside; the intellectual sat. It’s all a mask. A caricature. A mask that’s cracking. Fading. Not real. HE doesn’t understand the leather-bound copy of Yates frowning at him from the antique oak bookshelf he found on the street. The fireplace burning a fake fire log. The bottle of brandy on the shelf he stole from an airplane drink cart coming from nowhere special. The wine and cigar bought in tandem at the corner store. He was a phony and he knew it. His blazer might as well be a guilty placard, showing his shallow crime of pretention. Empty words relating ripped off ideas of others smarter than he; this was his work.
When did he stop thinking for himself? When did he stop doing for himself? He was eager and inspired once. He used to think he could prove things. Do things. Then it all changed, and he spent his days reading other peoples’ opinions and told himself that his person was becoming more well rounded by adopting their thoughts and abandoning his own. But he forgot, in all his studying and critiquing, to think. He forgot to do. To think maybe they were wrong. Maybe his thoughts had value along with theirs. Maybe, just because they were in print didn’t mean that he should replace his mind, and soul and heart for their rehashed thoughts.
He glanced at his latest writing on Patrick Suskind’s Perfume, and sighed while wiping his forehead. Was it worth a penny? Or a damn? No one would quote him as a thinker. HE knew it. If they did, they were fools. Fools following a fool. To think if someone thought to use his words. His thoughts. His knowledge. Awards for plagiarism would be given to anyone who forced his tired sentences into worthwhile footnotes. He grew angry with himself for every word he had written. What were they written in aid of? How could he have let his thoughts on subjects be drown out by what he thought he should have thought by those who thought for themselves. Now his head was spinning. His thoughts mattered, but could he remember them? He could only remember other peoples’ opinions now, and the pain they caused. How much he had written, or not written, and not a word of it made a smile creep to his face.
He thought about the days of his youth and beyond. He used to be lightened by the mood of simple things. He used to think it grand to run and watch and smile. Those days were different. What had happened to them? He tried to remember back to when he was seven and used to play soccer while his parents watched in awe. Before he found out they were just people and he could outsmart them. Could he though?
He thought of the times before he started winning arguments and mocking the passions of the people who were only there for biology’s sake. That was his catchphrase wasn’t it “You’re only here because of the biological process.” Harsh words from a cocky boy. What did he owe them though really? They did for him only what they would have done for anyone in his place. They did not add anything to the world of the mind, and thus should be given the gravitas equal to their achievements. “No hard feelings,” he had always said, “but no misplaced praise.”
Before then though... Before then he thought... When he would join his father to watch the World Cup and smile when his father’s team won, or feel helpless is consoling him when they lost. Back then when he would enjoy hearing the sound of his mother’s voice while she read aloud the crossword puzzle clues and answers. His mind was young then, and his thoughts were limitless. He had passion for almost all things. He read comic books and went to coffee shops. He played sports and egged houses. Chewed gum and went to the beach. Listened to pop songs and threw a stick for a dog. He had passion. He had fun. He grew and experienced.
Then he got smart. Then he started to read and think and criticize. The mask of pretention started to form. Then he would see the things of his youth as trivial and trite. “Distractions made for the ignorant masses who knew no better.” Then he would tell of the complete worthlessness of sport, pop music and movies that made money. He would tell of the dietary detriment of fast food and candy. He would tell, tell, tell, and care not if any were listening.
“There is no redeeming feature to this self-aggrandizing charade,” he would say to his father as he watched the Masters on a relaxing Saturday afternoon, and not see or care the hurt it caused him.
He withdrew in these later days of his early manhood. He withdrew from all who would not stimulate his mind. He took himself out of the world of the gratuitous and the leisure, and placed himself in the tower of the intellect and the word. He read and read and read and read. He read everything and talked about it. He read big books. The classics. The critically acclaimed. The untouchables. He read what most did not, and comforted himself in his exclusivity.
He continued on in his academic pomp through his early manhood and into manhood. He established himself as someone who could write. He got published, he got critiqued, he got noticed, and he got a job. He ripped to shreds those he didn’t approve of (or was it that he didn’t understand them?). He praised those most didn’t. He talked with the other masked men of the intellectual world and only them. Childhood friends were greeted with patronizing civility, and the parents were visited begrudgingly and in line with his standards. The pomp became him, and he hid in it.
With the creeping slowness of decay, however, things changed. The man who eagerly gobbled great works of great writers, found little he could read on his own. He relied on opinions of others to form his own when deconstructing a work. He grew tired. He grew impatient. He hated most things, and sarcastically derided the rest. He taught less classes, and talked to fewer colleagues. He grew a beard, and looked down when he walked. The days grew longer, and the mornings harder to face. He bought a blazer and started smoking cigars and drinking fine wine. A sophistication based on depression.
Now, he sat alone in a chair disgusted with that young man before the fade. He realized now that he was unable to share the joy of intellect with those that didn’t live in his tower, and, thus, lost those who would broaden his person. He was flat. He lost his father. He lost his mother. They were not of interest to him. He would write. He would think. The blinders and visors were on. He was focused. He didn’t notice, at that time, that the words coming from without were taking over his thoughts. Few thoughts of his own would remain, as he worshipped those who entered his mind so blindly, and discarded his own mortal thoughts. His own mortal errors. His mortal failures. His mortal shortcomings.
He sat now beside the fireplace. He sat and frowned. He looked at his bookshelf. The pride of his room. The pride of his head. The pride of nothing. Nothing indeed. All those words written and read, and yet nothing understood. No insight into the reality of intelligence or wisdom for he who thought himself and intellectual. Just the knowledge that someone else there was smarter than he here. Smarter. More important. Important in general, as he now saw that nothing about him was important.
That kid running down a field chasing a ball while his mother smiled at him from the sidelines was nothing now. Just past. A past that made him cry to think of. A past outside of his cycle. Beyond his mask. A past he wanted to reclaim and rewrite.
Placing his half full glass of wine on the end table and getting himself off the chair where he “did his most profound thinking,” he got up. He stubbed his cigar in the ashtray and put his wine down. Walked. Walked. Walked. He found his way to the door. He found his way to his jacket. Not his blazer, but his jacket. The one that he would wear when running to the store for a treat.
(When was the last time he did that? In his early scholastic years when he was too wound up to figure anymore things out, he used to get up and go get a cola or a chocolate bar. Now what did he do? Did he ever get up? He didn’t He always just kept going even when there was nothing else for him to say. He just wrote on.)
Now, however, he was up and had his jacket on and was turning the handle to the door to the outside. He opened the door and left.
The fire log becoming embers, the unfinished wine on the table, the cigar butted in the ashtray, the paper on Suskind left unedited, the leather bound copy of Yeats frowning at an empty room, and the despair of his writing chair unoccupied in its proper place; he left.
Half full bottle of wine, lit cigar, pensive look on his face, and nothing inside; the intellectual sat. It’s all a mask. A caricature. A mask that’s cracking. Fading. Not real. HE doesn’t understand the leather-bound copy of Yates frowning at him from the antique oak bookshelf he found on the street. The fireplace burning a fake fire log. The bottle of brandy on the shelf he stole from an airplane drink cart coming from nowhere special. The wine and cigar bought in tandem at the corner store. He was a phony and he knew it. His blazer might as well be a guilty placard, showing his shallow crime of pretention. Empty words relating ripped off ideas of others smarter than he; this was his work.
When did he stop thinking for himself? When did he stop doing for himself? He was eager and inspired once. He used to think he could prove things. Do things. Then it all changed, and he spent his days reading other peoples’ opinions and told himself that his person was becoming more well rounded by adopting their thoughts and abandoning his own. But he forgot, in all his studying and critiquing, to think. He forgot to do. To think maybe they were wrong. Maybe his thoughts had value along with theirs. Maybe, just because they were in print didn’t mean that he should replace his mind, and soul and heart for their rehashed thoughts.
He glanced at his latest writing on Patrick Suskind’s Perfume, and sighed while wiping his forehead. Was it worth a penny? Or a damn? No one would quote him as a thinker. HE knew it. If they did, they were fools. Fools following a fool. To think if someone thought to use his words. His thoughts. His knowledge. Awards for plagiarism would be given to anyone who forced his tired sentences into worthwhile footnotes. He grew angry with himself for every word he had written. What were they written in aid of? How could he have let his thoughts on subjects be drown out by what he thought he should have thought by those who thought for themselves. Now his head was spinning. His thoughts mattered, but could he remember them? He could only remember other peoples’ opinions now, and the pain they caused. How much he had written, or not written, and not a word of it made a smile creep to his face.
He thought about the days of his youth and beyond. He used to be lightened by the mood of simple things. He used to think it grand to run and watch and smile. Those days were different. What had happened to them? He tried to remember back to when he was seven and used to play soccer while his parents watched in awe. Before he found out they were just people and he could outsmart them. Could he though?
He thought of the times before he started winning arguments and mocking the passions of the people who were only there for biology’s sake. That was his catchphrase wasn’t it “You’re only here because of the biological process.” Harsh words from a cocky boy. What did he owe them though really? They did for him only what they would have done for anyone in his place. They did not add anything to the world of the mind, and thus should be given the gravitas equal to their achievements. “No hard feelings,” he had always said, “but no misplaced praise.”
Before then though... Before then he thought... When he would join his father to watch the World Cup and smile when his father’s team won, or feel helpless is consoling him when they lost. Back then when he would enjoy hearing the sound of his mother’s voice while she read aloud the crossword puzzle clues and answers. His mind was young then, and his thoughts were limitless. He had passion for almost all things. He read comic books and went to coffee shops. He played sports and egged houses. Chewed gum and went to the beach. Listened to pop songs and threw a stick for a dog. He had passion. He had fun. He grew and experienced.
Then he got smart. Then he started to read and think and criticize. The mask of pretention started to form. Then he would see the things of his youth as trivial and trite. “Distractions made for the ignorant masses who knew no better.” Then he would tell of the complete worthlessness of sport, pop music and movies that made money. He would tell of the dietary detriment of fast food and candy. He would tell, tell, tell, and care not if any were listening.
“There is no redeeming feature to this self-aggrandizing charade,” he would say to his father as he watched the Masters on a relaxing Saturday afternoon, and not see or care the hurt it caused him.
He withdrew in these later days of his early manhood. He withdrew from all who would not stimulate his mind. He took himself out of the world of the gratuitous and the leisure, and placed himself in the tower of the intellect and the word. He read and read and read and read. He read everything and talked about it. He read big books. The classics. The critically acclaimed. The untouchables. He read what most did not, and comforted himself in his exclusivity.
He continued on in his academic pomp through his early manhood and into manhood. He established himself as someone who could write. He got published, he got critiqued, he got noticed, and he got a job. He ripped to shreds those he didn’t approve of (or was it that he didn’t understand them?). He praised those most didn’t. He talked with the other masked men of the intellectual world and only them. Childhood friends were greeted with patronizing civility, and the parents were visited begrudgingly and in line with his standards. The pomp became him, and he hid in it.
With the creeping slowness of decay, however, things changed. The man who eagerly gobbled great works of great writers, found little he could read on his own. He relied on opinions of others to form his own when deconstructing a work. He grew tired. He grew impatient. He hated most things, and sarcastically derided the rest. He taught less classes, and talked to fewer colleagues. He grew a beard, and looked down when he walked. The days grew longer, and the mornings harder to face. He bought a blazer and started smoking cigars and drinking fine wine. A sophistication based on depression.
Now, he sat alone in a chair disgusted with that young man before the fade. He realized now that he was unable to share the joy of intellect with those that didn’t live in his tower, and, thus, lost those who would broaden his person. He was flat. He lost his father. He lost his mother. They were not of interest to him. He would write. He would think. The blinders and visors were on. He was focused. He didn’t notice, at that time, that the words coming from without were taking over his thoughts. Few thoughts of his own would remain, as he worshipped those who entered his mind so blindly, and discarded his own mortal thoughts. His own mortal errors. His mortal failures. His mortal shortcomings.
He sat now beside the fireplace. He sat and frowned. He looked at his bookshelf. The pride of his room. The pride of his head. The pride of nothing. Nothing indeed. All those words written and read, and yet nothing understood. No insight into the reality of intelligence or wisdom for he who thought himself and intellectual. Just the knowledge that someone else there was smarter than he here. Smarter. More important. Important in general, as he now saw that nothing about him was important.
That kid running down a field chasing a ball while his mother smiled at him from the sidelines was nothing now. Just past. A past that made him cry to think of. A past outside of his cycle. Beyond his mask. A past he wanted to reclaim and rewrite.
Placing his half full glass of wine on the end table and getting himself off the chair where he “did his most profound thinking,” he got up. He stubbed his cigar in the ashtray and put his wine down. Walked. Walked. Walked. He found his way to the door. He found his way to his jacket. Not his blazer, but his jacket. The one that he would wear when running to the store for a treat.
(When was the last time he did that? In his early scholastic years when he was too wound up to figure anymore things out, he used to get up and go get a cola or a chocolate bar. Now what did he do? Did he ever get up? He didn’t He always just kept going even when there was nothing else for him to say. He just wrote on.)
Now, however, he was up and had his jacket on and was turning the handle to the door to the outside. He opened the door and left.
The fire log becoming embers, the unfinished wine on the table, the cigar butted in the ashtray, the paper on Suskind left unedited, the leather bound copy of Yeats frowning at an empty room, and the despair of his writing chair unoccupied in its proper place; he left.
Saturday, 22 August 2009
A Quote, Charles Dickens
"Waste forces within him, and a desert all around, this man stood still on his way across a silent terrace, and saw for a moment, lying in the wilderness before him, a mirage of honourable ambition, self-denial, and perseverance. In the fair city of this vision, there were airy galleries from which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens in which the fruits of life hung ripening, waters of Hope that sparkled in his sight. A moment, and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamber, in a well of houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on a neglected bed, and its pillow was wet with wasted tears."
- A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
- A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Monday, 17 August 2009
A Poem, Standing in Front of Woman in Gray
Standing in Front of Woman in Gray
How do I come to stand near you whose beauty,
crafted by genius beyond me,
and who remain while I move, shake, live, and
die with such small meaning by comparison.
Time shifting-Floating Life.
How do I come to stand near you whose beauty,
crafted by genius beyond me,
and who remain while I move, shake, live, and
die with such small meaning by comparison.
Time shifting-Floating Life.
Saturday, 15 August 2009
A Quote, Kurt Vonnegut
"...but I have yet to see an octopus, or any sort of animal, for that matter, which wasn't entirely content to pass its time on earth as a food gatherer, to shun experiments with unlimited greed and ambition performed by humankind."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Galapagos.
- Kurt Vonnegut, Galapagos.
Friday, 7 August 2009
A Haiku, Slow Dance
Slow Dance
Dance one more time for
The silence is coming soon
Trumpet whispers jazz.
Dance one more time for
The silence is coming soon
Trumpet whispers jazz.
A Poem, Boards of Assisi
Boards on Assisi
The Franciscan church
Is boarded up and fenced.
Little flowers and divine poverty
In an age of fluorescent light,
And made to order condos.
The brown hooded monks tighten their cords,
And leave the city.
The Franciscan church
Is boarded up and fenced.
Little flowers and divine poverty
In an age of fluorescent light,
And made to order condos.
The brown hooded monks tighten their cords,
And leave the city.
Three Haikus, Finland
Helsinki
Helsinki Finland
Druids faces are stone straight
A bear is roaming.
Kaustinen
Kaustenin Finland
A pelimanni on stage
The forest is folk
Sauna
Sauna heat travels
On naked women relaxed
Ice cracking outside.
Helsinki Finland
Druids faces are stone straight
A bear is roaming.
Kaustinen
Kaustenin Finland
A pelimanni on stage
The forest is folk
Sauna
Sauna heat travels
On naked women relaxed
Ice cracking outside.
Two Senryus: Ornament, Bedside Table
Ornament
Big stuffed owl in hand
Marching towards a mantle
Focal point is found
Bedside Table
Lamp table unit
Slung over shoulder homeward.
He will read tonight.
Big stuffed owl in hand
Marching towards a mantle
Focal point is found
Bedside Table
Lamp table unit
Slung over shoulder homeward.
He will read tonight.
A Poem, The Guardian of the Trees
The Guardian of the Trees
White baggy unbelted pants,
And no shirt.
The long greasy flowing hair
Of the politically sure.
Unkempt beard.
Fast paced walk (march?)
And a white cloth sign
Held proudly and militantly overhead.
On the cloth:
A single tree.
The symbol is sure,
But he is silent.
He says nothing.
The tree is plain.
Brown and green on white.
He says everything loud and proud in silence.
He marches through the crowd.
The crowd looks at him.
White baggy unbelted pants,
And no shirt.
The long greasy flowing hair
Of the politically sure.
Unkempt beard.
Fast paced walk (march?)
And a white cloth sign
Held proudly and militantly overhead.
On the cloth:
A single tree.
The symbol is sure,
But he is silent.
He says nothing.
The tree is plain.
Brown and green on white.
He says everything loud and proud in silence.
He marches through the crowd.
The crowd looks at him.
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