Getting in the Mood for Mystery

Image result for appalachian stream at night
Image Source – ideas.ted.com – Radim Schreiber

Or Notes for Pedants and Spoilsports

It’s altogether easy to lose your sense of wonder. Especially when questions can be answered instantly.

But it isn’t the answer that kills the magic.

It’s the speed. It’s the lack of space.

Mystery is a living thing and needs room to breath.

One cannot write weird fiction or write at all without the animating force of wonder.

Why describe a twilight Appalachian brook if it’s just rainwater lazing through rock and dirt?

If its suggestions are nothing more than the inevitable electric pulses stirring a chemical stew whose aim is to leave behind a profusion of bones?

Yes, in such a world of concrete half truths. In this world that is the foundation of life there can be no mystery…no art.

How glad I am that I’ve been given the space to wander, to spy the stairs and landing, and to ascend through the door into the house of Magic where true life dwells.

For a house is not merely the foundation.


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Um…

I’ve been dwelling in a hotel for the past month, probably two. There has also been the business of tending to family. Due to repairs I’m still two to three weeks away from having full use of my house.

I think I’m out of the dizzying funk of it all and will be posting regularly soon.

Thanks for sticking with me through two or so months of static.

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That’s about how I feel. No need for poetics.

Why History? Why Learning?

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God damned hippy

So, I stumbled across the Shindo Renmei. An interesting group that sprang out of an interesting set of circumstances. It is a peculiarity in the truest sense of the word. Absolutely dependent on the specifics of its time and place.

That is the case with any bit of history.

So why study it?

The popular answer is so that we do not repeat it.

I see no reason to be contrarian. But I also see no reason for such narrow apologetics.

I think the main reason to study history is that it is a gold mine of catalysts and ideas. I think this is the main reason because it is so much more fertile. And also because the wise fear of repeating history is often hijacked by this or that pundit to cherry-pick examples that ‘prove’ why this or that is going to be catastrophic. Or more colloquially, “You’re just like a HitlerStalinTerrorist.”

I think it’s possible to extend this notion even further. This ‘mine’ is perhaps the ultimate case of art for arts sake. Art here being any endeavor including science and philosophy.

Art…or ‘well informed doodling’ should practiced precisely because practice begets art. There needs be no other reason. No harried seeking of supporting themes, or grants, or panty parting guitar solos but simply doing for doings sake.

So, go forth and study for no reason whatsoever.

In so doing I guarantee you’ll find one.


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The Cottage – Chapter Thirty – (Short Story)

Image result for whiskey tumbler falling
Part One | Part Two |Part Three |  Part Four |Part Five |  Part Six |Part Seven |Part Eight | Part Nine | Part Ten | Part Eleven | Part Twelve | Part Thirteen | Part Fourteen | Part Fifteen | Part Sixteen |Part Seventeen | Part Eighteen |Part Nineteen | Part Twenty | Part Twenty One | Part Twenty Two | Part Twenty Three | Part Twenty Four | Part Twenty Five | Part Twenty Six |Part Twenty Seven |Part Twenty Eight | Part Twenty Nine

The cottage seemed even emptier than before. Luckadoo’s party had pressing matters across the pond. They did not tarry long.

It was annoying. Everything was always open ended. Just left there laying vague and cryptic.

It felt like trying to get a direct answer from a Sunday School class.

Jim pushed an empty tumbler across the wooden floor with his boot. Watching as geometry and gravity drew it along in a lazy semi-circle.

It was just so.

Drawn along by necessity.

Jim did not like the idea of fate. His heart sank as he meditated on the inevitable sound of glass on wood.

It was a thought that made the twilight even gloomier.

He stopped the arc.

Slowly but surely it dawned on him. Slowly but surely his mood brightened.

He wasn’t just so.

The arc had stopped. It had stopped not by some mechanical necessity but by something wispy and wild. It was a variable. A very peculiar one. One that had neither weight, shape, nor volume, but occupied all those dimensions on a whim. It was the ultimate unknown.

The thing, the x, was will, and it belonged to him. It empowered him to solve, to balance the equation.

Ok, so he had pep. But he didn’t know what to do with it.

The gloom returned.

Again the thought of the tumbler depressed him, how it was drawn along by whims as cryptic as his uncles ravings.

But it did roll…didn’t it…

That’s all it could do given the situation…but it did something…

‘Maybe that’s all I can do…just roll with it.’

And so he burst forth from the cabin, in the direction of the caves, to do something till something…somethinged…

Of course he didn’t get far.

‘I’m not a fucking tumbler.’

He plopped down into the tall grass by the border of the wood. The uneven prickly surface and cool air quickly reminding him of his limitations.

He’d have to wing it. But he needed wings.

As sense returned he trudged towards the cottage to read, gather a pack, and nap.


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Under Construction – Up Since Three

Image result for birch tree ice


I sit staring at a hotel curtain. The pattern reminds me of birch trees. Beyond are some Loblolly pines and Carolina starlight.

The room has that new plaster smell that reminds me of the apartment I stayed at while working at a fiberglass plant. My highschool buddies dad was some bigwig there and it was my buddies apartment. I was gonna pay rent but got pissed and decided to try living off of cheap tobacco and tins in my hatchback. It’s just a few towns over.

Showed up on a girls porch to talk shit and get drunk. We kissed at some point and went to the stupid ocean and came back and loved but sort of off and on.

The place had an Irish name and was still under construction. Sort of like everything is, and will be forever, since forever.

The stars are constantly reconfiguring themselves, exploding, and assembling into perpetuity. Like shitty cosmic suburbs. That’s right God I just compared your handiwork to Detroit.

There was a birch tree covered in ice – dripping ice outside my elementary school window in Moscow. That was more than a few towns over.

The chronology isn’t very linear but I’ve never been good at keeping rhythm. But sometimes I imagine I make pretty sounds and that’s enough for me.

Once my dad punched an icicle under a kiosk and got a bloody knuckle.

I was at a paramilitary summer camp and felt my head explode as it hit the hook on the door. The short kid I was boxing was pissed. We both ended up sharing aspirins and laughing at the faces we made as the water stung our bloodied lips.

The ceremonial cannon shots exploded. Exploded like memorial supernovas. Bursting in realization that these grounds, this grass, had drunk a crimson dinner.

Gotta lose a few when everything’s under construction. Ever see a worksite without sawdust? Forget  about it.

What I can’t forget about is the madness of that shitty feeling that comes from pairing Lagers with waffles. How strange for it to mix with symphonies and the crisp cold magic of space dotted with shreiking angels of flame.

Angels that build while molasses drips.

Like the tears from her eyes after I’d given her a good fucking and she was afraid that I’d leave.

No it wasn’t the poems, the wit, or the dinners. Just a good shag. That’s what made her pine. I don’t grudge her for it. I’m a lousy lay most times. But then so was she. So I guess we’ll call it even.

Cause we’re both under construction. We just built in different directions. Maybe some day the buildin wind will blow bits of our ashes into the same lighthouse. And our ghosts can teach the birches to bear the ice just as beautifully as they always have.

Cause freezing over is the same as thawing out.

It’s just under construction.

I’ve been up since three. There’s everything right here. In waves that undulate like the corporately clean curtain.

Under construction since three in the AM.

Till sleeping adds some temporary walls so I can’t see inside the house again.


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Milk-Bar Clausewitzes

Image result for soy boy
The preferred beverage of those silent servants in the civilian officer corps who’ve been sending waves and waves of our men at somebody, for some reason, for generations. Godspeed gentlemen…Godspeed!

It’s been 15 years since ‘Team America World Police’ taught us the meaning of patriotism.  It’s heartening to see that the seeds of freedom it planted continue to blossom in the hearts of keyboard warriors across this brave land of ours.

Image result for team america world police fuck yeah
McNamara’s Domino Theory of War

I decided to comment on a YouTube video and received a swift bald eagle to the nuts for my communism.

Here is my shameful faux-pas: Not digging the slippery slope argument. Our involvement in the middle east often precipitates further destabilization. Saddam and Gaddafi weren’t saints but they did bring stability. I’m surprised that someone as reasonable as yourself on the Assad kerfuffle is spouting neocon foreign policy just to stick it to a wanker.

This Marxist screed must be due to my Russian origins. Forgive me I’ve had a bit too much vodka. Sure supporting military adventures all around the world while the economy stagnates might seem unwise but that’s because as a godless Bolshevik I don’t have enough faith.

Thank sweet baby Jesus, and the applepie bakin’ mammy that birthed him behind the Nashville bar, where Elvis made his first pelvic thrust into our hearts that a true patriot was around to set me on the straight and narrow: blah, blah, blah, everything is always America’s fault. Got it. How did America deserve the ’93 WTC bombing? Was that just “blowback” too? Is America always at fault for everything?

Ah…but alas surviving on canned goods for the benefit of the Politburo has stupefied me, and I can’t help but spread red propaganda from Frankfurt school luminaries like George Washington and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

nobody said america is to blame. the military industrial complex that eisenhower warned us about gets us into foreign entanglements that george washington warned us about. your idea of patriotism is unamerican, gets americans killed, and impoverishes the nation.

Dear readers…is there any hope for me. Please help….this problem seems to have even spread to Vietnam veterans….: Milk-Bar Clausewitzes, Bean Curd Napoleons

They’ve been letting Communists into the Marines since 1955…for shame….for shame…

Will no thin, dainty, pallid, soy-fed wrists twitch spasmodically into action and banish this pinko plague with banshee wails for more American blood?

Even as I type this I feel my mouse pointer hovering towards the buy button below the leather-bound copy of John Locke’s treatise on government.

It may be too late for me so…

For God’s sake save yourselves and flip on the tele!


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Catch Phrases (Poem)

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All the well wishers came by again

All the tales

Came by to sigh again

When all else fails

If there’s a dreary rain

They’ll fill your sails

With hot air again

Transported past all ails

All along the main

Yea, the well wishers came in hurricanes and hails

To explain again

That everything’s as rightas rain

Cause ya know what I’m sayin’

Of course you do

It’s all so true

These catch phrases for me and you

They’re me and you!

So don’t be blue!

O please don’t come again…

Why, o why Andrew

I’d rather have the pain again…


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Plumbing Woes

BaronVonDouchebag Esquire III
Believe it or not I was born in 1989.  But in Moscow where time and fashion goes to die.

My funky psychedelic 1977 open concept house has even funkier plumbing. A flange leak and several pinholes on the coppers went undetected long enough to rot the floor in the hallway bathroom. I’m currently staying at a hotel while insurance sends out the mitigation squad and the whole bloody floor comes out. Fortunately (thanks to Opa’s military insurance) I think we’ll be out only a couple o grand.

There’s quite a story surrounding this which I may or may not share in the near future.

This besides the ever present procrastination and the mighty UPS whip (Fedex no longer has a contract with Amazon for ground…so we now have their volume, joy) are why my posts have yet again slowed to a trickle.


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Hollow Dignity (Poem)

Image result for napoleon soldier


Wispy

Gossamer thing

I call your name

Your name is pride

How fragile thy wing

Will it lift to fame

For honor you tried

Squared away, halo effecting

Dignity’s shame

Drowned by the tide

Of all you’re neglecting

I call you by name

O hollow

Dignity’s shame

The land is fallow

You’re marching again

Honor you’ve stolen o Pride

Now one and the same you lie in grave

So shallow

You fool

You slave


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2008

Image result for baron rothschild

Is there really any reason for it?

Are there any less raw resources?

Any less technique with which to harness them?

Any serious collapse in enforceable contracts?

Why then does it collapse?

Its corpse choking the destitute and enriching the powerful.

What bizzare miseries ignorance and sloth visits upon mankind.

Twin urchins ever drawing down Dickensian mazes of convoluted preverications.

There is but one false science.

One powder laced, smoke and mirror show, whose name is economics.

Nom like nom de plume.

A false flight of fancy to add riches where none exist.

Is there any folly greater than credit?

The promise of goods made more valuable then goods that already abound?

Life then becomes a series of notes.

Exchanged by gamblers for the sheer joy of sudden fortune.

Before whom kingdoms crumble.

All for a childish game.

Oh, how the crops perish before the harvest while the locusts lounge.

The ant too became a locust for the sake of fashion.

Hopping on a will-o-the-wisp and sailing into oblivion.

Oblivious now, unprecedented amnesia, where every good is fed to promise.

Promise that no feast can make less empty.

Promise, the sacrament of economy, a rite towards Sheol.

This is why I drink.


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