T H I S M A Y B E T H A T

Red Square Post

2010-05-01T12:41:00.000-07:00

Happy May Day! - I hope it was candy in the bag on your doorstep this morning. Today the focus is two unique celestial bodies, the Red Rectangle Nebula and the Red Square Nebula.

From NASA:

"So why does it look like a big X? A likely explanation is that the central star - actually a close pair of stars - is surrounded by a thick dust torus which pinches the otherwise spherical outflow into tip-touching cone shapes. Because we view the torus edge-on, the boundary edges of the cone shapes seem to form an X. The distinct rungs suggest the outflow occurs in fits and starts. About 2,300 light-years away toward the fanciful constellation Monoceros, the Red Rectangle nebula should be transformed into a glorious planetary nebula as its cool central star becomes a hot white dwarf over the next few thousand years."

NASA again:

"What could cause a nebula to appear square? No one is quite sure. The hot star system known as MWC 922, however, appears to be imbedded in a nebula with just such a shape."

Some strange information in the Red Sqaure Wikipedia article suggests that the nebula is lucky, and that a competing team named after the Red Square will earn its blessing. Knock on wood.

The Shape of Things

2010-04-30T13:55:00.000-07:00

In 1785, William Herschel drew the Milky Way as he thought it might appear - a brilliant, amorphous collection of stars extending roughly outward from our own sun. He came to this shape by measuring the individual distance of each star from the Earth. His resulting picture explained little.

Upon release of the Earth from the center of things, these data begin to draw something with a recognizable shape. Two centuries after Herschel's drawing, it was known not only the shape of our galaxy, but also the shape of countless others. Few resemble Herschel's drawing.

The band of stars named the Milky Way is not scattered aimlessly around a vaguely central Earth. Humans walk within a massive disc, and it appears from Earth as a cross-section. Much like a wide band of humans, in such number to fill the frame of vision - standing within the crowd, one might consider others in terms of relative distance, with higher importance to those in proximity: those with discernible detail and more immediate effect on the environment of the observer.

Like continents and constellations, The Milky Way is essentially frozen in time to human observers. Humans are moving swiftly about, however, and the shape shifts with the population, much faster than both mountains and the weather. It is the shape of Earth in human passage.

Herschel's drawing from Harvard, diagram from Arizona State, and the crowd from WYES.

Amicable Numbers

2010-04-21T19:12:00.000-07:00

It's been busy everywhere, and Seattle too. The drought ends with more to come.

I often work events at Town Hall Seattle, and recently they (much like Northern Virginia Family Service in the NPR report) received a nomination for a grant. Partners in Preservation is sponsoring a month-long daily voting contest to award money to perishing Seattle landmarks. Lots of good institutions are participating, and I encourage everyone to vote.

Below is Town Hall's appeal.

February NVJs

2010-03-07T16:17:00.001-08:00

After The Commercial Break

2010-03-05T01:24:00.000-08:00

I'll be teaching cartooning at the Jefferson Community Center in Beacon Hill throughout spring quarter. Interested kids can take a look at the flyer to learn more.

Limited Unlimitedness

2010-03-03T13:07:00.000-08:00

It shows us that at any given temperature there is an ultimate limit to the sensitivity of any detector or or amplifier. This limit is caused by the random motion of the atoms and electrons that make up the apparatus itself.

Omni, March 1979

Can't Sleep Until I Have Them All

2010-03-03T12:47:00.000-08:00

Skiing is a dance,

2010-02-27T01:28:00.000-08:00

...and the mountain always leads.

Anonymous

Alex Varanese and the 2010 Olympics.

These pictures are scaring.

2010-02-24T11:14:00.000-08:00

God saves us from the heat and fire of hill.

Anonymous

Images of the sun from a new Boston Globe photo essay. A few reactions from readers:

wow.. so red, does it mean it is so close to the end???As red means old enough to say good bye...anytime soon?hm.. better be prepared!!

sun lover

Fantastic, fantastic
Who create all this???
If a small watch made by people, Who made all these universe??
Must be Super Creature had made it.
Is it G O D ??
I think so

Ruben

Understanding Is The Limit Of A Conceptualisation

2010-02-18T10:48:00.000-08:00

Not all black birds are blackbirds, just as not all blackbirds are black.

Bertha Morris Parker, The New Golden Treasury of Natural History

Red-winged blackbird from Project Gutenberg, crow from the Dallas Observer.

On A Clear Day You Can See Forever

2010-02-17T13:20:00.000-08:00

How it will astound you
That the glow of your being
Outshines every star

Lucky astrochumps on the International Space Station just had a new room installed, but it's not just some nook cluttered with busy instruments - it's an observatory. Seven panels, full panorama, the whole cow. Made just for looking at space (plus some robotics work, and, famously, exercise on the C.O.L.B.E.R.T. treadmill). Above is NASA's concept art for the new node, below a concept drawing for 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Poemic Strip

2010-02-16T14:53:00.000-08:00

Dino Buzzati above, Brad Neely below.

From user pszren, on the vispoets discussion board:

poemics is the art between poetry and comics, well, there are more definitions, sometimes better: poemics is the art of adding elements of poetry and comics, or poemics are works that can be seen both as poetry and comics.

Psychic Attacks and Dark Negative Energies

2010-02-16T02:24:00.001-08:00

Psychic attacks are defined as the manipulation of supernatural energies and forces. Psychic attacks occur when dark and negative energetic vibrations are sent from one individual to another individual or place creating disturbances in the energetic and physical bodies of the person or place...not everything that's considered difficult in a persons life is the result of a psychic attack, but psychic attacks do happen and they happen more often today than ever before.

Mary Kurus, Psychic Attacks and Protecting Yourself

Raccoon & Desert

2010-02-16T01:28:00.000-08:00

Recently B (brains of Raccon & Rain) came to visit 99352.

Like You Never Left

2010-02-09T15:36:00.000-08:00

Hooray for the stately return of Them Thangs, one of those purposeful and premeditated image boards that contrasts the madness of chaotic lairs like 4 Chan. Though careful perusal of the latter can emulate the experience of the former, if one cuts through layers and layers and layers of artless nudity.

A valentine's day selection from both, Them Thangs above and 4 Chan below.

Kafkerotica

2010-01-26T01:10:00.000-08:00

Justine Lai and Georgia O'Keefe.

Nobody sees a flower really, it is so small - we haven't time, and to see takes time like to have a friend takes time.

Georgia O'Keefe

Anvil!: This Is Spinal Tap

2010-01-19T12:52:00.000-08:00

I came late to all of this...how funny.

N/V/J 1

2010-01-16T12:07:00.000-08:00

This is a game called "nounverbjectives". The word must work as a noun, verb, and adjective without any alteration in spelling. Syllabic emphasis is, however - and often necessary. A friend and I created this game as kids and have been compiling words since ~ the present list has a few dozen, mostly monosyllabic words like "fit". More syllables, more credit.

Below, the comic strip Cathy has been synthesized into an example of the nounverbjective "fit":

"Chaos is inherent in all compounded things."

2010-01-14T00:57:00.000-08:00

"Strive on with diligence."

Since my first exposure to the Mandelbrot Set, I've associated its image with the seated Buddha. Nerds may note that the set has been shifted 90 degrees counter-clockwise to accommodate the comparison; others may neither notice nor mind.

But from what I've come across, most biological approximations to the Mandelbrot Set seem to be beetles or otherwise squat insects. Some are compelling, some less so. A few for consideration:

Buddha from Ancient Sculptures (if you like what you see, $190.95).

Ornate Leaf Beetle from bioquip, Asian Long-Horned Beetle from NY's Dept. of Ag, Carpet Beetle from Suburban Exterminating.

Whispered In Her Aear

2010-01-05T12:33:00.000-08:00

Major Lazer "Keep it Going Louder" from Eric Wareheim on Vimeo.

Aear is the best spelling I could think of for the line that rhymes 'ear' with 'there'. I love this song.

Major Lazer- "Keep It Goin Louder" from trunk animation on Vimeo.

Old & Young Rotoscoping

2009-12-06T11:08:00.000-08:00

Fleischer's animation excited me when I was young. At seven or so I'd often dare myself to stay up and watch Betty Boop (and The Twilight Zone) and fall asleep later in a state of frightened intoxication.

Decades later it carries on:

FLAIRS - BETTER THAN PRINCE from 3rd Side Records on Vimeo.

ps If you liked Flairs, clear your mind and watch this. (NSFW)

Some more from the book

2009-11-18T19:08:00.000-08:00

Genesis

2009-11-18T18:32:00.000-08:00

Untitled Drawing 3 (2002) from Malcolm Sutherland on Vimeo.

I'd love a high-definition version.

Malcom Suthlerand also made this video below, which struck me as similar to two music-as-symbol videos from an earlier post. I love the song, though I'm mystified by the content:

Salt Peanuts Jam (2002) from Malcolm Sutherland on Vimeo.

It was awesome how you just did that

2009-11-04T09:53:00.000-08:00

[ Note: this post references an interview between Jon Stewart and David Plouffe, and the accompanying video (link now defunct) featured events as described. ]

About halfway through the interview, Jon Stewart mocks David Plouffe's flowery description of Obama with the counter, "So he's a Jedi master." The moment earns Stewart audible support from the crowd and presumably the at-home audience (though both are, more or less, always in his corner). Plouffe seemed somewhat shaken by the event - Stewart effectively accused him of drivelous hyperbole, the voodoo of the right - but near the end, Plouffe brought Star Wars back by saying (of Obama's political skills), "He knows when to turn the lightsaber on."

Stewart says, "Can I tell you something? If I may, it was awesome how you just did that. He took something that I said, which was kind of snarky, and turned it into a bumper sticker."

Clever, but some have already wandered that path.

Skywalker '12 from Ironic Sans.

Cats and monkeys; monkeys and cats; all human life is there.

2009-11-02T11:40:00.000-08:00

-Henry James

A keen friend pointed out this commonality: the work of You Si:

The work of schizophrenic cat-lover Louis Wain:

"The creature was a party of boys, marching..."

2009-10-30T15:11:00.000-07:00

Good luck obtaining a copy of this new illustrated Lord of the Flies without being in the Folio Society. It's beautiful and probably well worth it. Art by Sam Weber.

To compare, Pentagram's original 1954 cover:

Approaching Order

2009-10-29T18:44:00.000-07:00

Some chaotic images, investigating order, in no deliberate sequence:

Note: no credit is presently given to each artist, for I collected these images quite some time ago. Back homework in progress: each deserve & will have their due.

A Hitherto Untrod Rock

2009-10-29T14:54:00.000-07:00

The future to come, from 1886, in no chronology:

Note: no credit is presently given to each artist, for I collected these images quite some time ago. Back homework in progress: each deserve & will have their due.

The Serpent

2009-10-27T14:08:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Narby's The Cosmic Serpent is an investigation of the link between DNA and knowledge. Mysticism is central to many of his discoveries, including the recurrent image of a serpent (often an entwined twin pair, or a single serpent with two heads or tails) seen during trance-like hallucinatory visions. He compares the indigenous beliefs surrounding these serpents to the structure and nature of DNA, visualized on the book's cover:

After finishing the chapter about serpents and mythology, I began to walk home from the coffeeshop and reflected on serpent stories I heard throughout childhood. I remembered Smaug from The Hobbit, Pete's Dragon, The Reluctant Dragon, the serpent in the Garden of Eden, the classic Chinese Dragon (which bears visible resemblance to Falkor from The Neverending Story and Haku from Spirited Away), and others. On the way home, this was for sale:

Page 38 - the first I came to - depicts two dragons in flight, intertwined, forever in conflict. Perhaps two must be in conflict to exist separately, or independently, otherwise to exist as one.

Thanks Courtney.

Music, Charted

2009-10-22T00:09:00.000-07:00

Flightpattern from Gwen Vanhee on Vimeo.

Which is reminiscent of an animation to the Beatles 'Tomorrow Never Knows', drawn by my friend Tess, below:

Bogus

2009-10-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

Some From The Comic Book

2009-10-08T00:16:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from Don't Forget Where The Sun Sets, the new album - and accompanying comic book they were kind enough to commission from me - from Das Vibenbass. Listen to the music and see the art at DasVibenbass.com.

FORGOTTEN BUT NOT LOST

2009-09-22T16:47:00.001-07:00

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Last week my bike was stolen by an imaginary thief. Like something out of Memento, I 'forgot' which particular rack I had latched my bike to and somberly took the bus home, no doubt in my mind that it was gone. Forever.

But the bike hadn't moved at all. In my mind, it had traveled to a distant, shadowy Seattle neighborhood and was promptly sold on Craigslist (for which $50 would be pushing it ~ really pushing it). In my mind, it was already in another state. I grieved and moved on.

When, weeks later, a friend called me to say she had seen my bike locked outside a bookstore I frequent, I still wasn't ready for the truth: my first thought was that the thief happened to visit the same used bookstore I did. Then, after a moment, things came into rapid focus.

Certainty is simply certainty and has no innate bearing on the actual state of affairs. A mind fixated victim to certainty will have its bike stolen by imaginary thieves, its ailments caused by imaginary spirits, and its life inhibited by imaginary barriers. Skepticism is not, like many say, a door that locks out beauty; it's more of a net that captures foolishness and holds it accountable.

Some From The Book

2009-09-17T12:03:00.000-07:00

Recent sketches:

Yesterday the neighbors were clearly, although beyond the grasp of reason, smashing in a window with a large knife, and for those peeking over the fence the scene looked and sounded more or less like this.

YES / NO

2009-09-10T13:43:00.001-07:00

The health care debate is madness. Joe Wilson's (R-S.C.) outburst at last night's joint session is indicative of the fever-dream this debate is for many of reform's opponents. Wilson's shout, 'You lie!' was irrational and wholly reactionary, a posture assumed from ten consecutive months of consumed feartalk.

With fear replacing reason, just about every visible curve transforms to a sharp, threatening edge. Skepticism transforms into paranoia. And those so riled, like Wilson, feel a desperate sense of duty in the face of their terror. One can imagine that his colleagues + news providers passively set him up for this moment ~ that Obama is lying, he cannot be trusted, he is vexing the public with charisma, that it is terrible, that it spells doom, and every word he utters into a microphone brings national collapse ~ Obama's ultimate agenda ~ closer and closer to hand.

I hesitate to call this imagination. But one could easily compare Wilson's fears about health reform to Orwell's fears about the all-powerful State. I'm biased here, though. I would describe Orwell's dream, though it could be called paranoid, as much more rational than Wilson's terror ~ I imagine he came to many of his severe conclusions independently, from calm observation, whereas Wilson was stirred into a frenzy that seemed to him the only option outside surrender.

Which isn't really an option.

Just try to click it.

[ Note: Yes is also unclickable. }

DUSK LATTITUDES

2009-07-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

Thinking about Swamp Thing.

W.H.Y.S.

2009-07-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

Thinking about tattoos.

EYES, PT.2

2009-07-13T15:42:00.000-07:00

From Luke Dixon's portfolio.

Says Luke: "I leave the eyes to clear to take away some personality from the image - opens it up for more interpretation..."

Hmm. Confession: most of my cartoons feature eyeless characters. I began drawing this way after becoming frustrated with poorly drawn eyes on otherwise well-drawn characters. And internally, the initial reaction was positive ~ the characters no longer looked so clearly amateur (although they did take on a zombie-esque quality) and I saved good time + energy overall. However, while it theoretically helped my cartoons, it did nothing for my ability to draw eyes.

While I do sympathize with Dixon's defense, it's not satisfying. 'Opening up' something for 'interpretation' is too often euphemism for laziness on the part of the artist, who is well aware that the eyes carry much of a character's emotion and an awkwardly drawn gaze can and will drag a cartoon into purgatorial mediocrity. Leave eyes blank, however, and the reader will approximately place the eyes where they ought to be. The drawing meanwhile gains a quasi-intellectual, haunting quality ~ albeit cheaply earned ~ and the artist takes credit for what many might call edginess.

It seems like guilty artists should ditch the practice, and all admiration for those who employ it. But, not so fast...like a musician seeking to become a one-man band, where it might be beneficial to use a drum machine while mastering the guitar, an artist mastering other elements could justify empty eyes. Not to say I've mastered every area but eyes (legs come to mind) or that eyelessness isn't a glaring shortcut, but at the moment I truly do not mind, and like how it looks on my cartoons and the comics of others. Though certainly I do imagine that as I become a stronger artist that eye detail will evolve into and within all my artwork, for the time being I enjoy Luke Dixon and the Empty Gaze.

MATHLINGS

2009-06-26T09:54:00.000-07:00

From this guy's Flickr via this wealth of bizarre wonder.

Some of these renderings resemble organic life so much it hurts. The fact that it comes from AT&T research just lends more absurdity ~ it's images like this that make me think Project Natal and fractal/matrices mathematics are approaching the same stupendous truth.

[ Edit: compare + contrast ]

WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH PAPYRUS?

2009-06-23T12:16:00.000-07:00

From xkcd, via B.

There was no intention to include the font in other applications other than those designed for children when I designed Comic Sans.
-Vincent Connare

So why did he do it? When Connare was still a font designer for Microsoft way-back-when, he designed Comic Sans for a program called Microsoft Bob. From the still of MS Bob on Connare's website, the program looks like some kind of creepy tour-de-stuff led by a dog presumably named Bob (the character calls to mind the dog that offered, without solicitation, help formatting your greetings in MS Word). The scorn held toward Comic Sans by the design community is matched only by the adoration held by the bake-sale community - and the latter, unfortunately, has more say in whether or not the font will persist in our visual culture. That is, unless programmers step in and remove it as an option from MS Word, Publisher, Movie Maker, etc, the idea of which being very exciting for two reasons: first, Comic Sans would be gone for good, and secondly, it would be fascinating to watch how the community of its users would handle the absence. What font would they find to take its place? Papyrus does come to mind (though its most frequent home is the covers of New Age literature). Probably not Connare's other big-name font, Trebuchet, which is certainly not whimsical and built-for-children enough to advertise Bunko night. On the other side, if they began using, say, Helvetica or Univers or Bodoni ~ any sacred typeface ~ the design community would simply have a new focus of impotent outrage. There doesn't seem to be a way through, and certainly not around this, ahem, comical dilemma.

The poetic part of all this is that the admirers of Comic Sans blissfully have no idea about the vast, lonely, Sisyphean world of designers that hold them in so much contempt. Point: admirers. But in the meantime, feel free to join the cause...

...OUT

2009-06-22T17:13:00.000-07:00

It's a good and interesting experience, drawing eyes...the business of it is implicitly emotional because of everything we associate with eyes ~ ie, the window to the soul, the first thing many of us notice about someone, the struggle to open the mind's eye, etc. Well-drawn eyes seem, more than any other feature, to bring life to whatever creature they belong to. Likewise, the absence of eyes is one of the more discomforting concepts to most folk, associated with ghosts, monsters, machines and creatures generally unwelcome. I still find them difficult to draw from imagination. But practice makes better, and better and better still.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO CREATE A CHILD, AND HOW MUCH WILL IT COST TO MEET HIM?

2009-06-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

Death to the demoness Allegra Gellar! Death to Lionhead Studios!

Before railing into this 'thing', it ought to be noted that, yesh, the technology is rather incredible, and several genuinely positive usages could be distilled from this software (most that come to mind involve use as companions for those with mental struggles). That said, not only is this unnecessary in the general way that all entertainment is unnecessary, but it's also unnecessary because there are actual twelve-year-old boys, some of them even named Milo, that will gladly look at our drawings of fish if only we hand it to them.

Why do real people need to be replaced with these...these carefully crafted creations? Well, I guess real people aren't as "fascinated" by our lives as they could be. But Milo is the true captive audience. That long anecdote from your 2002 family vacation to Colorado - the one that everyone else drifts off during and starts texting? Milo will probably listen wide-eyed to the whole thing and then ask to hear it again. Skynet becoming self-aware is really just humans becoming immersed in tech-dependence.

Anyways, science fiction certainly has thought of this stuff, and it's rarely been happy about it. I mean, 'Natal' is to 'Natal' as 'Existenz' is to 'Existence'...

DRAG ME TO GASWORKS

2009-06-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, it was beer outdoors at the park at sunset. Really a classic setpiece.

Thanksamil to B for the pose and Big John for the swell photo.

MORE SATELLITES

2009-06-12T11:22:00.001-07:00

Some m4w, as mentioned. Now it's just m4m, w4w, mw4m, mw4w, mm4m, mm4w, ww4m, ww4w, bbw4bbm...

ANOTHER SATELLITE

2009-06-11T11:47:00.000-07:00

Well, quite a bit of time has passed since the last post here. I suppose there's a lot to say, but perhaps I'll cover most of that in the next post. This post is just intended to explain, in some way, the three images above.

They are the first images of a project that's been sitting around for a while (and was originally conceived to be a book, of sorts, with a narrative strung from random Craigslist posts. But the idea of stitching them together seemed to undermine the deeply personal nature of some of these posts - all of which are taken from the Missed Connections listings - so I decided to let them sit alone. Another important part of that decision was to include the actual contact information. I felt it was appropriate that these images still function as postings, but nonetheless abstracted to highlight their earnesty [which is not a word, apparently, for some worthless reason]). So if anyone replies to one of these ads, please don't tell them you found it through me, that will just get me involved and turn this whole shmeboble into a messs. But please, if you think one of these is a Connection you may have Missed, please, be encouraged to respond. And there will be more to come.

All the postings above are w4m, but that'll change. I'm looking through the whole spectrum of MCs, these just happened to be the first to stick out to me. This kind of thing has been done before, but it seemed like a good idea to get in on the fun...

COUGH INTO THE CORNER, KID

2009-05-02T11:05:00.001-07:00

What a completely wretched day.

Yesterday, I mean. Today is off to a more or less brilliant start and seems like it'll carry on that way. But yesterday was infested with so many cancerous elements - fatigue, envy, loneliness, exhaustion, and...is there a world for a feeling that the world is all moving one direction, in one lane of traffic, and after hours of unwittingly moving against it and getting dirty looks, someone grabs you by the shoulder and says, 'Hey buddy, you're supposed to be going the other way,' and so you turn and move with the crowd, but after some time has passed you find that once again you're colliding with traffic and getting dirty looks until someone grabs you by the shoulder and says, 'Hey buddy, you're supposed to be going the other way,' and so on to madness?

That feeling festered all day and culminated during my search for a thermometer, which led me in crooked spiral around eight or nine city blocks and into one drug store, one blood center, three different floors of the same hospital, and two pharmacies, the last of which sold me a thermometer for $9.79 and sent me on my way.

With the combined H1N1 hysteria, a public workplace, and my very visible symptoms, it seemed not only prudent but a civic responsibility to check for a fever. Just to be sure, you know, and possibly have an excuse to go home and lie down immediately. Though I was pretty sure I didn't have a fever, at least not on a major-network scale, just the kind that might manifest itself if a long, miserable day began to turn into a long, miserable night. And I bet I looked long and a miserable. I felt long and miserable. It was clear that no one particularly wanted to be near me, or hear anything I had to say, or even have me listen to anything they had to say except, "You know, you shouldn't be touching anything that the patrons might. Including the cookie display."

My co-worker shadowed me the entire night with a small grimace and a tube of disinfectant wipes and it didn't take long to get the hint - I am wanted nowhere but far, far away in quarantine. My fever never clocked over 100.2 F, but I was sneezing, dripping, coughing, and generally looking and feeling like hell, and with the prospect of staying late to help move incredibly heavy objects and return six hours later for a Christian college graduation ceremony, I graciously - swiftly - accepted the offer to leave work right then at 9:30pm and, thanks, not worry about coming in the next morning for the ceremony lest my superior carry home my unidentified disease to his infant daughter. Still I kind of felt treated like an ant detected of cordyceps infection.

But 98.6 F this morning. And some mild snot. Oddly, the general will to live seemed unaffected by both the onset of illness and the subsequent recovery to good health, hovering throughout at a steady 'This Too Shall Absurdly Pass'. And so it mostly has. Now on to the other stuff.

NEMBUTAL V. PNEUMONIA

2009-04-30T14:23:00.000-07:00

I read a book this morning that had me welling up with some tears, not only emotionally struck but also hypnotized, burning through the last ninety pages in just under the forty-odd minutes of Beethoven's Ninth. Which paired up with the book terribly well. Which might be part of the reason it kicked me in the gut so hard.

It might be because I haven't read a book in a while that had a suicide attempt as such a central event, and because I've never read a book that dealt with the trauma of suicide by employing such a powerful narrative shift, which essentially forced brutal, earnest empathy with absolutely everyone involved and to share every moment of their quaint devastation. And thusly to reconsider all romantic ideas about suicide. Until, unhopefully, I read another piece of well-made existentialism and reconsider all romantic ideas about life and living.

The book, and some reflection on it, led to more thought about suicide. Suicide both active and passive. I'm sure such a split isn't a new idea, but anyways I was led to think about it. Active suicide being the conventional methods - off the bridge, through the noose, in the brain. Each one deliberate, with a specific, personally directed means to an end, with complete control (more or less) of the time, setting, context, so on. Passive suicide could be called the doctrine of Christ Scientists, the excess of alcoholics, or the general mayhem of thrill-seekers. Anything between gross negligence and absolute recklessness. I suppose any mindset that raises the value of a single experience above the value of all earthly experiences to follow could be called suicidal.

The context for this continued line of thought was my illness (see previous whining) and how it might be this new-fangled swine flu or anything else under the sun potentially life-threatening. If I refused to seek treatment for whatever ailment, would I be suicidal? Considering, of course, entirely secular motivations, beyond mild Ludditism. It's improbable that my sore throat, ashy brain and now runny nose will threaten my life, but the book this morning and the reflection afterward has me presently curious as to what I might really do if a sickness were to call my end near. Maybe life-seekers can be split into active and passive categories, in which case I imagine terminal illness would inspire me gently toward the latter. I can hope.

HUCK-HUCK-PHLEGM

2009-04-29T13:04:00.001-07:00

Now I'm sick, with the following symptoms:

1) Sore throat. Right about where the interior mouth ends and things begin to slide down the neck, it feels cut up, swollen, and lined with acid. If I speak excitedly, it starts with, "Oh! I really love this -", then huck-huck-hack-hack-phlegm, but no blood in the sample. What's worse is the feeling when I swallow. It feels grey and alien. Like a bundle of strange flesh, partly organic and partly dirtied cement. But, I like swallowing - nothing is better for milkshakes, or a prolonged silence - and this inaccessible lump has spoiled that casual pastime.

2) Ashy brain. It's as if someone spilled an urn inside my skull. The synapses are clogged, dusty, and thoughts lag for hours if they come at all. It's hard to tell if any idea is worthwhile - they all seem mediocre, or strange, or unwelcome, anyway best unsaid or unwritten. But the idea that they are best left unsaid and unwritten also seems mediocre, so it's happened that this idea, of describing my symptoms, is being (cough-huck-huck) written anyhow.

3) Devil-may-care attitude and outlook. This isn't anything new, but it feels more at home now with the other two symptoms.

4) I watched a movie this morning that was really almost about death, but, like most movies, books, conversations, etc, ended up being about sex. About getting enough sex before death, or how sex leads to death, or how death inhibits more sex from happening, or how the fear of death resembles and uses some of the same mechanisms as the lust for sex, (huck-huck-phlegm) or how sex and death are all we even care about whatsoever. I just ended up wondering if it's more intelligent, or more honest, to care more about sex or more about death. And how that movie was kind of a waste of time.

STUBBORN PRICK

2009-04-28T23:03:00.000-07:00

I've had this cut on my finger for a while that's been nagging my attention. Just when I touch or lift something, making direct contact with a little spot on the skin that's a bit raw, even though it's been weeks since the wound struck. I think weeks. Maybe less. More than one week, some odd days onto that.

They poked me with a tiny pricker to measure my iron level at the blood donation center. I'm usually torn about which finger to give them - those on the left hand are necessary to form chords on the guitar, and those on the right to manipulate pens and pencils. The young, hungover-ish individuals working the facility never seem to have the patience to let me deliberate so I just offer whatever finger they seem to be looking at. It's usually the middle finger of the left hand. That's the finger that's sore right now.

The way it nags my attention is somewhat unorthodox - first of all, it's sporadic, as in, only when I touch or lift something (or when I look at it and see the tiny dot, which was at first scabby and red and is now scar-tissue white [I understand that this listing of conditions actually implies a pattern - far from sporadic - but I'm kind of talking memory here, as in, I forget the rules for pain, so it seems sporadic]). Secondly it nags my attention by sporadically forcing me to reflect on the very sporadic-ness of the pain itself. It's only when I touch something directly on that little part of the fingertip that it hurts. When I do, there's a moment of confusion - at first I don't recall why I feel this odd, tiny spot of discomfort. Instinct usually tells me something on the surface of whatever object I've got is pointy or sharp, that I'm not feeling the burn of an old wound, but the formation of a new one. After four or five milliseconds of that false reckoning, I remember: they pricked me. They pricked me because I was going to donate blood. And it's healing slowly because I haven't been eating and living well.

Then I think about the little soreness I feel when I listen to certain songs, or watch certain movies, or talk about certain books, or walk along certain paths, where for a moment my brain can't place the pain - it thinks, for four or five milliseconds, that the injury is new, that whatever stimuli has struck me as sad did so for whatever reason, with no regard of the past. But then I remember: this song makes me think of a moment with someone. This movie, I watched with someone. I talked about this book with someone. Someone and I walked along this path. The someones can all be different, they often are, but whoever it was there was a definite moment, whether I knew it or not, that I had made myself vulnerable to this someone, and that shared moment pricked me somewhere between my brain stem and frontal lobe, and the wound remained a bit raw.

That's what's been nagging me, really, the finger and the brain and how they won't stop behaving this way. I have two choices with my finger. I can keep touching and lifting things and go through the whole ordeal of pain and memory, until if and when it heals enough, or I can stop touching and lifting things entirely. Which would require a level of tactile abstinence close to suicide. Anyway, it was probably best that I gave the blood in the first place, stubborn prick and all.