Deidara

This halloween, I tried to dress up as Deidara (^), from Naruto.

Deidara is a member of Akatsuki, which in the Narutoverse is a criminal organization. All Akatsuki members (of which there are nine known, at least as of now) wear these black cloaks with red clouds on them. The Akatsuki members usually move in pairs.

My favorite character, Deidara, comes from the Hidden Boulder village. He has mouths on both hands (and a hidden mouth on his chest). He always carries a pouch filled with clay (of the C3 C4 variety). He is able to shape that clay into any form that he wishes, by using the mouths on his hands to "chew" the clay and spit it out into a finished form. He fashions spiders, birds, anything. The shaped clay is able to move, fly, whatever, and explode either when contacting a target, or when Deidara makes a hand symbol ("Katsu!").

Deidara considers himself an artist. His partner (former) was named Sasori, and was also an artist, in his own fashion. Sasori was a master puppeteer. He created deadly puppets, and considered each creation an "exercise in eternity," in staving off the effects of time. Sasori, in fact, became a puppet himself, immortal, with only his heart serving as a remnant of his mortal body, only his heart pulling the strings.

While Sasori considered art a striving for eternity, Deidara, by contrast, repeatedly states, "ART IS A BANG!" A fleeting, and terribly explosive, act. In fact, Deidara's objective, if anything, is to (literally) create an impression...

I appreciate the desperation in Deidara. Art is a terribly desperate thing. Without it, we implode. The nothing that is outside puts a steady and sometimes overwhelming pressure on the fragile world we contain within us. Sometimes it is only by means of a desperate "explosion," a "BANG," that we are able to assert our perspective on the world.

(Not that I'm going to be the next UNA bomber, or anything...)

2 + 2 = 5

Lyrics to one of my current favorite Radiohead songs, from "Hail to the Thief." Might seem confusing, but it's supposed to be based upon Orwell's "1984." 2 + 2 = 5 is a nonsensical statement, as is "January has April's Showers." The song outlines the struggle of individual (and rational) thought when pitted against the Mis-information of a subversive totalitarian regime... The middle section (which totally rips, BTW) where "You have not been paying attention" repeats over and over and over, represents the impossible task of being vigilant against Big Brother... And in the final section, in which statements and assertions are repeatedly negated (I'm NOT), the singer/protagonist eventually capitulates, becomes muddled, confused, ambiguous, and vulnerable... "MAYBE not."

It was (and is often) thought that Thom Yorke intended this song as a critique of the Bush administration, something which he denies... Nevertheless, the lyric, "Hail to the Thief" tempts this assertion.

2+2=5
(We're on. Thats a nice way to start Jonny)
Are you such a dreamer
To put the world to rights?
I'll stay home forever
Where two and two always makes a five

I'll lay down the tracks
Sandbag and hide (oil?)
January has April's showers
And two and two always makes a five

It's the devil's way now
There is no way out
You can SCREAM and you can shout
It is too late now
Because...

You have not been!Payin' attentionPayin' attentionPayin' attentionPayin' attention
You have not been paying attentionPayin' attentionPayin' attentionPayin' attention
You have not been paying attentionPayin' attentionPayin' attentionPayin' attention
You have not been paying attentionPayin' attentionPayin' attentionPayin' attention

oohh
I try to sing along
But the music's all wrong'
Cause I’m not
'Cause I’m not
I swat 'em like flies
but like flies the buggers keep coming back NOT
But I’m not
All hail to the thief
All hail to the thief
But I'm not. But I'm not. But I'm not. But I'm not.
Don't question my authority
or put me in the box
'Cause I'm not. 'Cause I'm not,
Oh go and tell the king that the sky is falling in
When it's not. But it's not. But it's not.
Maybe not
Maybe NOT!

On Writing

Been taking a break from the aggressive story/poetry writing... In lieu of this, I have been reading an excellent guide on fiction writing. It is called the "Modern Library Writer's Workshop" by Stephen Koch. It's a book about the process of writing, how writers do what they do... It is supported by an unbelievable amount of research, the writing process as described by the writers themselves (or their reluctant family and friends). Vladimir Nabokov, Toni Morisson, Stephen King, Charles Dickens...

The insights of this book are great. I'd recommend it to anyone trying to write short fiction or novels.

Previously, I felt that "Writing Down the Bones" was the best guide. But that book is essentially about free-writing, and bypassing the internal censor. Important stuff, but that hardly gets you to the nitty gritty of PLOT, CHARACTER, etcetera... It could be sufficient if you are trying to find seeds for POETRY. But for prose, you need a minimum of structure and organization, and for that, you can't just "stream-of-consciousness" your way through.

Some valuable insights:
*(From the cover): "Make [your] characters want something right away- even if it's only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time." -Kurt Vonnegut

*Stories are basically about conflict. Characters should be forcefully flung into conflict, not lollygag about as "innocent bystanders." There is nothing "innocent" in a story, nor should anything "stand by." Conflict, conflict, conflict.

*A basic problem of all memoir type/autobiographical type "fiction" is, paradoxically, not that the narrative is too self-absorbed. Quite the opposite. The author often hasn't developed the character of the self enough in the story, such that he/she becomes thoroughly ambigious (read:boring), and thus so does the entire story itself, of which s/he is the (absent) center.

Welcome Back: About the TEST

Yeah, I've been out for a while... Turns out my router (whatever that is) blew out, so even though Roadrunner's been fine, my PC couldn't connect (if you can't tell, taking two weeks to figure this out = me, technologically challenged).

Last I wrote, I was anxious about the PRAXIS II test... Shoot. The first section was, if not exactly a breeze, well, it was something requiring just a bit of effort, like- well, like a fart. A fart you try to squeeze out in a really crowded and really quiet room, a fart that you surreptitiously pass (as through a teeny tiny straw) silently, and then look on as though nothing were the matter... What's that smell? Why, 'tain't me... Yes, I got away with that first section, squeaky clean, if not entirely odorless... After all, multiple choice questions are no big thing. You just fill them in in a zigzag pattern, and you're bound to hit something right! Right?

The second section was, for the most part, fun. 4 essay questions in 2 hours... I bypassed the whole outlining and organizational procedures and tore right into my written answers... What were the questions? Well, it's been over two weeks... But:

question 1 had to do with some poem by some lady... Can't recall. It was about earthquakes or something or other, earthquakes being the metaphor for the relationship between mothers and daughters... and fathers being surreptitiously injected into the poem as a symbol of the interface between mothers and daughters- like, sometimes the relationship is like rubbing your hand over the stubble of the chin of a father, something like that. It was actually fun analyzing it.

question 2 had to do with some prose by some dude... Again, can't recall... It was the introductory paragraphs to some short story. Descriptions of some grape farm. Shrouded in mist. And everything was passive, quiet, waiting... EXCEPT the mrs. farmer what's her name. She's described as this almost masculine active figure... So, we had to talk about how the author (Mr. what's his ass) utilized setting and character descriptions to introduce this character (Mrs. I'm wearing the pants i
n this household).

question 3... not prose, precisely, but some passage ABOUT writing, written by, well, some writer. Mr. nobody's heard of him yet. He described writing as walking a tightrope, no net. He had this real attitude. Like, I don't give a s**t what you critics think, I'm going to bare my ass to you all (while walking this tightrope) and defecate, and that's art, and who cares if you don't appreciate me "raining on your parade and all..." He was kind of funny... So for this question, we were supposed to analyze the changing metaphors this dude used for his writing process, talk about what it meant and all...

question 4... aye, there's the rub. We had a list of literature to choose from. And we had to choose two to support this argument that the significance of any given piece of literature is heavily dependent upon its historical context... Trouble was, I didn't know or remember any of the stories listed! Goody-goody Amy Tan's "Joy Luck Club" was on the list, as was Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter." Also, "Grapes of Wrath." Guess what? I NEVER READ THEM. But I BSed the best I could... With information gleaned from SECTION I of the test (oh clever clever), I was able to figure out bits and pieces of Hawthorne's book... And, oh yeah, I saw "Joy Luck Club" (chick-flick time with Lynn)... Something about Chinese American second generation existential angst...

Needless to say, question 4 was DA BOMB. And I mean that in the worst possible sense. My mind, by that time, was fried. Not up to its usual nimble BSing potential... I think I repeated the same sentence over and over when discussing "specifics of the texts." What a joke. Well, true to form, at least my beginning and ending was pretty decent.

...well, great to be back.

blurts on time, faith, mountain dew.

There is a wind outside that is restless, and stirs.

I am tired, but I suffer the giddy anxiety of a test that I am ill prepared for, one that I will have to rely on wits and, more importantly, luck to pass. It's the same feeling I had when in college, and Mountain Dew actually worked to keep me up and studying all night (although the buzzy state of mind I'd be in the next day wasn't exactly conducive to lucid thought).

I wonder what I am doing, where I am going... Can I really pass this test? And even if I do, can I afford to go to school, for another stupid degree? And if I do, and if I get a job teaching, can I really do it? Do it well? And if I do it, can I manage everything else in my life appropriately (particularly raising Willow and Aiden), or will I perform this stutter-step dance through it all, same way that I "studied" for this upcoming test? Confronting waterfalls only when one foot has already slipped off the brink...

... a digression here...

In life, there are so many wants, but truly, time is limited. Time, and its physical, embodied expression within human flesh, attention. I heard someone say that Love IS attention... And if this is so, then it puts a natural limitation on what a person may love in life. For attention requires time, and time, as I stated, is limited. Well, not time itself, but MY time, the time that I have, the endurance I may maintain, my patience... We are finite beings, and (perhaps by definition of finitude) this limitation is most evident with regards to TIME. How much can one take, how much can one give... capacities limited most prominently by time.

If you love something, you must devote time to it, and therein lies the crux... For we live in a world of endless opportunity, in fact, opportunity is always exploding in our eyes, our ears...

... another (dangerous) digression...

When I was a little younger (and don't get me wrong, it's not as though this danger is beyond me), the attraction and fascination of other LIVES (not to mention other faces, other BODIES) was devastating, destructive... I think, if I were a normal "red-blooded" male, I would have succumbed to temptation long ago... if not for several key "genetic abberations": 1) I am a social blockhead, and can neither read nor send "signals"; and 2) I am stupidly (but with Lynn, fortunately) faithful, like a dog (BTW, the whole "faithful dog" thing's a myth; you can command loyalty of a dog within a week after its old owner's death, if you have enough steaks handy. Same with men? Same with ME?).

...but back to the issue of time. I am grateful to be with Lynn, because it frees me, paradoxically by focusing me... So much time would be wasted if we just kept looking at all the open doors and windows for the right framed scenery... You can only live in one room, you see, and you can only look at the world through one windowframe... The fear that you are missing out, that there is a better place, a better view, well, some of it may be true, but mostly it's just that which consoles the lost and the damned and the loveless... I should know, because, for a long time (up until Lynn) that's exactly what I was, lost, damned... Mewling like a kitten for some affection... Not realizing how (simultaneously) ordinary and wonderful love actually could be.

... Speaking of time. I have to get up at 6. I just needed to kill some, to get me tired... THIS IS NOT WORKING. Oh well, good night.

PRAXIS II!!!

Tomorrow, I will be taking the Praxis II English test. It's divided into two parts (at least the sections that I will be taking). Part I is 120 multiple choice questions, and Part II consists of 4 essay questions...

WISH ME LUCK!!!

Mad Libs

In preparation for the upcoming PRAXIS II exam on English Content (I am a religion major, after all, not an English major), I have been studying a bit of grammar. Bought two books, one called (appropriately for me) Grammar Sucks! and the other, the recently popular "Eats, Shoots and Leaves."

I've also been reading a book called "The Passionate Teacher," all about teaching strategies that foster student driven projects and independent critical thinking. One idea for a project for students to learn the basics of grammar is to have them construct and then fill out a Mad Libs- you know, those quirky little books from when we were kids, the ones that required you to fill in "Nouns", "Pronouns," "Adjectives," etc. into a passage, and then read the ridiculous outcome... By having students construct a Mad Libs- perhaps they could get an article, progressively remove word classes that I assign them to (like Nouns, for example), and then have another group of students "fill out" the Mad Libs. It's an exercise in grammar for both the students as they construct the puzzles, and for the students as they fill them in. And the often silly outcome makes the project entertaining. Imagine that! Grammar, entertaining?!

... but jeez, I am tired. The test will be demanding, and I haven't invested much time studying... Looks like I will be winging it, for the most part. The part that I really dread is the Essay section. 4 questions, 30 minutes apiece, on various topics. Analysis of a prose piece, analysis of a poetry piece, something else... But then again, I like a challenge. And I miss the essay exams from my college days- now THOSE were real terrors!

Tired (I)

Yup, I'm tired...

Tonight's class was difficult. It wasn't because the subject was (Acupoints). It was just- this feeling. Like a disconnect. I felt like I was talking to myself much of the class. That, to me, is the worst feeling... Like I am not really engaging the students. Today, we learned about the Du (Governing) Vessel, a channel that runs up the posterior midline of the body (the spine). Although I had a willing model, nobody really wanted to palpate the points. I had four students locate four significant points, but that's it... Well, I suppose it's just me, I expect my enthusiasm for the topic to instantly infect the students... It just felt- strange tonight, that's all... Normally, I don't think I'm so thin-skinned. Jeez, if I get this riled up over tonight's class, with its overwhelmingly supportive environment, how will I ever handle high school students?!

Ideas for Virtual Slam Poetry Contest

I'm going to attend UH this Spring, part of the Post Baccalaureate program in Secondary Education... that is, if I can raise the funds. Tuition will cost $3,500. With both kids going to preschool, that's going to be hard money to come by... So I glanced at a list of prospective scholarships, and one that mildly caught my eye was a "Virtual Slam Poetry Contest" on the subject of torture. Now, I have no idea what Slam Poetry is- I've heard a bit about it, like that they have open mike night for slam poetry at Arts at Mark's Garage (?) in Downtown. I have a vision of it being like these high-school to early college age kids wearing baggy pants and heavy hanging BLANG BLANG punctuating the air (KAPOW!) with arcane hand signs, and then pausing for emphasis by grabbing their armpits and leaning precariously backwards... Or else, of thin waif girls and boys dressed all in black, with berets and goatees (the boys, not the girls) and pencil thin cigarettes, playing clever puns, and repeating them, as if the audience somehow missed them, or didn't get them "deeply" enough...

I think I fit in more with the latter...

Anyway, not that I'll be able to do anything for this contest, but it got me to thinking...

I'm supposed to submit a small video file for the contest. I was thinking of using one of those "pills" that contain some kind of spongy shape, like an animal or a musical instrument, you know, the kind that, if you put it in water, it gradually dissolves and expands into the "surprise" shape. Maybe I would construct some sort of "inverting" or "tilting" bed (can't think of the right words- it's 4 am), tie the "pill" to it, and "dunk" the pill periodically into a cup of water- to simulate the newest and hippest torture method of discourse, "water-boarding." Accompanying it would be a recycling soundtrack of Radiohead's Kid A song, can't think of the name, but the one that starts off with what sounds like a music-box tune...

The poem, the actual words, would be from something I wrote a while back, when water-boarding was just beginning to be talked about, and when I was attempting to research Catholicism and the seven sacraments for some stupid story which I have long despaired of writing. The poem was called "Per Aquem en Verbo," which means the Water in the Word. It is a phrase used to explain the significance of the first sacrament, Baptism. I just thought it was such an interesting phrase; I mean, can't you just visualize Prez Double-Yuh saying something like, "My words hold water..."?

Anyway, ideally, the poem was supposed to play on many levels: a critique of water-boarding (and this current administration), but also a subtle (for me, though, "subtlety" pronounces the hard "t" sound) play on the notion of baptism, of reluctant (necessary?) baptism... After all, as conceived by this nation, sometimes overtly, but most often without any real awareness, this war is one between cultures, simplistically between Christian (I extend this to Catholicism) and Muslim nations...

Someday I will post the original poem, though right now, I am thinking of a clearer beginning... Something like:

"You will walk on water someday,"
A promise made casually
Although He never makes casual promises.
"Walk on water,"
He whispering repeats for emphasis
dangling, levitating the miracle of it.

"But first."

[Jesus Christ was (H)imself baptized by a mysterious figure known as John the Baptist. The passage in which this occurs is paradoxical, because although the authority and holiness of Jesus is never questioned, it seems necessary that (H)e, for the purposes of Baptism, be subservient to John the Baptist.]

Well, more on this later.

[Ah, I never made a video file. Forget this virtual slam poetry contest... Been too busy!]

A Poem: Wood, Japanese AV Mosaic versus Zen Koans

the grain of wood that runs,
followed by fingertip calluses
like bark on bark,
a rough mirror.
---
japan is the summer country
and all color resides there
and the smell of sweat is
a mixed pheromone of sadness
and purity
and beauty
and lies.

a worship of transience-
the world passing-
still allows garish outfits
of impossible lace,
with shifting squares
over the parts that struggle
to show through.

in japan, they never show it
not the front,
and definitely not
the phenomenon of
interpenetration.
they speak of such things only in zen,
in riddles,
are frank and rude
only in paradox.
in truth,
all is surface.
cute and cutaneous.

beauty is
skin deep.

Ghost Laughter

There are dogs barking suddenly in the night.

Every now and then, at very odd moments in the early morning (like at 2 or 3 AM), there is a voice coming out across the valley behind our house, the voice of a man laughing. It's not a particularly scary sound, it just sounds like someone at a party having a good time. But it's odd, because it comes out of the silence and the darkness, there are no lights across the way signaling a late night party, there is no voice preceding or following it, making conversation or telling a joke. There is just the laugh.

And I lie awake, wondering at the strangeness of that laugh. Sometimes, I peer through the dust laden screen into the night, trying to pierce the shadow and the ever present haze of cricket noises. But there is nothing. Did I dream the voice?

I ask Lynn if she heard it. She is usually too sleepy to respond to my stupid questions. But she says, "Yeah, I was wondering about that too." And suddenly she shivers, even though she is bundled in covers, and the night is far from cold.

There are dogs barking in the night.

Sometimes, of a sudden, the dogs do this. First, the barking is far off. Then, there is a tumult somewhere down our street, there are dogs baying restlessly. Then, it seems, the neighbors' dogs, the dogs closest to us, are upset about something. This often happens late into the night, when even the dead should sleep... A wave of dogs barking, disturbing, like wind through grass... getting closer and closer. At the end, my heart beats thunderously, and I strain my ears to hear shuffling in my yard, or some unexpected click just outside my window.

Thngs move in the night, shifting, trying to find sleep, or rest, or balance... Something is always off. A laugh, dogs barking...

A Poem: poly

a panapoly
a polly anna
a poly gone
gone are
the many,
the posse-bility
the possibles
the polyvalent
poly violent
a future is
pollywogs
waiting to become.

A Poem: Fish out of water

I am silver tremors
I am the gasping gills
The sky above the sky
it Burns.

Rarefied,
too pure,
too empty
a place.
I cannot be here
I want to not exist
the shame
the stink of me
I wish would never have been.

Nerd Memories

It's cool to cold, the kind of night where it's nice to wear a blanket over yourself. Right now, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome is playing on AMC. I'm half typing, half looking over my shoulder. It's a classic. I remember playing it at my birthday, I think it must have been my twelfth or thirteenth. Must have, because all my Nerd Corner friends came, from Greg Fastabend to Brian Mahoney to Frank Shotwell. It was a summer near the end, when my group would encounter a big diaspora. See, many of my Nerd friends were in military families, or they were deemed smart enough to attend private school. Brian Mahoney, I think he moved somewhere (military reassignment). And Frank Shotwell, he went on to Punahou. My friend, Edward Lau, who so reminded me of Mr. Spock, he got a scholarship to attend Iolani. The friends that were left, me, Greg, Cliff, not much more than that, I think we were somewhat- how should I put it- broken...

It is a lonely thing being a Nerd. It's not about being smart, because we weren't, aren't, not really. I've met smart people, really smart people, and I can tell you that me and most of my friends, well, we weren't. Aren't. We just knew how to play the game, follow the rules that the schools set out for us. But in the process, we bought a whole lot of other consequences. We became the outcasts, the Nerds. People say, you didn't have to be, you don't have to be a Nerd. But, you see, once you've been placed on the outside, and once people look down on you enough, you realize that you can't be "up top" or "in." There's something inherently hypocritical about it. Something fundamentally unfair. You realize that you can't be in the "in crowd," on the "up and up," AND live with yourself, because then living with yourself would mean excluding, stepping on, putting down, someone else, who, ultimately would be yourself. You start to hate the people that can be so comfortable, so easy, with it all, with what is essentially a hypocrisy, a hierarchical system built of lies...

Back then, yes, I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to be "in." But now, gods, now, I despise it. I despise the people that played that game. I despise them, because, well, they "got away with it."

Oh well, just ruminations and regrets...

I wonder where my Nerd friends are now?

FYI: Low Back Pain

This serves as a public service announcement...

Most instances of Low Back Pain (at least in my experience when treating people) do not primarily involve the "Low Back" (that is, the lumbar spine and immediate vicinity). Most of the time, it is the Gluteus Medius muscle which is involved. The next time you "throw your back" out, and have a hard time getting up out of bed or out of your seat, or even have a hard time walking, try pressing (or having someone press) the region just lateral to and off the sacrum, in the soft tissue just beneath the iliac crest (the hip bone). From there, try moving laterally, staying just below the crest of the ilium as it rises and falls. You will likely find one or more points that are very tender, and appear to reproduce the pain you feel in your lower back. You may have to press deeply to experience this.

Tension in other places, like the Erector Spinae or the Quadratus Lumborum, may be contributing factors, as can structural alignment issues, but much of the time, relief can be obtained simply by focusing pressure on and releasing these points on the Gluteus Medius.

Recently, I've made it my crusade at ICAOM (Acupuncture School) to tell my students about these "secret points." Too often acupuncturists are taught to use "point formulae" for symptoms without really understanding the specific conditions for their applications. And too often acupuncturists (and, for that matter, doctors, bodyworkers, everyone) forget that palpation of the body, of the affected tissues, TOUCH, basically, is at the foundation of all healing.

This American Life

"This American Life" is a great radio show (I've heard they have or had a series on cable as well), if only for the fascinating and often twisted stories they feature (jeez, where do they find these people?). Today's show was called, I believe, "How to Rest in Peace," and dealt with various reactions (and abreactions) to death in the family. I only heard bits and pieces of the first two stories (Willow and Aiden were having a conversation with me while I was driving), but I think I got the gyst of both of them.

The first dealt with a man who, as a boy, witnessed (partially, not the deed itself) the murder of his mother. He is 30 something (?) now, and is struggling to get beyond the traumatic incident. For some reason, he cannot get himself to grieve properly over this trauma, and feels an awkward distancing from it all. The event scarred him significantly, most notably in his hypervigilance. As a young boy, he fashioned makeshift weapons (a bat with nails sticking out of it, samurai swords, beebee guns) and distributed them all around his house, so that if a stranger ever broke in, he would have several opportunities to do him damage... This man revisited elements of the crime (there were three men involved, all caught, all in prison with 25 to life terms), apparently because he wanted to "re-solve" the crime. Basically, the murder of his mother was the result of a burglary gone bad. But this man insisted that there was a deeper reason for the murder; he felt that his house had been targeted specifically, and he pursued this hypothesis doggedly... A poignant scene occurred when the man took a look at some of the post-mortem photographs of his mother. He seemed, on the one hand, characteristically distant, and yet, there was clearly a yearning for him to feel SOMETHING, to perhaps have the capacity to shed a tear... Unfortunately, he could not...

The second story dealt with another man who, as a boy, dealt with the burden of his mother's planned suicide. His mother had witnessed the deterioration of aging in friends, most significantly the effects of dementia and Alzheimer's, and decided that, rather than face that slow effacement of herself, would take matters into her own hands and kill herself... The man (as boy) was fully informed of his mother's intentions, and even became a kind of (unwilling but obedient) conspirator... The last thing I heard was that his mother would sometimes have "practice sessions" with her son, in which she would take sleeping pills, and he would monitor how long it took for her to pass out...

Sure, macabre stuff... But it gives me ideas. The first story, because the subject of PTSD has always fascinated me (especially when Freud dealt with it in "Beyond the Pleasure Principle"). And the second, because of my grandfather's experiences with Alzheimer's before his death early this year.

Random Thoughts: All around the mulberry bush...

[I once wrote a mini-short story entitled "Moth-Eaten." It was lost, and then rewritten... I eventually wish to expand it further, including an alternate reality (as in The Matrix, or in "Hard-Boiled Wonderland") that plays off of the "real reality," and calls into serious question the nature of reality period. The following are some rambling thoughts regarding the nature of that alternate reality.]

"All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel
The monkey thought it was all in fun
Pop! Goes the weasel."

1) Silkworms, at least of the Chinese variety, eat mulberry leaves.

2) "The monkey" can be read as "The monk, 'e"

3) "Weasel" may be read as "We Sell." Sell what? Insurance. Insurance against what? Insurance against the Unexpected. "You pay us so that life can be maintained at its expected pace, with its expected hopes and disappointments, with its expected risks and misfortunes, eh?" This, of course, is absolute absurdity. But isn't "insurance" basically an absurd industry? It is RISK MANAGEMENT, a covering of the bets, but risk is inherently UNMANAGABLE.

"We Sell" insurance... But we don't deliver a thing...

A question keeps returning, not just for the insurance industry, but for many "forms of business" (form vs. substance) that sell nothing. The recent subprime mortgage fiasco, with the buying and selling of, if nothing else, risky loans, i.e., the "bundling" and "repackaging" of risk, is an example of this.

WHAT DO YOU SELL?

"We Sell" thus becomes a universal name for empty promises. In this story, it is the name of a sinister organization that sticks its dirty hands into every pocket, and maintains and manipulates "risk management" through active interventions, i.e. assault, murder, mayhem, whenever necessary.

The "Monk" chases "We Sell," because he is attempting to recapture himself.

Or something.

I would also like to incorporate Daedalus. In the story, the "Monk" has another "self", we can call him Jack (Jack in the Box), who is an employee of "We Sell." Jack manages what is referred to as the "Data List." It is a vast and expansive list of all "clients", a compilation of bits and pieces of data about individuals, data that is crunched on an hourly basis to determine "risk factors", to keep on the cusp of "That which is expected" of any given individual.

"Data List" sounds like Daedalus. Daedalus was, among other things, the architect of the Maze of the Minotaur; despite building the Maze for King Minos, he was helplessly (?) imprisoned within his creation, along with his son, Icarus. Daedalus thus represents cleverness that is imprisoned.

Daedalus can also be tied to the silkworm. A silkworm who has trapped itself within its own coccoon, within fibers of its own making. "The spit of worms," as expressed in the original story.

Random Thoughts: ANABLEPS

There is a fish I once knew called the Four Eyed Fish. As I tried to look it up recenty, I discovered it had a funny name: Anableps, Ana for Large, and Bleps for Eyes. Anyway, the reason I was fascinated by this fish, and the reason why scientists study it, is that it is simultaneously able to see above water and below water at the same time. That is, each eye is divided, so that when the fish swims just below the surface of the water (sort of in the manner of crocodiles), it captures two images in its brain: one of the world above, and one of the world below. This allows it to hunt for prey abovewaters (insects, for example) while keeping a watchful eye out for predators below (or vice versa).

It is interesting for other reasons as well; for example, males have their sexual organs on the right side of their bodies, while females have their sexual organs on the left. This means the "deed" is done with partners side by side.

The reason I am currently interested in Anableps is that I wanted to utilize it as a symbol for the split perception of reality. I wanted the "main character" of this short story collection to be somewhat disconnected, confused, due to this strange "double perception" of reality. He is both living in Mililani, and "looking down on himself" living in Mililani. Thus, he is both in the situation and outside of it, critiquing it and joking about it.

The expression for this split perception in Marsilani is that the "main character" lives in this town, Mililani, but also imagines that he is on Mars, his true home planet (where perhaps he truly belongs), looking down at himself through the lens of some telescope...

BTW, the Four Eyed Fish is an apt descriptor for the "main character" (alright, alright, it's me), who happens to be pretty nerdy.

Hello Blogosphere! Lost?

Hi there, whoever you are.

I'm not sure how you wound up here, but since you've gone through the trouble of stepping through the threshold, you might as well take a brief look around, before deciding (with a scream, perhaps) that you're decidedly NOT in Kansas any more...

... or maybe you are.

The name of this blog is Marsilani, also the name of a collection of short stories that I once intended to publish but likely never will. This collection of short stories was to focus primarily upon my experiences growing up in Mililani, which is Hawaii's best approximation for suburban existence. I called it Marsilani because, first of all, Mililani's single distinctive feature used to be its red, ferrous-rich, Martian-hued soil. But the name was meant to convey and connote more than this. I wanted to capture some of the strangeness and alienation I experienced (or, perhaps, pretended to experience) growing up in Mililani, and Mars (via Martians, the stereotypical aliens) seemed the perfect symbolic vehicle for this. Not to mention the fact that Mars is the God of War, and, while not apparently so, Mililani's calm suburban facade concealed an endless seething sea of unresolvable conflicts...

So, anyway, I wrote quite a few of the stories and poems I intended to fill this collection with, and then I sort of lost my groove. There were a lot of reasons for this. First, I am quite normally a brutal and unforgiving critic of my own work. It doesn't take long for the weak creative demiurge within me, the blind and world-forming passion, to be hacked away at mercilessly by my own natural editing proclivities.

Second, I received NO real feedback from anyone. Sure, a couple of my stories won some measure of praise from Honolulu Magazine (WHEN THEY STILL HAD THEIR ANNUAL SHORT FICTION CONTEST), but as far as that, who cares? Bamboo Ridge Press, which I hold a minor grudge towards (for reasons I may articulate later, but most likely because I'm just an arrogant SOB) never even looked at a lengthy prose and poetry submission I'd sent them... AFTER ALMOST A YEAR. (No bitterness there.)

And third, well, I just lost a feeling for the work. I lost my soul, you might say. Without touching upon what the truth is, what the real message is, well, all I had were fragments of empty symbols, referring back and reinforcing each other, but lacking backbone, and most of all the MEAT that could qualify it as a truly living and alive piece of work.

So, anyway, my natural negativity, lack of feedback, and loss of "soul" or "inspiration," well, these things and others basically set up the conditions for everything to fizzle out, if not downright implode.

That brings us to this blog. To the purpose of it, which I am trying to figure out myself...

Again, I don't know what brought you here, but whether you even ARE here or not, this new medium, this "blog" thingie, well, it affords me the opportunity to write AS THOUGH someone (like you) gave enough of a damn to sit down and read this. So, whoever you are, whether you exist or not, whatever motivations you came here with, it is primarily I who am using YOU, as the fictitious audience for me, "your" captive performer...

Maybe in the process, there can be some fictitious exchange; maybe you'll get something back in return, some "interest" out of your "investment." But make no mistake. I write this for the selfish purpose of pretending an audience...

I think I will utilize this blog as a cross between a journal, a workspace, and a space to "publish" works in progress and works "out of progress."

Please feel free to comment. Believe me, you can't be as harsh as I can be.

And thanks for stopping by, no matter how fleeting your visit.