impermanence

letters to the family that doesn’t matter

December 16, 2009
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letters to the family that doesn’t matter

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxDear Tiger Woods, I am writing because I don’t have a clue what the hell is going on.  I’ve heard that you were going to quit golf in order to get your life back in order.  I heard that your wife, Elin Nordegren, gave you an ultimatum — Family or Golf — and that you have accepted the ultimatum, and are taking a break from golf.  I also heard that you’ve been using performance-enhancing drugs!  Say it ain’t so, Tiger!  SAY IT AIN’T SO!!! Alright, I’m sorry, I need to calm down.  It’s just that this is all a little much.  I just want to be clear about what’s happening.  You’re going to quit the two things that you love more than anything else in this world: 1) golf and 2) sleeping with women who are not your wife…so that you can stay at home and sleep with your wife. The whole thing just seems a little much, you know? Your chances of being a role model have gone down the tubes, and now, instead of freely living the playboy life you seem to so desperately want, you’re going to give it all up so that you can present the

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the eternal economy of rise and fall

December 15, 2009
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the eternal economy of rise and fall

A brief introduction to the labyrinthine metaphysics of That Which Rises Vs. That Which Falls, utilizing Greek myth, ritual magick, astrophysics and social psychology, for a perspective on catalyzing a positive personal transformation.

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existentialism is for poor people

December 1, 2009
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existentialism is for poor people

What could be more boring than never having to work again? Here's a quick primer on how to make certain there's never a dull moment after you've won your jackpot prize, and discover your life's purpose in the bargain, involving risking life and sanity using a 15th-century magical grimoire to summon your Holy Guardian Angel.

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art-destruction as holiday gift \/\/ warhol stocking stuffer

November 26, 2009
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art-destruction as holiday gift \/\/ warhol stocking stuffer

Books make great holiday gifts. They’re not usually very big or expensive, though they can be both. And they can signal a regard for the receiver’s interests, intelligence, and aesthetic sense.  This sort of multi-level communication is very much in vogue these days. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol from A to B and Back Again (1975) is maybe the easiest book to give, at least in my library. Everyone loves it.  So many people that it almost cuts down on the specialness of the book as a gift.  Except for that it is an incredibly intimate piece of writing.  Not exactly in the sense offered by the latest Kitty Kelley biography, which imagines the uncovering of salacious gossip as some kind of final or conclusive knowledge about its protagonist.  And Warhol loved every porny detail, don’t get me wrong. The thing is this is a “philosophy”: a warm, funny, charismatic, and full view of the world, its workings and its workers. The chapters alternate between a transcript of a telephone dialogue between “A” and “B,” and loose collections of anecdotes and aphorisms. Both genres are longtime staples of philosophical writing: Plato and Rousseau wrote dialogues, Pascal and Nietzsche wrote aphorisms. In

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grunge is dead \/\/ a treatise on “grunge” performance

October 28, 2009
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grunge is dead \/\/ a treatise on “grunge” performance

Grunge is dead. My grandmother is dead. Jackson Pollock is dead. The implications are as follows: Music that was labeled "grunge" can never again be made, my grandmother will never again pinch my cheek, and there will be no new works of art by Jackson Pollock. This is as it should be.

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that day

October 27, 2009
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that day

That day I was sleepy, all throughout work, into my lunch break. I took my usual vigil outside, by the pond, while reading the current issue of The New Yorker. There were metal benches arranged around the place where the pond erupted back on itself in mild geysers, and the wind sometimes carried the delicious spray back onto the benches, and anyone sitting on them. The red brick was wet there, cumulative testimony to the accidental hydration wrought by the breeze. I was sleepy again because of the previous night’s repeat of my occasional insomnia, and so I was drinking a coke. I plunked the near-empty can on the small table next to the bench, which a particularly upstart gust sought at once to upset and tip over. And nearly a hair’s breadth from reflexively leaning forward to still the tottering can, that day the thought, like a silent stranger, stole into my head: “I want to still this tottering thing because I am still afraid of death.”

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grey cat gumbo

October 20, 2009
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grey cat gumbo

Everyone is a slave. You, me, your boss, your spouse, your kids, your parents, your senator, your president… everyone. I don’t simply mean "slaves" to physical laws, to market forces, to demographics, to statistics, to nature, to nurture, to the good opinion of our fellows: I mean we’re all slaves, every last one of us, in the most basic of all possible ways, and our eyes are playing tricks on us when in fact, every cat in the dark is grey.

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impermanence

June 29, 2009
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impermanence

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