Wednesday, February 1, 2023

The Houses Are Haunted by White Nightgowns


Been whitewashing, white gouache in water. Writing slump deepening, why paraphrase the duh (why link to the duh, below)? No satisfaction in righteous anger, righteousness the flailing of pride before abject surrender. Disillusionment with my tablet which I'm making the scapegoat for my disillusionment with my backpack which I'm making the scapegoat for my disillusionment with my chromebook which is too big and heavy for my backpack which I'm making the scapegoat for my disillusionment with me. Fuck me. I read a novel start to finish and now in reading slump, poetry even. I am making my disillusionment with me the scapegoat for my preference to paint now instead of reading and writing which I righteously recognize is surrender and abandonment towards and correct reflection of my disillusionment with my reading and writing. Strangest days. Verlaine's death. My inability to embrace the fuck it and fuck it, my inability 2 enjoy the fuck it or shut the fuck up





Imperial dominance disguised as democratic deterrence?
The civilization state is reemerging and taking us beyond the opposition between liberalism and nationalism
New words for life in the anthropocene?
The corporate capture of food systems
Today in Duh: war is a lucrative cash cow
Why end a pandemic when you can profit from it?
Not always the shoeMute compulsion
Fear and loathing among the union busters
Aim for the stomachKnown unknowables
Eat more miso and sauerkraut and kimchi! I do daily, look at *my* mood, laugh
Vital miso reminder: no boiling water, kills the good gut stuff
All water has a perfect memory
A map the size of the territory
Robert Forster new album and interview
Encounters with Tom VerlaineVerlaine guitar solos in the two Luna songs posted





DISILLUSIONMENT OF TEN O'CLOCK

Wallace Stevens

The houses are haunted   
By white night-gowns.   
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,   
Or green with yellow rings,   
Or yellow with blue rings.   
None of them are strange,   
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.   
Only, here and there, an old sailor,   
Drunk and asleep in his boots,   
Catches tigers
In red weather.

3 comments:

  1. 1/speaking of new words in the anthropocene - recently i saw pandemicene

    2/once i attended a sufi meeting at atomic books in baltimore

    the guy next to me said "i'm saul - like in the bible" - i replied "i'm david - like in the bible"

    a meditation exercise we did that night was 'reversing space' - here are directions from reshad feild's book the last barrier

    Sitting very still, with all attention focused in the center of the chest, and slowly surrendering and realizing that:
    instead of looking, you are being observed;
    instead of hearing, you are being heard;
    instead of touching, you are being touched;
    instead of tasting, you are food for God
    and are being tasted.
    So make yourself good tasting.

    Finally allow yourself to be breathed.

    Abandon yourself completely in trust, and in the realization that you are powerless in the face of God, the First Cause.

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  2. speaking of disillusionment - as the title of wallace stevens' poem does - caitlin johnstone asserts:

    Once you get a penetrating insight into how much of our civilization is comprised of narratives people made up, it changes your view of everything. Politics. Government. The media. Money. The economy. Religion. Culture. Even your very self. Our entire species moves in accordance with made-up stories.

    You might think a clear recognition that our entire society is made of bullshit would be a negative experience, and at first it can be, but what's ultimately understood is something very positive: that if our entire civilization is made up, then we can simply make up something else. Something better. Something that works for all of us.

    https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/were-ruled-by-assholes-because-we

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  3. The Guest House

    This being human is a guest house.
    Every morning a new arrival.

    A joy, a depression, a meanness,
    some momentary awareness comes
    as an unexpected visitor.

    Welcome and entertain them all!
    Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
    who violently sweep your house
    empty of its furniture,
    still, treat each guest honorably.
    He may be clearing you out
    for some new delight.

    The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
    meet them at the door laughing,
    and invite them in.

    Be grateful for whoever comes,
    because each has been sent
    as a guide from beyond.

    Jalaluddin Rumi
    from Rumi: Selected Poems, trans Coleman Barks with John Moynce, A. J. Arberry, Reynold Nicholson (Penguin Books, 2004)

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