there is a powerful vortex of anger falling on top of me
it's swirling hot coffee and chocolate at 'break-neck' speeds
into a mug with cows painted onto it
i'm tired
when i walk along cargo train tracks, midday
i resent the homeless
and piss on their graves
and on their discarded bottles of brandy
where can you buy ostrich eggs this time of year?
i'm tired of all of the 'bullshit' in my life
including yards of buffalo dung
scattered along the banks of the missouri river
there is a silver bowl in my kitchen
specifically designated for use as a water dish
and the two dogs spend hours communing around it
asking each other what remnants of yesterday's meal
were found and eaten and regurgitated
and i feel like an open book
and the woman sitting next to me
keeps turning the page before i'm finished
this whole experience feels like 'complete bullshit'
this poem is going to be inconsequential and generic
i can feel it
it is going to start with a generic, inconsequential beginning
one that people will think 'that was OK' about
then it will slowly become something
that seems 'mildly worth reading'
that people will think is 'somewhat clever'
and maybe even 'funny'
then it will start to lag
here
or here maybe
and then it will explode in their faces
with a suicide bomb of mediocrity
there will be wood and nails and random barreling shrapnel
that will fly through the stale air of some incandescently-lit interior
and will lodge deep inside of vital organs
and cause severe internal bleeding
and people will die
and the government will finally blame itself
hi
i would like a stack of eleven pancakes and a tall glass of urine
i haven't changed my clothes in three days and feel an extreme fear of what egregiously written prose is located beneath this 'title' thing.
my dog is old
and is pretending to sleep on my foot
as a way to show that he 'appreciates' my attention
or that he wants to be moved to a more comfortable place
or that he is old and tired and doesn't feel like standing
and that my foot is extremely comfortable
and smells like corn chips and three-day-old guacamole
why do my feet smell like this
i will take a shower
and a white tail deer approached me last night
in my sleep
and asked me 'do you feel alone'
i said 'fuck you deer. fuck your speculation'
and scowled and it walked away
then i become enormous and took a lot of drugs
and realized that i was always meant to be an enormous drugged-out being
and was happy and dove into the ocean to die
i think that i have breast cancer
i can't decide if i should work on my novella or keep writing these shitty poems.
yesterday seemed eventful
i posted comments on a lot of blogs
and spoke for a long time with a new acquaintance
and then i blogged on romantic rhetoric
and then i realized i am in love
or at least feel very sure about being confused and insanely euphoric
concerning thoughts of one person in particular
and like remembering her voice
gives me shivers and a terse rush of serotonin
and i feel like i could be happy forever
and i am afraid of this
because of what it implies existentially
and it makes me feel alienated
love does
and like i want to cry
i am crying
this does not make sense
but it feels right
it seems right to not want anyone to know this is happening
and wanting to be held by her
and feeling cold and nervous and alone
but to just keep writing
i keep telling my fingers
which are each in shock and in intense pain
and will not stop fidgeting or trying to reach for cigarettes
'just keep writing this'
'don't stop writing'
'finish this goddamn poem'
this needs to be written
things in my brain right now.
an ingrown hair on my thumb
wolphin, specifically a short film about people who are dead under water
my hair falling out/breaking
my right eye being more closed all the time than my left eye
generic cinnamon toast crunch substitute
dandruff everywhere
my dog curled up sleeping next to me
urinary sphincter control techniques
internet addiction
a girl
multiple girls that seem much more vague and dispersed than 'a girl'
muumuu house
hipster runoff
not wanting to be thinking about muumuu house or hipster runoff
wanting to be an individual
becoming a filmmaker
writing a novella
divorcing my parents and moving to los angeles
feeling very very very sad
feeling sarcastic about how melodramatic that last line seems
wanting to receive a new email from someone i like
pancakes
the last segment in this poetry collection is fucked and completely inauthentic so thank you for actually reading this one.
0001000
01010111
000011010011
11111100101001
0101001011
11010001001
000011101001
0101010010111
10101001010
101000111101
0101010101111
000001110101
111110101101
101010100010001
i don't speak binary
so if this means anything
then it is a miracle
and i will stop being atheist
and convert to some religion
that condones killing people
that was a stupid thing to write
even if it says something
of great consequence
i will probably still not believe
in anything
except for irony
IT'S FUCKING SHARK WEEK.
i feel alone
and depressed
and completely helpless
like on day i will find myself
sincerely wanting something
and feeling like i can't live without it
or would want to die with it
but i will be infinitely more alone
then than i am now
what supports this fear
and allows it to exist in the first place
needless speculation
i am one life amidst all life
i am nothing
and my needs
are redundant at best
completely imagined at worst
and whatever they actually are in actuality
which is neutral i feel
my plans for the morning.
it's warm outside
i'll wrap myself in my comforter
and unlock the basement door
and walk out into my parents' back yard
barefoot
and smoke a cigarette
while the sun rises
and i will try to think of nothing
and feel disappointed
about the state of everything
and there will be a giant wave of dust and heat
that will knock me over
and the suburbs will be leveled
and a tree will split at the trunk
and fall
and crush my leg
and i will feel intense panic centralized at that area
and i will go into shock because of my leg being severed
and i will faint
and wake up in the midst of nuclear holocaust
with no one around
and i will chain smoke the rest of my cigarettes
and drag myself through the rubble of my house
and find my switchblade
and try to feel good one last time
and say aloud to myself 'life goes on'
and will become afraid
and will eventually become resolved
and i will commit suicide
and humanity's successors will find my body
beneath three hundred feet
of solid ash
and will say
'hmm, where is the rest
of its leg?'
and will see my knife
and pick it up and say
'damn, sweet artifact'
and also 'yeah, i know right?'
in a futuristic tonal language
derived from dolphin twittering
i will patent my brain and it will be mine and i will sell my cerebral cortex to NASA for a million dollars.
you are a snail
i am concurrently expressing and not expressing truths to you
partial truths mostly
you are still a snail
do you understand this?
can you react to what i am saying to you now?
what can i express that isn't terrifying and unimaginably enormous?
and only somewhat visible?
i am having the feeling of expressing a complex emotion
to a snail that is myself
and since you are a snail also you should understand
the gravity of what i am trying to say
we are snails
and i am deeply disturbed by you
and we can never be together
because of the syntax of this poem
this poem is enormous to you
but it is nothing to me
i am inside of my shell
wondering what the grass will taste like today
there is a caribou behind you
it is trying to say hello
why are you ignoring it?
it is trying to be courteous
it is being remarkably uncharacteristic
as far as caribou social habits are concerned
i hate you
i am going to revise this poem twelve times
and you will ask me what it is about
and i will say it is enormous and inconsequential
and you will swallow the moon whole
and i will get angry at you for doing this
because i was going to go swimming at high tide
but you have fucked everything
everything is fucked by you
where is your shell?
did you give it away to someone?
someone i don't know?
what is the chemical make up of a remote control?
what is the cultural relevance of a tumor
growing inside of a hair follicle?
the sky is blue today
but it will be mauve later
but you will not see this happen
because you will be fucking it with your eyes closed
i am concurrently expressing and not expressing truths to you
partial truths mostly
you are still a snail
do you understand this?
can you react to what i am saying to you now?
what can i express that isn't terrifying and unimaginably enormous?
and only somewhat visible?
i am having the feeling of expressing a complex emotion
to a snail that is myself
and since you are a snail also you should understand
the gravity of what i am trying to say
we are snails
and i am deeply disturbed by you
and we can never be together
because of the syntax of this poem
this poem is enormous to you
but it is nothing to me
i am inside of my shell
wondering what the grass will taste like today
there is a caribou behind you
it is trying to say hello
why are you ignoring it?
it is trying to be courteous
it is being remarkably uncharacteristic
as far as caribou social habits are concerned
i hate you
i am going to revise this poem twelve times
and you will ask me what it is about
and i will say it is enormous and inconsequential
and you will swallow the moon whole
and i will get angry at you for doing this
because i was going to go swimming at high tide
but you have fucked everything
everything is fucked by you
where is your shell?
did you give it away to someone?
someone i don't know?
what is the chemical make up of a remote control?
what is the cultural relevance of a tumor
growing inside of a hair follicle?
the sky is blue today
but it will be mauve later
but you will not see this happen
because you will be fucking it with your eyes closed
~2,160 words' worth of some ideas i guess i think are worth conveying.
random absurdity vs. decisive rhetorical detours into the implausible
by buttercup mcgillicuddy
this is an essay about 'manipulating people's ideas using written words' and 'the rhetorical usefulness of transforming an abstraction into "a memory", "a historical event", or "a story-telling device"' and 'how i perceive these things to be used for and against "practical living"'.
people read things all of the time but somehow everyone does not read. i do not know why i read. i think my parents taught me how to read things because they 'felt obligated to' and they wanted me to 'have a good future' or something. as a result i am able to read and understand most things. i would say that i can read and understand 95% of the things i see that are in english. i respond to the other 5% of the things that i see in english by either ignoring them because i do not understand what they mean, assuming that i am not meant to understand what they mean and deem them 'absurd' or using a dictionary, thesaurus or the internet to make it so that i understand and can read about or copy similar ideas later.
i don't know how i feel about reading. sometimes it's OK and other times it seems annoying and other times it seems totally fucked. for example reading seems fucked when i have to read a long piece of writing with a lot of words i don't particularly consider 'interesting' or 'relevant to my existence' so as to convince someone who has the ability to grant me 'the privilege' to do what i want that 'i should be able to do' the thing that i want to do like purchasing expensive things, getting a degree in college or having sex with an overly-emotional and uninteresting girl who writes long letters as a way of self-validating. it also seems 'fucking retarded' to me that the current 'world law' regarding language seems to be that 'if there is a nearly infinite number of ways to develop complex communication, then developing "the idea" "the word" and "the word's pronunciation" as three separate systems is the "most-accessible" way to communicate' [via natural selection/american international dominance]. I think that communication would be much more interesting/simple/universally accessible if 'the idea', 'the word' and 'the word's pronunciation' were all the same thing. it seems 'fucking retarded' to me that this isn't how modern communication works, even though i understand 'the evolution of language' and 'written language's origins' pretty well i think.
i don't think i 'read for fun' very much. reading is a way to receive the amount of complex information that you might get when you talk to a person for a long time, but that does not involve having to listen to a person talk. i don't like listening to people talk. i think that listening to people talk involves processing a lot more information than is 'necessary' and allows a higher rate of miscommunication on the part of the talker to be present [via non-verbal social cues and misinterpreted gestures/facial expressions]. i think i prefer to get information from reading because it is consistently the least annoying way of finding out things.
sometimes i read stories because i am bored of my reality.
when i am reading things, what i read influences my brain because i am constantly doing at least one of the following four things subconsciously:
judging the grammar of what i read
forming images in my brain while reading descriptions of places and actions
deriving 'meaning' from what i am reading
remembering things that what i read seems similar to
i don't know if everyone who reads does this while reading. i don't care if everyone does this while reading. this is what my brain does when i read.
if you are a person that can write words and are either regularly rewarded for writing them, regularly threatened/blackmailed into writing them, or just write a lot of them out of boredom and repeatedly refer to a specific topic, do not refer to a specific topic on purpose, or write a lot of ideas in a 'stream of consciousness '-like manner, then you are probably considered 'a writer' by people who think it is OK to call a person 'a writer'. if you are 'a writer' and i have access to your writing through the internet or in a magazine or book or something and am bored enough to not look at things moving then i might read your writing.
if i read your writing i will judge the grammar, form images in my brain while reading descriptions of places and actions, derive 'meaning' from your writing, and remember other things that your writing seems similar to. if your grammar is very precise then i probably won't spend a lot of time judging it and will work hard at the beginning to create a rhythm in my head of what your writing 'sounds like' to my brain when i read it. if 'what your writing sounds like' seems interesting or familiar to me then i am more likely to 'forget that i am reading' and 'really experience your writing'. if i know you in real life or have seen you in videos or on the internet and 'what your writing sounds like' seems similar to 'what you sound like' then i will probably confuse the words with memories or think that i am experiencing something from your perspective. this is the primary reason why i don't 'read for fun' very much i think, because experiencing something from another person's perspective or confusing the words with a memory does not feel 'fun' to me except in very specific instances. sometime it feels fun when the memory or experience is 'fun' but usually it is boring or has something to do with people i don't know and can't relate to. i don't find it fun when i confuse words with a memory that i can't relate to and would like to avoid experiencing this and therefore don't 'read for fun'.
the kinds of experiences i like to have when i read are:
imagining a character experiencing situations that seem 'highly implausible' without the character knowing 'why it is happening'
imagining a character experiencing an emotion that i am familiar with and that i associate with good memories/feelings
remembering an experience from a perspective within a character/narrator's perspective that is communicated in a way that i can relate to but have not 'dissected' myself
imagining a texture, abstraction, or episode that is 'complex' and 'sensual' that i have not imagined or experienced but that seems 'intriguing' without being 'very frightening' or 'unpleasant'
experiencing something from a perspective that sees things through multiple levels of intense sarcasm
i feel like everything before this line was an introduction to the theme stated in the first paragraph.
i feel 78% sure that most 'fantastic ancient literature' that i have read takes itself completely seriously and was written for the purpose of convincing someone to live their life a certain way. i feel like this is not 'what literature is about' or something with respect to the human experience.
though i am not in touch with the psychological processes of homer, the person(s) who wrote the bible, j. r. r. tolkein or other 'epic novelists' who wrote 'fantastic ancient literature', when i read their recounting of highly implausible human experiences it seems like they 'really believed in' what they were writing and prescribed what they saw as 'inherent meaning' to these pieces while trying to convey the ideas in a beautiful or aesthetically intriguing manner. the feeling that i get when i read stories like these is one of 'oppressive subjectivism' or something. like the authors are trying to convince themselves and everyone who reads their work that what happened is absolutely relevant to every human being because of the story's 'inherent moral qualities' and 'objective truth'. this idea is very depressing to me.
i think that when someone writes about fantastic human experiences involving extreme emotions and divergent or conflicting perspectives/experiences that there should be a self-awareness that they, as writers, are subjective human beings and that their way of storytelling is basically only relevant to themselves and people who are willing to accept their perspective of the conflict in the stories. when someone thinks that what they write is 'true' because it seems good or think people can derive 'life-enhancing value' from it, it makes me feel like humanity has a 'problem' with differentiating between 'what is real' and 'abstractions that seem to validate human existence'.
if a writer is self-aware enough of their perspective to acknowledge the potential meaninglessness of their stories, then i think that they create a more extensive framework for justifying 'rhetorically detouring into the highly implausible' because current understanding of 'the human experience' shows that even dementia and hallucinatory episodes are experienced within the subjective realities of our minds and only ideas that are 'concrete' or 'universal' should be taken for granted and communicated as such. i am aware that 'concrete' and 'universal' ideas are subject to the thinking of the general population of humans exposed to certain types of thought within a certain period of time, but i think that 'not taking yourself too seriously' is a sort of transcendent (particularly literary) quality that does not necessarily have to be 'comedic' or 'absurd' in nature and is part of 'practical living' or something.
i think that i am slowly realizing that i 'find fault' with the population of readers expecting 'life-affirming' literature and who 'prescribe unintended meaning' to writer's work. damn. this sort of undoes everything i feel that i said previously.
the theme of this essay is based in the assumption that humanity's capacity for highly implausible abstraction is equally as valid as humanity's ability to rationalize and deconstruct 'seemingly rational' abstractions. the latter kind of abstractions are those which humanity deduces as fundamental byproducts of its desire to 'absolutely' comprehend a ubiquitous reality that exists in spite of and with no 'directly perceivable concern' for humanity or its limited ability for understanding this reality's laws and discernible components exclusively through abstraction, due to its inherent inability to fully disassociate from itself. humanity's capacity for abstraction, however appears not to be limited to abstractions that approach an absolute comprehension of reality and can therefore extend into the seemingly absurd.
writing that uses 'highly implausible' or 'absurd' abstractions for the purpose of creating a perceived pattern of human and extra-human situations with parallel action-reaction properties or 'analogies' (for example, comparing a person who seemingly ignores things that directly affect that person's 'well-being' to the image of an ostrich with its head in the sand) in order to hypothesize an absolute example of 'good behavior' vs. 'bad behavior' insults my perception of reality. the writers i mentioned before do this constantly and with conviction it seems.
readers who allow these 'analogies' to dictate their perspective of reality allow for the development of 'groups of people who think in absolutes' which i think is 'bad' or 'impractical' or something.
i just read the thesis for this essay again. i will try to address that now.
i described the way that my brain responds to reading things because of what i become subconsciously preoccupied with while reading. i also addressed how some writers transform abstraction into 'memories', 'histories', and 'story-telling devices' but mostly in an indirect manner because of how emotional i felt about 'the odyssey', 'the bible', 'the lord of the rings', etc. i think that now i will attempt to address 'how i perceive these things to be used for and against "practical living"'.
this is going to seem paradoxical i think. i 'believe' that individual human beings 'should' prescribe meaning to their own abstractions to the greatest extent that 'releases the highest amount of endorphins in their brain as possible for the longest amount of time as possible' or in philosophical terms 'makes that individual "feel the happiest"'. i am aware that there are ~7billion people on the planet and that the implausibility for the majority of those people applying 'what i believe' to their lives is nearly infinite, but essays are written to convey ideas, not to impose them on people.
regarding the title, i don't feel that i properly addressed 'random absurdity's' in the way that i wanted to. i think that i was imagining 'works of nihilistic situational comedy' vs. 'dramatic works that seem "psychedelic" or "more than 50% unrealistic"' with regard to modern literature. i should have started writing about 'realistic works of fiction' and digressed into 'highly implausible works of fiction' and then did a point-by-point comparison of work on the lower end of that spectrum, but i didn't and now find myself satisfied with both this essay and this essay's title with relation to my intentions as well as the actual outcome. maybe i will write an essay about this paragraph later. i don't know. thank you for reading these things.
by buttercup mcgillicuddy
this is an essay about 'manipulating people's ideas using written words' and 'the rhetorical usefulness of transforming an abstraction into "a memory", "a historical event", or "a story-telling device"' and 'how i perceive these things to be used for and against "practical living"'.
people read things all of the time but somehow everyone does not read. i do not know why i read. i think my parents taught me how to read things because they 'felt obligated to' and they wanted me to 'have a good future' or something. as a result i am able to read and understand most things. i would say that i can read and understand 95% of the things i see that are in english. i respond to the other 5% of the things that i see in english by either ignoring them because i do not understand what they mean, assuming that i am not meant to understand what they mean and deem them 'absurd' or using a dictionary, thesaurus or the internet to make it so that i understand and can read about or copy similar ideas later.
i don't know how i feel about reading. sometimes it's OK and other times it seems annoying and other times it seems totally fucked. for example reading seems fucked when i have to read a long piece of writing with a lot of words i don't particularly consider 'interesting' or 'relevant to my existence' so as to convince someone who has the ability to grant me 'the privilege' to do what i want that 'i should be able to do' the thing that i want to do like purchasing expensive things, getting a degree in college or having sex with an overly-emotional and uninteresting girl who writes long letters as a way of self-validating. it also seems 'fucking retarded' to me that the current 'world law' regarding language seems to be that 'if there is a nearly infinite number of ways to develop complex communication, then developing "the idea" "the word" and "the word's pronunciation" as three separate systems is the "most-accessible" way to communicate' [via natural selection/american international dominance]. I think that communication would be much more interesting/simple/universally accessible if 'the idea', 'the word' and 'the word's pronunciation' were all the same thing. it seems 'fucking retarded' to me that this isn't how modern communication works, even though i understand 'the evolution of language' and 'written language's origins' pretty well i think.
i don't think i 'read for fun' very much. reading is a way to receive the amount of complex information that you might get when you talk to a person for a long time, but that does not involve having to listen to a person talk. i don't like listening to people talk. i think that listening to people talk involves processing a lot more information than is 'necessary' and allows a higher rate of miscommunication on the part of the talker to be present [via non-verbal social cues and misinterpreted gestures/facial expressions]. i think i prefer to get information from reading because it is consistently the least annoying way of finding out things.
sometimes i read stories because i am bored of my reality.
when i am reading things, what i read influences my brain because i am constantly doing at least one of the following four things subconsciously:
judging the grammar of what i read
forming images in my brain while reading descriptions of places and actions
deriving 'meaning' from what i am reading
remembering things that what i read seems similar to
i don't know if everyone who reads does this while reading. i don't care if everyone does this while reading. this is what my brain does when i read.
if you are a person that can write words and are either regularly rewarded for writing them, regularly threatened/blackmailed into writing them, or just write a lot of them out of boredom and repeatedly refer to a specific topic, do not refer to a specific topic on purpose, or write a lot of ideas in a 'stream of consciousness '-like manner, then you are probably considered 'a writer' by people who think it is OK to call a person 'a writer'. if you are 'a writer' and i have access to your writing through the internet or in a magazine or book or something and am bored enough to not look at things moving then i might read your writing.
if i read your writing i will judge the grammar, form images in my brain while reading descriptions of places and actions, derive 'meaning' from your writing, and remember other things that your writing seems similar to. if your grammar is very precise then i probably won't spend a lot of time judging it and will work hard at the beginning to create a rhythm in my head of what your writing 'sounds like' to my brain when i read it. if 'what your writing sounds like' seems interesting or familiar to me then i am more likely to 'forget that i am reading' and 'really experience your writing'. if i know you in real life or have seen you in videos or on the internet and 'what your writing sounds like' seems similar to 'what you sound like' then i will probably confuse the words with memories or think that i am experiencing something from your perspective. this is the primary reason why i don't 'read for fun' very much i think, because experiencing something from another person's perspective or confusing the words with a memory does not feel 'fun' to me except in very specific instances. sometime it feels fun when the memory or experience is 'fun' but usually it is boring or has something to do with people i don't know and can't relate to. i don't find it fun when i confuse words with a memory that i can't relate to and would like to avoid experiencing this and therefore don't 'read for fun'.
the kinds of experiences i like to have when i read are:
imagining a character experiencing situations that seem 'highly implausible' without the character knowing 'why it is happening'
imagining a character experiencing an emotion that i am familiar with and that i associate with good memories/feelings
remembering an experience from a perspective within a character/narrator's perspective that is communicated in a way that i can relate to but have not 'dissected' myself
imagining a texture, abstraction, or episode that is 'complex' and 'sensual' that i have not imagined or experienced but that seems 'intriguing' without being 'very frightening' or 'unpleasant'
experiencing something from a perspective that sees things through multiple levels of intense sarcasm
i feel like everything before this line was an introduction to the theme stated in the first paragraph.
i feel 78% sure that most 'fantastic ancient literature' that i have read takes itself completely seriously and was written for the purpose of convincing someone to live their life a certain way. i feel like this is not 'what literature is about' or something with respect to the human experience.
though i am not in touch with the psychological processes of homer, the person(s) who wrote the bible, j. r. r. tolkein or other 'epic novelists' who wrote 'fantastic ancient literature', when i read their recounting of highly implausible human experiences it seems like they 'really believed in' what they were writing and prescribed what they saw as 'inherent meaning' to these pieces while trying to convey the ideas in a beautiful or aesthetically intriguing manner. the feeling that i get when i read stories like these is one of 'oppressive subjectivism' or something. like the authors are trying to convince themselves and everyone who reads their work that what happened is absolutely relevant to every human being because of the story's 'inherent moral qualities' and 'objective truth'. this idea is very depressing to me.
i think that when someone writes about fantastic human experiences involving extreme emotions and divergent or conflicting perspectives/experiences that there should be a self-awareness that they, as writers, are subjective human beings and that their way of storytelling is basically only relevant to themselves and people who are willing to accept their perspective of the conflict in the stories. when someone thinks that what they write is 'true' because it seems good or think people can derive 'life-enhancing value' from it, it makes me feel like humanity has a 'problem' with differentiating between 'what is real' and 'abstractions that seem to validate human existence'.
if a writer is self-aware enough of their perspective to acknowledge the potential meaninglessness of their stories, then i think that they create a more extensive framework for justifying 'rhetorically detouring into the highly implausible' because current understanding of 'the human experience' shows that even dementia and hallucinatory episodes are experienced within the subjective realities of our minds and only ideas that are 'concrete' or 'universal' should be taken for granted and communicated as such. i am aware that 'concrete' and 'universal' ideas are subject to the thinking of the general population of humans exposed to certain types of thought within a certain period of time, but i think that 'not taking yourself too seriously' is a sort of transcendent (particularly literary) quality that does not necessarily have to be 'comedic' or 'absurd' in nature and is part of 'practical living' or something.
i think that i am slowly realizing that i 'find fault' with the population of readers expecting 'life-affirming' literature and who 'prescribe unintended meaning' to writer's work. damn. this sort of undoes everything i feel that i said previously.
the theme of this essay is based in the assumption that humanity's capacity for highly implausible abstraction is equally as valid as humanity's ability to rationalize and deconstruct 'seemingly rational' abstractions. the latter kind of abstractions are those which humanity deduces as fundamental byproducts of its desire to 'absolutely' comprehend a ubiquitous reality that exists in spite of and with no 'directly perceivable concern' for humanity or its limited ability for understanding this reality's laws and discernible components exclusively through abstraction, due to its inherent inability to fully disassociate from itself. humanity's capacity for abstraction, however appears not to be limited to abstractions that approach an absolute comprehension of reality and can therefore extend into the seemingly absurd.
writing that uses 'highly implausible' or 'absurd' abstractions for the purpose of creating a perceived pattern of human and extra-human situations with parallel action-reaction properties or 'analogies' (for example, comparing a person who seemingly ignores things that directly affect that person's 'well-being' to the image of an ostrich with its head in the sand) in order to hypothesize an absolute example of 'good behavior' vs. 'bad behavior' insults my perception of reality. the writers i mentioned before do this constantly and with conviction it seems.
readers who allow these 'analogies' to dictate their perspective of reality allow for the development of 'groups of people who think in absolutes' which i think is 'bad' or 'impractical' or something.
i just read the thesis for this essay again. i will try to address that now.
i described the way that my brain responds to reading things because of what i become subconsciously preoccupied with while reading. i also addressed how some writers transform abstraction into 'memories', 'histories', and 'story-telling devices' but mostly in an indirect manner because of how emotional i felt about 'the odyssey', 'the bible', 'the lord of the rings', etc. i think that now i will attempt to address 'how i perceive these things to be used for and against "practical living"'.
this is going to seem paradoxical i think. i 'believe' that individual human beings 'should' prescribe meaning to their own abstractions to the greatest extent that 'releases the highest amount of endorphins in their brain as possible for the longest amount of time as possible' or in philosophical terms 'makes that individual "feel the happiest"'. i am aware that there are ~7billion people on the planet and that the implausibility for the majority of those people applying 'what i believe' to their lives is nearly infinite, but essays are written to convey ideas, not to impose them on people.
regarding the title, i don't feel that i properly addressed 'random absurdity's' in the way that i wanted to. i think that i was imagining 'works of nihilistic situational comedy' vs. 'dramatic works that seem "psychedelic" or "more than 50% unrealistic"' with regard to modern literature. i should have started writing about 'realistic works of fiction' and digressed into 'highly implausible works of fiction' and then did a point-by-point comparison of work on the lower end of that spectrum, but i didn't and now find myself satisfied with both this essay and this essay's title with relation to my intentions as well as the actual outcome. maybe i will write an essay about this paragraph later. i don't know. thank you for reading these things.
a sample column i submitted to mcsweeny's that i think is okay to post now since the deadline has passed.
WELL NOW
Gwyneth Paltrow
It is 1999. Gwyneth Paltrow is unemployed. She sits at a coffee shop drinking a latte and smoking a cigarette. ‘Balls’ she says to herself ‘sweet magnificent balls’ and takes a twelve-second drag from her cigarette. ‘You can’t smoke here miss’ says a barista who apparently approached her to resolve some issue or another. ‘What?’ says Gwyneth Paltrow. ‘You can’t...’ the barista begins. ‘I fucking heard what you said’ Gwyneth Paltrow retorts with a sort of coarse sympathy ‘I am just so goddamn happy. I am celebrating with a goddamn cigarette. Can’t you see the facts? One of them is that you are clearly an abnormally attractive coffee shop employee’ she demands, and makes sad eye signals in the barista’s general direction while maintaining stellar, nearly majestic posture. She is a starlet. She is a goddess. She takes another drag from her cigarette. This one is fifteen seconds long. ‘I am sorry miss, but you can’t smoke in here. There are laws’ the barista says melodramatically, yet with gusto. He bursts forth from his youthful shroud and unleashes a sea of miserly apathy that crumbles into jest. ‘Get the fuck out’ he says. Gwyneth Paltrow pretends to ignore him for a moment, takes a final drag from what is basically a burning filter and coughs involuntarily into the face of the patron sitting adjacent her, the last hack of which emits as one part utterance, another part emphysemic bark, from which the words ‘ball sack’ can be inferred. ‘I am stealing your ceramic mug though. Call me some time’ and she is gone.
Carson Daly
Late that evening Carson Daly sits cross-legged on his couch, watches television, sips chamomile tea and reminisces on past successful relationships as well as a long string of paternal letdowns that he retrospectively misconstrues as up to around 38% more intentional than they actually were. He suddenly notices that an infomercial advertising electronically heated socks is being broadcast. ‘Jesus Christ’ he says to his television ‘People are such ass-to-the-sky morons’ and takes a sip from his mug, noticing for the first time the words ‘Beans Before Brew/Coffee Galleria’ set beneath a logo vaguely resembling a coffee bean printed across the front of the mug. ‘Oh’ he says, then adds ‘Where did I put my robot?’ He stands quickly and places the mug on a coaster on the coffee table and looks around, nearly frantic. ‘Honey, have you seen my robot?’ he yells in the direction of the bathroom. ‘What?’ his girlfriend says loudly. She is bowing before the vanity attempting, for the sixth time, to properly apply a new brand of blush she stole from her coworker’s desk. ‘I said...’ Carson Daly begins, but is shocked into silence by the unbearably cold hardwood floor beneath his feet. He is wearing a pair of thermal socks. He suddenly feels severely nauseated and vomits violently onto the floor. Included in the hydrochloric soup burning through the mahogany are chomps of carrots, chomps of lettuce, chomps of organic chocolate chip cookie dough and an intact miniature robot. ‘There it is’ he says ‘Never mind!’ He picks up the little android and begins typing a series of numbers into the keypad on its back, but is suddenly overcome by a demonic Gobbling Spirit and unconsciously tosses the robot into his now supernaturally wide mouth. During its descent the robot encounters a tumor along the lining of his esophagus, that subsequently presses the ‘7’ button on the robot’s back, and, thereby, completes the code initiating the robot’s self-destruct sequence. This remains entirely unbeknown to the once again docile Carson Daly, who changes the channel on the television to Nickelodeon. He smiles haphazardly because a favorite rerun of ‘The Forbidden Temple’ is on.
And Jared Leto
The next morning Jared Leto talks somberly to his friend Andrew, a sea turtle, at a café in Malibu about his infertility problem. ‘I just want babies. All I can think about is babies. Babies babies babies. What do you think, man?’ ‘I-D-K bro’ Andrew replies ‘Don’t have that problemo brother broheme. Seems like I’ve got tons of babies everywhere. Doesn’t seem like an issue to me. Brooo’ Andrew dastardly eyefucks a girl in a bikini two sizes too small as she struts past their table and claps his beak at her twice. She glances back at him with a sly ambivalence and masterful grin. ‘She’s a looker, bro’ he says ‘She is sweet seaweed for the eyes.’ Jared Leto continues ‘I expect you to sympathize with my desire for babies, Andrew. I need you acknowledging that babies are central to a person’s wellbeing. Validation is what I’m looking for here. Just tell me, what kind of fertility specialist did you and Marcy see?’ ‘A good one bro. The best’ Andrew says. ‘Well then as my friend and as someone who is supposed to be inherently sympathetic, recommend this specialist to me, man. Recommend them to me. Is it a male or a female?’ ‘Jesus, bro. You seem stressed or something.’ ‘I am not stressed’ Jared Leto says, losing his somberness and putting on an air of frustration ‘Babies, man. Babies. I just want babies. Is that a lot to ask for? Is that too much to inquire to Jesus Fucking God for? Babies? I just want them, man.’ Jared Leto shifts in his seat so that his face is to the sunset. Very dramatic. ‘You seem like the kind of bro who could go for a nice cold glass of beer’ Andrew says consolingly and signals their waiter ‘Get this bro a nice cold glass of beer.’ ‘What kind?’ the waiter inquires ‘We have seven different kinds on tap.’ ‘I don’t need a goddamned beer’ Jared Leto interjects ‘What I need is validation. I need sympathy. I need to not be alienated by people with babies. I need to get in good with some really fucking high-up people who can get me what I need.’ ‘What do you need?’ the waiter says, oblivious. ‘Babies.’
Gwyneth Paltrow
It is 1999. Gwyneth Paltrow is unemployed. She sits at a coffee shop drinking a latte and smoking a cigarette. ‘Balls’ she says to herself ‘sweet magnificent balls’ and takes a twelve-second drag from her cigarette. ‘You can’t smoke here miss’ says a barista who apparently approached her to resolve some issue or another. ‘What?’ says Gwyneth Paltrow. ‘You can’t...’ the barista begins. ‘I fucking heard what you said’ Gwyneth Paltrow retorts with a sort of coarse sympathy ‘I am just so goddamn happy. I am celebrating with a goddamn cigarette. Can’t you see the facts? One of them is that you are clearly an abnormally attractive coffee shop employee’ she demands, and makes sad eye signals in the barista’s general direction while maintaining stellar, nearly majestic posture. She is a starlet. She is a goddess. She takes another drag from her cigarette. This one is fifteen seconds long. ‘I am sorry miss, but you can’t smoke in here. There are laws’ the barista says melodramatically, yet with gusto. He bursts forth from his youthful shroud and unleashes a sea of miserly apathy that crumbles into jest. ‘Get the fuck out’ he says. Gwyneth Paltrow pretends to ignore him for a moment, takes a final drag from what is basically a burning filter and coughs involuntarily into the face of the patron sitting adjacent her, the last hack of which emits as one part utterance, another part emphysemic bark, from which the words ‘ball sack’ can be inferred. ‘I am stealing your ceramic mug though. Call me some time’ and she is gone.
Carson Daly
Late that evening Carson Daly sits cross-legged on his couch, watches television, sips chamomile tea and reminisces on past successful relationships as well as a long string of paternal letdowns that he retrospectively misconstrues as up to around 38% more intentional than they actually were. He suddenly notices that an infomercial advertising electronically heated socks is being broadcast. ‘Jesus Christ’ he says to his television ‘People are such ass-to-the-sky morons’ and takes a sip from his mug, noticing for the first time the words ‘Beans Before Brew/Coffee Galleria’ set beneath a logo vaguely resembling a coffee bean printed across the front of the mug. ‘Oh’ he says, then adds ‘Where did I put my robot?’ He stands quickly and places the mug on a coaster on the coffee table and looks around, nearly frantic. ‘Honey, have you seen my robot?’ he yells in the direction of the bathroom. ‘What?’ his girlfriend says loudly. She is bowing before the vanity attempting, for the sixth time, to properly apply a new brand of blush she stole from her coworker’s desk. ‘I said...’ Carson Daly begins, but is shocked into silence by the unbearably cold hardwood floor beneath his feet. He is wearing a pair of thermal socks. He suddenly feels severely nauseated and vomits violently onto the floor. Included in the hydrochloric soup burning through the mahogany are chomps of carrots, chomps of lettuce, chomps of organic chocolate chip cookie dough and an intact miniature robot. ‘There it is’ he says ‘Never mind!’ He picks up the little android and begins typing a series of numbers into the keypad on its back, but is suddenly overcome by a demonic Gobbling Spirit and unconsciously tosses the robot into his now supernaturally wide mouth. During its descent the robot encounters a tumor along the lining of his esophagus, that subsequently presses the ‘7’ button on the robot’s back, and, thereby, completes the code initiating the robot’s self-destruct sequence. This remains entirely unbeknown to the once again docile Carson Daly, who changes the channel on the television to Nickelodeon. He smiles haphazardly because a favorite rerun of ‘The Forbidden Temple’ is on.
And Jared Leto
The next morning Jared Leto talks somberly to his friend Andrew, a sea turtle, at a café in Malibu about his infertility problem. ‘I just want babies. All I can think about is babies. Babies babies babies. What do you think, man?’ ‘I-D-K bro’ Andrew replies ‘Don’t have that problemo brother broheme. Seems like I’ve got tons of babies everywhere. Doesn’t seem like an issue to me. Brooo’ Andrew dastardly eyefucks a girl in a bikini two sizes too small as she struts past their table and claps his beak at her twice. She glances back at him with a sly ambivalence and masterful grin. ‘She’s a looker, bro’ he says ‘She is sweet seaweed for the eyes.’ Jared Leto continues ‘I expect you to sympathize with my desire for babies, Andrew. I need you acknowledging that babies are central to a person’s wellbeing. Validation is what I’m looking for here. Just tell me, what kind of fertility specialist did you and Marcy see?’ ‘A good one bro. The best’ Andrew says. ‘Well then as my friend and as someone who is supposed to be inherently sympathetic, recommend this specialist to me, man. Recommend them to me. Is it a male or a female?’ ‘Jesus, bro. You seem stressed or something.’ ‘I am not stressed’ Jared Leto says, losing his somberness and putting on an air of frustration ‘Babies, man. Babies. I just want babies. Is that a lot to ask for? Is that too much to inquire to Jesus Fucking God for? Babies? I just want them, man.’ Jared Leto shifts in his seat so that his face is to the sunset. Very dramatic. ‘You seem like the kind of bro who could go for a nice cold glass of beer’ Andrew says consolingly and signals their waiter ‘Get this bro a nice cold glass of beer.’ ‘What kind?’ the waiter inquires ‘We have seven different kinds on tap.’ ‘I don’t need a goddamned beer’ Jared Leto interjects ‘What I need is validation. I need sympathy. I need to not be alienated by people with babies. I need to get in good with some really fucking high-up people who can get me what I need.’ ‘What do you need?’ the waiter says, oblivious. ‘Babies.’
i cannot use prepositions right.
prepositions are massive tetris pieces made of thick crystalline cubes
one cube face is sixty-four feet by sixty-four feet and is a specific color based on what kind of tetris piece it is a part of
massive tetris pieces are falling onto the moon and are landing arbitrarily in three-dimensional space and cannot be controlled by any electronic buttons
they are landing on their sides mostly because of physics
newtonian physics. not quantum physics
newtonian physics
there are no buttons that can be pressed to make these massive prepositional tetris pieces fall to the moon vertically or land in any direction and therefore this is not a game
this is right preposition use
i am standing on the moon and massive prepositional tetris pieces are causing an insane moon dust storm and there is nothing i can do
how do i use them?
how do i use these massive prepositions right?
this is impossible
one cube face is sixty-four feet by sixty-four feet and is a specific color based on what kind of tetris piece it is a part of
massive tetris pieces are falling onto the moon and are landing arbitrarily in three-dimensional space and cannot be controlled by any electronic buttons
they are landing on their sides mostly because of physics
newtonian physics. not quantum physics
newtonian physics
there are no buttons that can be pressed to make these massive prepositional tetris pieces fall to the moon vertically or land in any direction and therefore this is not a game
this is right preposition use
i am standing on the moon and massive prepositional tetris pieces are causing an insane moon dust storm and there is nothing i can do
how do i use them?
how do i use these massive prepositions right?
this is impossible
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