such a cute little analogy.

i don’t know if you regularly read espn’s bill simmons, but you’ve probably heard me talking loudly about how great he is from the other side of the room. now, i’m a fine arts grad student, which means i seize any opportunity to nuance and qualify even the meagerest idea into a corner, where i then furrow my brow in a professorial way and stare it down till it gives. no analogy can escape my thorough, tender-lipped scrutiny. as such.

1) i’ve heard a few different james joyce enthusiasts mention how he wrote tricks into his work—pointless little rabbit trails that the critics would eagerly wander down. and how awesome is that, that he could foresee the critical eye with so many layers of clarity that he could deliberately bury pointless leads under a complex, continuous narrative. it’s retarded trying even to imagine that; it’d be like sitting down at your desk, sketching out a few things, and concluding that as your velocity approaches the speed of light, time slows down.

2) or it’d be like being larry bird. in an article comparing the clutchness of big papi vs. larry bird, simmons says, “there was one stretch during the '86 season when he was actually bored by how good he was, so he started using his left hand more (during one game, he took only left-handed shots in the first half), then bird and walton started trying to see how many times they could run the back door play in one game, then he went through a stage when he was backing guys down on the low post just to see how many different ways he could create a basket. ... i mean, larry bird freaking experimented during games.”

3) or in one of my favorite episodes, ‘cos i actually remember it, simmons recounts “a wide-eyed xavier mcdaniel (i loved the x-man so much; he was my fave) telling the story about bird telling the x-man during the end of a celts-sonics game, 'i'm making the game-winner, and i'm shooting it from that spot right there,' then doing exactly that.” the natural conclusion from this information, then, is

4) larry legend was the james joyce of basketball.

i’m writing this thing on metaphor right now; almost inescapably my mind’s been running around trying to tie a string between every two things it sees. (“bird as metaphor” is actually a subheader in my outline.) and did you know that neuroscientists have found the neurons that are responsible for metaphor—they’re called mirror neurons, and they’re so interesting. you and i are having lunch; you take a sip of martini, and a pattern of mirror neurons fires with a given strength. then a minute later, i reach over and take a sip of your martini—and as you watch me do that, the same neurons fire in the same pattern, with the same strength. at that electro-level of the brain, doing a thing, observing a thing and imagining doing a thing are all the same thing. i love this so much.

mirror neurons operate in different parts of the brain, and in the cortex—where the really complex stuff like thinking about ideas happens—they don’t come online until the 4th or 5th year of life, which is when theory of mind starts to happen—when a child begins to understand that the contents of your mind can be different from his. the complexity of undertaking to know what someone else is thinking is what created the evolutionary pressure for these layers of mirror neurons and a cortex big enough to hold them. and isn’t that sort of staggering to think about, that metaphor (in a truly meta- sense, ie, metaphor as the function that allows us to find a second level of meaning of anything, or, as nicholas humphrey said, to reveal the solid forms in the world of shadows in which we live) is socially driven. that the task of me knowing you is so complex that it pressured the brain into developing a neural framework big enough to make art, and to engage in any higher thinking. like writing critical tricks into your novel. or like experimenting to see how many ways you can make a shot with your left hand while a million people watch.

it’s interesting too, how the impulse to experiment is such a pure one, and requires such a total confidence in yourself, and that it’s present so early in life. kids experiment constantly, and when the higher-cortex mirror neurons come online and theory of mind begins to happen, they begin another level of experimentation—known in the scientific community as “fucking with people.” your mirror neurons can not only imagine doing something but also imagine the effects it’ll draw out of another person, your teacher, your kid sister, or the dude guarding you. and our exquisite desire to fuck with people leads to a whole other corollary about the orders of mastery: you’re a master when you can successfully tweak and adjust your pitches during a game or change your song list when you see what the crowd is responding to during your set, and those tweaks and changes are forms of experimentation. but, you’re the master’s master—the guy behind the guy be-hind the guy—when your experimentations have cycled clear back around and regained a playground, fuck-with-him quality: i’m going to write in this faux-theme so the critics will spend a decade scratching their nuts in confusion; i’m going to tell him where i’ll take the shot from, and that i’ll make it, and then i’ll do just that. because i can.

episode 4: a double hope.

a near-exact five years ago, on the closing afternoon of b.mac’s bachelor weekend, a day when quote-unquote simple motor skills required, like, full attention, he and i went to taco bell for some fucking burritos. an ad banner in the window proclaimed the new rice-and-beans burrito to be not just surprising but also yummy delicious. no linking comma or “and” in there; just a qualifier qualifying a second one that happened to mean precisely the same thing. and that thing was this. we had come to t.bell in search of a tasty fucking burrito, but our expectations were about to be exceeded; we were about to eat a fucking fuck burrito that was taste tasty. as one topic of conversation was quite enough for us on that afternoon, we then had an inspired like almost 4 hours of point-counterpointing about the social dangers of double positives. but we never got it quite right; we agreed that 2 positives should = 1 negative, but that we, as, you know, a society, ignore this somehow. today slate.com linked me back to an old michael kinsley column about the artistic genius of ari fleischer, former white house press secretary. it’s a short, great read. and it nails that very same principle.

the middle east? "i think that, as always, the president wants events to develop over time in a way that he hopes will be fruitful …" that "as always" is truly bravura banality. never for one moment has the president wavered in his desire to see events develop in ways he hopes will be fruitful. logicians may puzzle over how it is even possible to hope that your own hopes be dashed, but in case it is possible, the president is not doing it.

so the real math of it, the operation is just this: two positives (when they are of the same action or intent, like hope that your own hopes be) equals one impossibility. glad that’s finally settled.

note: if you have a fire passion for music, this could be it for you. the rock band troupe ari fleischer & the new logicians is now holding auditions. we already have a lead singer tambourine player but have spots open for a bassist, a jazz flutist, a steel drum player, a blond lesbian who plays an instrument, and groupies. please contact.

notes on water and sunshine ferries and grace.

i wrote my friend lotta the other day, am on the ferry right now in the 9am sunshine, reverberating towards bainbridge to spend an afternoon in the woods, splitting and chopping and hauling. i hope. but maybe i'll get there and grandma will want me to wax the floors. which'll be fine but less thoreau-ish and manly. i went on to describe how so many things in my life have been good in this late summer, but that i have a lonely hollow note that rings in my chest; i'm not at peace with myself, and am unsure where to find it. later she replied that this one line rang a different note, a true, lyrical note to her ear. and looking back on it now, it does with my ear, and my heart, too. in my life i've never been more aware of my distance from god than i am today on this ferry, as it pulls into the dock on this slow-paced, flushly green island where the sun glints off the water and it all seems so obviously graced.

color me rose.

just a quote, today.

the world is this way, we wish the world were that way, and our experience of the world---how we see it, remember it, and imagine it---is a mixture of stark reality and comforting illusion. we can't spare either. if we were to experience the world exactly as it is, we'd be too depressed to get out of bed in the morning, but if we were to experience the world exactly as we want it to be, we'd be to deluded to find our slippers. we may see the world through rose-colored glasses, but rose-colored glasses are neither opaque nor clear. they can't be opaque because we need to see the world clearly enough to participate in it---to pilot helicopters, harvest corn, diaper babies, and all the other stuff that smart mammals need to do in order to survive and thrive. but they can't be clear because we need their rosy tint to motivate us to design the helicopters ("i'm sure this thing will fly"), plant the corn ("this year will be a banner crop"), and tolerate the babies ("what a bundle of joy!"). we cannot do without reality and we cannot do without illusion. each serves a purpose, each imposes a limit on the influence of the other, and our experience of the world is the artful compromise that these tough competitors negotiate. (stumbling on happiness, daniel gilbert)

Present Participles That Make Me Think of Mark.

on the occasion of skullstice, and the eve of his 31st birthday.

by Ruth Alice Haney, aka DJ Mousee

1. defining: irony

2. moving: it

3. shaking: it

4. being: ironical

5. singing: the songs

6. signing: the times

7. working: that bag

8. the shots: calling them, taking them

9. feeling: the people

10. fucking: The Man

11. loving: the ladies

12. defying: the odds

13. capturing: all the right moments in writing


editor's note: i think i said last year that 2006 was going to be "adjectives that remind me of mark." but when i sat down to write the list, i had a moment of realization: "shit, what adjective DOESN'T remind of mark? they almost all do!" and writing up a list of adjectives that don't remind me of mark is kind of negative, don't you think? so i learned my lesson. from here on out, all future themes will be announced only as TBA. because deciding a whole year in advance what's going to be topical 365 days later creates expectation, which everyone knows is just premeditated disappointment.

Collect the whole set!

2005: Nouns that remind me of Mark
2006: Present participles that remind me of Mark
2007: TBA
2008: TBA
2009: TBA
2010: TBA
Etc.

through all the hardships, huntsman persevered

(2 pre-read notes must be made: this is ripped from an old onion piece and has undergone only scarily small changes; also my book is nowhere near done. thank you.)

Independent Book Written By Dependent 31-Year-Old

SEATTLE, WA–Independent author Mark Huntsman, still financially dependent on his parents at 31, announced Monday the completion of his novel-length debut, the locally composed, parentally financed Dear Fat Kid.

Written on a tight budget of $75,000 of Lee and Virginia Huntsman’s money, the book chronicles the lives and loves of a diverse group of white, post-collegiate twentysomethings in an affluent Santa Barbara suburb, exploring such subjects as relationships, personal identity, and the pressures of living with one's parents.

Huntsman, who calls Dear Fat Kid "a groundbreaking portrait of a generation driven mad by alienation and boredom," attributes his success to his perseverance, his unswerving artistic purity, and the fact that his parents pay for his rent, health insurance, and groceries. But despite the creative control Huntsman enjoys by being "unfettered by the stranglehold of the mainstream publishing house system," he said there were times when he had to fight to preserve the integrity of his personal vision.

"I'll admit, I was under pressure to change the title to something more commercial, like the snappier I Used to be a Fat Kid--mostly from my dad," said Huntsman, speaking from Victrola, a local coffee shop prominently featured in the book and a favorite haunt where he often goes to think, people-watch, and spend his parents' money on imported blends. "But I couldn't let vulgar market considerations dictate the terms of this project. I wanted the title to reflect the very spirit of independent bookwriting itself, the 'rising above' of everyday mundanities in the pursuit of something far greater: the singular artistic freedom that comes from not actually having to work for a living."

Deftly interweaving the stories of three mismatched post-collegiates, the book uses as its central framing device a neighborhood coffee shop. The decision to structure the work around the coffee-and-pastry-serving shop, Huntsman said, came from personal experience.

"One day, my dad's card got declined, and I had to wait at the coffee shop while the limit got extended," Huntsman said. "As I sat there, flipping through insipid magazines and drinking their alarmingly good and pretentious coffee, the thought suddenly struck me: What if I had to hold down a job, the way these poor souls did? It'd be unbearable. I thought, 'This could've been me.' I guess it must've struck a powerful chord deep within my subconscious, because when I sat down to write the opening chapters on the iBook my parents bought me, the theme kept resurfacing."

Etta, one of the book’s main characters, works at a local coffee shop but dreams of one day becoming an independent and self-made writer, a plot element Huntsman said is "largely autobiographical, except for the having-a-job part." In one of the book’s key scenes, Etta finally summons the courage to leave her blue-collar job and follow her dream. Moving into the apartment above her parents' garage, she symbolically transcends her former life by literally reaching for the stars.

"That scene was extremely personal, because it really brought home to me how lucky I've been," Huntsman said. "It's not everyone who has the courage to pursue their dream. And, thankfully, my parents had the resources for me to see it through."

Though not yet snapped up by a publisher, the book has already drawn attention from the Seattle-area zine Motorfuzz and earned "entrant" honors at the King County Novel Festival. Yet it wasn't easy for Huntsman, who faced many daunting and unexpected challenges while writing Dear Fat Kid.

There were creative conflicts with the book's financiers, who felt that its focus was not "job-oriented" enough. There were times when Huntsman would max out one of his mother's credit cards and have to ask for a different one. There were even times when the project was brought to a virtual standstill because Huntsman's parents refused to let him use their car.

But through all the hardships, Huntsman persevered, determined to get his work out to the public.

"When I finally saw the finished print," said Huntsman, a gleam in his eye, "I knew that all my time and parents' money had been worth it."

What's next for this exciting young talent? Huntsman said he is mulling over his options.

"At this point, there are at least 20 books in my head. But before I take on the burden of another project, I really feel like I need to give my brain a rest. It's important that I allow the creative energies to rebuild and recover after the hell I've been through these last 86 months. All I want to do right now is lie back on my parents' couch, watch some HBO on their 36" TV, and just let the ideas germinate for a while."

enter sky, stage left.

i asked the sky a question, silently
for yelling at the sky is just bad form
unless you are a fool, or demigod, or crazy
or your name is ahab or mel gibson.
how i went about it was less alarming, but, later
i realized, not better. i mimed a monk
with nothing to do, i lost any chance
of forcing the sky's hand, of panache, of brass.
my whole world is not a solarium. i trod too gently
or, rather, i trod at all--i want to glide
not jog through the cortex in clumsy portmanteau
add trip to clod and come away with trod
not a mode that is pleasing to children
nor future employers, nor the ear of god.
what i've done is whittled, reduced, and spun again
this question of myself until it remained, inert
in my head. the simplest explanation is right
usually, in matters demanding guilt be felt
but i’m not catholic; guilt is dead, long live the guilt
of my interior i must ask: un-simplify
the question, writ it long and run it on,
for my spirit talks in inverse proportion--
the purest question needs a response so big
i cannot see it. but perhaps i have it wrong.
maybe my mind has limits, wears this girdle
because it needs support; maybe horizons stretch
and the sky expands so it can hold all
the answer demands. then he took the cloak that
had fallen from him and struck the water with it.
'where now is the LORD, the god of elijah?'
he asked. when he struck the water, it divided
to the right and to the left, and he crossed over.
elisha did trod; but he trod upon manners and metaphor
and mel gibson--the things that cloak a fossil heart.
he threw the robe down, raised his arms up
and issued a challenge: surround me.
let me feel you under my feet, let my lungs breathe you
and know, too, that this air, this water, this plea
begins with alpha, not with me, not with why
and ends in omega, and in love, and the sky.

they did not expect him.

it's solstice today - skullfest 2006 - Year 5, Day 1 today. wow.

the title is a link to my favorite painting of all time, and especially for today. it's by ilya repin, a russian cat who, with this painting, put the cap on the ideological russian movement in russian painting. but i don't care about that. what i care about is that i'm teaching a theory of mind lecture this summer, and if i had an hour and 50 powerpoint slides to explain to you the subtleties of theory of mind---your ability to imagine what's going on in my head---i could not do better than to give you 5 minutes alone with this painting. it's stunning. it's a russian populist dude, i forget his name, who the czar's soldiers took away in the pogroms 8 years ago. everyone thinks he's dead, and now he just walks into his house; even little girl who is too young to remember really; everyone except the boy, with his gleeful, vindictive grin. told you so.

marsha marsha marsha.

man, i'm getting tired of my clingy issues. i go through my days, looking each of my three issues in the face. i try to do what's best, to foster a sense of independence so that my issues won't need me anymore. i pat each firmly on the head in an admonishing but hopeful way, and at the end of the day i send them off to bed. i wake up in the morning; and one, two, three, me---there we all are. same f'ing issues. can't get through the first cup of coffee before they're blathering; it's like ... sometimes it feels like my issues aren't even talking to me, they just want to talk near me, you know? so juvenile, they're so loud. f me. it's so hard to get some time for myself. but tonight i've hired a sitter, and at last i'll be able to get some breathing space, some time just for me, when i can go up to the bar, have a few beers, and hold a bible in my lap while i tell cute girls of how i'm holding myself back. what a relief that'll be.

this song is not a rebel song.

it's wednesday afternoon. just got done with boni, my therapist; i spent a lot of time peering at the radiator just behind her left elbow. but then her small eyebrows furrowed with worry, and she very quietly asked after a very noisy thing. and soon enough i was laying down that i want there to be law for myself--how does she manage to make me do that. and man, i can't explain my knowledge that there's a melody just out there--just away there--waiting, for me to strike it. a song my voicebox was made to spell. and it's not a lullaby, it does not lilt. i want these baby teeth out of my head. my throat is sinking, is deepening down to its resonance point. i don't know much else, but i know. this song is not a rebel song; this song is.