#2
Ambulance

11/16/2008

The casual indifference

of the Sunday afternoon

coffeegoers

To the sirens

of the emergency vehicles

now parked outside,

And the unhurried ambling of the men

who wheel the complex gurney/stretcher

past the open door and window

Gives me pause as I ponder

an event that would be so dire

but at the same time so relaxed.

But as the summoner

of those services walks by

with such nonchalance,

My thoughts concerning

the fleeting transience of health

wane

While a song first sung to me

by Chip and Dale plays naïvely

from the ceiling.

#1

As the busy street moves under me
and my feet keep time with the rhythm
of my internal symphony,
I'm moved.

As if by giant bellows, dark and thick
smoke issues from the restaurant, thanks to
the fires below preparing
savory treats.

All around this city, simple folk
convene to help each other live and breathe,
evidenced by dozens of
such fires.

Seán Nolen 2008.10.16

Irony: I first created this blog for no other reason than i was sitting bored in class. I didn't expect anyone would ever read it, and i think i mentioned something to that effect. Who would have known the day would come that 2 + 2 would equal holy crap? Ironic that I, the person least likely to have a blog, would, by having a blog, cause something to happen with it. But none of that matters anymore. "What's said is said. What's done is done. . . the rest is history. We skate now."

On a side note, where are the days when i used to be able to stay up past 3 because i didn't have anything important to do the next day? I miss that.

Dimensions:

So we got to thinking tonight. I don't have time right now to post the full everything, but basically, the conclusion was reached that we fully know about 6 dimensions, but the 6th is kinda crazy. the first three are space, the 4th is time, the 5th is probability, and the 6th, believe it or not, is free will. I need to sleep now, but i'll prove this later in a perfectly sane, rational argument containing absolutely no blatant untruths.

(00:23:44) I was the shadow of the waxwing slain: its employee art month at [the coffee shop]
(00:23:50) Sean: oh no
(00:23:56) Sean: is she good?
(00:23:58) I was the shadow of the waxwing slain: so most of the paintings on the wall are done by [the hot girl at the coffee shop]
(00:24:01) I was the shadow of the waxwing slain: yeah she is
(00:24:04) Sean: sweeet
(00:24:07) Sean: ask her out
(00:24:39) I was the shadow of the waxwing slain: compile error: cannot find header file askgirlout.h
(00:25:33) Sean: try `find / -iname "balls.h"` and repeat last command
(00:26:04) I was the shadow of the waxwing slain: compile error: cannot find header file balls.h
(00:27:29) Sean: too many fatal errors involving female headers: try running ./configure with the --with-homosexual option
(00:28:03) I was the shadow of the waxwing slain: checking for sane build environment . . . no
(00:28:43) Sean: this installation appears to be corrupt. please check to see that you have a copy of the latest build source
(00:29:26) I was the shadow of the waxwing slain: uh, cheksum error?
(00:29:35) I was the shadow of the waxwing slain: operating system error
(00:29:46) Sean: kernel panic: unable to continue
(00:29:57) Sean: no further explanation will be given
(00:30:03) I was the shadow of the waxwing slain: yeah
(00:30:04) I was the shadow of the waxwing slain: good
(00:30:15) I was the shadow of the waxwing slain: kernel panic: you're fucked

There's something about Woolf that makes reading it a bit like thinking. Imagine if one had the time to analyze every aspect of life in detail; but not only detail itself, but also all the distractions, wrong turns, and seemingly random cris-crossings the mind takes whenever one contemplates something in a mostly-awake but wandering-mind daydream-style sort of state. If one could do that and couple it with beautiful sentence structure, one could emulate Woolf.

I imagine this would make a rather boring movie, or even tv-movie, just because most of the action takes place in thought, and very little happens in the "real" world most of the time. It's as if life is going in slo-mo and allowing all thoughts to come to their rightful conclusions before proceeding further. It's a style i quite enjoy, for oftentimes thoughts are far more interesting than actions.

Art is life.

This is the ideal that has ruled this day. I've finished 1984, a book I ought to have read ages ago, but as such a task was never asked of me, i never gave it a second thought until suddenly one day, when the realization came to me that the task had never been asked of me.

I thought it was quite moving. All having to do with politics was scary, in that it resembles too much the world i see when i step out the front door each morning, read about on the internet, or see on tv (on the off-chance that i happen to watch tv). The romance in the middle is quite well done, vague enough to allow me to put my own feelings, reveries, and hopes into the characters and thus identify with them more readily, and also explicit enough to carry on the meaning the author intends the event to have.

Some have mentioned that the ending was predictable. In a way, i suppose it is, but certainly not in a way that fits the jigs of my mind. Perhaps to one who expects capitulation, for whatever reason, the ending seems fitting, but for one of my adventurous triumphant nature, the ending seemed less revolutionary than i had expected. On the other hand, perhaps, then, it is I who am deceived. Perhaps I have seen revolutions happen in works of fiction so frequently and consistently that i am now surprised at an ending wherein not only does the protagonist not conquer evil, or perceived evil, but never even has a chance at so doing. On the one hand, this is a good thing for 1984, because it allows the author to develop further his ideas about why the Party is the way it is, why the society portrayed in the book is as it is, and....there is no more. So rather than learning about the proper way to oppose it, we learn more about that which is to be opposed. Knowing thine enemy, it is said, is prudent. Indeed, as it applies to the society in which i live, it is important to understand the inner workings of the bodies of power to better realize how they are corrupt and what can be done about that.

This ending is in stark contrast to Fahrenheit 451, wherein the protagonist is able to escape the oppressive society, and we never really learn as much about it as we learn about the Party in 1984.

I certainly appreciate Orwell's grasp and ability to communicate his knowledge of both politics and of psychology. Perhaps to a more learned reader, these seem less profound, but as a novice at both schools of thought, i found the key points educational.

Furthermore, again was a good author able to pump up my heart with a straw and then, as ungracefully as an elephant can-canning, cleave it in twain with a blunt spoon. Carmody did that to a greater degree, but the feeling was nevertheless present with 1984.

Perhaps this is more my own fault; perhaps at this point i am just more prone to emotions in general, and it takes far less to excise the feelings out of me. Excise? Either way, i feel a benefit in experiencing that which i have been forcibly repressing for fear of being swallowed up, if only to project it onto fictional characters.

Now, for no other reason than it was the nearest, I begin the enjoyble toil of To The Lighthouse. Alysia told me once that she hasn't the time currently to read it because she gets too immersed in the beauty of each sentence, and I certainly see that. I am trying not to get lost, but Woolf's style is like a winged fairie that caresses your mind, body, and heart with a gentle feeling of serenity that is far too easy to become entrapped in to be able to read without the occasional sigh of appreciation that such a pleasurable thing to rad has been written seemingly for the reader's benefit.

We'll see how far i get before i force myself to bed tonight.

I can't.

I can't read any more tonight.

1984 has led me through a largely unfamiliar world, reminiscent in some ways of my own, but mostly foreign. Tonight, it hit home in a way that both hurts and caresses. The note that says, "I love you."

I don't know what it is. I seem to say that muchly of late. It's true. I don't know a lot of things. Realizing this, according to Socrates (through Plato) is the first step, but this first step daunts me.

Love. Every time I have thought myself fallen into it, have I later decided that it was a lesser form, no less real and no less powerful than the Platonic Form, but an incomplete version nevertheless. Every time, I become more guarded against these lesser forms such that the next time I am less accepting when an emotion presents itself as being so powerful.

The question now becomes this: is it more important that love be powerful or that it be lasting?

It has been discussed before that love is the epitome of infatuation. Infatuation, by its very definition, is intense interest that is gone as quickly as it arrives. When such a feeling does not readily disperse as Queen Mab, it verges more likely toward that thing we term "love."

"Love is like oxygen; love is a many splendoured thing; love lifts us up where we belong; all we need is love."

At this point, I think that the separation and the anxiety, separately, are mutating themselves into a form unlike any other I have heretofore faced. I have been told that if any can handle such pressures as I have undertaken, it is I, yet as much as what i feel now forces me to recognize I am alive, it also makes me wonder how much worse such a thing can get before it tears me in two.

To see a loved one go off to war, especially leaving behind a young family at home, must be a tragic thing indeed. This ought to be nowhere near as sorrowful, but having no comparison in my immediate vicinity, I can use no such comparison as consolation.

I suppose the only thing to do is sleep. Sleep and dreaming are where we are gods--where we have, albeit unconsciously, complete control over the universe, and can bend the very fabric of understanding. To harness such power is to become as a god, and in a coma can one truly be happy.

Can I believe that?

Whose idea was it to make bakery boxes pink? Not only are they mostly pink no matter where one goes, but they're flimsy to boot. I got a dozen donuts the other day, and the box nearly caved in on itself because the material was too thin to be made into such a large container.

So is there only one company out there who turns out the world's--or at least the USA's--supply of pink bakery boxes? Are bakery boxes pink around the world?

Is it branding? Is this hypnotism and mind control? Do they make sure that pink cardboard boxes always contain baked goods so that when a person walks down the street carrying one, others begin to unconsciously crave cakes, breads, and donuts?

So perhaps there is not just one company, but a multitude of pink box manufacturers competing with each other with the same product in collusion at least about the fact that they must be pink, no matter what the other specifications.

Now, it has not escaped me that there are bakeries that do not use pink boxes. 'Tis true. But one that i can think of does not use pink because they want to advocate their own logo: Winchell's. Their white boxes with the large yellow and red logo are quite unmistakeable, and people familiar with their brand will suddenly crave not just donuts, but Winchell's donuts. The same goes for Krispy Kreme, but their donuts are crap unless they're free, except for the Key Lime donut; that one's pretty goodly.