AUTOTOMY
In danger, the holothurian splits itself in two:
it offers one self to be devoured by the world
and, in its second self, escapes.
Violently it divides itself into a doom and a salvation,
into a penalty and a recompense,
into what was and what will be.
In the middle of the holothurian's body a chasm opens
and its edges immediately become alien to each other.
On the one edge, death, on the other, life.
Here despair, there hope.
If there is a balance, the scales do not move.
If there is justice, here it is.
To die as much as necessary, without overstepping the bounds.
To grow again from a salvaged remnant.
We, too, know how to split ourselves
but only into the flesh and a broken whisper.
Into the flesh and poetry.
On one side the throat, on the other, laughter,
slight, quickly dying down.
Here a heavy heart, there non omnis moriar,
Three little words, like three little plumes of light.
We are not cut in two by a chasm.
A chasm surrounds us.
- by Wislawa Szymborska
oh cheetah, cheater, my beautiful cheetah
性相近，习相远.
A new love tune
My name is nunia biz
The desert is my home.
My fatherland is there
but no longer there.
The sand whispered, be separate.
The stone taught me, be hard.
I dance, for the joy of surviving,
on the edge of the road.
- a parady of Stanley Kunitz
I SAY "Feminity is ultimately an aestheticism against debasement and towards elevation on the holiness of the chaotic body, the free spirit as oppose to the single-mindedness on maintaining the established pattern and order as the paramount condition of generative power"
AND WHO CRIED Love is the Plan the Plan is Death
while THE PEBBLE
The pebble
is a perfect creature
equal to itself
mindful of its limits
filled exactly
with a pebbly meaning
with a secret which does not remind one of anything
does not frighten anything away does not arouse desire
its ardour and coldness
are just and full of dignity
I feel a heavy remorse
when I hold it in my hand
and its noble body
is permeated by false warmth
Pebbles cannot be tamed
to the end they will look at us
with a calm and very clear eye
O United
Fools, How can I
bottle up EVERYTHING in my sex and my race?
Will you make me a sandwitch?
(*footnote)
Oh NEVER
MIND masterminds,
who says SEXINU.NET cun't
complete
million doler cheetah ?
For gods so love
Unixes ->
sexinU.
Don't you C the asymmetry?
O Yesterday's
Les Fleur Du Mal
laid bare today's man
His
Shakes-BE-er's gogo ban!
..............................................
footnote: Naked Lunch of BottleRocket
In peat where the bodies are. Well I've said too much already Hyperfine structures and soft-made-damp; Lifeless, legless, a cozy nest of maggots And begging for that loamy bank On golden light of morning.Some quivering slime that forever stains all it touches Asked if it could follow me around for a while. But how could I say no to that?
Hoary goat With patches of matted fur Is back to stay a spell At the foot of my bed The shedding and the foul aroma And biting visitors with its mouth of sores Sticking his hooves in the dessert Leering with dead eyes Upsetting the atmosphere, his hideous bleating And rubbing his balls on the carpet. (He was only gone one week.)
I'm so sorry I ate the crustaceans
so now which is the fly and which is the human
My only companions decay in the pit; Those are the only companions I want Because I am the False Holly - the dead ringers
yet i found YOU at last A flower in moonlight, she was there, Was rippling down white ways of glamour Quietly laid on wave & air
What good is melody, what good is music If it ain't possessin' something sweet It ain't the melody, it ain't the music There's something else that makes the tune complete It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing It don't mean a thing, all you got to do is sing It makes no diff'rence if it's sweet or hot Just give that rhythm ev'rything you got It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing
A recording of Ella Fitzgerald singing "It don't mean a thing (if it ain't got that swing)" comes on the radio. He is transported into ecstacy. The swing, the huge talent, the tastefulness in her voice--if he could sing, he would sing like that--he can think of no way offhand to improve her singing. She has what seems to be near complete control of the tone and rhythm she produces with her voice. And with all that talent, she chooses to sing what he wants to listen to and learn more about. And she seems to agree with him that it is the best way to sing; indeed she teaches him about swing. He loves her, as he loves Coltrane. He respects her and wants to get as close to her as possible.
He wonders, can he, or someone, re-engineer her personality from her
recordings and put it into a computer. Ella's brain inside Lee's
body--that's what he's talking about!
-- trane
Read this short story of Faulkner's today. Fucking amazing. Laughed all
the way through it, then the last line made me cry. Cold, impersonal
print did that.
--trane
I would say to Rachel: "COME ON, cross over! Let's make an alliance! I'll look out for you, and you look out for me! Let's make a miracle! Let's reclaim our sight; let's combine and spread our vision."
Like the Invisible Man. Is he talking about Bledsoe, the house slaves, the ones who support the masters and obey them, even when expected to act unjustly towards other slaves? The smaller dealers, Sly, etc.? Why does she give it up for the "oily, smooth scoundrel", while choosing to punk me? Does she like them better, is she more sexually excited, satisfied by them? Does she enjoy punking me? --I was reading Coltrane's notes to Alice McCleod when he was "pursuing" her: I will look it up again but from memory--he talks about sleeping, at peace, at night; he writes about staying just, fair. Nothing Rachel is attracted to...
I would try to argue with her how taking Coltrane as a role model has the potential to make her happier than she is now, but she seems to have already made her decision.
I would rather listen to Trane and Bran and Cole, etc., and pursue their happiness, than participate in hers. Or maybe I'm just not cool enough to participate in hers. So be it--maybe Black Sunshine in the CD can become my next muse.
---
Coltrane's poems to Alice McCleod (from "A Love Supreme" by Ashley Kahn, pages 78, 79):
How kind you are to me--to give--the universe revealed I see / Yes now I'll go to sleep--it's right, sweet--I rest in peace / At night--
1-6-64
Good morning my Dear
Another new day. Another new chance to share in God's great story. {To be to give.} Don't forget to be kind--to be forgiving. And to be helpful--to be strong and just and to always be fair. Pray and give thanks. You are born again. Work and love. You are born anew.
In a cheap motel room on Aurora Ave:
She recites at great length (in a loud voice, is it disturbing the neighbors?) her childhood: on her own at 13, living with her teenage homeless friends in the city park, doing lots of drugs, stealing food...
I am lying on the far side of the bed, arm covering my eyes. I am becoming aware just how different she is from me. She is beautiful, she has always been able to trade off her looks. There are some superficial similarities ("I used to be afraid to speak up in class, even when I knew the answer and no one else did, I was too scared to say it out loud, then the teacher would give the answer and it was what I was thinking"), but she never, I think, descended to the same depths I did, because she always got approval because of her beauty, because she was a girl...
She finishes, there is silence. Maybe she said something about boring me, I don't remember...I do remember saying "You're giving me lots of material for my research."
And that set her off.
Suddenly her tone changes, and I am subjected to a stream of pure anger and condemnation, from one who knows they hold power over their interlocutor. She couldn't believe I would put her story online. With her real name! And her connection to "that band" - how could I be so stupid? Irrational, I was thinking, why is she so upset? Why doesn't she give me reasons, instead of heaping anger upon me? I am submissive, non-responsive; but I still have some fight in me at that point and ask her "What are you going to do, sue me?" She laughs scornfully, she has friends, she can do better than sue me, she will get online herself and publicly humiliate me, expose my life for what it is. I welcome that I tell her, that is what the internet is for, please do that! But she can do more. She has resources, her friends will fuck me up. Again, no logic to her anger, I am thinking. There is no reasoning with her in this state. And I begin to think that she is just using this online thing as an excuse for her to get angry with me, to show me she's boss, that I have to submit to her will no matter what the subject or the logic of her whims. It reminds me of other interactions I have had with females, with Tracie, and how much I hate that. She is no different! In fact worse, because she is so much more attractive than I, and knows it, and doesn't even like me as much as Tracie did...
It continues. I am out of arguments, have no desire to talk to her. She has made me extremely nervous. I want to be away from there. I'm almost out of crack, I will go get some more, to get away. I get up, load my last hit. She is out apparently. Did she construct this whole situation to make me go get more?
I blow the hit out. It is not a good hit, it does not take me very high, I am still nervous, my voice shakes:
"You know Kurt's journals just sold for $4 million..."
She is silent. I pack up my kit, reach for my coat to put it away in a pocket. I am thinking how unsatisfying the hit was.
"Crack is not the answer, I know that...Kurt should have practiced more...I should practice more. That was Coltrane's answer. He used to practice in the bathroom between sets, they say. His answer was in his horn...I'll find my answer...I'm not ready yet..."
Silence. Do I sense approval?
---
Several hours later, sitting in my car on 2nd and Virginia, waiting for her to leave me:
"W w w dot slashdot dot o r g, blue trane's diary. T r a n e. It's a Coltrane song."
"I know." A little too quickly...does she really know the song? The tune (I think I have it right) starts playing through my head.
"Coltrane wouldn't have done what you did."
I think of the junkie Trane, the one Miles Davis describes as "pathetic" in his autobiography, wearing the same clothes for days, picking his nose during others' solos, what about that Trane? But the impulse to tell her about that fades, she's probably right, after all:
"I know I'm not as good...great...as Coltrane...He's a...model...idol...I can only study him, and try to learn..."
She puts her hand on my knee briefly, then turns to go.
Eva is a character in "Uncle Tom's Cabin". She is a little girl, St. Clare's daughter. She is Christ-like in her love for all beings, in being loved by all, in dying before her time. It is clear she represents pure good.
Because she loves all, including the slaves, she feels unhappy at their lot and the way most whites treat them.
But it is her attitude towards death that interests me...
"I am not nervous, I am not low-spirited. If it were not for you, papa, and my friends, I should be perfectly happy. I want to go, --I long to go!" (Chapter 24).
For her, death is a gateway to eternal rapture:
"Dear papa," said the child, laying her burning cheek against his, "how I wish we could go together!" "Where, dearest?" said St. Clare. "To our Saviour's home; it's so sweet and peaceful there -- it is all so loving there!" (Chapter 24)
Throughout her illness, she maintains honesty with herself and with others regarding her condition; she refuses to let others pretend to her that she is getting better.
Before dying she calls all her father's slaves together to bid them adieu, and they all cry and mourn for her because she is loved by all.
When death comes, she is ready:
A bright, a glorious smile passed over her face, and she said, brokenly, -"O! love, -joy, -peace!" gave one sigh, and passed from death unto life! (Chapter 26)
Eva lives in a world where the injustice of slavery is a daily affront to her sense of right and wrong. She cannot be a hypocrite, nor acceptingly cynical (like her father); she won't do or say anything to hide the fact that she considers blacks equally worthy as whites.
Because she is so purely good, she feels she has no place in the world, I think (I have no quotations here to support this (yet), but I think it is implicit in the text). She does not want to live in a world where unfairness and injustice reign. So her illness is not a shock to her, or a disappointment. She looks forward to death, welcomes it, because it is a place more just than the world she is leaving...
Well, I agree. Even if death isn't the Christian death (angels and gates of pearl, etc.), it is likely a place that is more fair and just than here. (Especially if death is nothingness, because that guarantees absolute equality for everything...) So I feel like Eva: I want to die, too, because of the widespread injustice I see all around me; and because of my inability to do anything to change that injustice...
(The difference between Eva and me is that I am not a beautiful girl and well-loved by all. Also I don't rely on scripture for my proofs of what is unjust in this world.)
I like Eva's attitude: she wants to die, she longs to die! She only regrets the effect her death will have on her family and friends. So she tries to prepare them, explain to them that she is happy to die, that she welcomes death. She tries to get them to see it is not a sad thing but a good thing. (Only Uncle Tom, I think, sees her point.)
In the same way, I am trying to show you, dear reader, how my death is not to be lamented or considered a waste or sad or whatever. Those are all just hypocritical platitudes that try to paper over the truth (which is: since I cannot lie or be hypocritical, and am not so talented or beautiful that I can get away with telling the truth when I see injustice, I will never be happy in this world).
Best would be to have legal suicide centers! Make your decision, let your family/friends know if you want, let them have their say to try to dissuade you. If they don't change your resolve, go in, at your leisure choose the method and time and place of your death. Make it a well-planned, peaceful, fear-free event (if that is to your liking). No need to tweak on correct dosages, whether someone will find you before you're done, what your family will think when they find out, etc. Of course you would be able to change your mind right up to the final moment...
What arguments, other than emotional, are there against this view?
I bet Eva would agree with me. (Actually probably not, because she is so Christian. St. Clare would agree with me though!)
Crack smoke pipe !
New HTML Parser: The long-awaited libxml2 based HTML parser code is live. It needs further work but already handles most markup better than the original parser.
Keep up with the latest Advogato features by reading the Advogato status blog.
If you're a C programmer with some spare time, take a look at the mod_virgule project page and help us with one of the tasks on the ToDo list!
del.icio.us
Digg
Google bookmark
reddit
Simpy
StumbleUpon
Furl
Newsvine
Technorati
Tailrank