Mary Sue and and Johnny's Blue Crawdad

When was it?  Maybe 1954?  She and her little brother, Johnny, were deep within a Rosebay and Laurel thicket where the water cascades down the side of Wiley Arms Mountain, interrupted by ancient rocks, slick with life, hiding strange and brilliant creatures.  Mother Gravity pulling at the cold mountain water into her subterranean aquifer.  Life.  Abundant Life.  Waterdogs, Tadpoles, Mudpuppies, Crawdads.  These treasures awaited my Mother and her mean little brother, Johnny, somewhere down in Gobey, where Wiley Arms shed her cold water.

The rocks were slick and she slipped.  She fell hard, her head absorbing most all of the impact on the mountain stone.  It would cause her to vomit a few minutes later.  She pled for Johnny to help her, but he had zeroed in on the motherlode of aquatic life:  a rare blue crawdad.  "Johnny, help me up and back to the house.  I'm getting sick."

"Mary Sue, I swear I would but I'm about to catch me a big blue one."

That's all she remembered.  She was sick for days.  She never quite got over it by her own admission.

Alcoholics Anonymous Doctrine for Drunk Sheep

"It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us."  Bill W. from 12 Steps and 12 Traditions.

This statement has been read at one time or another at every AA meeting place I've attended since 1994.  When I see it coming I've learned to simply leave the room rather than attempt to argue the fact that this statement (doctrine from the guru of AA, Bill W. no less, designed to subordinate his followers) is pure nonsense, e.g.:  I find my house engulfed in flames, my family inside, I get "disturbed," to say the least.  I'm not supposed to though, lest I fall into the ominous pit with those who have "something wrong" with them. There may well be plenty of things wrong with me, but they are not revealed every time something disturbs me.  AA members forfeit the luxury of getting disturbed.  What bullshit. Critical thinking is frowned upon in these rooms. I know.

Nelson Mandela - Attorney at Law

July 18, 1918 - December 5, 2013

December 7, 2013 - Vertical Moving Pictures

The dark green of the vertical alcove began to swim with black and white images which folded into a menagerie of very old cartoon-like creations that moved vertically within the confines of the alcove.  No shit.

The Truth Underlying the So-Called "Acceptance" Principle of AA/NA.

"We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it."

                                                            Bill W. (A.A.'s Third Promise)

This is a towering promise that is grounded in nothing but nonsensical cult indoctrination that borders on sociopathy.  The promise invites suffering alcoholics and addicts to a fairytale land that never materializes.  In fact, this particular "promise" would have them conveniently set aside the harm they visited upon people, animals, and the environment as if they never happened.  Or, conversely, if they acknowledge the existence of these past errors, they may be led to believe in the insanity that would tell them that they were led to commit these negative acts for some greater purpose.  Maybe God in his mysterious ways wanted the father to get drunk and back over his six year old daughter -- for the greater good.  Perhaps this sacrifice was the sea change that got the guy sober and thus allowed him to spread the gospel of AA to others.

I read about a survey where the participants were shown a picture of three horizontal lines.  One line encompassed the entire page.  Another fell just short of the first.  And yet another fell even shorter than the second.  In the experiment the participants were actually told to pick a line that was clearly not the longest.  Then, the second group of unknowing participants were first told of the en masse conclusion drawn from group one.  In a terrifying conclusion the study revealed that despite the obvious collective error committed by the first group, an alarming number of participants chose the shorter line.  (Remember please these people were told to pick the longest line."  Afterward their results were exposed and they participants questioned about the obvious errors; about the etiology of their retarded responses.

  The response was ubiquitous:  the fear of being different.

  

Daughter

"Collecting pictures from the flood that wrecked our home."
"It was a flood that wrecked this home."
"You caused it."

From Ulysses

"Our lust is brief.  We are means to those small creatures within us, and Nature has other ends than we."  James Joyce.

Crosby, Stills and Nash and Crosby, Still, Nash and Young

The Mastersons - Birds Fly South

Aufnahmezustand: Coco Rosie

Reading Ulysses

I've made it through the thick, sticky, near hardened yet still malleable foreskin of James Joyce's masterpiece, Ulysses.  I've pierced the intimidating veil, though it's more aptly described as a leathery drape.  I'm learning that I should first know how to read the book before I simply step off into the sea that surrounds the saga.  This is my second attempt.  Third maybe.  But, as I said, I've made it through the bootcamp at the beginning.  I'm duly initiated.  Anointed.  It's like Joyce wanted to separate the wheat from the chaff early on in order to posthumously and cleverly select his audience.  I know that I'm in way over my head, but I can hold my breath longer than most of my kind, and I'm not afraid to abort, rise to the top, and descend again into a dark blue I'd only heard about until now.

Midway through this rigorous, bizarre beginning I elected to research the novel independent of its pure text.  (I also realized early on that I wanted to, or rather need to obtain an annotated version of the work so that I would not miss any of Joyce's beyond-brilliant musings.  I hesitate to continue on with the un-annotated version I'm reading because I know that I probably won't go back to boot camp if I obtain the annotated copy.  I'll come out of it with a passing mark nonetheless, and a private's bar when I could emerge a second lieutenant).  When I reviewed summaries of the three chapters I'd read I realized that this trek I am beginning will have to be supported by extrinsic assistance if I'm to tease all the brilliance and comedic seasoning from Ulysses -- not unlike the Appalachian "through hiker" whose spouse opaquely meanders in the general direction of the Mr. or Ms. Hiker, meeting up at predetermined mountain townships and glacial gaps to reinvigorate his love with dark chocolate, fresh wear, and a rented showerstall.

I'm headed to Maine.

I've hit another almost unbearable series of pages.  Going to require assistance.  It's time to create an algorhythm that will map my progress in terms of miles, rugged miles, toward Kennekaw or Kennisaw or Mount Kennicutt (now I'm going to pause and find out), Mount Kathadin (I was close).

So there are 783 pages.  I read about every third page twice.  That's 261 additional pages.  Have to count them, too.  So the total punishing pagewidth is 1,044.  Now, the Appalachian Trail extends 2,180 miles.  Roughly twice the page count of Ulysses.  So, for every page I read, I've travelled two miles toward Mountain Katahdin.  Kathahdin mountain.  Now, I thus far read 92 pages.  Add a third back to it, you get about 120.  I'm out of Georgia.  Technically, if you go by actual pages read, I'm at Bly Gap.

I think that this plowing furlough has given me a brain tumor in my left eye.

At this juncture I've read 250 pages that detail nebulous characters walking aimlessly around nebulous early-twentieth century Dublin.  I hate this book.  I hate the man who wrote it.  But I hate with exponential force those who dubbed Ulysses the greatest work of fiction of the twentieth century.  I gave up last night, but I'm re-considering my decision now that my blood pressure has eased.  I DON'T GET IT !

I did learn a term that is new to even me, who has maybe the best grasp of profane vulgarity in Dublin and elsewhere.  "Bitch's Bastard."  He's a bitch's bastard.  Can't wait to use this when I'm talking behind the back of some bitch's bastard.

But the investment of time and sentience cannot justify the yield.  Not yet anyway.

I'm starting to hate James Joyce.  I'm starting to wish that Irish dogs would dig up his bones and scatter them around Dublin.

Alas I've reached a plateau, where the hike levels and the flowers bloom for all bitches bastards who pass.  Protagonist has ADHD.  Midway during a conversation he imagines a giant sitting on a boulder and then carefully inventories every square inch of his massive frame, straps and logos an all.  At once I understood.  Ulysses is meant to be read aloud!

Holy God from Holy Hell!  Midway in my trek I rounded the tailend of another of ten thousand switchbacks, rose up above the rocks to the mountains yet, and just before I began to cry because I had made a massive error in taking this adventure, I was visited by a fairy, and she was red hot, compliments of a man from another world, named James Joyce:

 "[O]ur lust is brief.  We are means to those small creatures within us and Nature has other ends than we."

Now that I have read these words I am eager to die so that they can be engraved on my stone just below my meaningless name.

Ulysses is not really a novel.  It's a poem.  It's the sign language that our silent consciousness uses to "communicate its rigor."  I'm learning sign language.  Ulysses is teaching me sign language.  And I read my lessons aloud now.  I am quite honestly in awe of this work of art.  You have to earn it, and I now see the reward.  My fairy awaits me behind the sandstone.  She is turned over and she is turned up for me.  Just for me.  It's all been worth it.  Thank you, Mr. Joyce.

September 14:  I thought I was finally levelling out.  In my mind's eye I saw miles of non-threatening plateau.  It was not to be.  I'm at the midway point.  Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania.  The topography is ostensibly non-threatening.  So what is it that is making it midway to Maine that is vexing me so?  I'm in trouble again.  I remember just a bit back when I was around 290 and the prose just seemed to leap off the page and right into my cerebral pleasure center.  That shit seems to be over, for now.  Must buckle down.  Must stay hydrated.

I'm in too deep.  But, I'm going to complete the mission if for no other reason than this:  I will not be haunted by the ghosts of Ulysses, who tease me for not completing the balance of the crooked line that meanders up the Appalachians to Mt. Katahan in Maine.

It's going to happen like it's already happened to Blazes Boylan and Mrs. Molly Bloom.  I can see the mountain from here.  I smell a faint waft of Lobster and Mayonnaise.

The final 100 or so miles (45 pages of Molly Bloom's musings) was rigorous.  I found that the best way for me to read the so-called stream-of-consciousness narrative was to read aloud, which I did.  It worked for me.  Molly's recollection of Bloom's proposal to her in Gibralter completed the work:  "I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

Having now plowed through Ulysses for the first time, I'm ready to read Ulysses.  Reading Ulysses is predicate to reading Ulysses.  So, having now read it, cover to cover, I can safely concede that I'll probably never get around to reading Ulysses.

Coco-Rosie - RIP Burnface (Live KEXP), Fairy Paradise (KEXP), Werewolf, Lemonade (KEXP)