p a w n s h o p

Stolen from www.cracked.com

2012-02-05T03:01:00.000+01:00

"While most well adjusted members of society view music as an enjoyable addendum to life, perhaps a distraction or even a hobby, hipsters know that music is serious business. Having been picked on since a very young age by those who found their talents lay in athletics, they decided the ideal place to exercise influence was in the fields of listening to stuff and putting on clothes. Most people who aren't hipsters recognize these areas as naturally subjective, and generally not worth giving much of a shit about, which allows hipsters to win the argument for the simple reason that they're the only ones who care enough to notice that it's going on.

If asked to define what it is to be a hipster, one might be tempted to give a number of answers. Passion for obscure bands, obtuse fashion sense, cheapness masquerading as quirkiness or upper-middle-class white self loathing are all popular. In actuality, most of the culture boils down to judging. Judging items, activities, bands, companies, clothes, oneself and most importantly other people. If someone else is less savvy, cutting edge or knowledgeable than you, doesn't that mean you are a better person?

Hipsters must therefore strive at all times to stay a step ahead of everyone else. Worshiping the most obscure bands available and then dismissing them after they come out with their first LP is a good start. Successfully using the phrase "I was into them before..." is rumored to actually make a hipster's penis larger.
Hipsters also attempt to stay on the cusp of their perverted version of fashion. Are black framed glasses out? Try 60's horn-rims. Does your friend have his lip pierced? Try cutting yours off. This isn't about beauty or even basic hygiene. This is about looking like you traveled back from the not too distant future. A future populated by douchebags.

You may be wondering: isn't all this ridiculous scrambling to attach oneself to the next big thing exhausting? Doesn't it reflect a deep personal flaw that people would choose to relentlessly consume rather than attempt to create? Isn't this a sad comment on the state of society that people would glorify this type of inane behavior? Well, that's exactly what I'd expect someone who didn't buy the In Rainbows boxset to say, asshole! Maybe you'd prefer Coldplay?"

New Year's at Belaggio's porch...

2012-01-28T04:32:00.001+01:00

Where can I get a pair of those?

2012-01-23T02:21:00.004+01:00

Lime Crime lipsticks would make a perfect birthday gift to me

2012-01-22T07:23:00.001+01:00

duuuude

2012-01-13T01:32:00.003+01:00

San Francisco Street Artist

2012-01-09T09:16:00.002+01:00

Crossing Strip Ave

2012-01-08T20:35:00.002+01:00

Viva los vegans!

2012-01-06T19:11:00.007+01:00

Done it!

2012-01-01T11:21:00.003+01:00

Merry Christmas, San Francisco II

2011-12-29T11:25:00.003+01:00

Merry Christmas, San Francisco

2011-12-26T07:14:00.002+01:00

Welcome vacation!

2011-12-18T19:14:00.009+01:00

I like vacation because I find time to play with my media tools. And I started the countdown to get to San Francisco. We will stay in a hotel in Chinatown. AWESOME!

Roberto's jiu-jitsu graduation dinner last week...

2011-12-17T23:24:00.002+01:00

http://www.goertzel.org/books/spirit/uni7.htm

2011-12-14T03:12:00.009+01:00

majoring in psychology is bringing me some freaking good vibes

THE PSYCHEDELIC EXPERIENCE

I have been talking, at great length, about creative inspiration. It is a sad fact, however, that in modern culture, creative inspiration is a relatively rare experience.

In tribal cultures, creative art is generally incorporated into everyday life. Everyone is a singer, or a musician, or a dancer. Carving, painting, clothing design and so forth are done by a large percentage of the population. Art is not rigidly separated from everyday existence. In modern Western culture, on the other hand, creative inspiration is a relatively arcane experience. Only a small percentage of individuals in modern society are actively involved in creative pursuits; and of those who are, only a small percentage devote the time, energy and concentration required to reach the heights of creative bliss reported by Nietzsche, Rimbaud, Dick, Goethe and the like.

A much more common portal to the Realm of Bliss, in the modern age, is psychedelic drugs. We have seen that, in modern culture as in tribal cultures, drugs are often used to stimulate creative imagination. Rimbaud and Dick are good illustrations. But more often, today, hallucinogens are used for entertainment or escape. The results of this kind of drug use can vary greatly.

In this day and age, views on drugs tend to be strongly held; and psychedelics are no exception. A few advocates argue that the psychedelic experience is an essential part of life, that, to paraphrase Socrates, "the non-psychedelic life is not worth living." On the other hand, the view of governments and mainstream political parties is just the opposite. According to the "official line," psychedelics and marijuana are very bad, in the same category as heroin, cocaine and morphine; whereas other psychoactive substances such as alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, theobromine (found in chocolate), refined sugar, Valium, Prozac and Ritalin are basically all right.

The irrationality of this official position on drugs is obvious. Most notably, there is no pharmacological or psychological sense in which alcohol is less damaging than marijuana, psilocybin or LSD. Perhaps the key to the official position lies in the fact that alcohol produces better workers than marijuana or psychedelics. There is a reason the 60's slogan was "Tune in, turn on, drop out," rather than "Tune in, booze up, drop out." Alcohol seems to breed sloth and conformity rather than spirituality, bizarreness and general lack of desire to do what one is told.

Psychedelic drugs have no particular pharmacological effects; more than any other drugs, they seem to act almost exclusively on the mind. Unlike amphetamines, barbiturates, nicotine and alcohol, the common psychedelic drugs are not physically addictive. However, they may be psychologically addictive -- in this they do not differ from many non-drug experiences, such as sex, skiing,eating, etc. As Aldous Huxley wrote in his early book on mescaline, psychedelics open up "the doors of perception." Not only do they cause dazzing visual, auditory or tactile hallucinations, they also allow the mind to break through the barriers it has set up for itself. The effects of psychedelics vary a great deal from one person to another, but yet the psychedelic experience has its own peculiar character, different and more bluntly powerful than anything else.

In some cases, individuals use psychedelics to solve personal problems, or to lift themselves up to a higher level of mental or emotional functioning. Having used the drugs in this way, they leave off taking them, and proceed with an ordinary drug-free life.

In other cases, psychedelics have positive effects, but the effects do not last long beyond the direct action of the drug. The individual in question cannot feel comfortable, emotionally and mentally free without regular doses.

Finally, there are cases where the effects of psychedelic drugs are definitively negative. Nearly everyone who has used psychedelics has had a "bad trip" at least once. Horror stories of bad trips abound, and indeed, there are few experiences more bone-chilling. A bad trip brings one into direct, visceral contact with the unpleasant parts of oneself -- what Freud called the Id. This can be educational, but it is invariably painful, and for some unstable individuals it may cause lasting psychological damage.

It should be noted that, when psychedelics were legal and were used in a research and therapeutic context, bad trips were rare and were easily dealt with when they did occur. Now that the drugs are illegal, professional help is not available for the person having an unpleasant psychedelic experience. And, furthermore, street drugs are rarely pure -- LSD has been cut with everything from heroin to strychnine -- increasing the unpredictability and potential unpleasantness of the experience.

Account of an LSD Trip

I will start out here by describing one of my own experiences with psychedelics. This was not my first acid trip but my second -- I had gone in deep the first time, and wanted to go in deeper. I won't pretend that this was a "typical trip" -- there is no such thing. But it does demonstrate many of the key properties of the psychedelic experience.

Three of us took the acid together, in my college dorm room: myself, my friend Mike, and my girlfriend Gwen (who is now my wife). Mike's friend Sludge was there to babysit, along with someone else, a friend of his, whose name I don't remember. Sludge was a very clean-cut guy, who is now a computer scientist; he wasn't into drugs at all, but had come at Mike's request. Mike had heard somewhere that it was good to have a straight "baby-sitter" around while you were tripping. I didn't really subscribe to thisview, but Sludge's presence didn't bother me. I was only concerned with one thing: popping the tab in my mouth, feeling that weird familiar tingle on my tongue.

The acid hit Mike first -- and, much to the amusement of all present, he leaped on Gwen and spent about fifteen minutes slurping her bellybutton. As for me, I was immediately thrown back to the end of my last trip. To a vision I'd had then, and had completely forgotten. This vision of society as a web of interdefinition -- I defined myself by reference to my parents, my friends and a few others, she defined herself by reference to her friends, et cetera, they defined themselves by reference to their friends.... I saw humanity as a vast system of simultaneous nonlinear equations: one which, however, could never be solved due to the fact that even the concept of solution was a human artifact and hence fit into the equation.... This trip picked up where that one left off -- people, webs, music.... I was inside Gwen, Sludge and Mike, trying to bust out from their collective shapes and colors, trying to find the key to the universe.... I kept thinking about my Theory of Everything. Somehow, it seemed, I could get at the center of it all this way. The essence of reality. The same thing I was looking for with my equations, I could find this way -- directly.

Sludge put Pink Floyd on the stereo; I sank into every tiniest chamber of the music, every rhythm-within-rhythm, every counter-counterpoint ... music was my only tie with time. Time didn't pass so every note was a whole symphony. And through the phantasmagoric mayhem of it all I sought to concentrate.... But concentration was impossible. Every time I made a definite statement to myself, erected a plot of conceptual ground for my conscious to stand on -- the very process of standing seemed to flip the plot out from beneath my feet. Assertion of X was impossible since the process of assertion invariably seemed to contain not-X ... and no less when the assertion was this sentence. It was impossible to think. But I sensed somewhere that this was not something to be held against acid; it was something to be held against thought. Thought was a limiting, stilted process. I was feeling something much more profound.

First, there was a state of mind I called Mind as Stack.... I saw my mind as a vast stack or tree of computer programs, an hierarchical control system in which each program controlled the programs immediately below it, which in turn controlled their subsidiaries, et cetera. And at the top of this hierarchy stood -- the Self! At least, normally ... during a trip, I hypothesized self-referentially, different programs assumed top-level control -- the self churned downward. Identity abdicated to sensation. I felt this programming shifting as I moved. As I rose to flip an album I felt the Self resume control ... then I fell into the album's blackness: a boundless void, an endless ocean in which I could swim as a fish -- the metaphysical equivalent of quicksand...

Then there was a vision I thought of as Self-similarity ... My dorm room had become my only true home; the experiences of the past few hours towered with such intensity that all my memories from further back were lifeless, pale, ancient history. Nonetheless, Ididn't want to pee on my floor or in my trash can. The air seemed unreasonably viscous as I stumbled toward the door and flew through the bone-shakingly bright infinity of the hall. In a flash I slid into the bathroom: the toilet stall became a universe, my urination the process of being, connection with world. There was nothing, nothing whatsoever, besides urination and the sterile forbidden- grime smell of the bathroom. As I finished peeing the walls hiccoughed and screamingly shuddered. The water swirled down the toilet as I automatically flushed. And I was -- literally, not metaphorically -- born again! Emerging from the toilet stall, I felt life as if it were something never felt before -- all full of vibrancy, hyperreality, subtle electricity. I looked at the mirror, saw myself, and tumbled through an abyss ... At that time mirrors were anathema to me; months passed between glances at my own image. But this time I didn't see "me," or rather I did see "me," but in a deeper sense than usual -- I saw a ghost, a heap of wafers barely cohered by some obstinate biological force. White wispy wafers, sebaceously shivering -- oozing repulsively, all apulse to the beat of invisible drumming, wafting through the walls from my dorm room.... I bent to drink. I bent to drink and a thousand veils lifted. All of a sudden I saw all the unconscious rooms of my mind, all in action ... I felt my intuition calculate the angles at which to bend various parts of my body in order to successfully execute the act of drinking. Waist: just so much. No -- that, like before ... divided by walking. I felt my body think by analogy, proceeding on the basis of a weighted average of its actions in previous similar situations (weighted by amount of similarity). Head: so far just like look at ground, minus scratch plus half of waterfountain ... Lips: shrink on contact, make round; torso: twist. "The body has its reasons" -- Yes indeed, and it shares them with the rest of the mind, not to mention the universe! I felt my body think, using the precise process I had previously identified with "higher mind" ... self- similarity, identity of process across scale, functional equivalence, logical level as argument.... I saw, specifically, that the ways of weighting averages were the same in body and mind, that the subtle patterns of reasoning, not just the general processes of analogy, were the same ... I returned to the room hoping desperately not to forget it, and also hoping it was a valid insight, not some kind of phantom. I'd read too many stories of meaningless LSD "discoveries" not to be skeptical, even in my twisted, exalted state....

Warm, warm comfort of the room -- or is that womb? Oh, yes, there's old friend struggle once again -- pulling the rug out from under my feet; eternal contradiction; eternal moment, death/life/death/life/death/life.... My fellow trippers, my cosmic family, everyone else just a bloodfilled body, a spark of the cosmic mind. Gwen was drawing, with magic markers, some kind of picture on the wall. She looked perfect, whole, beautiful, but not like a beautiful woman, more like a tree or mountain, a natural form. Her artistic motions wove pictures through the air; her body and her drawing were united in a four-dimensional scuplture. I hadan inkling of another trip we would have a year later, in which we would hallucinate the same golden luminous castle, covered with winding snakelike spires -- looking into each other's eyes free of confusion, lost in the same transpersonal mindspace, vowing to love each other for life. "I marry you and I see inside your mind." Mike was not having such a good time: he was lying on the bed repeating "Of course!" five hundred time, again and again, in fake operatic tones. The babysitters had got bored and left. I think I'd told them it was all right. I put Jimi Hendrix, Axis, Bold as Love, on the turntable, side two. My mind set off again. I wanted to reach the core of things, the essence. To grab an insight out of here that I could bring back to the temporal world. To be Prometheus, Thief of Fire! I tried to reason as follows: no matter what I think, it ends in cntradiction. Therefore everything is paradox. Why? Because nothing can be solid: there can be absolutely no thing. To draw a boundary is to separate X from X -- which is absurdity. You say the inside and outside are different? But to identify the difference is merely to draw another boundary: victim to the same flow. I realized that my logic contained a million holes. But to the extent that I was convinced by it, I didn't believe in logic or holes. Reasoning about self-contradiction, I contradicted myself continuously... Perfect skepticism: that which will not even permit itself to be formulated.

The final song arrived: the title song, "Axis, Bold as Love." I dove through the music. The onset of the song is slow, sweet, strong; as smooth as the pearly void of the Zen Buddhists ... the music flowed along slopes of invisible angel-down which tickled the cracks in my chapped lips, which made me sing silently and laugh, while the lyrics told fantasies of bright spiraling colors. Images arrested me. The song chased the Skeptic's Tumble from my mind, brought out beauty instead, wild-webbed gold-flowing intricacy:

Anger, he smiles, towering in

shiny metallic purple armor

Queen Jealousy, Envy, waits behind him

Her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground

Blue are the life-giving waters -- taken for granted,

they quietly understand

Once-happy turquoise armies lay opposite ready

But wonder why the fight is on

But they're all bold as love

They're all bold as love

Just ask the Axis ...

My Red is so confident he flashes

trophies of war

and ribbons of euphoria

Orange is young, full of daring,

but very unsteady for the first go-round

My yellow in this case is not so mellow

In fact, I'm trying to say it's frightened like me

And all these emotions of mine keep on holding me

from giving my life

to a rainbow like you

But I'm ... I'm bold as love

But I'm bold as love

Just ask the Axis, he knows everything....

Each of his phantoms, his feeling-constructions, arise and dance with me in turn, clothed in gorgeous dashikis and skins of dragons, leopards, snakes. The emotions rise up from my mind and sail around the room, invading the molecules in the air. As the lyrics dim, the music unravels inexorably -- pattern on pattern of fresh flawless flowing, soft endings suddenly transforming into bright new beginnings, a symphony of delicate balance, afterplay, tying up every tremor left in my body in a kind of bouquet of nonmelodramatic love. And then the silence... The silence which seems to last forever. And then explodes, booms into a herd of thundering drumclouds; a swarm of beats spiraling out and in and out, in orbits too intense for the eye. In the complexity my self was lost; in the intensity my self regained. It was at this point the vision hit me with full force. Suddenly the Skeptic's Tumble, the World as Stack, the self-referentiality of the mind -- everything combined into a huge spot of nothingness. Every object around me, I saw, was a giant abstract red vagina: a living, breathing, pulsing opening, giving birth to everything else in the world. Everything was constantly being birthed by everything else. And everything was constantly making love with everything else, planting the seeds for this birth. Everything was flowing, a flowing and pulsing: flowing in and out of everything else, with a rhythm that was precisely the rhythm of my and everyone else's thoughts, the heartbeat of the universe. The moving was in precisely the form: X, not-X, X, not-X,.... In, Out, In, Out, In, Out,.... Everything was breathing, birthing, loving, pulsing, expanding contradictions into the flow of time. And real objects, people, minds, chairs, walls, music, were just continually regenerated by this flow. Mike was a giant beached whale; his destructive bad-trip mindset was carrying on by itself, self-sufficient and self-producing, each "Of course" birthing him as he birthed it. Gwen's strange expression concealed some dark erotic mystery, but as her eye blinked the veil blew aside, and I saw the currents in her brain, locked in with the pores of her skin and the air in the room and the colors and curves in her drawing. Everything was just a temporary configuration, a network of processes that happened to approximately reproduce itself by the dynamic of universal love-birth. The mindstack, the hierarchy of commands, the patterns of self-similar averaging, were all just configurations of processes, all just attractors in the void. And my awareness was cruising, pulsing and flowing; it leaped from every process of birth, injecting novelty and life. The insightwas perfect; the moment lasted forever. The color red was more magic and vivid than even Gwen's beautiful face. In the end the abstract vaginas and rhythmic In/Out movement proved to be inessential. The basis of the vision was nothing. The universe was open, wide, perfectly clear. I didn't try any more to think or describe it; I didn't care about bringing back insights to the temporal world. Everything just was. Fifteen to thirty minutes? It is still going on.

***

I am not a true psychedelic veteran. Always skeptical of drugs, I sat in on other peoples' trips three or four times before trying it for myself. I liked what I saw, and since then I have never been disappointed with the psychedelic experience; but even so, I have taken LSD only half a dozen times, and hallucinogenic mushrooms a few other times. By way of comparison, consider Terence McKenna, who has written a great deal of interesting things about psychedelic drugs, and reports taking the hallucinogen DMT just about every day. When asked about LSD, he reports that he has taken it "only" 150 or 200 times.

Never again did, in my limited psychedelic experience, did I duplicate the intensity of that trip with Gwen and Mike in my dorm room, described above. That time, somehow, everything went just right. Until the end, at any rate. When the trip was just about to end, I suddenly became quite depressed. It seems incidental now, but it was real and intense at the time. The insight was gone -- the beautiful harmony of the universe; the simple matter-of-fact existence. The humdrum rhythms of everyday thought and life were coming back, and this was a knowledge I couldn't bear. But I did bear it somehow: I'm still here, writing about it. And the echoes of that acid trip still resonate through all my writing, even -- perhaps especially -- my scientific work. The "Mind as Stack" is nothing but the hierarchical network in my theory of mind: pattern/processes building on pattern/processes building on pattern/processes, constructing intricate pyramids of perception, thought and action out of chaos and simplicity. The flow of one idea into the other is nothing other than the heterarchical network, in which each concept stimulates its relatives. The LSD wreaked havoc with the hierarchical network, destroying or deconstructing the standard procedures of behavior, giving the heterarchical network uncharacteristic precedence, letting flow and relationship predominate over mechanism and routine.

Unsurprisingly, Gwen's experience of that trip was quite different from mine. She felt none of my regret or anguish, but neither did she delve so deeply into the center of her mind. She was bedazzled and absorbed by the flood of sensations. Befitting her artistic temperament, it was a profoundly aesthetic experience for her. She felt very close to Mike, as if she were sharing a collective mindspace with him, and felt that I was shutting the two of them out, not letting them into my mind. In truth I wasn'tparticularly social during that trip -- as opposed to some later trips, which were totally focused on Gwen's and my shared experience. I was continuing the private mindspace of my previous trip, which had been a solo; and I was enthralled and encompassed by my solitary quest for insight.

As for Mike, he seemed to be enjoying himself during much of the trip, but the whole experience left a bad taste in his mind. He didn't speak to either of us for a couple years, and then it was only a couple sentences. We both sensed that he felt somehow violated and exposed, as if we had seen too far into the secret caverns of his mind. It wasn't so much his embarrassing behavior (500 "of course"'s, sucking Gwen's navel) as the complete relaxation of all psychological barriers between self and other. I felt quite guilty afterwards for having encouraged him to take the acid: I had thought it might solidify our friendship, but it wound up having the opposite effect. He couldn't handle the feeling of confronting the raw feelings and urges that make up the substrate of our world. In fact, though, we hadn't seen nearly so far into his mind as he thought we had. I was off on my own voyage of discovery, and Gwen's feelings toward him during the trip were purely ones of affection and companionship. He had lost the capacity to distinguish our minds from his own.

***

Anyone who's taken psychedelic drugs will recognize the kind of experiences I'm describing here. The details are different for everyone, and different for every trip, but one thing is common: the deconstruction of reality, the erosion of ontological certainty. Immediate perception of an underlying world, of the arbitrariness of the personal and social categories we use to divide up the world. Stanislav Grof, the pioneer of LSD psychotherapy, has written that "LSD and other psychedelics function more or less as nonspecific amplifiers of the psyche." I would agree with this but would clarify further that this amplification tends to have the consequence of freeing up static, ossified thought systems. LSD frees up the mind from its routines, and thus opens up the possibility of super normal states of ecstasy or despair. It shifts the balance of the dual network, weakening the hierarchical network and letting the heterarchical network run free. It shakes the mind out of the basin of attraction of ordinary consensus reality, giving the possibility of fundamental different states of awareness.

To someone who has had a deep psychedelic experience, the world can never again appear as solid, rigid, and fragmented as it did before. The memory of the solid world dissolving into sensations and relations is always there, hovering in the background. The memory of self, others, and physical objects deconstructing into a shifting web of peacock-feather interrelations. As one of my uncles, a schoolteacher and playwright, said to me recently, "taking acid was one of the big things in my life, no question about it. It's like getting married, or going to college -- I can't imagine how different I'd be if I hadn't had that experience."

This view of psychedelics is borne out by what is known of their neuropsychology. Similar in shape to various neurotransmitters, these molecules subtly affect the ways in which neurons send messages to each other. Thus interfering with the natural course of neurodynamics, they cause the transmission of messages which might normally be suppressed. They disrupt the order of existing cell assemblies, producing informational chaos, and leading to the possibility of a new spate of assembly formation. They are different from other drugs: they have no specific, universal pharmacological effects. They serve exclusively, or primarily, to amplify the intrinsic heterarchical dynamics of mind.

To look at it from a slightly different angle, one may observe that some of our autopoietic thought-systems are so large and so tightly interconnected as to cause us to forget the intrinsic freedom of the component parts. LSD, stimulating interconnections, amplifies the activity of the individual thoughts and thus frees them from their systematic entrainment. Amplification leads to the temporary destruction of routines, habits, patterns. And, by the same token, it leads to awareness of these routines, these self-supporting systems. Change and freedom in these thought-systems naturally commands attention, attention that used to be focused elsewhere. This is awareness by the mind of what it is that the mind is doing. Awareness and routinization are opposed; as it chips away at the latter, LSD broadens the scope of the former. Thus, in my own trip described above, I became aware of (among many other things) the role of my "self" in regulating my activities, and the various calculations involved in bending over to get a drink of water. These processes were disrupted by the general state of activation caused by the LSD, and thus brought to my conscious attention.

This deep-seeing "trippy" state is not a good state of mind for getting things done -- routines are useful in the everyday world, and in order to be effective, they often need to be unquestioned. It is nice to have an hierarchical mental network in good working order. But still, the LSD state is a state of mind wonderfully conducive to insight. Sometimes it is good to stop doing and take a moment to understand what it is we are doing -- to ask, what is this "I" which is doing the doing in the first place.

In the end, what the spiritual quester is working towards is a state of mind somewhere between ordinary waking consciousness and the LSD daze. Rather than accepting mind-systems as absolute, or seeing them dissove entirely, one wants to accept them on a tentative basis -- to trace them out with dotted lines rather than solid lines. Psychedelics have the power to bring this alternate way of viewing the world into very sharp focus. At times they can move one too far into the realm of nihilism -- make the dotted lines a bit too faint, the spaces too much larger than the dots. But, used with wisdom, psychedelics can be a very valuable tool.

***

To use a slightly different language, one might say that psychedelics are just another way of producing mindfulness. They are another way of bringing parts of mindspace to the realization that they are, indeed, parts of mindspace. They are a door to hyper-reality -- a door between the upper levels and the lower levels, beyond the autopoietic mental and bodily knots that prevent the mind/universe from acknowledging its true nature. They stimulate the hierarchical network, thus leading to general spreading activation; they initiate the breaking-free of mental pattern/processes from their standard autopoietic attractors, the liberation of pattern/processes to drift in the sea of "potential mind," of mindspace.

Psychedelics do have certain effects that cannot be explained by this statement, that seem to demand neurophysiological explanation -- the "traces" in the air seen by the LSD-tripper when someone moves their hand come to mind. But nevertheless, it is this heightened "mindfulness" that is the essence of the psychedelic experience. The feeling of ontological anarchy that comes with an acid trip is a result of seeing and feeling the processes by which we build up reality. Understanding the construction of the world, we can no longer believe in the world as real; the ground of our existence disappears, and the only thing left in its place is a swarm of shifting, interproducing forms, without the solidity to which we are accustomed. Psychedelics untie the self-sustaining "knots" by which mind and world are constructed. They amplify the activity of the processes taking part in these knots, and give these processes their own independent life, thus freeing them from the tyranny of the system.

Ups and Downs

The dark side of psychedelics -- shown by the depressing final segment of my own best trip, reported above -- may bear further emphasis. The psychedelic insight, the "general amplification of thought," is only temporary. The brain is given dramatic powers of proprioception, but only temporarily; then it goes back to acting blindly, without knowing what it is doing.

This darker aspect, however, is not unique to insight obtained by chemical means. The "dark night of the soul" is a cliche' among spiritual seekers, and for good reason. No matter what your spiritual path, at some point you are going to find yourself feeling lost. Often this is the point at which an individual gives up their spiritual quest and returns to the hollow but nevertheless comforting routines of ordinary life. But of course, this is the worst time to abandon spirituality. A bad trip or a "dark night of the soul" means that one's autopoietic thought systems, one's mental knots, are straining under the pressure. It means that the higher and lower levels of being are straining toward each other with maximum force. Very often, the dark periods are followed by periods of unprecedented grace and light -- "The darkest hour is right before the dawn."

***

My wife, several years ago, had a vivid experience of deep insight, lasting several months, which followed a roughly similar course to my acid trip. She describes it as follows:

I was standing in the playground with Zar [our son, then 2 years old] reading a book, The Spirit of Zen, and, reading about I don't remember exactly what, I experienced a sudden explosive awareness ... of nothing mattering, of the interrelatedness of all things, the unimportance of daily concerns or what one does, and how everything was beautiful and wonderful. I was in this incredibly high state; everything was just amazing and wonderful and nothing mattered, so I immediately went on to find out more about Zen and to try to maintain this state. I went to talk to Emma [the reverend of a local Zen group] to try to find out what was going on, and she said I was in kensho. I thought that it would last forever because it was so wonderful, and that I would never go back to the way I was; she told me that it would wear off, but I wouldn't believe it. It lasted several months, and it wore off very very gradually; I could feel it wearing off, I just gradually got into a worse and worse state of mind until I was actually quite depressed -- in fact, I got in an incredibly, incredibly worse state than I'd ever been in. In my good experience I learned important lessons about myself, I learned to listen to myself and to do what my self and my comfort levels dictated. But I stopped listening to myself at one point, so I was incredibly miserable; and I knew that this was why I was incredibly miserable, that if I were listening to my inner self I wouldn't be unhappy, but just knowing this, knowing that I should be listening to my inner self, but that I wasn't, made the situation much worse. I think what you need to do to come up again is the same think you need to do to avoid going so low in the first place....

Since that time she has remained a Zen Buddhist, convinced that meditation is the path to happiness and spiritual advancement. She is convinced that Buddhism supplies an instruction manual for dealing with these enchanted states of awareness -- that disappointment following ecstasy is not necessary, but is rather a consequence of mishandling:

Meditation is the way you're supposed to prevent yourself from getting into such a low, funky state -- to hold onto spiritual advances you've made -- and that's the way to get out of it. To listen to yourself, to your inner self and to your body and your mind's needs. Feed your self and give it what you need -- nurture yourself. See, my problem was that I had this wonderful experience and, when you have this wonderful experience, to maintain it and get the most out of it you're supposed to continue to regularly meditate. I never did that, and I still haven't. While I was feeling so awful, I felt good when I meditated, but I hardly ever did meditate. Whenever you meditate you go back into the state, but in order to maintain the state you have to meditate regularly, then you get better and better. Every hour that you meditate you're making gains -- it's cumulative....

The thing about meditation is that it is extremely difficult to meditate when you're in an awful state of mind. It's very difficult to still your mind and actually do it. On the other hand, while you're feeling good and in a good state of mind you don't feel like it and you don't bother, you don't think you need it. And that's how we can neglect taking care of ourselves through meditation, and fall into an awful funk that we can't get out of, because we're not strong enough to do it through meditation because we don't meditate enough.

Another experience in the same basic pattern happened to me about ten years ago, when I was in chronic pain from having twenty to forty cold sores in my mouth for a period of a year. The pain wrenched me and squeezed me until I felt that I was nothing. Everyone around me seemed to be insensate, dead, moronic -- I was in a universe of automata. I couldn't eat or drink without agony, and even opening my mouth to speak was a terribly painful act. My tongue, covered with sores, stuck to the roof of my mouth, and in order to speak I had to peel it off, millimeter by torturous millimeter. For the first time ever I contemplated suicide -- not that I really thought it was the rational thing to do, but I was just so sick of being in all this pain. Then suddenly, one day, it turned around. Perhaps the pain was a little less than the previous day -- sufferers of chronic pain are incredibly sensitive to slight upward or downward shifts in their conditions. Also, I had been reading Nietzsche again: he was also a chronic pain sufferer, who had combated his pain with the formula amor fati. Love of fate! Love your pain, thank it for all it has given you! My pain made my life hell, yes, but one day it would be gone. And could I deny that the altered state of consciousness induced by my pain gave me greater insight into things? It was just like when, as a child, I had been wracked by 102 to 106 degree fevers. I had seen hallucinations, dancing figures in the air, and I hadunderstood everything. I had seen into my parents' minds. I had seen the place we go after we die, where our bodies are gone and our minds just barely blur into each other, not quite combined and not quite separate. The fever had been terrible, but it had brought insight. Similarly, these cold sores were a plague on my life, they made each day almost unlivable -- they made going to sleep each night feel like an infinite reward, like a combination of Utopia, orgasm, and return to the womb. But they helped me to understand. Once the sores receded, I realized, the insights would stay. As soon as I realized this, my mind filled with new insights, stronger insights. I felt I understood everything. I wrote delirious verses:

Songs of gently-bursting exuberance --

I cannot help but sing!

I cannot help but dance --

my feet weave trails of laughing through the air

I am the heart, the mind, the lungs of the world!

The world breathes through me!

I wrote a thousand page science fiction novel, called Wargasm (still unpublished -- any highly adventurous fiction publishers out there in the audience?). I wrote a rambling, inventive nonfiction manuscript called Transnihilistic Visions, containing many of the same ideas that, now, nine years later, I am presenting in this book.

Eventually the cold sore attack faded -- but was I happy? Right away I was less unhappy, that's for sure. No longer was I suffering daily pain. But the ecstasy was gone too. No more crazed, white-hot insights, following me around day and night. Finally my mood was lifted by external events -- I got my Ph.D., got my first job, and moved across the country; we had our first child, Zarathustra.

The point is that, no matter what ones route to spiritual growth, pain and pleasure are both going to emerge, most likely in an extremely mixed-up fashion. And, in the light of the theory of emotion described above, this is not at all surprising. For pain and pleasure are, themselves, substantially defined in terms of each other. In the long run, you can't have one without the other. The Realm of Bliss transcends pain and pleasure; it transcends ups and downs. For these are aspects of the individual organism, and the essence of Bliss is that it transcends ego boundaries. One's body expands to encompass the whole universe. Every concept's "body" -- the mental borderline region which separates it from other concepts -- is transcended, blending into the entire universe. Individuality is retained, but only provisionally, only as one pattern among others. Some patterns are fulfilled, causing pleasure; others are frustrated, causing pain; but the organisms feeling these pleasures and pains are just patterns floating among all the others, and so emotion as we understand it from a "realistic" point of view does not exist.

Proprioception of Thought

To lend a different flavor to the discussion of psychedelics, let us now turn to the philosophical thought of David Bohm, the late quantum-physicist-turned-philosopher. One of the last books Bohm wrote before his death, Thought As a System, is wonderfully relevant to these issues.

Bohm's views on mind are substantially in sympathy with the psynet model. He pictures thought as a system of reflexes -- habits, patterns -- acquired from interacting with the world and analyzing the world. He understands the self-reinforcing, self-producing nature of this system of reflexes -- the emergence of autopoietic subsystems. And he diagnoses our thought-systems as being infected by a certain malady, a malady which he calls the absence of proprioception of thought. Though Bohm's language is unfamiliar, it turns out that what he is talking about is very familiar indeed. His particular slant on mind and spirit will help us to clarify the distinction between ordinary and enlightened states of consciousness, and thus to finish off the train of thought begun at the end of Chapter 6

Proprioceptors are the nerve cells by which the body determines what it is doing -- by which the mind knows what the body is doing. To understand the limits of your proprioceptors, stand up on the ball of one foot, stretch your arms out to your sides, and close your eyes. How long can you retain your balance? Your balance depends on proprioception, on awareness of what you are doing. Eventually the uncertainty builds up and you fall down. People with damage to their proprioceptive system can't stay up as long as as the rest of us. A friend of mine suffered this sort of damage as an indirect result of a serious skiing accident -- it took him years to recover fully.

According to Bohm,

... [T]hought is a movement -- every reflex is a movement really. It moves from one thing to another. It may move the body or the chemistry or just simply the image or something else. So when 'A' happens 'B' follows. It's a movement.

All these reflexes are interconnected in one system, and the suggestion is that they are not in fact all that different. The intellectual part of thought is more subtle, but actually all the reflexes are basically similar in structure. Hence, we should think of thought as a part of the bodily movement, at least explore that possibility, because our culture has led us to believe that thought and bodily movement are really two totally different spheres which are no basically connected. But maybe they are not different. The evidence is that thought is intimately connected with the whole system.

If we say that thought is a reflex like any other muscular reflex -- just a lot more subtle and more complex and changeable -- then we ought to be able to be proprioceptive with thought. Thought should be able to perceive its own movement. In the process of thought there should be awareness of that movement, of the intention to think and of the result which that thinking produces. By being more attentive, we can be aware of how thought produces a result outside ourselves. And then maybe we could also be attentive to the results it produces within ourselves. Perhaps we could even be immediately aware of how it affects perception. It has to be immediate, or else we will never get it clear. If you took time to be aware of this, you would be bringing in the reflexes again. So is such proprioception possible? I'm raising the question....

"Proprioception of thought" is a fancy phrase, a weird concept, a brain-stretcher. But a very similar idea has been proposed within the Zen Buddhist religion, under the much simpler name of mindfulness. In the words of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

[T]he seed of mindfulness -- when manifested, has the capacity of being aware of what is happening in the present moment. If we take one peaceful, happy step and we know that we are taking a peaceful, happy step, mindfulness is present. Mindfulness is an important agent for our transformation and healing, but our seed of mindfulness has been buried under many layers of forgetfulness and pain for a long time. We are rarely aware that we have eyes that see clearly, a heart and a liver that function well, and a non-toothache. We live in forgetfulness, ignoring and crushing the precious elements of happiness that are already in us and around us. If we breathe in and out and see that the tree is there, alive and beautiful, the seed of our mindfulness will be watered, and it will grow stronger.....

Mindfulness makes things like our eyes, our heart, our non-toothache, the beautiful moon and the trees deeper and more beautiful. If we touch these wonderful things with mindfulness, they will reveal their full splendor. When we touch our pain with mindfulness, we will begin to transform it. ...

Mindfulness is something we can believe in. It is our capacity of being aware of what is going on in the present moment. To believe in mindfulness is safe, and not at all abstract. When we drink a glass of water, and know that we are drinking a glass of water, mindfulness is there.

This is just a different way of formulating familiar ideas from Zen Buddhist philosophy. But it is an interesting reformulation indeed.

Mindfulness is the mind acting, and knowing exactly what it is doing as it is acting. Mindfulness is mindspace knowing that it is mindspace. In other words, and without stretching things at all, mindfulness is proprioception of thought. Bohm's is a scientist's formulation. It begins with the behaviorist view of the mind as a collection of reflex-arcs, the system-theorist's conception of thought-systems as self-producing, and the physiological fact of proprioception -- and it arrives at the same conclusion as Thich Nhat Hanh did, by pure intuition and experience, with ultimate simplicity. The conclusion is that, if mind were immediately aware of what it were doing, we would be a lot better off.

Mind cannot become aware of itself by logical analysis, or by feeling. Mindfulness is a matter of directing attention toward the lower realms: anandamaya, pranamaya, vignanamaya. But this "attention" being directed is coming down from the upper realms, from above manomaya. In this way mindfulness is in fact a form of deep contemplation, a form of intuition -- vignanamaya. Mindfulness is a bridge between the upper and lower levels, a shaft of light piercing the mental knots that bind up manomaya and pranamaya. Applying deep intuition to itself, the mind becomes aware that its internal systems are just held together by autopoiesis, without any absolute solidity or reality. The mind becomes aware that, in reality, its forms and patterns are just floating in anandamaya.

***

Zen is not the only wisdom tradition to arrive at the same conclusion as Bohm. Yoga exercises are largely exercises in proprioception. They teach control of breathing and heartbeat, and in their slow methodical body motions they teach body awareness, oneness with the body -- enhanced overall proprioception. The concept is that, through improved proprioception of the body, proprioception of thought will follow.

The reader versed in Western philosophy will note that mindfulness and proprioception are also very Schopenhauerian notions. True reality, according to Schopenhauer, was chiefly perceived through willing, through the feeling of the body responding to one's commands -- in short, through proprioception. Creation and appreciation of art, particularly music, was said to give a similar feeling of immediate awareness, implying that thought is most proprioceptive when it is most creative, a conclusion that makes eminent sense.

Thich Nhat Hanh, in the Zen tradition, promotes meditation (rather than, say, yoga exercises or mushrooms or artistic creation) as a path toward mindfulness. He places particular emphasis on mindfulness of breathing: "Breathing in, flower; Breathing out, fresh".... From mindfulness of basic body processescomes, gradually, heightened mindfulness of the abstract processes of thought. He focuses on mindfulness of body processes because these are simplest to understand. But he also talks about samyojama, mental knots -- which, we have seen, are basically nothing other than self-supporting thought-systems:

When someone says something unkind to us, for example, if we do not understand why he said it and we become irritated, a knot will be tied in us. The lack of understanding is the basis for every internal knot. If we practice mindfulness, we can learn the skill of recognizing a knot the moment it is tied in us and finding ways to untie it. Internal formations need our full attention as soon as they form, while they are still loosely tied, so that the work of untying them will be easy.

Autopoietic thought systems, systems of emotional reflexes, guide our behaviors in all sorts of ways. Thich Nhat Hanh deals with many specific examples, from marriage woes to warfare. In all cases, he suggests, simple sustained awareness of one's own actions and thought processes -- simple mindfulness -- will "untie the knots," and free one from the bundled, self-supporting systems of thought/feeling/behavior.

Psychedelic Psychotherapy

Now let us turn from Bohm to another stellar modern thinker, the transpersonal psychologist and psychedelic psychotherapist Stanislaw Grof. Among all the key thinkers of the discipline of transpersonal psychology, it is, in my view, Grof who has come closest to the essence of spiritual experience.

One of the common criticisms of psychedelic insights is that they are short-lived. More ofthen than not, they fade when the drug leaves one's body! However, one must not make the mistake of thinking that ephemerality dilutes the power of a mystical experience. In a very powerful sense, insight is eternal: once you are in hyperspace, the temporal continuum doesn't matter. Time is a creature of the physical, mental and body worlds: there is no time in anandamaya, and even in quantum-maya time only has a limited validity.

But even so, there is something very satisfying about integrating mystical insights into everyday life. This is important with all mystical insights, but it is especially crucial with drug experiences, due to their intensity and short lifespan. This kind of integration is the aim of Stan Grof's psychedelic psychotherapy. In this therapy, instead of merely talking about their problems, patients use LSD as a tool for seeing to the core of their problems. The therapist guides their trips and helpsthem, between trips, to gracefully meld their psychedelic insights with their daily lives. As Grof says,

The main objective of psychedelic therapy is to create optimal conditions for the subject to experience the ego death and the subsequent transcendence into the so-called psychedelic peak experience. It is an ecstatic state, characterized by the loss of boundaries between the subject and the objective world, with ensuing feelings of unity with other people, nature, the entire universe, and God. In most instances this experience is contentless and is accompanied by visions of brilliant white or golden light, rainbow spectra or elaborate designs resembling peacock feathers. It can, however, be associated with archetypal figurative visions of deities or divine personages from various cultural frameworks. LSD subjects give various descriptions of this conditions, based on their educational background and intellectual orientation. They speak about cosmic unity, unio mystica, mysterium tremendum, cosmic consciousness, union with God, Atman-Brahman union, Samadhi, satori, moksha, or the harmony of the spheres.

This peak experience is intended to help the patient transcend their psychopathology -- a radical shift in emphasis from conventional psychotherapy, with its focus on the verbal exploration of the roots of pathology. In LSD therapy the objective is to untie the knots directly, via immediate experience of their non-absolute, self-producing nature, rather than indirectly via talk.

Grof speaks, not of mental knots, but rather of "COEX systems" -- systems of compressed experience. A COEX system is a collection of memories and fantasies, from different times and places, bound together by the self-supporting process dynamics of the mind. Elements of a COEX system are often joined by similar physical elements, or at least similar emotional themes. An activated COEX system determines a specific mode of perceiving and acting in the world. A COEX system is an attractor of mental process dynamics, a self-supporting subnetwork of the mental process network, and, in Buddhist terms, a samyojama or knot. LSD therapy unties these knots, weakens the grip of these COEX systems. The therapist is there to assist the patient's mental processes, previously involved in the negative COEX system, in reorganizing themselves into a new and more productive configuration. This therapeutic process has been dramatically successful on many occasions, and has enjoyed especial success with alcoholic patients. The thought-systems causing alcohol addiction are, it seems, particularly easily "dissolved" by the ecstasy of the psychedelic experience.

Stan Grof's emphasis on the compression of thoughts and experiences is both interesting and important. For, if one takes a computational view, pattern itself is just a different way of looking at compression. According to algorithmic informationtheory, a pattern in some entity is just some process that allows one to produce that entity in a particularly simple way. Linguistic systems are patterns in the world in precisely this sense -- they simplify the world for easy memory and comprehension. Grof's concept of compression brings us back once again to the pattern philosophy, the linguistic nature of the world, and the psynet model.

To recognize a pattern in something is to compress it into something simpler -- a representation, a skeleton form. It is inevitable that we compress our experiences into what Grof calls COEX's. This is the function of the hierarchical network: to come up with routines, procedures, that will function adequately in a wide variety of circumstances. We can never know exactly why we do what we do when we lift up our arm to pick up a glass of water, when we bend over to get a drink, when we produce a complex sentence like this one, when we solve an equation or seduce a woman. We do not need to know what we do: the neural network adaptation going on in our brain figures things out for us. It compresses vast varieties of situations into simple, multipurpose hierarchical brain structures.

But having compressed, we no longer have access to what we originally experienced, only to the compressed form. We have lost some information. This is the ultimate reason for what Bohm calls the absence of proprioception of thought. It is the reason why mindfulness is so difficult. Thought does not know what it is doing because thought can do what it does more easily without knowing. Proceeding blindly, without mindfulness, thought can wrap up complex aggregates in simple packages and proceed to treat the simple packages as if they were whole, fundamental, real. This is the key to abstract symbolic thought, to language, to music, mathematics, art. But it is also the root of human problems.

Thus we arrive at the conclusion that intelligence, itself, rests on the lack of mindfulness. It rests on compression: on the substitution of packages for complex aggregates, on the substitution of tokens for diverse communities of experiences. It requires us to forget the roots of our thoughts and feelings, in order that we may use them as raw materials for building new thoughts and feelings. But this forgetfulness, after it has helped us, then turns around and stabs us in the back. It works against us as well as for us. Intelligence is a mixed bag. Intelligence requires the coordination of hierarchical and heterarchical networks -- but the insight given us by the heterarchical network is systematically blunted by the compression intrinsic in the hierarchical network. Perfect coordination is never possible.

***

A mathematical perspective may be useful here -- as we reach the crux of all the issues raised in the previous pages. Proprioception of thought, in the end, is the same as reversibility. It is timelessness. And I have already pointed out that timelessness is only possible for two state-of-consciousnessstructures: the quaternions and octonions, as reflected in the Perceptual-Cognitive Loop and the loop of spiritual awareness. These states of consciousness embody proprioception of thought. Within the present moment, as embodied by either of these structures, there is proprioception. But when one moves to more intricate structures, making up complex objects in the mind and world, one loses this reversibility. It is no longer possible to move backwards as one moves forwards. The loss of proprioception is, in essence, the introduction of reversible time.

In other words, compression is inevitable if one wants complex structures: it is not there in the moment of consciousness, rather, it constitutes the movement from consciousness to unconsciousness. Proprioception is an ideal which exists in the moment: the message of wisdom traditions is to focus on the timelessness of the moment, instead of on the time-bound forms that are created by the moment. On the inside of the moment rather than the apparently real forms that are constructed in the movement from one moment to the next. Compression is irreversibility is pattern; pattern and timelessness are bound up, each one leading to the other; and the recognition of this binding-together it itself both a pattern and a timeless, spiritual intuition.

Bohm and Thich Nhat Hanh are optimists, in the sense that they believe proprioception can be indefinitely extended. This is an admirable point of view, but in the end, it is not quite a correct one. It ignores the presence of the sheaths, their palpable existence in the domain of hyper-reality. It is just one side of the coin. Proprioception is always there, but it is always absent too. You can't ignore compression, irreversibility and evil, any more than you can ignore wisdom, insight, timelessness and good. They are all there, and all part of the same continuum, transcending the individual and the universal -- the same continuum which is revealed by the guiding light of Being, the pattern flow of anandamaya.

***

Thich Nhat Hanh, whose views on mindfulness I have quoted above, goes along with many other commentators in blaming modern society for the rampant lack of mindfulness he observes around him. Alcohol, TV, junk food and the commuter culture are pinpointed as the culprits. But surely this misses the main point. The ancient Orientals were not such a universally enlightened people. China's bloody and tumultuous history is evidence of this, as is the repressive nature of traditional Oriental culture. Thich Nhat Hanh's own country, Vietnam, is hardly a paradigm case of peace, balance and harmony. The truth is that, while aspects of modern culture certainly work against the quest for deep insight, the real problem lies in the nature of mind itself. Modern culture is not responsible for the sheaths obscuring Pure Being from itself. Even primitive tribal cultures lack mindfulness to some degree -- though they are closer to Thich Nhat Hanh's ideal than Oriental or Occidental culture. In terms of Combs' reading of Gebser, none ofthe structures of consciousness escapes the fundamentally irreversibility of compression, the non-proprioceptiveness of the unconscious. They merely express this compression in different sorts of ways.

This said, however, it must be admitted that there may exist differences of degree. Mindfulness may be easier in a tribal setting because life is simpler. We, in our culture, rely on intelligence for nearly everything. Twelve or more years of school are required in order to teach basic cultural competence. This reliance on the symbolic and abstract seems to carry with it a systematic lack of mindfulness. Essentially, the more complex the tasks one has to carry out, the more difficult it is to be mindful of one's actions. It's not so hard to be mindful while walking, or picking strawberries, or washing dishes. Much more difficult when, say, writing a book like this, or solving an equation, or manipulating columns of numbers in a spreadsheet. In these instances one has to think fast, and strain one's mind to encompass more and more ideas, operations, transformations. One's mind is strained to the limit already, without the additional task of monitoring itself. In a sense, it seems, cultures based on pushing the mind to the limit naturally work against proprioception of thought. Modern culture embraces the hierarchical and tries to ignore the heterarchical.

But there is also a sense in which mindfulness is necessary for a complex culture like ours. TV, books, cars and movies are all the products of intensely creative minds. And the creative process relies essentially on deep awareness of mindspace. In order to carry out deep creative innovations, the mind must be self-proprioceptive, to whatever degree of approximation it can muster: it must be intensely and probingly aware of what it is doing. Mindfulness is not useful for rote brainwork, but it is crucial for creative brainwork. As we push toward a more advanced culture, it may be that work will become more creative, and mindfulness will once again become economically useful as well as personally and socially important. We may eventually work back to the level of mindfulness achieved in early tribal cultures. Or perhaps, we may attain a yet higher level -- though never perfection. We have a greater challenge to meet: the mindfulness of highly complex shared heterarchical process networks, which carry out amazingly intricate tasks.

The bottom line is, there's no easy way out. As Thich Nhat Hanh suggests, we may work to live as mindfully as possible. As Grof suggests, we may use chemical means to help the exceptionally unmindful to transcend their more acute problems (although, since LSD was made illegal in the US, Grof has in fact shifted to a breathing-oriented therapy technique). But we can never completely solve the problem of non-proprioception, because it is intrinsic to the dynamics of mind. Mindspace is pattern space, it requires compression in order to generate complex forms; but with compression comes unmindfulness. Thus the very intricacy and complexity of mindspace is responsible for its reflexive blindness, its partial inability to see itself.

The parable of Goethe's Faust is thus seen to be incredibly apt. Faust sold his soul to the Devil, in exchange for an understanding of the world -- i.e., in exchange for the development and flowering of his own mindspace. And this is exactly what the universe itself has done. The universe has bought its immense beauty and intricacy, at the cost of selling off fragments of its soul. It has created forms using autopoiesis -- and these forms then stick in its throat, prevent its parts from seeing the whole, from seeing their true nature. But fortunately, there is still some soul left! There are still enlightened minds, tremendous experiences, perfect moments. There is still the experience of the world as hyperreal -- the infusion of anandamaya into the mind, loosening up forms and creating a smooth two-way flow of information throughout all the levels of being. Slowly, and in a way we can hardly understand, we may be able to help mindspace to heal its self-inflicted wounds -- bringing the universe to a point where the structural identity of individual and cosmic awareness becomes more dominant, and the sheaths that create forms and cloak being melt a little further into the background.

Philip K. Dick expressed this same feeling by saying that the universe, which was perfect and healthy, also had a sick twin universe -- a universe with a flaw. We, he said, live in the sick twin universe, Hyperuniverse II. But the divine entity has invaded our universe, and is attempting to cure things. This theme is explored brilliantly in his novels The Divine Invasion and Valis. Although the details of his visions are odd and often amusing, I sympathize entirely with the core feelings underlying them. I would add only that we are all this divine invader. We all have the power to put more self-awareness back in mind-space. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, "A bodhisattva doesn't have to be perfect. Anyone who is aware of what is happening and who tries to wake other people up is a bodhisattva. We are all bodhisattvas, doing our best." By experiencing hyper-real ecstasy in its various guises, we are all psychedelic psychotherapists -- healing ourselves, each other and the world. We are all mental knots, blocking the free flow of information -- and we are all untying these knots, enabling and surfing on this free flow. This is the wonder and the paradox of being.

The End

We have worked up, fairly gradually, through the levels of the hierarchy of Being. Having finished with Intuition and Bliss, it is time to tackle Being. But Being does not deserve its own chapter, for obvious reasons. I have nothing to say about Pure Being at all, because Pure Being is, by definition, indescribable. It is the same as pure Nothingness. It has no qualities, and hence it has all qualities -- because it does not have the quality "not-X" any more than it has the quality "X".

Pure Being is a singularity in the Circle of Being, in that it contains all elements of the hierarchy, and is contained by all elements in the hierarchy. It interpenetrates everything, turning Mind to Intuition, World to Quanta, and Body to Bliss. Yet this does not eliminate the particular appropriateness of Being's place in the hierarchy, next to the two realms of Quanta and Bliss.

Quantum gravity studies the emergence of the physical universe out of Pure Being. It studies the emergence of the universe, and particles with properties, out of utter Nothing. Pure Being/Nothingness, however, is an emphatically unscientific concept, quite different from the "vacuum" as studied in quantum theory. It does not admit to experiment, only experience.

Wisdom traditions study the emergence of the mental, intuitive, experiential universe out of Pure Being. Pure Being pushes the fuzziness and chanciness of anandamaya to an ultimate extreme, in which everything is so fuzzy and chancy that it is not really there any more, not in any tangible way.

Each of us can recognize Pure Being, within and outside ourselves. Pure Being is there in the timelessness of the present moment -- in the reversible structure of the Perceptual-Cognitive Loop and the loop of spiritual awareness, which guide our minds and lives. Pure Being is there, in each instant, as the Perceptual-Cognitive Loop creates the forms that obstruct Being from itself. It is Being which obscures itself from itself: and the question " why?" is the greatest koan of all, the mother of all koans, and a perfect point at which to bring these diverse explorations to an end.

2011-12-11T20:10:00.006+01:00

Those who will live, you screw them up
a poem by Mario Bortolotto - English version by Laila Chris Burden

God has made me likely
to admire the unusual
to be cautious and risky

God is the guilty one
He does not want to see my ugly face in heaven
He does not want my sweet urine
on heavenly car bumpers
therefore he put old bambas on me
He breastfed me with books
and made me walk in infected restrooms

It was Him who made me watch Tom and Jerry
I am despising animation movies
I am not finding anything funny anymore
and my bad mood is His responsibility
I bought an English woolen hat and tried to fund fondness
became buddy of the guys
and was cordial to old ladies
hung out with communists
serenaded with a bunch of happy kids
ate pizza and laughed at nasty jokes

The old ladies despise me
The old ladies want my scalp at the tip of a bayonet
the kids set Butch, the merciless, on my back
and the communists kicked me out of the bar
'cause later at that night, being beyond hammered,
I asked for some Blues and ordered a Budweiser

God is now into setting all the scum of humankind on my back
the kind old ladies look at me disgusted
God, I cannot hold up my belches
I adopted a scabby dog
and not even the cats want to have a chat with me

God, I am returning the English woolen hat
there is a girl in Osasco who doesn't write me anymore
there is another one who ran away to Manhattan
and another got married to a clerk
a clerk earns more cash than I do
a clerk is a millionaire next to me

God, I only own some Beat books
and a few Blues records
the communists despise Blues
the communists bought one more Volkswagen van
they didn't let me in not even in the trunk
the communists don't read my poems

God, the ugliest man in town is my friend
nobody hangs out with him
and the guy doesn't like to be alone

God, this guy reads Olavo Bilac aloud
and does performances under the pole light

God, I've been applauding my only friend
God, I think I am less than a clerk
I have been feeling less than a clerk
I've been talking to a cookie can
I've been drinking too much in order to get amused by the cookie can talk

God, the cookies are so appetizing
I cry when I think of eating them
God, I don't know any other prayer
But I pray a lot
Look, I am gonna go away

I am gonna carve in Aleijadinho statue
I am gonna think up a plan with terrible consequences
for Mineiro singers
I'm only gonna save the asses of those who are already dead
Only a boozer is patient to read what I write

God, I looked for a rehabilitation center
and my brother was at the reception desk
smiling at me and asking for my personal data

God, I need to get cleaned up
I ring the bell and she never answers it
I go to her house and she leaves a message with her mom
the waitresses don't write down my order
the homeless don't ask for alms
even zits are threatening to leave me
God, you know how to get things done
keep the English woolen hat
I am going home
gonna scratch the walls
and come up with a getaway
I am gonna screw up the guardian angel who let me down
God, I want my angel back
the guy who eats hot dogs has an angel
the newsstand guy who has never read Bukowski has an angel
the clerk has an angel
even Bukowski if I am not mistaken had an angel
only I don't
I demand my angel back
I didn't make him indecent proposals
like people are spreading
I wouldn't be able to
I have been crawling after women
I will find Marion Zimmer Bradley awesome if they want me to
God, I am capable of doing shameful things for the lips of a lady
Give my angel back, God damn it
God I think I am happy and I don't know it but so what?
who really wants this happy crowd on their foot?
this healthy slime?

God, I got tired of being kind
of exhaling the common-place
to a happy audience
God, the trunk is empty
they sold my grave to the bank teller
who really wants a grave?
I am distilling arrogance and breathing
you are smiling you cocksucker
I think I got the message.

2011-12-10T19:56:00.004+01:00

2011-12-08T15:32:00.001+01:00

2011-12-08T03:10:00.005+01:00

2011-12-06T04:01:00.005+01:00

In less than 20 days I will be flying to San Francisco... Weird feeling :-D

L.A. and Vegas must wait for us. Dec. 31st, 10:00 Vegas time - Graceland Chapel

2011-12-04T01:12:00.000+01:00

2011-11-30T16:25:00.000+01:00

O que são os CHAKRAS?

Os chakras podem ser alinhados em apenas uma sessão. Abaixo, darei uma breve explicação do que são os chakras e onde se encontram. Para saber mais sobre os chakras, visite a nossa página de Chakras.

- O Chakra Coronário está localizado acima da cabeça, ligando as pessoas com a espiritualidade e com Deus. A cor relacionada à esse chakra é o viloleta.
- O Chakra do 3º Olho está localizado entre as sombrancelhas. Esse é o chakra da percepção e do conhecimento do Universo. Ë o centro do poder da mulher e representa a criação. A cor relacionada à esse chakra é o roxo.
- O Chakra da Garganta está localizado na base do pescoço. Sua função é a comunicação com o físico e o psíquico. É na garganta que está localizado a criatividade do ser humano. A cor relacionada à esse chakra é o azul claro.
- O Chakra do Coração está localizado no meio do peito. As emoções, o amor universal e o amor ao próximo estão ligados à esse chakra. Duas cores podem ser usadas nesse chakra: o verde e o rosa.

- O Chakra do Plexo Solar está localizado abaixo do chakra do coração. É o centro de força do homem. A comida que ingerimos está associada com esse centro de energia. A cor relacionada à esse chakra é o amarelo.
- O Chakra do Umbigo está ligado com a purificação. As primeiras impressões e os sentimentos antigos estão relacionados com esse chakra. Também é o centro sexual. A cor relacionada à esse chakra é o laranja.
- O Chakra da Base está associado com os genitais. Esse chakra é a porta para a Vida e a Morte, o Nascimento e o Renascimento. Tem uma ligação profunda com a Terra, ligando a pessoa com a vida novamente. A cor relacionada à esse chakra é o vermelho.

Back again and again and so forth and so on...

2011-11-21T15:27:00.011+01:00

Hey brothers and sisters! I know that there aren't many people who read my blog. I don't blame them because I don't post here regularly. I write in broken English and that might be another reason why people don't find my writings worth being read. Nevertheless, in case there is someone out there, this post is for you. Hey. Wait a minute. There is me. I am the one who reads every single post I type. I am the one who watches my random YouTube videos I share. I've started this spot for no one else, but me. After reading a magazine article on my bio... (maybe you are asking yourselves" Why would she be in a magazine in first place? I am asking that very question too. But there is a reason and it is kind of intrinsic, interwoven, complex and simple simultaneously... don't wanna write about it on this post.) Well, so there was I reading this article on my persona, I figured out that this blog has become anything but my journal. I left it out. I love my blog. I love my writings and my deep thoughts. I was turning this digital diary into anything less of me. I had been distant. I was distant of myself. I don't even know where I had been. I ran into me a couple of months ago and looked at my reflection into the mirror (not literally) and said to myself: THIS HAS GOT TO STOP. And here I am fighting with my warmed up wrists against this HP Pavilion keyboard that is heating not only my members, but above all my heart. I like drawing hearts although this may seem cheesy to my senses. I do have a heart. I've got a big one. My heart is as big as my soul, as the universe itself. I have got to let it pump more than just red and white cells. My heart is enormous and so is my capacity of writing again. I am not sure whether I will get back on writing poetry. I don't know whether I will restart posting college papers (as I am back in school, PSYCHOLOGY is my new major), or I will continue posting random funny or stupid files made by others. I just know that I am back in the blogging business. I might have found my religion. I did find my favorite workout: Pilates. Getting married in Vegas is a huge three-thumbs up. I quit drinking once and for all (my best change). I don't poison myself with anger and panic syndrome that was once mistaken by depression, however depression played a major role in my psyche. Being back here for real (dunno for how long, as I know I will be busier and busier in 2012) will give me the opportunity of a new existence. I am being reborn in me and gettind married to my heart... until death do us apart. Wow!
Welcome back Ms Burden ;-D
"If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve." Lao Tzu

2011-11-19T10:40:00.002+01:00

Yale Open Video Courses

2011-11-17T11:18:00.000+01:00

Watch it on Academic Earth

Fashion inspiration...

2011-11-11T23:11:00.007+01:00

Never have I written here about fashion or clothes or things that would put my blog in jeopardy. That is the thing. Everything is broken apart. I am lacking sense of style. I am lacking sense of being (... to be continued!) Or not? Why not? Maybe I have found what I've been looking out. My cat Pancho Villa is lying his front paws on my legs while I type this post. It is not an easy act for me to be here hitting keys that should mean anything deep and it may release the burden I've been carrying. Or have I? I guess no more. Why? Maybe because the truth is that there is no burden at all. The truth is that there has never been one. There are only pieces or bits of me pulsating, like heartbeats that can be felt by touching the thumb on one's wrist. I have got some much on my chest to blurt out. I am happy like I've never been before. It feels weird to donate my non-free time to leave here a post on total unburden. Is it "unburden" a real word? I don't even care as my days have become longer and my air purer. Let me take today for example. I started this dawn with a three-way chat on fb that was meant to be surreal. Amilton, Nico (long-time-no-see-old friends of mine), and I had this delicious long mad chat where we reminisced about everything anyone can possibly imagine. I had a blast. I was thrilled for having recalled so many teenage parties, stupidities, and wildness. I loved everything I did. I love everything I do. I am loving my next vacation plans. I am loving being me. For the first time? Nope. I have always been told that my will-power is hard to be understood. However, it is real. I program things and they simply happen. I am unbelievable. (to be continued again...) Well, here i am working on this post for the fourth time. I am exhaling joy. Joy Division. Before and After Depression. Is depression totally gone or Lexapro has found in me the perfect lab rat? I don´t care what the truth is. My truth is what I must take into account. I am typing in a coffee shop and the noise is just killing me. Let me play some music and put on the headphones. Yo La Tengo. Better. People´s voices make my mind confused. I am tired. I am gonna sleep on the plane. Yeah. Am going home. I am so gonna rest and sleep in. Sleep and make my days count slower. Slooooower. I am not in the mood to give out details maybe because I don't have precise plans. I just wanna hang out, veg, free my mind. Gotta make an important phone call. I want to cook, for sure. I want to eat chicken. Gosh, I am supposed to quit eating animals. Am drinking coffee and digging up a hole in my stomach. Am not concerned about that now. Keep on moving. Keep on dancing. Keep on chanting. Keep unclogging blood vessels. I love the now. I love the NOW! Why Jennifer Hewit's photos? Dunno exactly. To call new readers' attention. To break a habit. To cite that I watch Ghost Whisperes. I like her smile. I like her character's clothes - Melinda Gordon. I am not gonna wear anything like that but it pleases me too see them. As you could read, I ended up not writing about fashion or style. Nor would I. I lack in style and forever will. I don't give a crap on fashion.Voilá!

Bathroom: To dream that you are in the bathroom, relates to your instinctual urges. You may be experiencing some burdens/feelings and need to "relieve yourself". Alternatively, a bathroom symbolizes purification and self-renewal. You need to cleanse yourself, both emotionally and psychologically.

2011-11-11T15:05:00.003+01:00

Pancho Villa is two years old now... Awh

2011-11-11T05:15:00.002+01:00

http://www.soulsofdistortion.nl/2012_freemasons_revelations.html

2011-11-07T02:07:00.000+01:00

Heartbeats » By Andreas Nilsson from The Knife on Vimeo.

Reposting from a long time ago...

2011-11-05T17:27:00.000+01:00

Dear Laila,

I completely understand how you feel. I feel that way more often than I actually should, more than anybody should, to tell you the truth. I feel lonely up here too, there are friends, there are colleagues, classmates, my family, but it is not the same thing. I have my husband, my seven cats. But there is always something that I lack, some strange feeling of yearning, a veiled desire for being consumed by something/someone, a longing for fusion. I don't say that I am not happy with all that I have, I am, and very much, but there is something definitely missing. I try not to think about it, you know? Given that I don't understand this feeling that invades me more often than not, I just try to leave it somewhere inside, somewhere I can just pretend not to see. Maybe it's not only me, maybe it's not only you. I think that we feel that way because of the form with which our society has become. We don't have anything that is really, really solid nowadays. Everything is fluid and escapes us, there is nothing definite, nothing definitive. And I think I miss that. I miss what is concrete.

I also work at home. And sometimes it is really bad. Ok, I only have my translations to work with, but I cannot bring myself to have the discipline I need in order to keep the house tidy and study. I basically don't do anything. I feel more depressed than I actually confess. During the afternoons, I sleep. I cannot bring myself to keep my eyes open. My body just gets lazy and I need to sleep. I just need. I can't resist. It is stronger than I am. In the past, around three years ago, I used to feel so depressed that I just wouldn't leave the house. I didn't want to talk to people, I didn't want to see how the day was outside. I think College has saved me, so to speak. It is a commitment, something I have to do, that pushes me for leaving, for going outside. If I weren't studying at the moment, I would probably be considering life on Mars or something. At the same time that I love to study, I just can't stand it. And that because I just don't want to do anything.

Don't think you're alone on the suicide thing. And I don't think you're going to kill yourself. I mean, I've contemplated this possibility countless times. You have no idea how many. Nowadays it still haunts me. And I really can't say what keeps me from jumping off the ledge of a building, or slicing my wrists, for example. There are so many things I want to do, so many people I want to talk to, but when it comes to the action itself, I just freeze. I don't have the will to bring myself to do anything. I feel apathetic and go to sleep. EVERYDAY.

I haven't been drinking much lately. In the past I used to live my life as if I were on the verge of dying, as if everyday were the last one for me. Nowadays I'm trying to take it easy, especially because I don't have patience anymore. I don't feel that much like going out and partying, you know? But at the same time, I feel a bit dead inside. I've been struggling with my weight ever since I can remember. Today I went to Liberdade, a district in São Paulo where you can find all sorts of Japanese food, and ate more than a human being should be allowed to. Brought food home and ate all the sweets I could.

Where are you from? How did you end up in RS?

Maybe you're not ungrateful, maybe you just haven't been talking to the right people. I deeply believe that there is someone out there for me, I mean, someone that is going to be my friend forever. You know, that romantic ideal of the perfect friend? I wish I had one like that. I had deep rooted relationships of friendship in the past, but I've changed so much that I cannot relate to my old friends anymore. We've grown worlds apart, I cannot go back. I've learned so much and they seem to be in the same place I was ten years ago. I wish I had someone to talk to. REALLY TALK. Suddenly I have this feeling that I need to expose to the world but that I don't know how.

Maybe people like us feel like this because we have too much to give and don't know how. There are so many things exploding in my chest all the time. I have this need to devour everything and everyone I see, I want to give myself to everybody, I want o immolate myself at every second of the day. But there is nothing in return, I don't feel it. That's why I whither and die everyday, when I arrive here and see that, even though I have the love of my life by my side, I'm alone. Utterly alone. But then again, we are always alone. Nobody is able to see and know who we really are except ourselves. We were born alone and will die alone. Nothing can change that.

I know what you mean when you say you want to be admired. I have that need myself. Thankfully my husband compliments me all the time and I know he means it. I know of his adoration, I know everything. But during those moments in which I'm not feeling sorry for myself or when I'm not too petrified to do anything, I see myself differently. I see the magic worlds that exist within me, I notice my body, the way I walk, talk and go about doing my things. And I wish someone could see me through my eyes, could admire the little things I know I have and that I am sure are special. And I don't know if that makes sense. Today I'm not making sense at all. And this letter to you sucks. Today is one of those nights in which I feel my light is fading out. I feel terrible for eating as much as I did and I deeply wanted to vomit, to see if I could start over. Tomorrow is Saturday, another day for trying a new diet. I think it will always be like that.

I feel like I am letting life pass me by. Maybe it is because of the intensity with which I lived in the past. Maybe it is because that is the truth. I don't know. I can't say.

I know I need to start doing something. I need someone to kick me in the butt and give me some discipline. I think I need to go to martial school or something like that.

Write.

XOXO

A.

PS> This letter is going to be short and unrevised, so, sorry for the lack of sense. My hands are hurting me and tomorrow I have a lot of typing to do.

Getting ready for Madrid, and then Barcelona, Valencia, Cordoba, Granada

2011-10-31T00:07:00.001+01:00

2011-10-26T10:24:00.002+02:00

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lacifgdqYbGO4ZSPATdRJMjIhbFIuCVJx78mSF_ZzfxE_IPWO4WlVadDju_4
HrndeKAp8110qvZHY6NLg4bHMaK6snuv57oBtcZX4Z4Clzq_fQ==

World Religions: Taoism (Daoism)

2011-10-22T04:46:00.002+02:00

Sara's Wedding last Saturday

2011-10-22T02:10:00.012+02:00

Beto and I in the back... Why were we both crossed arm? Congrats on your wedding, dear Sara: my friend, co-worker, and my super Spanish teacher

Shrinkage Costanza

2011-10-19T09:31:00.004+02:00

2011-10-17T02:38:00.005+02:00

I would not forget to mention these words:

2011-10-15T00:51:00.000+02:00

msnING

2011-10-14T05:27:00.002+02:00

While I could not find the right words to write an article on me for a local magazine, Mr. Tavares (23, Brazilian, Journalism major in Belgium) striked an extra talk on MESSENGER...

Felipe Tavares says:

Hey.

Hope burden says:

yeah

Felipe Tavares says:

You are one of the prettiest women I've ever known, and seen, actually.

Hope burden says:

why are you saying that? You don't even know me in person

Felipe Tavares says:

Because I saw your picture on Facebook and I just had to say it.

Hope burden says:

i am flattered anyway

thanks a lot

Felipe Tavares says:

You're welcome, but seriously. I mean it. One of the prettiest.

Hope burden says:

you seem to be good-looking yourself too

Felipe Tavares says:

I look okay, but I don't really mind about that.

Hope burden says:

that will help me to get inspiration on my article since it is about me and I am not joking

It is for a local magazine

it is creepy to write in first person

Felipe Tavares says:

Oh,
then write down about how you speak english to your brazilian friends,
and how you help them train their vocabulary, and how sometimes you even
forget you're both from the same country and have the same mother
tongue, and how much you can enchant somebody by just looking great.

Hope burden says:

that was nice.

I am going to copy and paste it to my blog that right away

i meant RIGHT AWAY, with no "THAT"

English is definitely easier to use on computer

Felipe Tavares says:

Do
you know when sometimes an artist finally finds himself staring at some
painting or sculpture from his favorite artist, that he cherishes so
much that he can't really put in words what it's like to look at it? And
know that some great person touched and molded the colors or carved the
stone centuries ago?

It's kinda like that. I don't know exactly what, but there's something about you.

Looking at it now, I could've written it better, but eh, whatever.

Hope burden says:

I am not so much into staring and analyzing pieces of art that way. I am
more graphical so I try to find meaning and connections. Although I
admire those who admire or are able to

Don't waste your wittiness on that

you know, for the sake of mere contemplation

Felipe Tavares says:

Exactly!
Contemplation. I'm like that with anything. When I went to the British
Museum I was fascinated by looking at hyeroglyphs that were painted by
someone 5000 years ago somewhere in Egypt. Just because it was so long
ago and still, it was there.

So I was kind of struck, I don't know any words for it.

Hope burden says:

this conversation has reminded of that have to write a poem for a wedding that is happening on Saturday... tomorrow actually

Felipe Tavares says:

And your beauty strikes too, that's all.

Hope burden says:

AWE

maybe you wished to say AWE

Felipe Tavares says:

Yeah!

Good one.

Hope burden says:

I like that word

Felipe Tavares says:

Me too. I like "awesome", but the real meaning of it.

Hope burden says:

There are some words that are profoundly beautiful just be cause of the way they sound like LUST too

FURIOUS

PORTRAIT

FORTUNATE

FLAWLESS

i like words that start with F... Felipe, Forceps, FENDER

\\funny//

fascinating

Felipe Tavares says:

Thunder, hoof, wanderlust... I like these.

Hope burden says:

must get going. have a good one

thanks for the flattering words

2011-10-12T08:29:00.003+02:00

Mummy on the Doorstep
Christine Boyka Kluge

Sometimes they deliver only a shrunken body, yellow and leathery as a dog toy. The translators prop her in your doorway, ring the doorbell, then hide behind her, holding their breath. When you open the door, expecting a package . . . well, there she is --- blink-blink --- eyeless visitor from another time and place. They've gussied her up, tied a red silk ribbon around her little bald head. From the shape of the lovingly-wrapped linen, you detect the former beauty of her flesh. But her mind, extracted by hook, must be sleeping in a funerary jar elsewhere. Her falsetto chatter is as unintelligible as scarabs scratching sand. What, WHAT? Here and there words and images glitter like the gold snakes in her earlobes. But her language only sparkles at random. Your questions cannot be heard by those puckered apricot ears.
The mummy shuffles her parchment feet on the welcome mat. OH! Come in, come in. The translators crouch at her calves, panting, pushing her legs --- first one, then the other --- forcing her forward, into the foyer. As you recoil, she staggers a few steps on her own, stiff as an ironing board. They give her an extra shove, and she bounces into your arms. Perplexed but polite, you accept their gift. (Is she theirs to give? Or museum loot?) You lift her over your head, weightless as a piñata, rattling like a gourd --- and shake her, listening to the dried seeds talk.

scar... scar... scar ich verstehe nicht alles was du sagst... das Wesentliche habe ich, aber schon verstanden. Pass auf dich auf, wir werden uns in kürze, aber nicht in eile, wieder treffen. Ich empfinde weniger Sehnsucht, jedoch der Traum scheint war

2011-10-12T07:06:00.002+02:00

2011-10-03T00:34:00.002+02:00

SWEET SOUNDS

by Rich Logsdon

...Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage,

But music for a time doth change his nature.

The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treason, stratagems and spoils;

The motions of his spirit are dull as night

And his affections dark as Erebus....

("Merchant of Venice," V, i)

It was evening. A kaleidoscope of blue, red, pink and yellow spread across the southern Nevada sky as the sun sank behind the huge purplemountains to our west. A desert breeze blew in from the south, cooling the desert valley and the City of Lights. It had been the hottest day of May.

In the semi-darkness between the Strip and Glitter Gulch, the four of us sat around a table at Barney’s. Named after the cartoon character, Barney’s was a grimy outdoor restaurant encased by flashing purple neon and overlooking Las Vegas from the thirty-second story of the Babylon Hotel. A monument of old Las Vegas, the Babylon was a gray crumbling concrete structure that sat on Las Vegas Boulevard in one of the shady sections of town. Show-Girl Video and Adult Book Store was right next door and across the street stood Adult Peek-O-Rama. Two streets to our west were Las Vegas’ famous nude bars. Busts and drug deals were common in this part of the city.

We felt right at home at Barney’s of Babylon. The only other customers looked like refugees from concentration camps, drifters without destination, the chaff of the land. On the roof of the Babylon, five floors up from the restaurant, stood the oldest roller-coaster in Nevada. Pulsating red neon tubing ran parallel to and beneath the track; from a distance, the tubing resembled a line of fire. The huge blazing blue neon sign towering over the ride read "Last Ride to Hell." In years past, the four of us always had capped off a day of hustling money with a roller-coaster ride. But this night we had nothing to celebrate. We were flat broke and couldn’t even afford another night in a cheap dump in Northtown.

II.

Before I tell you the strange and stirring story about how we edged our way out of this tight spot, allow me to introduce the four of us.

My name is Seedy Pete, short for Charles Dickens (CD) Petrovich. I picked up the nick name at the state university where, encouraged by my father (a Lutheran pastor), I’d gone to study English literature. Uninspired by academics, I’d spent most of my time in the darkened, dirty, smutty, smoke-filled pool halls, hustling any one worth a quarter. Once, in desperation, I hustled one of the college’s administrators and took every cent. At the end of my sixth year, when I gave up on my degree, I had spent so much time in the poolroom of Lou’s Fire Pit that I resembled a vampire: pasty pale skin, long dark hair swept back, bloodless lips. I felt dirty all the time: my skin, my heart, my soul. It took me six months to get used to the sun while working highway construction outside Bleak, Nevada.

I’d worked high way construction throughout the West ever since. I still felt dirty inside.

Sitting across from me was Pick, my best friend, a two-hundred forty pound ex-professional football player with animal tattoos on almost every inch of his body. Pick’s real name was James Jordan Picassio.We had given him the nickname in high school in Mountain Home, Idaho, definitely one of the hot spots in the potato state. Picture this: the four of us would be hanging out at Frosty’s Drive-In talking to some beautiful Boise girls, who’d driven over for a high school football game, when Pick would start to work on his nose. One by one, the girls would excuse themselves to go inside the drive-in or back to their car, and the four of us were left standing, waiting for the chicks.

While his parents had trained him in ballet, Pick turned to college football--we’d gone to the state university together--and later went to the NFL. His three years in the pros were cut short by Saints line-backer Buddy "Midnight" Grim, who’d hated Pick since they’d played together in college and Pick had cut the toes off Buddy’s cleats just before the biggest game of the season. On national TV, Buddy had put a vicious, dirty tackle on Pick, snapping his leg. Pick then turned to pro wrestling, took the ring name "The Duster", and after too many pile-drivers and thunder-drops became prone to black-outs.

Presently, he sold vacuum cleaners in Weiser, Idaho. Discouraged like the rest of us with the day’s earnings, Pick rested his head in his left hand, elbow on the table, while with his right hand he managed a fork to pick at his apple pie.

Sitting to my right was Bennie the Snitch, or George Bernard Scheisterwitz. Dressed in a black jacket, red shirt, black pants and wrap-around sun glasses, long and black greasy hair swept back, Snitch sat erect, staring straight forward, saying nothing, possibly dozing.

On a good day, Snitch looked like the devil, so people generally steered a path around him; on a bad day, hung over or strung out, he looked like shit. Snitch is like a statue, unfeeling, uncaring. He wouldn’t offer a helping hand if his brother were drowning in quicksand two feet in front of him.

Life had been a kick in the ass for Snitch, a high school English teacher until seven years ago, when he got involved in a series of fraudulent mob-related Arizona land deals. Suckered by the feds, he spilled his guts in court. A number of his associates went to prison, among them his brother-in-law. Friends in the business had threatened to kill him. Once he’d been tracked to a small café in the California desert, where some goon twice his size had beaten him half to death, thrown him in a lake, and left him for dead. Snitch had learned not to care and needed his rest.

On my left was Evelyn. Sweet, sweet Evelyn. His real name was William Handel Waugh. We had ridiculed Evelyn mercilessly in junior high and high school for taking speech and drama instead of PE, for rarely dating girls, for being a virgin, for combing his hair differently, and for going out for orchestra instead of sports. When we were juniors in high school, Snitch, Pick and I had stripped Evelyn bare and thrown him into the girls’ locker room. We were amused at ourselves until Snitch found him sobbing silent and alone in one of the drive-ins near the school, talking suicide.

Through high school Evelyn had been a whiz at the violin; he had won several local and state contests and was eventually given a full-ride to an Ivy League College. After his mom died of cancer, Evelyn quit college and moved to Mt. Hood, Oregon, where he managed a music store. In his spare time, he played for the Portland Philharmonic. Now at Barney’s with the rest of us, Evelyn was nibbling his pie and ice cream. He seemed in a splendid mood.

III.

"Well, fellas," I began, snapping my fingers at the balding, effeminate waiter for some more coffee, "what the fuck we gonna do? I mean, the way I see it, we’re fucked. Totally."

Fifteen years ago, four years after high school, I had come up with the idea of our meeting yearly in Vegas to test our luck. We’d made a game of it: every year, we’d meet in Vegas in May and have to earn money off the streets to pay for our night life. We’d mimed, sang, danced, begged, stolen, even prostituted ourselves—anything for money. For the past three days, nothing had worked. I’d spent three days holding a "Will work for food and prayer" sign on the Flamingo off-ramp. We were broke.

For ten minutes, no one said anything. Snitch stared at the back of his shades, Evelyn drank his coffee , and Pick scratched his nose.

We watched the sunset, and wished we were somewhere else—Bombay, Tokyo, or Omaha, anywhere but here. The balding mustached waiter came prancing over, gave me an encouraging wink, and refilled our coffee.

Pick suggested that we considered stealing from retired people, arguing that the elderly welcomed anyone who offered them money. We’d claim to have some free cash, get invited over, and convince them to turn their life savings over to us. Snitch told Pick to shut the fuck up and said he didn’t want to spend the next ten years in the pen.

We sat in a somber silence, which was finally broken by Evelyn. "I have an idea," he began quietly, delicately. "A rather good idea, yes, one perhaps that would allow us to recap our expense and maybe even go home with a little extra cash."

We all looked at Evelyn. Evelyn rarely came up with a suggestion, but when he did things happened.

"Let’s hear it," I said.

"All right, I do have a very good idea." Pick put down his fork and looked at Evelyn; Snitch took his shades off; I rested my boots on the table, looked at Evelyn, and nodded.

"I could play my violin. On the corner. In that park next to the Mirage. We’d make money. Easy."

None of us had ever heard Evelyn play the violin, not even in high school. It had been beneath us. Pick, Snitch, and I looked at each other for a moment. Snitch shrugged his shoulders; Pick rubbed his nose; I nodded.

Evelyn continued, "I have it in our car, my violin that is, in the parking garage next to the Babylon." We had rented one car for the four of us.

"You brought your violin?" I asked, puzzled.

"In the trunk. Just left it there."

It took us a minute to respond.

"What ya got in mind, kid?" Snitch asked, taking a loud sip of coffee.

What Evelyn had in mind was playing the violin for the tourists of this fair city. It was a cool beautiful evening, one with a slight breeze, a perfect night for an outpouring of tourists onto the sidewalks and streets. No one had a better idea. Besides, most tourists in this town were loaded with money and alcohol. We decided to try it.

IV.

We returned to our rental, a battered red and blue ’82 Oldsmobile. Burn marks indicated that the back seat had been set on fire at least twice, we figured. The radio and air didn’t work, and the interior stank of cigarettes and stale fast food. No one would have suspected that Evelyn had left a Stradivarius in the trunk.

But that’s what he took out of the trunk. Without saying a word, without even opening the case so the rest of us could look, without considering whether we should drive, Evelyn took off on a fast walk, almost running, headed we knew for a small park that stood right in the middle of the Strip.

When we arrived at the park forty minutes later Evelyn removed his black felt stove-pipe hat and placed it in front of him on the grass that just came up to the sidewalk. He opened his violin case next to the hat. The two elderly couples sitting on the two benches eyed us with suspicion.

After Evelyn adjusted his violin, he began with two Rumanian folk dances by Bartok. These were pieces my father used to play on his violin. Amused, then stirred by the dances’ lively rhythm, I watched Evelyn’s fingers dance on the strings, and during the second piece, half in jest, Pick and Snitch linked arms and danced in a circle. At one point, three old ladies stopped, stared, shook their heads, and walked on. Another time, a man with his dog on a leash walked by, the dog smelling Evelyn’s hat as if he were considering pissing on it. A group of drunk high school girls came by, stopped, clapped along, and then put some money in the hat. When Evelyn finished, we had accumulated a grand total of $2.43, barely enough to buy a cheese-burger at a fast food joint.

"Uh, that’s great man," said Pick, placing one finger on the side of his nose, blowing suddenly, and clearing his head of snot. "Let’s go."

Snitch followed with, "Hey, Maestro, got another jewel of the night?"

Then he added, "Let’s get outta here."

But I wanted to give Evelyn a chance. Nothing else had gone right today; besides, I had enjoyed the Bartok, whom I remember from my youth. So, the leader of the group, I said, "No, I got a hunch. We’re gonna stay. What’s next, Evelyn?"

Encouraged, Evelyn moved onto his next selection--a solo violin piece by Mendelssohn, he later told me. This time, some people actually stopped long enough to listen as Evelyn played, running his fingers dexterously on the strings, his music piercing the night, briefly drowning out the sounds of cars passing on the strip, temporarily stripping us of anxiety. And as he played, his music filled the night sky, the cool windy Spring night around us, our thoughts.

As Evelyn played, as I allowed myself to be engulfed by the music, memories—images—that I had pushed into the far corners of my mind began to emerge. I remembered trout fishing in a Montana stream with my father, mother, and brother. The memory was as vivid as a photograph. I was twelve, the year before mom died of cancer. In the memory, huge torrents of glacial water pounded down the mountain side, the water exploding on rocks and boulders; I smelled the icy mountain freshness of the pristine stream, saw my mother and my little brother Davie throwing their lines upstream. It would be the first fish my brother Davie had ever caught.

When I opened my eyes, I didn’t feel as dirty or angry anymore. I felt like a child in spring time. And I noticed that a crowd of around one hundred people had gathered around the sidewalk and in the grass. Some were talking to each other, but most were listening.

Evelyn’s performance had been nearly perfect, and after he ended this second piece we counted up something like $49.53 cents in Evelyn’s hat.

This was some success. I looked at Pick and Snitch, telling them with my expression that I wanted to stay. I placed my hat, an old gray bowler, next to Evelyn’s open violin case.

Pick didn’t say a thing. I think he had been moved by the Mendelssohn. Snitch stood, arms crossed in front of him, eyes hidden behind the wrap-arounds, showing no emotion.

Evelyn looked only at Snitch. " Whaddya think now, Snitch?" Evelyn asked him. Snitch stood expressionless, looked down at the ground, paused thoughtfully.

"Play us another one, pal" was all Snitch said, his voice calm, actually reassuring. His voice softened, the words didn’t sound like Snitch at all. It had been many, many years since I had heard Paganini. I still can’t remember the name of the piece. Occasionally, before mom died of cancer in the winter of ’63, Dad had played this particular work by Paganini while he and mom had just sat in the dimly lit living room of an evening and listened, sitting together, sometimes holding hands on the couch. Even at the time, I had found this music exhilarating.

However, I didn’t realize that Evelyn had chosen a composer that most concert masters avoid, that many musicians consider impossible. Paganini is the impossible standard against which all violinists measure themselves.

Just as Evelyn began, I looked at Pick; his eyes were closed. Snitch had removed his sunglasses. His eyes were still the deep blue I remembered from high school. Well over a hundred people milled about,drawn by the classical musician in an environment dedicated to spectacular shows, spectacular people, spectacular sex.

Evelyn began softy, gradually, as if he were testing the violin strings, sending clear, crisp notes into the night air. Building in intensity, he made a couple of runs, his dexterous fingers dancing up and down the neck of the violin, making the strings do what he commanded.

The crowd had increased to nearly two hundred. Some were sitting on the grass and sidewalks and couple of children had climbed some nearby tries so they could get a better view of the genius that now played before us.

The music built, faster and faster, moving to crescendo after crescendo, rending the night sky, Evelyn throwing out more notes and harmony than I had thought possible from a violin. The complexity of the piece still amazed me. Its music seemed to hang magically suspended in the gloriously cool spring night, like the moon and stars overhead, and became one with the breeze. Evelyn played furiously, drawing more people, strings touching souls, and I suddenly saw who this musician was. He wasn’t Evelyn.

It was probably the most incredible experience of my life. Like Christ feeding the five thousand. Like the parting of the Red Sea.

Deeply moved, as the notes swam around me, I saw mom asleep in her coffin, face white and expressionless, and wondered how this could be the woman who had given me birth. Dad stood next to me, a weakened, trembling man fighting tears. He held Davie by the hand; Davie was sobbing uncontrollably, and it was then that I, hating my mother and father and God for this death, had bolted from the church.

Still locked in my memory, still studying my mother’s body, I let Bill’s music empower me and looked at my mother. Kneeling to kiss my mother on the cheek and bid her goodbye, I felt a warm wind wrap itself around me and felt transported beyond myself. Now, as my father had done, I fought back tears.

This, I understood, was the "music of the spheres." I recalled that years ago I had actually sat through a college course in Renaissance Literature in which the professor had explained the music of the spheres, that divine harmony resulting from the perfect ordering, the perfect movement of the angels, planets, and stars around the Creator.

According to the literature of the period, one could attune to this divine harmony only in a moment of perfect romantic love.

The violin music, intense, powerful, rich, reached the heights and the depths and seemed to fill the city. Paganini was the only sound in existence. Looking around me, I saw my friends, the spectators, the buildings and the neon lights temporarily transformed into, what can I say, a vision of paradise, reminiscent of something I had once imaginatively constructed of St. Augustine’s Heavenly City, which I had read about when I was thirteen to try to get an image of where my mother had gone. The city lights seemed almost celestial, and I felt at that moment washed clean of bitterness, hatred, triviality, on the kingdom’s edge, ready to begin anew.

The music ended suddenly, the final note hanging in the air, inspiring us. I stood, my head filled with a kaleidoscope of colors that matched the earlier sunset and the music. I looked around and saw that Ben’s eyes glistened with moisture. The stunned crowd stood and watched and waited. I guess they half expected Bill, now drenched in his own sweat, to begin again. Realizing Bill had finished, I began clapping.

My action was greeted by applause and cheers. Then, slowly, almost one by one, the onlookers walked up to our hats, gave their money, and walked away. After the last had left, I walked over to the two hats and violin case. The hats were filled to their brims. We were to count out something like $700 from that performance alone. When we left the park and headed back to Barney’s, a couple curious things happened: Mike asked if he could carry Bill’s violin, case and instrument, and Billconsented; Ben gathered the money together, gave it to Bill—"This belong to you, pal," Ben said, his voiced cracking as he placed the earnings at Bill’s feet—and then walked next to Bill all the way back to the Babylon.

That night, compliments of Bill, we stayed in the Mirage, a magnificent hotel whose artificial and paradisial jungle beauty had always attracted us. It was like a return to the Garden of Eden. We went out to eat at a fancy seafood restaurant, classical music in the background, but didn’t pick up any hookers, male or female, this night. We didn’t hit the tables. We wanted to savor Bill’s performance.

So we stayed in our room, overlooking the pulsating and vibrant neon jungle of Las Vegas, and talked like we hadn’t talked for years. We talked about art, life, God, the after life, girls, literature, and philosophy. We praised Bill’s genius and asked ourselves why we had never heard him play before. When Ben asked about the composers, Bill spent the rest of the evening explaining to him the intricacies of Paganini.

As I lay in bed that night, looking out our window, I could see the blue-red-purple neon of the Babylon in the distance. We’d probably go back there next year. I realized as well that we’d needed Bill all along. Bill had touched something of inestimable worth inside us all, and I vowed never to put my friend down again.

I knew that in a year things might change. One of us could be dead. Or rich and famous. Chances were excellent, however, that nothing really would change.

For now, Bill would go back to Oregon, Mike would return to Weiser, and Ben— Ben would probably continue to run from his pursuers. As for me, driving a grader for a highway construction was no longer the worst job in the world. I could bring a Walkman and listen to Mozart, Bach, and Paganini and shovel dirt to the classics.

Besides, next year we’d all be together again in Las Vegas. I was counting on it.

About the author: Rich Logsdon has taught English at the Community College of Southern Nevada for over twenty years. He received his PhD at the University of Oregon. Currently, he is the editor-in-chief of Red Rock Review, a new small literary journal that is sold coast-to-coast. Rich has had stories recently published, or accepted for publicaton, in the following magazines, all accessible over the internet: Gothic.Net, Slumgullion, Night People, State of Unbeing, Barking Spider, Noir Mechanics, The Oracle, San Francisco Salvo, and Yellow Dog.

2011-09-11T08:27:00.000+02:00

Ich träume von einer Welt,

in der Menschen
menschlich miteinander leben können,
von einer Zeit,
in der keiner den anderen bekämpft,
weil alle in dieselbe Richtung blicken:
von einer Welt die Platz hat für alle,
und Brot.

Von einer Zeit träume ich,
in der das Teilen mehr gilt als das Haben,
von einer Welt,
die nicht mehr besessen,
ausgebeutet, zerstört wird:
Von einer Zeit,
in der jeder seine chance hat,
weil keiner ist, der sie ihm neidet.

Von einer Welt träume ich,
in der alle von der überreichen Fülle der Gaben
sich bedienen können,
in der kein Kind mehr arbeiten muss
um überleben zu können,
in der die Güter gerecht verteilt sind.

Ich träume von einer neuen Welt-
Ich kann sie nicht bauen -
Aber den ersten Schritt,
meinen Schritt,
kann ich tun.

by Silberfischchen89 at FLORK.COM

Debajo de mi lengua se esconderan mis miedos

2011-08-28T00:13:00.002+02:00

Disney Mementos

2011-08-13T21:40:00.006+02:00

Note:

2011-08-08T18:00:00.002+02:00

Coffee is my back in my life.

Alcohol has said good bye.

Traveling is my expensive treat and it is what moves me forward.

I forgot to go to therapy once again. Bummer!

Films and music are my guilty pleasure. When it comes to music, I'd rather buy CDs which are hard to find in Brazil and when it comes to movies, I forget to return them at rental video stores.

I eat less meat however I still do it.

Taoism is getting into my days.

Learning languages brings me peace. My next project is to take Spanish classes abroad. Been considering studying in Mexico or somewhere way different, like Dominic Republic.

I don't suffer from diarrhea like I used to but I am surely addicted to chocolate now.

I have been utterly getting behind with correcting test and sorts but I consider that part of the game of being who I am: a teacher.

A guy I met in the USA called Mason asked: "Are you a teacher? If you are, I would like to study with you because you are the coolest teacher I've ever seen." I will keep these words in the back of my mind in order not to give up on what I am doing.

Thanks, Mason ;-D

PS: Mason was one of the English at Disney chaperons I got to meet in Florida last month. He was in a dream I had this night. It was nice to see him back, even though he had just popped up in a dream I had. Detail: he appeared injured in my dream. Maybe it is something that my conscious brought about from his FB photo albums.

Yum

2011-08-01T01:03:00.003+02:00

Loved being back in the USA, A photo taken in Epcot Center Show Case - UK

2011-07-27T22:33:00.004+02:00

Originally uploaded by hopeburden

Lunch in UK

When you are tourist in your hometown, it is time to go...

2011-06-25T17:36:00.002+02:00

Are there so many places to call "home"? Huh!

2011-05-29T06:15:00.016+02:00

Reality is a question
of realizing how real
the world is already.
Time is Eternity,
ultimate and immovable;
everyone's an angel.

It's Heaven's mystery
of changing perfection :
absolute Eternity

changes! Cars are always
going down the street,
lamps go off and on.

It's a great flat plain;
we can see everything
on top of a table.

Clams open on the table,
lambs are eaten by worms
on the plain. The motion

of change is beautiful,
as well as form called
in and out of being.

Next : to distinguish process
in its particularity with
an eye to the initiation

of gratifying new changes
desired in the real world.
Here we're overwhelmed

with such unpleasant detail
we dream again of Heaven.
For the world is a mountain

of shit : if it's going to
be moved at all, it's got
to be taken by handfuls.

Man lives like the unhappy
whore on River Street who
in her Eternity gets only

a couple of bucks and a lot
of snide remarks in return
for seeking physical love

the best way she knows how,
never really heard of a glad
job or joyous marriage or

a difference in the heart :
or thinks it isn't for her,
which is her worst misery.

by Allen Ginsberg

Leaving the building for Gramado

2011-05-29T05:31:00.002+02:00

MOV03059 a video by hopeburden on Flickr.

...i got a secret but i can't tell you...

2011-05-29T05:28:00.012+02:00

Escape

And I need
to close this window, But I, I can't escapeI need to undo stuff,But I, I am afraid of regretting that
I need to print stuff out,
But I, I can't double right clickMy toner is empty and there is paper jammed
And I need to sleep,
But I'm running out of pills
I need to do the dishes,
But I, I can't find staminaI need to have a hot soothing bath, But I, I have no bathtubs and that is so sad
I need to find me,
But I, I did not order a myself guide at the book shop this morning
I need to breath in and out more deeply,I need to buy this place,And I, I am foccused that this is happening soon I need to enjoy my life to the fullestBut I, I can't find time, people, and interesting places to do so
I need to end up this crappy piece of thoughts,
But there is something telling me
that I haven't even started it yet
by Laila Chris

Paulo Leminski's grave lies in my womb

2011-05-29T03:39:00.003+02:00

INVERNACULAR

by Paulo Leminski

This language isn't mine.
It's plain as day.
When meaning goes away,
the word stays behind.
Maybe I'm just lying.
Or am I lying truth?
So I say myself - just,
Maybe - I can barely say.
This isn't my tongue.
The language I speak mutes
a distant song,
the voice, beyond, not a word.
The dialect you utilize
on the left bank of the phrase,
that's what does it, lusifies
me, half, maybe, inside.

°°°

Came the hard way down
the neverending line,
line striking stone,
word kickin round the corner,
tiny empty line,
a line a life, entire,
word, word of mine.

°°°

nothing the sun
can’t speak
all the moon
more chic
no rain fades
this flower

°°°

one of these days i wanna be
a great english poet
of the last century
saying
o sky o sea o folk o destiny
fight in india, 1866,
disappear in a clandestine shipwreck

°°°

put me out
thin me down
chop me up
until
after me
after us
after everything
nothing’s left
but the charm

°°°

between external duty
and eternal doubt
my commercial
heart goes
roundabout

°°°

pauloleminski’s
a crazy mutt
we really should kill him
with sticks and rocks
at the stake with one shot
or else he’s likely
the little prick
to piss all over
our picnic

°°°

a poem
not gotten
is worthy of note
supreme
dignity
of a drifting boat

°°°

back then
we were gonna be homer
the work an iliad no less
but then
it got a little harder
we’d settle for a Rimbaud
an Ungaretti a Fernando any old Pessoa
a Lorca an Eluard a Ginsberg
and then
the provincial poeticule
we always were
behind so many masks
time treated as flowers

°°°

as if i were julio plaza
pleasure
of pure perception
senses
be critique
of reason

°°°

two village idiots
one spends his days
kicking lampposts to see if they’ll turn on
the other his nights
rubbing words
off white paper
every village has an idiot
it treats with sympathy
in a little while i know
they’ll be treating me

°°°

i never wanted to be
a good customer
asking for this or that
red wine
thanks
hasta la vista
i wanted to go in
both feet planted
on the doorman’s chest
telling the mirror
- shut up
and the clock
- hands down

°°°

a good poem
takes years:
five playing soccer,
five more studying sanskrit,
six carrying stones,
nine falling for your neighbor,
seven taking a beating,
four going it alone,
three changing cities,
ten changing the subject,
an eternity, me and you
along together

°°°

Unforgettable

2011-05-27T23:12:00.003+02:00

Unusual things that have been happening to me lately

2011-05-26T04:50:00.018+02:00

- It has been over a month I am sober.

- It has been a month I've been taking prescribed meds.

- I had a panic attack crisis a month ago that led me to the hospital. Bad times!

- I will be soon in Florida back again. Orlando and Miami. I depart on July 10th. Can't wait for it. I am going there to chaperon 60 kids who will be taking an English course offered by Walt Disney Resort. Even with all the hard work, I still believe I'll have a wonderful time in Orlando parks. It'll be only for 15 days, though. Nuff said.

- Valentine's day in Brazil is celebrated on June 12th, so on the 11th there will be a gig of a local band at this nicest pub here. Guess what? I'll be singing a few songs along in front of an audience. I am freaking scared, but I know it is going to turn out fine, hopefully.

- I paid off my end-of-the-year trip to the USA. That is another great accomplishment.

- Tomorrow, hubby and I are spending a local holiday in a cottage in Gramado. Beto splurging on "romantic" endeavors is quite unusual.

- I am finally going to get to know SAN FRANCISCO (Oh man!). I am excited about Los Angeles and San Diego too. I am not expecting much from Vegas, except the wedding, of course.

- I proposed to Roberto instead. I am glad he said "YES".

- I will start taking pilates and Flamenco lessons. When? That is still in the air. And my therapist wants to see me twice a week. My mind hides more stuff that I can possibly imagine.

- I restarted taking Chinese with a fantastic teacher, unfortunately she had to go back temporarily to Taiwan (where she is from.) In June, we will return to our private classes.

- I am so in love with Spanish. I study it on Thursdays afternoons with teacher Sarah, from Madrid and on Saturdays evenings with teacher Vilma, from Brazil, who learned the language in Alicante, Spain.

- The best thing that will happen to me next year: Grand Canyon will know me. OMG!

- It is fall here but the temperatures are already freezing however I call it "SPRING CLEANING" anyway. I started getting more organized, neat, and concerned with my personal belongings. I haven't finished it yet. There are still things to get done. But I know I will get there before winter begins.

- I've been seeing a pychiatrist besides my usual therapist, and more medical specialists. I know that is sad but seeing doctors and getting exams done are unusual things for me. I fear hospitals, clinics, and don't get started on nurses. And how come doctors have to be so arrogant? I don't get that.

- The most unusual thing of all is Laila blogging again.

RE-posting

2011-05-01T09:42:00.004+02:00

I received through e-mail, for the second time, a personal questionnaire from Marcele. "Marcele, I just now realized that I wrote your name incorrectly in that post I'd dedicated to you." The idea is to reply the email by listing our own personal answers. Some of my responses may shock you, Marcele. But y'know, it's been a long time we haven't met. But we have not changed that much. You'll get over this. We always get used to new things... hihihi

1. What is your full name? Laila Christina de Bragança Cavallera Onasis von Murdoc.

2. What color pants are you wearing? Light brown, it's made of jeans and stretch. I love the pockets of these pants.

3. What are you listening to right now? German Beer drinking songs - Ja, ja, ja das ist wahr!!!It's a CD that a student of mine bought at an Oktober Fest!

4. What was the last thing you ate? A chocolate barr.

5. Do you wish on stars? Nah!

6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Red. Love red. It's not my faaaaaavorite color, but it coats well.

7. How is the weather right now? Damp, a little cold, and foggy - not a typical day at this time of the year.

8. Last person you spoke to on the phone? To the mother of a student.

9. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Marcele has sent me this me-me-me list of questions. I've posted here, just scroll down this page, a text that simply says it all about this lady. What else can I say? I simply love her!

10. Favorite drink? "Red" wine.

11. Favorite sport to play? Sumo Wrestling. I nail it.

12. Hair color? Dark Brown.

13. Weight and height? 1m 63cm, 60 kilograms.

14. Siblings? Jennifer, 25 and Fernanda, 22.

15. Favorite month? January - it's my birthday month and the birthday month of many people I love and care.

16. Favorite food? SALMON - raw, grilled, broilled, fried, roasted... SIMPLY SO GOOOOOD

17. What was the last movie you saw? Donnie Darko - for the fifth time!

18. Favorite day of the year? October 31st - Halloween!

19. What do you do to vent anger? I cry/ I write/ I draw/ I cook/I study/ I email friends/I clean/I mess/I blog/

20. What was your favorite toy as a child? An old red Remington Typewriter.

21. Summer or winter? WINTER

22. Hugs or kisses? Both.

24. Do you want your friends to e-mail you back? Wth? I'm posting my answers in my blog... HIHIHIHI

25. Who is most likely to respond? No one, since I am not sending the answers to anyone. I've done it before - about a year ago in fact.

26. Who is least likely to respond? I have no clue (I'll keep Marcele's answer).

27. When was the last time you cried? Yesterday. I cried but right then I was kissed and comforted.

29. Who is the friend you have had the longest? Lu, or Luciana. I´ve known her since we didn't know what alcohol was.

30. What did you do last night? I watched a movie, had beer, and pizza.

31. What are you afraid of? Raising a monster as my kid.

32. Describe yourself in one word? FREAKINESS.

33. Favorite car? I ain't a good driver. Hate drivers in general. I don't pretty much care about cars.

34. What´s the thing you like doing the most in your life? Writing, teaching, cursing, studying, learning, scratching my ear canals with cotton swabs, reading, listening to others, eating, drinking, melting stuff, having the jitters from a creepy good psycho-thriller movie, and talking to the ones I care.

35. Favorite flower? I hate the sun, but I love Sunflowers.

36. Who do you admire? So many folks: J. M. GONÇALVES; FERNANDO PESSOA; GARCIA LORCA; LUIZA VALENZUELA; MAIAKOVYSKI; TOLSTOY; UMBERTO ECO; FRIDA KAHLO; FAULKNER; EDGAR A. POE; CHARLES SPENCER CHAPLIN; CLARICE LISPECTOR; ALLIGHIERI; FREUD; EDNA PURVIANCE; MARIO PRATA; HILLARY SWANK, ISAAC EPSTEIN; DAVID BOWIE; ALAIN TOURAINE; KUBRICK; NIETZCHE; JUDY DENCH; POLANSKI; BOB BURNQUIST; HEMINGWAY; BEAUVOIR; SHAKESPEARE; JOHN CLEESE; CHARLES SANDERS PIERCE; BARTHES; SAUSSURE; CARLOS DRUMMOND; SUSAN SONTAG; MARLON BRANDON; SAMUEL BECKETT; OSCAR WILDE; FRITZ LANG; NOAM CHOMSKY; GOYA; MUNCH; MIRO; BURROUGHS; BORTOLOTTO; MAGRITTE; KANDINSKY; NERUDA; POLLACK; DALI; CHICO SCIENCE & NAÇÃO ZUMBI... and some others that I could not remember to name here.

37. Type of job? ESL teacher, writer, and translator.

38. Favorite day of the week? Mondays.

39. What did you do for your last birthday? I went to a nice restaurant with Roberto (my hubby).

40. How many states have you lived in? 1 in the US and 3 in Brazil.

41. How many cities have you lived in? 1 in the US and 4 in Brazil.

42. What do you collect? Pens. I have thousand of those: scented, glittered, colored, classical, kids-like, ballpointed... all kinds.

43. Favorite kind of music? Polka, Nordic Folk music, and Celtic.

44. If you could be someone else rather than yourself, who would you be? I'd be a male version of me... I'd be called Lailo and I wouldn't have pms... GREAT!

45. How many languages do you speak? Portuguese, English & Spanish. I've studied German for 5 years now and I also took two semesters of French back in college, but with not much headway.

46. What was your coolest trip ever? To New York City.

46. Most beautiful city: São Paulo, all the way.

47. Sexual symbol: Benício Del Toro.

48. Where will you spend your next vacations? Vacations... What is that? Can anyone gimme the definition of this word???

49. What are the places you´d like to visit one day? Marroco (Marrakesh), Mexico (Montrrey), the Amazon (Manaus), and Thailand (the entire country).

50. Describe the person who sent you this: Marcele is an angel to me. She's a totally free-spirit. She's a one-of-a-kind young lady. Marcele's smart, sweet, friendly, a complete human being! I simply love her and the fact that she's my greatest friend of all times!

I am gonna sing in public with a local band and I am so over excited about this

2011-05-01T07:43:00.001+02:00

I must be a lier coz my hand was severed in that mouth! That's why I can't blog anymore... "Lying again, Laila!"

2011-04-28T13:19:00.004+02:00

Sis, Beto, and I at a local PUB

2011-04-28T12:45:00.003+02:00

Sorry guys, but I had won.

Because of Easter mom came down South to visit me. She, sis, Beto, and I ended up bumping into Little Duda, my student, at this local sustainable dessert place where they grow their own strawberries in water and the berries grow by listening to amazing rock 'n' roll songs! Strawberry fields 4-ever!

2011-04-23T04:40:00.010+02:00

REPOSTING FROM 2008 - PAXIL PARTY

2011-04-18T03:46:00.001+02:00

I want thoughtful words.
I want a both simple and outrageous post to publish here.
I want cold beer sliding down my throat
since higher temperatures have showed up.
I want my voice back since air conditioners have damaged it.
I want stronger arms and thinner legs too.
I want vacation soon to fill up my Flickr with nice pictures.
I want to rest since my life has been based on non-stop work.
I want the smell of cinnamon, vanilla and a touch of cloves.
I want to buy tickets to Jamaica since Ryan Adams DVD has convinced me to.
I want to talk to strangers and complain about the weather there.
I want exotic food and hot kinds of pepper burning on my tongue and stomach.
I want the taste of bitter, sour, and salt in me.
I want buttermilk pancakes for breakfast Wendy's style.
I want greasy ribs too.
I want a parade, launch countdowns, and inner body explosions.
I want the best psychothriller end since Number 23 turned me off.
I want fireworks for no reasons.
I want empty trash cans.
I want long lasting light bulbs too.
I want perfect-fit socks, gourmet jelly beans, and pit free olives.
I want hairless legs, good hair days, and cavity free teeth.
I want the right answers, the right directions, and the right choices.
I want the truth as long as it doesn't hurt me.
I want good mood, good books, and good wine.
I want fine language and in-tune singing.
I want ever growing intelligence.
I want butter pecan ice cream and a chili dog with melted cheese on top.
I want a medieval sword hanging on my wall.
I want the most amazing stories since literature is the only cure for stupidities.
I want the colors of Miró as well since his art work definitely moves me forward.
I want a tougher soul and softer laughters too.
I want easy access in all surroundings.
I want hands, fingers, and mixed salivas.
I want to simmer and I want to boil.
I want to hug the milky way.
I want to sleep tight.
I want to float in my awareness.
I want to never fight.
And in case I have to...
I want enemies who can never beat me.
I want nothing more than a Paxil kinda life.

By Laila Chris

...

2011-04-09T12:13:00.001+02:00

The Pit and the Pendulum

2011-04-08T12:30:00.000+02:00

I WAS sick -- sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence -- the dread sentence of death -- was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears. After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum. It conveyed to my soul the idea of revolution -- perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mill wheel. This only for a brief period; for presently I heard no more. Yet, for a while, I saw; but with how terrible an exaggeration! I saw the lips of the black-robed judges. They appeared to me white -- whiter than the sheet upon which I trace these words -- and thin even to grotesqueness; thin with the intensity of their expression of firmness -- of immoveable resolution -- of stern contempt of human torture. I saw that the decrees of what to me was Fate, were still issuing from those lips. I saw them writhe with a deadly locution. I saw them fashion the syllables of my name; and I shuddered because no sound succeeded. I saw, too, for a few moments of delirious horror, the soft and nearly imperceptible waving of the sable draperies which enwrapped the walls of the apartment. And then my vision fell upon the seven tall candles upon the table. At first they wore the aspect of charity, and seemed white and slender angels who would save me; but then, all at once, there came a most deadly nausea over my spirit, and I felt every fibre in my frame thrill as if I had touched the wire of a galvanic battery, while the angel forms became meaningless spectres, with heads of flame, and I saw that from them there would be no help. And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave. The thought came gently and stealthily, and it seemed long before it attained full appreciation; but just as my spirit came at length properly to feel and entertain it, the figures of the judges vanished, as if magically, from before me; the tall candles sank into nothingness; their flames went out utterly; the blackness of darkness supervened; all sensations appeared swallowed up in a mad rushing descent as of the soul into Hades. Then silence, and stillness, night were the universe.

I had swooned; but still will not say that all of consciousness was lost. What of it there remained I will not attempt to define, or even to describe; yet all was not lost. In the deepest slumber -- no! In delirium -- no! In a swoon -- no! In death -- no! even in the grave all is not lost. Else there is no immortality for man. Arousing from the most profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream. Yet in a second afterward, (so frail may that web have been) we remember not that we have dreamed. In the return to life from the swoon there are two stages; first, that of the sense of mental or spiritual; secondly, that of the sense of physical, existence. It seems probable that if, upon reaching the second stage, we could recall the impressions of the first, we should find these impressions eloquent in memories of the gulf beyond. And that gulf is -- what? How at least shall we distinguish its shadows from those of the tomb? But if the impressions of what I have termed the first stage, are not, at will, recalled, yet, after long interval, do they not come unbidden, while we marvel whence they come? He who has never swooned, is not he who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar faces in coals that glow; is not he who beholds floating in mid-air the sad visions that the many may not view; is not he who ponders over the perfume of some novel flower -- is not he whose brain grows bewildered with the meaning of some musical cadence which has never before arrested his attention.

Amid frequent and thoughtful endeavors to remember; amid earnest struggles to regather some token of the state of seeming nothingness into which my soul had lapsed, there have been moments when I have dreamed of success; there have been brief, very brief periods when I have conjured up remembrances which the lucid reason of a later epoch assures me could have had reference only to that condition of seeming unconsciousness. These shadows of memory tell, indistinctly, of tall figures that lifted and bore me in silence down -- down -- still down -- till a hideous dizziness oppressed me at the mere idea of the interminableness of the descent. They tell also of a vague horror at my heart, on account of that heart's unnatural stillness. Then comes a sense of sudden motionlessness throughout all things; as if those who bore me (a ghastly train!) had outrun, in their descent, the limits of the limitless, and paused from the wearisomeness of their toil. After this I call to mind flatness and dampness; and then all is madness -- the madness of a memory which busies itself among forbidden things.

Very suddenly there came back to my soul motion and sound -- the tumultuous motion of the heart, and, in my ears, the sound of its beating. Then a pause in which all is blank. Then again sound, and motion, and touch -- a tingling sensation pervading my frame. Then the mere consciousness of existence, without thought -- a condition which lasted long. Then, very suddenly, thought, and shuddering terror, and earnest endeavor to comprehend my true state. Then a strong desire to lapse into insensibility. Then a rushing revival of soul and a successful effort to move. And now a full memory of the trial, of the judges, of the sable draperies, of the sentence, of the sickness, of the swoon. Then entire forgetfulness of all that followed; of all that a later day and much earnestness of endeavor have enabled me vaguely to recall.

So far, I had not opened my eyes. I felt that I lay upon my back, unbound. I reached out my hand, and it fell heavily upon something damp and hard. There I suffered it to remain for many minutes, while I strove to imagine where and what I could be. I longed, yet dared not to employ my vision. I dreaded the first glance at objects around me. It was not that I feared to look upon things horrible, but that I grew aghast lest there should be nothing to see. At length, with a wild desperation at heart, I quickly unclosed my eyes. My worst thoughts, then, were confirmed. The blackness of eternal night encompassed me. I struggled for breath. The intensity of the darkness seemed to oppress and stifle me. The atmosphere was intolerably close. I still lay quietly, and made effort to exercise my reason. I brought to mind the inquisitorial proceedings, and attempted from that point to deduce my real condition. The sentence had passed; and it appeared to me that a very long interval of time had since elapsed. Yet not for a moment did I suppose myself actually dead. Such a supposition, notwithstanding what we read in fiction, is altogether inconsistent with real existence; -- but where and in what state was I? The condemned to death, I knew, perished usually at the autos-da-fe, and one of these had been held on the very night of the day of my trial. Had I been remanded to my dungeon, to await the next sacrifice, which would not take place for many months? This I at once saw could not be. Victims had been in immediate demand. Moreover, my dungeon, as well as all the condemned cells at Toledo, had stone floors, and light was not altogether excluded.

A fearful idea now suddenly drove the blood in torrents upon my heart, and for a brief period, I once more relapsed into insensibility. Upon recovering, I at once started to my feet, trembling convulsively in every fibre. I thrust my arms wildly above and around me in all directions. I felt nothing; yet dreaded to move a step, lest I should be impeded by the walls of a tomb. Perspiration burst from every pore, and stood in cold big beads upon my forehead. The agony of suspense grew at length intolerable, and I cautiously moved forward, with my arms extended, and my eyes straining from their sockets, in the hope of catching some faint ray of light. I proceeded for many paces; but still all was blackness and vacancy. I breathed more freely. It seemed evident that mine was not, at least, the most hideous of fates.

And now, as I still continued to step cautiously onward, there came thronging upon my recollection a thousand vague rumors of the horrors of Toledo. Of the dungeons there had been strange things narrated -- fables I had always deemed them -- but yet strange, and too ghastly to repeat, save in a whisper. Was I left to perish of starvation in this subterranean world of darkness; or what fate, perhaps even more fearful, awaited me? That the result would be death, and a death of more than customary bitterness, I knew too well the character of my judges to doubt. The mode and the hour were all that occupied or distracted me.

My outstretched hands at length encountered some solid obstruction. It was a wall, seemingly of stone masonry -- very smooth, slimy, and cold. I followed it up; stepping with all the careful distrust with which certain antique narratives had inspired me. This process, however, afforded me no means of ascertaining the dimensions of my dungeon; as I might make its circuit, and return to the point whence I set out, without being aware of the fact; so perfectly uniform seemed the wall. I therefore sought the knife which had been in my pocket, when led into the inquisitorial chamber; but it was gone; my clothes had been exchanged for a wrapper of coarse serge. I had thought of forcing the blade in some minute crevice of the masonry, so as to identify my point of departure. The difficulty, nevertheless, was but trivial; although, in the disorder of my fancy, it seemed at first insuperable. I tore a part of the hem from the robe and placed the fragment at full length, and at right angles to the wall. In groping my way around the prison, I could not fail to encounter this rag upon completing the circuit. So, at least I thought: but I had not counted upon the extent of the dungeon, or upon my own weakness. The ground was moist and slippery. I staggered onward for some time, when I stumbled and fell. My excessive fatigue induced me to remain prostrate; and sleep soon overtook me as I lay.

Upon awaking, and stretching forth an arm, I found beside me a loaf and a pitcher with water. I was too much exhausted to reflect upon this circumstance, but ate and drank with avidity. Shortly afterward, I resumed my tour around the prison, and with much toil came at last upon the fragment of the serge. Up to the period when I fell I had counted fifty-two paces, and upon resuming my walk, I had counted forty-eight more; -- when I arrived at the rag. There were in all, then, a hundred paces; and, admitting two paces to the yard, I presumed the dungeon to be fifty yards in circuit. I had met, however, with many angles in the wall, and thus I could form no guess at the shape of the vault; for vault I could not help supposing it to be.

I had little object -- certainly no hope these researches; but a vague curiosity prompted me to continue them. Quitting the wall, I resolved to cross the area of the enclosure. At first I proceeded with extreme caution, for the floor, although seemingly of solid material, was treacherous with slime. At length, however, I took courage, and did not hesitate to step firmly; endeavoring to cross in as direct a line as possible. I had advanced some ten or twelve paces in this manner, when the remnant of the torn hem of my robe became entangled between my legs. I stepped on it, and fell violently on my face.

In the confusion attending my fall, I did not immediately apprehend a somewhat startling circumstance, which yet, in a few seconds afterward, and while I still lay prostrate, arrested my attention. It was this -- my chin rested upon the floor of the prison, but my lips and the upper portion of my head, although seemingly at a less elevation than the chin, touched nothing. At the same time my forehead seemed bathed in a clammy vapor, and the peculiar smell of decayed fungus arose to my nostrils. I put forward my arm, and shuddered to find that I had fallen at the very brink of a circular pit, whose extent, of course, I had no means of ascertaining at the moment. Groping about the masonry just below the margin, I succeeded in dislodging a small fragment, and let it fall into the abyss. For many seconds I hearkened to its reverberations as it dashed against the sides of the chasm in its descent; at length there was a sullen plunge into water, succeeded by loud echoes. At the same moment there came a sound resembling the quick opening, and as rapid closing of a door overhead, while a faint gleam of light flashed suddenly through the gloom, and as suddenly faded away.

I saw clearly the doom which had been prepared for me, and congratulated myself upon the timely accident by which I had escaped. Another step before my fall, and the world had seen me no more. And the death just avoided, was of that very character which I had regarded as fabulous and frivolous in the tales respecting the Inquisition. To the victims of its tyranny, there was the choice of death with its direst physical agonies, or death with its most hideous moral horrors. I had been reserved for the latter. By long suffering my nerves had been unstrung, until I trembled at the sound of my own voice, and had become in every respect a fitting subject for the species of torture which awaited me.

Shaking in every limb, I groped my way back to the wall; resolving there to perish rather than risk the terrors of the wells, of which my imagination now pictured many in various positions about the dungeon. In other conditions of mind I might have had courage to end my misery at once by a plunge into one of these abysses; but now I was the veriest of cowards. Neither could I forget what I had read of these pits -- that the sudden extinction of life formed no part of their most horrible plan.

Agitation of spirit kept me awake for many long hours; but at length I again slumbered. Upon arousing, I found by my side, as before, a loaf and a pitcher of water. A burning thirst consumed me, and I emptied the vessel at a draught. It must have been drugged; for scarcely had I drunk, before I became irresistibly drowsy. A deep sleep fell upon me -- a sleep like that of death. How long it lasted of course, I know not; but when, once again, I unclosed my eyes, the objects around me were visible. By a wild sulphurous lustre, the origin of which I could not at first determine, I was enabled to see the extent and aspect of the prison.

In its size I had been greatly mistaken. The whole circuit of its walls did not exceed twenty-five yards. For some minutes this fact occasioned me a world of vain trouble; vain indeed! for what could be of less importance, under the terrible circumstances which environed me, then the mere dimensions of my dungeon? But my soul took a wild interest in trifles, and I busied myself in endeavors to account for the error I had committed in my measurement. The truth at length flashed upon me. In my first attempt at exploration I had counted fifty-two paces, up to the period when I fell; I must then have been within a pace or two of the fragment of serge; in fact, I had nearly performed the circuit of the vault. I then slept, and upon awaking, I must have returned upon my steps -- thus supposing the circuit nearly double what it actually was. My confusion of mind prevented me from observing that I began my tour with the wall to the left, and ended it with the wall to the right.

I had been deceived, too, in respect to the shape of the enclosure. In feeling my way I had found many angles, and thus deduced an idea of great irregularity; so potent is the effect of total darkness upon one arousing from lethargy or sleep! The angles were simply those of a few slight depressions, or niches, at odd intervals. The general shape of the prison was square. What I had taken for masonry seemed now to be iron, or some other metal, in huge plates, whose sutures or joints occasioned the depression. The entire surface of this metallic enclosure was rudely daubed in all the hideous and repulsive devices to which the charnel superstition of the monks has given rise. The figures of fiends in aspects of menace, with skeleton forms, and other more really fearful images, overspread and disfigured the walls. I observed that the outlines of these monstrosities were sufficiently distinct, but that the colors seemed faded and blurred, as if from the effects of a damp atmosphere. I now noticed the floor, too, which was of stone. In the centre yawned the circular pit from whose jaws I had escaped; but it was the only one in the dungeon.

All this I saw indistinctly and by much effort: for my personal condition had been greatly changed during slumber. I now lay upon my back, and at full length, on a species of low framework of wood. To this I was securely bound by a long strap resembling a surcingle. It passed in many convolutions about my limbs and body, leaving at liberty only my head, and my left arm to such extent that I could, by dint of much exertion, supply myself with food from an earthen dish which lay by my side on the floor. I saw, to my horror, that the pitcher had been removed. I say to my horror; for I was consumed with intolerable thirst. This thirst it appeared to be the design of my persecutors to stimulate: for the food in the dish was meat pungently seasoned.

Looking upward, I surveyed the ceiling of my prison. It was some thirty or forty feet overhead, and constructed much as the side walls. In one of its panels a very singular figure riveted my whole attention. It was the painted figure of Time as he is commonly represented, save that, in lieu of a scythe, he held what, at a casual glance, I supposed to be the pictured image of a huge pendulum such as we see on antique clocks. There was something, however, in the appearance of this machine which caused me to regard it more attentively. While I gazed directly upward at it (for its position was immediately over my own) I fancied that I saw it in motion. In an instant afterward the fancy was confirmed. Its sweep was brief, and of course slow. I watched it for some minutes, somewhat in fear, but more in wonder. Wearied at length with observing its dull movement, I turned my eyes upon the other objects in the cell.

A slight noise attracted my notice, and, looking to the floor, I saw several enormous rats traversing it. They had issued from the well, which lay just within view to my right. Even then, while I gazed, they came up in troops, hurriedly, with ravenous eyes, allured by the scent of the meat. From this it required much effort and attention to scare them away.

It might have been half an hour, perhaps even an hour, (for in cast my I could take but imperfect note of time) before I again cast my eyes upward. What I then saw confounded and amazed me. The sweep of the pendulum had increased in extent by nearly a yard. As a natural consequence, its velocity was also much greater. But what mainly disturbed me was the idea that had perceptibly descended. I now observed -- with what horror it is needless to say -- that its nether extremity was formed of a crescent of glittering steel, about a foot in length from horn to horn; the horns upward, and the under edge evidently as keen as that of a razor. Like a razor also, it seemed massy and heavy, tapering from the edge into a solid and broad structure above. It was appended to a weighty rod of brass, and the whole hissed as it swung through the air.

I could no longer doubt the doom prepared for me by monkish ingenuity in torture. My cognizance of the pit had become known to the inquisitorial agents -- the pit whose horrors had been destined for so bold a recusant as myself -- the pit, typical of hell, and regarded by rumor as the Ultima Thule of all their punishments. The plunge into this pit I had avoided by the merest of accidents, I knew that surprise, or entrapment into torment, formed an important portion of all the grotesquerie of these dungeon deaths. Having failed to fall, it was no part of the demon plan to hurl me into the abyss; and thus (there being no alternative) a different and a milder destruction awaited me. Milder! I half smiled in my agony as I thought of such application of such a term.

What boots it to tell of the long, long hours of horror more than mortal, during which I counted the rushing vibrations of the steel! Inch by inch -- line by line -- with a descent only appreciable at intervals that seemed ages -- down and still down it came! Days passed -- it might have been that many days passed -- ere it swept so closely over me as to fan me with its acrid breath. The odor of the sharp steel forced itself into my nostrils. I prayed -- I wearied heaven with my prayer for its more speedy descent. I grew frantically mad, and struggled to force myself upward against the sweep of the fearful scimitar. And then I fell suddenly calm, and lay smiling at the glittering death, as a child at some rare bauble.

There was another interval of utter insensibility; it was brief; for, upon again lapsing into life there had been no perceptible descent in the pendulum. But it might have been long; for I knew there were demons who took note of my swoon, and who could have arrested the vibration at pleasure. Upon my recovery, too, I felt very -- oh, inexpressibly sick and weak, as if through long inanition. Even amid the agonies of that period, the human nature craved food. With painful effort I outstretched my left arm as far as my bonds permitted, and took possession of the small remnant which had been spared me by the rats. As I put a portion of it within my lips, there rushed to my mind a half formed thought of joy -- of hope. Yet what business had I with hope? It was, as I say, a half formed thought -- man has many such which are never completed. I felt that it was of joy -- of hope; but felt also that it had perished in its formation. In vain I struggled to perfect -- to regain it. Long suffering had nearly annihilated all my ordinary powers of mind. I was an imbecile -- an idiot.

The vibration of the pendulum was at right angles to my length. I saw that the crescent was designed to cross the region of the heart. It would fray the serge of my robe -- it would return and repeat its operations -- again -- and again. Notwithstanding terrifically wide sweep (some thirty feet or more) and the its hissing vigor of its descent, sufficient to sunder these very walls of iron, still the fraying of my robe would be all that, for several minutes, it would accomplish. And at this thought I paused. I dared not go farther than this reflection. I dwelt upon it with a pertinacity of attention -- as if, in so dwelling, I could arrest here the descent of the steel. I forced myself to ponder upon the sound of the crescent as it should pass across the garment -- upon the peculiar thrilling sensation which the friction of cloth produces on the nerves. I pondered upon all this frivolity until my teeth were on edge.

Down -- steadily down it crept. I took a frenzied pleasure in contrasting its downward with its lateral velocity. To the right -- to the left -- far and wide -- with the shriek of a damned spirit; to my heart with the stealthy pace of the tiger! I alternately laughed and howled as the one or the other idea grew predominant.

Down -- certainly, relentlessly down! It vibrated within three inches of my bosom! I struggled violently, furiously, to free my left arm. This was free only from the elbow to the hand. I could reach the latter, from the platter beside me, to my mouth, with great effort, but no farther. Could I have broken the fastenings above the elbow, I would have seized and attempted to arrest the pendulum. I might as well have attempted to arrest an avalanche!

Down -- still unceasingly -- still inevitably down! I gasped and struggled at each vibration. I shrunk convulsively at its every sweep. My eyes followed its outward or upward whirls with the eagerness of the most unmeaning despair; they closed themselves spasmodically at the descent, although death would have been a relief, oh! how unspeakable! Still I quivered in every nerve to think how slight a sinking of the machinery would precipitate that keen, glistening axe upon my bosom. It was hope that prompted the nerve to quiver -- the frame to shrink. It was hope -- the hope that triumphs on the rack -- that whispers to the death-condemned even in the dungeons of the Inquisition.

I saw that some ten or twelve vibrations would bring the steel in actual contact with my robe, and with this observation there suddenly came over my spirit all the keen, collected calmness of despair. For the first time during many hours -- or perhaps days -- I thought. It now occurred to me that the bandage, or surcingle, which enveloped me, was unique. I was tied by no separate cord. The first stroke of the razorlike crescent athwart any portion of the band, would so detach it that it might be unwound from my person by means of my left hand. But how fearful, in that case, the proximity of the steel! The result of the slightest struggle how deadly! Was it likely, moreover, that the minions of the torturer had not foreseen and provided for this possibility! Was it probable that the bandage crossed my bosom in the track of the pendulum? Dreading to find my faint, and, as it seemed, in last hope frustrated, I so far elevated my head as to obtain a distinct view of my breast. The surcingle enveloped my limbs and body close in all directions -- save in the path of the destroying crescent.

Scarcely had I dropped my head back into its original position, when there flashed upon my mind what I cannot better describe than as the unformed half of that idea of deliverance to which I have previously alluded, and of which a moiety only floated indeterminately through my brain when I raised food to my burning lips. The whole thought was now present -- feeble, scarcely sane, scarcely definite, -- but still entire. I proceeded at once, with the nervous energy of despair, to attempt its execution.

For many hours the immediate vicinity of the low framework upon which I lay, had been literally swarming with rats. They were wild, bold, ravenous; their red eyes glaring upon me as if they waited but for motionlessness on my part to make me their prey. "To what food," I thought, "have they been accustomed in the well?"

They had devoured, in spite of all my efforts to prevent them, all but a small remnant of the contents of the dish. I had fallen into an habitual see-saw, or wave of the hand about the platter: and, at length, the unconscious uniformity of the movement deprived it of effect. In their voracity the vermin frequently fastened their sharp fangs in my fingers. With the particles of the oily and spicy viand which now remained, I thoroughly rubbed the bandage wherever I could reach it; then, raising my hand from the floor, I lay breathlessly still.

At first the ravenous animals were startled and terrified at the change -- at the cessation of movement. They shrank alarmedly back; many sought the well. But this was only for a moment. I had not counted in vain upon their voracity. Observing that I remained without motion, one or two of the boldest leaped upon the frame-work, and smelt at the surcingle. This seemed the signal for a general rush. Forth from the well they hurried in fresh troops. They clung to the wood -- they overran it, and leaped in hundreds upon my person. The measured movement of the pendulum disturbed them not at all. Avoiding its strokes they busied themselves with the anointed bandage. They pressed -- they swarmed upon me in ever accumulating heaps. They writhed upon my throat; their cold lips sought my own; I was half stifled by their thronging pressure; disgust, for which the world has no name, swelled my bosom, and chilled, with a heavy clamminess, my heart. Yet one minute, and I felt that the struggle would be over. Plainly I perceived the loosening of the bandage. I knew that in more than one place it must be already severed. With a more than human resolution I lay still.

Nor had I erred in my calculations -- nor had I endured in vain. I at length felt that I was free. The surcingle hung in ribands from my body. But the stroke of the pendulum already pressed upon my bosom. It had divided the serge of the robe. It had cut through the linen beneath. Twice again it swung, and a sharp sense of pain shot through every nerve. But the moment of escape had arrived. At a wave of my hand my deliverers hurried tumultuously away. With a steady movement -- cautious, sidelong, shrinking, and slow -- I slid from the embrace of the bandage and beyond the reach of the scimitar. For the moment, at least, I was free.

Free! -- and in the grasp of the Inquisition! I had scarcely stepped from my wooden bed of horror upon the stone floor of the prison, when the motion of the hellish machine ceased and I beheld it drawn up, by some invisible force, through the ceiling. This was a lesson which I took desperately to heart. My every motion was undoubtedly watched. Free! -- I had but escaped death in one form of agony, to be delivered unto worse than death in some other. With that thought I rolled my eves nervously around on the barriers of iron that hemmed me in. Something unusual -- some change which, at first, I could not appreciate distinctly -- it was obvious, had taken place in the apartment. For many minutes of a dreamy and trembling abstraction, I busied myself in vain, unconnected conjecture. During this period, I became aware, for the first time, of the origin of the sulphurous light which illumined the cell. It proceeded from a fissure, about half an inch in width, extending entirely around the prison at the base of the walls, which thus appeared, and were, completely separated from the floor. I endeavored, but of course in vain, to look through the aperture.

As I arose from the attempt, the mystery of the alteration in the chamber broke at once upon my understanding. I have observed that, although the outlines of the figures upon the walls were sufficiently distinct, yet the colors seemed blurred and indefinite. These colors had now assumed, and were momentarily assuming, a startling and most intense brilliancy, that gave to the spectral and fiendish portraitures an aspect that might have thrilled even firmer nerves than my own. Demon eyes, of a wild and ghastly vivacity, glared upon me in a thousand directions, where none had been visible before, and gleamed with the lurid lustre of a fire that I could not force my imagination to regard as unreal.

Unreal! -- Even while I breathed there came to my nostrils the breath of the vapour of heated iron! A suffocating odour pervaded the prison! A deeper glow settled each moment in the eyes that glared at my agonies! A richer tint of crimson diffused itself over the pictured horrors of blood. I panted! I gasped for breath! There could be no doubt of the design of my tormentors -- oh! most unrelenting! oh! most demoniac of men! I shrank from the glowing metal to the centre of the cell. Amid the thought of the fiery destruction that impended, the idea of the coolness of the well came over my soul like balm. I rushed to its deadly brink. I threw my straining vision below. The glare from the enkindled roof illumined its inmost recesses. Yet, for a wild moment, did my spirit refuse to comprehend the meaning of what I saw. At length it forced -- it wrestled its way into my soul -- it burned itself in upon my shuddering reason. -- Oh! for a voice to speak! -- oh! horror! -- oh! any horror but this! With a shriek, I rushed from the margin, and buried my face in my hands -- weeping bitterly.

The heat rapidly increased, and once again I looked up, shuddering as with a fit of the ague. There had been a second change in the cell -- and now the change was obviously in the form. As before, it was in vain that I, at first, endeavoured to appreciate or understand what was taking place. But not long was I left in doubt. The Inquisitorial vengeance had been hurried by my two-fold escape, and there was to be no more dallying with the King of Terrors. The room had been square. I saw that two of its iron angles were now acute -- two, consequently, obtuse. The fearful difference quickly increased with a low rumbling or moaning sound. In an instant the apartment had shifted its form into that of a lozenge. But the alteration stopped not here-I neither hoped nor desired it to stop. I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me? Could I resist its glow? or, if even that, could I withstand its pressure And now, flatter and flatter grew the lozenge, with a rapidity that left me no time for contemplation. Its centre, and of course, its greatest width, came just over the yawning gulf. I shrank back -- but the closing walls pressed me resistlessly onward. At length for my seared and writhing body there was no longer an inch of foothold on the firm floor of the prison. I struggled no more, but the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long, and final scream of despair. I felt that I tottered upon the brink -- I averted my eyes --

There was a discordant hum of human voices! There was a loud blast as of many trumpets! There was a harsh grating as of a thousand thunders! The fiery walls rushed back! An outstretched arm caught my own as I fell, fainting, into the abyss. It was that of General Lasalle. The French army had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies.

By Edgar Allan Poes

12

2011-04-08T12:13:00.002+02:00

Why Ark Music Factory is Evil

2011-03-27T18:47:00.002+02:00

from WongaMovies YouTube Channel

The DRUMS again... so fucking good!

2011-03-26T04:25:00.002+01:00

Here I go again
Getting upset over nothing
Getting upset over your heart
Over your heart
Over your heart

And if I ruled the world
I would make every country salute you
And if I ruled the world
I'd make you be mine

And I'm always in your cage
Set me free
And you've locked me in your cage
Set me free

Here you go again
Walking away like it's nothing
Walking away from my heart
But I see your eyes at night
And you know what's wrong
And you know what's right.

The future

Miss Dublin... SAUDADES! I definitely lived there in my past life. I simply know it.

2011-03-24T16:48:00.001+01:00

The Drums - Best Friend

2011-03-23T11:38:00.002+01:00

You're my best friend
But then you died
When I was 23 and you were 25

You're my best friend
But then you died
And how will I survive, survive
Survive, survive?
Oh how will I survive, survive
Survive, survive?

And every day I waited for you
And every day on the top of your car
Every day I waited for you
And every day on the hood of your car

Ahahah ahahah ahahah ahahahahah
Ahahah ahahah ahahah ahahahahah

Ohoh ohohoh ohohoh ohohoh
Ohohoh ohohohoh ohohoh ohohoh

I had a dream of you
You were drifting away
You were sad and the ocean dripped away

And I know, you're gonna be OK
Cuz I can see in your eyes
Your eyes, your eyes, your eyes
Oh no no no, I wanna survive
Survive, survive, survive.

And every day I waited for you
And every day on the top of your car
Every day I waited for you
And every day on the hood of your car

Ahahah ahahah ahahah ahahahahah
Ahahah ahahah ahahah ahahahahah..

Ohoh ohohoh ohohoh ohohoh
Ohohoh ohohohoh ohohoh ohohoh

And every day I waited for you
And every day on the top of your car
Every day I waited for you
And every day on the hood of your car

Ahahah ahahah ahahah ahahahahah
Ahahah ahahah ahahah ahahahahah
Ahahah ahahah ahahah ahahahahah
Ahahah ahahah ahahah ahahahahah...

MGMT - Time To Pretend - Official Music Video

2011-03-22T11:44:00.004+01:00

I'm feeling rough, I'm feeling raw, I'm in the prime of my life.
Let's make some music, make some money, find some models for wives.
I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin, and fuck with the stars.
You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars.

This is our decision, to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun.
Yeah, it's overwhelming, but what else can we do.
Get jobs in offices, and wake up for the morning commute.

Forget about our mothers and our friends
We're fated to pretend
To pretend
We're fated to pretend
To pretend
I'll miss the playgrounds and the animals and digging up worms
I'll miss the comfort of my mother and the weight of the world
I'll miss my sister, miss my father, miss my dog and my home
Yeah, I'll miss the boredom and the freedom and the time spent alone.

There's really nothing, nothing we can do
Love must be forgotten, life can always start up anew.
The models will have children, we'll get a divorce
We'll find some more models, everything must run its course.

We'll choke on our vomit and that will be the end
We were fated to pretend
To pretend
We're fated to pretend
To pretend

Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah

flickr blast... old photos... long time no see!

2011-03-21T04:06:00.011+01:00

we finally got the "pro" version of FLICKR so now I am having a blast enjoying "LONG-TIME-NO-SEE" pictures. You know, we format computers. Our machines get bugged. You know... And I am not organized when it comes to pictures. Flickr is saving my life. It's being quite amazing!

These kiddos are all awesome! All of them... no exception!

2011-03-17T02:32:00.008+01:00

(from left) Arthur, Daniel, and Vinnie

SAD BUT TRUE... (guitar reef)

2011-03-12T20:03:00.035+01:00

I came up with a fantastic conclusion on my literature career attempt: I'll never have anything published in this country. Period. By this country I mean Brazil. Where I am from. Where I live in. This is a fact. Well, man... I feel ridiculous writing in Portuguese. Seriously. I can't manage this language anymore. Although I have not gone that deep in terms of significance with English language, I just find it way much easier to bring about any word that I need in this language: ENGLISH. Every useful word, which has to show up in the back of mind, vanishes in Portuguese. And while I'm writing in English, they are simply there. That may seem stupid since I am a Portuguese speaker, but hey, life is stupid every now and then. I've got an explanation: maybe that is "because extended vocabulary hardly has its place in Brazilian Portuguese modern writing", according to Simone Campos (a Brazilian writer who writes in English just like I do. Better saying, she does not write like I do because her writings are way better than mine. That was a joke and I hope you get that.)

I come from a family whose parents are ESL teachers. By the age of seven I started taking my English as a Second Language course (in Brazil, foreign languages aren't widely required in regular Elementary School curricula). At the age of fourteen I graduated and started helping my parents tutor some of their beginer students. That is when I took a Portuguese language composition course and I acquired interest in writing. I became mesmerized by the mere power of words. And I have been still. I had discovered them even way before that! I wrote my very first poem by the age of 10.

A few years later, in High School (when I was 14 and started taking a nice composition course), I would read mature writers for mature readers... Gee! Then I became moved by literature. Hence, I decided to major in Journalism. I innocently believed that that major would make me a real writer. But there, I was not learning all the useful words in their strongest depth. I am pretty sure I learned how to write as a journalist should. Whatever others may have thought of me producing as a journO, it was all stale to me. I lost interest. I wanted to do something different. I wanted to write beyond my own capacity. That's when the other languages come in. "To replenish thy cup of thirstiness for writing." In 1998, I took a plane to the USA and started taking a creative writing college major in St Pete, Florida. That means that I won't ever publish a book in Brazil (This is the end, my friend!).

Nowadays, I find it really hard to write in my first language. I feel the need to come up with words and shapes. Yes, even shapes. "I have to develop new syntaxes." I many times notice in me a strange habit of writing in Portuguese words as they were mistranslated English ones. Or Japanese. Or Spanish. Or French. Or even German. For I had the chance to interact with Native Speakers of all the above languages cited while living in the USA. I used to feel at ease in that American-Floridian-English world. It's easy to write here on this blog, for example. Besides this, my experience of having studied the local language in Dublin, Ireland, was wholesome too. English language enpowers me. It's breezy to have "sentences popping out one after another." In Portuguese, "I have to sit and wait. A lot." And the worst part is the final result, which seems so much lame, at least in some ways.

Yesterday, I came across this paragraph on Simone's writing: "Now you're gonna ask me why I detest my poor mother-tongue. Well I love my language. But I can get enough of it. I'm a slut, that is. I'm prostituting with all other tongues. In fact, I write in all of them at the same time, same line. It feels so good." These words had to be in THE PAWNSHOP blog. I could not let them slip through my fingers. Oh Simone...

I haven't given up on my Portuguese writings. As a matter of fact, I still get some really good shit in my language, especially when I deconstruct what may seem not right. It is for sure my coolest (not BEST) way of writing. But when the subject is book publishing, I do believe that my first novel, that very first Laila's fiction book, will come out in English. But the second book will be released in Portuguese(?), Spanish(?), Chinese(?). Who will read me in this country? Oh, man, I am so confusing. I wish I were simpler. There are moments I wish I were a fly or a silver fish. But I was made to be complicated. Or even better, I wish I were a multilingual dictionary. I wish I were also a vintage book. That very book that "exposes today's challenges in an old-fashioned way." I wish I were a pun. I wish I were all words, at least, as many words as can be written and said.

There are days I wake up not feeling well. There are days I get up and wander around my house thinking - 'One more day without making a difference in the universe of words, clauses, exclamations, cited sentences, idiomatic expressions, phrases and so on. One more day without locating my own odd style.' "Variety. That's the word for my style. I'm always playing around. I develop ways. I'm a carver. You can't go and tell me I abandoned my previous style – you just hadn't seen all of it, love. If I wanted to bestsell, it was easy. I'd just have to write in English, then translate. But until now I had been tied up by the language "of my own" - I write around it." Oh, Simone! I'm in love with your words.

My waking life feels as though it's all fiction. I can't believe that I am able to exist outside my mind. Many lives do exist inside our collective minds. People do not realize that somehow. I create and recreate characters in me because many times I am not capable to carve them into words. I act as if I were somebody else. Trouble is, I think I'm dreaming too much and living too little. When I come across difficulties in life, I usually say: 'God, just leave me out of this bad dream!

I find myself in actual dreams in which I am still dreaming but I clearly feel as if I am awake. Then I see myself through the eyes of someone else in those dreams. I tell myself then: 'You're sleeping and soon we'll have to wake up, so enjoy this moment to the fullest. Then the dream is almost over and I feel like waking up, but I force to put me into that dream again. And now I'm working still in the dream. I'd like to wake up. Difficult thing. I have been mastering a weird technique of traveling into the dreams I normally have since I was a little kid. I am very much afraid that, one day, this technique won't work anymore. I want to hold this particular ability of placing and replacing me into good and bad dreams forever.

Simone has also put these words on the dreaming subject which I think it is so worthy reading: "I had always had the theory that the line between my conscious and subconscious mind was not that thick. I could always remember what I dreamed with an amazing amount of detail. When I dreamt I knew it was a dream and I had a real life to get back to - and I'd even learn to tell the difference, within time. But that was only the you're-not-that-postal part. Sometimes I could see places I had dreamt of repeat themselves in real life, sometimes I'd write fiction and tiny details of it subsequently came real in a quite haunting way. Things were escaping into life and I'm sorry that they do. But now apparently what I want is to escape life, because somehow, I'm not really sure that I woke up today."

"I have always had the theory that the line between my conscious and subconscious mind was not that thick," THIS READS SO RIGHT. But there is one tiny little thing that I can't agree with Simone and it starts from here: The subjects and matters of my writings (Laila's writings) do not mostly come from dreams I've had though. They are built in my awareness. "The reveries which I sense in my waking like are molded as words, my own words, my multilingual dictionaries, puns, clauses, exclamations and phrases. My characters, poems, settings, and plots are originated in the deepest of my traumas which emerge in real life, in the eye of the swirl of my observational fluids." My literature is born and killed on blank sheets of paper or blank computer screens. Yeah. But in English. Sure that I won't ever publish anything in this lame country. Damn Portuguese!

Ms Burden

PS: Whatever is between "", it means those words were borrowed from SIMONE CAMPOS.

Mason Jennings - Butterfly

2011-03-09T11:36:00.002+01:00

BUTTERFLY by Mason Jennings
Look at me now

I'm all dressed up in your words today

Do you think about me

Do you think about me

And if it comes down

It's still about the sweet little things you say

After all that I've run from

Where the fuck did you come from

Butterfly, baby I still have my doubts about you cuz

Butterfly, cuz I can't find nothing bad about you and

Butterfly, you mess me up you made my heart double beat and

Butterfly, I don't know how it is you got inside of me

But you're in there now

Oh you're in there now, you're in there now

You made me yours

With your lovely cures

Life is like

I don't why it is I do things like this

After all that I've come from

You're the woman I should run from

Butterfly, baby I still have my doubts about you cuz

Butterfly, cuz I can't find nothing bad about you and

Butterfly, you mess me up you made my heart double beat and

Butterfly, I don't know how it is you got inside of me

LONGBOARDING REALITY SHOW

2011-03-08T13:23:00.005+01:00

New Model Army - Purity

2011-03-07T08:19:00.003+01:00

The blondie is Raymi, a writer and a professional blogger... Besides being women, we've got one more thing in common ROFL

2011-03-06T22:23:00.024+01:00

http://www.raymitheminx.com
Raymi is an intelligent gorgeous woman. I love her writings and her corageous blog. I hope men remember to celebrate OUR DAY in Canada too just like we do in Brazil. It is on March 8th, folks! HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY to Raymi and all blogger women in this world.

In tribute to all women, March 8th - Internation Women's Day - today's movie presentation is on ANNE FRANK

2011-03-06T00:46:00.010+01:00

Something to think about...

2011-03-04T09:35:00.002+01:00

THE HARE
Chinese Zodiac - Yeah... I may gonna restart studying CHINESE. I'm nuts. I know it.

Hares fall under a most fortunate sign! Their sign is the emblem of long life and they possess the powers of the moon. Hares are very sensitive to beauty. They are gracious and soft spoken. Hares are the diplomats and the peace-makers. They enjoy a tranquil life and love a quiet evening at home. Hares are reserved and very artistic. They are thorough and good scholars. When Hares are moody, which is often, they will appear totally indifferent to the world.

Hares are lucky in money matters and great at finding a bargain. They may look easy-going, but they are actually quite cunning! Being a strong-willed person, they go quietly but determinedly towards their goals. They don't like making waves and find other means to get their way.

Hares are well-mannered and seldom use harsh words or foul language. Instead they cater to your every whim until they get their way. Before you know it, you have been won over! Although Hares appear slow at times, they are actually practicing caution. They read all the fine print before signing their names. Their uncanny abilities to correctly assess people and situations leave them quite conceited. Hares are considerate, understanding, warm, friendly, and easy to be with. They know how to relax.

When everyone is rushing around, Hares remind you that there is still tomorrow. Their motto is "live and let live". Hares would never embarrass you in public and they know how to save face. If Hares can spare your feelings, they will. For this they are well liked.

Hares make few enemies and rarely get into serious trouble. No one is more understanding. Hares give you all the sympathy you need. Just don't expect them to go out and do battle for you.If the going gets too rough, Hares may make a quick exit. They can't stand suffering and misery. Hares are experts at passing the buck and may hedge over difficult issues. When they feel too threatened they are unpredictable. If you push them too far they will simply get rid of you! Hares were not born to be fighters. They have their own ways that are very effective. Having good sense they know how to take care of themselves. They protect their own environment from strife at all costs.

Hares are good entertainers and hosts. They have good words to say about everyone. Although they often know more than they will say,they are discreet in their choice of friends. No matter what happens to Hares, they land on their feet and easily leap obstacles in their path. Hares believe in themselves and are at peace within. They will find success and contentment.

I feel more like DRAGON...

THE DRAGON
Dragon people are balls of fire! They are full of vitality and love of life. Always on the run, they drag their faithful band of admirers behind them. Dragons are egotistical, eccentric, demanding, and giving.

They are proud, direct, and loaded with high ideals which they always try to live up to. Having a zeal for life, they want to live it on a grand scale. They have the potential for accomplishing many great things as long as they don't get too far ahead of themselves. When dragons do something, good or bad, you can be certain their deeds do not go unnoticed! Dragons are always making the news.

It is next to impossible to win an argument with Dragon people.They intimidate anyone who challenges them. Once you arouse their anger, they keep after you for a very long time. Dragons are extremely loyal to friends and family. When really needed they always come to the rescue. They are the first ones to say "I told you so". In spite of being overly emotional, a Dragon is not sentimental or even romantic. They will just take it for granted that everyone loves them. Although they are stubborn and irrational, they are not petty or begrudging with their favors. It is hard for them to hide their feelings. They don't even try.

Not being secretive themselves, they can't be expected to keep a confidence for long; but Dragons speak from the heart and are always sincere. Their manners may seem brusque and too direct, but they merely want to get things moving. Being creatures of action, they motivate others, too. They often get into rushes and fail to see the flaws in a situation.Instead of diving in, Dragons need to learn to check things out better. Dragons need purpose in their lives, causes to fight for, and goals to reach. An uninvolved Dragon is a sad sight indeed.

Dragons consider themselves very strong. They will often bite off more than they can chew. When this happens, they are too proud to ask for help and exhaust themselves. Dragons can do many things well. They may be artists, politicians, doctors, or ministers. When Dragons choose the right profession, they will be successful and devoted. They just can't help winning!

In romance, Dragons are seldom the losers and are usually the ones breaking hearts. Dragons don't marry too young, and many are content and happier living alone. Dragons will always have more than their share of friends and admirers to keep them company. Dragons are really softies and fall apart if they lose their supporters. They dazzle as long as there is someone who believes in them.

Source: http://www.rainfall.com/horoscop/chinese.htm

a little bit of visual arts... Man, how I miss art galleries and museums, this is the only thing that disappoints me about where I live - no art galleries NO ART GALLERIES. Well there is one or maybe more, but I only know one. SAD

2011-02-27T14:06:00.002+01:00

Oil Canvas by Jose Rodriguez Fuster

PBF Halloween 2010

2011-02-26T02:10:00.002+01:00

reposting... been busy and fussy and messy and stuff

2011-02-24T01:31:00.003+01:00

I wish I were gone
I wish I could write for real
I wish my friends were around
I wish they never lied to me
I wish I hadn't drown in this high tide
I wish so many things
I also wish that those many things weren't needed...
I wish I were taller
I wish I had more pleasures in life
I wish life hadn't abandoned me in the ocean
I wish the ocean were gray
I wish I could hide better my filthness
I wish I believed in supernatural forces
I wish God believed in me
I wish so many things
I also wish that those things weren't too many
I wish I were smarter
I wish I didn't disappoint that much
I wish I could find all cures
I wish my fingers tips answered faster
I wish those answers had been enough
I wish so many things
I also wish that some of those things were tangible
I wish I were Lispector

Sisters' Power, Distances, and Wedding Plans

2011-02-20T04:20:00.049+01:00

It is hard to live far away from people you love, or people that you lived with during a section of your life, or even those that you have never met but you respect respect so much... nevertheless, they are far from where you decided to live.

I live approximately 1700 kilometers away from my parents. It's at least a two-day driving trip or a 6-hour flight because of connections, let alone delays during summer rains. It is definitely far. I've lived in five different other places and this past year was my fifth time visiting my family after returning to Brazil (hubby and I spent years abroad). So I knew that when I went back home, they would be receiving me with open arms. And they did. I was very much well received.

However, at the end of 2011, I won't be visiting my hometown. Roberto and I are finally getting married... in LAS VEGAS! YAY!

Every year I visit home, I get to have lunch and dinner with my family. We always get together at Christmas as family and when hubby and I have the money to go home during the summertime(which ALWAYS happens - thank God!), we buy Christmas gifts to everyone . Yeah, Christmas celebration takes place in summer in Brazil. My dad and mom get over-excited when they see us. Not because of the presents, I hope. (Kidding!) I love to visit home.

Roberto and I have been living together for almost 13 years. Why would we need to get married OFFICIALLY? There are lots of times when I think, "why am I doing this to myself?" you know, placing yourself so far away from it all... Living on our own in a city where you have no family is a strengthening experience, but often alienating and tremendously lonely. It's sometimes hard not to feel sorry for myself when people mention they are going out with their relatives and stuff. We are going to celebrate the craziest thing we have ever done together which is BEING TOGETHER basically by ourselves! yep.

Actually, I like the distance from my family. I enjoy this special feeling of talking to them on the phone or meeting them after months or sometimes years... and now they know that hubby and I are getting married. This is so incredible.

The distance makes us stronger. There are advantages to this life. We become extremely strong and capable. I know more about my PERSONA than I'd ever dreamed of. I found my apartment by myself. And I can install mirrors, shelves, pictures, put furniture together, and fix stuff.

The other interesting thing about living so far away from home is that our friends become paramount. And, of course, a new city is a new life. Everyone is interesting. Everywhere is interesting. Every new experience is essential. It's easier to reinvent yourself in a city where no one knows your history. But I did not leave home for this. I left home because I needed it. I am from a place where there is a very small chance of growth.

If I wanted to grow up in my hometown, it would be ALMOST impossible, of course, depending on the type of person i'd have turned to. According to my past dream career and the mess I have always been, I would have never coped living in my HOMETOWN. Since the age of 16, I've been far from my family. I've been turning a whole new person. Not everything in my life is perfect, but I'm not stressed out, or depressed, or heartsick. I AM GETTING MARRIED! That is what matters. SHIIIIT... i've got to lose wait FOR REAL now. Damn it.

Roberto and I are going to spend two weeks in California and Nevada goofing off with our students and best friends, and then we'll be back to Brazil and officialize our wedding in Sao Paulo. I'll be sad to leave my cats home, however, I'll probably be content when I step back into my downtown apartment....in the middle of the unknown world however we will be carrying a Graceland Chapel marriage certificate.

Jennifer and Fernanda, my real life sisters. Miss them a great deal
Carol and I, my former sister student! Miss her too.
I love all my strong SISTERS!!!

Afternoon in GRAMADO, in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

2011-02-14T01:09:00.009+01:00

"Love or Hate America" chatting opera

2011-02-12T16:06:00.001+01:00

I will post here a chat between an E-friend and "moi" about a very delicate topic: Loving or hating AMERICA. Read the whole thing and later you can argue with me what my point of view is.
10:38 AM me: hey, what's up?
Archenar: hi. nothing much, writing a bit about my friend, translating a bit, trying to see the monitor behind my cat's ass. :)
10:40 AM me: i'm supposed to pick clothes from the hanger. it's going to rain i must do the dishes put the trash out chores and chores
Archenar: i also have a long list of must-dos. pff growing up is a pain in the ass. :)
10:41 AM me: don't tell me
Archenar: how are the cats? how is the hubbie? how is the school, is everything all right?
10:43 AM me: the cats are great. Tibby is getting old and so she's more reserved. Pancho is a brat.He bit Roberto's nose yesterday so hard that he almost needed stiches
10:44 AM the school is great
we have three international trips for this year
10:45 AM how was your trip to Europe?
Archenar to me
12:15 PM me: i am going to Disney with the kids in July and to Vegas in January with the adults
12:16 PM Archenar: oh, that is so nice! the us are not the best place, but, even so, it's a lot of fun.
12:17 PM me: USA is the best place EVER
sorry to disagree
i got very disappointed in Europe
Archenar: no, it's ok. i prefer anywhere in europe.
really, why?
12:19 PM me: I'm speaking of EUROPE in general which is not the truth about GERMANY and IRELAND. In Germany, for instance,I was very well assisted and the signs, info to help tourists to get around were all PERFECT... but in the USA, everywhere I went, there were signs and instructions all around
12:20 PM I've been to NYC, CHICAGO, ATLANTA, MIAMI, I lived in SAINT PETE by the GOLF OF MEXICO... I never got lost in those places
12:21 PM Archenar: well, i went everywhere, even czeck republic, where language is fucking crazy, and i never got lost. i got by very well. and when i couldn't find anything, i would mimic and people would help me. but... i understand that europe is not for everyone. ;)
12:22 PM brb, going to smoke. write away. :D
me: I heard about Czech people being EXTREMELY polite to help tourist to get around...
I didn't go there
that's why I say.. I got disappointed with a few countries
12:23 PM but not all of them
I love AMERICA, that's all
better saying: AMERICAN PEOPLE
12:26 PM "Europe is not for everyone"... thanks for placing me in the "EVERYONE" category...
12:31 PM Archenar: i wasn't saying that. and i guess we disagree on a basic level, which is american people. and i hate them. in general. sorry if i offended you.
12:34 PM me: Why do you hate american people? One of your favorite writer is Henry Muller, right?
12:37 PM Archenar: henry miller is a different case. i love a lot of american writers, bands, whatever. but i don't like americans in general. they are very self-centered, they think you need to love their country like they do, they think you have to think they are the best and blah blah blah, when, in fact, they don't know much about the rest of the world. they introduce themselves as "oh, i'm whatever, i'm american" and expect you to be in awe. i hate the average american. like i hate a bunch of other people. there are exceptions, of course, like there are everywhere. but i positively hate self-centered people. which they are. to the max.
12:39 PM like
12:40 PM i can't bear people who make remakes of movies just because they are not in english, or remake stuff just because it's in british english. gah. grr.
me: wow, I lived there for 5 years and I did not meet any individual that think or said or react that way. Have you ever read a book called ... sorry the title is in portuguese: " O Manual do Perfeito Idiota Latino Americano"? That book illustrates exactly what I found out about dealing with people of that culture... it is amazing
12:41 PM the book is awesome
and reflects about all these misconceptions
12:43 PM Archenar: well, there are misconceptions everywhere. but i speak from what i saw and what i lived. as i said, there are exceptions everywhere, good and people everywhere. but the usa is a wonderful place to visit and to spend money in electronics. other than that, for me, pff. not worth it. but, as i said, we are different individuals and have different opinions.
i have nothing against their being rich
or having more security for everyone
12:44 PM me: it was written by Colombian, Cuban, and Peruvian writers
Archenar: i think each country has its own development and i don't envy any of the things i had there
i don't like their way of life, i didn't like the life i had there, i don't like the relationships, i don't like the way they are shallow
12:45 PM i don't like a bunch of things. that is why i don't like american people. i can bear them, talk to them, pff, i don't care. but it wouldn't be my country of choice if i could choose a place to live around the world.
12:46 PM me: They are are and live exactly the way Brazilians, Europeans, Africans, Middle Eastern, etc etc do. They are regular people.
They are people just like you
12:47 PM Archenar: well, that is your point of view. i won't argue. you see what i don't see and i see what you don't see. and you will not convince me otherwise. you lived there, i lived there. we had different experiences, met different people. just like people somewhere hate brazilians, you know. i don't agree with the american way of life, which is to say, very different from my way of life. and that is all.
12:49 PM me: where did you live? I am getting scared... I don't wanna go there.... where exactly did you live there?
Archenar: why scared? people are allowed to disagree. i lived in virginia, new jersey and massachusetts.
12:53 PM me: I am getting scared because you said YOU HATED AMERICAN PEOPLE... and I couldn't understand... and still can't how could a person hate the PEOPLE of a place... I lived in SAINT PETERSBURG, where I could find funloving, helpful, and respectful people. So I am not going to BOSTON then, but my boss was from Virginia and her entire family was so warming and caring.... life is just too confusing
12:54 PM new Jersey
i don't have anything to say
12:58 PM Archenar: i hate american people like i don't like them, don't care for them, am not impressed by them or their culture. i am not a lover of american anything, just like most people are. i don't care. it's not that i am adolph hitler. but... i guess that is your point of view and the way you see things. i mean, by the way you understand things, you were very influenced by the american culture, because, in a way or another, you take everything i said to the letter and leave no space for interpretation. right now, in your head, i have an oven in my house where i will burn all americans i find on the streets. what i said, from the beginning, is that i don't like american people. maybe the word hate was a bit too much, but, anyway. i don't like their way of life in general. just like some people don't like the french. just like i hate corinthianos in general. but that doesn't mean i don't have any friends that are corinthianos. i do have and i always tell them, hey, i hate corinthianos. because that is the way things are. i see beyond corinthians, like who they are, except for this character flaw. hahaha. but... i am not a politically correct person. i don't thread lightly on things and i think nobody should. and i don't have an oven in my house. and i am not a terrorist, not a comunist, not a stupid latin american person (like the book mentions) that loves all things that are against the usa or capitalism. it's a personal opinion. that is all.
12:59 PM but, scared, come on! that's just an opinion. like i hate olives. so, i keep away from them.
1:03 PM me: wait... you are taking things too harsh. sorry if I typed things in a wrong way or with strong words. I was going and AM GOING to celebrate this chat because we needed to find something UNCOMMON between us. I remember you said once: " WE ARE SIMILAR IN SO MANY THINGS" and now I know we are not. I love that. That's the beauty of being HUMAN BEINGS
1:04 PM I keep respecting you
Later on...
1:10 PM Archenar: i, by no means, lost my respect for you. people disagree in many aspects, and i know that. there is no problem.
1:11 PM but i don't fear not liking things or hating things and voicing it to people. as i said, i am not politically correct. i think politically correct makes people become weak and dumb.
1:12 PM so, i don't like a bunch of people, because of the stereotypes that exist. and that is the way i am. but, you liking american people and my not liking them does not diminish the image i have of you. and i hope that does not get in the way of our friendship. :)
I am not politically correct either. However, your losing the respect for me can only get in the way of the friendship we used to have. I did not mean to argue. I am so sorry that the conversation ended up that way, because I was just making my point and you took it in the wrong way... Besides all that, I also root for Corinthians. What a sad coincidence! It was really nice to have "online-met" you.
Peace out
1:10 PM Archenar: i, by no means, lost my respect for you. people disagree in many aspects, and i know that. there is no problem. 1:11 PM but i don't fear not liking things or hating things and voicing it to people. as i said, i am not politically correct. i think politically correct makes people become weak and dumb. 1:12 PM so, i don't like a bunch of people, because of the stereotypes that exist. and that is the way i am. but, you liking american people and my not liking them does not diminish the image i have of you. and i hope that does not get in the way of our friendship. :)

Laila,Are you crazy? I never said I lost the respect I had for you. Why would I? I have nothing against your opinion! Please, read the chat again. It's down there, just scroll the email.

me: sorry for last night's misunderstanding

12:54 PM Archenar: it's ok. don't worry
THE END

Lajoie's Poetry... Grand

2011-02-12T00:48:00.000+01:00

while in Rio, Beto trained Jiu Jitsu at "Gracie Barra" gym

2011-02-11T23:13:00.006+01:00

Showing respect... Very nice and kinda strict. I really enjoyed the environment of this place Warming up Jiu Jitsu wrestlers. Gracie Barra was a very welcoming gym and Roberto really dug itPush ups, babes. These guys are so foccused that I almost tried Jiu Jitsu a bit. You know... I'm lazy!Stretching which is inevitable. I am glad to see my hubby stretching his muscles coz that is hard workThe Masters chit chatting. What are they speculating? Who knows? I only know that this practice was way professionalBeto maybe broke the protocol by bowing to me... Love this guy! You have the stamina I don't get

Reposting 2008 photos

2011-02-09T16:03:00.010+01:00

In those photos we see that Roberto is drooling over me. Check out his T-shirt. LOL. Just teasing. I felt like reposting these old photos because somehow I've been missing my black 'emo' hair. Or maybe I've been missing those old times of short hairstyle and not having that many students to mind. It's kind of a nostalgic feeling and a mix of homesickness. I miss my home state Sao Paulo. I miss my people. Although, I love where I live. It has been 9 years that I am back in Brazil but here is not like my home place. USA was intense. I miss there too. Europe was too short. I miss Berlin and Dublin. I left my home town when I was 16. I don't even know which Brazilian accent I have now. I sound funny for local people. I sound funny for Sao Paulo people. Languages move me. Cultural differences instigate me. Wooow...I am being so prolix today. (I lurve irony so bad!) I miss my childhood friends. Where am I from? Do I sound funny to you? Well, everyone sounds funny to me anyway. I don't fit anywhere. Maybe in Mars? No, not even there. Oh man, life is so complex and simple too, ironically.

This post will be continued...

UFC Watching event at our APARTMENT...

2011-02-06T07:21:00.033+01:00

Roberto (hubby) and Vagner, who is our student and a friend of ours, decided to watch the final of a UFC fight together at our apartment tonight. I did my best to receive this guy, who happens to be traveling to the USA with us at the end of this year. Roberto and I focused on making him comfortable at our place which is very small, but it is a very cozy apartment. We are definitely good hosts. He even took off his sneakers... Come on? Who wears sneakers in a such small apartment on a middle class 9th floor Caxias do Sul downtown apartment? LOL And it is small as hell, believe me. His visit was extremely fun during the first UFC "fights." Bad luck that Vitor did not win. Shiiit. A three-minute combat? All three of us were truly rooting for Vitor Belfort. Liar liar... Vagner said that Anderson Silva was going to win and he did. Damn! Whatevs. The drinks and the food were off the hook anyway. And let us not mention Vagner's company... an amazing person! I am glad hubby does not like soccer. Oh, and neither do the kitties. The black one is Pancho Villa. He's one year and 4 months old. A real brat kitty, that's what he is. I love my cats.

Been taking SPANISH as a SIXTH LANGUAGE

2011-02-03T18:44:00.002+01:00

So, after taking English, German, French, Chinese, now it's SPANISH TIME! I have classes every Saturday afternoon. In order to practice the language, I've been seeing YouTube tutorial and cooking videos... and the vlogs too, let alone singing along songs in the language, of course. This one is from a band called ATERCIOPELADOS from Colombia and the song is called "CRUZ DE SAL".

Voy a publicar aca las palabras de la cancion para estudiar mi mas nueva lengua...

Hoy me levanto preparada
Dormí bien, soñé que volaba
Voy a hacer una cruz de sal
Pa´ asegurarme que hoy no va a llover

Que no se lleve
El río embravecido en su corriente
Todo lo que encuentre, todo lo que encuentre
Todo lo que se le pare enfrente

Hoy siento optimismo
De esos de después de una tormenta
Pero igual sigo esperando la próxima
Porque estamos en invierno, lluvias y deslizamientos
Inundación

Que no se lleve
El río embravecido en su corriente
Todo lo que encuentre, todo lo que encuentre
Todo lo que se le pare enfrente

Es la madre naturaleza
La pachamama maltratada
Que se queja, que se queja, que se queja

La tierra prometida por mi raza profanada
Que se estremece de dolor
Cuando sus hijos la contaminan, la deforestan, la esterilizan, la recalientan, la industrializan

Que no se lleve…

Anita Tijoux - 1977

2011-01-31T12:38:00.000+01:00

Lazy Dance

2011-01-30T17:36:00.000+01:00

Brill

2011-01-27T20:44:00.001+01:00

It finally rained here... but it was not enough. So we need more water because it got warmer and warmer. Brazil is very controversial!