Tuesday reflections

Bluejays are beak-stuffing slobs, with dainty and sleek feathers, superficial cover for gluttony...

Bradleys are procrastinators, with hip-hairdos and polished noggin netherworlds, who whittle away hours twiddling internet ding dongs and doodling narcissism...

Squirrels are depraved backyard denizens, violators of all seven deadly sins, rapacious and cunning delinquents, munchers, camouflaged monsters, objects of detestation...

"Hello morning!" is betoken by 7am wake up, followed tenaciously, alarms like calls to prayer...

My hope is for luminous mornings, indefatigable days, reading evenings, and - o gosh, finally - stable habits, and reliable relationships...

Libby (canis lupis familiaris) is as omnivorous as a goat - she scarfs a morning walnut ritualistically; grapes are delicacies; chicken bones can be procured through trashcan larceny; and the evening meal is human fare - certainly a princess among beasts...

What is one to make of Pynchon, the 'postmodern' luminary? G's Rainbow is a ponderous epic, singular and difficult. Is there some concealed genius - an ironclad kernel - is he just a clever scribomaniac?
The Mars Volta would seem to follow logically, part of the frantic dialectic which cherishes beautiful discord...

Syracuse, NY, most magical at nocturnal hours/ urban air after gloaming/ from illuminated city to atmospheric gloom/ and in between, ladders of light like celestial towers...

Scribblings 1

Rain cuts the heat of the dog days of summer.
But far from serrate or slice,
the stuff drips fruitlessly into drought,
like ineffectual radiation on a redoubtable tumor.
Bitches lick skyward while pups suckle dry nips,
pigs rut in the cached earth, hardly moistened, dreaming of lascivious mud,
The dog star, imperious, from his empyrean perch, radiates pure malice.

Cutting the cheese,
is an inevitable albeit malodorous function of eating and breathing,
but not on Maslow's chart.

To cut cocaine, crack, heroine, and the like,
with speed, baby laxative, glucose, baking powder, and such,
is to dilute poison with poison,
to spur even more druggie death and decay,
to dangerously distort the high.
But who is to say how or how fast a person is to die?

"Cut it out!" implores the belabored brother,
ugly harassment in his sister's ember-eyes,'
The oafish elder',
docile and sloppy in unlaced Sketchers,
is no match for her wiles and meanness,
her smart pigtails.
She grabs and twists his tender tit-toppers while he screeches,
as sharp as a knife.

Metaphors

I am in the process of reading (and enjoying) Saul Bellow's Adventures of Augie March. The language of this prose-master excites me. Check out some of these metaphors, similies, and other language usage innovations from the maestro.

... he listened, trying to remain comfortable but gradually becoming like a man determined not to let a grasshopper escape from his hand (Bellow, p. 4, NY: Penguin).

I tried to explain something of this to your brother, but his thoughts are about as steady as the way a drunkard pees (p. 55).

Poor nails, he didn't look good...An immense face like raked garden soil in need of water...he turned death nosed, white as a polyp, even in his deepest wrinkles. (p. 95-96)

...as soon as he inherited the fortune it darted and wriggled away like a collection of little gold animals that had obeyed only the old man's voice (p. 116).

The spirit I found him in was the Chanticleer spirit, by which I refer to male piercingness, sharpness, knotted hard muscle and blood in the comb, jerky, flaunty, haughty and bright, with luxurious slither of feathers (p. 168).

World of musical medley

What in the name of shaven Shiva is World Music?

This term is generally understood, but it is also generally understood to be an egregious misnomer. It suffers from poor semantic vision and lacks usefulness, largely because it has no antipode. Nobody listens to music which qualifies as non-world. We have yet to receive melodic, rhythmic, or lyrical transmissions from alien races or species. No Martian jazz, Plotonian hip hop, or back-country bluegrass from Betelgeuse. This is lamentable, but undeniable. After this blog, it is conceivable that my next project will be to write a science fiction novel about an interplanetary musical interchange (IMI), and how music eventually defeats the human specie's knee-jerk xenophobia . O, someday... But for now, all music is literally world, or rather planetary. And, because it is planetary and distinctly human, it is all generally comprehensible.

We like our art to fit into the comfortable boundaries of our aesthetic experience, but we appreciate it when it toes the line of convention. There is a safe band of space between bland, craven convention and weird, envelope-shredding experimentation. Societal and personal change occur gradually; innovative mutation is a lengthy process. One does not generally go from the Beatles to the Swedish thrash, death, and prog metal band Meshuggah in one revolutionary leap.

Where, then, does world music fit in on the all-musical spectrum? First, we must reject the cheeky, buffoonish “All music is world” thesis, because it negates even the conventional social value of the term world music. We then move on to a new theory. Perhaps, only music which is unadulterated, indigenous and traditional should be called world music. This is a radical and untenable position. A more moderate perspective is that the mix of modern and traditional constitutes world. From that perspective, world music occupies a space between generally well-known Western modern music and generally unknown indigenous folk and traditional musical trends.

I choose the latter, because I consider purity to be a fiction. The unadulterated is sullied everywhere, especially now given pervasive globalization. Modern cultural mishmashing makes delineating useful boundaries around potential sanctuaries of pure indigenous music or art difficult and or impossible. If that sanctuary is out there, it is buried beneath the slow, drifting sands, or crouched with a spear in its hand, in some tropical jungle. From my perspective, the indigenous flavor worldizes, and the modern flavor dilutes, if you will. Creative destruction rules, and the synthetic production is our lot, and it is valuable. We live in an age of univerally worldized, slightly-othered, and obviously commercialized music.

The international hodgepodge leads to my argument about why I believe that any individual can like any kind of music. One must only put one's mind to the task. There is only the single human musical family, and human beings should be open to its widest range and scope. I am one non-discriminatory soul, with wide open acceptance for the potentiality of universal musical enjoyment. Therefore, the sonorous sounds of African or Japanese percussion, Andean folk, Brazilian bossa nova, European lo-fi electronica, and American pop-rock soothe me or excite me in ways that are completely analogous.

The underlying concerns to this discourse are the inequality of global power structures and the purported Westernization of the world. One thing can change another without itself being changed, but power differentials make meaningful cultural imperialism a real possibility. We want a variegated hybrid, not a monochrome blob.

(taken from a WERW Radio Blog posting, by me, found here).

Radio shows FOR DOWNLOAD

Finally, for the first time, available for popular consumption: THE UNBOUNDED ONE as heard on 1570 WERW RADIO, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY.

Shows (list to be added to and amended): Funk  (March 10, 2010), The Kids (March 24, 2010), and Africa (March 31, 2010).

Persist my precious sweetums, be free and propagate; impregnate the fecund minds of friend-followers and music-lovers alike; be consumed and enjoyed.
Get the music at my Mediafire: UNBOUNDED

Mind body dialectic

To maintain a physical body in 'good shape,' I believe that it takes as little as 6-10 hours per week. A more modest estimate - or a more relaxed definition of good shape - might result in a smaller lower bound of, say, 4-8 hours. For our purposes, good shape implies moderately high levels of athleticism, physical health, and success in some sport-like endeavor. Naturally, I do not mean to be overly rigorous or exclusive here: a person who does zero targeted exercise (and, instead, lives an active regularity), can be both healthy and relatively athletic. But, I am referring to developed muscle and endurance, and honed athletic prowess. I will self-indulgently assume that I have all these characteristics in order to use myself as experimental subject:

I have come to conclusion range after observing my own weekly exercise formula. My range for targeted exercise is, on average, between 4 and 10 hours per week. The disparity between minimum and maximum hours is indicative of my mercurial schedule and way of life: I have no typical weekly exercise regimen, only regular activities: running, rock climbing, lifting weights, jumping rope, and stretching. I also have irregular activities: hiking, kayaking, skiing.

This week (Sunday March 14 - Saturday March 20) is characterized by consecutive days of rock climbing and running. I run for about one hour every other day and climb for about two hours every other day, resulting in an alternating sequence. With the aim of engaging in full-body workouts as much as possible, I always combine auxiliary kinds of exercises (e.g. stretching, push-ups, sit-ups, jump roping)with the primary activity. For instance, today I ran 4 miles in the succulent sunshine and also jumped rope, did pull-ups, and stretched. This week, my allotment of time to exercise is some 9 hours.

The argument that physical good shape exists and is something one achieve's through laborious and strenuous exercise is essentially intuitive and not controversial. My range of hours is both wide and relatively modest, and should, I think, be highly acceptable.

I follow this inductive, intuitive argument up with a question, whose answer is not as obvious:

How many hours must one dedicate to targeted cognitive exercise in order to be in good shape mentally?

I am disk jockey

Did you know that my delusions of grandeur have invaded the airwaves?

That's right, I have impregnated the radio with a worldized, Bradified mix of every thang and no thang. My show is called "Brad and the Unbounded One," and is a weekly featured fixture on WERW, broadcasted on iTunes Radio out of Syracuse, NY.

A note on the name: There is no exact "Unbounded One." And, I hasten to add, it is not separate from me. It is me and the unbounded one, together, immanent, belonging to each other, composing mutually subsuming circles in a Venn Diagram. In fact, there is no limit to the seep of the show - it consumes and reproduces everything which comes in contact with me, my music, the cultures which generate, the listeners, and all of the interconnections. Pantheism would imbue this pulsating ball of yarn with the name "God" or "The Deity," but I am content with referring to it simply as "The Unbounded One." My show, my language. Nevertheless, it deserves respect.

The show, to be true to its moniker, lacks definition or limitation. It is veritably ecclectic and exploratory. Shows need not have a tight focus (e.g. can be unhindered medleys, mixes, and adult anonymous), but often do (e.g. funk, long and short, the kids, electronic and rap, South America).

I unfailingly incorporate recommendations of songs, artists, and themes into my shows, however those kinds of things are in short supply. I get relatively little support, critique, or collaboration, despite my constant petitions for such. I need it not, but assume it would make the show more truly unbounded and participatory.

I am obviously an amateur, but I put a shocking amount of time into preparing for and producing the show every week. An influx of listeners would be gratifying, and would make more worthwhile the effort expended. Then again, you cannot always have what you wish for, and sometimes you have to work to improve your lot. Shows will soon be appearing on the interweb, for ready pod-cast-like listening - hopefully. And, an ad is in the works, though highly dependent on collaboration.

For now, I march forth, creating my own weekly emission, and striving to make the show even more stellar than it already is.

As always, be unbounded.

I am demiurge

If I were to have a political regime in managing this blog it would probably be a mix between authoritarianism and anarchism. But of course I am in fact a totalitarian - Machiavelli's vainglorious prince. I am sure that if somebody else were to inhabit this universe, I would prefer to "make" him, her, or it a partner and not a subject. Or would I?

My self-seen legitimacy seems to comes from the post-Scholastic Christian, capitalist reverence for private property. I own this blog and most every projected morsel that crosses its digital threshold. It is my private property and my personal project. I put in the intellectual labor and harvest the paltry benefits - namely, appeasement of my graphomania and narcissism.

On the other hand, I am the only citizen of this principality. Which makes me the least and most of all things - the receptacle of all superlatives: best, worst, utmostly sexy, most hideously degenerate, most artistic, most utilitarian, at the apex of intelligence and the zenith of idiocy, and so on. All in-between gradations also belong to me. I am therefore everything and nothing.

A feat of synergy is called for: reconciling the disparate and contrary in order to assert an underlying unity and fashion a consummately inclusive approach. A more conservative, but therefore potentially handicapped, approach is known as ecclecticism: wantonly picking and employing contrary pieces of ideology, but not necessarily reconciling them. It is the keystone of the postmodern methodology and mythology.

If I am a mystic, I devote myself to the occult of the postmodern. Of course, that does not exist, and I end up fabricating, like the three editors, progenitors of the Plan, in Umberto Eco's Foucalt's Pendulum. This is the world I created, reside in, and continuously form in my own image. I am the wellspring and the archetype.

I am demiurge.

And yet, this universe is an artifact whose origin and purpose still somehow evade me. It is like the obsidian-black spire in Kubrick's 2001 (whereas Clarke provides at least an interpretation of an elucidation).

Maybe the best I can do is a sophomoric solipsism: I am that I am (Exodus 3:14).

Are people fucking with me?

Seriously. Since posting on the paranoia, I have experienced some strange encounters, which have not allayed my fears. If anything, they have vindicated the age-old sensational craziness; my monomania is flourishing.

When seeking to pass from Redfield Pl. to Walnut Av. in Syracuse, a point-to-point itinerary I pursue regularly, and given the inability to soar through empyrean spaces, one must navigate through or around Thorden Park. Conventional wisdom is firmly of the opinion that perambulation through the Thorden is folly. There are many discreet historical reasons for avoiding the place, especially at night. Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones was raped there. She immortalized her rape and recovery and the eventual conviction and arrest of her rapist in the memoir, Lucky. The title comes from the ever-clever Syracuse police, whoe purportedly claimed that she was lucky, because she was alive; another woman had been brutally murdered in the same spot, years earlier. In addition, a well-loved graduate student, Alec Waggoner, was tragically killed on Thornden Park Ave. in October 2008, very late at night, after colliding with an SUV on his bike. Naturally, these occurrences should induce prohibitive fear into all but the blithe cretin. Nevertheless, there appears to be something wrong with my reckoning ability: I regularly pass through Thorden, at all hours of the day and night, on foot and bike. Yes, I do.

Two days ago, I was meandering meaningfully down Greenwood Pl., less than a block from the edge of the park, when some ragtag youths in a parked jalopy implored me to come to the window of their automobile. They waved and turned up the edges of their mouths, as if to smile, not jovially, but with an unctuous urgency. I was actually running, but that minute sort of walking, as I had been just moments before swinging my apelike arms in concentric circles, and perhaps doing high knees. My new iPod Touch was grasped in my ham hand, and noise-emanating ear-buds plugged my upper orifices. First, I turned around 180 degress to glance at five individuals playing some esoteric kind of handball. They appeared to be deeply focused, and clearly not sending or receiving gestured messages. I wasn't really in the mood for a chat, and wanted to get back to running, so I politely rejected the invitation with a firm double shake of the head. They gesticulated, I shook again, and kept walking. It could have ended there. In fact, it could have ended before it even began. I mean, this sequence of events - recorded herein with as much accuracy as my musty brain can muster - did occur. That which follows is of less tangible stuff. I admit to being slightly shaken by these happenings, and as I converted my walk into a trot and then into a brisk jog, I looked back a couple of times over my shoulder to survey the site of the skirmish. Two of the four gentleman stepped out of the car. Whether or not they looked at me is still an open question. But they might have looked - nay, stared - and there might have been lambent licks of malice and intended harm in their eyeballs. Who knows. I continued to jog, my placidity marginally perturbed, and my adrenaline pumping a little higher than it usually does when I exercise. If you know the geography, you know that Greenwood intersects with Thorden Park Dr., which swoops down and into Beech St. Following Beech, one comes to Madison St., which then goes towards and eventually hits Walnut, precisely at the block I wanted to be on. There is a byway, also Thorden Park Dr., through Thorden, which comes one way the opposite direction I was traveling, from the corner of Madison and Ostrum Av. I took Thorden Park Dr. the wrong way, towards Madison and Ostrum, but as I cruised, senses honed and neurons firing red alerts, I saw (or thought I saw) the jalopy (which was green, incidentally) heading down Beech towards Madison and my destination. At this point, I did something unexpected. To avoid a second confrontation with the thugs, I abandoned the roadway altogether and sprinted through an obscure path, overhung by coniferous giants, in Thorden. This sacred glade, of rectangular shape, sits between Beech, Madison, Thorden Park Dr., and Ostrum. Upon reaching the other side, I had apparently shaken the amateurish stalkers and obviated ambush. This was the first event which reinforced my paranoia, but because it is so shaky and built on unsubstantiated conjecture and borderline irrationality, I decided to tell no one.

The next day - today, January 19, 2009 - any misconception I had ever had about the illegitimacy of my paranoid mania dissipated. Again, I was making the same voyage, from Red to Wall. This time, however, perhaps subconsciously to protect myself from footed rabble, I was flying on tires. The purple Rockhopper--my bike--carries my swiftly and surely, with nothing short of heroic devotion. I was cruising passively and happily through Thorden, admiring the naked branches and sullied snow banks, after a day of silly rain. Of course, a vestige of the prior day's perturbation remained, and I was unusually vigilant. My paranoia hovered like a man-moth but it calibrated my sense-perception. I am rather glad it was there, really. You see, I was rolling along, listening to Carlinhos Brown ("O aroma da vida"), and I was again going the wrong way on Thorden Park Dr.--like Alec, but on a straight, highly visible part of the road, and during the day--and I was about 100 yards from the terminus of the road, where it connected with Madison and Ostrum. All of a sudden, a gray or beige station wagon of unknown make and model, entered my roadway, and started coming towards me, with surprising rapidity, in clear contravention of the posted speed limit. Instead of staying to his or her side of the road (their right side), the psychopath at the wheel evinced a strange predilection for the left side of the street. I swear, the maniac, gaining in velocity all the time, was actually rubbing the curb - my curb - where I was also residing, moving forward on my purple stallion, anxiety building. The game of chicken appeared to me to be unfair, so I capitulated. Braking, I leaped off the bicycle, luckily directly behind a metal light-post, and threw up my arms in offended consternation. What nerve! What homicidal douchebaggery! Heinous fuckery most foul.

People are clearly fucking with me.

I need to be on top of a mountain where I can see everything, 'cause this paranoia is getting old. - Shannon Hoon/Blind Melon (RIP), "Walk".

A phantom menace

I am sometimes paranoid.

The mania superimposes itself upon me in my house, at school, like a shawl of wariness. After having the abode burgled last November (while on Thanksgiving break), I no longer feel protected, my haven raped and ransacked. According to the dubious old wives tale, lightning desists from double-striking the same spot. However, thieves, unlike lighting, are skulduggerous sharks, who smell blood - once violated, a home is blemished as vulnerable. I know the housebreakers are out there with my roommates' X-box, iPod, camera, bag, pillowcase, and aikido gear (luck and having brought all my expensive stuff home saved me from pillaging). They are biding their time, observing, ready to strike again. Now I reside in a constant state of disquiet, serenity lost, and any minor commotion impels me to act impetuously: I stalk down the hallway, armed, ready to attack and defend the sanctuary. Nobody is there. Nobody is ever there.

Paranoia inhabits my car as well. It makes me chary of all of the other automobiles. Really, it is the motorist that I distrust - shifty-eyed, coldly calculating, potentially volatile, violent, or incompetent. Why should I have faith in their capacity to preclude collision? The texters, people exiting driveways and side-roads, buffoons on the telephone, left-lane laggards, the cretin who fails to signal, the ubiquitous white-tailed deer - Bambi with a death wish - they all worry and annoy me to no end.

It is the anonymous individual in the invisible car, nevertheless, who really drives me mad. The worst is on the back roads, of course. That is where the unseen autoist has such fun - tailgating; dallying, falling behind and then rushing up at a furious rate, to halt with frightful precision, mere inches from calamity; using the semaphores to send occult signals, many incomprehensible or openly false; blinding, and tormenting and taunting. From time to time, you get a glimpse of iridescent reflection from an external illumination. A shard of reality; of little use in elucidation. I curse these imperceptible pursuers with violence; the asperity of my vituperation poisons my composure. They rile me up, make me act erratic and devious, to utilize the same subtle chicanery, and beat them at their own game. I enact sudden pivots, circles, I run stop-signs and red-lights, I make wrong turns down forlorn byways. Sometimes I shake them, but they or their stygian compatriots always return. I find no peace.

The paranoia lingers.