Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Conversations with DJ: Ass Wendesday Installment

Me (7:31:49 PM): happy ash wednesday
d J (7:31:55 PM): thanks
Me (7:32:25 PM): what is it about? do you know?
d J (7:32:37 PM): it's like
d J (7:32:44 PM): catholics go to their cathogogue
d J (7:33:00 PM): and a child molester smears burnt toast on their forehead
d J (7:33:19 PM): which protects them from evil wizards and walrus ninjas
Me (7:33:40 PM): how did the tradition originate?
d J (7:34:08 PM): then they walk around all day with the burnt on their foreheads, so that all the wizards and walrus ninjas can see that they are not to be reckoned with, all "what now bitch? yeah that's what I thought"
d J (7:34:14 PM): interesting you should ask that, S
d J (7:34:39 PM): it originated in 1972, the year that Rock attained perfection
d J (7:34:53 PM): it was a crazy time, with vietnam war protests
d J (7:35:03 PM): everyone was doing acid and pcp
d J (7:35:55 PM): one day the leader of the hippies, Bobby Jindal, was just standing around and he passed the fuck out, face first into a pile of burnt toast
d J (7:36:39 PM): when he stood up, every woman, and 90% of the men in attendance were inexplicably sexually attracted to his forehead
d J (7:36:46 PM): it was the biggest bukkake the world ever saw
d J (7:37:16 PM): Bobby Jindal's forehead was gangraped for nine solid months before his family reported him missing
d J (7:38:18 PM): when they found him, half dead in a kiddie pool up to his lower lip in smegma, his devoutly religious parents demanded to know what he had been up to
d J (7:38:44 PM): he said that he had been visited in a dream by Dr. Phil
d J (7:39:15 PM): who told him that every Wednesday after mardi gras was henceforth "Ass Wednesday," The Great Feast of Gettin' It On
d J (7:39:41 PM): and that he was hitherto St. Bobby, The Patron Saint of The Horontal Mambo
d J (7:39:58 PM): but Bobby was tripping on peyote at the time
d J (7:40:05 PM): and he pronounced "Ass" as "Ash"
d J (7:40:26 PM): and he had all that ash on his forehead and nobody believed that he had actually gotten laid anyway, so Occam's razor pointed to Ash Wednesday
d J (7:40:49 PM): then everybody went to Ruby Tuesday's and got shrimp Poppers. The End!
Me (7:40:58 PM): wowzers!
d J (7:41:44 PM): true story

Monday, February 23, 2009

Yeah, I'm pretty lazy sometimes.

There is an inch and a half gap between the top of one of my windows and the top of the sill. That means the window is open all the time... when it's snowing, raining, or windy as fuck like it has been the last week. I could duct tape it, but there is already a useless piece dangling from the top of the sill that the last tenant put up with half-assed determination. Despite the fact that the gap has made my room unnecessarily cold all winter (mostly just when the radiator periodically shuts off to cool down) I figure... hey, winter can't last forever, right? Suggestions of Spring are carried on this chilly winter wind, the sun is more present than he used to be, and my foolish optimism/persistent laziness keeps me from attending to what is at the moment an inconvenience. But I just layer on the sweaters, crawl between my flannel sheets under my down comforter and wait for Spring.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

It is no irony that I love music by the Books as much as I love books themselves.

As soon as I found myself purged of the disease of unreasonable expectations, I find myself infected with another disease, of an all too real kind.

This past Tuesday, I noticed an inflammation in my tonsils. It was quite a surprise to see the swollen glands hanging in the back of my throat, since in the past the phenomenon has always been accompanied by a severe sore throat and trouble swallowing. I consulted with a nurse at the university health center, and at her suggestion have been pumping myself full of ibuprofen (for swelling) and cough suppressant/expectorant (for cough, obviously) and ceased smoking. The combination of remedies has not so much cured as it has prevented any aggravation of my symptoms.

As I'm sure most of you are aware, it is cold and flu season. Most of my friends and acquaintances have fallen ill periodically over the past two or three weeks. This afforded me the occasion to inform them that I had not been sick in almost three years. This, friends, is what we refer to as "karma," in the popular understanding of the word; an immediate reckoning for one's behaviors in this life. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the illness is in my throat, which is the same place from which the damning words issued.

On the other hand, because I also find that alcohol aggravates my throat, I have been enjoying a very calm and restful weekend. I should be taking more advantage of my abundant free time to make some headway in my senior work research, but after making my way to the library and grocery store yesterday, I felt no desire other than to lounge unimpressively in front of my computer watching South Park episodes online until I fell asleep. Perhaps my untaxing routine is the reason why I woke up at 7:30 this morning. Still, today I have real stuff to do, and will most likely spend another Saturday sober in my apartment, so I have time. Some time, anyway.


In other news, my birthday is in a month and a half. As a gift to myself, I bought a ticket to see the Books at the Miller Theater at Columbia University. The last time I saw the Books was at Webster Hall about two years ago, and I ate an entire eighth of mushrooms and had a wonderful mind-expanding, six-sensory adventure without moving five feet the whole time. I have been waiting a long time for them to come back to New York, and I feel like the universe has been dropping me clues... because I had to watch this film for class



And at 2:58, the little boy utters a sentence which is sampled in this song at 2:25:



AND

I had to watch the film Medea for the same class, the clip from which is actually included in the first scene of this video for this Books song:




Finally, a third instance of the Books popping up in the most unexpected place occurred Thursday evening. The school was hosting its monthly Coffeehouse Cabaret which I normally do not attend, but my friend was performing. As we were waiting for it to begin, the warm up music was several tracks from Lost and Safe, including "Be Good to Them Always". I hadn't heard their music played at that volume or in such a large area since the last time I saw them perform, and it got me really pumped for the show.

Also, I want to get some mushrooms (maybe for the show, maybe not) because in my last tarot spread, I asked the cards "What next?" and I got three cards which have been recurring in my spreads, and the other two when taken together told me to seek new ideas in nature. Because I have been turning over and over the idea of finding mushrooms since I bought my mushroom ring in December, I took it as pertaining directly to it. And since my expansive journey on acid last Fall, I have found an utter lack of new ideas in the experience... it's redundancy and inorganic quality have persuaded me to pursue more natural experiences for a while. Because I've been clearing my head in anticipation for writing my senior work proposal (meaning, I haven't smoked weed since before the semester started) I think taking a trip would be a good departure for me, especially since by the time the concert rolls around, my proposal will have been submitted for exactly a month... nothing to worry about there.

I am moving forward on the path.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Monday, February 9, 2009

full moon effect

A spiral galaxy exploded into tiny shards when it fell from my hand. It's energies scattered, but I collected the pieces as a souvenir. I now carry two planets trapped together in glass, orbiting each other. One is red, one is purple, and they are both ringed in gold... floating in a silver sea of stars. As I struggled to preserve an old order, I failed to recognize the coming into existence of a new one. So it goes.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Big Ben

I dreamt I was attending a very formal and pompous ceremony in England. My grandmother and at least one of my brothers was there. I was somehow vaguely related to the monarch via my grandmother and she looked like Tilda Swinton. However, quite abruptly, the queen died. Very chaotically and suddenly my grandmother was being ushered into a very crowded limosine with other members of the court. I was making an effort to get nearer to some man who was being ushered into the limo as well. I think I was attempt to reach him so I could be comforted by him. Though I hardly knew the woman I was incredibly upset. Everyone was. But I was barred by my brother. I said, "But my grandmother is in there!" and he replied, "And so is mine! You can't go," and the limo drove off to the funeral. I remember standing apart, alone, leaning against a column facing the street which was very yellow and sunny, but weeping uncontrollably. To my left someone asked me a question about the crowd, twice, and then I turned and snapped, "DO I LOOK LIKE I WANT TO TALK?!" I recognized the person addressing me as a girl I'd gone to middle school and high school with. She just walked off, understandably discouraged from talking to me by my outburst. The funeral was being held in a small church across the street from where I stood, but only members of the court (those driven there in limosines) were admitted to the chapel. The unselect could stand outside the chapel, or climb the towers to some very high balconies overlooking. I was standing in the hallway outside the chapel when I was approached by a handsome, very tall young man wearing slacks and a white button down shirt. He was the butler for the court (I know that doesn't make sense, but it was a dream so bear with me) and I'd met him once before in a dream. I recognized him immediately but I had to rack my brain for his name. Still, he approached me with familiarity and comfortingly put his arm around my shoulders. He showed me to a small room off the hallway, and there were some flags pinned to the wall in the farthest corner from Iran and some other Muslim nation that I didn't recognize, and I was holding some item that likewise had the flag on it. He said, "I got that when I went there, to Iran." Then he lead me out of the small room, and I had remembered his name was Ben. Someone asked me what the name of the woman was who had died and I couldn't remember but I guessed, Katie. Ben corrected me, saying Katie had been her older sister who had died before her; her name was Julie. And I remembered that I had met him before at Katie's funeral, then he put his arm around my shoulder and was stroking my hand, and said something like "Let's go, S-----," as we began to climb the stairs. All the while I am still crying and sniffling. Going up, the stairs were straight, wide, and after every other landing there were 4 doors, one to the left, one to the right, one opposite the ascending staircase, and one directly beside the ascending staircase. About halfway up we encountered a little girl in a party dress being followed by an old man. The little girl said hello and asked us what we were doing. We said we were trying to see the funeral. She said something like, "Very good, nice to see young people doing something besides sitting in their rooms wasting themselves." I was startled to hear such a remark from the little girl; it would have been more fitting coming from the old man, who never said anything but appeared friendly and merely followed the little girl through the doorway beside the stairs. Ben led me the rest of the way to the highest landing of the stairs. Once we were to the top he gave me no directions, so I pushed open the door to the left, only the enter a pristine, sparkling white tiled bathroom with wooden stalls. Ben followed me in and I sat on a sill by the sink, and Ben sat beside me. He said something to me about a funeral, for mourning, needing to be in a darker environment than I had chosen. So, putting his arm around my shoulders again he led me out of the bathroom. However, the funeral was over by now. He opened the door opposite the stairs, and I stepped down onto a very well-lit landing where a processiong of people were listening to an organist in a ceremonial gown playing a requiem (presumably), behind him a window with the sun shining in, and then the procession walked down a spiral staircase. As Ben and I began to descend the spiral staircase, I awoke. I opened my eyes, then closed them again, and an image appeared of Ben standing in a hallway, smiling at me, hands in his pockets, then a close up of his face and his brown eyes were sparkling. The dream was very vivid and the building I was in had a very strong architecture. Ben's features were very clear, and once Ben appeared there were no jumps in the sequence of action, everything followed from something else. I think Ben is one of my spirit companions, because it was not like we knew each other forever, but that we had met before and this was our reuniting. We both remembered the other. He is one who meets me to lend me comfort in a time of great sadness and mourning for the past.