Tigers Eating My Underarms.

[Music: Helium]


Justin had a small jar of icy-hot solution and started rubbing it on Trevor's stomach during Mass Com. It was like those elder days when taxes were fogotten and no one was persecuted for being dead while alive. Later, Trevor slathered a whole mess of Tiger Balm on my arms, and I cannot even feel my them anymore. Not ghost limbs, because I can see them and I can move them. It its like my arms are long bottles of refrigerated water. My sister hit them with her belt, I only felt a miniscule amount of strain on the muscles. Waves simmering to low tide. Tomorrow is Fourth Thursday. I am going somewhere I despise going: The House of Pruett. People over eighty with oxygen tanks and walkers; smelling like cinnamon in a very old dress shoe. The documentary will have the heartbeat of a sickly orca.

--

[co-intuitive online study part 6b]

***ACID TEST ADMIN #73A***

***NOV 22 9:29 PM***

//START SEXES CHAT id5

DistopianNutFire01: LOL YA AND YOU'LL BE THE ELEPHANT CAK =)

vixenofass: 2 MANY TIMES U'VE GONE DOWN ON YOUR DAD HAHAHA OH CHARLES

DistopianNutFire01: SHUTUP BITCH I AM NOT A CAKE CLOWN ^__^ YET

vixenofass: BUT YOU TOLD MEE "NOWS FINGER THAT BALLOON NIGGA" HAHAA11

DistopanNutFire01: FUK NAW I AINT INTO DAT GHEY SHITZ =)++

vixenofass: OMFGBYE

***NOV 22 9:34 PM***

//END SEXES CHAT id5

--

Someone told me to post this here.

Pass Count Definition #12: Mind Walls Standing and Tumbling

(from a larger essay entitled "Emptiness if Full of Everything", dated 11/17/05)

What the simple yet partially complex essence of my story and the cherished (although sometimes maligned) experiences that the youths of past and present allow to inhibit themselves have in common is the singular emotion of an acutely unaware state of solitude. As I found my body amongst windy grasslands, hardened mountainsides, and forest labyrinths that had not yet graced my vision, the feeling of tranquility gushed through my brain to align thoughts and physical motions into one swift but slow movement into the surreal. Solitude is the position of mind, body, and soul that sifts out all negative remembrances of the past, unsatisfying bearings of the present and uneasy feelings of the future and fastens them together like loose strings to what is known as the current mentality. As I existed within a solitary status, I forgot to realize I was in fact by myself (which, to be honest, felt more mental at times). While in a state of solitude, I put aside certain hardships, dislikes, and confusions of my everyday life in order to birth new aspects of myself and humanity as a whole that were previously unknown. I could not have achieved this new sense of placement in the universe without truly feeling solitude in the way that I did.

Solitude and loneliness, while both pertain to someone being by themselves in one mode or another, harbor completely variable facets of the human condition. Solitude is something that an individual instinct brings about by some breed of conscious choice (my opting to depart from my cousin’s home and travel the woods). Whereas loneliness, with its inexplicable sadness and longing to certain extractions of mankind, is an affection that people tend to bring upon themselves through the reactions to how they are treated by others within distinct scenarios that unfold around them at an untimely pace. It could be said that the majority of humankind strives to project themselves into solitude are increasingly more aplenty than ones who are optionally cast into alienation. Reliance on the urge to be self-quarantined and suddenly reclusive are possible causes for this dichotomy of the further privacy of young people, much like myself, who long for a change in their life circumstances. To be lonely is to pine for constant attention and even love, while solitude holds a supplementary state of putting human connection aside to examine oneself with a love that was never there in the first place. My time in the rustic woods of South Carolina showed this love to me by completely stripping away any sense of loneliness that inhibited me for the duration of the journey, and replaced it with solitude of the mind, body, and spirit.

When solitude is felt in this particular way as I felt it, the emotions it tended to flesh out always felt new and fully refreshing. On the occasions when I unfortunately passed out do to a lack of energy circulating through my system, the world around me became my own for the first and only time in my seventeen-year long life. It was a place where time did not exist; a location that totally exteriorized the loss of footing on the slanted precipice of reality. This is solitude at its fullest and most comprehensible. Mental clocks not only stopped ticking, but they broke and the gears become flowers that swayed in a silent, comforting breeze. Continuance evaporated under the sun and became stationary in my wandering mind. Colossal thought ran amuck. This new personality I developed from a disposition of solitude is undoubtedly strong-minded and comfortable with what it is in that exact moment of existence. The tedious congregations of ignorant and popularity-clutching people that once flowed around me like the crashing currents of a monstrous tide soon began to simmer down to a stillness that is now unbeatable in terms of quieted satisfaction after my solitude adventure came to a close.

Any genuinely enlightened demonstrator of the solitary standpoint, such as myself, stands out in the crowd because of their momentous trust in self-certainty. When an anti-solitude being (You can tell, they have groupies and will not shut up) crosses paths with me, the lesser person in this situation is obviously and most commonly the one who puts the most thought into why the other person is the way they are. Confrontations such as this arrive without warning, and continue to work towards extenuating doubt and non-acquainted rationalities that all people who like to be by themselves are lonely. The more sociable citizen is likely to fall under this first category, because someone who does not count on the reliance of others to function properly and even happily is sort of a foreign sight to see. It is no wonder why there are so many teenagers today that prefer to accomplish projects and various jobs alone and on their own terms: the end result is far more refined due to extended focus and concentration on the fundamental goals of adolescence. As if teachers and bosses are not aware of what events have taken place during the course of the project, they belt out some absurd speech like “You should not let them place all the responsibility on you! Take some initiative and make them work just as hard.” This resembles a lit match on gasoline to the highest degree. I know this because I have been in this circumstance time and time again, and not always by choice. The becalming of this previously established self-straining can only temporarily benefit the solitude-practicing individual. He must come by his relaxation on his own terms as I did. Of course, this act does not have to involve such extremes as I experienced.

Solitude is, with no elbowroom left for stretching around to scratch yourself, the seeing of boreal space through a drapery of thermal sky. It is a cloud that can be ridden on; it circles the sun as you languish on its fine achromatic threads of stratosphere. It is falling, but falling in order to stand more erect after you hit the ground. It is punching a tree without cause, only to have a reclusive pinecone splinter into your head promptly after. The benumbed vision that follows grants you assimilation with the waking life you just slipped out of. It is a wingless seraph taking an airplane back to the kingdom above, first class. Solitude is unremittingly delighting in being grounded; the phone calls of cohorts that you cannot reply to only warrant progressively sounder napping. Solitude is casting the concept of a waiting room into oblivion; directly to the doctor without prehistoric issues of Sports Illustrated to blunt your mind up, pre-shot experience. It is not caring if a blackout takes place in your city. Solitude is watching your house burn down with a lambent smile. It is life and death in the very same breath.

Flight from human contact to the still sound delimitation emitted by solitude is that unprecedented stage of maturity necessary to progress through longevity. Cutting off ties with people is, in essence, something everyone must do at certain life-intermissions. It allocates to each individual the matter-of-fact answer to the “Who am I?” question that is asked chiefly by middle-phase adolescents. Even if the question is only partially acknowledged, the trials grounded within the solitary occurrence are enough to vitally alter the human soul past the long-idle blooming period.

To be honest, I never did think that I would have my very own flower buds, constantly opening into sky-colored petals right on the spine of my sprit. Which, for future reference, is in the shape of an African painted dog gliding on asteroid belts. I spent way too much time in the woods. Space is a nice change.

--

She stepped from behind the dark bole of the largest tree; and although I could scarely see anything, I saw her and knew she was tall as few women are tall and slender as no human woman ever is, and too lovely for me to understand, ever, exactly how lovely she was.

My arms closed around her, and we kissed. Her lips were sweeter than honey and warm with life, and there was nothing wrong that mattered because there was nothing wrong we could not mend; and there was love as long as we lived, and love did matter, love would always matter.

--The Wizard

I pray to the altar of Gene Wolfe. You should too.

--

Goblet of Fire review: http://www.stylusmagazine.com/feature.php?ID=1986

False Lords, I Do Have the Range.

[Music: The Rum Diary]


Six miles I ran today.

Living is killing me, but it feels so good.

--

Knee Deep is Shallow.

Much of the momentum created was beyond his control and understanding. He reads: Cardinals Place Pro Bowler on IR. They put a Pro Bowler on the injured reserve list as a publicity stunt?

Or he notes that: True Images is a sexually fueled Teen Bible for Girls. How far will these money-hungry publishers drag the Word of God into the gutter?

Contrasts: although he was intense and aggressively curious, many found him patient, kind, and encouraging; a professional rocker who played the accordion.

The guy had absorbed a lot of signals and chosen the best. For a time he got a job reporting the news at Channel 12-- with absolutely no journalistic background.

People were seeking a fresh start, they believed it. Accountability, responsibility, the things to be kept foremost. Not only what is legal, but what is right; what the public deserves.

After zooming from anonymity into the hearts of her nation in just 10 months, the teenage tennis sensation was caught up in a cultural protest for breaking the mold by being a Muslim athlete.

She was given extra security last month after an Islamic cleric denounced her for wearing short skirts and sleeveless shirts on court.

She arrived at her home to the shouts of peasants warning her to turn back. Curiosity got the better of her and she unlocked the secret behind the disappearance of her predecessors.

Thus she pleads for people to organize themselves as a "superpower", and represent a class of techno-utopiates with the trigger words: It is not our destiny to live in a world of destruction, tedium, and tragedy!

But soon the floor reeked with blood, and many former wives hung lifeless upon the walls. Horrified, she locked the door, but blood would not wash off the key. The sisters waited for their brothers to arrive: "Sister Anne, do you see anyone coming?"

The fear of the happening prolongeth days: but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.

So there's Dial-the-Truth believing ministry presenting the truth and exposing error, exposes of corrupt Bible versions, false teachings, Christian music, rock music, youth issues, prophecy and current events.

Will the future will bring more of these open source campaigns? Will the creative energy, constructive labor, and financial resources come from supporters instead of from a top-down hierarchy-- will we adopt this organizational shift from the top-down communications strategy that television, by its very nature, imposed for the past two generations?

--

Late link to the Last Days review: http://www.stylusmagazine.com/feature.php?ID=1978

Goblet of Fire may be up before the holiday, depends.

Wednesday.

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/feature.php?ID=1968

To Strike Down a Herald.

[Music: Pink Floyd]


Animals is their best album that no one thinks is their best album.

--

Contrast Exercise: Moon Behind Blinds.

Someone asked me to demonstrate contrast structures. Since I have been busy with essays, projects and a few Stylus pieces, I have not had too much time to do free writing. So here's contrast in three layers, for those of you who care:

All these pictures were taken within seconds of eachother, momentary frame-ups, with a Sony cybershot 3.2 megapixels digital camera:

(1) Dark foreground, stale/stagnant plain-color background/middle-area blur:



Have the focus easy out the background almost to a blur, then set the flash to very low. It helps if you are closer to the first layer of the image. A relatively simple concept, though with some older camera models the density of the first layer can be difficult to capture correctly.

(2) Defined frontwards, color excretion to actuality/second field highlighted with tint/background warped:



If you prefer using nightshot, the colors will swtich to what they would be without any flash. If you use a high vibrancy flash module the farthest object will reverse color-coat to a near-blur or half range visibility. The first object, of course, will be the most focused due to the switcher on regulatory lenses when nightshot is initiated.

(3) Lightest background/third object over-circulated, almost offsetting last colors/screen nearly not in focus/highest point of foreground object in focus, moving down from bottom blured to a tint:



A difficult contrast to summarize simply because it varries from day to night. For day shots use a leak-tool to allow third-set objects to almost crystallize in brightness, while the other objects play opposite to the original backdrop (medium to middle-high focus). Night shots require a bleak last object, with the third object set to an almost shiny, grainless tone. Other objects, follow opposite of daytime shots minus the range of sharper colors.

I did not tamper with these photos in an editing program. They appear just as they were when I took them.

--

I will post links to my Stylus articles as they are placed on the homepage. My The Weather Man review will be up on Wednesday.

Hot Water From a Height.

[Music: Jan Jelinek]


Invariably Subjacent.

They through-and-through kumtux floorboards of copacetic and over-enunciated girls seaside and sandhazard (up and out) of fireseason druthers. Ever since the shaded stars swiveled their afts and slid down waxed cells while swimming moons ransacked the telecast, the ability to balance a sword on the bowstring finger has long-since been terminated. But hold steady, urchin. Gale-nuzzling soldier SAD executions allowed to bypass Indian summers would be lighting up ambrosial candles within half a darkyear's longeivty. Questions---Death---Life---Answers---> and what from this point? Swish twice and coach will plunder old lockers to find jockstrap dreams; sequestrated dry runs at the signature echo of your sandpeople parents. Climbed over the counter just to kiss you. Not the pharmacy, either. You know the one. The one the wet socks dehumidify upon; the one where I nailed you down and dug up your hanging garden so my hatchery could strike oil. A small tent with blue and white lights. Music coming from inside. People at a sideshow, couldn't figure out why they would want to wait in line. Fortunes read and lyrics spoken adds up to more than fame and hospitalization. Annexation junctures. Goodnight to the gates of ruination and poor audio quality.

Shipshape daybreak, would not They say it? Just like that? For all to eavesdrop and screach over phones about twenty-seven moments ensuing.

Wearisome to gawk up dominantly when so much is on your mind, weighing your head down.

[Suruaseht a desu I skniht yma]

--

Stylus wants me to contribute film reviews for them. I'm glad. Worked hard on that application. I applied once before, for the music reviews, but that's when my writing peaked on nothingness and the inability to restrain. I have substanciously augmented since then. Though I would rather review music than film, I am still excited that I have been selected. This will be a great opportunity.

Proof.

One of the application requirements was to write a review of a film not already appearing in the Sylus archives. I chose Last Days (I was actually surprised that they had not reviewd it). Here it is, for those of you who are dwelling on, "How did he get to write for Stylus?":

Movie Review
Last Days

2005
Director: Gus Van Sant
Cast: Michael Pitt, Lukas Haas, Asia Argento, Scott Green, Nicole Vicius, Ricky Jay, Ryan Fellner, Kim Gordon, Scott Patrick Green, Harmony Korine
A-

Endless canopies and moss-covered stonewalls loom around the exterior lot of a backwoods castle, unknown to the majority of the living world. The harmonies of songbirds and rustling of foliage against a cold breeze overtake the landscape with ease. Deeper, against the personal backdrop of aimlessness and confusion, the grumblings of a man can be heard. Never has the incessant and seemingly meaningless routine of a long-haired, rail-thin drugged out rock star’s solitary confinement been so imperative to fully apprehend and sympathize with the mental and bodily state of malfunction through subconscious self-abuse. All of this is able to be perceived solely from the familiar yet distinctive local of Gus Van Sant’s final entry within his damn-near career-defining Death trilogy, Last Days.

The bleak and multitudinous desert of Gerry and the consistently glowing and elongated corridors of Elephant both align consummately with the tilted green-gray haven existing within Last Days. Each and every one of the environments present in these pictures directly connects with the situation at hand so seamlessly that they act as that single mirror you unquestionably glance in before heading out the door for a night of who knows what. Through my eyes, Elephant accomplished this feat with surreptitious skill, while Gerry, the first entry into the trilogy, fleshed out the work behind the camera so all watching the film with their eager fingers scratching chins could see precisely how much work went into each individual tracking shot (the longest being about a quarter of a mile, which is documented on the DVD) right there in the framework. What Van Sant achieves in Last Days, based “loosely” on (yet, as the final slate details, dedicated to) the downfall of the rangy Nirvana front man, so expertly is manifest three separate film-ecosystems revolving around Cobain look-alike Blake (Michael Pitt, of Bully and The Dreamers fame), whereas Gerry and Elephant hold single domains each. The three terrains (both cerebral and tangible) consist of Blake’s mentality around people, Blake’s mentality amongst nature, and the almost one-sided views of Blake’s bandmates and fellow borders within the house. While Van Sant juggles these varying scenarios as best as any ambitious filmmaker is able to, sometimes scenes just do not feel right at that precise moment in the reel. This does not necessarily subtract from the overall tone and mood of the film because, in actuality, Blake’s entire mumbling mantra does not feel right for the center character of a film. When shots repeat themselves unwittingly, and previous displays go through time lapses (also present in Elephant, but not in Gerry) the viewer gets an intense feeling of reliance on exactly what Blake will do next, and they consequently hope for the best (or the worst, depending on your reaction to the film).

Kim Gordon’s cameo appearance (as herself) is the uncommon interval in which Blake is given a choice, an ultimatum, to escape from the incarceration he has been placed in. She offers him an “easy” way out and a return to the certainly more lavish lifestyle prior to his initiation into an isolation period. But what Mrs. Thurston Moore is unaware of, and even Blake himself does not come to the realization of until that crucial attempt to grasp music one last time at a local bar, is the fact that this man came here to waste away. This is his final resting place, without any ounce of ambiguity. Phone calls come in by the hour requesting Blake’s consent for an 86-day tour, but he says not one word. He would rather don a woman’s dress and carry a rifle around like some territorial transvestite hunter of the grasslands. It is in Blake’s indecision to partake in life that the predominant significance of Van Sant’s three films comes full circle. Death does not have to be justified, and it does not have to be the result of some sort of dysfunction within a certain specimen or within society as a whole. It comes as it does and no other way. Quick and violent as in Elephant, needful and almost sexual as in Gerry, and slowly falling as in Last Days.

There is one scene in the film that incontestably ties the beginning to the end, and the film to the remainder of the outside world. Two young boys from the Church of Later Day Saints arrive at Blake’s home and begin reciting the origins of their faith, much of which involves Jesus Christ (who else?) to Blake’s fellow border Scott (Scott Green). As this conversation is taking place, shots crosscut with Blake standing in a room making half-hearted moves from one side to another. The fact that the idea of Jesus arises at this exact spot, and the decipherment that the opening of the film saw Blake bathing (baptizing?) himself in a nearby stream, recalls past thoughts of Cobain as some kind of messiah to rock and roll.

But, the difference is, when Jesus died he rose up to heaven in a glorious fashion (do not let Scorsese fool you). When Blake dies, his spirit nakedly climbs the window panes of an adjacent garden shed door and disappears out of the top of the frame. Two different kinds of saviors for two different breeds of minds. Here is to hoping that Van Sant continues to make films that feature that exact variety of dichotomy.

--

Shut.

They made us do it; to each other we ever encountered.

After the first day, senses divided and went home. Nuts and talc were all that mattered to the heads of boards in the days that followed up.

Noticing where memory was recovered nightly, gave me an idea of what needed to be explained in pictograms.

Hope is poured for sealment of the deals.

Help is measured byit's overbite's reach.

Clavicle ocularity meets with periodic inclusion whenever we want it badly enough.

Well, do we go that far?

http://www.miightyflashlight.com/