cody frank

that is reportedly the size of Thomas Pynchon’s archive, which was recently acquired by the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. this news comes to my attention less than 24 hours after I discussed with my therapist my habit of putting off finishing, or even starting, work on a writing project because I think I need to do more research, or learn Greek, or brush up on the classics: things I think I need to be able to write at the level I believe myself capable of. “I want to be Dante, I want to be Rabelais,” I told my therapist, two examples of highly erudite writers whose work I’ve only read a fraction of.

there were a few times in session I felt sheepish, as though a light were being shined on me while I had my dick in my hand. it’s sort of astonishing how many deflection plays I have, and how often they work, and how disarmed I feel when someone won’t fall for my feints. a good therapist relationship should feel at least a little antagonistic. not that it’s your business what exactly made me feel that way.

it’s easy to compare myself to Pynchon regarding research, even without his archive being so quantified. less easy, due to his secrecy, to compare myself on his dealings with the sordid business of publishing, which I am realizing is much more of a block to me than anything else. even here, now, writing this, I feel like I’m failing, like I shouldn’t be open about my ambitions, I shouldn’t talk about myself at all, it’s more noble to quietly work and leave the business of posterity to fate. but I wrote a 4000 word newsletter, put a lot of effort into it, and a few dozen people read it. thank you if you did, but it’s not enough for me. if someone denies being hungry it does not leave them satiated. and yet I still feel it “beneath” me to put the effort into submitting for publication, into (groan) networking, into promoting what I work really hard on. as though hugely successful literary author Thomas Pynchon didn’t “play the game” at least to some extent.

anyway I’m reading John Berryman’s Dream Songs right now and readjusting my ambitions away from “be Pynchon” towards “write continuously and get things into peoples hands, whatever it takes.”

So that’s, in part, how it’s possible for FTX to have $1 billion in assets against $9 billion in liabilities: lots of not exactly clever but very shady bookkeeping. The natural question then becomes: where the fuck did all the money go?

“With palmtreesonfire.com, Frank cements himself as the preeminent blogger of his generation. At turns despairing, revelatory, deranged and hopeful, Frank’s posts mark a turning point in the genre. Don’t walk; run to the nearest web browser. You won’t regret it.” – James Wood

“A master of the form. Every click will have you on the edge of your seat.” – Lee Child

“palmtreesonfire.com will be described by future scholars as luminous, urgent, and, above all, necessary. But today, in the here and now, the only possible response is awe.” – Dave Eggers

“I’d love a chance at that twink bitch.” – Bret Easton Ellis, on his podcast presumably

“No one blogging today has the gumption, the verve, the veritable panache of Cody Frank. Lesser bloggers tremble in his presence.” – Harold Bloom

“Great. A favorite between the ages of 20 and 40, and thereafter. Let people compare me to Cody Frank by all means, but my English is patball to Frank’s champion game.” – Vladimir Nabokov

“Why do we blog in a world dominated by platforms? Where if we want anyone to read what we write there’s some compromise to be made with the platforms everyone seems to be standing on, milling about, sharing news, pictures, gossip—but of course everyone knows it’s the platforms standing on everyone because everyone supports the platforms or else the platforms would collapse? Which makes finding a “platform,” as in something to stand on, on these platforms, inaccessible? Everything pressed and kneaded into form for content dull gazes roaming the spectacle? What used to mean something? Is there anything to reach out and touch still? Has there ever been? Signs behind signs, a fun house holographic maze slithering jagged paths of intersectarian double crossings. Cast into the thrumming horror of pitch black, beating in time, when pupils dilate round enough to birth tiny globes—is it out there, or from within, in our hearts and minds? Perhaps you’ve heard of Zen Master Dogen’s Moonlight in a Dew Drop, my ecoindustrial noise project? If so, check out my other Bandcamp – Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review)” – Michio Kaku

“I’d suck his dick if he’d let me.” – Ana de Armas

“A triumph. A vital exploration of what it means to be American in the 21st century. I read [palmtreesonfire.com] every night with Michelle.” – President Barack Obama

a smart friend of mine informed me he’s been giving himself a break lately. rather than be upset with himself that he wasn’t doing what a younger version of himself expected him to do, he’s allowing himself to enjoy what’s at hand, free of any nagging guilt over, for example, not reading as much as he used to. “besides,” he said, “it’s not like my friends are really keeping up with literature lately anyway. no one’s reading whatever cutting edge novels are being published nowadays.” if cutting edge novels are even being published, of course.

this was supposed to be helpful perspective on how I’ve been feeling like I’m not living the life I once vaguely imagined for myself, one which rejects bourgeois society in favor of bohemian devotion to art. (inb4 “bohemian devotion to art is so bourgeois“) I do appreciate the sentiment, that as long as I’m following my impulses rather than denying them, there’s not much else to do. but what he said about reading, it only reopened the other front in my war against discouragement, namely the fear that literature has become atrophied, unable to contend or compete with the present landscape. that maybe there’s some other medium better suited to the moment: video art, performance, music, something yet to be defined.

i think it would be fun to try out some other media, and I’m still figuring how to make interesting music, but maybe it’s better, more countercultural, to stubbornly insist on working in a medium that isn’t so easily masticated into “content” served up alongside jailbait TikTokrs, lifestyle Instagrammers, and post-Soundcloud-rap Soundcloud rappers. and who cares about traditional publishing; there was a brief moment in art history when it was possible to be a total freak and have Viking throw a bunch of money at you for it. otherwise, it’s always been a struggle to get truly out there. Melville, Henry Adams, Bill Burroughs, all of them were largely denied recognition from the mainstream while they were alive. Adams was so overlooked by his contemporary publishers that he self-published his autobiography and welcomed anyone pirating his work.

there’s no neat end here, just wheels spinning, looking for traction.

decalcify those pineal glands, flouride enjoyers, we’re going on another trip down the rabbit hole.

Dimitri (@drposhlost)

Dimitri here is one of the hosts of Subliminal Jihad, a podcast that “[explores] deep politics, occult history, conspiracy, and ontological ops from a critical-paranoid perspective.” what exactly “ontological ops” are is beyond this humble blogger’s understanding. Subliminal Jihad is sort of like if TrueAnon had less discipline; the episodes are long and rambling, the hosts do research that they should have brought to the studio while on mic, the sound quality sucks, and the host who isn’t Dimitri has worse uptalk/vocal fry than Liz Franczak. would it fucking kill you, Khalid, to start a sentence without saying “and, like, yeah”? also what’s up with everyone saying your grandfather was OSS, Khalid? what’s that all about?

they’d be mad at me for this comparison, and it’s likely they’d use my point about their lofi production values to bolster the argument that they’re the lefty parapolitics pundits that should be trusted, not the Pritzker-backed Chapo mafia that Brace and Liz run with. last time around I was glib about the idea that Brace Belden is some kind of intelligence asset, and to be clear, I understand being wary of the man’s mercenary background and his podcast’s overnight success. but spending so much time combing through newspaper clippings for the name Belden in order to link such personages to the Rockefellers or some other demonic elite family? it reads as pathetic. even if they’re right and Belden receives checks from the State Department, Subliminal Jihad’s jihad against him seems primarily motivated by spite and envy. the other possibility is some kind of The Man Who Was Thursday situation.

it also endlessly pisses me off that Dimitri uses a screencap from PTA’s Inherent Vice adaptation as his avi, in part because additionally, the show’s merch store includes a shirt bearing the text “Dracularity: Subliminal Jihad, Every Single Episode, 2020-“. my opinion is, leave Pynchon out of this, you fucking nerds, but if you must bring him in, at least credit the man for coining “Dracularity” back in 1973 in Gravity’s Rainbow.

all that being said, I do appreciate how unrelentingly critical these two are towards the Gettys (and their minion Gavin Newsom), as well as being highly disdainful of that Coward of American Leftism, Noam Chomsky.

eleven (@eleevn)

somewhere between the extremely, ahem, hermetic, and the more mundanely parapolitical, lies eleven. when I first encountered eleven’s tweets, I thought I’d finally found someone who could balance real world political concerns while keeping an eye aimed at the high weirdness that comes with an interest in esotericism. spinning false flag attacks and psyops as instantiations of black magic meant to bewitch the masses into subservience? based. you go, girl. right there with you; fuck Michael Aquino, all my homies hate Michael Aquino. even cooler? conceiving of the fractured (“schizzed”?) media landscape as a deliberate effort to parcel people out into something akin to Alternate Reality Games, with reference to papers that argue ARGs are highly useful, if of questionable morality, for studying the behavioral effects of manipulated variables in a given environment. any content served to you by what’s colloquially known as “the algorithm” should be treated as highly suspect, even if you don’t believe there are sleeper agents awaiting activation via an MKUltra trigger.

then I got a little freaked out because she tweeted some things about graphene and about DoD officials writing papers on the efficacy of employing graphene for biosurveillance, not at a distance a la the NSA, but from within, via injected nanotechnologies; that, in fact, this graphene material is of interest to DARPA for its potential to facilitate neural interaction with machines, fulfilling the wildest wet dreams of the transhumanists and vindicating years of tinfoil hat hair.

it is difficult to immerse ones thinking in the paranoid imaginary without occasionally being struck by The Fear; there was a week or so a while back where I was basically convinced the Mandela effect was an operant means of psychological control, and that reality is even more malleable than I sometimes optimistically believe it to be. now, so as to not become insane, I don’t think about it so much.

but on this graphene-in-the-vaccines thing, a little more digging suggests that there’s not much reliable biological application of graphene technology as it is currently understood–if you trust Wikipedia, that is, and Wikipedia is a perfectly acceptable resource for many things, a gift unto humanity so far as the democratization of general knowledge is concerned. but Wikipedia is also notorious for downplaying what are understood to be actual, historically verifiable conspiracies: don’t read Wikipedia if you want to know anything worth knowing about 9/11, JFK, Franklin Credit, OKBOMB, etc. so, but, like, what eleven is suggesting w/r/t graphene is ultimately a more “studied” elaboration of the same old vaccine paranoia, that the NWO is chipping everyone with receivers so that HAARP antennae can maintain a docile population via electromagnetic frequency modulation. which, like, if that’s possible, I really don’t think any of your posting means anything, girl, so you might as well go outside, get laid, eat shrooms, and enjoy whatever version of the Simulation They’re broadcasting to you or whatever.

the day after writing the above, eleven posted a thread theorizing that, because smiling “evolved” from an expression of fear and submission in primates (literally a line from the Office’s Dwight Schrute, and also unscientific), the proliferation of open-mouth smiles and hearty laughter in artistic depictions, previously reserved for images of the insane or dimwitted, is evidence of a ruling class psyop to inculcate an instinct for compliance among the plebeians, and it’s like, have you ever met a smiling baby? this is just an reactionary argument for puritanical decorum via restraint on natural exuberance. which, and I don’t often like tipping my hand so clearly, is something I am firmly opposed to.

Unconscious Abyss ∞🔮 (@UnconsciousAby)

my apologies; I wrote all this before Aby went private.

it’s hard to take seriously anyone suggesting an ancient occult conspiracy undergirding all of society, which is recognizable by its symbols, if the person’s response to this problem is to primarily post Twitter threads about it. it’s like, homie, I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but I can’t imagine They would let you chase online clout if you’re anywhere near giving up Their game.

of course, whatever exactly Their game is, it’s hard to parse from the things Unconscious Abyss posts. they obviously have a wide range of occult/alchemical knowledge and I do not doubt the rigor of their studies, but a lot of these tweets are like, uncontextualized quotes, or like four suggestively similar images quoted tweeted with another four suggestive images, all without referent to any overarching thesis or argument (or even an explanation). are alchemists based, or are they cringe, Lord Abyss? because if they’re cringe, you seem to be exceptionally familiar with their esoteric symbolism, so why should anyone trust what you have to say about it all? if everything is part of some grand, global process of occult initiation, wherein news stories and historical events are ritual enactments of manipulation, what makes you think finding coincidences in names and shapes isn’t merely They’re way of throwing you off the trail? plus, it’s not like the Atlanteans invented the color green, so to presume metaphysical ratfuckery on the basis that two things happen to be green is just naive epistemology–superstition.

on the other hand, it is true that the Enlightenment and its consequences are extensions of western occult principles: Isaac Newton spent much of his time studying not physics but alchemy, the chemical structure of petroleum was arrived at after August Kekulé had a vision of the Ouroboros, and the alchemist’s dream of material transubstantiation is now matched by the technical abilities of modern science. if the contemporary world isn’t a result of a Freemasonic plot to install a global world order conducive to the accumulation of power by an elite cabal of sorcerers, then it sure looks like one if you squint hard enough.

[w/r/t a Department of Energy official]: quarked up white boy with a little bit of clearance blasts it down nuclear style.. is he DOE-ted with the sauce?

[w/r/t the anime girl in the “chill lofi beats to study/relax to” YouTube channel]: quirked up lofi girl with a little bit of chill studies hard relaxual style.. is she beated with the sauce?

[w/r/t the Try Guy cheating “scandal”]: quirked up Try Guy with a little bit of clout loses it all infidelity style.. is he Fullered with the sauce?

[w/r/t Don DeLillo’s classic White Noise]: quirked up White Noise with the Most Photographed Barn studies Hitler airborne toxic style.. is it DeLillo’d with the sauce?

[w/r/t Bob Odenkirk being shamed for following a foot fetish Instagram account]: Odenkirk’d up white boy with a little bit of ‘gram kicks it down fetish style.. is he footed with the socks?

a friend of mine shared a quote, from Cioran I later learned, that has since hung around my mind like a pall of smoke:

To have devoted to the idea of death all the hours which any vocation demands. . . Metaphysical outbursts are the attribute of monks, debauchees and bums. A job would have turned Buddha into a mere malcontent.

upon first reading this, a taunting voice arose from within and hissed “that’s you, a mere malcontent. what hope do you have for beauty if you actively wish for 40 hours each week to pass as quickly as possible? where else does this lead but the grave?”

some people go through life only barely aware that another way is possible, ostensibly happy to work for wages that can be then used for acquiring things, with their little remaining free time reserved for mindless distraction. others are so at odds with the demands of the machine as to reject and be rejected by it, and are therefor cast out into psychosis, criminality, and/or death. the dream, the ideal, is to slip between the mechanisms and find a path for remaining human, without critical (ie fatal) sacrifice.

then there’s what I do: imagine myself as strident or eccentric despite leading an extremely safe life perfectly in accord with society’s unjustified demands.

I have no desire for glory or fame; I might argue that the present historical moment suffers from a devaluing of glory, but it is not in my nature to be a Napoleon or a Lenin. I also believe that acceptance of one’s mundane existence is a step on the road to [REDACTED], and that the present historical moment suffers from an excess of people who believe they’re special, that is, outside humanity and beyond the reaches of death.

I do not wish to be God, nor do I wish to be Caesar. I only wish to have the courage of Cioran’s monk/debauchee/bum. but unfortunately I am a coward, full of regret.

this weekend my brother is getting married. I’m officiating.

I regret not being closer with my brother.

I regret that my family is only a source of pain for me.

I regret being the son of a fascist federale.

I regret that my mom has never been well.

I regret wishing this week would be over and done with.

I regret every time I did not speak my mind for the sake of politeness.

I regret allowing people I disagree with to think otherwise.

I regret preserving illusions.

I regret not making more dumb mistakes in my 20s.

I regret not cultivating broader curiosity about the people around me.

I regret being irritated when a stranger tries to make small talk.

I regret my passivity.

I regret my desire to appear “put together.”

I regret closely guarding my exuberance and my clownishness.

I regret every day I spend anxiously clicking around the internet to waste time at work.

the friend who posted the Cioran assures that “It’s never too late to change tho.” we shall find out.