it’s a lovely january morning, after what felt like weeks of storm and gloom. every extra minute of daylight is as a gift from the gods, an assurance of approaching spring.
yet it remains winter.
eventually I’ll finish writing up a rundown of my 2021 reading list. this year I’m starting off with a reread of Nightwood, and this morning I opened Oswald Spengler’s seminal The Decline of the West, with the intention of alternating chapters between it and The Dawn of Everything, the new David Graeber book (with David Wengrow). the fourth Hermetic principle listed in the Kybalion of the Three Initiates, the principle of polarity, states that everything is dual, so why not study world history from both angles: conservative pessimism and anarchic irreverence.
making steady progress on music production. churning out scratch takes of drum patterns and basslines mostly. I have a lot to learn still. soon I’ll write some verses to rap over the beats I really like. I want songs that get a crowd going, rafter rattlers, singalong anthems, mosh breakdowns, deep-as-hell grooves, that sort of thing. music for hot girls to dance to. maybe some drone and noise experiments. something new, but familiar. art pop, essentially.
tomorrow the library closes to the public again, out of a much too late, and therefor too little, abundance of COVID caution. hard not to feel like there’s a concerted effort to shrink my social sphere at just the time when I need opportunities for exogamy, of both the spiritual and the physical variety. but prolly for the best, being forced into slow, deliberate change, instead of my usual incidental flailing.
writing is slow but consistent. I feel like I’m in a collect/excrete phase, jotting ideas as they come and leaving them to be sorted through later. with the start of the next month, in all its inevitability, an adjustment will be called for, with greater focus, and tighter control.
missed the new moon, so if I’m your go-to astrologer…why?
Mikhail Bakhtin wrote a book I haven’t read all of, about the literary DNA of Dostoevsky. I know about this because I read the Wikipedia page for Menippean satire, a genre of writing I’m interested both in reading and producing. instead of working from whoever’s paraphrase is offered there, I decided to read the five pages of Bakhtin’s book about the genre and craft my own paraphrases below, as guideposts.
in the Menippea, the comical and humorous are central affects, especially when contrasted with the genre’s forebear, the Socratic dialogue.
Menippean narratives demonstrate “extraordinary freedom of plot and philosophical invention.” there is little concern for historical or memoiristic accuracy, nor is there respect for received myths and legends. realism is not the genre’s purview.
as such, the fantastic and outlandish operate in the Mennipea out of devotion to philosophical interrogation: extreme, even unbelievable, situations are created so that ideas may be stretched to their limit. the fantastical plot does not embody any truth but instead provides the background against which the truth is tested. in such adventure stories or religio-mystical narratives, it is not a human character that is the locus of conflict and tension, but an idea.
the fantastical elements intermingle with a “slum naturalism.” the idea is tested not only in supernatural extremes, but in those worldly contexts that are abject, poverty-stricken, perverse or depraved: “in brothels, in the dens of thieves, in taverns, marketplaces, prisons, in the erotic orgies of secret cults.”
the Menippea raises ultimate philosophical questions. it is as though every situation the narrative enters into poses in miniature ethical and practical choices of fundamental importance, as though all scenarios and characters represent alternate approaches to these ultimate questions.
a three-planed structure of the world provides wider range for addressing these ultimate questions; Menippean satire deals in the heavenly, earthly, and, especially, the netherworldly. action is often depicted at the boundaries between these spheres, as when a man argues his soul’s case at the gates of heaven, for example.
the experimentation and fantasticality of the genre extends to nontraditional narrative points of view: observation is made from a great height, as if looking down from Olympus, or it rapidly shifts between disparate perspectives, further broadening the scope of the work.
Menippean satire attempts to give voice to abnormal, extreme psychological states, “insanity of all sorts…, split personality, unrestrained daydreaming, unusual dreams, passions bordering on madness, suicides, and so forth.” the role these play is in introducing alternate ways of being; another life, a disjunct from the Self, a multiplicity in the place of the singular Ego. indeed, the Menippea seeks to destroy the unity of a person through dialogic interrogation, often to comic effect—even if simultaneously tragic, as in Dostoevsky’s use of doubles.
equally characteristic as psychological disturbance are violations of etiquette and eccentricities. taboos are broken, inappropriate speeches given, scandals enacted. these play the same role insanity plays for the individual, but on a societal scale, that is, in suggesting alternate modes of being, by undermining the power of convention to determine behavior. utterances that profane the sacred, cut through pretense, or defy decency, are common.
juxtaposition of extremes is a favored technique of the Menippean satirist: oxymorons, abrupt shifts, pairings of unlike things, the king as slave, the noble whore.
an imagined social utopia is generally present, “in the form of dreams or journeys to unknown lands.”
Menippean satires allow for formal promiscuity, with elements of other genres (“novellas, letters, oratorical speeches, symposia”) dispersed throughout, in varying degrees of parody.
this formal promiscuity is evidence of the Menippea’s interest in establishing “a new relationship to the word as the material of literature,” descended from the work’s thoroughly dialogic nature.
of primary interest to the Menippean narrative are issues contemporary with the work’s production. Menippean satires are in this way “journalistic,” by making reference to pop cultural, historical, and political events; by mapping the emergence of social developments; by depicting new directions for mundane existence.
Bakhtin notes that the genre “was formed in an epoch when national legend was already in decay, amid the destruction of those ethical norms that constituted the ancient idea of ‘seemliness’.”
The secret of education still hid itself somewhere behind ignorance, and one fumbled over it as feebly as ever. In such labyrinths, the staff is a force almost more necessary than the legs; the pen becomes a sort of blind-man’s dog, to keep him from falling into the gutters. The pen works for itself, and acts like a hand, modelling the plastic material over and over again to the form that suits it best. The form is never arbitrary, but is a sort of growth like crystallization, as any artist knows too well; for often the pencil or pen runs into side-paths and shapelessness, loses its relations, stops or is bogged. Then it has to return on its trail, and recover, if it can, its line of force. The result of a year’s work depends more on what is struck out than what is left in; on the sequence of the main lines of thought, than on their play or variety.
what makes the fantasy of tearing it all down and setting off along some line of flight into unknown territory so alluring? it seems that for most people this impulse is tamped down with regimented self-destructiveness at a lower frequency, via substance abuse, binge television, etc., or else it’s sublimated into a quote unquote “healthy” process of change, deliberate and sustainable, aimed at concrete goals.
it’s hard for me to deny what blind intuition and whim have done to make my life more pregnant with meaning. the world will of course intervene into anyone’s stability eventually, but Life won’t be experienced in all its splendor if timidity, inertia, and fear of pain dominate one’s existence. in his Education, Henry Adams argues that chaos is the natural course of the universe, order a fiction of human consciousness; “chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.” the sense of thrill, the thrumming energy felt when interrogating potentials unforeseen, not yet realized, and just beyond comfort, is an indication of one’s nearness to, as Clarice Lispector (Dec. 10) calls it, the coração selvagem, the wild heart of life.
this naturally leads to the counterquestion of whether courting destruction is necessary. the impulse to shake things up, loosening structural supports, all for an imagined and, by nature, unsecured different way of being, is, if you squint, or maybe even without squinting, merely the desire for death, an end to the life lived up to that point. obligations can be impediments, blocking the way to higher experience, or they can deepen the value of one’s present conditions. as I write this I’m wearing a t-shirt bearing the misunderstood William Blake (Nov 28) quote, “the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” is this a moral imperative urging that we embrace excess and search for what is above and beyond conventional, predictable existence? do we brave the inevitable pain and violence of such a decision? or is Blake saying something else? Philoctetes, enduring his poisoned wound, may serve some as a model for how anguish and destruction can be ennobled, with his convalescence proving essential for mastery over the bow of Heracles. Or, it’s the story of a man needlessly exiled for a decade only to become proficient with implements that cause further suffering.
I might go and throw my phone into the lake, yeah/It ain’t hard to quit carin’ what you think, yeah
100 Gecs (Laura Les [Dec 2], Dylan Brady [Nov 27])
I’m not quite lighted out for unknown territories, nor did I throw my phone in the lake, but I did deactivate my Instagram. a small step towards acting on the conviction that unmediated contact with Life’s wild heart is still possible.
Adams wanted to escape the terrors of copyright; his highest ambition was to be pirated and advertised free of charge, since, in any case, his pay was nothing. Under the excitement of the chase, he was becoming a pirate himself, and liked it.
There is nothing here that has not been explained before
And I have no skill in the art of rhetoric;
Therefor, lacking any intention to benefits others,
I write this in order to acquaint it to my own mind.
(Ch 1.2)
Leisure and endowment* are very hard to find;
And, since they accomplish what is meaningful for humanity,
If I do not take advantage of them now,
How will such a perfect opportunity come about again?
(Ch 1.4)
*དལ་འབྱོར (Dal-‘byor). “This term denotes the perfect condition of human existence, in which one has freedom from eight particularly unfavorable states of being and is endowed with the ten conditions conducive to leading a spiritual life.” – Stephen Batchelor
CODY packs and rolls a cigarette paper with hash and ground cannabis flower. The room is redolent with an oily skunkiness. Curtains drawn. Littering the coffee table are books bearing titles like The Occult and Symbols of Freemasonry. He wets his lips, licks the adhesive strip, twists off the joint, and holds it out to light with a Bic. He takes a deep drag and blows 3-5 smoke rings before exhaling fully.
CODY
Feel like we’re losing the plot a little. You want to do what exactly? A history of monetary policy?
CODY (HASH INFUSED)
Man, d’you know how powerful the Federal Reserve is, man? D’you know about Bretton Woods, man? The petro-dollar? And now with COVID as cover, Jay Powell is letting that money printer just brrrr away, man, infusing the securities market with free cash and no aid given to the Little Guy, man. You don’t think that’s worth worrying about?
CODY
Maybe, but, what, we’re gonna be anti-fiat crypto guys? Goldbugs? I don’t like thinking about the market at all.
CODY (HASH INFUSED)
Man, you need to open up your Third Eye, brother.
CODY
Wasn’t the concept of a Third Eye popularized by Blavatsky’s descriptions of the Lemurians? And we all know who loved Theosophy so much they adopted their little cross symbol.
CODY (HASH INFUSED)
You mean the Hindu symbol for “peace”?
CODY
Don’t play dumb, man.
Another long drag off the joint, with a wistful (suspicious?) glance over the shoulder.
Today, love is being positivized into a formula for enjoyment. Above all, love is supposed to generate pleasant feelings. It no longer represents plot, narration, or drama—only inconsequential emotion and arousal. It is free from the negativity of injury, assault, or crashing. To fall (in love) would already be too negative. Yet it is precisely such negativity that constitutes love: “Love is not a possibility, is not due to our initiative, is without reason; it invades and wounds us.” [Levinas] Achievement society—which is dominated by ability, and where everything is possible and everything occurs as an initiative and a project—has no access to love as something that wounds or incites passion.
wanna know a secret? well too fuckin bad, cuz I guard mine like they’re the rim and I’m Bill Walton (November 5). admittedly, I don’t really know much about basketball. I am attempting to follow this season, and my Lakers barely squeaked by the 1-and-6 Rockets the other night. I do not understand the Lakers’ offensive strategy. what does Russell Westbrook (November 12) add to the team? again, stupid person talking, but I don’t think his passing game is really making or breaking anything for them. it’s like he’s not even on the same team as everyone else.
A Lakers-colored scorpion
y’all ever very obviously fudge part of a task you’ve been assigned, most of which hums along satisfactorily, but when time comes for the assigner to sign off on your submission, they call you out on the part you’re fudging and make you do it again, so you shuffle it around and send it back promptly but get left watching your email until the assigner finally accepts the very last of the work you need to do to be free? another way of putting this, how do I stop obsessively staring at my email? I feel like I’m being held hostage by my graduate advisor. I’m so fucking close to being rid of this bullshit.
once I am rid of this bullshit, I will, after a brief respite, be diving headfirst into my stagnant art projects. there’s nothing to be said here of the Big Thing I’m working on other than that I have shed all self-defeating hesitation on the matter. this novel is getting written by me one way or the other. other than writing, which I’m stuck doing no matter how much I vacillate on the value of fiction or the novel’s loss of stature in the culture, I’ve been playing the guitar more. I wouldn’t say that I can play the guitar quite yet, but I know how to play the guitar, if that distinction makes sense. I also plan to acquire a MIDI controller keyboard to make music on my laptop with. let me repeat: I barely know the guitar, but I intend to make music in the near future. so stay tuned on how that turns out. JPEGMAFIA, whose bday comes in just short of the Scorpio side of October (the 22nd), and his newest album put that fire under my ass. Adam advised me to keep a journal about my music making attempts, so maybe some of that will appear here at some point. he asked if I felt like I needed to express something that’s better suited to music than to fiction. Sontag argues that modern (ie contemporary) art tends to deal more in the interplay of constituent material, rather than it being an expression something specific through media, and I find it very easy to revel in the possibilities of music making, much easier than I do with language. but like I said, I’m cursed to write, so by altering course I’m not seeking the appropriate avenue to express something specific so much as widening my range of options for aesthetic play. and music is the most mysterious and explicitly occultist of the art forms, since it’s through creating tiny vibrations on the air that emotions aren’t just suggested, but foisted on the audience, as a magical spell. artful writing is also a kind of spell, but it’s easier to get hung up on Ideas with language-based arts, so I’m hoping that by pursuing music I can get some relief from my neurosis.
elsewhere, in an essay titlted “The Pornographic Imagination,” Sontag makes the point that it isn’t clear whether human sexuality ought to be understood as healthy and positive, something I spend a lot of time thinking about, since I’m preoccupied with sex. Colin Wilson, in his seminal work The Occult, argues that sexuality as we understand it now is a result of the sublimation of primitive erotic instincts into the social field created by urbanization millennia ago. he also argues that sexuality is one of the more stubborn primitive impulses, one our progressive domestication has not succeeded in muting. I don’t totally agree with Wilson’s argument, but I’m having a blast reading the book.
Today’s Google Doodle honors Charles K. Kao (November 4), who initiated the fiber optic revolution that allowed the internet to flourish into the Leviathan it is today. What’s more Scorpionic than a cryptic, all-powerful network of interstitial connection, the slow insinuation of which went largely unnoticed until it was too late?
