Life isn't about being,
it's about becoming.
Always: Beauty, Humanity, Philosophy, Physics, Time / Space, Words / Logos, Language, Books, Music, Theatre, Photography, The three R's [Reading, Writing, Mathematics], Coincidence / Synchronicity, The Jester / The Fool, The Fates [and their freakin' loom], Veganism, Boys, Boys who can read, Boys who carry paperback books in their back pockets, Boys who can spell, Boys who wear knives on their belts [and can spell], Boys who carry pocket watches.
I'll come running to tie your shoe.
As of late: Black cherry tea, Apple cobbler, Whole and raw vegan food, Hanging out with Julian, Missing Nick, Autumn, Holding off the rain, Reading, Exploring new cafes, The night sky, The beauty that surrounds us, Full moons, Chamomile tea, [Still] trying to write the novel, Writing short fiction and [In]verse, Sitting and Listening, Taking photographs, Taking photographs at night, Long bike rides, Pondering, Long conversations and Silence
Neptune [God of The sea, God of Earthquakes and Horses], Hermes [God of Shepherds and Thieves, God of Road travelers, Orators and Wit, God of Poets and Invention, God of the Cunning of Thieves and Liars, God of Boundaries and of the Travelers who cross them], Alcor and Mizar, Romeo and his Juliet, Rimbaud and Verlaine, Doherty and Barat
These guys are my heroes:
Vitaliy
Thomas
In general: I want to meet people who realize that even rules, over time, must tire of being followed. People who are okay with the idea of no separation between past, present, or future. People who are as comfortable with deep, intense conversations as they are with extended periods of silence in the presence of another. People who tend, at least, toward a compassionate diet and a pacifist lifestyle. People who are okay with the idea that looking at the moon is as valid a life experience as walking on it. Most of all, I want to meet people who would like to get together in person or who will actually communicate with me on here.
Copyright 2008 SMBpublishing
Specifically: I want to meet guys who know they're guys and are cool with that. Guys who have forged their own lives in their own style and don't need the moronic "gay lifestyle" in order to define themselves. Guys who live their lives outside of what passes these days for "queer culture" [an oxymoron, if ever there was one]. If you like biking and/or hiking, cooking together or just hanging out drawing, reading, writing, watching a river or a train pass by, going to see plays or an occasional movie, going to see a band or just staring at the stars, then you'll by no means be wasting your time barking up my tree. And if you happen to be an Irish lad, you'll definitely not be wasting mine.
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The great events of world history are, at bottom, profoundly unimportant. In the last analysis, the essential thing is the life of the individual. This alone makes history, here alone do the great transformations first take place, and the whole future, the whole history of the world, ultimately springs as a gigantic summation from these hidden sources in individuals. In our most private and most subjective lives we are not only the passive witnesses of our age, and its sufferers, but also its makers. We make our own epoch. - Carl Jung _________________________
Imagine a consciousness not limited by the conditions of sense-perception. Such a consciousness can rise above the plane on which we move; it can see far beyond the bounds of the circle illumined by our ordinary consciousness; it can see that not only does the line along which we move exist, but also all other lines perpendicular to it which we now cross, or have ever crossed before, or shall cross later. Rising above the plane this consciousness will be able to see the plane, make sure that it actually is a plane and not only a line. Then it will be able to see the past and the future lying side by side and existing simultaneously. - P.D. Ouspensky _________________________
It is not possible that this unity of knowledge, feeling and choice which you call your own should have sprung into being from nothingness at a given moment not so long ago; rather this knowledge, feeling and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one in all men, nay in all sensitive beings. But not in this sense -- that you are a part, a piece, of an eternal, infinite being, an aspect or modification of it, as in Spinoza’s pantheism. For we should have the same baffling question: which part, which aspect are you? What, objectively, differentiates it from the others? No, but inconceivable as it seems to ordinary reason, you -- and all other concious beings as such -- are all in all. Hence this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. - Erwin Schroedinger
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Joanna Newsom: "Dumbstruck with the sweetness of being."
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I break horses.
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Brian Eno and Harold Budd: Their Memories
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To Sir, With Love
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Big Love
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Copyright 2008 SMBpublishing
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No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself. - John Steinbeck
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I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars. - Walt Whitman
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The Crows
Lord, when the open field is cold,
When in the battered villages
The endless angelus dies -
Above the dark and drooping world
Let the empty skies disclose
Your dear, delightful crows.
Armada dark with harsh cries
Your nests are tossed by icy winds!
Along the banks of yellowed ponds,
On roads where crumbling crosses rise,
In cold and grey and mournful weather
Scatter, hover, dive together!
- Arthur Rimbaud -
I'm beyond fond of:
Castanets, Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Neutral Milk Hotel, Okkervil River, Phosphorescent, and Sufjan Stevens.
I also listen to: Akron/Family, Antony and the Johnsons, Archie Bronson Outfit, Augie March, Badly Drawn Boy, Bedhead, Beirut, Belle & Sebastian, Ben Weaver, Blackbird Raum, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Bright Eyes, Broken Social Scene, Built to Spill, Caleb Engstrom, Citadel, CocoRosie, The Decemberists, Dirty Three, Drive-by Truckers, Earlimart, Eels, Elliott Smith, Flaming Lips, f-bats (formerly, Frank Butcher and the Slags)
I want one of these!
Giant Sand, Grant Lee Buffalo, Grant Lee Phillips, Great Lake Swimmers, The Greenhornes, Hayden, Holy Ghost Revival, Holly Golightly, Horse Feathers, Husky Rescue, Iron and Wine, Jennyanykind, Jesse Sykes and The Sweet Hereafter, Jim White, Joe Pernice, John Vanderslice, Joseph Arthur, Laura Veirs, The Libertines
Pete Doherty
Loch Lomond, Long Fin Killie, Luna, Mad Season, Mark Lanegan, Menomena, Mercury Rev, The Mountain Goats, Musee Mechanique, M Ward, My Morning Jacket, Neko Case and Her Boyfriends, The New Year, Old Man Polka, Patrick Wolf, The Pernice Brothers, Portishead, Radical Face, Radiohead, Richmond Fontaine, Ryan Adams, 16 Horsepower, Scout Niblett, Scud Mountain Boys, The Sleepy Jackson, Smog, Spain, Sparklehorse, Talk Talk, The Thrills, Tiny Kings, The Transmissionary Six, Two Gallants, The Veils, Viva Voce, Wilco, Without Gravity
Some favorites:
(Movies I've seen recently are listed in bold.)
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, All the Real Girls, The American Astronaut, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward John Ford, Babel, Baraka, Before the Fall (Napola), Big Fish, Billy Elliott, Black White & Gray, The Borstal Boy, Brand Upon the Brain!, Breaking the Waves, Brothers of the Head, Bully, The Cement Garden, City of Lost Children, Class Trip, Criminal Lovers, Dandelion, The Darjeeling Limited, David Copperfield, Dead Man, Dear Wendy
Don't Look Back, Down By Law, Edward Scissorhands, Electric Edwardians, Elephant, Everything is Illuminated, Falkenburg Farewell, The Fall, Father and Son, Fogi is a Bastard, The Fountain, Garden State, George Washington, Gerry, The Great Water, The Guatemalan Handshake, Gummo, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, The History Boys, The Hottest State, The Hours, Howl's Moving Castle, I [heart] Huckabees, Imaginary Heroes, In Bruges, Juno, Kids, Last Days, Late August Early September, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Murmur of the Heart, Mutual Attraction, My Life as a Dog, My Life Without Me, My Own Private Idaho, Nicholas Nickelby
Northfork, Oliver Twist, Old Joy, Pan’s Labrynth, Paranoid Park, Perfume, The Return, Rory O'Shea Was Here, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, The Rules of Attraction, The Saddest Music in the World, The Science of Sleep, Snow Angels, Spring Summer Fall Winter ...and Spring, The Squid and the Whale, Tarnation, Tideland, The Tracey Fragments, Twin Falls Idaho, Twist, Undertow, The United States of Leland, A Very Long Engagement, Wild Tigers I Have Known, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Withnail & I, You Can Count On Me, Zodiac
Harold & Maude
I haven't watched television since 1993 but, back in the day, my favorite shows were: The Many Loves of Doby Gillis, Northern Exposure
I'm currently re-reading:
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Contemporary Fiction:
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill, The Bitterweed Path by Thomas Hal Phillips, The Dissolution of Nicholas Dee and Landscape: Memory by Matthew Stadler, Ender's Game (Book 1) by Orson Scott Card, The History of Luminous Motion by Scott Bradfield, How Many Miles to Babylon? by Jennifer Johnston, The Abortion, In Watermelon Sugar and So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away by Richard Brautigan
Lawnboy by Paul Lisicky, Lighthousekeeping, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson, Margery Kempe by Robert Glück, Gun with Occasional Music and Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem, My Loose Thread by Dennis Cooper, Notable American Women by Ben Marcus, The Odd Sea by Frederick Reiken, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, Reader's Block, Springer's Progress, This Is Not a Novel, Vanishing Point and Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson, Remainder by Tom McCarthy, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, A Separate Peace by John Knowles, A Son Called Gabriel by Damian McNicholl, The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith by Peter Carey, Wigger by Lawrence Braithwaite, The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
Nonfiction:
Art Objects by Jeanette Winterson, Beyond Coincidence by Martin Plimmer, The Book: On the Taboo Against Being Who You Are by Alan Watts, Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav, Failure is Not an Option by Gene Kranz, Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid and I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas R. Hofstadter, I Am You by Daniel Kolak
The Last Innocent Year by Jon Margolis, Mount Analogue by Rene Daumal, Physics as Metaphor by Roger S. Jones, Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky, The Self-Aware Universe by Ahmet Goswami, The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra, Tertium Organum by P.D. Ouspensky, To Have or to Be? by Erich Fromm, Within the Context of No Context by George W.S. Trow, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
Playwrights:
I am terribly fond of WET (The Washington Ensemble Theatre) and The Ilkhom Theatre Company of Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Some of my favorite playwrights are: Edward Albee, Charles Mee, Joe Orton, Martin McDonagh, Nicholas Wright, Sam Shepard, Samuel Beckett, Tom Stoppard, Wallace Shawn, William Shakespeare
Beckett
Short fiction:
The southerners, mostly. Breece D'J Pancake, Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, Truman Capote. I also am terribly fond of the short fiction of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Ben Okri. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog by Dylan Thomas.
I highly recommend:
Nobody Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July
Poetry:
This is too numerous and diverse to list, though Arthur Rimbaud is the end all and the be all of it all!
Patti Smith
“I keep trying to figure out what it means to be an american. When I look in myself I see arabic, venus, nineteenth-century french but I can’t recognize what makes me american. I think about Robert Frank’s photographs - broke down jukeboxes in gallup, new mexico... swaying hips and spurs... ponytails and syphilitic cowpokes. I think about a red, white, and blue rag I wrap around my pillow. Maybe it’s nothing material maybe it’s just being free.
Freedom is a waterfall, is pacing linoleum until dawn, is the right to write the wrong words. And I done plenty of that...â€
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Arthur Rimbaud
"I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple, garlands from window to window, gold chains from star to star, and I dance."
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Daniel Kolak
Kolak is the originator of the philosophy known as Open Individualism, which he developed along with his view of metaphysical subjectivism and the nonlocality of consciousness, according to which there exists but one numerically identical individual subject who is everyone.
In his groundbreaking I Am You: the Metaphysical Foundations for Global Ethics (Springer 2004), he writes: "The central thesis of I Am You - that we are all the same person - is apt to strike many readers as obviously false or even absurd. How could you be me and Hitler and Gandhi and Jesus and Buddha and Greata Garbo and everybody else in the past, present and future? In this book I explain how this is possible. Moreover, I show that this is the best explanation of who we are for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it provides the metaphysical foundations for global ethics."
Variations on Kolak's heretical theme have been voiced periodically throughout the ages (the Upanishads, Averroes, Giordano Bruno, Josiah Royce); more recently, some of the world's greatest physicists, such as Erwin Schrodinger, Fred Hoyle, and Freeman Dyson have espoused it. Dyson, the legendary physicist who took over Einstein's office at the Princeton Institute of Advanced Study, has been sympathetic to Kolak's views since Kolak's physics days.
The book has been praised by luminaries such as W.V.O. Quine (Harvard), Johan van Benthem (Stanford), and Derek Parfit (All Souls College, Oxford). It offers "A full-contact philosophy for what may well be nothing less than the final showdown in our age-old Socratic battle against authority. Thinking that what matters is not what separates us but what we all have in common undermines all authority, even our own. It unmasks personal separatism as an illusion by which we dominate each other because we cannot dominate ourselves. The logic of identity forbids it."