Before sound, there was vibration
with no auricular structure to perceive it.
Before these trinities came dualities.
Before syncretism came juxtaposition.
Before leverage moved mountains
and swept us off our feet,
the mechanical principle
existed unnamed.
All awaiting discovery
in this hollow solidity.
No rights: homage.
Also, homage to this channel, which posts Peel Sessions.
Track one had better put a smile on everyone’s face with its rambunctious ramblings. It’s only slightly raunchy, you’ll hardly even notice.
Track two gives a softer side. The addition of “yet” to “you don’t love me” charms me.
Track three: /maybe I’m getting too old for this but I don’t know what else to do….yeah/
Track four: remembrance of things past.
Sidenote: bongwater, like tape heads, should be cleaned regularly. Giggle.
I have a low tolerance for intolerance; and it can
deplete me.
We know from experience;
We assume in theory.
Our time-cost scale.
In response to my own question:
My power is my prize.
Energetic consent up my salmon ladder is not costly, necessarily, but
is required.
An ability to articulate makes a piece of game
highly prized.
You want to fell a lioness?
Good.
Then, take down the two lions, knelt at
the left and right sides.
They were not asked to attend.
No compulsion.
They are here because they wilt to be.
Unnamed but not inane.
And, you shalt deal with them,
should you choose to confront with an affront.
《
Out through the nose: 1.
In through the nose: 2.
Out through the mouth: 3.
In through the nose: 4.
Out through the nose: 5.
In through the mouth: 6.
Out through the mouth: 7.
In through the nose: 8.
When you can walk and repeat this breath cycle
three consecutive times,
let me know.
》
Did you drink that bottle of water? Yes?
Good. You will lose it.
Did you bring a sweatband for your brow? No?
Good. The salt will sting your eyes.
There is nothing I would imbibe to dull this edge,
but memories of you which I may use, spurning future potentialities.
You help me project myself into the future.
I lay-line.
Silly, sad boys abound, but I see depths in your aged eyes.
Your crows well-footed and begging,
leaving their foot tracks below your lower lids.
They are just as fine when you smile as when you frown.
This entoptic perspective we are individually bound to
drives me wild,
then feral.
These entotic sounds and whispers arouse.
Your hints and secrets spur.
I wear the stripe of an island.
Heraldry.
An entropic endeavor.
My vizard is my visage.
And with a double V.
VV.
I derive double ewe.
Ewer a W, you.
And, from my mask a
wizard re-enlivens.
Your enervated state is the reason why I request your prostration.
I do not require it; but,
I wilt accept it from you.
Until you understand this, I can neither refill nor refine you.
Your acquiescence does not appease me; but rather[,]
(It may prove to please me)
enables you.
Do not give me attitude simply because
your lassitude overcomes you, wild thing.
I know how to respond; but,
do you know how to af-
firm that you need a demon cleaner?
Did you think about what I said?: he asked.
(My nostrils flare)
I said: You said alot; but, yet again, I thought more about what you did not say.
I tried to answer your questions: he said.
I guess I’m more interested in what you think about the questions you don’t know how to answer: I reply.
I don’t know what to say about that which I do not know: he said.
Soft words, volutary: I respond: what did your mind howl in
speculative
response and resistance?
Before photons,
ours was
the luminiferous ether, the medium through which light moves.
falling like waves
Issuing ever out in concentric circles
(within concentric circles)
《[Ego centrism
Of gEo centrists.
A vessel never falls off the horizon.
Our sight line drops off; and
the feet of another appear to
grow smaller (and smaller)
as s/he walks away from you.》
But, there was no motion detected.
A wave and a particle,
both either, as well as neither,
hidden ether.
Rods and shafts of sunlight.
A crisp breeze whips through us as we walk.
I look to your forearms
in anticipation.
Each breaking out in thousands of little goose pimples.
Reddening the skin.
Your face flushes as your blood vessels respond to the
change in ambient temperature.
It turns you to a blushing man.
Your eyes go childlike and I can imagine
your childhood face, even though I have never seen it.
The one you wore when you were fresh and new.
Before you knew how time flows
and before all that time flowed you.
Back when all you knew was feeling.
Before you had knowledge, before you wanted to have more knowledge, before you needed to prove things.
Before you knew that you know nothing.
⊙
A ray of light projects itself through the grey day’s smokey cloud cover.
It reenlivens your skin tone.
You thaw.
And, I wonder: where were you the very first time
sunlight kissed you and
began stripping away
your skin’s virginity.
⊙
In private, I will observe your bare form.
Looking for tell tale signs distributed and
laying across every inch of you.
I will trace my fingers along and press my lips to each revelation
of how you became what you are.
Wallingford.
Public streets are designed to be confusing.
“There are implied stops intended to create confusion,” Wheeze L. told me.
“Where did you hear that,” I ask?
“On the local, public radio station,” she responds.
She gets inked up while I take photos of the murals and street art.
°
Everyone is young. Thank God I wore black with leather boots. Everything is in color except what is fashionable here.
But, I am not being fair.
I have not eaten.
I feel quite unhip in this neighborhood. Like I am not trying hard enough to not care. You know, where non-conformist fashion becomes uniform. I am cool but not cold cool.
” ‘Course this ain’t Wilkes-Bashford either, so fuck fashion in the face of… and fuck it anyway just in good general principles.” (Not Fade Away. Jim Dodge)
I walk into the local vinyl shop. Stocked with just as many cassettes and CD’s.
Hey. How’s it going?: I say when I enter just one foot from the shopkeeper, and become the only browser in the shop.
He says: [nothing]. Looks up, then looks down.
I find this cassette called Cassette by an old fave.
Public Image Ltd.
You all set?: he says when I walk back to the counter.
Yeah, unless you have [insert band and album name here], in any format.: i say.
Yeah. No. I am not a CD seller.: he says.
I think: do what now? I bought a cassette and asked for any format. This album was pressed to viynl, too. Also, one third of your store is CD’s.
I feel old though I wager he and I are about the same age.
These are the dullest punks I have seen.
I find a hole in the wall pub.
Two men talk pinball strategy re: one of the three machines.
So, the Dark Knight story means…: I overhear.
I snag a draft from a sweet, little bartender. He was sharing his struggle, with anxiety and depression, with one of the Pinball Wizards.
Here is where I would frequent, were I to stay in this neighborhood. It is a haven.
An isle for misfit toys. Rankin & Bass, Christmas claymation-style.
Fighting-as-discipline haunts me with every new face I meet. (Invariably they are black belts, INK’D athletes, ex MMA fighters, etc.)
Cannily uncanny. It may be inspiring my clip this morning. I certainly find the trend personally inspiring. The same way the numbers 93, 13, 11, and 777 hook my attention. Do I see them at every turn because they occur in a disproportionate amount or do my expectations simply enliven significance?
My feet carry my brain to work, propelled as though by the will of something outside of my conscious thought.
I walk too fast. I don’t know why. Mind still foggy from tying one on with the family last night.
Damn. I can barely keep up with my own pace.: I think, walking.
Click, click.
Click, click.
Quick.
Oh well, the energy required to change my momentum seems more consuming than just continuing to walk along, too fast.
It is a grey sky morning.
Have I actually woken up?
°
The sun finally arrives and beats the cloud cover into smashed splinters. It makes the day seem real. I feel my heart finally kick start, keeping rhythm with the coffee coursing through my system.
Howllelujah.: says the newly given up ghost,
in a whisper of surrender to this new day.
Douglas Hofstadter wrote about Googel translate not too long ago.
As an American, foreign languages are not the priority of inner city schools, at least not the one I attended. Not, their fault either.
I failed Kiswahili enough times, in college, to blow the socks off of any Kenyan who I meet stateside.
Ninasema Casey.
No one speaks any “Swahili” here. Not enough to even make the general populace know the language is factually called Kiswahili.
Bless you, Bibi Jane. And, bless you end of term oral examiner.
Can I write my responses to your oral questions?: I asked.
No.: she responds.
Shit: I think.
⊙
I’ve worked in enough restaurants to learn functional Spanish and Kiswahili.
(A surprising number of Kenyan immigrants in B’ham, AL. Magic City
We got a Nemo walking in: Robert would call to his kitchen, at Tavern on the Summit, whenever a catch of the day ticket came through. Howlarious.
But fish don’t walk, Robert: I’d always say
[After dinner rush, in the alley, smoking a cig.
Me: I thought “fish” was “samaki” in Kiswahili.
Robert: No, dummy. Nemo, like the movie.
Howlarious.]
)
⊙
I listened to this show, just now.
A few phrases in foreign languages hooked my attention.
I connect to Catalan, Frisian, and Corsican.
Don’t ask why, because I don’t justly know.
I love playing with Translate ever since the Hofstadter article.
But, I don’t have friends like his, to give feedback on the intimacies of Translate’s inadequacies.
On a cru que les données allaient nous libérer: appears in type face on the screen behind the band.
I make haste to Translate.
To triangulate my linguistic location.
If the phrase is in Frisian it translates to: On a cru que les données allaient nous libérer.
It translates to itself.
If the phrase is in either French or Corsican it translates to: it was believed that the data would free us.
In Corsican, the same spellings translate to: where it’s raw than the others were waiting for release again.
Hot and beautiful. Both.
⊙
Désormais ton monde est ainsi fait: appears in type face on the screen behind the band.
I make haste to Translate.
To triangulate my linguistic location.
If the phrase is in Frisian it translates to: this is a ton of things to do.
If the phrase is in French it translates to: now your world is so made.
Howl.
After the morning shift, I stop by a bar.
Watching the last ten minutes of an American football game, the crowd here breaks into applause and hoots for the local team.
For the images on t.v.
(For each other.)
“We look good.”
We? No, dear, “they”. They are not you.
Five minutes later the crowd breaks into “boo”, “oh no”, “why,” along with some judgements and criticisms.
“They should have…”
Oh, it is “they” not “we” now, huh?
Giggle.
The 12th man is always the loudest?
A short completed pass results in the “other” team’s receiver getting gobsmacked by a defender
“They lit him up” I offer.
I like lit people.
“I am gonna need you to get a little more excited about this game,” the fellow aside me at the bar jokes.
Despite being kind, I am not daft.
I can sense patronizing intent from miles away.
“And, Ima need you to not tell me how to handle my business” I smile. Teasing him.
I will poke the bear to see his response.
He has no clue how to respond. He does not realize I am giving him the business.
No rights: homage.
/Your eyes, they follow me…too pale to see.
[One, two, three, four]
Can I take you to the ice rink? I don’t care, if you can’t skate…
To get you out of those wet clothes.
…I won’t lace your…
Can I take you to the cinema?:[Margot]
(Can I take you home?)
The British invasion occured today, at the restaurant.
A delightful change of clientele in town for Birdfest.
Aside from the accent, the nearly, overly polite manners gave them away.
Along with the ability to smile and make kindly eye contact despite not having had their morning caffeine.
Who cares if they mean it.
Such civility for the sake of simple decency resonates with my Southern background. The South has little else to offer, currently. Hence, my leaving a few years ago.
(Serving people who have arrived to have their first cuppa in our dining room is always an intimate moment of raw honesty. Coffee, tea, or booze).
They enjoy my accent as much as I enjoy their’s. They laugh when I say ‘y’all’.”
I say it a lot. Habituated.
“Most practical pronoun in American English. Much better than ‘you all/guys’,” I tease.
Server P over hears this.
S/he snags me by my shoulder and, laughing, tells me, “I like ‘y’all’ as much as I prefer ‘they/them’!”
It makes me giggle. It makes me feel good to hear this.
Until today, coffee out ordered tea.
Eight to one.
We run out of tea pots to distribute, for the first time ever.
I convert our decaf urn to a simple pot of hot water, to meet the refill demands.
¤
A solo diner arrives.
I wave as I approach from the rear of the dining room, so he knows he has been espied and will be assisted as fast as my heels can click my steps toward him
“Oh gee, hi there. How are you? It is just me, I am afraid,” he says to the hostess (me) before she (me) has even greeted him.
I break into my you-are-dear-to-me smile, immediately.
He was not British, though he held the manners and demeanor.
He had me in age by at least one and a half decades.
Long lovely fingers, nearly sky eyes but not quite.
Like a mockingbird’s.
Like a seagull’s call, cackling at me, because I kept wanting to mistake him for someone else.
We swap a good moment.
He looks a bit bewildered when I tell him I can seat him at a table or he may sit at the bar.
I have put him on the spot and he does not know which he prefers. It makes him genuinely squirm a bit.
Most American folk are most happy to be asked for their opinion. People love to let you know that they think “this” about “that.”
“Tell you what, our best server is bartending today. You should enjoy her service. Let’s go the bar.”
He blushes, nods; and, again,
I want to mistake him for someone else.
I lead him to
seat 35, specifically.
I watch him as I work, this sweet, little, mockingbird.
He watches me working, when he thinks I am not looking, but my job here is to always be looking.
I watch him try to subtlety watch me.
I avert my gaze, at times.
Eventually, I can no longer refrain.
I walk over to him and say, “I just want you to know you have such beautiful eyes. Exceptional.”
He gives me a look of shock and discombobulated confusion.
I touch my palm to his shoulder and walk away.
‘Exceptional’ because he recalls someone shamefully impeccable.
I sling my leg over your hips.
Thigh to thigh.
I lose track of time.
My body shakes.
We flow through dilated time,
watching our steady state peers wrap themselves in stasis.
Pull close, in arms.
Tethered through together.
No rights: homage.
⊙
Breathe, wild thing.
That’s all you need do.
Your heart will keep beating and your eyes will keep blinking.
Or else, they won’t.
Then it will truly be someone else’s problem.
And, even then, will you breathe easily.
⊙
\…Brother, can you see those birds? They don’t look to heaven
But they don’t need religion, they can see
They go down to the water, drink down on the water
Fly up off the water, leave them be…
…You know I am tired, cold and bony tired
Nothing’s going to save me, I can see
I can’t say I’m fearful, I can’t say I’m not afraid
But I am not resisting, I can see
Now, I don’t need a heaven, and I don’t need religion
I am in the place where I should be
I am breathing water, I am breathing water
You know a body’s got to breathe…
I’m drowning me
(Breathing ourselves)
I’m drowning me
(Breathing ourselves)
Yeah\
Oh, k/no/w.
I set it up.
I think that I saw you laughing (in the dark, Albinus).
While I played a game of Patience
In the corner.
Consider this:
I notice
a bonfire,
(alit via a couple of cotton balls, a lighter, and a tube of
lip balm)
burning high,
(especially when being properly blown into)
sounds a lot like a needle, with
a diamond tip,
sliding around and around,
a viynl record’s groove.
Shhhhtshhht.
Right before the song starts.
Because we are perceivers, that is why?
There is only causation because we create it?
We created the Why?
⊙
We have an inborn propensity to see causation. We attribute our perceptions to external causes, but some perceptual representations are internal, for instance, optical illusions.
[Consciousness] is an evolved user-illusion, a system of virtual machines.
David C. Dennett. The Evolution of Minds: from bacteria to Bach. 2017
⊙
The voice of knowledge wants to know what everything means, to interpret everything that happens in our lives.
DM Ruiz & DJ Ruiz. 2010, p124 & 13. ISBN 978-1-878424-61-7
I’m a bulldog for R.E.M being recognized for the amazing punks they are.
Southern Gothic Punk.
The album Monster turned 25 years old the other day.
What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
/I was brain-dead, locked out, numb, not up to speed
I thought I’d pegged you an idiot’s dream…/
Yeah, /I never understood tha frequency (uh hum)/ either.
/Richard said, “Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy”…
I couldn’t understand/
‘Til recently.
Well, the last time I saw Richard was Detroit in ’68.
And he told me: all romantics meet the same fate.
⊙
What’s the Frequency, Kenneth? Remaster. Given as a present to listeners,
along with a delightful, contextualization presented by original and remaster producer Scott Linn.
He wanted “to take another crack at it.”
I dig both.
⊙
Re: Strange Currencies
David Foster Wallace really dug it during one particular book tour.
Read all about from the words of (a very thoughtful) other.
I.e. read it in many fewer words than DFW would have described it in, with hardly any footnotes. Giggle.
This particular anecdote is my favorite from the entire book.
/I don’t know why you’re mean to me./
/The fool might be my middle name./
/Take you there and make you mine./
/These words will be mine./
/I tripped and fell./
/I wanna feel it now./
/You know with love comes strange currencies; and here is my appeal:
I need a chance. A second chance. A third chance. A fourth chance…
[Insert magical, hard to decipher words here]
To catch myself and make it real./
![Assertive Ask[d]ance](https://writtencasey.blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/20190430_064107.jpg?w=1200)
WrittenCasey 