Fill up my cup Vosen.

Vosen. I definitely agree with you. Henry gets under my skin! I think the fact that he let one woman ruin his entire life has a lot to do with it. Loving Henry Mussert is like loving a moment of life. Because that certainly is what he is. He lives once, and then thirty years (lets not get technical) later he passes on. Apparently he doesn't know your only alive when your living. Thus when Eliot says "you must go by a way in which there is no ecstasy..." I think he's talking about going in a way in which you do not live.

I realized when reading The Following Story for the second time that once Henry comes to terms with the pointlessness of what happened all his delusions of who he was because of it fall down. He's only able to tell the people on the boat what happened because they no longer see the mirages that herd us from day to day. Once he has given his story he gains the wisdom to understand the false realities that society distills on us. And when he has given up the illusions that he lives by, when he realizes that you can never actually know what another person is thinking from what they say, that's when he gives up his twenty minute lifetime (or this is when he begins to live life again). The Eternal return is what happens when he comes back to the place in his mind, but from a different view. It is the rejuvenation to live again.

"Fill up my cup, let's get f....."

A day straight out of Little Gidding

I'm so stuffed up I can't smell anything! Not that there is anything to smell this time of year. Does everyone else hate this midwinter spring we have? It's a life of its own! one day im in my flippy floppys the next i'm fighting wind burn while walkign to class! You think that since every week it all melts its gonna stop, but NO its endless! All I want is the endless summer! The season where numerals don't exist! The season's are trying to change but it's as if the kids coming out feet first and we've been fighting an endless battle to get that little head out! If punksatony Phill can do it so can you!

On The Class Blogs

Personally, my favorite part of Shaman Sexson's teaching technique is the use of our blogs. I find it to be the most useful tool in my college career. It gives him his "time" to episodically rant wisdom slowly into our mind over the semester, and it gives us our time to discuss the ideas that his lectures and our readings bring up.

I read all of the blogs. It's after textsfromlastnight and before Facebook. They've all given me insight. And it's not so much my favorite blogger, as those blogs that have had a profound influence on my own thoughts.

Lets begin. For starters, Kyle Kenitz's blog about his Terrifying Mental Maneuver's was awesome. It got me all riled up on dreams and interpretations and really brought back the idea of what dreams are.

Rio has been a champ all semester. With his smart pen, and his constant blogging (and I'll forgive his slight obsession with his cat). Rio I really connect with your description in your latest blog about having to relearn to read without the pen. I feel you. There is being a scholar and a being a reader, and often we don't discern between the two. Personally, Rio, I felt disenchanted on my second reading of The Following Story. And the disenchantment did not ruin the story whatsoever. I merely understood the rapture that had enclosed me from the beginning. The Themes we have just studied are all one in the same. They are overlapping because they are apart of the journey/ or are the journey, that we have to take to gain wisdom. The myth of the eternal recurrence is the same as Dolce Dommum. (Up is Down just as much as Left is Right.) And I would say more, but I've yet to find words to describe what I know.

Alicia. Your reading into my blog about being Stupid really hit the point exactly. Wisdom is not something of value in our society. They say Don't Be Smart, but what they mean is Wisdom is useless. If everyone were to look around them would you not say that the most of people are extremely unwise in there decision making? I really enjoy reading your writing. You have a way of bring your life and passion into your blogs that I always find enjoyable.

Zach of The Saving Bells. The Four Quartets and Eastern Thoughts is one of my favorite blogs. You definitely read Kerouac don't you?

Goss. Your thesis sounds awesome and I'm excited to hear/read it.

Thomas. Your obsession with Harry Potter is awesome. (Do you remember how you said Sherlock Holmes is everywhere in Finnegans Wake? Do you notice him anywhere on television?)

Christina. Your blogs are probably the most elaborate and well put together of the class. It's nice to have someone who can supply the flow of their thoughts. (Cause I definitely cannot)

Bizz. This quote from Full Metal Alchemist which you supplied has had a profound influence on the way I've thought about the entire class. It capture its cycle:

"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only truth."

Thank you bizz.


Bri. I think you have Dr. Sexson wrong in his explanation. He does not believe we need to give up lowbrow (he himself still reads lowbrow books) but that we should move on with age into bigger things. I don't believe Sexson was attacking lowbrow books so much as an elderly gentlemen reading youth literature. It makes sense doesn't it? We enjoy children's books from our adolescence now because we enjoyed them then. When we reread them, it recreates the past memories of what we enjoyed. But imagine picking up a Children's novel nowadays. Can you really enjoy it? No. You can't. I think that is what Sexson is trying to say.

Jon. What Can I Say? We discuss it everyday in Brit Lit.

Zack Eggemyer- Your explanation of The Matrix is beautiful. I love it. I reread it again. and Again. Profound. Elegant.

Jennie Lynn. I know that your busy with classes and whatnot, but I do miss your blogging.

Sam. What has everyone not already said?

I'm tired of writing but just so everyone knows, I do read your blogs, and there is barely anyone that does leave me deep in thoughts.

Maggie

The World is real. Consciousness is the illusion. -Graig Bruce


Do not be musled by what you see around you, or be influenced by what you see. You live in a world which is a playground of illusion, full of false paths, flasvevalues and false ideals. But you are not part of that world. -Sai Baba


"It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection."- Edward Sapir




Beyond a doubt Maggie's blog about why the hell she is in this class has had the most effect upon
me. Not that I agree with you Maggie, but the questions you ask forced me to deal with the reality of why I feel the need to read these books, spending countless hours in study when I could just be out living life.

And so I did. I had planned on reading and working for spring break. I put aside an enormous amount of reading I had planned to "better myself", but after reading your rant I couldn't help but think, "What the fuck, Kushman? Get your head out of your ass. Go enjoy yourself."

So I stumbled out into the world feeling a myself a yes man. And Maggie, I had a great time. But there was something much different in being around society. I was certainly apart of it, but I viewed everything a little bit differently. See Magster, I've been obsessed with Illusions (or more exactly the delusional) for quite sometime now (It was my death of innocence. That realization when you're very young that you have it all wrong, do you remember Maggie?) and every time I heard someone talk, I heard it from a different light. I noticed where the person was at that point in their life/ rising or falling by the kenosis or plerosis of their speech. I noticed all these people looking around them in the world for answers. They were only talking but they were all searching. They said something, but they were usually just testing things out, letting out a little of their life (that had become all their life), asserting, but only to see if assertion was needed. They were always asking me questions. About themselves. About things going on. About the world. About this or that. Some were nervous, some tense. Others Anxious. Most of them were drunk.

But I usually didn't have an answers to what they were searching for. Sure. The words we exchanged matched a dialogue, but we both had our own monologue of what we were really discussing, and we were both just bouncing response off of this.

And so when school started again I was still in Magmode. I was shirking studies and spending my time hanging out, chasing tail, spending, drinking, goofing, and rather just being completely out of control. And It felt good.

Then Thursday Came Around. I hopped out of bed at 930. Library at 1030 to write a paper about how in The Tempest, Shakespeare does a better job that Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, of forcing the audience to deal with the illusion of everything we know in the world.

I spent 3 hours looking up quotes on illusions, enchantment, allusions, and logic to get a sense of how the hell I could compare these two better. I spent until twelve o'clock in the library writing this paper. Came home to people getting pissed in my house-stayed up 'til 2 entertaining them (hey Jon, guess what? We spent 2 hours talking about DMT which came up on its own accord) after which I st down and continued writing about Illusions. I finished the paper at about 8 o'clock Friday morning.

Do you know what I spent most of that time doing?

Reflecting on the way both texts forced me to look at the illusions man creates. And I wouldn't be able to do it without the Four Quartets, Without Finnegans Wake, Without Molloy, Without The Tempest, Without Dr. Faustus. Without The Alchemist, And without everything I've learned in life. They all helped me to better interpret "reality". I have an astounding understanding of Illusions write now, and none of it would be possible without the books we've read and your blog Magsters. It was sunny out and I still read your blog. And I might never have gone out and enjoyed life if not for you and what you wrote. If it wasn't for you I might not be able to see all the illusions that I see now. Beckett add's it up in a way Stranger than Fiction can't. And maybe you will understand it, but you probably won't. You probably won't spend anytime thinking about it.

"All I know is what the words know, and the dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning a middle and an end as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead. And truly it little matters what I say, this or that or any other thing. Saying is inventing. Wrong, very rightly wrong. You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson, the remnants of a pensum one day got by heart and long forgotten, life without tears, as it is wept. To hell with it anyway." -Molloy 27

So Thank You.

Your LowBrow Look at life has helped me more than you could ever know.

I'll go back to my Cultish practices now.

Ign rantces.

I've been obsessed with the idea of Illusion for the past few weeks. Wait. That's incorrect. I've been in rapture since childhood; I've collected them in my pension, recollecting upon them in all their glorious enchantment- until age, until a reunderstanding forces them into the claws of the reality- forcing me to give them up.



Disenchanted. I'm a romance of chemicals exchanging this and that excitement until I no longer see the allusive behavior that captured me in the beginning. Sure. Eliot would say that my inability to see the rapture is the end reflecting upon the past-bringing me to the beginning once again- but enlightened, able to understand!



but isn't it all really a trick of the card? the tongue of discussion masking itself in words that one will understand and another not?



Isn't that the beauty of Illusion?



We've been speaking of Dolce Domum- of Coming to understand through the adventure we suffered to begin with- but I don't really want to move on to this topic.



Sure it applies to Illusions.



The only way to see an illusion is to see it's disillusion- to see it from the beginning from a different understanding.



But my problem is with the "process too complicated to explain". We say it's too complicated to explain- but If I'm to be a writer, to be a major writer, mustn't I understand the complications that I am to bring forth? How Am I to enchant?



I've torn through Dr. Faustus.

Torn Through the Tempest.

Torn through myself.

Torn through my writing.



I've come across epiphanies and discarded them moments later.



I've understood.



Then understood we'd never understand.



I've recollected



Then reorganized.



I've burned books,

and drowned books,



Yet I've yet to here

the sound of depths

in my writings.



I'm Faustus staring at Prospero

wondering what is his wonder

while Shakespeare shakes his speare-

broken'n half- waterlogged

n' soaking fairies!



And yet I see only the allusions of words

and the illusions of his tempest.

Or is it his Tempest?

No, it's his tempest!

Know it's his tempest,-

Alas we'll never KNOW!



I'm a wreck of intellect!

Standing under loss

waiting its weight!



I've given up the Illusions 'ledges,'

I have given to no rants!

I am g'en No rants!

I am g'enrance!

Ignorance! Ah! I am!



I've typed up ramblings

and depyt them back,



I've given into Logic,

saying logic has no chance

and, having given logic its chance,

taken my belief in't back-



Thus then have I started

the way of not knowing

to start my way back?

Societal Rapage?

When my love swears that she is made of truth


I do believe her though I know she lies,


That she might think me some untutored youth,


Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.


Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,


Although she knows my days are past the best,


Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;


On both side thus is simple truth suppressed.


But wherefore say not I that I am old?


O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,


And age in love loves not to have years told.


Therefore I lie with her and she with me,


And in our faults by lies we flattered be. -Shakespeare, 138








....





You like him don't you?





Blush





What do you like about him?





I like tall dudes.





Laughs.


Inhales.


Swigs.





Yeah they're both the same height





Chris says.





Um, Yeah. I don' know if you've noticed-but I'm sure everyone has- or at least I have- they look a lot a like.





Yeah but Tyler's got the abs going for him.





So that's what you like about him eh?





....Yeah.





What else do you like about him?





--Love's not real anyway. What the Fuck does it matter. Some one's going to cheat this way or that


Chris interrupts. Or leads. Or whatever you want.





Oh! If he cheats on me its over.





Yeah, If someone cheats its done





But what if they don't tell you?





Why would they tell you? "yeah I cheated on you" like gloating. That's sick. If someone cheats its over.





What if they can't help it? I mean.... if they're telling you aren't they trying to make amends? They could certainly just not tell you and continue on with the relationship. So would you rather no the truth or continue with the illusion?





I Would Want To Know.





What if you love them?





I'd still want to know.





And would it be over.





Definitely.





Even though you both love each other?





Obviously it's not love.





What's fidelity have to do with love?





It's a promise you make to another person.





A societal promise. A human creation.





Neither speak.


Awkward thoughts on the dark train stuck in the hollow tunnel.





I know it's confusing but if Love's not a human creation, why do we hold it to the bonds of something society deems? If they cheat it's over you say, but that's only if you know. He could very well never tell you, and you'd both go on as if it never happened. Or he could tell you. And as you say it would be over. But would the love end if the love was there? Isn't it only the societal promise that ends? Don't you feel that burning in your gut, the flutter of butterflies in reverse?





What are you trying to say Kushman?





If Love is something that is outside of society, and if society is but a set of illusions we create so that we can survive together-





-are you saying that society is a lie?





Somewhat. I'm saying that we're animals. And that the only thing that separates us from animals is the ability to choose. This or that. Some people might call it right or wrong but there never seems to be a black and white picture. So in a perfect society there would be no need for writing, or Internet, or words, or even language. We wouldn't need to speak because everything would be known, they're would be nothing to disagree over and thus nothing to dispute. There would be no cheating because their woud be nothing to cheat. We wouldn't have societies because nothing would ever change to make it so we set up rules.





We wouldn't need to speak?





Yeah. Or not in the sense we think of it. We wouldn't need to communicate the way we do. Have you ever heard actions speak louder than words? If someones says they Love you, do you all of a sudden feel loved from the words, or do they open up a new perception of how life has been with that person? It's not as if love was created from that word, It's as if you've all of a sudden found the key to understanding the puzzle. And perhaps you find they love you, or perhaps you find that it was only wasted words. The ability to choose, to discern, is inside the words. Do we really need those words in a perfeft world? Aren't they just keys to understanding parts of life? Can't they be right or wrong? Or are they right or wrong?





...yeah. I guess.





So, I'm going to ask you again. If society is all a lie, and if a relationship is a societal promise, than would you rather have the man you love tell you he cheated on you, or would you rather not know?





I would want to know.





See. You say that. But I don't really believe most of us would choose the truth over the illusion.





Why do you say that?





Because what's another lie on top of one you are already living? Nothing really. The love you have sits atop the fictious creation of what society deems. If you come to the realization that the promise was only fiction, a little lie in front of others, won't your whole world you've created come tumbling down and leave you with the that miserable feeling that is love? Is it not unbearable? Can't you only live with it for a little while before your forced to simulate a new world, A new way, a new path?





So you're saying you'd rather not know?





I'm saying that a relationship should not be governed by anything but love, and that everything else around it is a lie, and does not matter, and that often we take to much from the illusions around us. Don't think that I believe illusions corrupt love, but only that it suppresses its growth.





So you're saying you'd rather not know?





I'm saying that when you say "it's over," the relationship formed between the two of you is not over, merely the illusions it was based upon have ended, and you're left with what is "real" between the two of you. Maybe you'll stay lovers, Maybe you'll become friends, or perhaps you'll never speak again, or shortly. But what has been created between the two of you will always be their, and it will be very, very "real".


Relationships do not change with words but with revelations.



How could you stay with someone who cheated on you?


Forgiveness.


Ah! How could you ever forgive someone who cheated on you?


Love.

Isn't that a choice on its own Kushman?

Maybe it's the only illusion worth having.

"Be Stupid"

So The Clothing Line Diesel has come up with a new gimmick, "Be Stupid." I thought it was relevant to how we are saying "Be Smart".

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