26 February 2019

Like a red robin roundup but blue

Here's a pic that I cut from a newspaper ad; I didn't manipulate it in any way. I like it because the people appear to be interested.

Dear diary,

Today's entry shall contain no body-text; it will jump right to the postscript. The postscript shall contain two tweet-threads, or collections of status updates that were intended to be read continuously. Thread 1 is a discussion that I enjoyed with my colleague Mr. Baldwin about a video interview of the modern artist Marcel Duchamp, and Thread 2 is a brief point that I made using biblical scriptures regarding the origin of human gender. Then, at the very end, I'll share an old rap demo tape that I made with my brother Paul who is an amateur guitarist. Note that some of the words in the foregoing sentences have been turned into hyperlinks; this is so that any reader who is interested in just one of these subjects (but none of the others) may click on the glowing phrase and warp directly to that zone.

P.S.

I indulged in a couple Twitter Meltdowns yesterday, so now I’m forcing myself to round up their contents here, in hopes of teaching myself not to listen to myself whenever myself suggests spending energy anywhere else than in this here public diary.

Thread 1: Duchamp

I named this first thread “Duchamp convo (No. 2)” to distinguish it from my other conversation about Duchamp, which I linked to at its end.

Above is Duchamp's painting "Bride" (1912); it's a good visual to represent our exchange, because I referred to it when I listed my favorite paintings. And below is the video that sparked our conversation – it's a filmed interview with Duchamp, which Ryan Baldwin shared from the website YouTube:

Now here're our reactions:

In response to that last one, I copied three long quotations with the following gists:

  1. Duchamp's "Chocolate Grinder" is the process that makes the seed of life
  2. Whitman celebrates the self-pleasures of this process
  3. Also note the biblical tale of their forerunner Onan

I'll paste them here directly so that they're easier to read:

[Quote 1]

First, a passage about the idea of the grinder in question, and its personal significance, from Duchamp: A Biography by Calvin Tomkins:

Soon after his return from Munich, Duchamp had gone to visit his parents in Rouen. Walking along the rue Beauvoisine, near the center of town just north of the cathedral, he stopped in front of Gamelin's confectionery shop to watch the chocolate-making machine in the window. It was a sight that had always fascinated him when he was a schoolboy; three roller-drums turning slowly in a circular basin refined a smooth brown paste of crushed cocoa beans, vegetable oil, and sugar, which, warmed by a burner underneath the basin, sent its delicious aroma out into the street. The process seemed to stir something deep in Duchamp, as he revealed in a late interview. "Always there has been a necessity for circles in my life," he said, "for...rotation. It is a kind of narcissism, this self-sufficiency, a kind of onanism. The machine goes around and by some miraculous process that I have always found fascinating, produces chocolate.”

[Quote 2]

And this next quote is from Harold Bloom's introduction to the American Poets Project's Selected Poems of Walt Whitman:

If we are to have gay and lesbian studies, who will speak for Onan, whose bards include Whitman and the Goethe of Faust, Part Two? 

[...] Whitman is the genius of the shores of America... His temperament was profoundly autoerotic, and his most original trope, the "tally," shows that he speaks proudly for Onan.

For Whitman, the tally has a range of meanings, [one of which is] to notch one's score of autoerotic episodes upon a cutting. In England, and then in the American vernacular, an aura of illicit sexuality became attached to the word: a girl friend is a "tallywoman" and the male genitalia is "tallywags" or "tallywhacks" in parts of the United States until this day. [...]

“Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me,
If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.”

Walt is an antithetical sun-rise, contra naturam, and yet he is also natural-all-too-natural, in the mode of Onan, tally-whacking-off:

“I underlying causes to balance them at last,
My knowledge my live parts, it keeping tally with the meaning of all things.”

Whitman keeps tally by autoerotic ecstasy...

[Quote 3]

What's really funny (at least to I Bryan who have no sense of humor) is that the terms "Onan" and "onanism" have come to denote masturbation, but the original story from Genesis 38:1-10, where the name is derived, tells not of self-stimulation but of spilling of seed during copulation (the "pull-out method") to avoid pregnancy:

And it came to pass that Judah saw a daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shuah; and he took her, and went in unto her. And she conceived, and bare a son; and he called his name Er.

And she conceived again, and bare a son; and she called his name Onan.

And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, whose name was Tamar.

And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him.

And Judah said unto Onan, "Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother."

And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.

And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also.

[Now back to the tweet thread]

Chocolate Grinder (No. 1):

Chocolate Grinder (No. 2):

*

Thread 2: SEX

After the above Twitter Meltdown, I wrote a second Twitter Meltdown, in response to a tweet that I saw about the biblical origin of human gender. First, I should share the tweet that provoked me – here it is, directly below (note that it is itself a reaction to the tweet that is quoted within it):

*

[. . . And here's my reaction:]

*

P.S.
(another rap demo)

The last time I shared one of my old rap demos was February 17, which was almost ten full days ago, so I...

What I'm trying to say is that it's time to share another rap album, otherwise we'll all have to admit to ourselves that we're irrelevant.

My brother's name is Paul. He plays guitar. I called him on my pink corded telephone one day & said, "Let us make a rap tape together." So, for the following album, he's the guitarist & I'm the rapper.

We made this tape while waiting for the bus one afternoon. It is called "Paul Tape 1". We subsequently made other albums together, but we never named any of them "Paul Tape 2". Therefore I should probably delete the number "1" from the title.

We finished this tape and began selling homemade copies of it out of the trunk of our beige 1981 Oldsmobile Tornado on August 6, 2005. That's almost ten full years ago.

The project was given a golf theme because I imagine that this is the type of music that people dream of while they play the game of golf.

You must listen really carefully to it, to understand why it's such a good album.

Paul Tape 1
by MCB and his brother Paul

(scroll down or visit the album page for full lyrics)

1. Sleet

Breaking down garage doors
Yelling with a loud roar
I think I’m a dinosaur
Look at me I’m on all fours
I have hair beneath my feet
Plus I only eat sleet
Plus my legs are made of steel
This is an electric eel
I can rap in Spanish now
Taco horse taco cow
Would you like to play a game
Here I’ll try to plug the drain

2. Rapping Hot

Now I’m towering above
Vomiting a hockey puck
MCB is rapping hot
Golfing with a hockey rod
I drive a robot horse
Manufactured by Porsche
Boy I like my wax boar
We should get taxed more

3. Shuttle

Hey now I’m playing golf
Come on Bry knock it out
Dang that was bloody fast
Now I’m in a plaster cast
Drinking beer from a straw
Eating roast beef raw
Now I’m dropping from my shuttle
Forcing you to kiss and cuddle

4. Biscuit Kiss

Yeah playing golf
Flying thru the pole vault
Mixing up a cup of mud
Getting real high on suds
Selling laser rays
Telling you it’s lemonade
You should buy one or two
Lemonade is good for you
MCB big boy
Though I’m not the real McCoy
This is quite different
Here’s a biscuit kiss for Christmas

5. Golfer B-Day Tune

Happy 51st birthday
Look I made you something slurpy
Oh Bryan thank you so
It’s a giant Ho Ho
No it’s a mud cake
That I found inside the lake
Then golfer bursts out
That really hurt ow
Golfer jumped and hit my face
Now it’s green slimy paste
Happy birthday to you
Now golfer sing your tune

6. To Do

MCB the godman
Dripping with a hot flash
There is nothing left to do
Bry let’s golf dude
Wham now you’re dead cold
That was quite a lead blow
I’m the rap cannonball
Plus I’m now half bald

7. Golf (Nine Wood)

Yeah word up
Pulling my shirt up
Showing big tattoos
One of me and one of you
You’re the really ugly one
I’m the one that’s super fun
Or is it the other way
Now I can’t remember dang
Now I’m rapping more filler
Breaking out a cold Miller
I’m a pro pole vaulter
Plus a really good golfer
MCB is on the mike
Going golfing with Bry
Round ‘em up turn ‘em out
That is how you play golf

8. Golf (Soy Wood)

Now I’m standing in your grass
With a pink hockey mask
Asking you to come out
So that we can go golf
MCB what you want
Time for us to go hunt
Yeah now we’re hunting skeet
I have really hairy feet
Which is really good grip
Plus I have hairy lips
Wood soy super good
Soybean flavored wood

9. K.O.

Now I’m back and I’m on the mike
Rapping hard every Wednesday night
I only wear designer jeans
My facemask is pinkish green
Hey yo Bry let’s play some golf
Wow you really knocked him out
We get golf confused with boxing
MCB is brown and foxy

10. Let Me Out

MCB is mammoth large
Standing inside your garage
Wearing bracelets made of plastic
Rapping from inside my casket
Blood is dripping down my shin
Help somebody let me in
Bryan you are in right now
Help somebody let me out

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