Some new thing

Here's the next page from my book of CCC Drawing Prompts. ("CCC" is the Roman numeral for "300"—not "XXX": that's only 30, I think—and the last page appeared on April VII.) The prompt for this present drawing was "Olympic medals".

Dear diary,

All my efforts are aimless now. Everything I do has a “lost man wandering thru the forest” quality to it. I’m probably going in circles. (This reminds me: I should re-read Beckett’s Molloy; Malone Dies; & The Unnamable.) I say that “I’m probably going” instead of “I fear that I’m going” because I don’t fear this fate — that’s the worst: I should fear going in circles. But I honestly don’t care.

What world does the rest of my family live in? It seems very different from mine. I’m obsessed with politics and the economy, but none of them gives those things one single hoot. What’s weird is that I can’t tell if they’re healthier than me, in this respect, or not; I mean, my first instinct is to say they are indeed better off paying no mind to politics or the economy, because we little people have zero sway over these things; yet, on the other hand, I can’t help wondering if their tendency to remain in uncaring repose is exactly WHY we little people lack sway. But I can’t say that my obsessing over politics and the economy stems from a plan to help increase the people’s power — I’m simply succumbing to a habit. I attend to politics (etc.) for the same reason that I attend to any block that I’ve stumbled upon. I’m walking along, I hit a stumbling block, I kick back at the block as if it attacked me. My kicking, I assume, will not change the block one iota, because the block is not sentient — it didn’t mean to trip me — but I kick it nevertheless because I am stupid. And I almost half-believe that my kicking will trigger a genie to appear; as if the block is charmed, like a magic lamp.

There’s an element of superstition in just about everything I do.

Anyway, I’m trapped in a moment of time that I want to speed up: I wanna get past this murky age, fast-forward to the renaissance. But the more I desire to leave, the more this age stays. It’s almost like I’m solidifying it by resisting it: for it’s one of those traps where, the more you struggle, the more you ensnare yourself. I’m like a wild alien that’s been captured by the scientists: they want to administer medicine to me, but I keep thrashing about in attempt to escape; and there’s six or seven smocked lab-assistants holding me down, but I struggle so much that my hind limb slips from their grip; however this doesn’t get me any closer to freedom, for they just call in more reinforcements; and eventually they drug me.

I said at the start that they want to administer medicine. Is this drug with which they drug me medicine? Or is it just a tranquilizer to slow me down enough for them then to administer the medicine? Also by calling this substance “medicine” I’m implying that the scientists are beneficent, that they’re trying to help me. But what if the substance they’re administering is actually poison? Or, what if the scientists wrongly believe that the treatment will cure me, when it actually just makes me worse — what if their “cure” is the very cause of the disease! I guess one must just try to have faith in one’s physicians, the way that people claimed to have faith in their priests, back in the Age of Religion...

For even if I were able to break free from all nine of these assistants who’re restraining me, and successfully dash from the war room into the adjacent passageway, how would I ever find my way outside the command center? This lab is a labyrinth! It’s much worse than being lost in the woods. Plus my hooves keep slipping on the floor tiles. And there’s no chance that I’ll ever be able to guess correctly the password that controls the front gate. Moreover the guards are heavily armed. Then there’s the drawbridge and the moat...

I do have an advantage, however: I can swim under lava.

So yeah, I’m stuck in the generation of Trump vs. Hillary — everyone’s either on one side or the other. And the greatest insult is that the choice is for a position that barely matters. (“The presidency matters A LOT,” says my most prized heckler.) OK, fine, I admit that the presidency matters a great deal; so the choice that we’re given is of utmost importance. Therefore: who’s side are we on, Trump’s or Hillary’s? (“The election ended in November,” says my heckler.) Alright so the race is over, and we already know the winner’s name; but still, who’s side are you on? Just because the fight ended long ago doesn’t mean we still can’t argue about this forever. Look at the whole God-Satan thing. That’s still a hot topic. You’re right, tho — it’s hard to find anyone on the side of the Devil. That’s why I donate to his campaign. I actually like the Devil. When wagering, I usually favor the underdog. But the old saying is “Every family has its Trump supporter,” which means that altho it’s more polite to…

Hey, MY family does not have a single Trump supporter. Even when we gather for our big festivities, there is not one Trumpet among us.

All I am asking is that you give me just one 'deplorable' to keep as a pet. I promise that I will never bathe him, for then he will multiply. (I am referring to the blockbuster 1984 movie Gremlins.)

Sorry, the whole Trump-Hillary farce is on my mind cuz I’ve been watching these Steve Bannon speeches. Last night I just watched one that he gave to the students at Oxford; and on Saturday I watched his address to the Western Petroleum Marketers Association. (Can you imagine having the job of marketing petroleum to the West? I assume that’s what their title means: but maybe the word “Western” refers to the fact that they hail from the West, not necessarily that the West is their target audience.) To be clear, I am ideologically the polar opposite of Bannon, which is why he interests me. People call him “the brain behind the Trump phenomenon”, or something like that (I never listen very carefully).

Everyone nowadays lives in her very own bubble, also known as an echo chamber. Well, my bubble keeps echoing to me that Bannon is the most vile human ever to creep out of the birth canal. I wish my pundits would stop saying such things about him, because this type of labeling only makes him sound intriguing. For a very long time, newscasters would pin his image up over their right shoulder and say “Beware, beware!” but then they’d bar him from pontificating; so this inflated his mystique. That’s why I chose recently to attend to some of his actual sermons: reality always crushes my expectations. My first impression is that he’s a motivational preacher for the non-tech affluent class. There’s this part of the affluent class that comes from the new (mostly computer-based) technologies which Bannon despises (that is: he hates that part of the class, not their products; and, yes, I’m speaking for my opponent’s innermost thots); and he also seems wary or hateful of the banks and Wall Street (unless that’s an act); but, for the most part, he strikes me as almost a Long-Lost Member of the Original Founding Fathers (which he’d take as the ultimate compliment and which I mean as a nuanced criticism), in that he believes heartily in limiting democracy while proclaiming what sounds like a pro-democracy message. He wants just enuff democracy to get his power-plays juiced; yet, then, dam the flood. (Thus he’s also like Hillary.)

The simple fact is that moneymaking is incompatible with mob rule, because the multitudes will always side with any motion to distribute wealth compassionately; whereas moneymaking means unequal wealth-retention, which requires some check or balance to be put upon spontaneous human compassion, hence the electoral college, the senate, & whatever forces are armed to protect private property over people (I am speaking of the U.S., which is the only country I know), etc…

This is a good place to stop and repeat: I don’t know what I’m talking about, and nobody’s reading anyway.

Why keep writing if nobody’s reading? When writers say such things as I just said above “nobody’s reading anyway”, what do they mean? I think that these writers are just whining. Every writer wishes she had more readers: one can never get enough. So, surely, somebody’s reading, and that’s why somebody’s writing; otherwise the words that get written are just like a prayer. What’s the difference between, on the one hand, thinking thots inside your head without translating them into written language, and, on the other hand, going to the trouble of mistranslating your thots, which is to say: inscribing them on paper, in blue ink?

Also: what’s the difference between, on the one hand, etching thots on a rock, and, on the other hand, typing your law into the e-screen and saying “This is my blog: thus saith the LORD”!

*

I wish I had nicer clothes. I wear the same clothes every day. Plus I stink. But when I saw Steve Bannon arrive in Europe, he was wearing a stylish black coat. I immediately wished I could wear a coat as stylish as the one he was wearing. And his hair was salt-and-peppery, which means that it was not entirely youthful and yet not altogether indicative of senility. I won’t lie to you: I wanted that hair. If some corporation would just stop its lollygagging and get to work making a Steve Bannon wig, I’d purchase it in a heartbeat. I’d wear it to all my future speaking engagements.

What I like about certain men is that they’re chubby, except they pay a tailor to make their clothes conceal the unattractive aspects of their physique. (The body-shape of the clothes-wearer, not the tailor. All tailors are fat.)

And the audience that was listening to Bannon (I just watched the event by way of an online video — I did not attend it live) was so contentious that they couldn’t stop baiting the man, during the Q&A session. This resulted in Bannon having to miss his scheduled flight. For, at a point during the proceeds, he stopped and announced that he’d need to leave in exactly ten minutes to catch his plane — for he’s an important person who travels frequently, for people depend upon him to articulate his ideas to them. Yet the students in attendance would not relent: they kept bombarding Bannon with argument after argument; and Bannon kept answering. At one point, two shadowy figures loomed up and almost derailed Bannon from his train of thot, and their reason for thus interrupting was to say to him “If you don’t desist from making converts NOW, you will miss your planned transport”; and yet Bannon would not stop: he stayed for many moments beyond his scheduled departure, in order to satisfy the inquiries of his antagonists; it reminded me of Paul in the Areopagus (Acts 17:19). I’m speaking about the Apostle, my own arch-nemesis.

P.S.

I’ll copy the abovementioned scripture passage here, to save you from having to cloak your nakedness. For your bookshelf is across the room from where you’re reclining, and there’s an open window situated between thee and it.

Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the church with the believers, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.

Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, “What will this babbler say?” other some, “He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.”

And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.” (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)

Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said:

“Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us. For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.”

And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, “We will hear thee again of this matter.”

So Paul departed from among them.

Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. But Bryan Ray the Surrealist saw right thru him.