Here's the next page from my book of 309 Drawing Prompts (the previous page appeared with the preceding entry); the prompt for this present image was "Hawaiian lei".
Dear diary,
Can we just pause and take a moment to marvel at how humankind has merged the seemingly unmergeable elements — mathematics and emotion — in the medium of music? It’s just as Emerson’s Uriel always sez, “Evil will bless, and ice will burn”; or as if logic himself possessed a heart.
I don’t wanna continue to wax eloquent about music in this entry; I really only simply wanted to give the concept its fifteen seconds of silence, here up top, cuz it was my first thot upon waking. What I truly wanna do is write another lousy entry that goes nowhere again. Those are my favorite kinds of entries.
So here’s a lazy thot: I like to philosophize naively. What I mean is that I like to point out stuff that’s already well known or obvious. First, because it’s fun to do so — it makes one feel like a blank. And, second, because to philosophize wisely and always be conquering new horizons in the mind is too exhausting; my next-door neighbor told me his dad once told him: Don’t work hard; work SMART. So I renounce philosophical innovation on the grounds that it’s overtaxing yet proportionately rewardless; whereas to state what is plainly known and has long been agreed upon is like walking in a familiar garden — this garden is no paradisal pleasure-dome spoken into existence within a floating sphere of fire; it’s just an oblong plot in one’s backyard, which one cares for at one’s leisure; but because of its unprepossessing nature, it’s relaxing.
I’m not normally an advocate for repose; I prefer to side with truth; but today I feel like being contented. So let me philosophize naively, like I just said. Now, what’s a good topic? Help me drum one up. OK, that’s a good one: the game-changing effect of firearms upon the realm of intellectual conflict.
I think I’ve even talked about this before, somewhere in these pages; but that’s even better — I love repeating myself.
Alright, so: guns. Back in the days before we found decent arsenal, you had to use a stick to persuade someone to perform any given assignment, such as the task of washing your automobile. Break a stick off a barren fig tree and beat a passerby into submission. Think how the advent of guns changed this dynamic: our passerby is now armed to the teeth: he has an automatic weapon in one appendage, and a semi-automatic weapon in the other. The former continuously fires rounds as long as a simple pair of conditions is met: (1) the trigger is pressed, and (2) there is ammunition in the magazine. In contrast, the latter weapon fires a single round of ammo with each trigger-pull (hence the prefix semi-automatic).
Needless to say, this passerby is no longer willing to enter into a master-slave relationship with me, his employer. I still got my stick, but he’s got explosives. Now my only hope of acquiring an employee to help me maintain my accustomed lifestyle (the lifestyle known as “clean cars and fast women”) is if I retire to the scientific laboratory in my house’s basement and cobble together an invisible missile. For any projectile detectable to the photo-sensitive software that my passerby’s anti-armament cannon utilizes to protect the well-being of his person will be blasted out of the sky; whereas an invisible missile could convince even a man who’s heavily armed, like the passerby in my dream, to agree to wash my car.
It is for precisely this reason that my favorite legal contracts are the kind that don’t require any signature. I like the ones where the party who’s being had is simply informed, without any say in the matter, that they’ve been had; like when you try to pass by my house, and, after the warning siren, the loudspeakers declare: “By appearing to pass before this house, you agree to wash the car that is parked in the driveway. Failing to do so will result in fines of up to a thousand dollars and no less than two years in prison.” — Why waste time negotiating, when you could just buy a really intense alert system? THAT’s what I call “the art of the deal.”
Exodus 12: 3-14
For I will pass thru the land of Eagan this night, and will walk by all the houses in the land of Eagan, both ranch-style and split-level; and upon all the homeowners of Eagan I will inflict my presence, so that they will be forced to endure the sight of me: I am the PASSERBY.
Now announce ye unto the readership of all the free local newspapers in the heartland, saying:
Give ear, O dwellers of Eagan, Minnesota; I hereby warn ye that in about a week or so, the Halloween holiday shall unhide itself. Ye shall therefore, every homeowner, sculpt a pet goat, according to the mojo of each loving family, one goat per house:
And the whole population of the studio audience in Eagan shall pretend to kill the goat. Do not actually take its life; just use a fake knife with a retractable blade, like the kind used in stage plays, so that it appears as tho the weapon is plunging into the beast, when in fact this rending of flesh is only illusory: if you were sitting closer to the scene of the (supposed) crime, you would note that it’s all smoke & mirrors; but, for the sake of amusement, and on account of the holiday festivities, you shall suspend your disbelief. Use chocolate syrup as a substitute for blood. That’s what Hitchcock did in his film Psycho (1960), if I remember correctly. For if the vision is presented in monochrome, the deep rich black of the syrup will more closely signify lifeblood’s burgundy than actual burgundy, which, on film, comes off like hot neon pink. That’s why I recommend syrup for the death scene.
And ye shall take of the chocolate “blood”, and smear it upon the car that is parked in the driveway. And ye shall write the phrase “Let’s Rock” upon its windshield, like that scene from David Lynch’s Fire Walk with Me (1992).
And this catchphrase written in blood shall be to you as a wink and a nod for the pastime of Halloween. And it shall be innocent fun, till the event comes to an end, whereon the joke will then seem bland, like gum chewed flavorless, and each homeowner will suddenly regret having befouled his motorcar; and he will desire to wash off the vehicle, and to give it a coat of wax also. Therefore, when I see this message in blood, as I pass by your house (for I am the PASSERBY), you, the homeowner, shall plague me with a contract for employment; and you shall disarm me, so that I may not utterly destroy you, when I attempt to fight back. The legal document with which you shall beguile me shall be a binding covenant, and it shall be thrust upon me involuntarily. That’s how I like it.
And this day — or rather evening (its Christian name is All Hallows’ Even) — shall be unto you for a lark, and for a jolly good time; and ye shall keep it as an ordeal to annoy all PASSERSBY throughout your generations; ye shall keep it by an ordinance for ever.
CONCLUDING NOTE
(On subaqueous gun-battles)
Now think about it: If we humans had remained fish, would we ever have invented a toy so full of blessings as the two-handed engine, the modern projectile cannon or firearm, or the military policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by either side in a confrontation would cause the total annihilation of everyone everywhere?
If our native element were not air but liquid, how would we get our bullets to shoot straight without swerving? For bullets follow a curvaceous path underwater: If you are submerged below sea level, then firing at an oceanic foeman is not unlike shooting a bullet into orange-flavored gelatin, or into a vat of melted cheese. You try to kill your enemy and the bullet lodges into your friend! Thank goodness nothing like that ever happens in the above-world, in the realm of the landlubbers.
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