16thstreet’s Weblog

let’s get on somewhere
so we’ll
grow on like a forever blooming beautiful flower
with kids of kids and love all around
to ward out all of the hate
in this world
it’s

delusional beauty
ladders for some
and others they fall

we won’t go anywhere
like him
the poor abused man in the closet who never saw
no light or no hope yeah it hurts him still
cause without no love he’s just like us
in this world
it’s

delusional beauty
ladders for some
and others they fall
at the foot of their dreams

we’ll never make it anywhere
on time
flow on like a slowly receding tributary
full of this life this beauty and death
our sand is marked over and over
by its breath
it’s

delusional beauty
ladders for some
others they fall
at the foot of their dreams

to shoot down every dream
is to be bound to despair
fuck the bottom
fuck the fresh air

their rungs are wrong
with thoughts of perfection and despair
stay on the bottom
it’s delusional beauty

to shoot up every dream
is to be bound by despair
stay down there
it’s delusional beauty

the great honest tide
the facade of despair
love the fresh air

I just had an interesting random thought while reading a philosophical argument concerning religion and wanted to get it down.

I think a new sort of (faux) intelligence is evolving.  It’s a sort of Gestaltian intelligence, a fusion of technology with the human mind.  The human mind will continue evolving as society progresses technologically to the point where mere facts are no longer bothered to be remembered.  Virtual locations are remembered.  Very general concepts are understood to varying degrees, but in all cases of understanding on a topic the bits and pieces and how to piece them together are remembered, and the facts alone are not.  I believe that this allows for a much broader range of understanding over a larger group of topics to occur than is possible with traditional study.  99% of memorization is futile, we just eventually forget.  Computers and the internet do not forget.  It is like a sort of game where you just remember the rules and in what way to apply them, and you win.

The obvious downside to this whole way of thinking and organization of the mind is that without a computer nearby to aid in discussion one can be near useless.  Full of just bits and pieces that come out as a rather fragmentary rambling and rarely convey a single point or clear purpose.  I’m frequently guilty of these ramblings because I will begin a conversation and think I know something when in reality I only have some bits and pieces and cannot complete the whole puzzle without consulting some resource*.  This can be mildly frustrating but we are heading toward an age where computers will be at your “fingertips” (or “voice,” or “thought”) at all times.  Bookmarked sites with highlighted points of interest, wikipedia, google, online dictionaries, etc.; they all currently contribute and more resources will certainly be available in the future.  Before the advent of the broadband digital age this type of thought was not really possible.

I think this is could be a sort of segway between the traditional way of learning and thinking that had dominated for thousands of years before this technological age and the eventual physical culmination of mankind and technology (aka sci-fi stuff like “installing” new skill-sets or “augmenting” forgotten memories, etc.).

*Note: for things which fall under common knowledge this often doesn’t happen and of course I still know how to learn “the old way,” but for advanced concepts the internet is changing my mind…it seems.

For my mother, on mother’s day ; )

That’s how this post began at least, but that was a long time ago and I never could get down on paper how my mother is a Monolith.  I like the word monolith though and the idea of a monolith creating new boundaries for civilised and uncivilized societies alike was awesome to see in 2001 a Space Odyssey, so I’ll leave it as is.

This post will instead be about pessimism, optimism, realism, and art.  All forms of art.  It’s something that really troubles me sort of deeply.  You see I always have the notion that even with my most creative work it is too much influenced by other artists and is thus not even really original.  If art is unoriginal, then why create it?  If it has been done before there is no point.  I guess what I’m getting around to is this:  Eventually will there come a time when there can really be no further original art created since it has all been done before?

The optimist will say no and embrace the small details that make the artistic work different from it’s influences.  Or will state that this work of art is actually a culmination of many different influences into one new style.  I can agree with that.

The pessimist will say yes but I can’t think of any reasons why he would say that, it is just a gut feeling. I have this gut feeling too.

The realist view is not even worth discussing on a generalized level since it’s so deeply personal, sort of like an artistic spirituality.  Sort of like arguing about politics.  It is of course there though, so it’s worth just a mention.

To me, this writing is new and not a copied work, it came from my mind and not from reading anything else that I can recall.  But my mind is an amalgamation of all previous influences so maybe it’s not so original after all.  It seems science and technology are the easiest routes to follow for creating original artistic work since they are ever shifting, but even those will be overdone eventually.

Now that I’ve written all of this I don’t even really completely believe it anymore and have a hard time framing my original argument.  Same thing happened with my previous post.  I completely thought it was all true when I wrote it while I was stoned, but when I woke up the next morning and looked at some physics it just didn’t seem like very much fun anymore.  That’s a good reason not to smoke, everything seems pale in comparison to the high-state.  Or maybe the high-state colorizes life and real sober life is dull?

To give an example of what I mean with all of this talk of unoriginality:  take a look at the Novel WIP down below,  it is superficially very original (at least I fucking hope so, haha).  The characters are not copied from anything I can recall, very weird things happen in the story, and so on.  However, it is still made up completely of outside influences.  Reading Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America made me realize it’s okay to have really short paragraphs.  I love fantasy and sci-fi so I created a new world to the weirdest extent imaginable, but my imagination has been influenced by all of the sci-fi I’ve read.  Even though I haven’t directly “copied” anyone, it just isn’t new territory.  Fictional worlds with dreams have been done before, this weirdness has been done before and way better than mine.  Check out Richard Brautigan’s In Watermelon Sugar for instance.  Does anyone else stumble over these issues?

Anyway, in closing, I guess I think my realistic view of art is:  only the best create new genres and they change the world as we know it, reader by reader, listener by listener, observer by observer.  I am not one of the best and so can only try and imagine (however meekly) who or what will be the next major influence in art, and just because I am not creative or insightful enough to make or predict this next genre does not mean it will not exist someday.

I guess this could be looked at as relating to artistic monoliths.  Who would you say some of your favorites are?

It is not that I don’t have passion, or too many passions.  It is that I have but one passion that exceeds all others in the level it invigorates me and I have not realized it until now.  Intoxicating my mind and occupying it for hours that seem like minutes of childlike fascination.  Self improving realizations of the complexities in our beautiful world.  Physics is that one true passion.  I also have passions for writing, and creative activities, and soccer, and biking, and technology, and video games, and music, and reading.  I watch movies on physics lectures FOR FUN.  I try for 2 hours to illegally watch Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series; if I had found it I would not be here right writing this, I would still be watching it, all 1300 minutes.  I also have a passion for helping people and making a positive difference however I can.  I let a homeless 19 year old stay with me for free, and I’m ok with it, who can say that these days?  I have the ability to focus indefinitely and deeply about a topic and the same opposing ability to be carefree and aloof which can allow for recovery and pursuit of other passions.  I am not afraid of change.  Change is the only thing I plan for in life, this is good because I can be spontaneous and comfortable in hectic life to a certain extent.  I only care about people’s opinions of me if I actually have respect for that person, otherwise I don’t give a shit.  I am listening to Pinback’s “Fortress” again right now.  I have a fascination with other accents.  My brain actually created two different distinct personalities just from Jessica Thompson’s accent switch.  She has a beautiful British accent when she wants to.  I like to subtly use other accentual tones in my accent to make it different, for fun.  Especially whilst singing.  I play with my cat to see him flop and jump around, so flexible and exciting and nimble.  I watch his mannerisms also and analyze them.  I analyze a lot, it gives me joy a great deal of the time but there also comes pain in realizing humanity’s weaknesses.

“A human being is part of the whole, called by us “Universe” - a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security.”

-Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

One of my aspirations in life is to write a complete novel.  It may take me years, but I have started one and maybe I will finish it one day.  I suppose that depends on how it develops.  They are quite organic things, I never really knew that until I began trying to write one.  Some of you (brother and sister) saw a very early draft that was really pretty dumb, this one has some substance to it I think (well..more than before).  Without further ado, here it is, and any feedback is certainly welcome.

Novel (untitled)

By Joshua James Farrow

Chapter UNO

Wood grain patterns shifted imperceptibly creating the fur of the mice who spoke to a small innocent child girl. A girl that had walked in minutes ago upon entering had felt at once the sudden primal urge to scream “Ahhh” and so she did. Yeah she yelled so high and long at those camouflaged floorboard rodents. She shrieked like a female cat under a fleecy blanket enjoying a nap and dreaming of an endless feast on plump mice that was suddenly awoken by the harshness of reality in the form of a large human foot to the tail.

Thenshe (the girl or the cat) abruptly left, quick like the almost unclockable time between phonetic pronunciation of then and she put together. The house with the tree-ring mice consciously uprooted itself and floated after her (the girl).

Terrible reeds and pines and weeds came with the house chasing her through dreams, which as everyone knows can be quite the haunt. For this she would be troubled in life and strangely, she would always hear it from strangers first. Strangers who would never see a floating house, mice sporting lignified fashion, or any of those things. She wanted to escape this dream, but it was not lucid. She would have to wait until morning to outrun her daemons.

Chapter DUES

Ma and Pa were waiting by the iceplace. They were naked, drinking iced tea on a hot winter’s night. The couple was waiting for their dues to come so they could die and live happily ever after after they paid them.

They were also waiting for their daughter, they had seen her scream and whispered quietly for her, “Please come, what is wrong?” It was a ghost’s whisper, like a feather rustling faintly through the wind in the middle of a city full of bustle, the sound was there but it was not. They knew she was asleep, but it was normal for her to be asleep and it was not abnormal to hear such screams. So though it was the norm they still felt a need to act like decent, caring parents and indulge their daughter, asking “What is wrong?” But they did so ever so silently so as not to wake there daughter from her life in her dreams. It was their kiss dressed as whisper. The essence of parenthood, to be there and to not be there, to provide the illusion of support but to allow for development. Things weren’t so different here.

Chapter ST. JAMES

Hallelujah. That’s what the group said in one pretty song of a word, a word with its own melody if said with the full spirit of the Lord. Pray God. Echoing beauty. Hallelujah.

James did not agree with them, but he didn’t mind them one bit and thought their innocence and apparent naivety made them quite cute.

The group helped the homeless, donated money, had endless faith, and was full of such pride that they would martyr if asked with just a cherry on top, no please necessary. They were also very strictly evangelical. Hallelujah.

James could see this in the way that they walked, and talked. He promptly decided that in order to avoid any awkwardness he would nonchalantly avert his eyes from them and walk another way, remaining indifferent to anything they spouted, both the preaching and cursing that came hidden in a single collective breath.

Walking, nay marching, and then running, chasing. Hallelujah.

Stones were thrown and then in the end much blood was spilt, this was the way of the crusader. James’ final thought during his final blood-gurgling troubled breath was “But sister, it’s the opposite of Hallelujah.” It came out as a whisper.

Chapter TREES

The dreamy girl, as of yet unnamed, is Annalina. Her mom had once been a nun at St. James’ church. The nunnery wasn’t for her mother however because she married her father, who had previously worked at the cannery. They built a quaint house out of trees in a forest canopy to escape the wild city. Here they had wild sex daily in any position they wanted until Annalina was born, this is the story her mother had told Annalina, and it was almost true. They still had sex.

Annalina met many strangers in her dreams, and she dreamed often preferring to sleep the day away in a world much more exciting than her home in the trees.

One such stranger was a very confused vehicle named Harold who has continuous access to an internet quote database while anywhere on the planet. Another was a very sane metaphysicist living with bozo inbreds. Harold and the sane metaphysicist named Jim met frequently in the rich landscape of their very different mindscapes.

They always told Annalina in a matter-of-factual manner that she would be troubled in life, and she always kindly replied that she would disregard their prophecy because she did not lead any life at all, she just slept.

Last night was a great night; there were fireworks in downtown Augusta that I watched from an old cathedral style Methodist church’s parking lot right next door to my old Post-Civil War/Victorian style apartment. After transcribing the 4 one minute recordings I made on my cell phone to my journal and now onto the blog for you (all 2 or 3 of you ;), it is needless to say that I was not in a normal state of mind, but you will see for yourself:

I
“Fireworks create dandelions…roses, and orchids of light. And spiders drift across the sky, the remnants of beautiful explosions. The spiders are pale grey on a deep black and they grow with the light, proportionally. I love the spiders, the light in the sky. Even with all this…there’s still…life goes on behind me. Sirens blare and cars drive by. Truly is an awesome sight, to see the bugs of light, fly high, on and on…”

II
“We got fireworks; we got fire…The blasts of explosion after explosion. Bullet wounds of light. The sound trails behind (the light), as if to be a tortoise and a hare. Spider webs in front of me as if it was strewn from the clouds above of artificial smoke. Still the bugs continue to grow in three dimensional arrays, …(mumbling)…look like the spider, and the web, and the forest, palm trees, and evergreens. So beautiful, but still life goes…”

III
“There is a car parked behind me where a couple sits. Ugh, I feel embarrassed talking, satisfying at the same time. (Fireworks loudly go off in the background, and here I yell over them into the phone) An array, or a volley! A volley of fire after fire. Now it’s like clouds. Stratusphere, stratus clouds. Not cumulus, stratus…or maybe cumuloningus, I think…cumuloningus…nimbus. And now the light forms planets and stars, warping them from trillions of light years away for our viewing on Earth. This is my last recording for now, the Sun is appearing, (…mumbling…) the artificial Sun.”

IV
“Creativity always comes in a flash of light. Yeah it does… Smiling bugs fluttering across the night sky, away from their brothers and sisters, to form shapes and inspire humans. Children, and adults. It’s phlatonic…photonic happiness. That’s what it is… A chemical reaction, a series…”

For the first time in my life, tonight the guitar worked for me.  The clear, powerful, beautiful, steady sound is exuded from Fender Rad, rippling through the air in majestic waves.

The bassy beast and I were not at war, but at peace.  Three notes creating near-endless aural, musical complexity.  Rythym entrancing, one with everything, rocking OUT.  Fingers sore but you ignore it, in the zone, euphoric and gratifying.  I understand what it means to create tonight.  It was so simple, just had to let go.

“Science is by and large concerned with what is, not what we should do or how we should behave.  Science can inform these discussions, but cannot decide them.”

I think science can most definitely decide them.  Once the subject has been studied to exhaustion, then mastered intellectually, then regurgitated in a layman’s translation for the public, it begins to be decided (sometimes  a 10-1000 year process).  Until it is decided, people have very passionate discussions trying to convince one another through clever argumentative techniques that they are the correct ones.  Eventually science wins out, once the majority of the public is educated and it becomes common knowledge, the issue is no longer argued with any sort of passion (plants having feelings, the sun being a God, women being inferior, evolution, etc.).  It is true that not all subjects up for discussions have scientific “answers,” however (God?).

The Stranger Garden, home to someone new
Among the stones and leaves that turn to dust;
Cherry-lipped, a flower coloured rust.
The cold ripples, a mirror formed by dew,
The underwater shyness that copies you:
A bashful boy, a scholar shamed by lust,
A painful starve for nothing more than trust.
And this, a word across the daunting blue:
A shout kept down by miles of doubt and woes,
With empty hands, it floats around the bend
To winter town, where no one ever goes.
The lightest sound, it died to fight the wind.
An icy breeze: a kiss dressed as a whisper.
No-confidence men, they always miss her.

Thanks to Zach Farrow (Gypsy Lines) for some help on this one awhile back.

Even the most renowned of artists on occassion produce shit, utter shit.  Helpless to the muse’s wishings, writing whatever comes out of the mind.  The mind is a country, some parts barren and the people uneducated, some parts metropolis and refined.  Sometimes tangents lead to seemingly boring farms, or deserts.  The best, the most creative, find beauty even in these landscapes.  Transform a locale that no one would ever even think to know into a bustling mental masterpiece.  The obvious routes, places, and things have all been talked about, gobbled up for centuries as fast as they come into existence.  The deserted, the abstract, they are the hardest to milk for artistic beauty but are the most satisfying, for you pioneered the way.