why are there dogs and cats and trees in the human race?
your bibliomantic forecast for the week of 26 aug 24
the fool, and a poem from Jessica Laser’s Planet Drill:
IDENTIFICATION
Someone, if that,
heard me when I spoke,
easily wanted everything
or nothing to do with me.
I fear indifference, it's clear.
I'm clear on that. So when
that person who wanted
wanted that, I turned away.
And when I wanted
I turned into that person.
the aleatory
As I have probably said many times, the worst eras of my life were also those in which I was most certain. I was certain I would never find love, because I had never found it before. I was certain that there was just something indefinably wrong with me, because I could not prove conclusively that there was not, and I had lots of baffling data (social head scratches, uncomfortable silences) that could, if I dwelled on them, turn into just about anything. I knew that something had gone wrong in the world, and I had failed to fix it, so it seemed fairly obvious that I had to tirelessly scour my mind, and the world, for answers. I wanted to arrive at answers that had a satisfying snap of certainty, and those were always the most cruel.
For people like me, it was poison if someone said “just do your best.” Because as far as I was concerned, I could imagine many outcomes more “best” than whatever I had actually managed to do. It made me an extremely rigid, harsh, and watchful person. If I’m not careful, the ice of that reality reforms around me overnight. I have to crack it away constantly in order to be the version of myself I like being. And I do that by not knowing anything.
Once, I took a class at the local buddhist center called What Is Real? On the first day, the acharya held up a flower and asked us, Is this real? I said nothing. I knew this was a trick question. A sporting soul would say, “I know it’s real because I can see it with my eyes.” And of course, the acharya would ask in response, “Are you eyes real? How can you know? You can’t even see them the way you can see this flower.” All other possibilities were exhausted in the same manner. You can pack everything up and go home right now, knowing completely that nothing is real, congratulations.
But he kept asking us, Is this real? Even once everyone had stopped responding.
Knowing is less impressive than the act of asking the question over and over.
the assignment
Make a practice of saying “That’s how they get you, though” in response to any assertion of fact or reality. (This one is really going to drive your uncle crazy, unless he’s the kind of uncle who already says this all the time, in which case he will be glad you’ve finally seen the light, and might share with you a buried family treasure. Probably those presidential medallions you used to be able to buy off the TV.)
writing prompt
Go through the next portal you find and be honest about what’s on the other side.
a chune
“Those Mysteries” by Sparks
There was a strangely uniform sense of taste among people I knew in Pittsburgh in the early part of the century. I don’t just mean a group of friends that all like the same bands, I mean across social milieus and scenes, there was a surprising coherence in the assessment of what was good, music and filmwise, and it was so consistent that I didn’t realize how strange that was until I moved to Austin for grad school. Like, what do you mean you guys don’t listen to the Stooges? Everyone I knew in Pittsburgh had at least five Sparks records. I had no idea that their fame had not extended everywhere. You don’t know Larry Levis, are you fucking joking? Hasn’t everyone seen Andre Rublev? It was interesting because this … whatever it was had to do almost entirely with things that weren’t contemporary at all, and were maybe dragged into the present moment occasionally by a movie soundtrack or something, but not really. I mean, it was probably just the jukebox at Gooski’s. Spiritual cousin to the jukebox at the Fox Head in Iowa City, although I’m told that it has changed recently and there is no more John Maus there, which is a massive mistake. That’s how they get you ….
credits: small spells tarot deck by Rachel Howe
Planet Drill by Jessica Laser
Introducing Sparks by Sparks
dear diary, in that class at the buddhist center, there was something about the things the acharya said when he was asking us, over and over, if the flower was real that reminded me of the Inger Christensen poem Alphabet. The first two lines would pop into my head unannounced during class (“apricot trees exist, apricot trees exist”). On the last day of class, he gave us a photocopy of the first 20 pages of Alphabet. That is what’s real. Poems matter. When two people read the same poem, there is a dimension between them where they can both taste the same strawberries and see the face the cat is making. That’s the only certainty I can fuck with anymore. XS