Intersections, Tangents, Asymptotes, and Parallels

routine/ritual, the here and the there, otherworldly, looking looking looking for something, the difference between observing and searching, between passive vessel and can someone actively engage in compulsion, is one possessed, or, worse still, an automaton, to align inner and outer worlds, a sphere of order and symmetry to ward off death or to ward off life, repeating again and again, scientific method or skipping record, narration or still life, if one is always absorbing, creation is regurgitation, rapture and the Pavlovian response, symptoms vs. side effects, the always reaching, tapering, falling away, the bell curve and the dismissed outliers, any two points defining a line, intersections, tangents, asymptotes, and parallels, oracles & extrapolations, syllogisms & boxes, windows & windows & windows & windows, inspired, infected, narration as prognosis, prognosis as manifesto, manifesto as order, order as disorder, fracture forgetting and i think i misspoke, read stage directions as monologue, because picking a scab is something to do, a confusion of cause and effect

Routine, Ritual, and Robots

Professor Hallisey stood before the student, arm outstretched. The student immediately raised his arm, clasped the professor’s hand, and shook it. This, the professor explained, was magic.

In Confucianism, he went on, "ritual" does not have the same religious overtone as in the West—it generally refers to daily routines—but is, nonetheless, magical. If one has a proper understanding of a given ritual, as well as the correct intentions/spirit (known as “Ren”) the ritual will complete itself. The handshake was just one example. Moreover, ritual has a ripple effect. In Confucius’ time, it was said that if the emperor merely sat correctly upon his throne, the kingdom would rule itself.

In Catholicism, "ritual" has nearly the opposite meaning. To begin with, there is no "ripple effect" originating from the individual—the ritual holds no power, save to please God, and any consequences thereafter emanate from Him. More importantly, one’s intentions don’t factor in; the importance of the ritual lies only in its external performance. Indeed, historically, you could pay others to do your praying for you.

In Catholicism, then, it seems that the perfect ritual would be perfectly executed and endlessly reproducible. It would be robotic. And, in fact, such a robot exists.

On a recent Radiolab podcast, they covered the following story (I’m reducing it to the barest summary): in 1652, King Philip II’s son was badly injured; the King promised God that if He performed a miracle by saving Philip’s son, Philip would perform a miracle for Him. Philip’s son recovered, and to show his thanks, King Philip commissioned a renowned clockmaker to create a tiny robotic version of a long-dead monk who supposedly had the power to heal the sick.

The robot is ghostly. Tiny feet poke out from its frock as it walks about, raising and lowering a crucifix, its mouth silently opening and closing. Scholars have speculated about why King Philip commissioned the “monkbot,” but the consensus seems to be that he wanted to create a sort of 'prayer machine' to pay eternal tribute to God.

What, then, is the line between routine and ritual? In Confucianism, assuming one has the proper intentions/spirit, routine is elevated to ritual, and one’s daily life could become a series of magical acts. I immediately wonder if those who suffer from OCD would be considered to have improper "Ren," or if they would be like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, the magician caught in the feedback loop of his own powers. In Catholicism, it’s more complicated. While I don’t mean to imply that Catholics believe that one cannot honor God through daily routine, there is a rift between the secular world and the world of ritual—no matter how much I strive to make the act meaningful, I cannot consecrate the Eucharist by shaving (though it may be worth a try).

As a final note, I’d like to discuss “Jaberwacky”. Jabberwacky is a chatbot, an artificial intelligence program that not only responds to you, but actually learns from what you say. It seemed like an interesting venue to meld the Confucian idea of ritual as human interaction versus the Catholic idea of ritual as a merely external performance. Here is a short excerpt (it went on for much longer) from my conversation with Jabberwacky:

User: Do you forgive me?

Jabberwacky: Yes. It's not your fault at all, don't worry.

User: Do you forgive me?

Jabberwacky: Yes. You are forgiven.

User: Do you forgive me?

Jabberwacky: Yes, do you forgive me?

User: Do you forgive me?

Jabberwacky: I forgive you for being mean to me.

User: Do you forgive me?

Jabberwacky: Do you forgive me?

Symmetry

Why is symmetry beautiful? It is comprehensible. That which is symmetrical is necessarily contained and can, therefore, be contained. Objectified. It is static; it is dead. Or at least not living. What is the line between death and still-life?

RED LETTER {X}

[red missed aches] asks a question about the interplay between image and caption. and how the space between them is a holding lodge for RED LETTER {X}. as in X, XX, XXX, the eyes of the dead. the mark of the incorrect, crux & cross, etc. but red.

here is the glow of RED LETTER {X}.

RED LETTER {X} is where caption sutured image and found pleasure, but virtually.
RED LETTER {X} is the shut eye of a "luminous genitalia"
RED LETTER {X} simultaneously guides and repels-- the way reading poetry, reading anything at all signals outward and inward. forces the body to look there {X} but not really there at all,meaning is virtual.
RED LETTER {X} is "obvious, banal, repeated a thousand times, yet almost always silent"
RED LETTER {X} is like Kate Durbin's O

in the future, our genitals will be larger and incandescent. the light like RED LETTER {X}, but virtual.
in the future, our young will be born rays of light and be fed directly into the TV.
our bodies will secrete text spontaneously, but virtually.
everything clinging to RED LETTER {X} like the seeming inter-phase between meaning and pleasure.


----


--Bhanu Kapil on Camille Roy's Sherwood Forest
--Foucault's This is Not a Pipe

Scary Poems

Where are all the scary poems? Why are poems not scary? What did Edgar Allan Poe do to them?

I will tell you what ol' Eddy did to scary poems. First, take off your shoes.

Yeah, doesn't that feel nice? Bet your feet are thanking you.

thank you! thank you!

Now, take off your pants. Come on, nobody's looking. You're alone. Just you and the internet.

Yeah, you feel free.

Yeah, you're beautiful. Take it all off, you'll feel free. You and the internet and your body and the air in its caress and its love always surrounding you.

Breathe in the air that hugs you. When you breathe you inhale your scent and the scent of those who've held you.

Now your body is a poem. The light on your body is the light on a poem.

Now forget about the rabid, dark poet trapped between your walls. Ignore his haggard breath as he churns his limited air into toxic carbon dioxide. His mad cries growing pale and soft as melted ice cream.

Poor sweet Eddy. No one cares to hear that ol' cow bark.

There's a new scary poem in town.

There's a new everything now.

Hybrid texts?

Bringing it back around to teaching...  I can appreciate all of what Susan has to say, and also JT's comment about studies relating learning to student-teacher connections.  That's a helpful way to look at it.  It doesn't matter so much what we're teaching or how, in the end, but maybe what matters more is the human connection that emerges (which is to some extent out of our hands?).

Question: does anyone have suggestions for hybrid texts that are appropriate/accessible enough for undergraduates?  I've been teaching Don't Let Me Be Lonely and Incubation: A Space for Monsters, and the students connect to them to varying degrees.  I'd like to add to that list or switch them out-- in an attempt to keep myself from becoming too "settled" in my teaching.  Problem is, I haven't had much time for reading lately.

(Although I did recently read Eileen Myles' Sorry, Tree and Dodie Bellamy's Barf Manifesto and Dorothea Lasky's Poetry Is Not a Project... maybe more on those later, as I'm still processing... and those aren't for teaching as much as for writing (for me, at least)...)

I do think that in teaching hybrid texts to undergrads, I run the risk of simplifying these very complex books.  I think only a small number of students, in the end, "get" the complexity.  The rest probably just discover a different approach to reading and writing.  I wonder if it's enough to be happy with that discovery, for them, or if I'm doing the texts a huge disservice?  I also have to add that this essay by our own L.M. on her own blog has been SUPER helpful in teaching hybrid texts, and it's the only outside source I bring in (it's really just a composition class, by the way-- "Writing About Literature").  If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it!

It's March Again

It's March again, which means it's April and now time to prepare for Christmas. Once again, the world will turn to the Christmas tree. Mighty, mighty Christmas tree.

Ohh, conical flora of year's dusk. The history of decorating the tree with ornaments is the same as the history of dyeing eggs for Thanksgiving. It all began one Sunday six years ago in a Winnebago outside of the White House.

FDR had just launched the robots. USSR secret operatives were crawling toward the red, metal door. China had for the first time successfully cloned the Dali Lama. If I were to say the world was in a state of violent indecision, I believe you would agree with me.

Then one man came onto the scene. A saint among devils, you might say. This man was a traveling tree salesman known informally as good ol' Nick Fury. He was planning on burning all the world's evil to the ground.

He had guts, but Kaczynski-style. Except he did not have the genius IQ. So instead of making the world cower in fear, he snuck into millions of houses, stowing colorful trees in each one. How did he do it?

Not even he knows. He was black-out tripping, Ambien-style. Now who looks like a fool? Yep, you.

Don't ask stupid questions.

Just keep rocking it.

Going forward.

He thought the trees would explode. And they did explode. They exploded with happiness. Presents-style.

Now every year, mid-April, but we call it March, 4 or 5 days before new-years-day, we celebrate his so stupid it's brilliant idea which ended the cold and hot wars which cured presidential polio.

We celebrate this by putting up trees.

Tree explosions.

My Puppet Said To Erase

There was a kind of an essay here. The author has removed it because she wanted to write something else here instead. It will appear at some point. Posts must be allowed to change, like teenagers.

desire

in the context of becoming a human being i've started decorating. I MADE THIS AT 7:45 AM:

i'm writing a book to the object of my desire and so far have written 30,000 words. each one begins dear object of my desire followed by a rave. the letter is like a pistol. only shooting outward and i can't tell who it's hitting.

JG wrote on montevidayo "when i'm writing desire makes me sick" to which i think yes. exactly. and the way feeling sick. feeling bulimic. feeling nauseous is what i feel when i write. like i want to vomit on the word.

stuffing come out of me

here it comes here it comes here it comes here it comes

on my way home i'm thinking perhaps i should have reread aime cesaires Cahier d'un retour au pays natal and perhaps i wouldn't have had such heartbreak this weekend. its my love of the sentence and repetition that is slowly corroding my insides. and also the video i took at a bar that i can't stop playing on repeat because i can't quite make out what is being said. if that is not a metaphor then no metaphors. it's all there on video and i still can't understand.

the aristides have landed in haiti today. and the president addresses his people in multiple languages. if we don't salvage our dignity our dignity will be gone.

here are things I wrote down during my homecoming:

if i can only explain myself via dream, and further, the explanation of an explanation of a dream then meaning is an impossible thing. language and image are not the only ways to make a life. but I've been contaminated.

the feelings were uncontrollable when i got to baton rouge. as feelings are for me. and i had them all. including the ones that made my face hurt in happiness. delirium. and the ones that made me shake at night and tremble the air mattress.

theres gotta be a way to live a life away from language. but the fever for it. the sickness i get from you. and from form. first distrustful. now sick with it.

the love was overwhelming. hollowing. like something that roars. and during a conversation by the levy, i know my question is about being a human being when often i just want to be animal. animus. receive love in the way terrain does. i'm sorry, this makes no sense yet.

but again, reading from akilah it was so real for me-- we have love we have love we have love we have love we have love we have oh oh oh oh ohho oh angels.

why is it that some times in your life things are so easy to love and you will love them all your life? because they are your family.

i should know the trajectory here.

from far away the parade looked like an explosion i was willing to dive into. i ran to it with open arms. and later i said something about the sun burning me and how much i wanted that. its clear i associate love with pain, but for today I'm okay with that. perhaps because i'm happy.

OOOOH WEEEE. on thursday, i took a picture of JG thinking that i could capture it. on sunday, i take a picture of MC with a baby in her lap and decide that i'm giving up on the photograph again.

in an interview, someone confuses the aristides' exile as 7 days when it had been 7 years because recollection/recollecting renders things congruent somehow. so i was in br for 89 hours. but it turns into this: it is a difficult thing to be human and make choices.