Having my way with Ulysses

That is not more to stand.

• Ithaca

And death is there in the background, we must run to arrive beforehand and understand it's already unimportant.

3:05 am

Instructions on how to kill yourself:

First, you must find a reason not to live. There exists uncountable reasons but you must choose at least one and try to make it as ineffable as possible so the people you leave behind may feel suitably at a loss for words when they find you. An added benefit: it will be easier for the people who attend your wake, interment, scattering of the ashes, memorial service, or what have you, to speak in hushed and reverent tones if they find themselves capable of speaking at all. Amongst the reasons not to live you might choose: you are suffering from progressive melancholia; by ceasing to exist you will bring your existence to the attention of the person who barely knows you exist, though you maintain a unique awareness of said person’s existence; pondering the great nothingness of everythingness has inverted your thoughts into a perpetual retrospective arrangement.

Once you have found your reason not to live, you must reduce said reason by cross multiplication of reverses of fortune. Take it all down to one point: a singularity which contains everything.

Compose a note to be found suitably near your corpse, but not in a place where it might slip beyond a finder’s field of vision. Clutched in the hand makes for great cinema and literature, but rarely works in real death. Include in your epistle a précis of your reason not to live. Ask somebody to be kind to your surviving pets.

Leave something in a book, marking a particularly resonant passage or one which will send the finder harkening back in a retrospective arrangement upon discovery. Possibilities may include leaving something in a book at a symbolic page number. One might even leave something in a book which will send the finder to something left in another book which will send the finder to more books always to the last term of the preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, originating in and repeated to infinity. Possible items to leave in books: puzzle pieces, scraps of a shirt, pages of other books. Possible symbolic number: 1132.

Select the method of suicide according to your own levels of drama, squeamishness, accessible materials, pain tolerance, or desire to leave a nice looking corpse. There is no need to be elaborate, if you are already poisoning yourself slowly with something: increase the dose; if you tend toward recklessness perhaps walk closer to the cliff edge until 32 feet per second per second takes care of the matter for you; have the light at the end of your tunnel be an oncoming train, or if your perambulations bring you near an oncoming Jagannath: toss yourself into his path. You’ll receive an added bonus for that last one.

If you have items locked away, say in a drawer, leave a key handy or better still, unlock the drawer before your demise so the living won’t have to destroy the furniture to access its contents. It’s just common courtesy.  Now go.

The proportion increasing and the disparity diminishing.

• Ithaca

Under the step, toward the right, I saw a small iridescent sphere of almost unbearable brightness. At first I thought it was spinning; then I realized that the movement was an illusion produced by the dizzying spectacles inside it. The Aleph was probably two or three centimeters in diameter, but universal space was contained inside it, with no diminution in size.Holy Mother Public Relations, Inc.

10th Heaven
Empyrean

Meeting Minutes

Date: November 18
Time: 2:11 am
Location: 10th Heaven conference room C, Empyrean building
Purpose: Commission of a sculpture of the Immaculate Conception

Attendees:

The Virgin Mary, Holy Virgin of Virgins, Mother Most Pure, Mother Most Chaste, Mother Inviolate, Mother Undefiled, Virgin Most Prudent, Virgin Most Venerable, Virgin Most Renowned, Virgin Most Powerful, Virgin Most Merciful, Virgin Most Faithful, Queen of Virgins, Queen Who has Never Known the Touch of Man. Never. Also, Martha, Jesus, and Gabriel.

Agenda:

1. Discuss the commission of a hyperrealistic sculpture of the Immaculate Conception to be created by Martha, a woman of no independent means, currently residing in the third floor copy room of the Empyrean building, Holy Mother Public Relations.

2. Get Martha off our hands. No offense Martha.

Discussion:

1. With this sculpture Mary wants to express in the most more-than-realistic way possible, the experience she felt deep within her body, a pounding fullness of infinite size deep within her most finite space burning hot and dripping wet. Mary very gratefully, with grateful appreciation, with sincere appreciative gratitude, in appreciatively grateful sincerity, expressed her gratitude to Gabriel for delivering God’s message with such gratifying skill and finesse. Gabriel expressed to Mary that the pleasure was all his and indeed, worth repeating. Martha suggested Mary and Gabriel get a room.

2. Jesus proposed adjourning the meeting. And also, if God is an intelligible sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere, the moment Mom had knowledge of Dad might be expressed as an inscribed polygon within the sphere that grows more like a circle the more angles it has. Yet even though the multiplication of its angles be infinite, nothing will make the polygon equal the sphere unless the polygon is resolved into identity with the sphere. Martha asked so now she’s expected to enclose infinity within a finite space. It was really more of a statement than a question. Mary said yes, square the circle.

3. Jesus stated that the whole problem in planning an end of the world (particularly the end of history) sculpture, is that you have to speak of what lies beyond the end and also, at the same time, of the impossibility of ending.

Action Items:

1. Gabriel suggested he could provide Martha with an Immaculate Conception demonstration. Martha declined. Mary said Martha really should reconsider.

2. Mary stated the sculpture should be ready for the perceived if not actual cessation of the existence of temporality currently scheduled for this coming December 21st, though the date might be fudged a little.

3. Joseph will check Mary’s schedule and compile a list of possible alternate dates for the annihilation of the world and consequent extermination of the human species, inevitable but impredictable.

4. Joseph to check with Cassandra’s assistant: see when we can schedule a prediction on that.

4. Because Jesus is so damn linear, he will provide us with an end of the world, despite mathematical appearances that there will be no end because we are already in an excess of ends: the transfinite. And in an exceeding of finalities: transfinality.

5. Mary wants the sculpture to be both fascinating and spiritually enthralling, and as we have no vision of final conditions, it must portray an image of negative destiny in a kind of a retrospective arrangement. Also, Mary wishes to see herself as others see her.

6. Martha requires the following materials: two brushes (one green one maroon) and one thousand one hundred thirty two sheets of tissue paper.

Minutes typed by: Joseph
Approved by: Mary, Virgin and CEO

People usually contrived to load that sort of onus on to the other fellow.

• Eumaeus

The question is, have I learned anything about life? Only that human beings are divided into mind and body. The mind embraces all the nobler aspirations, like poetry and philosophy, but the body has all the fun. The important thing, I think, is not to be bitter. You know, if it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. I think the worst you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever. After all, you know, there are worse things in life than death. If you've ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman, you know exactly what I mean. The key here, I think, is to not think of death as an end, but think of it more as a very effective way of cutting down on your expenses.1:21 am

Hello, yes, thank you for waiting. Sit down, sit down please. Coffee? No? So. Great to see you, great to see you, how’s your day, good? Follow any sports teams? Listen. You are real smart to come in today, truly, it is a fucking genius move and I’m not kidding, between you and me the time is precisely now if you are looking for good premiums on cash value whole resurrection insurance.  Here, take a look at this chart, where the hell is it? here.  You see here this is what you save by buying young, younger I should say, before you sin too much. What religion? None? I suggest you get one, you could lower your premium by another three quarters of a percent.  But I’m going too fast here.  Coffee? No? Water? Listen. If you die and go to hell tomorrow what would happen? Suffering? Pain? How do you feel about that? And tell me, how many years do plan on living?  The longer your life the more opportunity you have to sin, you realize.  And you will do it.  Listen, The chances are 20 to nil that you’ll get married, have a couple of children, get drunk at a party and fuck somebody in a closet, destroy your marriage, damage your kids’ psyches, get nasty in the divorce, then drip venom on all around you in your ongoing seething bitterness.  That’s a fact.  How do you feel about that?  Now I’m not asking you to be sentimental about your decision, remember, the sentimentalist is he who would incur too immense a debtorship for a thing done.  I’m saying take sentiment out of it.  Let hell be for the other guy.  Am I right? Why take chances. Do you want to take risks with your afterlife? You might as well buy lottery tickets to heaven and cross your fingers.  Do you believe in letting your hereafter depend on luck?  How do you feel about that?  Friend, think of whole resurrection insurance as a work around you can’t afford not to buy.  Don’t think of it as $1132 annually, think of it as 13 cents an hour. Thirteen cents! Thirteen cents an hour for peace of mind that the only hell you’ll experience is the one in this stream of life and no other.  Now, are you ready to purchase?  Let me rephrase that.  Will you be paying with cash or credit?

Where’s the great light?

• Circe

Satan astonished, and with power above his own controll compell'd the Gnomes to curb the horses, & to throw banks of sand around the fiery flaming Harrow in labyrinthine forms. And brooks between to intersect the meadows in their course. The Harrow cast thick flames: Jehovah thunderd above: Chaos & ancient night fled from beneath the fiery Harrow: The Harrow cast thick flames & orb'd us round in concave fires A hell of our own making. see, its flames still gird me round.11:32 pm

Who? Who? Are you blue? Oh its you, my little gnome. I should have expected you, darling, here between evil and deliverance. No no, come back here. I see you, come out. Lurking around your lair. Peering from your warren. Adorable. Don’t want to be seen here do you? Too many danger signals? Oh sweetheart, come dance with me, with all of us. Just a minute I have to take this.  Si? Espera, mi amor, y yo estaré contigo. Alrededor detrás del establo. Sorry about that. You waited! Oh my love, dance with me. What’s that? Oh sweetheart, don’t you see I can’t hear you? Please, my soft soul of flowers, don’t be mislead by appearances, my eyes are larger than my ears! Let’s dance together ’till we’re dead or cured. Doesn’t matter which, gnomey, same difference really. Ah but what’s real here you want to know? This is the dance of delusion, my onliest, my lovey, my luring bird of Eden.  We’ll tango through miserileading doors, and side with fuguist appearances. So how’d you get here?  Must have been Elijah’s horses. Here, hold my pen. Let’s unhitch them, shall we? They’ll dance with us, they dance too you know, then my eagle will bring us a leg of a duck and we can insert it directly into our bodies. You’ll be delicious my diminutive one, my pigmy, my  sweet smiling pestilence, my swan.  We’ll bathe in my cauldron (mind that bubbling lead!) and emerge nice and clean and refreshed and as beautiful as a many colored bow and oh I see, you’re a bit stunted. Well, I’ll hold you up. Not a problem. And then and then

God: Ok, hold.  Vitus, you’re far off script, and did you just take a call?

St. Vitus: [adjusting his peaked cap 180°]  and then we’ll grind our teeth growl howl owl and growling and grinding and teeth ghahute, go first my plunder, go my prey, salute the west gone to rest, ghaghaest, go my guest, my stranger, my destitute, my sterile my wanting, you go my dear ghost, my soul, my demon or my angel, whichever, and then and then

God: Vitus. Vitus!

Jesus: Salute him with your left hand, that’s the password in his language.

Time all. There’s eleven of them.

• Oxen of the Sun

Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius. O lust, our refuge and our strength. Through Yerd our Lord, Amen. And snares of the pox fiend. Thrust syphilis down to hell with him and those other licensed spirits who wander through the world. May Allah the excellent one your soul the night ever tremendously conserve.11:00 pm

Eleven.  Refresh.  Restart.  Resurrect.  I saw you at the place for the dead; I was walking Mackintosh of lonely graveyard. You saw me? What were you doing there, peeping? Looking for a fresh female to dig up you pervert? I’ve seen your type. You’ve been through hell you say? Well who hasn’t buddy. But it is eleven, time to rise. Time to walk these dusty roads and get the hell out of here.  Pull yourself up now.  It’s eleven and there’s a bit of rising to do before the next fall.  O felix culpa. The man in the brown mackintosh loves a lady who is dead.  Rise! Rise! Oh hell, I’ll see you round.

There’s a belly that never bore a bastard.

• Oxen of the Sun

This natural Impatience to look into Futurity, and to know what Accidents may happen to us hereafter, has given birth to many ridiculous Arts and Inventions. Some found their Prescience on the Lines of a Man's Hand, others on the Features of his Face; some on the Signatures which Nature has impressed on his Body, and others on his own Hand-Writing: Some read Men's Fortunes in the Stars, as others have searched after them in the Entrails of Beasts, or the Flights of Birds. Men of the best Sense have been touched, more or less, with these groundless Horrours and Presages of Futurity, upon surveying the most indifferent Works of Nature.10:27 pm

Public announcement [draft #1132]

Gentlemen, today it is my great pleasure to announce we have arrived at the future of science. [Short pause]. It is my great privilege to tell you fine men that today and forevermore, we have no future need of women. [Lengthy pause for applause]. Using in vitro fertilization techniques, we can induce an ectopic pregnancy by implanting an embryo and placenta harvested from any old trollop [speak these words quickly, don’t give the audience time] into the abdominal cavity, just under the peritoneum, after the subject has been prepped with sufficient oral doses of female hormones derived from cattle, to make him receptive to pregnancy.  There is risk of massive hemorrhage, but no more risk than any female breeder runs during pregnancy brought on via now obsolescent techniques.  Once implantation completes, the father-to-be may stop taking hormones as the embryo will secrete sufficient hormones to maintain his own development.  The pregnant man will experience an incipient ventripotence as the little stranger grows, but many of us have become accustomed to certain sub-diaphragmatic expansions as we age [pause for laughter].  The delivery will require open surgery to remove the baby and his placenta.  Because the placenta has been freed from having to grow in a womb, it will have made intimate vascular connections with surrounding organs, so expect massive hemorrhage.  Because implantation will have involved any number of abdominal structures, [speak quickly] parts of the bowel and certainly significant parts of more than a few other organs will need to be removed.  But think of the joy the new father will experience holding his newborn son!  [Smile warmly] He’ll not have a care in the slightest at what parts of his internal structure will be removed as he has just added significantly to his family and to his heart! He will have just begun that most important of all relationships between a father and his son.  Oh how your son will love you! And just think, dad-to-be, as you proudly attend your son’s future graduation, what will the little details of his birth matter? [Pause for applause.  Smile warmly, make eye contact].  Now, let’s talk financial particulars.

So dark is destiny.

• Oxen of the Sun

& there they layed his corps in the body of the quere & sange & redde many saulters & prayes ouer hym and aboute hym 10:06 pm

There was no stopping her.  He died on his eleventh day, dead of winter, and he was getting cold.  So tiny.  So small.  A week and a half old, just changed enough from his first moments to start to look like her and to start to look like me.  It was a start.  Eleventh day. Eleven.  Elf.  Elfin boy he’d have been now.  Sweet eleven.  She measured him and got out her best wool she had been saving.  Measured him around.  Circled his little body.  Cannot make a circle without eleven.  Measure a circle seven across and it will measure eleven halfway around.  Seven and eleven, a thread between square and circle.  Square the circle and maybe.  Maybe eternity.  Find him there.  She orbited around him as he cooled.  She is the moon and while she knit he was her whole world.  She orbited and he cooled in 3:11 ratios.  Moon:Earth, he took on enormous proportions but she would knit for him.  She had wool and time had stopped.  Oh the ground.  The Earth is cold in winter and his sweet little body was cooling.  Pull the moon to the earth.  Pull her close, the three to the eleven.  Now circle them.  I circled them. I circled them in radii of seven.  Our circumference was 44, the same as the perimeter of a square around Rudy, named for my self-murdered father, my whole world.  She knit, I circled for the length of his body cooling. She measured. She chose her needles and her best wool she had been saving.  Soft, no itch, 4 ply dk merino. And she swatched. She measured. She cast on 32 stitches and knit two rows.  Then she knit 2 * yfd k2tog, to end k1. Next row K.  The next row she k2 * and she made 1 in the next of each stitch to the last k3.  Next row K. Next row K3, P to last 3 then K.  He cooled, she knit in patterns:  K4 *k1B k1 to last 3 sts k3, next row k, k5 k1B *k1 k1b to last 5 sts k5, next row k and she continued for five inches.  Then she k6 k2 tog k1 to the last 5 sts k5.  I circled.  I squared.  She k3 P to last 3 K3.  I circled.  She K3 yfd K2 tog to last 2 sts K2.  I squared.  K3 P to last 3 K3.  He cooled. The perfect square lacks corners. She K2 tog, knit in pattern to the last 4 sts and she k 2tog twice.  Then a row of K she knit.  She knit for two more inches.  The wrong side facing, all wrong, k to the middle, k 2 tog twice, k to the end.  The next wrong row she did it again.  And the next wrong row she did it again.  One last row in pattern.  Last time.  Then our sweet, our little, our baby love.  We placed him inside.  We put in our kisses, warm to cold.  Weeny hands.  Smallest love.  Our sweet circle.  Our whole world.  Then the seam.  She grafted 32 stitches and snipped the yarn with her teeth.  Basta.  Enough.

Ruth red him, love led on with will to wander, loth to leave.

• Oxen of the Sun

But the Saracens ne till not no vines, ne they drink no wine: for their books of their law, that Mahomet betoke them, which they clepe their AL KORAN, and some clepe it MESAPH, and in another language it is clept HARME, and the same book forbiddeth them to drink wine. For in that book, Mahomet cursed all those that drink wine and all them that sell it: for some men say, that he slew once an hermit in his drunkenness, that he loved full well; and therefore he cursed wine and them that drink it.10:03 pm

Surah 1132:  السردين، والخبز، والبيرة.

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious,
                             Most Merciful.
 
1.  Proclaim! 
     Eat ye and drink ye
     To your heart’s content: 
     For that ye worked
     (Righteousness).
 
2.  And among His Signs
     He shows you the lighting,
     By way both of fear
     And of hope.
 
3.  Enter houses
     Through the proper doors.
     And fear Allah:
     That ye may prosper.
 
4.  And Dixon shall bestow
     On him, of bread and sardines, 
     Anything he shall desire.
 
5.  And thy Lord taught the Bee
     To sting in men’s habitations.
 
6.  O ye who believe!
     Sayeth she,
     Approach not prayers
     with a mind befogged.
     Listen in silence
     So that you might be graced
     With God’s mercy.
 
7.  But they shall there exchange, 
     One poured into another,
     A (loving) cup
     Free of frivolity, 
     Free of all witness
     Of ill.
 
8.  And on the third day
     When the pains of childbirth
     Drove her to the trunk
     Of a palm tree: 
     She cried (in her anguish):
     Ah!  I expect each moment
     To be my next!
 
9.  And behold!
     Bloom’s hand, 
     Soft under a hen. 
 
10. But closer draws unto men
      Buck Mulligan: 
      And yet they remain
      Stubbornly heedless
      Of his approach.
     
11  And Stephen 
      With a mind
      The most befogged.