Having my way with Ulysses

A solution of the secular problem of the quadrature of the circle.

• Ithaca

Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the others' death and dying the others' life.

2:53 am

A circle is a circle because it is not a square. A square is a square because it is not a circle. Well now duh. So why do it? Why would anybody for any reason (with any reason) want to square the circle? Why take the one (let’s say the square: all pointed and anchored, so angular, and such fixity (a place for everything and everything in its place) such certainty) and try to make it anything but what it is? it’s good the way it is. Leave it alone. Who needs a turning of this into that when you already have both this and that. And look at that that: smooth and continuous. arcing around, no beginning no end: doesn’t know if it is coming or going, really, and frankly doesn’t care. You can’t pin that down: where to put the pin? Tell me precisely where. Go ahead. Like any coastline regardless of adjacent ocean, the closer you get, the more places for pinning. With circles its turtles all the way down. You would think the square would have no problem becoming a circle, it’s made of such nice round numbers, but sister circle is just so damn big, no matter how small she is. The maddening thing about her is that she flaunts her shape at us no matter how we want to see her. Looks like the perfect place for keeping things in. But how can such a perfect container, (with all the appearance of finite enclosure) harbor such infinities beyond reason? In becomes out. Where does she put it all? No wonder people behave like such lunatics trying to fit their square pegs into her round holes. This is now that, ta daaa! Imagine. And why? Once that’s done there’d be nothing left for them to do. Nothing left for anybody to do. What else could there possibly be? You’re done. You’ve just made the independent discovery of a goldseam of inexhaustible ore. You can go ahead now and buy your own island, no problem, and get down to watching the money riding in with the waves. Would be nice. It could be an art, even, cultivating the purest of possible devotions to one’s own pleasure. Could do anything. Arrange beehives according to humane principles, and the like. Join capital with opportunity and the thing required is done. Maybe even start my own religion. The Holy Church of the Sacred Squircle. No. Don’t like the holy church part. Squirclism. That’s better. I like that much better.

I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief.

• Scylla and Charybdis

God (I've begun to think) implants a promise in all that insubstantial architecture that makes light out of the impervious surface of glass, and makes the shadow out of dreams. God has created nights well-populated with dreams, crowded with mirror images, so that man may feel that he is nothing more than vain reflection. That's what frightens us. 2:52 pm

Eureka!  Come in my darling, the water’s fine.  The tub is small, but we’ll get comfortable.  Watch that displacement!  Oh well, what’s a little water on the floor.  Is that your foot?  Shove over baby, make some empty space.  We must have space independent of things.  Get that matter out of the void!  Can we do that?  Create from void?  Creatio ex nihilo?  The Greeks believed not.  Most of their creations come from water, although Heraclitus prefered creation from fire.  Imagine a tub of that!  No, this is much nicer. And cosy too, eh baby?  Come, let’s fingerponder the materia prima a little. Honey, you are filthy!  Look at that sheen forming on the water.  All those layers of belief you carry around.  Here, have some soap, nice citronlemon.  Get behind those ears.  Wash every nook and cranny.  Especially your cranny.  Want me to get that for you?  Not yet?  Now, where does everything begin?  Well of course, it begins with me.  I am God.  Yes.  Yes.  Wait, you don’t believe me?  Well you should.  And don’t worry, you can be God too.  You are God, ok?  God.  Oh I see.  You believe in a different God.  Well you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.  Go ahead.  He’s a he.  Ok.  White guy.  Yup.  Seated, gotcha.  A throne?  A king of some kind?  When was the last time you listened to a king?  Ok, ok, it is your belief.  Keep going, rinse it out of there.  Facial hair.  Old.  A light.  A heart.  An eye in the sky.  Well now, you’re just riffing.  Tell me, have you ever seen God?  Ok, I get it.  Faith needs no proof; you do not need to see to believe.  But what about unbelief?  That is so much harder to accomplish, you know.  What will it take for you to unbelieve?  What do I have to do to wipe away that God stain marring your vision?  You’re putting a sticky film on the surface of everything.  Ick.  Smells too.  Wait, what did you say?  What about my stains?  My sheen on the water?  Do I believe my own theory?  No, of course not.  I neither believe nor disbelieve.  I need help too, a nice push one way or the other.  Want to take care of it for me?  Tell me, do you push both ways?  Now relax a little baby, roll over and let me get to that cranny.

Never the same

• Lestrygonians

On those stepping into rivers staying the same other and other waters flow.1:10 pm

Saw a good idea today, a rowboat with a sandwich board ad on it, anchored in the ship canal.  Kino’s selling pants for $49.99.  Not bad.  Can spend that much just getting a pair altered.  A good idea is a good idea.  Better than hiring human directionals to carry the signs around like Hely pays for. Pays Boylan?  Must be McGlade’s work. Those bring in nothing. Still, people will look at anything, even nothing.  Stand and stare; other people will too.  Or be like Maginni dancing around.  He is his own ad.  Can put ads for std doctors in urinals.  Feel the burn?  Somebody standing there can relate and oh Christ.  What if he?  Oh God no.  No.  He wouldn’t, would he?  I don’t believe it.  No.  I can’t.  I can’t think about that.  What’s the time?  The diameter of the sun as seen from.  Oh God.  Focus.  As seen from earth is one half of a degree.  24 hours in the day divided by 360 degrees times 60 minutes to one hour times the radius of the sun or 1/4 of a degree.  It moves by its own radius every minute.  That’s the time.  As seen from wherever on earth.  No?  What about parallax views?  Never quite got parallax.  Greek word.  Should look it up.  Parallel parallax.  I feel like Molly with her met him pike hoses until I explained about the transmigration of souls and the stream of life.  Life is a stream.  Flowing and flowing.  Not like time.  Time doesn’t flow.  What is it flowing through if it is flowing?  Not flowing.  Fluxing.  Time a phenomenal flux.  Fluxing along in the flux of life.  Changes and changes.  Like water.  Who was it said that?  We can’t walk into the same ocean twice.  The ocean is different every time and we are different every time.  Yet we stay the same.  Stay the same by changing, dissipative structures.  Like the Argo, not a toothpick on that ship the same as when it began, yet always the Argo.  Look in the mirror, not the same hair, not the same skin, not the same cells as when we were born.  We flux like the Ocean.  Walk in to our death and come out of other waters in a new body.  Not resurrected.  Transmigrated.  Only the soul is the same.  Somebody asked Plato if the soul gets tired.  Does it wear out like old pants?  Can get new ones for $49.99.  See?  A good idea is a good idea.