Having my way with Ulysses

the smoothest place is right there between this bit here

• Penelope

There was a story about this traveling salesman whose left wrist began to hurt him, just under his wrist watch. When he removed his watch, blood spurted out. The wound showed the imprints of very tiny teeth.

the way Vern plots and plans everything out gives me the fidgets particularly now at the end of the world and i suppose she thinks im finished out and laid on the shelf well im not no nor anything like it and the temporals can kiss my tessellated ass because this is my house delete it all im spread all over the internet on show well see well see now that were near the parting well Vern will leave me here at the end of a cycle and the start of a new one damn it damn it and go write her rune poem and the temporals story and the holy mother public relations employee handbook and squaring the circle and saints lives and instruction manuals and whatever other confusion she vomits out i hope she’ll get someone to dance attendance on her the way I did because she darent order me about the place O Vern im letting myself up out of this you have me that exasperated

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.

Why solitary (ipsorelative)?

• Ithaca

To dissect lions / You need lightning / For little owls you need / Forget- / fulness.
2:37 am

Instructions on how to organize the books in my office:

Not chronological, (not alphabetical!), definitely not autobiographical, no fucking way. Friends once bought me a book because they didn’t see it on my time shelf. I don’t have a time shelf. The whole damn thing is a time shelf. Let’s try ipsorelatively categorical. Limiting factors of library reorganization: largest bookcase is a set piece constructed at a scale of approximately 5:4 and designed to look imposing on stage, yet impractical for holding books designed at a ratio of 1:1; improbability of small office capacity being equal to desired portion of entire library, necessitating a library within and a library without; impossibility of knowing in the present which books will be required in the future. Also, library without must be allowed fluid motion, free transference, and ease of flux amongst volumes of library within as if library within were homothetic to library without. Position of two chairs (one: a squat stuffed easychair, no legs; the other: a retrofuture upholstered office chair) and solitary desk must remain unmoved. Now go.

Different ways of bringing off a coup.

• Eumaeus

He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.1:41 am

  • Establish dominance, think alpha male. But less is more, remember Al Gore in 2000? Not that kind of alpha male. Carry your revolution as if it has a really big dick, but you don’t need to whip it out to prove it.  Be everybody’s daddy.
  • Don’t play musical chairs. Be ruthless whilst removing the former bastards in power. Why have a coup if you keep all the same people around?
  • Make friends with the army, but don’t make promises. You don’t want the people with the weaponry suddenly thinking they can throw a better revolution than yours.
  • The military likes to play with their guns, so let them handle any civil opposition that will undoubtedly crop up.  You can’t bake a cake without breaking a few eggs. You can, however, hire somebody to break the eggs and bake whatever you tell them to bake.
  • Come up with a proper pronunciamiento to justify your new world order to the masses.  Clarity trumps veracity.  Remember a real subjection is born mechanically from a fictitious relation.
  • The first person to tell a story wins, so get out there with whatever truth you like, and fast.  Remember, a proper coup happens suddenly.
  • When delivering your first epistle, don’t try to be more fascinating than thou.  The proletariat hates a show off.
  • The proletariat also hates a smartypants. Don’t lead with your philosophy.  People need to be wined and dined a little, talk about them, then you can get down to ideology.  Promise things.
  • Once you are in, spread out. The initial revolution will be a public in-your-face event, but remember that the best coup carries on behind the scenes and under the table for years to come. Quietly take over whatever you like, but of course start small. Identify all the mechanisms of public discipline and link them together one by one, under your own power structure.
  • Keep track of everything and everybody, subject everybody to a field of visibility and let them all know it: in this way you ensure that if anybody steps one toe outside of your idea of what they ought to be doing, they will make themselves visible. Let visibility be their trap, if only to prevent a coup designed to depose you.
  • Get rid of the old regime’s intellectuals, particularly if they are smarter than your intellectuals. Endeavor to have the smartest intellectuals. Do this through assimilation if you can at all manage it. Otherwise, just toss the ones you don’t like to the military.  Now go.

Why not? Suppose he gave her money?

• Nausicaa

Her laugh had taken on the tones of an organ, her breasts had succumbed to the tedium of endless caressing, her stomach and her thighs had been the victims of her irrevocable fate as a shared woman, but her heart grew old without bitterness. 8:48 pm

Instructions on how to monetize your body:

1.  Know your market and look to your goods.  You have renewable resources, hair, plasma, words, sex, and the non-renewables: a kidney and a limited supply of eggs. When it comes to hair, plasma, eggs, and a kidney, you have some control of their value in that you can manipulate the quality of your product, but not much.  Mostly you’ll be tied to the market price.  You have much more creative control with sex and words, so best to put your energies there and let the rest take care of itself, keeping an eye of course on fluctuations in the market.

2. Don’t sell in a buyers market. This sounds like economics but I’m talking about art.  Look at me: I’m dripping with skill, due to the maximization of my natural talent.  These things take time to build up so when in a down market, then practice practice, constant practice until the market turns again as all things do. You’ve got all the time in the world, so don’t feel you have to rush to market when a little refinement and fine tuning can mean higher value later.

3. Cultivate an eye for maximizing your earnings.  Start with the basics:  you must have the stage setting, the rouge, appropriate costume, position, music.  And don’t underestimate the earning potential of good stage name,  but don’t paint yourself into a corner being clever.  Dominae Trixie, for example, is a perfectly delightful name.  Brilliant, fun.  But you’ll get a very specific subset of Christian slaves with that one, so be sure your name brings you what you want to get.

4. Now here’s a little trade secret which is what you’re paying me for:  Everything goes down to the strength you give a man.  That’s the secret of it.  That’s what it’s all about.  The men they want to feel power; they want to be strong so be sure to call the boys men and call the men boys.  And don’t call anybody sir, they’ll wish you hadn’t.

5. If you consider the man’s position, and you really ought to do so just this once, the entire transaction much be horribly awkward for them ’till they harden.  The worst is when you find yourself with a man who doesn’t know when to get on with it.  He asks a question, he asks another, and now you are having conversation not excitation. Time is money so move the chit chat along unless there’s dirty talk you have them think they make you say.

6. The words you must speak to get the man to understand you mean “come in, all is prepared” can be the cause of half the trouble, I can’t stress that enough.  So use your instincts.  If you do get stuck in conversation, a change in venue might help and always use experience as your fall back. The men don’t want you to be parrot; none of your press a button and the bird will squeak.  They want a mouth in the dark, honey.

7.  If the man abruptly stops talking but does nothing else, for God’s sake don’t ask what he was going to say.  Such a rookie mistake.  Why give your power to him?  You want him to think he is strong, but you know what’s what.  So this is the moment you go the whole hog, say: I want it, something like that.

8. Flatter them.  What harm?  You can think of somebody else: helps pass the time.  Or even better, and this is my little trick, say things so the man thinks he is taking a woman from another man.  That’s what they enjoy most.  It’s the source of their strength to think they are a bigger man than the last guy.  Oh they’ll pay good money for that.  Ok, little sweetheart, come and kiss me.  Off you go to earn your keep and remember, your cause is sacred.  Now go.

What a persuasive power that girl had!

• Nausicaa

He siezd the boy in his immortal hands While Enitharmon followd him weeping in dismal woe Up to the iron mountains top & there the Jealous chain fell from his bosom on the mountain. The Spectre dark held the fierce boy Los naild him down binding around his limbs the accursed chain O how bright Enitharmon howld & cried Over her son. Obdurate Los bound down her loved Joy. 8:02 pm

So here’s how its done.  First, get your syringe of medicine or whatever it is ready and a pillowcase too.  Distract them with the television or something, but don’t let them lean back on a couch or anything or you’ll have a harder time.  Best to do it when they are standing.  So, once you have your materials ready, you sneak up behind the little brat and stuff their arms into a pillowcase behind their back. Then lay them down as fast as you can on the floor.  They’ll be kicking and screaming bloody murder and that’s ok; the screaming keeps their mouths open until they see the medicine coming.  This is why you have to act fast because the little shit is going to be working against you from here on out.  Make sure when you get your little angel to the floor that the weight of their body on the pillowcase pins their arms inside.  Then, straddle the little darling’s head with your knees and squeeze to hold the head in place.  Your particular little brat might be a biter, so watch out!  Squeeze with your knees but don’t crush, as much as at this point you’d like to, am I right?  Then pinch the kid’s nose closed and hold there until they open up.  Shoot that medicine in there as fast as you can.  Here’s a tip — it helps to aim for the cheek because you could cause a gag reflex if you go for the back of the throat and you don’t want to get puked on!  Keep holding the little lovely’s nose until they swallow.  It’s either swallow or stop breathing at this point, and they’ll make the right choice every time.  No praising them after for getting through it.  That just encourages them.