Having my way with Ulysses

That is not more to stand.

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.

What celestial sign was by both simultaneously observed?

I saw that each, amazingly, appeared contorted between the chin and where the chest begins; they had their faces twisted toward their haunches and found it necessary to walk backward, because they could not see ahead of them.Right. 2:30 am, Universal Time 2:55, Sidereal time 20:09:45. Conception location: 6w15, 52n20. Is this date right? You are how old? Wow. You look great. Really amazingly great. Did you get much work done? Botox? Doesn’t matter. Gemini sun, Gemini rising, Leo moon. Anyway, the shooting star witnessed at the precise moment your mother centripetally united with your centrifugally oriented father originated from Vega you say? The falling vulture. That would generally suggest a rapid decline of some sort: 32 feet per second per second. And headed right toward Leo’s ass with great apparent velocity. Here, take a look. See? Direct hit. So. Today, Leo’s ass is in direct opposition with Uranus, which at the time of your conception was in the 28th degree of Sagittarius, eighth house, house of death. Let’s look at the progression, Vega, vulture, and holy christ would you look at that. Uh, hum. Just thinking aloud here. I’m not. I want. I want to be very careful I don’t get it wrong here but I see. Huh. It’s just so clear. I’ve never seen. And Uranus in the twelfth house trine moon, which was in Leo at the time of your birth too. Well, for just this moment now at least, we can. Or. Huh. Why don’t we look at Moon trine Saturn first, then we can address the, ah, other thing. Moon trine Saturn says you might want to be alone for a while. Stay away from, um, people. And Saturn trine Neptune, yes. Go on a retreat alone maybe, take a long hike into the woods and stay there by yourself for a while. Meditate maybe. Do you want some tea? Here let me light some incense, your aura is looking, well, let’s clear the air a little. How are you feeling? I’ll be honest, from what your chart is telling me you really ought to be in bed. I can’t in good conscience keep you here. My agenbite of inwit: I’ll need to check my own chart about this. I feel all turned around, so yeah. I need to get my head on straight and you need. Well. Go now, go home and get in bed. If you ah, when you wake up call me and we’ll go over the rest of your chart. But you’d really better, ah, here’s your coat. Oh, and let’s settle the bill now.

To substitute other more acceptable phenomena in the place of the less acceptable phenomena to be removed.

In order to cry, steer the imagination toward yourself, and if this proves impossible owing to having contracted the habit of believing in the exterior world, think of a duck covered with ants or of those gulfs in the Straits of Magellan into which no one sails ever.2:25 am

A father is a necessary evil, though it’s damn hard to feel necessity for something that might easily be nothing. How would I know anything? Coming into this mess: I’m a baby. I have no need of memory.  What do I want with a memory until I have some shot at using it for my own interests? I sure as hell knew who Momma was, but him? Was he even there? And me? I’m a newborn. I’m busy proceeding energetically from the unknown to the known through the incertitude of the void. I’m dealing with the painful character of the ultimate functions of separate existence. Take any other baby born on the day of my birth, take them all: he could have been all their daddies. I can see why the immaculate conception sold so well. I’ll buy one of those and I’ll take a little apostolic succession on the side.  But these recurrent frustrations, just when I can see a critical turning point just there, just there, then down we tumble faster than 32 feet per second per second. It’s a battle against hopelessness carrying on like this. He’s my only begetter; I am his only begotten, but disarmed of fatherhood what is he? Who is he to me? All babies have fathers. Some fathers are not fathers. Therefore, some babies have not fathers. Take the imposition of natural law out of the picture and what, does that make life infinitely perfectible? Upward to some great goal. Suppose I am a father. Am I a father? If I were? A father is an unnecessary evil.

Destruction of the fittest.

The question is, said Humpty Dumpty, which is to be master -- that's all. 1:48 am

Well let’s Humpty Dumpty ourselves through this one shall we? You’ve got him over here and that one over there, and here and there they’ve been until now they are adjacent spheres. How much of vesica piscis between? Well, we shall see if we reach the proper parabolic penetration. But what to fill it with? There’s the rub. This one subsists on oxygen and damage. That one has had some sort of bird gimbling at him, but pick and pick away little birdy, you’re making it easier for him to crack open and get real, though he does have plenty of it and doesn’t need to acquire much more.  Come to think, they’re both riding that particular train; no wonder they’re a little scrambled. You’d be too if your kings and horses and men put you together out of order. Now. Remembering it is already tomorrow we must act fast, like yesterday fast or the day before yesterday fast. And let’s fast: this is no time for eating. We are going to take what’s best of each of them and combine, forgetting the attributes we leave unchosen: we can’t make an omlette without cracking a few eggs. Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. They don’t know they are eggs. Right. Did they notice? No? Good. Ok. This one can see singing; that one dreams of gentlemanly farming a nice wabe under a shaded sundial, or did at one time.  He does dream of turning music into money, so there’s that.  Are you writing this down? We must work against impenetrability. Let’s manifesto that one. WE WORK AGAINST IMPENETRABILITY!!! That’s better. Though we mustn’t put all our eggs into the one basket, now mustn’t we. Let’s find the best crack and gimble away there first. So. This one thinks that one would be better off vesica piscandi (or piscia vesicandi as the case may be) with some sort of woman though a decent man would do in a pinch. Perhaps this one’s own daughter (being not a man but newly a woman)? Or wife for that matter.  She is, the wife rather, not the daughter being only fifteen, a still attractive married woman getting on for fair and forty, and might be partial to younger men given their malleability and willingness to learn (and to do what they are told if you don’t mind my saying) though they do have a tendency to get to their own 32 feet per second per second faster than one might prefer and nothing turns one off at a greater velocity than a man (or a boy rather) holding back.  Why ever do they think this is a good idea? Ever. Better to get on with things and bring in the wingman after to finish the job.  Keep the balls rolling as it were. How are we getting on? Filling that vesica piscis a bit out? Oh fuck me on the cross. Go ahead. No really, go ahead. Listen. Listen. Don’t wait for me kid, just let’s get on with it so I can finish the job with that one over there. He’s getting impatient.

History repeating itself with a difference.

(5b) To change reality for everyone -- the one I told you goes on -- is to accept the fact that everyone is (ought to be) what I am, and, in some way, to meld the real with mankind. That means admitting history, that is, the human race on a false course, a reality accepted until now as real, and away we go. 1:46 am

All right ladies, hold the mirror just so, can everybody see me? Just like this. Adjust your positioning so you can get a good angle yet still feel perfectly comfortable and supported. If anybody needs an extra rolled up blanket go ahead and get one. I’m sorry, I forgot your name, purple mat? Yes, you. Try switching hands. There you go. Good? Everybody ready? Now take a deep breath in through the nose, and feel your breath flowing through every part of your body, moving warmly down your spine, and exiting your body toward the mirror as you breathe out. Good. And breathe in through the nose like an inward voice two, three, four purple mat, you are sitting too tight. If you have a possible need to satisfy by moving a motion, no? Then you’ll need to get into position from standing again. Ok, feet shoulder width apart, there you go, mirror in the other hand, yup, breathe in through the nose and on the exhale bend down as if you let something drop, nice, then let your body fell down, 32 feet, per second, per second. There you go and breathe in, two, three, down the spine, and out toward the mirror. Good. Everybody still breathing? Keep breathing and follow my voice. As you look into your mirror I want you to focus your awareness on the opening just a short distance under where the back changes name. This is your when point; think of it as an omphalos if it helps you. Focus your breath towards your when point and allow this to be your breath’s one great goal. Now I want you to keep feeling the rhythm of your breathing and on your next inhale allow your breath to encircle all the calcifications of history within your body. Now imagine your breath melting history away. Breathe history down your spine and push it out toward the mirror. Good. And inhale, really feeling those mineral accretions of history melting into tailings. Keep breathing. Down the spine. And out. Now breathe in and feel the tailings shifting, melting, like ice into water two, three, four and out,  and on the next cycle we’ll push the last of history toward our one great goal. Ready and in, two, three, four, good, really focus, down your spine, and out, two, three, purple mat, there are buckets and rags in the utility closet. That’s ok. There’s one in every class.

With her fleshy charms on evidence in an open fashion.

In differential calculus the function is given and the differential is obtained (and this frenzy to be lifelike can only be our mythic denial of an apprehension of death).1:45 am

Don’t look bored. Don’t look bored he says. Easy for you to say you’re doing something. I’m doing something he says. What am I doing that’s so? Estupido. Have me sitting here. I have pride. I don’t have to sit here for him or no anybody. And for what? For him to sell me in the streets? that’s what I mean to you hey? Just sit here. Wear this. Be the circus girl. Come on now baby, you’re the circus girl he says you’re the contortionist and you can bend and twist all around me  yes and rub yes ruby your body yes and twist round me and I’ll twist all around you. We’ll criss cross, you do me I do you. Snaky helixing. Caedeusalicious.  All to see. You want to sell me in the streets? You want i should walk the streets? I will too and I’ll get good money and men I’ll have men I take all of the men. Doubles: the only kind of doubles I play. How you stand there and paint. Don’t look bored. Hours and don’t look bored. I could be doing anything from A to G, but you got me sitting here all fucking whatever time it is while you try and prove that painting can somehow be closer to theatre than a photograph or 32 photographs per second per second.  You ever think you might be the only one who sees it that way? Come on. Please. I sit here with my back and you look at me like I could be the tent. Don’t look bored. I’m keeping the outfit.

The last straw.

Friends, I have forgotten two things. I wish all to know that I do not propose to sell any part of my country, nor will I have the whites cutting our timber along the rivers, more especially the oak. I am particularly fond of the little groves of oak trees. I love to look at them, and feel a reverence for them, because they endure the wintry storms and summer's heat, and not unlike ourselves seem to thrive and flourish by them. One thing more: those forts filled with white soldiers must be abandoned, there is no greater source of trouble and grievance to my people.

12:44 am

Scene: [Tranquilla convent, infirmary. Lizzie Twigg is unconscious and lying on a tinseled oak bed. The shading she has painted with loving pencil on her eyes, bosom, and shame is badly smeared. Sister Mary Peter lifts her from the secondbest bed while St. Agatha straightens the warm impress of her warm form.]

St. Agatha: Don’t jostle her like that.

Sister Mary Peter: I should drop her for what she’s done. She has sinned. We have suffered!

St. Agatha: Sister. Our Sister. Shh! Just look at her. Classic curves: a thing of beauty. Here, put her down on her stomach, we can take the powderpuff to the spot where her back changes name.

Sister Mary Peter:  No, please I beg you. What must my eyes look down on. [Nearly drops Lizzie Twigg but catches her with her leg.]

St. Agatha: Nekum! Remember your wounded knee! Come on, let’s see if she has hair there.

[Sister Mary Peter returns Lizzie Twigg to the bed, facing up.]

Lizzie Twigg: [Talking in her sleep] Where dreamy creamy gull waves o’er the waters dull.

Sister Mary Peter: Oh that’s it. [Gives Lizzie Twigg a hard shove with both hands. She rolls a dummymummy in the sheet off of the bed and onto the floor.

St. Agatha: Mary Peter!

Lizzie Twigg: Bbbbblllllblblblblobschb! What’s happening? I feel like I fell from a cliff!

St. Agatha: You fell out of bed. Sister Mary Peter help her up! [St Agatha rushes to kiss Lizzie Twigg in four places as she crawls jellily forward from under the bed, with dignity].

Lizzie Twigg: [Returning to bed] I’m fine. What happened? Mnemo? I don’t think I’m in full possession of my faculties. I feel like I’ve been run over.

Sister Mary Peter: You were run over, and me too trying to save you. I think I have a concussion.

St. Agatha: Ssh! She is right, our sister. Don’t you remember, dear? You tried to perform a solo ghost dance and then you threw yourself under Jagannath.

Lizzie Twigg: [Covers her face with her hands looking through parting fingers] Oh God. Where’s AE?

Sister Mary Peter: Where’s AE? Sacrilege! Who cares about AE? He’s nothing! What are you doing trying to re-kill yourself over a man? Your crucifix not thick enough? What do you lack within our barbed wire?

St. Agatha: Ssh! Lizzie, you can’t kill yourself again. We immortals have no word for that in our dictionary. I know AE’s return was difficult for you.

Sister Mary Peter: Difficult!

St. Agatha: Ssh, sister yes, it was difficult. Lizzie, you fell 32 feet per second per second for him all over again. But here at Tranquilla we are brides of Christ. You must have no more desire. We are only the ethereal.

Lizzie Twigg: Only ethereal! Then how do you account for that large moist stain on Mary Peter’s robe? And Mother Agatha, I can smell the cloud of stench escaping from your crack.

St. Agatha: [A button pops off of her sackcloth habit; she’s lost a charm] Listen sister, we know where we’d all be if we were only ethereal, but we won’t turn your strength into our weakness. Where do you think you were going to end up, after Jagannath squashed you? Where? Where was that ghost dance going to take you? To Sitting Bull floating in the ether? Rise up all you want, go ahead, but you’ll come back down. You think you were going to ghost dance yourself up to some cloudy waiting lounge, then sit around wondering when the vorex will open under AE’s feet? Circumstances alter cases, have you learned nothing from your time here? Don’t you understand anything? Our convent is built on buffalo holocausts. The skull mountains: we’ve shaped them into cathedrals. You think we don’t bleed? We are the sisters of the last straw and Grandfather Tatanka Iyotanka is our patron saint. [Looking toward Standing Rock] Father I come! Father give us back our arrows! [Looks at Lizzie Twigg with features hardening] You say you are done with AE then you try this? Fool someone else sister, not me.

Nes. Yo.

Orca Bellona! Heavencry at earthcall, etnat athos?12:36 am

In the beginning was the world, in the end the word without end. Oh my heart, am I my mother? Fantasy. Just anima’s fantasy. Here’s how it goes; you’ve heard it I’m sure: there’s nothing naked under the clothing moon. But first, I’m all of a mucksweat. The day ins and outs of it born from a heart and nine months hard labor, but then coming forth of darkness and Orc’s away now! Nice, no? Every phenomenon has natural cause, even revolutions in the word. First, cause. Then I’ll be thy mouth given unto me! Fly as the hawk’s right eye! Free will! But watch out for the 32 feet per second per second. Oh that. What goes down must come. It goes the other way too. As below, so above. Rock becomes root becomes worm becomes serpent in the garden. Beryl was there, and the other rainbow girls. How’s that for gloomery glamory? Shall I be the toad on your shoulder? Come here, my Athos and warm me up.  I’ll whisper little somethings right where the camel went through the needle. I’ll obey your every. I’ll be slave to your chic, Dave to your dick, and we’ll root in the fat of the land. I’m willing, now force me. Good dog.

He gets the plums, and I the plumstones.

It may be that universal history is the history of the different intonations given a handful of metaphors.

8:54 pm

But I suppose a plumstone is a seed, so it can return a plum.  History repeats itself.  The year returns.  Plumstone becomes tree becomes plum.  Don’t swallow the stone, it will tear your guts out.  But the new plum, is it the same plum?  Plum metempsychosis perhaps.  O sweet little, you don’t know how nice you tasted.  Yum yum.  See you next time around.  The new I want but: nothing new under the sun.  Self similar but not the same.  Only once it comes.  Returning: not the same.  Plum, plumstone, tree, plum.  Depends on where will it land.  Sand, nothing grows.  Fall at 32 feet per second per second, then rise little tree.  Resurrection.  Are you not happy in your ground plumstone?  Ba.

A beacon ever to the stormtossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea.

Qui donc, si ce n'est un homme, vous a mis dans cette fichue position? C'est le pigeon, Joseph.Holy Mother Public Relations
8:00 pm
 

Recording No. 1132.  The memoirs of Mary, Holy Virgin, Mother of God, Star of the Sea, Pillar of Ivory, Mystical Rose, Beloved among Joseph are you recording all that shit?  Holy Je, uh.  Shit!  Can’t say the bloody kid’s name or he shows up every damn time.  Chrackers!  It’s just not the same.  Get on with it for the love of before I forget what I want to say and CEO Holy Mother Public Relations.  Memoir notes.

Mary:  Can you hear me?  Start?  Right.  The rite of Onella, the torch-light.  So he’s ready but you’re not.  And then he thinks, better wait and now you’re in bed with a man holding back for all he’s worth.  Just what we’re looking for from a man, eh chicas?  There he is teetering and then 32 feet per second per second takes over and now he’s falling.  Or he’s in that kairotic sweet spot between potential and kinetic and hey look at me, I’m extending the moment.  Nooooooooooow.  But just for you buddy.  Give me rising, not falling.  So I push and out with him.  Girls, size them up before you let them in your bed, you listening?  Talk to each other, tell your sisters what he does and won’t do. Life is too short to let any cholo climb in your windows just because he looks good and has flowers. Telling you about the motion of the ocean. It’s the size of the wave, girls, and unless you talk to each other, you don’t know what you’re getting.

Joseph:  Mary?  Mary, can you hold off?  For just a minute?  Having some technical difficulties with the equipment.

Mary:  He think’s a minute is enough.