Having my way with Ulysses

the smoothest place is right there between this bit here

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

In what final satisfaction did these antagonistic sentiments and reflections, reduced to their simplest forms, converge?

Shhh.

3:25 am

[Scene: Two lovers in bed, AE with Lizzie Twigg: coiled head to toe they quietly discuss the fixity of their volatility and the volatilization of their fixation, until within his fixedness AE has become nothing and feeling everything, Lizzie becomes volitive. They communicate intermittently in increasingly more laconic narrations. Also a small angry dog is trying to take up as much space as possible between them. It’s so cute! Come here little puppy, come here. What a good doggie. Who’s a good doggie? Oh Jesus God! He’s all teeth! Get off me! Like petting a piranha with fur.]

AE: It’s just that we define ourselves contrarily to each other. I am me because I am not you, and you are you because you are not me. We are poles apart.

Lizzie: We are the same person, AE, don’t you feel it?  After all the mutual deaths we have died? Resurrection, translation, return, distillation, putrefaction, decay, still you don’t know you had it backwards the whole time. You were resurrecting in the wrong direction.

AE: I know. I know it. I just wanted to be the material representation of eternality, in linear time. Just once. Just for a little while. Only long enough to re-experience that feeling of linearity. Don’t you miss it? And feel what it could be, to be linear and eternal simultaneously.

Lizzie: But you can’t just translate yourself into linearity and say I’m back, everybody, I’ve  gained bodily entry into eternity and now look at me! Look at what happened to Lazarus. No. If you want to see how a human mortal finds a place within eternity, that’s not going to cut it. That gets you nothing.

AE: Nothing’s not nothing. Don’t knock nothing.

Lizzie: No, nothing’s not nothing.

AE: I was trying be the eternal temporalized. I wanted to be the all at onceness linearized. I wanted to square that circle, just once. Just the one time and be it and feel it, really feel what it is to be the coexistence of the infinite and the finite.

Lizzie: Be eternality living in linearity? Darling, you’ve done it. You’ve been there already. The infinite and the finite are the same things whichever side you’re on, if you really must take sides, can’t you tell? Just look at us, two beings contrarily defined yet coexisting as aspects of the same reality.

AE: I know. I get it. You don’t have to scratch me like that.

Lizzie: That wasn’t me, but here’s a flash of light for you AE: when we were mortals we didn’t have to go around worrying all the time about gaining bodily entry into eternity: eternity had already gained bodily entry into us. We have always already been since time immemorial and forevermore, the material representation of eternality.

AE: We are God.

Lizzie: Exactly. We are already a squared circle: we can take a finite form, but our infinite selves are in there too.

AE: We are a circle, containing everything.

Lizzie: Everything and nothing.

[At rest relatively to themselves and to each other, the lovers settle into silent contemplation. Small birds rise gently, sweetly, from Lizzie and from AE. Hundreds of them flitter up in swirling concentric patterns bringing with them, as if reflected from the sheen of their feathers, an increasing luminosity of ruby light. Thousands of little birds, aeons of them, softly forming clouds as soft as what do you call it gossamer, the clouds forming mist, the mist gently drifting downward covering the lovers, the lovers blurring about the edges. Together they coalesce and dissolve, their bodies languid, breathing, watching their spirits unrestrained, circling, birds rising into mist falling, like self knowing wheels revolving uniformly: self knowing and self known.]

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

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.

The proportion increasing and the disparity diminishing.

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

From inexistence to existence he came to many and was as one received: existence with existence he was with any as any with any: from existence to nonexistence gone he would be by all as none perceived.

Thanks eversore much, Pointcarried!
2:00 am

Sit down and take a walk with me, won’t you? I’m remodling my treehouse, getting extravagant. Hyperbolic space simply has more room than Euclidean, so you can’t really blame me. Shall we parallel? You’ll have to project yourself over here, honey, steriographically. Form a point, there you go. Now circle that square; I’ll give you a hand. Pivot. Pivot. Mind the möbius transformation! Oh whacked your head right on it: sorry about that, it was in a different place yesterday. There you go and square the circle. That’s better! Now shall we be asymptotic or ultraparallel? I know, six of one. Though it does seem the older I get the fewer I know.

The point was the least conspicuous point about it.

Fate is partial to repetitions, variations, symmetries. Nineteen centuries later, in the southern part of the province of Buenos Aires, a gaucho is set upon by other gauchos, and as he falls he recognizes a godson of his, and says to him in gentle remonstrance and slow surprise (these words must be heard, not read): Pero, ¡ché! He dies, but he does not know that he has died so that a scene can be played out again.
1:26 am

Scene: [An endlessly large room once belonging to to all the infinite possibilities but now cavernously empty save for Caesar who is curled up on the floor patting his knife wounds with smooth caresses.]

Time: [On the god mic, sotto voce] Are you ready to listen?

Caesar: What’s the point?

Time: You must stop looking at the point of everything. This particular version of you has no point. Or rather, you have many points. You are legion.

Caesar: Blah blah blah.

Time: You’re tired, you’re not taking it in. Maybe some solid food? I’m a stickler for solid food. Here. [A cup of coffee appears on the floor next to Caesar. It’s over-roasted, must be Starbucks.] Now Caesar, honey, you do know that history is a tale like any other too often heard. But darling, your history, your place in Roman history, is only one manifestation of infinite possibilities. You have ousted all the others and now here we are, at a standstill until you can accept it. You are at a crucial point.

Caesar: But if I have other selves, some which did not die, then they are not to be thought away.

Time: They are, but not by you. You occupy a non-dimensional point, the stilled eternity. Move to become a line, then a plane, then a tetrahedron and you’ll gain some perspective. Trust me on this one. Your other selves did.

Caesar: I refuse to accept other selves.

Time: They are the possibilities you have ousted. You did that. Get used to it. You think you can square the circle lying there in a puddle of yourself? Stand up, man, form a line. Until then you are both center and circumference. Unless you straighten up beyond this particular singularity, that thing you call “self” to which you stubbornly cling, sweetie love, you will understand nothing, and only nothing.

Caesar: Leave me alone

Time: The point is always alone.

(Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly)

O! father & mother, if buds are nip’d And blossoms blown away, And if the tender plants are strip’d Of their joy in the springing day, By sorrow and care’s dismay, How shall the summer arise in joy, Or the summer fruits appear? Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy, Or bless the mellowing year, When the blasts of winter appear?1:00 am

Eleven. Elf. Sweet eleven. The perfect square lacks corners and look, even the wool came back. Her best merino. So soft, no itch. It is cold in the ground. She knit, I circled, he was our whole world. So dark is destiny. But here, here is something. Not what I tried, but a gift still. Still a gift. No dark ground so cold. He is well, and breathing. Somewhere. Here. Peaceful. Resurrected, though not returned. I see him. I saw him. Curly, dark hair, I saw his face. I saw his face. She knit and I circled. My boy, my boy.

Stars all around suns turn roundabout. Bright midges dance on walls.

Not because more than one unmingled semblance was in the living light on which I looked, for it is always what it was before; But through the sight, that fortified itself in me by looking, one appearance only to me was ever changing as I changed. Within the deep and luminous subsistence of the high light appeared to me three circles, of threefold colour and of one dimension, and by the second seemed the first reflected as Iris is by Iris, and the third seemed fire that equally from both is breathed. 12:50 am

Come on you nasty little devils, I know you’re dripping for a couple of rounds of it, yes? No? Oh yes so here we go. And one two three two two three three two three spin. Yes, now that’s the spirits. Let’s keep it going round round, square dance in circles, the best square lacks corners, and three two three four. Anybody here for there? Wheel whirl twirl simply swirl. And the room wants to cut in. Please, twirl right round baby. Room wind this way we’ll twine that. We’ll do a May pole dance right down the middles three four and turn and one two three. come on in snakes, your turn, and spin your partners right up that pole and fandango. Go for baroque babies, may I touch you? You may touch my, O but lightly! And three two three four and one two three two two two by two three four.

From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.

Swiftly she set out, with joy. But he gave her, stealthily, the honey-sweet berry of the pomegranate to eat, peering around him. He did not want her to stay for all time over there, at the side of her honorable mother, the one with the dark robe.12:28 am

Think back. Remember. I am almosting it. I spent those summer months, the first ones after, with circles and squares. As one would. It’s natural. Look at that circle there. You see it? A reflection of your eye looking at me.  I’ll reflect mine back to you in case you need, no? Fine then. So beautiful your circle. A circle is a circle because it is not a square.  A square is a square because it is not a circle.  The perfect square lacks corners, but I get ahead of myself. But I can’t get ahead of myself, that’s my predicament. Nor can I get behind myself either, damn it. But let’s return to the roundness, the fullness of your circle. All points of your circumference are equal from your center. Such pretty, such sublime perfection. Such infinity. Such simultaneity of number. Ba! Look at that square, now, ugly thing. In front of you, see it? Around where you stare. You should blink more, this is very bad for your eyes holding them open like that. Blink. Now see that ugly square binding your reflection. My reflection back. Corners. Angles. Limited. Linear. Like me. Ba, this has been an unusually fatiguing day. And this day, like any other day is this day now. Here. Now. Endlessly now. Nothing but now, only now forever and always now. I know for you it is different. I see it is different from here. Good Christ you can see it from space, but for me, when I look at myself I see only this and no other then. When? I exist between before and after in a durationless instant, and I unite them. Before and after exist because of me. You exist because of me. But I heard once of a way, a secret way. Closer, I’ll tell you. If the square married the circle, yes? You see it? Forgive the allegorical language but this is top secret understand. If the square married the circle they would mate, yes, and be united. Unified. If the perfect square lacked corners and if the circle had rationality. Think of the implications! Imagine what it could mean! The eternal and the temporal entwining. Infinity plunging into linearity. We can do it. So gently, so carefully. This is virgin territory. The past that was can be caressed into the now. And the future that beckons, we shall be the ones saying come hither sweet little thing you are. Aren’t you curious? Nobody’s looking baby love, we can do it. The cause is sacred. Stop. You don’t agree, do you. You think I’m wasting time. But the quadrature of the circle is all I have left, don’t you see? I live in temporal succession and this compounds my grief. You think it’s so easy to? You. Your center is everywhere and your circumference is nowhere. Ba. When have you ever needed to resurrect anything? Simultaneity. You are nothing. Leave me. Sorrow lives only in linearity; what do you know of my troubles? Now go.

So dark is destiny.

& 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.