Having my way with Ulysses

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

The difficulties of interpretation.

A small cronopio was looking for the key to the street door on the night table, the night table in the bedroom, the bedroom in the house, the house in the street. Here the cronopio paused, for to go into the street, he needed the key to the door.2:06 am

First it happens, then it means something. Rarely, the bolt of lightning will hit one directly (perhaps from a forty five degree angle like a shot off a shovel) and there within the simultaneity of the electrical discharge and the acoustic report you know as it’s going down that this now this is it is this moment (this very instant) that means already in advance and simultaneously what it will come to mean. But really what are the odds of an event and its significance occurring simultaneously? We can’t know all the conditions so there must be some sort of calculable probability. Twenty to one? And this is assuming of course that there is indeed such a thing as simultaneity, but this is no time for parlor games. There is no simultaneity, event and meaning intersect only with lovers, and there is no free will. Oh yes, also: do not risk, do not expect, do not be disappointed, be satisfied, sustain no positive loss, bring positive gain to others. Now, finish carving that on the tablet, make a duplicate to use as light to the gentiles, and bear it down the mountains in your arms, the secret of the race, graven in the language of prediction.

Because he had forgotten and because he remembered that he had reminded himself twice not to forget.

The calendar is intolerable to all wisdom, the horror of all astronomy, and a laughingstock from a mathematician's point of view. 2:01 am

I have devised a stratagem. I cannot wait to tell you because it will be our entry key to a great high mystery the secret of which is found in, oh but shall I jump right in and tell you? To tell or not to tell. Oh where to begin. I must do this properly as my secret is so momentous, so illuminating. Now please quiet down, quiet down. Oh where to begin. Today, on this historic occasion, the feast day of dear Saint Martin I, pope and martyr and sufferer of dysentery (hang in there Marty!) this feast day of Saint Nilus the Elder not the younger who after the birth of his children desperately needed alone time and hey haven’t we all been there, on this feast day of Saint Emilian Cucullatus another of your hermit types, this glorious feast day of Saint Machar Irish emigree to Scotland, so there’s that then, so many memories, so many memories, and let me see, can’t forget old Saint Cunibert today on his feast day who did something or other I cannot recall, and this is feast day of Saint Cumian the Tall good god, how many saints are there? Today, as I said historic occasion, this grand feast day of Saint Livinus head cut off by somebody from the opposite camp, Saint Liafwine, English from Ripon, declared all gods dead but his, and let us not forget Saint Benedict’s day today, murdered by thieves. What’s a monk going to have that thieves want? To murder or not to murder? To steal or not to steal? Today is the feast day also of Saint Anastasius, or is it Astrik? Who remembers? And don’t forget dear Saint Rainerius of Arezzo, what a miracle worker he turned out to be. Today is also St John Della Pace’s feast day, a married hermit somehow, and the feast day of Saint Gabriel of Ancona who had a glorious account of his life drawn up but nobody can remember where to find it. Have you seen it? To look or not to look. And of course this is the feast day of Saint L. Ron Hubbard of the Church of the SubGenius.

Oh I have something big to announce. As we gather here on this the twelfth day of November of the year two thousand and twelve of the common era in the Gregorian calendar counting from the year zero, and for the Julians among us who possess quite a fine calendrical system despite its lacking a year zero we gather here on this the thirtieth day of October in the year two thousand and twelve on a day beginning at midnight. For you astronomers today’s Julian day is 2456243.5 and for you amateur astronomers it is 56243. You both get to start your day at the crack of noon, so that’s quite nice for you then. Ah, sholem aleykhem it is so good to see you all here this twenty seventh day of Heshvan Five thousand seven hundred and seventy three. Mazol tov on that lunar accuracy. To speak of the sun or to speak not of the sun? If you want to be precise, solarly speaking, then we gather here today on this fine Doshanbeh, this glorious twenty second day of Aban of the year one thousand three hundred and ninety one of the Persian calendar but no matter, no matter. Not when This is long count 12.19.19.16.1 1 Calli 1 Tecpatl 4 Cipactli Meztli 18 Cuauhuitlehua. Oh wait, my mistake. That’s Aztec! The Mayans have it as long count 12.19.19.16.1 4 Ceh 4 Imix! Whew! For a minute there things looked a little improved, at least for those of you linearists trying to square the Mayan calendar’s circle. Oh dear, I’ve offended some of you. Please don’t leave. Oh dear. Well, now, there are a few seats for those of you standing in the back! So there’s that then. Yes, where were we. To announce or not to announce? Today, friends we gather here on this Bahá’í Era Day 61598 Perfection, the third day of the week Asthma  (Names,9) of Qudrat (Power) 169BE, 169/13/9 and the tenth Vahid of the first Kull-i-Shay, so Alláh’u’Abhá! and a hearty Assalamu Alilkum Wa Rahmatulah Wa Barakatuh on this Saturday the twenty eighth of Dhu al-Hijjah, 1433 Anno Hegirae. Such a momentous day this fine Sunday November eighth, two thousand and twelve of the International Fixed Calendar; this Monday the twelfth of November 0072 in the year of hafnium in the New Science Calendar. And on this Sunday, Frederic ninth, two hundred and twenty four of the Positivist calendar we gather to hear such a momentous secret I shall tell only to you, on this Sunday of the Yew Moon twenty eighth, of the Moonwise year two thousand and twelve, and a fine Wednesday it is too this 2012 D-54 of the World Season calendar. Did I say Wednesday? I meant Somavara, the twenty first day of Kartika of the year one thousand nine hundred and thirty four of the Indian civil calendar. But for many of you this isn’t a work day, so. No. Today is indeed (to tell or not to tell!) for on this beautiful pre-dawn day one of week forty six of the year two thousand and twelve and day three hundred and seventeen of the same year of the ISO-861 Week and Day and Day of Year Calendar, this Unix time() value 1352678400, this momentous Excel Serial Day number 41225 (39763 for Macintosh), this Sweetmorn day 24 of The Aftermath, YOLD 3178 (augur) of the Discordian calendar, La Prime 1-364-298 of the Galactic Milieu calendar, this Monday Kali 29, 551 (5-0551-11-29) of the Goddess Lunar Calendar and isn’t she looking fine today with that tongue sticking right out there. Yes. Such a good feeling on this, ah, this, ah Onesday, eleven 8, 2012 of the Human calendar, though I’d rather get a good feeling of a little goddess. So difficult to remember. You are devastating. Ah yes. I feel a little sidetracked, a little houri. To remember or not to remember.  Oh my she does look so very blue today this Egyptian Coptic fourth day of Athor, 1729 or is it Hator. Coptic. Ethiopian? Hidar, 4, 2005. Um. What was I saying. To remember or not to remember this Earthday, the third of Aphrodite, 20 of the Millennium Mars Calendar. Aphrodite. Well, now, three’s company. My dear people, gods, goddesses if I can ask you to wait for me in the green room, I regret I must delay my announcement until cycle 78 year 29 (Ren Chen, Dragon) month 9 (Xin Hai, pig or is it Geng Xu? I forget and who cares, two goddesses!) day thirty 4710. Indeed, all things considering, this can wait until The Aftermath 23, CUW of the Jusanotoronian calendar, or rather ruz of Ashtad, mah, Avan 1381 as my dear friend Zarathustra puts it, did you know he invented calendar reckoning? I wonder if Kali knows that? Kali? Aphrodite? Wait for me girls, did you ladies know that today being the

Having reached the end of his tether.

I turned aside Ulysses, although he had longed to journey; who grows used to me seldom departs -- I satisfy him so.1:57 am

Oh I’ve had the bit between my teeth like a knife in the mouth, but now my tongue is severed and I’m free as a god. Yes, yes, another gone. Not that there is anything so free about gods, and certainly not the one Dante chased, those three globes fluxing together, usurping each other. Like smoke. What’s wrong with the three-in-one, you say? It’s dead I say. And they’re full of itself. No, this is a different kind of free, I don’t mean I think I have free will. I’ve not lost all reason, what do you take me for? I’ve changed sirens and this one sings more sweetly. When I listen to her I can see the past and the future and feel atonement with all. I can hear her now. She’ll say show me the edge of the cliff she’ll say. She’ll say you might have to force me a little. I’ll say I might not have a choice. She’ll say i’m willing, but leave me wanting. She’ll say I’m willing, now force me. I’ll say delicious. She’ll say make me wait for mine. She’ll say I’m wearing something you can rip right off of me. I’ll say you’re killing me. She’ll say I’ll be so grateful. She’ll say I’ll beg you on my knees. I’ll say where are you? She’ll say where do you want me? I’ll say oh god where are you? She’ll say follow my voice. She’ll say can you hear me? I’ll say where, here? She’ll say can you feel me? I’ll say where are you? She’ll say follow my voice.

Beware of the steamroller.

The door to suicide is open, but theologians assert that, in the subsequent shadows of the other kingdom, there will I be, waiting for myself. 1:56 am

Our lives are in peril tonight. I know this because look, up close everything is shifting sifting just slightly into newness. Look at yourself, closer, there. Look yourself in the eyes and see that. You are your own deliverance from sin, see it? A different grouping of bones and flesh. Throw your used up old self under the wheels and absolve yourself for lifetimes. Let him crush you like a spider and you’ll walk with the kings of infinite space. Be a body present absent mindedness and chuck yourself under Jagannath’s wheels. Kill yourself: it will do you good.

Simply abounding in immortal numbers.

After that holy soul had, with his silence, showed he was freed from putting in the woof acrose the web whose warp I set for him, I like a man who, doubting, craves for counsel from the one who sees and rightly wills and loves, replied to him: I clearly see, my father, how time is hurrying toward me in order to deal me such a blow as would be most grievous for him who is not set for it.1:55 am

Let’s look at music. No, I said look. Can’t you see music? No? I’ll help you. Good grief who can’t see music? Music finds its reality in time, so how blind must you be never to consider its spatial component? Never mind. I do apologize and I take that back. Some people can’t help being, ah, different. We are all equally special and so on. Perhaps you are only looking in the one place. Sound waves expand in space: you must adjust for that. So, let’s look at music. Here, take my arm and I’ll guide you. You’ll feel like a different person after, trust me. Let’s take a peek at Mozart, or is that too predictable? How about Wagner maybe? or if prefer something a scoach less antisemitic we might spy a little at the Gloria from the Twelfth Mass. I find Catholic music the most geometrically pleasing, don’t you? Much better than what comes out of the opposite shop. Doesn’t really matter, they are all the children of mother matrix and papa pattern, but one does have one’s favorites. Now then. See for yourself the musical notes numbered and grouped into symmetry and written into proportion, now watch when they, yes! No? You didn’t see? They sound aloud together in tessellating patterns. See them? Numbers in proportional bunches running this way, now transposed, now running that way. The woof and the warp: weave weaver of the wind. Peek at the numbers and you’ll see inversions, rotations, reflections flipped vertically or horizontally, even reflections that glide and slide along sideways. Sure there are deviations here and there in the numbers, just to wake us up a little, see if we’re still looking, but look close and you’ll see numbers arranged into self-similarity across scale. Forget your ears. Listen with your eyes! And your body. Wait, what did you say? I can’t allow myself to hear that. Don’t say it. Just don’t. You can’t feel music? Oh honey, you really are special.

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.

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.

Looking back now in a retrospective kind of arrangement all seemed a kind of dream.

I danced over the water, I danced o'er the sea, and all the birds in the air couldn't catch me.1:43 am

It’s all lit up now, but try explaining to people more invested in my marriage than I was, and there were plenty of them, surprisingly. It was the oddest thing. Don’t get me wrong, he was a nice enough guy, just not up to scratch. A diamond in the rough somebody nice said. Yeah, I could see that. Going to be a diamond.

Looking forward in a prospective kind of arrangement I saw sparkling things, an illuminated life filled with art and philosophy. He was a talented musician despite having never heard of mathematics. Well he had three chords and the truth, so that’s all you need baby, that’s all you need. And if you have more than three chords and fewer truths than the truth? Then you still have >=< so that’s ok: it evens out. Well, to be fair, he did often speak the truth, he’d just leave out the jucy parts. And consider. Just think what he could be, given the proper pressure. But without the only effective kind of pressure (of the self inflicted variety) coal lumps don’t turn into diamonds. Natural forces, not artificial, or you end up with a drunk ass cubic zirconia. A drunk ass cubic zirconia is not as good as a lump of coal. And a fine lump of a coal all the same. I liked the lump of coal.

Now let me tell you about being Peruvian, or half so. I can’t tell you much because I don’t know that much about it, but as a half Peruvian and a half Canadian and half Swedish, via half German, who was caught mingling in there with the half Scottish who was half Ulster, and as it turns out not half French (the half German half Swede, not the half Scottish half Ulster) but half Jewish in disguise. Oh yeah and half Dutch in there somewhere. I thought the Swedes and the Germans would be neck in neck, but for the Dutch to pop up was a twenty to one shot at least. So that’s being half American. But only half, the other half’s Peruvian. And types like us: the passionate abandon of the south, casting every shred of decency to the winds, wouldn’t do things by halves. What is the half life of real love existing between married folk supposing another man? Now, I had loosened many a man’s thighs but never when I was in a relationship. Then I was loyal and loving and after the first I’d say two months of sex it settles into lots of god knows what and no sex. In these situations other men, no matter who, take on a what do you call it gossamer quality. See right through them. But. And it’s a big but. No wait, that was the lump of coal. Ha! Sorry. The hemispheres on him! Haha! Just had to. You know. A big butt! Whooo. Let me catch my breath! Oooh. That felt good. When were we? Oh yeah. Butt. I am so trying not to laugh. Butt. Butt butt butt. Ok. Ok. So funny. Butt.

Their two or four eyes conversing.

Others asked such questions as "Why should we care what happens after we are dead" or "If this Rebellion is to happen anyway, what difference does it make whether we work for it or not?"

1:33 am

Scene: [A rabbi and a priest walk into a bar. The rabbi says:]

Rabbi: Where is everybody, are we the first ones here?

Priest: Must be. Good, I wanted to talk with you alone. You and I need to take control of this thing before it bloats to an inmanagable size.

Rabbi: Yes. Our revolution must come on the due instalments plan, if we expect to pull this thing off at all.

Priest: [Turning away from the others who probably and speaks nearer to, so as the others in case they.]  Shush for Christ sake.

The Rabbi: Am I not right?

The Priest: Yes, but this place is all eyes. I don’t want to indulge in any, orthodox as you are.

Rabbi: Right. Of course. Listen. We want to homogenize all faiths yes, but some faiths are, you understand. I mean, all faiths are equal.

Priest: But some faiths are more equal than others.

Rabbi: Indeed. So your plan to raise money, I don’t see it.  How do your people do it? It seems you raise your money on false pretenses, fork it over and you’ll go to heaven. What heaven? Show me heaven.

Priest: The abstract future reward is always more powerful than immediate gain or punishment. Don’t you know that yourself? Heaven, its glories, its boundless bountiful plenitude, the sheer everythingness of the whole concept can take any size, it can stretch to any or no limit, it can fill every space, it can

Rabbi:  Save it for your congregation, father, you can be all their daddies but not mine. Try selling buy now receive later to people who concern themselves with life here and now. I walk in with future reward and say pay money for it, I might as well sell crosses. Mine won’t be the only ones, prepare yourself, and what about the Muslims?

Priest: That’s where self sacrifice for eternal reward will pay off.

Rabbi: Yes, but their temporality, so unpredictable. So branching and forking.  Touch it and it folds up on itself, how do we manage that? Call something a crusade and they feel it like it happened yesterday. And so it did happen yesterday. Bring up any event of any kind and bam, it’s now. We’re in it now. We’ll need a work around.  I’m assuming we’ll want everyone to go linear?

Priest: Makes sense to me. The Hindus are persuadable, but the Buddhists, the Taoists especially.  They’ll make trouble, and that’s not trouble we want.

Rabbi: No.

Priest: No.  To keep linear time we’ll have to speak of other things. Distract them with other issues. Look, we’ll have to say: it’s hard to lay down any hard and fast rules as to right and wrong but room for improvement all round there certainly is. We pose to them that we all resent violence or intolerance.

Rabbi: Yes. It never reaches anything; It never stops anything.

Priest: Never. It’s a patent absurdity on the face of it to hate people because they live round the corner and speak another vernacular.  No. We must be practical.  We must imbue ourselves with the proper spirit.  It will be the only way to create our New Bloomusalem.  By the way, do you like the symbol I came up with?

Rabbi: It’s a little busy. The Hindus might like it. It’s a good job you didn’t add a bleeding saint to it, or we’d never convince the Muslims to get on board.