Having my way with Ulysses

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

Thou art all their daddies.

Thus, were it not miraculous, could I stretch forth my hand and clutch the Sun? Yet thou seest me daily stretch forth my hand and therewith clutch many a thing, and swing it hither and thither. Art thou a grown baby, then, to fancy that the Miracle lies in miles of distance, or in pounds avoirdupois of weight; and not to see that the true inexplicable God-revealing Miracle lies in this, that I can stretch forth my hand at all; that I have free Force to clutch aught therewith?10:49 pm

Congratulations, Theodore, job well done my man. You’ve shown them all, getting on in age and there’s no stopping your popping. Not with you, no way. How did old Zarathustra say it? I can’t remember.  What did he?  I can see him saying it too, like he’s looking right at us right now. It was like. I know. With you it’s its not like with many that would want to and would wait and never do but you did it, baby, you are all their daddies! And off that old woman of yours too. She might be a little calloused around the nipples, what with all the work they’ve done over the years am I right? Oh but you both have outflows in abundance and drink up now little baby, now is the time for drinking!  It’s good milk and sweet and fattening. So here’s to the goddesses of baby popping, and of cherry popping. Now daddy, let’s get ourselves to the bar, what?  As new life reaches for a warm bellyful, let us reach out hands for a cold one.

What of those Godpossibled souls that we nightly impossibilise?

Then̄e quene Igrayne waxid dayly gretter & gretter so it befel after within half a yere as kyng Vther lay by his quene he asked hir by the feith she ouȝt to hym whos was the child within her body. Thēne she sore abasshed to yeue ansuer.10:05 pm

Scene: [An impromptu meeting at the shrine of St. Foutinus.  A statue of St. Foutinus stands erect in an impressively sized bathtub allowing a variety of palmers and bedesmen to pour their wine offerings over his genitalia while those unable to be delivered of their spleen of lustihead leave wax images of their withered members in hopes a redress God grant.  Doesn’t hurt to try.]

Averroes: [Holding a small lump of wax]  What are you doing here?

Moses Maimonides: [The wounds on his face infected in places, pus oozing past stitches] I’m not speaking to you yet.  Hlo Lilith.  Are you allowed to swim in there?

Lilith: [Naked.  Floating on her back in St. Foutinus’ tub.]  Not really.  But Foutinus and I have a little understanding, don’t we darling.

St. Foutinus:  Screech owl!  Night hag!

Lilith:  He’s a little stiff at the moment.  What are you doing here.  Oh, I see.  Sorry.  Averroes, didn’t you have enough wax?

Averroes:  Never you mind! You should get out of there, you could get pregnant that way.

Lilith:  Oh honey, if that’s what you think no wonder you can’t get it up.

Moses Maimonides:  Idiot.

Averroes:  I though you weren’t speaking to me.  Besides it’s true.  St. Ultan bathes in cold water on windy days, just to avoid it.  He’s got enough mouths to feed.

Moses Maimonides:  You just told Lilith she could get pregnant.  Dumbass.  Don’t you know who she is?  She is the inception of termination.  She is the eraser of mistakes.  She is the darkness at the end of the tunnel, the reliever of stomach bloat and frequent urination, the great evacuator.  She’s what’s between a woman and her doctor.  She takes care of it.  She is the saver of the mother’s life!  Might as well tell her the wind will get her pregnant.

Lilith:  Oh is Zephyrus here?  He blows both ways you know.

Moses Maimonides:  [After a pregnant pause] Does he?

Averroes:  [Dissembling, as his wont was] My apologies Lilith, but what are you doing bathing in there?  That vinegar cures barrenness!

St Foutinus:  Vampire! I smell your reek of moonflower!

Lilith:  Just making my monthly contribution, drum up a little business.  Benefits everybody you know.  She who stealeth from the poor, lendeth to the Lord.

Averroes:  Who was it who said that?

Seems a long way off.

The strain on the mind is formidable; the element of time drops out of one's consciousness altogether: the building hand gropes for a pawn in the box, holds it, while the mind still ponders the need for a foil or a stopgap, and when the fist opens, a whole hour, perhaps, has gone by, has burned to ashes in the incandescent cerebration of the schemer. The chessboard before him is a magnetic field, a system of stresses and abysses, a starry firmament.

No-one is anything.  I am a ghost.  Well, I haven’t died yet, no need to look at me as if my mind is off in some happy hunting ground somewhere.  I mean I have moved to an atemporal state without ever having died.  This is not resurrection, not metempsychosis.  I have translated.  You’ve done this too, occasionally.  You’ve lost track of time, before, yes?  That can happen when your world speeds up, when so much is happening that the whirlwind around you speeds time forward until you say you were so busy, had so much fun, were so distracted with it all, there was so much, so much, that time took flight.  This is not translation.  Translation comes from a deliberate slowness.  A stretching of the nothingness between full moments.  A pulling apart of discreet events until you inhabit the eventlessness between.  Time cannot reach you there.  Try it again, you’ve done it before.  You might make it happen for short spaces of time, short times of space with practice.  Like a muscle, the more you use it, the more supple, the more pliant.  Begin by cultivating your vision.  Practice seeing without seeing:  use your unseeing eye.  It helps to develop an idée fixe.  Find something with symbolic power.  For me it is chess.  Ah chess.  It contains the entire universe.  All of being and non-being, ever facet of the soul and the spaces between the facets beautifully composed onto 64 white and black squares.  I found chess in America.  I went after an American war to purchase land cheap, thinking I would grow cotton.  Instead I grew peaches.  Peach trees need little care.  Plant them, they blossom, then they grow.  Then peaches.  All they ask is we permit their becoming by staying clear of their being.  Then one harvest and endless solitude.  While my trees grew in Alabama I went to Atlanta and played chess.  The beauty, the harmony, of Zarathustra’s great invention!  In chess our adversaries move according to our moves, and we to them.  We form a helix coiling in a beautiful deadly dance, a rhythm of infinite possibilities.  64 squares, 8 X 8, infinity times infinity.  8 is the number of judgement.  And 64, 6+4=10, the perfect number.  The first triangular number to have a center, and the only one whose center is half of its total.  Balance.  GOD MEND THINE EVERY FLAW!  A onelegged sailor with an idée fixe crutched angrily, translating himself from the sidewalk into a jagged alley.  CONFIRM THY SOUL IN SELF CONTROL!  Symmetry.  The number of the soul.  10 represents the wheel of destiny and of retribution.  This is the number that governs returns, reincarnation, transmigration, metempsychosis, and most especially translation.  Judgement in delicious tango with destiny.  Ponder it, hang your gaze over a chessboard, and you can translate into a ghostbright existence where nothing is wanting, nothing is required, and the only fear is the hell of dreaded stalemate.  And the joy!  The joy of creation!  Each game a new universe.  Each chess problem (oh the composition of chess problems!) a microcosm of temporal harmony.  Each piece on the board a representative of stillness and force.  I left America, and the glorious atemporality I found there, to become a politician in support of my younger brother.  I was his pawn in a greater cause.  We are all pawns in a greater cause.  Just what is the cause, well that is not the pawn’s business.  Pawn’s have to earn their power, to kill, to rule as Queen; that is the glory of being a pawn.  Most remain powerless.  We serve our purpose quietly, in a waking sleep, then translate to the side to await our next use.  The halls of government contain chess rooms and in my political service to my brother I played chess.  I spoke on record 13 times in five years.  My brother hated and feared the number 13 although I found it immensely satisfying to open my mouth and make 13 utterances, speak questions I didn’t care to have answered, and then stop altogether.  I played chess.  I play chess.  I thought to master it and instead learned that my salvation, my translation to the infinite, comes when chess masters me.  Elijah is coming!  Elijah, a crumpled throwaway, sails closer to the three masters, bound to its translation.

Thus Spake Zaraϑuštra

Also Spuke Zerothruster.9:39 am

Who am I?  So many have told of me and have spoken with my mouth.  They say I invented magic and then poof! I made astrology appear.  With that I gained the foreknowledge of truth that diligent stargazing affords the patient.  But those who lived my life didn’t stop there, oh no, not when it was relentlessly clear that I had invented truth itself.  Believe me.  That’s when my magic, they tell me, turned to the black variety and I became fearsome.  Those closest loved me, especially for the words they said with my voice.  He that stealeth from the poor lendeth to the lord.  I became for some a prophet of God!  Imagine that.  Nietzsche even said that the priests, those poets of the Veda, were unfit to unfasten my sandals.  Of course I too was a Vedic Priest.  As I understand, in that capacity I wrote millions and millions of lines of verse.  To give myself enough time for such a task, I invented the week.  You’re welcome.  And born from necessity, I invented hieroglyphics; I used them to hide my invention of Alchemy.  Well to speak the truth that element of my curriculum vitae never quite stuck; Those who move Hermes Trismegistus’ mouth had that particular market cornered.  Better PR.  In my later career I denied to oblivion many deities so I could invent a singular monotheistic morality.  Then Nietzsche used my voice to deny morality in favor of truth, my prior invention.  Ay me.  Well, what could I do?  My life is an accomplishment of others.  Rather grand and famous others too, I might add.  I was the teacher of Pythagoras, they say.  Plato liked the words in my mouth so much that he passed them off as his own.  Excuse me, Socrates’ own.  I was even Yeats’ pen pal!  There’s a laugh to rival the one I had on the day I was born.  My head came out pulsating and there I was, infant tiny thing giggling away.  To my mother’s horror my head could repel the touch of a hand.  You can’t touch this.  Oh a unique birth to be sure.  And rather an unnatural death as well.  I’m rather proud of this one.  By the time of my doom people were calling me a living star.  Can you imagine?  Me, a star!  So how does a star die?  I was murdered by another star.  Was it really a meteor?  Maybe lightning?  You’re asking me?  You show me what’s real.  I wouldn’t know, I wasn’t there.