The Subversive Apple

I Sat on a Tire

2006-04-06T17:58:00.000-07:00

I should like to think our fair nation past the dark times of racist name-slinging, yet not a day passes where my ears are left unassailed by horrible slurs. Exclamations of Black, Yellow, and White, these painful paint-filled balloons, splatter across my ears as I scamper across the schoolyard. Must we be so blind to the destructive nature of such verbal atrocities? Therefore, I propose nothing less than the complete overhaul of our current backwards argot – we must pull ourselves up from the dark pit of intolerance so that we may see the radiant sun of well-thought-out racial labeling.
As Plato once allegorized, I must now re-descend into the cave of ignorance, so that I may communicate with the helf-blind populous, that is, my primitive readers. As the USA consists mainly of “White” and “Black” people (I shudder to even write such slurs), I will address these two races respectively in my appeal for language reform.
“White” is associated with an absence of color, a void, a nothingness, and I for one am appalled to be addressed as an empty person, as if culture and heritage were only inherent with darker skin tones. Why, it is well known that people of my color have been very crucial and influential proponents in the course of history – the Crusades, the colonization of Africa and North America, the invention of mayonnaise…we were behind it all. Does our race therefore not perhaps merit a name of higher esteem? “Anglo-Saxon-American” would have been nice, but I fear our darker-skinned brothers may somewhat muddle it with the name for their indigenous instrument which so often graces the ear with soft blue notes via the talented hands of players such as Dizzy Gillespie. Also accounting for the fact that people of my color exist outside the USA, or have moved into the USA, or have parents from a foreign country, I propose that we preface our race with the dual-mention of both parents’ motherlands, followed by our prestigious racial title: Anglo-Descenders, or in our case, American-Anglo-Descenders. As it is common knowledge that people of my color originated in England, one would find it hard to mistake such a specific name for another. For example, I am an American-Anglo-American-Anglo-Descender, as my father was born in England, and my mother in Chicago. An individual whose parents were both from the USA would be an American-American-American-Anglo-Descender, or rather an “Americubed” (trust me, the name will catch on), the cube, incidentally, being the shape of perfection. Anyone who cannot see the clarity and accuracy of this label is obviously an old conservative Americubed who wishes to vandalize the beautiful face of my political correction.
Allow me to use the mention of vandalism to segue to my proposal for the name of our darker-skinned country-sharers. I have it on the authority of a friend who overheard a pigmently-gifted man in the subway claim that Africa has problems with poverty, famine, and disease on a daily basis. Were I such a man, I would think it rather degrading for the name of my race (“African-American) to entail such negative presences, and therefore, in an effort of civility I humbly submit a new proud banner for all darker-skinned persons to wear proudly: “Deep-South Europeans.” Indeed, the name is apt, as Africa does lie far south of Europe. Thus, instead of greedily hoarding away all of Europe’s rich culture and pride, I propose we share our paternal continent with our brothers; they are still allowed to reference their motherland, but avoid the awkward and uncomfortable mention of its myriad faults by speaking in relation to our upright and civilized continent. The “B-word” will also thankfully become obsolete, and I give my readers credit in assuming that I am not required to elaborate on the dark and insidious connotations of such a horrid color. A fellow reformer and friend of mine suggested to me that one should have their baby tarred as appropriate punishment for such a linguistic abomination. Thus, a badge of shame will be worn upon all racists in the form of their very own tar-babies. I have presented for you, my spongy readers, the very essence of my creative juices, in the optimistic hope of absorption. To both Americubes and Deep-South Europeans alike, I bid you adieu, and raise my glass to a bright future, free from our old-world and obsolete racial names.

Alphabeta - First Day Or So

2006-04-01T21:01:00.000-08:00

I like letters. Thought I'd give some observations on them.

L, S, T, C, V - These are the sensual letters, the letters of sex.
-L causes the tongue to flick in and out, run over the front of the top teeth, and champions emotion in the Alphabet.
-S represents the long release of pleasure, or the seduction of overemphasized sound, as, next to N, it is the longest letter to pronounce.
-T comes from the teasing pop of the tongue, a little puff of air (usually released following S, truncating the long sigh)
-C itself is only included as a sensual letter when it produces the K sound (see all examples below), and frequently precedes K regardless. C itself is an innocent letter (candy, childhood, cry, cringe), but turns sexual when pronounced differently.
-V is a gutteral hum, produced when the top teeth playfully bite down on the bottom lip, and is released with excessive pressure
*Note that P is not included, despite the obvious and crucial example of "penis." P is too tart of a letter, too prim and proper, and does not see itself as sexual, but rather awkwardly forces itself out at times while trying to remain dignified in the presence of other sexual letters. N, additionally (although used many times in the following examples), connotes an opposition, a void, and is too sobering to be considered "sensual."
Examples: lust, love, clit, cervix, slut, lipstick, clandestine, vaginal, voluptuous, thrust, cunt, stick, suck, valentines, slave, lick

Mope

2006-02-26T20:11:00.000-08:00

Metaphor for Wurthering Heights.
Check it.

-The Glass Blower-

The molten lake stirs and riglets
settle around the hollow and
dripping
beam
as his hot neck sticks to his shirt,
and he licks his crackling lips
with a fire pop and hiss.

Breathe

And the sap bears itself
a new form, shaped around
his amorous words
carried on
puffs
of air
leaving it equally empty.

He shakes his furrowed head,
for the single
beautiful
moment
that he gives the first breath
is gone.

Set aside,
the piece gives a sharp cry
when placed upon the brick,
already rigid,
already forever,
already too delicate for him to touch.

A true champagne-glass frame.

Eve

2005-12-24T15:24:00.000-08:00

The sun sets early in the wintertime. Just when we need the warmth most, it is given sparingly. A body with a day job would harldy feel true sunlight on the skin. It's just as well, though. The the sun is only beautiful in birth and death. Who cares for its lifetime? Born on a cushion of nascent pink clouds, it arcs ever-higher in hopes of snapping its umbilical cord from Mother Earth. But it is not to be. It sweeps downward to the opposite horizon, spouting its mortal purples and red.

The rubber soles of my slippers tapped lightly on the concrete walkway, accompanied by the muted clicks of my companion's nails. It was 6:13 in the afternoon, yet the night sky had already smothered the sun. We came to a street corner. The white street lamp hummed directly overhead. Not a car or body in the night air.

My dog sat, complacent with the silence, on the grass bordering the street.

So this is Christmas Eve.

Everyone is snug, nestled, burrowed in their respective homes, next to their warm hearths, the scent of transplanted pine filling the air.

I would hate to be homeless. I blinand I see two spotlights in the distance and they disappear and reappear as the front of the car is jostled by the paved landscape and the car rushes by the two observers and sounds much louder than it really is and vanishes over the hill. Exhale. The moment is over. A Car disturbed the transparent gel surrounding my scene. Homeward.

Will it come again?

"Candide" Extra

2005-12-03T08:01:00.000-08:00

[Ce chapitre se passe avant le fin du livre, après deux ans de « travailler sur le jardin »]
Alors le travail du jardin continuait. Les jours devenaient des semaines, des semaines aux mois, des mois aux ans. Candide était tellement étonné de voir comme sa laide (il avait accepte cette fait après un an) Cunégonde avait change pendant ces deux ans. Elle avait bronze en travaillant au dehors, et avait perdu la plupart de sa grasse (comme tous les autres) en seulement mangeant des légumes et des fruits qu’ils cultivaient. –Il faut prendre des vacances quelque part, dit Candide, Pour que je peux montrer ma belle Cunégonde au monde !
Martin avait écouté le capitane jésuite parle d’une ville étrange et incroyable, qui se trouve a l’autre cote du monde, appelé «San Francisco». –Si elle est si loin, elle doit être comme un autre El Dorado, Candide a remarque. Alors, après une longe voyage de bateau, ils sont arrives a un port américain. –Les personnes ici sont vraiment bizarres, dit Pangloss, en voyant deux hommes qui tenaient les mains et portaient des shorts courts.
On pouvait écouter des explosions de musique et des cries joyeuses venaient de la rue prochaine, et le groupe a décide d’y aller. –Quelle spectacle miraculeuse! remarquait Cunégonde. La rue était plein des hommes et des femmes souriant, s’habillaient dans les vêtements de tous les couleurs de l’arc-en-ciel. La musique venait des chars énormes, façonnés comme des animaux, des planètes, des fruits…
-Mais que signifie ce parole écrivé sur tous ces panneaux et bannières? Qu’est ce que c’est «Gay Pride» ? demandait Candide. Pangloss, ayant appris (en deux semaines a l’Angleterre) la langue anglais, était plus de content d’aider cet européen perdu. –O mon naïf Candide, dit Pangloss, «Gay» signifie «Content»! Alors ces gens-ci célèbrent la bonté et le bonheur qu’ils ont trouvés dans la vie! –Je pense qu’il aiderait la situation en Europe si nous y’avions des fêtes comme celles-ci, Candide a remarqué.
Une femme dans la foule, écoutant (apparemment) sa langue natale, a approché les six. –Eh bien! Des autres européens! elle a dit, D’où venez-vous? Moi, j’avais habité ici depuis 10 ans, et ce sera mon dixième défilé! De plus en plus personnes viennent chaque année; c’est bon de voir que plus d’autres nous acceptent maintenant.
-Mais pourquoi est-ce que quelqu’un n’accepterait pas des gens «gay»? Candide a demandé. J’aurais pensé que la seule chose dont le monde a besoin est plus de personnes comme vous. C’est une monde épouvantable ou personne ne veut l’autre d’être content avec sa vie.
La femme a fait un signe de tête en accord. –Cependant le secret, elle a remarquait en faisant une geste a un grand homard qui passait, couverte des gens souriant, est en réalisant que la bonheur n’existe que dans toi-même. On ne peut pas compter sur les autres de donner l’approbation tous les temps, alors il faut être le bon qu tu veux voir dans ta vie. Martin a ronchonné quelque chose inaudible a soi-même, et Pangloss pleuvait en admiration. –Alors, dit Candide, cherchons notre propre bon. Et avec ça, la groupe se dispersait dans la foule, les seules personnes qui portaient le gris et le noir dans ce mer de couleur.

Lean On

2005-08-10T14:59:00.000-07:00

The blood runs down my upper lip and is channeled into the corner of my mouth. I taste iron. I close my eyes and fill myself with air; a full balloon bracing for the next impact. It happens to land beneath my lowest ribs, in the area of the appendix.
I had mine removed long ago; it collapsed beneath a blow much like the one I just recieved, and I would have died, but for the compassion of my attacker. That also made me feel good. In a way, getting beaten up once a month is about the most selfish thing I do.
This month, I hate gay people. Last month it was poor people, and the one before...I can't quite remember...I might have been a White Supremist...I'm not quite sure. In any case, it all ends up with me getting the crap kicked out of myself.
I'm a humanitarian at heart, really. No one is born evil, and upbringings are irrelevant as far as how one turns out when they grow up. I think so, at least.
It's strange to see the kinds of people who hit me. I've never been happier than when a young Jewish boy of five or six glared at me when I donned my swastika t-shirt. His glare will be unflinching when he becomes an adult.
Knowing things like this is my comfort net; the world is growing to find hate groups unacceptable. The stronger the resistance, the greater the bliss. Get your nose broken, and add a notch to your tally of people who will not allow slavery or the Holocaust to happen again.
As I collaspe to the ground, seeing my attacker with jaw squared and fists clenched, I spit a small gob of blood onto the concrete next to me, and say "Thank you." I black out with a grin of my red face.

Normalcy

2005-07-22T00:08:00.000-07:00

The year was 2002 when we got the call from the Russians. By “we” I mean our government, of course. It’s kind of funny to imagine the Russians, you know, punching in the speed dial number for the President, twirling the phone cord around their finger while the listening to our phone ring.
The Russians wanted us to give them 50 billions dollars, and they would refrain from dropping a nuclear weapon on one of our major cities. What was strange, however, is that the Russians did not give us a deadline to collect their money. There was no due date, no ultimatum, no Judgment Day. This is a new concept in the world of threats and ransoms, for what is a threat if push never comes to shove?
This is where things got interesting; actually, things became uninteresting again.
I hear the Army has these planes that can be flown by computers alone, and they can’t be seen by radar, and they are really quiet when they fly, and they use this special kind of fuel that doesn’t pollute the air so much. They cost around 100 billion dollars each to build. I don’t know if this is true. It’s just something I heard.
So we did nothing. Well, of course people fled the major cities. All around the country people shifted. No matter where you lived, that’s where the bomb was going to hit. I didn’t get it. I figured the chances were the same no matter where you were at any time. It took about two years of nothing happening for the mass pilgrimages to start. Everyone just kind of crept back into their original hole, their wide eyes still glued to the sky.
“The Scare” (as the whole bomb deal came to be called) passed from one President to another. No one did anything about it. No one talked about it. People were barbecuing in their backyards.
And then our world was shattered. New York City was leveled June 1st, 2013. I think everyone knew that it was the target all along. The populous city, the elitist city, the always-downtown city. Everyone was furious. We all knew about the whole “unlimited time” thing. I guess eleven years is forever to some people. The President was impeached, and tried for crimes against humanity and neglecting to protect civilian life. He was given a lethal injection not two weeks after the incident.
It doesn’t make sense to me. Is this fair? Please tell me.

Too Long

2005-06-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

Raymond was overjoyed. It was the quiet kind of happiness, the kind thrived best when it was contained within one's self, a little self-sustaining ball of bliss. As his plane touched down, he gazed out at the endless sands surrounding the black strip of runway; the skin of the world with a lash across its back.
He gently nudged his sleeping wife awake. The two were visiting the wife's parents in Tanzania. She had graduated from her prepatory school with highest honors in math and science, and it was for this reason that her teachers had reccomended that she apply for college in the United States. Her parents fortunately had the financial means to send her to an excellent public college on the Eastern coast, so that she could be as close as possible.
The heat was soft on Raymond's skin as he stepped from the aircraft, gently easing down each of his goosebumps that dotted his skin like a fabric pattern. His wife ran to her parents, hugging them both deeply as they each kissed her cheek, now wet with tears. It had been years; it had been too long.
The village the wife's parents lived in was quite untouched by the modern world, and it was a two-hour ride from the airport to the village. The purity of it all struck Raymond as they entered the wooden threshold of the parent's home. He felt clean, stripped down to his bear essentials...
As he walked through the village market, with its pungent smell of fruit, soft noise of sand crunching underfoot, and the Tanzanian language floating through the air, its intonations like the beat of drums, Rayomond realized that he had never felt so at home. "This is where my people came from" he thought to himself. Raymond had, however, been brought up in a suburb of Chicago.
Passing by a fruit stand, Raymond saw a white man arguing with the shopkeeper. His loud hawaiian shirt broadcasted his tourist title almost as loudly as he was yelling at the blindsighted seller of fruit. Raymond decided to intervene.
"What's goin' on here?" Raymond demanded, looking down into the squat figure of the white complainer.
"This man sold me some rotten fruit, and I want my money back."
"Give this po' guy a break! I cain't believe you'd give this guy trouble when y'could buy his who' stand with one a yo' American bills."
The man, obviously not in the mood for an argument he could lose, licked his lips and walked away, dropping the mangoes at his feet. Raymond nodded to the shopkeeper. "Don' let people like that trouble ya. They shouldn' be here anyways." The shopkeeper smiled uneasily in response, and in frangmented English replied "I thank you, mister."
"Ain't no thing. Us niggaz gotta stick t'gether anyways, right?" Raymond smiled, and walked away, quite happy of the help he had provided.
That night, the shopkeeper closed up his stand, took the remaining produce, and carried it home in a sack slung over his bony shoulder. He arrived and unloaded the various exotic fruits on his family's wooden table creating a centerpiece saturated in color, as if a pastel set had vomited in the center of the dining room.
As his mother and father were slicing the peeling the bananas, the boy asked the question that had been on his mind all day.
"Mother, Father, what does "nigga" mean? Because apparently I am one."

Crush

2005-05-24T16:10:00.000-07:00

I ask that you now snap your mind out clean, like a freshly-dried sheet, and spread it out as a canvas. I am going to paint a picture of a prison for you. My prison. There is a room where every surface is reflective and every edge is sharp and exact. Efficiency is demanded by it, in every action taken from the moment of entrance. I don’t know what will happen if something goes wrong. Probably nothing. I like to keep everything at right angles, though, just in case something does. Then, at least, I’d have my neatness to fall back on.
As I split the head in two, I can hear a soothing crunch. I have to slice it several more times before it is in nice small bites. The lettuce then goes into a bowl. I am fixing myself a salad. No one else ever asks for salads, or fruit, and rarely bread. Rapists ask for meat. Murderers ask for the most expensive meal possible, though (much to my satisfaction) oftentimes their requests are denied.
What upsets me is that the psychotic crimials, the lunatic fringe of the lunatic fringe, do not even get meal requests. They are given a carton of milk, chicken, peas, and a fruit cup. Disgusting. Their mind is so beyond what we could comprehend...it would be like playing chess against someone who does not know or care about the value of each piece. My game is ruined. They always ruin the best part of the game.
No one will ever understand the satisfaction of reading an especially decadent meal, an admission and submission to sin. Ordering the least healthy and most tantalizing dishes is all but a capitulation to their despair. No one hopes or thinks they will live once they have sat down to their last meal. They are intent upon using what little freedom they have left, and flouting it in the face of society and G-d. Everything bad for the soul has been done; the body must follow suit.
Around here nobody knows where their food came from. I wish they would just try and critique it...try to touch me. My transcendence would level them. I am the person who asked for nothing and will recieve nothing. I am the blinking spirit.

Mike Check 1 2 1 2

2005-04-24T19:20:00.000-07:00

Humans are made entirely out of food. Nothing else. Really - give me an example of how this is false and I will give you...a dollar. No, two dollars! I forget who it was that said "you are what you eat," but from that it can be inferred that we are all just food. Nothing more, not the special creations of G-d, not the apparent rulers of nature and the planet, just food. Cannibals aren't even human, because even though they eat humans, what they're really eating is food in human form.
Is there anything that we consider food that isn't living, or part of a living thing? I'm hard pressed to find an example. Every time we bite into something, roll it around on our tongue, push it out from inbetween our teeth, we are effectively ending a life.
I am the Lorax. I'm speaking for things with no tongues. I don't even know why, though. The only thing wrong with eating food is that it makes more humans, not that it's bad for the food necessarily, or its posterity. There is no correct path that one can take. Eat or don't. Either way something ends up dying. Does dying replenish life moreso? One dead caterpillar will play host to hundreds of fly larvae, is the death therefore justified? Is it not, in fact, beneficial? Is more life better, regardless of what is living?
The above is me plus four cups of Passover wine (sweet as soda, tasty as ass). Pretty fun holiday, if you ask me. Now I just need to find something to eat for the next week that doesn't have any corn syrup in it...lucky me.

A Pack

2005-04-16T15:37:00.000-07:00

Running is a primal action. Only animals who need to get away from something run. These animals are not in control of the environment that surrounds them. They live on the land, but they cannot call the land their home, because it is not theirs.
People are becoming less and less in control of their lives. More people are running. Running to catch a taxi, to get to work on time, to deliver a pizza, to be the first ones in line for a new game. These ideas and possessions are making them run. They are being threatened by their reprocussions.
At a track practice several days ago I saw this mentality take over. We were doing "pack running", in which every member is meant to keep up with the group overall, no stragglers left behind, no rabbits ahead. We came to a hill. Half-ascended, lactic acid flowing through our calves, people began breathing heavily. When one falls behind, the others call to them, saying to keep up, that they can do it, but as soon as they start to catch up, the pace subtly quickens. No one says a word, but everyone feels it.
In races there are intangible barriers called "walls" that feel quite real. When you "hit your wall", you feel a very dense weight drop into your stomach. Your legs go numb, your knees buckle, and each breath is one of fire. People seem to pass you in slow motion as your vision washes in waves of focused and blurred images. Walls are awful things.
I'm pretty sure the other runners can see your walls. They can see you hit their cemented bricks, cracking their mortar, carrying on, but weakened from the loss of momentum. Everyone around you speeds up when you hit a wall. It's not because you go that much slower, it's because they can smell the blood in the water. You are a bleeding seal and they are the shark. It is only a matter of time before you are eaten up.
Well, I gotta run, my television show is about to start.
-apo

Clean (wait...this isn't clean at all!)

2005-04-13T10:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday afternoon. Gorgeous. The air is hot without being humid. Everything is coated with a thin dusting of yellow pollen. I've absolutely nothing to do.

A ring of the phone snaps me out of my stupor. "We're going to Jordan Lake. Get a towel and wait outside."

Water bottle and towel in hand, I wait in the breezy air.

A green car arrives. I open the door and step in. The drive lasts for around half and hour. My friend has "remembered" an unmarked path leading to the lake that he used to visit with his family. Into the woods we go, ready to take a tepid dip without screaming babies around.

The path leads us past what appears to be a bog, and then channels into a large clearing. In this clearing, there are several men in their mid-to-late forties, none of them wearing shirts. Upon our entrace, they suddenly ceased all motion, deer caught in the headlights of our presence.

Alright we think, These guys just wanted to come here, get drunk, and take a nap in the sun. We decide that the beach is nice enough, and we are ready to set up when one of them panders over to us, and tells us that there's a "much nicer" beach further down the trail. "Do you mind if I show it to you?" he tells, more than asks. We follow obligingly, while keeping note of the man's odd positioning of his hand halfway inside his pocket, as if grasping something. He's got a knife. Niiiiice one, guys.

"What's nice about this beach," he turns his head slightly to the side as he speaks, "Is that you can't see or hear the road from here." Excellent...that doesn't sound suspicious. As we walk, we start to pass by strips of thin grass, which I can't help but compare to potential burial sites on the lakeshore. The spongy earth is dotted with yellow daffodils, which remind me of the ones planted alongside my home. Will I see them again? I think to myself, chuckling at how ridiculous I am sounding.

"Well, here we are." We arrive at our "better beach", which consists of some damp, rooty soil and a 2 foot clay dropoff into the water. Pollen from the air has collected on its surface, concentrating to form a yellow soup skin right over our entrance point. An overturned tree, its roots extending into the murky lake, completes our collective thought that this beach is terrible, and the guy is going to gut us like some fish.

Out of his pocket he draws a waterbottle. We breathe deeply. He looks over our area, confirming his previous statement, and leaves us without a word. One of us keeps his shoes on, in case the man comes back.

My friend produces a pack of cards. We start to play, not actually looking at our hands but at the path leading back to the other beach. The other beach which can be seen from the road. My friend spies another man walking towards us, down the path. We say nothing. Neither does he, and he passes without incident. More men come and pass us, all wearing dark glasses, all without their shirts on. My friend has meanwhile pointed out that there is a man atop the hill bordering our "beach" watching us. His face is that of a groundhog who has poked up out of his hole, gazing intently at us, and nothing else.

More cards. More men. Complete silence. We are strangely relieved when our original "tour guide" (his name was Barry, or Berry, by the way) strolls on back to our beach and starts to make small talk. He pulls out the line "I'm a vegetable, I mean...I grow vegetables around two miles from here." twice in about as many minutes. Quite uncomfortable. It really is.

We decide that since he probably isn't going to stab us, we should ask what was going on. "Do you want to hear the truth?" he says, one eyebrow raised in mirth at our ignorance. "Alot of gay guys come down here, do alot of nude sunbathing, hang out, have some pretty wild parties." Another round of Niiiiiiiiiiiiiice choice, guys runs through our minds. "The sunsets are really beautiful right here, what with the reflection off of the water'n all. Are you guys staying long?" Feeling intrusive, my friend quickly checks his imaginary watch and says "Woah...5:15...it's kinda late, we'd better go now."

And with that, we set the world record for packing up four people's worth of camping gear. "If you guys don't tell any of your friends about this place, I would really appreciate it. But since you guys know the place, you're welcome to come back and, like, campout here in the future, if you want." Barry lightly suggests.

"Sure." I say a bit too enthusiastically, looking at my friends biting their lips to keep from laughing. We stride back on out through the way we were led in, past the man/gopher on the hill, past the large field of shirtless men, and, as a coup de gras, an enormous man in tight cutoff jean shorts strolling back the other way.

We reach the car, get in, and no one says a word.

Then everyone laughs until tears come.

"I wonder if the guys who walked past us were checking to see if we were "down"." my friend comments. I wonder, too. I wonder what the chances of selecting THE ONE beach around the entire lake where we weren't welcome (or a bit too welcome).

Good Sunday.

Bad Barry.

That night I have a nightmare of the man in the jean shorts chasing me through the woods, screaming "I'M GONNA FUCK YOU!". I don't think he caught me, though.

Clean

2005-04-12T08:54:00.000-07:00

When many people dance together, they become one creature. Each part seems to pulse and stretch of its own accord, but all sections can be matched against the music playing the in the background. Occasionally a ring forms inside, and a few individuals become their own unique creature for the moment of their private dance, separated from the mass in tangible and imperceptible forms. They always come back to the creature, though. They have to, or it will simply engulf them. The only honor is in stopping one's own dance.

Is this correct? No.

Without the individual dancers, there would be no music to dance to. They created the rhythm for everyone else to dance to. Why stop their dance? Promote it! Play no music in the background at the next one, and check for those who dance regardless. They make the music. And new music is what dancing is all about.

O.o Objectivism...scary stuff...

So

2005-04-04T02:03:00.000-07:00

'Every animal' he said at last
'After intercourse is sad'
But the back-row lovers
looked oblivious
and glad. -L. Ferlinghetti
Too true.

Two children were building a birdhouse. It was very nice to look at, with its fresh coats of paint and square, smooth wooden frame. It even had a perch on which the birds could stand outside and feed on the seed they had provided. The only thing the birdhouse needed was a roof. "No problem," said the boy, "We'll build it tomorrow, and then it will look perfect."
However, that night two birds came and built a nest inside the children's birdhouse. The sticks and twigs they warped in order to build it stratched the smooth wooden sufaces and shiny coats of paint that the children had only just applied. When the children came out the next day, they saw the marks the nest had created, and the loose stands of grass that blew in the wind and streamed out the hole in the front of the birdhouse clashed with the it's uniformity and clean-cut build.
"But the birdhouse isn't ready!" exclaimed the girl. "This won't do."
"Well, we can just take the birds out, build a roof, and when we made it all nice again then the birds will come back." the boy suggested. "They can wait. After all, we're giving them a home, aren't we?"
So the girl reached in, snatched up the nest and the two eggs laid therein, and placed it neatly on the ground beside the birdhouse stand. When the two birds came back, they were shocked to find their nest in such a dangerous location, but they couldn't move the eggs, so they would have to raise them on the ground.
The next night, a fox came. Careful to hush the crush of leaves underfoot, he cept up upon the sleeping family-to-be. He devoured the mother and her two eggs, the father barely escaping with his life. He found a new mate, but never returned to the birdhouse the children had built with such caution and care.
A week went by. "Where are the birds? Are they coming back?" asked the girl haughtily.
"Birds are stupid. If they would rather live in the outdoors than in our birdhouse, well...they don't deserve to live in it at all!"
And with that, the birdhouse was crushed.

This ^ is why abortion should never be allowed.

And

2005-04-02T18:26:00.000-08:00

I was in England for the past week.
There was a man on my flight, certainly above 7 feet tall. He carried a single backpack, and wore a blazer over his t-shirt. I wondered if people had stared at him alot. I wished that they didn't.
The security officer in customs asked him how long he would be staying. One month or so he said. Then he wandered off, and I thought that I would never see him again. When, a week later, I was seated on my return flight home, I noticed that he was just across the aisle from me. I wondered why he came back so early. I wondered what made him leave. I wanted to speak to him, but realized that it would be an awkward (and probably superficial) conversation. I noted that he was reading a book called "A Grain of Wheat". I made a mental note of the title, and promised myself that I would read it when I got home. When we came back through customs he was in the line in front of me. I kept hoping that no one would comment (however privately) about his height. It seemed as if it would ruin the experience for me, as if his staggering stature was a secret all to myself, only to be revealed to others upon the uttering of a mere remark.
I am now back home.
I have a book sitting in front of me. It is called "A Grain of Wheat". I am almost worried to open the book, worried that it will let me down, that it will just be another couple of hollow pages, that the tall man with the blazer was simply that, and nothing more. But what if the book changes my life? What if I see this man again, and I can thank him for recommending the best book I've ever read, and how funny it was that etc etc...
I'll read it. There are many other tall people on the Earth in case this one turns out average.

Fresh

2005-03-22T16:34:00.000-08:00

You know, it is sad, really. You think you have something to say, and then realize that it isn't worth the energy it takes to tap the keys.

Why has it come to the point where we associate "I love you" with a parting? The phrase depresses me. People only half-heartedly chime it in when they are looking back over their shoulder, strolling away from your transfixed figure. They never say it when you see them again, or when you are cooking pasta at 2 in the morning.

Pasta is alright, in itself. It loves you even when you're eating it, because that's just the way pasta is.

-apo