Loop this; Ima drink wine and listen to him all night...

Once, years ago, some person told me that I reminded them of "Sovay." And hence, an Andrew Bird love was born...

Sovay

i was getting ready to be a threat
i was getting set for my accidental suicide
the kind where no one dies, no one looks too surprised
and then you, then you realize that you're riding on the para-success
of a heavy-handed metaphor
and a feeling like you've been here before

cause you've been here before, and you've been here before
then a word washed to shore
then a word washed to shore
then a word washed to shore

sovay, sovay, sovay
all along in the day

i was getting ready to consider my next plan of attack
i think i'm gonna sack the whole board of trustees
all those don quixotes in their b-17's
and i swear this time, yeah this time
they'll blow us back to the seventies
and this time
they're playin Ride of the Valkyries
with no semblance of grace or ease
and they're acting on vagaries, with their violent proclivities
and they're playing ride, playing ride
playing ride, ride, Ride of the Valkyries

sovay, sovay, sovay
all along the day

i was getting ready to threaten to be a threat
instead of thinking about my plan of attack, think about a sack
the whole board of trustees, all those don quixotes in their b-17's
and i swear this time it blows back to the 70's
and this time, they're playin Ride of the Valkyries
with no semblance of grace or ease
now they're acting on vagaries
with their violent proclivities

and they're playin ride
and they're playin ride
playin ride, playin ride, playin ride, playin ride
Ride of the Valkyries

sovay, sovay, sovay, sovay, so

Look at the Moon tonight... We're all Mad Here.

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good- natured, she thought: still it had VERY long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.



Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider.Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on. Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
I don't much care where --' said Alice.
Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
-- so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.
Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat,if you only walk long enough.'

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. What sort of people live about here?'
In THAT direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round,lives a Hatter: and in THAT direction,' waving the other paw, lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad.'
But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat:we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
You must be,' said the Cat,or you wouldn't have come here.'

I just pretended Mr. Gaiman was speaking to me...

my current obsession with myth, mysticism, and polar express

as above, so below. -hermes trimegistus

the red book:

the red book is beautiful. and humongous. and one of those things that forces you to pause and think every few words, sentences. it is full of mandalas. and dreams. and footnotes in the translation. my lord, the footnotes!

it's an intimate record of a spiritual path.

jung begins by meeting his soul. his own. which he apologizes to over and over for having ignored, forgotten, turned his back on. like most of us, he believed his consciousness lived in his body- and his soul reminded him that his body lives in his consciousness. (read "The Field" and this makes more sense. Unless you're already schooled on the residence of universal consciousness, matter as energy, etc.)

it would appear that he believed that the natural cycle is to begin life with attainment and intention. to want things, respect, renown, those things that the spirit of our time teach us are important.

and then, in mid-life (which he counts as right past 30), we see that the holes in our hearts are always hungry and either turn inward to our own souls, to see the universe inside us and learn universal truths (which have been there all along, if the phone would stop ringing and the new television would stop blaring), or turn completely outward and consume consume achieve achieve which is always disappointing and never a teacher to our higher selves.

in my adventures in words on paper, it would appear that jung is approaching what others' for ages have approached. what so many teachings have asked us all to approach. our own godhood and potential for sympathetic love.

crowley had his holy guardian angel.

ken wilbur has one taste, big mind.

hindus seek union with the absolute with no form or being.

bodhisattvas seek enlightenment to the oneness of all things.

christ introduced the holy spirit.

the kingdom within ad nauseum

(all these things remind me of the butterfly girl in the satanic verses. a sub-plot which happened to be my favorite part.)

okay- the above list is embarrassingly abbreviated and simplified. but at the same time, a small child "gets it" while we have all grown up and forgotten play, and imagination, and magic and miracles and are no longer able to "get it."

(an aside: silas has been pondering for two weeks about polar express. he insists that the hobo on top of the train told the boy "what is, isn't. and what isn't is." quite the koan for a childrens' movie. i don't even remember what the hobo said. if anything quite this profound. but interestingly enough, i think the story follows the typical hero myth proposed by joseph campbell. but that's another blog. and i've already named it. "santa as one of the thousand faces.)

anyhoo- for the new year, i wanted to assemble people who like to debate these things. and i chose THE WORST BOOK EVER. okay, not the worst ever- but prometheus rising turned out to be an awfully simplistic commentary on consciousness. and i have failed to schedule the bitch session thus far... (please peeps- tell me when you wanna come drink wine! and pick a better book!)

and i'm going to try to get back my imagination, ability to play, and wonderment at magic and miracles. all during a raging bout of hermit-fat-winter-blue-nostalgic for warmth-slug-o-thon-seasonal affective disorder.

feel free to argue on these points. and share. and tell me if you have authored your own red book. unless you're going to tell me i'm going to hell. which is just boring.

The Best Christmas Card I've Ever Gotten

I am not normally a Christmas Card fan. They're like flowers at a funeral for me- timing to say hello is a bit "off." (No no no person I haven't heard from in years, do not not not kill a tree to see if I am still alive).

But, I did get one that made me laugh this year. Ahem.

From an attorney:

Holiday Greetings and Well Wishes.*

*Blank & Blank, LLC sends holiday greetins and well wishes to you, your family (if you so desire), your friends and others whom you may desire to have a nice and pleasant holiday, but in no way does Blank & Blank, LLC guarantee or warrant, expressly, impliedly, or otherwise, that such individual(s) will experience a pleasant holiday season due to forces beyond the control of Blank & Blank, LLC, including but not limited to acts of outrageous condut by family and friends (including ex-spouses, and soon-to-be ex- spouses), weather events, horrific behavior experienced at retail stores, dreadful traffic, burned ham, turkey or other similar holiday food, atrocious holiday sweaters or other holiday attire, fruit cakes and other undesirable gifts, strings of lights that do not properly work and other comparable holiday stressors. This card is meant as a gift from Blank & Blank, LLC. This card has no cash value and does not have any exchange value for legal services.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!

I haven't been this excited since Mini-Bake Oven...

Tonight, as I was on the phone with another attorney discussing appellate strategy, while Silas was screaming and running and Shawn was here trying to catch him, while the television was blaring Cartoon Network and the neighbors were in the yard, the UPS man came a knockin...

And made a fantasy, reality. You see, I ordered The Red Book months ago, and was denied my order. I called the publisher and found out that the 4,000 they were going to print did not in any way meet the demand. That people were "bumped". That I was bumped. That I could place an order for re-printing in January...

And I did.

And so, today, I recieved my Red Book. First Edition. Completely unaware. And surprised.

And now, I must read.

Normal is...recognition.

There is a club that most people do not know about- one that my friends Joe and Jenifer used to call the "white trash club"- but, it's a misnomer. The club consists of damaged people... damaged people with Ph.Ds., J.D.s., M.D.s... (tooooo many doctors of whatever)

(I've said for years that people who go to school to long are neurotic...)

Damaged by their lack of fathers or mothers, their poverty, their life in Fifth Avenue Motel or some random trailer park or government housing project, the cigarette burns, the hunger, the beatings, the rapes, ad infinitum. Somehow, miraculously, we all recognize one another...

Is it the smart ass way that they answer everything you say? Is it the way that they're always waiting for the other shoe to drop? Is it the constant seeking and proving of themselves? Is it the persistent substance dependance? Is it the fact that for them, enough is never enough, that whatever they sought to prove cannot be proven? Is it the self loathing disguised as wit or the constant attempt to wear some mask of normalcy?

I don't know. I just know, that I know. Intuitively. As do they.

And somehow, tonight, an acquaintance calls me and says, "I barely know you, but I need to talk to you. You've been to Viet Nam, right? You know where Saigon is." And well, we both knew. And her plight is not the one that I want to address- it is the recognition that her plight is not foreign to me that I want to write about. That she takes comfort in the fact that I do not gasp, that I do not feign shock, that I do not get the vapors as she tells me her story...

And that is what she needs. Someone to make fun of horror. Someone to tell her it's all a cosmic joke. Someone to tell her that it's okay to hate and laugh at the same time. And we do! (you have no idea how many pedophile jokes I know. . .)

And I used to think that this recognition would stop, that I would move to a sphere of higher consciousness. But now, I don't believe there is a higher sphere. Today, in trial, I was asked, "For her grandmother to act as her mother, is that normal?" and I answered, "Yes, my grandmother was MY mother."

And this constant overlying of what is "normal" onto what is "not" is the source of the separateness of people... Is it "normal" to have a lower (or higher) than average I.Q.? Is it "normal" to have interests that coincide with none of your peers? Is your weight or your attracive-ness "normal?" (ad nauseum)

And oddly, there are people who are not of the club who are fascinated by the club. And I announce, "YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE IN THIS CLUB!" And still, they want to be close to the club, to study the members like science projects gone really gothic. I still have no idea what that's about...

But still, I wonder whether any of us really move out of the club. We are never comfortable at cheese tastings and fundraisers, we constantly feel for the underdogs, though our social skills are a bit rough; our grammar is perfect and so is our conversation. I wonder if anyone notices.
I wonder if anyone cares.

No matter. The club is there.