Eating Donuts and Fighting with the Girlfriend - and Oh Yes, I Got Laid Off Today

Damn dog has taken to chewing on my pens when it gets pissed having had to wait for me to take it for a walk. I am sitting at a table, the best table in the house. I am thinking that if I’m going to be sitting here, I ought to get out my computer to demonstrate to the other customers that I’m making good use of this space that I am denying to them. I go to reach for my pack in which I carry my computer and then realize that I am typing on the computer keyboard right now ( I had just entered the Delany quote  about scrambled eggs and oatmeal). Gee, am I getting to be senile myself. And why do I worry that I may be making less productive use of the space when the guys next to be are playing cribbage.

Only that year you'd become a fifty-five year old man who'd gone from never following scrambled eggs with scrambled eggs or oatmeal with oatmeal for supper, to never following scrambled eggs with scrambled eggs or oatmeal with oatmeal more than three nights in a row - Samuel R Delany - Dark Reflections, 2007 p29

AT THE KABUKI


Done incorrectly a ritual is destroyed
Done correctly a ritual is authentic
     Love consecrated
     New life blessed
     The dead laid to rest
A missed cue, the wrong word
     An error in the arithmetic
And then it ain’t shit


For Li Po, it’s a hundred poems per gallon of wine, / then sleep in the wine houses of Ch’ang-an market – Tu Fu

The mobile phone is a device for mutual grooming at a distance – a means of building social relationships and only secondarily a communications device

I sight a few deer, then the creek, / hear nothing of midday temple bells – Li Po – The Selected Poems, 1996 p3

Schizophrenics rarely kill strangers

Language is fixed. Morning is certain. Santa Claus comes down the chimney – Robin Lakoff – Language Wars

Factoid – the streets of Tokyo are 2°C warmer when the city’s air conditioning is in full operation

“The question is”, said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is”, said Humpty Dumpy, “Which is the master - that’s all” - Lewis Carroll

11AM and I’m all caught up at the office. Brian is not yet in. I’m out walking the streets. Half an hour spent browsing at Stacey’s. Half an hour wandering the neighborhood and finally I settle down at Epper’s Café & Bakery at Second and Mission. Its almost noon. A man is talking on his mobile loudly about the little chiseler who wants five million. I suspect that he is probably no better. A young man is berating his girlfriend on the street corner about her problem with alcohol. In another half hour I will walk down Mission St to St Patrick’s for a concert by the St Gregory Choir. Then I will head back to the office and hopefully find out what kind of separation package I will receive. Meanwhile I have a French Roast Coffee with brown sugar and half & half and a chocolate covered buttermilk donut. I sit and read the SF Weekly and the Guardian while I eat.

Judas must have been a born conformist, a naturally common-sense, rubber-stamp sort of fellow who rose far above himself when he became involved with a group of people who were hardly in society, let along in a profitable business – Kenneth Fearing – The Big Clock, 1946

I didn’t think that they were still capable of shocking me - but they have. Michael and I both got laid off this afternoon. For me it was like wining the lottery. For Michael it was devastating. The San Francisco Administrative Staff were told three people had been laid off today (I never found out who the third one was) and that the San Francisco IPC (research – that’s me) was being closed, but it would not affect them. Few ever believe these reassurances (if not this time, probably next time). They were cynical and rightfully so. They had already heard such reassurances many times before.

The guy in front of me is telling about how they are kidnapping children with artistic talent.

“I don’t know what you are talking about?”

“Hah, I wrote the mayors office about it.”

“Who did you write too? Someone in the neighborhood services office? Was it Daniel? Yeah I know him. If he is the one on the case it will be taken care of.”

“Good. I didn’t know that that many people knew about this, but you being an artist yourself, you are probably more aware of these kinds of thing.. It amazes me that more people don’t know about the kidnappings.”

It is just an unbearable to be God as it is to remain an utter slave – Otto Rank – Beyond Psychology, 1941 p196

Wherever information is a byporduct it is probably being shared. Seven states will share their E-Z Pass information with litigants in civil cases (for example divorces)

Central heating and electrical lighting slowly tended to disperse such family circles. Centrifugal privacy replaced centripetal intimacy – Thomas J Schlereth – American Home Live, 1880-1930, 1992 p231

Unfulfilled Desires of Having been Stuck with Myself and My Distrust

Participation in a narrative is the essence of truth.. Participation is the essence of value.. I had told Paul that I did not feel guilty about hanging out here in the coffee shop all day and only buying a single cup of coffee because my participation added value to this place – made it look busier, more active, live – and hence drew in even more customers. I was adding to the cash flow even if I was not digging down into my own pockets (I was not just another freeloader). But I explained, I did not do this if the place was packed for then my participation was not value enhancing. Yeah, he said, I know what you mean. I went by a restaurant down in Morales (Mexico) and there was never anyone in there eating. I never went in. They may have other sources of cash flow, perhaps in the back room, I said. Given where it was I have not doubt, he replied. We participate to the extent of our means and the value gained. And Tiger Woods continues to dominate the public space. I claimed the New Coke and Classic Coke had everything that a good marketing campaign should contain – a public outcry for a product, lots of free publicity, and a corporation that was willing to listen to its customers – it made such a great story - but I am unable to believe that marketers are that cunning – maybe they got lucky – maybe there is something in the narrative that is addictive. The narrative that wins out is the narrative that has garnered the participation – this is democracy in action.

I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way [marrying an interracial couple]. I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom – Louisiana justice of the peace, Keith Bardwell

Factoid: 60% of Americans want a public health care option (86% of Democrats, 57% of independents, and 33% of Republicans), but only 11.6% of them strongly agree that there will better quality heath care within the next 12 months (35% strongly disagree and 29.9% are unsure)

Look for the invisible
Listen for the unsaid
What is it that has not happened?
Become cognizant of the over looked
Do your due diligence

Technical civilization and the human mind that supports it, are the first feeble stirring of a radically new form of existence, one as different from life as life is from simple chemistry – Hans Moraved – Robot: mere machine to transcendent mind, 1998

Scotty’s question (mind if I ask you a question about death? I said that I didn’t) was ‘since I am an agnostic (he didn’t have the conviction of belief, he pointed out, to declare himself an atheist – and that does demand a strong faith) and thus cannot believe in an afterlife (neither a heaven nor a hell – would it not be better, I asked him, to take up Pascal’s Wager? What does that solve, he replied, and I agreed that it resolved nothing), that only leaves oblivion or reincarnation.” (I silently question whether these are options – can we chose one or the other). “What he wanted to know,” he said,” is which is the better of these choices.?” “Well I said, I have reservations about reincarnation, it’s just too easy a solution, to ready an answer to an unfathomable dilemma – it was an invention – a middle ground between oblivion and eternity, but it does have the attraction of being something that is knowable – you can look at an ant and know something about it, so if you come back as an ant you will have an idea of what being an ant is (not much, although it won’t do you any good – you can’t use that knowledge). Now oblivion on the other hand is totally incomprehensible. When you have to choose between something that you know something about (even if that knowledge is insignificant) and something about which you are incapable of knowing anything about, choose the more comprehensible. “But I don’t want to come back,” he replied. “Then choose oblivion,” I told him. He accused me of not taking his question seriously. It was untrue

The days of ‘them’ not having any power are over, and they are angry. And ‘they’ want to use ‘their’ power as a means of retribution. That’s what Obama’s about, gang. He’s angry, he’s gonna cut ‘this’ country down to size, he’s gonna make it pay for all the multicultural mistakes that it has mad, its mistreatment of minorities – Rush Limbaugh

Noel Noel on this Christmas Eve – all the stars shining brightly

There are some professions for which it is not good to be too professional; too attached to the standards of practice; to reliant on the good will of peers; too beholden to a salary to tolerate difference. Some disciplines should not be disciplinary.

Distrust all circumstances that seem to favor your secret wishes – Emile Gaboriau – Monsieur Lecoq, 1869

You’ll not die today
Yes perhaps tonight
     In your sleep
I could have a sudden
     Heart attack
     And fall dead
That is true but highly
     Improbable
And someone might
Walk in that door
And make me
      A millionaire
And this is true too

We did not create ourselves, but we are stuck with ourselves – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 r p158

All needs, all desires, all longing – are commercial opportunities, in a culture without community and a culture without community has many many unfulfilled needs, desires and longings.

Every hero becomes a bore at last – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Factoid: One third of the trash in the United States consist of building construction and demolition waste

Potato Chips or Gun Clubs - Which Side are You On?

I ate a whole bag of chips and most of the dip – What’s unusual about that – you knew you would – you can’t leave an available snack alone until it is all gone – and you knew that when you bought it, now didn’t you?. You couldn’t wait to get out of the store and tear the bag open and begin in on those crinkle cut chips just made for dipping, now could you?

They were considered to be animals of poetry. There would be an uproar in the gun clubs if anyone was heard to have shot a hare – James MacFarlane – The Wild Places, 2008 p174

Naïve conservatives reject the results of the principles that they advocate. Philosophical conservatives believe that their principles will result in the world of their desires. Pragmatic conservatives know that it is the results that are everything and that principles are irrelevant.

Dogs ate the dead, and the living ate the dogs – James MacFarlane – The Wild Places, 2008 p178

Factoid: Children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts

In its Cartesian form dualism was wholly anthropocentric, identifying everything other than the human mind as matter or extended substance. Since matter can have no value in and of itself, the result was much like that in idealism. Most ethics and all economic theory have followed anthropocentric dualism in this respect – Herman E Daly - The Commong Good p200


On which side of the line
     Is each to be placed
The means and the ends
    And those in-betweens
    In particular
The animate and the inanimate
     Of any fraction of each
Which side are you on?

Wild facts are not threats to the inanimate world. If they include exhaustion of resources and increasing entropy, these are not calamities in themselves. They are because of their effects on living systems – Herman E Daly – For the Common Good, 1989 p204

Given a number of social models for the introduction of a new technology, the one followed will be that which most enhances the concentration of power

Snow perpetuates the effects of moonlight, which means that on a clear night, in winter hills, you can see for a distance of up to thirty miles or so… you require… a full moon, a hard frost, a clear sky and a willingness to get frozen to the bone – James MacFarlane – The Wild Places, 2008 p192

Factoid: As of 2007 at least 21% of college admission departments and 22% of hiring managers reviewed social network profiles when checking out applicants. 77% of executive recruiters used Internet search engines to help screen candidates.

Like so many melancholics, he developed his own rituals of relief, in the hope that these might abate his suffering – James MacFarlane – The Wild Places, 2008 p197

Reach out, reach out
For the silver tideline
     Of moonlight
Moon shadow, moon shadow
Nightwalking in greyscapes
     This silver melancholia
Shade and tone have no hue
     But that of a wolf’s howl
Snowfall, snowfall
     In the moonlight

Running a sweepstakes that is primarily intended to collect names, addresses, ages and habits is an ongoing practice in the info collection industry – Hal Niedzviecki – The Peep Diaries, 2009 p236

Progressives are conservatives trying to make their mortgage payments. Liberals are progressives who have had their mortgages foreclosed. Everyone wishes to be a conservative – so long as they don’t have to worry about missing a mortgage payment – so long as they thrive. And the only thing that separates them is whom it is that they blame – why did I not get the bigger slice of that pie like I deserve!

The model of willing submission to comprehensives monitoring [is] a form of participation – Mark Andrejevic – iSpy: Surveillence and Power in the Interactive Era, 2007

It becomes grey
A deep synthetic cord
     Metallic
Hung in the air
     Foretelling
     Of snow


I smell chocolate
I see the dead
I hear you sigh

Many of those who died… did so in their rural huts and cabins, quietly. In a dark expression of the politeness and dignity which characterized much behavior… the last to die in a family would often save the strength to reach, close and fasten the door of the cabin, so that the corpses would not be visible to passers by. The cabin would then be pulled down upon them for a grave – Robert MacFarlane - The Wild Places p179

Mistaken for granite
This was not gneiss
     But dolomite

It becomes clear, as it is not in a city, that the world is old and troubled, and that light and warmth and fellowship are good – Edward Thomas – Wales, 1905

What is good has
     To be renewed
What bad sticks to you
     Like glue

We don’t really care who peers in at our lives if we think that their peering will keep us safe, help us connect, or otherwise advance our interest. But we do care if we thing that someone is taking what we give away for free and selling it to the highest bidder without kicking a single cent back to us – Ned Niedzviecki - The Peep Diaries p232

Poetry is intended to allow the blind to see. The poet is a one eyed man. Poets are kings

Fate that lacemaker implacably at work, holding upon her knees the cushion of our lives, and stuffing it with pins – Jean Cocteau - Les Infants Terrible  p137

Wherein inane over generalizations are made – Even documented – I get busted – It’s not my Fault, I Insist – Blame it on Osama bin Ladin, I said.

There’s an evil taste - I’ve strained my coffee through my moustache – Was it something in the coffee or in the cup or in my moustache – The dog had licked my face – who’s butt had he last sniffed. I put it down as a bit of water-soluble crayon that I had just applied to a drawing. I was observed wetting my finger with my own saliva and smearing some of the colors of a drawing and it was remarked, that I put myself into my work. I had to agree that this is indeed true.

The camera has the potential to starve off our existential terror

Documentary: [the] creative use of actuality – John Grierson, 1926

There are lots of big girls who come my here to Coffee Girls – on their way to work, later than is usual, having arranged to have time to get hubby off to work and the kids to school. Big girls have more productive careers; they have more earning power, more promotion potential, access to a wider choice of careers. Big girls make more money. It’s more viable for little women to work in the home (that what being a “little woman” means – yeah, the little lady is at home raising the kids). They can become lifelong students and they can join book clubs. They can even take up crafts. Some even become nurses. Sexy women are sent out to woo the customers nowadays, now that the bosses not longer have exclusive dominion over them (their rights of droit du seigneur no longer exist – they are no longer cocks of the roost – some of them have even been replaced by women). Or then maybe it is that women only come in two sizes these days – big ones and small ones. Maybe it’s like with clothing sizes – men’s inseams and waists, it seems, only come in even sizes and there’s a gab between the sizes of men’s feet and boy’s feet – that’s what they mean when they tell a boy that he not a man until he is big enough to fill a man’s shoes. Everything comes in its assigned size in this best of all worlds.

We became less likely to object to something because it is immoral and more likely to object to something because it is unhealthy or unsafe – David Brooks – New York Times (March 12, 2005)

Fly high and drop lots of chaff. Run with the crowd

Matter times energy
     Equals humanity
Space-Time whipped
     Into shape
     For our sake
Money equates to energy
     That is what matters
Osamba Ben Laddin is at fault
And in the long run it is only
      Money that is scarce
And how do we bet more
      We can hold concerts
      To save the rain forests
All matter is equally substitutable
In this best of all possible worlds
       All along the fault line

Its [an object’s] usefulness, we discover, was merely an illusion, only its optical extension is real – its humanity begins where its function leaves off – Roland Barthes

Michael says “you’re looking just too relaxed” as I start to moon walk across our shared office. And then its off to SFMOMA for a lecture on Roman Bearden. SFMOMA will be having Sunday Jazz brunches at which Jules will be playing in April, his wife, Carol tells me. April 11 to be exact, she says. “Brunches are beyond the price that I am willing to pay” I tell her. “I don’t mind sharing my wealth with artists, but I object to giving it to entrepreneurs”. “I hear you there” she replies.

The individual is denuded of everything but appetites, desires and tastes – Jeremy Seabrook – What Went Wrong?, 1978

Then New Negro Rennaniance (that was its original name - it was not localized as implied by its later name, the Harlem Rennainance). Bearden should take his rightful place among American figurative artists - Motherwell, Jaspar Johns, Rachenbach, etc, I am told. Then I go to the Thirsty Bear for a small Winter Bock. The stout on cask was tempting, but one has to make a choice. It’s sunny and warm for a change. I must play and make hay while the weather is this nice. But now I need to get on back to the office in order to check out - the more I delay, the more likely it is that I will be waylaid by a request and be forced to

The media takes special notice when language drives events and narrative becomes the creator of reality – Robin Tomach Lakoff – The Language wars, 2002

It’s 2:45 and I’m sitting in the sun on the pier behind the Ferry Building. The last of the Tuesday Farmers’ Market stalls are being taken down. A ferry had just left as I began my walk out to the end of the pier. Then Mendocino is pulling in. It only a light load, only twenty or thirty passengers. They offload. I go back to reading Deleuze. There are sand colored oil storage tanks lined up on a distant Richmond hillside across the bay . The Amtrak train makes a turn after the Caqueneus bridge and passed below them - Insatiable refineries – hungry automobiles – folks who must get someplace – Oakland next stop. Oakland last stop folks. Don’t forget any of your belongings in the overhead racks. Another hill a little further away is crowned with white tanks – more hungry refineries – more yapping vehicles – more people on the move. The Mendocino is still boarding. Her engine hums idly. Then with a roar water spews out of her rear jets. It sounds like reservoir spillway after a big rain. Last call for Larkspur. And with a whine she is gone.

‘Just the place for a Snark!’. I have said it thrice: what I tell you three times is true - Lewis Carroll “The Hunting of the Snark”

How many future people’s lives are you willing to sacrifice for your current happiness? – Don’t laugh, this is a serious economic enquiry – How far into the future, how far away geographically, how genetically unrelated need they be? In the jargon of economics, this is called discounting.

He, like most people who find themselves suddenly rich, had developed an excessive concern for the virtue of his children – John Barlow – Eating Mammals, 2004 p133

Read the Pitch? –Way not - I did and there was nothing there – None of its calendar events was worth red lettering –There were no new movies coming out this week worth seeing – I never read any of the articles in this rag - I put my pursued copy of the Pitch back in the news stand and I went back to reading my book – My coffee is getting cold – sip, sip – Yes, those are flakes of snow – It is snowing right now – An ambulance with its siren blearing and its horn honking passes by in the street out front – The obnoxious women goes out side for a smoke – You have to do that nowadays if you want to smoke – Ugly women laugh loudly – Yes I know it’s a generalization and there are ugly women who don’t – She has the cell phone next to her ear as she laughs – Is there anyone there?

All attributes have outliers and once the norm has been established all the fun resides in the abnormal

Now, it is certainly true that liberals have an unattractive tendency to casually impugn their foes as bigots…[and] Conservatives resent such attacks upon their motives. And justifiably so… Conservatives fling deranged accusations at ‘all’ Democratic presidents, without regard for race, gender, or creed – Jonathan Chiat – The New Republic (Nov 18, 2009) p4

Now the ambulance is going scramming in the opposite direction - The snowflakes have stopped falling - It was only a short flurry - The ugly woman had finished her cigarette quite a while back and had come back inside – she is sitting there fiddling with her mobile device – But at least for now she is absorbed in what she is doing and not making any noise – No, there is no more uproarious laughter at this moment – Good looking women snicker – Ugly women snort – There you go making generalizations again – Why do you do that? – The chickadee and the sow.

Twitter: a connection with very low expectation. It lets you answer the question (which no one seem to be asking me) “What are you doing right now?” in 140 characters or less

Spirituality, which once referred to another dimension of things, is now brought down to this earth and given form in another individual human being [the beloved]. Salvation itself is no longer referred to as an abstraction like God, but can be sought ‘in the beatification of the other’ – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p160

Get Up and Walk the Dog - Go To the Coffee Shop - Just Another Day

Get up – walk the dog – go to the coffee shop – just another day

And they spoke of Fred (the other Fred, Dr Fred) – said that that would be like sitting in Norm’s seat and so they moved. It was Fred's seat. They felt uncomfortable siting in Fred's seat.  “But Fred has a doctorate,” one of them said. “But otherwise he is just like Norm.” “Hey it’s the Duffy Brothers,” they were greeted by a newly arriving customer. His daughter was a friend with one of the brothers’ daughter at Trinity. That brother had been telling the other brother about dropping her off there this morning, about his driving up the circular drive way for the first time – he had always let her out at the street curb before. He had stopped in front of the door and all the other parents behind him began honking at him. The agreed upon drop spot was a ways beyond the door he later found out. He had not know that at the time, he explained. He had not used the driveway before for a drop–off of his daughter there at Trinity.

She did not think him. She was accustomed to miracles and accepted them as part of daily life. She expected them to happen and they always did –Jean Cocteau – The Holy Terrors, 1957 p39

He had thought enough of this story that he is now telling just to be telling it – did he deem it educational, was he trying to make a point, did he thing it was entertaining – no, for no excuse is necessary. Do Irishmen need a reason to take a drink? Does a woman need an excuse to talk on the phone? Do not stories build relationships? Do not relationships build communities?

Note to Jacob


Bring me back a beach pebble
     A well-worn cobble
     From a fast running stream
A mineral postcard
     From the natural world
     To display on my mantle piece
Noting from the rock shop
     Please!
No sparking beauty necessary
    Multifaceted crystal

    Of many colors

Our wardrobe is very old: see how the fire reddens it’s sad panels! The worn curtins are as old, and the tapestry on the armchairs stripped of paint, and the old engravings and all these old things. Does it not seem to be then that even the blue birds are discoloured by time? – Stephane Mallarme – Selective Poetry and Prose, 1982 p63

I am plotting my route. I am planning my route downtown. I will walk down Fillmore Street to Sutter and up Sutter to my polling station where I will vote in the primary and to the Japanese Cultural Center. Afterwards I can walk across the street and catch the 2,3 or 4 downtown (all three stop there). I’m at work by ten, oh yeah! I am trying to build my enthusiasm for work but am not really succeeding.. Cindi was getting sewing instructions from Linda - adjusting the bobbin tension, bunching up, extra thread collection at the bottom. Cinidi had asked about draping fabrics. Should I cut on the bias or against the bias? Cindi is off. She had gathered up her belongings, put on her poncho, unlocked her bicycle and has peddled away.

How a person solves his natural yearnings for self-expansion and significance determines the quality of his life – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p156

I tell Linda, “I’m a short timer, a single digit midget. The last time I counted down the days was when I was in the military.” “Great” she said, “and then you can do anything you like. You can tell them to ‘fuck off’ or pee on your desk. I don’t think Linda is a happy camper either. “Just what I have always wanted to do.” Walter is on a roll this morning. I say to him “notice that I haven’t been writing anything down?” He says “I’ve been thinking a lot” “Obviously” I replied. “Well I’m always thinking” he goes on, ‘its just that you haven’t seen me for a couple of days and I have thought a lot that I haven’t told you about” “Just a moment,” I replied, “I need get out my pen and open my notebook. Now you can begin.”

His surprise was like that of a simple-minded frequenter of the theatre, when he is admitted for the first time behind the scenes, and is able to pry into the decorations and tinsel that are so dazzling at a distance – Emile Gaboriau – Monsieur Lecoq, 1975 p15

Wealth creation is far less interesting than wealth destruction. Runoff is indicative of capacity; seepage is indicative of efficiency.

When you confuse personal love and cosmic heroism you are bound to fail in both spheres – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p166

It is not the experiences that counts but what you make of that experience that counts

Secularizing its message allowed the religious right to repackage repression as the promotion of mental well-being. What use to be deemed immoral is now presented as likely to induce depressive feelings of self-loathing – Dagmar Herzog – New Humanist (Sept-Oct, 2008)

Let them re-package ideas to make them more attractive, they then become either cynical – having to remember which message is real and which is the consumer message, or they begin to believe in what they have repackaged. A good liar does the later. Does that mean that the religious right will become mental-health advocates forgetting that this is a secular undertaking with a entrirely different set of principles from their original ones? You have to stay true to your principles or you lose them. Good liars don’t have any principles.

The ethos of Peep Culture: it’s your life restated; it’s your live, if not necessarily better, then at least far more entertaining, exciting, and exposed – Ned Niedziecki – The Peep Diaries, 2009  p88

Social behavior may be contagious – have you thought about that?

Discount Present Value - Chop Down the Trees

It’s a cold morning – but the water doesn’t seem to have frozen in the puddles – the condensation of the tail-pipe exhaust obscures the vision in the real-view mirror – perfect ice crystals form on the front windshield – I though about photographing the squirrel nests up in the bare trees – Joe had observed last week that there were a lot of them. But I did not. Obama’s infrastructure money is getting spent – there are red dots on all the trees within fifty feet of the street. Squirrels don’t build up there. Except for the ones that are too big to haul away at a profit and not wanted for their timber – there are still a few trees (but not very many) that do not have a red dot spray painted on their trunks. Such is the case when private enterprise go on welfare (and of course it never shies away from this – it just doesn’t want to share any of it, out of philosophical principles, of course).


This is ECONOMICS: Discounted present value represents the value to present people derived from contemplating the welfare of future people. It does not reflect the welfare of future people themselves, or even our estimate of their welfare. Rather it reflects how much we care about future people compared to ourselves – Herman E Daly – For the Common Good., 1989 p154 And it is important to understand that ‘Homo Economicus” for it is he who doing this contemplation and he has neither compassion nor malevolence, just greed and self-interest. Implicit in discounting is the assumption that the future will automatically be better than the present due to growth in productivity. Hence we can convert future production into current wealth. The more deeply we discount the future better off we all are now.

It is not that groups bring out anything new in people; it is just that they satisfy the deep-seated exotic longings that people constantly carry around unconsciously – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p132

We know nothing about the innate attributes of man because no example of an isolated man has been observed – man only exists in collectives called societies. Just as we cannot describe language without using language, we cannot define man without the attributes of society.

The individualistic model of economic theory leads to advocating policies that weaken existing patterns of social relationships – Herman E Daly – For the Common Good., 1989 p163

Got my Rodeo Cheeseburger
I’m a pal of the man behind
     The counter
I don’t have to say a word
But that would be impolite
Doing OK? Tis better to be OK than not
     I’m OK. That’s right
Out of the microwave and into a
     Brown paper bag
And I walk out the door

People create the reality they need in order to discover themselves – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p158

Nothing has been more malicious to the meaningful life of man than his knowledge of economics (chramatistics) – it has been a Pandora’s box

In the modern world, presentation counts for more than substance. The less you do, the greater may be the impact – Richard Dorment – New York Review of Books (Oct 22, 2009) p14

Chermatistics is a branch of political economy relating to the manipulation of property and wealth, so to maximize short-term monetary exchange value to the owner

Kiekegaard had no actual idea of what ‘healthy’ is. But he knew what it was not: it was not normal adjustment – anything but that – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p86

Oikonomics is the management of the household so as to increase its use vale to all members of the household over the long run

A case can be made that the dominance of neo-classical economic theory, the great achievement of the discipline, has had a deleterious effect, working against true understanding of the human situation and misdirecting human efforts – Herman E Daly – For the Common Good., 1989 p129

No discipline is as monomaniacal as economics and all disciplines are inclined to be monomaniacal

And does not habit infallibly lead to professional indifference – Emile Gaboriau – Monsieur Lecoq, 1975 p18

That which you dismiss you must first take seriously

Greenday and
     Arbor Day
Blue skies harbor
     Blackbirds
Pink lips slip away
     In the dark
     Sink ships
Whiteknights fade
     Into daylight
Yield to vermilion
A golden harvest
     Of golden grains


Red light
Green light
Blue light
Hot date
     Tonight
Wish upon a star
      If you might

Wall Street is dedicated to chrematistics of the purest kind. The modern world is full of chrematistics – Herman E Daly – For the Common Good., 1989 p138

From THE JOURNALS – San Francisco, California - March 2004

It’s 8:45 and it’s raining. I shall go to the office when the weather permits. For now it’s a refill for my empty coffee cup and a buttered toasted sesame seed bagel. I flashed my 101 Building pass at the Muni driver again today. She said “what’s that sir?” “Oh, wrong pass,” I replied. “I do have the correct one here”, I assured her and pulled out my March Muni Fast Pass and took a seat for the ride downtown. I am now a single digit midget. As of today I have less than ten days left in my work career. It is good to make irrevocable decisions – death is irrevocable. The last time that I had been short timer was in Vietnam, a half a world away, half a lifetime away. I started keeping a short timers calendar before I even arrived. On the bulletin board behind my desk I had paper cut outs of airplanes for each member of the unit. Each was on the tarmac waiting to take off. Gradually one by one they left. I was medi-vaced out long before my term was up. I jumped to the head of the line and I left. So long suckers!

The Heisenberg principle is a universal - you cannot both trace and map

A entirely necessary enemy, the furniture we are constantly rearranging - Giles Deleuze – Thousand Plateaus

It’s a burger and a beer day, cool & windy. Paddy is behind the bar. The ongoing discussion is about Timothy McVae and John Nichols and Oklahoma City of course. An ambulance driver has been shot three times in the chest and there is a fire and explosion a couple of blocks from Dave’s house back in Kansas City. Two bodies are found when the fire died down. One of the bodies was identified as a man who was questioned in the investigation of the death of the six fireman in an explosion at the construction site down the hill. Dave’s house still has cracks in the plaster from that even. It is a family dining experience.

One needs to learn how to be wrong

Coming and going rather then starting and finishing - Giles Deleuze – Thousand Plateaus

I’m sitting here in a blah mood, not wanting to focus my eyes, mind, ears and what ever else it is that makes sense out there in the world. To write is to overcome inertia. Cindi knits quietly, hurrah. Linda drops a pat of butter on the floor. I have yet to refocus. I am defocusing and then struggling to get back into focus. It seems to be my thing this morning…here…I go…again. What did you say? Your mind seems to be somewhere else this morning Fred! No, not really!

Asymmetrical Lifestyles - Stuck in the Off Position

Such a little thing – the switch to turn the modem on and off – it broke in the off position, wouldn’t have been a problem in the on position, and the computer less than a year old. If something is going to break and need repair why can’t it be something important, why does is have to be some stupid on/off button and why couldn’t it have broken in the ON position instead of the OFF. Well that’s the way of technology, something broke, or on the verge of breaking (making weird sounds) or you’re worried it might break down, on a cold snowy night twenty miles from home. So I’m sitting here in the library. Put this file on a flash-drive (everything else works, it’s just that I can’t get on the Internet) and plugged it into the USB port of Computer ‘A08’ – mine for 45 minutes.

Groups ‘use’ the leader sometimes with little regard for him personally, but always with regard for fulfilling their own needs and urges – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p136

Asymmetrical hairstyles seem to be the fashion for women. Men’s styles are symmetrical (left and right as opposed to front and back). At least that’s the way they dress for the Academy Awards. Everyone just looks so serious. They are actors, you know.

It is hard for us to believe in a world before the evolution of individual taste, when possessions simply demonstrated your rank, and said noting about what you liked – Hiram Mantel (New York Review of Books – Oct 22, 2009) p10

Parasocial: one-sided social relationships – i.e. fan to celebrity – we know everything about them; they don’t know we exist

Getting colder, will get colder yet
Crows gathering on the lawn
Discarded paper flutters past
Conversation levels rise above
       The ambiance
Porcelain cups tingle in the washer

When you set up your perception-action world to eliminate what is basic to it (anxiety), then you fundamentally falsify it – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p142

Factoid: 81% of Los Vegas homes are worth less than their mortgages

Rand’s particular intellectual contribution, the thing that makes her so popular and so American, is the way she manages to mass market elitism – to convince so many people, especially young people, that they could be geniuses without being in any concrete way distinguished – Adam Kirsh – New York Times Book Review (Nov 1, 2009) p8

Factoid: 93% US states that ban texting while driving also offer Twitter traffic updates

Walk the dog, walk the dog
Morning noon and night
A tug on the leash as it sniffs
A yank on the string makes it
     Return


The shape of the hills is now visible
Once obscured by leaves
Rising early with a jump upon
      The bed
Catching the first vermilion glow
      Of the sun


Its no fun to be woken by
      A wet nose
But the exercise is good for one
      I am told
It’s anxious to re-mark
Sniff and detect
I am not in charge
      Never was

Fascination is in the one who experiences it – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p128

Farts usually come in threes of diminishing volume but this time I manage four, although the last was only a little bleep. A tight ass queer strolls by saying something like “Paulter” as he passes. I have no idea what he is referring to if anything. An old man with coffee cup raises his left arm in a ‘hi there’. I nod back and continue to wait. Another #12 goes by. A young white woman in a black coat is leaning against the building and sucking on a cigarette.

Factoid: Estimated number of Al Queda members now operating in Afghanistan, according to the US National Security Advisor: 100

To consume means to burn, to use up – and therefore, to need to be replenished – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p179

Happiness’s importance is a result of its use to model the Velben hypothesis in economics. It is Homo Economicus’ happiness that really matters – not your happiness, not my happiness – it is happiness in the abstract, unattached to anything real – the willingness of the masses to work harder in order to engage in conspicuous consumption – it is a yellow smiley face – have a nice day! My Yuck is a symbol lack of consumer confidence.

The real world is simply too terrible to admit; it tells man that he is a small trembling animal who will decay and die. Illusion changes all this, makes man seem important, vital to the universe, immortal in some way – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p133

Her left leg is bent so that the sole of her foot rests against the wall of the facade. Her weight is placed squarely on her right leg. A #47 arrives. I get on. The woman puts out her cigarette and gets on too. She has long skinny legs with big feet. She gets off at Eleventh Street. I am now the only passenger on the bus. We pass the Stud and I wonder what it would be like to hang out in a gay bar. Would any explanation be necessary? I once went into a gay bar in Del Mar and said “I’m not gay” and the man said, “Oh, come on – don’t spoil it for me!” The alternative was the cowboy bar across the street overlooking the beach.

We started it off
Introduced democracy
Cut down the forests
Now we must sit back
And let those who did not
      Participate
Finish it off
Tis only fair
That we all die
      Together
Is this not the democratic
      Way, not to deny

The presence of 7 billion people aiming for first world comforts… is clearly incompatible with homeostasis of climate but also with chemistry, biological diversity and the economy of the system – James Lovelock

Factoid: Projected earnings of lawyers and advisors from the bankruptcy proceedings of Lehman Brothers: $1.4 billion

The more eminent the master, the more self-satisfied his man – Hiram Mantel (New York Review of Books – Oct 22, 2009) p10

Tell all, show all, all the time to everyone – to somebody, to anybody! Hello, is there anyone there?