July 2010
2 posts
Boat
Definition:
A vessel for transport by water, constructed to provide buoyancy by excluding water and shaped to give stability and permit propulsion.
Here’s where I’m actually. I’m on a cruise ship in Norway, floating down through the fjords. The boat is rocking so slightly, but the good kind of rocking and not the bad where you’re curled around the toilet...
May 2010
4 posts
“Smile, girl! It ain’t so bad.”
– Homeless man on 3rd Avenue, to me. He’s probably right.
I was wandering around Madison Square Park today and I saw this gigantic squirrel crawling up the pant leg of this business man. He didn’t seem bothered at all, he was just egging the squirrel on:
“Hey, you, What you lookin’ at? What you lookin’ at?”
I wish I had gotten a picture.
Blurry
Definition:
1. indistinct
Wait, sir, who are you, sir?
I can’t remember your face, sir.
I’d say it was a dream, sir,
But the pain in my head doesn’t give me
The pleasure, sir.
March 2010
1 post
Today,
My brother almost caused me to send an email to my professor containing a paper entitled,
“John Milton’s Hippopotamus and the Problem of Time”
Aneurysm central, right there.
February 2010
2 posts
respite
And today we lied
Lied as in lay and
Lied as in lie
“…just as the eye cannot see itself.”
January 2010
4 posts
“If you want to bake an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the...”
– Carl Sagan
Reductio Ad Absurdum
Definition:
1. In Latin: “reduction to the absurd”
2. In Logic, a technical term referring to an argument to demonstrate that a proposition leads to a logically absurd consequence.
Even a devout Atheist must understand that the existence of God cannot be denied simply through an appeal to the Absurd. God, unfortunately, is not Absurd.
Example: Chances of BIG BANG happening as it...
String Theory
Definition:
A theory of quantum gravity. States that electrons, quarks, and atoms have 1 linear dimension (instead of 0 dimensions) and can “vibrate” in all directions, into other dimensions. Also, there’s like a million (26) fucking dimensions, or some shit.
I heard about String Theory in two different classes today. The first was a Philosophy class, the second was a...
“In fact the unrest which keeps the never stopping clock of metaphysics going is...”
– Arthur Schopenhauer
December 2009
9 posts
Baby
Question:
How did the word “baby” become a term of endearment for loved ones?
All babies really do is eat, shit, and cry.
Not very endearing.
Neurosis
Definition:
1. a functional disorder in which feelings of anxiety, obsessional thoughts, compulsive acts, and physical complaints without objective evidence of disease, in various degrees and patterns, dominate the personality.
2. a relatively mild personality disorder typified by excessive anxiety or indecision and a degree of social or interpersonal maladjustment.
See also: Bethlehem,...
“You see, listen, the cigarette is the sun, and the planets revolve around the...”
Best sentence ever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo
I once said, while in France, incidentally, that English is the best language in the world.
Obviously, I was right.
Writing
“I ran into Patty the day her ninth book became her first to hit the Times bestseller list. She grabbed me by the shoulders, looked deep into my eyes. ‘It doesn’t change anything,’ she said grimly. ‘My mother still doesn’t approve of me. I still don’t have a boyfriend. I still can’t sleep at night. Don’t let this be what you’re waiting...
“Mister Moonlight, succulent smooth and gorgeous.
Isn’t it nice?...”
– from “The Murder Mystery” by The Velvet Underground
November 2009
12 posts
“In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice.”
– Marquis de Sade
“We cannot tear out a single page of our life, but we can throw the whole book in...”
– George Sand
Nostalgia
Definition:
1. a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one’s life, to one’s home or homeland, or to one’s family and friends
2. a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time
Nostalgia is the weakness of passively ignoring your role in the events of your life. Let’s not play these silly mind games with ourselves.
If I...
“You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect...”
– The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
“And I realized, fuck man, maybe that’s what hell is: the entire rest of...”
– from the movie In Bruges
“With my own eyes
I saw the Sybil of Cumae hanging in a bottle;
and when the...”
– Epigraph to “The Waste Land” by T.S. Eliot
The Sybil of Cumae was a Greek prophetess who was granted a life of as many years as the number of grains of sand she held in her hand. The problem was, she neglected to ask for youth as well. Her body eventually withered away until only her...
Melancholia
A Poem by Charles Bukowski
the history of melancholia includes all of us.
me, I writhe in dirty sheets while staring at blue walls and nothing.
I have gotten so used to melancholia that I greet it like an old friend.
I will now do 15 minutes of grieving for the lost redhead, I tell the gods.
I do it and feel quite bad quite sad, then I rise CLEANSED even though nothing is...
Onychophagia
Definition:
1. the practice of biting one’s nails, especially when done habitually and as a symptom of emotional disturbance.
I’ve been researching chronic onychophagia for a short story I’m writing.
Damn.
I need to stop biting my nails.
“You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.”
– Vladimir Nabokov
Fiona Apple - Parting Gift
Oh you silly, stupid...
“Speaking of rings, it’s worth noting that they’re notorious hiding...”
– Anthony Bourdain
October 2009
6 posts
Decadence
Upon dying a valiant death at sea, Lord Nelson’s body was preserved in a vat of the very finest brandy.
Pity that the living can’t duplicate the effect.
“I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars...”
– e.e. cummings
Deliquescence
Definition:
1. the process of dissolving and becoming liquid by absorbing moisture from the air, and/or the substance produced by this process.
2. the act of melting away.
If you had stayed to observe
a bit of exceptional
human chemistry
you’d have witnessed
the sparkling deliquescence
of her eyes
under the pale fire
of nuclear fusion in the morning.
“there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize...”
– Charles Bukowski
“Those who give up smoking aren’t the heroes. The real heroes are the rest...”
– An ashtray in London.
Words often get me in trouble.
I’d like to return the favor.