Half Lives

Poetry
is just like mining Radium,
said Mayakovsky.
He was right,
in more ways than he imagined.

The Thin Duke's Testament

A channelling of the existential dandy, with apologies to Messrs. Mann, Marinetti, Nietzsche, and Bowie.

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Do not presume to know whence I came, nor what I expect.

My sickness began early. From man I expected divine virtue or hair-raising wickedness; from life either ravishing loveliness or else consummate horror; and I was full of avidity for all that and of a profound, tormented yearning for a larger reality, for experience no matter what kind, let it be glorious and intoxicating bliss or unspeakable, undreamed-for anguish.

Do not fear lest I go on to recount my disappointments in detail. Enough to tell you that I learned to hate the poets for what they made me crave.

What is the mark of decadence? The whole no longer resides in the part.  The whole no longer lives at all: it is composite, calculated, artificial, and artifact. We are those calculations, we are the artifacts, because it is the only honest occupation left.

It is my favorite activity to gaze at the starry heavens by night, standing quite alone, like lighthouses or the sentinels in an outpost, facing the army of enemy stars encamped against us. Perhaps it may be pardoned in me that I still cling to my distant hopes, waiting for the divine invasion to unchain all horizons and give me something to feel. We are the Fifth Column for the ecstatic.

We are chameleons, shape-shifters, immaculate travelers between worlds. We walk, we stroll, we amble, we leap, we drag vicious beasts on leashes, all with the grace of effortless effort. Everything we do is art.

We are of the present, the eternal Now. When we have turned decrepit, let those younger and stronger souls cast us aside like useless manuscripts. They will crowd around us, exasperated by our proud indefatigable courage. They will hurl themselves forward to destroy us, with all the more hatred as their hearts will be drunk with love and admiration for us.

I have no reason to die unless it is the desire to be rid of the too great weight of my courage.

Let us don white and stroll through the darkness that roars, seeing and being seen.

Let us feed the unknown, not from despair, but simply to enrich the unfathomable reservoirs of the Absurd.

Let us now praise the senses – the only true proofs of existence.

Here I am, flashing no colour, tall in this room overlooking the ocean

Every mask I wear becomes a shield, a weapon, a horse, a home.

Here I am again, a vision in blank, throwing darts in lovers' eyes.

Take refuge in the mirror. Bind your reflections with that well-knotted necktie, 

(Silk, to be sure. Nothing less, and nothing more.)

Come live with me in the mirror; there we might better share our echoes.

Here we are again, donning velvet armor and striding forth to seek, to strive, to find, and not to yield

Here we are.

One moment to spin dreams and shout forth an insolent challenge to the stars.

One moment, this moment. 

Here we are again.

Take it while you have it.

Words of advice for young people

Last February found me back east for a meeting of the trustees of WPRB, my old college radio station. I had been in communication with the events chair of dear old Terrace F. Club, and was invited to give an installment of their series of Talks with Interesting People Accompanied by Drinks.

Princeton in particular but Ivies in general encourage certain temperaments and behaviors: the theoretical over the practical, the critical over the active, the verbal over the physical. Furthermore, the sort of person who gets in tends to have gotten there by staying on the rails: do what you're told, delay gratification, seek affirmation from success within hierarchical systems. Looking ahead to my five-year college reunion this May, I figured I'd finally write up my reflections.

It's been part of my self-work over the past five years to jump those rails. I didn't know what I was really doing at the beginning, but over time I've pulled together scraps and pieces from various different sources of inspiration, into something that begins to approach an "approach." 

Dispatch: The All-Worlds Fair

>>\\ BEGIN STELLAR TELEX DISPATCH \\ From the All Worlds Fair February 22nd-23rd, 02013 San Francisco, California, Earth-Prime If you are friends with me on various social networks, you may have seen some odd posts from me in the past month or two related to the sea, or dream analysis. Or you may have puzzled over how I joined Pinterest, particularly since I was collecting photos of submarine interiors, watery dreamscapes, and vintage meridian-crossing ceremonies. Well, it all came to a head last weekend. The All-Worlds Fair was conceived of by gentleman artist, raconteur, and high-concept roustabout Chicken John Rinaldi, a two-night-only event taking the overwhelming wonder of the old World Expos and extending the exhibitor list to all the worlds that could have existed, across all time and space. And what better place to stage it in than the historic Old Mint building? Blessed with a unique combination of steel vaults, exposed brick walls, and grand ballrooms, it was an armature you could build a rich event on. I was a crew member with the Seas of the Subconscious, in which there was nautical derring-do, half-lucid logic, and dream cartography. (More on that later.)

VERY QUICKLY

  [Post peak oil resilient communities]

+ [low-energy computing]

+ [internet of things]

+ [adaptation of past technologies]

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SOLARPUNK.

I'm not sure when I started wanting to become a blogger, wear a cape and ride in a hot-air balloon, presumably careening and caroming across the globe in search of adventure and moderately amusing anecdotes. [note:You are not Cory Doctorow; results may vary.] It was probably some time in high school when I started digging into the strange nooks and crannies of internet weirdness. I was happy to find that wow, there were people out there who spent time finding out about interesting things, and then writing about them. It was something I felt like getting into, but didn't really have time for.
What actually got me started was admission into the fantastic Princeton-in-Asia program, where they had a special optional workshop during orientation on "Blogging," which was partly useful but mostly encouraging. They wanted us to reflect on our rather unusual circumstances, which in my case is teaching English in Cambodia for a year at the Royal University of Phnom Penh.

I came to the conclusion that my PIA blog ought to focus on my experiences of travel, teaching, and cultural ridiculousness, and keep to a minimum speculation on what Theodor Adorno might have thought of Guitar Hero (which is probably going to be one of my first big posts here.) Now, my volume is probably going to be rather low over the next year or so, as I will be travelling to areas with lackluster internet, as a statement of interest and purpose, here are some things that interest me:

• Strange and awesome historical oddities
• Collections of Curiosities, in both the early modern and postmodern style.
  
• Cold War/High Modern social inquiry (up to and including atomic war planning) and design (gotta love that Bakelite!)
• Speculation about coming social trends, as well as antiquated visions of the future and "modern society,"
  
• Media theory (mostly German influenced) and media Archaeology (Dead Media, etc.)
• Possibly a confluence of more than one of these interests, I did a lot of research last year on radio and the contemporary academic study thereof, particularly regarding the Orson Welles broadcast. No, it was not a psychological warfare test, though I can blog later about why some people think so.
  
• 'Conditions and constraints of content creation,' be it music, history, or science
• Anthropological study of magic (though this is an area I'll admit I need to read more in)
• Games and Gaming, considered as objects worthy of study (I'm not quite sure if I can use the term "ludologist" entirely seriously yet.)
• Grand Strategy and the debate over "4th Generation War"
  

Now, I'll probably not cover all these various and sundry topics, but this is a good start, and interestingly a good way to look at these varied interests and think about what connects them. Maybe I'll comment to myself.