The Cabin

It began two weeks ago in a field opposite my house.  The field has a few trees, wonderful green grass and gentle sloping hills; I cross it everyday on the way home.  Then it appeared.  At first a black square where there had been only grass for as long as I could remember.  Its edges were long enough for two men to lie along, flat and framing an empty patch of earth.  I didn’t pay it much attention, but I kept my distance.

The next day it had grown and was one foot off of the ground, two the next.  I waited, far away, until it got dark that day to see the builder.  No one came.  It was three feet off of the ground when it was light.

Each morning as I awoke and looked out at the field I could see it.  Sinister and perverse.  Ominous and somehow sentient–aware that it was out of place and not bothered.  I realized that it was becoming a cabin.

My path home got closer and closer to it each day until, a week after it had first appeared, I found myself staring at it from a foot away.  It’s walls were dark but not suggestive of an emptiness like the sky.  It was closer to charcoal–dirty and cold.  An unholy blend of ancient coal-blackened machinery smelling of archaic otherworldliness, and primal savage rock that had once been buried under the Earth.  It was horrifying.

I went to see it on the way home each day after that, staying for longer each time.  A few days ago its windows began to glow with a fire from the inside, but it wasn’t warm.  The sickening walls made the fire seem evil–not the giver of life but the destroyer.

It was finished yesterday, I know because there were no changes this morning.  I’m going inside tonight.  I don’t think I will be back for some time.

Syncing Season Five of The Simpsons with Kanye West’s ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’

(If you just want to read the interesting ways that these two things synced up, skip to where it says ‘Long story short‘.)

Most of you have probably heard about Dark Side of the Rainbow, the idea that The Wizard of Oz overlaps with The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd.  As cool as it is, it seems pretty unbelievable that the connections are in any way deliberate.  They’re more likely the result of two things: our need to find relationships in the world around us, and our tendency to remember when our expectations are supported while forgetting the times they aren’t.  (Blah and blah.)  That being said, of course there are going to be some pairings that produce more overlaps than others just based on random chance.  So not every movie/album pair is going to sync up as well as The Wizard of Oz and The Dark Side of the Moon, making that pairing special even if it wasn’t planned.  The same can be said about other popular pairings like: Alice in Wonderland with The Wall, or 2001: A Space Odyssey with the song Echoes.

To me the fact that these pairings aren’t the product of intent doesn’t make them any less interesting, just like you don’t need to believe in a divine will to find bizarre coincidences amazing.  This also means that you can pair up any random visual and audio to look for connections, without worrying about the plausbility of it being contrived.  It’s a lot fun to just present a random piece of music, and a random video to your mind and let it go to work finding connections between the two.

I think that the connections are of two sorts: content and mood.  Content is what I’ve been talking about up until now: lyrics/sounds from the audio coinciding with something going on visually.  It’s almost a challenge to actively look for these connections, thinking about ways of interpreting words so that they reflect what you’re seeing.  Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it takes creativity.  Although I wouldn’t agree with them, some people might use the fact that you can find these connections in a random pairing to take away from the interpretation of art in general.  I would say that just because we can find them at random doesn’t mean that artists don’t put them there intentionally when they control all parts of the final product.

By mood I mean the way that the audio affects the feel of the visuals, and vice versa.  Just like watching a music video might change how a song feels, or a soundtrack might change how a given moment in a movie feels.  The only difference here is that the pairing is random and it’s entirely up to the viewer to fit the two together (both actively and passively), creating a new third experience, different than the audio or visuals by themselves.  I find it very interesting to feel your mind making two things that were certainly not meant to go together fit with one another, creating one unified product out of two disparate things. (1)

Long story short I paired season five of The Simpsons with Kanye West’s fifth album ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ (2).  I hit ‘play all’ on the first DVD of season five as I hit play on the album.  I only went through the album once but in theory it would have been cool to go through the entire season with the album repeating.  However despite what some people may think after reading this I don’t have that much free time on my hands.  These are some of the cool content connections that I noticed between the audio of the album and the visuals of the episodes (which were on mute):

-The line “Don’t make me pull the toys out…” coincided with a shot of Lisa looking at a box of toys.

-“Penitentiary chances, the devil dances…” coincided with a shot of Springfield Penitentiary.

-“I thought I chose a field where they couldn’t sack me…” coincided with Wiggum getting fired from the Be Sharps.

-“But God said I need a different approach…” coincided with a shot of Wiggum wearing a costume and trying to trick them into taking him back.

-”You blowing up, that’s good, fantastic…” coincided with them discovering that Barney could sing (and later getting him to join the group).  I’m hoping my friends won’t need this, but just in case…

-”No more chances if you blow this…” coincided with their (the Be Sharp’s) agent talking to them outside of Moe’s.

-”Well, that’s a pretty bad way to start the conversation…” coincided with the Sea Captain stopping his fight with the giant squid and starting to talk to it.

-”I got the power to make your life so exciting…” coincided with Homer giving his Dad a new car.

-”Want you to see all of the lights…” coincided with a shot of Hollywood, with two searchlights moving around.

-“Can’t see my daughter…” coincided with a scene of Homer being on tour, and Marge trying to fill his absence with this…

-A scream in ‘Monster’ coincided with this shot.

-”Do the rap and track, triple double no assist…” coincided with Matt Groening’s name in the credits.  If you have to ask how that relates…

-“She came up to me and said this the number 2…” coincided with the second episode starting.

-“I smell a massacre…” coincided with this.

-“Praises due to the most high, Allah…” coincided with a shot of an angel that Ned had trimmed out of a hedge.

-“Fucking insane…” coincided with Sideshow Bob laughing manically, when you first learn that he’s the one sending Bart the bloody messages.

-“So if you had her too, it don’t affect me in the slightest…” coincided with a shot of Selma testifying and everyone behind her in the courtroom raising their hands.

-“The way you look should be a sin…” coincided with this.

-”We’ll have a big ass crib and a long yard…” coincided with a shot of a big ass crib and a long yard.

-Lastly, I’m not exaggerating when I say the credits of the third episode ended exactly when the album did.  It’s also cool that the last song ends with applause.

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1- If this is true it brings up the interesting question of whether or not two things can really “go together well” in terms of mood.  We’ve all thought about a scene in a movie that was complemented perfectly by its score, but if any visual and audio can combine to create a third thing, how can any pairing be “more appropriate”?  Is it just a pairing that better fits what the creator intended?  Or fits in better with the rest of the project?  Do they view one (audio or visual) as being the primary component and the other one being secondary, slightly colouring the primary one instead of creating a third and altogether new thing?  Or maybe two things “go well together” when they create a third thing that isn’t fundamentally different than the two other things by themselves?

2 – They both have red covers!  The third season and his third album both have purple covers!  But sadly that’s where it ends.

120 Sentences (19-22)

1  I love coming up with brand new cliches and non contradictory oxymorons.

2  I’m a chain-gumchewer; I go through like two packs a day.

3 I’ve always (since this afternoon) wanted to leave a piece of string in my ear for a year, let a nice ball of wax form on it, then pull it out and keep it.

4  I think that th lttr ‘e‘ has bcom trit from ovrus, so I try not to ovrdo it.

5  I never do my share of the pushing when I’m in a revolving door with other people.

6  I hate it when I miss my gum with my teeth and strangers think I’m biting at them.

7  I think LFO wrote this the same way I wrote this.

8  I hate it when people tell you how many words they’re about to tell you.

9  I hate it when sentences of mine inadvertently rhyme.

10  As he walked along the garden path sentence continued to confuse him.

11  I don’t like words that can’t be pronounced when you emphasize them by repeating a letter – like bet (bbbbbbet/beeeeeet/betttttt).

12  It’s time bands realize that iPods have made hidden tracks a lot less hidden.

13 I think it’s cute when (old) people ding to ‘request’ a stop at a subway station.

14  The most disappointing thing in the world is when a Facebook notification turns out to only be someone else liking a status that you liked.

15  It’s funny when people lean forward in their chair to let someone pass instead of actually moving it.

16  A subject without a predicate.

16  I’ve seen way too many videos of Harry and Ron getting it on (see #9) while looking for clips of Slash on YouTube.

17  .the things I do seem ssa a lot of the timE

18  I wish ‘high going mono’ was a more useful sentence so I could type it using T9.

19  I’ve realized that grilled cheese sandwiches are just sandwiches without toppings.

20  It’s funny how rarely “not to be racist” isn’t followed up by something that is racist.

21  I like phrases like “you are not” that allow for personal expression in choice of conjugation: either you aren’t or you’re not.

22  Warning: This might ruin rap for you.  Highlight inside of the asterisks if you want to go on anyway.  *Listen to this song and try NOT to notice how obvious the sound of Kanye breathing is.*

to be continued…

Comments are very much appreciated!

Remi le Marche

As many of you know – since that’s all I’ve been talking about – I just finished reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. If any of you are looking for a book to read I would highly recommend it.  Even if you aren’t looking for a book, or you’re already reading a book, I would still highly recommend it. What really got me was how real the magic in Jonathan Strange seemed. It references an entire library of invented books on English magic, and it all seemed so authentic that I almost found myself googling some of them. When I finally accepted that as real as it seemed, the history of magic in Jonathan Strange was invented, I naturally became curious to see if any history of magic does exist.  The answer might seem obvious, but I was still so entangled in the world of Jonathan Strange that a small part of me expected to find at least a rumor of something plausible.

I found a lot of historical information regarding ‘magic’, but at first none of it was what I was hoping for. I came across a lot of magic mentioned in relation to the religious ceremonies of ancient civilizations and modern day indigenous populations, but none of it seemed convincing. There were medicine men and shamans that upon closer inspection seemed to only cast placebo effects.  I found modern figures like Alistair Crowley who’s name is usually  associated with magic, but who came across as more of an occult philosopher.  There were others like John Dee, who though they were fascinating, didn’t seem to have ever actually done anything supernatural.  Lastly I came to the new age crowd that inspires the same grimace in me as it probably does in you. Most, if not all, of their ‘magic’ seems to be vague and un-testable.  All in all the real history of magic seemed worlds apart from Jonathan Strange.  

Then I came across Remi LeMarche.

I was surprised that I’d never heard of him before, but from talking to some of you it sounds like I wasn’t alone in my ignorance.  Remi le March (1732-?) is one of only three people that are ‘considered by history’ to have performed magic.

le Marche was born in Paris on November 21st, 1732 to wealthy parents. His father had aspirations of priesthood for his son but le Marche instead chose to pursue philosophy. His privelidged upbringing helped him in this endeavor because he’d learned to read and write several languages as a kid.

He was drawn to idealism, especially the radical sort that said thoughts were all that existed. George Berkeley had reasoned that since we only ever experience matter indirectly, by way of our thoughts, we have no reason to assume that it exists at all (1).  But, if objects only existed as thoughts, how could they remain in existence when a mind wasn’t experiencing them?  In other words, does a tree you’re looking at actually cease to exist when you close your eyes?  Berkeley’s answer to this was that God was always experiencing everything, and thus everything was constantly being experienced.  It was also God that put the appropriate ideas in your head to correspond with the outside world, so that when you looked at a chair, you saw a chair.  This presented problems for le Marche who didn’t believe in the existence of God and was forced to develop his own theory of metaphysics.

le Marche believed, as Berkeley did, that the internal world of ideas was all that we ever experienced.  He also posited the existence of an external world that we experienced indirectly through those ideas.  However instead of a God, le Marche concluded that there was a natural and immutable law of reality that kept the internal and external worlds consistent.  You couldn’t see something that wasn’t there, and there couldn’t be something there without you being able to see it (2).

This is where his story gets interesting. He asked the question: what if you could force yourself to see something that wasn’t there? Would it necessarily have to exist?  What was ‘out there’ determined what you saw, but if the internal and external worlds were inextricably linked, then what you saw should be able to determine what was ‘out there’.  He was so convinced of his metaphysical theory that the validity of this seemed unquestionable.  This would become his life’s work, a way to provide tangible evidence for a theory about intangibles (3).

It wouldn’t be enough for him to imagine seeing something that wasn’t there, he would have to actually see it.  He reasonably stated that this was easy enough with one’s eyes closed. Everyone can imagine things with their eyes shut, and with a bit of focus can actually see them. It would just require an immense amount of concentration to be able to do that with one’s eyes open, while also experiencing the world. If he could do this, the imagined thing would have to exist along with everything else that was being seen because since the internal and external worlds had to remain consistent.  He expounded these ideas in the final article that he would ever publish in 1765.  Soon after this le Marche disappeared from the public eye and the academic world to cultivate the kind of mental focus that he needed.  Thus, for the next decade or so the record of his life becomes a bit foggier.

Beginning in 1766, in the records of a monastery in Tibet, there is mention of a ‘European who wished to see his thoughts’. Historians generally agree that this was le Marche and all we know of his efforts for the next eight years comes from these records. They talk about the European spending every moment of his time sitting in private focusing on his thoughts. From what happened later we can suppose that he started with something small and easy to visualize: a speck of light.  Every few weeks he would approach the monks and ask if they could see the bit of light that he was trying to picture, but for a long time they couldn’t. Then finally one day he managed to create what the monks called ‘a jewel of eternity’ – a speck of light out of nowhere. Over the next few years the bits of light that he conjured became larger and larger until they were the size of a small pebble (4).

Something to keep in mind is that he never saw any of this as an end in itself. He had been thoroughly frustrated by the lack of acceptance his theories received, and all of this was a way to prove them irrefutably. This is probably why he didn’t ride into France immediately to show off his newfound ability. Fame and fortune didn’t interest him in the least.  It seems like he waited patiently until his ability had become reliable and then returned to France some time around 1774.

We know of what happened next because it would be written about in many different philosophical publications over the next few years. On the 16th of July, 1774, le Marche appeared in Paris and succeeded in conjuring a small bit of light in the company of his critics. But instead of convincing them of le Marche’s theories (or amazing them), this just set off a series of articles arguing that the demonstration didn’t necessarily prove anything.  It wasn’t that they doubted the validity of what he’d done, they just didn’t agree that it proved any particular metaphysical theory to be true.  When this feat that he’d worked for years to accomplish failed to convince the philosophical world, le Marche became entirely disillusioned and retired for good (5).

What happened to Remi LeMarche after this is not known for certain. Most historians agree that he retreated to a quiet life, possibly back in Tibet, and lived out the rest of his days in the isolation he’d grown accustomed to. There is no further mention of him practicing ‘magic’, but that doesn’t rule it out entirely since there is hardly any further mention of him at all.

There are of course other theories out there. Some (for example…) believe that his power became too great and that it destroyed him.  Ideas on how this happened range from his nightmares devouring him to a giant hole in reality swallowing him up.  Exciting and romantic as these stories are they seem unlikely, especially since there is never any mention of him creating anything more than bits of light (6). Others say that he never died at all, and is waiting to return one day and usher in a new era for mankind. This also seems pretty unlikely, given that he would be over 200 years old today. Of course another popular but doubtful theory is that the Church, driven by fear that he would use his power to challenge them, had le Marche killed.

It’s sad to say, but Remi le Marche didn’t have much of an impact on the world at large. I don’t know that much about philosophy but it seems like for all of his effort he remains a small ripple in the history of metaphysics. As far as the ‘history of magic’ goes he’s had even less of an impact. There are a few reasons for this. To begin with he was never interested in fame, and knowledge of his ability never quite reached the masses in his time. News of his public feat in 1774 was only written about in esoteric philosophy articles that the public probably never read. Even when he is written about today it is usually as a footnote in the history of metaphysics. Of course he is popular with conspiracy theorists and a few within the new age movement, but they often exaggerate his story to the point of incredibility.  And even if his story were told accurately, it is a story of years and years of dreary isolation in order to achieve what might seem like minor miracles for academic purposes. He certainly isn’t what people think of when they hear the word ‘magician’ – a fact I’m sure he would be happy about. Nevertheless, the world became a little bit cooler when I read about Remi le Marche.

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1- For example, when you look at a chair you aren’t really seeing the chair but only it’s representation in your mind. If you want to read more on this idea you’ll find it in Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous.

2 – This law was as eternal, fundamental and beyond debate as the law that makes ‘2 + 2 = 4’.  It was simply was the way the universe worked.  There is of course a lot more to his theory that I’ve left out both because I didn’t quite understand it and because I wanted to keep this short. There is a good summary of it in A History of French Metaphysics.

3 – le Marche also saw this as a challenge to the role of God in Berkeley’s theory.  Berkeley’s God put appropriate ideas in a person’s mind (i.e. seeing a chair when one looked at a chair) but didn’t allow things to work the other way around since he was the one control of all sensations, allowing people access to them when appropriate.  le Marche’s idea was a way to prove that some immutable law, and not a God, kept the internal and external worlds consistent.

4 - There is never any mention of him creating anything more visually complicated than this, ostensibly because it was too difficult to picture.  Some people argue that the monastery records actually say he was able to create small objects like pebbles, not light the size of a pebble, but most don’t agree with this translation.

5 – Most people agree that his critics were justified in not being convinced of le Marche’s theories based on this demonstration. It seems like le Marche had become so obsessed with achieving this feat that he didn’t realize how little water it held as an argument in and of itself.  It’s too bad that he didn’t publish his own articles arguing for the relationship between this demonstration and his theories.  There are rumors that he began writing a book entitled A Treatise on the Mental Creation of Objects, but that he didn’t get further than the introduction.  However no traces of it have ever been found.

6 – I’ve come across theories by some people who believe that he managed to not only create actual objects, but living things.  They say that the Church altered records and removed all mention of his creating life, but this seems dubious. It’s likely that if the Church actually had the opportunity to tamper with records of his abilities they would have simply destroyed them altogether. Or on the other hand they might have instead altered them to serve their own purposes. Historian Garth Edwards brought up a similar idea when he said he was “surprised that the Church hasn’t already canonized le Marche, and attempted to bring the miracles he was able to perform under their jurisdiction”. Of course the fact that le Marche was a lifelong atheist made this rather difficult.

Six (Bad) Optical Illusions

1.  Lets start off with a classic. Is the green line longer in figure A or in figure B?

2.  This one technically isn’t an optical illusion, it’s similar to the test used to check for red/green colour blindness. Can you see the number ’3′ in the image below? If not you may be black/jet-black colour blind.

3. The image below appears to be made up of randomly placed lines and curves. However if you stare at the white dot for thirty minutes and then look at a blank surface, a word will emerge.

4. This is my take on the famous old/young woman illusion. In that illusion the image can either be seen as a young woman or an old woman. Though it isn’t obvious at first, the image below can also be seen in two different ways. Try for yourself! If you can’t, scroll down to see the explanation.

Explanation:
At first this appears to only be a sun. However it can also become a face if the sun spots are seen as a pair of eyes, a nose and a mouth. Once it’s explained it’s almost hard NOT to see them that way!

5. Again, this one isn’t quite an optical illusion, but it’s such a cool effect that I had to include it! Certain colours facilitate to linguistic processing while others inhibit it.  One example of a facilitative colour is green; an example of an inhibitory colour is red. Said another way: green words are easier to read than red words.  See for yourself in the following example!

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6. We’ll also end off with a classic. I’m sure you’ve seen this clip of the spinning girl on the internet before. The cool thing is that you can see her rotating both ways. If you stare long enough she will appear to switch directions again and again.

The Forests (Separated)

I figured I would put this up again but with the stories separated. I did play around with different colours but it was hard to get a combination that was easy to read. So here it is with them separated. Please give the original one a shot first though!

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I unfortunately found myself lost in the woods, walking along a path made many years ago. The sun had long since set and a small moon, offering little light, had taken its place. What light it did provide was filtered by a mass of branches, leaves and trunks. Shadows swirled around me, taking forms for a moment before receding back into harmlessness. I pressed on. Ahead the road split in two and neither path seemed more hospitable than the other, I chose the right. An owl hooted somewhere in the distance and it seemed to approve of my decision.

I walked for some time, only having the sound of my own footsteps to keep me company. The forest seemed to relax its stranglehold on the night sky, occasionally even allowing a few stars to peak through its clutches. I walked on. After some eventless minutes or perhaps even hours, the dread that had hung over me subsided. In time it passed altogether. I began to notice how pleasant the night air and the sounds of the forest were. Leaves rustling in the wind seemed to provide an ever-present hum. It was as though the forest was meditating on some whispered mantra; it exuded a calmness that I could feel soaking into my being. I reflected on the fact that my footsteps were blending with the other things I heard and becoming part of the forest’s sounds. I felt a oneness with nature that I’d often heard about but never experienced. Somehow being lost in nature served to dissolve the connections I had to the world outside of it. That world began to seem like a profane mockery of the existence all around me. I was no longer lost in enemy territory; I was in a being that had given birth to me. Stopping and standing still, I closed my eyes and tilted my head towards the sky. The forest’s “om” continued. On top of it came a symphony of sounds: wings fluttering behind me, a small animal chirping, a twig snapping to my left… all part of the sphere that I now felt at one with. I imagined my feet reaching deep into the Earth, and myself springing up from the same source that had produced the trees and the animals. I was no different than them, but rather the same spirit clothed in a different costume. After some time I continued along the path.

With my mind lost in the welcoming eternity surrounding me, it was some time before I noticed a gap in the trees ahead: an exit. Even after I did, it seemed so foreign and out of place that at first I didn’t realize what it was. Slowly it dawned on me and when it did the hazy plateau I’d been standing on seemed to sink sheepishly back into the ground. I stopped walking; my parents had just called me for dinner. It felt like the last few moments of a dream, when waking life seeps in and coldly does away with the fantastic creatures, buildings and scenery. Somehow I knew that what I’d felt in here would be dissolved by the unforgiving reality out there. I stared at the mouth that was about to swallow me whole. Or perhaps it was the reverse and I was about to be released from something. Grudgingly I walked on and as I did, doubt wrapped its warm and cynical hands around me. I started to write off my experience as the product of a tired and panicked mind. The closer I came to the edge of the forest the more ridiculous it all seemed, almost embarrassingly so. Light had been shone into my secret hiding place; the shadow puppets had became worn out socks. I took my last few steps out of the forest and back into the world.

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I unfortunately found myself deep in the woods, walking along a path made many years ago. The sun had long since set and a small moon, offering little light, had taken its place. Shadows swirled around me, taking forms for a moment before sinking back into harmlessness. I pressed on. Ahead the road split in two and neither path seemed hospitable, I chose the left. An owl hooted somewhere in the distance and it seemed to disapprove of my decision.

I walked for some time; the forest appeared to grow darker and more sinister. On two occasions I stopped, believing to hear footsteps in the woods, only to be taunted with silence when I did. An echo, I told myself. Whether I traveled for minutes or hours, I couldn’t tell. I hated these woods, and I hated myself for being lost in them. My mind was immersed in thoughts of self-pity and anger when suddenly a shape moved across the road ahead. I froze and felt the blood in my body turn to ice. Squinting into the trees I searched for the shape that I was convinced meant to harm me. Nothing. My whole body buzzed with the anticipation of danger, it mixed with the darkness around me and formed a threat so great that I resigned myself to some grisly and unavoidable death. I stood like that for some time, frozen in place but feeling like everything inside of me was moving very quickly. I decided to go back to the fork, and take the other path.

Walking quickly I went back the way I came, looking over my shoulder every few steps. I expected to see a pair of eyes without sanity or feel breath without warmth at any moment. Stories I’d heard of ghosts and demons came flooding into my mind and took shape in the shadows all around me. I was running now and in a state of frenzy. Looking back then looking ahead, looking back then looking ahead. Everything started to seem the same; the darkness was closing in on me. I realized that I must have missed the fork. I kept going. To move was to remain safe and to stay still was surely to die. Movement ahead. I stopped. Squinted. Nothing. Quick agitated breathing. My own? No, beside me. I looked in horror. Nothing. Footsteps behind me. Spun around. A shape. Pain. The darkness became absolute.

—

I unfortunately found myself deep in the woods, walking along a path made many years ago. The sun had long since set and a small moon, offering little light, had taken its place. Shadows swirled around me, taking forms for a moment before sinking back into harmlessness. I pressed on. Ahead the road split in two and neither path seemed hospitable, I chose the left. An owl hooted somewhere in the distance and it seemed to disapprove of my decision.

I walked for some time; the forest appeared to grow darker and more sinister. On two occasions I stopped, believing to hear footsteps in the woods, only to be taunted with silence when I did. An echo, I told myself. Whether I traveled for minutes or hours, I couldn’t tell. I hated these woods, and I hated myself for being lost in them. My mind was immersed in thoughts of self-pity and anger when suddenly a shape moved across the road ahead. I froze and felt the blood in my body turn to ice. Squinting into the trees I searched for the shape that I was convinced meant to harm me. Nothing. My whole body buzzed with the anticipation of danger, it mixed with the darkness around me and formed a threat so great that I resigned myself to some grisly and unavoidable death. I stood like that for some time, frozen in place but feeling like everything inside of me was moving very quickly. I decided to continue, mustering every bit of courage I could gather.

Starting off slowly at first, I moved forward. Soon I reached the point in the road that I’d judged the shadow to have crossed. I braced myself. After a few minutes without any harm befalling me I began to relax. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, my muscles eased and I began taking breaths that filled my lungs. A twig snapped in the forest to my right. I took off like a canon shot, running faster than I’d ever run before. The cool air made my eyes water and my throat burn but I kept going. The unknown evil took on every possible form in my mind until I was convinced there was an entire horde behind me, gaining on me. My footsteps and my heartbeat were pounding in my ears, making it impossible to tell how many there actually were. On and on, my legs pushing the road farther and farther behind me with every lunge. I struggled to keep the fear from overwhelming me, beating it back with the exhausting movement.

In the distance I saw a patch of black, lighter than the darkness around me: the end of the forest. Surely this was my mind playing a cruel trick on me, or rather a trick to motivate me. However the patch began to grow as I moved on and I realized that I was actually nearing the edge. From this distant promise of safety I found the strength to keep going. The patch became a tear and then a doorway, I ran through that doorway and back into the world. Fresh air, stars and open space burst into my awareness. I collapsed on a grassy hill a short distance from the exit. Whipping myself around I looked back at the forest and the evil behind me. Nothing. My lungs were on fire and I gulped down air to try and put it out. I lay there panting, staring and waiting. Seconds and then minutes passed without any sign of movement. Relief flooded over me in shades of joy and ecstasy. With a dawning realization I laughed aloud at what had probably been no more than some small animal.

The Forests

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John Lennon Influencing Drake?

(I’ve added two notes at the end since I originally wrote this.)

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Drake does this thing when he’s rapping where he’ll say a line and then say a single, non-sequitur word* that is related to that line. For example:

“I can teach you how to speak my language. Rosetta Stone.”

“Swimming in the money come and find me. Nemo.”

Lil Wayne does it too, interestingly only after That Carter III. I’m curious who influenced who? Examples from WEEZY:

“Been running this shit. Blisters.”

“That’s that mob shit n*. Martin Scorsese.”

I’ve heard Nicki Minaj do it too. Neat that they’re all sort of in the same group and do a lot of songs together, I guess these things spread. Two examples from Nicki Minaj, within a few seconds of eachother:

“Hang it up. Flatscreen.
Plasma.
Hey Nicki hey Nicki. Asthma.”

I like this kind of style. Metaphors and similes are a major part of rap, but usually within the structure of sentences. This is almost like they’re too cool to bother with putting their metaphor/simile into a sentence. I think it comes across as cocky, which is cool. Actually sometimes they’re metaphors/similes, sometimes they’re metonyms. Metaphors/similes talk about the similarity between two things (e.g. I can teach you how to speak my language, I’m the Rosetta Stone/I can teach you how to speak a language like the Rosetta stone does).** Metonyms refer to something by way of another thing that is “intimately associated with that thing or concept” (Wikipedia). For example calling a credit cards ‘plastic’, calling a language a ‘tongue’ or referring to the mob by saying Martin Scorcese.

Now onto John Lennon! I wrote in another post that as far as I know John Lennon was the first singer to truly break the fourth wall in a song. The first person to talk to a specific audience, identified as himself. I also said that by doing this he made rap possible, mostly jokingly. Now I think that he might have been the first person to do this sort of thing that I’ve been talking about. In the song “It’s Only Love” he says:

“When you sigh my, my inside just flies, butterflies.”

Butterflies is a single non-sequitur word, related to the line that came before it. It’s a simile for the way he describes feeling, but without putting the simile into a sentence (i.e. my inside just flies as though I had butterflies in my stomach). I guess another way to look at it is he’s specifying what he meant when he said ‘flies’, again without doing it in a sentence.***

In reality it doesn’t quite matter exactly how it’s related. It’s a single word added after a sentence and related to it in some way, but without other words to make the relation explicit and grammatically correct. To me that makes it the same as the rap examples.

What’s my point here? In all seriousness I don’t actually think that this style in rap comes from “It’s Only Love”. But I think it’s very cool, and indicative of how creative he was, that John Lennon came up with this sort of thing decades ago. Maybe he himself got it from somewhere, I’d love to hear about it if you know of an earlier example.

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* When I say non-sequitur I mean that it doesn’t follow grammatically. It comes out of nowhere in the same way that the rap examples did. Obviously it isn’t a non-sequitur in terms of meaning.

** Often it could be either a metaphor or a simile, depending on how you phrased the sentence around the extra word.

*** I suppose you could say that it’s part of the sentence, but tacked on and without any words to make it fit grammatically. Same thing really.

—

Note: A friend of mine pointed out that none of the examples I mentioned are true metonyms because the single word would never be used as a substitute for the idea it’s related to (e.g. you wouldn’t substitute “Scorsese” for “the mob”). So if the word doesn’t imply a metaphor or a simile, but is simply related to the sentence, I’m not sure if it technically qualifies as anything more than just that.

Note: I just read that this sort of style (apparently called “truncated similes”) was originated by Big Sean, especially in a song called “Supa Dupa”.  Here is Drake talking about it!

30 Minutes Take Two

giving this another shot. shot of benzedrine i think i was allergic to amoxacilin as a kid but because it tasted like bananas which are strange fruits they become yellow when they are ready to be eaten what a weird colour to indicate eating ready state of fruit which is a word to describe another well move on from there keys onthe keyboard are black like the black keys which are a band that play music a can type out each other album names but i dont want to right now right write wright which one is right ha ha ha ha what a funny soudn to make when things are funny i wonder what advantage that provided out ancestors as a kid but i mean a kid in terms of the human race why a race who is going to win that is a joke ive heard before, that was a little joke voila, praise is due to the plblah blah blah kanye is very tlented but he was a very strange name maybe i should autocorrect this after but i cant think about that now just write whatever comes to mind a waste is a terrible thing to mind. that s interesting teresting in teresting was what i was trying to say pay heydaymaylay clay fray way play ray kay may nay moving ON! rhyming is interesting wht a strange thing it is and what a strange thing it is that we enjoy when things rhyme music rhymes but where did that convention come from. and why is music only sounds and words put together someone decided that at somepoint and it just stuck. doubt s creeping back and i have to forget that and just keep typing. qwerty is what people all these typewriters. its a good thing that the first five keys werent fuckyou thats more than five but i cant count at the moment count dracula is a count he is also on the cover of cereal boxes what a cool thing to be on the cover of. although id rather be on the cover of an album, an album ocver if you will. maybe i will have to correct the spelling. spelling spelling spelling what if i misspelled the word spelling, that is interesting. i like words that sould i mean sound like what they mean. i think that ‘odd’ is one such word. periods and commas… ,,, … ,,, … ,,, comma kind of sounds like what it means but what does it really mean? mountains are green with grass but are mountains actually green, who kows sides of mountains are covered with grass this is true true true ture turing is a test to see if machines possess intelligence is that true? let them try and type non-stop for thirty minutes atnd that will demonstrate intelligence. i havent sworn yet. swearing can mean saying a bad thing and something religious which is interesting i suppose it is because most of the swear words used to be religious. what if they used to be fruits, then swearing would be called producing. well moving on gevetables are a thing i havent talked about yet. i dont like them on sandwiches but i do like them on the side. iceberg lettuce what the fuck is the point in it even existing. but isnt that the real question! wo oh well oh well what the hell does that mean? oh well i should look up where that saying comes from it is a bit strange. i think that this would be better if I spelled better but thats alright its okay, y y y y y is an interesting letter because it waas I mean has three points okay thats just been eight minutes and im fucking exhausted exhaust pipes on cars spill poisoinous gasses into the air so isnt that exhausting. I WANT TO STOP. but i cant because i started and now how would THAT look! i wish I could speak things into existence like God supposedly can. i guess from a certain point of view when you say things they do become existing (horrible way to phrase that no cant worry about that) so when you say things they are created which is cool. can God create a rock that is too heavy for him to lift. how many people have ever said that and felt fucking clever. 152346 by my estimate! why that number? when I look at a number I automatically check if is a multiple of three. weird I suppose. suppose i want to suppose a supposition governor? okay thats alright. why do people spell it OK?? because they are lazy!! spelling OK is NOT what im doing at the moment. I wonder if people that capitalize the letter /I/ when referring to themselves are being cocky? hahaha cocky what a weird work to describe being full of yourself. I wonder if it was a lady or a boy that came up with that definition? you see by saying lady or a boy I tried to avoid sounding sexist, if I had said woman or a man it brings to mind disgusting old convesrvative men (well not slaming conservatives dont worry) but these old people in tutrle necks and mustaches talking about how women should stay in the kitchen and that horse shit. but if I say lady and boy it sounds a bit more innocent, and innocent is what that general wondering was! that is a phrase fromfriends I think that Changler Bing said that! what a stupid name. Friends was a good show! look how much I like it I even took the time to capitalize it! I guess oh wow now I even capitalized the letter I. So I wonder if peopele ever avoid capitalizing the letter I when referring to themselves because they dont like themselves. its interesting that capitalizing the first letter of something shows respect. what is cool is this. fuck the outcome its all about the process, SOMETIMES! it had better be because this outcome wont be very great but this process does feel quite freeing. I wonder why we associate freeing with flying? I suppose thats quite obvious. what a weird sounding word obvious. I like to look at the keys on my keyboard and see which ones have been used the most and are the most worn away. I iuse to use a keyboard cover but I realized that was a bit too Maire Barone ESQUE. marie barone! Everybody Loves Raymond was a good show. the Dad was funny. Guck what inane gibber gabber! Onopatopea is NOT how you spell the word I’m trying to relate to you . Constricting thought into language is like making orange juice, a cup of orange juie out of ten fucking oranges. But at this speed im just struggling to keep the train going. I guess this must be good for something anyway lets move on. saying something lik e”lets move on” sounds pretentious as well. alright radiators and heaters warm the room up like the sun. what is the fascination with the sun? well thats quite ovbious it warms the earth and lets crops grow, which was the most important thing to our ancestors. I dont feel like im properly expressing or s dois doing justice to myself wlike this. Thhis must be what it feels like to struggle to get words out in a foreign language. Language is such an amazing thing. I would like to use other adjectives but it might sound pretentious. letters I think that letters I think that letters I think that letters. I would like to find the linguistic equivalent of chord progressions. That would be very interesting. when I post this on Facebook maybe I shouldn’t post it because people will raise their eyebrows at it. I would hate it if people raised their eyebrows at me! fuck them. glasses are interesting. not the ones that you put on your nose but the ones that you drink out of silly! they are these objects that hold a liquid in a certain position in mid air when otherwise it would just collapse and go everytwere! pretty cool. glassses that go on your nose are prety ineresting as well. I saw a TED talk about an intentor that had had invented glasses makde made with water and that were entirely adjustable and cost something like eight dollars. you should fill them with beer and call them beer Goggles HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA funny man I am well not a man exactly. anyway the number seven looks cool, quite different from the mumber eight which it immediately predecesses. well then i see that I only have ten mintues left. time for some unedited, totally free free association. trees swings bepeople on swings swining red wagons calvin hobbes comics great comics mom dad of calving without names Zits comics seemed like the heirs to the throne but arent very good anymore. political comics, it semms like newspapers just put them in because they feel like they have to nowadays. not that I know jack shit about politics and thus am not the proper person to judge them! politics are aone of those topics that everyone seems to know about and be an expert on. tables with four legs why four legs?? I suppose that makes sense. takles . tables rather. very much liek glasses just holding things in mid air that would other wise collapse. wells of meaing inundated with ogres and elves, prancing about in nutshells of comically cosmic osmosis. well anyway. why do I say that so often fuck fuck fuck. what an amazing ly cathartic word that is, and i am slowing down NO cant slow down must go ahead not MUCH TIME let. left. dunny I mean funny that capitalizing a word makes it read louder that is funny hahahhahaha but not HAHAHAHAHA hahaha. wlol I hate that I sometimes accidentally say lol in real life. but why is that so bad? nothign is bad, there is no way to judge something as being good or bad so its all good! ahhahahahaha exclamation marks look like they should look, they look loud. but obviously that is just hte years of associating the two concepts. i used to collect bangaes. bandages. band aids and bandages what is the difference? is it like kleenexes and tissues? who knows. lists I could have just written a a list but fuck thats been done. hover crafts would be interesting indeed you could HOVER with them what does hover spell backwards revoh wow that is amazing that i could do that on the fly! another word to spell backwards. how about howdy ydwoh hahahahahha that is fun! what about elephant tanhelle oopes fucked that one up. dekcuf tha is good. family gy isnt a great show. i cant beleive that people think its on par with the simpsons. ill make a family guy joke this moment, this instance in fact! all over af ah fuck it i dont know where that was going, i was just going to rewrite a single phrase over and over. but seriously that is the joke, well you know that already. but its weird that the thing itself isnt funny, its just that its being done over and over. I guess the form is funny which I’m all for. contractions, what a cool addition to the english language. but when people try to make them up they get slammed! like saying t’phone well not that but you know what I mean when people try to edit out parts of a word to sound cool. I dwonder if that is how people started saying don’t instead of do not. some fucking cool ass guy started saying don’t and everyone thought he sounded very cool and relaxed and now its normal. moving on periods and commas … ,,, … ,, its lucky that our colons have two dots! how the fell I mean hell would we make all of these emoticons if they had three dots?!?!?!?!? we’d be utterly emotionless on the internet which is all that matters right? question marks also look like questions but again that is ijust the years and years of associating the two. two one xero should really nbe spelled with an x, those xerox fucks were on to something. on the the the the is a pretty overused word! its become a tad too trite if I do say so myself. sayso should be a word. maybe one say it will be! ive always wanted to make up a word. but how to do that, would be hard to communicate the ocnept it attempts to communicate with a out a a word to communicate it in the first place! rrroburos is not how you spell that either. i like words with double letters like letter. double should really have been spelled doubble to have had two letters in it. im going to be almost done in 28 seconds. what if the world ended while I was doing this and I didnt notice because I was so utterly engrossed in trying to communicate this mishmash of words running through my head?

44 (Doing a Project)

(from March 10th, 2010)
———

80, 02, 40, 02 00, 02, 69, 91, 29, __

Roger barely looked up from his piece of paper in time to avoid walking into the annoyingly well-dressed kid strutting past. The kid looked like he’d just combed his hair back with a hamburger, and was talking on his blackberry. ‘Fuck’ thought Roger as he jumped onto the grass out of the way. “… some old leaf” he heard the kid say annoyingly to whatever annoying friend he was ‘talking’ to. ‘Leaf eh?’ Roger was convinced that there was a mastermind living underground somewhere, choosing random words from the dictionary to turn into slang. ‘I’m not a leaf’ he thought defiantly.

He went back to his piece of paper. ‘Eighty divided by two is forty, but then how do you get from forty to two? And why have two zeros, just so that every number is two digits? Does working this out on the street make me a leaf?’ Roger has just won $500 on a lottery ticket, but couldn’t figure out the skill-testing question. ‘This is hard! I never thought they were actually skill testing. And what kind of skill was this testing anyway?’ He kept working on it as he made his way down the street.

In the distance he saw someone he knew coming down the street, ‘fuck’. ‘I don’t want to take out my earphones. Should I do the polite one earphone out thing. Nah fuck it.’ He reached the person, who mouthed something with a smile, Roger couldn’t hear a word of it. “Good and you?” Roger guessed. The other person nodded, said something else and kept walking. ‘Phew! One day I’m going to get that wrong though. They’ll say something like my pancreas just exploded get help! Good and you?’

Roger had reached his destination, 33 Chestnut Drive, the home of Robert. ‘Robert, Robert, Robert… of all the people to be paired up with for this assignment why Robert.’ He banged in the door and waited for an answer. ‘What a barbaric idea that is. Can you imagine doing that in any other situation? If you’re eating dinner and want someone’s attention you start banging on the table. Or just banging on the wall if you want to call someone into a room’.

“Hi there!” Robert’s mother opened the door with a smile.

“Hey, hi, how are you, ma’am?” Roger fumbled. He hated talking to other people’s parents, he never knew how formal to be. For some reason he imagined that once you have a kid you immediately change into someone who only discusses routes to work and fiber; and your only idea of fun is playing ‘who can find the remote’.

“Robert is in his room, go on up!”

“Thank you, Mrs. ma’am”. Robert… Robert was an odd kid. Not a bad kid, but a kid with one VERY annoying habit. At some point between grades 10 and 11 some person, some EVIL person, had told Robert what a palindrome was. Ever since then Robert tried to turn every fucking sentence he ever spoke into one -
“Hey Roger!” said Robert from the top of the stairs. “Reg, or…yeh?” – only he was shit at it.

‘Does he want me to respond to that? Reg or yeh… what the hell does that mean.’ “Hey Robert, how’s it goin’?” He shook Robert’s hand hoping he wouldn’t say anything else. ‘I guess that sort of made sense. Regular, or… yeah regular. But why was it a question?’ He followed Robert into his bedroom. It was like any typical teenager’s bedroom, full of dirty clothes, plates with half-eaten sandwiches and so on. And it smelled like Jabba the Hutt’s jockstrap, whatever that meant. “All set to do this thing?”

“Yup! Puy.” …This was going to be a loooooong afternoon. The two of them had to write a presentation on kayaks and their influence on the fur trade, or some shit like that. Roger found a chair and sat down. He checked his watch 3:53; hopefully they could finish quickly. Roger looked at his new watch, water-resistant up to 100 m. He smiled, and remembered that when he was a kid he actually took depth of water resistance into account when buying watches. ‘Hundred…’ He pulled out the piece of paper with the string of numbers on it. ‘Eighty plus zero two reversed was a hundred. AND forty plus zero two reversed… was not a hundred.’ ‘Eighty, two, forty. Eighty to forty? Negative forty? No that doesn’t help.’ The first six numbers seemed somehow related… but those last three… He angrily put it away realizing that he shouldn’t ignore his word-smith of a friend.

“Did you get those books from the library?” Roger asked.

“Over there, er… eh t-revo.” Robert replied. He chuckled and smiled to himself as if that were a particularly good one. Roger felt himself getting annoyed. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with Robert mentally, so it was OK to think he was a moron. But really, how did he not clue in that the second half of whatever he said made no fucking sense. “See them? Meh, tee-”

“Yeah thanks” Roger cut him off. It was probably pretty hard to do actually, remembering what you just said and flipping it around… but so was head-butting yourself in the balls, that doesn’t mean it’s impressive. Well actually… bad example. Roger pulled out a book on kayaks and started reading. ‘Ah who am I kidding’ he thought and went to turn on Robert’s computer. He moved the mouse and the racecar screen saver disappeared. “Alrighty, wikipedia it is?”

“Good idea, a edid, OOG!” Sometimes he yelled his nonsense words as if that would make more sense. Robert pulled up a chair and sat beside Roger. While the computer loaded Roger pulled out the numbers again. ‘Maybe it’s an odd/even thing…’

“Zero…” he started to think outloud “is that always even?”

“Never odd or even. Ne, verod. Dore ven…” replied Robert. Roger hadn’t realized he was talking out loud. “Hmm”. The computer came on and Roger put the numbers on the desk. The weirdest thing was that Robert hadn’t noticed that his short name: Bob, was actually a palindrome. People made sure not to tell him too, Roger chuckled. Wikipedia came up and Roger typed in a word.

“How do you pronounce this word again?” he asked pointing to the screen.

“Flocci nauci nihili pili fication, No I tac, if I lip, I lihin, I cuanic. Colf?” Robert replied helpfully.

“Right, thanks.” Roger replied, annoyed that his scheme hadn’t worked. They sat there in silence for a second and then he said: “You know that doesn’t mean anything, that last thing you said”.

“It’s a palindrome! Emord… ni lap? As ti!” Robert replied, grinning like an idiot.

“Whatever.” Roger said sitting back in his chair. “So how should be split up the presenting… should I do all the talking or…”

“What’s that? Tah T.S.T. ahw.” Robert said pointing the piece of paper with the numbers on it.

“Oh nothing, a stupid puzzle I can’t figure out. So kayaks… they’re exciting eh?” Robert picked up the paper. ‘I guess he’s changing the subject, was I rude?’ “Ok we can both talk.”

Without saying anything Robert picked up a pen, wrote something and handed it to Roger.

91

“What are you doing. In pen? Really?”

“Leap years. Sra eypa el.”

Leap years..? Then Roger saw it. The commas melted away and he saw the numbers grouped in fours: 8002, 4002, 0002, 6991 and now 2991. Or 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008. Leap years… backwards. He looked up at Robert, who was smiling, happy he could help.

“Leap years… Robert…” Roger was at a loss for words. ‘Wow he just gave me $500.’ Something about the way Robert had just handed him the paper; so eager to help made Roger feel guilty. Guilty for not wanting to be here… guilty for being dissapointed when he’d found out they were partners… guilty.

“Thanks… Bob” Roger said. Robert thought for a second, and then it hit him. His eyes let up as a huge smile came across his face.