Stuff from an Old Notebook #19

 

  
Random thoughts and ideas from the last year. 
 



 

 -I wonder how much of beauty is taught to us by our parents.  In hiking today, I came to what I would consider a gorgeous little stretch of stream with a waterfall and small pool at one end.  I nearly did this hike with my daughter, and I’m sure had we come to this point, I would have unconsciously said,"How beautiful."  And hearing such things repeated through childhood, does one then learn to appreciate the same beauty (second hand beauty?) as their parents. 

 

-Did the Beats teach us freedom, or self-indulgent narcissism?  The longing to not only live a life well lived, but also to chronicle it.





-The lobotomizing effect of pop culture.

 

-English lesson as if inspired by Cage’s 4:33.

-Happo-shu string budget



 

-Celebration of the Mundane


-Story idea about a guy who’s been in Japan a long time and is starting to spend more time abroad.  Little by little he’s become like a bell curve, moving out of touch with what’s going on here. His reactions and responses no longer quite matching up.  It’s a lot like his early days when he didn’t understand Japanese.  But now he can understand nearly everything, which reflects the disjunct of his situation. 
 

-You Asaay


-Americans are like puppies, trying to jump up and lick everybody’s face.  The English on the other hand are more like cats;  they’ll occasionally climb up on your lap and let you pet them, but if you try to clutch them too tightly, they’ll become taciturn and (run off.)



 

-A rotation of Lucinda Williams and Tom Petty waltzing across my iPod.   


-Cognitive Dissidents

-(X), the greatest mass murderer since Noah.  The ark, a metaphor for climate change, some sort of climactic disaster.  Bible fond of incest; Cain and Abel, Noah’s family. 


-Ambiance Chasers

-What the trees give, the ground receives. 

-Yama-Maester Wes 

-Incongruity of Dream

-Typhoon announcements coming, their words lost to the blustery winds. 

-Even God has given up hope.  

-To quote Laurens van der Post:  “I’ve always divided humanity roughly into two main streams, those who work by expansion and those who work by contraction.  The Japanese have a genius for contraction.”  And while perhaps that have once been true,  during the bubble years they were misled to believe that expansion was the preferable new order, and have been expanding ever since, even after the parameters of the bubble burst.     


-In Dream:  Going to Yonago to find the old house in the process of being razed.  From the depths of me emits an inhuman howl of grief.  It’s like the final bits of Ken are definitively gone.  

 

 

On the turntable:  Dev Mason, "Live at Perkins Palace"