My entire life is sitting on the back-burner,
i’ve fallen into a rabbit-hole of sudden ability
to entertain my apathy,
and i’ve succumbed to the sensation
whole-heartedly.
Time passes as a series of pipe-dreams,
passion bursting into ephemeral flame
to paint moments rich in meaning,
so far away, and fading
as i trace their shape into memory
to be preserved with all the other artifacts
of dreams untested.
sometimes there is nothing but trouble to be found in the exercise of rational thought, sometimes it’s a terrible idea to go to the bar
you find yourself tangled in the decaying tendrils of the hard-won hope that there is enough inherent intelligence and good-will in the human species to undertake the admittedly difficult tasks of seeing to the sustainability of this human experiment
Every once in a while you stumble across something that just works so damn well you can’t hardly believe it. I had one of those experiences the other day; what seemed especially fascinating to me was the fact that I’d had this particular piece of ‘perfect poetry’ in my possession for quite a number of years, and while I’d enjoyed it, it had never really struck me the way it did when I stumbled back across it a few days ago.
Just heard the news today, Pink Floyd’s original front man, Syd Barrett, has died.
From what I know of the man; a couple of books, the great beast of rumor and factoids that are traded around by those who love Floyd, and of course, the music he created, both with Floyd and on his own, Syd was a true freak, a creature perhaps too weird for this world, or perhaps the world was too weird for him. He took chances; he pushed the edge, and almost certainly took too much acid. I’m sitting here listening to Piper at the Gates of Dawn, and as always, the innovation and brilliance of the songwriting is easily apparent.
It sounds like he took lessons from William Shatner’s style of singing, but this video footage of good ol’ ‘W’ spliced together to make him sing U2’s ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ is absolutely hysterical.
My personal favorite bits are the parts where he appears to be dancing, or his facial expressions provide lovely splashes of commentary to the lyrical content.
This wasn’t written to convince anyone of anything
This wasn’t written to be a great work or to explain anything
This was written because I had to write it
This was written because I hope someone will read this, and be reassured
This was written because writing is so often all I have . . .
In these modern times.
I swear it’s not doom and gloom, and I hope you’ll agree with me.
-finite (do me a favor and play along) jester
She looked better than she had before she’d gone -
the third employee from my workplace to spend time in a mental institution since October - she looked happy, looked like she’d been losing weight and was actually taking time to worry about the whole ‘personal hygiene’ issue.
What a strange experience; hopefully this isn’t one of those entries that reek of ‘things which happen in my world and have no real bearing on anyone else’s life’ which contaminates so much of the blogosphere, (you know what i’m talking about). In truth there is a fairly significant portion of my mind that doesn’t want to share the event that I am preparing to report, but in the interest of continuing to consider myself an enlightened human who isn’t afraid to admit anything, I present the following tale; take from it what you will.
There is a part of you that feels terrible when you look at your blog and realize how many days it has been since anything new appeared on it. Strange twinges of egotistical thought (egotistical simply because we want to fool ourselves into thinking that there is a faithful readership out there, [and if there is such a faithful readership {oh please let there be a faithful readership} hopefully they will forgive these bouts of silliness] but otherwise why do we bother to write, let alone care?) that one will try to justify anyway. This paragraph I’ll blame on - global warming.
Spring can bring out the best in people; it certainly drags them out of the house. Those first few days, before the essential beauty of warm sun and sweet breezes is relegated like so much other novel ephemera, it seems like everyone is out in the streets and most of them are smiling. The presence of so much happy humanity hits me like too many gin and tonics and makes me giddy.
Yes, it was another evening where the cognoscenti gathered, and I was left to keep track of the fundamental imagery discussed. Gentle reader, understand that I will do my level best to attempt a synthesis of the ideals which bounced between the finite jester and the talking plant, but ultimately that becomes an impossibility.
Well, I’ve done it again. I (in my omnipresent, and sometimes damning, capacity as jester) have managed to take what should be a fairly simple task, a short (2-3 page) paper about a short story, and pushed it into the realm of the private metaphysics I am apparently compelled to write.
The other night there was a party in the apartment upstairs. Nice loud festivity beaming down through the floor-boards to help me feel more merry in the frivolity I’d given the evening up to. At some point there comes a knock on the door, and I open it to find three attractive young women standing on the stoop.
ok… whiz bang post right here…
an honest,
very few holds-barred attempt
to wring out an understanding of
my basic essence…
and ultimately i’m just trying to stop the post teaser from giving away too much… so finally
i’ll also say
that there’s a wild nugget from
rock’n'roll history to listen to as well… so give a click… take a second out of your busy day and see if there is something here worth reading… finite jester
Are you proud of your pain? Is it a secret you love to share? Has the tale of your torments become the central underpinning of your identity?
Sitting here, as the person responsible for typing out the questions above, I feel required to state that I can’t recall a single person I’ve ever known worth a damn who hadn’t suffered.
Ok so do me a favor here, wait to play the song until it appears in the text, just humor me.
Thanks…
This, I don’t know, maybe it’s-
some kind of beatnik thing.
Oh no, here it comes, one of those moments. You’ve spent an evening without the buffer of alcohol to protect you from your thoughts, the library was closed so you’re out of fresh things to distract your mind, you’ve been watching movies you’ve downloaded and drinking iced apple juice all night; peering into odd corners of the world that are revealed on sober, introspective evenings.
This is a wonderful world. For all the complaints and the not-so-occasional bitching that I have been known to indulge in there are so many wonderful things floating all across this planet that it’s a waste of your most precious commodity (namely your time) to spend anything more then a few moments of your time wallowing in misery.
And with that in mind, here’s my humble recomendations for your day.
Are we cool enough as a species to make it? I mean this seriously, because the impression one can get from surfing certain arenas of the internet, or if one is unfortunate enough to own a television set, there is a lot of stuff out there that can lead quickly to the conclusion that well… maybe we deserve to join the dinosaurs and await a new half-life as odd museum peices… our bones put together just slightly wrong enough to make us interesting for the next wave of life to take a shot here.
Today marks the anniversary of the death of this great man. For all his troubles and human failings he was still great, and strung together some of the best songs ever assembled. This is a poor tribute… but I felt like saying something. So spare a moment here, this post will let you play ‘instant karma’ and just remember that…
“we all shine on… like the moon and the stars and the sun.”