I was out to witness a crime.
Walking alone,
past the gray brick walls
past the sleeping homeless
past countless spray-paint
works of art.
I was sipping a latte
through the "bad" part of town.
in the ill-lit walks
in the store-front sector
in the very middle
of the night.
I was walking down an alley.
To where my bike waited,
chained to a pipe
screwed to a meter
stuck in the ground
and I left for home.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Longest. Sentence. Ever.
...how Marcel Proust instantly became my idol.
The sentence which follows, is possibly the greatest thing I've ever seen in all of literature. There are:
"Those high white curtains which hid from the eyes the bed placed as if in the rear of a sanctuary; the scattering of light silk counterpanes, of quilts with flowers, of embroidered bedspreads, of linen pillowcases, this scattering under which it disappeared in the daytime, as an altar in the month of Mary under festoons and flowers, and which, in the evening, in order to go to bed, I would place cautiously on an armchair where they consented to spend the night; by the bed, the trinity of the glass with blue patterns, the matching sugar bowl, and the decanter (always empty, since the day after my arrival, by order of my aunt who was afraid to see it "spill"), these instruments, as it were, of the cult-almost as sacred as the precious orange blossom liqueur placed near them in a glass phial-,which I would no more have thought of profaning nor even of possibly using for myself than if they had been consecrated ciboria, but which I would examine a long time before undressing, for fear of upsetting them by a false motion; those little crocheted open-work stoles which threw on the backs of the armchair a mantel of white roses that must not have been without thorns since every time I was through reading and wanted to I noticed I remained caught in them; that glass bell on which, isolated from vulgar contacts, the clock was babbling privately for shells come from far away and for an old sentimental flower, but which was so heavy to lift that when the clock stopped, nobody but the clock-maker would have been foolhardy enough to undertake to wind it up; that very white guipure tablecloth which, thrown as an altar runner across the chest of drawers adorned with two vases, a picture of the Savior, and a twig of blessed boxwood made it resemble the Lord's Table (of which a priedieu, placed there every day, when the room war "done," finished evoking the idea), but whose frayings always catching in the chinks of the drawers stopped their movement so completely that I could never take out a handkerchief without at once knocking down the picture of the Savior, the sacred vases, the twig of blessed boxwood, and without stumbling and catching hold of the priedieu; finally, that triple layer of little bolting-cloth curtains, of large muslin curtains, and of larger dimity curtains always smiling in their often sunny hawthorn whiteness, but in reality very irritating in their awkwardness and stubbornness in playing around the parallel wooden bars and tangling in one another and getting all in the window as soon as I wanted to open or close it, -a second one being always ready if I succeeded in extricating the first to come to take its place immediately in the cracks as perfectly plugged by them as they would have been by a real hawthorn bush or by nests of swallows that might have had the fancy to settle there, so that this operation, in appearance so simple, of opening or closing my window, I never succeeded in doing without the help of someone in the house; all those things which not only could not answer any of my needs, but were even an impediment however slight, to their satisfaction, which evidently had never been placed there for someone's use, peopled my room with thoughts somehow personal, with that air of predilection, of having chosen to live there and delighting in it, which, often the trees in a clearing and the flowers on the road side or on old walls have."
Update: Alright, I actually did some research and found that there are much longer sentences out there...up to 40,000 words, apparently.
The sentence which follows, is possibly the greatest thing I've ever seen in all of literature. There are:
- 605 words
- 51 commas
- 7 semi-colons
- 2 parenthetical clauses
- 1 period.
"Those high white curtains which hid from the eyes the bed placed as if in the rear of a sanctuary; the scattering of light silk counterpanes, of quilts with flowers, of embroidered bedspreads, of linen pillowcases, this scattering under which it disappeared in the daytime, as an altar in the month of Mary under festoons and flowers, and which, in the evening, in order to go to bed, I would place cautiously on an armchair where they consented to spend the night; by the bed, the trinity of the glass with blue patterns, the matching sugar bowl, and the decanter (always empty, since the day after my arrival, by order of my aunt who was afraid to see it "spill"), these instruments, as it were, of the cult-almost as sacred as the precious orange blossom liqueur placed near them in a glass phial-,which I would no more have thought of profaning nor even of possibly using for myself than if they had been consecrated ciboria, but which I would examine a long time before undressing, for fear of upsetting them by a false motion; those little crocheted open-work stoles which threw on the backs of the armchair a mantel of white roses that must not have been without thorns since every time I was through reading and wanted to I noticed I remained caught in them; that glass bell on which, isolated from vulgar contacts, the clock was babbling privately for shells come from far away and for an old sentimental flower, but which was so heavy to lift that when the clock stopped, nobody but the clock-maker would have been foolhardy enough to undertake to wind it up; that very white guipure tablecloth which, thrown as an altar runner across the chest of drawers adorned with two vases, a picture of the Savior, and a twig of blessed boxwood made it resemble the Lord's Table (of which a priedieu, placed there every day, when the room war "done," finished evoking the idea), but whose frayings always catching in the chinks of the drawers stopped their movement so completely that I could never take out a handkerchief without at once knocking down the picture of the Savior, the sacred vases, the twig of blessed boxwood, and without stumbling and catching hold of the priedieu; finally, that triple layer of little bolting-cloth curtains, of large muslin curtains, and of larger dimity curtains always smiling in their often sunny hawthorn whiteness, but in reality very irritating in their awkwardness and stubbornness in playing around the parallel wooden bars and tangling in one another and getting all in the window as soon as I wanted to open or close it, -a second one being always ready if I succeeded in extricating the first to come to take its place immediately in the cracks as perfectly plugged by them as they would have been by a real hawthorn bush or by nests of swallows that might have had the fancy to settle there, so that this operation, in appearance so simple, of opening or closing my window, I never succeeded in doing without the help of someone in the house; all those things which not only could not answer any of my needs, but were even an impediment however slight, to their satisfaction, which evidently had never been placed there for someone's use, peopled my room with thoughts somehow personal, with that air of predilection, of having chosen to live there and delighting in it, which, often the trees in a clearing and the flowers on the road side or on old walls have."
Update: Alright, I actually did some research and found that there are much longer sentences out there...up to 40,000 words, apparently.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Impostor!
...who is actually a pretty good blogger. So I forgive her.
When trying to access my other blog from work, I mistyped the address and accidentally typed just existentialbeatnik.blogspot.com. Imagine my surprise when I was not greeted by my own smiling, cartoon face next to a light-hearted story about street racing, but another blog entirely.
Had I been secretly usurped? What would become of my musings?!
Nah, I soon realized, my domain has a "the" in front of "existential". But I was pleased to check out her blog for a bit, and realized that she's quite the good writer.
When trying to access my other blog from work, I mistyped the address and accidentally typed just existentialbeatnik.blogspot.com. Imagine my surprise when I was not greeted by my own smiling, cartoon face next to a light-hearted story about street racing, but another blog entirely.
Had I been secretly usurped? What would become of my musings?!
Nah, I soon realized, my domain has a "the" in front of "existential". But I was pleased to check out her blog for a bit, and realized that she's quite the good writer.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
A quick expansion of the internet intellect.
If you're ever feeling complacent and bored with the internet (I personally hope that this never happens to you), but if you are, try this:
See the link bar at the very top of this page? Go to the link that reads "Next Blog". Click on it. Repeat. Try this now, then come back to this post after you've explored a while.
You've probably found, as I have, loads of striking things about this type of exploration. You'll undoubtedly be struck by the fact that English is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the language of the internet. I have spent hours and hours just exploring various blogs in various languages and styles and it's really expanded my concept of the internet blogosphere. You'll also find that blogs come in an unfathomable array of different subjects. In fact, just today I found a blog which was completely devoted to pictures of interesting mushrooms. It was fascinating.
Just do this for a while, repeat, keep clicking that link, soak it up, learn about some family that you'll never meet and how their twelve-year-old's birthday party went down, learn all about a japanese photographer without understanding a word of the text, learn about a young girl's love of whatever idol she idolizes, learn about all of these people, if only because you can.
This knowledge, these experiences, are put out there by people who care deeply about these things, and even though the presentation might be shoddy, even though they may still be using the blog's default settings, realize that all of this is part of one beautiful interconnectedness. The internet doesn't have to be about porn and online gambling all the time. This is the future of our modern civilization, and we all shape it in our own unique ways.
Start your own blog, regardless of how insignificant you may feel, because there may be a time, when some random blogger our there clicks on Next Blog and finds...
See the link bar at the very top of this page? Go to the link that reads "Next Blog". Click on it. Repeat. Try this now, then come back to this post after you've explored a while.
You've probably found, as I have, loads of striking things about this type of exploration. You'll undoubtedly be struck by the fact that English is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the language of the internet. I have spent hours and hours just exploring various blogs in various languages and styles and it's really expanded my concept of the internet blogosphere. You'll also find that blogs come in an unfathomable array of different subjects. In fact, just today I found a blog which was completely devoted to pictures of interesting mushrooms. It was fascinating.
Just do this for a while, repeat, keep clicking that link, soak it up, learn about some family that you'll never meet and how their twelve-year-old's birthday party went down, learn all about a japanese photographer without understanding a word of the text, learn about a young girl's love of whatever idol she idolizes, learn about all of these people, if only because you can.
This knowledge, these experiences, are put out there by people who care deeply about these things, and even though the presentation might be shoddy, even though they may still be using the blog's default settings, realize that all of this is part of one beautiful interconnectedness. The internet doesn't have to be about porn and online gambling all the time. This is the future of our modern civilization, and we all shape it in our own unique ways.
Start your own blog, regardless of how insignificant you may feel, because there may be a time, when some random blogger our there clicks on Next Blog and finds...
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Late-Night Blurb
He was a menace, a monster. Some called him a destroyer of worlds. Now, with his new-found powers he was able to level cities, kill with a stare, and most terrifyingly, he could be anywhere--and everywhere--he chose.
He was absolutely unstoppable now, and standing directly before us. The room lay deathly silent, for a time.
CLACK--The sound of a ceramic assault rifle hitting the floor. They say that necessity is the mother of invention, these new ceramic models rolled out with blazing speed when we found that he had learned to manipulate the iron in our weapons.
What else could we do? We laid down our arms, laid down our guns, and within seconds, each of our worlds had ceased to be.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
The Missing
The spider must have gone.
A child stood outside, next to the bushes, under the tree, staring at the vacant space where the web once stretched. He stood there, in the spot which he had determined to be the best to stand, where the web was nicely back lit, allowing for easy inspection of the intricacies of silken architecture. Now, looking around, hoping that the faint glint of taut silk reflecting the porch lights would catch his eye, he couldn't help but feel pangs of regret. Irrational questions filled his mind, he wondered where the spider had gone, what had caused it's relocation, or if it needed help moving the furniture or setting up its new pad.
Regret turned quickly to anger. It had always been there! Yes, for the past week, the spider had always been there, in the early evening, calmly waiting, sitting vertically in the dead center bull's eye of its creation. Swatting the bush (which previously served as the web's bottom anchor) with his hand, the child ran quickly back to the warm light of the back door, and disappeared inside his home. Moments later, rudely woken from its sleep by a terrible shaking, a single, nocturnal arachnid dove into the air, trailing a thin cord behind itself, the beginnings of a new creation. And as it landed gently on a leaf below and began to spin it's trap, it's home, and it's everything, it wondered idly when the boy would come, to pay him a visit.
A child stood outside, next to the bushes, under the tree, staring at the vacant space where the web once stretched. He stood there, in the spot which he had determined to be the best to stand, where the web was nicely back lit, allowing for easy inspection of the intricacies of silken architecture. Now, looking around, hoping that the faint glint of taut silk reflecting the porch lights would catch his eye, he couldn't help but feel pangs of regret. Irrational questions filled his mind, he wondered where the spider had gone, what had caused it's relocation, or if it needed help moving the furniture or setting up its new pad.
Regret turned quickly to anger. It had always been there! Yes, for the past week, the spider had always been there, in the early evening, calmly waiting, sitting vertically in the dead center bull's eye of its creation. Swatting the bush (which previously served as the web's bottom anchor) with his hand, the child ran quickly back to the warm light of the back door, and disappeared inside his home. Moments later, rudely woken from its sleep by a terrible shaking, a single, nocturnal arachnid dove into the air, trailing a thin cord behind itself, the beginnings of a new creation. And as it landed gently on a leaf below and began to spin it's trap, it's home, and it's everything, it wondered idly when the boy would come, to pay him a visit.
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