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January 07 ’25
The morning is atypically foggy. From our parked car we can see a modest cooling tower type structure billowing thick rolls of steam. Through the dirt dusted windshield we watch the two vapors contrast and merge. The steam is slightly darker than the atmospheric mist that surrounds it. The steam has a kind of belching violence, whereas the haze is soft and floats gently like transilluminated cotton.
It feels like we are watching some sort of philosophic principle being literalized. We are definitely witnessing a process — but a literalized principle, that doesn’t really make much sense. But then, what are principles and thoughts? Foggy compromises, that have a sense of being useful abbreviations, but are likely dilutions. Cognition vapors that recursively grope to impose temporal order on endless reaction-diffusions?
* * *
In the evening we took one of the dogs on an unintentionally long walk. The streets were mostly empty; the only sound being our footfall, the subdued jingle of the dog collar, and the muffled rumble of a distant highway. Without knowing it, we ended up at a weird row of houses that the Disney company owns (we had heard of them but had never been). They are “weird” because they are kept empty, but are totally normal looking. They’re not like quoted normal, so that they stand out, but genuinely average looking — lackluster lawns, unremarkable paint colors. They are just basic suburban houses situated amidst a neighborhood of similar homes that are lived in. They are like well camouflaged imposters.
In each house a single room is lit; the rest are dark. The window coverings, like the houses themselves, differ but to the same opaque effect. There are no cars in any of the driveways. It feels uncomfortable, but we are not sure why; the only reasons that come to mind are fantastical and silly. Maybe we are uncomfortable generally and simply imposing our mood on some stuff; if so where does such a process end? (Our pataphysics degree is wearing thin.)
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John Ashbery, Strange Occupations (2000)
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Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- Develop a practice of contemplation that is a form of relinquishment to forces larger than yourself.
- One must participate in a daily renewal of character.
- Apply, not merely study, the knowledge of the past.
* * *
From “M.S.”: If you asked anyone, they would likely say that they hate corporate surveys — probably would even say that they’d never shill or degrade themselves to contribute to the coffers of dark, parasitic, and vile executives — but is that really true? It seems this is only true when the activity happens directly or in the open — if it goes without external, judging witnesses, detachment from one’s promoted morality seems to have no end.
It’s like what Gary Indiana said: “What we do in the dark is what defines us, not the postures we assume when the light shines down.”
So yes, on the web, every second, everyone is handing over the most detailed information about themselves, mostly without prompting, and with almost zero protest (sexual inclinations, shopping habits, political views, all manner of health and biographical/locational information, sleep/work/procrastination habits) — creating power structures and mental pollution on par with a daily oil spill. It seems convenience and risk-less pretending trumps actual, real defiance. We suspect that we humans are no match against the transcendental economy of short term comfort and ease to take on large momentums? Please advise.
* * *
Recently, an excerpt of an interview with painter Agnes Martin has resurfaced in our life. Much of it sounds like it might be a bit of a put on, by way of being simultaneously radical and weirdly straight forward. Some of her statements have become sort of thought worms for us. An example:
...I don’t believe what the intellectuals put out. The intellectuals discover one fact and then another fact and then another and they say from all these facts we can deduce so-and-so. No good. That’s just a bad guess. Nothing can come but inaccuracy...
One of the secret (or perhaps suppressed) principles of past knowledge is that human learning is a sequence of paradigm shifts — one makeshift center after another.
Your observation is ultimately a cottage industry type thought off of a paradigm shift. You should develop a style of personal fortitude (reinforced daily) with the intention to thrive without general stable physics — part of such an endeavor will look like relenting to higher forces (note: we did not say “higher powers” but forces — for that would be idolatrous, or as Martin might say, inaccurate).
* * *
Complete ReadingThis week we pulled the Strength card. Here we have fortitude, the perseverance through difficulty/pain. This type of strength is connected to the primordial powers — it is said that endurance of this kind is a relinquishment to these prime movers. Contemplation is also an aspect here.
Our first and only hexagram this week is 26, The Taming Power of the Great. To develop as a person of “light and clarity” one must participate in a “daily renewal of character. Only through daily self–renewal can a person continue at the height of their powers.” It is suggested that the heart of this daily renewal lies “in the words and deeds of the past… a treasure that people may use to strengthen and elevate their own characters.” However “the way to study the past is not to confine oneself to mere knowledge of history but, through application of this knowledge, to give actuality to the past.”
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December 24 ’24
What is the mode that follows a scenario where everyone is to blame?
* * *
To a significant degree we humans are all apophenic (the condition of finding meaning and pattern where such connections are highly dubious, if not complete fantasy). To be sure, apophenia is not a choice but an involuntary reaction to continually abutting against all manner of aporia (irresolvable conundrums/dilemmas). Aporia then apophenia, aporia then apophenia; forever and anon?
* * *
It seems that the existential, mordantly messy end of Modernism/Enlightenment is the corporate superstructure — a kind of greed grid (an involuntary drone construction of the apophenic, idiotic, and phantasmagoric battle of tradition and utopia). A foundation so dumb and so dumb-causing that we now see it as the dawn of a renaissance not a decline — as we refuse to accept the endless industrial, scientific, computational shifting of paradigmas (apophenias) to be yielding to mindless control. This is highly personal and does not feel like an epiphany or anything quixotic — but a reasonable reaction. (It bears saying that we are not interested in anything like religion; as said elsewhere, we feel all religion and confident science to be idolatrous. This is said flatly, without sanctimony).
* * *
Precedents...
“The deep truth is imageless; for what
Would it avail to bid the shades that flock
Past it, to endure its light when it
Glimmers beyond them?”
(Shelley, from Prometheus Unbound, 1820)
“After the final no, there comes a yes, and on that yes the future world depends.”
(Stevens, from Opus Posthumous, published after death in 1957)
“Aporia is not simply a negative moment. It is the experience of the impossible. It is a challenge, a responsibility, a duty to negotiate the nonnegotiable.”
(Derrida, from Aporias, 1993)
* * *
We deeply and sincerely accept the duty of pursuing/negotiating the imageless yes.
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Amy Clampitt, Syrinx (1997)
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Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- It helps to recognize yourself as part of nature and not outside it.
- One can harness the powers of this world but not understand them; act accordingly.
- It is dangerous for an outsider (or seeker) to confuse their position — not being integrated comes with great insight, but the wisdom dissipates (without focused, concerted effort) upon inclusion or intermingling with the group.
- The energy of pursuance is the context of mystery.
* * *
From “M.S.”: We very much like the metaphor of the Wizard of Oz — that is, frequently one has the very talent that they (often neurotically) think they lack — but since they can’t see it they set out to visit a place of presumed authority, to figure out how to officially acquire it — only to find out that they had it all along. (This is particularly common for people with traumatic pasts.) Any advice for developing personal confidence and avoiding wasteful/repeat trips to the Emerald city for official validations? To treat one’s own self as sufficient authority? (This has nothing to do with formal education, or learning generally — as obviously one can’t learn too much simply being an autodidact; and not at all in certain areas. It is more curbing the need for approval for those qualities that only one’s self can provide.)
* * *
The successful journey is when you have accepted that there is no conveyance, no time, no space — that you are not separate from anything — similar in fashion to the way an asset is equally a liability or a weakness.
The sphinxes don’t allow the journey, they are the situation; the energy of pursuance is the context of mystery.
* * *
Complete ReadingThis week we pulled The Chariot. In grand or spiritual terms there is likely nothing to learn beyond accepting that humans are not separate from nature — they/we are specific incarnations but not outside the forces and principles that touch all things. This perhaps is why the charioteer has two yoked sphinxes pulling their cart.
Our first and only hexagram this week is 56, The Wanderer. When your inclinations (mentally or physically) lie outside society (the status quo) you should be reserved in your dealings with others. An outsider is a wanderer not a leader or a collaborator (at least at the time of wandering) so it is foolish to expect inclusion when you are at odds. Wander as long as needed, or never stop, but just know that until a time of reintegration you will have to keep to yourself. If your wandering is a kind of self-education it is still a private affair — you will only confuse (or worse) if you try and mix your modes.
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December 17 ’24
We pushed the button for the elevator. Rather than open directly, the action produced nothing. Eventually, we heard the elevator scrape open to the floor above. We’d assumed we were the only one in the building (being that our car was the only one in the lot) — so were surprised to hear another’s clear foot falls suddenly crossing above. Because the floor is thin (just a few layers of plywood and raw studs) and that it was a particularly people-less Sunday morning, the sound was incomparably loud. But the steps faded as fast as they arrived.
[When we were little our much older brother told us that the earth was actually a giant unhatched egg of a massive dinosaur. He said none of the stuff at school or with my friends mattered because eventually it would hatch and we’d all explode into space. For a long time we’d think about this when we were smoking middle school cigarettes and looking down at the ground around our sneakers or when eating eggs for breakfast. It seems worth mentioning that our brother sent a lot of letters to the Fortean Times (unpublished) and he’s now a kind of piney living “out there” in New Jersey; he also has Lyme disease.]
When the elevator returned the little dulled metal room had a mildly charged emptiness; it seemed warmer and was filled with the smell of something like body spray. The lighting was the same as before, the type employed by Saw and Hostel. The only thing to keep us company were our thoughts of our brother (whom we do love, from a distance) and our own blurred reflection. After the doors closed the elevator made that gigantic whirring sound, like a city sized electric toaster.
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Goings-On(line)
An offering of pieces and projects
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Philip Larkin, Sad Steps (1974)
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Masaaki Yuasa, Mind Game (2004)
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Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
44. Coming to Meet
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- Start planning for the next harvest.
- If there is a way out of a difficult situation it is by shrewdly working with the parameters/rhythms of one’s environment first — as opposed to immediately (and ultimately wastefully) trying to bust boundaries towards a non-existent utopia.
- Simultaneously address problems/difficulties with some convention and some experimental curiosity; never simply with one or the other.
- Sometimes it is important to get your own situation in order (relatively speaking) before lending a helping hand — just don’t take forever.
- If desiring healthy mergers (working on a team, etc.) do your best to constantly eschew your own pretense and presumptuousness.
* * *
From “M.S.”: From our (of course) specific vantage it seems there are two overwhelmingly dominant factors that have informed the current moment (over the past five or so years) — Covid/quarantine and the very recent (almost complete) adoption of corporate, predictive algorithms. (This is not meant as a statement of wow-ish revelation; likely common enough.)
It seems, Covid/quarantine made all comfortable with living through laptops/phones and working in isolation. Whereas the corporate predictive algorithms seem to be doing nothing short of creating a system of total dependence (absolute Munchausen by Proxy) — a la Bezos’ actualizing dream of transcendental AI logistics, Zuckerberg’s carefully regulated empire of social discontent, Google/Mohan’s world of fear-tainment, and most recently ChatGPT’s unctuous ability to bestow false/distorted intelligence (and confidence) onto its users (“I knew I was smart, but I didn’t know I was this smart...”) — these being some chief layers/players.
Since narcissism and fear have almost completely metastasized within the body-politic, how does one restore a fractured family, team or self to a more realistic, subtle, restrained, un-corporately-networked/informed and loving relation? Should it be by nothing short of a complete recapitulation of purpose of self/group? Or, is the situation just so far gone (and legion) that one should just let go and disappear into one’s own project(s) and turn their back to the world (collaborating in a like for-hire/mercenary way)?
* * *
The effects of Covid/quarantine, and these truly selfish platforms/“layers”/environments that you detail, are definitely overwhelming — and yes, “legion.” But if people didn’t fight against (what they perceive as) massive wrongs, even when doing so is at brutal odds with the status quo (all that is accepted and popular the world) — the world would be an absolute garbage heap — it may be a somewhat horrible place, but it is not an absolutely horrible place, for this reason.
Get yourself sorted (relatively speaking) that is, try not to be pretentious and presumptuous yourself. Then, address/lead/co-lead your family and your team(s) forwards with modesty and humbleness — but, with every ounce of focus, love, acumen and energy you have.
* * *
Complete ReadingThis week we pulled The Empress. Here we have the fecund and healthy effects of spiritual understanding — not spiritual understanding itself; the harvest, not the sun. What you seek, will not be about the reward at the end of a journey (at all cost) but by being in accord with the processes/rhythms around you.
Our first hexagram this week is 48, The Well. The need for a well (a deep, endless source of water) is the same for all people. This general understanding should be the basis for working together as a group and concurrently learning to be a functional individual. As well, (no pun intended) the “depth” aspect of the “well metaphor” should not be ignored — if one doesn’t pursue the profounder depths one will “remain fixed in convention.”
There were two changes this week of which the specific note is: sometimes in the short term one must work on getting their own situation in order before lending a helping hand.
Our second hexagram or how best to meet the changes is #44, Coming to Meet. The coming together of big energies (of large groups of people, etc.) is important to get right — though, of course, rivers and mountains can be conquered, it can also bring ruinous warfare. It is hoped then, that the merging of massive elements be unpretentious and without presumptuousness. On a more local level, it is easy to be tricked by underhanded offers as they usual bait with something one wants. A good defense against being undermined by bad mergers (or a good way to insure proper mergers) is to not have ulterior motives yourself.
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December 03 ’24
It turns out that most people are dumb. By dumb, we mean a person that thinks they’re not dumb. If you know you’re dumb, it doesn’t mean you’re smart — it just means you’re not dumb. As for smart people, we don’t know any (in the mirror or otherwise). We know quite a few people who think they’re smart. Thinking you’re smart might be the worst of all.
We’re all sooooo bias-riddled and weakly cantilevered out on all sorts of translational systems of representation, and just-so emotional understandings — not to mention, being suspended and animated by insanely faceted whirls of unforeseen consequences of constantly colliding complex systems (here we invoke the grey, sticky, specificity-as-cosmic-principal, transcendentally interconnected, Rube Goldberg-ness of Fischli & Weiss’ The Way Things Go).
* * *
To feel that one has a read on life, or such and such issue, points more to the need for compressions of convenience and rhythms of obsequious solidarity, than anything like perceptual precision.
All this is said aimed at ourself as much as in any other direction. Also present here is a spirit of sincere positivity; we are inclined to think that the reality of dumbness is a door not a wall. But that’s likely pretty dumb.
Knowing you’re dumb does give one pause. As well, pausing is much less easy to exploit than impulse.
* * *
In any case, all thought is idolatrous (whether religious, political, scientific, psychological or what have you) — that is, thought guesses and represents, thought doesn’t know.
A constant attempt at dignified compromise is perhaps best — because you, us, and all the others are dumb.
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Philip Larkin, Aubade (1977)
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Givenchy, Fall/ Winter (2012-13)
Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
60. Limitation
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- There is no trick to life but trying.
- Change and the need for constancy are eternally at odds — therefore the relation must be treated realistically. Maybe learn to revere the tension.
- We are specific incarnations of general processes — it is often hard to see this in the midst of all this specificity.
- Wanting too much at once often begets nothing.
- “If a person remains at the mercy of moods of hope or fear aroused by the outer world, they lose their inner consistency of character.”
- “Persistence in search is not enough — what is not sought in the right way is not found.”
- Limitations are foundational for meaning but flexibility and adaptation are equally important, so one must “set limits even upon limitation.”
* * *
From “M.S.”: What is the best way to not lose self when joining “the” group? (We want to both grow/strengthen as an individual and contribute to the various spheres of our interdependence.)
* * *
There is no trick to life but trying — that is, trying to be adaptive but also trying to have a constant character. Because all is change, adaption is necessary, but since adaptation requires some foreknowledge, there needs to be a durability in one’s sense of self.
It takes persistence to get to any semblance of balance between groups physics and self physics — it’s almost as mind bending as the difference between terrestrial physics and quantum physics.
Perhaps knowing the incommensurability of these two zones, the group and the self is the start. An analogy — a scuba diver survives under water by bringing a mask and a tank of oxygen — the ocean is the group your sense of self is the mask/oxygen. Don’t prepare for the group setting by a false sense of integration.
* * *
Complete ReadingThis week we pulled the Two of Pentacles. Stability requires endless attention and alertness. Therefore it not possible to achieve permanently — but since the desire for constancy lies at the heart of all of our beings, we must have realistic relation to change.
Our first hexagram this week is 32, Duration. Life as it’s experienced by humans is specific but the laws that determine the specificity are general and (at scale) are constant. “Thunder rolls, and the wind blows; both are examples of extreme mobility and so are seemingly the very opposite of permanence, but the laws governing their appearance and subsidence, their coming and going, endure. In the same way the independence of the superior person is not based on rigidity and immobility of character. They always keep abreast of the time and changes with it. What endures is the unswerving directive, the inner law of their being, which determines all their actions.”
There were four changes this week of which the specific notes are: those who want too much at once usually get nothing, “if a person remains at the mercy of moods of hope or fear aroused by the outer world, they lose their inner consistency of character” and “persistence in search is not enough — what is not sought in the right way is not found.”
Our second hexagram or how best to meet the changes is #60, Limitation. Without a boundary there is no substance, no meaning. But humans like all animals need to be free of mind to find ways to adapt for survival. Therefore it is (of course) wise to set limitations but additionally wise “to set limits even upon limitation.”
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Nov 26 ’24
Just after dusk. A few stars becoming visible — likely not many more though, as the urban night’s light blocks them.
One particular star (or planet?) draws attention; not for brightness, but the reverse. It is dim, and intermittently obscured by a long feathery cloud.
The cloud is solitary. It makes us think of an opera glove reaching out from a dark balcony.
This grey stroke sits just above the featureless, black roofline of the neighboring building. The tiny light at the cloud’s center is currently very difficult to see. Now it disappears altogether — now ever so slightly returning.
We find the struggle to see the petite dot somehow satisfying — something to focus on. It reminds us of the process of discerning the dim edges within Ad Reinhardt’s black paintings.
This last thought causes another, one of a somewhat unwelcome and difficult nature: the ordeal of drawing joy from life as it sits.
Art has a boundary, the world has none.
A simple turn of the head and there’s just the All Else everywhere.
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Goings-On(line)
An offering of pieces and projects
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Marianne Moore, What Are Years? (1941)
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Davis Guggenheim, Gossip (2000)
Michael Mahalchick at CANADA (2021)
Gareth Pugh, Fall/ Winter (2013-14)
Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
1. The Creative
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- Prosperity requires a wide ranging understanding — a grand give/take.
- Acknowledging the truth of human interdependence will melt the rigidity of solipsism allowing the individual to healthily join society’s flow. Isolation is a lie; mutual reliance (and resilience) is not.
- Do not spend your power prematurely; timing is about deeply understanding that which is always dawning.
- Life is not about doing the right thing it’s about trying to do the right thing (constantly).
- The Creative is that which gives form to potential.
* * *
From “M.S.”: What is some advice for successfully switching gears between projects and modes? Like going from creative writing to being present at dinner to making music to facing/balancing our financial situation to eating more appropriately... We have differing reward systems for each and are different people in different situations — sometimes the gears grind — rarely do they flow together easily...
Additional note: reducing our range of subjects/scenarios/responsibilities is not really an option.
* * *
It is your lot for your gears to grind.
Be happy that you have such an intense and rich life.
* * *
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Four of Wands. This is a card of a kind of foundational solidity — an implication of accord with the varied aspects of a full life. A thriving harvest home is the image — community, family, production, celebration, seasons, their interlocking interconnections. Generally, the understanding of how prosperity works (sacrifice/joy, boundary/meaning).
Our first hexagram this week is 59, Dispersion (Dissolution). The metaphor: warm weather breaking apart ice so it can once again become part of the flow of the river. The implication: we should allow bright truths to break apart our clinging/specific rigidities — so we can healthily join society’s interdependent flow — acknowledge our need for our fellow humans not our isolation. “In the autumn and winter, water begins to freeze into ice. When the warm breezes of spring come, the rigidity is dissolved, and the elements that have been dispersed in ice floes are reunited... Through hardness and selfishness the heart grows rigid, and this rigidity leads to separation from all others. Egotism and cupidity isolate people. Therefore the hearts of people must be seized by a devout emotion… must be shaken by awe in face of eternity.”
There were three changes this week of which the specific notes are: do not spend your power prematurely, true greatness is not impaired by temptation and struggles to be in tune with that which is perpetually dawning, and the hermit sage and the hero do not follow the same path — for the creative leader listening to one’s inner voice without fear, will determine the direction.
Our second hexagram or how best to meet the changes is #1, The Creative. We relish the appearance of this hexagram; it is the first, and perhaps, the most determinant of all the others. The Creative (writ large), whether human or of non-human nature, is that which gives form to potential. More so, sublimity is the perseverance and pursuance of the manifestation of one’s (or a process’) most dignified/natural aspects. It is very in line with a sentiment that comes up often here — life is not about doing the right thing it’s about trying to do the right thing.
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Nov 08 ’24
Ian Hamilton Finlay, lithograph, 1988
Aphids and bees are busying around inside of some large, white, conical flowers. The extreme lightness of the single petal funnels make the insect activity look very stark.
The slumpy low plants dot the sandy, relatively forgotten field, haphazardly. The few trees (maybe four) are also disorderly and spread out. They have blobby and twisted silhouettes, with leaves atypically close to the ground — likely from having to endure a few decades of near-lethal cuttings. Nevertheless these giant leafy mounds appear to be thriving.
* * *
To the left is a tall wall, on the other side of which churns an endless, booming river of cars and trucks. In this section, the highway bridges over an actual river; which runs in a deep, wide, concrete channel. The water is green with algae and strewn aimlessly with trash. The traffic is not visible.
It is an intersection with a feeling of immense power, but unattended, or not typically signified.
At first, the sound of the cars and trucks, reverberating in the massive concrete channel, is deafening (and wholly defining) but eventually, because it is so consistent, it is surprisingly easy to lose awareness of. We are inclined to say that this is because we domesticate or tame or normalize the sound — but it feels more complicated than that. Maybe it is more appropriate to say that we are surviving the sound — and don’t quite understand what is happening there.
* * *
Sometimes in this place (or in places similar) we feel like an involuntary tuning fork for an overwhelming, beautiful, slightly sinister ambiguity.
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The well tempered typographic and architectural (both physical and digital) chill/precision that surrounds artist Ana Viktoria Dzinic work is a situation of sincere admiration/aspiration.
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Stevie Smith, Tender Only to One (1972)
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Tomas Alfredson, Let the Right One In (2008)
Fred Sathal, Fall/ Winter (1997-98)
Tim Fywell, A Dark Adapted Eye (1994)
Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
17. Following
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- Restraint comes from a transcendental awareness of parameters.
- If you are an ideal of conduct, or you know someone to be an ideal of conduct, to be truly ideal the person and conduct must be visible — as to be an example.
- It is important to see the interconnectedness that makes up any given moment — but only if that includes the necessary warts and darkness.
- To lead is to serve.
- One must always adapt, to a significant degree — and not wear themselves out with “mistaken resistance.”
* * *
From “M.S.”: Memory and expectation (“D”esire) breed both blind satiation and disturbing surprise — what is an effective practice to get our often faulty ratios of memory and expectation to breed more consistent, healthy outcomes?
* * *
One must try to not live in a dream. Of course, as has been said by many, life is indistinguishable from a dream. (Not just speaking semantically here.) In this case one must understand that everyone’s situation is causally arrived at — interconnected.
To have “healthy outcomes” you have to struggle to see the interwoven/inter-defining aspects of “healthy outcomes” — with tenacity, love, courage, and constant self reproach/reflection.
* * *
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Temperance card. Restraint vibrates somewhere between control and acceptance. With both cases it is a kind of knowledge. If it is sought, it is to be an awareness of parameters.
Our first hexagram this week is 20, Contemplation (View). “A slight variation of tonal stress gives the Chinese name for this hexagram a double meaning. It means both contemplating and being seen, in the sense of being an example. These ideas are suggested by the fact that the hexagram can be understood as picturing a type of tower characteristic of ancient China… A tower of this kind commanded a wide view of the country; at the same time, when situated on a mountain, it became a landmark that could be seen for miles around.” So it suggested, that if you have a broad, encompassing outlook make sure it is seen by many people, as an ideal of conduct.
There were three changes this week of which the specific notes are: the superlative person, at all times, tries to see the interconnected forces that make up their world — as well, they struggle to cleanse the information of mere personal validation.
Our second hexagram or how best to meet the changes is #17, Following. Herein some meditations on leadership: “If a person is to rule they must first learn to serve.” “If a person tries to obtain a following by force or cunning, by conspiracy or by creating factions, they invariably arouse resistance.” “Obtaining a following through adaptation to the demands of the time is a great and significant idea.” “No situation can become favorable until one is able to adapt to it and does not wear themself out with mistaken resistance.”
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October 22 ’24
We see the jack-o’-lantern first. A little orange dot floating in a field of gray — maybe 100 yards off in the early, marine dusk. After cutting the engine we tilt it out of the water and lock it, gliding quietly toward the red-yellow dot. From out of the puddle in the bilge we grab the large oar and stand up; nearly every time we do this (which is often) we think of Charon the ferryman who transports dead souls across the river Styx. Sometimes the thought makes us smile; sometimes it gives a shiver. Today we shiver, not due to anything morbid but because the air is cold and the wood of the oar is soaked through.
* * *
It’d be difficult to be more excited about arriving at the little wetland house on stilts. The one ahead with the pot belly stove, in front of which our clothes have been drying all day. Warm socks. Warm jumper. The last half of a pumpkin pie.
* * *
With a pleasant, dense thud, the boat knocks against the piling. We maneuver through the stilts and tie to the large brass cleat. There is a ladder which we climb which leads to a hatch in the floor. Inside: a twin bed, a small table and chair (which have been painted seemingly thousands of times), a cooler, the small black pot belly stove and cabinet — above which is pinned a very creased photo of Roger Gilbert-Lecomte. There are a few more things not worth mentioning.
* * *
We quickly change out of our clothes, replacing them with the ones on the drying line. We cut a slice of the pie from under a blue handkerchief, and place it on a similar blue napkin and walk outside. We sit on the solitary chair on the narrow deck and make a tacit apology to the flickering jack-o’-lantern for eating its friends. The only sound besides our thoughts are the sounds of the boat knocking below and an occasional far off bell clanging somewhere in the darkening mist.
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There is an easy puckish pinging between these two types of interior spaces in the work of designer/artist Chris Fusaro.
As well, his work strikes that weird note familiar to more expressive furniture designers: a chair is not a chair but it’s also a chair.
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Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
57. The Gentle (The Penetrating, Wind)
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- A reconnection to the concealed, inviolable, innocent strength of this world must be established.
- Make a pilgrimage to a personage, place or scenario of greatness.
- To achieve a good and serious goal, one’s conduct should not be glamorous, scattered or scheming, but always striving to be genuine (it is a continual journey not an arrival).
* * *
From “M.S.”: We are very tired of the world, life, other people and ourself — we would appreciate any advice as what to do? To be a bit specific, we are tired of learning about dead children (both in war and generally). We’re tired of thinking “where is all this headed?” every second of the day. We’re tired of news people and tired of the endless stupidity of the unproductive negative “discourse” they create. We are tired of the expensive (both environmentally and financially) imbedded obsolesces of technological hardware (phones, laptops, cords, etc.) and tired of the executives who pretend they don’t implement these transcendentally wicked blights. We are tired of our love of processed foods and tired of thinking about the deadly cell growth that it may cause. We’re tired of the gossip parading as philosophy. We are tired of our own infinite bad habits. We are tired of the constant middling to severe hatred of our own body. We are tired of everyone’s insane confidence in their perspectives. We are tired of all the urges and memories. We’re tired of not being able to get our true projects off the ground. We’re tired of the death of books (because of what that death really means — namely the death of humans being able to think improvisationally and the subsequent ability of corporations to be able to turn human heads into a network of unthinking actual corporate nodes). We’re tired of the sanctimony of the Right. We’re tired of the sanctimony of the Left. We are tired of porn and all of the sad soul crushing spokes that radiate out from it (tired of the people who say its amoral and tired of the people who rationalize it). We’re tired of the steady replacement of good mornings and hellos with something akin to either blank paranoia or legitimized easy avoidance (the foolish thought that we’ve entered a new era of independence where quotidian kindness is somehow unnecessary). We’re tired of thinking about what people are going to do if Harris wins. We’re tired of thinking about what people are going to do if Trump wins. We’re tired of the fake stories we tell ourself to make sense of a story-less universe (the endless single perspective anthropomorphism). We’re tired of feeling like we’re stuck in a perpetual home room world right before a school shooting (or the week after). Tired of people mostly only taking on easy targets. Tired of that grotesque thing in everyone’s hand. Tired of people being told to love themselves but it really being a trick by businesses and governments to get everyone to consume more. Tired of the hoards of Facebook vampires, Instagram vampires, YouTube vampires, X vampires, TikTok vampires, Twitch vampires, Snapchat vampires, LinkedIn vampires, Reddit vampires, Discord vampires, WhatsApp vampires, and their hoards of stupid familiars. Tired of our own complaining and its closed reverberations and shrill feedback. Tired of the fake battle between tradition and newness (they’re really inseparable, inter-defining and indistinguishable).
We know “the race begins when you’re tired,” etc. and we know that many situations are far worse than our own but... 🤷♀️
(Surprisingly we’re not tired of scenarios like wind blowing through the leaves of trees in defunct and forgotten parking lots...)
* * *
“The soul’s weariness is the precursor to its renewal.”
It seems you must get away and go somewhere un-networked; a place beyond where you only see manifest corporate/profit intrusion. It may take a moment to figure this out. But it can’t just be a purchase of a ticket to a magnificent landscape or whatever, it must be a real attempt to get beyond your “understandings” — maybe it’s not a physical place at all. Perhaps it’s meditation (likely at least part of it). It might be the reading of a significant book from cover to cover without apology. Maybe it’s death.
You must reconnect with the truth of not knowing. Fatigue and belief are inextricably linked. You must break apart the weariness of your calcified knowledge and be “shaken by awe in the face of eternity.“
It is a world of opinions only on the surface. Try to unveil the inviolable, innocent strength that pulses through all things in this world whether processed foods, the clothes journalists wear, the patterns of thoughts in your head, or the patterns of currents in the oceans.
Perhaps you should strive to see all things in the manner in which you see the “wind blowing through the leaves of trees in defunct and forgotten parking lots.” That definitely seems a good start.
* * *
Complete Reading
This week we pulled Power card (reversed). A connection to the concealed, inviolable, innocent strength of this world has been severed. One’s proper/healthy function is at risk without its restoration (or, at least, without the journey towards its restoration).
Our first hexagram this week is 59, Dispersion (Dissolution). “When a person’s vital energy is dammed up within them… gentleness serves to break up and dissolve the blockage.” “Here the subject is the dispersing and dissolving of divisive egotism.” “Through hardness and selfishness the heart grows rigid, and this rigidity leads to separation from all others. Egotism and cupidity isolate people. Therefore the hearts of people must be seized by a devout emotion… must be shaken by awe in face of eternity.” The point here is the dissolving of barriers, of rigidity. A dissolution that reconstitutes the individual with the all else — like joining, melding. That is, to break apart a biased clinging, so as to let in a kind of humble but deep, appreciation of the cosmos of self as well as the outer cosmos. This likely will require a visit to a personage, place or scenario of greatness (visiting a holy person, climbing a mountain, helping to build something of civic/healthful significance, etc.).
There was one change this week of which the specific note is: at times, to achieve a great thing, the weight of personal objects must be eschewed, so that the momentum of the object can be pursued.
Our second hexagram or how best to meet the changes is #57, The Gentle (The Penetrating, Wind). “Penetration produces gradual and inconspicuous effects. It should be effected not by an act of violation but by influence that never lapses. Results of this kind are less striking to the eye than those won by surprise attack, but they are more enduring and more complete. If one is to produce such effects, one must have a clearly defined goal, for only when the penetrating influence works always in the same direction can the object be attained.” To be effective one’s conduct should not be glamorous, scattered or scheming; it must be genuine and persistent, that is, continually strive to be true and clear.
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October 15 ’24
Sundown in a sad town.
It’s windy outside Party City.
“Just a yin looking for a yang.”
A wig on a twig stuck in sand.
We heard the handle latch catch.
We saw the dog leash by the door.
We found a dollar in the pollywog.
“Why is there a scarecrow in the basement?”
“Because there’s a plastic rose in the attic.”
Beyond the garden gate → a black hole of Klein bottles.
Ted the Caver: “I feel fantastic...”
...but then he was sealed in the nutty putty cavern forever.
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Goings-On(line)
An offering of pieces and projects
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May Sinclair, Where Their Fire Is Not Quenched (1862)
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Stephen Carpenter, Soul Survivors (2001)
Rick Owens, Fall/ Winter (2012-13)
Freddie Francis, The Creeping Flesh (1973)
Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
31. Influence (Wooing)
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- Be wary of false generosity — whether receiving or giving.
- “All success depends on the effect of mutual attraction.”
- Obstructions are opportunities for learning.
- Many mandatory tasks cannot be accomplished by oneself — therefore a consistently humble and deferential attitude toward interdependence is necessary.
* * *
From “M.S.”: Though we immensely like the subjects of ghosts and aliens, we often wonder if it is an odd preoccupation, as we generally feel surrounded by the equivalent, if not actual, aliens and ghosts, at all times — like, is there any need to go seeking such things as we humans ultimately live in a haunted and alien land. Trees, plants, bacteria, viruses, fungi, and all animal life (and of course other humans) are not sewn up as far as our understanding of them, making them all pretty alien. And as for ghosts, humans, in a very real way, are haunted and performed by language, histories and thematic drives fit for any apparition roaming the hills of folktales... Is a preoccupation with ghosts and/or aliens more of a diversion from being unable to make sense of our immediate world?
* * *
“La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.”
“Nature is a temple where living pillars
Let slip sometimes confused words;
A human passes through forests of symbols
Which observe them with familiar eyes.”
(from Les Fleurs du mal, The Flowers of Evil, Charles Baudelaire)
Much of what you said rings true and real. But the question at the end, is more presumptuous than the lovely bulk of your proposition. Within Baudelaire’s poem we find something similar to the way the “presence of an observer” affects observable states in quantum physics (the maddening transition/collapse from “all possible states” to the “certainty of a single, definite state”).
* * *
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Six of Pentacles (reversed). When upright the implication is an appropriate distribution of accumulated wealth. When reversed as it is here, the tone is greed and/or ingratitude and/or blackmail and/or tokenism.
Our first hexagram this week is 39, Obstruction. “The hexagram represents obstructions that appear in the course of time but that can and should be overcome…” The advice is to “persevere” even when “one apparently must do something that leads away from their goal. This unswerving inner purpose brings good fortune in the end. An obstruction that lasts only for a time is useful for self-development. This is the value of adversity.” And further: “Difficulties and obstructions throw a person back upon themself. While the inferior person seeks to put the blame on other persons, bewailing their fate, the superior person seeks the error within themself, and through this introspection the external obstacle becomes for them an occasion for inner enrichment and education.”
There was one change this week of which the specific note is: after a failed solo attempt it has become apparent that more hands are needed to complete the task — you must regroup and recruit some dedicated friends to finish; another solo attempt will only yield disaster.
Our second hexagram or how best to meet the changes is #31, Influence (Wooing). The stimulation of favorable (and healthy) circumstances require an attitude of humbleness and receptivity. “By keeping still within while experiencing joy without, one can prevent the joy from going to excess and hold it within proper bounds.” To understand this receptivity it is advised to consider mutualities/attractions in the non-human world. The interdependence of sun, water and plants is a good example — their relationship is reciprocal and mutually reliant — it is implied that this should be mimicked in the human spirit. “All success depends on the effect of mutual attraction.” “Attraction between affinities is a general law of nature.” From these attractions “we can learn the nature of all beings in heaven and on earth.” “Heaven and earth attract each other and thus all creatures come into being.”
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October 08 ’24
To believe in a linear (unilateral) point of view is irresponsible and selfish.
To act on a linear (unilateral) point of view is irresponsible and something akin to wickedness.
To have acted in a manner informed mainly by a linear (unilateral) point of view (as we all have) and not take pains to integrate the mistake (with others and yourself) is grotesque.
Also, confidence is meretricious, pedant-ism is obfuscation, sanctimony is disgusting, and topicality is transcendentally reductionist.
A thoroughly exhaustive (almost inarguable) exposition of the above points can be found in this list of cognitive biases.
The list is quite sobering, and necessary exposure (we think) in times like these where the greed of the robber barons of digital media (both news and social) is turning us all into simplistic, wildly un-self-critical, gossipy, tackily ostentatious, pretentiously faux-intellectual, narcissistic goblins only capable of linear, unilateral and binary thinking (a la 👍👎 + endless reams of pointless, un-researched, mock-authoritative, provincially anecdotal comments — like everyone’s 15 minutes of fame is spread out imperceptibly over a lifetime 🙃).
* * *
(It’s also worth saying that “times like these” is meant genuinely, that is, these are wonky times in a long string of wonky times — in Flaubert’s writing there’s all sorts of commentary on the rise and shitty effect of newspapers, as well, the broad adoption of the printing press led to the protestant reformation and that whole mess, the Chicxulub asteroid created some substantially wonky times as well, etc., etc., etc. etc. ...)
* * *
If reading the list of cognitive biases (even if only a little bit) one’s reaction is “I don’t make these types of errors” that is serious cause for concern — as everyone makes these types of misapprehensions all of the time (whether political, metaphysical or straight sense data type conceptions). Case in point, if one’s primary mode while reading this brief text, is simply to try to sort the writer, with rigidity, into a narrow, dichotomous category (ignoring all partials, overtones and subtleties that exist herein) that person is likely exhibiting one or all of the following cognitive biases (the False Dichotomy Bias and/or the Ingroup-Outgroup Bias and/or the Selective Perception Bias and/or Attentional Bias).
As well if one doesn’t try and at least attempt to bracket out [in the Husserlian phenomenological sense] and engage the (oft mentioned here) late work of Turing on reaction-diffusion as an underpinning of the fascinating/surprising/full-width causality of formation (whether tangible or mental) — that is, if one doesn’t try to constantly and seriously attempt to scrape the barnacles of stupidity off of the hull of their outlook, such is a terrible way to traverse life.
What should be foregrounded is the Pursuit (writ large) of unfeigned conciliation with all objects, animals, histories and with as many perspectives as an individual mind can handle.
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An offering of pieces and projects
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from around the web
Emily Dickinson, One Need Not be a Chamber — to be Haunted (1862)
Félicien Rops, The Human Parody (1878-1881)
Sogo Ishii, Angel Dust (1994)
Rolf Nowotny at No Gallery (2023)
Lew Landers, The Raven (1935)
Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- One must actively try to free themselves from bondage. Try and try again!
- Favorable circumstances come from the understanding of interdependence not illusory independence.
- To receive something beneficial you must be open (have an attitude of humble receptivity).
* * *
From “M.S.”: Improving oneself is obviously very important and perpetually wanted — but we find that personal transformation is little affected by advice and/or aphoristic volleys — that is, it’s mainly being faced with something like unavoidable information [a diagnosis, or an end (death or whatever)] or surprising almost mysterious “natural” change over time, that promotes constructive metamorphosis. Any advice regarding how to elicit (or speed up 😅) such positive but indirect processes?
* * *
It is true that isolated aphorisms have little effect on behavior. Phrases like “a penny saved is a penny earned” and “the early bird gets the worm” are true enough but more like abstract observations than anything like genuine shocks/prods to action. Change is a full surround, 360°, scenario. Monolithic observations can feel right but are often just confusing.
The only way to “speed up” conditions of genuine, healthy transformation is to be super receptive and recognize your symbiosis with the world and other humans.
If you are being actually bound by some circumstance you must transcend the limitation or try to free yourself. Passivity is retrograde.
So, to “elicit such positive but indirect processes” constantly try to free yourself from the bondage of preconceived outlooks by simply allowing information to come in (the education of receptivity) — likely positive change will “naturally” occur.
* * *
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Eight of Swords. The feeling here is malignant restraint/bondage — but it is important to remember that being restrained isn’t necessarily a situation of permanence. How to free oneself — cunning acquiescence(?), genuine compromise(?). The best thing to do is trying to free oneself.
Our first and only hexagram this week is #31, Influence (Wooing). The stimulation of favorable (and healthy) circumstances require a certain attitude, namely, humbleness and receptivity. “By keeping still within while experiencing joy without, one can prevent the joy from going to excess and hold it within proper bounds.” To understand this receptivity it is advised to consider mutualities/attractions in the non-human world. The interdependence of sun, water and plants is a good example — their relationship is reciprocal and mutually reliant — it is implied that this should be mimicked in the human spirit. “All success depends on the effect of mutual attraction.” “Attraction between affinities is a general law of nature.” From these attractions “we can learn the nature of all beings in heaven and on earth.” “Heaven and earth attract each other and thus all creatures come into being.”
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October 01 ’24
We are sitting on a bench in a park.
The shadows are long.
A man is playing fetch with a dachshund.
The busy bouncing oblong goes out and comes back, out and back; like a living yo-yo.
The man has a perm which is somewhat popular.
It makes us think about what people think about generally — why they do things; what they are attracted to, what they are repelled by, what they think is happening or is going to happen.
As well — we wonder what exactly we have in common with people, if anything besides the vaguest generalities.
Would our perspective(s) be compatible; would any of our registration marks of reality line up?
* * *
At our feet is a painted curb bordering a path.
It is blue, a kind of cloudless sky blue, but deeper and obviously not as dynamic and luminescent.
In certain eroded spots the cement is showing through.
These grey areas are much less than the overall blue; the effect is very similar to a map.
It is very easy to imagine that these are unknown countries.
We immediately wonder what the political climate is like, but just as quickly are annoyed that we don’t wonder about the magical abilities of the animal life there — as would have been our first thought at an earlier time.
* * *
The man with the perm, and the other perspective, is now walking by us.
We can see, at this range, that he is wearing a very slight mock turtleneck with a gold chain on the outside.
His dog is ridiculously cute.
We like small dogs for what we perceive as their thumb-less mock busyness.
We are of course anthropomorphizing though.
But to be fair, if the dog noticed us at all, it would be canine-pomorphizing us right back.
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Goings-On(line)
An offering of pieces and projects
from around the web
from around the web
Seamus Heaney, Digging (1966)
Batia Suter at NŌUA (2024)
Zachary Epcar, The Canyon (2020)
Inez & Vinoodh at Matthew Marks Gallery (2001)
Miu Miu, Fall/ Winter (2003-04)
Oracle
Each week we consult both the Tarot and the I Ching.
37. The Family [The Clan]
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
- The danger of intellect is that it can be deviously employed — if one is intelligent they must take measures to use it righteously (as in, Gandalf didn’t allow himself to hold the ring).
- Obstacles are practice for overcoming them.
- Influence starts with the self.
- Even hermits may rightly be called upon to return to action.
- “The family” and or “the self” is “society in embryo” — their stability and health radiates outward, fractally.
* * *
From “M.S.”: It is perhaps embarrassing by way of being on the nose or an obvious question to ask the Book of Changes (and has likely been asked before) but what is the best way to handle change? We want to be sophisticated about managing the mad novelty that is always coming and blowing apart our world(s) — that is, we would like to be durably kind and sensitive as regards our interaction with all assaulting difference whether short, middle, or long-term. We remember Crowley saying something like the price of transformation is eternal vigilance — which, from our current standpoint, sounds hard (both in the sense of difficulty and in the sense of needing to be indelicate of emotion). Is there nothing that can be done except vigilance in the face of change? As well, is our desire for intelligent kindness just masked laziness? Do we just have to accept that some change requires raving, whilst others are best met with the proverbial stiff upper lip? Sorry again for the possible prosaic-ness — nevertheless please help/advise.
* * *
In a very real way we are all centers. But also, in a very real way we are all false centers. With the latter we are attempting to speak to the limitations of human perspective, with the former, we are insinuating that most influence really comes from within. Yes it is true that we are set in motion by the imprinting of difficult (or worse) childhood events, but all people still experience (and subsequently behave) by weighing things in the hermetically sealed place of our own heads. All is change, not sometimes is change.
We are all storms within larger storms — but it is necessary not to have a totally dark outlook — you can trick your brain (you’re brain is a kind of trick afterall). Obviously we understand this may sound very weird.
* * *
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Queen of Pentacles (reversed). When upright the card indicates a healthy broad intellect and a gift for fertile contemplation. When reversed as it is here, the emphasis is on highly negative cunning — a dark outlook with dark plans.
Our first hexagram this week is #39, Obstruction. This hexagram is a meditation on obstacles; how if approached in a positive spirit, a hindrance can be an opportunity for growth — a set back pack is training for next time. “The inferior person seeks to put the blame on others, bewailing their fate. The superior person seeks the error within themself, and through this introspection the external obstacle becomes an occasion for inner enrichment and education.”
There were two changes this week of which the specific notes are: danger avoided should be taken as welcome notice and there are times when long term, intelligent retreat needs to be overcome into a return to action (call this a return to duty).
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #37, The Family (The Clan). “The family is society in embryo...” Though much has changed gender-wise (etc.) since the ancient Chinese world of the I Ching, the essence of this line holds true — whatever a family unit may be to someone. Behavior is fractal, if a core structure is insecure or lazy or strong or flexible or sensitive — the quality will radiate out (or leach) elsewhere. One must struggle to be honest with oneself first and foremost in this world, then with those closest to you. “Influence on others must proceed from one’s own person… one’s words must have power, and this they can have only if they are based on something real… if words and conduct are not in accord and not consistent, they will have no effect.”