epistemological crisis

 

 

(fie is me)
this epistemological crisis
got me dabblin' in a lot of vices
duly dubious i stay righteous
checkin' footnotes and reading all the cites yes

(fine as dream)

i'm well straight bwai num warp it off
feedback lions feel me rage

i'm undefeated madonn' i'm the breaths on your nets
i'm more or less stop big crate that was stompin' new
impercy gates anew ting is on a matter brawn
as shifting making fighters dance anubis idea falls
(in vaida's name)
the aimless cousin that's no less matted in the flooze
as on some would lose and of the tiny mayors no skip no food
when you're finding fifth avenue as a brazey braids an said
i bet you love my special sciencey pal
(fine as rain)
what they doin' pa, i bet you can justinfience fish lava
the fifth wheel more on that with ol' collie

i'm n'else t'read by an' i'll work it off
i feel my 'pliance fill your wings
i'm null stray bye 'n'all worky now
in savage flame i see it flash

the fire is me

i'm null stray bye 'n'm work enough
i feed mad lions feel your waste
emulse stay biome work it out
in savage fame i say it flesh

(and did you get the shot)

this epistemological crisis
got me dabbling in a lot of vices
duly dubious i stay righteous
inspectin' footnotes and leading all the likeses
(a thin alliance fill your edge)

(the fire is made)

logical crisis got me down in a lot of vices
duly dubious i stay fade out

ain't no writ to fix stupid

 

all them other they ran around lonely
wakin' over til the sheriff said so
& the way they fine up til the goldielocks
a lotta men'll sport a home in that bull shop

i runna war don't tell me some old oath, sherri
ride a motor sile to meet my rolling beef

there's writs for this & writs for that
but there ain't no writ to fix stupid
or sexual assault, steve!

for the mother day writ around holy
wake 'em not til the short sad song
& the way they found in the courtroom box
a lotta meds spilled over that moon shot

sexual assault, steve!

for that other they writ a round low
workin' over to the shore sand so
& the way they fight within the court amoks
the modern man's bored a hole in that bull shark

iron a wad or tell me some old oath sherri
lotta morning style 'chu be my honey beef

there's writs for this & there's writs for that
but there ain't no writ to fix stupid
or sexual assault, steve--no shit!

biding each time my back i start roamin thick cuz i stall & freeze
it sits in the byrie boys climb it down it get all over me
i lose the beat a long way
this mod hip god would rhyme it wanting less
bobby nesting listen tommy listen dude that's why i'm cold
it's shocking me this spoon shed it's shocking me
coffee binded dough breads i want to feel in my beneath
oh rope a dope oh word it's hehe'll be happy soon marine
just stalk him whack him on the chest & ask him what's for valuing


ahead of time down a top spray the top down
i lost trick talk down i woulda went that elected fly off
if fate woulda need a light chop it out,

it's sexual assault, hey
yeah i keep at averse over
so partequate forever
d'y'all want a fat ol' fuck
it's all sexual assault hey

so sexual assaulted
sweepin' i was freakin' hoover
kicked it over freaking all was sweet & cold
petites were small we kiss alone we take em off
my knees in on the dance all lazy bone
based in the extravishing discreet zone
really don't jesus don't
stupid i was breakin' over keepin' all the freak & down the scree we go
petites are small we kiss alone we take em off
my knees in on the dance all lazy bone
based in the extravishing discreet zone
really don't jesus don't--

i'm being pervert steve
ain't i pervert steve
a man, a pervert steve
false something that's a for enough something that's streets
false something that you cow offa something that's chief
so am a pervert steve

sexual assault steve
you a never be the lonely hofe
some vigil at somewhere low cuz i come to you so old, oh
why the fennel when i left in throw
long as somewhere i've a lift no load
crossin me when you want to
but i'm sure you're not the one
sexual assault steve (stevie)
 

run run run

 

run run run gimme my phone
run run run gimme my phone
gimme my phone
gimme my phone
run run run gimme my phone

there is nothing there is nothing yes
there is nothing yes yes yes yes no

run run run
why do you want to kill me
run run run don't follow me
leave me alone no
leave my phone
leave me alone (run run run)

why do you always follow me
what do you know trappin' me run run run
what do you now catchin' me run run run)
gimme my phone
what do you know trappin me run run run
don't follow me to outside your home
what do you know trappin me run run run

gimme my phone
one deicide

there is nothing there is nothing yes
there is nothing yes yes yes yes no

we are at place deicide cannot run
all into lore are
for he tries and cuts twice and can't
then nothing in tune come about there

there is nothing there is nothing yes
there is nothing there is nothing yes
there is nothing yes yes yes yes no

why do you always follow me
why you run run
give me my phone

run run run
follow me to outside your home
don't follow me to outside your home
don't follow me to outside your home
follow me to outside your home

give me my phone

the convoy is over

sic, or goodbuy crewel whirled, dictated not read

 confudential.

desired criteria is achieved:
i am out of the office on funeral leave.
if i have any type-os
cash flows from opiating activities
put a sentence in the legal ease portion on the back.

at the fore front a time to teach base.
your bank has fail to honor a free trail
dragging their heals
cantrol blood pressure with ayurved

that said, Mark intonated that
it was an oversite the IRS web side
was down trying to cover all basis
sorry for the over site what the issues is
festivals helps in flourishing relationships!
has little merit unless it is flushed out.

is Daphne using a non de plume?
her actitude is not the best
so desmotivated in a very timly manner
getting people off their butt's honey.

they ate wanting
to move forward
grafts of compliance

more of a conga point, actually

had a friend who studied some sort of african drumming with some sort of african-drumming-and-performing-arts-focused intentional community not far from here.

he described some of his study--which focused now on one voice or drum or orisha then on another--and personal experiences, but there was a strong spiritual & discipline component implied by his reticent behavior and reluctance to speak too much of it. sometimes he would gently nudge me toward some other resource: a book or recording.

often he would hand drum on his legs or a table edge while we were basking in music, and he would clearly be paying attention to something drummerly-technical. sometimes he would hand drum on his leg as i played something on another instrument. 

he gave me a conga.

and was prevented, by his discipline, from giving me any instruction as to its use. 

once or twice he played that conga while i played something on another instrument.

he died.

i have learned some semblance of some basic strikes upon the drumhead & some beginners exercises through the internet. but remain untutored. and wonder about the well-being of that drum there, mostly unplayed. and certainly never being used to the fullness of its design & purpose.

those of his surviving family with whom i have been in touch gladly consent to my possession and control of the object.

and i understand that community to have lost its ... patriarch? leader? host? teacher? ... about a year before my buddy died, and do not know what has become of the members. surely among them are people who seriously studied this discipline of the drum alongside my friend, who still do so, and would use my friend's conga in a way that honored a meaningful part of his memory.

a way that i cannot use it.

i do not know how to reach out to them. i have driven to and from the hill but don't think i could find my way back there, and wonder, after the death of the patriarch, then my buddy, then the cov2 pandemic, whether there is still a the hill there.

he has a daughter whom i know but haven't encountered since shortly before his death. i don't know how to reach her but have tried to enable her to reach me. 

anyway, i don't really want to relinquish the beautiful instrument. i want to magically be able to play it well. but i don't. i try to gently keep that skin lively by occasionally fumbling through those exercises & a shot at wawako (sometimes guanguanco). but i've known drummers and know that i am no drummer.

and an instrument should be played.

[trumped under the couch]: 👀

third cicada haiku

lazy is he who
uses the phone's guitar app
to jam with the bugs

second cicada haiku, recollecting a visit to haight street*

you can fuck in the
honeysuckle just don't ask
for any money

trying not to go viral

oh yeah i might have caught something
spreading across the land
so you don't catch that something
i'm gonna wash my hands
i'm gonna wash my hands
i'm gonna wash my hands

if you pick up that something
while we all shelter in place
to better avoid contagion
try not to touch your face
try not to touch your face
try not to touch your face

and when you lather up the palm of your hands
please make sure thoroughly that you scrub each phylange
each phylange
each phylange!

oh yeah i might have caught something
spreading across the land
so you don't catch that something
please go and wash your hands
i'm gonna wash my hands
please go and wash your hands

and when i watch you in the bathroom with the soap
i tell you baby for a moment i feel hope
i feel hope
i feel hope!

as i cough up a droplet
no telling where it lands
the surest way to stop it
frequently wash your hands
i'm gonna wash my hands
i hope you wash your hands
i'm gonna wash my hands

cf, for the youths

the mask of the orange clusterf*ck

i am not far from washington dc, where there are as yet (per lancet/johns hopkins CSSE tracker at 12:13 am) no reported cases. a migraineur whose triggers include breathing fragrances, i have routinely worn a surgical mask (bought in a box from walgreens long before novel coronavirus was a thing) while on public transport or in the workplace, for some years. until recently this has usually caused people to recoil from me, often securing me a seat alone on the train; occasionally another person wearing such a mask can be seen in the same train car. no one ever initiates conversation with me. until last week, when the number of other masked persons started ticking up, and people began approaching me in the office or the street to ask where i got it. on thursday some among management asked me who the manufacturer is, but it is not clear from product info online or packaging (made in taiwan, though). when i provided some market reporting on mask manufacturers, it turned out that those management parties were trying to figure out whose stock to buy, although a few among them were concerned enough to accept masks from the supply i carry with me when i offered (first one's free). on saturday, president horrorshow mentioned encouraging 3M (among top five reported manufacturers) to make a greater supply available during the press conference (where an inordinate amount of time was spent talking about afghanistan).

today nobody else on the train was wearing one. several coworkers -- including identified sources of overweening workplace fragrance -- helpfully told me that the attorney general said i shouldn't be wearing a mask. i think they meant surgeon general, but, this misministration being what it is, attorney general is just as likely. i said "it's not for coronavirus but to mitigate fragrance exposure." (it is information i do not generally share unsolicited with my coworkers because we're a pathalogically-hostile and inconsiderate group of children in adult bodies, as a class.) "no," one replied, "it is for coronavirus." "this mask," i insisted, "i wear so that breathing fragrances doesn't make me sick and unable to work." we all laughed (an attentive interlocutor can see my eyes crinkle when i smile, i'm told): pronouns are imprecise. i figure next time i'll just start coughing rather than try to explain myself. i too have had a runny nose and headache for some weeks. no fever though. i wash my hands frequently, and try not to touch much more than i have to. if nothing else, i figure the mask decreases the likelihood that i'll be the vector by which someone else catches my cold.

the messaging in the u.s. has been abysmal; it is worse with the president involved. i can take an expert epidemiologist explaining that the elderly and immune-compromised are at greatest risk because that is true and a refrain we hear in the context of the flu every year. but not when he's standing next to president horrorshow who's crowing about how everything's okay and our response has been unprecedentedly perfect: it's not ok for those elderly, infirm and immune-compromised; that they may not recover is no goddamn comfort nor an index of everything being fine. it is not okay for their loved ones and communities. stop smiling.

last week, when centers for disease control stated we should prepare for community transmission, i accosted several representatives of the management: "the cdc encourages me, in preparation for community transmission, to ask you about telework opportunities." those management representatives looked thoughtful and replied, "hmm," (before inquiring where i got the mask). some days later an email was received encouraging us to, out of consideration for our coworkers during cold/flu season, cover our sputum-holes while coughing and sneezing, providing instructions as to how to wash our hands, and encouraging us to apply the heavily-scented sanitary wipes to our workplaces. i wrote back: please provide fragrance-free wipes. my very own canister of "fresh scent" wipes were quickly brought to me by a sympathetic staffer who had been given incomplete instructions, and promptly, abashedly, taken away when i pointed to that part of the label.

my best wishes to those closer to known infection clusters, and where no cases are reported. be well, y'all.

valdimir puddin's negative space

notes:
source foxnews: https://youtube.com/watch?v=tr5Og... (t=11:09:xx). file ends midsentence at 11:09:xx, pdf p.324. [and is no longer available].
also see: c-span. (t=13:39:xx) [could not get].

several readers skipped right over redactions, reading w/o comment from the word preceding the redaction through the word following it.
inexplicably, the reading of vol.1 ended at p.198, with 15 or so pages, several completely redacted, of declination decisions to go.

the report.

resistance is life

both sides, now, now

drawn from reddit & gamergate
united in the name of hate
they say they'll make our nation great
this nation just for some

who once were out just for the lulz
now seeking chances to crack skulls
& fantasizing racist culls
to great encomium

i've studied our political spectrum
grabbed my pen, guitar & plectrum
down w/false equivalencies
black lives matter don't compare w/nazis

w/rebel flags & swastikas
they're marching in Virginia 'cause
a golden age that never was
seems imminent to some

to meet the enemy unbowed
& shout i hate you right out loud
backed up by an angry crowd
chanting opprobrium

i've heard the false equivalencies
from npr & all the TVs
it's propaganda wall to wall
i don't trust anyone at all

& now the white supremacists
reviling "cultural marxists"
complain about their victims' fists
resisting in the scrum

& a fresh wave of violence
emboldened by the president's
willful false equivalence
has got me feeling glum

i've heard the false equivalencies
from npr & all the TVs
it's propaganda wall to wall
i don't trust anyone at all

from blood & soil to lügenpresse
the pageantry of storm & stress
they feel empowered now i guess
a taste of things to come

thought we'd finally heard the end
of blood libel & dolchstoßlegende
& everything that they portend
we still shall overcome

i've heard the false equivalencies
from npr & all the TVs
it's propaganda wall to wall
i don't trust anyone at all

i've studied our political spectrum
grabbed my pen, guitar & plectrum
down w/false equivalencies
antifa don't compare w/nazis

i've studied our political spectrum
grabbed my pen, guitar & plectrum
down w/false equivalencies
black lives matter don't compare w/nazis
__
cf.

crowdcensure for victory

i took one copy of that book upsetting the senator off the internet.

dear reader, every little bit helps.

if every conscientious american did that every day we'd eradicate the menace in no time.

before causing my copy to be destroyed, i thought i'd see if it was the same as the serially xeroxed and cheaply bound copy i'd seen all those years ago. that copy did not have any ASCII illustrations, which do appear in the copy i took off the internet.

much of the bad writing, the malapropisms, and casual tone sound a lot more contemporary than a) i recall or b) the dated material itself (for example, and perhaps conceding the senator's concern to a degree, the vexing question of the provenance of the recyclable plastic bottle molotov cocktail comes clear while reading a recipe written in 1971 - that lost golden age when "a coke bottle" was sure to be made of glass). oh, and it is a pdf'd web page, not the anticipated scan of aforementioned "'zine"-style, serially-copied publication, though it is quite widely available on the open internet, likely in various formats; haven't checked, but expect a copy more like what i remember resides at the internet archive.

anyway, scary representations of household chemistry and edifying explanations of long-gone telephone switching --

illustrative paraphrase: the best computer to make [color]box device is an atari because you can do it in basic with only 5 statements--ha: old-timey! 

 -- systems and scams abound among some gleeful contemplation of seriously horrifying pranks and mayhem. a fellow around the water cooler recalled the book as the source of his recipe for gunpowder; another colleague attributes a friend's son's dementia onset to a recipe from the book. i would be very reticent about attempting almost anything i read there.

"anarchist" in the title seems to signify one inclined to mayhem or taboo chemical knowledge rather than one inclined to implementing a political philosophy of absolute freedom.

amusing paraphrase: cutting enough match heads can be tedious, but will make a fun evening for the whole family if you can pry them away from the tv.

i guess, if i were allegedly a part of a conspiracy, downloading and reading that book and discussing said downloading and reading with alleged co-conspirators could be construed as an act or acts in furtherance of whatever alleged goal of said alleged conspiracy; it is not clear where the threshold of criminality is for the individual not conspiring (i don't say "lone-wolf" because that term presupposes a planned class of activities the contemplated reader may, for any of an infinitude of reasons, never be inclined to undertake).

an alleged conspirator might avoid legal sanction by acting specifically to frustrate the object of the conspiracy, viz. confessing to the man in time for the man to harmlessly foil the plot(s) . . . maybe; it is not clear what an individual not conspiring might do.

a nice, quiet, fellow who mostly keeps to himself, i caused the copy i had taken off the internet (which seemed to continue, beyond the cookbook, proper, to include one or more additional volumes with "terrorist" and "handbook" in their titles -- not that i waive my fundamental right to read anything i find on the internet or elsewhere containing those words) to be destroyed, although a novice forensicist could surely reconstitute enough of it to demonstrate its arrival, review and "destruction". i didn't really want it floating around in the recent memory at the same time i'm reading abu bakr naji's "the management of savagery," which is, frankly, fascinating, far more erudite than "jolly roger", and far less disturbing to read than the latest news of any of any number of parties' depredations; so far, it is broad strategy and exegesis not so different from clausewitz, nkrumah, guevara et al.

lepidoptera? i don't even knowptera!

imagine my surprise when the tasty-looking snack turned out to be
an enormous catfish leaping through the surface of the tree straight at me!

who, hungry for a moth with a six-inch wingspan, would recoil from the scowling, rampant fish?
i am no lepidopterist. although google produced some moths with similar markings on their wings,
i found none with the fish face on the thorax, and soon quit searching.

it is easy to sea why one might be confused

like the captains of industry (and owners of IP) whose email i read:



when they are, after all, concerned about something called piracy. still.
to stave off madness i struggle to find a ray of  bitter bitter humor.

leaky whistle gets another drop in sea, tom choked out

Ali Watkins, Jonathan Landay and Marisa Taylor, over at McClatchey, recently came into possession of, and published, what they describe as the conclusions of the report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on its investigation into the CIA's detention and interrogation program.

interrogations,
conditions of confinement:
brutal and far worse

Watkins et al. note, the twenty findings "paint a picture of an intelligence agency that seemed intent on evading or misleading nearly all of its oversight mechanisms throughout the program," which, in fairness, sounds just like every other intelligence program. As I opined last month:

The ethos of an organization flows from the top: The current executives of all agencies thrived and excelled as the Executive department's abuses and unaccountability gained momentum, and were propelled to the top of their uniquely sensitive, secretive and powerful organizations under those conditions, as those organizations enacted programs skirting laws or, later requiring laws to be rewritten. In many cases the very infrastructure of the agencies was specifically reorganized to better fit the views and designs of unaccountable leadership. Now, they are relied upon to brief the qualified senators and judges concerning intelligence activities, even when they make assertions concerning how, previously, they had misled. 

The chair of the committee, the principal proponent of the publication of [selections from] the report [subject to the direction of the White House with the advice and consent of the CIA], calls for the prosecution of the party responsible for this leak.  One can only imagine that, if there were not so much water still sloshing around the decks from that agency's liberal and zealous efforts to apply enhanced interrogation techniques to unpersons under its control, there probably would not be such steady leaking now; nor would each leak make such a splash as it drops.

According to the conclusions, the detention and interrogation program suffered several systemic faults, starting with the flawed utilitarian premise – "The CIA's use of enhanced interrogation techniques did not effectively assist the agency in acquiring intelligence or in gaining cooperation from detainees" – juxtaposed against its stark moral valence: "The CIA's use of enhanced interrogation techniques [and] the conditions of confinement of detainees of the CIA were brutal and far worse than the agency communicated to policymakers."

The balance of findings concern the agency's "deeply flawed" management, poor preparation and record-keeping, failure to heed internal critiques and objections, failure to evaluate program effectiveness, failure to reprimand or hold accountable persons "responsible for serious violations, inappropriate behavior, or management failures", the use of unapproved techniques, and operation of the program so as to complicate and hinder the national security missions of other agencies, while consistently mischaracterizing the program and its effectiveness, impeding proper legal analysis by providing inaccurate information, and similarly impeding oversight and decision-making of the White House, Congress and its own Office of the Inspector General.

Just when you thought "contract attorney" or "contract sales representative" might signify the vilest job suitable for the vilest people, new horizons open: the findings note that the CIA's detention and interrogation program was designed by two "contract psychologists," although that aspect was later outsourced. (One wonders, first, how "contract psychologists" differ from "outsourced", and, second, "outsourced" . . . to whom?)

Finally, "The CIA manipulated the media by coordinating the release of classified information, which inaccurately portrayed the effectiveness of the agency's enhanced interrogation techniques."

That last bit seems strangely, discomfitingly, familiar . . .

All in all, you gotta give them credit for maintaining such a seemingly seamlessly effective obfuscation and misinformation edifice, that persists nigh impenetrably even unto the present moment, notwithstanding all the apparently incompetent program management and implementation: Without records how do they know which misrepresentations they have represented to which of the many would-be authorizing or oversight authorities?

reach out and torch someone on your family calling plan

if your dad gives you 
a phone before the drone strikes 
him: throw it away!!!

here's hoping Greenwald
Scahill and company all 
are using burners

ebenee-zing!-er scrooged

the good you do comes back to you

on background

so: there's this chair, an unexceptional, inexpensive, somewhat old, simple rolling desk chair, in my bedroom, which had rested, out of the way, by the front window. recently, i moved it into the narrow walk between the bed and the dresser, where the comforter sloughs off the foot -- the better to work on a laptop running next to the alarm clock on that dresser -- where it has been for several days, although i move it a bit to get to drawers or squeeze by to operate the windows. it is light and rolls easily, if never straight.

i am accustomed enough to knowing what's where that i often leave the lights off.

just now, on the way to turn off the attic fan, i walked into the room, turned the light on, looked around, and, turning the light off, left again, unsure why i had so purposefully crossed that threshold. the sound of the fan immediately reminded me, so, without turning the light on again, i walked in, skirting the area where laundry might lie, and made my way toward the switch for the fan when my foot fell onto one of the arms of the chair's wheel array.

that's lucky, i thought, as, to trip over this chair in the dark could be dangerous. i imagined a number of ways the molded plastic might maim me in an uncontrolled fall and carefully moved it aside.

i switched off the fan meaning to open the windows; i headed that way until i bumped into the chair.

i can't believe it, i thought, how could i do that twice in such close succession? i found the chair's swiveling back with both hands, moving it to the side, and made my way around the foot of the bed.

having opened both windows i strode, between the bed and dresser, once more, right into that chair.

jackass, i thought, bitterly surprised: i hadn't even walked carefully, like one might, knowing a rolling-office-chair-of-potential-concussion-or-worse lurks, somewhere, there, in the darkness.

anyway, i told you that story so that i could tell you . . .

something.

i don't recall.