jayhat

Archive for October, 2010|Monthly archive page

Somehow Morris and Zeus have something to do with one another…

In novelish, Post Script on October 25, 2010 at 10:15 pm

I’d rather not get into the details of how I finally tracked down Morris Maxwell Firm. These words I write, they are many things—a history, a confession, a tribute—and most of this is for naught if the exactness of details is imperative. Long story short, Morris cohabited a small room in the basement of an abandoned church, a block or two off one of the main throughways of The Fissure. He would have been impossible to track down were it not for my connections at the CSA, who had connections with the polling company they employed, who had connections with the pollster company they employed, who knew which sect would have been responsible for Morris’s response, based on the bar code verifying the poll’s authenticity.

Even after these channels, it took some good old fashioned investigatory journalism to track him down.

When I entered his room, which he shared with three other mates, he was slumped over in his bed, a dirty, little round lump of a white man, asleep to the side, wearing scruffy shorts with his feet on the ground. He snored like a mammoth.

****

…and on a tall mountain, far, far away, an old man was slumped over in his throne, pensively stroking his long, grey beard, and wondering what it was, exactly, about that town oh so far away that brought him such ire…

So I enter this room, and God’s there, just chillin

In Dreams, novelish, Post Script on October 21, 2010 at 7:55 pm

Here’s what He said:

“Go away.”

Me? I said.

“No,” He said, motioning his hand towards the rest. “Everyone. Everything.”

I went to leave.

“And you will,” He said, nodding. “Soon enough.”

You’re certain? I said.

He shrugged. “Soon enough,” He said. “Eventually everything goes away.”

So I started for the door.

He grunted and said something softly, too soft.

I turned. Huh? I said.

“Nothing,” He said. He looked in my direction, but His gaze was slightly distant, like He couldn’t think of the right way to put something.

Again I went for the door.

“You should know something,” He said.

I let him finish.

He sighed. “You’re one of the good ones,” He said. “If people ask, let them know how you really feel about things. Don’t hide anything, just tell the truth.” He paused. “Maybe when people finally stop bickering, they’ll realize what’s really important.”

What do you mean? I said.

“Nothing,” He said and shook His head.

What’s important? I said.

“I have no idea,” He said. “You tell me.”

How The Journalist feels about his lack of motivation.

In non-fantastical, novelish, What people are on October 14, 2010 at 6:03 pm

In an earlier life, I constantly battled against the feeling that my life evolved in a series of events and actions I undertook, if only to prove that I could live a prosaic existence. At no point did any particular thing define my life, and—if I had ever been asked—I would have been extremely hesitant to acknowledge that my being was the sum of any of its parts.

I belonged, no doubt, and I produced—somewhat—but only because I willed myself to have that impulse. In other words, my motivation—my ambition—was, more or less, a choice.

Now I stand before god almighty, and I proclaim unto thee that I am not a machine, I am not programmable, that I am everything that I will ever be and, forevermore, shall accept.

If I lack ambition, it is because I do not care enough about the end. If I lack motivation, it is because I have not set my goals high enough.

I am my own engine, and I will puff and huff when I reach a hill worth climbing.

Why you should make a fuss about things.

In Complaining, novelish, What people are on October 13, 2010 at 8:50 pm

Brenda’s real name wasn’t Brenda, but she went by “Brenda” because it was easier for everyone to pronounce. Introverted and bookish, Brenda generally did the best she could to stay out of everyone’s way. The worst possible thing to be in the world, she believed, was an obstruction. The world was a tide pool, and her role was to keep things as calm as she could.

The only decent way to live, she thought, was to let everyone else live as they wish—and to never, ever complain. She went great lengths to ensure that, if she had occupied a room, that she left it exactly as it had been. She never took anything from anyone, only asked for something if it was a dire matter of clarification, and only walked across the street when it was perfectly clear that no cars would slow on her account and no person would have to move out of her way.

She lived by herself, kept to herself, and when someone tried to start up a conversation, she’d smile and put her head down—unless really pressed, in which case she would say as little as possible before changing the subject back to silence.

And she did such a good job at all of this that she lived her entire life without anyone ever bothering to care that she existed.

The problem with many classics

In English, nature, Writing on October 12, 2010 at 10:31 pm

When people read the classics, they’re often slowed by the language, complain about the piousness of characters, etc.—when I read the classics, I often wonder how so many authors existed in linear worlds with linear characters who grow in linear ways and tell stories that unfold linearly.

The world is circular for a reason, and clouds dot the sky and merge and form bigger clouds, and rivers form deltas and twist and have things called rapids.

I’ve never met a woman who only wanted a man, and I know of no man whose only desire is money. I have friends and colleagues, but none of them exist only to my end, and they have me, and I exist to no one’s end.

And my story has little to do with their story, other than the fact that my cloud or the water in my river or—whathaveyou—happen to merge or bump or touch at some place or another.

XX does things like eating oranges like apples.

In Food, novelish on October 11, 2010 at 8:34 pm

XX ate oranges like an apple, skin and all. No reason to wash them, he said, same reason there’s no reason to wash apples: we breathe air every day, he asks—the shit they put in there can’t be no worse for you than whatever they put on this shit.

Bugs live in the air, Rudd said to him. Pests live in the air.

So, XX asks.

So, Rudd said, they don’t live in apples or oranges because of the shit they put on them.

XX shook his head. That’s just because the shit messes with their chemical receptors—ain’t like they’re allergic. They’re just confused.

How’s that make it any better, Rudd said.

XX shrugged and said: ‘Cause I ain’t confused right now.

Two thoughts:

In Ancillarious, physics-nature-etc., What people are on October 5, 2010 at 9:23 pm

When stuck outside in a rainstorm and without an umbrella, the safest place to be is wherever you are, accepting of the circumstances that, yes, it is raining, and, yes, you will be getting wet. There is no point in fighting the elements you do not control, and there is no point in regretting that you had not foreseen unforeseen circumstances.

You will get wet and you might even get cold.

***

Something I’ve been thinking about:

Power is directly proportional to the leverage one entity has over another.

Force of will and manipulation can encourage people to act, but ultimately, if one does not have the means to act on their threat, then they have no one to threaten. Conversely, if one has nothing to be threatened, then he or she is at the mercy of no one.

Yes—this applies to work and life and relationships. Yes—this applies to larger entities like countries and corporations and law.

How doodling could lead to un-existence

In Kilgore Trout, novelish on October 1, 2010 at 8:20 pm

As the man had rambled on in neutral tones, the journalist couldn’t help but doodle in his notebook. Attention finite, he made an indecent habit of commingling importance and tonality. In a general way, he was aware of his flaws as a human being but—as in times such as these—often only in retrospect. After the interview, he would deride himself for not having caught the location the man mentioned, for not taking the man’s name, bud number, etc. He had, as he often did, commingled presence with importance.

The man had been so bland, so uninteresting, what he had said, he did so without confidence or qualification, he had been soft-spoken, humorless, often unintelligible, and mumbled. His clothing had shown wear, his glasses scratched, his shoes scoffed.

These were the sorts of things the journalist had noticed.

So, naturally, when the man approached the journalist, engaged the journalist in a discussion about the cosmos, about events there yet unimportant, unforeseen, the journalist—introduced, as he had been, as a man of record—played the role, doodling as he would.

It was only as the man trailed away, his final sentences before parting, that he said even one thing that stayed with the journalist, something that the journalist would later wonder why it was that it stuck with him, then it would then click, days later, what had been implied, what had been said, and he would remember back to what he had been doing when this man—who he remembered only as details—was talking to him about things he couldn’t possibly know.

Doodling.

What had been said: “At least that’s where Morris said it would be…”

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