"Self awareness is the only true measure of existence." --Galouye

............

Simulations

'In this passage to a space whose curvature is no longer that of the real, nor of the truth, the age of simulation thus begins with a liquidation of all referentials--worse: by their artificial resurrection in systems of signs, a more ductile material than meaning, in that it lends itself to all systems of equivalence, all binary oppositions and all combinatory algebra. It is no longer a question of imitation, nor of reduplication, nor even of parody. It is rather a question of substituting signs of the real for the real itself, that is, an operation to deter every real process by its operational double, a metastable, programmatic, perfect descriptive machine which provides all the signs of the real and short-circuits all its vicissitudes. Never again will the real have to be produced--this is the vital function of the model in a system of death, or rather of anticipated resurrection which no longer leaves any chance even in the event of death. A hyperreal henceforth sheltered from the imaginary, and from any distinction between the real and the imaginary, leaving room only for the orbital recurrence of models and the simulated generation of difference.'

............

'When the real is no longer what it used to be, nostalgia assumes its full meaning. There is a proliferation of myths of origin and signs of reality; of second-hand truth, objectivity and authenticity. There is an escalation of the true, of the lived experience; a resurrection of the figurative where the object and substance have disappeared. And there is a panic-stricken production of the real and the referential, above and parallel to the panic of material production: this is how simulation appears in the phase that concerns us--a strategy of the real, neo-real and hyperreal whose universal double is a strategy of deterrence'

............

'The duplication is sufficient to render both artificial.'

............

"Everything is metamorphosed into its inverse in order to be perpetuated in its purged form. Every form of power, every situation speaks of itself by denial, in order to attempt to escape, by simulation of death, its real agony. Power can stage its own murder to rediscover a glimmer of existence and legitimacy. In olden days the king (also the god) had to die--that was his strength. Today he does his miserable utmost to pretend to die, so as to preserve the blessing of power. But even this is gone.

To seek new blood in its own death, to renew the cycle by the mirror of crisis, negativity and anti-power: this is the only alibi of every power, of every institution attempting to break the vicious circle of its irresponsibility and its fundamental non-existence, of its deja-vu and its deja-mort."

..............

'The balance of terror is the terror of balance.'

...............

τρόπος cont.

 

"...But perhaps for them it was something else." This was what he thought, listening stretched out on his bed while, like some sort of sticky slaver, their thought filtered into him, lined him internally. There was nothing to be done. To avoid it was impossible. Everywhere, in countless forms, "deception" ("The sun is deceptive today," the concierge said, "it's deceptive and you risk catching your death. That was how my poor husband... and yet he liked to take care of himself...") everywhere, in the guise of life itself, it caught hold of you as you went by, when you hurried past the concierge's door, when you answered the telephone, lunched with the family, invited your friends, spoke a word to anybody, whoever it might be.

You had to answer them and encourage them gently, and above all, above everything, not make them feel, not make them feel a single second, that you think you're different. Be submissive, be submissive, be retiring: "Yes, yes, yes, yes, that's true, that's certainly true," that's what you should say to them warmly, affectionately, otherwise a rending, an uprooting, something unexpected, something violent would happen, something that had never happened before, and which would be frightful.

It seemed to him that then, in a sudden surge of action, of power, with immense strength, he would shake them like old soiled rags, would wring them, tear them, destroy them completely."

"On hot July days, the wall opposite cast a brilliant, harsh light into the damp little courtyard.

Underneath this heat there was a great void, silence, everything seemed in suspense: the only thing to be heard, aggressive, strident, was the creaking of a chair being dragged across the tiles, the slamming of a door. In this heat, in this silence, it was a sudden coldness, a rending.

At times the shrill notes of locusts in a meadow petrified by the sun and as though dead, induce this sensation of cold, of solitude, of abandonment in a hostile universe in which something anguishing is impending.

In the silence, penetrating the length of the old bluestriped wallpaper in the hall, the length of the paint, she heard the little click of the key in the front door. She heard the study door close.

She remained there hunched up, waiting, doing nothing.

She did not move. And about her the entire house, the street, seemed to encourage her, seemed to consider this motionlessness natural.

It appeared certain, when you opened the door and saw the stairway filled with relentless, impersonal, colorless calm, a stairway that did not seem to have retained the slightest trace of the persons who had walked in on it, not the slightest memory of their presence, when you stood behind the dining room window and looked at the house fronts, the shops, the old women and little children walking along the street, it seemed certain that, for as long as possible, she would have to wait, remain motionless like that, do nothing, not move, that the highest degree of comprehension, real intelligence, was that, to undertake nothing, keep still as possible, do nothing."

-----------

GRAVITY & GRACE

 "Attitude of supplication: I must necessarily turn to something other than myself since it is a question of being delivered from self.

Any attempt to gain this deliverance by means of my own energy would be like the efforts of a cow which pulls at its hobble and so falls into its knees. 

In making it one liberates a certain amount of energy in oneself by a violence which serves to degrade more energy. Compensation as in thermodynamics; a vicious circle from one can be delivered only from on high. 

The source of man's moral energy is outside him, like that of his physical energy (food, air, etc.). He generally finds it, and that is why he has the illusion--as on the physical plane--that his being carries the principle of its preservation within itself. Privation alone makes him feel his need. And, in the event of privation, he cannot help turning to anything whatever which is edible.

There is only one remedy for that: a chlorophyll conferring the faculty of feeding on light. 

Not to judge. All faults are the same. There is only one fault: incapacity to feed upon light, for where capacity to do this has been lost all faults are possible. 

'My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me.'

There is no good apart from this capacity."

"At a certain moment, physical pain is lessened by projecting it into the universe, but the universe is impaired; the pain is more intense when it comes home again, but something in me does not suffer and remains in contact with a universe which is not impaired. Act in the same way with the passions. Make them come down like a deposit, collect them into a point and become detached from them. Especially, treat all sufferings in this way. Prevent them from having access to things."

...

"A beloved being who disappoints me. I have written to him. It is impossible that he should not reply by saying what I have said to myself in his name. 

Men owe us what we imagine they will give us. We must forgive them this debt. 

To accept the fact that they are other than the creatures of our imagination is to imitate the renunciation of God.

I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness."

...

TO ACCEPT THE VOID

"Tradition teaches us as touching the gods and experience shows us as regards men that, by a necessity of nature, every being invariably exercises all the power of which it is capable' (Thucydides). Like a gas, the soul tends to fill the entire space which is given it. A gas which contracted leaving a vacuum--this would be contrary to the law of entropy. It is not so with the God of the Christians. He is a supernatural God, whereas Jehovah is a natural God. 

Not to exercise all the power at one's disposal is to endure the void. This is contrary to all the laws of nature. Grace alone can do it. 

Grace fills empty spaces but it can only enter where this is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void.

The necessity for a reward, the need to receive the equivalent of what we give. But if, doing violence to this necessity, we leave a vacuum, as it were a suction of air is produced and a supernatural reward results. It does not come if we receive other wages: it is this vacuum which makes it come. 

It is the same with the remission of debts (and this applies not only to the harm which others have done us but to the good which we have done them). There again, we accept a void in ourselves. 

To accept a void in ourselves is supernatural. Where is the energy to be found for an act which has nothing to counterbalance it? The energy has to come from elsewhere. yet first there must be a tearing out, something desperate has to take place, the void must be created. Void: the dark night. 

Admiration, pity (most of all a mixture of the two) bring real energy. But this we must do without. 

A time has to be gone through without any reward, natural or supernatural. 

The world must be regarded as containing something of a void in order that it may have need of God. That presupposes evil. 

Admiration, pity (most of all a mixture of the two) bring real energy. But this we must do without. 

A time has to be gone through without any reward, natural or supernatural.

The world must be regarded as containing something of a void in order that tit may have need of God. That presupposes evil. 

To love truth means to endure the void and, as a result, to accept death. Truth is on the side of death." 

 

Why should I stop, why?

the birds have gone in search
of the blue direction. 
the horizon is vertical, vertical
and movement fountain-like;
and at the limits of vision
shining planets spin.
the earth in elevation reaches repetition,
and air wells
changes into tunnels of connection;
and day is a vastness,
which does not fit into narrow mind
of newspaper worms.

why should I stop?
the road passes through the capillaries of life,
the quality of the environment
in the ship of the uterus of the moon
will kill the corrupt cells.
and in the chemical space after sunrise
there is only sound,
sound that will attract the particles of time.
why should I stop?

what can a swamp be?
what can a swamp be but the spawning ground
of corrupt insects?
swollen corpses scrawl the morgue's thoughts,
the unmanly one has hidden
his lack of manliness in blackness,
and the bug... ah,
when the bug talks,
why should I stop?
cooperation of lead letters is futile,
it will not save the lowly thought.
I am a descendant of the house of trees.
breathing stale air depresses me.
a bird which died advised me to
commit flight to memory.
the ultimate extent of powers is union,
joining with the bright principle of the sun
and pouring into the understanding of light.
it is natural for windmills to fall apart.

why should I stop?
I clasp to my breast
the unripe bunches of wheat
and breastfeed them

sound, sound, only sound,
the sound of the limpid wishes
of water to flow,
the sound of the falling of star light
on the wall of earth's femininity
the sound of the binding of meaning's sperm
and the expansion of the shared mind of love.
sound, sound, sound,
only sound remains.

in the land of dwarfs,
the criteria of comparison
have always traveled in the orbit of zero.
why should I stop?
I obey the four elements;
and the job of drawing up
the constitution of my heart
is not the business
of the local government of the blind.

what is the lengthy whimpering wildness
in animals sexual organs to me?
what to me is the worm's humble movement
In its fleshy vacuum?
the bleeding ancestry of flowers
has committed me to life.
are you familiar with the bleeding
ancestry of the flowers?

-Forugh Farrokhzad

BLESSED HENRY SUSO

 

"In a detached person nothing merely temporal is born in possessiveness. His eyes are opened. He becomes fully aware and, receiving his blessed existence and life, is one with Him; for all things are here one in the One."

-

"Be steadfast and never rest content until you have obtained the now of eternity as your present possession in this life, so far as this is possible to human infirmity."

-

"Suffering is the ancient law of love; there is not quest without pain; there is no lover who is not also a martyr."

"TO LOSE ONESELF FOREVER IS ETERNAL HAPPINESS."
-

 

"Eternity is life that is beyond time but includes within itself all time but without a before or after. And whoever is taken into the Eternal Nothing possesses all in all and has no 'before or after'. Indeed a person taken within today would not have been there for a shorter period from the point of view of eternity than someone who had been taken within a thousand years ago."

"These people who are taken within, because of their boundless immanent oneness with God, see themselves as always and eternally existing"

-

"If your enemies see that you grow courageous, and that you will neither be seduced by flatteries nor disheartened by the pains and trials of your journey, but rather are contented with them, they will grow afraid of you."

-

After this the disciple turned again in all seriousness to eternal Truth and asked for the power to discern by outward appearance a person who was truly detached. He asked thus. Eternal Truth, how do such people act in relation to various things?
Answer: They withdraw from themselves, and all things withdraw along with this.
Question: How do they conduct themselves with respect to time?
Answer: They exist in an ever-present now, free of selfish intentions and they seek to act perfectly in the smallest thing as in the greatest."

 

----

 

MADE FROM OIL

 

'COMBUSTIBLE & CONFLICTIVE KIND OF COMPLICITY'

"Every mine is a line of flight that is in communication with smooth spaces--there are parallels today in the problems with oil.

"Islamic Apocalypticism has understood well that anything can be pumped into gas pipelines, and oil will slide it forward as well as permanently dissolving it--meaning that whatever reaches the crusading civilizations cannot be extracted or separated from petroleum. Oil cannot be politically distilled. The entities in oil participate in a new chemical compound which cannot be broken into its elements or main constituents. For the other side of the pipeline or the West--the point of evacuation and consumption--everything in oil remains under constant camouflage; nothing but a petroleum by-product.

The military magic of taking oil as the medium of movement rather than tactics unfolds when one claims that oil, as a neutral entity itself, is part of nature and is a planetary entity, hence omnipresent despite different degrees of concentration on earth. If Islamic war machines are dissolved within oil and oil is an omnipresent planetary entity then Islamic militarization is not local anymore but global and planetary. The rise of oil as a medium for the mobilization of warmachines heralds the decline of tactical offense and the dawn of an ubiquitous offense embedded within the seemingly peaceful omnipresence of nature.

The nervous system and the chemistry of war machines smuggled through oil infuse with the wester machines feasting on oil unnoticed, as petroleum has already dissolved or refinedly emulsified them in itself, as its chemical elements or its essential derivatives.

The Middle East stalks the world as a petroll. Is there anything more Lovecraftian than the building of a new pipeline, winding its blobbing flutes? The question is: How long can the cavernous sentience ride in this modern vehicle?

Thomas Gold's theory of Deep Hot Biosphere suggests that petroleum is not a fossil fuel, and that oil has its origin in natural gas flows which feed bacteria living in the bowels of the Earth. Therefore, the demonarchy of oil is not subjected to the laws of the dead (i.e. the preserved corpses of prehistoric organism) but rather is animated by a Plutonic vitalism (abiogenic petroleum generated by the nether biosphere of the Earth). Petroleum surfaces from primordial origins, thus, it is not of the Earth but of the Outside, planted here as a xeno-chemical Insider. Oil is produced by Plutonic forces and the nether-biosphere, rather than from the decompositions of fossils and organic body counts. Consequently, oil is far more substantial and follows a different, autonomous logic of planetary distribution. Taking Gold's theory as a petropolitical ground has a different and far more strategic impact on the aforementioned pipeline scenario. If oil is somehow undying then so also are the warmachines dissolved in it, until such time as they accomplish their tasks, one on behalf of the insider and the Earth, the other on behalf of monotheism and the Divine.

The truth of war lies beyond the battlefield. (Aramaic shibboleth inscribed on the Lamassu discovered at Khorsabad)

Parasani notes that, for the Assyrians, 'war hunts warmachines rather than warmachines hunting each other.' War is fueled by terminal fusions of strategy and tactical multiplicities; everything that emerges from war is a devastating disruption for the configurations, guiding systems and probe-functions of warmachines. According tot he occultural and military doctrine of Evil-against-Evil, war produces too much heat for warmachines to bear, to the degree that they begin gradually to melt (tactical meltdown), precipitating a molecular breakdown into diabolical particles. The Assyrians suspected that Mesopotamia was swarming with these diabolical particles--the demonically lingering remnants of warmachines. Tactically dead but strategically reanimated and introduced to the battlefield, this molecular debris left behind by melting warmachines was frequently referred to as 'the Fog of War'. 

[*There was a woman lying on her back next to the truck, a middle-aged woman with a sun-burnt skin... eyes gouged out and filled with semen; it was more exquisite than the white eyes of an epileptic. I named her Moby Dick.  (Jackson West's journal, entry date: December 4, 1993)]

The Burden of Nineveh

Lamassus watch what comes in but not what goes out. 

'Lamassu-Complex' an allusion to the belief that war has a life of its own."  

My pantyhose are warmachines.

Urethra's a Ruby-Throated's Beak

He does not like what the sky does ever. Puts it down, the sky down. Too hot or too cold or it does nothing for him. He asks this girl sitting in front of him in the car if she is saying "oh" at a construction pit on the left side, was maybe the left side. She's all white, mean like, old paste with some pink parts in it, that is her skin. So you could see she feels shame for making sound out loud to a pit. Someone told her at maybe age 7 to put that away, "hide your shame." But now this day she still doesn't know what it was meant at. Did she do a thing wrong or was a part of her body showing? Can't know it now. Nothing happening in the sky that makes his stomach pre-retch but he goes on says out loud in the car that he wants to find the lord. But no place feels good to him.

 

-----------

"My memory is so poor I would be glad if I could repeat, in case they've been lost, some of the things which I was told were well said. If the Lord doesn't make me remember, I will gain just by tiring myself and getting a worse headache for the sake of obedience."
----------

But this was on the right side out the window--man on the street in a baby blue shirt and he can't stand up straight next to a woman standing on the curb so she looks a little taller than normal--how tall he is--she has on a shirt with a drawing of Taz on it, maybe made at home. They are sharing turns trying to drop kick a plastic bag. Empty bag but probably used kind of dirty. She yanks it down to try to make it move faster, too slow if she just let it go from her hand above her head, has to yank it down toward her foot to kick. Looks like it makes them tired. He can't kick. He puts his foot out a little but bag does not reach it before he has to put it back down. He has on those socks that make ankles tight, like ankles do not fit in the sock--like packets for sausage. Looks like they don't like to do it but maybe they have to. Never saw if they kicked that bag.

----------

How does someone feel clean in a clinic. Clinic is so clean so. Anything that isn't washed in a clinic looks dirty, but really dirty. All the pilling on the shirt looks gross in that room for the exam and some stuff from bread under the nails--everyone can tell it is there. Some of the hair is on the back of the jacket hanging on it just looks trashy because of all the light in the ceiling really bright. But she looks fine when they put her back out to the street just so bad in the clinic.

Same stuff on the table in there like last time. All things on dark blue mat on a steel table has wheels. Maybe a red cord. Red cord made of rubber it is a tube it is as long as a tall man's arm. Big swab, long swab in a package. Gel on scratchy cotton that they use for a cut. Does not look like enough gel for the job but also looks too little to not stare at. How long has it been sitting out. Some mix looks like blood but it maybe is to wash body before tube goes in. Yeah. To wash part. Cup's got a green top for piss. Knows where it is all going. But how much tube can go in. Doesn't know that. Body kind of smells wants to wash self more before but too late. Take off clothes sit on white pad but has lite blue all around it. Feet sit on top of metal thing to make her part get wider.

This man puts a thing over her, hide her part from herself. Only can feel it. Puts some cold stuff on, leaks down he kind of pats inside legs to get it off while it still is leaking down, does not get all of it off. Cold stuff maybe gel, goes in to the folds. Drain and to drain he has a tube you can see through but small like a needle goes inside the part, feels like a popping. Hurts really hurts. Can feel her part draining out and can hear it in the cup. This man holds the red tube up above his head like those bags they have and they fill full of salt water or some kind of thing to go into a body to make it think it is getting water in a hospital. So then a mix in the red tube that makes the blood weaker and also in the mix a thing that makes her not feel it as bad is going into her part. Through the clear tube small part is sucking it up. Heard one time when a baby drinks from mom's chest it is called 'suckling.' So that is what her part is doing to the mix in the tube, suckling but the other way. He tells her to move ankles back and forth so he can pull out the tubes. Hurts so bad. Suckling but the other way. She has to lay on side.

---------

It goes on. The body loops. 7 year platelet replacement. 

A sublime indignity. It's ok.

------

‘Whiteness in wateriness’

White body’s got a babyblue patina / frame acting a hilt for harness. Their heads swell down to a fixed smile, does not fade / hooked lips deliver false jocularity out to you / to me. Not what it feels / for real. That heft with sheen’s caught chafing, a rubbing gone on years under tan nylon strap / with it for so long a hue-of-sap residue’s building on the strands. A little loosening -- still on. Blisters pulse a hot pink in rings / water slips a cover to hide from sight tho. In Bunu / white is water. So / this saddling’s really wrong because they’re really pure -- ‘whiteness in wateriness.’ Matching transparency of what it is in / as clear in own substance as that of its host -- that liquid. In a home we try it / to get in a shape it mimics. At night fill hollow porcelain -- shape of it aping the belly of these whales. Our whole body in and under a density / floating, and most of us hold no fact for it--like Fanta bottles at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. But they are still bound, even at night / somewhere that Russian bathes in a recall -- of pulling the belts across it taut.

[Funfun]