a scallop

"I brought you sea-glass," I said, wiping my nose with the back of my hand, "And a shell. I think it was a clam."

She smiled at me from her chair, and held out her left hand, palm up. I gave it to her, and she felt its wavy ridges and fluted edges. It looked soft, chalky.

"Pretty," she said.

"Have you eaten?" I said.

"A little."

"Are you hungry?"

"No. I'm fine." She put the shell on the table in front of her, and turned to face me. She held her hand out, and I took it in mine.

"I don't think it was a clam," she said, and smiled again, slightly.

The sun was setting as we walked outside together, bleeding crimson across the golden-blue of sea and sky.

"Sky-blue," I said, looking at her. "That's my favorite. Like your eyes. When it gets grey and cloudy from the sand."

"I always liked the bottle-green," she said, staring out towards the water.

We stood and watched as the sun fell slowly into the horizon.

The sand was still warm beneath my feet. I dug my toes in, and wiggled them. My nose was still running.

"My eyes itch," I said.

She said nothing. I shuffled my sandy feet a step or two closer to her, sand up to my ankles.

"I don't think it's too late," I said.

"You know it is," she said, looking towards me.

"Let's talk to the doctor first," I said. "He said that he thought...let's talk to him first, after we get home."

The last rays of light were struggling over the water. I looked down at my sunken feet and wiggled my toes wider apart. Little mountains of sand rose and fell, like waves.

"Would you really want to try again?"

My feet were getting cold in the cool sand. I looked over at her, but she was staring out over the water, eyes grey.

I held her hand as we walked slowly back up the beach, helping her to find her way over the rocks when we turned up the path. The house was dark.

I dipped my sandy feet in the water bucket on the porch and kicked the droplets off as best I could.

"No," I said, "never."

I helped her climb the stairs up to the porch, and steadied her as she put one foot in the bucket, took it out, and put the other one in. She was looking towards the water again.

"I'm sure I wouldn't either," she said, abruptly. " I don't think I ever wanted to." I waited, my hands on her shoulders.

"How would we even raise it?" she said, blue-grey eyes searching for my face in the twilight.

"The usual way, I imagine," I said. The paint on the porch was grey and cracked.

"But I could never - I mean, I would never be able to-" she stopped, spent.

"I'm so tired," she said , after a minute.

"Shall we go in?"

She turned away from me to walk towards the door, and stumbled. I caught her arm. Her hair was pulling out of its loose ponytail, and some fine strands drifted down onto her neck. She looked up at the sky and exhaled a great, even breath. We walked inside.

"It's a scallop," she said. "The ridges."

We were back at the table. I inspected my feet in the lamplight. I could feel grains of sand in between my toes. They would probably end up in my bed.

"Not a clam?"

She smiled and gave me the shell.

"Not a clam."

It was pinkish and transparent in the light, like a watercolor. The inside was smooth and white. One of the small fins at the base of the fan was cracked.

"Here," I said, and she searched for it uncertainly before I placed it back in her hand, and she ran her thumb up and down the ridges.

"I hate that I don't want to try again," she said, venomously. "I should want to."

"Why? It could have been even worse," I said.

"Worse? I can't see."

"It could have been worse than that. You-"

"I what? I could have died? I wish I had."

The shell cracked. I looked at her. She dropped half of it, and clenched the rest in her fist.

"I hate this house."

"I like it here," I said. "I like the sound of the waves."

"I want to leave."

"We'll leave tomorrow, then."

"I don't want to go back home."

"We'll go somewhere else."

"Where?"

"Where would you like to go?"

"I thought I would like the ocean," she said.

"Maybe you would like a different ocean?"

"I don't want to go anywhere. But I don't want to stay here."

An empty wine bottle on a shelf, full of sand, cast a long shadow on the wall

"Are you hungry?" I said.

"No, I'm not fucking hungry," she said, quietly.

I sat there with her, at the table, as she turned the scallop in her palm, over, and over.

The sun rose in the morning, and while it was still cool I walked up and down the beach, collecting sea-glass.

METALEPHANT

Fuck yes.

In which there is a discussion of the multitudinous frustrations of Modern Life, and the pronoun "I" is overused

I am now 24 years old. I've traveled all over the world, read thousands of books in multiple languages, both extinct and otherwise, excelled at a top-tier undergraduate school and graduated with not one, but two degrees (in two different languages) while playing four years of varsity soccer - and somehow finished my last semester, which included graduate-level written and oral exams, while dealing with a death in the family.

I had thought that perhaps nothing would be harder than what I've already vecu. I had not, up until 2010, experienced Microsoft Excel.

I would rather be faced with a thousand unanswerable metaphysical questions than an infuriatingly complex task that focuses on that draconian torture device we know as the "spreadsheet." I consider myself an intelligent person (you may have gathered this from the last two years of intermittent, masturbatory blog entries). I learn and adapt quickly, and usually find it both easy and enjoyable to solve problems.

Conceptual problems.

I know enough about Excel at this point in my short-lived career as an environmental consultant to know what needs to be done when I'm confronted with a diabolical worksheet containing thousands of rows of data. The problem is that I simply don't know enough about the inner workings of the infernal program to make it do what I want it to do. If I could write code in English - proper English, mind you - nothing would be simpler. However, writing code in Visual Basic for Applications requires some obscure knowledge of what is, in my eyes, the language of the damned. Not Baudelaire's damned; but the true, howling, angry damned that will burst forth from cracks in the earth at the end of days.

All I want is this: Select a date. From a separate worksheet, grab a series of values and insert them under said date, so that every value from the separate sheet shares the same date. Then, select the next date and perform the same task (you'll excuse me if I don't go into exasperating detail) until it ran out of dates.

Fuck me, I almost put my fist through the computer monitor.

First, the simplest of commands - copy and insert 70 blank rows - utterly failed me. Then, I decided I would record a macro of inserting said number of rows, selecting the next row down, and repeating. Brute force, if you will; my code was nothing more complicated than 70 repetitions of the "insert row" command. Except, I couldn't select the next row down - only the next cell, which created an absolute mess of my spreadsheet.

I didn't make it to pasting the outside values. Instead I limped, shamed and beaten, down the stairs to a co-worker's office where I described my desires in excruciating clarity. Together, it took us approximately an hour and a half to work out a solution. I'm not sure if I ought to feel good that he wasn't able to instantly solve all my problems with the flick of a mouse-wand, or frustrated that I could explain exactly what I wanted but was completely helpless to see it to fruition myself.

It has been a long time since I've felt so completely impotent - at least a year, probably longer; and, in fact, I can't remember the last time. Wait, that's a lie - last Halloween I couldn't seem to get a colored costume contact into my eye and put two holes in the bathroom wall. Yeah.

Regardless, I never imagined I'd be put in my place by a piece of software. That's probably because I never imagined I'd work with any software more complicated than Starsiege: Tribes (which, if you've ever played it, takes years to master - and a master I was, without a doubt). It's probably because I never thought I'd experience the word "spreadsheet" on a daily basis - and it's definitely because I hate numbers. They infuriate me.

On Wednesday I had an hour-long discussion with a colleague of my father's on the relationship between Nietzsche's will to power, existentialist authenticity and self-awareness. That's where I want to be; seated upon my throne of obsidian as pathetic minions grovel at the feet of their philosopher-king.

There are things I can't do. There are things I don't want to do. I'm not always sure how to approach stuff that I can't master in moments; and for better or worse, I often don't want to bother with an effort. I'm not sure what that says about me, but as of right now I definitely am sure that I wouldn't be a computer programmer for all of King Midas's Chocolate Coins. Fuck that shit.

MORE AWESOME THINGS TO FIGHT WITH A SPEAR

CHEETANK

UNIKRAKEN (AND ITS BROOD OF ROCKTOPI)

TRICERATOX

I was once going to give a paper, tentatively titled "Aesthetics, Ethics, and Revolt in Baudelaire's Prose Poetry." That never happened...

This is a post about aesthetics and ethics.

I read in passing a moment ago (thanks, internet) that "one cannot be a romantic and be self aware." I feel compelled to refute - or at least complicate - such an overwhelmingly simplistic remark (certainly made in passing, but nonetheless...)

First of all, I suppose the argument hinges on how one defines a romantic - and particularly whether or not one can be one. Is a romantic a thing of the past? What I mean, really, is: has the "romantic" receded to the realm of the symbolic? When the word is used, it connotes poetry - and by extension, the romantic poets. Well, the next question is whether or not poets are dead. In this case, I would suggest that "Poets" have receded to th symbolic. Simply writing poetry is no longer enough of a claim to Poet-hood, and "Poet" itself has become quite the dirty word - that is, until a "poet" actually becomes a "Poet" by gaining some sort of notoriety.

So, let's remove "poet" from the list of romantic adjectives for the time being, and go back to Baudelaire (not as a poet, but as a font of poetry). If we picture the albatross, ostensibly a metaphorical narrator both of Les Fleurs du Mal and of Le Spleen de Paris, it's hard to avoid a vivid sense, not only of self-awareness, but of self-consciousness. An albatross is quite comfortable gliding through the air, but can barely move on the ground and must wallow pitifully until it can catch the next breeze. While aloft, it is provided a most objective (we'll disprove this later) view of the goings-on beneath its wings. It is, however, quite a noticeable beast, and is hardly the composed, adjusted individual that Baudelaire set out to explore in his prose poems.

To be a romantic is, in my mind, to be endlessly searching for that ineffable heroism of modern life; to embrace the epic, to stand at the edge of something grand and watch all of the old gods die. The Romantic is liberating and terrifying, and that void (which is most overtly portrayed in the ever-present "wanderer above the sea of fog" leads - in my mind - directly into existentialism.

The cat, like the albatross, is an incredibly self-aware and self-conscious animal, particularly as Baudelaire constructs it. It is, however, much more put-together. If the albatross landed in the city and put on a suit, you'd have the car. He stays very much the painter of modern life; it's just that the perspective has shifted. I won't get into Baudelaire's definition of the dandy, as that's quite easy to find on its own, so I'll skip ahead to the self-awareness.

Self-awareness relies (see previous post) on some sort of socio-psychological echo-location. I don't want to argue about whether or not true self-awareness is really achievable or anything like that, but I do want to point out that romantic observations, whether they're of a grecian urn; the suicide of an artist's model; or even of April, that cruelest month; all of these things require some sort of relative location from which a gaze is directed.

A Baudelarian narrator is perhaps the most (and at the same time, least) self-aware persona in pre-modern literature. If we turn to "Le Mauvais Vitrier," we can see an example of this: the narrator almost does not know what he wants, or why he does what he does. He does know that he wants to inspect the glassman's wares, and he does know that he wants the glassman to climb several flights of stairs to reach his apartments. He does know that he wants a glass that will make the view from his rooms more beautiful - or, rather, he wants to see something new and different through his windows - and he does know that somehow, this poor man will provide him with the escape that he's seeking.

The violence of shoving the salesman back down the stairs is what brings this back to the current discussion on aesthetics. Instead of embracing a new, nicely-tinted piece of glass for hhis window, he instead creates his own "art." Pushing the glassman out of his door, listening to his livelihood crash and shatter beneath him; this is the beauty that the narrator seeks, to which he attests in the final lines of the poem - which are perhaps the most beautiful, most liberating, and most terrifying of any I've ever read:

"Et, ivre de ma folie, je lui criai furieusement: «La vie en beau! la vie en beau!»

Ces plaisanteries nerveuses ne sont pas sans péril, et on peut souvent les payer cher. Mais qu'importe l'éternité de la damnation à qui a trouvé dans une seconde l'infini de la jouissance?"

Really, aren't we talking about aesthetic pleasures here? Aren't we talking about knowing them? About knowing what we want? About exercising authenticity? About that final realization of damnation? Not of religious damnation, but of Faustian immolation - annihilating oneself in a fit of orgasmic self-awareness, an eruption of the desire for beauty that can come only at the expense of modern society?

Anyway, Baudelaire is dead. Perhaps that means that poets are dead; that romantics are dead, and all we have left are the new artist-automatons; formalists endlessly searching for inspiration in the dregs of their betters, thinking that the grotesque is nothing more than what the public finds disgusting. Perhaps we are doing nothing but romancing the superflat and making endless love to floating signifiers. I don't know - I do think, however, that romantic longings stem from nothing other than self-awareness, from a longing for a golden age that may or may not ever have existed or exist, and from that interminable search for modern-day heroism; undefined and unattainable, hobbled as we are by stunted our albatross-legs.

And thus he, too, immolated himself in a fit of post-modern circularity.

good names for epic things TO RIDE INTO BATTLE OR FIGHT WITH A SPEAR

APOCALYPTASAUR

RHINOCERAPTOR

OMEGANOCEROUS

ROCKTOPUS

MECHAZEBRA

MANATIGER

MASTERDON

oh, and a steam-powered whale with cannons jutting from both its sides. Something worthy of Lt. Commander Ahab of the Unified Mechanorganic Front.

Search not, lest ye find

Self-awareness is perhaps the most important and most dangerous state of being towards which one can extend oneself.

Imagine, for a moment, that true "self-awareness" is, in fact, attainable - that the term itself has retained a bit of its optimistic karmic oneness, and that the term hasn't completely become a floating signifier.

Perhaps I should back up. Self-awareness, at least in the context of the following paragraphs, can be thought of not as a literal awareness of an inner self, but rather as a locational positioning of a state- through cultural, psychological, and societal echolocation, if you will - that results in some conception of that specific being's figurative or metaphorical worth within a defined system. Whether that system remains defined for more than a moment is irrelevant.

Additionally, when I say worth, it is altogether possible that I actually mean the why of one's position - identity is synonymous with self-analysis (je pense, donc...), even if one is the Buddha (to say "I have attained enlightenment" certainly requires some kind of analysis of self). So, to attain worth, one must have the why - not cultural worth, but self-contained worth.

What would happen, should one achieve a sense of where one fits in a system? I suppose we must consider the "size" of that system: if, for example, we talk about the position one plays on a soccer team, it is perhaps not necessarily so jarring to understand one's role - especially if that role is enjoyable. However, when we remove an end-game (goal) from a closed system such as a soccer team, and effectively "open" it - let us imagine a family as a small, open system - understanding one's role is immensely difficult. Expand the system to a school, a society, a culture; it becomes endlessly convoluted.

I don't want to talk about the "meaning of life" or anything like that, just about what the realization of an "I" might mean - annihilation, most probably; cultural or physical. At best, the crushing of the newly-realized self. At worst - well, perhaps "best case" and "worst case" aren't good ways of thinking about this. Rather, possibilities include the total physical annihilation of the self, the total metaphorical assimilation (annihilation) of the self, or - what? In a bizarre twist of "fate," you turn into Charlie Sheen?

I ought to return to this later, and add even more "scare quotes."

Something Corny About New Beginnings

I think it's time for a shortened brain dump.

1) I am listening to Dimmu Borgir. Do yourself a favor and follow suit.
2) I am fascinated by the role that aesthetics play(or don't play)in daily life. I would never have expected Baudelaire to be such an influence post-undergraduate, but my default response to the events around me is "La vie en beau!" If you know what I mean.
3) I am so happy that I was an English major. Really, I should say that I was a literature major, but in two languages at once. But fuck am I brilliant.
4) I want a Mead Hall.
5) I am the philosopher king; the Kwisatz Haderach; Prospero before he drowned his books - Nicholas Urfe after colonizing mars; etc. etc.
6) I'd like to finish the saga of Alastor Sinncraft, and begin anew on the trials and tribulations of Thomas whatsisname in the land of the Esquimaux.
7) I want a Mead Hall.
8) It turns out that I'm legitimately descended from the real-life Lords of Rohan. Bad. Ass.

There will be more to come (finally!) over the next few weeks, dear invisible reader - I merely need time to compose my wits, and to perhaps to put together several treatises on aesthetics, the sacred, and the role of deconstructionism in the life of a modern dandy-philosopher.

Dear Friends:

Wendy, Jasper, and I thank you so much for the many ways in which you've reached out to us with your thoughts, your kindness, your prayers, and your support. It has helped give us strength at a comfortless time and we are deeply moved and appreciative.

We would ask you to share the following information with as many people as possible.

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Hart's Memorial Service will be held next Friday, February 19, at the Boulder Unity Church at 6:30pm. The Unity Church is located at the corner of Valmont Rd. and Folsom St. The service will be open, as Hart would like, and we would like to invite anyone to join us in sharing any words, thoughts, art, music, writing, photos ...

After the service, we would like to invite you to join us at our home at 1445 Redwood Ave. in Boulder.

There should be sufficient parking at the Unity Church. There should be on-street parking near our house.

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As a memorial to Hart, we have established two gifts. One at September High School in Boulder and the other at the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI). Both schools meant so much to Hart and will work to support his desire to help other young artists.

Gifts to September School (http://www.septemberschool.org/) can be made on behalf of Hart Lipton either on their website or by check. You can also contact their Head of School, Dan Fox (dan@septemberschool.org).

The Hart Lipton Scholarship Fund at the San Francisco Art Institute (www.sfai.edu ...please don't confuse it with one of the "generic" Art Institutes of San Francisco) is ready to receive donations. There are multiple ways individuals can contribute to the fund:

If donating by check, please ask donors to send their contributions payable to SFAI, and write “Hart Lipton Scholarship Fund” in the memo line of the check. The mailing address is:

Advancement Office
San Francisco Art Institute
800 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, CA 94133

Online donations may be made at http://activeweb.sfai.edu/giving/. When donating online, select the “Hart Lipton Scholarship Fund” option from the pull-down menu for “Gift Designation”.

Donations may also be made by telephone, and wire transfer information may be received by calling the SFAI Advancement Office at (415) 749-4582.

----------------------------------

Again, thank you all for your support, kind words, and memories.

With all our love.


Wendy, Josh and Jasper

Damn you, school

Well, I have three papers due this week. Two are your garden-variety, five- to seven-page papers, and the third is the first draft of a fifteen- to twenty-page research project. Thanks to a couple of life-saving extensions, I now have one paper due on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Oh, right - and a quiz today and a test next Tuesday. It's depressing to think about how much I still have left to do this semester, and how little time I've got to actually do it.

I'm not sure why all of the English professors insist on having everything due at the same time (both shorter papers were supposed to be turned in on Monday). You'd think they'd coordinate or something, instead of just dooming every English major to random weeks of abject misery.

At any rate, The next three days are really, really going to suck - which is especially wonderful since I now have all this time on my hands after the end of soccer season, and I wasn't particularly looking forward to spending an extra two hours every day on work. But that's the way it's going to be from here on out, I'd say. English exams in January (which gives me two months to read everything I have to read), followed by French exams in early April (another two months to read everything I have to read for those), and then a mad scramble to figure out what to do with my life after I (hopefully) graduate. That leaves a very, very slim chunk of time left over for things I actually want to do, like sit around and play video games.

On the plus side, I'm looking forward to staying fit/getting fitter now that I don't have to do it for anyone. Working out is great when I'm not worrying about soccer - in fact, I'll probably get even fitter now that soccer isn't taking up all of my time. Strange how things like that work.