The Lichtenbergian Society

Category: Waste

  • Free to a good home

    Dreamed this one last night–good idea for a scifi crime novel, but of course it’s not my job to write such things.

    Society in which some people have been born with the Gift, some set of psychic skills which include ESP, mind-melding, pyschokinesis, the usual.  Society as a whole has come to depend on these people to regulate the social mechanisms, and by some fluke of genetic luck, all Gifters are of the sort who contribute positively to the effort.

    One Gifter is examining a serial criminal–and here I wish I could remember exactly what the crime was, because it made perfect sense, but I forgot it between one dream session and the next–and is astounded to find that the guy has the Gift–but shouldn’t.

    There followed, depending on the dream session, investigations into how he got that way, whether there were others, whether there was an organizing force behind the surreptitious Gifting, the threat to society as a whole and Gifters in  particular, etc., etc.

    There you go.  Run with it.  Write me a nice check from your royalties.

  • Writing Slogans

    I came across these in a post at , and I thought we might want to examine them.

    ALLEN GINSBERG”S MIND WRITING SLOGANS

    “First thought is best in Art, second in other matters.” –William Blake

    I. GROUND (Situation, or Primary Perception)

    1. “First Thought, Best Thought” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
    2. “Take a friendly attitude toward your thoughts.” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
    3. “The Mind must be loose.” –John Adams
    4. “One perception must immediately and directly lead to a further perception.” –Charles Olson, “Projective Verse”
    5. “My writing is a picture of the mind moving.” –Philip Whalen
    6. Surprise Mind –Allen Ginsberg
    7. “The old pond, a frog jumps in, Kerplunk!” –Basho
    8. “Magic is the total delight (appreciation) of chance” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
    9. “Do I contradict myself?
      Very well, then I contradict myself,
      (I am large. I contain multitudes.)” –Walt Whitman
    10. “…What quality went to form a man of achievement, especially in literature? …Negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.” –John Keats
    11. “Form is never more than an extension of content.” –Robert Creeley to Charles Olson
    12. “Form follows function.” –Frank Lloyd Wright
    13. Ordinary Mind includes eternal perceptions. –A.G.
    14. “Nothing is better for being Eternal
      Nor so white as the white that dies of a day.” –Louis Zukofsky
    15. Notice what you notice. –A.G.
    16. Catch yourself thinking. –A.G.
    17. Observe what”s vivid. –A.G.
    18. Vividness is self-selecting. –A.G.
    19. “Spots of Time” –William Wordsworth
    20. If we don”t show anyone we”re free to write anything. –A.G.
    21. “My mind is open to itself.” –Gelek Rinpoche
    22. “Each on his bed spoke to himself alone, making no sound.” –Charles Reznikoff

    II. PATH (Method or Recognition)

    1. “No ideas but in things.” “…No ideas but in the Facts.” –William Carlos Williams
    2. “Close to the nose.” –W.C.Williams
    3. “Sight is where the eye hits.” –Louis Zukofsky
    4. “Clamp the mind down on objects.” –W.C.Williams
    5. “Direct treatment of the thing…” (or object.)” –E.Pound, 1912
    6. “Presentation, not reference…” –Ezra Pound
    7. “Give me a for instance.” –Vernacular
    8. “Show not tell.” –Vernacular
    9. “The natural object is always the adequate symbol.” –Ezra Pound
    10. “Things are symbols of themselves.” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
    11. “Labor well the minute particulars, take care of the little ones
      He who would do good for another must do it in minute particulars
      General Good is the plea of the Scoundrel Hypocrite and Flatterer
      For Art & Science cannot exist but in minutely organized particulars” –William Blake
    12. “And being old she put a skin/On everything she said.” –W.B.Yeats
    13. “Don”t think of words when you stop but to see the picture better.” –Jack Kerouac
    14. “Details are the Life of Prose.” –Jack Kerouac
    15. Intense fragments of spoken idiom, best. –A.G.
    16. “Economy of Words” –Ezra Pound
    17. “Tailoring” –Gregory Corso
    18. Maximum information, minimum number of syllables. –A.G.
    19. Syntax condensed, sound is solid. –A.G.
    20. Savor vowels, appreciate consonants. –A.G.
    21. “Compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.” –Ezra online slots Pound
    22. “…awareness…of the tone leading of the vowels.” –Ezra Pound
    23. “…an attempt to approximate classical quantitative meters…” –Ezra Pound
    24. “Lower limit speech, upper limit song” –Louis Zukofsky
    25. “Phanopoeia, Melopoeia, Logopoeia.” –Ezra Pound
    26. “Sight, Sound & Intellect.” –Louis Zukofsky
    27. “Only emotion objectified endures.” — Louis Zukofsky

    III. FRUITION (Result or Appreciation)

    1. Spiritus = Breathing = Inspiration = Unobstructed Breath
    2. “Alone with the Alone” –Plotinus
    3. Sunyata (Skt.) = Ku (Japanese) = Emptiness
    4. “What”s the sound of one hand clapping?” –Zen Koan
    5. “What”s the face you had before you were born?” –Zen Koan
    6. Vipassana (Skt.) = Clear Seeing
    7. “Stop the world” –Carlos Casteneda
    8. “The purpose of art is to stop time.” –Bob Dylan
    9. “The unspeakable visions of the individual.” –J.K.
    10. “I”m going to try speaking some reckless words, and I want you to try to listen recklessly.” –Chuang Tzu, (Tr. Burton Watson)
    11. “Candor” –Whitman
    12. “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” –Shakespeare
    13. “Contact” –A Magazine, Nathaniel West & W.C. Williams, Eds.
    14. “God Appears & God is Light
      To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
      But does a Human Form Display
      To those who Dwell in Realms of day.” –W. Blake
    15. Subject is known by what she sees. –A.G.
    16. Others can measure their visions by what we see. –A.G.
    17. Candor ends paranoia. –A.G.
    18. “Willingness to be Fool.” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
    19. “day & night/you”re all right” –Corso
    20. Tyger: “Humility is Beatness.” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche & A.G.
    21. Lion: “Surprise Mind” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche & A.G.
    22. Garuda: “Crazy Wisdom Outrageousness” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
    23. Dragon: “Unborn Inscrutability” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
    24. “To be men not destroyers” –Ezra Pound
    25. “Speech synchronizes mind & body.” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
    26. “The Emperor unites Heaven & Earth.” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
    27. “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” –Shelley
    28. “Make it new” –Ezra Pound
    29. “When the mode of music changes, the walls of the city shake” –Plato
    30. “Every third thought shall be my grave” –W. Shakespeare, “The Tempest”
    31. “That in black ink my love may still shine bright” –W. Shakespeare, Sonnets
    32. “Only emotion endures” –Ezra Pound
    33. “Well while I”m here I”ll
      do the work–
      and what”s the Work?
      To ease the pain of living.
      Everything else, drunken
      dumbshow.” –A.G.
    34. “…Kindness, sweetest
      of the small notes
      in the world”s ache,
      most modest & gentle
      of the elements

      entered man before history
      and became his daily
      connection, let no man
      tell you otherwise.” –Carl Rakosi

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  • Don’t go to this website

    I’m telling you, just don’t:640-822 exam

    The Visual Telling of Stories

    But if you do, report your findings in comments. itexamaster

  • Caption

    70-441 70-433

  • Art, part whatever

    Palin’s Recitative

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nlwwFZdXck

  • Fun on the Internets

    These from a compendium of miscellany called Futility Closet that I check every now and again: www.jumpexam.com

  • An ape’s attic antics…

    So I was wallowing and wandering in my archival attic as I put off my daily line C2020-703 learning session, and I came across a theme that might do nicely to hold together some of our ongoing Lichtenbergian concerns:  Everything from the challenges of self-representation to seeking out criteria for artistic credibility can find a lip tickle orbit for discussion.  It’s a link.  Go there: C2040-408

    http://www.lacunagroup.org/marc/?p=26#more-26

    So as we continue with our current assignment, I thought it might also be rewarding to riff on this theme of the Ape.

  • Art

    I found these photographs to be beautiful.  Also these and these.

    Also, early next week will be a new assignment.

  • Assignment L08.7: Reply–>Reply–>Reply–>

    The other day I received the following e-mail:

    Hi – is this the Marc Honea who went Abelard elementary school and then spent teen years in Coweta county near Peachtree City?

    If no – sorry!  If yes – Hi Brigham Fairview here – would love to catch up!

    BghmF

    This kind of mail was a first for me.  All the facts were true (I’ve changed some names to respect privacy), but I was suspicious.  Yes, it would be a kick to catch up with Fairview–someone I haven’t seen since high school–but might not this be a strategy used by internet scammers either to gain personal info or send viruses?  It seemed to me it would be easy enough to assemble a bit of identifying info (why not by stealing info from people who use searches to track down old acquaintances, even?).  Or what if Fairview was exploiting old acquaintances to boost his Amway sales (something I have been on the receiving end of in the past)?  Or perhaps he or some scammer wanted to lure me into a questionable investment.  My disposition (and my naiveté, probably–a healthy dose of doubt prevents it from being diagnosed as paranoia, thank you very much) made it difficult to take the message at face value (plus, the word to was left out).  I sent the following reply:

     I am he.

    But how do you know for sure?

    And how do I know you are “the” Brigham Fairview?

    Wouldn’t it be interesting if we both turn out to be Internet Scammers, neither of us truly who we claim to be, both of us now locked in a game of cat and mouse deception, each of us daring the other to take it a step further?

    Fairview, if I remember, had a sense of humor.  In his reply to this he managed to present enough evidence, including websites, to make me feel safe and silly.  Blame it on my mother:  People will walk all over you if you let them.  And my father:  People are no damn good.

    But I like the premise I articulated in my message.  The Assignment, then:  what I imagine is a “story” that is just a series of e-mail messages with no commentary or explanation.  The reader would not know going in that this was a series of exchanges between two people pretending to be who they are not, neither knowing at the outset that the other is an impostor trying to exploit the other.  Dirty Rotten Scoundrels would be a useful film reference, but I think the “e-mail form” offers some unique possibilities at a more…microscopic level.  Good hunting.