Watching you sleep, I see defenselessness, frozen worry pocketed momentarily, far from the muscles in your face that folds into the linen encased pillow. Your eyes roam the darkness inside you. When you awaken, you’ll reach for me, close me into your warmth, your body heat rising as you battle weariness in slumber’s imaginarium fraught with curiosity and care.
Easy. Sleep devours some while teases others, a little here and there, never on command. Always an uneasy relationship with sleep, I could write a book on the cruelty and charity of insomnia. After all, some mysteries solve under the light of the moon where the sun smashes them to smithereens, overexposed and heated.
“Mommy, what happens when you sleep?” The same kind of question like “How does your eye work?” that left me stumbling when my daughter, then 6, asked me. I did not know what the question meant or how to answer something so ordinary, so taken for granted and so available in the age of the internet. But how to explain it so she would understand was the mystifying assault on my usual ready to inform mode.
What happens to anyone in sleep–that great world divider between hope and despair? Death. Death to the waking world, the one we make sense of daily, and birth to the enigmatic world of weirdness and worry. Dream-works piqued wonder to others way before Freud. Prophecies preistesses told by dreams as hypnotic spells. And sleep, so much more than eye rolls, rapid eye movement and rest, reveals time’s illusion. Though the clock handles spin unceasingly while we play dead for so many hours, we have no recollection of its passage and do not experience it as we do awake time. The numbers do not lie, only our consciousness creates bent experiential time.
We travel in sleep, we fly, we problem solve and hit all kinds of brain receptors ranging from the pleasurable to the terrifying. As if the horrors of daily grinds, near missed vital truths and fatal accidents, deep abiding love attained and lost, rational solutions and indecipherable chaos, cannot affirm living human sufficiently. We need another look, another more creative, spatial-emotive glance at life’s curious condition to assure ourselves that it is better to live than die: God’s inserted micro chip in each of us. Otherwise, who would be there to entertain IT so thoroughly? Not all the others swaddled in space, far more advanced yet far less amusing than we.
credit: flickr.com
Sex Pots and Sex Bots
“The number of sexual acts and lovemaking positions commonly practised between humans will be extended, as robots teach us more than is in all of the world’s published sex manuals combined.”
Sexbots, teledildonics, cybersatisfaction…the time has come for customized cyborg sex, something I once dreamed right here on this blog in “Dream of a Mistress Sex Cyborg,” according to an article in the Guardian today entitled, “Sex, Love, and Robots: Is this the end of intimacy?” Sex toys on steroids, it seems, Realldoll team, makers of sex dolls, is on the verge of producing sex bots, programmable to be responsive to the user’s whims, apparently, and more life like than…well, life, more accommodating, I would think.
The writer of the Guardian article, Eva Wiseman, does a bang up job of pulling in all the strands of the theme, interviewing the key parties, such as David Levy, author of Love and Sex with Robots, with whom she dances around the obvious ethical concerns about replacing the human, addiction and, of course, pedaphilia. Levy is a bit cavalier with his response about pedophiles, in particular: better acting out with a bot than on a child. He also doffs off the intimacy drain or addiction by alluding to vibrator use now. Levy is not the first to ponder the extent of the post-humanist possibilities. Biologist and academic Donna Haraway in her Cyborg Manifesto did so before him and many others, academics and popularists alike.
Just a couple of weeks ago, in a class discussion of Roe v. Wade and the future of abortion in America, I noted the Supreme Court’s critical consideration of a fetus’ viability (survival outside a womb) at some point after 3 months at which time the weighing of a state’s interests in health of the mother and potential beings against the mother’s right to privacy shifts away from the mother. I mentioned not only the medico-technological developments since that 1973 case that have pushed back viability to 3 months or earlier, but also the possibility of synthetic wombs, baby generator/gestators, like test tubes for conception, and how such a cyborg or mechanical device would change the abortion debate.
The practicality of a mechanical womb would alleviate much of the discomfort in the Roe decision, such as the inability to define a fetus as a person at law (though corporations are persons now) and the state’s intrusion into the private health care decisions a woman makes with her physician. Neat idea, which may even exist or be in the works. Then again, I’m still stoked about the remote control vibrator.
Dali’s Weirdness
Shit Dali’s pulled like “Fountain of Milk Spreading Itself Uselessly on Three Shoes” causes me to question this surrealist’s proclaimed self-realized insanity. This one appears wacky for wacky’s sake, something like capitalizing on shock value for mere attention-getting.
So, the viewer is assaulted with not so subtle symbols: a voluptuous lactating nude on a pedestal while an emaciated man, contorted, almost seductively gazes on her while nearly disappearing into the barren landscape (but only where they strike this symbolic pose). Beyond this enclave of irony, there appears an apparent thriving village.
Of course the discordant nourishment of sprayed milk useless to the malnourished land it presumably moistens before the starving man suggests the irony of keeping “man” needs–woman, fertility, amplitude, sexuality–at a distance, out of reach, in virtuous unattainable desire, on a pedestal.
Even if the three shoes of the title presented themselves to the canvas (the missing recipients of the outpouring), that too would be as useless and incomprehensible as the spilled milk in the face of hunger. The absence of the shoes, two of them at least if that rock-looking thing is a shoe, emphasizes the disconnection and inanity. Spilled milk a’plenty to produce nothing, all for naught, and all so sterile.
Somehow the critique is not so much feminist as more generally an undifferentiated angst over the nonsense of the world resounding, I suspect. Although, I did read somewhere that the painting suggests the ongoing absence of recognized female surreal painters in the art world. Merely an ordinary art admirer with limited art or art history background, I do not really know. My shallow impression is all I offer.
What I do know is the painting gives pause, one canvas not likely to be bypassed with a quick look and assenting nod (think Chevy Chase hurriedly acknowledging the Grand Canyon in the movie Vacation) before moving on to the next frame hanging on the museum wall. For most, the intellect will be piqued before the aesthetic appreciation, like I know there’s something to this painting, some statement, only I am not sure. There could also be nothing. That’s the weirdness that is Dali.
(Thanks, Frank, for the inspiration).
Curbside Patties
Where wander childhood sensations abandoned at the adult door?
Where hides the hood in childhood–buried where, by whom?
Who animates ghost crumb trails lost to fingers of leafy time
casts art’s poetry, memoir or history’s smokey sincerity.
But the curiously cured shank of hooded time stored in dark canals,
in brain crevices seeping imagery flattened and folded fit for life,
ages salty sweet in half notions nestled inside enormous desire,
full fledged and bloated with expectation un-dampened:
A six-year old, hair a twiggy tangle, growing to the wind, sitting
curbside, forming perfect patties from the meaty pliant mud,
shapes the real from earth and imagination aligned just so,
when nature taught her no bounds to science, only hands.
Chatter in the Wind
Like fake windup teeth, they chatter on like a cheap gag
hackers, spammers and hangers on, all sapping space
saved for clarity; no clue, they’re all ego, needy strokes,
recognition, checking in, checking on and confirmation
that still, yes, I do exist; your real is genuine connection,
beat loneliness and worthlessness, valueless monied air.
Make room, clear the questions like “What’s for dinner?”
and “Will this be on the test? and “Why?” ask 3 year olds
only to make conversation, believing sounds substantive:
tone of voice, letters on leaves, form-words, voices heard,
prayers moaned, pledges recited, dreams told, signs read,
memes scrolled, billboard philosophy, sext-up proposals,
cyber poke, lol jokes, ping backs, whistle blows, doorknock,
chicken scratch, empty glances on empty screens beckoned
by meaningless noises and jibberish symbols to break down,
take chances, reach in and virtually blow long-wound spew.
And the whistles moaning the cracked window seals sound
chatter in storm-whisking trees felled by dull, dry tongues.
credit: likeclockwork.biz
Bar Talk
I must look safe, the one least likely to intrude in a bar. The uninterested.
She sits down next to me when there are so many other stools to occupy.
All dolled up, clearly she is waiting for someone special to occupy the stool to her right.
I am to her left.
Happy hour, bruschetta is half off as are select beers.
Of course, my selection costs its usual six and change. No discounts for the IPA’s–ever.
Some have accused me of having gout deluxe, but I say, “nah.” Simple woman.
My tastes range from pleb to elitist. Depends on the thing, the subject.
Food, wine and beer, yes, I enjoy top of the line. Clothes, functional.
Not a shopper, no interest. That’s why the guys say, “You’re like a guy.”
Other reasons, I prefer conversation about what matters: the world, the local and
all in between. My interests range the span of my experience, read, written and lived,
relationships only one among many. Frankly, I don’t care much for confession.
Keep the distance, please. Tell me about what matters to you as a member of the world.
Two beauties sitting on top of each other taking selfies. In another bar, that might be suspect.
But this is not that kind of bar. Affluent, beach, blonds.
And the texts on my phone: bad news about the revenge of cancer, someone out there, on my mind.
And the stranger narcissist filling my inbox with doings, wishes, manifestations.
“I can’t go out with someone I am not attracted to says the made up late fifty something with the silver shiny horizontal studded stripes in her blinged out black warm up jacket.
Ping…the cancer returned after five years. I thought I was done.
Ping…I love the way she feels…
Ping…but I am afraid to go through it, the chemicals, the time off…
Ping…Egyptian, her parents moved from Cairo…
“Everything doing okay here?” The bartender wants to know. “Yes.”
Happy hour at its edges now settles into its middle.
“The grass is always greener on the other side….she’s got to pay her dues,” says bling jacket. The babe next to me moves kitty corner with her guests, two other women fresh from work, twenty somethings, nearing thirty somethings. One curly blond, and two brunette: the Asian with the “whatever” bun and the white girl with the straight slung hair parted down the middle.
The time difference lets me off the hook. “Good night, sleep well. Dream healing dreams,” I genuinely wish and type.
There is a four year old behind the bar, and I watch her skim her hand over every glass and bottle she passes down the row on her way out of the bar well.
The device speaks: ring. “Yes, I am at a bar. Come meet me. We’ll eat. Want me to read you the menu? Braised beef ribs…bleu cheese sliders with Angus beef, poached halibut…okay, see you soon. Yes, chill a pinot or merlot, something interchangeable…feeling marinara or fish. Bye.”
Boys at the end of the bar closest to the television pin their eyes to football and the commercials that go with, men with pizza slices and desire written all over their orgasmic posed faces, Mercedes mini van advertised as affordability (right) and something computer and football combined, guys at desks and a football player fish out of water, Ameritrade. And then the Cardinals line up at the 40 yard line.
Honey, you don’t look as if you can handle the double IPA. Stick to your happy hour house wine. She just moved in and made it clear to the bartender that she was ordering for her boyfriend who was on his way. She is two barstools away: young, neat, attractive, twenties, trying to keep herself entertained, phone, looking around, the silk scarf around her neck shifting with each turn of her head from the wine cabinet to my left and the incoming guests. We are at the entrance. And he arrives. This is a new boyfriend. I can tell by the kiss they greet each other with–something between a peck and I-recognize-the-sink-into-the- thick-of-your-lips. They are still something stand-offishly, sweetly polite. He is soft and quiet, appetizers smartly waiting for him by her selection. He digs in with gusto, eats obediently, appreciatively, while she authoritatively introduces her informed choices. She will make a fine mistress of the house.
Isn’t this great?
“Who is training her? Their job is to come in, check in, go down the hall, check the laundry…” bling says to her patient hearer, the one who asked the bartender to turn down the lights, which bother her eyes. Bling speaks for the crowd to hear. “I’m not bashing her. I haven’t said nothing about her for weeks…”
The girl friend returns from the water closet with her hair bunned up. Why? What’s the projected look trying to achieve? I’ve never been good at style and signals. I do New York bag and that is the extent of my “style.” And that was a long time ago. Now I just dress whatever-is-clean-and-top-of-the-pile. It used to be important to dress with purpose. I am nearing golden, no need.
The symmetry of a wine cellar on display soothes, the circular slotted holders sprouting capped spouts or the buddy bottles snug lined up along a leisurely reclined shelf to feature chillin’ wine bottles, casual, seductive. I hope the temperature behind that glass is 58 degrees Fahrenheit. Nothing worse than room temperature wine, the myth of the uninitiated–says a pretender.
The beer has done its work. It only takes one, especially after a sleepless night of sacrifice: term papers and morning frolics in missed motel beds. The buzz combines exhaustion with hops, and I am content. School’s out. Time to eat: transition from bar denizen to restaurant patron.
Wait, the four year old swiper’s parent just came on shift. Maybe just a few more minutes….
credit: 1stdibs.com
Imagine Lennon’s Song in Context
Pleasant read in Elephant Journal yesterday about the meaning of this iconic song that may surprise few but helps to remind us of something important in yet another age of crusades.
Like Heaven and Hell, countries exist only in our minds, yet we kill or die for them. Religion too is made up (imagined) by us—yet another institution that serves only to divide humans and prevent them from living life in peace. Neither are possessions real, except as a shared idea of ownership projected onto things, in turn producing yet more suffering as greed begets hunger.
When enough of us finally awaken to the fact that all of these things—religion, country, possessions—are nothing more than ideas in our minds, a world of unity, a brotherhood of man, with all the people sharing all the world, becomes possible. This may look like a dream, yet what is our current social reality but a collective delusion—a “reality” that only exists because enough people believe it? When enough “dreamers” actually see through the dream, a critical mass (what today we would call a “tipping point”) is reached “and the world live be as one.”
A simple Buddhist message to live within the reality we have, hard as it may be for many, this song also confirms the power of the imagination, whether for the highest of all achievements (Lennon’s song) or the most terrible (killing in the name of the deity of your choice). Imagine understanding and accepting the terrible beauty and destruction we create–as us. Simple and direct, less being more, the song is masterfully reiterating an ancient theme.
Peace.
Says the Jester to the Fool to the Clown
Hard to get up sometimes, pick myself up from a fall
when every day’s battle is a sword fight with gravity.
“Don’t ever trip,” she told me, “because you’re done.”
That unicycle riding the edge of a fence, well, it’s hard.
Teetering masquerade as shakey equilibrium traces lies.
And circles make hopeful promises but terrible homes.
One word awry, one awful image, and all turns lopsided,
my brains screaming out my ears while my gut collapses,
and I simply can not recover steps, a broken frail rhythm.
“Who are you to punch me in the waking dreams I made
to stay the course, mime the normal, and be-fool myself?”
What a mindless, insensitive sot to remind me who I am!
credit: wikipedia/jester
Urge to Industry
With swollen feet exposed half inside her bathroom slippers, she pushes the lever and spins her wheelchair round to the trash can outside my window, sidles up close facing it and pulls out a long stemmed two-pronged mechanical finger–resembling forefinger and thumb–from a bag hanging on the back of her chair. She inserts the device into the trash can. With a smile, she pulls out a bottle and examines the glass closely, momentarily furrowing her brows to read the label through the confines of her square lensed teacher spectacles, most likely for deposit instructions or value.
Her hair is straight, collar bone length with bangs that fringe her pumpkin of a head, and she wears a light-weight black jacket, nearly professional looking but a bit worn from wear. Her candy cane striped dress underneath the jacket drapes just past her knees, baring the burnt red skin of her elephantine legs, square blocks immovable. Yet her torso twists readily as she reaches round to the bag on the other side of her chair and deposits the bottle inside. A quick glance inside the trash can opening, her lips an inch away from the rim of the can, she appears confirmed. Another pull on the lever, a quick pivot to avoid plowing over the can, and she moves on to the next trash can just out of view.
My sight range is restricted, paned in by store fronts, circumscribed by adjoining commerce and distant apartments, restaurants, banks and pharmacy. But even I can recognize the expansive urge to industry.
Social Anxiety
At the people’s fair, the poets and priests applauded,
amid moon beams, day flowers and drifting bubbles,
they chanted om-ish dreams in wiling away the hours.
For days on days, the fleet of foot and spare of change
smoked sense into surreal, eating praise and crackers
like Jamesian daisies and a Dapper dangling a cheroot.
There were criers, circus barkers among lap dogs afoot
staring down cookie crumbs, brie chunks on sooty floor.
Festive and feast-ive, the colors and chaos crept edgily,
spun the words from the loudspeaker on love, language,
power, God, emptiness, blunting, alienation and forgive
me if I recollect badly for such forceful good cheer stung
my fear-filled hidden face, feted, feeling the drafty ales
culled by court jesters and juggling clowns reciting lines,
preached poetry and rhyming prayers to a cloying crowd.
And the arms reached me, slung their shawl-like shroud
over me who did not remember how she came here to be
fair of people, puppets, poets, perfume, priests and pot
when then I recalled a choice collected as entry gate fee:
Lithely spin inside the tales of others’ telling or turn tail.
So, in a booted click-thud pivot, I chanced the lone trail
beyond fenced cloudy star-lit trees blinking cheer-ishly
and down the hill atop which the cacaphony decrescendo
subsided wide for miles stretched into the nomadic night.
In the gaze of the other 