words

A few years ago I found a website that hosted lists of various things. One of them was a list of strange and obscure words. I copypasted the list into a txt file and have been adding words I come across ever since. There were 23 words in the original list. Here are my next 17 words.

24. woolgather
to engage in fanciful daydreaming.

25. brobdingnagian
something of huge size, tremendous.

26. ambergris
an opaque, ash-colored secretion of the sperm whale intestine, used in perfumery.

27. tchotchke
an inexpensive souvenir, trinket, or ornament.

28. daedalian
difficult to understand because of intricacy.

29. abacinate (ll. abacinatus)
to blind by a red-hot metal plate held before the eyes.

30. crepuscule
twilight; dusk.

31. lamister
a fugitive from the law.

32. frondescence
the process or period of putting forth leaves, as a tree, plant, or the like.

33. umbrage
leaves that afford shade, as the foliage of trees.

34. verdure (ll. viridis)
greenness, esp. of fresh, flourishing vegetation.

35. Shrovetide
the three days before Ash Wednesday, once a time of confession and absolution.

36. chutzpah
unmitigated effrontery or impudence; gall. audacity; nerve.

37. braggadocio
empty boasting; bragging. a boasting person; braggart.

38. demur
to make objection, esp. on the grounds of scruples; take exception; object.

39. demiurge
a supernatural being imagined as creating or fashioning the world in subordination to the Supreme Being, and sometimes regarded as the originator of evil.

40. firedamp
a combustible gas consisting chiefly of methane, formed esp. in coal mines, and dangerously explosive when mixed with certain proportions of atmospheric air.

I’ll post the following 17 in some time.

funky spaceman chillout mix

Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of trippy and awkward chillout, IDM, and hip-hoppy house or something. So I decided to put together a mix tape of sorts, slapped on a cover and a title and presto. You can download it here: Funky Spaceman Chillout Mix. If the link goes dead, post a comment and let me know!

The track list is as follows:

1. Riow Arai – Daybreak (I Dine at)
2. We – Hang On
3. Eliot Lipp – Beverly Rhode
4. The Exposures – Ein Lied Für Frau Thyssen-Henne
5. Machine Drum – Offs
6. Flying Lotus – Beginners Falafel
7. Dabrye – The Lish
8. Gotan Project – Chunga’s Revenge
9. Mr. Scruff – Jazz Potato
10. Gak Sato – One Good Turn
11. Swayzak – Skin Diving
12. Telephone Jim Jesus – Blue in the Face
13. Dabrye – We’ve Got Community
14. The Exposures – Das Freundliche Rocksichord
15. Flying Lotus – RobertaFlack (feat. Dolly)
16. We – Dyed Camel Skins
17. Eliot Lipp – Harmonix
18. Charanga Cakewalk – Carmela
19. Gak Sato – Omniscape

conversation with a nearby naked man

We took a train across town to Takaido. Takaido station is on the Inokashira line in Suginami. A polluted river runs past the station and under the street. After coming out of the station we turned off the street and followed a path along the river. We walked a short distance under now green cherry trees and found a bench. We sat here, lethargic from the sun and burgers we had for lunch. I laid back on the bench and listened to the wind and the children playing in the daycare nearby. Old timers rolled past on wheelchairs pushed by middle-aged sons and daughters. Yui browsed porn on his phone and showed me scandalous videos of oily, big-tittied Jap chicks dancing in some night club. It was decided that we should go there some time. Some time when I am not this tired, I say.

We sat in the sun for a while and I stared up at a blank sky. There was nothing forever beyond the two condos that flanked my view. We had come to Takaido to visit the health spa nearby. We wanted to soak our weary bones in the healing waters of the spa’s onsen. After our breather by the river we headed to place and bought tickets and rented cheap brown towels. But we didn’t go in right away. Still sleepy, we needed a nap, so we went downstairs to the cafeteria. Just adjacent to the lunchroom there is a bank of lazy boys and two flat screens turned down low. I don’t know about Yui but I slept for about forty minutes. I was out, quietly snoring and enjoying the outrageous dreams that usually come to me during a midday nap.

Feeling refreshed we finally went upstairs to enjoy hot brown water and avoid looking at saggy balls. We undress and leave our junk in the lockers, wearing nothing but the locker key on an elastic band around the wrist. (Some people choose to put the elastic key bracelet around their ankle, making them look like an aquatic parolee under house arrest.) Onsen etiquette dictates that you must shower before heading to the hot baths. Upon entering, it is immediately apparent that the showers are different from the western style. Instead of standing in a stall or even in a shower room, you sit on a plastic stool and wash using a hand held hose and shower head. There is also a bowl for your convenience so you may douse yourself with water. It is not unreasonable to find some guys shaving, brushing their teeth, and doing any number of other things that one usually does in privacy.

Washed, I headed for the outdoor section of the onsen. The little courtyard has three pools. One that contains ionized water, which to me might as well be tap water, and two connected pools of mineral laden spring water from 1600 meters below the surface of the earth. The first pool is quite hot, and the water flows down an inclined stream of sorts, scattered by stepping stones, and enters the large main pool where it only pretty hot. Here we spend most of our time, alternating ten minutes in the water and maybe five minutes on a bamboo bench or a cold flat rock like a stool. It is mighty relaxing to soak in the onsen water. Due to the high mineral content, a good portion of it being salt, the water has a strange viscosity and texture. You are also much more buoyant in this soup, and I wish they would install handles on the pool floor so you could easily prevent yourself from floating away.

By this time it was evening and the sun was gone, though the air was still warm and the sky was about half way between its daytime blue and nighttime near-black. A star or two was out and the moon hid behind the scraggly branches of a sickly cherry tree. The mood was austere. No one spoke. There is also a steam room but I didn’t go in. I didn’t fee like stepping into a room full of solid heat and walls, floor, and ceiling coated with sweat. Not today. I closed my eyes and breathed in the steam wafting up from the hot pool.

I am not quite honest when I say that no one speaks. When people come in groups they do speak quietly, but most onsen denizens come alone and sparking up a conversation with a nearby naked man is not very Japanese. Yui and I always banter about the usual shit, and often crack jokes about the size of the Japanese penis or the droopiness of old testicles.

Many men carry around a small towel with them that can be used for one of three things: it can be folded and put on the head, it can be used as a mat when sitting on a bench or a rock, or it can be used to cover ones genitals in embarrassment or modesty or both. The latter is most often employed and I think this is the sole purpose of the towels while the other uses are merely a ruse or convenient secondary uses. About one of the most offensive onsen fouls one could commit is to soak or rinse the towel in the onsen water. Apparently, the little towel should never be placed in the onsen water. I find this strange because the towel covers the nads and the nads are allowed in the water. But I remind myself that this is Japan, and in Japan many things do not make sense.

After about an hour slowly cooking in brine we rinsed and off and headed back down to the cafeteria for some hard earned dinner. We ate beef curry with fried pork cutlet and drank beer. The curry at the spa is quite good and only 500 yen or so. I also had soft serve vanilla ice cream for desert. After that it was back to the recliners for another power nap before the ride home.

And that was basically the end of my wonderful last Thursday.

chatting at 3 am

Stephen: man, i love picking my nose
i cant get enough
so satisfying
me: it is
you feel so purged
thats how stalin must’ve felt when he sent everyone to the gulags
like he just picked a giant booger
Stephen: hahahahahaha

taste bud orgasm

I got off the train in Suidobashi and met up with my Chinese friend outside the station. Yui was dressed in his usual fashion. Pastel shirt, greenish, big sunglasses, and a white jacket with a certain kind of neck strap buckle that seems to be always in fashion in Tokyo. We crossed the river and the street, shamefully avoiding eye contact with the volunteers collecting money for earthquake victims. They have no shame and approach everyone but usually zero in on us. Foreigners are somehow percieved as philanthropists by nature and the charity workers are keenly aware of this fact. They persist in the face of all protest. When the long red light pins you on the street corner, only if you are the most hardened tightwad can you resist them. Near Suidobashi all the alms collectors have awful teeth. When I first ran across them in February, I thought they were collecting for the purpose of having their teeth fixed. For some reason this inspired more pity in me and I gave as handsomely as I could. But, strangely the earthquake victims don’t garner as much sympathy.

We were lucky, the light was green, and we slipped by the almsmen undetected (though, later, on our way home we forked over our change). We headed to Tokyo Dome City, the theme park near the Yomiuri Giant’s home stadium. In the park there is a burger place called Zest Burger. As far as I know their burgers are the best in Japan. They’re made from quality beef, and in fact, you can watch the staff carve up the beef and make the patties. Next to the register there’s a glass partition behind which the meat handler (for lack of a better term, butcher doesn’t fit) unpacks the raw meat slab, sponges off the excess, and chops it up. More often than not you’ll witness the fatty beef being molded into patties ready for cooking, but if you’re lucky you might catch the actual cutting of the beef. There is something fascinating about watching a college-age Japanese chick handle a thirty pound slab of prime cut steak.

Besides the live show, the menu is interesting. Though I’m sure it’s not unique in the world, my favorite menu item which I have not tasted anywhere else is the Avocado Burger. It’s a standard burger with avocado in place of the cheese. Between the juicy ground beef and the soft avocado, the sandwich is a taste bud orgasm. Add some grilled onion, fresh tomato, and lettuce all on a toasted bun, and fries and of course a coke to match, and you have yourself something truly special.

But where the burgers succeed in taste, creativity, and presentation they fail miserably in construction and structural integrity. All but once have the burgers slipped apart on me. The juices from the meat and the onion and the slippery texture of the sliced avocado combine to create one of the most effective lubricants known to science. Something always slips out of the undersized bun. This one caveat aside, I love these burgers and never miss a chance to have one when I’m in the area. For 800 yen during lunch time, and a little over 1000 after that, they’re worth the price.

We ate our burgers at one of the tables outside, underneath the ferris wheel, the roller coaster, in sunlit shade. As we ate, we eyed the beauties that like to hang out in Korakuen on a sunny Thursday afternoon.

There’s yet more to this wonderful day.

the chaos looks acceptable

I had a great day yesterday. It all started when I woke up around noontime. The sun was shining and the wind the was light and breezy. I live in a small room in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo. It’s a largely residential neighborhood, with lot’s of greenery and famous for it’s many Buddhist temples. I went downstairs and took a long shower, looking out at passing people through the barred bathroom window. I went upstairs and dressed in jeans and my minty T-shirt, and went out to meet my friend for lunch. I walked to the station through sunshine, taking a scenic path past a cemetery and through a tulip-filled park. I donned my earbuds and listened to Lemon Jelly all the way to Chitose station.

I caught a local train, which usually means I could get a seat. The local trains in Tokyo are not as crowded as the expresses, especially on a lazy Thursday afternoon. But today I only stood in the corner by the door. I could comfortably look out the door’s window. The train was filled with the usual denizens of that time of day. There were grandmas and mom’s with little kids. Japanese kids are mysterious creatures. They are unusually quiet, and I rarely hear babies crying in Japan. They have dark deep eyes and round bulbous cheeks. Sometimes they make me laugh and other times I fear them.

As the train coasted through Karasuyama on it’s way to Shinjuku I stared out the window while the music hummed into my ears. With the right track and a certain kind of day to match the mood, simply watching things go by while riding the train can be really something. But you have to pay attention. I live that little part of my life in my own tiny dream. Everything is just right, and the whole universe feels in order. Or rather, the chaos looks acceptable and for that moment I join in it without resistance.

I took the Keio New Line through Shinjuku to Ichigaya, and switched trains. I was meeting my friend in Korakuen. In Ichigaya, I took the stairs out of the underground into the most splendid sunny station. Just across the tracks there is a pond (I think it’s the remnant of a river) with a nice fish farm and wharf for hobbyists. The opposite bank is lined with cherry trees. Not a month ago they were in full bloom. Pink petals carpeted the ground like cherry snow. But now the trees were lush green. My train arrived promptly and I took it two stations over to Suidobashi. Along the way I spotted fisherman covertly casting their lines on the banks of the pond, outside the protected area of the wharf. To my knowledge this is illegal. It was a pleasure to see them. They felt the need to go outside the boundaries normality, even if just a little bit. I haven’t been fishing in years…

I’ll finish this soon.

want. things. can’t.

The sick pointlessness of it all…

my brain hurts from living

I want to continue, I really do. But why continue in the face of an utter and complete lack of substance. What is substance? A goal, maybe. I need something to distract me from past regrets. I need something that will fill the void that mistakes have left in my life. I want only a few basic things. But as I write that sentence. “I want only a few basic things.” Want. Things. This is the problem right here. But I can’t not want them. Can’t.

Want. Things. Can’t.

I used to be able to overcome this. Why can’t I anymore? Used to. Why.

I can only look to the future. I can only take what will come with it. I can only love what I have. I must not love what I don’t have. So I love this. Am I deluding myself? Or am accepting the truth? Does it matter? I think I already know the answer to this last questions.

Nothing matters. My choice is this: does it make me despair?

Or does it make me free?

Nothing matters. I am free. Carefree purposelessness.

Good. I feel better. But now I know that I suffer. I must love to suffer. Tomorrow I will suffer. Let’s suffer together.

To exist is to suffer. To suffer is to be alive. I am alive. I am not dead. I will be alive tomorrow. I must love to be alive.

End catharsis. Sleep.

Now.

***

Do not look to the past. To look back, is to die. I kept re-framing what I had done over and over. Re-contextualizing what I have done, not what I do. This has held me back. I have dwelled in the past. I must exist in the present and create in the present. Past creations are meaningless. The serve only as a record of action, not product of effort.

If a project persists to be unfinished, the project is finished. Once it has left the present and entered the past it has been lost. Do not dwell on unfinished things. They will remove the drive. It is easy to being but difficult to finish. Things will finish as they sometimes do. This will happen naturally.

Go to work. Now. It will finish as it always does.

***

The vapid musings of a vestigial organ.

It is never too late. It is always better to start sooner. Abandon stagnant projects. Always move forward. Sharks suffocate unless they swim. Profound leaps never come. Don’t wait for profound leaps. Archive, but don’t collect. Don’t tend to past work. Doing so is ego stroking masturbation. The greatest work is the work you start today. Today.

When you have an idea, act on it. Now.

Vestigial Organ

I’ve been suffering from an unnerving sensation of uselessness lately. I only go to work. I don’t produce anything meaningful. It doesn’t help that my job isn’t fulfilling, but I should be working on my own projects regardless. I use to write more, but the motivation has left me. There was a time when I was interested in a multitude of arts. I liked to draw. I liked digital art—fractals, 3D. Even photography, which I still do, doesn’t satisfy my need to contribute something to the human organism. I feel like an appendix dangling uselessly. I am the vestigial organ of the human race.

This is nothing new. My real concern doesn’t lie in my current function, but in the reason for my transformation. Why am I no longer driven to create? I used stay up late working on a project for no other reason than to finish it for my own satisfaction. Did I used to suffer from childish delusions that my art was valuable to society? Did I think it was only the progenitor to something greater down the line? I don’t remember. I like to think that I only did these things for their own sake, that I only drew to draw, not to impress anyone or improve any aspect of the world. I could be wrong.

I now find my life becoming a little hollow. I’m desperately hanging on to my creativity, but I think it’s slipping away. I fear becoming a gray soulless animal living only to survive and pass on genes. I hope that this is only temporary. But this hope might be part of my problem. I look to the future for comfort. I will resume my old preoccupations later, when whatever is wrong with me fixes itself. These thoughts might be delusions.

My mind has been stagnant for months and it’s unbelievably painful. My brain is so atrophied it hurts. Do all people experience this questioning of themselves? I am in my early twenties and I feel I am irreversibly becoming some person I never wanted to be. I hope that I can tap back into my younger, more creative and aspired self. It seems that this very action of writing is therapeutic, because I might be feeling the very thing that has been lacking these recent months. I hope that I’m on to something.

The High Water Mark

Six months ago I sat in my Milwaukee apartment on a nice sunny day and I was miserable. I was living like a dead man, anticipating the inevitable end and rebirth that comes with big changes. I didn’t think about the moment at hand, which in hindsight was blissful, and focused instead on my demise. I was on the verge of ending my college tenure, and with no job in sight and the reality of a liberal arts degree sinking into the lake of my mind. I let fear and uncertainty creep into my happy state of existence. The irony is I am now freezing my ass off in Tokyo with a shit job and no money and I am probably worse off than I was six months ago.

The truth is, I wasn’t really miserable six months ago. I was finishing up what was the time of my life. But I didn’t think about the task at hand and looked instead at it’s impending end. I now know that to live like that is to live like you are already dead. The final end that is always impending is the ultimate one and I am aware that eying it on the horizon is tantamount to awaiting it eagerly. But I never suspected that it is the same way with all the little deaths and subsequent births along the way. Until recently I spent my bad times waiting for the future, waiting and wishing a better time would come. I spent the good times doing this, too. Sure, I enjoyed them while they lasted, but I always had one eye on the horizon. Perhaps the meticulous structure of adolescence had something to do with it. I was a freshman in high school and I couldn’t wait to be a senior. I was a freshman in college and I couldn’t wait to be a senior. I am now a freshman in Life and I hope senior year never comes. That is only a hope but what is certain is that it won’t be in four years, not in eight years, not for a long time.

On the other hand, beginnings are not such a great thing to look forward to either. Beginnings are always preceded by endings, and usually lapses in time. From my last day of school in June to my first day of work in November, I spent my days in this strange Not Time of idleness and anticipation. I had secured my position as an indentured servant in Japan, pretending to teach English to English hungry Japanese. I wanted to leave immediately. Bureaucracy wanted me to wait for three months. So I waited, and instead of embracing my moment outside of time I tried with futility to push it forward like some heavy burden. Finally, many months after my college Death, I was Born as an ‘adult’ in a different place. But birth is just another kind of death—a reverse death.

So, as I sit hear in my gypsy hovel of a guest house wearing a shirt and no pants, my ass cheeks sticking to the linoleum on my chair, I now know that neither Birth nor Death are where I want to be. Instead I put my mind in the middle part of things. It seems like an obvious notion to me now, and maybe the gray matter knew it, but the lizard brain holding the strings didn’t know it. I’ve always thought of myself as a person who lives in the moment, but I wasn’t, and in any case, what I’m thinking of now is not a life spent in the moment—I have plans, I have a direction and ambitions—rather, it’s a life which embraces the present as the one true thing. It is the perpetual high water mark, the always blooming lotus on the mud bed of time.

Caveman’s Daydream

09.10.08

misery carved into our faces
	we line the platform
waiting for the train
	sunlight happily smiling down
oppressive heat
	igniting humidity
as we try desperately to look
	tortured to be alive.
I look behind, down the terminal
	at the standing masses
stretching for eons
	and see decrepit cripples
clutching alms
	corpses rotting in the rain
cadavers and bones
	strewn like Froebel gifts
dust blasted by dry winds
	onto our granite slab
receding into a shallow sea
	its frothy surf washing up
the dead.

the train arrives, the doors hiss open
	and choking on a sickly sigh
take my step check my watch
	quartz hearts resonate with ours
the door gulps closed and we depart.