The FUGUE:

Walter White was in a Fugue State. Knowing his true identity, if not his whereabouts, I had nonetheless to lead an investigation into the absurd theory (which I was prone to discredit) that he was having an affair with the tall, blonde single Witch Next Door. We could not gain any easy access to her room, but in the process of investigation I must have met her. She greeted me in a robe with considerable enthusiasm. If I have to come to think of it, she was not blonde, but brunette. At some point I must have actually worked with her to break into Walt’s Secret Bedroom, or perhaps something to that effect. I had hoped she might lean in close to me in that brown robe; I’d not expected she would lounge upon the bed naked and ready when I turned around. I guess this WAS her room, after all; she seemed very much at home in it. And I made myself at home inside of her, as well.

Walt had to escape the room somehow. He had to use his crawlspace. His family was content to simply break through the door, which was all ready shoddy any way, so it collapsed overhead as they made their exit. He had been found, but his secret remained just that: secret.

I spent a long time crashing at Doctor Byrne’s Place. When mom and dad left town they left me with a rental car I could not legally drive but that I parked in Doctor Byrne’s garage. At some point, seeing how it had been parked, I must have wondered if it was my own garage. At any rate: it certainly was my own car. The dream played with the theme that possessions are simply evaluations of objects rather than relationships with the Primordial Thou that is ubiquitous In All Beings.

The time came one day to take my leave of Doctor Byrne; I could no longer weigh upon her hospitality. I’d overstayed my welcome; she did not have to tell me that verbally for me to get the message. A stay that began on a Thursday (incidentally: when I last had her class) ended I think upon a Tuesday. It was time to return home. I can imagine why; my first Programming Midterm this semester happens this Wednesday. I want to spend the weekend in My Comfort Zone: in Music. But if time has past to face the Music, it is time to face the Math. In the same manner as I had to leave the Coffeehouse and came back last night to the Game Store, affect must yield to logic in order for them to come into Balance.

Dm.A.A.

Dido Observations: (Recapricorns:)

For some reason Dido’s music all ways reminded me of the Lord of the Rings. Not only did “White Flag” come out around the same time as the films. Its rich use of strings and its earthy fortitude expressed everything that made the fantastic war story bearable and worth bearing.

As it turns out it’s no surprise to discover the underlying, cosmic cause, half a lifetime later: Dido, Tolkien, and Fran Walsh (Peter Jackson’s spouse and co-producer) are all Capricorns.

The British origins of both works is negligible, considering that as of Harry Potter everyone in my generation became a de facto anglophile. We sort of grew up expecting fantasies to be conveyed in an English accent. It was not an excuse for typing Dido then, and neither is it so now. The underlying cause is all ways more elusive and mystical.

An other exquisite parallel is this: Dido’s album “No Angel” shares a titular theme with Dave Matthews’ “Some Devil”. Both are Capricorns. Since the Goat is ruled by Saturn (Satan), the principle of Time, Law, and Cardinal Earth, it’s no surprise that both self-identify with the Biblical Fallen Angel.

It was surely enough to inspire the Satanistic but self-aware Libra Marshall Mathers when he sampled “Thank You” on “Stan”.

Dm.A.A.

DECOMPOSITION:

When I write a composition, code, or play, my love for it is in direct proportion to my perfectionism. Every tone must be a celebration of itself as well as its neighbours; no part of it must reflect my own involvement in it, though it will invariably retain my character. Every decision implies a set of responsibilities that follow; I am not in control, but rather it is being written and I have to be allegiant to it. I can master very little, except in direct proportion to my receptivity to the Ultimate Goal. That Ultimate Goal is not my Goal, but rather the goal of the work itself: its teleological destination, towards which I move with every gesture. It appears, at first, arbitrary, but it becomes at the end the culmination of purposive forces.

People are much the same way, as are my dealings with them. Great care and tact must be taken to tune each one to perfection, compelling them to sing those notes that they must sing so that there might be Harmony within the Divine Auditorium. They must be debugged, refined, and made presentable before the Divine Audience, for otherwise their lives would be discord. The state of my personal microcosm is no different from the state of the World. Insofar as they are themselves dreamers and composers, I must attend their Visions just as well, becoming compliant with their tunings and their writings. However, insofar as I am the composer and the lot of them are only voices, I expect this same compliance in return. We cannot write songs for angels if we are ourselves mere imps.

Is it surprising now that the boy who paid no heed to overtones himself refused subordination with some sort of narcissistic indignation? What right did he have to claim autonomy, as though his actions were merely “his” and that no one could know better than he could how to behave? What right does the solitary string have to defy its neighbours and the One Who Strums? Is it any more surprising that the boy who all ways broke his strings and mine, as well as my keys and the very locks they served, (those precious platinum blonde strings) himself refused to be tuned? Is it surprising that his melodramatic opera fizzled into noise and faded into worldly silence? Mine was no ulterior agenda, but rather the solitary birthright that such deviants have forever denied me: Harmony on Earth and preparation for Heaven. It was rather the noisemakers and rascals that served deviant purposes that could only abuse the sacred instruments we were endowed with and leave the body of the guitarist hollow.

My own head now looks like the head of that guitar, with its deviant wires protruding at odd angles. I was all ways terrified of playing it, for fear of probably becoming it. But then I heard my sister strumming it one day, having stolen it in good humour from my bedroom. I know that it’s good enough. For if Life cannot be Life without some fair share of noise, then I will bear the image of the screaming deviant even as I operate in secret to serve the Composer’s Will. Nothing has changed, except in overtones. My bass remains the same. My face remains the same. If I should find a new Spirit to answer to, at once precise and deviant, abounding in accidentals and misspellings, then this bug shall be a feature. I was not initially this way; I excelled in the classics. I was made this way by my conditions, and I would be lying not to tell the story. Your negligence of overtones becomes my passage into the Unknown, for now that I have mastered what has become marginal I can turn that same mastery towards my own ends, without defying the Will that even let this virtue fall into irrelevance.

Dm.A.A.

Happy Birthday.

That is all.

Dmytri.

a List of Lies:

List of Lies:

You’re not better than any one.

No one owes you anything.

No one cares.

You are deficient.

Right and Wrong are Relative.

You do not deserve Justice.

You can’t tell people what to do.

Most people know the Truth.

There is no Objective Reality.

Silence is never Consent.

People who do not obey don’t care.

The Group is Right.

All of this is necessary.

You earn your keep.

You are Crazy.

There is Nothing More to Life.

It doesn’t matter if you die.

Dm.A.A.

Being, apparently.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

Rêve Vingt:

Dream Twenty:

Perhaps it is as the result of having watched Nelly last night, or perhaps it is a continuation of my dream wherein I am Biggie Smalls. (which I am having trouble finding in my record at present, but I am sure if you keep digging you will find me.) At any rate, I attended Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s funeral. During the service a eulogy was intoned by that one upstart kid on YouTube who left a comment, I.A.L, on “Got Yo Money”, singing O.D.B’s praises as though the drug-addled gangster was some sort of a role model. In the Dream, this young man, who proved to be a weedy ginger kid from the suburbs, said that Dirty Bastard (whom he mistakenly called “Dirt Nasty”, at some point) ate everything that he wanted to eat and fucked everything that he wanted to fuck, (the boy’s words exactly, if memory serves) and that he was a Great Man. Upon the Tomb Stone, which was produced by a company owned by the redhead’s father, a member of the Redheaded League of Scotland, there was inscribed an engraving that translated to: “Here Lies a Happy Animal”, roughly. The Father was so moved to tears by the boy’s “sermon” (his words exactly!!) that he ordered a Tomb to be built to house both O.D.B. and his son’s ashes. But his son protested, complaining that he all ways wanted his ashes to be cut with heroin that would be spread via the “drug trade in Chi-town”. After much dispute and tearful embrace, the compromise was granted by the patriarch.

I was eating Shrimp at the Wake when I was approached by a member of the Wu Tang clan. He introduced himself as “Goatface Killah” and insisted that I was the Clan’s prime suspect for the murder of O.D.B. I decided not to hurt their pride by arguing that the Bastard had killed himself with drugs. So I spun a tale wherein a rival of mine had supplied him with the drugs, which were deliberately laced with a drug called Fallen Angel Dust. Goatface promised to avenge by friend O.D.B.

As I took my leave of the Wake I was approached by RZA and GZA, dressed as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I asked them if they weren’t supposed to be dead, too. RZA replied that they had found enough evidence to convict O.D.B’s killer, but that they were afraid to present it to the Police, for fear of violating Omerta. GZA told me that they all knew now that I had no vendetta against O.D.B. They peaced, and I was left baffled. I had no idea that my story was true. I thought that maybe this was proof for Confirmation Bias: that the more you want to believe in something, the more evidence you will. But it was at this moment that a cop car pulled up next to me.

I had to appear before a Court that investigated the murder. Not unlike the Ricin Scene in Breaking Bad, I had first to endure an investigation by two F.B.I. agents who wanted to know how I could have known what I did if I had had no involvement in it. They could let me off the hook if I supplied the information. But I had not the heart to tell them I had made it all up.

In Court, I could not tell whether I was a Witness or a Defendant. The Plaintiff was the Father of the Redheaded boy. He argued ferociously with my legal counsel, who was GZA, that I had deliberately poisoned O.D.B. and lain a false trail. He argued that I had a vendetta against O.D.B. from the very beginning. I replied that I had nothing against O.D.B. in particular. It was rather that I hate his entire kind.

Perhaps I lost the support of the Clan. But the Judge ruled in my favour, and I got to go home. I still could not help but to wonder: had my rival ACTUALLY killed O.D.B? The evidence was overwhelming. But then I realized that O.D.B. had CHOSEN to take the drug. Along the way, I past a rehabilitation clinic. A woman sat outside it with a sign reading “will suck for food”. I asked her what happened. She told me that she was a nurse who used to help her patients back to sobriety, but that O.D.B, by his sheer presence, had driven her out of business by selling prescription drugs for cheap.

I took her home. Along the way I wondered whether or not O.D.B. had deserved to die. But then I realized that people would pardon him all his sins in Death. If this woman, an aspiring Healer, could be reduced to victimhood by the sheer presence of a competitor, forced to watch all her patients die as victims of O.D.B’s tyranny, then surely, fucked up as it was, (my words exactly) O.D.B. would all so, at some point or an other, be remembered as a Victim. In an age without virtue, anything was possible. So at least the animal had died loved.

DM.A.A.

Dream Eighteen:

I dreamt that M.C. Ride was working on a double album with Snoop Dogg. All was going well until Big Sean showed up. M.C. Ride confronted Snoop about the news: that Snoop Dogg, who had vowed to resolve the Gang War in Los Angeles, was secretly spreading occult messages through his “Lion” persona in order to give away secrets from [one gang to an other].

My interpretation: I guess I’m nervous about the concert this weekend. But I guess I’m stoked as well to be back in a place where everybody loves me.

André Benjamin was brought in from Planet Proto in order to mediate the conflict; he was revered in that entire star system as a computer scientist named Castor, but ultimately he chose to leave for Earth when his twin brother died. André 3000 flew in on his Nimbus 3000 to advise Snoop and M.C. M.C. was willing to take Andre’s advice and to release an astrologically themed album in the vein of Aquemini. But Snoop claimed that he no longer believed in Astrology.

Finally Ride returned to Death Grips. It was only shortly thereafter that he signed to Ja Rule’s label and did a collaboration with Y.G.

Dm.A.A. 

Dream Eight: 1341.

I came to on an other planet. I felt hungover. I guess that this must have been how the writers for Great Glass Elevator felt when they penned their psychedelic hit “Drunk on Another Planet”. A little water droplet fell from the sky, waking me from sleep in a false awakening. I brushed it from my eye and I beheld Sue.

Happy Chang’s had relocated to an other solar system. I think it was Altarf or something. It was insanely bright, but we were far from it. And it was night.

Sue explained. At some point she was approached by a paranormal investigator, disguised as a Drug Enforcement Agent, who confided in her that there were extraterrestrials in their very home town. He offered her husband release from prison for the Health Code violations if she complied with his project. She agreed to act as human bait for the Aliens. But when she met them she was converted. They came from a planet that had for nineteen thousand million years (19,000,000,000) suffered from suicidal depression. Happy Chang’s was relocated to this planet plagued by sadness in order to heal it.

Sue and I took a transport towards the City Hospital in order to visit the White Knight. As we rode a mechanical Trilobite over the landscape, I realized that we were in the midst of the largest junk yard that I had seen since Wall-E. She explained to me that this entire Nation was an enormous Landfill for other planets to dump their refuse into. Hence its Capital City was called Garbage. And we were on our way there.

Upon arrival to Garbage National Hospital, we were escorted by two twin robots up two separate spiral staircases that interlaced like a double-helix. Finally we reached a dome-shaped room who[se] exterior, save for the floor, of course, was entirely translucent to the skyline. At its center lay the White Knight, writhing in restraints as various instruments operated upon him with laser beams. Sue explained to me that his D.N.A. was being re-written. He would be reborn a more loyal friend and potent ally, and his betrayal of Earth would be pardoned because Earth had herself betrayed its people, and to be loyal to the disloyal is foolish and only obligates us, by the example that it sets, to sacrifice ourselves for those who had betrayed us.

I asked Sue how she felt living in Garbage Nation on Planet Xanax. (A reference of course to the Radiohead song that was supposed originally to have been so entitled.) She laughed and told me that happiness is no good if you do not share it. I accepted that.

Later, I was granted access to an Observatory. Here there was a Library and a Computer entirely for my use. The other planets had donated it as mere refuse. Upon this rock I built my Church. I had not given up yet on Earth. I vowed to one day come back down to Earth and to finish the Chess Game. And this time, I would play for keeps; no stalemates. I had too much to avenge.

This much was my initial theory:

WHITE:

Rook One: Rob.

Knight Two:

Bishop Three: Stephanie.

White Queen: Awilda.

White King: Arthur.

Bishop Six: Joker?

Knight Seven:

Rook Eight: Mike.

BLACK:

Rook One:

Knight Two: The Blackened Knight. (convert.)

Bishop Three: Stephanie. (convert.)

Black Queen: Alanna?

Black King: Dmytri.

Bishop Six: Joker?

Knight Seven: Kyle?

Rook Eight:

After some time, I gave up trying to figure it all out. But upon waking I realized that Arthur had not even made an appearance in this DREAM SERIES. So I revised my chart. Here it is reproduced, to the best of my ability:

(The waking was of course a false awakening. I woke up next to the White Knight. I returned to the Observatory. Dawn was breaking; it would be fatal to stay here for long. I knew what I had to do, though. I began by typing up my final guesses:)

WHITE:

Rook One: Rob.

Knight Two: The Blackened Knight,=.

Bishop Three: Stephanie.

White Queen: Bianca.

White King: Kresten.

Bishop Six: Joker.

Knight Seven: The White Knight.

Rook Eight: Mike.

BLACK:

Rook One: Kyle.

Knight Two: The Blackened Knight. (convert.)

Bishop Three: Stephanie. (convert.)

Black Queen: Alanna.

Black King: Dmytri.

Bishop Six: Joker. (double-agent.)

Knight Seven: The White Knight. (Convert.)

Rook Eight: Sue.

It was the best that I could do. As azure light swam in I created a flow chart. I had to figure out how all of this had happened. Again: I reproduce it for you now only to the best of my Earthly Ability:

1.        Rob and I had to rescue the dogs.

2.      Kresten followed us.

3.      We lost Kresten’s tail.

4.      He was picked up by the Joker.

5.      The Joker, urged by Kresten, began to follow us.

6.      If the Joker was Anthony, which would make sense considering that Anthony had dreamt of driving the same van, then Anthony did this prior to visiting the Theatre. (Again: pardon the revision. At least I did not revise the chronology.)

7.       After the flood Anthony was picked up again by Kresten. Around this time he acquired a Flame Thrower.

8.      The van was a Police Van, so they had to keep it out of sight of Schrader. They waited for Schrader to leave before they paid a visit to the Antique Disposition.

9.      Shortly thereafter they spotted me and W.K. trying to leave. They identified those bikes as their own. At some point (again: pardon me.) their bikes, which appeared in Anthony’s Dream, were stolen from the Van and sold to a Pawn Shop.

10.   They pursued us. Anthony shot Kresten in the face. He ran over the Head of the Scapegoat. Kresten became the Faceless Man. Anthony, dressed as the Joker, escaped.

11.      The faceless man found some means of Time Travel. Perhaps Anthony showed it to him when he found out how to warp space-time in His Dream, so that he could go back to his old Elementary School, seeing it EXACTLY AS IT HAD BEEN WHEN HE LEFT IT, (proving, granted that Chaparral could afford renovations since we graduated from it, that he had literally travelled back in time) and then warp into the Theatre.

12.    Kresten went back in time through the same portal so that he could be in the Theatre on the night of the Performance. His intent: to assassinate Rob.

13.    Having failed to do so, he traveled further back in order to stage a dognapping that would set all of these events in motion. He all so tailed Mike, the other rook, and slashed his tires. He thought that this would undo history. But that only reflected his own, rigid causal view of time. In fact, he had only produced what was inevitable. A determinist would theoretically understand this. But in reality it was never Determinism but rather Teleological Progression that had produced these events. Reality did not come causally OUT of the past INTO the Future; it came FROM THE FUTURE INTO THE PAST. Hence Kresten’s time-traveling produced the foundation for its own occurrence IN THE PAST.

I had yet to figure out what all of this had to do with Korea. At this moment, someone barged into the Library that I would never have expected: my parents. They were out of rehab, and they told me to come home. I told him that I did not want to, lying, of course, because I intended to without their knowledge or interference. Mother told me that Pumpkin had gotten better. The shot had only ever been medicine for his leg to heal.

As she spoke her face came ablaze. The Sun Altarf was Rising. I told my parents, laughing manically, that everything would be all right. “I will fight no more forever. I’m gonna be perfect from now on.” So relieved was I that I would not move until we were all swallowed in Blazing White Light.

And I awoke.

Dm.A.A.

Dream Six!!

The White Knight and I opened an antique shop called Antique Disposition. This was to be one of our bases of operation, which I guess made the Headquarters the mobile home on the fringes of the Reservoir, which we had christened with the code name “Shell Station”. The building was formerly a restaurant, so we had a giant freezer to avail ourselves of just so long as we could keep the electricity necessary running. To make additional ends meet towards this end, we would sell a privately published newspaper called Penseés, a French word for “Thoughts”. The idea was mine to publish all of our thoughts in a Communist Newsletter of our own independent publication. At first, the White Knight proposed the title “Gedanken”, based on a book that his great-great-grandfather had once published when Marxism was first becoming popular, but we decided that in the wake of World War One a French title would be more appealing to the Leftist Readership. The business scheme was tricky; we had to sell enough antiques to keep the magazine in publication, so that we could keep the freezer running. The triangle was complete only if we used the freezer for something that could then help us in turn to sell antiques. We were of course most comfortable breaking even, so as neither to defile our reputation nor our collective (and collectivist) conscience.

We figured out a way. Nearby was a restaurant called Happy Chang’s, as in Actuality. After Randy was run out of business for selling undercooked Duck, his wife Sue took over the business. This put former customers of Randy, who had had to wade through several years of corporate ownership as the establishment shifted hands time and again, in a unique position of privilege, because Sue would hook old regulars up with discounts and free tea and bread and McDonald’s-style apple pies if she remembered them. I would know; I once worked in their kitchen. And the duck thing was real.

The immediate result of Sue’s generosity is that starving students (a Communist Entrepreneur’s Sacred Cow) would need a place to store their leftovers overnight so as not to be wasteful of their scarce resources. And that was where we, for a price affordable in proportion to the student’s Needs and Abilities, came in. Antique Disposition was all so a sort of Rental Freezer and Storage. We made ends meet.

One day, we were visited by Hank Schroeder. Officer Schroeder was apparently investigating something, yet he would not tell us what, nor even would he confess to the obviousness of his intentions. He brought in the head of a Goat that he claimed to have acquired at Sue’s. We agreed tacitly to store the ugly, staring head. As my comrade took it back into the Freezer, Hank stood, mad-dogging me and making conversation. I offered him a newspaper. He looked through the rack, doing a poor imitation of consumer indecision, and finally withdrew an old copy of Gedanken. He plopped it down on the counter and then asked why we were peddling a radical German paper. I felt dry lines forming on the inside of my throat, so reflexively I stammered: “These Thoughts are old.” I pointed him to the latest copy. He flipped through it stridently, impressed with the French title, did a corny imitation of a nasal laugh, and finally put it back on the rack, upside-down.

“Some real antiques you guys got here,” he said.

My comrade returned. He told Hank that we could store the Goat for up to a week before we had to throw it out, since it could be diseased and its neck still had wet blood in it. Hank rushed my comrade along, insisting that he did not need a lesson in “Dryology”. He asked for our sum. Intimidated, I said it was On the House. He eyed us, intently, and muttered: “Figures.” He left then.

We waited for his car to have been gone for five entire minutes. We waited in silence so mutual and uncalculated that it could have counted for consent. Then in one motion we both went for the freezers.

It took us only ten minutes to find a Tape Recorder in the Left Eye of the Goat. In the process, I realized something: this was the same goat that had been in the Mylonakis Residence. Hank had gotten this from Kyle. What did Kyle have to do with it?

We destroyed the evidence. I called up Mike, but I was met with a metallic voice that informed me that Mike was “currently roaming”. Wondering where the hell Mike might be, I decided to call Rob instead. Rob would not pick up. Frantic, I asked the White Knight to drive me. He agreed. We locked up shop, and not unlike Randall and Dante, we hit the road.

Kyle asked the White Knight to use the bathroom. White Knight agreed to. Kyle then asked me in private what the guy’s name was. I replied “W.K.” He asked, smiling, “like ANDREW W.K?” I smiled back. Kyle’s old sense of humour made me feel at home. I told him that we were visited by a Drug Enforcement Agent who brought in the head of Kyle’s Father’s Goat. Kyle replied that his father was a longtime sponsor for their Fun Runs. I asked if Kyle knew any thing about a recording device. Kyle told me that he had himself planted that device in order to spy on the D.E.A, who he suspected of having it in for his dad.

When W.K. and I returned home to our antique shop, the place had been ransacked. Apparently, Hank had known what he was doing. Or at least someone did. Upon the walls, in lines of blood (most probably goat’s blood) that had all ready dried, read the words “Pinko Gringos”.

It took us the rest of the day to clean.

Dm.A.A.

Band Wars: Return of the Did I Just?

I know why I stopped going to Kettle, and it is not just because they owe me money and there’s no getting through their Kafkaesque bureaucracy. Two words: (that I would not be typing weren’t I drunk, most probably) Danielle Moore. The delightful little Taurus girl was a Princeton student of Philosophy whom I met on the Flag Football Field of Grape Day Park. She was doing some course work at St. John Paul the Great University on Grand. I spoke to her beside a big tree. I wrote for her a list of all of the Taurus philosophers I knew at the time.

1.    Soren Kierkegaard.

2.    Karl Marx.

3.    William James.

4.    Ludwig Wittgenstein.

5.    Bertrand Russell.

I don’t know if she ever ended up looking them up. All that I know is that she never added me online. I saw her outside Plan Nine Alehouse, before I was banned without cause (Kafka would have a field day) and asked her to share a drink with me. She smiled and told me later. Later never came. I past her at Kettle and got the distinct feeling in my sympathetic nervous system that told me it was over.

But then: that never stopped me and Alanna.

So I kept coming back. Like Wittgenstein said: a philosopher who does not engage in intellectual debates is like a boxer who does not go to matches. I disagree with him, of course. And it is a bit too late to get into a debate with the old, dead weirdo. Whatever. The best writers got their biggest audience post mortem, Wittgenstein included. And I know enough about Debate from experience to know that it does not reveal the truth; it is a form of aggressive and amoral sophism that leaves you in contempt of Truth Itself. But then: who ever did live up to Wittgenstein’s saintly expectations? Genius has a way of projecting itself onto the ordinary; I Know This. And I don’t need any more triggering memories of people reciting the same old collegiate bullshit that earns them a fast pass to the top of a dogmatic pile of dog pile.

And yet, and yet, and yet:

What is a musician who does not play shows??

Dm.A.A.

528 Words: Music.

With not much left going for me, I fall back upon my old devices: Music. I have surmised the reason underlying my long hiatus from Spontation. Not only is my own work underappreciated. Even when it is appreciated, I struggle to find peers, especially in what little there is of a lingering local scene. One would think that in an age f hip-hop and electropop my fellows in San Diego would be living on the map. But no such luck. Corporate persuasion has crept in. The most innovative producers that I have had the tragedy of knowing have either sold out or fallen off the radar. Many of them are sitting on entire piles of gold like so many Smaugs the Dragons. They hoard their works of genius and drug-induced religious inspiration, but they do not DO any thing with them. It’s like Joseph Campbell said: the Western Dragon, unlike the Eastern One, hoards VIRGINS. He has no use for them. He simply hoards them. Christ: even Islamic Extremists are more humane. At least they surely plan to DO something with their harem* in the next life.

*Why did I make this italic? I am such a hipster now. “Harem” is so predominant an Arabic loan-word in English, especially amidst men, that I really need not treat it like some sort of Middle Eastern delicacy.

I guess I don’t mind. I have my own work. I never was shy to use as many as three free SoundCloud accounts to give even my most challenging work exposure. I know what Rob said: that it is too “busy”. I know what Alex said: that it’s too “chaotic”. But were they not operating as much out of their own reservations as from a position of honest criticism? Had either of them simply found the nads to publish their most psilocybin-infused efforts, would they not have held me to the same generic corporate standards as they hold themselves? Life’s too short to worry about the Man, man. I knew that when I first discovered Modest Mouse. I suppose I still owe a debt to my best friend Jeff Carter. Wherever that old Venutian bull might be. He was right: he’s a Taurus, through and through. I guess it’s true what they say about them and Pisces. Where would I have been without him and his musical contributions in high school? Even if Gemini Awilda called him a “Music Nazi”. I hope he enjoys my birthday mix for him.

Funny enough: my critics are operating under suggestion by the same people who all ways push the envelope, and in the WRONG DIRECTION. It’s not like Drake is not daring; he is just generically so. I am reminded of that guy I met downtown at Witching Hour once: the Aries who gave me a hit and told me that his Spirit Animal was the Wolf. He told me THEY control Reality with only their thoughts.

Why ought not we?

At the very least: we may get laid. I know that exposure helped me get a few numbers. And I pray that Jeff has found someone as well. Wherever that crazy bull might be.

Dm.A.A.

LOVE as ALTRUISM, SELFISHNESS, MARTYRDOM, and NARCISSISM:

I loved Alanna selflessly. Let us begin with the foregone conclusion that I did so rationally, as well. If we entertain the possibility that I am capable of Unreason, then we cannot PRECLUDE the possibility that I am incapable of self-reflection, in which case any doubts of my own Rationality would be Absurd upon my part. Hence I am obligated by Reason Itself to presume that I am Rational. And since my condition can be extrapolated upon my readers, any similarly Rational Being must presume, likewise, that I am Rational. At the very least: I should point out that an IRRATIONAL Being would not be able to fathom Reason Itself to such an extent as I have done in this first paragraph.

There are three factors at play, each expressed as a dichotomy:

1.   Whether I am (and have been, owing to my Nature) Rational or Irrational.

2.   Whether I loved her selfishly or selflessly.

3.   Whether or not I had Power over the situation.

The first variable has all ready been made into a constant. The third was given by the logistics of the situation. What remains is to determine the Quality of my Character, and that was made clear by what I DID, as a Rational Being, with the Power provided BY the situation in question.

A Selfish Man (supposing he was likewise a Rational Man) in my Position would have behaved differently than I did. Making himself the priority, he would not have precluded the possibility that his fellows would have similar motives. He would have exhausted, as is the Nature of Selfishness, every effort in order to secure his own interests. He would have done everything in his power to corner the proverbial market.

In short: Alanna would have never met K., even if that would have meant risking harm to her, by withholding from her the one resource that she centrally depended upon for her mental health: Music. The harm would not have come from her consciousness of being left out, but rather the RISK of SELF-harm would have been, ostensibly, Greater.

A selfless man, by contrast with a selfish man, (supposing that both are Rational) would have, in my Position, not hesitated to invite Alanna to watch my concert, for he would have had no conception of self-interest in doing so. If he was covetous of her, it would have only been out of concern for her protection, part and parcel with the favour provided for her well-being: the providence of Music for an ailing but brilliant mind. Had I known that this could endanger her mind, by exposing it to selfish agents, I would have promptly made the necessary sacrifices and changes in arrangement that would have enabled me to provide for her by relatively riskless means.

So it is established that my love for Alanna was selfless. And this implies a Higher Priority ascribed to it. Whereas a selfish man can allow for loss, for he alone would suffer, a selfless man cannot, for Others would suffer. A selfish man can feign Happiness in Apathy, and he can even feign Apathy with the ultimate intent of Vengeance, turning his losses at one point into successes at a later point, irrespective of the effect upon other people. Hence detachment is the way of selfishness. But a SELFLESS man, paradoxically, or at least ironically, cannot afford to be detached, for he must adhere to the A.B.C’s of altruistic living:

A.   Accountability,

B.  Blamelessness, and

C.  Conscientiousness.

It is intolerable for a Rational Man possessed of a Higher Form of Love (one capable of greater Providence for Others) to lose the object of one’s love to a Lower Form of Love, (one that predisposes all involved to disappointment and therefore to HARM) supposing he is Rational and can make the deductions necessary to predict the Tragedy. Neither should such a man ever suffer blame for the seemingly inevitable collapse when in fact the EVITABLE Tragedy could have been prevented, and he is only charged with doing everything in his power to heroically do so.

USUALLY: friendship between Selfish and Selfless men is possible, granted that there is no extreme of Martyr and Narcissist. There is no Martyr without a Narcissist, for such self-sacrifice would not be necessary if dealing only with the Absurdities intrinsic to moderate Selfishness. And in such an extreme conflict, the Martyr excels in Virtue to the same extent as the Narcissist falls short of it; hence, even if they arise mutually, the Martyr remains the Moral Superior and the most Rational Choice.

A simply SELFISH man is capable of making amends for a misdeed against a more altruistic person, doing everything in his power to protect the Love Object in service to his friend the Altruist, and doing so in such a way that the Altruist is respected as a witness and authority on the Proper Course of Action. But a Narcissist is incapable of such respect, for to him all Others are illusory. No motives exist outside of one’s own motives and their enemies, to the Narcissist’s mind.

K. was a narcissist. And his refusal to provide for Alanna’s needs led to the loss of her life.

Yet it was not alone. For Alanna all so had a choice: to pursue the path of Reason and Health, or to fall into Madness and Despair. Her tragic flaw was her OWN Selfishness. By allowing her preference for a constructed fantasy, fabricated by the Narcissist, to take precedence over the Reality of her True Lover, the Martyr, she not only violated several moral principles, victimizing the Martyr unjustly (and beyond the necessary scope of his martyrdom, that extent to which it was necessary for him to contend with the Narcissist directly, upon discovery of the Narcissism), but all so harming herself, damaging the Martyr most through that seemingly INDIRECT means. The Martyr could only express this loss as personal suffering, and the Narcissist could interpret it as self-interest (for it was merely an abstract foe to him), but the Selfish Woman was TRULY at fault for failing to see the Martyr’s Personal Suffering as an extension of her own Ill Health. This was not because a Selfish Woman was incapable of understanding Altruism and the pain of Empathy; it was rather because she PREFERRED the testimony of the Narcissist, for totally self-interested aesthetic, hedonic, and egoic reasons on her own part.

So Alanna’s Death was ultimately Her Own Tragedy. But I make it a point for all to remember that she was NOT a narcissist, for at times she was capable of confessing my Altruism, without seeking any sort of apparent agenda by so doing, (but rather at the conclusion of such a fruitless venture) and at other times she was even capable of mirroring it. So she remains a victim of the Greatest Evil, which is that of Narcissism. And K. remains singularly to blame for her Death.

Dm.A.A.

FELIZ DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS.

REPOSE EN PAIX.

Dm.A.A.

Rage contre la machine:

 I see you eyeing me. Natalie. ;-*

Dm.A.A.

The EXTREME "Controversy" of 440 and 432.

There will never be an “ultimate test” according to which all rational beings can agree about this because it is so radically subjective. No seemingly “objective” test will dismiss the subjective phenomenon. That being said, it is not the business of musicologists to be “objective”, just as that is not the function of music. “Subjective” does not mean “relative”. I know for a fact that 432 Hertz is better because of my own radically anecdotal dealings with it. No one will convince me otherwise, and that is a dogma on the part of the skeptic and not me, because the aim is not to be “realistic” but to make music that SOUNDS BETTER.

Music at 440 all ways imbues me with a sense of anxiety. If it ever was particularly good, it imbued me with a sense of nostalgia for it, as though remembering the first time that I heard it. It would get to the point that even upon first listening to a song I would grow deeply nostalgic for it, craving it as though I had a crush. One might say that I was all ready predicting how I’d feel when the song was no longer novel to me. But novelty was not the nature of what I longed for. It was HARMONY.

Once I accidentally clicked a video thinking that it was one of a series of Tool songs retuned to 432. It had all ways been my first favourite by them; I had even tried playing it on a makeshift banjo I once made for fun from scratch. So it should have been soothing to me, especially at the altered frequency, but even irrespective of that frequency considering the possibility that there was no difference. I could not do it. It felt OFF, and it was ANGULAR. I checked the video. It was not one of the retuned versions. It was plain. Did I know for a fact that it was tuned to 440? I might as well have. People seldom state that A = 440 on the original track; it is a given, and any one who knows what 440 means would know better than to publish it at 440 and to admit to it. Besides: I recognized the track. I knew it by that sense of anxiety that, long before I had found meditation, was simply a Fact of Life when I first fell in love with that song. Now it was no longer necessary, since I had found 432.

When I first listened to an album that was tuned to 432, it changed my life. That harmony was restored; at long last, meditation and music were one and the same process. It came as no surprise to learn that monks chanted at this frequency. I could even account for my own tendency to sing out of pitch, both in vocal class and on band recordings, because it sounded more “Natural” and less “Artificial” at a time that that distinction meant a lot to me. I would all ways flatten my notes to get closer to this sense of nostalgia.

Every thing I conveyed in the last three paragraphs was radically anecdotal. But I could have made it sound “scientific” by substituting “listeners” for “me”. It would have been pretentious of me, but no moreso than what you are doing by trying to decide this matter AS A GROUP when in fact you only have your own experience (or lack thereof).

It is a matter of one’s own Spiritual Growth. Considering that so many Individuals can attest to it and come to the same conclusion, maybe this is one of a number of things that Corporations need to revise for the good of the people. It wouldn’t HURT. I know what I hear, whether you hear it or not. And the math all checks out; three is musical, much moreso than five is, (Hence we hear more waltzes than “Take Five’s”) and music happens at every second, so the number of waves per second is crucial and has all ways been so.

Some people believe that this matter will only be resolved upon testing a number of non-musicians to see what they hear and think and feel. But that is ludicrous. Just the process of being tested, for one thing, produces anxiety, which is what that test would aim to measure. Besides: most people don’t have the ear of an audiophile. They can be slammed with hyper-compressed, redundant pop music for hours and all they’ll say is “can’t complain”. This is not a matter to be resolved by either specialists nor laypeople, and least of all by the two of them working in concert with one an other (no pun intended.) Lastly consider that audiophiles are not so gullible as to believe whatever they READ, considering that they are more AUDITORY than they are VISUAL, so reading plays a lesser role in their Reality than listening. Perhaps the gullibility is on the part of the skeptics, who dismiss things based on their LACK of experience. Who is more gullible than the man who believes (or disbelieves) without experience? And who is more ignorant than the man who, in the absence of experience, invalidates the experience of others? That is not skepticism; it is dogma.

Dm.A.A.

THE NEXT LEVEL DOWN.

Four Thirty-two:

http://recreatingbalance1.blogspot.com/2014/09/how-to-easily-convert-any-music-to.html

Dm.A.A.

CONCLUSION:

Conclusion:

I will not be accused of self-interest from an inferior moral posture. I have been blameless in carrying out the Greatest Good to the extent of my human ability. I have been hurt by self-interest and self-interest alone, and none of this was my own. I will not be penalized for those needs that I would have had fulfilled under the banner of justice, nor will I grovel before the sheer facts of human – really INHUMAN – depravity, as though that could, against all the instruments of Reason, serve as justification for such wrongs. My passions have been in accord with my spiritual quest, and my wrongdoers had turned from this quest despite my repeated warnings and attempts to nurture. My nurturing has been exploited by moral degeneracy infracting upon innocence, and I only turned from my healing quest when that same degenerate took the innocence of an other whom I’ve loved.  That innocence was mine to absolve in my own; it did not belong to my parasite. He shall never judge of me nor find refuge from my justice, for I know now that he has not lived up to his own moral demands of me. I know this because I have internalized those values and fought the moral fight that he was too great a coward to wage on the sovereign soil of his own Soul. I know now that it is in the nature of a parasite to accuse the host of parasitism, for to demoralize is to draw goodness from a host as a tapeworm draws food from a digestive tract, only to corrupt its name in hypocritical vainglory. A hypocrite must accuse the innocent of hypocrisy, for it is in his nature to make accusations of others that pertain exclusively to himself. A narcissist sees all others as only an extension of his ego.

Dm.A.A.