Oh, I forgot. I've suffered sort of a strange revitalization of old interests. I'll talk more about them later, I suppose, if people care. Or even if they don't.

I'm back

Well, good. Now that I've lost all my fans, I'm back to blogging after my summer hiatus. Nothing to report, except that I have a story idea about a ghost that I think will severely kick some ass. Part of it's even true.

Oh, and I'm considering prison as a career move.

Oh, I've also found the best possible way to endulge my love of email lists and not feel like I"m wasting my time. Zwallet.com pays a fraction of a cent for every email you read. Sign up and say that Badpoet sent you, and I also get a smaller fraction of a cent for every email you read.

R and R

It looks like I"ll be going home Sunday. I'm looking forward to seeing my friends, drinking coffee with my mother, watching TV, reading for pleasure. I might do some writing, too.

I keep eyeing my desk, thinking about how I have to clean it off, and not wanting to. Most of these books can go back to the library; the rest I can stack up and move over to my new desk next semester. It's the papers that daunt me. I have to go through and figure out what's keepable and what's not keepable.

Piss and Moan

Well, I'm finished with all my papers, so I can get back to blogging and reading cheesy science fiction.

Right now the English list is undergoing a little bit of a spat over a list of books that we might suggest teachers read. I've just been accused of not recognizing that people are human by someone. I won't name names. I kind of want to bounce his head off the nearest wall.

Eh. Nothing else to report, I guess. I'm debating what to have for lunch. Might work on my syllabus for next semester.

Better yet, if we change our language, do we change our reality?

Two and One

That's two papers down, one to go. One of the papers is really, really bad, though. I'm not in the least proud of it. But at this point I'm too exausted to care.

I've been requested to provide pronounciation guides for my last post. Here you go:

Avalokiteshvara -- "Ah-vah-loe-kee-tesh-wah-rah."
Bodhisattva -- "Boe-dee-sat-wah."
Kwan Yin -- "gwahn yen."

What puzzles me is how anyone, speaking Sanskrit, ever got an entire sentence out. By the way, "Avalokiteshvara" means "the one who hears the cries of the world." And "Bodhisattva" means "enlightenment being."

If we change our language, do we change our thoughts? The sapir-worf hypothesis, which no one could ever prove. E-prime serves as an example, a language without the verb "to be," and although it leads to clear, beautiful prose I've not seen anyone suddenly make a paradigm shift using it. Maybe I've never seen anyone using it.

Space and Time

Scene: A grad-student's office, the desk cluttered with papers and books. An archaic black computer sits next to an old typewriter covered with post-its. Patrick, his hair a bit disheveled and too long, and his shirt a little crumpled, sits typing furiously.

Patrick: (looks up from typing and turns halfway around to face the audience) So here's the deal. A paper due Wednesday. One more due Thursday. The one due Thursday will be removed surgically from my ass, since it's sure as hell not coming from my mind. People keep telling me I'm really smart. I appreciate the compliment. I just wish it were true.

Enter Avalokitesvara, as Kwan Yin. She looks suspiciously like the Dana Scully doll beside the computer.

Kwan Yin: This is your idea of suffering? I expected boils, loose bowels, horrid aftermath of war. And here you're just worried about how many times Flannery O'Connor says "nigger"? Please.

Patrick: Hey, Yin. What's up? Compassionate as always, I see.

Kwan Yin: I saw a child boiled alive in a vat. Her parents were forced to drink the resultant soup. And you're bitching about your cozzy little life?

Patrick: (Winces)

Kwan Yin: You need a holiday in Cambodia.

Patrick: I love that song.

Kwan Yin: I know.

Enter the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, with a flamming sword. He looks a bit like Ed Norton.

Bod of Wis: What a crock of shit!

Patrick: (to audience) How come every time I imagine the Bodhisattvas, they're really obnoxious? (to guests) The office is getting a bit crowded. And if you burn up my research with that sword, all compassionate Bodhisattva or not, I'll kick your ass.

Bod of Wis: Try it, bucko. Listen: you're here of your free will and volition, and I distinctly saw you humming to yourself in the library the other day. Yin, you ever see anyone humming while suffering?

Kwan Yin: I saw a woman play the harp in the midst of the town square during a brutal civil war. But that's not the same thing.

Bod of Wis: Not at all.

Kwan Yin: Nope, no one humming. Just cries of pain.

Patrick: (laughing) Look at you waste my time! Okay, already, all right, I'll admit it. I don't absolutely hate write papers. In some respects, I even enjoy it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm late for a meeting.

Kwan Yin and Bod of Wis: (together) Can we come?

Patrick: It's the Pagan Awareness Association meeting.

Kwan Yin: Nevermind. I can't stand those people.

Bod of Wis: Yeah. They get on my nerves too. I mean, couldn't they at least have a fricking footnote once in a while?

Kwan Yin: Wanna go grab a burger?

Bod of Wis: Only if you can find a sacred cow.

(Kwan Yin and Bod of Wis exit, laughing together)

Patrick: (Hits the save button) Okay, that's a day's work. I'm out of here.

Sound and Fury

Just found some references to Christ in connection to lac, although never explicitely identified as such. I'd pay ten bucks for one good, clear, "Crist is drihtnes lac" or something.

The title today is inspired by the dance music Subway was playing. They usually play good stuff. Today it was bomCHICKAbomCHICKAbom How can anyone like that, without being drunk? But a table of kids in the corner was singing along as if -- as if the words meant anything more subtle than, "hi, nice shoes, wanna fuck?"

Ah, well, so it goes. Perhaps I'm getting old. "These kids and their music today! In my day we had grunge! Now that was music!"

I have a presentation on "Wulf and Eadwacer" in about a half an hour or so. I've got plenty of material; it's just not organized. I'm kind of hoping for that miracle, organic organization, that seems to occur just before you have to talk about something very complicated. I'll probably just sweat a lot.

Dogode has no cognate in any Germanic language except English, or at least, so I suspect. Without going to the library I can't be sure, but a cursory examination reveals none in German, Frisian, West Saxon, or Old Norse. The amendation, usually accepted, of dogode to hogode in "Wulf and Eadwacer" works because whatever dogode means, it's a mental action, not a physical one. Or, it's a metaphor for a mental action from a physical one. We also know this because the poet says "in hopes" or "in wideranging hopes." She "dogode your far wandering in hopes."

If dogode comes, as I suspect, from docga, "dog," we must be especially careful not to assume that it has the same meaning as the English verb. The semantic range of "dog" is fairly large, and expands exponentially if you consider that it must be applied metaphorically. Here are just some of the ideas that could connect to a verb *dogian: to chase, to hunt, to howl, to worry, to eat, to sleep, to be loyal, to be hungry . . . . and it goes on and on. We can eleminate some of them: she is not eating like a dog, or hungry as a dog. We can lean toward others. Considering the choice of reotugu for "weeping," there's a bit of evidence toward howling. Perhaps some worrying is included. She's not being dogged; she's doing the dogging, so the modern idea of the word "to dog" probably isn't on the mark. Some authors seem to think that *dogian might have a hint of loyalty to it, due to medieval iconography. I just point out that the German word "dogge" refers to the mastiff, not the cute puppy seen in iconography. Although loyalty might be in the semantic range, I think only by an edge. I vote "howl." "I howled after my Wulf's far-wanderings, in hope."

haha! I tricked myself into writing a couple paragraphs, which, cleaned up and cast into academic prose, will go snicker-snack into my paper! I'm so clever!

Wait. Maybe she is hungry like a dog; she mentions lack of food later. heh. Must dance on that line of insanity, must dance but never cross. Medieval studies is like that. That's a dubious word, too; I think I might look at it a little closer, see where else it is used. Damn, I wish we had the Concordance to OE Lit.

Imagine that the world speaks to itself, creating atoms, quarks, and gluons as we create nouns and verbs, stringing them together into eternally significant patterns. Imagine that the ground of being comes into being only when we exist. We believe, because it is logical, that matter gives rise to mind, that the random bouncing of particles eventually results in a brain, the activity of which we call "mind." But a process is not physical, and does not rest on physical laws. If mind is the interaction of particles, in a sense we might say that mind exists before the particles interact -- that mind is inherent in the system, moving always behind these random patterns.

The western philosopher struggles with two facts: first, every physical object seems determined in its action. Second, we observe our actions as free and not determined. But if they hinge on the physicality of our brains, on strings of carbon and nitrogen, then certainly they must be determined. Even quantum events, scientists tell us, are not completely random; the idea that they are is illusion, and the actions of our brains are not quantum in nature but electrical. They obey known laws.

Therefore, to know the laws of electrical and chemical interaction means we should be able to predict, exactly, human behavior. Of course we cannot, but we do not yet know all there is to know about the structures of our brains.

Perhaps we think about it incorrectly. If we imagine the brain arising from the mind, which was always present and always active, then the brain is froth on the foam of a chaotic sea, and we might think, because the foam rises and falls, that it is the action that makes the waves. We might think the foam gives birth to the sea.

What happens when the gobs of flesh in our skulls become complicated enough to begin speaking back to this primal mind, begin to manipulate symbols, begins to stir the froth and the debris.

It is possible that our smallest actions -- buying, say, a hamburger -- have significance beyond our comprehension. But at a certain level, saying something is ultimately significant and saying something means nothing comes to the same thing. Everything means everything, everything means nothing -- both are true, if one is true.

My confused cosmology boils down to this: the individual, believing himself or herself free, is an organ of Ouranos, the universe, which opens its vast eyes in the stars and regards us calmly. The full meaning of this truth is behind grasping. It means "thou art God," or, if you prefer an older formulation, "tat tvam asi."

Is that what one calls a "left-handed" apology? Bwaaaahahahahha! I swear, I crack my shit right up.

Sometimes, you don't need a firebrand. You need a friend. Fortunately, I had one. She knows who she is.

Oh, good. The cold medicine is kicking in. So I think I'm going to sit at the picnic table and read some Bukowski. heh. I went from the Aeneid to Dead Kennedys and now I'm going to top it off with some Bukowski. De gustibus non disputendum est. Or something.

Insert here a perfunctory statement about how far behind I am on my papers and how I should go to the office, so I don't have to.

In my book, which is a strange one, this is seriously cool. No, I can't understand it -- about a word in every fifty, or so. And no, I don't intend to listen to the full hour of it. But it makes you feel a serious sense of wonder at how something as shit-smeared as western civilization could have produced this. Give praise to those few beautiful things in the world.

Means and Ways

Must remember: meditate every day. Not as a means to anything, but because without that anchor in silence I drift off into samsara.

I was told in no uncertain terms to blog today. Evidently, I have a fan. Always wanted to be famous. It doesn't matter that I know her, nope.

Today I was confronted by two rude people, both obese black women. One was on the bus; she called me "dude." As in, "dude, your bag is hitting my leg." To which I responded, "terribly sorry," lifted it up out of the way of anyone's legs, and then pushed my way out at the next stop even though it was farther from Reavis than my apartment. I don't mind her voicing her discomfort, but there was no way I could continue riding the bus holding my bag to my chest like that. I'm weak. Also, since when do you call strange men on the bus, "dude"? Am I getting old, that I expect to be called "sir"? Perhaps so. And to think, this is the anarchist talking.

The other rude person was at Taco Bell (I know what you're thinking: the bus and taco bell, well, how did you ever encounter anyone rude in those two epicenters of culture? You should shut up). She wasn't rude in an overt way, just sort of a "what the hell are you doing here bugging me" sort of way. Plus, she didn't speak English very clearly and I had to keep asking her what she was saying. She was visibly agitated.

So this is my daily saga. No, neither of them really bugged me. It's possible that they simply were never taught manners. DeKalb is full of rude people; it could be something in the water. Maybe, I timidly suggest, people might be nicer to each other? Hmm?

I really ought to work on my papers, but instead I am going to take cold medicine and read some poetry out loud in my nasel voice. Or I'll listen to Stravinsky and read a science fiction novel. Or I'll take a nap.

One thing I must remember to do: I must remember to do my weekly Latin.

Oh, incidently, I have a date with the Man from this weekend coming up Friday. His place to watch a movie. And, of course, that sort of forces the question, doesn't it? I hate that bit, the nerves and stuff. Second date is too soon anyway; I'm old fashioned, I am.