on drawing well

In the years since the author drew his last set of pictures, he has forgotten how difficult it is to transfer an image from brain-stem to paper. To expand his overall portfolio, however, he has added physical artistic expression to his daily protocols; in addition to his two writing sessions, he now allocates time for drawing, making sculptures, and graphic design.

This unworthy whorphan thought it hard to write well; then, he tried to draw well. Writing and drawing share certain fundamental rules, including those of symmetry, planning, composition, patience, and simplicity. Whereas, however, one can fix a broken sentence by following the guidance of Messrs Strunk & White and look in a dictionary for the correct spelling of a thousand different words, one of the only ways for the artist who works alone to correctly depict the bent leg of a kneeling woman is to act as his own model and hope that the interface between finger, hand, wrist, arm, and brain works well enough for him to accurately reconstruct the desired shape on paper.

Drawing the Grigovian coat of arms was easy compared to trying to capture a human form in motion, but with enough tries and dozens of body parts sketched out and promptly erased, he finally has something with which he is satisfied. The only way to get smarter is to play a smarter opponent (The Principles of Chess, 1883, as quoted in the movie Revolver, by Guy Ritchie); the only way to sharpen artistic skills is to practice them every day. As he works, the old lessons – those learned in gymnasium and college – float up from the sunken wrecks of distant memory, guiding his hand as often as they remind him of the need to be humble, diligent, and forgiving. Among the lessons he remembers most vividly is to not press too hard when drawing with a pencil. His mother taught him this when he was a child; it is as true today as it was then. In practicing yoga daily and getting better at it with something akin to painstaking slowness, he is learning another lesson passed down through the ages: piece by piece, the the treasure of the universe is amassed. Gradually, he may just make something of himself. Failure rarely kills. Mahalo.

mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥

on artistic privilege

This writer is more fortunate than he realizes. For scores of moons he has been able to pursue artistic endeavors free of the cruel lash of wage-slavery, ponderously but surely coaxing long-dormant creative abilities from sadness-induced hibernation. The erstwhile torment of orphanization has been softened by the warm rains of time, its contours sculpted by the winds of loving effort; the pain of loss has faded into a soothing glow; memories of dead parents conjure up not tears, but Happiness.

He appreciates the idea that nothing lasts forever; he thanks the universe for granting him this brief repose from the exigencies of life, for bestowing upon him the ability to gather his thoughts, rally his forces, and once more turn confidently into the gale of shifting fortune. The inherited funds dwindle, the vultures close in, his skin collects wrinkles and his hair turns gray, but the abiding core of vitality he had thought long ago snuffed out continues to burn, deep within his loins. How it yet smolders after the past few years is a mystery to him; he was wicked and did bad things knowingly.

Story-tellers speak often of persons who endure great suffering, emerging from their baths-by-fire stronger and more whole. This author has always admired the great heroes, they who inhabit the ancient and the beautiful stories. He once thought that their deeds made them great, until he realized that it doesn't matter if Batman or Odysseus ever existed - this unworthy whorphan is the hero of his own story, one that he and the universe write anew, each and every day, one that he is free to model upon the struggles of the past. He keeps on living in order to conquer the darknesses within him that constantly vie with their lighter counterparts for control of his life-force. By trying to get others to do what he thinks is best, he exerts a level of control that is both wrong and unsustainable; by criticizing others' splinters he misses the log lodged in his own eye. He can only hope to become the change he wants to see in the world by setting a good example for all who might share his orbit. To control his weaknesses, he must play to his strengths, which, he thinks, include all manner of artistic expression. Oh, if he could but remember these simple lessons. Mahalo.

mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥

on seeking trouble

During the course of one's life, one is likely to be looked at by other people. We look at each other for different reasons, among them to appraise or mock each other's clothing; to justify and reinforce prejudice and racial misconception; to see who is checking out our daring new hairstyle; and, sometimes, simply because we tire of looking at the same spot all the time. It is the author's experience that young men as well as insecure individuals of all sexes are prone to look about in order to find trouble, and that young males in particular will justify aggressive and violent behavior by claiming that their victim had been looking at them in what they found to be an unpleasant or disagreeable manner. An insecure person will tend to internalize even passing or accidental gazes and use them to reinforce a poor self-image and feelings of negative self-worth.

The only method by which one can determine if someone else is looking is by making eye contact with that person. Concurrently, the easiest way to avoid confrontation, heartbreak, self-torment, and sadness is to make eye contact only when absolutely necessary, such as when conversing with waiters, siblings, doctors, or friends. In the course of his observations, the author has discovered that looking at people out of the corner of his eye and thereby avoiding mutual eye contact obviates the need for uncomfortable situations in which someone tries to figure out (by means of examining his immediate surroundings or perhaps checking his teeth for food particles) why someone else was looking in his direction. The author has found that people appreciate being looked at, initially; after a first, cursory glance, however, they tend to become agitated and annoyed if stared or looked at for too often. (This is the primary cause of one worthless whorphan's ongoing, self-imposed sexual drought – his propensity to make eye contact with attractive young females but then failing utterly at all subsequent stages of the relationship.) At this point, the reader is likely thinking, 'By using a mirrored surface to see if someone is trying to make eye contact, I could avoid making eye contact, if I wanted to. Why hasn't the author mentioned that? What an idiot.' The author admits that he has indeed thought of and experimented with mirrors. In his opinion, though, trying to find and use a reflective surface in the crowded environment of, say, a subway car, poses its own unique challenges, challenges that can be avoided by simply not looking anyone in the face and choosing rather to lead a life of quietly miserable solitude. (Furthermore, the human mind recognizes the eye better than it does most other shapes; if it finds that it is being looked at, it will alert its host to danger and not rest until it has discovered the cause of its distress.)

The author reminds the reader of the importance of keeping track of where people are, what they have in their hands, and what they are looking at; he urges the reader to do this sneakily, out of the corners of the eye; he repeats the age-old mantra: “True friends stab in the front” (Oscar Wilde). Experience has shown that if someone is looked at one time but not a second, that person will mind his or her own business as if first contact had never occurred, demanding neither satisfaction nor a second date. Making eye contact with the wrong person can lead to other kinds of contact, including those of the verbal and the fist-based variety, so please remember to do your own time content in knowledge that each one of us lives and dies alone. Mahalo.

mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥

on planting face

Just when this author thought that he was on a virtuous path, he ran smack into the barrier of Truth. False notions that had come to commandeer his being scurried from the impact of unbridled reality as do cockroaches from sudden illumination. All is not lost – he recognizes his errors for what they are; he adjusts his modes of operation to combat the need to make claims and seek reward; he shoos that part of him that needs to self-aggrandize back into its filthy stall; he reins in those parts of his psyche that thrive on the fleeing notions of honor, pride, and satisfaction.

Months of diligent effort were ruined this past weekend when the author opened his mouth, and spoke. By speaking, he violated one of the basic tenets of the ancient texts: One who speaks does not know, and one who knows does not speak. At the time, it seemed logical to voice his opinions, as he had been in a nearby state park engaged in friendly competition with a married male friend. After listening to his friend talk about matters of concern in his life, the author thought it polite to speak on matters dear to his own heart. How quickly the addiction of his own voice took him; how soon his words turned bitter, and hateful, leeched of their goodness by the foul tug of ego and spilling from him in ever greater numbers as he tried in vain to dig himself from one hole after the next.

Later that same night, the house of cards finally collapsed when the aforementioned friend announced to an assembled host that the author was not doing what he kept saying to the family dog – “Rule #1: shut up.” One after another, the layers of malice and discontentment loosened their grip on this worthless whorphan's psyche, falling off and away in the manner of petals loosed from a dying blossom. As each foul shackle sloughed off, the author realized how much anger and frustration he has kept locked up in his bosom, negative emotions that drain life of its color, that poison its deep and abiding well of Happiness. Sometimes, he wonders how other people stand to be around him, and why so few don't outright cancel their friendship. Perhaps with a more dedicated and concerted effort, he can alienate and abuse every person in his life, and not just those closest to him. Oh, well – still warm the blood that flows through these veins (Turkish, Snatch). Time heals all wounds. Mahalo.

mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥

on letting go

Every morning, the author finds himself struggling with foes long since vanquished and fighting battles long since passed. Whether he is kneeling in meditation, bending through a set of sun salutations, or sitting quietly before the day's first meal, memories – some of them decades old – loom up out of the time-fog and demand his attention. If he is careless, and if he allows the insecure and self-loathing portions of his mind to ponder the images and fragments of feeling that swirl up before his inner eye, he risks having to deal with them for the rest of the day, week, or month. Some of the memories are so powerful that they cause immediate visceral reactions, quickening his blood and stoking the anger within his chest, which then interfere with his ability to do yoga, write, and treat other people gently and with due reverence.

Short of frontal-lobe lobotomy, the author knows of no quick cure for his recurring torment; to bring it to heel, he must primarily use love's soothing touch and the patient application of time-tested methods, among them the application of ancient teachings. Some parts of him, however, do not want to let go of the past. Some parts of him – likely the ones which manifest in churning tempests of rage – hide within the the memories of failed loves, within the harsh lessons burned deeply into his psyche, feeding off of frustrations dealt with years ago and bullying his quiet and tender bits by dragging things he thought he had let go of long ago back to the forefront of his thinking.

Part of the problem is that he cheats regularly – he allows his discipline to slip, joins in the merry-making of other people, and engages in the damaging and counter-productive habit of voicing his opinion in particular and of speaking in general. Vast are the benefits of silence, and many are the blessings that stillness brings. Oh how terrible is this beauty.

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on protocols

A person who follows daily routines chooses a certain set of protocols to regulate her life. Protocols can bring about either positive or negative change, but rarely both. To clarify, the author provides two scenarios. First, a man skips breakfast, drives to work in a motorized vehicle, sits at a desk all day without regular movement breaks, eats a large lunch, drives home, eats a large dinner, and then watches television until he checks the time and forces himself to go to sleep. Second, a woman arises before dawn, does an hour of yoga, eats a moderately-sized breakfast, bicycles to work, gets up once every couple of hours simply to walk around, eats a moderately-sized lunch, bicycles home, eats at least one fruit and one vegetable with her dinner, spends an hour being creative (writing, drawing, molding with clay, etc.), reads for an hour or two from four different books on unrelated subjects, watches half of a feature film, and collapses into her bed a few hours after sunset.

In my experience, the first scenario plays itself out too often in America, today. So many of us drive everywhere we go, eat more than we would need to satisfy our hunger, and spend our time staring mindlessly at flickering, fancy boxes. The protocols followed by the first person are likely to lead to diseases associated with overeating and lack of exercise; after a few decades, the creative parts of his mind will rebel against his refusal so do anything more productive with his life than simply working to eat, drive, and watch TV. He will suffer from a debilitating mid-life crisis, during which he will scramble to lead a healthier and happier life. His attempts, however, will become fouled up in the old protocols; he will falter, fail, and retreat into his bad old habits. In contrast, the person in the second scenario leads a life she knows will satisfy her inner need for enduring personal meaningfulness while keeping her digestive system healthy and her muscles sharp and twitching. Her protocols celebrate the majesty of the human spirit and glorify the fathomless might of both mind and body. By having studied for decades, she is bursting with knowledge but clever enough not to force it upon others; by having disciplined herself in terms of consumption, she needs little food, less gasoline, and almost no commercialized content to keep herself happy.

It may seem difficult to live a life similar to the person in the second example, but, with a few small adjustment to one's daily protocols, anything but the most absurd is possible. (Unassisted human flight, for example, is out). Via the epigenetic superstructure, both we and the environments we inhabit affect which of our genes are read and to what degree they are expressed. By changing the parameters of our daily lives and gradually adopting healthier routines, we can fortify the foundations of the deep and abiding Happiness that yearns to hover at the center of our every act, our every decision, our every breath. To examine one's daily protocols is to take the first step in making sure they are worthwhile, wholesome, and good. A saying from the business world comes to mind: They who are not evolving are dying. Plant the seeds of tomorrow's joy by turning off your television, today. Mahalo.

mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥

on changing nothing

Over the past few years since this author started taking care of his late father's estate, he has made friends with some of the families who live nearby. At one point, with one family in particular, he had eked out a niche as the aloof but friendly more-than-friend-but-less-than​-relative (i.e. as their Gay Uncle Sancho). Things were going well until he was encouraged by the family, the Bravos, to voice his opinions and get more involved with their lives. That experiment lasted for about a year; it resulted in bruised egos, inter-personal tension, and few of the affected persons having changed themselves for the better.

Looking back, the author is thankful for the experience; it has shown him that he has the power to effect positive change only within himself and that any effort on his part to help others lead happier lives is wasted toil rife with peril, woe, and recrimination. He has discovered that certain people (especially middle-aged American women) are likely to create and inhabit fantasy worlds that only roughly approximate the world he awakes to every morning. (In this author's experience, he finds that male Americans create and inhabit fantasy worlds just as often as their women do, although their delusion tends to run less deep.) These fantasy worlds resemble the other world, the consensual hallucination we often call the real world, so greatly that, to the outsider, they are difficult to keep apart.

When the real world invades the fantasy world and proves that the latter is built on the shakiest of shaky foundations, the fantasizer will go to extraordinary lengths to convince herself of the validity of her fantastical notions. Mrs. Bravo especially will make nonsensical statements and use misdirection and flattery to gain enough time to rebuild the buffers of her self-delusion, whereupon she will immediately re-inhabit her fantastical world, ignoring the inescapable Truth of cause-and-consequence each and every step of the way. If she watches a report on television about the dangers of drinking more than three alcoholic drinks in one sitting (something she does nearly every night), she'll shrug off her family's concern by jokingly calling herself an alcamaholic and then promptly pouring herself another glass of cheap red wine. If she participates in a conversation about the lack of industriousness and self-sufficiency among today's youth, she will say – without hesitation or remorse – that she expects her adult son to live in the basement for many years to come. What frustrates this whorphan most, however, is that fantasizers tend to have strange relationships with their pets, either showering them with love or completely ignore them, to the detriment of the beast itself and the other humans in the household (who, out of concern for the animal, must perform the duties of a respectful pet owner that the matriarch fails to perform). On some level, the author thinks of himself as a practical and self-respecting person who regularly challenges his own preconceptions, one wont to disavow himself of notions old and tired. He knows that he should let the Bravos be Bravos, focus on those things he has the power to change, and get back to the business of being a whorphan. Why, then, does he allow himself to be drawn into the madness of others? Hrm.

mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥

on stalking art

Oh the many miles this whorphan walked Saturday through Philadelphia. It is a good thing he wore his new leather work boots – they needed breaking in and to make his skin's acquaintance. His wanderings were neither useless nor wanton; he managed to photograph nearly ten dozen examples of street art, or graffiti, which he can now process, preserve, curate, and display.

In some cities, graffiti inhabits certain areas more frequently than others; persons seeking it can simply show up at the popular spots and gather to their hearts' content without much craning or swiveling of the head. In Philadelphia, however, street art must be stalked and searched for, culled from the backs of tall signposts and canvassed from the sides of news kiosks, utility boxes, and telephone poles. In fact, the author found entire blocks denuded of beauty, small rectangular patches of dirty glue on the backs of otherwise unused spaces such as parking-meter poles and transformer boxes the only remaining evidence of hundreds of works of art. But if the fruitful labor of the Self Directed Urban Beautification Specialist (SDUBS) were easy to find, and if his strange and colorful images required less effort and patience to obtain, the wonderful phenomenon that is street art would be as mysterious as an unadorned dumpster and as appealing as the sound of mating swine.

In the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection, one must tease beauty from the forgotten and the under-utilized places and ignore the suspicious glances of the uninitiated as one applies one's own paltry contributions with deft slight of hand. This author thanks the disparate street artists of Philadelphia for re-applying their art as soon as the city has paid to have it destroyed. Keep fighting the good fight, you tenacious SDUBS, and mahalo.

mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥

trees tease amputees

Trees are fascinating creatures. If one should lop the top off of a sapling, the growth-nodes directly below the cut will send forth shoots that, if left to their own devices, will keep reaching for the sky until they erase all but the last signs of injury. Some trees, such as hybrid poplars, grow so large within a few decades that they become hazardous to power lines and dwellings alike. The speed with which these poplars attain great height and wide circumference means that they will provide much useful lumber once they are felled. Their felling, however, shall require specialized equipment, many thousands of dollars, and much personal risk, which is why they still stand, today. On the one hand, these poplars are a nuisance; on the other hand, they are beautiful and majestic beings that are only doing what they were designed to do: to grow tall, quickly.

Human bodies function differently. Our limbs don't grow back once they are removed, and our bodies tend to stop growing once they have reached a terminal height. We surmise that an individual's maximal height is determined by a range of factors, including epigenetic markers, food supply, and such environmental conditions as average daily temperatures and levels of atmospheric pollution. Human minds, however, and our elusive but ebullient spirits, are more akin to the tree than we might image. Cut someone down to size, and she springs right back. Hack away (verbally, of course) at a person's high-flying dreams, and she aspires merely to greater heights. Such is the resilience of the soul that it will emerge from the ashes of its erstwhile destruction time and again, through Holocaust, gulag, and Inquisition, suffering the slings of televised content and the arrows of religious fervor but always and again re-inhabiting the pulsating core of these our poor mortal coils.

Human amputees often suffer from something called phantom limb syndrome, a condition characterized by the experiencing of pain in such parts of the body as are no longer attached to it. Do trees suffer from phantom branch syndrome, always yearning for tops that were lopped off and pining evermore for twigs and berries that will never be? I think that, similar to the more psychologically-resilient persons among us, trees accept the lot thrust upon them by the shifting winds of Fortune and make do with such gifts as they receive, even ones that come cloaked as curses. To conquer the desire to judge things as good or bad according to a narrow, human view of the universe is among our greatest challenges. Who among us can know for certain that what is lamb today won't be wolf tomorrow? Not I, dear friend, but, then, I am but a lowly whorphan of poor and stunted intellect.

(The author does not intend to disparage of amputees, human or otherwise.)

mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥

on using techmology

In an age that has witnessed the rapid spread of sophisticated hand-held computers, I find it hard to fathom how certain people still don't know how to use digital devices. “There's no instruction booklet,” they often say, or, “I don't know how to get back to the place where I can check my email.” If you are one such person, here are a few tips.

Tip #1: No matter how many buttons you push, you won't break the device. Every button has a name or icon on it to indicate what it does, so push each button in turn, wait to see what it does, and then memorize the steps needed to get to a certain area or to activate a favorite application. The hesitation to push a device to its limit is likely a holdover from analog times, when flimsy devices would break as soon as the user pulled what he should have pushed and twisted what he should have left alone. Computers may crash, but they tend to start back up again, good as new, so forget bygone concerns and have at it.

Tip #2: There are no instruction booklets because these devices are designed so that even brain-dead, snot-nosed teenagers can use them. Teenagers aren't smarter or better at using technology than the average adult – they are simply less afraid of making mistakes and just mash buttons until they get their device to do what they want it to do, whereupon they follow the same steps over and over again. (Besides, the instruction booklets of yore confused and frustrated more often than they helped, and only maybe one in ten users actually read them, so if you use that lame and tired excuse, please stop.)

Tip #3: If you find yourself in an area of your device that you don't recognize, find a button that looks like an arrow or that has the picture of an arrow on it and keep hitting that button until you can go no further and you find yourself back at square one. Then, start hitting buttons until you get where you want to go, and stay there. Only a handful of kids today do outrageous things with their hand-held computers; the rest use but a few applications – email, instant messaging, a social networking site, a music player, and maybe a video service – without ever delving into the inner workings of their devices or pushing their little toys to the limit.

Tip #4: When in doubt, ask a brain-dead, snot-nosed teenager for help. Seriously, nothing strokes their egos more than being asked to show Granny how to get back to her email inbox so she can see all those pictures of cherubic children her daughter-in-law keeps claiming to have sent. Get your device back promptly, though, unless you want to lose it forever to the fleet fingers of a trolling teen.

In the end, your stoic refusal to back down from a challenge will win the day and afford you all the advantages of the hand-held digital device. So step once more into the breech and mash those buttons until your tablet says, “Meep.” And, of course, mahalo.

mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥

people in motion

On a velocipede, or bicycle, a person is a largely independent entity beholden to few others. The velocipedist drags himself across the phaltscape (or asphalt landscape) by pumping a crank with his legs in order to move a thin chain across a series of skinny gear wheels. Beyond the maker of his smog-sled, he interacts only occasionally with replacement parts manufacturers. In order to commute across the face of the Earth, he requires neither filling station nor foreign oil; he has use for neither computer diagnostic tool nor power-train warranty; he spends his money on things other than monthly finance charges, oil changes, state inspections, and car washes; he is one person in motion whose mobility hinges on his ability to balance on a pair of rubber tires and to keep his head on a swivel.

Let us briefly consider, however, the operator of a motor-vehicle, or car. In order for her to move herself across the phaltscape, she needs prospectors, wildcatters, pipeline inspectors, ship captains and crews, deep-bore drill operators, indigenous security forces, foreign policy wonks, navies, supply-chain logistics specialists, fueling-station clerks, unleaded-gasoline delivery drivers, brake-line hose manufacturers, industrial robot maintenance engineers, TIG welding specialists, and many others; in order for her to stay in motion, a thousand other people need to be in motion; her mobility hinges upon all elements of a ridiculously complex system working together in perfect harmony, a thousand different people all doing their job with precision, care, and diligence.

On the one hand, the driver who fills up her car with gasoline keeps the money flowing to a thousand different persons working in a hundred different places; her actions grease the wheels of the global economy and tighten the bonds between peoples; her dependency on the pump, her slavery to the self-propelled chariot, fills the pockets of armies of workers around the globe. On the other hand, however, oil and its derivatives are a dirty business that relies on the burning of a useful and valuable resource; their production and removal taint the groundwater and the soil of any region where they are found; their sale has made the autocratic leaders of oppressive regimes – persons who support and finance terrorism – fantastically rich. The driver's mode of transportation leads to war and pollution, while that of the cyclist promotes self-sufficiency, healthful living, and peaceful interaction with both Nature and neighbor. Free yourself from that self-propelled glass and steel prison; mount a velocipede, today.

mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥

mirrors – mirrors everywhere

Look around you. That's right, take a good look around you. Unless you are visually-impaired or you lead a rugged, comfort-less existence out in the woods somewhere, then, while just having looked around, you probably saw a mirrored surface, something in which you saw a reflection of yourself having a look around. We surround ourselves these days with high-gloss, shiny, or mirrored items, with laptops, automobiles, mobile phones, tablet computers, windows, watch-faces, doors, door-handles, hubcaps, handlebars, plates, pots, spoons, and eyeglasses, to name a few. Oh the many mirrors one can gaze longingly into, losing oneself in the strangely hypnotic activity of making eye-contact with oneself. So is its profusion, and such is its commonality, that we can hardly imagine life without the mirror.

Consider, however, that just a few hundred years ago the primary reflective material was a calm surface of water, which only reflects well under optimal conditions and which requires the viewer to suspend himself over it to the point that objects start falling from his pockets and fluids start dripping from his face. Ancient societies understood the dangers of self-observation; their stories include a cautionary tale about a young man named Narcissus who so loved looking at his own reflection that he dove into a pond in an attempt to capture it, whereupon he was promptly ensnared and drowned by pond-nymphs. (I believe that the tale of Narcissus is meant to be taken as a warning of the dangers of getting caught in the tractor-beam of one's own reflection.) It wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that many people could afford mirrors or, for that matter, glass; before the 18th century, the few persons who could afford mirrors were fantastically rich individuals who were often so corrupt and so cruel that we wishe they'd have stared at their own reflections more often instead of eradicating villages and enslaving and torturing their own subjects. (The myth about seven years of bad luck resulting from a broken mirror probably dates to before the Industrial Revolution, when portable reflective objects were prohibitively expensive.)

Are we, today, better off for having mirrors everywhere, or can mirrors be blamed in part for our current theory of rational-selfishness (i.e. avarice), that wasteful, ego-centric, quasi-capitalistic economic system that drains our lives of its intrinsic value and imprisons our hearts in shells of self-serving egotism, rendering us incapable of respecting ourselves, each other, and Nature? I find it logical to assume that staring constantly at our own reflections reinforces the notion that we must first look out for ourselves, for Numero Uno, before sacrificing our time or money for the good of other people. Since beginning to ponder these questions, I have looked at my reflection only when necessary, such as when shaving my face or checking for ticks, avoiding even a sidelong glance into a mirror; when I do stop to look, I am often shocked to see the face I have come to associate with myself staring back at me, an image which correspond but poorly to the ebullient spirit burning deeply within my loins. The crux of the matter is this: mirrors disassociate the self from its tender humanity, from its intrinsic goodness; the act fuels and facilitates the ego's ability to hijack the soul, which results in greedy, self-righteous, and short-sighted behavior such as conspicuous consumption and self-banishment into wage-slavery. Therefore, dear friend, please avoid a mirror today, and rescue your soul from the ego's sticky clutches. Mahalo.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

to Benedict XVI

Dear Mr. Pope Benedict #16:

You read a speech on the first day of this new year of 2013 in which you condemned modern capitalism and the injustices it perpetuates. While giving this speech, you were likely wearing a silken robe and fancy hat, the price of which could have fed a thousand starving children for a month. While listening to your speech, the army of soft-skinned and corpulent men who serve as your bishops and cardinals were likely patting themselves on the backs for deciding to join one of the greediest and least-transparent organizations ever established; as they listened to you lament the death of kindness and generosity, these minions were likely having the lint brushed from their tailored suits and getting second helpings of rich and hearty meals while just outside their doorsteps children scraped and begged and died of curable diseases.

Instead of showing the world what it means to sacrifice by selling the tons of gold you and your henchmen continue to horde within your churches' gilded walls and using the proceeds thereof to fight poverty and gender inequality in all corners of the globe, you deny women the right to join the clergy and spend time writing books about how many donkeys might have witnessed the birth of a dark-skinned, wiry-haired manchild. If you were truly a man of god, you would not bellyache about the greed of others while your Catholic church sits on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of real estate and innumerable works of priceless art – you and yours would be out in the streets with dirt under your fingernails working tirelessly day and night to realize Jesus' lessons of frugality, love, and self-sacrifice.

I, too, am guilty of not doing enough to help my fellow man. However, I do not command the attention of a billion devoted believers across the globe, adherents who do just enough to satisfy their consciouses without truly impacting their finances, followers who blindly heap praises upon you, their debauchee-in-chief, a pontiff who dresses in golden threads and perambulates on luxurious carpets in earthy palaces that are filled with the opulent evidence of a millennium of self-aggrandizement. In my early teens, I met your predecessor, the Polish fellow named John Paul II. At one point, he wiped his thumb across my forehead; at the time, I thought it swell to have been blessed by a pope; now, however, I realize just how little his gesture meant, just how hollow his and your words are, and just how much you, Herr Ratzinger, are to blame for the sadness and privation we experience today. Shame on you, for your hypocrisy, and for having the power to do much but insisting on doing little.

mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥