dreamstate writing 11 May 2018

During much of this morning’s dream I was worming my way through the hallways and staircases of a vast series of interlocking, cliff-mounted structures. Sometimes I was alone, and sometimes hordes of other people crowded into the structures’ rooms, making it hard for me to move around. I was trying to get from one disc golf tee-box to another, but these were spaced far apart from one another and the layout of the place was confusing, causing me to climb many stairs and squeeze down many tunnels built into and through the homes of the people living there. Each time I threw my discs, they sailed out of view. Although I knew were they had landed, I had a difficult time figuring out how to get there through the maze of interlocking buildings.

At one point, I was standing at the top of a staircase conferring with some of the people judging the event (or who were at least doing something officious). Turning around, I found the stairs behind me so impossibly packed with people that my only recourse for descending to the floor below was to jump out over the side of the railing and hand-carry myself on the outside edges of the individual steps to the floor below. As I reached the bottom my legs brushed against the stockinged feet of a lass resting with two other women on a couch. She immediately stripped her socks off whilst giving me evil looks, to which I responded (as I was walking out a nearby door) by mocking her concern for her striped and colorful socks, saying something like “My legs aren’t that dirty.”

Later in the dream sequences, I was in an alpine city built onto level ground that was covered with a few inches of slushy snow. Despite the presence of frozen precipitation I knew the city was on Bali, the Island of the Gods, somewhere high up the side of one of its towering volcanoes. The city was party ruined, many of its sparsely-placed high-rise buildings damaged or collapsed, but its streets were packed with cars, buses, and people attending to business. Twice whilst in the city I stepped up into a burnt-out single-family home in which stood a representation of my deceased father, an older man with grey hair but strong arms and big hands who embraced me in a great hug and asked why I was groaning in pain and weeping loudly. (After the second time meeting the older man I indeed lay awake in bed crying, hugging myself about the chest, and basking in the memory of those who have died before me.) Falling back asleep, I found myself sitting in the slushy snow talking to a bypassing woman wearing a tan overcoat, who had stopped to admonish me to seek a drier place to sit lest I catch the sniffles.

The thick wool socks I was wearing, though they like the rest of me sat in mounds of cold wet, were nonetheless bone dry, which to my dream-consciousness seemed slightly odd.

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

on NOMB

Are you tired of using the oh-so-2009 acronym TMI to tell others that they are sharing Too Much Information? Do you yearn for a new acronym, one capable of expressing your complete lack of interest in whatever your counterpart is saying? Do you find yourself searching in vain for the perfect set of letters that will best communicate your complete and total indifference to anything but whatever is going on in your own life?

If you have answered yes to any of these questions, the acronym NOMB is for you! This hot new buzzword – which stands for None Of My Business – is sweeping airwaves and cellular text-message transmission pathways alike. Get on board with the cool cats of the NOMB crowd and start telling everyone you know to go fuck themselves in the most tactful and nicest possible way – by stating that anything, and everything, is None Of My Business. Is your girlfriend having a rough menstrual cycle? NOMB. Did your dad just lose his job? NOMB. Has your second cousin just lost his home to a freakish spate of massive, killer tornadoes? NOMB.

It is just that simple to NOMB the balls off of just about anyone moaning like a gut-shot deer mule about how shitty his life is. Don't stay stuck in the dreary old Aughts – join the up-to-the-minute, Totally-Twenty-Twelve set by NOMBing (i.e. NOMB-bombing) everyone, everything, everywhere, and every time. Is your teacher in your face about that homework assignment? NOMB. Have you failed to cast a ballot in any of the last four presidential elections? NOMB. Did your dog just kill a toddler? NOMB. If you are as cool of a cat as you claim to be, you should be catching on to the awesome power of NOMB, so limber up your texting thumbs, and start carpet-NOMBing, today.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

laurel of godlike achievement

  The founders of America were influenced primarily by two religions: Christianity and Hellenistic polytheism (see here). Our halls of government are festooned with plaques referencing the Christian texts (see here); let those same halls ring with praises for the people of this land who most readily display the virtues of those gods whose spirit filled the minds of Thomas Jefferson and his ilk.
  In the Christian tradition, achievements made by non-Christians are often ignored, swept under by the praises sung to individuals who have sacrificed solely for the cause of that religion, individuals who labored for what is considered, according that religion, positive change. The ancient Greeks, however, were not so partial to positivity – indeed, they preferred waiting to see how the chips would fall to the judging of actions based solely on how they helped to expand the scope of a particular religion.
  In the ancient Greek world, men who in battle displayed the guile, the strategic mind, the cunning, of goddess Athena were said to be the embodiment of that god, to be filled with her spirit. Great fashion designers were hailed as exhibiting the virtues of Arachne, the goddess of the seamstress, while skilled orators were said to be filled with the essence of Hermes, the god of public speaking.

  I hereby propose the creation of a group to determine, via a thorough and national vetting process, those Americans who in our times are most filled with the spirit of the Greek gods that so vastly influenced the founders of this nation.
  Great generals will receive the Laurel of the Owl and Shield for displaying heroic endeavor and cunning battle strategy, characteristics of goddess Athena.
  Great poets and authors will receive the Laurel of the Arrow and Lyre for displaying the poetry and truthfulness attributed to god Apollo.
  Great diplomats and merchants will receive the Laurel of the Winged Boot for exhibiting the diplomacy and cunning wiles attributed to god Hermes.
  Great societal disruptors and street artists will receive the Laurel of Helm and Spear for their civil disorder and manly courage, attributes they share with god Ares.

  Many other gods exist in the Olympian pantheon, and many more Laurels will be issued. The awards will be distributed in recognition of achievements that in any significant way affect the course of the nation, be they the actions of a spray-painting mad genius or the destruction of a Taliban outpost by special forces operatives dodging bullets in the torn landscape of Helmland province.

  The concept of the Laurel of Godlike American Achievement will celebrate people from all castes, all groups, all races, and all religions. It will allow the people to select from within their midst those individuals who exhibit the virtues we hold most dear, such as inventiveness, risk-taking, motherhood, and skateboarding where skateboarding is prohibited. It will whip the masses into a great churning froth of Happiness by giving them something to which to aspire, such as knowledge of the woodland arts (Artemis), metalworking and sculpture (Hephaestus), and the celebration of eternal youth (Dionysus), aspirations other than those based purely on the accumulation of capital or on the ability to repeat the same religious mantras for years on end.
  Your suggestions are welcome. Your readership is appreciated. Your hope springs eternal.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp