As Though Writing a Blog

"Reb Natan, writes that his master [Reb Nachman] said that one studies Torah as though studying Torah, prays as though praying, and performs the commandments as though performing them. There can be no true worship of God, only pretend worship, which becomes transmuted into worship by realizing its comic nature."

From Abraham! Abraham! Kierkegaard and the Hasidim on the Binding of Isaac by Jerome I. Gellman

I love this!

Thus, I'm going to write my thesis as though writing my thesis, and hopefully that will work out ok.

3 Things

"if one generation succeeded the other as the songs of birds in the woods, if the human race passed through the world as ship through the sea or the wind through the desert, a thoughtless and fruitless whim, if an eternal oblivion always lurked for its prey and there were no power strong enough to wrest it from its clutches -- how empty and devoid of comfort life would be!"

- Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

Like Pure Water Touching Clear Sky

I just got this in the mail. It's pretty amazing. I mean, I already know what he sounds like, but it is always very interesting and tingling to listen to someone read their work aloud which you have already read aloud in your head. Listening to him read one of my favourite bits from A Confederate General From Big Sur (the bits with "The Punctuation Marks in Ecclesiastes") is especially strange and awesome for silly reasons like the way he puts a slightly different emphasis in the bit that goes,

"Certainly before they build a ship they know how many rivets it takes to hold the ship together and the various sizes of the rivets. I was curious about the number of rivets and sizes of those rivets in Ecclesiastes, a dark and beautiful ship sailing on our waters."

The way he read the first bit is somewhat more robotic, accentuating the repetition of the word "rivets", than I read it in my mind, but the last bit he somehow makes even more awesome and beautiful than my mind ever did. That isn't surprising though.
The bits that are the most amazing are "The Sounds Of My life In San Francisco" bits. Listening to him laugh, and talk about coffee and making a meal with his friends. Sounds of him taking off his clothes, having a bath or brushing his teeth and a motorcycle taking off in the background. There is something very special about being able to hear someone turn off a light switch in San Francisco in 1969. I don't know what. But what a great guy.
Here's a poem he wrote and read aloud into a microphone:

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (1968)

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labours
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

This Is How

Aaron: yesh
we totally spoil ish that lovely mutt
that big black oat cake
that bowl of coco pops
that four legged rugged paint tin
me: that big ball of fluffy spaghetti
Aaron: that large coal encyclopedia
me: i am smiling so hard right now
i love it when you get all
absurd
Aaron: me too
me too
me: you bag of onion muffs
Aaron: you engorged frying pan love. okay pie
i think im gonna try en walk malka
me: go walk her toosh off
Aaron: you big footed ivanhoe
i will
me: go you swift marigold
Aaron: like the smelly wind

PIU-re Poetry