Time Out of Mind
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Welcome back! A . .. tknahs for tnnuig itno the Psychogenic Re-fugue-ee, brought to you . ....... ... ...... Moutn of Oviels . ........ ........... and by Bowie-O's! "Try Some; Buy Some!" When we last left our hero, he was deep in the bowels of pork-product hell, deliberating with his trans-dimensional traveling companion, the inimitable Cosmic Cricket over the respective æsthetic appeal of the reverses on the coins of the several Euro-Zone nations. A quick recap: While the Cosmic Cricket finds the proportional ode to reason embodied in Italy's Vitruvian Man design soothing to his Inter-Planar Soul, our dissociative protagonist insists that to his mind (fallible and mortal as he may freely admit it to be) the Greeks have, with their Athenian drachma motif, a playful and enchanting "meta-currency" that is not be discounted. Both sides are all too ready to agree, however, that the Hun — ever cautious these days — is bartering for his beers and Beamers a feathered travesty such as one would expect from the Swiss, and on par in creativity with the Belgians. What is needed, for the sake of the patriotic, Teutonic numismatist, is a light to shine in the darkness, perhaps in the form of a glossy day planner. The two agree to draft a petition calling for change — a nice Mephistopheles bust maybe................. ................ ... . . . ... ... ........... .... .... ....... ... .. . . ........ . . .. .. .. .. .. . .. ....... ....... .. . .. .. ... ..... .. .. .. .. .... .... .. .. ... ..
The problem I have with blogging is symptomatic of the overarching inferiority complex that governs most of the higher-order mental processes taking place in my brain at any give time. Why, I ask myself, would my friends and close relations (much less the ostensible, unknown Internet denizens trawling about for their next Reality fix) want to read a single sentence describing my decidedly quotidian existence out here in the woods — especially with all the far more enticing fetish porn out there? I guess I've just always had a hard time taking blogging seriously. From the first time I heard the talking heads (lowercase, mind) prattling on in their watch-me-get-paid-to-be-dumber-than-you-and-on-TV-yet way that I find so compelling sounding the death-knell of "mainstream media" and heralding the influence of the "blogosphere" over everything from Presidential Elections to bottled water, the whole thing struck me as a singularly self-absorbed affair — the kind of thing one used to keep locked up under one's bed, as he secretly hopes to become famous enough that someone might want to publish it posthumously. Assuming, that is, his mother doesn't toss it out like yesterday's Ghostbusters. I suppose I can understand the desire to get those thoughts into the public sphere before they're unceremoniously shipped to the dump (just like Ecto-Glow Heroes Egon, which I told you was going to be worth something someday!), but I was never really one for the "see what sticks method". But blogging is big, of course, and much bigger than my opinion of it. So what to do when people I know, people whose opinions I respect start blogging? I decide to see if there's something to the whole thing after all and see if I can't make it somehow useful, or at least unique to me. You read the results over seven months in 2006-2007, when I convinced myself that maybe up and moving to a new continent for a semester might actually be something people want to read about, and anyway it would save me a ton of money on postage. As the months wore on, though, and I fell into the routines that comfort us all and protect our sanities in our daily lives, I felt I had exhausted all the interesting things I had to say. In addition, my online photo albums had developed into a much better documentation of my travails, with the added benefit (what with pictures and their proverbial value-ratios to the word) that all I needed to type up for the photos were snappy, witty captions, a task to which I find my brain much more suited. At this point, you are asking yourself (and rightly so), "I've waded through all this shit, even the thing with the grasshopper, which I still don't get, and I still don't know, why, if you hate blogging so much, you have decided to foist this rambling philippic upon the unsuspecting Internets, bursting already with rumors as they are." Well, the upshot of all this is that I have been goaded by my dearest Meredith for some time now to get back into the web-logging swing of things (she assures me I have interesting things to say, and an entertaining style in which to say them), and as a means to that end, she has put a link to this very page in her own blog (see link above), so that any Tom, Dick or Harry out there can just click on it and see that I haven't updated since May! Can you imagine! I would just die of shame ...on the Internet!!! So that's pretty well why I'm here, plus or minus a lot of rambling justification. To close, I'll just say that, for the moment, I'm back. I may not update frequently, or have anything interesting to say at all, but maybe I can use this strange invention of our modern world to somehow organize my life and restore clarity to my, of-late, fogged and befuddled thoughts. Well anyway, buckle up and enjoy the ride. I can't promise we'll actually go anywhere, but if you're really good, when we're stopped at a red light, I'll let you hold the wheel and pretend your driving.
Welcome back! A . .. tknahs for tnnuig itno the Psychogenic Re-fugue-ee, brought to you . ....... ... ...... Moutn of Oviels . ........ ........... and by Bowie-O's! "Try Some; Buy Some!" When we last left our hero, he was deep in the bowels of pork-product hell, deliberating with his trans-dimensional traveling companion, the inimitable Cosmic Cricket over the respective æsthetic appeal of the reverses on the coins of the several Euro-Zone nations. A quick recap: While the Cosmic Cricket finds the proportional ode to reason embodied in Italy's Vitruvian Man design soothing to his Inter-Planar Soul, our dissociative protagonist insists that to his mind (fallible and mortal as he may freely admit it to be) the Greeks have, with their Athenian drachma motif, a playful and enchanting "meta-currency" that is not be discounted. Both sides are all too ready to agree, however, that the Hun — ever cautious these days — is bartering for his beers and Beamers a feathered travesty such as one would expect from the Swiss, and on par in creativity with the Belgians. What is needed, for the sake of the patriotic, Teutonic numismatist, is a light to shine in the darkness, perhaps in the form of a glossy day planner. The two agree to draft a petition calling for change — a nice Mephistopheles bust maybe................. ................ ... . . . ... ... ........... .... .... ....... ... .. . . ........ . . .. .. .. .. .. . .. ....... ....... .. . .. .. ... ..... .. .. .. .. .... .... .. .. ... ..
The problem I have with blogging is symptomatic of the overarching inferiority complex that governs most of the higher-order mental processes taking place in my brain at any give time. Why, I ask myself, would my friends and close relations (much less the ostensible, unknown Internet denizens trawling about for their next Reality fix) want to read a single sentence describing my decidedly quotidian existence out here in the woods — especially with all the far more enticing fetish porn out there? I guess I've just always had a hard time taking blogging seriously. From the first time I heard the talking heads (lowercase, mind) prattling on in their watch-me-get-paid-to-be-dumber-than-you-and-on-TV-yet way that I find so compelling sounding the death-knell of "mainstream media" and heralding the influence of the "blogosphere" over everything from Presidential Elections to bottled water, the whole thing struck me as a singularly self-absorbed affair — the kind of thing one used to keep locked up under one's bed, as he secretly hopes to become famous enough that someone might want to publish it posthumously. Assuming, that is, his mother doesn't toss it out like yesterday's Ghostbusters. I suppose I can understand the desire to get those thoughts into the public sphere before they're unceremoniously shipped to the dump (just like Ecto-Glow Heroes Egon, which I told you was going to be worth something someday!), but I was never really one for the "see what sticks method". But blogging is big, of course, and much bigger than my opinion of it. So what to do when people I know, people whose opinions I respect start blogging? I decide to see if there's something to the whole thing after all and see if I can't make it somehow useful, or at least unique to me. You read the results over seven months in 2006-2007, when I convinced myself that maybe up and moving to a new continent for a semester might actually be something people want to read about, and anyway it would save me a ton of money on postage. As the months wore on, though, and I fell into the routines that comfort us all and protect our sanities in our daily lives, I felt I had exhausted all the interesting things I had to say. In addition, my online photo albums had developed into a much better documentation of my travails, with the added benefit (what with pictures and their proverbial value-ratios to the word) that all I needed to type up for the photos were snappy, witty captions, a task to which I find my brain much more suited. At this point, you are asking yourself (and rightly so), "I've waded through all this shit, even the thing with the grasshopper, which I still don't get, and I still don't know, why, if you hate blogging so much, you have decided to foist this rambling philippic upon the unsuspecting Internets, bursting already with rumors as they are." Well, the upshot of all this is that I have been goaded by my dearest Meredith for some time now to get back into the web-logging swing of things (she assures me I have interesting things to say, and an entertaining style in which to say them), and as a means to that end, she has put a link to this very page in her own blog (see link above), so that any Tom, Dick or Harry out there can just click on it and see that I haven't updated since May! Can you imagine! I would just die of shame ...on the Internet!!! So that's pretty well why I'm here, plus or minus a lot of rambling justification. To close, I'll just say that, for the moment, I'm back. I may not update frequently, or have anything interesting to say at all, but maybe I can use this strange invention of our modern world to somehow organize my life and restore clarity to my, of-late, fogged and befuddled thoughts. Well anyway, buckle up and enjoy the ride. I can't promise we'll actually go anywhere, but if you're really good, when we're stopped at a red light, I'll let you hold the wheel and pretend your driving.
posted by Matt at
11:08 PM
1 Comments:
Dear Psychogenic Re-fugue-ee,
About fifteen years ago now I worked at Bermann Research Ltd., a small, privately owned lab located in the desert just outside of Los Alamos. I still remember vividly the lonely night drives back home to Ruidoso Downs. With the pins and needles of faulty inductions still tingling in my upper arms, and the savor of strange chemicals wafting up from my hands, I hummed along roads paved with loosely packed red dust, tracing snaking paths through the shadowed mesas sloping on either side, craggy in the moonlight like great furrowed brows. I'd skirt the arroyos, the wide mouths carved through a by thin silver ribbons of trickling water. That kind of landscape really gets to you, and, in the immense, unchanging solitude, you're forced to back into yourself, your eye turns inward. There wasn't much else to fill the hours back then, and so I worked long nights, having earned myself a key that I kept attached to a loop on my belt. It granted me access to the lab at all hours of the night, and, meditating over a cold cup of coffee, I'd often hold a vigil well into the early morning. You might call it a lonely existence, and I couldn't say much to disagree; but there was something about it that was kind of...well, comforting, if that's the right word. I still remember, and hear sometimes, too, on those nights, rarer now, when the dark is still and I start fancying myself to feel very alone, as I fit the key to the door that alone holds me from sleep, I say I could swear I almost can hear the sound of Santalobo, my big brown hound, scratching out the worn screen door, anxious for his evening meal, a pat on the head and a game of fetch in the cool night air, through brambles and cactus patch, under the cold clear light of the desert stars. But that old dog died years ago, and it's always just the rumble of an old motor along the Interstate; or the uneasy hum of the florescent light at the end of the hall. I've hardly said this to anyone, and from the ones I've told not a single one's believed me, although they may say as much with their words; but words don't mean everything, and I think a man like you probably understands that. And I think it's not just a weary hope that's telling me you'll understand this too...I swear, that night, athwart the generator, through the polarized lenses girded to a pyramid, I saw something - not, from the gurney to my back, the green reflected light of the flame from my pile of burning alloys, nor, I say, the vapor blue discharge from the metallic oblong I'd just fixed into the ceiling, which the vertex of the pyramid grazed with its platina spire. What I saw was not green, nor blue, but dusky red like a charring ember, or a pitted spot grazing a circumference round the Sun. My lab coat, as if tussled by a wind loosened in the sealed chamber, began to flap and whisper about me, began to stretch its folds towards the center of that glowing pit.
It blinked at me twice before I pulled the switch that blasted it to ether.
Anyway, if I can ever be of any service to you, don't hesitate to contact me at the indicated address.
Sincerely,
Dr. Leo G. Grote
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