Metaphor Quality May Vary
[from a semi-automatic writing session the other day]…
[…] it could be said that our choices rest soley on the quality and kinds of metaphors we are basing our choices upon. what if there were a way to filter out all but the best metaphors? — even to feed the good ones into a computer (or our fucking minds!) and have it test out and spit out the resulting lives or choices + consequences that would arise from each metaphor, and every kind of combination of metaphor — we’d choose the results most desirable to us personally — down to specifics — then the computer would generate some kind of detailed chart of the beliefs + values + metaphors and combination of those that would, if adopted (say, via some good hypnosis based on the chart) give us the results we are after. I guess that would be too easy, though, and boring… because what then?
WELL — lets not be too hasty to toss this out — if we made sure that the results we were after were open-ended — that they’d only up a world of even more fulfilling and challenging avenues into the future — then “what then?” could be met with some pretty AWESOME ANSWERS.
I’ll toss that into the universe’s future-forming algorhithmic thingy and hopefully some qualified super-intelligent entity will pick it up and roll with it […]
What Did Rhymes Ever Do?
Is it just me or has it become ‘cool’ these days for songwriters to go out of their way not to rhyme? I’ve never been terribly pro-rhyme, necessarily, but obviously there are both good and bad examples of very rhymy songs and very non-rhymy songs. I’m for a certain looseness and naturalness when it comes to these things.
But for those in the “It’s Way Cool Not To Rhyme”‘ camp, or anyone considering joining, just hold on a second. Just cool out! I bet you never thought of it this way before:
[the Tim said this in a recent email and I totally agree!]
“…That’s one of the things I took away from Kimya [Dawson]: periodic rhymes help push stories forward, create spaces and provide navigational anchors on the part of the listener who is being exposed to this massive stream of words.”
Three very important things mentioned in that one sentence that rhymes do. Think about it. If you’re averse to rhyming in your songs, maybe you’ve just been doing it badly?… Songwriting is a subtle art, after all. Don’t give up and don’t blame the rhymes.
Okay, I think we all know some Bruce Lee is in order:
” When one has reached maturity in the art, one will have a formless form. It is like ice dissolving in water. When one has no form, one can be all forms; when one has no style, he can fit in with any style.”
“In primary freedom, one utilizes all ways and is bound by none.”
God Is Not a Human
[scribbled upon waking from an unusually deep sleep, January 25, 2008]:
cloth beds hang from the ceiling in some dark, damp, beautiful - familiar - room. i’ve been inside it in dreams. it’s warm. i listen closely and hear birds and other beasts outside. what time and place have i found myself in this time? i like these smells i can’t quite recognize. they fill me with nostalgia for places I’ve never been, people I’ve never seen, a life I’ve never lived. how can that be? opening the opening, my jaw goes slack. the sky so wide and so alive. i never saw such wisdom in something so other, so not human. i never laid eyes upon the spirit world like this, right here in the middle of my world, spanning an entire horizon and sending me back inside to compose myself. am i awake? i’ve never been more awake. am I alive? I’ve never been less dead. i’m not alone, i realize when a hand on my shoulder with a sweet lady voice attached brings my attention back to the room with the warm smells. they’re her smells and i am not a woman. i am her husband. i am in love with her. she is my true friend. she is a sight like the sky. she is wise. she is alive like no one I’ve ever seen in the time I came from, which was when…? i can’t grasp it like i could moments ago. i feel a sense of mild loss, and it is replaced with a sense of gaining everything. so this is my real life. so this is my real home. so that was all a dream. there is no sun here, just the light of truth everywhere. there is no sadness, not in this moment. but I do know of it. it can be felt, even in this place. probably because sadness is a beautiful color too, when it’s sung right.
Silly Man Woman Witch of the Sea
[excerpt from an automatic writing session following a freaky nap-dream]:
[…] what… you again. you. you and your silly, slippery ways. silly lady of the sea. I see you now and again when I close my eyes to the land lovers’ lies. but you have lies of your own, don’t you. I’ve heard them uttered by all those you’ve conned into spreading your word. don’t think I’m so foolish as they. don’t think I won’t slam the door in your beautiful face. you are wily and lovely, it’s true. I even love you, though it pains me to admit this, terribly. you disguise yourself as a new boy every year or two, and I fall for it for a little while, sometimes a long while, but always, somewhere down the road to that special kind of hell you beckon me into, I recognize the subtle stench of misery ahead, and your true face is once again revealed, the dark feminine witch of the sea, where live all of my repressed fears, desires and memories. you’ve fooled me once, you’ve fooled me twice and you’ll fool me again. I have no doubt. our little game has gained an almost welcome feeling of home, at least once I figure things out. and that’s always right before your tentacles plunge me under for good, always in time to make my escape. and for that moment or two I feel alive in the struggle and proud in the triumph, which is more perhaps than most can say. and what else do I have to do? it’s all a game anyway. we make enemies of ourselves so we can battle them and feel like winners. or losers. but always like we’ve put up a good fight. the real fight always eluding us, of course, but we’re good at ignoring what we don’t want to think about. seasoned experts we are at lying to ourselves. but some of us are clever at both ends! we build lie detector brain thingies to keep ourselves alert to our own deceptions. so don’t you dare think me foolish like the others, silly man woman witch of the sea […]
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