Deathday Club - part 1

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

1 Corinthians 15: 54

    I stand in front of a window display. I remember a time when purple was the new lime, which was the new red, which was the new black. Black's made a comeback, with the intent that it won't be replaced soon nor easily. The evidence of which isn’t what I’m immediately looking at, but is rather in the peripherals behind the display. The display itself is instead a vomit of celebratory colors. I almost chuckle at my own wit: if you combined all these hues, combined their voices into one, it would create black.
    Others stream behind me, passing by and buying. Some glance at the exhibition of jubilation. Their eyes completely skip over me. I'm not here. The sun soars west beyond an interruption of clouds while the breeze floats east. The traffic light ignites into green. The river of cars instantly changes its current.
    Be alive, get moving. Everything else is. Not everything that moves is alive, but I'm beginning to think, in a dulled world, the one thing that glitters must be gold. I don't feel like that thing, and I don't feel like moving.

Bham

Now this video is a true tribute to Bellingham. What I'm about to share comes more from my love of word play than Bellingham, though (see video) Bellingham is a place worth loving.


Whatcom what may
I'll be here to stay
I don't want run away
I'll stick around the bay
we'll all frolic and we'll play
cause we like fair playin'
with all the hippies down here in Fairhaven

On the west coast
there's just one silver beach
next to the baker
who's never out of reach
no one's stuck in a rut
can't catch a can but
we can chuck a nut
and I tell you what
if you forget your clothes
then picnic in the cove
where nobody cares
and life's all teddy bears
where nobody cares
and life's all teddy bears

Take my hand, we'll fly to sunnyland
if it's up your alley, we'll run to Happy Valley
cause it's fun to skip, it's fun to roam
as long as everyone can Sehome

The weather may sadden
but don't lose that Padden
it will keep you warm when
the valley turns Sudden
when you need an idea
just scream Eureka
and just don't care how long it takes ya

It's good to have friends

If you read this, read it aloud:

Wine by the fire, you sayin' sweet things
I know you're a liar, and everything
the birdie kuckoos, you glance at the clock,
then I'm starin' down the barrel of a glock

pull the trigger bang bang I fall on my back
you kneel down on the ground and feel my neck
but my heart's beating strong and you, boy, were dead wrong

you jumped back, scared to death, I'd broken your flow
"Darn it all, you wore Kevlar, but how did you know?"
I must say it's the rage today, yeah a growing trend,
Baby it's good, oh baby it's good, baby it's good to have friends

I lift up my dress, withdraw the blade
by the stroke of twelve, we'll know who got played
in my hand he's my man say hi to bowie
so unlike you, he actually knows me

all my strength drive it deep into your chest
we tumble down on the ground both out of breath
I rip out my knife, no blood on it, oh, boy, now I've done it

whip out the wallet from your pocket, a hole in it
so you knew I've been screwed now how'd you spin it?
you smiled said the same reason you didn't meet your end
Baby it's good, oh baby it's good, baby it's good to have friends

A name change

I've changed the name of this blog. Previously, it was Parasitical References for my English 203 class, in which we explored the idea of parasites and then tried to think up whatever we could to blow our minds. That class is over, and I've decided to rearrange the furniture (not get rid of it, it's perfectly good furniture!) in order to make it a suitable space for whatever I feel like. Feel free to scroll down and peruse my ramblings on parasitical notions, or don't. But starting now, or rather, with "Odd Odysseus", this blog is a scrapbook.

And what of the name Fathoms? Well, if I ever had a studio or creative crew (like the all female staff CLAMP) I think I would want to name it "Fathoms". This blog naturally contains my creative aspirations.

Odd Odysseus? Circe’s Island Explained

Nearly a year after the release of Homer’s critically acclaimed biography of Odysseus of Ithaca, other eyewitnesses of the famed journey have stepped forth claiming that Odysseus’s account of the voyage are flooded with inaccuracies.

“Oh yeah, I don’t know where he got most of that stuff that he told Homer. But I can’t say I’m surprised. With his mental breakdown and exposure to hallucinogenic plants, Odysseus saw a lot of things that the rest of us guys didn’t see, if you know what I mean,” states an unnamed sailor of the Ithacan crew.

Of all of the fantastical events described in his Homer’s book, the eyewitnesses are only able to find a factual basis for the incident at Circe’s island.

“I don’t know where he got that Cyclops from, or those things that supposedly killed us all, but I think I know where came up with the island of Circe,” says another unnamed crewman. “Circe was the name of this beautiful young woman, that much was true. She moved to this island to get away from the mortal princes fighting over her. She was a goddess, but not an enchantress. She was a very hospitable hostess,” the sailor talked fondly of Circe.

He went on to explain the transformations Circe supposedly performed, “That deal with the some of the men turning into pigs? Well, there we were sitting on the beach, when this wild pig comes bolting from nowhere in particular. We’re thinking, ‘Great, food.’ But not Veginitis, he always had a soft spot for pigs. So, he rescues it claiming it’s his new best friend, and then he named it after a warrior we lost back in the Trojan War, a warrior he was close to. So we let him have the pig to keep him company.”

Eurylochus, Odysseus’s first mate, stepped forth to explain the temporary “disappearances” of the group he had led to explore the island. “It was true we came upon Circe’s house, but she didn’t turn my men into pigs. She invited us in for a meal, as is Greek custom for travelers, but I went back to tell Odysseus. At this time, Odysseus was having a hard time understanding anything we said, and I evidently got there after the thing with Veginitis and his pig. Odysseus thought somehow the pig had been a crew member. I tried explaining that my group was just having dinner, but he was convinced otherwise. Eventually we did get him to come with us.”
The eyewitnesses also had a discrepancy with Odysseus over the amount of time they stayed at Circe’s island. Though Odysseus reports that their stay was a year, the others all unanimously agree that it was only one week.

“If there was anything negative about Circe’s place, it was that she had a drug problem. What's more, Odysseus got a hold of some lotus blossoms,” stated Odysseus’s attendant.

Whether these revelations will hurt Homer’s sales or not remains to be seen.

I've gotta feva, and the only cure is...

And now, for something completely different. On a bus ride to Nampa, Idaho from Bellingham, I asked some teammates to give me a theme or topic to try to write a rap about. You see, I had bought an album from K’naan and was so impressed by his craftsmanship that I too, as John Dorian would put it, wanted to play with words. I figured the best exercise would be to receive a random topic. My teammates thought it would be clever to offer me “being lovesick, but with actual symptoms of being sick.” At first disheartened, I then boldly took on the task, the results of which are displayed below. The rhythm is bad, but I’m proud o’ me rhymes, yo.

I'm burnin up/ I've got a feva
I don't exaggerate/ I'm not a deceiva
so listen up/ become a believa
I say this is real/ and this is true
I got an infection/ brought on by thoughts a you
my blood's pumpin' faster/ to kill the invader
lettin' you close/ my biggest failure
and now I'm breathin harder than Darth Vader
Turnin' way greener than that Ralph Nader
they're outta control/ my swollen lymphnodes
nose is runnin' out on parole
hearing sounds like Depeche Mode
white cop cells cruising patrol
brain punchin' emergency codes
cause she thought it'd be slick
that scrawny girl Cheryl
to see me rap bout being lovesick

So, why include this in my blog? Well, we’d be really lost if we didn’t have symptoms. Symptoms, much like pain, let us know something is wrong. The difference lies in that symptoms are the effects of the body fighting, and pain is the body letting the brain know that it is being damaged and something should be done. These two mechanisms often collide, however. What to do when the symptoms cause pain? The body needs to fight, but the nerves are picking up distress signals. We are spurred to action, to relieve the symptoms and consequently the pain. Or as the case may be, we are spurred to inaction, to rest and wait it out.

It is interesting, that no matter which version of myself I am portraying (all versions are legitimate, of course), in the physical world the symptoms and/or pain will effect me equally, and this may be evident to others likewise regardless of with whom I am interacting (classmates, family, friends). But it is in that other realm that these corporal concerns stop short, and the only effects may be what the symptoms have on my sanity.

Sickness is contagious, it goes from person to person. What does my self have to fear from interacting on the internet? Is my internet avatar not only safe from the plague of real life but also immune to distresses in the internet world? Nay, I say. (I will disregard computer viruses.) Given that my avatar has no real internet body in which it can ground itself into an internet world of boundaries and laws, and since it is just a mental projection, I theorize that it is that more susceptible to the mental projections of others. When I am not careful, these influences will and do trickle their way to me, the source. Things are typed without the customary layers of filtering because there is far less fear of things being traced to the source, but in actuality this is the opposite, it is a false sense of security.

These raw thoughts perpetuate themselves, go on to influence others, and will in turn reach the source in the form of changed reality, changed interactions. I might argue that it could easily be a bad thing, since I feel that thoughts should and need to be weeded, trimmed, and refined to the sophistication complementary to our dignities as human beings. Degenerate thoughts are unfiltered thoughts, and when they become more and more the norm, so people start to feel it’s more and more alright to lower the fences and bars. We start to think of the world and especially people differently, for the worse, and the worst is that our minds, the source of our language, have answer to no symptoms of their own, no nervous symptom to warn that something is wrong.

Follow conspiracy theories, our minds wide open to propaganda beyond that of what we realize...

Anti-resurrection

An interesting thought that I have not typed until now: vampirism is an anti-resurrection. In the Christian idea of resurrection souls go to heaven and bodies rot in the ground. With vampires, the soul is trapped or absent (my best guess, anyway) and it is the body that continues its animation (anima- soul, spirit, breath in Latin). Whereas the Christian ideal is to proceed to heaven, and the Roman Catholic teaching that souls in heaven pray for those on earth, vampires instead prey on those on earth, cursing them to a hellish fate rather than blessing them on their own way to heaven. To be in heaven is communion with God, the vampire is repelled by Godliness. God rocks, vampires suck. Nothing too ground breaking, but I found it interesting that since vampirism seems to be the exact opposite of what people would hope for after death, it must be what is most dreaded, and perhaps impurely, guiltily appealing: to be driven by desire and the primal rather than a higher and harder calling. It seems a consensus in a lot of Vampire literature, however, that it is indeed no way to live, die, or to be resurrected.