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.

Murrrrrr...

No, I won't say it.

Actually, I think I have to. It used to be a perfectly good word, but it's been taken from me. Or rather, it's a word I don't want anymore because it's become infected. I simply can't say avatar without people thinking about the James Cameron movie. I knew this day was coming, ever since I learned that M. Night. Shyamalan's rendition of Avatar: The Last Airbender would be known simply as the "the Last Airbender".

The Last Airbender is probably my favorite animation of all time, and I've watched a lot in my time, both American and Japanese. Airbender embodies my ideal mixture, ideal style of story telling: clean but hilarious, epic but with lighter moments, goreless but with a seriousness to the violence, romantic but without any lust (a bit redundant, since I don't find lust romantic at all). The point of bringing up this masterpiece, besides telling you, my dear reader, to just go and watch it, is that I can not bring it up by the name I had known it as in casual conversation. With my brother, sure, if given the proper context I can simply say "Avatar" and mean the cartoon, but that's it. Now I always have to say "The Last Airbender", "Avatar, that cartoon", "the Nickelodeon kids' show formerly known as Avatar". Bummer. If you would believe it, this is not the first time I've had the word "avatar" taken from me.

Quite a while ago, I had this idea for a series. The basic premise is that the mythological pantheons are based on beings that existed, but the stories of them differed so much from the source as to be near unrecognizable, somewhat like the Bishop St. Nicholas and our modern Santa Claus. Given that these beings, twelve in number, were present all over the world, stories of pantheons also exist all over the world. These beings decide to disappear for a while because they didn't like being worshipped, but vowed to return when the earth was in trouble. In the near future, twelve superheroes are born as successors, possessing only a portion of the original godlike powers, since they're human. Avatars. Avatar is such a great term to use with them, even though they're not technically reincarnations (the identity crisis of these heroes is a major theme, as they don't know if they are reincarnations or just the next holders to the torch). Then I heard about the cartoon, and decided I should stay away from, at the very least, entitling my series "Avatar", though perhaps I’ll still use it to refer to the superheroes in story. Now, of course, using “Avatar” anywhere in any sort of title would probably not be in good style. Not for many years, anyway. I must wait for that parasite that has latched onto those six letters to die, when people stop thinking about smurfs at its sound and perhaps think about Indian mythology instead, Vishnu rather than Jake Sully. Time heals all wounds, perhaps it’s also the best antibody.

But isn’t time the very thing parasites steal from us? Whether it’s shortening our lives or disrupting them, we lose time over parasites. Something interrupts us, and we say, “I don’t have time for this”. We never have time for parasites, so parasites have to take it. What happens if we gave our time to parasites? They stop being parasites. We volunteer to help the homeless, they stop being leaches, they become those in need. We bat away the mosquitoes who are after our nutrients and blood, but we purposely attach a baby to our breast so he or she (not it) drains as much as he or she needs. We yell at strays, but feed the dog we’ve adopted into the family. Family is always worth our time. Sometimes. When we find that family members have become too disruptive, too much of an inconvenience, they too become parasites. “No, I don’t have change” or “No, I’m not going to come and get you from the police station.” Even if they don’t end up taking our wanted money and gas, loved ones may weigh on the mind, taking our valuable thought.

However, love might overcome the disruption, the love that propels one to swim oceans and climb mountains for a person. If someone does something for another out of love, it’s not a parasitic relationship, though it can appear that way to outsiders. I’m writing of true love. If I would be allowed to speak of theology for a moment, and I am because it’s my blog, it’s true love that decrees us as children to God rather than parasites of His creation. No matter what we do, we can not inconvenience or disrupt God. Unfortunately, I don’t think love will help me get that word back, unless I can create something even more beloved than James Cameron’s Avatar. Time will tell.