Friday, June 1, 2018

The Fallacy Of Misplaced Concreteness


The mushrooms tell me I'm broken. I hop into a dream and peg a penumbra to the purge display.  This helps tug a small round hill into place. I chop the invectives into a butterfly slap. Things proceed merrily. Even the rafters have a sheen of spectral dispatch. We slither through a world that is partly the invention of our perceptions and partly the harp of a towheaded python named Trinket the Mighty. And then I ask myself: why do I do this? Why do I constantly search for outer space? Why do I search for a semantic portal to another dimension? I’m guess I’m just not satisfied with the results of arbitration. The trade talks have collapsed into the basement releasing a colony of bats. Fortunately, I have two thumbs and a load of fingers that come in quite handy when it comes to grabbing things, or catching the weight of my body when I fall trying to grab things. Some things cannot be grasped by the hands. These would be invisible things, imponderable things, things like paradigms and summer vacations. It is what Alfred North Whitehead called the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness, though I prefer to call it a sandwich. I feel elemental at times like this, the vibration of electromagnetic forces creating a hotel for my mind. Your mind, my mind, makes no difference. Maybe there is no mind. Maybe there is only mu, non-existence, non-being, the original non-being from which being is produced, which is sometimes strangely sexual, sometimes strangely swollen. But thank you for sending the parrots, I appreciate it. The water in the bowl differs from the bowl, but the lamp oil burns cleanly and is superior to kerosene. I can hear the insoluble yell of chemistry as it walks beneath the muffins. I shall consider the abalone as a shout to communion, and will carry a bubbly insinuation wherever I go. If the ignition is dusty it is because the revival of classical culture is still blissfully incoherent. In the meantime, we have Beowulf and New Brunswick. Cooperation is a great asset for any team, but sometimes too much collaboration can get in the way of one’s personal iridescence. I need to revisit the question of antennas, how they manage to interface between radio waves, bringing in sounds of the external world and sometimes emitting the chirps of a stubborn cricket, that thing I call a heart, and the poetry of Frank O’Hara. Once I understand a thing I will tell it to authorize a willow, or wallow in a willow the way the willow itself wallows in willowing. When we dream, feathers and wings lift us into a rain we cannot grasp and it is here that anguish is found, and the bristles of dogs and hairbrushes. You can take the world upside-down or sideways but one way or another you should fasten your seatbelt. It’s a rough ride. Look how ravenous the crows are, how various bruises fly through the house looking for arms and legs to inhabit. We can pin this sleeve if we just find enough structure. Until then, I will pull as hard as I can on the wheel until this next swerve is over, and stop for some gas in Ukiah, which means “deep valley” in the Yuki language, and can be found along U.S. Route 101.



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