In the most formal of settings, socks should always be black. In any other situation, however, they ought to be white. One should often walk around outside wearing socks, for they are the perfect medium between bare feet and shoes. If the pavement is a bit too hot or cold, a sock is adequate, and you still reap the benefits of feeling every pebble that you step on. After your walk, you can look at the bottoms of your socks and revisit your journey. Let the socks become black with dirt! Earn your formality!
We have a name for a superficially exciting but ultimately bleak state of consciousness: hypnagogia. The street acts like a threshold that has been taken out of context, a place that invites that we smash the idols without any intention of replacing them. Thus, here the nectar of the Gods does not come in a jug - more likely a syringe. The tube, diachronically schematized, at least allows somebody else to remember the pain of the experience. This particular type of pain is perhaps the only thing that we can abstract from the signpost and the little scraps of plastic madness that litter the avenue. This scattering is the most pragmatic, the most poetic and the most positively destructive. But alas, I have slain it all; the blood mixes in the tube, the street... the metaphor lays drunk and deceased on the sidewalk, uttering sweet moan; let us leave this logical carcass for the worms! Let us turn the corner and see something else.
Here is our peripheral ontology: any move toward a center is a type of moving away; we become absurd. I can only hope to become an illegible bit of feverish marginalia, never static and always with static charge, above and below texts.
At The Mall: Senior Citizen Superconductor
Early in the morning, the elderly perform a secret ritual at the shopping mall - so secret, in fact, that even they are not quite cognizant of what they yield. While the stores are all closed and the young fools eat their cotton candy, our elders walk in laps, or large circles, and generate a type of energy that radiates into the metropolis. It is a quiet hum, like the power lines that stretch over our homes, yet they need no power grid; they are much more comprehensive.
This is an excerpt from an email that I wrote to Jacob. K-Lande requested that I post it. Enjoy.
Eating Breakfast with Wittgenstein:
I say, "there is an egg." What if I approach it with the intention of procurement, and suddenly the egg disappears from sight? Then we conclude that it was not an egg, but an illusion. Breakfast can be so frustrating. But suddenly, the egg re-appears, and we can touch it and eat it. Is this still an egg? We cannot know the meaning of "egg" because we are not equipped with rules for every application of "egg." If we assert that it is still an egg, we admit that we attach no meaning to the word "egg." Breakfast is hopeless, and this happens to me every time I eat!
Then I think of Humpty-Dumpty and the tragic case of the egg becoming irreparably cracked, a sad commentary on the existential sorrows that we must weather whether we sit on walls or not. Of course if we are overly cautious, we end up living our lives as though we are "walking on eggshells," a rather crunchy state of affairs. If we place all our eggs in one basket, we can make an excellent still-life painting. Lovely. Dump all the eggs out of the carton, set them on fire, and watch them roll down the road. Stop answering the door and never open packages.
-PBC
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