Nothin’ but dormant congealed lard behind beady blank eyes, Lor’ bless ‘em.

Ipso fatso, I rest my case.

Dust yer mitts ‘n pack ‘er up, boys – nothin’ more to say or see here.

Ok, fun’s fun, but what I want to know is – what am I even TALKING about?

You’re right, Milhouse: fun IS fun.

Ok, I’ll stop.

Contrary to the evidence heretofore presented, television has not, in fact, rotted my brains; though long ago having been hooked in, via symbolic Z-Feeder, to the sewage-stream of American popular culture, some characteristic ruts or routines have indubitably (and indelibly) been graven into my gray matter, my mind, mentation, perception, and perspicacity – to say nothing of the jellied heap of gray lard heaped between my ears – are top-notch, spic ‘n span, and aaaall man, baby girl.

Knawmsayin?

You know – Z-Feeder:

My poor palimpsest-brain.

But you know, that’s ok.

I don’t actually look at it that way – as some pristine slate etched and over-etched into an incomprehensible and irreparable mess that it would be better to have broken, like Moses’s first divine draft of his tablets of testimony, than to continue to schlep around.

Brains ain’t like that, nor is knowledge neither, and yours is broken if you thinks so, bless your heart.

I look at it like language, which brings to mind something I haven’t thought of in a while – doings and happenings of twenty years ago.

I won’t cheapen, dilute, or profane that time and what unfolded within it by sharing its details here, but this little moment within it is worth sharing.

I met a young woman, a beautiful golden flower of a girl, and for a season the love between us grew into something to behold.

When I’ve reflected on the different women I’ve loved and known since (and before) her, something about her and that time we shared was just… different.

Point being...

We got to know each other over a span of time, in really a sweet and innocent way, and one of those ways was me spending time in a group of her friends, at the house of one of these friends’ parents.

I remember her silently watching me interact with them, using the opportunity to weigh my character while her heart silently began to open to me.

Point being...

One of those friends, Erica, turned out to be a huge Simpsons-fan – like, the kind of fan I had rarely met up until that point, especially if we’re talking about girls, which I am now.

I mean, she loved The Simpsons the way I did – watching it over and over, absorbing its essence and all its details, till in a sense it became a part of me, such that the reflection of its world that arose and took on life in my own inner world became the generative soil for the birth of a language – a shorthand, or more-than-shorthand, or maybe better, a thieves’-cant…

Yeah, that’s the image – a strange and arcane expression, mystifying or distasteful to outside observers, but linking its speakers in instant felt knowing of their common membership in the same trade and guild.

Anyway, what I’m saying is…

I was a thief who met a fellow grubby guild-member amid the throng of polite and perfumed socialites around us, and to the golden flower and her friends’ wonder, we held a conversation of several minutes (quickly thick as the thieves we were) entirely in Simpsons-quotations traded back and forth in silent and joyful mutual understanding.

That itself was magical, and wonderful, and – speaking again of the innocence of this whole time I’m alluding to here – it even led to a little panic over the prospect of lost love from the golden flower that was unfurling before me.

Haha.

You know, this really comes to me as a surprise, what I’m saying and sharing, and I will admit that I’ve forgotten where exactly I meant to go with all this, other than this, which is to say… I wanted to share a couple things with you here.

Wading and waddling through half-frozen streams of memory, as I said earlier, I did some gold-panning for you, and me; and while there were, and are, many weightier nuggets I’ll be laying out real nice-wise soon for your inspection and reflection, there were also a few flakes – gold, that is – of the same essence but lesser substance.

And though a little gold can be hammered and stretched to span a space whose size might surprise you (Exhibit B, y’Honor, being the present rambling but exquisitely inimitable disquisition), the fact is – it ain’t much, so I don’t have that much to say about it.

I do remember what I was going to say before I shared it, though.

Language.

The thought occurred to me a bit earlier, quickly and in passing.

Language isn’t always what you think it is. That’s a longer discussion for another day, maybe.

But it’s more than a… lexicon and grammar based in and on words.

Really, it’s any orderly, internally cohesive system of symbolic elements whose form and formation can be used consciously to convey a meaning beyond language – something felt or understood on the noumenal plane, as I called it earlier. Read that first essay I linked above to get a clue to what I’m saying.

There’s a language of dance and bodily expression… of color and shape, light and darkness arranged in visual form… of sound-vibration, like the dastgaah-system of Persian classical music… or Simpsons-references.

I’m not sure I’m going anywhere with this, not consciously anyway, other than to say that in my experience, if you want to get good at sayin’ stuff, however it is that you say stuff, you’d better hook yourself into a Z-Feeder and let the impressions flow, early, often, and ever and again.

In the realms we tread here, in my imaginal landscape, there’s no space for perpetual and bull-headed monoglots.

Get smart, or get lost – or at least confused.

Just remember, though: everything flows, but not everything goes.

Those who aren’t well-founded and deeply rooted in form, formality, and substantive tradition build their houses on sand, as the Good Master might say; and when the rains come, these will surely be washed away. 

Anyway, I’m gonna share two things I wrote – just little lines, short sketches.

Way back in 2008 or 9-ish, I signed up for (and quickly dropped) an online “health” class at the local community college. Something about it and its teacher didn’t sit well with me, which speaks to the tone you’ll hear in what I’ll share.

In some sort of… perfunctory and half-hearted attempt to elicit conversation and have us share “who we were” with everyone, the teacher asked us to show and tell, like nice, well-socialized little boys and girls, who we were.

So I wrote what I wrote, then dropped the mic and the class.

And you know, just now this reminds me again why I said here that, especially for teachers prone to sleeping on their watch, I could be, and usually was, “a thorn, or a stinging fly, or an indigestible little motivating factor for the engendering of sore tummies and poor sleep.”

What can I say?

Well, as I said elsewhere, my love is all-pervading and ever-present, but like fungus in an old forest – half the time people don’t even see it, let alone recognize or trust it when it finds them. They take it the wrong way, sweat and puke all night, and then tell themselves, or others, that it’s dangerous – and more’s the pity.

Well, to that I say, sine yo pitty on the runny kine – and God help them, and me.

Anyway, the second thing I’ll share, I remember clearly was a line about “my favorite books” from a Facebook page I had around that time (and which I was quickly disgusted with and deleted).

I think they pair nicely, so… feast your organs of impression-ingestion on these one time, why dontcha?

I’m reasonably sure they won’t make you sweat, or puke, or curse my name, especially if you’ve already waded this deep into this inimitable disquisition.

6 June 2025

I am afraid that the attempt to tell you, in a few lines, "who I am" is a feat beyond my ability and imagination - numberless hours already spent absorbed in the unworking of that riddle have brought me no nearer to an answer. So am I then to say what I am not?

I am not the son of my fathers' houses, which squat on the bones of a once-living land; the ever-endless sky beckons me instead. My name I am not, nor am I my race, nor the bearer of blood-dyed flags. The comforts that come to me on other men's backs are not my disease, yet all its ailments are mine.

I am only in school because, in such a time and place as our own, the more officially-stamped quantifications of my intelligence I can get, the better esteemed I am. But I am mainly determined to sit down, listen, and live.

The thousand-faced all-placed man self-healed, and the infound answer of inborne thought, again- and outborn: these are the best books.