Larry King Live,
monkey head hunched
between red suspenders,
asks a panel of female
inmates:
“Do you miss intimacy?
Intimate relations
behind bars?”
Naturally depraved, I
contaminate the truth of
the whole with my
impoverished partial,
point of view & terms
of desire.
I swim original sin, not
registering the waves of
violence from every stroke
I make all soaking wet &
can’t tell the difference
between amniotic fluid
and solid ground.
IT’s beyond me.
This is happy description,
not condemnation. The
damage done comes wiith
ignorance & denial.
That I know this for sure
is an immaculate conception.
not macular.
These quaint terms offend
the conscientious & are
ludicrous to the savvy, if
not ridiculous.
“There are objections to them,
no doubt, for academical use,”
says Ralph Waldo: “but when
the professor’s gown is off,
man will come back to them.”
Dominant Paradigm
“An inevitable dualism bisects nature,
so that each thing is a half, and suggests
another thing to make it whole…” RWE
Just now I am close to finishing up
reading final examinations.
Journals & semester papers & various
“creative translations” occupy me into
early June. Serious business: teaching
Humanities if not fine art—cultivating
appreciation for human precariousness
dangling from a thread over the pit of
hello between Nature on the one hand
and Nurture on the other.
Between self-indulgence & self-denial.
Between personal homeland security
issues and evangelical hegemonizing;
between Platonic Idealism & Embodi-
mental Manifestos. theory & action,
talking & walking; global village & local
color; groceries across the curriculum
& local food for thought in-between
what’s actually happening and the ways
we talk about IT…
lies the shadow.
Students of Humanities, probably Fine
Arts, too, say “balance” is key to
reconciling these Chinese Finger Traps,
mixed meta force not with standing.
No either/ors, Sam!
All’s relative & depends:
related ratios & relationships;
and what looks different is the
same old same old emperor with
new clothes on. Fundamental.
Got to dance between these oppositions
they tell me. The Archetypes
PA
Pattern
Patron Patronize
Patriarchy
MA
Matter
Matron Matronize
Matriarchy Matrix
I ask: would you rather be patronized
or matronized & who rules in general?
Variation on Dominance
& the Pair-o-Dimes
Convention & The Experiments
Tradition & The Changes
Apollo & The Dionysians
Humanities & The Fine Artists
Consummation & The Composers
Joe Pro & The Amateurs
Mel Adroit & The Sinisters
Mania & The Depressions
Komo & The Tragedians
Ludic & Get Serious
Idios & The Common Sense
Discipline & The Pedagogues
Individual & The Collaboration
Hard Balls & The Mallets vs Upside
Down Flamingos & The Hedgehogs
Hard & Soft Science vs The Rest of
Us North of The Hamill Complex:
Gee Whiz with 1,000 Phases.
These are a few of my favorite things,
Gordian Naughts & Double Binds;
Devils & Deep Blue Sees; Rocks
and Hard Paces; Damaged and
Damaging If I Do & If I Don’t
Do, Too:
Allo-variations on the same knotty koans
& conundrums: resolve one: resolve all
these many manifestations.
Unum.
Algorithm (Panacea)
this is Liberal Art, but can’t
be said without telling the
punch line
1) Separate & Turn up the Differences.
Polarize
2) Characterize the 2 notions & Put into
Play ((Ned Nature and Nelly Nurture
bump into each other at the Cross roads,
repairing to a tavern for local food and
converse-action.)
3) Sustain the relationship. Don’t let either
win/lose or dominate, damnit, but have
them talk it out and out and out.
Expect Revelation & small apocalypse:
RELATIONSHIP. Same koine:
3 sides.
Mytho-logic: reifying, personifying, deifying
abstraction so as to know by narration
so as to know as we are known..
I. IV. V. (--> I.)
Rules standing for a deep grammatical
structural relationship generating infinite
surface specimens like all rock & roll
emerging from a three chord progression
or the jazz you make from 12-bar blues.
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