Christopher Ammons Blog

alcohol isn't a friend of my brain anymore - part 1

2011-06-09T19:38:00.000-07:00

Another huge change in my life: I stopped drinking. Not entirely, but it isn't something I do habitually every week, compared to before when I would get drunk a few times every week. Getting a little drunk (or moderately drunk, or black-out drunk) still seems something beneficial in the right situation. By that I mean not only social context, but whatever place my mind is at in it's regular cycling of ups and downs. That said, I don't foresee going back to getting drunk on a regular day, at a regular time.

It came as such a surprise that I wouldn't want to drink anymore because I never saw it as something unattractive, or something that I was compelled to do by an urge but didn't deep down want to do. Rightly so, for if I never tried out and got into drinking I am pretty sure that I would have had a weaker mind today, or at least a mind that I understood less.

Unlike most people I only started drinking after I turned 21, certainly wasn't a thrill of life to be able to legally drink or go to bars. The first times I get drunk it is because of how interesting it is to be able to feel what it's like to be drunk. First year or so I get drunk a few times a month, don't remember it as being particularly pleasant or unpleasant, and I liked the best when I had only one or two drinks when I felt more loquacious and more open and after more than a few drinks I felt mainly just stupid.

After getting drunk maybe 10-15 times (something like that) I have a great day the next day, I am awake for a long time, mind feels calm and collected and fluid like it otherwise wouldn't. Very unexpected that no, I was not hungover after drinking, but that my mind actually seemed to work better. Reverse hang-overs was the name I invented for them. Why had I never heard about this in any of the psychology or neuroscience I read (I was a psychology major at the time, or around that time.) Years later I came across a quote that captured the sentiment, the quote, by Robert Schumann, goes something like this "When I am drunk I can't do anything useful but the following day my imagination soars."

My attempt to explain my reverse hangover to people usually met with dismal failure, and still does actually. I've met numerous artists and creative people that like to drink, but I still think I've never met someone who drank to get "reverse hangovers" like I did. ...

22-24 I read lots of neuroscience and psychology. I finally got a sense of how heavy drinking had this beneficial effect, attributing it to alterations in brain Serotonin levels ... an explanation that more or less was correct, I still think. And not only was heavy drinking beneficial, my happiest, most creative, best days came from the heaviest drinking. By drinking I would wipe my memory clean, loose consciousness in a calm but eager mood, go through the next few days with a clear head.

Unlike later on in my life, after I got back from living in Europe, I don't think I usually got much from the social environment I was in, usually I would drink in bars and feel unhappy, out of place, and unable to connect with anyone there. But I really was drinking to get drunk, and over time I worked it into a system that worked pretty well. The day after getting really drunk was the best day of my week, I'd often be awake for 25-30 hours straight and compared to the other days of the week, my mind was together and focused when I read, when I wrote and when I communicated with other people.

The advantages were obvious and the disadvantages felt small in comparison. A general sense that it wasn't healthy, that other people wouldn't understand why I liked to drink or sympathize with it, that I was in a vulnerable state once I reached a certain amount of intoxication. These were all pretty minor side-effects, and more or less remained so until a few months ago when habitual drinking took its leave from my life.

[This is been sitting on my browser for 2 days, plan at the moment is to go back and finish writing it next week so ...]

To be Continued

Return Of The Introvert

2011-06-09T11:25:00.000-07:00

Huge changes in my life since I was writing on here every week, or putting what I wrote on here every week.

I'm finding it difficult to find anything to write about, and to be honest this hardly bothers me. No need to stroke my ego writing something that isn't going to reach anyone, or clarify anything for myself.

I think the poems I wrote were pretty good, in Prague and in Pittsburgh. They articulated how I felt, and used language in an original and often funny way. Problem is that when I go over them now I feel like I am reading something someone else wrote. Sixth Gallery Press should get around to publishing them, more than likely they'll get to print a few years from now, if at all.

*

Most of the extroverted more bombastic parts of my personality have faded away. Before dancing at bars and shows was a weekly ritual, now I really have no urge to do this whatsoever. Same with having a knack for talking with people I just met or don't know well, ability to witticize and impress people with use of language. Again and again I've found acquaintances, even good friends, completely failing to understand what motivates me, how I see things etc. Since I can't expect acquaintances to understand me, why should I even attempt to get myself across to strangers?

Not that I think of myself as particularly hard to understand. I read and listen to books a-lot, spend a great amount of time studying chess and learning languages. Listen to lots of classical music, think that getting SSI was one of the best things that happened to me ... have all the time in the world to grow as a person, to really dive deep into the areas I want to learn about.

My reasonable speculation is that more than 90% of people with a personality type like this go into academia. In certain social environments like that I'd be entirely typical and easily understood - not where life has taken me though! And thankful that it hasn't!

Seems pretty universal to me that people are attracted to people who are similar, huge amount of research into this in social psychology by the way. Clear as day to me now that I am very unlikely to meet people who share my interests at a bar, at a show, at some party. So why make the effort? Not all the time, but most of the time, when I went out and meet my friends, I look back on the time afterward and realize it would have been spent better alone, working at the various things I am trying to learn about. When I went out to try to hang out with people I was trying to fulfill a vague emotional desire, rather than meeting up with people who I had rewarding connections with.

For a long time I was the extrovert, getting an emotional reward and calm from other people. This wore thin though and when it no longer worked it lead to a long mild depression, one which fully lifted only when I realized that I was looking for something I wasn't going to find. The idea was that if you like people, they usually like back, leading to a mutually rewarding relationship, whether they be friends, acquaintances, or just strangers you are having a one-time conversation with.

Having to choose between being well-liked and being well-understood I will always choose the latter, and this was what was missing during my extroverted phase. (phase? more like huge chapter of my life!) Not that I think it's anyone's fault, I return to the common sentiment of an introvert, you need a one-on-one conversation to really communicate with someone, preferably many one-on-one conversations. The limits of how much of yourself you can get across conversing at a table with a group of people is limited indeed. If someone's never played chess you aren't going to get across much about what attracts you to the game. If someone hasn't listened to much classical music they aren't going to get what draws you to it, and with neuroscience, languages, etc etc. People seem predestined to understand and connect with eachother, or not, before they ever meet. Do I feel any unhappiness or regret that I am unlikely to make this sort of connection with 95% of the people I come across? Definitely not!

Mistakes someone makes are only apparent to them after they stop making them. Weaknesses in someones personality are only apparent to them after they have overcome them (when someone is depressed in some sense they have a more realistic sense of themselves, but in another they prove themselves completely incapable of thinking clearly of the problems that confront them, and how to overcome them.) How clearly now these days, feeling quite a different person than I was during my extroverted phase, can I remember how I was and see what lacked in my character.

I had a conception of myself at being great at conversation and communication. Unlike most people I wasn't intimidated by talking to people I didn't know, aggressively trying to strike up a conversation, not caring what people thought of me, by a powerful intuition finding a suitable topic of conversation for the moment, an attitude to adopt for the moment. ... But as I look back now I see how egocentric my effort was, so much of an effort to impress, not nearly enough empathy and connection. It doesn't feel like such an accomplishment to be able to say the right things and speak fast, feels more important if I am able to talk with someone and have the conversation mean something to them, to mean something to each other even if as acquaintances. Talking to someone a single time likely isn't going to mean a thing in the long run, if I meet someone repeatedly and we have talked five, ten, fifteen times, then maybe, as I look at it now, some type of mutual rewarding communicative interaction may come about.

Am I a happier, more fulfilled person than I was a year ago? Definitely. The weeks go by and I'm focused on what I want to learn, what I want to do with my mind. It's harrowing even that I could see five years of life go by with me staying in the same basic pattern each week, content that almost all of this time be spent alone, with almost no one getting what I am trying to do with my precious time.

Too much self-reflection

2011-02-12T11:23:00.000-08:00

Too much self-reflection
Too many loops
It all gets pretty tame
I'm drunk high and stupid and must of all enthused!
Diabelli variations playing, Indeed Beethoven is a king
Just a little modesty, chess games after chess games

These thoughts are so loose, so loose indeed
No food, no lead, no keen
No mean, no loops, the loops suck, that inner lame
Dunno, drunk skunk with dear Beethoven, life is long, my heart feels strong

Recession and Enthuiasm

2011-02-12T10:11:00.000-08:00

Back to writing here! Same as usual, not really writing on here, just posting whatever I write in addition to storing it on a file on my computer.

So I see myself as a writer, primary self identity thing, and hardly write anything for half a year or so. Deep down that's fine, and a strange relief wherein I know I am not writing anything bad, I at least am not being a bad writer, by not writing. Pretty much like staying alone in your room feeling depressed instead of going out to a party and being lame and unexeciting. Pretty much.

Half a year of writers block coupled with a horde of other psychological problems. What do you do when you understand to a T the cause of your psychological problems but feel unable to change anything? That happens again and again in the course of my adult life - where I feel like I have a perfect grasp of happiness in theory, what any person should do and be to be happy (and so creative, impressive, etc) but feel unable to do anything with that and quagmire in psychological problems. How many dozens and dozens of times does the same thought run through a depressed mind until the repetition of the thought pattern becomes boring?

So, I spend half a year missing the feeling of complete and utter happiness, fearing and angsting that the golden creative part of my life is gone and done. Stuck deep down in a stupid psychological process, an inner lameness. Pretty stunning that I can go from witty conversationalist saying "hello, how are you" to everyone I could to someone who could only conversate by thinking aloud in aloof autistic manner. My friend is definitely write when claiming creativity is like libido. A year of hypersexuality and then an almost utter flatline and lack.

There are advantageous aspects to month long mild depressions though, with an objectivity and clarity that cannot be in a person when he/she is enthuiastic and creative you get to reflect, think about, realize all of your flaws and shortcomings. When enthused I danced and drunk and felt like a champion. I think about how I was then when depressed and see an almost bizarre obliviousness and excessive childish show-offness. ... And I'd list list list all the other analagous examples if my mindset, or this post was fitting. People, most people, end up bending to other peoples perception of them, people at large see you as strong then you become strong, they see you as learned you become learned, internalizing it, and so on, well studied phenomenon. I felt like champion inside and was determined to impress and make other people see me as I saw myself - is there really any other legitimate way to live than this, that isn't lame? ... Long story short I get sick of people at large, stop concerning myself to appear as a champion or anything to them. Something good there, and a-lot that isn't so good. The inner complete self confidence slips away and then I'm left alienated and alone, disconnected, not bitter, but with a constant feeling of lack, which becomes based in actual objective self awareness. How does one express thoughts that you have thought to yourself hundreds of times to the point of being utterly bored with them? How does one escape a wretched psychological pit that has been fallen into?

The thoughts run on in my head, but this humble little post ends here - as I go back to drinking and smoking and a beautiful intoxication of joy that should continue on for a few days! And I'll lay in bed alone a Crusoe in my world, smiling up at nothing and feeling full of bliss.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

2010-09-07T23:53:00.000-07:00

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

People don't realize how true it is
You think it, you believe it, usually that comes true
At least there is no room for fantasy
Some person floats into life and changes it, for example

Some men think: "I am a failure"
So more or less, they can't be more

Some men think "I am not happy here"
So whatever might be in front of them
They won't be happy there, wherever it is

It is, I suppose, the dread and joy of a full self-concept

Different parts come and go but mine remains
I am great, and I am alone
Would I be great if I wasn't alone?

It gets so internalized, man
The best moments at a party
I leave fine, a happy man alone
I fit the world to the notion
Full of success then
And full of unhappiness then

No solution apparent to that
Not in this chapter of life
Well, this is honest and set

I grunted and opposed authority by instinct today
The good and the bad of it
I spent the day alone with art music and art film
I was sick but felt stronger than most men
What will change and make me cheery and glowing again?
I'll do it all myself, sorry I'm not very lucky there
I go off and burn this life for a long time
And again make it so no one means anything
Which is the best advice of everyone pretty much

ups and downs, do's and don'ts

2010-09-03T20:20:00.000-07:00

I haven't been writing at all and I hope that I am not letting anyone down. My mind stopped being creative in the way it was - something honestly that feels horrible. Well, I'm not happy about that at all but at least I know I have not become a bad writer, isn't it better to not say anything than to say nothing worthwhile?

What can I say? I'll be happy when I'm able to the verbal-creative part of my mind working again.

Where oh Where

2010-08-21T06:11:00.001-07:00

Where oh Where

Where do I go?
When do I go?
Whatever
Once I'm somewhere Fresh
It just need be fresh

Well, that excites me
Hibernating, forced to hibernate in summer
Bah bah bah
At least I'm no sheep
At least I'm no square

Stupid idea is to think like this:
I was great, Stupendously great
So I'll be content with that, I'm done

That fails
That sucks
One worthy life
One lucky boy, here

Focus life on chess – bad idea
Focus life on Pittsburgh – bad idea
And here the beautiful mind pauses stupidly
Question of potential
The actual great in me has become comatose
I get shimmers of the greatness now and then these days
But I lived like a god and I'll go back to that

Living like a god means
Being happy all the time and hyper-talkative
Driven by love, of course, and you know your the stronger person
You laugh, you don't care how people think
You laugh a-lot and sing a-lot and the world warps around you
Brilliancies and happiness and understanding

You don't care that nobody cares about you
You dance around and dance well
You are beautiful because you don't need them
No neediness so you can give and light up all the while
Mind is faster and quicker and that's a reason not to care about them
Again and again, awesomely, and it could continue on and on

The solitude is beautiful
You appear so connected
And you start meeting them
They have lives, you can't insert yourself in them
It's not against them
Their relative strength
You suspect that love is quite a lie
And behind it is the weakness of people
Cause when I'm strong alone is fine
That stratifies, struggles, stagnation, that results
That is basic, too much content alone
Or really too much anything
Too okay alone

Don't really know what to say
Some people care about me
Some people understand me
Really no reason, theory goes, to feel unhappy
I know, but
Forgive the philosophy here
Mind comes from brain
And the part that made calm and social
Is now making reserve and inhibition

This isn't love

2010-08-21T06:09:00.001-07:00

This isn't love

This isn't love
This is groggy and odd
Not brillliant, druggy odd – that's the point
It lacks it lacks
It's like
lets measure game
and we measure the energy
the vitality and the life
we compare the situations
this … measures

Live for what?
Do what with life?
Nothing new, everyone knows
Happy strong and funny
And most of all CONCRETE

Why can't cry?

2010-08-21T06:07:00.001-07:00

Why can't cry?

Chopin's 3rd piano sonata
The finale
That is some of the most beatuiful music on earth I think
The most is so plentiful and I think most would agree
This beauty in front of me! You know the part
And to not be happy before this
makes me want to sob
and sob cause I can't sob now

Fucked Down

2010-08-21T06:05:00.001-07:00

Fucked Down

What A Strange Point in My Life
Respectable people'd think drugs finally fucked me up
That I think is unlikely
Living alone in my own world fucked me up
Liking music that no one else knows about fucked me up
Fucked up? Maybe not best word choice
Fucked me down
Fucked down fucked down
it's like
I found these beautiful things to be interested in that no one else was
The music, the writers, the chess, great men
having no tie no connection to the social fabric around me
Feel alone, can't connect
The good friend stays

Typical people take for granted so much
Atypical people take for granted so much
Imagination of a worse situation on one hand

How many ways can you say I love you?
Is …. ….
No, nothing.
Cigarettes are fine.
What line?
What time?
What mine?
This dear sir is a bind
This dear sir is a line
This dear sir is a mind

Torment

2010-08-21T06:03:00.000-07:00

This is torment
Whats it like
Well, analogy
Physical health, sick and weak
My mind feels that way
Disappointed by this mind not doing anything
And I'll never become normal
I live and work successfully as an artist and I am happpy
If I cannot do that I am Magic Wand Wants

If I had the magic wand
I'd wave it and make this my life
Mention a film offhand
"that is actually one of my favorite films"
Five minutes the intuition flashed after two
This'd be strength, harmony and advantage
The oh, tails wag, you also have never known that?

The - let's be honest
Regard, admiration animation
Accept arrogance even, amorous
Fifteen minutes of your pure empathy
The unrequited ideal
While my mind gets gold, or waits
Well, sure be nice to know what that's like
Sure'd be nice to feel comfortable really liking her not happy – no in between

Your mind changes for the worst
most minds must some time or other
What, you are there to disappoint?
You wait it out, trying this and that
Eventually some combination works
It goes away, thriving progress again

*

Isn't my envy of other people ridiculous? I know so well that most people would trade shoes in a second if they could. But still envy for what I don't have. A girl that really likes me. A girl that really knows me. The ease of the idea.

But the girl should not like me when my behavior is stupid or dumb or just not interesting, it seems. But she has to tolerate childish me.

Why do most people not write? Or make something that is theirs that represents them. I know my parents well, of course, and I understand them like a system, determinism. That is harrowing.

What were the worst acid trips like? I'd see art and my mind would zoom and focus and get what was not great and what was bad in it. The pathetic hidden in man, my horrible ravaging mind would get to it.

The beauty of those days, were every Thursday evening I would walk to Belvederes with music that was most beautiful to me. How ugly the roads were. And I'd drink and dance like Kasparov! Ugly roads and ugly Pittsburgh! Ugly cars. Ugly typical people. I guess.

Clearly there is something I don't know or don't grasp well enough or I'd be okay and good to go. It is the best of life to really understand how to live and I understood how to live. And I'm thinking constantly of the serotonin in my right cerebral hemisphere and the difference. Serotonin produces calm and flow, or reticience and inhibition. Brain is pretty full of seretonin more than average, and it was before beautifully directed to calm and flow, happy. Now reticience, inhibition.

2010-08-13T22:40:00.000-07:00

Typical Girls

White Knight C3 333

2010-07-26T02:50:00.000-07:00

White Knight C3 333

Woke up, lets see, well, no sleep tonight
6:00 in the morning
mind keeps going
Sleep is like the thin man without an appetite
If I lay in bed and try
I'm just doing nothing for an hour or two
And mess everything up

Mind starts burning
Glowing eyes
Schumann Striving forward
Chess endgame book
Consumptive quick chessgames
The beautiful music justifies the games
Bach Cello Suite or Brassens song
Boy do I glow
Flashbacks of Prague
or some street somewhere
Felt same when I was 16 and stay up all night too
With mind with energy like this
so crude it may be wrong
Wouldn't I get the greater
Greater imagination always imagines?

Pretty Pretty

2010-07-22T01:29:00.001-07:00

Pretty In A Great Big City

Magic Wand Wants

2010-07-22T01:17:00.000-07:00

If I had the magic wand
I'd wave it and make this my life
Mention a film offhand
"that is actually one of my favorite films"
Five minutes the intuition flashed after two
This'd be strength, harmony and advantage
The oh, tails wag, you also have never known that?

The - let's be honest
Regard, admiration animation
Accept arrogance even, amorous
Fifteen minutes of your pure empathy
The unrequisited ideal
While my mind gets gold, or waits
Well, sure be nice to know what that's like
Sure'd be nice to feel comfortable really liking her

Popular Music, Real Popular

2010-07-21T02:22:00.000-07:00

I've met some great people
But anywhere here
A nature like mine?
How can I say it well
At this time of drinking, no
The deep felt truths
The cloudy and inarticulate

Nature like mine
Through art
And art and art
And so much art
The ones not dead
They hold me less
A guy living in Nebraska
A laughable place for a great
Really, the best want the best

The great men and women
I've met in Pittsburgh
What type of great?
Like an island, they don't escape
They are so bound to the people they know
Living a different place is quite a step
Utterly ridiculous – lack of courage and not less

A place is what you make it, yes
And the best go to the best, places
The best hallucinate the full faces
The base is always change and new
Not much here for me that's new
Snow of last year was my miracle year
They complain and feel depressed cause of the snow
What childish weak minds, I know, I know

What is hear for me is what is for me anywhere
Live in art, live in art, breathe, eat, sleep art
Art that is 123 everybody – they go, who's that
What's that? What's that mean? Educate me!
Educate isn't the right concept, I don't think
It … thinks and thinks
Stagnation and automatic routines
You move somewhere else, it breaks that
Same people, same things
My singing weak
“retard symphony” , she says
“Retard symphony” as I sing, wow that's great
The art of conversation, above her head
So established fact I angrily yelled
The always near
I lamely lay in bed
I only imagine hers
Only only one and only
Here is little, Pittsburgh
Lonely lonely, only only
Uhh … in drunk contempt I mean
What a boring place Pittsburgh's becoming for me again

Cool Woman, Man

2010-07-04T02:58:00.000-07:00

Cool Woman, Man

It'd be great
It'd be real fun
To have someone?

Would it?
I'm sure she's logged the hours too
I'm sure she's as great at it
I'm sure it's about the same level
Well, having it'd be an improvement

I guess I have it, who doensn't dream of someone better
She's a thin literary genius, more or less
She likes music, drugs, and words - more than you do probably
She does have an actual circle of close friends who are artists
She's had a rough life and is pretty mean to strangers
She knows much more about acting than me - that's her expertise
She likes animals, nature, and her health

I still not happy because I can't have the science and essay like conversations
We have totally different musical backgrounds - she really is such an American
In fact, we can't even watch films together, cause can't help talking and joking
She has no interest in chess, and I don't connect much with her friends
The people I tend to like, she just doesn't like that type
She is hardly ever at my place - almost no one sees my room - big surprise
And the beauty of having it - it is so unimportant:

Never the psychotic arguments
Never the negative mean argue at each other
Really different ideas about money though, that's true
Never the "Well, I don't know the situation so I can't say"
But the hearts caring for the happiness of the other
Proving that we really do have it, she's my girl

For all the brilliancies
I replay a-lot of our conversations
And we are at our worst
I get dull and obvious
She talks too much bout certain people
Love is not bright I guess, it's more like a necessary dim
True love makes one stupid, all points to this
Stupid is love and I'm the lucky one
I got the girl of my dreams, my love is mine

Good Hearts Of Anarchists

2010-07-04T02:03:00.000-07:00

The Good Hearts Of Anarchists

Anarchist picnic today and I don't go, anarchist gathering in Friendship park - I am in friendship park so often it feels like my territory. Friends good acquaintances speaker red and black flags, I do not stop to listen, I continued walking by studying Spanish. I see my friend in Laundromat and I exagerate allowing myself to take a little of my bad mood out on him because we are friends "When I was 20 I was the most convinced anarchist, now my political beliefs are something like the opposite of anarchism."

Thinking more clearly about it, definitely an exageration. Definitely not an anarchist, maybe I am against it sometimes. In extremes it gets old and not interesting but it really comes down to the day, the mood. Feel a love for humanity and moderate identification as someone on the left, feel a disdain for the low quality of people and think of most of it is as ideological fluff.

Anarchists arguing with Trotskyists in my mind is synonymous with Catholics arguing with Protestants, or vice versa. Yes, they are making particular arguments about particular things - and the content of the arguments between Catholic and Protestant and Trotskyist and Anarchist (or "Progressive" and "Anarchist" or "Leftist" and "Liberal" ... whatever) are quite different. But why are the people talking to each other discussing in such a way? I feel like I have a real understanding of it.

I think it isn't debatable, all else equal take an anarchist and a regular guy or girl the anarchist is probably going to be smarter and also have a bigger heart. The regular guy or girl isn't going to understand the anarchist. I tell a friend that my roommate is Iraq-War Veteran, etc and she responds "there is no excuse for ignorance" ... but does this person really understand that her mind is stronger than 9/10 ... that it seems that a huge proportion of human beings internalize the culture around them and accept it as "good" ... what is often forgotten is that being at peace with social environment is usually what a strong human mind does to adapt. A lady living in a ghetto who is happy with her neighbors is showing her strength. There is a load of wisdom in accomodating oneself to the world one lives in.

The knowledge anarchists, radicals, etc have about society often has a-lot of profound truth in it. I remember myself vividly the propoganda that was used to start the Iraq War and the radical left point demonstrated with pretty much flawless logic and evidence that the campaign was a fraud and crime against humanity.

Problem is though is that the socio-political world is something beyond the grasp of anyones mind, and thousands of pages can be written out producing evidence for the good and the bad ... the beautiful and the ugly. No, I do not think it is overly sentimental the actual violence and exploitation humans to do other humans, I just don't think there is much can be done about it. It is an odd way to end an argument, and it's just a blog post, to end it with a rather abstract argument: anarchists are likely to be have bigger hearts and stronger minds than the average person and so do not, in general, have a solid understanding of how stupid, mean, and manipulative so much of the mass of humanity is at the core.

Triumph

2010-07-04T01:05:00.001-07:00

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 c6 4. cxd5 cxd5 5. e4 Bd7 6. exd5 exd5 7. Nxd5 Bd6 8. Nf3 Ne7 9. Nxe7 Qxe7+ 10. Be2 O-O 11. O-O Nc6 12. a3 Bg4 13. Re1 Bxf3 14. Bxf3 Qh4 15. g3 Qd8 16. d5 Ne7 17. Bg5 Qd7 18. Re3 h6 19. Bxe7 Bxe7 20. Rc1 Bg5 21. Bg4 Qd6 22. f4 Bf6 23. Qb3 b6 24. Bf3 Bd4 25. Rc6 Bxe3+ 26. Qxe3 Qd7 27. b4 Rae8 28. Qc1 Re7 29. d6 Re6 30. Bg4 Rfe8 31. Bxe6 Rxe6 32. Rc8+ Kh7 33. Qc2+ g6 34. Qc3 Rxd6 35. Qh8# 1-0

Two Men On A Battleship

2010-07-03T18:55:00.001-07:00

Two Men On A Battleship

I'm the only one who knows Proust
He's the only one that knows Pynchon
Lucky me, I've sailed to Prague
and let me go back there please

He is all people talk
I am all idea talk
Sociopath-Sociopath talk
Poet-poet talk

What I don't understand is that he was the misanthrope and I
Decided to like everyone and feel nice to everyone, I thought
Yet he has friends all over all around and I can hardly find one
Yet he has friends all over all around and I can hardly find one

Fantasy of my mind is younger women -
With so much love – this is what I know
I'll give it to her
The wait, the pop in her head
The he wants to love her

And his mind is older women
Doesn't that make sense
Doesn't that make sense
And the essay continues

And his mind is violent
My mind is … elegant?
My mind aims to impress
His mind smashes what?

Surrounded by dumb apes I guess
I miss the gorillas Prague nightclubs
I miss being bad at chess
I miss when I'd make steaks
Students – word is artificial lake

Prague was lack of success
Like France, not like Berlin
Going to live in Prague again
Encroaching more each month
Why I go back and live in Prague?

If I do not I am gutless
Best reason I guess
If not Prague wherelse?
The epicenter of the universe is not here anymore, dear, of course I know that.

स्टॉप औतोम्तातिकाल्ली कोन्वेर्तिंग थिस तो हिंदी

2010-07-02T22:22:00.000-07:00

If not for art

If not for art
best friend'd be head gangsta
Waving his big dick around
Waving his big mind around
His, fuck you I'm better than you
Which we do all have

And I am his noble loyality
And assure him - the morons tamper
The morons are diplomats
But I understand your rage
Their lets be nice - oppurtunistic fluff
The anxious cat on the bookshelve was yet muscular
So-so imitation of Finnegans Wake
Um hold on I want more beer

So your lackey is a tired old man
The cigarettes make him exhausted
What? No cautionary tale here
The ending lacks but
They greatest men do not need to care if they are likeable
"But on the contary I don't think there is anything wrong with being needy"
But on the contrary, great men, effort recognized - their unique faces are too weak

Miracle year Is Over

2010-06-25T18:30:00.001-07:00

Miracle year Is Over

Miracle year is over
It's like singing

Worked so hard building
my mind, you

Body went what
Body got back

Should I be lucky or pious
The horrible mistakes
The horrible unforgettable mistakes

her arms turned to snakes
And she turned her back on me

New Prison Cell

2010-06-25T18:28:00.001-07:00

New Prison Cell

Finally got sick
Finally got weak
The miracle year is done

Finally got no money too
Finally got no jokes
No new jokes

New hope – the violet Phoenix
The new prison cell
The new suffering hell

Finally I got torn
Finally I was crunched
Finally now, I've begun to fast

एवव इ ऍम प्रेतेंडिंग तो बे न्यू ...

2010-06-17T23:57:00.000-07:00

hey hey go
hey hey go
hey hey go
oh I know
what is that
nothing I know
I know hard hard
oh hey go
Forgot hey you
Again easy so what
Easy so what
Than that
So what
Suffering is your toy - is ...
My suffering is your fun
Have fun, run run me too
Have fun a je dis je suis on voyou
Again again, alone i sit
alone I think, alone I think
what is this - me alone is usual
your alone is drama
your alone is haha
Same, Same, I am as alone
Same cello knowledge
Same fame is done - you are fun!

!

2010-06-05T19:26:00.000-07:00

I leave and listen to Prokofiev's classical symphony. The 4 movement piece ends right when I enter the door of my apartment - no planning nothing contrived??? This isn't the first time that happened - I doubt anyone will believe I am not just making that up or deluding myself but holy shit.

माय Yesterday

2010-06-05T15:54:00.001-07:00

Mornings waking up are very similar lately, always the drawn out romantic sexual fantasies. They are becoming it feels more and more romantic and not as sexual. Not yearning for sex as much as yearning to hold someones neck a certain way and show them how I feel (tenderly, of course.) That part of the day gets over with and I walk to Crazy Mocha in Bloomfield. Spend five or six hours, read a chapter of "The Defense" and then study from Polgar chess tactics book. Brahms double concerto and then Schuman piano concerto on the radio (and in between, of course, the "bad" classical music.) Resolve to make Wynn CDs of music I like - the only man or woman I know who really has something similar to my musical tastes!

Feels nice to smoke less, three months ago i'd smoked 6-8 cigarettes that evening but now only 2 maybe 3. Appetite is also less and it feels like I'm stronger because I don't have as much desire, not the same need for that external happiness stimulus to keep my energy going.

Played two games of chess with Dan, drew the first and won the second. I'm nowhere near as strong at chess there than I am on internet with time controls but it felt good to be playing a friendly game, it felt good thinking that the person beside me was my friend and we enjoy each others company through chess. I went up and started talking to a girl I've never met and I get quite a sense that she didn't like me. It felt great to see her as she watched my strong smiling face.

One of the most talented visual artists I know compliments me on the chess game which ended in a beautiful rook-king mate that just seemed to come out of nowhere. I told him honestly that the chess game was nothing really impressive - did I hear him correctly say "putting bullets through your brain?"

The momentum eventually broke. Girl comes in who I like, one who actually likes me and seems to empathize - don't come across many of those. So the sad unhappy creeps in pondering the seeming impossibility of developing a friendship. This girl is really beautiful, really kind, and from what I know open sexually - my type of girl. Unhappy wanting to find something to do besides Howlers, walk back listening to audio book about English language, walk through Garfield "art crawl" going on there.

To sad, but I decide to change my mind and not go home afterall and start at Modern formations. Do my best to say any correct derisive things about works I see, but the work is generally okay. Of course, drinking free wine and beer. Continue that in a few other places and then stay at "awesome books" conversating with one of the owners. Conversation goes on and then different conversation with a lady who writes poetry and does the workshop stuff. She wasn't pretty, she wasn't my age, I probably wouldn't even like her poetry, but it felt nice to conversate and talk and have someone enjoy talking to me etc and say the positive constructive topics about writing. Going to art galleries and art shows never has really appealed to me outside of social context - if I want to see great art I'll go to a museum or get a book, there might be some great art there but it's safe to say it won't be as good as where the "big boy art" is. My intentions are distinctly social and more particularly to meet a woman and start a friendship. People look disgusting oppurtunistic as they approach the bookstore and are not sure whether to enter because it is a room full of older people and no social oppurtunity for them there. I drink the wine, talk about poetry, feel warm and conversant - the more conversant I am the better my creativity is, that's for sure.

Oh earlier in the night some kid was shouting and angry yelling at his friends. I asked him what he was upset about and he said about some corporation taking over garfield and drawing yuppies in etc etc - "that stuff is part of life, what do you know?" "the angry child has a temper tantrum" and I laugh at him - before even starting to drink alcohol. Some other conversations, nothing too memorable, or maybe forgotten. Wine hits me hard because I'm not used to it, not only do I not fully register the same volume of liquid the body reacts strongly to the substance because it is less familiar with it - so I got rather drunk indeed. I'm so used to it, I feel myself in most circumstances, I know my nature and don't have a fear in the world if it isn't winter.

Walking home police stop me and ask "where do you live" , my mind can't produce an immediate answer and then "I live on friendship." They put me in an ambulance and take me to the hospital.

Don't remember the following minutes much, but I was in the emergency room alone and walked out, then out of the hospital. Last fiction film I saw was film about guerilla movement in Mexico, fresh in my memory. I must have watched it correctly for it to have such a vivid effect on my imagination. Quite drunk, as I was running out of the hospital I had a feeling like I was escaping from a psych ward, or I was running from the police. To do stuff liket his, the dadrenaline rush, it is thrilling. Can't recall why I decided to leave, I think it was just intuition. Good intuition! Now with a clear head I see that I can't have done anything illegal, if I hadn't run out I would have been stuck with a 500$. Getting home in a state like that I do every week, wish the police wouldn't have jumped to assumptions just cause I couldn't tell them where I lived off the topic of my head and said "uhh". Anyway, in my mind I am scared get in real trouble if I got caught, I backtrack and don't take the main road back afraid the police are looking for me ... walk back in the most convoluted indirect way I can. Still quite drunk, I remind you. And when I get back the door doesn't open and my mind wanders if somehow they found where I lived and locked me out. I hide in the bush in front of the house listening to music for what felt like forty five minutes - a full calm over my body but also this sense of alert. Finally able to get the door open and I don't think I even went to bed immediately. Fun day, described quickly without much finesse, but whatever.

Beethoven in Pittsburgh

2010-06-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is playing Beethoven's 9th symphony this weekend, it's even being noticed by people who don't have a thing for classical music probably simply because Beethoven's 9th is stock knowledge like Hamlet and War and Peace are. I wouldn't be surprised that in 4 performaces of it that are being done there would be nothing deserving harsh criticism outside of the musical equivalent of typos.

From what I seem to be picking up many musicians in the orchestra don't have the warmest feelings about Pittsburgh - I sympathise utterly. Not many Pittsburghers are aware that they have one of the best orchestras in the nation here. Really "symphony" might as well be "Chinese speaking society" it seems. The audience at symphony and chamber music concerts is rather disheartening - at least 60% (probably much higher) of the audience is over 50 years old. How many of these people have learned to appreciate music with age and how many of them go basicaly for socializing and not for music? I couldn't say. When the symphony hall is full I make otu there is usually 20-40 people 20-30 years old and I get the impression that a-lot of them are squares, naive, conventional proper people. These people, if nothing they exist abudantly in my imagination - they will adore Vincent Van Gogh's paintings but if they were ever to meet him they would take a natural aversion to him and or think he was a worthless madman. Ugh, I'm definitely not impressed by someone who decides to see Beethoven's 9th for a change, isn't that like going to see "Romeo and Juliet" because you have not thought out a better way to spend your time? Beethoven's 9th is pretty accessible, but I imagine most of the people who go and hear it would just hear noise if a late Beethoven string quartet were played - ecstasy and divine beauty is just noise and goes un-appreciated to the regular person, it often seems to me.

Beethoven is a god to me and I'll claim to know and understand him as well as the professional musicians. I've gave it thought and made up my mind though - Bach and Mozart were better composers, all in all their music is more interesting, more lasting. Beethoven put so much into innovation that his music often feels to be missing something, so innovative that it comes off as easy.

Frankly speaking, I'm bored with Beethoven. I hear his music almost every day or every other day in my life at one point or another. I've listened at least 20 times to all his major works including most of his chamber music. I've got all the major orchestral works in my memory almost note by note (I know what is coming). Supposing I have listened to 9th symphony 3 times a month since I started listening to classical music at the age of 18 then I have heard the work 300 times. Probably more, honestly speaking. And Beethoven was as Avant-garde as a composer could possibly be for his time, music that went way into the future. Whatever ... most fools astonished that he could compose music while deaf (not actually challenging) will never be able to grasp the suffering and anguish of the man's life- which, I'm inclined to add began long before any onset of deafness.

Bach Bach Bach

2010-06-03T13:53:00.000-07:00

I met a acquaintance in the park one day and we started talking about classical music. She said she liked composer X but she did not like Bach, that his music sounded fancy and or acient or too glossy. My instant response was a firm "you haven't listened to his music carefully, try listening again." There are certain musical geniuses who don't have much taste for Beethoven, (Chopin even) who tire for his music and do not have much praise for it ... however I know of no one who has been great in the world of art music who hasn't been forced to give Bach heaps and heaps of acnkowledgement for creating some of the finest music ever made.

I will always remember one of the first times I got high on marijuana, I listened to Bach, I think a Brandenburg concerto. I became completely lost in the music in something of a trance, utteryl obvlivious to girlfriend and everyone around me. From then on I understood Bach and my favorite features of his music are the same I discerned then - a huge amount of musical activity coming at you at a very fast pace ... not too different than being "bombarded by notes" as some avant-garde composers' music does.

Choral and religious works have been among the hardest for me to enjoy, not so much because I am secular but because, sad to say, the voice of an art/classical singer usually does not create a feeling of pleasure in my mind like that of instruments, and as well not knowing the words. I expect that's one reason why Bach is hard for a-lot of people to get ecstastic joy from ... he set himself to write his 250+ Cantatas one a week, required himself to do so, and not all of them are that great. The days in my musical left have passed from when I was motivated to sit with a score and go through all the Bach Cantatas.

As I've gotten a stronger mind, musical and elsewise, I appreciate the "sad" music of Bach much more. I believe Bach had an accute sense of this as any - for all the bright and beautiful time in life there also must be that same amount of large time where life is drab, full of suffering ... where a person has to accept the absence of joy and continue carrying through life with conviction. A-lot of great Bach music has this hue of sadness and it too is beautiful the more one understands it ... a requisite of being a great man is pouring out your mind and how it feels, the pleasing exubertant parts and the suffering sad unhappy parts - there isn't much room for reticience, creatively or socially if a person is trying to be great ... one time ages ago I leafed through a book of "best composers" and Bach was listed by mutual agreement as "Number One" ... and my mind would agree and probably place Mozart at number 2, Beethoven somewhere in the top 10. ... He wrote masterworks in almost every instrumental and vocal medium (no opera, of course, the minds of some people, like mine just do not seem to have an allure towards opera just as some great writers cannot write stories with a suspensful plot or some great poets cannot write sonnets) ... how many composers even in the 20th century have written works for solo violin that compare to Bach's? ... Should it even be surprising that Bach isn't popular in America? The trouble with greatness in art is that it takes a great mind to take in that greatness else it is usually just liked more for social than aesthetic reasons. The Brandenburg Concertos were put away in a drawer and he doubted (if I am correct) that he could get them published - that doesn't surpise me.

The Plasticity of Mediocrity

2010-06-03T12:45:00.001-07:00

I'm not very fond of "brain plasticity stories" , I see into the mind of the mediocre version of myself ... lacking much inspiration and having something interesting happen to him he joins the crowd and writes a short essay correctly describing what happened to him and concludes it (and begins it in a funny way, to grab attention, of course) extolling the "plasticity of the brain."

What's wrong with this? For one the utterly unoriginality, the utter ease of it. Number two unless the writer knows a considerable amount about neuroscience it really means nothing, before the thousands of neuroscience papers published over the decades the same thing was written about and understood by wise men using terminology like "the strength of the human mind."

I've read ... probably more than 80 fMRI papers and when you get into it that work is wonderful, necessary ... to take something human beings do and pinpoint exact physical locations that are associated with its function. This work, when done well really throws light on how certain mind operations work, for example, yes, playing chess, or navigation, or music appreciation ... caveat being you actually have to have a-lot of understanding of brain function to get something from it. Learning that, for example, the right temporal lobe is involved in language production ... or tempo-parietal lobes involved in chess ... this says utterly nothing unless when one thinkgs of "parietal lobe" the person has a full memory of information built up about other things that lobe does, and etc. Eh, neuroscience is impressive indeed but most popular neuroscience books I read don't impress me much ... such an easy topic for a writer to pounce on ... so revolutionary. Trust me guys, neuroscience isn't rocket science, if you want to spend a few hundred hours reading about it you'll really understand the human mind better, but if you have a strong and smart nature you'll do fine (in thought and action) without this "revolutionary knowledge."

Never Met Her

2010-05-30T02:27:00.000-07:00

Never met her
Never'll get her
Never'll let her
Never'll pet her
Never'll wet her
Must I forget her?
The threat, the yet

Sometimes get sad so
Sometimes mad no
Sometimes bad, you know
(Sometimes mam rad, oh!)

Never knew her
Never'll have her
So aglow her
So much flow, her
So much beaux, her
So much show, her
Such a pro her
Down below, her
Not happy - never new her
Never grew on her
Never'd show her
Hello clown, oh, you know
I know, so, oh, you own
I'd throw this life away
I'd find better play
I'd make better essay
I'd find better cafes
Better days, better ways, better decay - everyday
Point is I meant to say
I'd throw this life away
If I could ever know her

Grim Realities Of Chess

2010-05-29T18:08:00.000-07:00

What attracted me to chess, I suppose, was the concept of it. To be in direct combat with someones mind, to demonstrate the superior quality of your own. Because I feel better than regular people. I'm definitely not claiming any gift or remarkable ability at chess, but I'm starting to get respectably competent at it. An ELO rating around 1400-150 after studying for 9 months. Starting to understand what chess is really about, I really didn't know what was in store for me. ... Sudoku seemed a little too easy and I wanted a more challenging diversion, you see, sad thing is you can't really master chess unless you want to dedicate a decade of your life to it, whereas one can become a sudoku expert in something like half a year.

Part of playing chess well is having a strong mind, being calm, being patient, making bold decisions, knowing when to be cautious and when to be aggressive - and there is so much beauty in this, because chess becomes symbolic of things in the world outside of chess. Chess games can be statements about how to live life, full of fantasy and imagination ... watching some grandmaster chess games and studying them I sometimes feel like I see the personality of the chess players, and this feelings amazing! Snide Petrosian, Dominant Fischer, Excited creative Alekhine.

When two people play chess seriously the winner is usually the person who, to put it simply, has the more extensive long-term chess memory. My mind may be much stronger than a chess expert, but the chess expert is going to beat me because I have to think very hard about what my moves are, and he, having played them many multiple times more than I have does not have to think very hard. Skill at chess in this regard is mainly how much time you have committed to studying chess alone with books.

The amount of information one needs to absorb into long term memory to play chess well really is staggering. It is one thing to know the rule "knights before bishops" or "castle early" ... it is a different thing altogether to have a deep understanding of why they are good rules to go by. It is one thing to memorize a 5 move opening, it is another thing to memorize a 15 move opening and really understand why each move was made. This grim part of chess is not appealing, I stopped awnting to be a scientist for a similar reason to this - to someone who does not play chess the hours of information I have learned can neither be interesting nor understood.

Another grim reality is that becoming better at the game has made me less nice, has made me into a meaner person. I'll always remember the first game of ping pong I played half a year ago with a friend of mine of considerable intelligence (and skill at ping pong). I almost beat him the first game we played and was only able to do this by shutting off all empathetic feeling I had for him, by thinking of myself as utterly superior, by wanting to have the power to humiliate him. (It wasn't hard for the empathy to return quickly after the game.) Similarly in chess, when I feel nice I don't play well. I imagined at first that conversating and chess could go on at once, but absolutely not! Chess is simply too demanding of the minds power even if you are a skilled player ... the way chess works is that even if you are really good, if you slip for one move your opponent may have a good chance of coming out ahead.

Eh, anyway, I'm still committed to chess, but upset at myself for spending more time on it than I should, it is fun to play someone and crush them like in this game ... though the converse is that the same thing is liable to happen to you. I feel like I'm spending 6 hours a day in maritial arts contests, and as fun as it is my time is simply better spent focusing on literature and social activity. Anyway, chess is one of my girlfriends and we have fun together, I can say that much.

Pittsburgh Interview

2010-05-29T15:48:00.000-07:00

Question we all ask ourselves here, how do you feel about living in Pittsburgh?

Compared to some people I haven't done much traveling, but I've lived in cities that were simply more interesting objectively speaking. On the other hand anywhere can be what you make of it. The greatest part of my life is spent alone in books, music, chess etc and would basically be the same in any city of a respectable size.

Where else have you lived?

Berlin, Prague, some months traveling throughout Germany and France.

What are some things in particular that you really like about Pittsburgh?

Particular people that I know … very particular people that light me up and I feel very proud to know. Other than that the only other thing that really strikes me is that there is classical music here and every year the best musicians travel through Pittsburgh and give concerts. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is of an exceptional quality though I rarely almost never go to symphony concerts.

Likes and Dislikes ….

Well, the huge masses of roads is not pretty to look at, certainly looks nicer in European cities of the same size where there are not even half as many cars! Literature, classical music, chess, etc are not understood or appreciated very well in general and the music scene (outside of classical music) seems relatively poor.

Is there a particular Pittsburgh culture, would you say, that distinguishes it from other cities?

I'm sure there is but I don't know much about it, that's a question for a sociologist – not a poet!

Pittsburgh always seems like a very earthy place to me. It was a thrill of a lifetime to live as an expatriate in Prague living an utterly opposite type of life! Everyone seems to know everyone here, some story about them, I find people very gossipy here, myself included. Whatever you do or don't do people will talk and talk about it … sometimes it feels like a bunch of children playing telephone.

Pittsburgh seems to have a thriving academic climate, loads of smart people. I really don't know what that world is like, nor much of the squatter punk dumpster diving type of stuff … I know what the correct path for me is and I follow it.

Would you recommend someone moving to Pittsburgh?

I honestly don't think Pittsburgh is that special, although the cost of housing here is really low. The winters are not very pleasant and there are a huge number of irritatingly shy and introverted people who do not understand how to have a conversation. Unless someone was moving here to be with particular people or for a particular job I'd imagine there'd have to be a more interesting place to live than Pittsburgh Pennslyvania.

… ah, thinking more about your last question though, one particular thing about Pittsburgh is the age structure, I think it's correct that only some counties in florida have a greater proportion of seniors making up the population. This peculiar age structure has to have some noteworthy effects.

And thinking more carefully about the question again I also want to add that Pittsburgh seems to have very distinct neighborhoods. Not all cities are like that, Pittsburgh is a really different place depending on where in it someone lives.

How do you think Pittsburgh is thought about by people who aren't natives to the region, or seen from the outside?

I like the appelation “The Paris of Appalachia,” Pittsburgh probably lives up to that earned reputation. When I lived in Europe most people I met had heard of Pittsburgh and were curious about it, as in America Pittsburgh seems to excite the imagination. Lucky for me the best year I had in my life was the year when the football team and the hockey team won the national championships and the g20 summit was held in Pittsburgh – probably the most fame Pittsburgh willr eceieve for a few decades. … Unfortuately I've never lived anywhere else in the USA so I really don't know how to compare the city to other American cities.

Like This Dear

2010-05-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

You meet the man
Then you shake his hand
Then he knows your name
Then he'll know your thing
Then he'll know you sing
Then he'll know your sting
Then he'll know you're king

Then he wants some bling
You must let him pull your strings
You come to like the thing
He comes to hear you sing
He comes just to bring

So then you must give and give
And you give then and you give
Give give give give and give
Probably the best way to live
You bend, it mends, so he survives, so you both thrive

Then more realize that you are rare
Then you realize most are squares
So then you Snarl and then you glare
Along then you meet some hares
Most won't dare, and most won't declare
They'll bore you - you stop to care
You'll then remember what's despair

So on and so on, already did it, lost most of its fun
So you go on, then you'll go back and share share share
They don't understand, they get a little scared, a little beware
Share share share dear stay away
The money dissapears, you get bare
They won't understanding the suffering, the living nightmare, could they care?

Then everything's fine
You'll drink lots of wine, lots of design
You'll know lots of swine, lots of refine
Then Lots of chess lines, lots of your shines
Too many minds, reminded, confounded and confined
Lots of deign, lots of rain, long time reign

Lots of time, really - Long life means lots of time
Whatever, remains flare, remains more to share
You laugh like a lord when you stop to compare
Then You'll stop that despair, you'll learn how to stare
You'll snare and roar you'll go on some tours, some cellar doors
Be prepared, life of a ecstatic solitaire ... so there

Kings Estrangement Accepted

2010-05-29T11:50:00.000-07:00

Estrangement is a sadder part of life, my best friend of last year this year is barely part of my world. He is one of those guys who has had lots of jobs, and lots of girls and after certain amount of time someone has a problem with him or starts disliking him, cause, ultimately, he has a more intense life and a bigger heart than they could imagine. Anyway, we became estranged, an excellent word choice I believe, we didn't yell at each other, we had no serious issue with each other, my life went a different way (as did his) and I couldn't find the motivation to continue to live in the past, to repeat again. When I was around him I couldn't avoid feeling like I was near a god or a demi-god, and of course I became like that myself and to save face I am sort of obliged to pretend to not like him much. It is strange, it is not pretty, but at elast we still have the mutual admiration thing going and no conflict, no saying mean things. No mental masturbation ... he's a king and I am a king so I am alone.

The Beauty of Knowing Evolutionary Biology

2010-05-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

Probably many of my most favorite conversations are about evolutionary biology. Even the people who really know me best hardly understand that part of me, that I'd be a happy soul indeed having a two hour science conversation about evolution. On Acid I walk in the morning studying Vietnamese and I heard the birds sing, I heard what type of stuff they were saying to each other, or a reasonable imagination, you know.

Cause I live a rather lonesome life, cause I know more suffering and less friends than most people I come across I do, I must say that I do have a particular fancy in calling out people's lack of knowledge about evolution. People will talk about evolution and I'll mention the big names (The Kasparovs and Karpovs of chess, the Michael Jacksons and Madonnas of popular music) and they won't even know them. I find it very amusing when people think they are big conversating about something and they actually only have the slightest knowledge about it, but they sound smart and impressive cause they are talking about science - fuck that shit, eww.

Artists and Scientists have different ways of being arrogant, when done well I find there isn't much difference between the two. The mediocre arrogant person has always been rather interesting to me, disgusting of course. The medicore science mind often has this particular arrogance because they know something that is true that the regular American guy doesn't know ... it makes her or him feel good about themselves, wow, your mind is able to understand a scientific argument and those guys just are watching sports! They don't realize how the strong think, the utter ease of simply reading something and acquring new information ... is in fact not very impressive and often not even very interesting. Polemnics against theism, dogs actually do not understand language (they'd argue), for lack of thought substitute any such interesting bit of knowledge that your friends don't know well. Do they realize the big boys do not care if their neighbor believes in god, if they don't know what a viola is, if they don't know who Darwin is. Sub-par artists who feel better than everyone at least have done something with a modicum of uniquness, the sub-par science mind (usually has) just read something correct by a mind far more brilliant than their own will ever be.

This Wonderful Life

2010-05-29T11:23:00.001-07:00

Cigarettes became my health
Chess became my flu
Je suis un voyou
The book is my delight (The Art of Attack in Chess)
Chess is my parasite
Che saw a different animal - he is my friend
Again? You also thought? Of course I'm not
The endgame became too much
The middlegame took too much time
Yet my cerebellum pulses nontheless
Still can't find anyone to fuck - but my music is the best

Christopher Is Not Your Friend

2010-05-29T11:00:00.001-07:00

No, I'm not your friend
No, I'm not friendly
No, You don't even know that?
No, You are as slow as that
Yes, You wanted this to be said
Yes, You have a sweaty head
Rather seedy, yes I know
Your mediocrity disgusts me, I'm gonna go study chess

Oh!

2010-05-28T00:14:00.000-07:00

Anyway, barely me right now. Thinking of a country, yes, ... the general level of understanding. The best we know here is boring - simply not interseting (not DJ, but the place) ... And ... It would'nt be me but I'll show you a better

Strong and Weak

2010-05-26T01:54:00.000-07:00

Proust Quotation here, from Part II Chapter 3 in Sodom and Gomorrah

"...The rule among humankind- which allows of exceptions, naturally - is that the hard are the weak whom no one has wanted, and that the strong alone, caring little whether they are wanted or not, have that gentleness that the crowd mistakes for weakness."

My Ecstasy Laughs At You

2010-05-19T23:18:00.000-07:00

My ecstasy laughs at you
and it is joy and it is more
Than you big boys it is the most I see
It is the most I know that
The ecstasy is comparable and so indominatable
That the things won't mean a thing as I sing
Sing what you don't know! and you so! you so!
My singing goes for ... hold on, more beer
King Lear, King Lear, sheer lack of fear, funny
Honey, it is on bees and flies and - what
Sigh? Best! The rest! Not that, such that - you and him and me
The best that me know me and he and she and she
She. She. Oh.

Thought-Out Or Beyond My Control?

2010-05-16T01:21:00.000-07:00

My Love Story

The guy is 27, the girl is 21. The first time they talk one-on-one is one of her first times in a bar. Meeting a girl and having only feelings of friendship had become second-nature to him, he hasn't had a girlfriend in four or five years. And he isn't surprised at all that some of the things he says (completely logical, correct, knowing why they are said) strike her as comical or bizarre. Walk down to another bar, “I am Julia and I have a big heart!”, the beauty of this child likeness is remembered quite well.

They conversate more, part of a table in a bar or coffeeshop. His initial impressions are not that great, notices her confidence problems, grew up with Arabic around her and has tried to study it her whole life did not know many words. He notices subtleties that show she isn't thought as well of as other women in the group. So affectionate it brought something that seemed or was slight stupidity? She brings donuts she scavenged somewhere to the table sitting at the bar, she dives her face into the cream filled donut, people put cigarette but then dollar bill in the two creamy holes of the donut. He likes how empathetic he feels tells her to wipe the white cream off her face that she didn't know was there.

Seeing her lack of confidence there, He inspires her by asking her in an obvious tone “how do you say 'I don't know' in language X.” Similar situation a few months later even better asking her “what is the derivative of cosine?” , she was taking a calculus class and enjoyed it, just like he did, clear beautiful orthography and order writing out the problems. That type of lifting spirits made him feel good, especially for someone who deserves it so much not just anyone. The way she said to him “I found it enjoyable talking with you” had something so socially correct and meaningful that he adopts the phrase and makes it one of his own.

She dances at a show in a beautiful dress and a beautiful body and a radiance of energy and grace that definitely makes her the most beautiful looking girl in the room to him. He wasn't the only person to see something extremely special in her, that is probably what gave her that new strength? Indeed he really likes her big heart, of all the people in the group she alone shows an interest in hanging out and making a friendship one on one – he always feels like he is looking for this and never getting it. They plan to meet, do practical things in the same neighborhood then go to a museum. Out of character he isn't able to catch the bus in time (usually extremely punctual and cautious), doubtful that it would have changed anything though.

He feels at ease talking with her, senses he gets excessively theoretical or intellectual, or talks with a sense of grandeur (“surrounded by greatness, the tasks of my life, characteristics of great music) that she doesn't find very pleasing, so he tries not to be as much like that. Over the months they meet here or there and have these conversations that feel great, feel memorable. Near the end of a night of partying where the conversation has gotten intense he makes a funny dark comment that he feels says something very true about himself, felt intense seeing and hearing her laugh and the understanding of what was said that they conveyed – not many times in his life has he been able to get that type of deep empathetic connection with someone. He notices she adopts certain behaviorism of his (and of course, of many others, not in a copy-cat sense but the genuine liking someone and making it her own.) Doesn't feel to be stroking his ego to him, rather the extreme humor and individuality of these things, a spin in circles or stomp of feet or a style of saying something – the stuff shows a deep sense of liking between two people far beyond romantic desire. He too finds that he is making facial expressions he picked up from her. Told her that her heart radiated goodness, told her bluntly that he liked her, and her honesty saying she could only had those feelings for one particular person. The liking was just beginning then.

An honest and heartfelt comment she made about herself that she didn't feel that she was a needy person transforms the liking into a deep liking. Nor is he, of course, most of his time he spends alone with the one life-time isn't enough mentality. The number of books to be read, chess, languages to learn, and so on. He fears he will end up with a female (a female, yes) that will want to spend more time with him than he'd like. Nothing'd be wrong with her, he'd just feel his time much better spent working on his goals than spending the time alone that a regular romantic relationship'd entail. Of course passion drives it, but he feels his romantic desire is a well thought out, maybe even logical one. He's someone whose very satisfied with the state of his life, not to tamper with something that is working so incredibly, rather unbelievably well. He saw how she could be the special girl, she could be enough, enough to shed the women he's never met, those he can know and communicate with, if not through conversation, through art. Full of intense conviction that he could become what he imagines being to her, he believed he had the ability to turn it into reality if he maintained, heightened the conviction.

He knew of her problems with motivation, feeling too much part of a group, and such – problems he had too, much worse, at that age, problems he effectively learned how to solve! Complete love he feels, if he could show someone so wonderful what he has learned, to bring their live such stunning improvement by the correctness of his knowledge, the warmth in his heart. Certainly some arrogance, but the amount of knowledge he had acquired, mostly I mean by this knowledge of what to do in situations to take the most out of a life, to make a life most meaningful. He believes no one she knows could show anywhere near as much of these as he could, so gladly would! Not even mentioning the great senses of humor and the sheer fun it'd all be.

Loves her big heart, it would warm his as friends became mutual friends, he'd become kinder, better, more stimulated by people through what she had with people. The potential to carry on rather independent lives but with the benefit of an indomitable assurance of being loved, very loved, by the other person, the same level. He trusts in the power of her mind, that the same string of thoughts on the logical advantageous of a relationship, and as or more importantly, an empathetic recognition of the love behind it. The knowing that love is liking the person as they are, to not expect them to be a certain way or to do certain things. Everything often seems to tell him he has found a mind of that power and beauty in her.

Though perhaps not as well thought out and rational as he would like to believe. She responded more empathetically to him than anyone else before and down to his nature there is so much pleasant and deeply enjoyed in this. Not sure, Proust probably had it correct when he wrote that people don't have the privilege to pick and choose who they are in love with, romantic love has a momentum of its own, often destructive and painful.

He learned how to make imagination of a girl very close to being as good as the real thing. One of those people who hallucinate faces and hear voices while awake – which really isn't much more than dreaming while awake because the mind would like more excitation than the environment is giving it. For a few weeks most of the time when he lies down to take a nap or rest he plasters the deepest smile he can across his face and imagines her there with him. Her face, voice, feelings, all of that, the sex, the affection, the difficulty. So much conviction over this, his kisses would be spewing his soul itself at her, all the tenderness and romance and soft and deep liking he always wanted to have with someone (that many people think he doesn't have much of, he knows how to present himself to his liking) – knowing they were going to the right person. Knowing how the beautiful reciprocation would work.

He sees her here and there, often at one or two bars at night. She really is a more popular person than him (he knows how to impress people, but people really like to talk to her) … difficult to talk to her these days because people almost seem to wait in line to talk with her. But he feels his presence, a sense sometimes that he knows who she wishes she was talking with and getting to know better. Sometimes has an arrogance and unattractive self-centeredness that is typical for that age (like I said, I had it much much worse). Takes a-lot of knowledge and experience to know the correct situations to assume certain attitudes and feelings, to know what type of social intercourse works well with people, and what types are as effective or interesting or attractive.

Once thought of jealousy as inherently unappealing, like irritability or certain political beliefs, but starting to find a certain legitimate, if limited legitimacy to feelings lf jealousy. I see her spending time with so many different people, feel like it'd just be better use of time if we spent more time together. Anyone not bad can get a good piece of her big heart, but I am something more special, I am someone better. Constrained arrogance with a certain legitimacy too – easy to take either one of these too far.

*

Going on impulse from a song lyric I stop what I'm doing find her and tell her she is the girl I love. She says “I don't believe you” “Of course you don't” I say while laughing, and go back to dancing. Uncannily some weeks later I am walking down the street thinking of her and see her with her friend walking down with their bikes. Saw too, and understood, the uneasy negative expression after I said “having fallen in love with you I want to spend as much time with you as possible.”

She doesn't seem to understand where my love for her comes from. One time says “but you don't know me well.” Seems to think I want to possess someone, I've done so much have collected so much regard that I deserve someone and it falls on her. Nothing like that. She could have sex with whoever she liked I'd be okay with it, ultimately. If her heart lights with the same fire and romance mine has then something magnificent occurs. She must have had many men try to force their way into a relationship, what good woman hasn't had that? Not that stupid by any means, can see quite well she is not very or at all interested in that at this point in her life. This type of love, patient doesn't even describe it, hopeful is more like it, the “come and stay whenever you like, and leave whenever you like” type of thing.

Saw her again tonight, usually dance in the bar on Thursdays but went on Saturday, mainly wanted to study the time away. Ended up dancing really well. Different crowed, I caught attention. She was there shortly, I saw her smile and deep humour as she thought of me dancing. More than a dozen women smiling at me, thinking about me, curious about me, completely cold at all that, only real feelings for her. Who knows if she understands that, does she have the confidence to understand that my affections go to her and her (almost entirely) alone because of the quality of who she is. My mind is as long-term thinking as possible with her, we both have happy full lives as they are, not needy! Nothing to do but to keep the momentum going, hope that the same thought processes and feelings will occur in her mind as did in mine – possible though not very likely. The girl I love has a long way to go.

Growing Up

2010-05-15T15:14:00.001-07:00

K: Hey Chris, I want to do a short interview this time about your upbringing, family, schooling, that stuff

Sure, why not.

K: Do you have any brothers or sisters?

C: I definitely don't. One of the things I'm most certain of about myself is that my life would have turned out utterly differently if I had any siblings. Since I was a young child I identified myself as something of a loner. When I was young there was a problem with my tonsils which gave me rather severe speech impendiment, all through my public education I was one of those people who was made fun of and unpopular. Ultimately I'm grateful for that.

K: How was your schooling experience otherwise?

C: I grew up in Hampton township, in Allegheny county. In my mind the place is a pure example of a middle-class suburb. The school district compared pretty well to other ones around and I suppose I was taught the basics if not well, definitely sufficiently. I started getting poor grades in grades 4 and 5 and continued to get low grades until the last year of highschool.

I was in “emotional support” classes for a reasonable amount of the time. Which means more individual time instead of in a class. One of the better behaved of those students. I was a bully though, it's strange, in elementary school I was extremely extremely mean to the few kids who were even more unpopular than me. At my worst as an adult something of this “bully” attitude emerges sometimes, but in a different way.

… I've always envied the people who started learning a musical instrument, or chess, or such at a young age, so as adults they are quite good at them. Never had much of those oppurtunities, remembering myself I don't recall that much brilliancy in me except for reading.

My mind sort of specialized to handle reading. My mother spent a-lot of time reading to me when I was young and when I got older I had hours of conversations with my dad that were very intellectually stimulating, they did their best.

My parents would spell words out if they wanted to conceal information from me … I will never forget when as a young child they spelled out the name of a neighbor they were going to visit and I somehow intuited that it was “T-H-O-M-P-S-O-N” was Thompson.

I read pretty far above my grade level all throughout public education. When 16 I started reading adult books (non-fiction, almost all of them, I wasn't able to appreciate literature much yet) and once I realized I could understand those books I felt a new, and much better person than the one I was before. Achieving a 790/800 on the Verbal part of the SAT helped give me an utter confidence in myself that has never left me … to be honest that owes a great deal to a very well taught SAT prep course that I signed up for for lack of interest in anything else.

On the whole through middle school and highschool I had rather low self esteem. I began each year determined to get good grades and felt horrible as I could not live up to my hopes for myself. I could not understand math and performed poorly at it which did make me feel very bad and unintelligent. …. I started going to community college the summer after my junior year in highschool. The math courses were taught well and thus began a few years love affair with math where learning the mathematics was the happiest part of my day … but I am probably getting a little far ahead.

K: Okay, can you tell me more about Hampton township?

C:Uh, it is pretty big … not sure the exact population size off the top of my head. People usually say it is a really nice place. Like any boy around there I spent a-lot of time wandering around in the creeks and woods alone or with friends. Almost everyone is white and most families are republican. No sidewalks, so much about cars. Whenever I go back there I cannot find the place agreable, I've even come to hold it against people if they live in suburbs like that.

K: From what you said you seemed to have some friends.

C: I had one best friend, we met in kindergarten and his family moved to another school district … so in elementary school I usually had a friend to spend time with. Sometimes I played with the neighbors and I made friends with a few other boys (never girls), but I was one of many friends with them and the friendships never became that close – not that I as a boy ever gave much thought to any of that.

If I understand correctly I became nicer and gentler going through middle school and high school but people were arguably meaner to me. The type of friendships were you can talk alone and get along well, but when you go with the friend to the group you have to bear a-lot of mean insults. I definitely don't hold any spite for any mean behavior when children, we're adults now, of course, forgive the slight bore of all this. Outside of that young childhood friend I was 22 or 23 when I again found meaningful friendship with men. … Anything else?

K: Ah yes last question, what would you change about your upbringing?

C: Sorry, I don't like that question. It is so easy to imagine it would be better if I had this and that and so on and so on … I was loved and nurtured and I had a far luckier childhood than most people, it was fine.

K: Thanks Chris, I enjoyed learning more about you. We'll continue on these themes in future interviews.

Smart Guys and King's Gambits

2010-05-14T23:33:00.001-07:00

One of the smartest guys I've seen in this city. Complete confidence in what he's doing. Goes to coffeeshop, clarity of mind explaining what he is thinking with the earned knowledge that it is more interesting, and continues with his heart. Basically speaking - the best shut everyone else up. Even me doesn't want to read aloud near him. What a diamond in a pawnshop - would he even care that only two people have any inkling of what he is trying to get across? Yes, the same John Nunn, the same Noam Chomsky, the same E.M.

As a native of Allegheny county, having lived in foreign countries, I know what isn't here and I know what is there. Whatever, make what you want of it, special people know full well their best purpose and they shine oblivious to uninterseting particulars. Of course. Anyway, same pages, anyway, Budha laughs just, you already did, same part of our brains same, right? You know (and probably no one else) know. Isn't it great though - does not brilliancy shine surrounded by ice-skaters performing to weird music? Don't you think?

Rachmaninov's 2nd and 3rd Symphonies

2010-05-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

One of quite a number of my favorite composers: Rachmaninov. One of the best pianists and one of the best composers in the entire world, of his generation. I don't believe that is a debatable point. I only know five or six of his works well but these are burned into my mind will probably remain there until I am an old man, if I make it that far. Why is it that some of the most talented people are also prone to depression? I would like to know if a solid scientific understanding of that has been developed yet.

I'd be fooling no one if I said I was depressed but the last few weeks in my life I've had a darkness and an unhappiness that I haven't known for a considerable amount of time. Not really feelings of loneliness, but of a solitude and really being alone in the way that few people are, I watched most people in the bar lit up and laughing and stood alone feeling dark ... understanding very well how uninteresting my behaviour was, yet still the basic and stupid want for someone to care about my mood and feelings when down. I had a smart girlfriend once and I went with her to see her friend, her friend was feeling down so she went over to cheer her up. It got me thinking, I don't think at anytime in my life a friend has come over to cheer me up when I am unhappy, or vice versa. When I get dark and down I'm in no position for friendship, no one there to lift up my spirits nor probably could they, how could they understand why I feel so dark when I don't even fully.

One thing about people of great talent I learned is that they are often basically unpleasant to be around, dominant, forceful ... lacking something of that desire to be pleasing that most people have fully internalized. On the other hand, of course, some special people are gifted conversationalists and very delightful to talk with, graet listeners and all of that. I know what both of them are like, different times in the same day even I'll switch from one to the other. Only stupid people don't understand the advantageousness of being mean sometimes.

Anyway, I begin my day walking to Bloomfield listening to Rachmaninov's 2nd symphony, I know the work well. The music speaks to me, the music is basically perfect, and I get a new understanding of it.

Then, later on, Rachmaninov's 3rd symphony. Not that I know it well but the music didn't inspire me. I conversated while listening to the music and the conversation was much more interesting, the music wasn't memorable to me and it was happier music than the 2nd. (I'm talking symphonies here, not concertos.) Thinking it out like this I understand it better. Only be reaching a state of brilliancy or greatness can lack of it be understood well. Is not pleasing to know very well how unimpressive you are, rather dangerous thing to lose one's momentum, psychologically speaking. Whatever, 5 minutes of Rachmaninov at his best is better than hours upon hours of contemporaneous Russian composers who are all but basiclly forgotten by now.

Chess Interview

2010-05-14T14:13:00.001-07:00

Q: You really seem into chess, how did you get into chess?

A: I was living in Europe you see (laughs). I was enchanted by the idea of playing chess well. I was fond of two some well-known artists who I learned were also formidable chess players. At that point in my life I was just starting to really understand how learning and skill improvement worked … so why not be like them and also become great at chess?

My first chess games were very pleasant experiences as I found it was a create way of assisting in a conversation with the person I was playing with. Unfortunately as I got to understand chess better I learned that conversating and playing chess at the same time is almost always a bad idea.

Q: How so?

A: Rule number one in chess for me is no multitasking! When playing chess a person should be playing chess, simple as that. In a chess game there is so much going on, so many wrong moves and often several choices among “good” moves that to play well requires the full force of someone's attention! This applies to experts and and grandmasters as much as it does to beginners. I'm not sure what your knowledge of psychology is but this is it – conversating or just talking takes an appreciable amount of working memory.

Q: How good are you at chess?

In chess there are 5 ranks for tournaments, I'm good enough to play competitively in D or C tournaments. Not nearly good enough for whatever I could do on a chessboard to be interesting to a professional player. I believe I am pretty good at chess relative to how long I have been playing it.

Playing chess is a humbling experience, someone can always find people who are much better at it than you, people who are able to make you look like a fool. Losing chess games isn't fun. I've had great games where I've played much above my skill level, I've had a-lot of games where I've made moves that were simply pathetic.

Q: And how long have you been playing chess?

About nine months now. … Of course when I was a kid one day dad got out the chessboard and taught me how the pieces move. I had to appreciate Sudoku before I could appreciate chess. … A-lot went into my decision to study chess. I saw more than one guy, nothing against them, sort of intellectual types who seem very well liked by ladies. Though unpopular, I knew better than them and I wanted to be able to crush them in a game of chess. Mission accomplished.

Q: How has chess effected your social life?

There it has been really beneficial. When I sit in a coffeeshop studying chess it usually turns heads. People have a healthy curiosity about something they don't know much about, a chess board is very noticeable visually, and chess of course has accrued more respect in the world than any other game has. Pittsburgh is definitely not a chess city, if I started doing chess like this in Budapest I doubt I'd create the same impression. Unfortunately I am probably better known in Pittsburgh as a chess player than as a poet or writer, ironic of course because I think I excel at these, whereas my chess is nothing special.

But more interesting to me, chess has improved the general strength of my mind, something that is evident to me every day. When a smart person takes up a new skill, say painting, or rock climbing or whatever it is, skill at other more important tasks usually improves. I don't think it is known why the mind works this way, but it does … for the same reason learning a foreign language will allow a writer a stronger command of the English language.

Another fundamental rule of chess is to always try to have a plan, not to “make things up as you go along.” I apply it to life and whatever I'm doing I try to always have a plan, a goal in mind. A solid sense of conviction and purpose in whatever I'm doing, big thing or small things.

Q: What are some common misunderstandings about chess?

Chess is most definitely a sport. Chess players are more like hockey players, or soccer plays than they like singers or writers or painters or whatever. Another idea commonly held is that you get good at chess just by playing lots and lots of chess games. If one wants to get good at chess one needs to read books about chess, lots of time reading about chess. A-lot of this information that must be absorbed and internalized can feel like dry impractical memorization … but learning is done incorrectly if there is no sense of fascination involved.

Another idea is that chess grandmasters are simply persons who have memorized a-lot of information about chess. There's more to it. Playing chess well requires the same creativity ability needed to compose poetry or make a painting. Some minds are just more suited for chess than others, chess is basically the manipulation of visual imagery in a creative and logical matter – same as in higher mathematics.

And like in any sport, to play well you have to completely shut off all empathetic feelings you might have for your opponent. My worst chess games are usually played with some people I genuinely like for this reason. Of all sports chess is most similar to a one-on-one marital arts contest.

Q: Do you play against the computer?

When I first started playing chess most of my games were against the computer. Once I started playing online with human opponents my game got much better. Computers playing chess make moves that no human would make ... there is a stale artificial feel to their play. Playing chess against a computer can be like fighting a chimpanzee. Noam Chomsky, I believe, said it quite well, computers have been made that can calcuate fractions faster than humans, robots have been made that can lift more than humans, etc etc ... no fascination here that a technological device might be able to play better chess than a human.

At the highest level of play computers can compete with the worlds best, if my knowledge is correct the best humans still play better chess than the best computers. What is less known is that almost all professional chess players find it necessary to make great use of computer analysis. The best chess players in the world, when they analyze their games with computers usually find mistakes and weaknesses they did not notice during the game.

Q: Is this sort of an argument to take up chess?

Eh, not really. More often when I talk to people I recommend that they don't work to improve their chess game. A person probably has to spend a few hundred hours learning chess before being able to do anything creative or interesting looking on a chess board. Chess is one of those things were you don't get very far if you only dabble in it mildly. (Simply checkmating the king with a rook and a king is very difficult if you have never done it before!) In the time necessary to become a grandmaster at chess a person could probably become fluent in at least 2 or 3 foreign languages. Chess is best fitted for people who are very socially competitive and who, lets say, have not much difficulty excelling at mathematics if they want to. For people like this I'd definitely recommend crossing the bridge and spending some time in chess world.

Interviewed About Political Beliefs - Concluded

2010-05-14T12:37:00.000-07:00

Q: Katie again back interviewing Christopher Ammons. We were talking about politics last time and I'd like to continue that, my next question to you is this: Did negative experiences with activists lead you to distance yourself from left-wing politics then?

Not really. I can't think of any activist, anarchist etc I've had a personal problem with. Basically it was just a change in how I thought. Of course like almost everyone I hoped that at the protests and films and lectures I might come out with a new friend or a girl, that didn't happen, but that is something more general about me. When I stopped feeling the need to make friends I didn't have like that, when I learned how to use my time better … dropping what I'm doing to make a personal statement against war or globalization and such held less of an appeal.

Q: You are probably criticized as being apathetic, you know what is going on and you just ignore it or think it isn't your concern.

Well, there is some truth to that. Can't do it all. … uh, since way before the Roman empire people have been dominating and exploiting each-other, I don't think it will change anytime soon, and I don't think there is anything I can do about it.

When the G20 protest was going on I laughed contemptously at the activists battling the police. What a joke. Move to a 3rd world country and build houses or feed people if you want to dedicate yourself to human improvement, playing out a fantasy of “fighting the state” or “pigs” may be fun to the participants but I really don't think there is anything constructive.

When I was in my early 20's I went to every protest I could, I think I told you that already, the idea was the more the better, that they all deserved to have thousands of people at them. I see clearly the arrogance I came with, the feeling that I was smarter, had a better understanding, was more radical, far more of these than the average guy. … I mean whatever, I'm an only child, I'm a loner by nature, it isn't to my personality to join in a protest and chant along, however inspired or correct or needed the protest is.

Q: You seem worn out, something is different about you this week.

A: I've had a rough few weeks. I've lost some momentum, that too I'm realizing is an unavoidable part of life – hindered by events that are outside of your control.

Q: Sorry to hear that.

A: I'm not worried, if I know anything I know how I work. A grandmaster playing poorly still probably wins against internetional masters.

Q: Okay Christopher, let's continue this another time.

A: Definitely, totally, for sure, yes.

Interviewed About Political Beliefs - Continued

2010-05-14T12:20:00.000-07:00

Q: This is Katie here with another interview with Christopher Ammons. Asking the questions people probably want to know and trying to cover everything I want to continue asking some 'political' questions.

A: That's fine. I enjoy them.

Q: What do you think of Noam Chomsky?

A: I in fact used to try to begin conversations with that question. More than likely if that name doesn't ring a bell there is something left to be desired … I think Chomsky is great, for a long time in my life he was somewhat of a hero to me, such a fine combination of a political thinker and a scientist. … I read an essay once he wrote on philosophy and it was excellent correct philosophical thinking indeed.

Chomsky, like Bookchkin, is one of those libertarians who does not go off into abstract theoretical thinking which really, I think, hardly has any value to it. I've read a good deal of Chomsky's books, I really can't think of anything that I disagree with, he is something of a pseudo-extremist when one examines what he has actually said. He has done an important job publicizing a-lot of the very worst that the American government has done.

Q; Howard Zinn died recently, what do you think about him?

A: I think he's great. Err, he was great? Like Chomsky and others a really smart person. They know how to choose their words carefully and because of that attacks against them almost always look ridiculous. For a regular person People's History of the United States has to be a pretty mind-blowing work.

Q: Anyone else you want to throw out some compliments about?

A: Gabriel Kolko has always left me somewhat awestruck, seems able to write a 900 page book on history or something that actually necessitates the length and is not boring. I could stretch my mind and name more people who obviously deserve credit for good work, but I'm more interested in the negative just cause it's more funny.

Q: Sure, leftists who have left a negative impression then?

A: I had a professor at community college who was, the more I think about it, a real popular stereotype of a leftist professor. It's just funny to me. His course was hardly planned and he spent most of the class time making angry monologues about this and that. We were assigned a-lot of reading about trilateralism. This guy even started yelling, if I remember, at a student in the class because she drove an SUV and didn't see what was wrong with it. In his mind he was probably being brave and bold and considering his colleagues cowards and chickens.

Ah, how to put it, becoming negative or angry at concrete people because of abstract notions of suffering, injustice, exploitation – there is so much wrong with that. Forgive the vagueness. Another left-wing person I know started feeling indignant and telling me that my generation would pay for our lack of regard for global warming. Sure, I could be doing more against global warming, sorry, can't do everything.

These type of people, and there are so many, have something similar about them. Usually they do not have a very high social intelligence but they are smart, philosophical, and their mind can come up with correct formations of some bad things that people, governments, police, etc do. Sometimes they might have a degree of autism, usually there is something they don't understand about situational context. If conservative relatives invite you to dinner it is not a good idea to start arguments about why Christianity is wrong, no matter how correct the arguments are in of themselves.

Q: So if I understand correctly it is not really ideas that you don't like, but the way or the person putting them across?

A: That's correct. And I don't mean to single out left-wing. Almost any field is going to have people like that, I'm just thinking based on my own autobiographical experiences. … Hopefully this interview will help clear some rumors running around about me … my selfish hope!

Q: Thank you Chris, until next time

Rejoyce Pittsburgh

2010-05-14T11:47:00.000-07:00

Rejoyce Pittsburgh

Cottman is Luther King
Elias is Allin
Spat is Grieg
Ammons is Joyce
She's Dutch
He's like Thoreau
Is there anyone else?
She dissapointed me
She is lame, different she
Well, Can't you see?
She doesn't even understand tea
She doesn't like me, maybe
I frighten him, maybe
They really think I'm gay? Okay!
She thought I was going to hit her, really?
He took it off the carpet – yes, really
Kasparov and Bobby Fischer singing Ives
Even Sigh's got good at Elias
Pittsburghs being a shitstorm of contempt and malice
Back to the front, kiss you like never, that's what I want

Indomitable Joy

2010-05-13T17:50:00.001-07:00

Rich Red Fuck You

2010-05-10T19:49:00.000-07:00

Rich Red Fuck YOU

Art is life
and life is art
and life is art
life is art
art is life
life is art
art is life
life is art
and I know
so
so so so so
art is
art is life is
I know I know I know k know k ik wno I know I know I kwno trhat you kwo that I know now that I am tall and you are small and and so

here is another thing you little thing and it is so tall and it is a call
ball cough ball cough ball cough balll I know I know I know I know I know
you know so so so so I know you and the keyboard is my keyboard
and I know that and you know me
and I know you and you know me and I know you and know you and iyou know me and I know you and you know me and I know you and I know that you see this now

so that is how I be and I see three see sea three three she she she she she she she she she she she she she seheh the faces flicker before my eyes and I am taller than thou are

you know my name
you really do
I know your name
not you
okay
so that is what you meant by what you meant to it what so what it meant by it now and it

it drops and flops and stops and stops and stops and stops and goes and goes and goes goes goes goes goes goes geos geso geso geso watch me see y our ice skate. Watch me flight flight flight bite my eyeball. Shy and shy and oh I know your fingers are fingers and fingers are fingers are fingers are Wrists Frankly speaking is what I am saying. I smile at my ejubilashnoiw.

Oh oh no no here it goes oh no no no no no no no no no no no no nono no non on on on o herhehrehrehrherherhehereherhehherhehrehreherhehrehrehrhehrehrhehrhehre herherher

Her is me I know her she is mine now almost I thought so! Never I know so! But I see her and I know her and I am her so what are you humble thais doing in the summer time I don't know so so so so so so so so deeeeeeeeee is the fine beauty of combinations. And I float on you, I walk over you. My ecstasy not your ecstasy. Oh. Here we go. Here I go. I am no no no no no no no no here I go. NO no no no here I go no no Here I go Here I go Here I go Here I go . GO GO GO GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOOGOGOGOOGOGOGOOGOGOOGOGOGOOGOGOOGOGOGOOGOGOGOOGOGOOG OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOOGOGOOGOGOGOOGOGOGOOGOOGOOGOGOGOOGoNONONONONONONON

Oh SO I KNOW SO I KNOW. SO that is what you meant that is what you meant that is what you meant by that that is what you meant I see. So I SEE SO I SEE. So I see clearly jasny perched so so fingers.

Why not smoke another one? Why not ascend to heaven's? Yes Che, Evan is not Heaven.

Despair And Suffering

2010-05-09T04:47:00.001-07:00

Despair And Suffering

It's been said that
“True love makes one stupid”
I hate to say it, but that's true

Fell in love with a girl
Really thought it out
Everything I'd want in a woman in her

Who crosses my path
when I left the bar
fucked up and drunk

Oh she knows
I feel like shit and just bad
She doesn't care

Can I follow you to the dumpster?
“Sure,” she says in an obvious way
“Fuck that” I'm going home

But around the corner, she's there
I freeze, I wait
sort of eager for her to become just some girl

Explaining that I don't want anything from her, etc etc
I still manage to make her feel uncomfortable
She might know more Spanish than she knows what makes me tick

She or someone like her, gets down, feels bad, friends rush in, do their best
That has never been part of my life, that can't be part of my life? Oh
If I feel like shit I'll always be on my own – so could you possibly show some care for me?
Speaking as friends, speaking as friends, speaking as friends I definitely am not trying to battle you

I agitate myself more when I replay how I sound
Ideological, stupidly egocentric, very unattractive when I feel in love like that
Try to stop the cynicism of the moment
The girl I love is an impressionable child
The girl I love is not worth 8 minutes of my precious time

Oncle Archibald Translated Into English

2010-05-01T08:36:00.001-07:00

My Translation Of Oncle Archibald By George Brassens - I hope you like it

O you, the ripper of teeth
All the cockroaches, the quacks
The Prophets
Count more on Uncle Archibald
To pay the rape of the ball
At your party

Not to mention that said a thief
Who just was killing his time
At his watch
Uncle Archibald, wow!
Did, his majesty death
Meet

Such a 'woman' of easy virtue
She strode down the sidewalk
Cemetery
Coquettish men in kilts
A little bit higher than what's decent
His shroud

Uncle Archibald, in a mocking tone
He said: "Go away, hang out somewhere else
Your frame
Disgusting! bony women
Long live the lovely a little bit
Chubby! "

When, mounting his high horse
Death brandished its long scythe
The agronomist
Locked in his shroud
And mowed down in one strike, a single
Man

Well, he did not look happy
When She said: "It's been a long time
That I've loved you
And our marriage vows for us both
Were foreseen from the day of
Your Baptism

If you lie in my arms
Then life will seem
Easier
You'll be untouchable
The dogs, the wolves, the men and the
Fools

"Trash won't phase you
You could cry "Long live the king!"
Without intrigue
If you always change
You could cry without peril
"Long live the League!"

The time to get fooled is over and done
No one's gonna bet anymore
On your stupidity
The "What is it, master?" will have it run
Never again will you have to bow-
wow the head

And my uncle fell in line
The beautiful, which does not seem
so fierce
And here they are, arms above, arms below
And they're off, I dunno know where to
Making a wedding

O you, the ripper of teeth
All the cockroaches, the quacks
The Prophets
Count more on Uncle Archibald
To pay the rape of the ball
At your party

He Isn't Gay, Okay?

2010-05-01T02:22:00.001-07:00

Okay he isn't gay, okay okay
He wants to come on your face - okay okay
Just hypothetical situation
No madam he doesn't really like you
He slights you? He might like you?

Trust me, he isn't gay okay, okay
Why so offended, at least he was honest
wants to come on your face - isn't gay

The guy can't get him, why aint he with a girl
Whiskey and bitches his friends scream - whiskey and bitches
Stitches in time my enemies, more stitches in time
Isn't very kind sometimes, debatable, but he isn't gay - Oh
So? Doesn't it show? Oh he isn't with a girl and he isn't gay
He's always alone, okay? physical matter and solipsism isn't even the half of it

He was open and made out with a guy when he was 20
his mouth tasted foul and he spit spit spit all the next day?
He let some guy fuck him drunk and his skin felt soft?
He jerks off about 3 times a day looking at naked women - are you okay?
His guy friend touched him and he felt bi once? What did he say? But but ...
Okay, okay - have fun thinking about misogynism - but that guy isn't gay - okay?

Evan's Gambit (My Swansong Of Literary Blog-Writing To-night)

2010-04-24T04:11:00.001-07:00

Evan's Gambit (My Swansong Of Literary Blog-Writing To-night)

I've been studying the Giuoco Piano opening. Found a really good source. Sure is hard work for me, easier for my mind to read literature for five horus than one hour with chess literature, but that'll probably get easier. Giuoco Piano translates in English to "Quiet Game." I also studied the "Quiet little game" Giuco Pianissimo. Memorized the refutation of Mahlers attack, I know. Some people wouldn't be impressed, that this is just brute memorization, memorizing lines. But, that is wrong, for one it is pretty impressive just to take the necessary time to burn something into long term permanent memory, second, to do anythign well requires creating lots of memories for it. Creativity and synthesis is built on knowledge stores. Thinking lately about temporal lobes and frontal lobes, you know. Anyway, next opening I've been studying is Evans Gambit (5 b4 ...) At the grandmaster level my reliable source informs me that Evan's Gambit is "rather tootheless." Definitely not a good idea to play Evans Gambit against a master or grandmaster these days. Next is the four knights game. Sebastian, Light, Bright, Right.

Burn Through The Fire – Friday Afternoon

2010-04-24T02:22:00.000-07:00

Burn Through The Fire – Friday Afternoon

Drugs are great, great for me. Certain drugs are great, great for me. Mutated mind into superhuman. Coming down from drugs can write 1000 word short story. Drugs? That, my friend, is a rather abstract idea. It goes not like this: mind from brain, physical material. Interesting things affect brain in interesting way. No way or very rare brains get these ways if brain have no drugs. Of course, food drug, water drug, particular drug. Trial and error. Dresses. Compressive combinations. Yes. Si.

Life flash, see things so clearly. Amount of time my mind alive, amount to do. Whatever way, the wick the wick the wick the wick the wicked dynamite stick. An amount time mental quality high, do what with it? There is chess, there is Che. Liar. You wanted to know how I spent my day? Okay. Wake. Pussy pants snapped. Out of bed. Provigil. Live on corner of Stratford Avenue and Friendship Avenue. Les Quatre Ages. I – Vingt Ans. II. Trente Ans. Walking down friendship avenue. Looking forward. Charles-Valentin Alkan was a jet fighter pilot? Listening to Italians very simple Italians talking.

(O technology, I hear music and play chess whenever I want to, almost always actually)

Arrive at literary cafe. The girl who always asks for cigarettes is inspired and writing. Garbage of course. Set up chess board. Giuoco Piano. Korchnoi's cute idea. The main line is E4E5KnightC3knightC6bishopC4bishopC5pawnC3KnightF6 My work was interrupted by man who wants to play chess. So what? Queens pawn game. Tactical error resign. Game 2. Kingside attack. Not calm not social time to execute correct kingside attack. That knocked the wind out of my sails. Walk, literally, around the block two three times doing something. Girl with Egon Schiele tattoo on her arm, the Czech artist some I sing softly to her Chopin Preludes Claudio Arrau. Buy cigarettes. Sandwhich shop. Chopin Nocturne Op. 48 no. 2? Ken. Does interesting stuff and reads books. Sun heat bright unpleasant table outside literary cafe. Wynn conversation. Self-righteous anarchists, professionalism of police shouldn't it. Waste of life. Someone doesn't like you? Ugly girl academic paper, I asked her, teaching a workship tomorrow radical feminism and primitivisim – the connection. “I believe I should do as much as I can to pollute the planet.”

Rage over a lost penny, sing that out loud. Again. Prague trams in mala strana. Part II, Chapter I, finished reading it. As perfect reading as I could do. I had a date and she did not like sad music. His mother. Only fifteen minutes. Should I have read for an hour like I planned to do? Firm Victor refuses the runner a cigarette and tells me to tell Che to give middle finger. You stick up for yourself I like that. Anyway D4EtakesD4CtaksD4BishopB4checkKnightC3(... …. ….. …........ ….. …. …..) I began to learn correct refutation of Møller attack. Finished later in my room. Mind left utterly exhausted. Walk back past sandwhich shop Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies. Che Elias talking with Koorolyn Yoogipan. The ten dollars I have three dollars until Sunday he gives it to me and then asks to buy Carolyn's food. Finally met Noel Jacobs, and Sigh. That was later. Called her art disgusting and detestable. “I am too tired to be nice, I am surrounded by mediocrity.” “Not you (probably a really really mediocrity) , or you (sleeping black child)” I lay in grass mind utterly exhausted pretty assured was I doing about the most difficult ambition for my brain to work at? Normal afternoon. The taking of power by Louis XIV and beginning to really understand Evans gambit knew I could understand the French without subtitles.

Twenty Minutes To Five

2010-04-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

I was reading a novel outloud, Nabokov's The Real Life Of Sebastian Knight. I was reading the final chapter. Reading outloud a part mentions the time as twenty minutes to five. I looked at my watch and it was 4:40. A few months ago I set my watch to goverment time, utterly sure that it did say 16:40 on my watch. No riddle here. Nothing was planned. On page 193 on the second paragraph. And events like this aren't singular, my life is full of them, but the extreme coincidence of this one really did surprise me.

The best explanation I have for these amazing coincidences is that when my mind is sharp and alert it almost expects them to happen. Doing what feels like a tremendous activity on these days somewhere or another the occurence of these uncanny coincidences is likely.

Two other similar situations. A few weeks ago I was walking while listening to Pimsleur Portugeuse, the section where it shows you how to say "to the left, to the right" without any preparation the first "and now say, to your right" came pretty much precisely when I turned to the right to continue walking to my destination.

Dancing at Belvederes DJhatesyou plays the cure song "just like heaven." I felt like standing against the wall, then comes the lyric "standing up against the wall your just like a dream." Basically coincidence. Now I happily begin dancing to the song by showing as avidly as possible to anyone who would want to know how that trick is done - it begins as chance and sensing the success it is done again and again until it becomes routine.

Final example, the birth and death dates of George Brassens (22 October 1921 - 29 October 1981.) It is possible he committed suicide, but the likelier explanation was that there was none or hardly any conscious planning involved. Whatever, I remain as steadfast secular and skeptic as I was when I was 17.

The Anti-Anarchism Interview

2010-04-17T02:45:00.000-07:00

Q: We did part I and II with language, shall we continue to talk politics?

A: Definitely.

Q: You really seem to dislike anarchism, I don't quite get your contempt.

A: The contempt is totally personal. The same way a guy raised by conservative Christians who becomes an atheist is going to be disgusted by them. I reserve the right to dislike people or ideas solely because it energizes me.

Q: You said something like anarchism doesn't take into account human nature, euh, what did you mean?

A: Well, no straw-men here ... to me the anarchist idea is like going around to strangers yelling in their face to change. All the anarchist theory I know proposes that a revolution utterly changing the way society works is necessary. I can see some situations where this might work, but mostly no. Bad idea. Everyone smart knows someone with some problems .... can imagine changes they could make to ease their problems. A person really shouldn't go up to someone like that and brightly inform them of their mistakes and how to change for the better, most people really just don't work like that - that is an example of how anarchism fails to understand human nature. Not many people have a good understanding of why people do what they do, anarchists, budhists, or painters.

There is the idea that human nature is determined almost entirely by social environment, basically that society is what determines what makes people how they are ... and since the way society is can be changed the way people are can be changed. Stating the utterly obvious there is some truth in it ... but there are so many things wrong with the idea. It doesn't even take knowledge of evolutionary psychology or genetics, really. And I've had more than enough "intellectual conversations" where the person argues in some way or another the vacuous idea that truth is relative or truth is a social construct. I can hardly stomach the type of anarchist who thinks of himself or herself as "anti-science" and, of course is loaded with correct ideological beliefs - ecologist, animal rights, gay marriage etc etc.

Q: What's wrong with those?

A: I don't think there is anything wrong with the ideas when thought of correctly. To me it is just unimpressive, easy as pie to read some book or magazine article or go to some lecture about say for example treatment of Native Americans or polar bear extinction and to feel good and intellectual because of it.

Q: Fair enough.

A: This is just fun for me. Great conversation is often made with the purpose of trying to say something funny that would make a friend laugh. One of the most extreme anarchists I know in Pittsburgh probably spends more than half an hour driving on a regular day in his life. A different anarchist I know, shortly after talking about anarchism started talking excitedly about the bank he chose. I am sort of a mean person by nature and ... one time small anarchist protest for whatever reason a cop got pissed off and was a little physically aggressive with teenaged kid. The uproar that the protesters had one would've thought he got raped in the ass. Pretty weak to me. Or being offended because someone in the room is using words like nigger or cunt in the jokes he is telling. Weak people are usually pretty sensitive and I'm pretty sure strong people usually don't give a fuck, most of the time. Sticks and stones.

Q: Okay. I'm curiuos to know what you think of the police.

A: Marvellous band with lots of talent and have even sung some songs in French. Just kidding. To me that is a very abstract question. "Police" is an abstraction. I'd prefer to think about individual police officers or even police departments. Research has shown that people with authoritarian personalities are attracted to police work, I'm sure a-lot of brutal shit goes down. But to crudely "hate police" seems just childish.

Q: Wrapping things up. I get the feeling you want to say a few more things about anarchism.

A: Well, like almost any "movement" generally full of self-righteous lame stuff. Some right wing guy making fun of you in a crude way that is funny to him really is nothing to get worked up about. Anarchism and misanthropy go together in practice very often, if not in theory ... the usual 'are people that stupid that they don't realize what's wrong with our society - some people need to wake up!' Push them a little more than they like and some of them become bullies, some of them will tell you they are only an anarchist because their friends are and they really are not interested in anarchist theory.

Q: What about Marxists, Socialists, Communists?

I'll leave history out of this, the ones I have came across usually seem like they are in some sort of cult, though they tend to be a little smarter than the average bears. Trotskyists are definitely creepy to me.

Q: Right wing, right?

One time in a car I felt different and decided to listen to right wing talk radio with an open mind. It took about 3 minutes before I started saying "this shit's retarded."

Q: Moderates, apolitical people?

There is a correct way and an incorrect way with those.

Q: My stomach feels a little funny, thanks again Christopher.

A: No worries Katie.

Interviewed About Political Beliefs

2010-04-16T23:59:00.000-07:00

Q: You don't mind talking politics do you?

A: I definitely look forward to it, how did you ever guess.

Q: I get the impression you are not really interested in politics much.

A: That's right. I don't feel obligated to be interested in politics. I prefer channelling my energy elsewhere.

Q: That wasn't always the case though, was it?

A: Definitely not. When I was in my early 20s my political ideology was an important and essential part of my self-concept. I learned a-lot that would, of course, shock the average American guy. I came from a liberal-left family and spent many happy hours in my young adulthood having conversations that felt wonderful and very intellectual stimulating.

Q: You know I have too, I'm curious to know what changed, I don't think I have changed there.

A: I became an anarchist in my late teenage years, without any anarchist friends, based almost solely upon arguments I read that were really intellectually impressive to me. As i see it now the anarchism I had was rooted in a very simple idea. I learned about how stupid, corrupt, exploitation, ugly wars etc etc. It just made sense to be against what was not good at all. Since the ideas made sense, if they became popular and were put into practice a society much much better for everyone could become reality. So I supported what, in terms of politics, sociology, economics, etc simply seemed correct. Correct to struggle against really bad people, correct to try to radically change society for the better.

Well, as I thought about it more that was too simple. The world is more or less stuck as it is, 300 years from now the world will probably be full of all or most of this stuff just like it is today. I like to think I grasped something about human nature that I hadn't understood before. It seems like a basic part of human nature for people to preserve the advantages that they have. People are not nice or not good for a reason, it is more complex than some people being bad, or something about society being bad. I'm not saying that the world can't or won't become a much better place, but that is not my line of business. Did I accomplish anything going to protests and throwing my support out - honestly that accomplished nothing or hardly anything, for me. I could, for example, move to Africa and spend my life caring for starving children, but that simply isn't my nature.

Q: Besides not-interested how would you then describe your political belief in a few words?

Moderate leftist I suppose, or perhaps right wing socialist? Also anti-anarchist. Something in me holds anarchist ideology it utter contempt. Most of the time anarchism honestly comes off to my mind as almost but not quite ridiculous as new-age-ish spiritual beliefs. Shouldn't everyone hate the weaker version of themselves of long time ago?

Q: A fair number of people in Pittsburgh seem to know of you by your involvement in radical politics, could you tell me more about it - I like you and I want the record set straight.

When I was an anarchist I went to as many protests and leftist events as I could. For intellectual stimulation, because I was looking to learn more, an honest lonesome person's desire to make friends and or find some romance. Funny thing was at that time in my life I basically had Aspergers syndrome - I did not really understand how to enjoy communicating with people. So I didn't talk much with people if it wasn't a question of abstract intellectual conversation. I would sit at activist meetings with my head in a book, or even read a book while walking on a protest march. I doubt this offended anyone as it certainly wasn't meant to.

I see anarchists and radical left people all the time, some of my favorite people are one or the other. I don't think I have any problems with any of them, just like I wouldn't have problems enjoying being friends with a Christian or a Budhist, etc as long as they don't go off the deep end. One guy for example, during our introduction conversation, says most honestly, do you want to fight the state, come fight the state with us. Someone else who I really liked made an offhand comment about someone else saying "He's not even an anarchist." I am not okay with that type of social garbage. One of my favorite poets George Brassens was an anarchist, most of my favorite composers were Christians. I don't enjoy spending my time trying to argue against possible errors in people's ideological beliefs.

Q: This was, I remember now, during the Bush II presidency.

A: Yes, but I was a adopted anarchist radical beliefs before all of that started. Of course the blatant propaganda, extreme right wing ideology, horrible wars, it was rather shocking to me just like I'm sure it was to you.

Q: If Bush II repeats itself in the future do you think you would join in the protest movements?

A: Honestly, I doubt it. If things got to an early 1930s Germany state of things I might have to make some tough decisions and take sides, but with hindsight it definitely appears a foolish exageration to think of George Bush II as some modern day Hitler. Bush left office as a rather unpopular president, of course. Radical left protests may make some people feel good, they may make some people change ideas, but honestly speaking, but simply protesting violently or non-violently does not seem capable of creating the changes some people wish they could.

Q: I see what you mean. I would like to know though, how do you think society is going to be changing socio-economically or politically and all?

A: The future is hard to predict and I can't say much about this topic with the confident certainty I like to have. Society in generally is a rather static thing, I think, just like most people do not change much after a certain age. Rising costs of oil I think will force a-lot of lifestyle changes in America. As economic development continues at a rapid pace in other parts of the world I think the economic standing of America will continue to gradually decline. Euh, I don't think I can say what you want me to here.

Q: Your fine Christopher, this is no inquisition. I've enjoyed getting to know what seem to be your honest opinions.

You read my mind Katie, I'm continuing to enjoy these interviews with you.

Interview About Languages - Part 2

2010-04-16T19:20:00.001-07:00

Q: In this interview I want to talk more specifics about languages. Let me get your opinion, which is an easier language to learn, French or German?

A: A very difficult question, of course. German is probably easier to learn to speak, and French is probably easier to learn to read. People see cognates between English and German, the good-gut, have-haben, dog-hund thing and often think German is not that hard. What these people might not realize is that a good deal of larger words have no English equivalent. To read in German you have to commit a-lot of time to simply learning a-lot of new words.

German is probably one of the easiest languages for a native english speaker to speak. When I met Germans I could string sentences together in that language in a way that astonished me. I'm sure my sentences didn't have perfect German grammar, but they were understood. German is probably harder to pronounce than is commonly believed, there are vowel sounds that don't exist in English.

French is different. French and English have influenced each other's development more than English and German have. If my memory is correct the statistic is something like 60% of English words have a french cognate. Reading in French isn't nearly as hard as reading in German is, but there are some subleties of pronunciation which are difficult, to say the least.

There are cultural differences between French and German. Most educated Germans and French, or a good deal of them, can hold a conversation in English. Honestly I don't believe most French people expect visitors to talk to them in French. Reality is most of them would give a light laugh and say something like "why aren't you saying this in English, it will be easier to understand each other if you talk to me in English." This answer might not be very satysifying to you Katie, but for me French has been an easier language to learn.

Q: Anyone that knows you personally knows you like to speak out-loud instead of thinking silently, I'm sure you have some reasons for this.

A: Certainly. And I need not get into the details in this situation. Speaking out-loud to yourself is a must when learning a foreign language. Of course sometimes it is better not to speak out-loud words you are learning, but I can think up nearly half a dozen reasons why it is advantageous to speak out-loud when learning a foreign language. ... If nothing else, all else being equal, saying something out-loud will create a stronger memory of it than thinking it silently to yourself.

Q: Are European languages easier to learn than non-European ones?

A: Without a doubt. Much easier. I probably learn Italian or Russian four or five times faster than I learn a language like Thai or Chinese. ... As one can make a genealogy of species, or morals, with languages too. Basically the earlier in time the language being learned diverged from English the more difficult it will be to learn. The more similar a language is to English, the easier it is to learn.

Q: What has been the hardest language you've studied?

Probably Thai, perhaps Korean. The syntax of these languages is quite unlike that of English so it takes some thinking to say very simple things like "I would like some water please." Not to mention that they definitely do not really use the latin alphabet. Honestly, there is so much about language I don't know ... the record for languages is something like knowing 80 fluently. Language is one of many interests, not the most important one, for sure.

Q: Some people believe the key to learning languages is understanding how to use the prepositions, what do you think?

I think the idea is rather off-track. There is no magic to knowing how to use prepositions correctly in a foreign language, yet again, the only way to learn how to use them correctly is to spend a-lot of time creating new memories. There is no deep reason why we say "all the guys in the village" instead of "all the guys from the village" or "I am walking on the street instead of "I am walking in the street." Some people want learning a foreign language to be easier than it actually is, I think, what they don't understand intimidates them ... the amount of time it would actually take to do it correctly intimidates them also I believe, at least unconsciously.

Q: Besides the obvious demand on time, what don't you like about learning languages?

A: The sheer scope of all there is to be learned is, of course, rather intimidating. Teaching English to adults, with I think every student I had I (and any native English speaker) found embarassing errors in their use of English. A student would say "my daughter is boring" instead of my daughter is bored, or more mundane and annoying repetition of grammatical mistakes. Even learning languages the ideal perfect way it can make one feel vulnerable.

It is more difficult for me to appreciate art films, most of the time, than when I didn't know much about languages and just followed the subtitles. When watching a foreign language film my mind will spend more effort understanding the simple mechanics and expressions of the language than I would like it to.

Another negative, the one I probably care least about, I have to come off utterly bizare to strangers, acquaintances, and even very close friends sometimes. It can be eery to be saying something and understanding that no one around but you could possibly understand it.

Q: Do some languages sound better to you than others?

Definitely not, though I of course understand the beauty of some languages more than I do of others. I feel disgust when someone says something like "but I don't want to learn German or Italian ... I don't like how those languages sound." Because that demonstrates that the person really does not understand how language works. I doubt it is possible for some language to objectively speaking "sound lovelier" than any other one. When a healthy and happy person is talking to someone, whatever language it is, whether it is consciously realized or not, making and hearing the words is a very pleasurable experience. Someone hearing a foreign language and deciding that it "sounds ugly" is one of the best examples of stupid ignorance that I can think of.

I must say though, to me, in the modern world, I think of the English language as something like "The king of all languages." If I had to be born a native speaker of any language I am certain that I would choose English. English is probably the largest language in the world, probably has more words borrowed from other languages than any other language, and without a doubt English is the most cosmopolitan, most necessary language for most people in the world to learn how to use. There has to be a dominant lingua franca and fortunately for us, that is the English language (not French or Spanish or Russian, etc.)

Most people who have spent some time travelling outside of the United States understand how fortunate they are to be a native English speaker. Just by being a native English speaker a person basically has the ability to live in most countries in the world and earn a living by being an English teacher. People in foreign countries will go out of their way to socialize with you because they want to practice their English. Most Americans don't realize how many people fantasize about being taught English as their first language. I could go on but I don't think you are interested right now in me talking about the English language.

Q: Oh please, I promise, I am interested, please go on

This is a better topic for another interview. I'll keep it short and to the point. Working as an English teacher in a foreign country is a great way to learn how to learn, to learn how to communicate with people and express oneself. Teaching English isn't as easy as "I like my students so I will talk with them." English has some weird expressions, and I think even the best literary minds on the planet must not know hundreds of words that are definitely part of the English language. There is a huge amount for a native speaker to learn about the English language, more to the picture than meets the eye.

Q: I'm really most interested in knowing more about your methodology Christopher, and most readers too, I got what you said about not being fluent, but you seem to have some good ideas about how to go about learning languages. I'm all ears, please tell me as much as you can.

A: I definitely believe that it is better to do something easy really well, spending a reasonable amount of time to achieve success than it is to do something really hard, not that well, in a-lot more time. One has to know what learning material goes well with your level of ability in a language. In America at least, a-lot of textbooks and language books seem horrible or at least weak.

In the languages I've gotten beyond basic knowledge of I like to read a book in the language. If I come across words I don't know I'll take the time to look them up with a dictionary, just as I would if I came upon an English word which I didn't know the meaning of and couldn't correctly guess it. Selecting the book is really important. For example, I have read a book in Czech with 400 or so short biographical sketches of artists. Combining my interest in language learning with other interests. If I find an interesting article I like to read through it with google translate. The algorithim doesn't translate perfectly but it is usually sufficient for the purpose. Translating French songs, taking the time to make a really good translation, that definitely improves my French.

Lately I have two main methods of language learning. I'm a huge fan of the Pimsleur language programs and it seems their claim that the Pimsleur way is the scientific way to learn languages is basically correct. These programs work great to teach the basic fundamentals of a language.

For example the pimsleur basic Irish program works like this: you are told in English how to say something then you listen to it being said in Irish and repeat it. You end up repeating the same thing dozens of times. The timing of when you are asked to repeat is planned by reinforcement schedules and if you follow the program correctly the technique basically burns what you learn into your long term memory. There isn't much creative in this, just repeating what you hear with meaning, again and again, concentrating and keeping your attention focused.

The other technique I like to use exploits google translate. Basically I talk to myself in English, about whatever I want to, I hit a button and get an instant translation into the language I am studying. The translations fail sometimes but usually they seem to be good enough. Just talking about a routine trip down the street to the supermarket I can put knowledge of a lot of new words into my memory! Using google translate I can also write essays in foreign languages.

Finally, I have found new technology which excites me, which I haven't fully got how to exploit. Computer programs where you type in what you want to hear and then can hear a native speaker say it back to you. I do not know how these programs work but the audio I hear back sounds very similar to actual correct human speech. So now I have a way of Checking pronuniciation in French or Italian without having to rely on asking someone. Just as no serious chess player could ignore the relevance of computer analyses, no one who wants to do a really good job at learning languages cannot take advantage of some technology that has been invented.

Q: That sounds exciting actually, but I still think having a good conversation partner is the tried and true best way to learn languages.

A: I don't really disagree with that. It is easy to predict what I am going to say but I think it is correct, you have have work within the bounds of your own individual personality. Different minds are forced to use different techniques to achieve the same type of results.

Ah, you are so easy to agree with, Thanks again Christopher, I look forward to our next interview.

The pleasure is mine Katie

My Friend Interviewed Me

2010-04-16T16:48:00.001-07:00

Q. So how many languages do you speak?

A: People ask me that question often so it is useful for me to practice giving a good answer. I have a respectable knowledge of French Czech and German. I can speak in these languages, I talk to myself in these languages sometimes, with a little practice I could hold a not advanced conversation with native speakers in these languages.

I've learned the basics of about a dozen languages, for most of these it is a very basic knowledge, but in the best circumstance a correct understanding of some of the fundamentals: ... See MoreSpanish, Portugeuse, Italian, Polish, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Ukranian, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Croatian, Greek, Swahili and an extremely scant knowledge of Roumanian and Slovenian.

Q. I must admit, that is impressive, do you do this just to impress people?

A: In a sense, yes, that is one of the main reasons. When someone is good at something they usually feel like they should continue improving at it, whether or not they can really justify the use of time. As an American espescially being able to speak or understand a foreign language is something that appears to me as very impressive, very amazing.

Spending time learning foreign languages helps me as a literary writer and a poet. There is a rather large scientific literature that has demonstrated that knowing more than one languages greatly enhances verbal creativity and processing. In my literary writing the sound of words is important and the more sounds I understand the more material I have for my literary projects. It is like a painter who tries to collect a variety of different colored paints, so he can use them to make painting.

Q: It is true that not many Americans, in this part of the country at least are good at foreign languages. Did your parents start teaching you languages when you were young, you received an excellent education from a young age?

A: Not at all actually. To get good at almost anything demanding you have to accept being not good at it for a long time. My parents did read to me a-lot when I was a child, but my parents were the regular native English speakers with hardly any interest in learning foreign languages. My first exposure to foreign language was when I was 16 and took a German class in highschool. My learning was mediocre or maybe below average.

When I was 22 or 23 I travelled in Germany for about two months and I was delighted to be able to understand some and converse some in German. A little later in my life I started learning French. The way I studied these languages was totally wrong and the amount I learned about French and German was honestly unimpressive considering how much time I put into it. Because I had no one helping me telling me correct ways to learn languages, I went about learning them the wrong way.

A few years later I lived in Prague, in the Czech Republic for a year and a half. I worked as an English teacher. Only by teaching English for more than a year (and being basically a bad teacher of English) was I able to start understanding the correct way to learn a foreign language. Skill gain is a brute function of time, mental quality, and learning material. Once I began reading books in French and understanding most of it I knew I was finally starting to learn languages in the correct way.

Q: So many questions come to mind, so let me ask you first, could you tell me more about what you called "the totally wrong ways you went about learning languages?"

I spent a-lot of time listening to French or German radio. When I came across a word I didn't know I'd look it up in my dictionary. I had the idea that if I did this for long enough I would be able to understand most of what was being said. Passive listening to radio in foreign language definitely is not one of the best ways to learn a foreign language. Not much learning can occur if one's mind doesn't understand the meaning of the language. Talk radio didn't interest me in English, I should have realized the same thing wouldn't interest me in French.

In a similar manner I would watch French and German art films, subtitled of course, and expect to learn the language that way. Sort of like trying to learn Chinese by diving into Classic Chinese philosophy texts. Watching English language movies and television shows with subtitles in the foreign language was one of the more effective ways I learned languages then, but still I think there are a-lot of problems with that method.

I would read through dictionary pages serially. Though I got to pronouncing words correctly sometimes the problem was that the words weren't connected to each other. Err, you know what I mean. Understanding a seven word sentence in German is a-lot better than understanding 7 single words. When learning a language you want to do as much as you can using as little mind-space as possible. Streamlined and efficient, basically.

Q. What about conversation partners, communicating with native speakers and the like?

Totally. I'm pretty certain that the best way to learn a foreign language is to have a close friend who is patient and has the desire to teach it to you. Not everyone is that fortunate to have someone like that in their life. The way to go about it is practice practice practice. It is a bad idea to ask a native speaker "what is the word for X, in Y language."

Q. I understand that you are a loner. What are some ways you learn foreign languages. Spill some of your secrets perhaps?

The biggest secret is that I am nowhere near as good at French or German or Czech as many native speakers imagine I am. I can read a novel in Czech and come pretty close to sounding like a native Czech, but I'm only going to understand perhaps 10-20% of the words. Being able to say something is not the same as understanding what it means.

But anyway, understanding how memory works and how to create new reliable long-term memories is very important. God is in the details is the metaphor I'm looking for - to learn a language you have to learn how to say hundreds or thousands of very particular things. You have to be curious about words you don't know. Correct pronunciation is the utmost importance - somehow improvements in pronunciation seem to improve other parts of language ability like syntax or comprehension.

Whatever you are interseted in in English, you should try to be interested in that in the foreign language you are studying - be it bikes, food, philosophy or jokes, etc. Study material that interests you in English, learn to say what you enjoy saying to people in English, or whatever native language is.

Just like with artificial intelligence,as it is said, there is no "magic bullet" that somehow gives one ability in a foreign language. Having a patient calm mind is necessary to learn well. Learning a language is the hardest at the beginning, as one learns more and more about it it becomes easier and easier to learn more. You have to accept "not knowing much" for a long time before you can get a respectable knowledge of the language.

Q: I got no more questions for now, final comments?

It is probably better to know 15 words in a foreign language really well than sort-of understanding 50.. It has been said that when one learns a new language one acquires something new in their character and I would agree. Once I started to read books in French I began to sometimes feel "French" and I defiintely could not have felt this way if I was not learning French. My personality feels different when I study Czech than when I study French, etc. Learning foreign languages is a great way to create something new in your self that wasn't there before.

Thanks Christopher, we'll continue this interview later on.

Carolyn Yaojiuan is not as good at chess as Veselin Topalov is

2010-04-16T15:25:00.000-07:00

Carolyn Yaojiuan is not as good at chess as Veselin Topalov is

For the time
Was he blind?
What did he find?
What made up his mind?
What made him so kind?
That's what I think – just kidding

She thought he was slipping?
She's never tripped?
Attentional blimps
Hungry hungry hippos
Anarchist thundercat tits

Just for the time
That went past her
He was past her?
That passed her by?
Five birds eating pie with kidney diseases?
That pleases? Hypochondriac sneezes?
So that was her teasing – sorry maam you do not understand
Sorry madam, you are in a band?
Yes, the asian words for bread
Make me full of despiar and dread – just kidding again
Czechs are not Check-mates, Credo is my best friend
Credo is fucking diamonds and cumming rubies again?

Pear trees lie to me
Those kids are too shy for me
time for three?
Must you see
four more cellar doors
cellar door cellar door cellar door cellar door
Five minus two that would equal three – seriously?

Really you don't get the point?
Really just walk over the bridge
That is very nice of you Carolyn, your drawings of kittens charm me
Tears for you, two for tea for you
Tears for you, fears you? Tears for you
Pretty princess, pretty princess, probably

He's read five books in a year – no kidding
That made up my mind
Fools think he's blind
Fine that is your time, not mine
The fake jew enjoys picking up dimes
Who is laughing last?
Hello again dear Carolyn - cześć
Read my mind – he is ….

Black Mp3 Player Fell Into Bottom of a Big Black Trash Bag

2010-04-09T12:48:00.001-07:00

Some of the most brilliant parts of my life are situations where some people around me believe that I am acting or putting on a show, when actually I am just doing what is necessary or following my nature. Indeed, truth is stranger than fiction, the actual lives of some people I've gotten to know are more fascinating than any literary characters I've came upon.

I walk to Oakland and spend my time studying there. Only having a few dollars on me and hungry I decided to try a new money saving idea: buy microwaveable food with my foodstamp card at the 7-11 and use the microwave on the ground floor the law building. I walk along merry as can be studying thai language on my mp3 player with Pimsleur.

Anyway, there are some events going on on the ground floor, active happy groups talking stuff. I put my frozen pizza into the microwave and everything seems fine. Then (not consciously) a jerky motion with my arm and my Mp3 player becomes disconected from the headphones and falls into a large cafeteria size garbage can (or whatever the exact word.) My Mp3 player is black, the garbage bag lining the garbage can is black. Remember also, it is pretty much the most favorite thing I have, my mp3 player, so I can listen to music or study languages without being at home, so I never feel bored walking if I have this friendly object.

The garbage can was rather full, huge grin on my face at the unreasonableness of the situation. Quick then longer looks demonstrate it is not near the top of the garbage in the can. Mind you that technically speaking I am trespassing and I am in a large room full of law students and unless I want to part with my favorite thing I must look like a quite unappealing and stupid person digging through a trash can.

Another trash can was at the other side of the side passageway, so I started transferring the garbage into that can. Ketchup on my hands, not the worst smell but pretty bad, I started using a napkin and had to transfer the garbage pretty slowly. More than once, not looking at anyone, I point at the end of the headphone chord hoping that it will be understood I am looking for what accidentally fell into the garbage can. Funny how the actual world works, and you will have to believe that I am not stretching the truth nor creating events in my literary imagination, my black Sansa mp3 player was at the bottom of the garbage bag, must have removed more than 50 items of garbage. It was not visible at the bottom but hidden in the folds of the bag and I did this all calmly, a look of sad helplessness a little, a little of the furious looking frustration, having removed all visible objects and nothing but liquid muck at the bottom of the trash bag I was close to giving up, I think, but, I felt around, I felt it's shape, I pulled it out of the bag, my arm extended high into the air once I had it in my hand. I took the 2nd microwaveable pizza out from the microwave, hardly able to believe what actually happened, I put on my jacket, walked out with the two pizzas while continuing to study Thai.

Who's That?

2010-04-07T00:46:00.001-07:00

Who's that?

Allowing my imagination to make her into fun or funny, of course
Who's that who likes heavy metal but away with basic key is tabboo?

Who is that who won't play electric instrument?
Who is that who just isn't heard at those popular concerts?

Who is that metal-head with rocksolid heart and technique?
Who is probably a little too busy to read what a meaner me started to type?

Who do I mean - Silly, totally, precious space!
She has regular healthy sleep patterns or not? Really? You think!

Who do I mean?
I am not pretending?

Disgusting Ugly Man And His Disgusting Ugly Friend

2010-04-07T00:20:00.000-07:00

Disgusting Ugly Man And His Disgusting Ugly Friend

Disgusting ugly man lets me enjoy being disgusting and ugly, like this – for art's sake!
I wasn't thinking about Pablo Picasso? Really? That name doesn't ring a bell? I'm pretty sure it wouldn't
Disgusting ugly man finally got my attention throwing plastic cup at me – wow, my brain lit up at that

Disgusting ugly man got better, a different one thinks he's profound using fucking as an adverb
That one is a-lot more respectable, I am obliged to admit, but that one
Heart on my sleeve I met his friend, beside disgusting old man “What are you up to”
“Jack Daniels and bitches!” friends laugh was hearty, well, probably associate rather
That depends on the situation – sometimes that can be profound and correct, but not unique, is it?

Disgusting ugly man what a great guy! It takes courage to sit at the prestigious stop at a bar
Listening to band and dancing, of course no context, he touches me, stops me, gets my attention
And, wouldn't any reader have similar situations, speechless until I glare slightly aggressively
What a challenger! Spell-checker? Grandiloquent garrulous, Merriam-Webster lets continue:
Gabfest selection process, so, gad-about
Gain, Galaxy, Gale, Gallantry, gap, gargantuan garden-variety garbage, garniture! General gap

Well gosh he is getting at something. Next time he caught my serious attention he touches me and does the “come here” … a few times. Touching girls with confident telling them “come here” for a lets talk?
This actually happened, so what did he have to say to me that night “what? Are you retarded?”
Did he repeat it a few times? And have to best of my knowledge no further comment, honestly speaking, yes, that occurred

Ugly disgusting man has clout with someone? Meat in hamburger buns? Two for tea? Strangely same bar two nights in a row. Feeling fine I go to back table and continue Pimlseur Portuguese. Him and friend sit special bar spot, ugly disgusting man – I saw into his soul
So well did I see those special confidence problems, honestly, most of that time
I sit alone feeling great, feeling profound, focus on me and language study
But I did see look up at him and his friend every now and then

Ugly disgusting man, less ugly younger lots of muscle disgusting man is probably actual friend
Birds of a feather flock together, so? I went to the bar and patiently waited to ask for water
Ugly disgusting man and ugly disgusting friend are only people behind me
Rather full cigarette pack is thrown at my face
I picked it up and considered stealing it
Really, same situations, then one of them asks for the cigarettes back?
I never succeeded better at making the guffaws that to them
No one else but them behind me? Honestly speaking, yes

Next night, I walk to same bar
Run into friends, for him it was important that one was woman
Heart on my sleeve “I find it pleasant talking with you” before we split
Who ended up walking beside me, a few buildings away from bar? The ugly disgusting man
I continued to study Portuguese speaking aloud, both - more than a few times, a few times in one night
Could've been someone who looked similar? Could've but probably ugly disgusting man
So his friend wasn't there, the other ugly disgusting man

That guy, we met a few times, we met again one night, twice he shaked my hand like he could crush it
What? Quoi qu'il en soit? His table and all the others I glare and do the what are you guys talkikng about thing
I'm having a conversation with my lady he tells me, go away, he says
Beat it, he said to me so I said what does that mean
It means get the fuck away
What does that mean?
It means you have ten seconds etc
I do my best to count to ten succeed past twelve, staring directly at him the meanwhile
The ten seconds past “too slow!” I walked away
Guess what he said? Don't guess, I said yeah try it and meant it

Of course it's pretty easy, even with him, I doubt anyone got really worried about stupid shit going down
Already guessed that he puffed his chest and walked past like that twice?
Already guessed that he was at the door looking outside?
Already guessed that he talked with girl outside bar for a while
Already guessed that I needed to take a piss?
Anyway, bit by bit I make my bed, bit by bit I chew her tits
Bit by bit I okay luck

Fantasy Fear (Romantic Prose Poem)

2010-04-06T20:37:00.000-07:00

Fantasy Fear

I know how I work, I generally like, isn't it the mark of any smart person to more aware of their weaknesses than any outside party? Pretty sure no one nkows my weak points my bad sides as well as I do.

Anyway, I can see it happening, the girl I really really like, it became a different girl incidentally.
Not picky, not choosy, it comes from the unconscious. Girls smile and laugh look good funny and smart

But who do I miss? Who do I want to light up? Whose attention makes me most satisfied: Hannah's.

I see the possibility, I'll stupidly just see what happens. Not Hannah, but I'll finally end up dating some girl. In my mind she will be very special and nothing very special both. She'd become the only woman really eager and ready to spend time alone with me. 5 years with hardly any romance at all in my life, I'll enjoy our relationship so much I'll trust her and not like arguing about people and like other friends she'll dislike you for what you don't know about life because inexplicably to her I like that girl so much.

The idea isn't pleasing, whatever, I like you the most after careful consideration and, whatever, other people will affect you more, you will affect with them, but they won't be me and you won't know the more about me I want – that's the main reason why the left side of my face has been frowning. Stressed simply for literary pleasure being too passive with perhaps it would be a mistake for me?

Finigulous Words

2010-04-06T20:14:00.000-07:00

Abstract:

Finigulous words (f-words) are words which communicate semantic meaning by the shape the mouth and lower face must take to produce their sound. Some examples of finigulous words are slender, thin, fat, bloated, weird, despair. Unlike other words in a particular language there is a constraint placed upon the possible sound the word could take. Some words that are not finigulous words include book, cat, and time. The relevant existence of finigulous words can be disputed rhetorically, experimentally, and theoretically. If the relevant existence of finigulous words can be reliably demonstrated exciting and original ideas could be generated in various fields which try to understand language.

New Translation Of French Song

2010-04-02T07:36:00.000-07:00

Fresh Translation Here Of The Famous French Song Brave Margot

One Of My Heroes

2010-04-02T00:58:00.001-07:00

What's In A Name

2010-04-02T00:51:00.000-07:00

I like my name Christopher, I'm staying Chris or Christopher until the end and more, I'm pretty sure. It is absurd the shitty way I was named though, but I guess some people have had it worse.

I was supposed to be born around Christmastime, so they named me Christopher. Fair enough, but what I will always find extremely funny about it is that neither then or now were either of my parents Christian ... they aren't raving fanatics but my honest guess is that less than 4% of people in Pittsburgh have more dark hatred of Christians than my parents do. AND I was born in October, didn't they have the wits to make a change? Or have they decided to pathetically keep me in the dark about something? In 1982, the year I was born, Christopher was one of the most common boy names, so yeah, my parents tried really hard to name me, came up with pretty much nearly the most unoriginal name as possible. And, yeah, trust me, it certainly wasn't the patron saint of travellers thing, both my parents have been about as rigid anti-travelling anti-change as a person can be without having much of psychiatrically diagnosable illnesses. Whatever, the name suits me, I do sort of wish I was named after one of my heroes though - Akiba Rubinstein.

If I don't care about you then I should be nice to you

2010-04-02T00:14:00.000-07:00

I am pretty kind, I guess, if nothing else superficial level. I go to bar and wait regularly for a beer and I'm usually one of the last to be attended to, Czech, Pittsburgh or Berlin - that's fine, I really don't care.

But it gets worse, I am so kind it is a free ticket for professional colleagues to not treat my work with the attention it deserves (the work is greater than the man) , I am so kind the two girls who are special to me are almost always taken up talking with other people when I am near them. It makes me dark.

I ponder what would happen if I met an utterly new girl, steady fire in my eyes I would arrive near her and stay until we made the foundation. New girls leave me indifferent, basically. Totally, I've understood for a while that when someone is polite to someone it is a mask under which says "I don't care about you." There's a few people that mean the world to me, I'm too polite, too kind, too gentle, too timid with them. Time to improve the situation there!

Black Pawn

2010-04-01T23:47:00.000-07:00

Black pawn

I'm looking at a black pawn on my desk
It is alone, it is standing, I am sitting (I'm not kidding)
some dimes and nickels are near it
There is beer near it
There is an ash tray near it
The poet rarely yawns
The poet is looking at a black pawn on his desk

This black pawn is no isolani
This black pawn, chess is Farsi to this black pawn
This black pawn has been erratic, sometimes it has been useful
This black pawn gets so good, then this black pawn gets so bad
Not really, the black pawn doesn't make me mad, that'd be poet's dad

So what? This black pawn makes me sad
Cause I know a queen, she's forced to defend the pawn
And indeed, I can't imagine a worse use of a queen
This black queen often is forced to sit passively, defending this black pawn
It is not even a passed pawn! When this black queen cares for this black pawn
The queen is pretty much just being a potted plant
I mean, this chess queen, well, she's also defending a rook and a bishop
And, yes, you may know, to play chess well one has to play mean
Hey queen, the pawn you're defending isn't doing anything important
I suggest, chess player, find a more aggressive placement of your queen
Queens, but not kings, in chess, I don't find meaning in being nice with a queen

Thinking About Dreams

2010-04-01T16:04:00.001-07:00

I like neuroscience, it has definitely allowed me to understand aspects of life that most people won't, dreaming for example. Like similar functions, dreaming must not be "for" one thing ... and it must occur for a reason ... in the end there is no avoiding natural selection.

(This guy was talking about evolution, so I asked him if he knew about punctuated equilibrium, he didn't, I asked if he knew of the work of Sewall Wright, he said he was just making up what he said about evolution as he went alone - what a joke)

One function of dreaming I am convinced is to provide the brain stimulation. The less stimulating life is, the more intense and vivid dreams can be ... for this reason I am not much of a dreamer, and the dreams, fairly often, are about stuff I don't have but I really want.

Anyway, an amazing thing happened, of course. Quite out of character, I had a dream where I had something of a temper tantrum, screaming and saying really mean things to smoeone back and forth and back and forth ... something, honestly, entirely out of my character.

Earlier that night I met a girl. I fell for her, I kept staring at her. I had to leave because it was getting to the point where I couldn't stop touching her arm (she wasn't creeped out when I was, she said it was fine.) Anyway, the point being, I learn later from a mutual friend that that night she was drunk and screaming at her and saying mean things .... just like I was in my dream.

I know a really smart girl whose mind was blown away learning that two people were dreaming of each other on the same night, having something like the same dream about each other. This smart science major could find no satisfying scientific explanation and probably fell into mystical thinking. I think I'm better than that, I don't think any spirits or immaterial thing caused me to sort of become her in my dream. I was staring intensely at her with fiery eyes, in love. My unconscious mind picked up a huge amount of information about her, so much information that I was able to experience the same emotions as she was that night.

As Proust said, loving or not loving someone is not something that is pick-and-choose like. Feelings are strong and have to be dealt with, and often aren't for the best. I rather have the girls I like want to spend time with me than to dream about them.

Glazunov Violin Concerto Allegro

2010-04-01T16:03:00.001-07:00

I sort of feel like this today

Strange Dreams - Sure Had A Wonderful Time Last Night

2010-03-27T03:46:00.000-07:00

Might as well do the dream post on my blog. I have to say, my mind is a little taken aback by some of the dreams I had tonight because most of it doesn't seem to have to do much with my life.

In one I meet an Indonesian girl and start talking in Indonesia, we make out so sensually like there is no tomorrow. In another dream a girl spitefully throws my chess pieces and I lose them and I spend hours looking for them, my spite grows as much and I spend the night arguing with lesbians. We say and strike each other in the meanest ways. The fights continue into the park. The rage in me made me pick fights and be mean to girls who had really liked me. There were students speaking French, and Russian in these dreams. Given a ride back home, apologies after the fact, but one girl with a-lot of friends - the one who ruined the beauty of my chess set, I wouldn't stop fighting with her. Part of it is in a park. Dogs guard the camp. One bites my hand twice and it hurt, I was a smart devil though and I saw the dog raise its eyebrows I saw it be a little too nice so I was able to get away. Then I saw big frogs. I slid down the hill and this caused the dog to scurry back. (How frogs made it in my dream baffles me, cause I haven't seen them at all in my life for at least months if not years, I'm pretty sure, on television or real life) ... finally the party again ends inside. Everyone was still basically nice to me. Drunk I spilled beer on myself again and again, girl that ran the restaurant comes up and I even spill beer on her beautiful dress by accident ... I apologize profusely and leave, alone as usual. Gee gosh I sure had a wonderful time last night! Morale of the story: any girl that steals my chess pieces when I am not in the room has made a rather unpleasant enemy.

Alone and Flying

2010-03-27T03:45:00.001-07:00

Take a closer look bro, didn't you know?
That was just the weather, that was just snow
I'm not sleeping much, but I lay flat on my bed
I bow so aggressively, that's cause I'm ahead
Still still here I'm lying- I'm afraid I'm dying!

Quality In Poetry (Never Such A Lovely Birch Tree As This)

2010-03-26T21:50:00.000-07:00

Writing poetry is rather difficult. Not that when I write poems it is a difficult process that takes a-lot of stress and work. When I write poems the words seem to, most of the time, just come out, from an unconscious part of my mind I really don't understand well. I've read and I read so much literature of exceptional quality that I just have an intuitive sense of what sounds good to me. Writing poetry (or prose) is not some "creative process" for me, I feel like I am representing myself - that they are the truest voice of mine, the most precise and refined sense of self that I can reach.

Unlike many other skills, it seems to me that good poetry is rare, for every good poem written there must be at least dozens and dozens of bad poems. Poetry is one of those things (like chess) that most creative people will try to do at some time or other in their life, nothing wrong with that. There are different degrees of "good" poetry, some poems better than others, of course ... but it seems to me that the difference between a good poem and a very good poem is rather slight compared to the difference between good poems and bad poems.

I know two people who write bad poetry and I don't need to give any clues to who they are, of course. Both of them are very social, interesting to talk with, and for the most part they talk well, I enjoy talking with them, I don't look down on them. But then I discover their poetry and the poems they write are really really bad ... me and my literary friend could have laughs for half an hour at the expense of these bad poems. There must be thousands of bad poets in every American city of reasonable size. I don't quite understand why the poems they write are so bad. Well, both of them lead very active lives, many interests, but neither has much of an interest in literature.

I wrote bad poems of course, they probably aren't even extant anymore, I wrote them around 7 years ago. Then, now is not the place to get into it, I started writing good poetry, it got good, then better. The big change was that I liked the poems I wrote so much I would say them to myself alone again and again in my room, I would give them to people, I really wanted (and want) to share them. If someone creates art succesfully, the usual response is a desire to share that art and to make that art known. It should raise red flags when someone doesn't want to share his/her poetry with someone unless they are on intimate terms. (Of course there are legitimate exceptions, but there definitely should be a very particular reason why the poet does not want to share and show what he/she did.) As it fails in life to remain reserved hidden and concealed except with a few people one is really close with as it fails in poetry, in art in general.

One of the best parts of today for me was coming across good poems in a magazine. I read them at the release party of the magazine that they were published in, which is resting on my knee. It didn't take me long to get that doubting Thomas part out of me and to appreciate the quality of the poems. The poets were probably in the room sometime (or later on that night, after I left), I had the desire to do some talking and get introduced to them, to tell them how impressed I was by their poems. Perhaps I'll get the chance, actually did I meet Josh Barnes about a month ago or was that someone else named Josh? Anyway the two poems of his I read tonight were exceptional quality! Good or great artists usually have big or bigger hearts and who doesn't take it to heart when their work gets recognized, understood, and appreciated? Ay, believe you me, I'm going to be as happy as a man could be after this, eating pierogies and studying chess king-pawn endgames, sipping my beer, knowing that I am on really good terms with some of the best poets, musicians, visual artists, visual artists, and conversationalists that live in Pittsburgh. I don't sleep much, goodnight!

In Defense Of Chess in Bars Also

2010-03-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

I've only been to two bars that have chess nights. It's funny, and I'm being honest: in one bar they are good chess players with lots of drinking problems, in the other bar they don't have drinking problems, but they have chess problems. Guess which bar has more middle aged chess players? Like I said before, the same thing must occur again and again in any city of respectable size.

Anyway, chess night on Thursdays at Nico's Recovery Room. Not many people have been showing up lately, a-lot of people there have been feeling burnt-out with chess. Life is more than chess of course. I always show up, and I'm as content, maybe more content, to sit alone studying chess from my chess books.

I meet a guy and we played some chess games. As I already said, chess allows you to understand and evaluate a person pretty quickly. The guy hadn't played in ten years he said, and with that in mind he played really well. It was just for fun, and in chess technique he put up a good fight. I predicted my most humiliating mistake before I made it, empathy took over and I decided to make an easy move, which incidentally hung my queen right away. I felt more embarassed about why I made the move. As in any sport, when you are playing that is not the time to practice being nice and empathetic. Anyway, I played the games at blitz speed in my mind. I feel pretty proud of myself, after studying chess for about six months I was finally able to play in this situation like I wanted to - playing a respectable opponent, without trying to hard, I was able to be the dominant player. My barroom chess games seldom have the elegance and concentration of my coffeeshop chess games, but they are still a good use of time and they are fun.

In Defense Of Coffeeshop Chess

2010-03-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

More Coffeeshop chess with my favorite human opponent, and our games get better and better. In chess literature the term coffeeshop chess is used sometimes as a rather condescending way to describe bad chess games, or bad chess moves. I see bad coffeeshop chess too, to be fair, at least the people who play with chess have the courage to try it.

From a viewpoint of chess alone our chess games in a coffeeshop are nothing memorable. In the Ruy Lopez my opponent responds to d4 with bishop e6 instead of b6, we hang our pieces in really embarassing ways, the professionals have seen thousands of games almost indistinguishable from the ones we play.

Yet they are good healthy games and when we play I get the sense that our brains are improving in chess ability at an incredible rate. We usually play three games, as we did today. Pretty much, though at incredibly more crude, our minds are doing in these games what the professionals do (with the important exception, see below) ... in the first game I get over confident in the middle game and a blunder allows my opponent to win with a tactical move. In the second game there is lots of pawn movements and the theme became mostly the pawn structure. In the third game the knight moved around a-lot in the opening (my knight ending up on b6 for a while, I believe) and then my opponent gets through on the kingside, my king gets out of the attack. I end up a rook up but the rook is stuck on b4 or b5 behind connected passed pawns. With a pretty open board we move our queens a-lot giving lots of checks to each other and he forces a threefold repetition - the first game that we had that was a draw.

As we get better we talk less as we play, no doubt. As we were talking about when we took a break after game two. Talking is talking, chess is chess, not neccesary to multi-task. The conversation about the inappropriateness of multi-tasking.

As Reuben Fine said, and I know how many others have to, what distinguishes the amateur chess player from the professional is the precise planning. Often, after a move is made, then we see what we should have, our minds don't have the strength to sit and stare at the position until it is really well seen. That is what these games lack, and they must, because we can't have hours long games, not yet at least. The less we talk to each other as we play chess, the more social the games become, and I like it.

Who's The One?

2010-03-21T01:12:00.000-07:00

Who's The One?

Who's the one who is first to be done?
Who's the one, the first to get his fill?

Who's the one who never runs?
Who's the one who whose always sun?

Who's the one who sometimes rains?
Who's the one with the best refrains ?

Who's the one who is never outdone?
Who's the one who has no loved ones?

Who's the one who's still to quiet?
Who's the one that she fulfills?

Who's the one who saw a hill?
Who's the one that makes the deals?

Who's the one who diets?
Who's the one who will?

Who's the one whose never been?
Who's the one with such nice skin?

Who's the one who has the twin?
Who's the one who who kicked his shin?

Who's the one who adores trills?
Who's the one working on his skills?

Who's the one who she'll?
Who's the one who steals?

Who's the one who so much conceals?
Who's the one who is such a big deal?

Who's the one who always no money?
Who's the one who always so funny?

Who's the one that fucks like a bunny?
Who's the one who is so kooky?

Who's the one whose a history buff?

Who's the one who's had enough?

Who's the one who always has new stuff?
Who's the one who'se really all fluff?

Who's the invisible woman?
Who's the true! You knew, didn't you!

Who's the one who says später?
Who's the one who says see you later?

Who's the one who gets paid
Who's the one laid jade and just said?

Who's the one with the smelly bed?
Who's the one who is so well read?

Instead, who's the one who is seeing red?
Not Fred, but who's the one who says dead?

Who's the one with three or four?
Who's the one who opens thé cellar door?

Who's the one who has the wife?
Who's the one with that well-lived life?

Who's the one who he most despises?
Who's the one who had the biggest surprises?

Who's the one who now rolls his eyes?
Who's the one who always revises?

Who's the one who they think's a sheep?
Who's the one who is more more more deep?

Who's the one who'se the grandest tree?
Who's the one who repeats, you see

Who's the one who they think's a sheep?
Who's the one who is more more more deep?

Who's the one with three or four?
Who's the one who opens thé cellar door?

Who's the one whose stockings smell?
Who's the one who's good heart yells?

Who's the one whose been through hell?
Who's the one with one brain cell?

Who's the one who started drinking green tea?
Who'se the one, who's the one who thinks I'm crazy?

Who's the one with three or four?
Who's the one who opens thé cellar door?

Who's the one who isn't crazy?
Who's the one who hates the lazy?

Who's the one that makes us sigh?
Who's the one who won't ask why?

Who's the one who wants my base?
Who's the one who's my real ace?

Who's the one who I trace?
Who's the one who I want to embrace?

Who is the one who is out of cigarettes?
Who is the one who likes to play chess?

Checks and Mates

2010-03-20T11:06:00.001-07:00

A Czech - a native speaker of Czech language. Most of them live in the Czech republic. Czechs have a certain fascination, that's for sure. They are more independent-minded and competetive than most Europeans, I think. They are not so easy to befriend - thus their general quality.

Incidentally, if my sources are correct, the word check came into the English language through chess. And nowadays the word check has so many meanings. The most common uses are I think, check in the sense of looking over something for mistakes like let me check if I spelled that word right or let me check on the food to see how it is cooking. As in chess, as in life, a person that doesn't know the proper time to check is going to make a-lot of mistakes.

The word mate is not a very common one in American English. I rarely hear it used in conversations. However, British English it is one of the most common words people use with each other. Most of the time when I do hear mate used, here in Pittsburgh Pennslyvania it is someone having fun pretending to be British.

Máte also is a very common word in Czech language, but the a is pronounced different. In Czech mate translates as "you have" (formal language). So for example, a Czech may ask a stranger what time it is by saying Máte čas?

It's true, I tell you, In general Czech's are more fond of British English than American English. Having lived in Prague I can tell you, it isn't that easy to make Czech friends if you are a foreigner. I lived there for a year and a half and I only still have one Czech friend, her name is Lucie, you see, when people aren't understood very well, they are going to be wary and they are going to need a good reason to decide to be a friend.

PianoChatImprov

2010-03-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

Found something brilliant here.

A New Short Story: How Drugs Ruined My Life

2010-03-19T09:30:00.000-07:00

A disclaimer: In most short stories I write the narrator is me, or a thinly disguised version of me. Definitely not this story. Indeed I do not feel like I have that much in common at all with Bill from Manchester New Hampshire.

How Drugs Ruined My Life

A Short Story by Christopher Ammons

Hey I’m Bill, If you are a native of Manchester New Hampshire you may have heard about me. I will tell my story in my own words.

From a young age in this nation we are warned not to do drugs. The information my schoolteachers gave me about drugs had a scientific accuracy – despite being mr. Science I ignored it. Though say when I was 19 I was in complete agreement. Drugs didn’t interest me until early twenties. So as a 19 year old drinking alcohol was pointless, stupid popular people smoked marijuana, and cigarette smoking was pathetic (I still think that.) I had I suppose a fairly healthy regular knowledge about illegal drugs, just like I had a knowledge of American history or computers. I am an only child, parents are together, the highschool was good. I got good grades.

I was one of those lucky people that had everything going for them. I was at a good university, I got good grades there too, I had a good girlfriend, good-looking, healthy, the dream was to get a PhD and become a professor – which I probably would have done. I must also add, at that age I did not want friends, not at all, any friends I’d have through my girlfriend was enough. Romantic love with a woman can be so much more in that than in any friendship, that's what I think. Yeah, as you read I want you to read carefully, imagine me talking to you. Yeah, I was quite impressive to a few people who knew me, and that was enough, I don’t and didn’t come off as likeable (drugs didn’t change that at all). I tell you how I see things, I think I understand the real world pretty well, the way most people imagine the world makes them appear stupid and uninteresting and normal to me indeed – the pleasant smiles and the being nice, that feels fake, that’s what I think. I need a good reason to feel nice.

The drug that started it all was marijuana. A true gateway drug for me. After being with my girlfriend for a while, you see, I was getting horny and I wanted to meet new girls and have an open relationship. I wasn’t that much of a prude to not try marijuana at the parties I went to.

Oh indeed marijuana made me feel good. Thoughts rushed in my head and whatever I read I felt like I really understood it. I wrote essays on philosophy and science, mathematical models of decision making, they will get read someday, I thought then. When I got high on marijuana for a few hours I became different. I felt so good high, I thought so good high. My first friend I had was the drug-dealer, you see, and I became friends with him and his friends. They had a rock band. I enjoyed being with them so much. I never expected I could like a guys as much as I did them. They liked me when I read on their floor, when I didn’t say much. I'd buy them beer or cigarettes, that felt good. I'd compliment their music, that felt good. It felt so good to be liked and it felt that just by liking back I’d make so many friends and that felt really good, believe you me. Most of the time I got high I was with them, doing it whenever they were doing it, I got embarrassed reading around them and listening to my music around them, I sat around with them and didn’t mind being lowest in the hierarchy, cause they liked me for who I was.

Girlfriend didn’t understand me, I broke it off with her. Classes didn’t interest me, couldn’t I do it all on my own? Certainly a marijuana smoker would not be accepted or liked by most people – being a professor no longer seemed possible, so I quit. I was happy with what I never had – good friends. I believed in them. I thought I might even make another friend circle! I often thought more objectively, they weren't bad but their music was nothing special.

… Not much time to tell my story must be concise. I experimented with LSD. Believe you me I know what a bad acid trip is. In my mind the walls actually did melt. Cigarette butts and beer cans started talking to me, making fun of me mostly. Even if there were no hallucinations like this I still would have felt terrified. It was no help that my friends were laughing their heads off at me, nor then watching their heads fall off and fly around the room with the meanest laughs. The first and last time I did LSD … but I was changed forever. I still get terrifying flashbacks, never nearly as strong, but the same type of experience happens to me again and again, now and then.

With these friends I started drinking alcohol too. Because they did, because the alcohol was passed around. A little afraid of being too independent, first time they ask if I want I might say no but second time always yes. I understood why drinking was fun and, yeah, the conversations and the stuff we did got funny, really funny. I must admit. I would say the strangest things and not remember saying them, they were cool about that. They were even okay when I pissed on the bathroom floor by accident! I thought it would last forever. But the band broke up. (J. Moved back with his parents, M. moved to Los Angeles, C moved to Florida) Being homeless was never an option, the only choice I had then was to move back with my parents, they have a comfy home in the suburbs.

That's when life started to get really lonely and unhappy. Depression is one of those words everyone uses, I am pretty sure I had a mild depression though. I didn't stop drinking, but it wasn't as you might think. The only place I imagined where I could meet new friends, or a girlfriend, was in a bar … where else was there for me? And in the bar was alcohol. For about three years I went there most days of the week. I had a very painful loneliness, to just stay at home I reasoned would not solve the problem, I never really liked being alone, and I made my best effort to not be alone by going to the bar. The “MC.” clubhouse, I will call it, fun for all ages there, sports on televisions, children, family, enough people my age, high school acquaintances. I'd watch the groups of guys or girls, or girls and a guy talking and happy, what don't I understand? I was amazed how I would sit, looking average, looking normal, never be approached by anyone, never thought of. A few times a guy would be friendly, a woman has never came up and introduced herself. Most nights I go there and I read, I wouldn't be able to do this reading alone in my room, at night. And reading in a bar is actually attractive, isn't it?

When the alcohol intoxication suddenly became more powerful I would stop reading sometimes, gape and I feel sad and I imagine the girl who finds me there and takes me off into a different world. I have a chance don't I? Perhaps she'll be visiting a friend, or back from vacation from university? The similar other who I have spent hours thinking of, who must have an actual existence, I know that she would at least approach me and say hello, as she would also read books alone in bars.

It wasn't too far from the home of my parents. Often a simple taxi ride, or a ride from highschool acquaintance. Judge me however you like, I've never harmed anyone, I am a good person. Believe you me, I know about the bad things that happen in the world.

My life didn't change much. My father was and is my best friend. On Fridays we'd go out to a restaurant and talk and talk and have hours of conversation on our political and philosophy ideas. True dialogue. The love of friends cannot compare to the love of family, that's what I think. A good friend expects you to be a certain way, she will not be your friend otherwise, you have to not be you, basically. A good parent though, they will love and like you for whoever you are, or at least most do I think.

I was and I do have my better and worse. On the worse days it was mild depression with an unhappiness I felt powerless to change. This dread that I would never have a girlfriend, and what a loss that is! It still seems at times too funny to be true. I look good. I love sex. I can talk well. I can love well. Why then nothing for me? I refuse to ever be content to be alone, because I can see clear as day how much better my life would be if I could love with a woman who I could think of as an equal. (If only I was born gay, I would have so much sex, I would be so liked, I am pretty sure, I don't know, I guess I still am pretty lucky.)

On most days a hard struggle to find a reason to get out of bed, but I always eventually get up. I read political articles on the internet, I read books, read about politics, especially the American healthcare system, skepticism, Christianity, atheism, about economics, about physics. I would list all the topics but that would probably bore you. Judge me however you like because I probably judge you. Whatever, I am pathetic and I am a failure but unlike the great majority of Americans I know full well that Christianity is bullshit and that their beliefs are bullshit and they aren't very smart and their political beliefs are bullshit and I won't hesitate to tell it to them – the shock relatives have had when I said how I thought – it should teach them a lesson!! I understand how the real world works better than most people, no wonder I don't have much to be happy about. Judge me however you like, I'll likely live a long healthy life, I'll be loving and caring for my parents while most other people won't be as much as me. Is my life really that unhappy? I've never once thought about killing myself, I am happy to be alive, I'll probably hook up with a girl someday cause life lasts a long time. If I never meet that very similar other, I'll meet a girl and we'll be able to talk with each other for hours and hours each day. So yeah, my long-term hopes are high as the sky. I may even do something like join Greenpeace or Habitat for Humanity.

A-lot of time I spent and spend on an internet dating website. I definitely am entirely myself in my profile. Like in bars I really do not understand why with almost anyone they aren't interested in talking with me. But sometimes someone is. I don't think there is anything really wrong with being needy. To the contrary!! I'll try to talk to girls on the dating website when I'm horny, when I'm unhappy, when I'm happy. I never really liked being alone, I'm always trying to find a way to end it. As I'm reading political articles or watching some youtube videos quite often I'm on that dating website looking for conversation. (I am afraid of my honesty but why not, any girl online in the same state, it rarely matters.) The world is large and life is long so eventually I must run across a girl who is like me and just by talking we can hit it off immediately and take it to a new level, that's what I think. Believe you me, I end up meeting females sometimes, and it is always the same type of female, and I am always giving it a shot. Almost every time the female is fat and so ugly to me and when I see her mind I don't see much I like in it. Often we end up having sex and believe you me, the second time with these girls it is not as pleasant. Every now and then though I meet a regular looking girl and we conversate, graduate student, artist, I've met them. I don't know, it's always been one meeting and then none in all but a few special circumstances. I don't think there is anything wrong with being an unlikeable person! I see girls and how they are with some guy and they are so interested in them, so happy to know them, believe you me, I am sure most of these guys are not special, I am sure I would dislike the girls If I knew them better. The most similar other reads this and she falls in love – I want you wherever you are, and I'll move to get there and believe me, we will be so happy and we will have so much good sex together. Once I have that love I'll become eight times better than I am now, love me first and believe me, I'll love back as much.

I got out of my mild depression by another drug. A smart drug that improves memory and attention. I don't care what you think. The smart drug worked. In a few weeks the mild deperssion was gone. I read perhaps twice as much. I started learning about food and cooking and got into vitamins and nutrition and learned more about the historical jesus. I started commenting on political articles I read and then I made my own blog and after pasting the article in I wrote what I thought about it. Then I made a vitamin blog, then a food blog, then a Christianity blog. I'm pretty sure I was doing more blogging than the average blogger.

The pills worked and I understood why scientifically! I stopped smoking marijuana a few months afterwards. It simply didn't have much of an effect and without marijuana my mind felt a-lot better. Then even the going to the bar and drinking stopped. I stopped doing that. If I kept on doing and thinking like I was thinking I was pretty sure I would get the girlfriend I wanted, I told myself to be patient. I started planning to return to university, I would study political science …. I could move to a new city and I would take the time to find just the right university. I wanted to write books about unions and about healthcare reform and I thought what I could do could really change things and make a-lot of lives better.

The profile on the internet dating websites got more impressive – like a job application! Still, I could not understand, I certainly didn't have any better luck talking to females online. It was as if it was written in a foreign language. I guess people really don't understand what they don't know from first-hand experience.

Leftists started noticing my blog, it got a small readership. Maybe I shouldn't go back to school and I should work on my blogs! Believe you me, it was work. I never worked a job for money (I tried to find jobs, but I didn't do well in job interviews, I am sure, my dad had a cushy job and he was waiting until I decided to go back to school, and indeed many times I made a plan to start at school again. I am sure I would have done that eventually, somehow, I don't know) I really don't believe I'd learn much doing repetitive tasks for half the time I was awake, I've been told otherwise.

If only, it must have been too good to be true, like god! Drugs were like the Christian's god, the republican's terrorist, etc etc. It was working fine until I started hearing voices. I would read a book and hear something that the author might say but didn't write. Reading a book about income inequality, I'd hear a voice saying something about income inequality. Believe you me, hearing these voices was not pleasant or fun! Or funny! I don't think it is funny, what if the smart drug would make me die of a stroke? I would hear my parents voices too, the result of which was overwhelming feelings of shame and failure. Sometimes I would be able to predict word for word what my dad or mom was going to say to me. Well, I'll say this, the scientific education I got from my family, from the books I read, I don't know what I'd have done without it. Without it I probably would have thought that the drugs were actually magical, that god or some spirit was using the pills to talk to me, that I had a great message or a great purpose in life and that I would be rewarded in the afterlife. I sort of wish I was like that. But I knew I was just becoming crazy, that I was losing touch with reality. The most similar other girl wouldn't like me, I don't think any girl would like me if they knew that I heard voices like that.

My father took me to a psychiatrist. We followed his advice. I stopped taking the smart pills. The voices went away, the elation went away. But I came out better. I am proud that I realized that marijuana was a childish drug. Only alcohol for me now and I don't know maybe someday I'll stop drinking alcohol too. Having taken a moment to think about it, looking back with some knowledge of my years I see how childish all the drugs were. Like some girl in highschool I got into drugs because I wanted my friends to like me. And I had to learn that being liked by friends doesn't mean a thing in the long run. I had such great friends back then: thanks for ruining my life guys!

Regular Monday

2010-03-15T17:47:00.001-07:00

Regular Monday for me. The intense energy of the long weekend goes away and I am left with regular high energy. Stunned beyond belief that sleeping 4 hours a night has become pretty normal. I take two little naps during the day on the couch in Kiva Han. Listening to music, smiling, I sleep without being entirely unconscious. One cup of coffee today, lots of food, no cigarettes.

A little bit of everything, and as I walk home I think, how could I have done these things better? I did them all reasonably well. Studied Hindi, studied Italian. Studied chess openings. Practised piano. Listening to music without much let-up. Piazolla, Shipley, Sims, and more 20th century music. To how many people must this music sound like undecipherable noise! I started Anatoly Karpov's autiobiography last night and I finished reading it right before the library closed. Lot's to think about. More ahead of me tonight: Rushdie novel, working on music library, an hour for a chess game, start a new book maybe. Regular monday, healthy, strong, passive happiness, focus on learning as much as I can.

On Of The Theme Songs Of My Life

2010-03-13T19:51:00.001-08:00

On Of The Theme Songs Of My Life

Bad Philosopher

2010-03-13T11:50:00.000-08:00

That guy again. I feel sorry for him. He doesn't really understand why, at the dinner table with religious relatives, it is not a good idea to out of the blue bully his nephew with his knowledge of Christian history. To him, if he stops to think about it, I doubt it, he is just being himself. He cannot handle the truth: the mechanical repetition of what he has said again again and again is the most boring thing in the world. In his mind what he says is so important, so correct, so him, that it is worth the countless repetitions.

This guy thinks he is okay at philosophy. He went to prestigious liberal arts university, became a philosophy major, and at his best got B's maybe a few A's in some philosophy classes. He impressed himself by being at prestigious liberal arts university and rejecting the fundamentalist christianity of his parents - but indeed how could one not do that in such a social envirionment? In fact, hardly impressive at all. Anyway, he went into a masters program in philosophy. He did not succeed in completing his thesis.

He thinks in an intellectual matter according to his mood and it works something like this: feeling rather negative he is smart enough to find some the gaps in the argument and is able to interject the contrarian opinion. The, "but did you know that" type of thing. What is based on finding something lacking in the argument, and often the person. For simplicities sake: his mind is not strong enough to make the original positive contributions to an argument, so he goes with what he's got. Show him a page in a book of literary gold, he'll be the first to point out the punctuation error, and then feel important.

There may be some exceptions, but if I understand correctly the real strong, real smart minds almost always work to find people they like, who they can interact with in a positive, friendly way. Unless a strong real smart has a good reason for the particular situation, it usually amounts to a waste of time putting down people who understand less than they do. Of course, sometimes it is just to let off steam.

Why I Can't Be Like Her

2010-03-13T11:12:00.000-08:00

I like dancing to songs with good lyrics. When the lyrics are of that certain quality and there are a-lot of people dancing I'll find a fun way of putting them together. A song that I'm lately quite fond of dancing to at 80's night is "Why Can't I Be You" by the cure. Frankly speaking I don't know the lyrics well, but the refrain "Why Can't I Be You" has always struck a chord in me.

Dancing to that song this thursday I spot a girl dancing with a guy. Really good looking girl. She takes his hand and dances with him and is so happy. I look over my shoulder at her and only with my eyes show a cautious jealousy. I can't be like her, you see. I'm not good at dancing with other people, dancing alone, being alone, I've reached the point in my life where it is rather unlikely that I'll become someone who can meet girls, get in the comfort zone instantly and have fun and pleasure and desire dancing with them.

I've gotten smarter, I don't have any negative feelings towards girl, or girls like that. I don't find anything shallow in that, knowing how strongly physical attractiveness and intelligence are correllated it is safe to assume this girl is above average smarts. I have above average looks but I don't make connections with the opposite sex like that. My mind went ablaze and I wished I could be like her.

But it can't be. I've taken the no neediness part of my personality to the extreme. The sensual pleasure of touch and love slows me mind down and I don't find that pleasant. Still and perhaps always I'll be too afraid of coming off as threatening if I make myself more assertive with women in bars and clubs. With almost every women I've met who has earned my respect it gets to the point where I speak honestly as I feel and say that we are much better served to conversate and be friends than to try to fulfill other ends. Romantic attraction is all about finding similarities and it is lonesome at the top. I don't care: time and time again I see men and women who make friends easily, with the opposite sex espescially. Much more popular than I could ever be, more known, more sexed ... told you so! I don't care, it doesn't even make me irritable these days. Pretty sure I am actually a good guy, if I became really popular, part of me would probably feel obliged to give people what they wanted - the worth, the quality of how I spent my time would fall. I've past the point of no return and it feels great! Live, breathe, eat, and sleep art - fanatic for the improvement of my work. Honestly, I know very well how extremely lucky I am, few people wouldn't trade places for me if they knew the full story. As one of my heroes said, I am so happy that I can be nice to people. I can't be like her, but I can still like her.

Near She, She No Fear Me

2010-03-13T05:31:00.000-08:00

Near She, She No Fear Me

Near She, She No Fear Me
I'm not near she, she doesn't fear me

She didn't dissappear, you see, we sincere we
She no fear me, I no fear she

I no need her, she no need me
Musical peers, her, me

Musicians hear, her, me
No deer is she, not really

Such an animal, how I see
I'm not near she, she don't fear me

I can close my eyes, I can see her, I can hear she
Pretty easy, that for me, pretty clear, me

Pretty soft, she, pretty frontier, her to me
Been more than a year, we we we we

Never been that time of year for me – pioneer
Fear her, fear her, fear her – oh so many do

So many me too, I need only dit je suis on voyou
You too? What about you, what do you do again?

She met me once and called me a friend – then …
We've been the utter gemstone friends

Wait, wait wait, tenderly so portended
What do you want me to say

Why would I give it away - if you knew me it'd be easy
Pretty queesy, not cheesy, I get alcohol poisoning and …

Pretty medium difficulty – her good empathy
There's a few other girls I like similar to she – oh how to be near she
Rather indifferent to the rest though – The new girls leave me empty

French Song

2010-03-13T01:37:00.000-08:00

Listen to it in French here

Read it in English here

Instead Of A Diary Entry - Poetry and Prose - Proust and Brassens

2010-03-12T22:32:00.000-08:00

What a day, what a life. Without any money, running out of cigarettes, sipping on beer, I can be as content as could be spending the night alone in my room with music, work, and chess among other things.

Got my life loaded with good poetry and good prose. Brassens provides the poetry, Proust the prose. Literary work of the utmost quality - the genuine articles. It could have been otherwise, it could have been an Italian poet and a German novelist. They could have been Americans. Like, yes, studying grandmaster chess games - the style and the particular occurences may be a little different, but at some high point there isn't much difference.

Besides, obviously, both being French artists, Brassens and Proust also had this in common: hundreds of hours studying the English language. I know Proust did a-lot of work translating an English author ... I suppose Brassens didn't translate much English poetry but having heard him speak English there was nothing really French sounding about his English. I imagine that he just had the conversations in English with those types of people of exceptional quality.

One of the best pieces of advice (omg I love giving advice) I could give to any artist working with words is to study and learn a foreign language. Just as, for example, taking up a new hobby and doing it well such as ping-pong or clarinet allows a strong mind to work better at other more important things it does, sort-of like that with language. Learn Spanish the right way and your English will have some extra quality that would not be there otherwise. I'll see something extra in words I read, or hear that someone who only knew English language wouldn't pick up on. Different languages different grammatical patterns, different sounds to words that mean the same thing ... so my French Czech etc mind will have an easier time finding how to say something in English just how I want it to be said. I suppose the same advice would hold, equally for musicians: take up a new instrument and the quality of performance on your main instrument will probably improve. Correct and incorrect ways to go about learning a skill, has taken me a-lot of time to get a solid understanding of how to learn in a more correct fashion. Some people have everything going with them and their genius begins to bloom at a rather young age, but I had to live most of my adult life as a rather stupid guy before being able to understand how incorrectly or ineffectively my learning techniques were.

I spend parts of the day reading Proust's "Sodom and Gomorrah" in coffeeshops. Reading aloud for a few reasons. It allows me to understand the book in a way I couldn't at all if I read silently. It is a-lot of fun to read aloud, for me, and I hope, for people who might end up listening to parts of it, and, of course, I love being a show off and impressing people with what I do well. Proust certainly knew how to write in high literary language. In his writing, alacritously, he uses certain words which both by their sound and their meaning are of wonderful complexity, and are beautiful beautiful indeed. Very real writing, despite the high language I don't find any off the immature show-off for showing-off sake that is one of the true marks of a mediocre writer.

When I first read Proust some years ago I understood next to nothing in "Sodom and Gomorrah", most of it was a foggy haze, mechanically and rather stupid - but ambitiously I just kept reading until I finished it. More often than not, doing this silent reading alone in my room, having a rather weak mind then, the writing would put me into a really ugly nap. Reading the work now though, I feel like I understand what the writer was trying to do - he might as well be sitting at the table next to me as I listen with deep respect taking everything he says seriously, having lots of laughs with him too. Of the books which make up "In Search Of Lost Time" "Sodom and Gomorrah" is probably the most impersonal. The narrator describes the life around him, unlike later parts the theme is less about love, or what makes good art, main themes are homosexuality, anti-semitism, the social tactics, habits, blunders, darknesses, etc of the people around him. He writes about people and it brings to my mind people I know, certain interesting things about people I know or who I have met. I get a real sense of what these imaginary people were really like, it feels not very different from watching actors perform in a theater. The quality of a sentence he wrote such as "displaying sadness only with her eyes" leaves me almost gaping with my mouth open in a state of wonder, almost. The utmost precision with which he is able to find words which correctly display a particular facial expression ... or indicating somehow the tone of voice the characters are using. Most great literature has parts where what happens is that the author basically paints a picture using words - indeed, nothing is more concerete, more showing how real the story is, than being able to particularly find words which convey what is seen with vision. Charlus dealt with hundreds of persons at one of the parties ... The narrator knew about bishops, fools, and elephants and went in through the cellar door.

Proust, you see, correctly evaluated himself as a failure at writing literature for most of his life. I imagine it was something like this: his conversations with people had a certain extremely brilliant quality about them. A quality that was not there when he sat alone and tried to write something important. He translated works on aesthetics by an English writer. And so much more, and more, and he got to the point where he got that deeper understanding of how writing great literary work was done, and from there on almost everything he wrote was literary gold. He had to fail as an artist for most of his life before he was able to succeed.

Brassens though, a really different story. Proust wrote prose, Brassens wrote poetry. Brassens wrote poetry and set most of it to music, which he sung with a guitar. Each weekend I spend some time translating songs Brassens wrote into English. Some common themes run through the songs of course, but each one is different and each one has taught me a-lot, I haven't felt dissapointed by any songs of his that I've translated yet. It may sound a little pretentious but I am confident it is the honest truth - there are probably a handful of people in the United States that understand his work as well as I do.

Compact, powerful, a-lot of structure (which is not easy to make out), a-lot of hidden meaning and false meanings. One of my favorite Brassens songs is called "Mama Papa." I sung it to myself dozens and dozens and dozens of times alone in my room. A few weeks ago I translated it and finally got a sense of what the words meant: I was amazed when I realized that there were only 3 verses ... the song was so great I didn't realize how short it was - how so few words were able to say so much.

He sings in a very clear voice, not the type of singing that makes it hard to understand what words he is using. His guitar playing as virtuostic as the lyrics. I am sure Brassens would have been a lesser artist if he did not study foreign languages. Certain parts of these very French songs, I am confident, seem to be begging for a translation into English. Brassens was pretty smart, English was the lingua franca as much in his time as it is in ours. English and French are similar enough to each other that subtle word play by indirectly saying something in the other language is not too difficult to do for a sharp literary mind.

This week I'm continuing work translating songs on "Le Pornographe" - the pornographer. On a superficial listening one gets the impression that George is having a-lot of fun using extremely expletive French, playing to the galleys. A more serious listening uncovers more, the freedom an artist has to say whatever he wants, that a strong mind should be unable to feel hurt by any words he or she would hear in a song. An inattentive listener would hear how fun, playful, and full of life the songs were. The attentive listener (who understands the French) would understand how dark and unpleasant many of the themes in the songs were. Except for a few people Brassens instinctually looked down on almost everyone he came across, he knew that not many people would get past a most basic understanding of what his artwork was about.

Brassens had a more normal development of an artist than Proust did. Like any great artist the first works he made were not that special. He got better at writing poems and better at musicianship and the work reached a point of quality which was great.

Of course, it means a-lot that they were both French. Getting to know their works better, I see common themes, common literary references that are based in high literary French culture. They lived rather disciplined lives, though having an incredible social intelligence and enjoying so much to socialize, they spent much more time alone than the average person. They spent hundreds and hundreds of hours alone studying and making art. That, I think, must be one of the most important parts.

Amazing

2010-03-12T14:03:00.000-08:00

This blows my mind. This is a little more important than a funny youtube video.

So basically, I can hear the correct pronunciation of any French word I want when I use the technology. To say nothing of how I could use it for English. Really no idea how something like this has been made - but it must be of enormous importance to any language learner or writer or poet.

Habits Of Stupid People

2010-03-12T13:31:00.000-08:00

One very common habit of stupid people, I find, is that they often just do something their own way, without a care in the world is to what other people think, without any investigation into how other people have did the same thing.

Don't get me wrong, when someone gets good at something that is the time to be creative and unoriginal. But until someone gets a pretty solid expertise in a skill, just doing it their own way often means it will be full of mistakes, ridiculous seeming, not anything of note. Often these type of stupid people feel a-lot of pride because they have some eccentric habit, some particularity.
Examples, of course are in order. A guy I know, when he eats at restaurants, always, once the check is given, moves to pay for it immediately. He will never understand why this is rude. In his brutish mind he wants something and he is doing it in the quickest way.

Another guy I know loves to feel creative. He goes into writers groups and feels inspired and creative, good feeling. His life isn't very unique, so the characters he writes about are fictitious and simply not like any actual human is. For years and years he has been recieving advice by teachers on how to write, he does the writing exercises: the result of all this being - nothing except the poor quality of his writing is memorable.

(Of course exceptions prove the rule, but in good novels most of the characters are based on very real people, on the author's experience and evaluation of real people. Writing fiction well, I am pretty sure, requires one be an avid conversationalist with an active and healthy social life. Anyone that does nothing but sit alone all day probably isn't going to have much of literary interest to write about.)

A man reads a bad poem, I like to impress with my knowledge of words, so does he, but I think I do a better job of it in my poems. His poem was full of big words, again and again in a section he kept repeating "beige." Wow, I understand as good as he does what beige means. I'm pretty sure the poem would have been better if he used the simpler and probably more honest and descriptive "tan."

As everyone has some experience cooking, these type of "boring originalities" probably occur most often in cooking. (In clothing too, I am sure, but many women really do know how to dress well ... I think they have every right to make fun of the women who do not know how to.) You know, making little changes to the recipe, adding a few new things in ... child's play. Again, if someone is really good at cooking this is allowed, and will probably sometimes improve the meal. But for the people who aren't good at cooking, doing anything but obediently following the recipe will probably lead to a meal that does not look or taste as good.

What's the point? For shits and giggles, for laughing hyenas. Many people think like this artist = creativity. Creativity (and originality) are essential parts of good art, but they aren't everything. Bare creativity without knowledge and experience is nothing impressive or memorable. Indeed, isn't art more than anything about being impressive and being memorable?

Music In My Life Lately

2010-03-07T19:53:00.000-08:00

I am at the point where I probably am pretty familiar, at least, with say 60% of the standard classical music repertoire. I mean the works that would be most often scheduled for performance in standard symphony, chamber music, and solo piano performance seasons.

I wish I could know the number of times I've listened to something like Beethoven's 3rd piano concerto or Mozart's 40th symphony. Probably I either underestimate or overestimate the number of times when I try to make an honest intelligent guess.

When my mind is its strongest it wants as many recordings as possible of works I like. A pleasure of knowing music works well is that, indeed, hearing the differences between performances is a delight to the mind. Beethoven string quartets for example, or Brahms chamber music -so full of the highest quality. I don't feel like I'm wasting time getting 5-6 difference recordings of them.

Knowing so much music by memory makes me feel great, I have to admit. Today in the car a Mendelssohn overture plays and I heard it so many times I know when a certain mood change is coming up. I listened to Mahlers 3rd symphony today and I felt I knew the work at some parts as well as the players, no surprise when certain instruments join in.

It has gotten to the point where, most of the time when I am awake my mind will feel dry and bad if there isn't music (if I am not doing something like reading, or talking to someone.) I had to re-set up my computer, that meant five minutes of silence. I felt a little like a drug user in how desperately I wanted to hear music when it was not possible.

Like chess games or like painting, one lifetime isn't enough for a person to take in all of deserving quality. I've been spending a-lot of time each week listening to new music. Mostly 20th century music. A-lot of it by composers that are complete unknowns except for connoisseurs - and most of this music is exceptional!

Popular music, for lack of a better term, has become more and more important in my life. Simply stated, if I hear great music around me, I think most of the times I am going to recognize its worth. The lyrical quality of a-lot of this music impresses me espescially. Fine as any poetry books. I listen and I dance to it ... I like that I do not know it very well. I've gotten into Jazz and the lyrical quality of some of these songs I love. Of course the instrumental too.

Also, I'm getting better at piano. My scales get faster and faster. At the point now where, jarringly with errors, I can play through the 1st movement of Beethoven's Op. 49 no. 2 piano sonata with joy and confidence. Last time I practiced I played C-minor scales. The key set in a certain emotion. I felt like I understood something seriously profound.

My singing is getting better too. For a while I thought that it would not be possible to sing well, without instruction, with smoking cigarettes. Certainly not operatically, but there is a well developed and dark tone to my voice, result of ... at least dozens of hours singing. The writing I do, to me, prose and poetry, has a musical quality to me. I like something in it by the sound of the words I use. Sometimes it just semantic explanation. But in the literature and poetry I go for the beauty of sound for sound alone sometimes.

Last but not least, has been getting to know musicians with a-lot of talent. As people and musicians they blow me away. The mind of a talented musician works a certain way. There isn't that much difference, really, I think, in how the minds of talented players of musical instruments work.

Jealous Of The Bionic Woman

2010-03-05T23:19:00.000-08:00

There is a girl I know. I don't know her well, so I am trying to be nice.

I call her the bionic woman. Destined to be a great artist, she had the money, the education, the looks even, everything seemed to be on her side. Artificial construction. My first impression of her: poorly made poem about sexuality ... not understanding why sex is such a difficult topic to write about in a correct way, aesthetically speaking.

Anyway, I am a little jealous of her. She has a-lot of friends. Pretty high quality friends. I heard that she said that I don't understand Proust and I ended up sitting near her today by accident and proceeded, as I had planned, to read fifteen pages of Proust aloud. Funny coincidences.

Anyway, she leaves, and of course she leaves with an attractive interesting looking male-friend. Nothing political or gender. Just person to person, I feel a little jealous. I haven't had a girlfriend for about five years. All said and done, I've only had one fun night with a girl and believe me, it took all my honesty and all my wits to get her to like me back. I am jealous bionic woman, green eyed jealousy indeed.

Some People Think I'm Crazy, I Just Think They Are Lazy

2010-03-05T22:31:00.000-08:00

They think that I am Crazy
Well I think that they are lazy
I think their minds must be foggy and hazy
These guys really hardly even phase me, these days

Okay really, laziness often does see craziness
Of course, it takes much more work, and time
To take the time to understand why what is said, is said

Sorry guys - so far behind, not even very far ahead
Sorry ladies guess which guy is the better read
Guess which ladies hate me and want to read ahead
Who cares if I went over her head? Guess what I said?

She thinks I am rude
I am rude, for sure
She thinks I am not very polite
Sorry lady, you missed the point, not quite

He hears me reading about chess
He hears me say "pawn pawn pawn pawn"
Hey guy I am in a café, do I really look withdrawn?
Hey guy of course the name Swan doesn't ring a bell

Some ladies do not understand chess very well, in theory or technique
They do not even understand that it is more than just chess
They hear me saying pawn pawn pawn
They do not understand I see them as pawns
They do not understand how infrequently I yawn
They do not understand who has won, haven't we already won? But I continue on for fun:

So many ladies and so many men, wastes of my time again and again
So many ladies and so many men, so many I really want to have more friends
So many colors, so many neats, so many cool hers, so many to beat, I buy them beer - my treet

They think I am angry mad maybe violent, or maybe I am shy? They think I'm shy?
Wrong word guys, correct collocation is socially competetive or socially aggressive
Some ladies are easily scared, they don't even understand this concept: social aggression
Some guys are full of secrets and confessions, not to mention how weak they are to me

Why? Because I've reached the point in my life were I know about ten great ladies
As much as they got, they deserve better, same with men of course, quality is more uncommon
So, I know, let them think that I am crazy, let them think I am an autist
Or let them think I am needy, abrasive, or insecure. They should be happy they can think
I am happy. Happier lives than they've got, that's for sure. Hardly phases me
The stupidity of some humans will always pretty much for sure continue to amaze me.

Strong And Weak Minds - Basic Ideas

2010-03-05T22:05:00.001-08:00

There are many reliable ways to distinguish between people with strong minds, and people with weak minds.

One of the best, I've found is to understand the way in which they like or dislike things. Be it names, movies, people, you name it. As a general rule it works like this: People with strong minds do their most to like what is around them. When they dislike something it will be powerful, and they will have a reason to. With people espescially, strong minds are pretty much required to like like like.

People with weak minds tend to decide to dislike things on a whim, without thinking about it. A pathetic person I know, for example, simply declares that she does not like Spanish, Spanish sounds ugly to her, she doesn't like the way it sounds. I told this girl the name of my friends cat. She told me she didn't like the name, because it was not an everyday name. I tried to explain to her why he choose to name the cat that. I can hardly stomach these type of people. The type that will decide, without knowing anything else, that I suck because of the shirt I am wearing, or because I walk a certain way, or because they hear one thing I say that doesn't go off well. I get a good sense of how people like that work, they often don't have a very well defined sense of self. They go from feeling like they are gods gift to earth, to going through an onslaught of confidence problems. See, it sort of works like this, again a general rule, equally applicable to men and to women. Strong minds improve with age, they learn more, they learn how to conduct themselves with people, they get better at whatever their interests are. Weak minds, of course, the opposite. They never learn. Like an aging body, the quality of their mind gets worse as they grow old, they feel hardly any connection to the person they were, say, 10 or 20 years ago. As they get older they get mroe and more easily irritable, they get more and more out of touch with. The strong minds, man or woman, they aren't too anxious about becoming a few decades older, they become gentler, kinder, wiser with age. Trust me on this, if you don't know already, there is a world of difference between the quality of people. Almost everyone deserves a certain basic amount of respect, but some people have earned a better position than others.

Trust Me, This Poem Is About The Girl

2010-03-05T18:36:00.000-08:00

Trust Me, This Poem Is About The Girl

I may be rather quite smart or bright, you see
But honestly speaking I can just barely understand she
The girl! The girl! The girl again, still still still still
Feels just too easy to be content artist to artist with she

All these smarts I got, they aren't helping much with these mysteries
How much does she trust me, how much does she like me, how many
How many better looking guys like her?
And of them how many who are more similar to her than me
Does she care at all about dates? I wouldn't be surprised if the girl, just like me
Began being great by realizing not to care about that, sex is just sex,
True love makes one stupid, sex is like steak, I know her pretty well, you see

I sort of know her. Impressing the girl is easy for me
But gaining her trust, that is much harder, much harder
Impressing is easy, but how does one convince: my spirit agrees with yours
My spirit would not be mean, my spirit means the best
My spirit is a healthy medium sized dog
Gaping forward it hardly believes what it sees
(No reason to fear, just an excited happy dog)

It sort of sucks, honestly, she and me local celebrities.
And I do have such a fairy tale life
Not many have lives like mine, and yes, sad to say, it can become selfish and excessive to want she or her or us or you know elle (hush!) -Elle is the french word for she, you see. I know, I'm not wasting my time when I am me me me doing all I can to get her to like me, that is golden time. Why? It must be?

No! If so, not yet, not yet not yet! No!
Haven't had successful romance in my life for what …. something like five years now?
The queen of my heart has meant more than … no lady even comes close. Why she the most? The soft brightness of her voice? The similar life stories? Day we first met was life-defining?
I think most of all it is the one only lives one life that so rare so serious deep connection thing. The girl doesn't need me.

I don't need the girl.
Something just makes her larger than life to me. Some part of me is pretty hungry.
So far, so far, so far, I know.
Really I do.
Just trying to do my best.
Just me. Trahdeda!

It Is Getting DrunK Stupid

2010-03-05T08:09:00.000-08:00

However shall it get different
So many lady friends, so many the extreme beautiful
So much earned trust, so much of the genuine
"We would be much less interesting to eachother if we were ..."
What? Five or six come to mind off the top of my head
It is getting retarded
Everytime I make the honest effort to be romantic human
After going through the rumour grind I was being very disrespectful to women
I'm so annoyed by it, can't I make it better than that

Yeah, I try I try, Going to live a life, be a good person, be a good person
I'm not that good, I'm mean and socially aggressive, I've never been trying to be a saint
But it's gotten fucking ridiculous - I want want want want want to have lots of great sex
I want want want want and I jealouse when I see so many people who sort of suck they get it
They get it pretty easily, compared to me, it makes me jealous, a pretty good reason to be jealous
Don't get me wrong, it is pretty high, this literary language here, pretty high, pretty hard

Don't get me wrong, I just find it kind of funny
And kind of sad, the girlfriends I never have had
The girls I've never known, horrible mistakes
Hardly anyone has really seen how I shake

Does it have to come to settling for nothing or settling for far or much less than second best?
Will it have to come to that? I worry a little anyway the point is simply this
Anyone want a good boyfriend he dances eagerly and will take the first
He will hold for a long time and it will take some time before he lets go

Fool's Mate, Scholar's Mate, Brooklyn Band

2010-03-04T08:12:00.000-08:00

I can't hold it against anyone for not knowing about chess. Indeed that would be as stupid as not liking someone becuase they didn't know Chinese, or like tennis, etc. Still, I do find it funny. I study chess in coffeeshops and most people don't even understand that I am not "playing chess with myself" that I am studying chess with a book. Same way, I'll read French aloud in coffeeshops and a good part of the time the people around don't even get what language I am reading in. No big deal. Just funny.

I go to bar and I study a chess game while drinking. A guy I know sees me and he wants to play me. First game I checkmate on the 2nd move, what in chess is called fool's mate. Was there any way he could have looked more foolish? I think he is nice, it is easy being nice on him. Anyway, there is fools mate and there is scholars mate. Fools mate is much more fun.

At Coyote Café I hear bands all the time. From bands that are as great as what one would find in a great symphony hall, to the mediocre, to the pretty bad. A pretty bad band last night. They set up a flashy screen with their name on it. So many times the songs return to key, again and again, unpredictably - how proud I am to like atonal music indeed still! Some songs were about angsty sad stuff, of course, best yet, of course, the band lives in Brooklyn. Of course.

A little angsty about it. I see fools mating all around me, also see scholars mating all around me. Can't have it all I suppose. Lucky Czech me.

My Imaginary Trip To Indonesia, Europe

2010-02-28T10:06:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I find something that is a great laerning tool and I stick with it. The Pimsleur language programs are like that. There is an audio tape, in English and the other language, mainly you repeat what is said. Down to a cold blooded science, the Pimsleur approach, perfect scheduled reinforcement. Down to a science the simplest part of a language, then slowly adding more complexity. These Pimsleur audio tapes are great, the sharp science with starting out with what is simple and mastering it, and then calmly continuing.

I've done the Pimsleur Irish, Italian, the Cantonese one poorly, and now the Indonesian. I don't know quite how it works but spending an hour speaking, say, Hebrew, I will get a sense that I understand them more than if I read some two thousand page essay in English. Undeniably prosody reveals so much about any person. French audio program I end up hallucinating the French girl having sex. I know. Hallucinating the mouths of these speakers on audio tapes is what happens all the time. Anyway, The Indonesians.

It is like watching a play, but, of course, just learning the language, a really simplified one. In this lesson, basically, more to the picture than would meet their eyes, the woman and man fight and argue with each other for half an hour. Very subtle hatred, very subtle attempts to control each other. Eat this, do you want, can you speak, I want my place, Go here ... that type of darkness at me in Indonesian for 30 minutes. Makes sense though. In the life I live I don't see much of the carried out long pointless man-woman arguments. Yet I sense more human language is made in the angry stupid man-woman fights than in the nice getting to know people thing. One of those things, probably, that is quite culture dependent. The more I understand, I say, the more I understand how different people can be in different places. Prague really is not that terribly different from Pittsburgh, not compared to other places ... yet the way people interacted with each other, treated each other, etc ... quite indeed different from the way Americans tend to. ... living here in Pittsburgh I feel quite European. Few people I know in the places I go you know haven't been as lucky as I have to have lived in Europe for a year. Whenever some of them get over there, and spend some time over there, I am sure they will get leap and bounds suddenly understand so much more about what made me tick tock when here. Chess game time.

RERUN - Why I am not an Anarchist

2010-02-28T05:42:00.000-08:00

Why I am not an Anarchist

Short answer, long sufficiently complex answer. Short answer there is no benefit for me in being one. And any anarchist that doesn't suck doesn't care – je mi jedno.

Reality is that hordes of great people are anarchists. I was an anarchist; I adopted the political belief system from intellectual thought. I thought I had a perfect understandings of the truths of the ideology. And later through more thought I realized I was no anarchist. Anarchism is an abstraction, like feminism, Christianity, capitalism, etc. There are numerous belief systems who legitimately use the appellation and which conflict with each other intellectually. So, my aim is to refute what was my previous vision of anarchism.

That anarchism was equivocal with libertarian socialism, best expressed by Bakunin.
"We are convinced that freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice and that socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality."

The golden quality of Bakunin's mind remains one of the most appealing aspects of anarchism. This type of anarchism which I was quite in support of has, at its core, total rejection of unnecessary immorally imposed authority. Contains idea that a much better society is possible, should be actualized, should be fought for, all effort to transform society into it. Anarchism contains that idea, to act to bring about the best possible society.

A serious libertarian socialist could then state how this vast improvement in society is best made to happen. He or she would reject political reform, pure trade unionism, Leninism, Trotskyism, correctly identify Lenin as a more original Stalin (who, to the best of my understanding was a much crueler colder human than Stalin was), reject all variants of state socialism, be near his best making an intellectual assault against social democratic parties, probably point out authoritarian tendencies in Marx's ideology … would eventually say the best and only way to make this best possible society is popular revolution based around the ideas of abolishing the state, abolishing capitalism, abolishing hierarchy generally, replacing them with analogous structures which are less authoritarian (he would probably actually use hierarchial.)

The serious scientific philosophical anti-war anti-anti-anti-anti Trotskyist feminist [je sais] anti-sociobiological pro-ecological anarchist is simply a mental fundamentalist, as is the serious intellectual anarchist. He or she is sure that he is right. He or she is somewhere uncomfortable cause he isn't quite oblivious that obviously most people stupid to smart are oblivious to (or towards or about) anarchism. The anarchist mental fundamentalist after all is sure he or she or he or she is right. They withstand and are empowered by lame straw men like “libertarian socialism is an oxymoron” “there would be lots of crime without a government” “anarchism would mean chaos.” Like all mental fundamentalists they take the absurdity of statements of fundamentalists of opposing ideologies, tear them to shreds, retain their full confidences. The serious scientific anarchist intellectual could talk at you for two hours distinguishing property from possessions, could make what initially appears an appropriate really solid support of the labor theory of value, point out evidences of Pinochet, make a solid attack against progressive democrats, etc etc.

And the simple serious intellectual anarchist, to the best of my knowledge has no pithy answer to the questions of (1) why hasn't anarchism succeeded, and (2) how would a popular revolution come to be on anything even approximating an international scale. Though the smart not ridiculous serious scientific libertarian socialist would probably speak for hours with his knowledge base approaching such two questions his thoughts just get less and less concrete, more and more abstract (the room empties out) until they obviously lose touch with the realities of actual life.

Honestly, however legitimate, however great the accomplishments of Catalonian anarchists in the 1930s it is more complex than that – many societies under many ideologies have improved because of fresh mental energy instilled then intensified by ideological conviction. Honestly, anarchist Catalonia was not that special.

I worked at a regular hourly job. If everyone at the job was an anarchist the job, the people would hardly be different. Anarchism is weakened by being an ideology, by being theory, by being a prescription, though admittedly it sounds really good initially to moral motivated active minds – a huge problem with anarchism is that it is excessively moralistic. Being too good, too easy. About as easy as being angry about a broken window, in fact, I think.

Most if not all really serious libertarian socialists and capitalists do not understand why Bolsheviks exterminated anarchists, though their good minds shine in contemplation of the horror of it. Because in theory the anarchist is enemy with every not-anarchist he does not understand how actual opponents defend themselves when they have near monopolies of power. Though he claims to, the anarchist grasp of human psychology is weak and dreamy. He is not unlike a man well versed in chess theory who does not know how to deal with concrete problems unique to a chess game. As in chess as in life a sure way to suck is to fail to acknowledge that you have competitors. They don't always benefit by cooperating with your plans. Most often they simply don't care about you.

The anarchist could defend his political position against solid attacks by replying then, honestly, that no ideology is perfect. Lights up with idea that for all its greatness look how much science does not yet know, no anarchist has perfect understanding of anarchism, or society, no serious anarchist claims to. That defense fails.
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Actual anarchists rarely understand the actual relation between the individual and society. Few understand that both are as abstract as imaginary numbers. (Round and round we go! Whoa!) The anarchist sees what sucks in society, aggressively assaults it, threatens it with violence, does its best not to like it. So society reciprocates. The profound emotional negativity of anarchists precipitates the hostility (You know, don't you, no one likes to be insulted) A Wiser man cultivates his good heart and puts himself first. Actual anarchists are actually pathetic if they have ambition to struggle violently against their abstraction. If they posed a real threat to positions of power most of them simply and kindly, in America and Europe, would be kindly put into prison. Who cares? Not me, not me myself or I. Demanding, wanting actual best possible is what anarchists do. I just like whoever it seems to benefit me by liking. I don't honestly care about their imperfections, weaknesses in their intellectual position. If something is good, there is actual profound wisdom recognizing when it is good enough, and being satisfied. As there is predominantly pious and fake profundity being imaginatively aware of how much better it could be.

John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell – they knew all about anarchism, they weren't anarchists. Most musicians of the highest caliber, the same, most musicians of high caliber, great majority of musicians, no classical music composer that I know of. Also not anarchist Murray Bookchin, also not an anarchist George Orwell. People with a certain mental acuity aim to retain their own happiness, to accept accommodation. After all, all actual friendships involve this.