Root vegetables are roasting. Prepping them is a very satisfying practice, peeling, chopping up, interesting variations in skin and flesh. Carrots, beets, parsnips, rutabagas, celeriacs, yams- all beautiful, all different. Strange family resemblances.

Was reading a bit of Goethe on plant morphology earlier, some pretty funny comments on roots. "What was I to do with a formation of filaments, fibers, bulbs, and tubers; one so limited as to yield only an unpleasant assortment, an endless variety with never an intensification?" Even geniuses go astray from time to time, I guess, and why not? Probably does them a world of good.

Exhaustion/panic episode of the afternoon seems to be waning, find myself wishing it were possible for me to be kinder to others. Sadly, pretty sure it's not, lots of reasons for that, some of them even sound ones.

Walk to town, got cash, a burrito, did a little shopping for wedding gifts.

Sinking into the couch, heavy weight on my chest, a little hard to breathe. Try to look on the bright side, maybe someday somebody will require an extensive explanation of the word 'worry'.

I find that usually when people think I'm lying or talking nonsense it's because they're suffering from a lack of imagination. Occasionally, I'm actually lying or talking nonsense, but never about anything serious, unless I'm trying to be funny, of course.

The world keeps slipping away, then I look around & it's back.

Done with work for the moment, finishing off my soup, may make more roasted vegetables later, maybe straight up roots this time, have quite a wide variety, broil more chorizo to go with that, I think.

The quasi-half days I've been working this week have been being more tiring than normal work days, try to squeeze everything normal in, there's been all this moving, etc. Anyway, come out of there feeling pretty addled.

Feet are damp, should buy some new shoes.

Back from walk with Peretz through cold misty rain.

Picture this: two people see neither themselves nor each other as responsible for their own actions, blame all that goes wrong on a third person. As that third person, I have no major problems with this, lacking belief in god or state, what and who one chooses to be responsible for and to is a matter of personal choice. Perfectly willing to be held responsible for more than I am if it helps.

Anyway, I wouldn't have any problems with that if that were the whole picture. It's more complicated than that, of course. One of the other people seems genuinely unaware of having made any choices at all, the other, I'm quite sure, has some concerns about having made bad ones regarding her responsibilities, reintroducing the notion of responsibility at a metalevel.

All very disturbing, but no longer my problem.

Thinking about being the goat.

Plenty of goatiness to go around, of course- stubborn, affectionate, with horns; capricious, gentle, strange-eyed; diabolical, agile, wild with lust. Suppose that for the game to go on, the needle needs to come to rest somewhere.

Anyway, not half bad out here in the desert with Azazel, feel sorrier for the ones back at the encampment, frankly, don't know what they're in for.

Thinking about the ambiguity of 'reification'. Compare 'hypostasis'.

Reading about fallacies of ambiguity, not really fallacies at all, strictly speaking.

'My master through his art foresees the danger that you, his friend, are in; and sends me forth— for else his project dies— to keep them living. While you here do snoring lie, open-eyed conspiracy his time doth take. If of life you keep a care, shake off slumber, and beware: awake, awake!'

Breeze through the window, communing with spirits of air.

10/10, has me thinking about 11/11, dreams of war, woke up a bit earlier than normal thankfully. Childhood preoccupation with analog odometers.

Was talking to a colleague last night about my childhood preoccupation with aftereffects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, Vietnam war atrocities, etc. The effects on my attitude to our government, government in general, have been pretty far reaching. Never been very good at understanding how people manage to push this stuff out of their minds, it seems very basic to how things are now.

Will maybe watch Grave of the Fireflies later.

Cold, gray morning, wishing for first snow.

Cinnamon roll, cup of tea, Nico.

Feeling pretty tired, feels nice.

Close my eyes & see whirling forms, quite beautiful, complex.

Got word from T that she successfully made Trader Joe's orange chicken she likes and that everyone enjoyed it, made me smile.

Farm share is wrapping up on the 22nd, looking forward to more junk food, pizza, malteds come November. Stalking cold streets with burrito, etc.

Tried to get more video of P dreaming a while ago but camera beep woke him.

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."

So Tully says anyway, maybe he didn't get out much?

Went to Outlook, got baby back ribs for dinner party, assorted sausages, bacon ends.

Driving back down the twisting country roads of my home, under gray ominous skies, thinking thoughts. Rain later.

As I was entering town, 'See Emily Play' came on the radio.

"Emily tries but misunderstands
She's often inclined to borrow somebody's dreams till tomorrow
There is no other day
Let's try it another way
You'll lose your mind and play
Free games for May
See Emily play
Soon after dark Emily cries
Gazing through trees in sorrow hardly a sound till tomorrow
There is no other day
Let's try it another way
You'll lose your mind and play
Free games for May
See Emily play
Put on a gown that touches the ground
Float on a river forever and ever, Emily
There is no other day
Let's try it another way
You'll lose your mind and play
Free games for May
See Emily play"

Crying like a baby.

Shaved, took P for a walk, spent that thinking about continuities between contemporary discourses on public health and cultures of dependency and the eugenics movement. Funny how people thinking about the problems of the lower orders so rarely turn their attention to their primary problem, the people who exploit and oppress them. Imagine it's a problem they'll solve for themselves given time.

The Robot Brains is pretty great so far, partially set at a traveling fair.

"A lady at the back of the tent whispered to her neighbor, 'I don't like the look of them at all!'

Indeed, there was something forbidding in the aspect of the Brains; their intelligence seemed devoid of all humanity.

At last, a schoolboy broke the silence to ask:

'Is space really empty?'

'No,' the Brain in the center answered dispassionately. 'Space is only relatively empty. There are great quantities of dust and gases between the stars. Also many types of radiation.'

His manner was condescending, almost a sneer.

'When was Cleopatra's Needle brought to London?'

'In the year eighteen seventy-eight Anno Domini.'

The audience began to warm up, and questions flowed faster.

'Is the sea-horse a fish?'

'What is the capital of Pakistan?'

Each Brain in his turn answering the questions, but the manner of all three remained cold and distant.

'Who wrote The Count of Monte Cristo?'

'How can I stop woodworm?'

'Are there such things as ghosts?'

'Who killed Cock Robin?'"

Going to take a break from it, go stock up on local pork products.

Started reading that collection of Goethe's scientific studies I bought last week.

"The mind may perceive the seed, so to speak, of a relation which would have a harmony beyond the mind's power to comprehend or experience once the relation is fully developed."

I got sidetracked into a little bibliographic research by a comment on Heinse's Ardinghello which made it sound like something I might enjoy ("I found the former author offensive because he attempted through the fine arts to ennoble and defend sensuality and an abstruse way of thinking"). No full English translations seem readily available, but it's excerpted in a collection of translations of 18th Century German prose which I've ordered from Lorem Ipsum Books in Cambridge (a dollar for the book, four dollars shipping). Should really find some time to work on my German.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

This space intentionally left blank.

Think I may have read enough of the heady stuff for the moment, may move on to Sydney J. Bounds's The Robot Brains, jacket blurb is promising, anyway:

"BRAINS WITHOUT SOUL

Giant blonde creatures, they were as curvaceous as the bodies of their dwarf men were shriveled.

Captain Christian was the only human who'd ever laid eyes on them. And now he wished he hadn't. They were beauty without heart. Cruel, cold.

And he was their prisoner."

Just back from more work in Amherst, went & got some pizza & took some more pictures after. Some more to do, going to do it from home. Should really be working half days all week, not really managing it.

Walking around in Amherst thinking about the oft-cited equivalence of interpretation & prophecy, neglecting the time element. Signs & portents. Most devious maze ever constructed is a straight line.

Thinking about how easily one could confuse introversion with narcissism.

All coiled up.

Gordian knot:Ciphered name of Dionysus::Ariadne's thread:Minotaur.

"Inspir'd with hope, the project they pursue;
On ev'ry altar sacrifice renew:
A chosen ewe of two years old they pay
To Ceres, Bacchus, and the God of Day;
Preferring Juno's pow'r, for Juno ties
The nuptial knot and makes the marriage joys.
The beauteous queen before her altar stands,
And holds the golden goblet in her hands.
A milk-white heifer she with flow'rs adorns,
And pours the ruddy wine betwixt her horns;
And, while the priests with pray'r the gods invoke,
She feeds their altars with Sabaean smoke,
With hourly care the sacrifice renews,
And anxiously the panting entrails views.
What priestly rites, alas! what pious art,
What vows avail to cure a bleeding heart!
A gentle fire she feeds within her veins,
Where the soft god secure in silence reigns.
Sick with desire, and seeking him she loves,
From street to street the raving Dido roves.
So when the watchful shepherd, from the blind,
Wounds with a random shaft the careless hind,
Distracted with her pain she flies the woods,
Bounds o'er the lawn, and seeks the silent floods,
With fruitless care; for still the fatal dart
Sticks in her side, and rankles in her heart."

So often these days, one finds oneself proceeding by collage, one way to stay methodical while chopped to bits, packet switching, virtual circuits.

"If we put all together, that the school-boy rehearses, that the crowd relates, and that the philosopher demonstrates about spirits, this would seem to constitute no small part of our knowledge. Nevertheless, I dare assert that all these smatterers could be placed in a most awkward embarrassment, if it should occur to somebody to insist upon the question, just what kind of a thing that is about which these people think they understand so much. The methodical talk of learned institutions is often simply an agreement to beg a question which is difficult to solve, by the variable meaning of words. For we seldom hear at academies the comfortable and ofttimes reasonable " I do not know." Certain newer philosophers, as they like to be called, overcome this question easily. A spirit, they say, is a being possessed of reason. Then it is no miracle to see spirits ; for he who sees men, sees beings possessing reason. But, they continue, this being in man, possessing reason, is only a part of man, and this part, the animating part, is a spirit. Very well then. Before you prove that only a spiritual being can have reason, take care that first of all I understand what kind of conception I must have of a spiritual being. Self-deception in this matter, while large enough to be seen with eyes half-open, is moreover of very evident origin. For, later on and in old age, we are sure to know nothing of that which was very well known to us at an early date, as children, and the man of thoroughness finally becomes at best a sophist in regard to his youthful delusions."

That one might have a natural voice, or a natural self, to which one would always in the end return, groundless, romantic speculation.

From time to time rather enjoy being groundless & romantic.

That culture, cultivation & the like are, as applied to humans, notions foisted off on us by swooning Romantics, is I suppose, not all that generally known, rather heavily operationalized at this point in one way or another, prefer winding my way back down to the root myself, contemplating our kinship with plants.

Dreamt again, last night, of giant ferns & dragonflies.

Back to crisp fall weather, crisp fall me, rustling like a sheaf of papers, shaken.

Addison, in the Spectator of July 6, 1711, wrote, of ghosts:

"I should not have been thus particular upon these ridiculous Horrours, did I not find them so very much prevail in all Parts of the Country. At the same time I think a Person who is thus terrify'd with the Imagination of Ghosts and Spectres much more reasonable than one who, contrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and prophane, ancient and modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks the Appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless: Could not I give myself up to this general Testimony of Mankind, I should to the Relations of particular Persons who are now living, and whom I cannot distrust in other Matters of Fact. I might here add, that not only the Historians, to whom we may join the Poets, but likewise the Philosophers of Antiquity have favoured this Opinion. Lucretius himself, though by the Course of his Philosophy he was obliged to maintain that the Soul did not exist separate from the Body, makes no Doubt of the Reality of Apparitions, and that Men have often appeared after their Death. This I think very remarkable; he was so pressed with the Matter of Fact which he could not have the Confidence to deny, that he was forced to account for it by one of the most absurd unphilosophical Notions that was ever started. He tells us, That the Surfaces of all Bodies are perpetually flying off from their respective Bodies, one after another; and that these Surfaces or thin Cases that included each other whilst they were joined in the Body like the Coats of an Onion, are sometimes seen entire when they are separated from it; by which means we often behold the Shapes and Shadows of Persons who are either dead or absent."

Scotch on the rocks in brand new glass, pajamas, working on oneness with cosmos.

Thinking about Yojimbo, Red Harvest, how much havoc can one man wreak?

Called into work again, this time a stupid little image processing process up & died, easy to fix, annoying anyway.

Had some more soup, bread & butter. Putting me to sleep.

P's eating now, going to walk him after, then collapse for the evening, I think.

Keep thinking about other me, other a lot like me anyway, out there, very sick. Makes me sad & worried.

Bizarrely muggy out, thick haze over the hills, dramatic sunset clouds on the drive back from the airport, was wishing I had my camera, probably best if I don't try to photograph absolutely everything I'd like to.

Thinking while driving about the difficulty of being a pretty profoundly monogamous person in the situation in which I find myself. Not complaining, it's largely a matter of choice, like myself better that way, feel more like myself, more important to me than feeling happy & contented.

Also thinking about people's ambivalences about human physicality, a lot of variation in that, mine tends to run along the lines of reveling in it while finding it extremely awkward, different from a lot of people in that there's really no element of disgust & very little fear.

Nearly drifted off after writing the previous paragraph, need to walk the dog.

Listening to the 'Gerty Farish Bulks Up' ep, haven't listened to it in ages, that 'All Fucked Up' song is something else.

Had to go fetch my brother from the Springfield bus station, it turns out, stopped by Kittredge & picked up some highball glasses & a juicer. Anyway, brought him home, fed him soup & pie.

Farm share fall bounty continues unabated, may end up needing to give stuff away again, especially as I'm going out of town over the weekend. Thinking about making stuffed pumpkins of some kind.

Profoundly exhausted, need to take Aaron to Bradley soon, maybe I'll warm myself up some coffee.