446. "The Psychopathic Koan" A Short Story

PDF for "The Psychopathic Koan" is found here: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/thepsychopathickoanshortstory.pdf. If I receive great reviews for this story, I'll take this blog entry off line and consider it for submission to a few literary journals.

As I had told Barry Spacks, I was struggling about the last two weeks of June with a story entitled "The Peacock and the Bowerbird." I had been collecting, amassing data, trying to organize the story as much as possible... and then I reached a threshold in which I could no longer work on it anymore. Why? (1) I had quarantined all the information I needed. Instead of becoming a never-ending diffuse identity, the tumor of T suddenly became discrete and bounded. (2) Right now my life is flowing, changing all the time, at hourly, daily, and longer scales. Everything is flowing positive. I am not ready yet to tackle a failure in my life. I am not ready to end a story in a tragedy. (3) I had some level of difficulty in organizing the material because I didn't have a more simplified recipe for a controversial character with "psychopathic qualities." I returned to Santa Barbara feeling my head was a lot cleaner, a lot calmer, a lot more open and vacant, especially since the tumor had now been contained, yet still not removed. But a LOT less painful. The process of containment removed the possibility of "spread" into any other parts of my mind and body. Then again, it's still a fairly large tumor.

So, as I was driving through Santa Barbara, out of all the layers chaos involved in "The Peacock and the Bowerbird," a VERY CLEAR IDEA came to me. As the T tumor or T parasite (I can't wait to scoop out) told me one time a koan-story about a man who broke a jug of water in which he worked so hard to acquire and walked on from the scene as if nothing ever happened, and at the time he seemed to perceive the koan as a way of how he wanted to lead his life (dthfthr)(freeneasywndr learn from mistakes?). Sorry, those were just personal notes. The context of telling the koan story. So, then I started to think about it more and more... and now I was in Goleta, and I realized this is it. This story is it--a formula for a simplification of the character! A fundamental unit of organization I needed in order to better understand the construction of the character... and as a result, the overall story. A simple koan could suddenly describe this horde of information of a method of existence of a person who injured, wounded, damaged my inner emotions, intellect, meaning of existence overall.... The word psychopathy quickly crept up to me.... And the story marinated in my head for a day, and finally on the Fourth of July, down in San Diego, I had a fabulous conversation with Jules about the koan, and he added his own twist to the interpretation. The following morning (after a good night's Fourth of July sleep, without watching fireworks, boohoo), I woke up and cranked out a rough draft for "The Psychopathic Koan." Then followed by a jog, a dodge to Kinkos in a white truck, I cranked out the pictures and a first working rough final draft by the evening. The story was 3 pages long with my formatting, about 7 pages long with standard page formatting.

I was amazed. I wished I could write stories like that, in such a fabulous workflow... almost all the time! The best part is that the evil demon that drives the plot and tragic ending for "The Peacock and the Bowerbird" was formulated into a simple formula, recipe. I really needed that. By the time I returned to Santa Barbara once again. My mind became even calmer. I had more room for positive thoughts.

Yesterday, I talked with Barry Spacks about the story. I told him out the revelation of this story was an act of impulse, and sometimes I feel fresh stories are absent of vital details that add vital sprits of resolution... reality... just as long as it's not too much. At first Barry tried to halt me in telling him about the story because it's like www.ruinedendings.com. Don't ruin the story for Barry! But I think he saw the struggle in my eyes and voice, and "The Psychopathic Koan" was a very bothersome issue for me worth discussing. I ended up spewing the story in sketch form. Barry really liked the idea of a "psychopathic" koan. I informed him that I was surprised that many of my peers did not know what a koan was, given that Buddhism is pretty popular. Barry informed me that koans are found in the less popular branch of the two branches of Buddhism (Renzai?). Koans are short stories inteded to be anti-rationality... insult rationality all together. And I chuckled, "Well that makes sense!" Barry also stated that koans, like the Bible, can give people an "surface-value jitter" or shakiness. Either the religious association compels them to read the story... or urges them to shy away... But I suppose koans are good (Buddhism overall), and it invites people to think. I suppose when I add "psychopathic" in front of "koan" perhaps the flavor of religion is toned down a bit. And lastly, Barry mentioned that at the beginning of the story there seemes to be an emphasis in telling the koan-story, and after the break, two characters at a bar took interest in the koan simply because they sensed that the story pertained to their own personal past failures, but were still trying to figure it out. Barry flat out told me in the end it seemed like the most important aspect of the story is not necessarily the koan itself, but how the two main characters related to each other, as well as their own inner selves and lives. Ooops! As soon as Barry said that, I internally flipped a switch and realized I had to figure out a few more aspects of the story and add a few more lines to further develop the relationship in the story. I made one more final round of edits, and now I am about ready to send "The Psychopathic Koan" to him.

445. Poem on the Verge of Language Poetry, Influenced by Gertrude Stein "Whatever's Left of the Wild West"

Whatever's Left of the Wild West. I think it will be Version 1. The link can be found here: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/whateversleftofthewildwestpoem.pdf. I think there will be several "Whatever's Left of the Wild West" poems, because this theme of "degrees of freedom, degrees of constraint" from an individual perspective and the perception of "Manifest Destiny versus Human Biological Invasion" of America will always be an issue. In this poem, I explored issues of rampant development of open space and peripheral impacts. In another poem, I want to describe how the unbounded parameters of the ocean are becoming more and more bounded, not only by "knowledge constructs" from the university, but from use, management, and policy constructs from commerce and government. The more you know a system, the more it attempts to become manicured by human beings. *Sigh* I also want to explore a fisherman's construct of the Wild West. Fishermen fish from the ocean and provides food to the local community--that is one of the most rudimentary, local and purest of professions. Minimizing strings attached. While fishermen are at the mercy of the ocean, modern scientists are at the mercy of the nearly religious cliques of academic culture, public and private funding, and other pursuits of accolades. Too many strings attached for me. First fishermen of Planet Earth were scientists, and first scientists were fishermen, ranchers, farmers, cave men, hunters and gatherers, etcetera. Fishermen are not only driven by the pursuit of fish for trade of rent and other visceral needs of all organisms... and by being out in the ever-changing Amusement Park of Ocean, but they are driven by the notion of individuality, and independence, maximizing their degree of freedom from "civilization" or the land... but in turn, realizes his vital dependence and core interaction with the land. So, it's a paradoxical situation. Through fishermen's attempt to seek maximal independence, or freedom from civilization, they find themselves more blatantly tied and bound, and dependent upon the laws of the land... rather than the laws of man. At least they have maximally stripped the absurdity of human laws from their minds. But now, modern fishermen have to deal with the encroachment of human law on the ocean since there are concerns of management and health of fisheries. The encroachment of human constructs, dividing a vast blue comes with good and absurd outcomes, just like the law of the land. Fishermen were trying to be with the elements, seek freedom from the terrestrial world, and now it's being imposed on the ocean, and fishermen as a result, are not as free and as "lawless" and as "Wild Westish" anymore. But in southern California, being a commercial fisherman is as Wild West and as anti-corporate as you can get. I'd like to call this phenomenon as the PARADOX OF FREEDOM: ONCE YOU SEEK FREEDOM FROM ONE ENTITY, YOU FIND BONDAGE IN ANOTHER. AND IN THE BAREST OF ELEMENTS, YOU FIND YOURSELF INTIMATELY TIED WITH THE LAND.

This poem was influenced by two or three major elements. First of all, I recently read Gertrude Stein, and there are several elements of her work that I challenged myself to slacken on. First of all, she is VERY experimental with her writing, though quite SELF-INDULGING, in which I would rather desire to be SELF-DEPRECATING if I even exist in my writing. I would rather become the writing. Essentially the aura, or ghost. But essentially, Barry Spacks told me that Stein has a dominant streak of being an "incoherent language poet" in the genre of "language poetry" that can function as jibberish. Secondly, I found out that I missed an opportunity of meeting in person a film director by the name of Laura Dunn (Two Birds Films, Texas) who won a student academy awards. I ended up thoroughly exploring her websites, http://www.theunforeseenfilm.com and http://www.twobirdsfilm.com, and somehow the material crept deep into my psyche, as it was already in my psyche in the form of one poem I keep insisting on writing, entitled "Creeping Development" and another poem entitled "The Encroachment" (Blog 429). This poem started with the "attack of the American Dream" of "Reshaping the Future" to the notion of perceiving "Manifest Destiny" as the "A Brief History of Biological Invasion of Homo sapiens on the continent of North America," otherwise a more neutral-pessimist perception derived from "science jargon" of "biological invasion," which is ironically applied in the university to speices (plants, marine and terrestrial organisms, etc.) other than ourselves, even though our behavior of invasion brought along these tag-along species in the first place. The third, and more distant influence occurred back in a winter of despair, early December of 2006. I traveled all the way to Los Angeles to watch Alexi Murdoch perform (and now his music has finally infiltrated into the Hollywood cinema soundtrack scene), and though I heard him perform from the outside back door in chilly winds. Murdoch's lyrics remind me of Samuel Beckett; stark naked minimalism, to a point it makes me depressed. I find Nick Drake's lyrics more colored with metaphor and I don't find myself as depressed. Don't get me wrong, I love Murdoch's work, and admire him for his persistent, anti-corporate individuality in the music business, but I can get depressed because his work is too minimal for me. My writing may have a foundation of minimalism--or reducing a system to the barest of elements--but I need a collage. I need lots of layers, lots and lots of layers of consciousness to cover up the starkness of visceral rationality, visceral consciousness.

That set aside, on that fateful night of meeting Alexi Murdoch, I watched an AMAZING POET perform the "spoken word;" I forgot the poet's name. I forgot the poem. I forgot the topic, but all I remember is that I was dumbfoundedly mesmerized by his passionate work, and when I wrote "Whatever's Left of the Wild West" I had his passionate voice resonate within me.

444. Poem / Song Related to the Ocean Called "Roll Over Me"

Over the Fourth of July weekend, I was with Jules and Ernie down at Mission Bay, San Diego. I met Ernie's deck-hands in an "unusually usual" circumstance down at the Galley of Ernie's sportfishing boat. I thought we were going to say a quick hello, but it ended up being a monstrously intense 1.5 hour "galley talk" between Jules and Ernie, exchanging huge volumes of information amidst a sunset with the fog rolling in, and the egrets, blue and night-crown herons became the new masters of the harbor. Finally, galley talk faded and peetered out, as it was becoming dark, and as I drove home that evening, this song popped into my head. It was very melody driven--slow rolls. Most of my songs are pretty fast-paced, but this one is semi-slow and rolling, there are "long gaps" between words and melody, which allows myself or someone else to play with the voice box as an effective instrument for emphasizing the complex happy mournfulness of the song. The PDF file is available here: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/rollovermepoem1.pdf

443. Healing Poem "On the ocean, there are no roads."Written Back in June of 2009 (Related to Blog #407)

Poem "On the ocean, there are no roads." Written in June of 2009 in Mission Bay / San Diego. Inspiration a la Jules. Related to Biologically Incorrect Blog #407. PDF version can be found here:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/ontheoceantherearenoroadspoem.pdf

I recently made a short presentation for Michael Hanrahan's film production course for Blue Horizons at UC Santa Barbara, and I mentioned how film-making improved my writing. As of late, I have been inspired to write a lot of ocean-related poetry, and here is one of them. It was a result of morning meditation. I felt my mind transforming, healing, after writing the poem. I gave this poem to Barry Spacks (paper copy) but I think it was lost in the paper shuffle. It's okay. I won't bug him with it. This poem is rather long for my style.

442. "Mindful of the Mountain" Song/Poem [Fragment?] of My Grandfather Ray HUB BLOG FOR RAY-MARION

Mindful of the Mountain Song/Poem. The PDF can be found here: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/mindfulofthemountain.pdf.

I've written a few poems that have immense personal meaning in concern of my grandfather. It mainly started with "Two Generations Removed from the Land," which I frantically wrote in the middle of September, essentially during a panic attack session in the car, when I found out the Ray had a horrible "transfer" session from a Physical Therapy Center to the nursing center where Marion used to be--then he exclaimed over the phone to me "These centers just want to milk your money! They don't care about you!" and then my panic attack ended because though Ray had a bad day--slump--he was rebounding rapidly. Two other heavy poems I wrote were after Ray's passing, in which one was "Stepped off the Planet," and the other one was "Mindful of the Mountain," in which I have a ditty above, but I made a much lengthier song back in October of 2009, and I haven't had a chance to revisit the audio.

"Two Generations Removed from the Land" can be found in Blog 296

and the book "CHESS: The Poetry of Human-Environmental Change."

"Stepped off the Planet" can be found in Blog 387.

And of course, "Mindful of the Mountain" can be found right on this Blog 442!

Descriptions of a turbulent time during the passing of Ray are found in Blogs 349 and 350, as well as the Question Reality GoogleGroup.

It seems that each poem that I wrote for Ray had become more and more simple... and somewhat more emotionally profound in messaging (at least to me, personally). I am sure I have other unfinished fragments and ideas of poems and stories layng around. The poems showed that I was greatly attached to my grandfathr, in the best ways that I knew now.

During 2004-2007, I had written a few poems about my grandmother Marion, but they were along the lines of "Artificial Life," (I tried writing this poem twice, but rendered unsuccessful, something that needs to be done) or my level of disgust on how modern medicine was extending life to a point of visceral absurdity. If you rewind the clock two hundred years to a few thousand, my grandmother would have been first in the line of saber tooth catnip, flat out. She could barely function on her own. I told Jules last night that I cried at age 15 when I discovered Marion had Alzheimer's and I wrote a long report in my English class about Alzheimer's Disease (which seemed to make sense), but after that, I was emotionally flat and even cynical, as the whole family, especially Ray, went for a very long ride of ten-year decay. Other than that, my father told me that Marion was very instinctively caring and nurturing--housewife type--and Ray was more of a dominant fatherfigure of the household, but those were the times, and my father treated me and my sister as two kids who deserved the best of the best, whether we were a female, male, or or "it," whether we had four, six, or the magic number of 5 fingers.

I also happened to write a little bit about Marion when I sketched out a short story called "The Immensely Minor Passing of Cat-Kat," which is found in Blog 334.

441. "Round and Round" Ditty / Song / "Wannabe Poem" Related to Blog #427

Round and Round Poem written in a magical week of music production in February of 2009. PDF File can be viewed here: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/roundandround1.pdf.
Associated poems can be found in Blog #427.

It's funny how ideas work. Perhaps a couple of years ago I noted the origins of the notion of spinning my wheels or feeling like a repetitious broken record. This theme had been manifested in several of my poems, but then there is a magical person and or place--which happened to be in February of 2009 who places this frequently revisited theme into a nontraditional context and the most optimal of stories--optimal meaning "short, to the point, but very artful." Aka conforming to the "Barry Spacks Theory of Poetry." Barry told me that Pascale said that "It takes a long time to write a short letter," and it seems that always at first that all of my ideas emerge in an uncontained flurry of thoughts, but over time they become widdled down to utmost simplicity. I belch out this simplicity, and then I'm calm, and I move forward.

During that "magical" week in February, amidst all the conflicting demands for school, my mind spontaneously made at least 5 songs, belched out, right there. Now, I am revisiting that time of insane creativity.

440. Song/Poem Called "The Blanket and the Stitch" to be a Short Story / Inspired by Conversations on Local Fisheries Management

The Blanket and the Stitch a.k.a. "Failure of the Numerical Windex Theory"

The numbers were screaming a blanket
but I did not know the people of a stitch.
The blanket is a schlop of patches
but I did not know what th' patches consist.

I'm crying wolf, "Th'World's Turning Inside-n-Out,
The birds gone by twenty-sixty-eight!
And based on the works of summed noble numbers,
shouldn't we pursue a noble change?"

The stitches shook their heads and rolled their low eyes
saying that, "We all don't appreciate--

"Your hypermedia globalist doomsday
leaving the world in great fear and your baptized fame,
when it comes to local qualms, your view's just a haze,
playing chess with the terrain's a most complex game.

"Yet we admire your glossed, visionary eyes,
but globalists sweep o'er local sacrifice.
You've found a numbered gloom we fear and despise,
but in microcosmos, how-do-we materialize?

"Besides,
evidence' slim we're going inside and out ,
and the numbers of birds are in an upward bound!
A-change of habit and tune, don't you consider--
talking to your neighbor, and not your computer?

"And how you dare tell us all what we should do?
When we stitches-got years o'sky's ocean on you,
don't you even have a slim, slightest of clues--

how can you fix
when our patch
just simply ain't broken?

how can you reform
when our patch
just simply ain't broken?"

So,
my numbers speak of a doomed blanket,
but do they speak of the people of a stitch?
My blanket tried to coat those patches
but (-th')locals shook their fists, and tried to resist--

"Think twice about your numbered panacea
before you dare consider cryin'out Wolf!
You may be global's Pixeled Godsend-- (amorphous God)
but you may end out being the top local spoof!

"So keep your
dooming and glooming
and crunching and stewing
to yourself!"

Can I replicate terrains of these layers
when-each patch is assembled unique?
So will I keep screaming those numbers
or will the knowhow of the stitches, I seek?

Other key words not used: maze, game, ambitions strayed, puzzles click, subsist, divorce, realize, globalism sacrifice resolution of the locals (and visa versa), NUMBER CRUNCHING COMPUTER PANACEA (cure all, The Windex Theory), cornucopia, man who loved to organize numbers, rarely looked outside his window and talked to the local community, stayed to himself and his colleagues, saw a desirable pattern similar to his colleagues, became famous because he instilled fear and worry in people but no one could do anything about it, a person called in the radio "But what do we do?" and he responded to stay educated-informed-go-to-this-website-join-and-change-a-lightbulb-if-you-have-time, he became a hero of the whole world because he discovered and instilled fear and worry without much of a solution (solution, starting with perception and frame of reference), visionary and of good intentions, the man thought in numbers and the locals thought in pictures and neither of them could speak common language too well, the man's potential name is Pilobius, tension in the room man's blanket scream versus local knowledge, must be "precautionary," do you speak to your backyard coat? "your numbers speak like an amorphous god," fear and worry versus "acting upon it," the blanket is an intricacy of stitches of patches

443. Poem "Personal Impacts of the Governator's Experiment"

Personal Impacts
of the Governator's Experiment

My dough runs out
come September.
I hve nightmares
if I don't work
like a dog.

My father's strapped
to the U
for the summer.
No time or money to
research the Sierra San Pedro Martir,
to help his grad student.

And my mom's
delerious over the phone
at work.
GovPub's dissolving.
It's been a twenty-year
affair of love-hate
labor for her.
The library Head made
faulty decisions for new work,
and everyone's rustled.
No one's speaking,
just underlying tension.
My mother chose not to speak.
I barked at her,
"The Head cannot read your mind."
She said the Head was delerious,
it wasn't worth speaking.
I barked more,
"That's arrogant to assume!"
The solution's to
just go where they put her,
get bullied around,
don't complain.
I grew angry,
"The Head is NOT God!
And thanks so much for all the
things you tell me,
have told me what to do!
For all the advice!
All the childhood wisdoms!
For all the mandates!
You don't even communicate
with your own colleagues,
You don't even practice
what you preach!
The Head has no clue,
so GIVE HER a clue!
Don't expect anyone else
to do it!
If I had let the system
bully me around,
I would have still been
a miserable, fat pig at UKLA
studying stupid
parasitic plants!"

Then my mom
quietly told me,
"Well, your life is a fantasy.
And mine is real."
I was so flustered,
I ended the call.
"Okay, whatever.
I gotta go."

Then my father called,
and I moaned,
"My mother gets bullied at work,
she comes home at watches God TV,
prays to God,
gets all existentialist-like,
tells me what to do with my life,
says her life is real
and mine is a dream--
and she doesn't even
practice what she
believes, assumes.
Who is she to live this way?"

My father was upset,
"That was a copout remark."
I envisioned him
shaking his head,
"Just ignore it."

Well?!
It's hard to ignore.

Jules called.
He just caught five sheephead.
I exclaimed the 101st time,
"At least the Ocean
is Recession Proof!"

"We'll see,"
Jules skeptically smiled.

The Governator's
making us all
crazy.

Written June 25, 2009

439. Adventure Poem "Sparky and the Bean" with the Theme of Loss and Regain of Pettiness

Sparky and the Bean

Dirty ol'
walmart dog,
you could only tell
by his dark blue
signature bowtie
collar,
made in China
I'm sure--
this cute stubby dalmation
cream of
a demented, deformed
crop of fuzz
perched on a table
as "display dog"
at the megastore front
where strange people
like myself
fill out credit card forms
and in return
receive a free toy--
Oh! I didn't know
free things could grow
so rooted, burled
in my miniature realm
of embellishment!

Sparky,
you were with me,
everywhere,
five long, long years--
rough estimate!--
and it was all about
Sparky and Bugsy
(the yardsale ladybug)--
we had the best
and worst
of times--
you both were
my car adventure buddies,
my bedtime hugs,
and you were ALWAYS
there for me
when all the other
fickle people
weren't--
my stuffed polyester
imagination
who did not pee
nor poop
and you came alive
whenever my dreams
willed you to--
much better indeed
than those "real"
pestly pets!--

I do not know
how you came
to be lost
in the anonymous sheets
of a rushed-out Motel 6
never to be sighted
again.
School drowned my brain
piled higher and deeper--
I never had a chance
to mourn
till now,
half-year later.

And alas!
In Turbulence of Uncertainty,
Sparky was the last
micro-sentiment I could
afford to lose
to collapse of bonds--

until I fell recipient
to the curse of Neighbor Natalie--
"Why Victoria,
you are such a pretty girl
why do you always hide
in your beanie?"
Questioning my
oversized brown beanie?
--The Bean?!!--
99 cents
from the 99 cents store,
with me,
for five years--roughly--
of rapid change,
innerouter evolution?--
I used to wrap Sparky
in my Bean--
it's now worth
5 dollars
or 50.

My beanie's the crutch!
For everyone
draws attention to themselves
while I like to hide behind
my hermit crab
helmet beanie,
my little shell,
so I can blend in the backdrop,
observe through jittery eyes,
and see the World
without the World seeing me
I did not wear shades--
like everyone else--
I Wore Beanie.

Yet, I do not
believe in magic,
voodoo mysticism,
but at the end
of an ordinary jog,
the hour
pre-traumatizing,
post-relieving
prof advisor meeting--
the day
after the curse
of Neighbor Natalie--
the Bean elevated
to Disappearance
in the folds
of my abyssal car?
floating, skooting along
in the seabreeze
in the Somewhere of
Ghosttown Isla Vista?

My afternoonish evening
shot,
as I frantically retraced,
backtracked my distraught moves,
rendering empty-handed
in data hunt,
nevertheless concerned--
if anyone took this Bean
and used it for themselves,
I would be sincerely
disturbed,
even worried
for this new owner--
then again
all seems recycled
in this town--
so I carelessly romped
through five different stores--
there are no beanies
hanging in June--
Anxiety grabbed a gnarly
San Francisco fisher hat
from Alpha Thrift--
wasted 3 bucks,
for it fit well
but appeared horrid--
what brash decisions,
"You don't want to
settle for second best,"
advised Jules.
"I've known you
long enough to know
your beanie's your
body part."
I lay listless
limp in the car
calmed, slowed
by his gentle counsel.

"Sparky and the Bean
are on their new lives now.
You had a grand time.
But it's a new chapter
in your life,"
chimed in wise Jules.

"Face it, Victoria.
You molted.
It's time to find
or grow a new shell
now."

"It was the
Sparky and the Bean years,
and now it's the new you."

I wailed,
"Oh Jules!
But I dont feel new.
I feel stagnant.
I have accomplished
nothing
the last four days.
How could I have
evolved?"

"You'll see,"
Jules' telepathic smile
radiated
from the cell phone.
"I can't wait to see ya
next!"

The end-click
left me innerly
appalled,
shocked,
stranded,
tender, uncooked,
dainty fragile,
most certainly
scared
to discover
my gestalt
is the summation
of magnified micro-sentiments,
affairs of self-construed
animate inanimates
still managing
to slip through my
stringent (?) (ha!)
oversights!

Am I a byproduct
of immense
outwardly pettiness?

Aren't we all?!

Oh, oh!
Harsh brute Martin
reemed me "Get Over It"
mercilessly tattooed
on my forehead
as Jules coaxed,
"I'll understand
if it lingers
for a while."

Oh, please to meet
the newly-carved
Territory of
Replacement Anxiety.
Welcome Tooty,
the brand new
yellow beanie baby
yard sale elephant
who speaks True
through her
gestures, tones,
amplitudes, pace of voice
with mere persistent
utterance of
one mere phrase--
"Tooooo-teeeeeee!"
She jives well
with Bugsy,
naturally
bestest of friends,
and she is a
superb guardian
of my one-leveled
Goletan floorbed.

Jules explained,
"When the family dog dies,
many people buy a puppy.
You mourn through loss,
but one day you will wake up
and you realize you have
yourself a new dog!"

Tooooooo-teeeee!
I'm already fixed
with care,
half-years have
passed well.

And now?
At last resort,
I succumbed,
fell victim to
my second tier beanie,
smaller camo green
hidden in my
car trunk crevice
from that same Upland
99 cent store
of 5 or so years ago.
Karl my housemate declared--
"Same style.
No difference.
It works."

Pragmatism over
sentiments
shall do for now.
*Sigh*
Subtleties
of trauma
still flutter
with my
heartbeats.

Maybe one day
I will feel new.

438. Before I Sulk, I Must Celebrate! ROADTRIP NATION INDIE ROADTRIP TEAM SHANNON AND VIC!

Letter from Kristin Esteves, Indie Roadtrip Nation Coordinator, detailing Shannon and my acceptance letter for an Indie Roadtrip. The PDF can be found here.
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/roadtripnationgoahead.pdf

So, the deal here is, BEFORE I sulk, I should CELEBRATE! I just "heard the word" from Kristin that Shannon and I were accepted for an Indie Roadtrip Grant exploring the Next Generation of Gonzo Scientists--emerging professions and programs in science, art, and environment/ conservation. I will have to talk to John Bohannon to see if we have approval to spread the word of Gonzo Science. I am seeing, after my conversation with John Richards, is that there needs to be a DISCUSSION ON THE INTERSECTIONS AND BOUNDARIES OF SCIENCE AND POLICY/ADVOCACY/ACTIVISM (Lacky paper). Science as a culture. Generating a culture of science. And if there are any boundaries at all? So, I'm kind of seeing a blur. Honestly, that will have to be the embarking discussion of this whole film. A scientist discussing the blurry boundaries between science, science communication, science advocacy, and policy shifts. Emotional versus rational decision-making. I see that I will have to establish a mirror effect with filming.

Just met with Dr. Dick Hebdige at UC Riverside, and he told me these interdisciplinary science-humanities programs seem to be blossoming everywhere--UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside Palm Desert, Arizona State University--it's just that there not "large" right now, and they are nevertheless NOT united--and perhaps a bit without direction.

Anyhow, I'M SUPER DUPER EXCITED! This news has really cheered me up. Now, I must go back to blog 437 and sulk. Yipee! Waah-waah!

436. An Additional Disclaimer Will Eventually Need to be Added to "The Curious Case of Lobster Trap Escape Ports"

Disclaimer Slide #1.

Social Networking Disclaimer Slide #2.

After several discussions with quite a few academics and media professionals, I was encouraged to further elaborate the film in terms of the California Department of Fish and Games' response and potentially fishermen discourse with the DFG. These two slides ultimately "bound the system" of the film and will prevent any runaway Lonelygirl15 soap opera happening with a "Bump in the Wire."