rocket to nowhere

I would like to send many thanks to this guy for his link to me, for his inadvertent advice, and especially for his understanding that irrelevancy has degrees.

You should visit the Garfield Randomizer (which, unsurprisingly, has been served with a cease and desist letter and so no longer works–there is still something there worth salvaging though (for the intrepid user only) -sh 02/04). You may or may not want to geek out like me and edit your randomizations.

I was given for Christmas, and recently read, On Bullshit by Henry G. Frankfurt (and published by Princeton University Press). It is a great essay that attempts to explain what bullshit is, what it does, and why there’s so much of it. It goes a long way (and also a short way) toward explaining what it is I might be doing here. Because it deals with the concept of bullshit, it is also compelled to deal with the concept of excrement itself (one of my favorite subjects). Here is a quotation from Dr. Frankfurt’s essay:

“There are similarities between hot air and excrement, incidentally, which make hot air seem an especially suitable equivalent for bullshit. Just as hot air is speech that has been emptied of all informative content, so excrement is matter from which everything nutritive has been removed. Excrement may be regarded as the corpse of nourishment, what remains when the vital elements in food have been exhausted. In this respect, excrement is a representation of death that we ourselves produce and that, indeed, we cannot help producing in the very process of maintaining our lives. Perhaps it is for making death so intimate that we find excrement so repulsive. In any event, it cannot serve the purposes of sustenance, any more than hot air can serve those of communication.”

Here is the text of this blog’s last seven posts from which (to the best of my ability) the nouns and verbs (i.e. everything nutritive) have been removed:

1. a of [sic] whirlin’ in the
required for what I’m about to. No or during the. As a last-ditch, I you to your. Please up. What you about to or you. What you about to, and, what you about to. . .
not. They to. The directly between the, and right on the of the. There after the. The. A of home to.
and!! not! not screaming from the! Everything true. through and. and. The not you! This the Ninth. The Ninth. Please!
The over your. This how they their. I now that you your and them into the. closely! Blind as a not a. you? also whirlybirds.

2. them and them
I. No. I. No. I. No. I. You. He. Then. But then I. It like a. Like a. But no. I was. you. I. No I. So.. I to that I. But then. No. Something. I… No. Even so. Not. It. It. I to him.
I to him that if he his dirty offa me I’d his dirty offa me and then I’d him a good or and if he me to then well ahead and them filthy on me cuz I not upon me not by or and not by anyone cuz I’m a that his and them them dirty filthy in in my and even more they on me and he em offa me NOW! And then I him.
I to him. I. I to. There a. No. Not. A. Yes. But. I to that it. Yes it. I’m. No.. But. The. Him. To him. Yes. I. Really. Really.. I. I to.

3. to us just right along
The when we them. It just seem like the and hot enough. Loud enough.
A into. A fashionable. The rough. The smooth. I it myself. Long with the. Short against.
The of,. We our.. on thin. Easily in a strong….
She when I one of the with. And it down my. It all somewhere.. and.
Whether or not you you, you…
down. this around your. what for you. Long with the. The no to the that we about before. Not or the of. Not or or. We if not ourselves.

4. it that far
The last we, I the bare-skin where into. You my. The. and all in a. Don’t down.
the? We even. Just around the those. of those. I your. Cold. It.
The last-then the. The. The. I a of to you. Just-The on my confused. out of little pink. Little-they if they have?
The German for. The for. Both feminine. I to them. Three. The last. . .
The last, you away from me like a blind. out. Only you backwards. Or I? Or I? The and in a neat. And it soft or hard? You and the and your and that. . . that, all stop.

5. that ever
Open. Frail. He across the, leaving deep. I if he the side of the. The. that we there.
That we.. A deepening to the., I can’t. Well, you right.
Leaving. Always that long, drawn-out, odious, well-worn. It so tired. I.
And then he his. The. You. I in the of my for you. Unable.
To. We something before that. Blue in a of. How he?
I. The all open. The of burnt, ,.
I the in, but it on my. And I about the. The. Your, damp. Something.
For him or? I out my. And it around the. A sweeping.
something….

6. in other
what’s near here. silver or forked. I when my I have selective. She she his.
She to. She all the. I you too.
Once upon a, when we very young, I to you a, you a, you,. Your. My. Instead we.. I I him on the.
And then. I’m a, or in the of, and so much. How you? oh so precariously on the of your. You your, and theou tall wrong. A! A! Please long. Please you very long. Please don’t long, or I asleep. And then, I to all over.

7. how they from to
We so quick to to. So loathe to blamed. We our, our. We out the at the burning, and then to the to ourselves a of. We different. Different. They always the same. We just ourselves that they different. We up a of crumpled. We it, both. Unsatisfied with what we there, we it to the, and to the next. There always more of. easy to by. Who it? Who that hard? The, and, on. But we the in our for to come. We it tenderly as we at the. The up and. The,. There always and screaming and barking. There always in. We our with or and after.

We are so quick to jump to conclusions. So loathe to be blamed. We wring our hands, stamp our feet. We look out the window at the burning trees, and then go to the kitchen to pour ourselves a glass of water. We pick different windows. Different views. They might always be the same. We might just be telling ourselves that they are different. We pick up a bit of crumpled paper. We smooth it, inspect both sides. Unsatisfied with what we find there, we fling it to the ground, and march to the next room. There will always be more bits of paper. Conclusions are easy to come by. Who was it? Who said that beginnings are hard? The finger points, and having pointed, moves on. But we can feel the indentation in our chests for weeks to come. We finger it tenderly as we stand at the window. The leaves blow up and disappear. The night sky sparks, showers. There will always be sirens and screaming children and barking dogs. There will always be people in distress. We fill our glasses with water or whiskey and face window after window.

song: “Monkeys on the Moon” by Sopwith Camel