April 20th, 2013: Stream of Consciousness

Introduction

This is a link to a very beautiful album in its entirety:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chFmFpTc21s

April 20th, 2013: Stream of Consciousness

    Rain fell over Indiana for twelve hours straight, changing this modern thinking midwestern city into a guaranteed moment in history so long as someone is bothering to archive these sights sounds and words  somewhere safe. Houses are flooded, possibly irreparable damage or inevitable change in something, possibly everything, yes, oh yes, Spring is in the air.
    I remember a trickling stream that dribbles down a sinkhole. Whispering Falls in Williamsport, Indiana after such a torrential down pour such as there was 48 hours prior to now must no longer be whispering. Now, right now, it is a roaring geyser, a force of nature has once again been given momentum. Such serene scenes must be given the right to roar unexpectedly and every great architect must know this if they hope to truly master their craft.
    I need to see it, this Not-So-Whispering Falls before it loses such sheer momentum as it inevitably will. I need to remember it as I have remembered it before in its utterly natural audacity. Many before me may have believed this a once in a lifetime opportunity, while I can simply pedal my bike or hop into my car and be there within an hour. Barely a pilgrimage at all to an unsung force of nature at its awe inspiring best.
    I need to see this beautiful accident soon and I want to be with someone who will appreciate it as much as I. I do not want to be alone. I am rarely alone in these times. I am rarely alone in this place April 20th, 2013, Lafayette Indiana, The United States of America, The Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy, The Universe. From the now flooded river with the name that means "white sand" or "pure white." Waapaahšiiki. I believe this flood will prove this rivers name and meaning. Hidden white dunes of sand in narrow lines and clusters of big barked monoliths of life and death and life once more when protected but not smothered by their big barked monoliths of life and death. When viewed from above these monoliths become serpentine to the river's life giving ability. Water. The fields this river, with its rooted wood walls, slither through no longer require the river's water. These fields of corn and soy are watered with mechanical innovation and chemical sterilization and genetic modification. Homogeneous by design. These crops do not need the river's water. Part could thrive from that water. Part could die from that water. Most of the homogeneous crop tolerate the small dunes of white sand that collect somehow beyond the trees. I can see the organization in it. Allow the river to unexpectedly surge from time to time. Every great architect must know, but I need to see this waterfall, so simple to see again. It will bring me peace for awhile if not forever. Because it falls.
    I pawed at a beautiful creature after the rain subsided. I kissed her and pressed her against me. She pawed at me leaving lovely little scratches and bruises on my arms and chest. She smiled at me and called me beautiful. For a moment I tried to explain why she was so much more beautiful than I, but decided instead to clink my front teeth against hers in a clumsy attempt to make our lips once again meet. I continue to think about her beautiful smiling face when she was both below me and above me. In the morning, the only thing to do was embrace each other in wonderfully variant positions as we smiled and giggled and kissed and pressed against each other cheek to cheek for as long as we could allow due to what must be a sense of midwestern modesty. She makes me feel like a a beautiful creature. I feel good.
Let us see water fall.
Thank you.

Aaron C. Molden
 

Zeitgeist: Three Poems About War

Introduction

    Zeitgeist posts are first person accounts of various subjects that strike me enough in my day to day life to write about. The title maybe ironic, only time will tell.


Couplet

     when we first took Jerusalem
we killed all within its walls
     when we first took Jerusalem
we killed women, children, all


War

When I was younger, history was defined
by war.
At some point, I became fascinated
by history not defined by war.
These combat free sagas taught me
defined war is not necessary
in dealing with being alive.
But it helps.
It helps to have the excuse of war
to explain who you are.
It helps to have the excuse of war
to explain who you could have been.
Without war, who would we be?
I'm still willing to find out. For now.


Western Religion

I am pumping Jesus, the Twelve Disciples
        and Pontius Pilate into my gas tank.
I am pumping Moses, his brother Aaron
        and Joshua at the battle of Jericho
        and the walls came tumbling down
        into my gas tank.
I am pumping Mohammad and his wife
        and Saladin Saladin
        and likely some crusaders
        and that is all I know into my gas tank.
I am pumping ancient species buried deeply
        slowly dissolving, rotting, changing
        melting to the crude black grease
        which I need to eventually be
        inside my gas tank.
        Need? Truly need?
Eastern Religion, why do you burn them?
                          We need more crude
                          to fill our gas tanks.

Aaron C. Molden

Zeitgeist: Authors and Books: April 2013: Memoir

Introduction

    Zeitgeist posts are first person accounts of various subjects that strike me enough in my day to day life to write about. The title maybe ironic, only time will tell.

Authors and Books

    This is about books that I cherish in my life. I have never been a natural reader. Like most children born after 1980, television was always a presence in my life. My parents did not allow television until the evening. School took care of monday through friday and the weekends were taken up by playing outside and chores. In the evening, though, there was definitely television. I have never used books for entertainment. I already had television.
    I was required to read twenty minutes a day outside of school. I never wanted to do it. I wanted to watch television. My mom suggested I try reading comic books. I liked comic books. I could  follow the story without losing my place on the page. Even if I did lose my place on the page I was given the privilege of looking at beautiful, alluring, and occasionally dark images while I found my place in the story again. I did this often because I tend to lose my place often. In everything. I always find it and that is important to me. I always learn and relearn in order to find my way and that makes me feel smart.
    So I tried to make comics myself. I still do so, occasionally when I wonder if I still have the guts to create such an art form. It is a great art form and many have mastered it in one way or another.
    Alan Moore, of course.
    Frank Miller has found his sexy and violent niche.
    I admire Anders Nilsen for his quiet bravery. He gives his reader everything he has in his brain while simultaneously proving he can meticulously build a great big beautiful doorstop of a saga. All with only pen and ink. Big Ideas if you are interested in reading a comic book that can also be used as a weapon.
    There are so many more, but I am dying to get to the next part.
    Kurt Vonnegut sold me on books, text, when I read Slaughterhouse Five in a hostel in San
Francisco. I had never connected with a book that way before. So I accessed the internet, read reviews of his various books, and decided to pick his best reviewed books for his second chance at connecting with me. Cat's Cradle.
    After I read Cat's Cradle I made it a long term goal to read everything he had ever published. I was suppose to see him speak at Butler College in 2006, I believe. Or was it 2007?
    He died before the speech.
    This man and my father and my mother sold me on words due to nature and nurture. I too fall prey to the cult of personality.
    A man of letters is destine to have all he keeps, but does not share, revealed.
    Did I mention I enjoy aphorisms?
    When there was nothing left of the dashes he made throughout his life, I realized I still needed more. I realized I was not in love with Kurt Vonnegut. I loved (love) Vonnegut's ability to use and manipulate words to make me laugh and feel better about myself in one of the only established codes I know, the alphabet.
     Alpha Bet. One can certainly tinker with words.

    I am a visual artist trying to write an abstract for a language arts course.
    Do our schools have classes titled language arts, anymore?
    Do we break down our language into flat panels of grammar and syntax?
    Technical writing?
    Do we teach the limit of one hundred and forty characters, Twitter, as if it were haiku?
    I no longer know.
 
    I cannot remember if we had language arts courses at the high school I attended. Surely, there are young growing minds that love words as much as I loved art in high school, still?

    I'll let this list speak for itself:

    A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. Funny, scary, profound, well researched and well written. This book captures everything that is incredible about the study of science, any science. It slices away most of the jargon, or politely explains it, in order to present it to any reader who chooses to engage it. This book made me love, fear, laugh at and eternally respect this world, this universe, this indefinable miracle.
    I would write that A Walk in the Woods is less daunting, but I found nothing about Short History daunting. A Walk in the Woods is less thorough in a charming way. It is not a science book. It is a history book, a travel book and memoir. Both books are undoubtably from Bryson's hand and head: Funny, scary, profound, well researched and well written. At Home as well, though I will not go into details here. Beautiful.

    White Noise by Don Delillo. I feel the hunger pangs of falling for a cult of personality once more. I want to read everything this man has ever published. White Noise is a new, semi-paranoid, Slaughterhouse Five for this version 2.0 I have become.
    My mother and my father and Don Delillo taught me to trust them, but do not worship them. I also recently discovered the charm, wit and despair of T.S Eliot. Poetry never really made sense to me until now. I do not know why that is nor do I care at this time. I know I'm going to keep this in mind.
    Tinkering is fun. I pray it does not become malicious.
    I know it can.
    Two Point O.
    Don De Lil Lo.

    I find it difficult to let this list speak for itself. I am a man with something to talk about, something to write about even if it is simply books. I know this annoys some people, but if they simply explained what it is that annoyed them a discourse could begin. Possibly a debate. Growing up, I never had a sport. I only had exercise. Ah! Hiking and and bike riding, what beautifully physical activities, like the best sex I have ever had.
    Debate has become my substitute for sport and I'll leave it to an oral tradition.
    Visual arts remain very similar to riding a bike or taking a hike.

    Back to the list with a lighter heart:

    Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. Literary non-fiction about a road trip to the places where past American Presidents were assassinated. Travel and research are conducive to writing.

    Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman. Vignettes and musings on American Pop culture. Having a critical eye for the things most of us see as normal life is conducive to writing.

   I must admit now that I finally read for entertainment as well as enlightenment. I am thinking about Ivanhoe or one of the Bernard Cornwell books my father cherishes. Of Le Morte D'Arthur or The Illiad and The Odyssey. As a heathen I ponder the stories of the Bible. I need all these edgy and oddball things I read and enjoy in order to deal with the fact that a book such as Blood Meridian exists.

    Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. If gothic described this book goth music would have never grown a dance beat. All goth music would sound like a rock gaining momentum as it tumbled down an endless black hole. And it is historically accurate in a literary way. Somehow, Blood Meridian manages to transcend its own nihilism with its prose. The text is beautiful in almost every respect.
    I could never write this book.
    I hope I would never have to write a book such as Blood Meridian.
    I had trouble reading Blood Meridian, but for one unexplainable reason or another, I could not keep myself from picking it up when I wanted to put it down.
    It is almost evil. Almost.
    Blood Meridian interprets evil in the most beautiful way our alphabet can. Alpha Bet.
    I feel a possibly misguided pride in getting through it completely.
    I'm done writing for now. I'm going to draw a Yin and a Yang and look up writers I have never consider. Balzac. Kenneth Rexroth. Elizabeth Bishop. Frank O'Hara. More T.S Eliot.
   And finally, I will simply improvise.
   Thank you.

Aaron C. Molden
 

   

Zeitgeist: Love Poem

Introduction

    Zeitgeist posts are first person accounts of various subjects that strike me enough in my day to day life to write about. The title maybe ironic, only time will tell.

A Love Poem

A man stands on a sidewalk
                            next to his motorcycle,
                     a sleek black grumbler of a thing.
                               He wears a black leather Jacket
                                                                         Levi Jeans
                                                                and pointed bike boots.
                                                                    He is defiantly middle aged
                                                                       A gray wolf with a strong jaw.
                                                                       Or I imagine him with a strong jaw.
                               His head is sloped downward towards what is in his hand.
                                                                                                A phone.
                 He is a stoic rock that slithers with his eyes and fingers.
              He desperately paws at his phone with his fingers
desperately scans what his fingers access with his eyes.
He waits for your response on this utterly beautiful day
                              next to his proud contraption
    clutching his last connection to you.

What are you doing?
          What are you doing to make me question
                                           the self respect that keeps me
                                                         from desperately pawing at the phone in my pocket
                                                                                       which gives me shamefully easy access to you
                                                                       if I slip as this lone wolf with a motorcycle has?
                                                        I do not give in.
                     It is too beautiful outside to ruin either of our days.
                                                  There is sunshine and a cool breeze.
                            Momentarily, I think of stealing his motorcycle
                                          riding through the night
                           sweeping you up
        where I find you
      and take this romance to its end.

Every time I have done this,
and I have done just such things
in much less romantic ways, in the past
I was met with fiasco. Every time.
I decide to enjoy the beautiful day
as I stroll pass the mentally caged
beast with a beautiful bike.
I ponder the hubris
 of that momentary thought.
                                          I hope it is a beautiful day for you
                                                                                             Please keep smiling your beautiful smile.                                                                                                

Aaron C. Molden

Zeitgeist: Watching Television

Introduction

     Zeitgeist posts are first person accounts of various subjects that strike me enough in my day to day life to write about. The title maybe ironic, only time will tell.

Watching Television

I am watching the BBC's Life.
The Discovery Channel is involved.
It is terrifying.
Nearly every moving image
is a stunningly
                    captivating
                                    composition.
My first instinct is to believe it is real,
but it is not real
                       not my reality
                       it is surreal.
It is an interpretation of a reality
through one or many other hands and eyes.
                       And ears.
     A piano in front of a picture screen.

I begin to forget about the beautiful
 images moving in front of me.
I wonder why it cost so much
to capture these images?
I wonder how I could capture
these same images
with less money and different people.
How can I play my own piano in front
             of a picture screen?

I wonder how such an incredible wonder
such as this digital artifact can be made
symbiotically with nature.
I think the BBC really is throwing their money
at the right thing.
The Discovery Channel too.
Honestly, I do not really trust
The Discovery Channel's credibility.
The BBC has Planet Earth on its resume.
This is more of a brand collaboration.
                         Or at least I think so.
I get skeptical sometimes.

Looking up again at the moving pictures.
A brown salamander thick with slime slithers
down a mud hole. It gulps up a mouthful
of mud and scurries back up the tunnel.
The salamander spits out the glob of mud
a top a pile of other mud globs.
I say out loud "that is a bummer."
I realize that the continuity of what
I am writing is no longer chronological.
I have set this down and walked away.
I have picked this up again and reread it
and I write it again. Rewrite it again.
I find my excuse in Quentin Tarantino,
though I would never admit.
              Whoops!

From these moving pictures and captured
sounds I learn about birds:

"One of the advantages to being a bird is that you can escape your enemies by going airborne."
-Oprah Winfrey, Life, The BBC, -ahem- The Discovery Channel

I learn birds can evolve to be selfish bullies.
What can you expect, though
they were raised by dinosaurs.

Penguins are an exception.
I'll let Oprah explain:

"Like mammals, penguins form strong bonds with their young."
-Op Win, Life, BBC, The D Chan

Can I give you some advise?
Don't fuck with pelicans.
They are hardcore.
Jesus Christ. They eat their young.
Watch this series.
It is worth it.

And afterwards splash some beak water on the ones you love.

"In the end birds are less about where they live, than how they live, and that has always been a matter of surprising intelligence. Strong relationships and perhaps a flair for the dramatic."
-@oprahwinfrey@BBC@disco_chan

PSA- Books hammer it home
 because it is someone working
with the only thing they truly have
other than their senses.

Suggested reading:
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
God Is Dead by Ron Currie Jr.

This is when I wonder who I am writing this for?
Other than myself, of course.

Aaron C. Molden

Zeitgeist: Generation Gap

Introduction

    Zeitgeist posts are first person accounts of various subjects that strike me enough in my day to day life to write about. The title maybe ironic, only time will tell.

Generation Gap

In between. Always in between.

I do not understand my parents sometimes.

They saved up money through out my life,

Through out my sister's life as well.

They saved up money to give me

a college education.

I went to college and graduated.

College taught me many things.

In college I learned that many of the norms

of my youth, of my family

were aimed the wrong way.

I do not refer to the things my parents taught me,

I refer to the things that were unstated. Assumed.

My parents generation drives everywhere,

even if it is quicker to walk, or ride a bike.

My parents generation moved away 

from the places in which they work.

They made the city where they work,

but not where they live.

They commute everyday they work.

Their day begins with one to two hours

of preparation before they can truly begin

their constructive work day.

Two hours of preparation time

for eight hours of work 

and after that an additional thirty minutes

to commute back home. Five days a week.

Fifty two and half hours a week

while only being paid forty. For what?

Is living here that bad?

If it is that bad, why not spend

that additional twelve and half hours

trying to make what you do not like here better?

It seems like a better choice

than simply burning more fossil fuel

 on a dismal drive to someplace

 that you clearly do not enjoy.

Save those fossil fuels

for when you truly must escape.

I am an adult. I am one that is both 

growing and showing.

Something deep down makes me think

I am growing and showing 

in all the wrong ways.

Something else deep down

makes me wonder why any harmless expression

of growing and showing 

could ever be consider wrong.

A paranoid streak.

Art. Music. Literature.

They were taught with and without 

passion while in school.

The teachers effected nothing but passion

for what I will constantly love 

regardless of trend.

I had only one truly great art teacher

before college.

Ms. Ward.

Side note: Most of my band teachers

can go fuck themselves.

No matter how hard they tried,

they still could not ruin music for me.

The probably ruined it for a lot of blossoming minds. 

The fact of the matter is that most of my parents generation

tolerate these forms of humanity,

but pray to their assumed higher power

that no one persuades their progeny 

to try and follow such paths.

They pray that their progeny 

will not transcend without someone else to blame.

The road less travelled. Robert Frost.

They have seen the road less travelled too often.

So have I, and it makes me lose confidence. Sometimes.

Not enough to stop.

It's mental economics.

This still makes so much more sense.

Aaron C. Molden

Zeitgeist: Weather

Introduction

Zeitgeist posts are first person accounts of various subjects that strike me enough in my day to day life to write about. The title maybe ironic, only time will tell.

Weather

Yesterday I told Jacob 

that the weather was nice enough

 to prop open the entrance door to the shop.

He told me it was too cold.

Sunshine flooded the ground.

Sunshine flooded all on the ground.

Sunshine flooded all emerging from the ground.

Sunshine flooded all moving on the ground.

Sunshine flooded all floating above the ground.

It was fifty degrees Fahrenheit and slightly breezy.

It was the most beautiful day I could remember.

I realized  how different I am 

compared to many people, 

good or bad or in between.

It was certainly not too cold for me.

I do not understand why people look forward to summer.

If you are not in school,

you are dealing with the same situation

in a hotter environment.

It is a time of laziness

and I rarely look forward to being lazy.

The best thing about summer is the tomatoes.

Summer is the time I wish to be a fish.

I do not know anyone 

who openly looks forward to winter.

Many people look forward to the first snow,

and possibly also the first snow that sticks.

Snowball fights and sliding down icy slopes

is also something to look forward to,

but these delights seem based 

only on hypothesis of late.

The only guarantee for winter here is gray,

everything else is left to fate.

I am rarely nostalgic of winter time,

but I have a few memories. Good memories.

Most of these memories involve girls

which makes them all the more wonderful.

The time to be here is in the in between.
I feel perpetually in between things.
In spring nature is in between living,
it is concentrated on growing.
In fall nature is in between dying,
it is concerned with showing.
My favorite times.
Everything is so effortlessly beautiful.
Spring is occasionally obnoxious
and overbearing.
Fall is is occasionally dismal
and unsympathetic.
Yet, through it all,
they remain constantly and effortlessly
beautiful until they are gone.
It is worth it.

What did Jacob have
that kept him from feeling
the overwhelming need
to swing the door open
and let that beautiful day in?
Whatever it was, it seemed to be on his phone.

Aaron C. Molden

Some Poetry Attempts

Introduction

    I have been writing a lot of esoteric things of late and four of these things seemed at least a little cohesive in my head. I have decided to post them on my blog.

Four Poetry Attempts on the Seven Deadly Sins

Couplet
Weapons of mass destruction
sounds like a cliche.
What a terrifying world
where that is a cliche.

Punk in Free Verse
Sex and Violence.
I am tired of a world
of only sex and violence.
I am tired of sex being a mantra.
I am tired of violence being a mantra.
I am tried of drugs being a mantra.
I am tired of money being a mantra.
I am tired of mantras.
I am tired of trying to find my mantra.
I am tired of this subliminally
self imposed caste system
telling my young dumb brain
to find the perfect mantra.
What I do, what I make, what I try
should be my mantra.
It should leave me with no need for a mantra.
Goodness.
This is a long mantra.
I think it is about time I face the facts.
I'm not a punk.

A Prose Poem/Experimental Blogging

Raymond Carver and Charles Bukowski
got drunk one night and wrote out a vague layout
for the websites 4Chan and Reddit.

4Chan was Bukowskis idea.
Reddit was Carver.

They both had the same idea,
but they needed different things.
They needed something other than Facebook.

Why does this make sense?
Hustler and Playboy.

Why does this make sense?
UFC and NFL.

Why does this make sense?
Seven Eleven and Whole Foods.

Does this make sense?
Viagra and Valium.

Make Sense?
Bail out

Pride and Envy
Envy is a waste of time that is easy to fall in love with.
Envy is too easy to fall in love with.
I am alive and I can do this all I want,
I am thankful for that and my family and my friends.
If any of this is taken away from me,
that is when I will waste my time on envy.

Pride does not explain this.
Pride is what is shouted on the streets
not what is typed on a keyboard.

Okay. It's kind of pride.
Blog-Pride, my gift to the lexicon.