HARKONNENDOG

Bookmark me or the Baron will pull my heart plug thingy.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

JACOB is coming around.

Slowly but surely. It has been such a flog to get the rough edited because it was such a hodgepodge and made no sense whatsover. Looking back, I really forced myself to write despite being uninspired, and the result was/is... ugh.

But now things are looking up. I finally got the chronology down, and there is only one HUGE problem left. Not sure if that problem is solvable- it is sort of built into the premise.

Anyway, I haven't been posting much because I've been working on the book. And I've found a way to batlle writer's block I never have heard of before- I allow myself to smoke/chew a cigar ONLY when I'm working on the book.

I used to be a smoker. That nicotine urge is powerful, man. Powerful enough to combat almost anything! So now I'm walking a fine line. Don't want to go back to being a full-on cigarette smoker/addict, but want strong enough cravings to motivate me to write. It is working so far. :)

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

3 Poems to Ponder

When trying to understand poetry it certainly helps to know the type of poetry that was popular during the time a given poem was written. Well, more than that, it helps immensely to ENJOY the poetry. Anytime you read a carpe diem, like this one from ee cummings:


(ponder,darling,these busted statues
of yon motheaten forum be aware
notice what hath remained
--the stone cringes
clinging to the stone,how obsolete

lips utter their extant smile . . . .
remark

a few deleted of texture
or meaning monuments and dolls

resist Them Greediest Paws of careful
time all of which is extremely
unimportant)whereas Life

matters if or

when the your-and my-
idle vertical worthless
self unite in a peculiarly
momentary

partnership(to instigate
constructive
Horizontal
business . . . . even so,let us make haste
--consider well this ruined aqueduct

lady,
which used to lead something into somewhere)


it is nice to at least be AWARE of Marvell's version:


To His Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.


and the pleasure is tripled if you're aware of Donne's sort of similar take- not a carpe diem poem, but another sophist attempt to get a lady to let you stick in in there:


THE FLEA

Marke but this flea, and marke in this,
How little that which thou deny'st me is;
Me it suck'd first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled bee;
Confesse it, this cannot be said
A sinne, or shame, or losse of maidenhead,

Yet this enjoyes before it wooe,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than wee would doe.



Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
When we almost, nay more than maryed are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met,
And cloysterd in these living walls of Jet.

Though use make thee apt to kill me,
Let not to this, selfe murder added bee,
And sacrilege, three sinnes in killing three.



Cruell and sodaine, has thou since
Purpled thy naile, in blood of innocence?
In what could this flea guilty bee,
Except in that drop which it suckt from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and saist that thou
Find'st not thyself, nor mee the weaker now;

'Tis true, then learne how false, feares bee;
Just so much honor, when thou yeeld'st to mee,
Will wast, as this flea's death tooke life from thee.

Having said that, ee cumming was aware that he was playing with a convention, and expected the reader to be aware, and there is no reach here. The author's intent is known, and is obvious to those in the know, so there's no stretch when it comes to reading the text. He EXPECTED readers to be aware of other poems with similar themes. He's playing with them, the way Eminem expects you to be aware of Snoop Dog's older songs in order to fully enjoy Eminem's newer ones.

You can go too far when it comes to seeking authorial intent to understand text.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

12 years in jail for blogging.

China is a fat steaming pile of shit.

Eric Schie has the details.

Friday, May 05, 2006

Cartman and Cesar Milan

I watched the episode on Wednesday. I vote it the funniest South Park ever. Nice to see them leaving politics out for an episode too.

You can watch a clip of it over at Comedy Central.

I'd really like to see them go after Jon Stewart and Bill Maher. Such ripe targets. So juiiiiccccy sosoosoooo preeeecious.

I have no idea what the targets, juicy, precious stuff is for. I'm just going with it.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Life for Mousaui a good thing

(Especially if he's forced to tend pigs.)

One of the reasons people say this is bad is because it sends a message to potential terrorists that the US is soft on terror. But the people claiming that have NOT shown that the pool of potential terrorists would rather go to jail for life than die. And really, considering all the suicide bombers, I think the onus is on them to prove just that.

A suicide bomber, which is what Mousaui aspired to become, is a particular type of coward- one that would rather die fighting than live fighting- and a certain type of loser- one that would rather lose gloriously, and claim eternal victimhood, then win and no longer have an excuse for being garbage.

To someone who has the peculiar characteristics of a would-be suicide bomber, spending a lifetime in an American prisoner is MUCH worse than dying in a blaze of glory.

On Coercion:

Eric Schie- EXCELLENT blogger, in a good post, wrote:

"The piece also touched on the Muhammad cartoons, and misplaced tolerance -- i.e. tolerance of intolerance:"

I don't think that's misplaced tolerance. Maybe we mean different things, though. Intolerance sans coercion MUST be tolerated, is what I'm thinking.

Which translates to bigots must be allowed to be bigoted BUT they must know that ALL people's rights must be respected. I'm taking it from the perspective of an individual's right to be a bigoted dick without the government using coercion to change his or/her behavior as long as he doesn't interfere with another' rights.

So no hate crimes etc.- just crimes.

But I don't know why I tend to use different definitions of the word tolerance when I read "intolerance must not be tolerated."

I'm translating it to tolerance sans coercion must be coercively ended. But why not translate it as intolerance with coercion must not be tolerated, though we shouldn't use coercion as a way to show it won't be tolerated? I have a headache now.

Here I go:

If intolerance is defined to include coercion we must be intolerant of it, that is use coercion to stop it.

If intolerance doesn't include coercion we must be tolerant of it, however.

Lol.

Coercion is the sword to cut the Gordian knots the multicultaralist have tied us in.