zen koan inspiration

the friend i stayed with in arizona had a small collection of amazing little zen koan 'zines from the 70s. they were done by paul reps. on the front, it says you can send away for a bag with all six for $3. they were so amazing, i had to photograph them.  i had vaguely heard of zen koans, but never worked with them, what with my inability to meditate properly and all. i can see the attraction - an enigmatic phrase to ponder in silence, what could be better?  i have a couple that have always stuck with me, though they are not official buddhist zen koans, i think they have a koanesque quality. one is a quote from the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy: "reality is frequently inaccurate." and from my favorite 20th century russian author, andrei bitov, "unreality is a condition of life." funny, i think they're related. maybe when i try the 15 minutes of meditation tomorrow morning (for the sake of my brain), i'll ponder those. i also feel inspired by paul reps' art, to dig out a typewriter, work with them and a little bit of payne's grey. do you have a personal zen koan (maybe you didn't even know it was one) you ponder when you have a moment of stillness?

reality is frequently inaccurate

i am a confirmed collector of quotations. i have small notebooks full of them. many from books and a few from films, but mostly from the clever people who surround me. i remember some years ago, a friend complaining that he could never make my quote book. but if you are trying too hard, you'll never make it. and he did eventually do so, with some quote about biology, as i recall (i cannot currently locate that small notebook, as many of my books are still packed away awaiting the renovations of this house).

but i've found myself thinking about quotations recently. because a lot of them seem to be floating around. there are these trendy postcards with pithy comments on them that i think have been brought on by an odd combination of mad men and pinterest. and those "keep calm and ..." variations. and my facebook feed is full of self-help quotes. platitudes really. and i wonder what it is that makes us need platitudes so much at this particular juncture? they're generally quite obvious and a bit vapid and aimed at boosting our self-esteem. but why do we need that?

is it really more prevalent now than in other times? has world economic crisis really shaken our confidence so much that we need empty reassurance that it's all going to be ok if we just believe, don't look back, crush monsanto, eat right, live in the now, stop medicating, eat raw, grow our own, look for the silver lining?

but what if it's not...what if all of the true Idea People are gone and all we're left with is mediocrity? and these platitudes are the logical conclusion. and what we're witnessing is the end of civilization as we knew it? what if it's not going to be ok?

where are the cutesy 50s postcards about that?

the procession of simulacra

until recently i thought that, in addition to (the quite stunning achievement of) bringing the entire world economy to its knees, bush had managed to kill postmodernity. it's just not cool to be postmodern anymore. after real planes crash into real skyscrapers and bring them down and the US engages in real wars against an elusive foe who remains at large in a mountain hideout and a guy named saddam who wasn't really involved, but had the disadvantage of having wronged dubya's daddy, it just seemed like there was no more room for unreality and the simulacra and the simulation. those buildings collapsing were simply all too real.

however, i have had to admit in recent weeks that postmodernism (which i always had quite a soft spot for (reality is, after all, frequently inaccurate)) is alive and well.  just a quick reminder as to one of the main tenants of postmodernity, from our good old friend frederic jameson,--there is "a new kind of superficiality and depthlessness" present in the postmodern condition. additionally, there is a blurring of lines between reality and unreality (that's my favorite part). to try to make it tangible--does the constructed "america" represented by disneyland end up more real than the real america? hmm....i think it might be better to turn to the "real" world to explain what i'm getting at...

consider, sarah palin's appearance on SNL. an appearance in which she attempted to take the piss with the one taking the piss with her. incidentally, i read an article in which tina fey said that she had never really known of a satirical sketch of a political figure where it was possible to lift virtually the entire dialogue directly from what the politician said without tweeking it at all for humorous effect. tina fey does sarah palin better than palin herself does. now THAT's postmodern.  as baudrilliard (one of the kings of postmodern theory) says, "...an implosion of meaning. this is where simulation begins." lines are blurred and politics is entertainment. the mocked becomes the mocker and the mocker the mocked. reality blurs into the unrecognizable.

another example is all of this talk about the "real" america (which seems to mean the bits that will vote for mcpalin). it's so absurd now that there is a "real" virginia and an unreal one (don't really know where west virginia fits into that equation). and a pro-america america and one (apparently the part that can actually THINK) that's the anti-america america (damn those of us who went to U of C). see, postmodern:  at once in and not in. the center has shifted and we can no longer identify what's real and what's unreal.

but, don't take my word for it, check out jon stewart:

parallel worlds in the mirror

what if, when we look in the mirror, we leave an imprint of ourselves there in the glass? a version of us that remains behind after we walk away. think of the infinite number of times you've looked in a mirror. the multitude of selves left behind. what are they doing? do we leave one behind every time we use the mirror, so the mirrors in my home, for example, are filled with hundreds of me. versions of me, one from every day, sometimes several times a day. do they have an entire existence over there in the mirror?

do my mirror self-portraits with the camera have a sort of doubling effect? think of the multiplicity of images. in the early days of photography, it was feared by some to capture the soul. i personally think the soul is more elusive than that. but, do mirrors and photos (which are a mirror of sorts) capture some fragment? something that remains. i don't have the sense of being less for losing those fragments of self, but i do wonder if they carry on parallel life over there in the mirror. a reality that, while different from the one i have here in the world that is not in the mirror, is a reality nonetheless.

how do those mirror selves fill their time? do they have entire lives going on beyond the glass? can they move beyond the confines of the mirror's frame? or do they wait there for you to return? i have this feeling that it's a bit like i think it is with my dream world--another life or lives going on over there entirely. because once you've left the fragment behind, you lose control of it. it separates and goes on to its own existence. you and yet not you.

is time the same over there in that mirror? or does it stand still--for example, the fragment of self you leave in a hotel room mirror, where you won't return to, do you age, or do you remain the age you left in that reflection? in your home mirrors, time must move at more or less the same speed as it does in this space, because there are so many new versions of you that you leave in those mirrors.

do you suppose it would be possible, if one were wearing the right lenses or was in the right frame of mind, to catch a glimpse of all of the people who have ever looked in that mirror? so the antique mirror we have in the hall would contain all of the people who looked in it before us and we would be shocked at how many people were there if we could just get our focus right and see them. i would really love to be able to do that, if only to see what they were wearing.

can you tell i'm reading murakami again? this time it's after dark.

murakami moment

i'm closing in on the end of the wind-up bird chronicle and i was reading intensely on SK0467 OSL-CPH from 8:20 p.m. when i left the plane, my mind was definitely still on and even perhaps...in the book. i started down the B-concourse and looked up from my reverie to find myself surrounded by japanese people. there was a japanese girl right ahead of me, walking with some strange hitch in her gait. i had an odd pressure sensation in my left temple. a strong sense of disorientation of being propelled along the corridor in a mass of people. japanese people, speaking rapid japanese.

on my way to the baggage claim, i stopped off in the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face. i was waiting in line and a girl came out of a stall clearly marked "out of order," and i went in. it wasn't out of order. my sense of unreality increased.

then, the pressure still there in my left temple, i made my way to bag carousel 7, where it said 17 minutes 'til delivery on the sign for olso, but when i walked up, my bag was coming off the belt. i grabbed it and made my way to the metro, feeling like i was watching the entire scenario from down a long hallway.

i punched my ticket and got onto the train, which was leaving in 2 minutes. two stations later, i look out the window and there was another large group of japanese. i didn't see them get on the train, but then behind me, japanese was being spoken. this is not a normal occurrence in copenhagen, bear that in mind.

i had this really weird feeling that i couldn't shake off, that i had somehow entered the murakami book. that the words and the story were so powerful that i had somehow melded with them and was part of the story now, with all of its oddity unfolding around me, while i watched, with a strange pressure in my left temple...