so much to write

so little time.

aero

why is it that every time matches attempts to fly somewhere, something goes amiss along the way and he ends up twiddling his thumbs at the airport? at least in the portland variety they have a classy little cafe sector, complete with phenomenal piano player (he may not actually be phenomenal, but he certainly commits to the music with his motions and facial expressions...a rare and enjoyable sight). he has a synth atop his grand piano, which is despite its 'grand' qualifier is somehow hidden within the buckets upon buckets of poinsettias that they have strewn the area with. anyway he plays them masterfully in a simultaneous fashion.

what is one supposed to do at the airport in this situation? this is a strange little nook of life, with no priorities. it seems like a movie script should erupt out of nowhere. does matches tide in and out of these tiny little shops, brookstones and the like? does he sit like he is now and play around on the internet (thank god for laptop)? does he crack a book, and try to imagine a world apart from the 'port? everyone is currently sitting around, sipping their chromatic drinks and trying to gleam a twenty-dollar buzz off of them (matches thinks his coffee much more efficient to that end, and meritorious) while glancing sheepishly at everyone else. the waitress cannot find who ordered '#79' for the life of her. this guy is really going nuts on the synth...it feels like brian eno just tried to walk through the metal detector with all of his gear, tripped, and it somehow created an electro-magnetic reaction that forced all of his instruments into a very chaotic chord. it's a little awkward for all of us, as he is trying to play something light and holidaisical. he must be upset that his electronica band fell through.

on the plus side, portland's airport is nice. in a futuristic sort of way, but not a bad, dirty, total-recall future...a happy, efficient, sleek one. it definitely feels a little out of place, considering the holiday vibe that is supposed to be prevalent. matches is looking forward to cozy quilts, fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies, fireside movies and chats, frosted wintry windows, and the dizzying lightshow that a tree corded in bubbling lights and ornaments casts upon the ceiling.
and the flight has just been delayed a little longer. le sigh.

airports are interesting in that you get about as broad a sampling of the populous as you possibly can. everyone needs to fly. you would think that this happens in more arenas...grocery shopping, for example; but it's not true. everyone buys groceries, but they all remain loyal to their favorite or most convenient stores (so many options, especially in portland...don't get m started)...some people don't go to markets at all. some eat out every meal. jobs? forget about it...they are all ridiculously case-specific as to the sort of person who might apply. festivals, movies, activities in general? there are still enough assumptions about the sorts of people you might find at all these things to conclude that each has its own specific configuration, a personality type or tick that would mesh smoothly with some angle or perspective within the matter. we can make broad statements about these people. but airports? everybody travels at some point, especially around the holidays.
there are so many screens that are engaged, depending upon how you live your life; what your schedules and rhythms are, what you like to spend your free time doing / thinking, what you can / cannot afford. one of these factors is who, precisely you already know, because your tempos and scenery will blend (for the most part, cooperatively) with theirs...you tear the fabric of the world for each other, exposing things that had been hidden (or simply unknown, without reason to know) previously. think about a person who has affected your life in some significant way...and now think of how it was that you met them. there was some coinciding, some degree of connection by way of people or perspectives upon what to do with life that brought you into orbit initially. grab that initial connection; pin it to the floor and look at it for what it is (just one of the many facets that compose your sparkle). chances are, you can imagine yourself without this one, moderately-significant trait. how much of your world would have been altered if you hadn't found that one singular point of expression; if the whirling chaos of your life up to that point had not fostered this one, orphan-like thought within you? it erases so much; it removes that person from your life...it shaves off years, and memories (which are immeasurable). it alters an incredibly significant portion of your experience.

perhaps now you can see why the 'sample' population of the airport is of such interest to antimatter. it crashes those walls, those barriers, and it has the potential to insert brilliantly different people into the same space and context. it is an area unlike most others. it would be a very interesting place to work; you would likely come out with volumes of stories. if you watch 'lost', this is probably one of the reasons that you like that show, even though perhaps you haven't thought about it. who are these people; how could they have been thrust together like this? they are so distinct! anyway, that is a bit of a tangent, but it makes for a good example. what is of note, is that we still have our personality filters active, even in this strange space. matches is not likely to start a discussion with the 60-something year old man sitting across from him; he looks rather brutish (not to be extraordinarily judgmental, or anything : ) and there are severe doubts crossing through m's mind as to whether or not we would find anything to talk about in the short time that we are in each other's presence. interesting, though, isn't it? if the seat adjacent were instead occupied by a cute twenty-something female with a touch of classiness to her, the receptiveness streaming through this writer's mind would be altogether different. and yes, matches is kind of being critical of himself for that, even though he understands why it this the case. this inclination (or rather, disinclination) is just another screen that he unwittingly projects into the world.
life is so funny that way~

misunderstood

matches is just plain sick of misunderstandings. what could be worse? to say one thing and be interpreted as having said another. if only one could hop inside another person's mind; could piggyback on the waves of information being beamed hither and thither and lance right through into someone's intentions and meanings. perhaps communication is much like taking a step...it's a small miracle every time we accomplish it; there are so many forces working against balance (well, matches is sure he read somewhere that it was practically a miracle....though he doesn't seem to have too much trouble with it when he is in a sober state). honestly, how can you expect information to reach its desired target or angle? two separate clouds of consciousness trying to commune with each other; miscommunication should be about as expected as delays or derailments when sending post by carrier pigeon.
all antimatter wants for christmas, really, is a carrier pigeon.

still. it appears to m that what we rely on in communication are our similarities, our common grounds...we perfume our thoughts with spritzes of words, common ones to be found and appreciated in both natively-flowered regions of memory (and flora, naturally, is shared alongside colorful experience). we scent (har!) these letters, and hope that the helix between what is spoken and what is unspoken finds its way through the noise, into the intended receptors and thereby the intelligence or the emotions, variably, rickety-carriage-ably (for those two orbital 'spoke'ns are wickered quite precariously). how frustrating when people misinterpret; when words or the thoughts that string them together fail and fall short of the mark...when people do not see what you intend but instead suppose things entirely apart. expression is stolen from your grasp. can you imagine that, in its furthest of connotations and extensions? it's like an existence without meaning. sitting, whirring, powerless to make the wave you need to.

so, you must try, must. strive for clarity. how many factors are involved, to be overcome? enough. if pure, crystalline expression is even possible (we shall assume for the time being that it is. musn't it be?), then there are numerous jungled pitfalls for it to forage through. how many times have we failed even just as individuals, to translate a thought into an action? expression is a foremost problem in the quest to be understood~ but let us assume that we get into a good, clear state of mind, and do the best with what we have. then there is static, confusion outside of us, blaring noises, crackly and dropped calls, and the pinnacle of them all - situations. situations are the principle burners of parchment, of portrayal; they twist even a whisper of breath into parody. forget about all that.

even our best expressions, our poetry, our strongest and boldest accentuations...they are endlessly subject to blessed/cursed interpretation. the expression arrives at the intention, the intended. apprehension beforehand, perception during, analysis afterward. all burnable by a mood, a sharp sliver of thought, a degree of scrutiny; a picturesque painting tinted by rose-colored glasses that surreptitiously slipped over the nose of the observer. they did not feel a thing; deftly placed poisonous perspective, plundered by pickpockets of thought, something stolen (who can say what), never speaking a word. but the words fall upon them differently. they glance off to the side, or the scintillation that was so carefully threaded into them (a necklace, offered) is dimmed by, what? what is that?

who can say? it is a funny, very human, situation. matches knows, too, that this phenomenon is widespread. how much of mistakes, and who knows what else, could be salvaged by clarity, honesty; the best effort on both parts. antimatter hopes to seed all endeavors with those things. life is too important, too...transient, to waste with words not spoken from the heart. hard thoughts still contain the proper materials for expression....they just first must be forged, chiseled; they must be committed to and worked upon with no notion of 'settling' for something less than your best.

*mostly inspired by 'identity', by milan kundera. pick this book up~ it only takes a few hours.

track 5

"god, grant me the serenity
to accept the things i cannot change;
the courage to change the things i can;
and the wisdom to know the difference."

sincerest apologies to anyone whom i have dragged down into my spiral over the last year and a half. i've been trying to hold on to something, desperately, and somehow i lost track of the simplest notion in life....that things change, that they turn autumn colors. i wanted to steel my moment against change, to bind it so tightly within my notion of existence that it could not flitter away or fall to the wayside. i wanted to protect it, to keep it alive, and i couldn't understand when it became stale, when it slowly slipped away like sand squeezed too tightly in a closed hand. in essence this is one of my vices...when i pick a track on a cd to play over, and over...and over. nobody but myself can say how sweet of a melody that sound first whispered into my ears, but over time it becomes a wall, a room, inescapable, and every time i listen to it is one more missed opportunity when i could have appreciated other beautiful sounds, in some music of a different sort, or in the creak of a door, or the pendulous turn of a shadow to face the sun.

nothing good can come of forcing a moment; they happen of their own accord. you can feel it, like a glow, when they are right....and even moreso, a hollow, a nothingness, when they are wrong. living should not be about wrenching the world into a precise configuration to fit your, whatever you want to call it....ideals, desires; hopes. hopes must be different in that, hopes are a natural confluence. a streaming together of paths, like rivers bent by no hand. hopes are buried...they spring like blossoms in full splendor when they are nurtured, and the spirit lends them life. a dashed hope is a melancholy note, but sometimes the saddest melodies are also the most beautiful.

there are so many different wavelengths one can travel along the way...and they are so subterranean, so difficult to precisely match in their rhythm. we are the main source of the vibrations that touch our lives, however; our moods, our attitudes affect and disrupt every surrounding thing. we are the sun, brightening and vivifying, energizing. we are the moon, reflecting, caressing, painting. we are the rain rippling across a lake; dizzying and drumming the surface.
our minds are the stars, gateways to some higher place; but we can only reach with our thoughts and hope to effect the slightest twinkling of change. the distance is much too far.

it's time to let the past slip from my fingers. there is a whole wide world out there, struck like a tuning fork and humming with possibilities. i may not know all of who i am, but i know enough to set out on an adventure; that's kind of the point in the first place, isn't it? to pack up the picnic of my thoughts, my inspirations; to bundle them loosely in a red-and-white checkered knapsack and appreciate watching them tumble out all over the place. find something meaningful out there. or at least, enjoy the company of friends and fun along the way~

"blackbird singing in the dead of night
take these broken wings and learn to fly
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to arise

blackbird fly, blackbird fly
into the light of the dark black night.

blackbird singing in the dead of night
take these sunken eyes and learn to see
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to be free."
~ the beatles

on manual transmissions

two second treatise:
manual transmissions are superior to automatics; you have more control over the car's maneuverability, and thus your awareness fans out in front of you with more direct meaning. with more options, you're making choices long before you get to them. more awareness; less chance of disaster.
plus, have you driven one of these things? so fun. a heightened extension of your body and mind~

daylight

let mattress walk you through a typical day, with an emphasis on just one particular feature. when he rises in the morning, after much tussling and tumbling and fumbling with the alarm clock (which happens to be his motorola, so the buttons are tiny and he feels like an enraged giant about to hurl some small annoyance against the cave wall), he sleepily surveys his surroundings. he sees the first shards of dim daylight picking their way through his piano-key blinds, which may or may not be wobbling dependent upon the presence or absence of sushi the cat. he then proceeds to crack into his routine, droning mindlessly in and out of rooms until somewhere between the kitchen and the elevator, when he manages to crank the correct gear in his head and his mind starts working. he tastes for the first time the breakfast that he ate five minutes ago, and may or may not banter with people in the elevator if the mood strikes him.

then work work work, eat work work. work coffee, work work.

and by the time he is over and done with all this 'work', and sloughs it off his shoulders, he goes outside and the last surf of sunset is rolling over the distant hills. it will be dark in two minutes. and he goes on to have a fulfilling and enjoyable, sometimes outright badass evening. but the point was made one sentence ago. between apartment and work and again apartment (or coffee shop, again as the mood strikes), there is barely any actual 'daytime' wedging itself into his day. the northwest is strange.

the funny thing is, its only mentionable because matches happens to be some strangely observant being. cats in trees and flicker-flick of birds, wing-skipping from branch to wind-brambled branch. isn't daylight supposed to supply some sort of vital nutrients? vitamin d, is it? whatever it is, it's not having a very negative effect (or at least, noticeably so). he feels, great. free to think and do and be whatever it is that strikes him as being himself, or whatever extension of that self is unfurled within the moment. better than usual. certainly he misses the sun; who wouldn't? but, it surprises him that he can go on such a bender of sunless-ness and not be feeling like absolute shit. did grow up in colorado, after all. you tend to miss things that you are used to, when they are gone~

jeff once asked matches whether he preferred the daytime or the nighttime. the addressed was inclined to reply, at that time, that he felt more at ease at night...his senses more attuned, and perhaps a bit more independent and valuable considering that the city slumbered while he observed and explored (see "the city sleeps", a guaranteed track on m's next mix cd). or something like that; it was a long time ago. that's still a buoyant answer....but he cannot say at this point which he definitively likes 'better' than the other. they each have their charms. night can light lanterns in the imagination more easily....it feels effortless to glide away on a tangent and not look back. but daytime; ah! how appealing daylight is. it brings all the color to the world along with it; it warms the soul and brings all that is natural (and conversely, unnatural) into focus. there is nothing quite like rambling through the woods on a sunny, late autumn day. night cannot capture this feeling in its cloak, and it should not be able to. the morning has its intensity, its directness of being, that flies to the mark like an arrow loosed by a keen eye. the two are incomparable...and he no longer knows one without the appeal and languid absence of the other.
all he knows is that if portland is this much fun in the darkness and rain, there is going to be one ridiculous summer ahead. let's make reckless plans, and not abandon them to forgetfulness or indifference~

"to my surprise, and my delight
i saw sunrise, i saw sunlight
i am nothing in the dark
and the clouds burst to show daylight

oh, and the sun will shine
yeah, on this heart of mine
oh, and I realize
who cannot live without
oh, come apart without
it
on a hilltop, on a sky-rise
like a first born child
at full tilt, and in full flight
defeat darkness, breaking daylight

oh, and the sun will shine
yeah, on this heart of mine
oh, and I realize
who cannot live without
oh, come apart without
daylight

slowly breaking through the daylight."
~ coldplay - daylight

fantasy

who says that TV, video games, and movies have no merit? if antimatter had not immersed himself substantially in so many mediums of engagement when he was just a little bit of dark matter, his older self would have turned out much differently. for the better? who can say. but what he knows now is that despite the fact that he rarely turns down these avenues anymore, they helped him at some points of his life; gave him a degree of exposure that he would not normally have had occasion to develop in. kiddos are like photo paper...bombard them will all sorts of lights and it does something hidden to them. it takes a longer extraction, a chemical process and fine distillery to really trace the effects of our youth. but they are there. you'll find them without the help of a psychologist if you look at your everyday thoughts. it takes age and seasonings to really bring out the vibrant flavors.

mixin mixin whiskin,
metaphors.

you can tell mattress that these things have no place in a healthy mind. but what level of experience did you gleam off of your own TV set when you were struggling to grow up? how seriously did it take your intelligence, instead of patronizing you like so many teachers and other assorted grown-ups? there was an immense learning curve there...myriad cultural phenomenons to sort through, and all while we're trying to memorize our multiplication tables! but, it stands for experience; exposure to life beyond what naievete was offered by the system. adults hide the world from children...they shelter, protect, pacify. which is not to say this is necessarily a bad thing~ the world is an intimidating place once it moves beyond slumber parties and the blissful philosophy of the sweet tooth. but for anyone that craves to be taken more seriously, it's a pleasant portal to stumble upon.

games are outright enjoyable. they let us burrow deep down from the growing shadow of reality; give us an opportunity to cultivate those fantasies, illusions. they help our minds to grow in ways that aren't presented by most facets of society. don't we owe these things a bit of respect? haven't their transmissions shaped you for the better in some way? personally, mattress relishes the opportunity to keep his imagination alive and kicking. the last thing he wants is to turn into a bearded man who cares not for ideas beyond this world~

there will always be time for both work and play.

but seriously, don't watch too much TV. you'll go blind. all things in moderation~

express yourself (superior fabrics)

life and art. art and life. it's fascinating how every moment, these can be the same thing. too many people resign themselves to moderate living. and that's not to say that living in moderation is a bad thing; we're getting our word betwixt themselves. in fact, matches would go so far as to say that moderate living is the best sort of artistic life. moderation, let's say, consists of being thrifty, unexcessive; self-entertainment and a simpler life. it's too easy to get caught up in the tide, finding the next big thing you can spend on and hoping it will lend a little happiness to a life that is so caught up in attaining it in the first place. life is about expression~ and expression is something that any activity can orangepeel away to. cook. hike. cakewalk and twostep your next hallway. ninja-press to that next wall and flicker flirtatiously with corners, running-back spin-move through boredom. freestyle walking was a revolution...life has many angles, all anxious to be explored, exploded.

moderation, in the first context, meant a muffling, a restraint, a blinder; all of these things, self-imposed. being average simply cannot be the best rule. but we are bound in cilice; every time we do something abnormal, every time we stumble on the sidewalk or sing in whispers under our breath, we feel a tinge self-consicous. we cloak these actions as best we can from other people. they are our individualities; they are our private selves coming public. and our private selves have somehow become unfashionable.
this is a sliver of madness. we should celebrate our uniqueness, not betray it thrice before the sun rises. ponder this: when we enter into relationships, when they begin to get serious...what we are most surprised at is not how much we care about the other person...we are bewildered that they care so much for us. the ritual of dating has been described by some as trying to appear as normal as possible (cool, in the parlance of our times) until the other person is roped into an affection beyond their conscious caprices. fuck. we are so far off the mark, and we know it. what have relationships become when we cannot be ourselves? is it so easy to scare people away? are our defenses so high? can we collectively agree to be ourselves? being comfortable is one thing...but nobody falls in love with normalcy.

this rant on individuality is coming off the heels of a now happily-rare mall visit, in which mattress (donned in hoodie) was completely ignored by the collective staffs of nordstrom and saks. which is a funny thing to be irked by, because m never wants to be approached by these people anyway...certainly, one of his most poignant pet peeves. still. you don't know how much money is in anyone's pockets (or how large of a credit line, waiting to curl around commodities like a curious kitten and gaze back lovingly with disastrously green-glittered eyes). silly to be passively-judgmental. for a moment he wished he had the means to the means to (think about it) an armani suit, but then the saucer of status-symbolism was poisoned and he choked back, cough gradually merging into a laugh, and strode on his merry way, content in his uniqueness (which sometimes translates into a lack of superior fabrics). who needs pleated slacks when you've got cozy corduroy. with a special pocket all of your cell-phone's very own.

"most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind."
~ h.d. thoreau

holiday

it's true, somehow today is different than any other day. the sun is shining; the air is clean....autumn is flaring through the leaves. waking up today did not feel like any other day; it felt like something good had been added. or something irritable, subtracted. one of the two. both perhaps.

is this just matches' mind, informing him of the holiday? it doesn't seem like it is. away from family, away for the most part from friends; there is no reason for this day to feel different from any other. there is no cacophony of sounds and scents swirling through the corridors, like there would be if he were in colorado. there is no clatter of polished silverware and the 'good' plates. what a concept~ how disparaging to be the 'bad' plates today...but bad is more, lumberjack, utilitarian, and has a distinctive charm all its own. wouldn't you agree?

there is something in the air, something chasing along with the wind. could it be that the fanciful thoughts of the entire city around m is somehow thickening the atmosphere? puffing it up like a heavy whipped cream for the pumpkin pie? have you ever been in a room with someone, and had the exact same thought at the same time, and then the acknowledgment of it trickles out in conversation? perhaps the 'holiday spirit' is no joke, perhaps today is energized and patterned extraordinarily. perhaps our thoughts leap to all our family, friends; the world is latticed and spyrographed into fractals. perhaps we feel each other by the thin strands of thought that still connect us, and perhaps that is a clear and distinct reality despite lack of evidence to grapple with.

or perhaps holidays were special long before they were holidays. they are focii of energy fluctuations, a celestial landscape hitting its peaks. holidays may be what they are because people noticed this phenomenon, said 'this day is special', and marked it with a notch in a wooden wall.
how could you deny this strange, fluid chemistry? what is that? will it be gone tomorrow?

in other news, it feels so great to be getting paid for a day off. perhaps that isn't 'other news', and should be factored in ; )

note

"it is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."
~ ralph waldo emerson

dominoes, continued

where was matches? that's right, the green greens. scenario: a thought gets lit, sparked dimly; it winds and coils along its path like a trail of gunpowder in a bugs bunny cartoon. it has an end, a purpose (let's not tangle with the whole predestination thing right now); it has an explosion that's only beyond sight because it lies around one of those stubborn corners. everything is around a corner, isn't it? a solid metaphor, an unnavigable opacity. where?...and then...there! only something interrupts...somethings distracts, something steals the motivation to pursue these trails into the night. the powder keg remains in uncharted space, lost to the world unrealized. a plot device that never came to be, phased out by the harsh re-scripting of the editor.

"drink up baby, stay up all night
with the things you could do
you won't, but you might
the potential you'll be, that you'll never see
the promises you'll only make...
drink up with me now
and forget all about, the pressure of days
do what I say, and I'll make you okay
and drive them away
the images stuck in your head"
~ elliot smith - between the bars

and life is edited, isn't it? what of all the unborn aspirations, the concepts, the hidden desires and frustrations? these things exist, certainly; just not objectively. one of the main problems that matches had with most existentialist philosophy is its emphasis on what comes to pass, as opposed to what could have been. what was in theory. and, this emphasis is understandable. but, how harsh a reality, where a person's composition is judged solely upon what exists. how can you say that a thought exists any less than an action? in the realm of politics, of people and relationships, we have to trust to objective realities, to actions. its the only manageable way, since there is no way to stroll casually down the streets in someone else's head. that is the way of things, the judge and the jury. but how stifling to say that in the grander scheme of things, in the nebulous qualities of the world beyond our own sociable interactions, that it is not intention or aspiration which counts, but only the actual manifestation of a thing.

this turns out to be one of the reasons that matches has to believe in some genuine capacity. without any notion of a god (or God, as you may see fit), there can be no secondary insights into our most personal of worlds, into the brambles of our minds and imaginations. for some reason, matches believes that these have to be acknowledged.

a bug just hit the window to the left of the computer screen, and m has never seen one of these things before. think of a lima bean with antennae~ don't worry, it's okay; just got the wind knocked out of it. if bugs breathe. do bugs breathe?

is it possible that those innermost notions could not be acknowledged? they are already so intangible, there is no way to convey them to another...no way to turn any perspective but one's own upon them. unless you get lucky and are an artist, and are adept and stealthy with such things~ pretty hard to start eight words with an 'a', one after another. always argumentative anthill. damn that was only three. but three of them were 'and' before. don't know if that counts, for whatever reason. ands get tossed around like styrofoam cups. anyway, all angles arch around an astounding area, an artificial aura aimed at an absolute and also ambiguous authority.
how's that for a mouthful.

we keep it locked like dominoes

it would seem, lately, that thoughts are being marginalized by the rapidity of their succession and replacement. matches believes that this case spreads far beyond his own individual experience, that it dips into the generalities of the gene pool and is becoming somewhat of a problem. investigate yourself and see if your attention span has become somewhat corroded, like a grandfather clock with aged and rusted gears...apply this to any occupation of your time, stir, and see what bubbles up to the surface.

what do we really get out of most immersions of our time? how deep do we actually spiral into anything beyond the constant fluctuations of our lives? most people will pick up a book, read four pages, and move on to something else. get cracking on a job at work, only to commit dallyingly and thrift around the internet every other set of minutes. wrap snugly into a conversation, only to hypermagnetize and push away, only to trail off mid-sentence in the wake of some sidewalk-passing person or interesting two-second happenstance. there is something, some unrest, burrowing deeper and deeper into us....and for every millimeter it gains, it is reflected outward in magnifications and multiplications.

the worst of it is our growing inability to be alone, to self-sustain, to steal away into the darkness and proceed in some intangible direction, unmapped on the radars of others. matches speaks of thoughts, of personalities (which is perhaps an inappropriate word as it begs the question of company...a "personality" is only an applicable word insofar as it defines one person's lines against the silhouette of another's), of whatever that point of consciousness is that sleeps about an inch-and-a-half behind your eyes or around the borders of your brain, depending upon whom you ask~ are you a seaworthy captain who welcomes the storm with a glimmer of madness in his eyes, or do you turn back shivering from the breezes when you feel them winding thicker, and then thicker, like strands curling around the basin of a cotton-candy machine?

a constant barrage of distractions and stimuli takes away our abilities to really be with or commit to a thought....they get both lodged and lost (fallen behind) within the ever-flowing stream of ideas, or events, or what have you in the way of distractions. how often is it that we actually sit with an idea, alone, turning it over in our hands like a snow globe (one of matches' favorite images)? how often does the average person meditate upon possibilities, upon potentials? so often our thoughts fly like darts, straight to the target of utility, and do not stray beyond or beside their prescribed paths. this makes for good workers....but not an imaginative and sane populous. matches has spent a good deal of time at meditation centers in respective corners of colorado...how fascinating an occupation of one's time. how dizzying and without landmarks; so unlike real life where the mountains are always west. it is extremely difficult at first to orient one's self within your own mind, and thus it is so easy to see why people would choose distraction over immersion. but it is such an unreal landscape, such a curious place to travel to. it is always new, always interesting, always morphing seasons with the rapidity of clouds changing shapes...languidly, but look away and...drastically! how mercilessly without a sound color scheme...there are malaised purples swirled in with coralled oranges and green greens.

will get back to this point...chris wants to play dominoes. how odd, considering the name of the post~

"in every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty."
~ ralph waldo emerson

musica

it should be noted that matches has more business plans and ventures than could ever possibly take off, considering the status of his capital and ambition. well, ambitious, yes. actually committed to creating the reality? less so. if the university ever takes off, it will be anchored to a coffee shop of some sort. such a good one, he must keep the sheet over it for now. but that's phase one, first phases being alternately the hardest and easiest depending upon the alignment of the stars and such. they can be naively brilliant and also catastrophically shortsighted. the word of the day is out of the way~

here, a thought comes this way, drifting lazily off of the scissoring speaker-fades from one corner of the room to the other. "how is it that music is more expressive than mere words?" thank brett for that question. why is it that mattress can lose himself within a rhythm; what severs the knots of identity and tugs your shoes off, floor-ward. forward. comfortable; select. because music stirs up some tempest, some tornado at which the listener is centered, touching and disrupting all that comes within this space. no longer matches, no longer idle and solitary....music is natural companionship, it lends second and sixteenth dialogue to whatever is seen, whatever is felt. it crisps thoughts like marshmallows, making them scintillating and making them sticky, webbed to the moment; it hardens their boundaries and lends them authority. music is masonry; music is un-fuck-with-able.

how can it create this shield effect? is it spellbinding; does it trick the mind into lucidity? or is it an actual transcendent, something beyond that takes us to a higher place? could that be created by people like us? is it possible that the divine trickles down through us, that our minds slip upon it every so often like patches of black ice, and it cracks us in the head with a dose of truth? matches thinks so...it's a combination of that, and the ability to perceive divinity channeling through sound that creates these poetic negative spaces. so don't count yourself out if you don't make beautiful music...it takes a special something just to be able to really appreciate the notes that are already out there.

"we are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."
~ w. wonka

afternoon leaf formations

matches wishes he had song lyrics to convey his thoughts and feelings. but situations are so much more complex; what if nobody has ever been in precisely the same configuration of events and existence that m is in now? if you want to filter it down, sift out the details, and be left with large, generalized lumps and thumps...then perhaps. but the intricacies are the difference between he and anyone else; they matter~ he wants to hear new words. human themes are larger than atomic....we are more, somehow, than the sum total of our parts. and that allows a lot of room for confusion.
he will, perhaps, scribble down his own lyrics someday. it will be like a cushy, comfortable couch that has had all the ages to adapt exactly to his shape and subtle nuances. he will fit snugly within the words, and they, him.

it is when you feel that you fit perfectly within the world that life is beyond extraordinary. all existence becomes an extension of you, and not in an egocentric or selfish way. hopefully. you are, and everything else is, and you are flush, together, like bread and butter, or swiss clockwork gears, or what have you. life is easy, and if not effortless, at least melodious. actions become lazy and yet attuned and alert, like the droning motions of a fly who snaps around in right-angled foursquare movement. have you seen those flies? matches has. always to the left, they fly.
these things become easier to reflect upon when you are no longer in them. funny, that.

one of matches' favorite affirmations of life is to seam himself into a crowd, and then try to explode his consciousness into it, imagining all the far reaches of those people's lives. can you imagine the snow-flurry of your own life, all in one go? the intricacy of the flakes? can you imagine how everyone else has just as much density in their own lives? how rich with experience are these spaces which we walk through...it's like having taste-buds instead of skin, and wading through an oversized creme-brulee. there have to be more than four dimensions.

on that note, might it be said that matches finds creme-brulee every bit as rewarding as ice fishing, but without all the hassle of freezing temperatures and disappointing yields.

then there are these moments of sublimity where all the distinctions are brushed aside (they will come back, pendulous), and unity prevails. this is kind of like the fitting-in-the-world thing. where then are our neuroses, our concerns and cares? how out of our mind are they...like all notions of business-casual at your son's little-league game. how brimming with something simpler, something important; some adhesive that tugs us back together even when we think we are at a breaking point. we have something very special to offer up to the universe, to existence, to any god, and it doesn't require anything more of you than being yourself. the problem is that its walls are so papery, it's just as simple to barrel through all the way, breaking out the other side, and not even have noticed the transition. it is a subtle warmth...half-imagined and half-there. there are many impostors, and we have come to be guarded, to second-guess.
o the fool~
that you may astound us all~

"if there's one thing that tells me that everything's gonna be okay, it's a whole lot of people dancing at the same time."
~ jesse k.

and i've, never been so alive*

autumn makes everything alright. not sure why exactly that is, but...no matter. it does.
the hill outside of matches' deck reminds him of aspen. colorado, colorado. everything feels like colorado; why is it that everything must reference that which already was? certainly there are groundbreakings...but still. is this the danger of growing up? are things less and less 'new'? but just now, that was new. same as it ever was.
need some artwork for the ol' room! suggestions are welcome. little tired of seeing the same old walls, though the room may shift through states.

"Please beware of them that stare
They'll only smile to see you while
Your time away
And once you've seen what they have been
To win the earth just won't seem worth
Your night or your day
Who'll hear what I say.
Look around you find the ground
Is not so far from where you are
But not too wise
For down below they never grow
They're always tired and charms are hired
From out of their eyes
Never surprise.

Take your time and you'll be fine
And say a prayer for people there
Who live on the floor
And if you see what's meant to be
Don't name the day or try to say
It happened before.

Don't be shy you learn to fly
And see the sun when day is done
If only you see
Just what you are beneath a star
That came to stay one rainy day
In autumn for free
Yes, be what you'll be."
~nick drake - "things behind the sun"

and so, matches will be, what he will be. it's so endless and difficult to sculpt one's self...to constantly whittle away, honing and refining, in hope of making a more promising end product. don't get him wrong...he is still going to try to achieve, and to be the best person that he can be (or believe in). but, these things should happen of a harmonious accord; they should be natural intimations and instincts, instead of the dried and prying conscience of guilt that assaults one when time is slipping away unremarkable. he will be more self-reliant, instead of looking outside of himself for purpose and promises. m has an inkling that everything he needs in life is cloaked within himself, it is a matter of finding the passageways and obtaining the sight in dark places...finding the ability to allow consciousness an exit from the maze of being, with a shining star to guide it. the trick is that the star was always inside, not remote; it is both outside and in. and how would you expect to recognize it, if you hadn't danced and played with its children, learned to recite their names?

had you there for a moment. because a cold saying, a bland recitation (who ever imagined associating the word 'vanilla' with blandness, thesaurus? you think too lowly of one of matches' favorite flavors~ henceforth will feel no itching remorse for dog-earing your pages and pages and again, pages)...these things do not capture the spirit of an object. once you truly know someone (however possible that may be), it feels fumbling and awkward to refer to them by their names. how could matches say colin's name, in a conversation with him? colin has expanded far beyond the borders of a mere name. what's most funny about that situation is, people love to hear their own names. how glorious to be remembered! how appreciable to experience someone regarding you directly. it is quite charming when someone you have known for a thousand moons still calls you by your name every so often, in solitary dialogue. what a singular and simple, and intimate, pleasure. and at the same time, how ridiculous...are you still to be lassoed by a string of so few letters? has your known self not exploded beyond the means of the alphabet to this person? how loving, and yet how cursory.
perhaps if matches had a more melodious moniker.

but somehow, that was precisely the point. and yet not. question mark. to name something, to acknowledge that star of guidance lends a deep intimacy and tangibility to the world. but what if the world is not meant to be held on to? what if containing something within your hand, within your sight, within your thought, is the deepest of injustices? how then do we apprehend this "life" that sneaks to the side of our beds while we slumber, and wakes us, with the slightest of caresses, to a new day? how do we box yesterday, and put it behind us?

how do we do this?
gotta keep trying. and the beat keeps runnin, runnin, runnin, runnin, runnin, runnin, runnin,

* - actual results may vary

where is your sunlight?

matches' is bottled up somewheres unbeknownst. have you ever noticed how explosive things become under the right lighting conditions? they flicker with new dimensions and enthusiasms. they pounce off the page, like a pop-up book with something to prove. a short while ago matches was wandering through a jungle-ravine, enjoying the pillars of light crashing down through the canopy. the willowing paths of the falling leaves spiral-sliced through them, down, down (always in a state of return, this 'nature'), and flared against the darkening sky like strands of chinese lanterns. it was the calmest of storms; the most pristine chaos. but the wedges of forest that were too thickened for the sunlight to nestle into, they became two-dimensional...framed and frozen. light is what lends things their motion....any techno club will speak to this phenomenon. only a few souls would dare dance in the dark, the pitch-black, and it is because they carry lamps within. sunlight is warm, purring and primal, and the gradual shading of it only serves to accentuate the times and places when beams beacon-like through the darkness. matches' best example is the rose bush in 'the secret of nimh'. remember?

"in the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary."
~ aaron rose

on another note, mattress was last seen smiling straight through a streetcar ride. kids always have the ability to amaze; in this case it was an entire collection of them variably wearing renditions of business casual, a sweater-vest, and an indiana jones-esque jacket and hat. not to mention the smallest, who probably barely could recreate the sounds to make two distinct words, but managed to say "bye!" (or "buh!", whichever it was) to everyone leaving the train. the tall one with the collar and tie sounded like quite the little botanist, with his ramblings about the tomatoes, cucumbers, and potatoes all growing on his windowsill. not to mention that when the streetcar first turned the corner for approach, sweater-vest said "it's a green one, exactly as i said it was going to be!" perhaps m is the only one who finds that charming. but that's okay.

a raccoon for you, to complement the random nature of this post.

gingerbread season

where is home?
is home a precious territory, bound by walls? is it also a yard, a street, a city? does it vary depending upon the place, upon the person? is it an origin, a belonging; is there some magnetism that pulls us toward it? does matches then belong at the center of the earth, on the basis that he is relentlessly pulled towards it? what if there is some obstruction, some hard thing in the way that stops this natural persuasion, this tendency downward? can that be considered meant to be, such that he can become complacent where he is sitting now...this chair and this ground existing as he does, with feeble and also intricate attempts at composing purpose? or should he be grabbing a shovel just this very moment and spading his way towards the earth's core? it is a valid feeling, this gravity...it is inescapable. it is a feeling much like the longing for home; it wrenches the stomach sideways and pangs with fear when one rebels against it. but since we speak of physicality, let us imagine matches breaking free of his orbital relationship with the planet (hereby you are implored to imagine this, with all dues paid to comedy and terror). free from its both gentle and generous tussles and tugs. this is conceivable at the moment...so it must not be like the longing for home, which ever aches in some remote corner.

is home then a feeling wrapped in both hands; a mug that is filled with steaming peacefulness and carried around to chase off the cold? it does seem like this feeling arises most often when the turbulences and frosts of the world spill or chill our spirits, so perhaps that is more spot on. closer to home, as it were. cringe. this is a troubling admission, though...because if home really is more of a feeling than a physical place, then home is nowhere. how discouraging~ but also everywhere; how uplifting! yet sadly, the nowhere seems in this occasion to obscure the everywhere. at least if a fixed point of home were to exist, it would be no logic puzzle, no soul-seeking to decipher the presence or absence of the feeling. the remedy would be swift, and if not, at least tenable. matches submits that there is no academic buzzword more open to complication than the word 'feeling'. this is troubling territory, if we want to get anywhere, which it should be assumed we do. or perhaps m is alone in his journey to forge a ring of steel. no matter~

if home is a feeling, then what is to stop it from being accessible at any time, in any place? how comforting that would be, and also, how disturbing. what could shatters one's western conceptions of life more than to hear that every place is just as special as another? how is it that matches comes by such unrest, living in different places? clearly there is more to the equation than some fickle neuron-switching...there are elements of home, brushstrokes and arpeggios, that swirl the sediments of life into a content clamor. for one can never be content without movement...and while that may seem in direct contradiction to the ideal of a home, it is moreso because there is a great deal of misunderstanding involved within that concept.

"and i tell you, one must have chaos in oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star."
~ nietzsche

ah, matches despises quoting foreign authors, for what justice has the translation done to their words or their intentions? it cannot be told. but what can be said of a home? time cracks and shatters all ideas about what it may have been. it exists in the past, on some separate frequency. matches is just having trouble transposing this tune into the present~ home can be found...it exists just as it did previously, in feelings. it may not be as potent as it once was, surrounded by familiarities and family members, friends and futures. but matches believes that we can nurture the elements of home by making them foremost in our lives...surround yourself with good friends, love, curiosities and interests, passions and ponderances. heirlooms of the heart; these things are not to be sold for any price. they are age-old patchwork quilts, with warmth beyond the capacities of technology. think merely of the first, and already the world looks a bit brighter, a sliver more snug and inviting~

"one may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. passersby see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way."
~ vincent van gogh

apple cores

matches' sincerest apologies for the delay in postings...spent a weekend in seattle free from the ball-and-chain of computer access, and have been otherwise occupied since returning. autumn is in full swing now, like a rockies bat (rimshot sound effect; use your imagination~), and it feels refreshing. m's favorite month could be said to be composed of the last 15 days of september and the first 15 of october, but those digits are by colorado standards. apparently on the most western of coasts, things taffy themselves out a bit longer and with more suspense. though the leaves have been tinting and falling, the real feel of autumn has only more recently ripened. these seasons, they are spaced brilliantly...somewhere between remembrance and reality. they show up again just moments after you've managed to uproot yourself from their last performance.

"she says she has no time
for you now

so think about the lonely people
then think about the day she found you
or lie to yourself
and see it all dissolve around you"
~ keane - "she has no time"

what an atmosphere that song creates. trust. trust trust. do we trust? could we, should we; have we, will we? trust is quite possibly the most important element of a relationship. without it, there cannot be anything. well, something, but probably not anything worth having. when it comes to human relationships, there is no way to avoid having expectations. it's difficult to do on an activity to activity basis (aw, stood up for a date), but even moreso for affectations and emotional involvements. downright impossible. if you know someone as a friend for multiple years, you expect them to be a friend the next time you see them. there's no room for drastically chromatic mood-ring changes; we need stability in our connections. to be let down is a terrible, jarring experience; it shakes the foundations of trust and it severs bridges of communication.

for every turned phrase or shared expression between two people, there are a thousand unspoken and unseen tremors beneath the surface. a sentence traveling between two minds plays out a vast psychology of chutes & ladders; it is weighed, balanced, and judged. it alights upon fingers like a fluttering butterfly, or it is repelled by a formed phalanx of shields. the spectrum in between is dizzyingly inarticulate in its nature, and it is meant for feeling, not speaking.

and so it goes; we fly through jungles of communication with a strange sense of botany dictating to us our perceptions about the trees. we carve our names into them; we make them our own. we form conviction, and with conviction, feigned understanding and expectation. the problem is that the trees are deeper than we know or can see...they have an entire biology beyond merely what their appearances, scents, textures, and medicinal properties tell us. unless we come to understand this fundamental biology (which, in the case of this abstraction, is quite impossible), the trees will always maintain a measure of distance, and the ability to always surprise us with something new.

discord comes; trust is shattered. how do we pick up the pieces? are the broken doomed to be left so sharp that they cut the fabric of the world around them? is there no way to repair? can love not mend this rift, so obviously separated? is this lack of trust not merely a misunderstanding; a hardness that so far refuses to be broken up?

"trust only movement. life happens at the level of events, not of words. trust movement."
~ alfred adler

m is in full agreement with adler...words cannot do. will not do. words are phantoms without something real to anchor themselves on; they are fictions conjured by an imagination. as saul williams once said, though the quote may be massacred - fictions can lead to futures. people can make them into realities, but it takes a strong will and the courage to follow through. what does your soul look like? you're the one who produces its impressions, its ripples in the world. you're the only one who can possibly know. everyone else has no choice but to assume your authenticity, to believe that you act consciously...to trust you, to be yourself.

matches wants to believe. but hopes and beliefs are two quite different things.

pocket pocket

have you ever wondered about the information that is encapsulated in the spaces that we stroll through? just received a text message, which means that split-seconds ago the information was crashing its way through the air right in front of matches' face. it didn't leave much of a scent, though the context of the message was food (on some level). he is imagining that it would have been a blueberry tang latticing its way through the labyrinth of molecular structures~

but that's just it...there is so much that goes unnoticed and unregarded. we have no faculties for this perception, and perhaps it is just as well. radio wouldn't exactly work if we had sixty stations smashing together simultaneously like pots and pans between our ears. have you ever listened to a song on headphones (radiohead frequently does this) where the sound gradually sunsets from one side and rises in the other? there is a moment of precise equilibrium in there somewhere, where you can feel the focus of the noise buzzing in a specific place inside your head. it feels like a brain-itch; one of those difficult ones much like on the bottom of the foot when you have shoes on. you shift and shuffle, and it seems not to alleviate it but rather to aggravate~ that is probably what it would feel like today if we suddenly acquired fluency in radio frequencies...a spinning top cleaving its way through your mind, ever shifting and inescapable.
there are other ways in which space absorbs more information than is typical. reflections often serve as a window, giving a two-dimensional frame a depth and a picture that is entirely not its own. antimatter personally is an avid fan of people-watching, and he often observes the gallery of people biding their time on buses by way of the shadowy carbon-copies in the pane of glass next to his seat. sneaky sneaky. but the point is that in this way, a wafer of space receives an entire scene of information that didn't belong to it at any other moment. what is even more interesting is that it takes a conscious perception to pick up on this (anyone knows the properties of light, and notices that when they sway side-to-side, the reflection does as well).

this is useful because it helps us to realize how powerful our minds are in projecting and receiving this information, regardless of circumstance. will go more into that in a second, but for a practical application....next time you are playing pool and a bank-shot is necessitated, visualize in your mind the reflection of the table, right next to it, as if a pane of glass were placed right at the banking wall, or as if the table were folded over like a book being opened. aim for where you see the reflected pocket, and your shot will be true. just remember to also be a good striker and avoid putting any english on the sides ; )

the last bit of information for mattress to touch upon is the shading of emotions and thoughts upon everyday toasters and tables. the mind's eye is a chimera, and moods play an immense role upon what we think. memories can tint even the most innocuous little item. one sees something, anything, and a bolt zigzags its way through the corridors of the brain, lighting up a thousand tiny rooms with pictures, people and subliminal clutter. keeping these things down barely seems worth the effort, it can be so exhausting; objectivity is one of the most difficult riddles. in the end, you must be yourself when existing, when observing, when attributing and imagining. if anything can be learned from the profound philosophies of the whack-a-mole arcade game, it is that nothing can be gained from suppression except a momentary repose and a few tickets to be exchanged for cheap plastic frogs. but then, even cheap plastic frogs have value to some people~ cheap is in the eye of the beholder. but you know who you are, and that has more to do with the memory than the momentary charm, doesn't it? perhaps they are the same thing. regardless, it comes catapulting back when you least expect it. and that has made all the difference.

"what have I got in my pocket?
not fair! it isn’t fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what its got in its nassty little pocketses?"
~ tolkien, "the hobbit"

smoke & mirrors

Mobile post sent by thievedrelic using Utterz. Replies.

that's where the magic happens~ and additionally, it was taken at a tea shop that can (finally) hold a candle to trident. so it's got that going for it. which is nice.

why do the leaves change colors so dramatically? from the top down? is it a lack of water, and the closest to the roots retain their verdure longer? is it the sun, crackling and crisping the canopy first, then working its way downward? whatever the case, its clear that they are drained, detached, then spun to the ground to be trodden upon and crumbled.

"resolution is the aftermath of that which could not be defined
hanging on a cliff with no options but to die, rewind or recline...
resolution is the fire in the sky left by a phoenix rising.
a caged bird lost, but still free,
flying over a treacherous sea with no effort; gliding.
resolution is the thought you cannot contain
when city lights turn to magnificent heights
and release has no echo of pain.
resolution hinges on a breath, that passes as quickly as an untangled life."
~ souls of mischief - "phoenix rising"

is matches supposed to pick some fruit from the leaves? is it some large-scale cyclical metaphor for why death is beautiful? it's not too difficult to shake the sadness from autumn, because you know somehow that spring is still curling its way around the globe; that it inevitably returns. it's difficult to be so complacent about death in general...or perhaps it is the generality that is easier to swallow, and the specific instance that is venomous. but then, maybe it isn't a metaphor at all. m supposes that assumes a lot more details about existence than he should be granting most of his readers' opinions.
let's set the whole leaf thing aside, because m isn't really certain where he was going with that.

this weekend was one of the most amazing sets of days that matches has ever experienced. to save space and patience, the chronological sequence of events will be omitted. a good primer (the best, usually) would just be the facts, the bones of the structure. monday prior, reilly called up matches and invited him to a beach house in pacific city. of the seven cats going to the house, matches knew two quite well, one marginally well, and three not even by reputation until said phone call. necessary preparations were made, and matches and chris were scooped up en route from seattle to the beach. the next day, three more people whose existence matches was oblivious to before the weekend showed up. that's quite a count by any metrics.
what mattress wants to sieve out from the entire experience, though, is why it was any more spectacular (and it was) than the average day in the life? he wants to trace and stare at the surface of this nautilus until some pattern emerges which prescribes the elements of an adventure.

one. the combination of the company. this mix creates a very interesting space for the mind to squeeze into...seven unknowns and a handful of true friends is a motley crew any way you look at it. on the one hand, you have the few people with whom you have a wealth of experiences...shared moments, inside jokes, automatic comfort zones. these people bring out sides of you that you know well, or dig up lost fragments that had slipped into subconsciousness and can be speculated upon with new revolutions. you have parts of these people composing you, and they have similar grains from your mind arching through their existence. on the other hand, you have the immutable clashes of identity with the new people...the edging and blending of worlds, the probing and receptive exchange of word and thought. there is something special about meeting new people, some playfulness and freedom that lets us soar above ourselves and redefine however we choose the lines of our personalities. there is some enrichment that people feel from having experienced the conscious presence of one another. it's like a long-rusted attic window finally thrown open...the dust is stirred, carried away; a new life is breathed into the room. matches thinks that perhaps this feeling is what most authors strive for...the hello, nice to meet you; the dusting off of the book cover and the introduction to a mind long gone, but still somehow present and persuasive.
the only problem with meeting new people whilst in the company of old friends, is that the latter will call you out for using old jokes and staple tendencies on these newcomers who have yet to associate you with such seemingly-spontaneous cleverness : )

two. all this is bound together like a cord of firewood by the cabin, the weekend away from it all. for some reason we are unable to let the world and our humanity be binding factors every day of our lives...we snub coworkers and create a polished persona separate and guarded. perhaps there are just too many people to allow a universal acknowledgment....we don't have the time for everyone on a single bus, let alone an entire city, nation, or planet. but somehow shared events have the power to wrap us closely about one another; to let us drop our defenses. if you have an enemy, ask them to the circus~

three. the dynamic landscape; the raw power and fundamental awe of experience. anyone who has ever been to an ocean can tell you about the waves' ability to amplify in magnitude your thoughts, and more importantly, the division between your natural self and your constructed. now add two pinches of heavy oregon fog, throttling this beach into a full-blown dreamscape. allow matches to recount to you the sand at a specific bar of the beach in pitch-black night, out of which cascaded luminous sparkles when you stomped. he had two engineers in his company, which should by all rights add up to at least one whole physicist, and neither of them could offer a satisfactory explanation for this phenomenon. all were equally amazed and befuddled. allow matches to tell you how he finally had the beach bonfire that he has been thirsting for since the dawn of time, and that it was everything he hoped it would be.
add he and justin winning five straight games of beiruit in a row, which was precisely the number of games played. please, step to the reigning champions~



exhaustion sets in. but perhaps, perhaps, there will be more to recount, like all great things, as it is remembered.

sand-dollar

Mobile post sent by thievedrelic using Utterz.

you might be wondering about the errant pictures posted, such as this one. just cell phone snapshots...and the reason? matches isn't telling. but rest assured that there is one, and that it isn't some sort of scavenger-hunt puzzle-box sort of thing that anyone need worry about deciphering. this was the most recent work-habitat, in california, and doesn't he look simply ecstatic~ onward.

matches also has not put on his glasses for a month or two, and he just did...and wouldn't you know it but a scratch has appeared (dead-center) that will surely distract him from whatever is going on beyond it. damn.

matches is going to a beach-house for the weekend, so he hopes you will all enjoy yourselves...be righteous to one another.

adina

adina

This mobile post was sent by thievedrelic using Utterz.

hello rain

"and that was what now she often felt the need of - to think; well not even to think. to be silent; to be alone. all the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to the others. although she continued to knit, and sat upright, it was thus that she felt herself; and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures. when life sank down for a moment, the range of experiences seemed limitless. and to everybody there was always this sense of unlimited resources, she supposed...one after another, [we] must feel our apparitions, the things you know us by, are simply childish. beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by....
...they could not stop it, she thought, exulting. there was freedom, there was peace, there was, most welcome of all, a summoning together, a resting on a platform of stability. not as oneself did one find rest ever, in her experience...but as a wedge of darkness. losing personality, one lost the fret, the hurry, the stir; and there rose to her lips always some exclamation of triumph over life when things came together in this peace, this rest, this eternity..."
~ virginia woolf; "to the lighthouse"

if there is one condition of life that could be viewed as a persistent antipode (amongst the many, no doubt), it could easily be said to be the division between solitude and friendliness. which is not to say that solitude is not friendly...in fact most times that matches finds himself sincerely in the former, he feels himself a pitcher overflowing with goodwill. it could be a couple of things....it could be that, grass being ever greener on the opposite bank, one always thirsts for a social atmosphere when one finds themselves in an absentia which so bleakly contrasts with it. it could also be that a brief sojourn from the complex structures of social frustration gives one's batteries a bit of a recharge, and traces human connections with a profound and optimistic outline. every cobweb needs the occasional shaking of its dust; every thorn is meant for bristling. it could also be (and here is the trick) that when one slides off all expectations and personality traits, like that last tantalizing article of clothing, something happens...some exchange, outpouring and inflowing, that harmonizes the soul with everything existent and every possibility that could cannonball through the waxpaper walls of the imagination.

because silly as it may sound, when matches props himself upon the stilts of solitude, the world just seems to fit together like jigsaw puzzles and tangrams. it clicks into place and cracks open its shell like a coded briefcase, consolidated and right-angled with smooth lines. being alone, truly, and being truly alright with it...this is a repose that is not allowed for in most bustling lives. but matches has never been a proponent of the bustle. a single mind, open to all the information that we have everysecond access to, is quite a dynamo; a spinning top with fizzes and pops. endless questions are woven into every fabric or material that could possibly be built with. endless colors and sounds are new, infinite; they are fireworks and arias.

tapping into that mindset is another thing to be filed as being so simple that it is just as simply overlooked. all one needs for access is an open heart and mind; an ability to let go of personal titles and claims. of course there are countless times as well that m wallows in self-pity or is reluctant to loosen his grip on himself; times that make isolation feel like a stray prison sentence - agonizing and unjust. but instead of letting them double one over in loneliness, we also have the choice to let them guide us...let them show us specifically where we are putting on clamps and binding, instead of letting the steam hiss, roar, and de-pressurize the system as a whole. pain is so often avoidable...it is painful just to think about how much could be avoided with the application of a little perspective. they need to make a cream for that~

trouble

bumblebee
fly to me
sting me once and
die

why do *you* think we are to exist

squeaktoy ninja: i think we exist to experience; to stretch the fabric of our emotions; to find peace amongst the madness
sofistiktd lady: why does madness exist

how matches wishes to answer that question...how hard it is to do, in practice! what would we be without this sea of possibilities? spoke with the jeff today about art; about how it exists as a record of a mind, about the places we have the ability to find. matches' favorite line of the conversation was when jeff said that the mind was like diving into an ocean...the deeper you go, the less natural light there is, and the easier it becomes to get scared. art is like a sunken treasure, dragged up to the surface...mysterious and crusted with remnants of the deep. dynamic minds have gone to these places and fumbled along the floor...but artists are the ones that can bring something back, that can describe somehow these things that one cannot pierce with sight or net with touch.

all the chaos that we are wedged between, these grinding fault-lines that crumble and scatter us; these seem to be necessary, don't they? most people swirl melancholy and malicious undertones into the words - chaos, madness, confusion, static. but how limited, boxed, and bumpered would we be without them? how prodded and persuaded into common areas? we all have choices in the matter, and we are in a better situation for it. the design is brilliant. there is such a contrast between madness and control...which is to say that, of course they are different, but they do not necessarily need to be separate. nobody will get anywhere by roping in every element around them and maintaining a stance of the strictest control...one would be too tense, when life is about dancing. to issue control as universal law is to be drawn and quartered willingly, to select stasis. a person is not a rope, not a chess piece~ we only avoided the red tiles in elementary school because we imagined them to be lava.

which is absurd. but, we could choose to be absurd; it was practically expected of us. and if matches was given a choice between absolute control and absolute absurdity; well, which would you pick? one cannot measure out one's life in teaspoons.

it still exists, this madness, this extreme freedom. it forges us into who we are. what do you choose to do with your personal time, since every possibility lies open to you? every path, every discipline, every study. what do you choose to imagine? matches still braces his back to the wall every so often, pretending there are ninja enemies around the corner. you probably wouldn't catch him doing it any any social functions, but there it is. that is just one simple freedom of mind, but it serves to illustrate that consciousness can immerse itself however it pleases, at any given moment. that, is the madness; infinite possibility. the madness tends to get a bad rap, because the choices of others also carry the possibility of carving up our emotions like a halloween pumpkin...but that's just one of the calculable casualties of solitary minds existing in a social context. people are going to get hurt by any number of things; one of the foremost being negligence. it seems shady that people can be hurt merely by someone else's focus being diverted to another thought, but that's the way things are. it tends to have more to do with the person getting hurt than the person doing the hurting~

"When you get the blanket thing you can relax, because everything you could ever want or be you already have and are.
...You can't deal with my infinite nature, can you?"
~ i heart huckabees

matches maintains that keeping the madness alive should be a singular priority for just about everybody. one of the most brilliant charms of life is the ability for one moment to be completely different from the next. if there weren't a veritable ocean of possible configurations (and locations) for the mind and the body, then we would not have nearly the capacity for uniqueness that we currently do. instead of wishing all of our problems away, we should revel in the idea that we are the masters of our own destiny, and that we can dive into the depths whenever we require it of ourselves. the art that we currently have serves as a series of bookmarks...the dog-eared pages of the human experience. we marvel that minds have found their way into these puzzles, and applaud those who can bring back tales of their adventures. to bring genuine contemplation into the world is a decision that very few are willing to commit to...and while it is a flame that can never quite be put out, matches thinks that we should all try to nurture the spark within ourselves when we find occasion to. illumination is a scarce resource, and we can put to good use all that we can get~

chaos theory #4,8,15,16...

presently matches is listening to a slurry of techno and underground hip-hop songs that are being beamed into his proximity by way of a recommendation of sarah's: 'pandora.com'. and it has spurred him into a short discourse on one of the most phenomenal aspects of the internet that he has been witness to thus far. the internet mirrors life in that there is an entire goldmine of possibilities in it, through it, as it. maybe even two goldmines, side by side with crumbly and winding passages between them. the downfall is that, much like a mine, there aren't many natural sources of light to aid your vision as you stumble around inside of it. for the most part, you can only feel around the walls and link from one website to another of a similar sort. getting somewhere new was a problematic process until recently...you could only skip to a new area of interest if you already had some sort of map for it that you brought with you.

recently, though, mattress has been using the internet as a tool to orchestrate vast teleportations into uncharted regions. thanks for the most part to the StumbleUpon firefox extension, and the aforementioned Pandora. in case you're out of the loop, StumbleUpon collects information of what sorts of broad categories of interest you find yourself grouped in, and the launches you rocket-like into a series of random but highly-commendable websites or projects in the same circulatory system. Pandora does basically the same thing, but in streaming-radio format...spiraling out of artists that you like into new ones that you weren't aware of. and matches is a giant-panda-proponent of this concept.

in life, we generally get a small sample of what is going on. for every one thing that you learn, its prism shoots out colors onto a thousand surrounding objects. you realize how vast knowledge is, how unattainable and unscripted it is. is? is, conditionally and perceptually~ people become what they know; that isn't to say that grass-hopping isn't possible, but generally the farmer's son is what he is. but what if he were throttled into the city? what if he were dropped into a concert hall with a thousand stringed-instruments littering the floor? he would probably take something away from this sudden exposure; his photograph would have a second moon dodged and burned into the background. an ascended perch of success will allow a bird to spread its wings into different reaches and corners than merely where it first flew. confidence runs in deep grains.

and so matches is enchanted by this concept that people are infusing into the internet, because it has such far-reaching connotations. before, matches had to sit at the record store and dig through the crates to find another artist that he might like as much as whatever is already on his plate. he had to navigate the social networks for people with similar auditory tastes, so that a new avenue of possibility could eventually be unearthed in a long process of judgment and comparison~ now, all he has to do is plug in his headphones and type in a name. and as with most things on the net, it carries the benefit of being 100% free.

and don't get m started on StumbleUpon, which has already devoured hours upon hours of his time - all well spent. it is so inspiring to be catapulted out randomly, because it offers the chance to see what people are really doing; you can see all the evolutions that creativity has taken recently. it's a shame, the amazing things that are not publicly known-about...these ridiculous things that are happening right under our cyber-noses. and for the most part, they are all things that you can become personally involved in, contributing in some way. they all have the potential to affect you, to alter your life and to offer some slate for expression.

it's quite a thing.

lack of maps

oh, this world is a curiosity. can you come up with a word for us? a machine-stamped button, a basic name-tag that explains a person in terms more complex than 'hello, my name is?' we attach ourselves to our names, like people who get tattoos that mean absolutely nothing to them. 'names are solid; names exist!' we flash them around as if they are more than smoke and mirrors. we tout them as some compression of the thoughts and feelings which we lay out on blankets across our world, for all to see. they are like the surf, constantly drumming all our castled-complexities down into one rendered and encompassable smoothness.

but what can we say about ourselves, beyond names? it cannot be said, with all certainty, what our drives and motivations are. we possess many associated animal and carnal traits, but we are not entirely defined by them. we have no magnetic north. we fumble around for a number of years, then barrel group-thinkingly into the labyrinth of society. it is extremely hard to be an individual and not be swept off into various dustbins, to be a grain of sand outside of the groomed zen-garden's contours. we submit, and are sorted like geological specimens.
the worst of it is this pressure to be marketable, to be 'useful' to society, when society's sense of 'use' is far off the mark of what it likely should be. teachers and progressive non-profit workers make no money. they should be doubly-honored for their self-sacrifices: both for their initiative to help make things better, and their willingness to exist in a substantially lower financial bracket for it. matches digresses. the point he is traipsing towards is that if there is something that you love to do, as a human you should have the right to do that and still exist comfortably. if a man loves nothing more than to sit next to a snake in the desert and play an oboe, then he should be able to concentrate all his efforts on that, and not feel icy stares on his back for choosing to live differently. he should be supported and applauded by his fellow men for following his heart, and not be forced into putting a spin on his act and busking on the boardwalk with slivers of sales pitches in his feet.

"or you can share your essence with us
'cause everything about you couldn't be rugged and ruff
and even though you tote a glock, and you're hot on the streets
if you dare to share your heart, we'll nod our heads to its beat."
~ saul williams - 'black stacey'

it seems such a strange concept, that we must conform to prescribed standards and modes of life. america is the land of freedom and opportunity...if you've got the finances to back it. if not you'd better start learning how to cater to someone, so that you too can feel the trickle-down of recycled money flowing your way. what would the world be like if money followed the same patterns as the water-cycle, evaporating at the shoreline and redistrubuting? perhaps it already does? but you'd better hope for that prime reservoir real-estate when rainclouds appear on the horizon.

such was the sub-point. substitute that prior pessimism for optimism, and you might unearth what mattress truly would like to mention: that though it seems like there are only so many paths to travel, we have the power and precision to forge new ones all the time. we really have no definition as humans...attempt it and you will end up dizzy in the spin-dry cycle. it means, on a positive note, that the only barriers existent are the ones that we create for ourselves. some of the most refreshing moments, on a year-to-year-to-decade basis, are the ones where we find out that we can still surprise ourselves~ forget the labels and the names, the minefields and the glass-ceilings. to quote the digable planets: you gotta do what you feel.

"be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
~ goethe, 'faust'

boy-scout badges

matches is watchin' a movie. very relaxing. not that he is incredibly stressed to start with...but relaxation seems a good thing, no? where do we draw the line between productivity and complacency? he would rather not be one of those people who always feels the need to be rifling around from spot to spot, ever-busy and twisting their calendars for the last drips and drops of time. but he also envies those people to some degree.

what constitutes a meritorious use of one's time? when we have no definition, no prescription for who or what we should be, what do we do with ourselves? mattress feels justified when he is scribbling away, whatever being justified means. it is something; he is something. what is it to be productive? how do we even know what is valuable, or what we should spend our time producing? the true currency of life seems to be experiences...we are all equal in that we have an equal number of moments (if we're lucky). even if someone's may not seem as exciting or crisp as another's, they have probably had allthemore time to dive into the echoes and extract some other wavelength, something more than surface from them.

the only problem comes up when things feel too stale...cycles we are running again and again; time that we could be capitalizing on in some different capacity. in a sense, it is good to keep busy. but matches thinks he sees too many people confusing busyness and methodical occupation of one's time. what is it, to be busy for money? to stretch yourself too thin in a job that nets excess amounts of time? is money really a profound enough goal to justify spending so much time (out of a different sort of wallet that is largely ignored) in pursuit of it? so much daylight time, whilst the birds are singing their beautiful songs? raar~

so what are the rewards that we are reaping for our choices? this is a question that m has been asking himself, absorbing himself in, for some time. but what matches wants to say here and now, in this instant where he feels it, is that we should stop stockpiling. stop accumulating. stop fretting and fraying endlessly over all the concerns of who we should be, or what we should have, and just let time flow through us instead of the other way around. matches spends too much time worrying over his possessions, and his skills, and how he should chip away at his days to make them the most aesthetic in retrospect~ it only does a certain kind of good to look towards the future...if you keep your eyes trained on it, then you only catch now as a mere peripheral. something blurred, on the sides of your vision. the future will happen; it has a tendency to do that, no matter what transpires. but the only way to collect any coins of perspective to spend in it...is to pick them up along the way (which is happening; * ; whoops there it went). there is something new going on everywhere, at every time. it just takes a mind to push the button.

and breathing in, i am myself.
and breathing out, i am here.

and it is fine to keep collecting. just be wary of becoming a collector, unless you have found an anchor of value in the items...one that is meaningful to yourself~

smile ; )

let's go, broncos

it is so silly to let external things get the best of us~ we have cores so much deeper than any of the nuisances that constantly try to burn us up...we are redwoods, towering in the forest and impervious to fire. on the underside of the world, just below our feet, there is a mirrored image of each of us, standing tall beneath his or her actual self. m wishes that our reflections bounced back our strengths, not our weaknesses. perhaps that is merely a cultural trinket to be tossed away - the commodities of today forming the laughable rubbish of tomorrow.

so yes the broncos won their rival game today, and yes matches watched it with delight. and he feels good that his (?) team triumphed. but he also remembers other times, walking dejectedly out of sports bars because whatever team was psychologically embraced at the time got demolished by the competition. he remembers it ruining a good part of the day, this loss by a sports team that he is somehow loosely-associated with, or which he follows and knows a few statistical scraps about. and that's just ridiculous. m has barely any real grounds on which to remark that something like that would affect him, and yet it tends to. he feels pretty good that the broncos won. and it's great to feel good...but it also makes him think of how ridiculous it is to let something like that drag down a portion of your day, if perhaps things don't go quite as well. he probably would have suffered that same fate had shanahan not called that last-second, kicker-icing timeout.

and it iced like a smooth buttercream frosting on a carrot cake, just so you know~

but the point is certainly not football. the point is that we, as whatever it is you consider yourself to be on this world, in this whirling universe, are more dense than most suspect; it seems out of the question to let your happiness or wellbeing be scattered by any such emotional distress. we all have hidden caverns riddled with treasure and history, just waiting to be looted when there is a need. emotions are such fickle wisps most of the time...the football depression is a perfect example. there is such richness in our lives, so many under-appreciated aspects, so much that we constantly forget in order to economize our thinking. being a person is a process of dealing with external things...there is no getting around that. but to let them white-wash our minds of everything that fortifies and nourishes us, to give them reign enough to dismiss our notions of who we are, what we can enjoy, to let them steal your joy from you...this is a bit of madness that matches hopes we have only inherited recently, and that can be consciously isolated and controlled.

only a few rare emotions are worthy of that highest time-thieving and mind-shifting honor, that solemn depression or euphoric elation. you will know them and feel them like lightning, cleaving to the core, when they arrive in your moment. but it is mostly silliness to confuse mild winds with a full-blown storm, and carelessness to let your happiness be whisked away by such slight and trivial alterations.

"i will seek out a face, a composed, a monumental face, and will endow it with omniscience, and wear it under my dress like a talisman and then (i promise this) i will find some dingle in a wood where i can display my assortment of curious treasures."
~ viginia woolf, 'the waves'

water-torture

"but here, as she turned the page, suddenly her search for the picture of a rake or a mowing machine was interrupted. the gruff murmur, irregularly broken by the taking out of pipes and the putting in of pipes which had kept on assuring her, though she could not hear what was said (as she sat in the window), that the men were happily talking; this sound which had lasted now half an hour and had taken its place, soothingly in the scale of sounds pressing on top of her, such as the tap of balls upon bats, the sharp, sudden bark now and then, 'how's that? how's that?' of the children playing cricket, had ceased; so that the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach, which for the most part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts and seemed consolingly to repeat over and over again as she sat with the children the words of some old cradle song, murmured by nature, ' i am guarding you - i am your support', but at other times suddenly and unexpectedly, especially when her mind raised itself slightly from the task actually in hand, had no such kindly meaning, but like a ghostly roll of drums remorselessly beat the measure of life, made one think of the destruction of the island and its engulfment in the sea, and warned her whose day had slipped past in one quick doing after another that it was all as ephemeral as a rainbow - this sound which had been obscured and concealed under the other sounds suddenly thundered hollow in her ears and made her look up with an impulse of terror."
~ virginia woolf, 'to the lighthouse'

ah, how easy it is to slip into white noise. it has probably been some time since many of us have enjoyed an undisturbed silence...the ticking of cities is ever present, dominating our rhythms and redefining sound to our continuously-cultured ears. as jesse once mentioned, two-hundred years ago the air was not abuzz with wavelengths and frequencies...even if for the most part inaudible, they still must knead and roll us curiously, somehow; bumping into our walls and columns and fanning out into complex fractal patterns. wing-beating butterfly, hovering hummingbird. so many 'silences' that we appraise are just moderately-bent pitches and variations on the theme - somehow there is always a noise, seeking out an ear. matches remembers many times sitting in the boulder shambhala center, focusing in on the present and trying to achieve some sort of harmony with it. that temple resides on a pearl-street crossroad, and it will be ever-permeated by the bleating of car horns and the growling of engines. in that relative sanctuary, strangely-situated as it is, these things become the most intrusive, obnoxious clatterings on the planet. perhaps that was part of the plan...to integrate transcendent observance into even the most bustling, business-like thicket possible.

a soothing tattoo to her thoughts, though. i suppose we are all winterized to crash through these dins (reflected upon constantly as mattress if often woken in the morning by hammerings [and not the windy-day, berry-tree kind] and the subterranean trollings of various construction equipments). could it be possible that we really have become completely comfortable with nestling into these noises? does silence have to mean loneliness? who among us has even really experienced a genuine silence...some eclipse of events whereby we happen to be in a remote wilderness at night, the kind where you can hear your heart beat just at the edge of your reasoning, and our minds have not elbowed their way into the moment with the ramblings of an inner monologue? matches wonders what it would feel like to disappear into that nothingness~ possibly he has come close, but not quite slipped under.

a worthwhile experiment: have you perchance ever let a thought exist within you, and not qualified it with any words? of course you have. but try now to realize it as it happens~ let that thought start to cocoon itself, and then release it into your consciousness without actually letting your brain scribble a recipe of words for it. feel the shape and the color of it; exist with that edged knowing of it, without the necessity for any labels...nouns, verbs, and adjectives are the enemy here. don't tell this secret to the enemy...keep it hooded by your senses. isn't that neat?

lastly...do you feel 'guarded' by sound? by this marked passage of time? does it lull you into rocking-crib serenity? sometimes, matches...sometimes. everything must exist in the dimension of time...this is a condition of life. possibly, probably, the appeal of sound (of song, of music...) is also present in the undeniable fact that it will be gone the next moment. if you want to know what something is, look to what it isn't. perhaps beauty must have an element of decay; or melody, of rhythm, of shaded undertones and minor chords. the treble clef may be more significant than almost anyone has previously guessed; it may hold stars and secrets.

"but time, is on your side
it's on your side, now
not pushing you down, and all around
it’s no cause for concern

come on, oh my star is fading
and I see, no chance of release
and I know, I’m dead on the surface
but I am screaming underneath."
~ coldplay - amsterdam