the letter A, as in abstraction

who knew that it would only take 20 minutes to walk to NW 21st, after so many months of taking the streetcar? faster? certainly. better for you? absolutely. more exhausting? admittedly yes. more scenic? depends on whether you prefer people or charmingly deserted alleyways. but a portland sunset is a fine time for strolling any day. even the rainy ones, if one gets into the proper state of mind beforehand.

the world is too complex. too? perhaps. it's nice to know how intricately the details spiral, considering how many people put their heart and soul (or perhaps just their 9-5 attention spans, but we know what goes on behind the scenes) into making something worthwhile of it. m has, without anticipation, ended up in two jobs since academics that helped in some capacity to reveal the detail, to unblanket the larger forms that most people don't give a second thought to. no, really...imagine that your couch has a blanket thrown over it, you know, to shield against the dust and sun and cat hairs and such. now whisk that blanket away, and lo! it was never a couch at all. it was a collection of smaller items; and oboe here, a mcdonald's plastic bambi toy there, an un-lidded tin of peaches over yonder (aqui, alli, alla); precise meetings of points, that give way to something larger than themselves individually. not to say that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts (wouldn't want to step on any traditionalist toes), but really what is value anyway. yes, that put you in your place, didn't it?

the point was reduced to absurdity on purpose, yes. more tangible that way, don't you think? what he really means, is really absorbed by, is all the ideas, the labor, the cooperation that goes into the production of realities in the world. engineering is a marvel, in any shade or color that you would choose to cast it in. every day, people see something and think to themselves, "now that, is neat". neat. what a horrible, candle-snuffing word; it completely robs the discovery of all intellectuality and reduces it to a bauble, a trifle, a pawn bowing to the power and complexity of the queen which rules it utterly and completely. and the mind does retain dominance, ultimately; let's not overstep ourselves here. the mind created and can destroy; the mind chooses its constructs and folds the world into whatever patterns and shapes it thinks commendable. but at a certain point, merely in an instance, even, one has to acknowledge and find a profound respect for these things, these objects, engineered commodities. one has to recognize the confluence of events and ideas and inspirations and drives which ultimately orchestrated these...things, into being. it was all human, all struggle, and it is commendable in that respect, interesting in another, and almost fearful in the way which the idea eventually took hold of its composers, trans-substantiated from a thought into a concept into a plan into a thing, and practically willed itself into the world.

it's amazing, really. and what's more, it is neat. but not in a dawdling, bashful, foot-shuffling way...in an empirical, investigative, and compelling way. it strikes one forcefully, the phenomenon of creation. it is an art, though perhaps more calculable, more formulaic in the long run than that more inspirational of imaginings. still, it has that same...liquidity to it. the modern world is steeped in design, in ideas manifest; the difference being that multiple people have had their hands dipped in this, um, pond. lost track of a metaphor halfway through, just then. what would normal commodities be like, if they were not governed by the rules of market and commerce; if they jutted up chaotically, plate tectonics, only meeting where they happened to run aground of one another? no, production process is more predictable than this....pragmatism wields its ugly hand time and time again, and we end up with square buildings. snooze.

real art, if he can be allowed to make the distinction, ascends to another tier in that it does not play well with others. real art is cloistered, secluded....there is no concurrent interplay of minds involved in the end results of one singular piece. the artist is unique in that he struggles with the thing in its entirety; he buries himself in it and does not delegate any task within it for reasons of economy or raw efficiency. a writer does not pen a chapter and then pass the baton to the next for supplement. the purpose is found in the meeting of the beginning and the end, all contained and bubbling within one cohesive (sometimes jagged) mind. the first stroke can be anything, it can be anywhere. the last stroke has to be exactly, precisely, as it is~