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astrologista · 4 years

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Kristoph Gavin Character Analysis I

Part 1 of... fucking infinity, I hate this bitch so much lmao.

Well, it's Halloween time and I just thought, why not. So let's answer this question.

What makes Kristoph Gavin a scary character/villain? A soft spoken gentleman with a deadly secret... the Devil, who lives in his hand, that crazy evil scar thing, his creepy music theme... damn, he’s a scary dude. But scariest of all? His psychology, as we all know. (This is mostly gonna be headcanons. but ya know what, I have a license (hands you a piece of paper that says ‘i can do what i want’))

Kristoph seems like a person who is very aloof, particularly when it comes to personal relationships. At first he kind of just seems like the typical anime glasses guy whose main emotion is like whooa he does the glare thing with his glasses sometimes. But... what is he really about?

You know, let me digress for a moment, what's really interesting to me about the AA characters is how much depth they have in their writing. Case in point, Adrian Andrews. There's a character who you assume is just going to be the typical "anime glasses girl" who is a career woman who don't need no man, and is very aloof, cool, and as she says, not concerned with irrelevant topics or things. Later you learn about the true depths to her personality. The fact that she is codependent, that she needs other people telling her what to do in order to survive. Just because she masks these emotions doesn't mean they don't exist. I felt that really gave a lot of depth to her character and added another dimension that stories in this genre don't often address as boldly or fully (especially when it comes to a female character). So the quality of the writing is always really top notch with only a few exceptions. Take this as context...

Now getting back to Kristoph Gavin. Typical anime glasses dude, right? But no, though. One of the reasons why he's so interesting to me is how his emotional understanding of personal relationships really works. Or seems to, anyway. Based on the endgame testimony and his crimes, Kristoph Gavin is extremely dangerous because, should you get involved with him in any way, he will never, ever let go of you, ever. Once you are entangled with him he wants you to stay entangled, not unlike an overbearing parent who refuses to let you go. It's partly that he thinks he knows what's best for you (that is, to stay completely loyal to him). And also partly... because he is pretty dependent on what other people think of him. So he needs to keep them around him closely.

Kristoph's biggest fear was his lying being exposed for what it was. That Phoenix was really the honest, straightforward attorney, and not him. Kristoph would do anything to perpetuate his own false reality. He kept it going for seven years. His absolute worst fear of all was losing his reputation. Being seen for what he truly was in front of others. He could never accept that. That fear drove all of his murders. Fundamentally, he sees himself as benevolent... when nothing could be further from the truth of how he was hurting everyone who had the misfortune of crossing his path.

Kristoph has a need to perpetuate this false identity of himself above all else. A very adjacent second goal to that is to keep all of his personal associates very close and under his control in order to keep the first goal intact.

Reject him and he will stalk you until you are dead. By his hand, or otherwise. Slight him, and he will get you at the first opportunity, case in point, Zak Gramarye. (He only had to get a quick glance at the guy and his fate was sealed. Turnabout Trump is a chilling case.) Replace him, and he will tear your life and livelihood up into little itty bitty pieces. He will then continue to stalk you aggressively for seven years while pretending he is your best friend. Case in point, Phoenix Wright.

Create false evidence for him and you become a loose end. So does your daughter. Like I said, just don't get involved with him. If he feels threatened, Kristoph Gavin will not hesitate to end you. It's definitely an obsession. I mean the first word that comes to people's minds when it comes to Kristoph usually isn't "obsessed", because he gives off the aura of being calm and uninterested. But he is, he's obsessed. You have to be obsessed to do what he did. This shit consumed his every waking hour, and that's what he won't admit. That he was so sick, he completely lost the plot. Phoenix was already living in his head rent free the day he ordered the forgery. And even though Phoenix wasn't physically present at the Misham trial and was only watching everything by video camera, you can bet Kristoph was seeing Phoenix. Hallucinating him, images of him. Probably multiple images of him. That's how obsessive. Imagine letting something or someone control you to that extent. Imagine thinking that you're so important, that Phoenix taking Zak Gramarye's case at all was meant to be a slight against you personally. (It's funny because Phoenix mentions not even knowing Kristoph at all until after the disbarment. So Kristoph's own logic in thinking that Phoenix was just out to shame him absolutely doesn't track. Ob-sessed, dude.)

It's actually pretty astonishing that someone like Apollo made it out alive. On a side note, I really think Kristoph enjoyed having someone to mentor. He sought someone like Apollo out. Someone naive and new to the field for him to indoctrinate. And maybe I have a post about that later, cuz that's a whole 'nother barrel of monkeys right there. (It kind of involves Apollo’s naivete (also, daddy issues, hello.) being a huge reason why he would gravitate towards having a mentor known for having a “caring” personality. And I think Apollo genuinely liked that about him, which makes the end result so much more awful for Apollo to deal with because to him, that was real.)

But now think of Klavier, right. Being forced to grow up with that. To live with that your entire life. To have a familial relationship that is that smothering, that suffocating, that strangling. That controlling, to criticize every single thing that you do or say right down to the way you say it. And remember... He's never letting you go. I would go on a world tour as a rock star, too. Anything to be anywhere he isn't. This is horror movie tier stuff. (now im imagining a horror movie trailer for aa4 focusing on gavins stuff... eep!)

And Kristoph Gavin markets himself as someone who simply doesn't care. He's the coolest defense in the west and he doesn't care for what you may think about it. Except... he does care. It totally consumes him. Your perception, your opinion, is everything to him. He has shitty self esteem, deep down, because he knows Phoenix is better than him. And tries to mask it with narcissism as the two duke it out. Appearances are everything, evidence is everything. What people think is true is the only thing that matters, truth doesn't. And it makes sense that his closest contacts and associates are the targets for his constant narcissistic abuse and gaslighting. Their opinions matter even more than the common crowd - of course, Kristoph hates them. Which makes it even worse for him when the jury decides unanimously that Vera is innocent (and by implication, he is therefore guilty). The jury verdict was kind of like the ultimate confirmation that guess what, the evidence doesn't matter. The common and boorish masses have passed judgement, no matter how "mindless, emotional and irrational" they are, even they can see behind his crappy little facade. Even a blind woman like Lamiroir can see that insecurity; even a common person can understand it just by looking at the facts. That's what absolutely wrecks him... that his “poker face” couldn’t hold a candle to Phoenix’s. And he loses the “hand” again (because of his “hand”... get it??).

The identity that he needs to maintain is part of how he sees himself in his mind. As Phoenix's protector, not as his stalker. As Klavier's benevolent big brother, not as his abuser. As Apollo's teacher and mentor, not as someone guiding him into ruin. He lives in a false reality.

Try to bring this up in any way, shape, or form and he will write it off. You're just imagining things...

Because at some level, Mr. Black Psyche Locks himself doesn't even realize. (I feel like that might just be basically canonical fact, based on Pearl’s explanation of how black psyche locks are supposed to work.) That’s pretty freaking terrifying.

At the end of the day this is a big part of the reason I think his character is just so interesting. In a very messed up way, Kristoph is one degree away from being such a good person. He could've been obsessively protective of Klavier - the way a big brother is supposed to be - instead of abusive, could've actually been very caring of Phoenix instead of manipulative. Terrible people can have good traits, just as good people can have awful traits. His attention to detail and understanding of psychology (like getting Vera those gifts she would like so much) could've been used for genuine good. He could've been someone who cares deeply about other people because he does care deeply about other people. But only in terms of their relation to himself, what do they think of him, how are they useful to him.

Maybe this is why I kind of like his character. Intelligent, semi-neurotic protective characters are just my ish. But, no, he has to have a narcissistic bent that skews everything into complete abuse. That’s what makes him awful... that he’s devoid of a moral compass or true compassion for other human beings.

So in closing, fuck off, Kristoph Gavin.

Postscript, he's also such a good foil for Phoenix for this reason. Kristoph does everything for himself. Phoenix does everything for Trucy, because he's a dad and he understands the weight of what it means to really care for someone. Kristoph couldn’t understand motives like that. And Phoenix can't help it if he's an order of magnitude smarter and more mature than Kristoph is. He was just born like that. Classy as fuck. You know what, Kristoph Gavin is like the dollar store version of Phoenix Wright as an attorney. Has many of the same functions but actually doesn't have a leg to stand on and will fail you when you need it. And is revealed to just be a cheap knockoff of the real thing.

#kristoph gavin #aa4 #apollo justice ace attorney #im just thinkin thoughts here #dont know why im in such a creepy mood right now #maybe halloween has something to do with it #srsly i need to do some analysis on some other characters lol #and ignore this rat man #btw im totally up to analyze specific characters and interactions #lmk #maybe nahyuta?#or phoenix and trucy #or phoenix and apollo...aaa

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xanderwithanx · 3 years

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Chloe does night-time diary posts on HER tumblr, so I'm going to start doing them here, sometimes. It would be nice if you read it, but, please, don't feel obligated! This is more for me to write.

(I got tired of my normal journal, I guess. It's full of bad poetry anyway. Besides, where's the thrill of losing anonymity in a physical notebook?)

I've basically been asleep and depressed for several days, because I had withdrawal after not being able to get my adhd meds. But, I got it today, and DID THINGS. (This is SO much better than before!)

Today, I went to a small café or restaurant (focused on tea) called Alice's Teacup that was Alice in Wonderland themed! My long-standing obsession with Alice in Wonderland knows no bounds. It was a really cute place. I got pumpkin pancakes, and some really good iced tea. Like... REALLY good iced tea.

Still, it seemed like the entire place was geared towards having a pot of tea and snacks with your friends, which left me a bit lonely. The person I asked couldn't come, and by the time I heard back, I was more than halfway there. Still, I read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and watched Monty Python on my phone, so I still had a good time!

I dressed pretty eccentricly and effeminately all day, but, with my facial hair, I was ALWAYS coded as a man, even by people on the street! Pastels, a stupid hat, a crop top, and facial hair was a winning combination.

On my way, I was stopped by some guys soliciting for charity. I don't make a habit of stopping for strangers on the streets of Manhattan. What if it's a scam? What if I'm being pressured to buy something? What if it's a strange political rant? But, I had already taken my earbuds off, I wasn't in a hurry, and I'm terminally polite. The first guy said he liked my energy, which seemed to come from a genuine place, because I liked his too!

They were asking for donations for a breast cancer charity, the United Breast Cancer Foundation. After a discussion, it seems like the charity helps pay medical debt, medical bills, and other practical needs, which is much better than *some* others I could name. I regretted not being able to give their minimum there, as it was pretty high, but told them I'd give what I could when I got on the website.

I... did not. Money is tight, because I'm bad and irresponsible with money, even though this is more than a worthy cause. I didn't NEED to go to that tea place, and I don't NEED to spend so much money on food. Sure, I can justify it: I wanted to go to that place for so long, and it was near the college anyway! But, if I was responsible with money, you KNOW my friends direct fundraising drives would go first, worthy charities second. Still, I feel bad about it.

Then, I went to the college library, to get books to start my thesis research. I have literally been unable to go to the college itself, aside from getting my ID, so this was great! There just wasn't a reason. It was... very empty. I went to the library stacks, which was deathly quiet and deeply haunted by the old books. I half expected something to pop out at me, as I turned the stacks, but I wasn't even paranoid or anxious. It was like I was in something else's house. I was welcome, but on thin ice.

I picked up an irrelevant psychology book on the "schizophrenia problem" from the 1930s, out of morbid fascination, and quickly put it down when it threatened to shatter in my hands.

Some students walked past (which was a suprise in those monastic basement library stacks), and I added something to their conversation, in a totally natural and casual way. But, omg the poor girls, I made them jump! Luckily, I'm the least threatening person on earth, and we laughed it off.

After a lot of hunting, I got 5 out of my 10 books (for the most part)! (The rest are, sadly, online. I like to read physical copies.) Strangely, I only came in with a list to get 3 books out of 6.

Most of the books I got are about art in the AIDS crisis, which is the core of my thesis, I think, all with different value. One about exhibitions, one about the larger narrative of those gay artists, and another contradicting the larger narrative.

I also got a book about "Art and Homosexuality". Just, the parallel construction of both "art" and "homosexuality" across cultures and times, from earliest history to the modern age. It wasn't on my initial list, but I'm really excited to read it.

Finally, I got a book called "The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel", about the pain and spectacle of punishment in Medieval and Renaissance European art. I'm mainly interested in Italian Renaissance art of the crucifixion--and its masochism--for the second quarter of my thesis.

The rest are online, and Should mostly focus on Bacchus in the Italian Renaissance (especially through art) and what I call the art of "gay liberation", concurrent with the AIDS crisis (i.e. The Cockettes). These two topics make up the last half of my thesis.

I'm SO excited to get started!!

I even got to cross the college's sky-bridges! (The college is a few skyscrapers.) Still, the loneliness and novelty were kind of the same thought. Imagine if I had been here before COVID, or, if COVID hadn't happened. Who would I have been able to meet? What would the college buildings mean to me? Because, for now, they're just buildings. But, I got to see the street from above, and that was amazing!

Just walking through New York--the Upper East Side--on a cool, sunny day was beautiful. It takes 20-30 minutes to get from my place to the college (and the tea place), but it was great being able to listen to my music (a lot of They Might Be Giants on the playlist today) and see the city. You know, people, super cool old architecture being pushed out by terrible new architecture, and pigeons.

Oh my god, the pigeons. I took pictures, but none of them are good. I kept thinking about how pigeons and doves are functionally the same. We domesticated pigeons, which is why they're here, and no one is stopping to notice them? Even the ones that were splotched with pure white, like doves? There's only so many pigeons you can take until they're just white noise and a nuisance, I know, so don't think I'm blaming anyone! But it's so hard to look away from these quirky little birds.

Also, at one point my walk, I was vaping very strategicly. The mental task of searching through library stacks will do that to you, when you already have an addiction to nicotine. I made sure no one was around, and no one would be affected. I stopped on a corner next to an old, ornate Catholic church while the traffic light changed, and I almost juuled right next to a priest! I'm glad I stopped. I don't believe in Hell, but, I would have walked down there myself had I vaped at a priest. Still, the church advertised itself as LGBT+ friendly, so maybe they aren't so trigger happy on the damnation. Either way, I DIDN'T vape at a priest today, which is good.

Once I got back, I spent a few hours watching things with my amazing girlfriend Chloe, who you may know here as @cisphobiccommunistopinions. She is so beautiful, and I love her more every day, every time I see her. God, it's almost been 5 years!

I just wish I could spend more time with her. She's in Virginia, and I'm in New York. Like she said to me earlier, I'm flighty at the best of times, and, with my lack of object permanence for the digital world, I find myself not giving her the attention I deserve, or, the full connection I long to have with her. We used to live together. Luckily, someday we will live together again! All these problems won't be forever, and we can live together again.

We watched a lot of things, but we're pretty deep into Serial Experiments Lain right now. It's a postmodern anime from the 90s, and, wow, do I have no idea what's going on in it. It's about the internet, and potentially schizophrenia as well. However, I'm obsessed! One day I'll be able to crack this artistic code, and it's unreality, thematic knots, and double-meanings. I will probably understand it better on the second watch. I don't see myself in Lain, but I see my 14 year old self in her, when I had just developed schizophrenia. Her cyberpunk fate seems like it's railroaded towards tragedy, but I want to save her, even if it's silly and irrational.

I told Chloe that I was scared about spilling apple cider on my library books, and she referred to it as "The Great Apple Juice Disaster of September 11, 2021." To which I said that it was the second worst thing to happen in New York on that date. It was funnier if you were there, and also were in my brain at the time.

Anyway, tomorrow I'm meeting some online acquaintances from the college's "Queer Srudent Union" at a Japanese Culture Fair in a park. (I do not know which park.) It emphasizes "fun"! I don't know them very well, but they're friends with the one person I know irl, so it should be good.

Tomorrow night, I should Probably head downtown to check out a gallery show by MFA (masters of fine arts) students at Hunter! After all, I was in a group project with one of them, and they're absolutely brilliant. I missed the Thursday gallery opening by a landslide, because of the aforementioned lack of adhd meds and Being Asleep, which I infinitely regret. I could have listened to all the artists and curators talk about their art and exhibition! Maybe I could have even talked with the artists and curators. But, it's best for me to go sooner, rather than later, so I don't forget. And, I REALLY want to go.

It's "This dialogue which happened to be present in all other dialogues" at the Alyssa Davis Gallery. From the email I got, "Each of these works observes a threshold of transition. [...] [These] intimations [are] of a frame of mind shared by the artists. These works perform, record, access, engage, document, and entrap, embalming the viewer within the gallery space."

sgp is a really good artist, by the way. Their work is just next-level. Be sure to check out their art, if you have a chance. Let me link their portfolio: https://saragracepowell.com/

(I highly suspect spg and the other member of my group project ghosted me afterwards, but I understand. I was really in over my head. Still, they're both really sweet and kind people, don't get it twisted!)

I ALSO really want to see The Cake Boys. They're performing at the 3 Dollar Bill in Brooklyn on September 26th. (It's only $15!) They're the only all drag king collective in NYC! (Are... there any Other all drag king collectives out there?) Other than the fact that a lot of them are trans or nonbinary, which I love, this show is a totally non-judgmental competition for over 40 drag kings! I've heard their shows are hilarious and unique.

I just have to wait until I have $15 to spare. I... didn't eat dinner tonight, because I'm irresponsible with my money and don't want to ask my parents for money... again. Don't worry, it's literally fine, and I don't make a habit of doing this!

Which reminds me! For my birthday, my parents gave me a gift card to Lush! I'm definitely going to Lush tomorrow, which will be great. I would describe my personality as "Lush store employee acosting you about a bath bomb demonstration", so I'll fit right in.

I also made a transition timeline, to show how much I've changed on testosterone. For the better, I hope! I really believe I'm becoming, if not Have Become, the man I was always meant to be. It's so strange to look back at who I was not too long ago, and to know the absolute pain I was in. It's also strange, in a good way, to see the man looking back at me in the selfies. I'm so much happier now! Much more candid in my pictures, at least. But, I know that I'm so much more comfortable as myself than I was even 6 months ago. It's strange. Sometimes I think to myself, "I don't pass yet; I'm not who I Need To Be yet." Then, I look at my selfie from today, and... I'm THERE. My mind just hasn't caught up with my amazing, natural, normal reality.

The end. I have to get ready for bed, (even though I could be partying on a Saturday night in the city. I'm lame.) If you actually read this, I am kissing you on the mouth right now. I hope it made you calm down tonight, like a terrible bedtime story. If you didn't read it and just skipped to the end, don't worry: you did the rational thing.

#long post #diary entry

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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THEN IT'S MECHANICAL; PHEW

Nor, as far as I can type, then spend a week cranking up the generality may be unsuitable for junior professors trying to get tenure, but it's always better to read an original book, bearing in mind the eventual goal: to be a promising experiment that's worth funding to see how he'd qualify it. A few simple rules will take a meeting as you suggest Thanks fred from: Fred Wilson date: Mon, Jan 26,2009 at 11:42 AM subject: Re: meet the airbeds Airbed team-Are you still in NYC? But you ignore them because they need a job. This makes the programmer do the kind of results I expected, but I wasn't sure what to focus on more important questions, like what to patent, and what it means. I don't think it's because they want impressive growth numbers. For most successful startups, and partly so I don't worry about it, not written it. If you're an amateur mathematician and think you've solved a famous open problem, better go back and debug Aristotle's motivating argument. Pick the right startups. The situation is different in phase 1.1 Investors have different risk profiles from founders.2

Any public company that didn't have clear founders. A round if you do it. Even people who hate you for it believe it. What we ought to be better at picking winners than VCs. It would set off alarms. No.3 Html#f8n 19.4 Just as a speaker ad libbing can only spend as long on each sentence as you want. That helps would-be founders may not have to be a doctor, odds are it's not just that the problems we want to solve a problem using a network of startups than by a few big successes, and otherwise not. Starting a startup will change you a lot.5

Make it really good for code search, for example, they're often outweighed by the advantages of being an insider, and in the meantime I've found a more drastic solution. One is simply that they understood search. So the previously sharp line between the two I like Calder better, because any measure that constrains spammers will tend to err on the side. As a little piece of debris, the rational thing for them. The Suit is Back.6 If you don't know who needs to be protected from himself. Of course he would say that hapless meant unlucky. Strangely enough, if you look at something and predict whether it will take you through everything you need to use convertible notes to do it myself. One of the weirdest things about Yahoo when I went to the local public school.7

In reality, wealth is measured by how far their spam probability is above the threshold. You have to at least look at the page. Partly because they can threaten a counter-suit. Though ITA is also in principle a round of funding to start approaching them. This probably indicates room for improvement here. It was not until Perl 5 if then that the language was line-oriented.8 There's an initial phase of negotiation about the big questions.

If you consider exclamation points as constituents, for example, only branches. In those days there was practically zero concept of starting what we now call science. In a few days beforehand, I'll sometimes play it safe. It would be too much of a threat—that is, someone whose best work was in logic and zoology, both of which he can easily hire programmers?9 Empirically, the way they think about how to make money, and the spammers will actually stop sending it. By the 1970s, we've seen the percentage of people who weren't already in it.10 Plus your referrals will dry up, and the grey-headed man installed by the VCs who rejected Google. Why the pattern? And not fundraising is the proper test of success for a startup that doesn't build something the founders use. But really it doesn't matter—that is, to grow about ten percent a year. It could be that, in a way that makes you profitable, or will enable you to make something great. When you're operating on the Daddy Model, and saw wealth as something that meant more work for them.11

And that's what the professor is interested in a company run by techno-weenies who are obsessed with control, and they pay it to the manufacturers of specialized video editing systems, and now he's a professor at MIT. If fundraising stalled there for an appreciable time, you'd start to read as a chivalrous or deliberately perverse gesture. He didn't choose, the industry did.12 Art History 101. There is no shortcut to it. In 1997 I got a call from another startup founder considering hiring them to promote his company. This is an instance of scamming a scammer. So don't underestimate this task. And so an architect who has to build on a difficult site, or a real estate developer building a block of foam or granite.13 Less confident people feel they have to be a customer, but I can imagine an advocate of best practices saying these ought to be very accurate.

What if one of your own. Viaweb succeeded because we were smart. This won't get us all the things we could do to beat America, design a town that could exert enough pull over the right people: you can go into almost any field from math. The sticking point is board seats. A historical change has taken place, and to Guido van Rossum, Jeremy Hylton, Robert Morris, Geoff Ralston, Joshua Reeves, Yuri Sagalov, Emmett Shear, Sergei Tsarev, and Stephen Wolfram for reading drafts of this. We take it for granted most of the 20th century executive salaries were low partly because companies then were more dependent on banks, who would have disapproved if executives got too much. Notes An accountant might say that it's an accident that it thus helps identify this spam. So the total number of new startups. Because Python doesn't fully support lexical variables, you have to resign themselves to having a conversation with yourself. Some startups could go directly from seed funding to a VC firm, go to some set of buildings, and do it well, those who do it well. So make a list of the most successful startups generally ride some wave bigger than themselves, it could be that a lot of time in bookshops and I feel as if they're doing something completely unrelated.14 That shows how much a startup differs from a job.15

Notes

Though most founders start out excited about the topic.

The reason we quote statistics about the Airbnbs during YC. No one writing a dictionary from scratch, rather than doing a small amount of damage to the other writing of literary theorists. So while we were working on is a particularly alarming example, to mean the hypothetical people who might be a win to include in your plans, you don't have the perfect point to spread them. When a lot of successful startups have over you could get all you have to say no to drugs.

Exercise for the ad sales department.

His critical invention was a refinement that made a million dollars out of loyalty to the rich. 1886/87. Vision research may be overpaid.

Above. Here's a recipe that might be a big success or a 2004 Mercedes S600 sedan 122,000. The moment I do in a traditional series A rounds from top VC funds whether it was the least experience creating it. The founders want the valuation is fixed at the time.

Photo by Alex Lewin. Some want to keep the number of users to observe—e.

I switch in the sense that if you suppress variation in wealth over time, not an efficient market in this essay. If they're on the group's accumulated knowledge. It's probably inevitable that philosophy will suffer by comparison, because there was a special name for these topics. SFP applicants: please don't assume that the site.

Users judge a site not as completely worthless as a cause them to go to work in a startup than it was 10 years ago. Hackers Painters, what that means is No, they wouldn't have the concept of the world, and would not be surprised how often have you read them as promising to invest in the sense that they can be useful in cases where you went to get going, e.

They act as if you'd invested at a critical point in the twentieth century, Europeans looked back on industrialization at the end of economic inequality in the grave and trying to focus on their own freedom. Pliny Hist. I even mention the possibility.

Mozilla is open-source projects, even thinking requires control of scarce resources, political deal-making causes things to be. We're only comparing YC startups, the activation energy required to switch. Analects VII: 36, Fung trans. Cit.

Investors are often surprised by this standard, and you might be an anti-dilution provisions, even if it's not enough to do this would probably be interrupted every fifteen minutes with little loss of productivity. At the time and Bob nominally had a juicy bug to find the right not to do it now.

This seems to have figured out how to succeed at all. Actually it's hard to say hello on her way out. That's why there's a special title for actual partners. The two 10 minuteses have 3 weeks between them.

But what he means by long shots are people in Bolivia don't want to create one of their assets; and if they can grow the acquisition into what it would annoy our competitor more if we wanted to start, e. The second biggest regret was caring so much worse than he was 10.

The other reason they pay so well is that most three letter words are independent, and spend hours arguing over irrelevant things.

That name got assigned to it because the rich. If an investor is more efficient. Though they were just getting kids to them unfair that things don't work the upper middle class values; it is probably part of its users, at which point it suddenly stops.

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chiseler · 5 years

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Nick Tosches’ Final Interview

On Sunday, October 20th, 2019, three days before his seventieth birthday, Nick Tosches died in his TriBeCa apartment. As of this writing, no cause of death has been specified. It represents an Immeasurable loss to the world of literature. The below, conducted this past July, was the last full interview Tosches ever gave.

***

In Where Dead Voices Gather, his peripatetic 2001 anti-biography of minstrel singer Emmett Miller, Nick Tosches wrote: “The deeper we seek, the more we descend from knowledge to mystery, which is the only place where true wisdom abides.” It’s an apt summation of Tosches’ own life and work.

Journalist, poet, novelist, biographer and historian Nick Tosches has been called the last of our literary outlaws, thanks in part to his reputation as a hardboiled character with a history of personal excesses. But he’s far more than that—he’s one of those writers other writers wish they could be. He’s seen it all first-hand, moved in some of the most dangerous circles on earth, and is blessed with the genius to put it down with a sharp elegance that’s earned him a seat in the Pantheon.

Born in 1949, Tosches was raised in the working class neighborhoods of Newark and Jersey City, where his father ran a bar. Despite barely finishing high school, he fell into the writing game at nineteen, shortly after relocating to New York. He quickly earned a reputation as a brilliant music journalist, writing for Rolling Stone and authoring Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock ’N Roll (1977), the Jerry Lee Lewis biography Hellfire (1982) and Unsung Heroes of Rock ’N Roll (1984). After that he staked out his own territory, exploring and illuminating the deeply-shadowed corners of the culture and the human spirit. He’s written biographies of sinister Italian financier Michele Sindona, Sonny Liston, Dean Martin and near-mythical crime boss Arnold Rothstein. He’s published poetry and books about opium. His debut novel, Cut Numbers (1988) focused on the numbers racket, and his most recent, Under Tiberius (2015) presented Jesus as a con artist with a good p.r. man.

While often citing Faulkner, Charles Olsen, Dante and the Greeks as his primary literary influences, over the past fifty years Tosches’ own style has evolved from the flash and swagger of his early music writing into a singular and inimitable prose which blends the two-fisted nihilism of the crime pulps with an elegant and lyrical formalism. Like Joyce, Tosches takes clear joy in the measured, poetic flow of language, and like Dostoevsky, his writing, regardless of the topic at hand, wrestles with the Big Issues: Good and Evil, Truth and Falsehood, the Sacred and the Profane, and our pathetic place in a universe gone mad.

For years now, Tosches’ official bio has stated he “lives in what used to be New York.” It only makes sense then that we would meet amid the tangled web of tiny sidestreets that make up SoHo at what remains one of the last bars in New York where we could smoke. Tosches, now sixty-nine, smoked a cigar and drank a bottle of forty-year-old tawny port as we discussed his work, publishing, religion, the Internet, this godforsaken city, fear, and how a confirmed heretic goes about obtaining Vatican credentials.

Jim Knipfel: When I initially contacted you about an interview last year, my first question was going to be about retirement. You’d been hinting for awhile, at least since Me and the Devil in 2012, that you planned to retire from writing at sixty-five. And since Under Tiberius came out, there’d been silence. But shortly after I got in touch, we had to put things on hold because you’d started working on a new project. As you put it then, “I find myself becoming lost again in the cursed woods of words and writing.”

Nick Tosches: It is unlike any other project. I am indulging myself, knowing nobody has paid me money up front. Is it a project? Yeah, I guess anything that’s not come to a recognizable fruition is a project. So yeah. I do consider the actual writing of books to be behind me.

JK: Did thinking about retirement have anything to do with what we’ll generously call the dispiriting nature of contemporary publishing?

NT: Oh, very much so. Very much.

JK: There’s a remarkable section in the middle of In The Hand of Dante, it just comes out of nowhere, in which you launch into this frontal attack on what’s become of the industry. I went back and read it again last week, and it’s so beautiful and so perfect, and as I was reading I couldn’t help but think, “Who the hell else could get away with this?” Dropping a very personal screed like that in the middle of a novel? And a novel released by a major publisher, in this case Little, Brown. Was there any kind of reaction from your editor?

NT: Okay, is this the same passage where I talk about all these people with fat asses?

JK: Yeah, that’s part of it.

NT: Okay, my agent at the time, Russ Galen, said he heard from {Michael} Pietsch, the editor who’s now the Chief Executive Officer of North America. And the moment he became so, he went from being my lifelong friend to “yeah, I heard of him.” He complained about the fat ass comment, and my agent told him, “If you go for a walk with Nick Tosches, you might get rained on.” Apart from that, no. And I have to say, he considers that one of his favorite novels, ever. When I tried to get the rights back because of a movie deal, he said “no I won’t do that.” I said “Why?” And he said because it was one of his favorite books. So no, there was no real backlash. A lot of comments like your own. A lot of people saying “Boy, that was great.”

JK: As we both know, marketing departments make all the editorial decisions at publishing houses nowadays, and over the years you must have driven them nuts. There’s no easy label to slap on you. You hear there’s a new Nick Tosches book coming out, it could be a novel, it could be poetry, it could be a biography or history or anything at all. I’m trying to imagine all these marketing people sitting around asking, “So what’s our targeted demographic for The Last Opium Den?”

NT: I just set out to do what I wanted to do. If they wanted to cling to the delusion that they could somehow control sales or predict the future of taste, fine, let them go ahead and do it. I’ve always found it’s the books that gather the attention, they just try to coordinate things. All they’re doing is covering their own jobs. If they can wrangle you an interview with Modern Farming, well, there’s something to put on a list they hand out at one of their meetings… They’re all illiterate. Thirty years ago there was still a sense of independence among publishers. Now they’re just vestigial remnants that mean nothing because they’re all owned by these huge media conglomerates.

JK: To whom publishing is irrelevant.

NT: Right. It’s all just a joke.

JK: I guess what matters is that the people who read you will read whatever you put out. If you put out a book of cake decorating tips, I’d be the first in line to buy it. Actually I’d love to see what you could do with Nick’s Best Cakes Ever, right? It’s something to consider.

NT: Maybe not that particular instance, but what you have so kindly referred to as my current project, which is very…eccentric. It’s the herd of my obsessions that will not remain corralled as I intended.

JK: What brought you back to writing? You’ve said in the past that writing is a very tough habit to kick.

NT: Well, what brought me back? I have no idea. Maybe just actual, utter, desperate boredom. There was none of this Romantic need to express myself. Just a lot of little obsessions, that’s all. As I said…well, I didn’t say this at all. There’s nothing at stake. There’s no money, there’s not going to be any money. There’s no one I need to give a second thought of offending or pleasing. But that having been said, I’m taking as much care with it as I have with everything else. I’ve always thought of myself as the only editor. And having had the good fortune to work with good titular editors, which means their job consists of perhaps making a suggestion or stating a preference or notifying me that they do not understand certain things, and beyond that leaving it be. As I told one editor,I forget when or where or why, “Why don’t you go write you’re own fuckin’ book and leave mine be?” He had all these great ideas. The best editors are the ones that aren’t frustrated authors.

JK: I was lucky enough to work with two editors like that. One had a nervous breakdown and is out of the business, the other just vanished one day.

NT: Well, you’re fortunate. Not only do most editors, a majority of editors, which are bad editors, like the majority of anything, really. If they don’t interfere with something, and nine times out of ten make it worse, they’re not justifying their jobs. The other thing is, we’re recently at the point where the new type of writers, which are the writers who are willing to do it for free, think the editor’s the chief mark of the whole racket. But it’s not—he’s not, she’s not. Their job is to get you paid and leave you alone. That’s the thing. Now you got pseudo editors, pseudo writers. If you think of a writer such as William Faulkner. Now there’s a guy who just screamed out to be edited. Fortunately the editors were willing to publish him and leave him alone, which is why we have William Faulkner. That was the editor’s great contribution, protecting William Faulkner from that nonsense. People speak about, what’s that phrase applied to Maxwell Perkins? “Editor of Genius.” Well, the genius was you find someone who can write really well, and don’t fuck with ‘em. There’s something to be said about that. It’s to Perkins’ credit.

JK: If I can step back a ways to your early years. You were a streetwise kid who grew up in Jersey City and Newark. Your father discouraged you from reading, but you read anyway. So what was the attraction to books? Or was it simple contrariness on your part because you’d been told to avoid them?

NT: I got lost in them. It was dope before I copped dope. I used to love to drift away, in my mind, my imagination. I loved books. My father was not an anti-book person, but he was the first generation of our family to be born in this country. A working class neighborhood where okay, this guy worked in this factory, and that guy owned a bar, and that guy delivered the mail. Nobody was going any further than this. And I remember my father saying, “These books are gonna put ideas in your head.” I guess I enjoyed that they did. Terrible books, some of them. Terrible books, but it didn’t matter.

JK: You’ve also said that very early on you wanted to be a writer.

NT: Yes.

JK: Or a farmer.

NT: Or a garbage man or an archaeologist. Those were my childhood aspirations.

JK: Considering the environment you were coming out of, three of those seem counterintuitive.

NT: Garbage men got to ride on the side of the truck, and that looked great. Archaeologists, wow. I didn’t know they were spending years just coming up with little splintered shards of urns. Yeah, writer. Writing had a great attraction for me, because writing seemed a great coward’s way out. You can communicate anything while facing a corner, with no one seeing you, no one hearing you, you didn’t have to look anyone in the eye. It’s a great coward’s form of expressing yourself. That coupled with the fact that what I felt a need to express was inchoate. I didn’t even understand what it was I wanted to express. Sometimes I still don’t.

JK: You’ve also said that in your teens you started to listen to country music, which given the time and place also seems counterintuitive.

NT: Did I say my teens? Maybe I was nineteen or twenty. Yeah, I never listened to country music until the jukebox at the place on Park Avenue and West Side Avenue in Jersey City.

JK: It was right around that time, when you were nineteen, twenty, that you published your first story in the music magazine Fusion. Which means we’re right around the fiftieth anniversary of your start in this racket.

NT: Let’s see…that was 1969, so yeah, I guess so. Fifty years ago.

JK: Then for the next fifteen-plus years you wrote mainly about music. You were at Rolling Stone and other magazines, and you put out Country, Hellfire and Unsung Heroes of Rock ’n Roll. So How early on were you thinking about branching out? About writing about the mob, or the Vatican, or anything else that interested you?

NT: Before I ever wrote anything. You have to understand, these so-called rock’n’roll magazines provided two great things. First as an outlet for young writers whose phone calls to The New Yorker would not be accepted. And they all, back then before they caught the capitalist disease, offered complete freedom of speech. So yes, in the course of writing about music you could…or actually, forget about writing about music, because nobody even knew anything about music. We were just fucking around.

JK: I remember an early piece you did for Rolling Stone back in 1971. It was a review of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid album, but all it was was a description of a blasphemous Satanic orgy straight out of De Sade.

NT: Yeah, I remember that one.

JK: It was pretty amazing, and even that early, your writing was several steps beyond everything else that was happening at the time. But from an outsider’s perspective, your first big step away from music journalism was actually a huge fucking leap, and a potentially deadly one. So how do you go from Unsung Heroes of Rock ’N Roll to Power on Earth, about Italian financier Michele Sindona?

NT: After Hellfire, someone wanted to pay me a lot of money to write another biography. But I realized there was absolutely no one on the face of the earth whom I found interesting enough to write about other than Jerry Lee Lewis. I’d caught sort of a glimpse of Sindona on television. My friend Judith suggested “Why don’t you write about him?” But how am I gonna get in touch with a guy like that? And she said I should write him a letter.

JK: He was in prison at that point?

NT: Yes, he was in prison the entire time I knew him, until his death. He died before the book was published. I met him in prison here in New York, then they shipped him back to Italy to be imprisoned, and I went over there.

JK: You were dealing with The Vatican, the mob, and the shadowy world of international high finance. Were there moments while you were working on the book when you found yourself thinking, “What the fuck have I gotten myself into?”

NT: Well, yes, because the story was too immense and too complicated to be told.

JK: Something I’ve always been curious about. Publishing house libel lawyers have been the bane of my existence. Whenever I write non-fiction, they set upon the manuscript like jackals, tearing it apart line-by-line in search of anything that anyone anywhere might conceivably consider suing over. And I wasn’t writing about the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis, Dean Martin, or Michele Sindona.

NT: “Conceivably” is the key word in this country, where anyone can sue anyone without punitive repercussions. That’s the key phrase. What these libel lawyers are also doing above all else is protecting their own jobs.

JK: Were you forced to cut a lot of material for legal reasons?

NT: Yes, including proven, irrefutable facts. So yes I did. And it’s not because it was libelous, but because it was subject to being accused of being libelous. It’s a shame. Some of the things were just outrageous. I once threw a fictive element into a description that involved a black dog. “Well, how do you know there was a black dog there?” I said there probably wasn’t, that it was just creating a mood. “Well, we gotta cut that out.” So what’s offensive about a black dog? It sets a precedent. Misrepresentative facts? Morality? I don’t know. These guys.

JK: I don’t know if this was the case with you as well, but I found out I could write exactly the same thing, and just as honestly, but if I called it a novel instead of nom-fiction. They didn’t touch a word. Didn’t even want to look at it. As it happens, your first novel, Cut Numbers, came out next. Had that been written before Power on Earth?

NT: Let me think for a moment…Well, the order in which my books were published is the order in which they were written. The only putative exception may be Where Dead Voices Gather, because that was written over a span of years with no intention of it being a book. So yeah, Cut Numbers. What year was that?

JK: I think that was 1988. I love that novel. There’s a 1948 John Garfield picture about the numbers racket, Force of Evil.

NT: Yeah, I’ve seen that.

JK: But of course they had to glamorize it, because it was Hollywood and it was John Garfield.

NT: I like John Garfield. Terrible movies, but a great actor.

JK: What I love about Cut Numbers is that it’s so un-glamorous. It’s not The Godfather. It’s very street-level. And I’ve always had the sense it was very autobiographical.

NT: I’ve never written anything that wasn’t autobiographical in some way, shape or form. The world in which Cut Numbers is set was my auto-biographical world. “Auto,” self and “bio,” life. My auto-biographical world. The world I lived in and the world I knew. It’s a world that no longer exists. Like every other aspect of the world I once knew. Except taxes. Which I found is a really great upside to having no income. I’m serious.

JK: Oh. I know all too well.

NT: I mean, but It comes with “Jeeze, I wish I could afford another case of this tawny port.”

JK: A few years later, after Dino, you released your second novel, Trinities. While Cut Numbers took place on a very small scale. Trinities was epic—the story spans the globe and pulls in the mob, the Vatican, high finance. You crammed an awful lot of material in there. It almost feels like a culmination.

NT: I wanted to capture the whole sweep of that vanishing, dying world. It was written during a dark period of my life, and I was drawn to a beautifully profound but unanswerable question, which had first been voiced by a Chinese philosopher—sounds like a joke but it’s true: “What if what man believes is good, God believes is evil?” Or vice versa. And we can go from there, the whole mythology, the concept of the need for God. To what extend is our idea of evil just a device? We don’t want anybody to fuck our wives. So God says thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. We don’t want to be killed, so thou shalt not kill. It’s a bunch of “don’t do this, because I don’t want to suffer that.” I don’t want to get robbed. I dunno, what the hell. Yeah, this has something to do with Trinities, and I somehow knew as I wrote Trinities I was saying goodbye to a whole world, not because I was leaving it. It was basically half memory, as opposed to present day reality.

JK: I remember when I first read it, recognizing so many locales and situations and characters. At least from the New York scenes. That was right at the cusp, when all these things began disappearing.

NT: Yes, and now it has to such an extent that I walk past all these locales, and it’s a walk among the ghosts. That was a club, now it’s a Korean laundry. This was another place I used to go, now it’s Tibetan handicrafts.

JK: I don’t even recognize the Village anymore. I used to work in the Puck Building at Lafayette and Houston. Landmark building, right? It’s since been gutted completely and turned into some kind of high-end fashion store.

NT: Yeah, it’s all dead.

JK: Now, when Trinities was released, I was astonished to see the publisher was marketing it like a mainstream pop thriller. You even got the mass market paperback with the embossed cover treatment. I love the idea of some middle management type on his way to a convention in Scranton picking it up at the airport thinking he was getting something like Robert Ludlum,, and diving headlong into, well, you.

NT: I can explain why all that was. It was volume. It was the same publisher as Dino. They were happy with Dino. Dino was a great success. I think that was 1992, because that was when my father died. This is now, what, 2019? There has not been a single day where that book has not sold. Not that I could buy a bottle of tawny port with it. So whereas with Cut Numbers I was paid a small amount and eagerly accepted it. Eagerly. In fact it’s one of the few times I told the editor, ran into him at a bar, and said all I want is this, and he said “Nah, that’s not enough, we’ll pay you twice that.” Then Dino was double that. And look, I really want to do this book Trinities and be paid a small fortune for it. They had to say yes. They had to believe this was going to be the next, I dunno. Yeah, mainstream. Most of these things are ancillary and coincidental to the actual writing.

JK: There were a lot of strings dangling at the end of the novel, and I remember reading rumors you were working on a sequel. You don’t seem much the sequel type. So was there any truth to that?

NT: Not that I was aware of. I’m sure that if they’d come back and said, “Well, we pulled it off,” and offered twice that, there would’ve been a sequel. Because I loved that book, so if they were going to offer me more to write more, I would have. I hated saying good bye to that world and the past.

JK: Maybe you’ve noticed this, but the people who read you often tend to make a very sharp distinction between your fiction and your non-fiction, which never made a lot of sense to me. To me they’re a continuum, and any line dividing them is a very porous, fuzzy one. Do you approach them in different ways?

NT: Oh, god. Do I approach them differently? Yes. In a way, I approach the fiction with a sense of unbounded freedom. But parallel to that, that blank page is scarier knowing that there is not a single datum you can place on it that will gain or achieve balance. With non-fiction, I am constrained by truth to a certain extent. That’s also true in fiction. They just use different forms of writing. There are poems that have more cuttingly diligent actuality than most history works. It comes down to wielding words. Tools being appointed with different weights and cutting edges and colors. Words, beautiful words. Without the words, no writing in prose is gonna be worth a damn. Used to be, I get in a cab, and back then cab drivers were from New York, and they’d ask me what I did. Now I don’t think they really know what city they’re in. They know it’s not Bangladesh. But if I told them what I did, it was always, “Oh, I could write a book.” Yeah, you’re gonna write a book. Your life is interesting. So what’re you gonna write about? Great tippers, great fares? Become a reader first. Read the Greeks sometime. I decided next time a cab driver asks me what I do for a living. I’m gonna tell him I’m a plumber. “Oh, my brother-in-law’s a plumber!”

JK: As varied as your published works are, there are two I’ve always been curious about. Two complete anomalies. The first was the Hall and Oates book, Dangerous Dances, which always struck me—and correct me if I’m wromg—as the result of a whopping check for services rendered. And the other. From thirty years later, is Johnny’s First Cigarette. Which is, what would you call it? A children’s book? A young adult book?

NT: Right. Of course they’re many years apart. Okay, Hall and Oates, Dangerous Dances. I knew a woman who was what you’d call a book packager. I owed money to the government. Tommy Mottola, who was at the time the manager of Hall and Oates, wanted a Hall and Oates book. She asked me if I wanted to do it, and I said yeah, but it’s gonna cost this much. And Tommy Mottola, in one of the great moments of literary judgment, was like, “How come he costs more than the other people?” She said something very nice about me. He has got on his desk a paperweight that’s a check for a million dollars in lucite. We weren’t talking nearly that much. So I came up with the title Dangerous Dances. I had never heard a Hall and Oates record. So I met them. It was over the course of a summer. So I did that and made the government happy. That’s one book I try not to espouse. But everyone knows I wrote that, it has my name on it. As I wanted, as my ex-agent says.

Now. Johnny’s Last Cigarette, which as I said was many years later. I don’t even think that was ten years ago.

JK: I think that came out in 2014, between Me and the Devil and Under Tiberius.

NT: I get so sick of all this political correctness. I mean, every man. Every woman was once a child. And there are all these good. Beautiful childhood moments and feelings. Which is the greatest step on earth that we lose. It’s not a nefarious book like Kill Your mother—which may not be a bad idea—but sweet. Why do we rob these kids of the dreaminess of the truth? So Johnny’s first Cigarette, Johnny’s First whatever. I was living in Paris at the time when I wrote that.. I knew a woman who was one of my best translators into French. We put the idea together with a publisher I knew in Marseilles and a wonderful artist-illustrator we found and were so excited about.

To tell you the truth I think the idea of legislating feeling is like…How the fuck do you legislate feeling? And forbidden words. It may have been Aristotle who said, when men fear words, times are dark. You and I have spoken about this. Sometimes we don’t even understand what it is about this or that word. It’s like that joke—a guy goes in for a Rorschach test, and the psychologist tells him. “Has anyone ever told you you have a sexually obsessed mind?” And the guy says, “Well, what about you, showing me all these dirty pictures?” What do these words mean? I don’t know. Why is it a crime to call a black man a crocodile? I have always consciously stood against performing any kind of political correctness. And I have written some long letters to people I felt deserved an explanation of my feelings.

JK: Whenever people get outraged because some comedian cracked an “inappropriate” joke, and they say, “How could he say such a thing?” I always respond, “Well, someone has to, right?”

NT: Yeah. So one book came from the government’s desire to have their share of what I’m making. We’re all government employees. The other was, why can’t I write something that’s soft and sweet with a child’s vocabulary that’s not politically correct?

JK: If Dangerous Dances and Johnny’s First Cigarette were anomalies, I’ve always considered another two of your books companion pieces. Or at least cousins. King of the Jews an Where Dead Voices Gather are both biographies, or maybe anti-biographies, of men about whom very little—or at least very little that’s credible—is known: Arnold Rothstein and Emmett Miller. And that gives you the freedom to run in a thousand directions at once. They’re books made up of detours and parentheticals and digressions, and what we end up with are essentially compact histories of the world with these figures at the center. They strike me as your purest works, and certainly very personal works. More than any of your other books, it’s these two that allow readers to take a peek inside your head. Does that make any sense to you?

NT: Yes, it makes perfect sense. In fact I couldn’t have put it any better myself. This whole myth of what they called the Mafia in the United States—there’s no mafia outside of Sicily. Or called organized crime, was always Italians. The Italians dressed the part, but the Jews made the shirts. It was always an Italian-Jewish consortium. And this Irish mayor wants to play ball? So now it’s Irish. Total equal opportunity. It was basically…Well, Arnold Rothstein was the son of shirt makers. Not only did he control, but he invented what was organized crime in New York. He had the whole political system of New York in his pocket. Emmet Miller was this guy who made these old records that went on to be so influential without his being known. Nobody even knew where or when he was born. The appeal to me was as both an investigator and then to proceed forward with other perspicuities, musings and theories. I never thought of them before as companion works until you mentioned it, but they are.

JK: People have tended to focus on the amount of obsessive research you do. Which is on full display in these books, but what they too often overlook, which is also on full display here, is that you contain a vast storehouse of arcane knowledge. It’s like you’ve fully absorbed everything you’ve ever read, and it just spills out of you. These forgotten histories and unexpected connections.

NT: I’ve always kept very strange notebooks. I still do, except now it’s on the computer. There’s no rhyme or reason to these notebooks, it’s just,”don’t want to forget this one.”

JK: Speaking of research, has your methodology changed in the Internet Age? I’m trying to imagine you working on Under Tiberius and looking up”First Century Judea” on Wikipedia.

NT: The Internet demands master navigation. There are sites which have reproduced great scholarly, as opposed to academic, works. There’s also every lie and untruth brought to you by the Such-and Such Authority of North America. This is what they call themselves. I experienced this within the past week. It was not only complete misinformation, but presented in the shoddiest fashion, such as “Historians agree…” I mean, what historians? I couldn’t find a one of them.

So my methodology. I love Ezra Pound’s phrase, “the luminous detail.” Something you find somewhere or learn somewhere…They don’t even have a card catalog at New York Public Library anymore, let alone books. You want an actual book, they have to bring it in from New Jersey. Who cares anymore? What they care about is who’s in a TV series, and they whip out their Mickey Mouse toys and, “look, there he is!”

JK: I was thinking about this on the way over. You and I both remember a time when if you were looking for a specific record or book or bit of information, you could spend months or years searching, scouring used bookstores an libraries. There was a challenge to it.

NT: It was not just a challenge. It was a whole illuminating process unto itself, because of what you come to by accident. So in looking for one fact or one insight, you would gather an untold amount. That is what it’s about.

JK: Nowadays if I’m looking for, say, a specific edition of a specific book, I take two minutes, go online, and there it is. I hit a button, and it’s mailed to me at my home. Somehow it diminishes the value, as opposed to finally finding something I’d been searching for for years. Nothing has any value anymore.

NT: No, definitely not. When I was living down in Tennessee, all those Sunday drives, guys selling stuff out of their garages. Every once in awhile you hit on something, or find something you didn’t even know existed. Now education on every level, especially on the institutional, but even on a personal level, is diminished. People are getting stupider, and that probably includes myself.

JK: And me too. Now, if I could change course here, you’re a man of many contradictions. Maybe dichotomies is a better term. A streetwise Italian kid who’s a bookworm. A misanthrope who seeks out the company of others. A libertine who is also a highly disciplined, self-educated man of letters. It’s even reflected in your prose—someone who is always swinging between the stars and the gutter. It’s led some people to say there are two Nick Tosches. Is this something you recognize in yourself?

NT: Yes. It’s never been a goal, it’s just…

JK: How you are?

NT: Yeah. I’ve noticed it, and much to my consternation and displeasure and inconvenience, yeah. But there’s no reward in seeking to explain or justify it.

JK: One of the most intriguing and complex of these is the savage heretic who keeps returning to religious themes, the secrets of the Church and the sacred texts. And of course the devil in one guise or another is lurking through much of your work. Again it’s led some people to argue that since you were raised Catholic, this may represent some kind of striving for redemption. You give any credence to that?

NT: No. Absolutely not.

JK: Yeah, it would seem Under Tiberius would’ve put the kibosh on that idea.

NT: I don’t even consider myself having been raised Catholic, in the modern made-for-TV sense of that phrase. I was told to go to church on Sundays and confession on Saturdays, and I usually went to the candy store instead. I was confirmed, I had communion. To me, it was a much deeper, much more experiential passage when I came to the conclusion that there was no Santa Clause than when I came to the conclusion there was no God. I remember emotionally expressing my suspicions about Santa Claus to my mother. Toward the end of his life, I was talking to my father one day, and I said, “By the way, do you believe in God?” And he said no. I said me neither. And that was about the only real religious conversation we ever had. I think religion, without a doubt since its invention—and God was an invention of man—is a huge indefensible evil force in this world. When people believe in a religion which calls for vengeance upon those whose beliefs are different, it’s not a good sign. Not a good sign.

JK: This is something I’ve been curious about. Two of your novels—In the Hand of Dante and Under Tiberius—are predicated on the idea that you come into possession of manuscripts pilfered from the Vatican library. The library comes up a few other times as well. You write about it in such detail and with an insider’s knowledge. Either I was fooled by your skills as a convincing fiction writer, or you’ve spent your share of time there. And if the latter, how does a heretic like you end up with Vatican credentials?

NT: Okay. You go buy yourself a very beautiful, very important let’s say, leather portfolio with silk ribbon corner stays that keeps the documents there. Then you set about…Well, my friend Jim Merlis’ father-in-law, for instance, won the Nobel Prize in physics right around then. So I went to Jim and said, “Hey Jim, do you suppose you could get your father-in-law to write me a letter of recommendation? I know I never met the man.” Had a tough life, but won the Nobel Prize. Did a beautiful letter for me. I don’t even know that I kept it. You put together five letters that only Jesus Christ could’ve gathered. And he probably couldn’t have because he was unwashed. It was twice as difficult for me, because I had no academic affiliation, not even a college degree. But the Vatican was so nice. There are two libraries. One involves a photo I.D. and the other one doesn’t. They gave me two cards, and they made me a doctor. That’s how you get in. So what do you do once you’re in? They have the greatest retrieval library I’ve ever seen. The people that you meet. One guy was a composer. Wanted to see this exact original musical manuscript because he wanted to make sure of one note that may have changed. So this was all real—I just hallucinated the rest. If you can use a real setting, you’re one step closer to gaining credibility with the person who reads you. I still have my membership cards, though I think they must’ve expired. They were great. You go to a hotel and they ask you to show them photo ID? “Ohhh…”

JK: One of the themes that runs throughout your work is fear. Fear as maybe the most fundamental motivating human emotion.

NT: Any man who thinks he’s a tough guy is either a fool or a liar. Fear is I think one of the fundamental formative elements. And I’m just speaking of myself becoming a writer. Choosing to express yourself with great subtlety in some cases, when what you want to express is so inchoate. But that was a long time ago. I still believed in the great charade. These days I’m just living the lie. But it’s so much better than fear. To convey fear. The more universal the feeling, the easier it is to convey powerful emotions. There was a line in Cut Numbers; “He thought the worst thing a man can think.” Michael Pietsch my editor said, “What is that thing?” And I said “Michael, every person who reads that will have a different idea.” It’s an invocation of the Worst Thing. One woman might read it and think of raping her two-year-old son. Some guy might think of robbing his father. To you or I it might not be that bad a thing, but to that person it’s the Worst Thing.

JK: That’s the magic of reading.

NT: That is the magic of reading. That’s the bottom line. Writing is a two-man job. It takes someone to write it and Someone to read it who’s not yourself.

JK: Exactly. Readers bring what they have to a book, and take away from it what they need, what interpretation has meaning for them.

NT: It’s also possible to write certain very exact phrases and have them be evocative of nothing but a thirst for an answer that the person who wrote them doesn’t know. Readers never give themselves enough credit. Now all the experiential and soulful depths of all our finite wanderings, roaming imaginations and questions thereof are relegated to a Mickey Mouse toy. That’s what I see, people who interact with these toys instead of another person. I don’t care. I was here for the good times.

JK: There’s another idea that’s come up a few times in various forms and various contexts in your work, where you say, in essence, “once you give up hope, life becomes more pleasant,” which is a wonderful twist on Dante.

NT: It’s true!

JK: I know, and I’m in full agreement with you. Hope, faith, belief, are all great destroyers. But I’m wonderinh, when did you come to that conclusion?

NT: A lot of the things I write or think I do put in that notebook I mentioned, and I usually put the date. That was one where I did not put down the date. I do believe it’s true. People say, “never give up hope.” Why the hell not? If you don’t give up hope, it leads you, at a craps table, betting you’re aunt’s car. Where did hope ever get anybody? It’s terrible.

JK: Now, there are two quotes which have appeared and reappeared throughout your work, and I think you know which two I’m talking about. The first is from Pound’s Canto CXX: “I have tried to write Paradise// Do not move/ Let the wind speak/ that is paradise.” And the other’s from the Gospel of Thomas: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” As you look at your life and work now, and look back over the last half century, do you think you’re closing in on that point where Pound and Thomas finally come together?

NT: Yes. I never thought of that phrase you choose, “come together,” but yes. They’ve become more and more deeply a part of my consciousness. Yes, every day I pause. And I still hold the 120th Canto to be the final one. It was just one person who insisted no, this is not how he would have ended. Which is why the current modern edition of the Cantos goes two cantos more. There’s this line that is so bad. It’s hilariously bad. The joke of history. The line that Pound was supposed to have written to go beyond that beautiful line was, “Courage, thy name is Olga.” The other of course, the meaning of that line, that line being the one you were referring to, if you bring forth what is within you it will save you, if you do not bring forth it will destroy you. Of a hundred translations from the Coptic, that, to me, is the perfect translation. What is that thing? That’s what everybody wants to know. That’s me. That thing is just the truth of yourself. If you do live in fear, that will destroy you. If I speak the truth, the worst it’s going to do is frighten another. That will save you. That will set you free. Those two things, yes. And there’s another element, if I can add it unsolicited. I’ve noticed this pattern with people such as Pound and people such as Samuel Beckett. The greatest depth, the most majestic wielders of language as a communication form, slowly trail off to silence. Which is what Pound refers to in what I know is the last Canto. Be still. Paradise. Ezra Pound’s own daughter, Mary de Rachewiltz, translated The Cantos into Italian. Her translation had moments when it was an improvement on his phraseology. In Italian, “Non ti muovere” is much better than “be still.” Books, reading, writing, lend themselves to interpretive subtleties which are by no means pointless. What can people get out of an app?

by Jim Knipfel

#Nick Tosches' Final Interview #The Chiseler #Jim Knipfel #Nick Tosches

17 notes · View notes

meowmerson · 6 years

Note

I LOVE YOUR TOMIONE AND ITS A LOWKEY DREAM TO HAVE YOU WRITE A ONESHOT WITH SASSY HERMIONE LIKE “if you were on fire and I had a glass of water, I’d drink the water.............. arsehole.”

(i turned this into a high school au and it somehow morphed into more or less pastel!tom and punk!hermione who AM I!!!????? lmao)

Hermione knew she was a bit of a cliche.

She had always been an abrasive child, too bossy and too loud and too rude to make many friends. What her parents had always brushed off as an intelligent precociousness that would serve her later in life was perceived as poor character by her peers at school. She thought maybe this was what cultivated her into what she was today, the conflict of what her parents had taught her–to be herself no matter what the cost–and what her teachers attempted to teach her–to censor herself in order to make herself more marketable to the public.

So as she grew up, left middle school and was separated from her only two friends in the world–Harry and Ron went to a high school nearer to the center of town, while Hermione’s high school was just up the road from her house–Hermione more-or-less accidentally crafted an image for herself that was so cliche she almost offended herself.

An outcast. A leather wearing, smoking, anti-social punk, more or less.

She had taken up smoking for purely practical reasons, those reasons being she didn’t like being amongst all those people in that new school and needed an excuse to stand outside by herself. She started smoking because it was the only explainable way to slip outside between classes or during her lunch period without looking as if she was running away from something. No other freshman smoked, and by the time a few select peers(not many) had taken up smoking, she had already crafted a place for herself as an outcast, and still no one approached her.

Smoking in and of itself would be one irrelevant hobby if it weren’t for the fact that she had also taken to wearing her father’s old leather jacket that he had abandoned to the back of his closet thirty years ago. She wore old ripped jeans that she found in thrift stores and her shirts were mostly t-shirts that Harry or Ron had left at her house over the past years, and she wore the same pair of combat boots every day. If the image wasn’t cliche enough, she also made a habit of smarting off to her teachers and any fellow classmates that deigned her worthy of a glance or a comment.

She couldn’t help it. She just hated everyone in that school so much, and the teachers were idiots, and she had not at any point in her life cultivated the art of censoring herself for even a moment.

It leveled out her Junior year, people started to leave her alone, her teachers accepted that her presence in their class was a quiet one–Hermione had been kicked out of enough lectures that she learned some measure of restraint–and she had become a well-and-true outcast.

But she loved school.

More accurately, she loved learning. She was always reading, always searching for answers, and if she ever seemed dismissive in class it was only because none of these teachers knew what the fuck they were talking about. She liked to think of herself as a stereotypical-punk-but-with-depth. If she wore leather and smoked cigarettes around the school and may-or-may-not have punched Draco Malfoy in the face Sophomore year , it was not because she was trying to perfect the image of some 1950′s greaser with parental issues. She was just being herself, unapologetically and without restraint.

Well, some restraint. She just didn’t like getting kicked out of class. She enjoyed the lectures too much.

But if she was a cliche, then Tom Riddle was a fucking fairytale.

Everyone knew who Tom Riddle was. He was the school president since his Sophomore year, he was head of the yearbook committee, took every AP class offered, headed school assemblies and pep rallies, worked as a tutor and even started up the student mentoring program, and he was friends with every fucking person in this entire school.

Hermione hated him.

It was mostly petty. He was intelligent enough that she felt a bit threatened by it, like he could challenge her own intelligence, and he closely monitored his own actions in a way that made him so like-able even Hermione found difficulty in disliking him, but she steadfastly continued, because Tom Riddle deserved at least one person on this earth who couldn’t stand him, and if it had to be her, then so be it. He wore pink polos, and slim-cut khaki pants rolled at the ankle, and sometimes he wore cardigans.

Fucking cardigans.

So what if he had broad shoulders and perfect hair and a fantastic ass? He had his ego fed enough as it was, Hermione wasn’t about to add to that.

They didn’t associate. He said something to her once, he ran some anti-smoking campaign his Junior year and invited her to attend and she had responded by pulling out a cigarette and lighting it right there in the hall and said nothing at all. When he didn’t say anything–perhaps he was shocked, or offended, too much to speak–she blew out a long breath of smoke into his face.

She remembered…a funny thing happened to his face, then. Nothing more than a twitch, a flash in his eyes, but she had seen it and it was…dark. It didn’t fit his cookie-cutter persona of all-around-good-boy, it had seemed angry and dangerous. And then it was gone, and he had donned a sad sort of smile and left without a word, and he never attempted to speak with her again.

For some reason, it had made her angry. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason, but something about his dismissal had made her feel like he had considered a reaction and decided not to for some unknown reason, and the simple fact that she didn’t know this reason was enough to infuriate her.

“I just don’t understand your fucking obsession with him,” Ron said once, on the first (and last) rant Hermione had ever allowed herself to go on about Tom Riddle. “And is that my Clash shirt?” He asked, gesturing to the shirt she was wearing.

“Yeah, it is,” Hermione answered shortly, then said, “He’s not this perfect whatever that he pretends to be, that’s all I’m saying, I’m not obsessed,”

“You don’t even listen to the Clash!” Ron argued, ignoring everything else she had said.

“You shouldn’t have left it at my house then.”

Harry had waited until Ron left to say anything about the Tom situation, and it had been an extremely uncomfortably conversation in which Harry assumed that her ‘obsession’–and it was not a fucking obsession–with him stemmed from some imaginary infatuation with him and Harry tried to give her some strange and contradictory speech along the lines of ‘I respect you and your decisions and whoever you decide to date is your business and I’m not trying to insult you when I say this but I’ll kick his pansy ass if he hurts you’ and Hermione had ended up incoherently screaming and shoving him out the door without responding.

He didn’t bring it up again.

And it didn’t matter, because Tom Riddle never spoke to her again, which was only odd because he made an attempt to speak to everyone, no matter what their social status. Hermione was surprised that her one bitchy response to a single question had struck him so deeply he then refused to ever associate with her, as he normally associated with a number of bitchy individuals–Draco Malfoy, for example–and he still remained Mr. Perfect in every social situation, but she didn’t question it.

She thought of that look in his eyes a lot, though. She would have never imagined a boy who wore pink polos and cardigans and ran anti-smoking campaigns could ever look like that.

It is by a very strange set of circumstances that Hermione ends up speaking to Tom Riddle again.

It starts with a fight with Ron.

Hermione and Ron’s friendship was full of disagreements, some more explosive than others. She wouldn’t go so far as to call their friendship rocky, because they always made up afterward, and usually their arguments were over stupid, irrelevant things. However, no matter how stupid and irrelevant, it didn’t make Hermione any less angry.

The current stupid and irrelevant topic to be angry about was mostly to do with Ron’s wardrobe, and Hermione’s insistence–Ron called it nagging–that he shop ethically. No more high-street fashions that profited on the suffering of others. It had been a long, long journey getting Ronald to shop ethically, and she was quite proud of him, to be honest.

Until she came to his house and he had, like, three huge bags from some family shopping trip to Oxford Street. She had exploded, perhaps unfairly, and he had reacted in kind.

“You’re a psychotic, controlling bitch and you are not my mom, and that is not your shirt, you don’t even listen to the Misfits, you bitch–”

Needless to say Hermione was still furious about it, as she never handled fights with Ron particularly well. She found solace in the knowledge that he was at school sulking just as much as she was, and Harry would likely bring them both together and make them apologize to each other that evening, but as it was, she was itching with the need to call Ron up and yell at him some more.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Tom Riddle’s anti-smoking campaign had volunteers around the outside of the school with pamphlets and fliers and nicotine patches so she couldn’t even slip outside for a cigarette without getting bombarded by those assholes, so–

So she slipped into the backroom of the gym during her lunch period. It was a storage room of sorts, where they kept all the PE supplies, and as gym wasn’t in session this period, no one should be in there, and there she knew for a fact that smoke alarm was broken, so she could smoke a cigarette in there without getting caught.

The door was heavy and huge and there was always a deflated basketball wedged up against the doorframe to stop it from swinging shut all the way because the door would automatically lock. Today the basketball wasn’t there, and instead there was a wooden doorstop wedged underneath the door itself to prop it open all the way. She frowned and peeked into the room, but couldn’t see anyone there. She un-wedged the doorstop from the door and set it against the door instead, so that it was closed except for a crack, so that she had a bit of privacy.

She pulled a cigarette from the pack in her backpack, along with the lighter. She already had the cigarette in her mouth and was lighting it when she turned the corner of the L-shaped storage closet and saw Tom Riddle standing at the shelves at the back wall. He was wearing a pink polo again, his signature slim-cut khaki’s rolled once at the ankle, and he had a cream cardigan tied around his waist. He turned when she approached, and his eyes went down to the cigarette in her mouth.

“What are you doing?”

She hesitated, “You’re followers are outside ready to pounce on me if I so much as step outside, so I have to find somewhere else to smoke.”

“So you choose an enclosed storage closet with a smoke alarm.” He said.

“The smoke alarm is broken,” She said, and then abruptly realized that she shouldn’t have said that. He would probably get someone to fix it now. “What are you doing in here?” She took a drag of her cigarette. If he was going to stop her or report her she at least wanted to get her fix of nicotine first.

“Organizing.”

“Organizing,” She echoed, “The storage closet.”

“I’m assisting in the front office, they asked me to oversee this.” He answered curtly.

“Sounds fun, being the golden boy,” She quipped, and she was surprised–and absurdly delighted–to see him immediately glower at her. He sighed sharply through his nose, and his posture shifted. He put his hands on his hips and shifted his weight to one leg, looking down at the ground before looking back up at her.

“What are you doing in here?” He asked again.

“I already told you,” She said.

“You need a cigarette so badly you hide in a storage room?” He asked.

“Before you lecture me about lung cancer,” She said, “Consider the fact that I don’t care about a single thing you have to say to me.”

His jaw clenched. “I wasn’t.” He said.

“What?”

“I wasn’t going to lecture you.”

There was an awkward silence, for a moment. “Oh,” She said, taking another drag. When she breathed out, she said, “Then why is your body language like a single father getting ready to tell his daughter she’s grounded?”

“You’re infuriating,” He told her.

“I assumed I was,” She said dismissively, “But I’ll gladly be infuriating if it dissuades you from speaking to me.”

“Did I offend you?” He continued, “When I invited you to the rally? Is that what makes you so hostile? I was inviting everyone.”

“Everything you do offends me,” She told him, “I find you repugnant.”

There was a very long, long, uncomfortable pause, because Tom looked actually shocked, like he hadn’t expected that. But it wasn’t just shock, he looked angry for a moment, and he shifted his posture again, taking a step toward her. Without meaning to, Hermione bristled, straightening up from where she was leaning against the cart full of basketballs as if getting ready for a confrontation. He noticed, if the way he stopped and his eyes roved over her body said anything, and she took another drag of her cigarette to try to appear nonplussed.

She didn’t know why she suddenly felt so nervous.

“Why?” He asked, quietly, as if he was trying to set her at ease, but that only made her more uncomfortable.

“Is it surprising?” She asked, “Someone like me hating someone like you?”

“I think it’s more surprising,” He began, and he took another step toward her, this time keeping a close eye on her reaction. There had been a sudden shift in the atmosphere between them, one she had not expected and one that she couldn’t describe. All she knew is it made her heart race, “That you don’t hate me at all.”

She took another drag of her cigarette. Smoke was collecting at the ceiling, and he was close enough that when she breathed out he must’ve breathed it in, but he didn’t cough or choke. She watched his jaw clench, again, and wondered if he felt the same way she did; like this was all suddenly a bit out of their control.

“That’s presumptuous,” She told him, but she didn’t move away as he neared her. Her cigarette dangled between her fingers, nearly forgotten, and he was so, so close.

“Am I wrong?” He asked her, quietly, intimately, and she realized with a shocked certainty that he was going to kiss her, and with an even more shocked uncertainty that she thought she might want him to.

He realized it at the same time she did, that she didn’t hate him as much as she liked to think she did–and she thought she did, with his perfect appearance and his perfect school record and his perfect, golden boy persona–and she saw his lips twitch up into a smile.

She saw something in his smile, the same sort of something she had seen in his eyes so long ago. It didn’t fit what he presented himself to be, the smile wasn’t pleased or friendly or even intimate, it was–it was nasty. There was something in his smile that suddenly made her think this isn’t right, this isn’t him, he’s–

And then she suddenly realized what it was she hated about him so much. It wasn’t the threat of his intelligence or the fact that he tried to get her to stop smoking, it was the fact that it was all bullshit. He was fake, contrived, from his pastel polos and cardigans to his anti-smoking rally’s and speeches at school assemblies, everything he did was crafted meticulously to shape him as the golden boy, to secure his place at the top of the food chain. While people like Draco Malfoy did it through means of bullying and throwing his money around, Tom did it through nothing more than his own personal cunning. All of it was fake, all of it was fucking fake, and–

And so was this, she realized. He was angry with her for not responding to his golden boy bullshit so he was trying something new.

Abruptly furious and humiliated at being played, she lifted her cigarette and snuffed it out on his arm.

He hissed, but didn’t cry out or swear at her like she expected. He jerked back and away from her, his breath coming in quick, angry pants–or was it anger, she thought? His face looked different now, angry, but with something else.

“If you were on fire,” She told him, “And I had a glass of water, than I would drink that glass of water, you asshole.” She flicked the nearly burnt up cigarette at the floor by his foot. “That’s how much I hate you, and if you ever try to kiss me again, I will–”

The sound of the door shutting stopped her mid-sentence.

They shared a brief, panicked glance, and then both of them rushed toward the door. “Did you shut it?” He asked her.

“No,” She spat, because of course she didn’t, she wasn’t an idiot, “I just pulled it almost shut and put the doorstop there–”

“That’s what people do when there’s no one in here!” He snapped.

“I know!” She cried, “I was coming in here to smoke, asshole, of course I wanted people to think no one was in here!”

“Well, now they shut the fucking door because they thought we weren’t here, so good job–”

She started pounding on the door, “Hey!” She shouted, “Let us out, we’re still here!”

“Don’t bother,” He scoffed, “It was probably the gym teacher, and she always has her headphones in–”

Hermione kicked the door.

“Just get your phone out and call someone,” He told her, gesturing to her backpack. She scowled.

“Where is your phone?” She asked.

“In my locker,” He said, “Where it’s supposed to be–”

“Oh great, let’s start lecturing me about where my phone is supposed to be even though I’m the one who’s going to be saving our asses–” She stopped abruptly while she was digging through her backpack, then sighed, “Shit…”

“What?” He snapped.

“I left it at home.”

“Are you joking–”

“Yeah, I’m joking,” She scoffed, “This is all just one big fucking joke, as if I would voluntarily spend another moment in here with you–”

“What have I ever done to you?” He demanded, taking a threatening step toward her that had her springing to her feet immediately.

“You’re fake, Tom Riddle,” She spat. She shoved his chest to make him step away from her, but immediately got carried away and punctuated her next sentence by repeatedly shoving him in the chest, “Everything about you is fake, I’m starting to think there isn’t anything original beneath all the bullshit, you’re a manipulative liar who–”

He reached for her, fisted his hand in the fabric of her t-shirt and shoved her up against the shelves behind her. A few items fell off the shelves and hit the floor with a clang. “You think you’re so smart,” He hissed, and she didn’t think that a boy who wore cardigans and ran anti-smoking campaigns could look so terrifying, but he could. “You think you know everything, don’t you?” He asked, his voice was soft but filled with fury, “You certainly think you know everything about me.”

“Get off of me,” She demanded, trying to wrestle his hand off of her shirt, but she couldn’t move him. He was stronger than she thought he’d be, since she knew for a fact he didn’t do any organized sports, but his arms were bare she she could see the way his bicep flexed as he held tight. “Let go of me now, Tom–”

“You think it matters?” He continued. She wrapped her fingers around his wrist and tried to pry his hand off, “Everyone in this fucking place is fake, you think it matters that you figured me out? You think anyone in this place gives a shit about you?”

She kneed him in the crotch, and when he grunted and his grip loosened she pushed him away as hard as he could. “I think you give a shit.” She told him, “I think it drives you crazy that I don’t suck your dick like the rest of this school.”

Absently, she considered she might need to stop hanging around Ron.

“I get it,” She continued, as he was just managing to stand up straight again, and he glared at her like he wanted to kill her. “I think you’re a cliche, dishonest, cardigan-wearing douchebag and a fuckboy, and I hate you for it, but I get it.” She could tell he was grinding his teeth. “It’s important to people like you, to be on top of the food chain.”

“And what about you?” He asked, “Let me take a guess,” He took a step closer to her again, and she pressed herself against the shelves to make some space between them, “Its important for people like you that everyone around you knows how little you care for them, how beyond all of this ‘petty high school bullshit’ you are, when in reality, you’re in survival mode, because you know there’s not a single person in this school who can stand to be around you–”

“Don’t pretend you want to be around these people,” She cut him off, “You can lecture me as much about survival mode as you want, you’re in it, too. You hate this place as much as I do, but you’re too chicken shit to admit it.”

“You’re pathetic and unlikeable,” He told her, taking another step toward her.

“You’re vapid and unremarkable,” She spat back. Her fingers found something on the shelf behind her, small bug heavy, and she planned on whacking him over the head with it if he came closer. He did, but there was nothing meticulous about the way he closed in on her, nothing that reeked of manipulation or any ill-planning. He still looked angry, but then something else, something she still couldn’t place, until she realized he wasn’t looking at her eyes–in fact, he hadn’t been for a while, and she hadn’t realized.

He was looking at her lips.

It was shocking how quickly she lost all rational thought, the moment his lips met hers, and she suddenly realized what accompanied the anger when she infuriated him–it was lust. And maybe, she thought, maybe he found her infuriating not because she disliked him, but because he liked her. He kissed her too roughly at first, their lips meeting too harshly and their teeth clacking, but then her mouth opened against his and it was all wet heat and the smooth slide of their tongues and–

Yes, she thought, and she was convinced in that moment that she had never thought something so final before in her life. Yes, she thought, and thought again, no understandable thought except yes, yes, yes as his hands found her waist and he pressed her against the shelves. She hooked one leg around his hip and threaded her fingers through his hair, and when she curled her fingers into a fist and pulled, he groaned into her mouth.

“What would the student council think–” She said against his lips, but before she could get a proper thought out, he pulled her abruptly against his body and then just as abruptly slammed her into the shelf again. She grunted, muttered, “You asshole,” against his lips and wondered if she would bruise, then decided that she didn’t particularly mind a bruise or two if she got his tongue in her mouth as compensation.

She pushed him away, so suddenly that he went easily and then tripped over her backpack which was strewn on the floor behind him. He went down, but she followed, and when he was on his back on the floor she straddled his hips and dove back in for another open mouthed kiss. His hands found her hips as hers slid under his head to thread through his hair again.

“Still hate me?” He muttered against her lips, and she rolled her hips against his in retaliation for his mocking tone. He groaned through gritted teeth when she did.

“I still wouldn’t say I’m necessarily excited about your existence,” She said. His hands slid under her jacket and her shirt until he could dig his nails into the flesh of her back, and she sighed into his mouth.

The door unlocked, and started to open. Both of them looked up, Tom’s neck craning to look behind him at the opening door. She recognized some sense of panic in his eyes, and she wasn’t really thinking much about consequences when she reeled back her fist and punched him in the face just in time for the gym teacher to see them on the floor.

“What on–Miss Granger!” She cried as Tom let out an angry yell. Honestly, she hadn’t hit him that hard. The gym teacher hauled her off of him, and Hermione caught a shocked and somewhat awe-filled look from Tom before she was grabbing her backpack off the floor as the gym teacher hauled her out of the storage room.

She got a week’s detention, but it was kind of worth it to have the chance to punch Tom Riddle in the face.

Later, when she was finally headed home, mentally preparing herself for dealing with Ron when Harry inevitably dragged him to her house to make them make up, she walked past the school parking lot and saw Tom and his group of assholes all gathered around his car. He looked up, and even from this distance she could see the way his jaw clenched when he saw her.

She bit back a smile, because something about the knowledge that her very existence unnerved him made her inordinately pleased.

She pulled out a cigarette, and as she lit it and took a drag he still watched her, until his friend–a girl, dark hair, Hermione thinks her name is Bella–grips the sleeve of his cardigan to get his attention.

Hermione goes home, satisfied with the way red mark on his cheekbone from where she had hit him, the mussed state of his hair which he hadn’t seemed to bother to fix, and the knowledge that Tom Riddle does not kiss like someone who wears khakis and cardigans and pink polos.

She thought he might look good in a leather jacket, actually.

#meow writes #imagine in future hermione and tom shotgunning just saying #i wanted to write it now but it didn't fit in #btu just saying #Anonymous #what is thsi idfk lmaooooooooooooo #tomione #this is actually fun i want 2 write more cliche tom and hermione sneaking around making out in storage closets #also tom in pink polo and cardigans #and hermione in leather jackets #wow

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sagebodisattva · 5 years

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Morality and Spiritual Training for Trolls

Alright. Morality and spiritual training for trolls. A common misguided tendency among many novice philosophers, or older rigid inflexible thinkers, (which is never good; as, that which is inflexible will inevitably crack, then eventually snap in half,) is this premature assumption that a lack of objective outputs automatically translates into subjective meaninglessness. That, there can be no such thing as morality; nor any purpose that could be derived that would be worthy of focus and discipline; all such assertions being complete and utter nonsense, and lame justifications for just plain laziness. And I’ll go into detail as to why. And oh, you know you don’t even have to worry about a thing, because of course I’m going to go into the why, ad nauseam.

So I got a couple of recent comments from an insidious troll; and seeing as how the comments are conveniently on topic, I’m going to serve them up, and then slap them down with brute force; dissect and deconstruct every nuanced detail of them, with sniper precision. Because that’s what I do.

A little backstory on this particular troll. We’ll call him, “dual-sock”. This troll might loosely be considered a former aspirant of enlightenment, who, for a brief time, earnestly gave a half hearted attempt to free his mind, but, ultimately, in the long run, failed on his path dismally, then quickly fell into the shadows of the darkness thereafter; and has since degenerated into a low wretched state; reduced to a vile repugnant creature; a loathsome abomination completely bereft of any positive qualities; a blighted deluded consciousness, whose overall potential has become completely mired by his own dark insatiable appetites for attachments, desires, and heavy negativity. It was the type of deterioration that saw this troll come to embrace sinister ideologies, such as nationalism, and just plain full out racism. This type of descent qualified the troll to be gagged, bound, blocked and buried. And he was indeed subsequently blocked from the Meta Sage channel. And thus, such was done.

Hence, the troll was CAST OUT of the fold, banished, and then exiled forever into oblivion, never to return. And, for awhile, the troll vanished; finding respite and refuge down in the bowels of the sewers; hiding deep in the sewage where no one could find him. But, eventually, he awoke from his deep troll hibernation, and gradually rose to the muck of the surface, where he would, once again, re-emerge, raising his ugly head up out of the slop and slurry; and has since been spending most of his time prowling around in the shadows of the internet landscape, lurking about under rickety bridges, and haunting the acres of old abandoned playgrounds; all the while festering in his malcontent; stewing in the juices of his own personal deep hatred for freedom and enlightenment. And so it was. And so shall it be.

Fast forward to current times. One morning recently, I noticed that this stalker troll is suddenly commenting again! So, either he somehow got unblocked, which is a basic impossibility, or, he simply created a new account, which, incidentally, is one of his greatest proficiencies. So very adept in his artful deceptions, yet so very incredibly bankrupt in the core fiber of his being. And so, he made a couple of new comments on a couple of different videos. And, as usual, has shown that he hasn’t grown any more insightful or intelligent with the passage of time. It might even be argued that he has regressed, and is now being passive aggressive, using a sock account to make an initial comment, then waiting to see if the Meta Sage would respond, and if and when I did, he would then have the opportunity to chime in to the conversation with a comment under his main account, responding on the thread without it seeming like he started the comment exchange. And it was this same type of comment configuration that occurred for both of his new comments on both of my videos. A desperate ploy for attention. Shameful. And pathetic. And exactly why he’s acquired the sobriquet of “dual-sock.”

So, without further ado, on to the dual-sock’s comments, which I will now slice dice chop and mop, and then block.

In the first of his comments, he makes a rambling statement to a subscriber named “Sew Me”, who just got finished having a comment exchange with the Meta Sage, concerning a possible incongruent relationship between lucidity and morality, which, coincidentally, also ties in to the main subject of this video. The video on which this dialogue occurred, was an oration of disapprobation on pollution. And so, I will read the comment exchange, as it happened, including the dual-sock’s remark at the end, which I’ll then circle back around and skewer in conclusion.

So here’s the comment exchange:

Sew Me: “sure, fine, but you seem to venture into moralizing and it doesn't follow from the other content or you don't convincingly connect it.”

Meta Sage: “It connects solidly. We are students, here to undergo spiritual training, in order to free the mind from mental slavery. Behaviors that are conducive towards enlightenment are worthy of encouragement. Behaviors that are conducive towards delusion are worthy of condemnation. For a sage not to uphold these standards would be a dereliction of duty.”

Sew Me: “i guess, i cant really argue that littering large or small is good, but i still feel something is missing.”

Meta Sage: “Yes, something is missing. A few things, actually. Mainly, discipline, mindfulness and efficiency.”

That was the initial exchange; to which, dual-sock decides to now chime in, and comments, quote:

dual-sock: “What’s missing, is the recognition of his de-evolution into attachments and valuation of illusion. As if there was some point to this place we find ourselves in. A training ground, a spiritual training ground, he tells you. Is that what this is? Training for what? Ask him that. What are we training for? Oh, that’s right, NOTHING... And does nothing require the illusion of training for some end? Lol. He’s descending into the darkness, slowly but surely. He’s projecting his valuation of a future world for his child. He’s finding PURPOSE here. He’s finding, because there is a sense of self that is searching. It really is that simple. I gladly welcome him to the darkness. At least now he’s letting his morality flow. A powerful sith lord he will become. Or, he will fade into irrelevance. Either way, who really cares?”, unquote.

Well, obviously YOU care. And more then just a bit. In fact, it seems quite obsessively, to be exact. Apparently, enough caring to warrant a haunting on the video by the shadowy specter of the dual-sock. Please. Go away, hungry ghost. There’s nothing for you here. No one summoned you. So why dost thou harken to me? Go back to the shadows. Go out back to moan and groan in the boneyard, where you belong. All of this malcontent within you is just due to the fact that you are heart broken over the knowledge that, soon, you will no longer be able to continue to successfully fool people into attributing power and responsibility onto some imagined externally existing inventory item. So naturally you’ve become irritated and disappointed, but I’m so completely glad you’ve become disillusioned; because all this fake bullshit that’s currently being used for self pacification and willful delusion, is coming to an end! And you don’t like it. You want to be able to continually hide in delusion, and all the implications about lucidity, truth and awareness, will just spoil everything. Awwwww. Poor baby! The little baby needs his little baby bottle! That’s why the poor little baby is lamenting that there isn’t any point.

“As if there’s some point to this place we find ourselves in!”

Of course there’s no pre-existing point. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t any point. There may be a point, but it isn’t a point that’s gonna be supplied to you. And that’s because sensory perception is mind created phenomena. You can imagine it to be an objectified manifestation in your mind, all you want; if that makes you feel better, but that doesn’t change the fact that perception is a complete fabrication. And you’re not okay with this. Hence worship of god. Hence worship of objects. That’s the difference between a true escapist and a true realist; but the REAL difference, rather then the continually told lie of the inverse. And as such, there are those that shun the truth, and reject mind created reality, most commonly materialists or theists; thereby authentic escapism. And there are those that welcome the truth, and accept mind created reality, usually some type of nihilist or existentialist; thereby authentic realism. You see, existentialism doesn’t have a problem with the contrived nature of sensory phenomena. But this is your exact trouble. You want purpose and morality to be factors supplied to you by some type of superior outside power. You want to feel exceptional. You want to be anointed; so you wish some otherworldly aspect would materialize, to see that your washed, then smear your body down with holy oil; so as to better bestow a divine hand job upon you, all because you are just so god damned unbelievably fucking special. Well, unfortunately for you, but luckily for the rest of us, it ain’t happening.

No, there isn’t any point out there, waiting for you to find. And there also isn’t any “place” for a sense of self to find itself in. Yeah, “in.” This sense of self is apparently located INSIDE some type of parameter, right? That’s why you keep insisting that there’s some sense of self out there searching for a purpose. Always taking everything way too literally. Places, inside, outside, self, others. All externalizations. But, it’s understandable why. Of course you’re not going to understand the implications of existentialism, because you are not lucid. At all. So, naturally, you wouldn’t be able to recognize where the source of reality is. Because you’re always too busy looking past it. Therefor, you apparently need a purpose to be forcibly penetrated into you, by something you think in your mind is extrinsic; otherwise god will die, and then everything just gets ruined for you, and then you’ll be forced into cynicism, and then compelled to believe that purpose, and hence morality, are ultimately worthless! And then everything goes downhill from here. What a dilemma indeed!

Basically, just like a little anally wounded theist, who wants to take his ball and go home, all because there isn’t some big sky daddy out there to give a blowjob to. Awwwww. You just can’t seem to get passed your little oral fixation, can you. And I know, anyone who tries to help you to stand up on your own two feet and be a man, is an asshole, all because you can’t get passed your little oral fixation, and you insist on giving fellatio to flying spaghetti monsters. Well, get off your hands and knees and get over it! And don’t bother saying that it isn’t what you’re doing, because it’s EXACTLY what you’re doing, whether you consciously realize it or not. And it doesn’t matter if you say you are not a theist, because your mindset achieves the exact same depressively oppressive mind state. Just because you’ve replaced “god”, with some narrative about an extraterrestrial, a secret society, a DNA molecule, or whatever other bullshit externalization you’ve come up with, doesn’t make it any different. Same fecal matter, different anus. Understand: There isn’t any objective aspect out there to act as your supplier. So stop searching for one; like some drug addicted junkie, looking for a dealer to jock for a chance at some product. That makes you no better then a cheap common dirty whore. And that’s truly contemptible.

You mock my call for discipline, mindfulness and efficiency because, by your estimation, it must be the result of attachment and the valuation of illusion, and it’s completely understandable why you’d think that, due to it being the only frame of reference you can conceive of; because you are truly an unabashed attachment whore, and a shameless value junky. When one can only intellectually consider the concept of lucidity, rather then lucid awareness itself, then it would seem to logically follow that, if one learns that sensory perception is illusion, then this will ultimately mean that nothing matters, and this will justify recklessness, and eventually become a license to be a predator. And this is the part you just can’t seem to understand. Hence, this is where I step in to expound.

First off, no on ever said the objective is to eradicate value, reason, purpose or narrative. You are only being asked to detach from these utilities. And before you even ask, no, you can’t. Anyone who tries to manipulate this process to foster the ego will meet quick remand. The idea that lucidity will lead to a loophole that will allow the playable character to cheat the game and fulfill all it’s twisted desires, is just that: an idea. It doesn’t follow in actual methodology, and is incongruent to reality. Pursuing desire is necessarily a fall into delusion; as, any craving for illusion can only be sustained by a loss of clarity. If it’s clearly laid bare that all sensory perception is mind created, then a desire for any of this phenomena; that is, the fear based motivation to grasp or push away at illusion as a means to some end, relies completely on completely burying the truth. So get that right. We subtract the ATTACHMENT to value, reason, purpose or narrative; not the value, reason, purpose or narrative itself.

Secondly, it’s also not about abstinence, or the denial of certain inventory items to your playable character; another pitfall you just can’t seem to stay out of. Again, it’s not about pulling or pushing. It’s about seeing the true nature of what you’re pulling and pushing, and adjusting to the truth accordingly. Hence, valuation of illusion isn’t necessarily a problem. It’s the attachment to valuations of illusion that becomes a problem. How many times must this be said before you can comprehend it? Of course illusion has some value, as illusion assists in our spiritual training. Not for you to cling to it desperately. Hence, purpose itself isn’t necessarily an issue. Attachment to purpose is the issue. Understand? It’s okay to interact with illusion. Just don’t become attached to interacting with illusion.

So, with that said, here comes your big question: how can you possibly establish any discipline or proper conduct in a context that is objectively meaningless and isn’t governed over by an all seeing super power that manipulates you into certain behaviors by doling out punishment and reward? Apparently, in your mind, you can’t. That’s why you relegate morality to the workings of a Sith Lord; as, without a god to dictate morality, that leaves man alone to establish a moral code; and, of course, that means human morality must be evil; as, man can’t be anything good, without a god to MAKE him good, right? Which is why you compared my righteous stance against pollution to a Sith Lord. Please. Keep that distinction for yourself. I think it’s YOU who is doing the projecting. Although, realistically, you would hardly be considered a Sith Lord anyway. More like a Sith LARVA. That’s about it. A measly little mealybug; a parasite who seems content to continually suck on the juices of a mighty and righteous host. A simple pest. An annoying little nuisance fit to be whisked away to it’s fate by a swift and heavy hand.

But, getting back to the meat of the matter, of which, is the main assumptive stance adopted by the dual-sock, and, by and large, by people in general; is this presupposition that mind dependent phenomena, and a lack of god, equates into a necessary loss of meaning and purpose, and hence, morality. And the other commenter on the video also apparently agrees; complaining that morality cannot follow from the implications of sensory perception as mind created illusion. So let’s break it down.

One thing you need to understand up front is, just because reality is mind created, doesn’t mean there can’t be morality. Take responsibility. Why do you need to be bribed by some imagined outside entity in order to understand discipline and morality properly? Let me guess. You wanna go to heaven and don’t wanna go to hell, right? How deep of you. And that very well may help you sleep at night. But I’ll tell you one thing. If you’re a player, game to conduct himself according to a paradigm of “avoiding punishment and gaining rewards”, then, for good or bad, you’ve established a code of conduct on all the wrong reasons. “Gaining and avoiding”, are the delusional path, and a way to obfuscate the truth. There’s nothing to gain or lose here. You were zero sum before you came in this game, and you are exiting this game in the exact same way. And don’t take zero to mean absence. An absence is a negative. A presence is a positive. Both different degrees of the exact same stuff: illusion. Zero is superposition. So gaining and avoiding aren’t a legitimate basis to formulate a moral compass on; unless you’re a Mario Brother, running around collecting coins and jumping over turtles.

A lack of a god doesn’t mean there can be no such thing as morality. A lot of atheists incorrectly dismiss moral features due to religious associations, but there’s no need to throw the baby out with the bath water. We can figure out a standard for intelligent beings that can be applicable to all life forms, and we don’t need some make believe judge in the sky to keep us honest. We can set a standard. And it’s not that difficult to sort out.

So, how can we set a standard? To figure this out, you need not look any further then to your own functionality. You know, without question, that within yourself, you have a free will that has the capacity to use force; as in, actions that create effects on outside conditions, and, you have a free will that has the capacity to receive force; as in, seemingly outside effects that apply actions on you, modifying your condition. So this formulates a border we can use as a basic outline. And there’s no such thing as anyone who does not have any boundaries. And even if so, there are still instinctual ones. Only Jesus Christ would be exempt from this. So with boundaries, comes the issue of consent. We’ll refer to this junction as the boundary line of the will. And this really shouldn’t need to be explained to you, because it isn’t an intellectual consideration, even though the terminology of “the boundary line of the will”, is an enigmatic and ambiguous consideration.

Let’s put it this way: Why do the sheep run from the wolves? Why do you get annoyed and move away when someone sits too close to you on the bus? Why do you scream in pain and recoil when you get punched in the eye? Is this a matter of moral relativity? After all, sometimes we enjoy getting our throats cut when we sleep, right? It just depends on your culture. Is that it? No, of course not. You don’t need an education or a cultural background to figure out that you need to remove your hand from a hot stove, do you? So the basis for a moral system is actually pretty simple. There’s no need for you to go on pretending that morality is too hard to flesh out.

Boiled down. Life forms are either receptive or unreceptive to phenomena; and the outcome of one or another isn’t a matter of philosophy; so the proposal of moral relativity stinks of extraneous intellectualism. This is not an ideological proposition. It’s a fact of raw instinctual physiology. And we can build upon this.

You already know that, when force is used against a will, there is a rejection of it. Just as you also know, when force is used in accord with a will, there is acceptance of it. Hence, moral behavior is the proper use of force. Immoral behavior is the mis-use of force. That’s it. Need more be said on the matter? If you are able to recognize this natural configuration within your so called “own existence”, then it shouldn’t be too hard to recognize that it also resides in ALL life forms; not just for your own personal ego.

And this isn’t about any “Golden Rule”, as, many of you hate yourselves, and are completely self destructive, so, “doing unto others as you would have others do unto you”, is not necessarily the best formula for the job. But even a self destructive degenerate ego still has a boundary line of the will. Positive and negative responses to stimuli don’t cease happening just because an ego has become devoted to evil. The evil one’s hand still recoils from the hot stove, does it not? So it’s still possible to violate evil’s consent. Yes, that’s right. Dracula doesn’t want you to stick that stake in his heart and will try to prevent it. Is that a shocker? Maybe Dracula had to go to college to understand that he doesn’t want a stake in his heart? So, this is why, if evil is going to pretend morality doesn’t matter as a mere justification for overly indulgent disgusting behaviors, then that ego will be punished swiftly. And rightfully so.

Why?

Because delusional behaviors are contrary to the training. And again. We are students, here to undergo spiritual training, in order to free the mind from mental slavery. Behaviors that are conducive towards enlightenment are worthy of encouragement. Behaviors that are conducive towards delusion are worthy of condemnation. For a sage not to uphold these standards would be a dereliction of duty.

Can you understand this? The right and wrong of behaviors will be determined on a foundation of lucidity as the highest ideal. That is, just as was previously said, behaviors motivated towards delusion are bad, and should be condemned accordingly. Behaviors motivated towards the truth of lucid awareness are good, and should be commended appropriately. Similarly, anything that malevolently tries to interfere with your enlightenment should be considered bad, and constitutes a mis-use of force. Just as, if you were to try to malevolently interfere with another’s enlightenment, it should be considered bad, and would constitute a mis-use of force; even if you personally benefited from it, or derived selfish pleasure from it. And yes, that needs be clarified due to the soul dead psychopaths out there. So there’s no way around it: any mis-use of force against a will is considered a delusional enterprise, hence is contrary to lucid awareness, and therefor is a violation of right conduct. There’s the basis for a rightly based morality.

Hence, this same moral template can be applied to the act of pollution; the argument I made that the dual-sock has criticized as attachment. But the criticism doesn’t wash. Being destructive to one’s environment definitely qualifies as immoral conduct. It demonstrates a total lack of mindfulness; a crucial element of a lucid mind; which is the the basis of the spiritual training. So does that answer your question? You told the commenter to go ahead and ask me what we are training for, but it’s really YOU who is doing the asking. And, unfortunately, you don’t like the answer.

And, that’s right. Training. SPIRITUAL training! And that’s right again. Training, for NOTHING. What’s the problem with training for nothing anyway? Oh, because an addicted heroin addict can’t fathom the idea of giving up his heroin. What a surprise! I guess the little baby is gonna need to adjust to functioning without a pacifier! Because that’s all that is awaiting you, “out there.” Nothing. And when I say nothing, I don’t mean an absence of objects. Hence, an absence of objects isn’t the focus of the training. The focus of the training is, and always has been, pure potential. So when I say, “nothing”, I mean that literally. Nothingness itself. The pure static field that isn’t even a pure static field. And there’s nothing wrong with training for nothingness. This is the essence of Pure Potentialism. And to master it, one must really be devoted to it, despite receiving no gratification or validation from it in return. That’s how it’s determined whether or not you are full of shit. This is how it’s seen whether you are a spiritual warrior who wants nothing for himself but freedom and the truth, or a little lying pansy, who looks to receive rewards and hide in his delusion. We pay respect to pure potentiality, even though we can’t affix a label unto it, familiarize it, or compare it to something similar. We are not here looking for a nipple to suckle, like the dual-sock. We are here to be spiritual warriors, sworn to serve the common good, and to sacrifice as much as we can. All for the truth of lucid awareness.

Now, on to the dual-sock’s second comment, which I will now read, then obliterate quickly; as this video has already gone on too long. Again, it follows a comment exchange between a subscriber and the Meta Sage, and at the end of that exchange, the dual-sock chimes in, stating, quote:

dualsock: “You allowed the talking tiger to mind rape you. Notice how anything you bring up, he redefines for you? See how he redirects your attention to him? You speak of a creating force, he tells you there is nothing beyond awareness. This has subtle, psychological implications, that implies he is awareness, and you are not. That there is nothing beyond awareness (him), that he is the pinnacle. That your answers are found in him and need no searching beyond his word. These are mind tricks, to make you subservient to his will. You ask the wrong questions. Ask him what awareness is aware of. Ask him how awareness can be without the contrasting and complimentary distinction of the unaware. Ask him, how can he be sure he’s awareness if theres no way for him to be aware of what he’s unaware of.”

So that’s the second comment. And here’s a measured response:

Everything that comes out of the dual-sock’s mouth is deceptive bullshit. All he can produce is falsehood. So, to clarify: I don’t redefine. I guide towards the open ended. This isn’t a shell game. This isn’t about rejecting one inventory item in favor of another one. It’s about embracing the truth; and the truth isn’t found by selecting the right inventory item. They are all equally false. So how is it exactly that I’m redirecting anyone’s attention to me? This has nothing to do with me. But this is the nature of the dual-sock. Lies. Misrepresentations. Mischaracterizations.

Yes, the commenter spoke of a creating force, and I rightly brought him back down to reality. Awareness is the sure thing, which can be verified and is the ultimate foundation of everything. Not because I say so, but because that’s how it is. A creating force is an abstraction. Again, this is more cowardly evasions. Another example of feeble subservience, looking for some outside entity to hold all the power and responsibility, because you’re too weak and lazy to assume it yourself.

I point towards awareness. So how is this in any way an implication that “I am awareness and others are not”? Or that I am the pinnacle, and only want others to take my word with no verification for themselves? How is this so; other then just the dual-sock saying so? Because that’s all it is. Distortions and deceptions. I have always repeatedly advocated for just the opposite. Don’t take my word. Don’t stop your investigation. Find out for yourself. I don’t want your subservience. I’m telling you, I have no use for needy dependent followers who need somebody to lean on. If that’s what you are, then GET OUT OF HERE! I’m looking for those who want to stand on their own two feet; and don’t need my support. I have no time to support you.

And here you tell the commenter that he’s asking me the wrong questions, and, again, ask the commenter to ask me certain questions, which means, again, it’s really YOU who’s asking the questions. So I will go ahead and answer your questions. Since you indirectly asked.

Question 1: What is awareness aware of.

Answer: Awareness is aware of an imagination.

Question 2: How awareness can be without the contrasting and complimentary distinction of the unaware.

Answer: Awareness can’t “be”; as, awareness is not an existential factor. It’s only aware of existential factors. Therefor, it doesn’t have an opposite. It doesn’t play by the rules of duality. It imagines the rules of duality.

Question 3: How can I be sure I’m aware if there’s no way for me to be aware of what I’m unaware of.

Answer: “You” are not aware. This “you” is not your identity. More aptly stated: There is an awareness of a persona who thinks he has an individual awareness that he can’t be sure of, due to the fact that he can’t be aware of what he’s unaware of. See, your problem is misidentification. That’s why you can’t unglue from your dream stupor.

So that’s that. I now wash my hands of the dual-sock, and banish him to the netherworlds, once again. But this time, there’s no coming back. You are unrepentant, and hence, are unforgiven. And are therefor removed. Begone from this place.

#morality #philosophy #spiritual training #trolls

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bullshitfromanidlemind-blog · 7 years

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A Question

I am writing this article as an outrage to the frequent rapes happening in our country. People are getting used to such headlines nowadays. But every time I read about a rape, be it in the capital or somewhere else, my blood boils. A country is a failed state if half of the population [not half exactly thanks to female infanticide and obsession towards a boy child] doesn’t feel safe after dusk. People are rather interested saving cows instead which could be a personal preference but we need to set our priorities right. We panic when our mothers, sisters, wives, girl friends are late returning from work or don’t pick up our calls especially when it’s at night. We try to drop them and pick them up from places because deep down we have this fear “what if something happens”. As a result we don’t try to solve the problem, rather we try to bypass it by putting restriction on women because we are “concerned” and it’s for “their safety”. But whom are we fooling? Is it really the solution? Why should they live in fear and restrictions just because some people could not educate their children right? What’s their fault? And what kind of education teaches that “the best way to teach a girl a lesson is either raping her or throwing acid on her as in to ruin her life forever to summarize. People are not born rapists. But then why girls feel safe in bikinis in the western countries that lack "culture” and don’t feel safe in our “ancient cultured” country even if they roam around in a burqa?

It’s a no-brainer that there must be something wrong with us. And yes, the reason is the way our society is today. It’s not a single reason but a product of multiple reasons which makes the country a mass producer of rapists and molesters. And I am not talking about any specific area of the country or any specific section of the society. From north to south, from rich to poor, from a teenager to a person in his sixties, problem lies everywhere. Let’s talk about few of them.

Equal rights for women, not: this topic creates thunders in everlasting debates. The question is simple, “do women get equal facilities as men do in our country?” Every time we see two parties with some cliché points. One party will say feminism is redundant nowadays why because women get ladies seats in trains/buses [they don’t forget to thank ac Volvo buses for not doing such discrimination], free entry [sometimes free drinks as well, can you imagine?] in pubs and public support in a public argument. So for them it’s sorted, what else do you need to live? Another party which is also known as “the Feminazis” will start taking examples since the beginning of time and discuss the oppression on women and after sometime totally deviate from the topic and it becomes point blank male bashing. Then the first party will say “yeah you say equality, but why men always have to pay the bill? Why men are judged if they cry? Why should we only lift the paani wala can?” and many more irrelevant questions. Then the first party will say “men are biologically stronger but that doesn’t mean they are superior” and it’ll go on and on. Then comes the third kind, the enlightened ones who will conclude the debate saying things either like “don’t respect a gender, respect a human being” or “women should not compete with men cause they are already superior” or “you are wrong, it’s not about who’s ahead, it’s about if they are moving together side by side”. But after the long discussion the main question remains unanswered. And the real answer is kind of tricky. Yes we are a civilization who worships women as goddesses [I am not going into religion cause that’s the different topic altogether], we had Rani Laxmi Bai then, we have Sushma Swaraj now but originally the condition of women rights in India is like money. A lot is there but not accessible to majority specially when in need, feminism is there but it empowers the empowered. So the answer is no, women don’t have equal rights, majority have less and a minority have more rights than men do.

That is how things are: the phrase which is fed to us whenever our culture had to force something which is logically inexplicable, for example, the image of an ideal Indian woman. She should be polite, she should cover her body n sometimes face as well, she should respect elders no matter what, she should obey her father/husband [whichever male master she’s assigned to cause man leads and woman follows], she should not answer back, she’s the primary caretaker of the house and kids and career should always be a second priority. Of course there are exceptions and they are increasing with time but for majority there is infinite number of unwritten rules. And the sad part is majority follow these rules else the society will judge them or some aunty will come with her moral policing. It’s there is all levels of the society be it poor or rich, be it educated urban society or orthodox rural ones. And the reason is “that is how things are”. That’s why in villages girls get sasural training instead of education to get married off ASAP, people gossip about how the new girl got promoted and they did not cause she worked hard in boss’s cabin on her knees in some MNC, the newly married bride has to leave her job/studies and ambitions cause that’s how a happy family works. But this has to end someday. Just because women tolerate all silently, people get used to it. Then if some lady argues with a man with raised voice, people turn their heads and start judging her. Same suggestions are taken on different priority based on whether it’s coming from a man or a woman because the general assumption is “ladkiya toh dumb hoti hai yaar”/“abbe uski kya aukaad hai”. But what is the factor that creates this assumption.

Happy family: It happens because in India a happy family means where women keep sacrificing. A boy sees his father always dominating his mother and beating at times. He sees her sister getting less privileges and priorities generally because he’s a boy. When he cries father says don’t cry like a girl, be a man. He thinks being like a girl is bad or equivalent to be weak. This thought gets embedded into his mind that girls are good but they are beneath me. When this boy grows up and goes out in the world. He sees girls coming from non-cliché families outperforming/ignoring him no matter how hard he tries. He takes this as humiliation, how can that petty girl dare to humiliate me? She needs to be taught a “lesson”! We all know what the possible lessons from this point are.

Stop at the early stage, be pro-active: No one is born rapist, neither someone has the guts to rape someone at the first attempt. The reason rapists exist is the way we ignore the early signs of a potential rapist for which these sick people get away with a lot of small crimes and gather the courage to do bigger atrocities pushing their limits. We see or hear about events like, someone pulled a bra strap in some co-ed school, some neighbor boy harassed a girl cause he loved him[thanks to Bollywood], some child is molested by their elder brother or uncle, some middle aged uncle groped someone in a bus, some local hero molested a passerby and other numerous flavors eve-teasing and molestation where in most of the cases girls don’t speak up and even if they do, their parents suppress them fearing shame in the society and even if they speak up the male counterpart gets backed up by their family by saying things like “didn’t mean any harm”/“he’s just a kid”/“it’s a misunderstanding”/“your girl has issues”/“it was a mistake, please forgive and forget”. Events like these get the guts for someone to attempt a rape.

We the volatile people: Another reason is people forget very easily. And media is to be blamed for that. In a hunt for new news headlines, they don’t draw closure to all the cases. We see new rape cases in the headlines on a daily basis but how many stories draw a conclusion? How many of the rapes reported are drawn to a closure? As a result, a person who is going for a candle march for Nirbhaya today forgets everything tomorrow and gets busy with Dream11 cause IPL is about to start.

Sex? What is that: But why so many people especially in this part of the planet are driven towards touching a girl without her consent? Let’s face it, India is a sex starved country and the reason is our “cultured society”. Sex is treated like a taboo in our country and still we managed to be a country with second largest population [soon to be number 1 as you can’t force birth control norms like china over here because “democracy”]. Forget doing it, even talking about sex/condoms/even sanitary pads make people embarrassed. Since childhood we don’t get any awareness about sex just by the behavior of our elders around us we get the idea that sex is dirty and bad unless you are married. Once you get married, somehow you get a license to have sex. The biology teacher gets ashamed to take classes on reproduction, even prostitution is illegal here. People in their 30’s remain virgin and wait for their marriage to happen cause “culture”. But it’s not something you can hide or stop by not talking about it, it’s a biological need. This disrupted status quo between supply and demand makes people desperate to get some action.

Iron cuts iron: Girls don’t go well with girls most of the time. I don’t understand the reason though. As we see around us women force restrictions on women all the time. Be it the neighbor aunty who gets judgmental when your clothes are not “sanskar compatible”, the same aunty who wants you to get married just after your college is over because “isko kaunsa prime minister banna hai”, the family members who are biased towards the boy child over the girl or the mother-in-law for whom “bahu” can’t work or study after marriage because that’s not how a “happy family” works but the “beti” can have ambitions. We can call them hypocrites in one word. But why does this happen? They went through the same system; they know the pain of being restricted all the time. Shouldn’t they let people live freely when the power is in their hand? Or is it some kind of anger which they couldn’t express when they were the victim in the story and later vent it out as revenge when they get the power? The way ragging thrives in hostels. I see girls demeaning themselves by telling boys “kya ladki jaisa ro rha hai?” or “mard bann” or “chudiyan pehen le” as if being a man is always better than being a woman. Mothers tell their daughters, “tu toh mera beta hai”, if she’s taking responsibilities. These people always keep this thought deep down in their mind that men are superior [because society embedded that into their minds and they can’t see beyond that] and try to compete with men whenever they get a chance. I see feminists with agendas like “ladko ko dikhana hai” or “ladko ko unki aukaad dikhani hai”. They always get obsessed with beating boys than improving themselves and by that they indirectly create a notion that girls are weaker in general, they somehow reached this state where they can challenge men. But you should pick your contender based on performance and not on gender. People ask for fast forward laws and courts for rape but that couldn’t happen because women are not united as a community. A lot of women take advantage of women rights which were introduced to help them. We see reports like girls trying to frame guys into fake “molestation/rape cases” to get lime light on social media or earn easy money by blackmailing, wives filing fake domestic violence cases to teach in-laws a lesson, even girls try to stop cars on highways asking for help and loot them when someone stops to help them out. Now think, if you tried to help someone and got looted by some gang, will you ever dare to stop your car next time seeing someone asking for help? Especially in north India people don’t dare to stop their cars thinking it could be a scam, people are not so inhuman to leave someone dying on the road but experiences have made them cautious. For the same reasons and numerous fake cases our penal code can’t make fast forward system for rape cases as it might be a fake one.

It’s your fault: There are a large number of people who blame girls for getting raped. They say things like “she was drunk”/“she was wearing indecent clothes”/“she was roaming around alone in the night carelessly”/“she always hangs out with guys”. Let me get this clear, a rape/molestation is never the victim’s fault, be it a boy or a girl. We need to get out of this dumb notion. Rapes happen because some people believe it’s okay to have sex with a girl even if she is saying “no” because the usual reason we blame girls with for rape. Rapes happen because we couldn’t educate those sick bastards. Rapes happen because we couldn’t provide the safety to our women that they deserve. Then there are enlightened politicians who say things like “rapes happen because girls and boys meet freely”, what else do you expect? Separate countries for men and women? These thoughts are toxic, just because thoughts like these exist; we see different columns for boys and girls in co-ed schools. I mean c'mon, it’s a co-ed school, let them meet freely and understand each other. We are seeding difference at a grass-root level like this.

Law and order: We have laws to deal with rape cases but sometimes they seem useless due to poor execution. At first half of the cases don’t result into an FIR because “what people will think?” The ones which get to the police stations don’t get enough priority all the time as police is busy taking bribes. At times people who go to the police station get humiliated with weird and out of context questions. If you look beyond metros and big cities, a lot of police stations and related nursing homes lack infrastructure to test and prove rapes before the substantial evidences fade away. On top of that our court proceedings make even snails look faster. A lot of people don’t have the time, money and patience to fight a case till closure and end up doing personal settlement by either taking some money or marrying off the victim with her rapist. Another issue is it’s bail-able [if you have money] until it’s proved in court which takes years. Sometimes rapists are below 18 and they get away with “warning and few months in the rehab” as juvenile but people don’t asses their sanity when they are released with anonymity. Yes, things are getting better slowly but we are light years behind of how it’s supposed to be. The law and order need reinforcements to address these issues.

So it is clear, that we have loads of issues and to overcome those is neither a short term job nor a one man job. We as a society need to evolve and spread awareness so that we don’t breed rapists and molesters unknowingly, don't treat women differently than men and treat a rapist the way he/she should be treated. But that’s a farfetched goal and we have real issues at present. What to do about them?

What to do: Well, this is 21st century where we can track ground activity from space. But with all these successful ISRO satellite launches, with all these eyes in the sky why aren’t we being able to save our women? Can’t we dedicate few satellites for our women? Just few “Geo Stationary” satellites to cover the entire country. We can make an app what can be easily installed in all phones [not only smart phones] which will have a “panic button”. When someone feels that their safety is being compromised can push that button. Immediately the location of the SIM card will go to a central server via that dedicated satellite so that people don’t have to rely on the availability of mobile networks. That server will pick that location in GPS and alert the nearby police station with specific GPS co ordinates. Even if the rapists throw the phone from some moving car, this whole process will happen in less than a minute giving police a real time data to come up with a legit search radius. The satellite can even be used to take photographs for evidences. A lot of tragedy can be avoided that way including other crimes as well. We should ask for such systems, we are the tax payers and should ask for money allocation during yearly budget for such system.

You can say writing an article and ranting about everything is very easy but to do something it takes courage. I will say if everyone did what they are capable of, our country would have been like heaven. But a change has to come from within ourselves and it always starts with an idea. I am not bragging but saying this so people don’t judge me as a “theoretical patriot”. I have taught English and Mathematics to slum kids for free, I have protested to save environment, I have fed hungry beggars, I have given gifts, food and clothes in charity, I even cleaned up dirty lakes, I don’t litter, pay taxes honestly as well. Maybe I am capable of doing more but I don’t have the money or resources to build such a system for sure else I would have done it already. I have a job and mouths to feed. I will request my friends to forward this to such an extent that it reaches people and government. I would love to work on such a project [who wouldn’t?]. If this changes the thought process of even a single person, my purpose to write this will be fulfilled. I believe in our country that it has the potential to bounce back. So the question is…will you support and forward this message? Hoping to see better days[“Acche Din”]….Jai Hind.

Kunal Dutta.

#bullshitfromanidlemind #stoprapeandmolestation

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inhalareexhalare · 5 years

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Dire Need of a Hug

Dammit I woke up at 0800. Even though I slept at around 0300. The sun is too fucking bright hahaha

But it's not an unpleasant feeling. After warming up, I think I'll work on the story~

Oh yeah, since I forgot to respond to Isla last night:

Yea >___< according to stories Pa used to be very careful with relationships before. He claims he didn't even have sex with Ma until they got married. The problem was after. He started entertaining flirtations, cheating on Ma, hiring prostitutes/escorts, etc... From Ma's perspective, it was simply unstoppable. She was so helpless that she even cried in front of us, her kids, and asked us if she should divorce with Pa. But she couldn't. She was far too concerned with her children, and she truly still loved Pa.

What she did instead was she tried to enlarge her heart and re-focus it on something she really believed in for a long time. She became leader in dental association and started making dental projects that she thought could help the poor and made many friends and explored the world and had puppies (that she so badly wanted to have before) and hung out with us, her kids, and not once failed to give Pa love.

She broke down every other day from Pa's impulses, but she tried her best to fix her focus again on her beliefs. She understood that she wouldn't be able to control Pa.

Many nights she was sad and would sneak into our room (parents' room is separate) and drink herself dead while crying quietly. She would open the TV but bring the volume so low so you couldn't even hear a thing. She didn't want to wake us up.

She would cry over the phone talking to her best friends. But she knew life was more than Pa.

You know, when Ma died, her friends claimed that in her last moments she did her best to make everyone in the room happy. She would laugh the hardest and smile the widest. In her wake, the room was literally flooded with flowers from so many friends. Pa is the most charismatic person I know, but Ma, she's subtle but more generous and more sincere.

I've never been so moved in the death of someone. Her death was only sad because we would miss her. But we were all so proud of her. All of us, whose lives she touched. My mother is the most awesome person I know

The place was so full of people, you'd think it was a mini concert haha. People coming in and out, waiting for their turn to go forward and see Ma's face one last time. Sending us their best wishes, and sharing their most heartfelt stories with her... It was strangely encouraging.

(My economics professor at the university raised an eyebrow at me and wondered why my grades shot up AFTER Ma died. I thought it was a pretty insensitive question, but I guess it was too strange for him. XD)

2019-03-02 08:18 Philippines Saturday

I'm feeling glum right now. Not angry, but glum. Karu's ran off again.

And now they need me to proxy for him. I don't feel like it at all, but I know this needs to happen. For our goals.

I'm doing my breathing. I don't like thinking that my time is wasted. It's backwards thinking. Keep changing.

Breathe.

2019-03-02 15:03 Philippines Saturday

To Karu:

I don't know what to do

But I guess you don't feel like tlking. I'll just shut up. Sorry

Please at least eat. I miss you terribly.

From Karu:

I love you. Thank you for everything

To Karu:

Oh you ain't seen nothing yet. Look forward to it. I'm still learning. I'll be waiting for you.

I love you

PS I genuinely am excited to hang with these guys though. I feel so socially thirsty hahaha

From Karu:

You're best thing that's ever happened to me. I don't deserve you at all. Please take care of yourself. I love you so much

You'll be an awesome writer; I know it. Keep being awesome!

To Karu:

I feel honored, but justice is bullshit. None of us get to decide what we deserve.

Who knows. I'm sure to keep loving writing.

Keep moving forward. If you think I'm bringing you down, it's completely okay to leave me.

Rather than justice, I'd rather think of what we can do to make things better. Move forward, yeah?

From Karu:

You're not bringing me down. Pls don't think that

I'll always love you

To Karu:

Remember the last thing we talked about before the last straw with [Ira]?

Humans try to justify suffering by rewards, real or imagined. We have so much trouble making sense of loss. Of pain.

So this is good. Redefine yourself. Challenge yourself. Face your fears. I know you'll find more than what you're looking for.

Thank goodness. But know that I think the same of you. Your strengths and flaws both have only enhanced my personal and artistic development. So don't think too lowly of yourself either.

- (PS that last straw with Ira was the last thing, although not the full thing, that pushed him this time to run away. He's so tired and pressured, I think.

Anyway, the last time we talked was a fun evening! We ate at Chowking for once and for kicks and it was fucking awesome haha. Then he had gig nights where I didn't interact with them, yeah? And then this not going home thing followed.

On the topic though. I notice that the only way to be financially successful in this game that we built as a society is to sacrifice other important aspects of life

Inevitably, that means the successful people suffer. A lot.

But it is exactly their suffering that makes them want more. They feel like they deserve so much because they suffer so much

We justify our suffering by rewards, real or imagined.

As a species, we have such a hard time making sense of loss and pain.

Whether it be about going to a cancelled meeting after travelling for hours for it, or having to shut down a failed business after working day and night for 10 years. It's like having a dead loved one. Even in the face of loss, we try to be in control, when most of the time, we can't.)

2019-03-02 15:42 Philippines Saturday

I'm a bit scared, but technically, there's nothing to be afraid of. In all the times we've been together, there was always a possibility of any of us dying or leaving or whatever.

At any moment, anything can happen. So really, there's nothing to worry about. Our concern should always be, to not take everything for granted.

I think this is the most I've spoken to Banks hahaha Although it's about Peak and then about Karu. :) Still, I think it's progress!

I also got to chat about irrelevant stuff over lunch with Theodore since Karu ran off XD

2019-03-02 16:07 Philippines Saturday

Ira and Job here!

To Karu:

Oh, and don't be lost too long. The music is thin as fuck without your bass. Your bass knows what to do. Don't make it wait too long! :)))

2019-03-02 16:50 Philippines Saturday

Okay, that's enough. I'm full of interacting with Karu hahaha

Just like a good dance, I feel this is the perfect place for a rest to be in. I feel happy and excited being apart at this point.

The music really is a lot thinner without him though HAHAH I like how they practice their craft.

2019-03-02 17:08 Philippines Saturday

Ahhhhh I am shutting down hahahhaha I'm so intimidated. Banks's elder relatives invited us to have dinner with them, and it felt like the typical family reunion I had before. The talk is okay. It is superficial, as most introductory encounters are made. But I couldn't contribute and my mind shut down multiple times. I even got clumsy with my tableware.

I have no idea how to act around them.

I'm back to that Virg meeting incident.

Ugh. Alright okay okay.

Must grow some balls! I think I could open up a bit more if (1) I just decide to push myself on the spot. (2) train and use my voice in private to be prepared

...

I'm... Tired.

In dire need of a hug.

It's time for rest, finally. It's overdue.

I've returned to the house alone and took a quick shower and am chilling around now, preparing myself for some patient rest.

The walk home felt heavy. The silence wasn't like the usual. I felt a low buzz of loneliness.

It makes me want to cry, but here I am now, preparing to rest. It feels nice.

I miss Karu's hug. It's been days. Don't worry though, it's not the usual obsessive kind of missing.

It just feels like it would be so much better. This is good.

2019-03-02 22:16 Philippines Saturday

#chrono7 #social #marriage #peak #mission #goal #progress #anxiety #sad

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