raincomplex's New Writeups

How do you know the fishes are enjoying themselves? (place)

2009-11-24T04:25:11Z

Often I see this lovely story reproduced. It goes something like this:

Two monks walk beside a river. One turns to the other and says,
See how the fish play! They are really enjoying themselves!
The second monk replies, You are not a fish!
How can you know that they are really enjoying themselves?
And the first retorts, You are not me!
How can you know that I do not know
that they are really enjoying themselves?

And the narrative ends and I think to myself MY WHAT A LOVELY STORY

ABOUT MONKS, WATER, FISH, PERCEPTION, AND REALITY. I GUESS
WE CAN'T REALLY EVER KNOW WHAT OTHER PEOPLE KNOW
BECAUSE WE AREn't them. It's true sort of!

The secret is that the story continues.

In my Zhuangzi (Columbia University Press. Translated by Burton Watson.)
the second monk exclaims, (and I am paraphrasing)
Yeah! But you're no fish! You still can't…

Every poem about thunder was written under the protection of a roof, or, at the very least, an empty sky (poetry)

2009-11-23T05:55:08Z

"Every poem about thunder was written under the protection of a roof, or, at the very least, an empty sky" asserts that something is true about each poem ever written about thunder. Specifically, that such poems were written under an empty sky or under the protection of a roof. Symbolically:

∀p ( Pp → (Rp ∨ Sp) )

where

Px ≡ x is a poem about thunder
Rx ≡ x was written under the protection of a roof
Sx ≡ x was written under an empty sky

The truth of this sentence is time-dependent. It may have been true in 1872, but once Johannes Heimmacher stepped out of his front door and started jotting on that napkin in the rain, it became false. It seems so likely that someone, over the course of human history, has written a poem about thunder while outside on even a cloudy day, that it seems this statement is surely false. More rigorously, it is easier to…

Evening Constitutional (person)

2009-11-23T02:54:51Z

i don't want to
i am tired and would like
to stay here and continue
what i was almost doing
but have not done all day

well alright i will put on my warm pants
because these pants are flimsy
and my jacket because the air goes right through this sweatshirt
and my hat because my hair is short
and the wind goes right through it

it is nice out here probably because
i put on my warm pants they are more comfortable than i remember
and the neighborhood is more interesting than i remember
especially now at night with each house lit its own way

the road is welcoming and each pace invigorating
and the air is like the vinegar stew we ate for dinner
promising amongst ourselves to keep a pot on the stove
and to cut up vegetables and potatoes from the garden and drop them in
throughout…

All Souls (person)

2009-11-08T03:31:22Z

blue
skies
below
autumn
arches
—passing
falling
)roaring,wide
whitewater
&cross
narr
ow
br
idge
—stepping
over)onto
hill,bright
sunfall
green
field
a sense of

wonder,no
empty?no
vast,or
memory perhaps
)a scent of
the sky

—some
timesas
if from
the end i
imag(e)in(e)
we are wa
tchingour
selveson.vcr
)distorted
+tracking/b(l)ack
failure / snow
lines mar our
faces

absurd,really to see now as a decomposing video tape,no?

Especially during the day.

who were we,a
nyway,a ll those
yearsd ucking und
er fences ,storm br
ewing off a darktwilight
sky

You know the leaf-whirling
,chilling kind I mean.which
you…

a taste of root beer (place)

2009-11-04T17:45:40Z

a taste of root beer , some
other memory ( a flag to
a country i am no citizen of
-- a fabric sewn ahead of the plan
the weaver does not approve + returns
to unravel and reconstruct a vision
of a lost world , a broken arch << [ drawkcab ro ,
, a somewhere abandoned by even the air
) when the wind is dead , remember ,
all you were hearing was the leaves
along the threads of the sky

Where the stars do drown (place)

2009-10-06T03:51:02Z

AND it was that they found themselves on the beach
at night in the constant air and grasses walking
which as the deep blackgray far-off moisture clouds
leaked into the deep blueblack star-scattered atmosphere
did sway in cool warning of changes in temperature and pressure

AND they did clasp their hands together in the darkness
from far-away appearing to me as one small black spot
and did gaze and squint their eyes in the constant air
with hair tufts switching as if in morse code tapping
did right then she look to his face and he to hers and

BUT their eyes were opened the air was stilled
hands dropped and backs turned, each
in the other's eyes had seen their own,
eyes seeing only reflection,
& already parted; they went…