It’s later in the day, um, er, ah, apropos to nothing in particular except there’s a lot less left on the back end of this day than the front end. I picked up a paperback from Amazon because 1) They didn’t have a kindle edition, or, for that matter, a hard back and 2) because I wanted to look at the words inside, more specifically the order in which the words were placed (my instinct is to type ‘ … order the words are placed as I am reading it in the present tense and will finish it in the future tense, but, still, the original copyright is 1972 and dude was a contemporary of Skinner whose been a dead motherfucker for damn near going on a quarter of a century).
There is an implied #’s 3) and 4). I’m fixin’ for to leave them implied. This is not the sort of thing I’m prone to pick up on spec (that’s what kids say when they are far too busy to say speculation. Um, ok, those kids are already collecting SS, still … Me, I always have time for a ulation or two (( e.g. speculation-ulation)) and these few words are to disentangle the parenthesi) .
One of the thoughts that smacked me in the forehead three pages into the introduction is “Why haven’t I read this before? Or at least been lent it and pretended for the sake of a tenous friendship to have read it?”Damn fine question if I say so myself and I sort of have to seeing how I’m the only guy in this conversation and if I don’t say it no one else will. I mean sure, you are being made privy to this self dialogue as I type but heretofore you were not invited.
Awareness Through Movement, Moshe Feldenkrais.
It’s obvious through subsequent editions who the publisher thinks the demographic is, because, no matter how many mothers have told how many kids not to judge a book by it’s a cover, publishing houses try to attract with book covers. Hence golden age Fabio on romance covers and not present day Dustin Hoffman. If bodices are going to be ripped and such the cover needs a bodice ripper and not a pate gnosher.
Wow. Had a phone call between this paragraph and the last; it’s a bit like waking from a lucid dream, I need to disentangle this plane of reality from that one. When your motorcycle is brand new and you’ve got the hang of one down four up and easing the clutch, you shift seamlessly through the gears, shift your weight and take that curve nice and tight; years later you feel the gears grind against one another and the tension in the clutch is like an old rubberband. The first real taste I had of how many masks I need to get through a day was with my first kid, granted, I was young, otherwise it would have come at me some other way. But I found myself doing the cute daddy things while doing the covert protection thing while negotiating checking out at a grocery store and probably one or two other things and realized mask is a pretty stupid word for it, but you gear yourself up to project what is apropos to the situation and with a kid there’s the added self consciousness of knowing that you are also modeling what you’re projecting and --- Jesus H Christ on a cone, that sentence got away from me.
Yeah, so, Moshe, surprised I’ve never heard of him before. It’s a second or third hand referral and, again, not the sort of thing I read for fun. I mean these days. This very space I’m typing in (my physical space, not the digital space of the Box) used to have all sorts of things that I would pick up and read for fun and many of those even turned out to be fun and most are now ballast in a box, insulation for the draftier part of the attic. Things like Be Here Now or Man and His Symbols or The Masks of God.
I think this book is a bit more practical. Perhaps. I also downloaded the kindle version of Somatics and some book on the Alexander technique. Yes, there is a theme. One day, young buck, you’ll be crunchy too; you won’t even be able to find fifth gear. Or, you know, not. I’m hoping for not. Same for me.
Oh my but there is a lot of hardware on my desk. I entered some giveaway contest for some Vapor political thing or other and it turns out they wanted a fucking essay --- ok, they just asked for comments, but, you know --- and I was either just being snarky or finally honest, but I suggested the reason vaping keeps me from smoking is that unlike other smoking cessation programs I get to physically blow smoke out of my mouth. I mean the political aspects of all this sounds like so much whining and/or saber rattlin’ (depending on whether it’s a pro or con argument) that I find myself ducking the question altogether or coming up with something unconventional, but, it is true, more than needing something to do with my hands or mouth I really liked the blowing smoke part of smoking. I mean I think I was doing more nicotine when I used the gum, but it was so not satisfying. I’ve kicked things a lot harder than nicotine without so much as a whimper, but the whole God and Master of fire thing, boy that’s a powerful draw.
I made the argument eloquent and uncomfortable enough that they will, hopefully, take it down, because it’s obviously personal and sans a nod towards pro or con. Looking at my desktop it’d be hard to doubt the sincerity of the argument though. And on the shelves that used to be lined with Be Here Now and the like are dusty humidors and fancy pipes displayed. I really like blowing smoke, but I haven’t lit anything other than a candle on fire since a bit before Christmas. When my brother was up a couple of months back he asked for a cigar, Christ I wish he’d asked for a few hundred. Smelling him smoke that cigar was finest thing I’ve ever smelled that didn’t smell like woman. Oh, Hemingway Short Story by Fuentes, if anyone is remotely interested. And if you’re remotely interested I will send you a box if you promise to send me back the scent. It’s the one flavor they can’t get right with this distilled nicotine; tobacco. Pomegranate cream kiwi sure; tobacco, not so much.
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