Filling an Empty Place

Today is my last day in Bloomington for awhile. I'm just finishing up some last-minute tasks before heading off to India again. Although I am excited to return, this time I am acutely aware of the people and places I'm leaving behind, even if only temporary. There is a good amount of sadness mixed with the excitement. I am the happiest I've been in a long time, but more conscious of the consequences of time and choice. I will miss dearly my family and friends, old and new. Although this will certainly be an adventure, it will be one that has been planned for me, and it will involve a great deal of work and learning.

Here's a poem I published a couple of years after my last trip to India:

And Such Is the Paradox of Living

I'm winding up my first year in law school; only three more weeks of class before finals. It has been a stressful but productive year. I've struggled to find time for everything, but that's par for the course, supposedly. I've barely done anything with my music — nothing new has been written, but I've managed to do a bit of mixing and mastering. My language study has fallen behind; I was keeping up with Mandarin and French in the fall (didn't find time for Spanish). Now I'm back to Hindi/Urdu, because I'll be returning to India this summer. I will be working in a legal internship in Hyderabad (although Telugu is the official state language, Urdu is most common in the capital of Andhra Pradesh), for the Council for Social Development, advocating for women, children, and disadvantaged social groups.

I don't get to do much reading outside of class material, but I'm currently working on Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. I'm still on Swann's Way, but it is by far the most amazing novel I've ever read. The last french novel I read was Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma — fast-paced and a bit thrilling, whereas reading Proust is exactly like the first paragraph of Swann's Way:

The problems that you suffer from are problems that you make.

Here, check this link out. It's Yale's open online courses. They have a plethora of subjects available; each course has transcripts, audio, and video for an entire semester, with reading assignments and downloaded material. Pretty sweet, although I can't vouch for any of the material. I'm checking out the only philosophy class, which is a freshman-level introductory course on death, and it seems decent. Although, it makes me wonder how obsessed Yale professors are about their image. Maybe it's just that guy.

It's been awhile since I've said much of anything here, and I intend to write more since I'm leaving home for a long while, so I'll catch you up.

Vive l'involution!

"But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection."

I have received and given the initiation of elemental earth, via salt. We will all see one another again, soon, and then face to face.

Going Up

Peter Christopherson died in his sleep last night. I've been listening to a lot of Coil lately anyway, but his death has me reflecting much more than usual on the impact that the music of Christopherson and Balance has had on my life.

Coil was a band that touched me personally and inspired me both musically and spiritually. I had been creating sound collage before I had heard them, at a point before the internet became taken for granted or was even understood by the general public at all. I developed my own musical tastes by hopping through electronic BBSs, Telenet, and Gopher, eventually stumbling upon the likes of Skinny Puppy, Coil, Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, Bauhaus, The Sisters of Mercy, KMFDM, Ministry, Einsturzende Neubauten, and so on and so forth. Through the electric veins, siphoning at 1200 baud, I also explored the worlds of Aleister Crowley, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the Rosicrucian Manifestos. Coil straddled these two interests and spearheaded my obsessions with music and magick. How to Destroy Angels was my introductory textbook, a compendium of fundamentals to which I return again and again with reverence and fervor. This album  carried me through the darkest nights of my soul. The tracks may sound terrifying to some, but in them I find the hope of seekers.

I did not know Peter Christopherson or Jhonn Balance, but I wept at their deaths. Their music will continue to inspire many who make love with the moon.

From Coil's "Fire of the Mind" -

"Does death come alone or with eager reinforcements?
Death is centrifugal / Solar and logical
Decadent and symmetrical / Angels are mathematical
Angels are bestial / Man is the animal"

Mother Russia Rain Down

I'm about to head off to St. Petersburg; I'll try to update this while I'm there. In the meantime, I'll let you all know what I've been up to. I've been seriously considering law school, and I'm taking the LSAT in October. My practice test scores have been in the 165-176 range, so I'm confident that I'll do well and may even get into a decent school. I'm leaning toward international and environmental law. I've been learning Mandarin Chinese, which will be my fifth language, although I don't know if I can still count Hindi since I'm very rusty at this point. I still have the basics swimming around in there; it just needs a little practice. I've been taking acting classes for fun, and played in Animal Farm. I've also been writing again, and started what may turn into a longer work, perhaps even a novel someday. I haven't been hanging out or talking with very many friends, which I'm not thrilled about, but I blame that on my withdrawal since coming back from India. I've gone to some concerts recently with my youngest brother and my girlfriend: Covenant, which was decent, and Project Pitchfork, which was awesome. Before that I saw Baby Venom a couple of times before they broke up. I've been trying to get into photography, but have not had much time. I've.... also been reading some.... analytic philosophy.... *shudder*....

Confessions of a Knife

I have not spent any of my recent time working with my fieldnotes, just looking for some gainful employment. I must confess, however, that I have been on several occasions since my return to the temples, and not without some blasphemous intentions.

Before I list my sins, shove some Žižek in your head; it's been bouncing around the blogs I read:

It is unlikely that the financial meltdown of 2008 will function as a blessing in disguise, the awakening from a dream, the sobering reminder that we live in the reality of global capitalism. It all depends on how it will be symbolised, on what ideological interpretation or story will impose itself and determine the general perception of the crisis. When the normal run of things is traumatically interrupted, the field is open for a ‘discursive’ ideological competition. In Germany in the late 1920s, Hitler won the competition to determine which narrative would explain the reasons for the crisis of the Weimar Republic and the way out of it; in France in 1940 Maréchal Pétain’s narrative won in the contest to find the reasons for the French defeat. Consequently, to put it in old-fashioned Marxist terms, the main task of the ruling ideology in the present crisis is to impose a narrative that will not put the blame for the meltdown on the global capitalist system as such, but on its deviations – lax regulation, the corruption of big financial institutions etc.

Having given myself a few days to readjust to the imperial mise-en-scène, I decided to pop in on a few friends at the local cinema. They suggested that I watch Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and I did... not for Kevin Smith's sake, but to shock myself back into local hipster culture. It was somewhat amusing but had Smith's telltale falsely honest relationships and characters smothered throughout. I left with the usual feeling: that I had been entertained, but betrayed and manipulated. People might say that the film should just be enjoyed; I say then you will walk away with unquestioned assumptions and a little duller for it. People might say that the relationships and characters in the film aren't meant to be honest, that they are exaggerated to the point of absurdity; I say that you have become too dull and must avoid popular culture for several months. In the meantime read Cassavetes on Cassavetes. Some might even say that the relationships and characters are honest... I don't know what I should say to you then; it is too late. I sound like a real jerk, don't I? I suppose it's just my anger at myself for watching bad film. And my militant training at the brutal, merciless hands of The Prince of Kings.