Going to Eleven: The Obligatory New Year's Resolutions Post

The Dormouse: You've got no right to grow here.

Alice: Don't talk nonsense. You know you're growing too.

The Dormouse: Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace, not in that ridiculous fashion.
Lewis Carroll

These go up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel, This is Spinal Tap

As I believe I said, or at least vaguely referred to (more likely), I don’t do the New Year’s thing. Nonetheless, to show my deep commitment to personal growth, I here present:

****Eleven New Year’s Resolutions****

1. To forget the lyrics to “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers.
2. To write the Great Southwestern Antarctican Novel.
3. To be the first postmaster general of the United States to unicycle to the top of Mount Everest wearing leiderhosen made of pancake flour.
4. To master new and original yoga poses like Inebriated Oxen Herd, Three Point Sweater, and Muppet Off His Meds (and, of course, to translate each of those into Sanskrit).
5. To eat my weight in zinc every morning, half my weight in artificial sweeteners every evening, and wake up to drink a third of my weight in melted styrofoam every half hour during the night.
6. To read Moby Dick aloud, unabridged, backwards, to an audience of millions, with live musical accompaniment by Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, and Ludwig Van Beethoven (performing simultaneously).
7. To end all international conflicts that aren’t likely to inspire good movies.
8. To invent the one device that will make the xylophone, zebra mussel, and cotton gin obsolete.
9. To experience photosynthesis and deep-fry myself.
10. To have my tonsils, adenoids, and appendix replaced with those of Werner Herzog, Alfonso Cuaron, and Pedro Almodovar, respectively.
11. To make the Venus de Milo smile.

The untold want by life and land ne’er granted,
Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find.
Walt Whitman

Hope, Joy, Misery, & Lindsay Lohan

The reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Mark Twain

Really Important Announcement: Yoga for Cynics is not coming to an end, despite any and all disdain expressed for the internet in that last post....I was talking about all the other crap on-line, consuming my precious time like a cat unhappily placed on a diet finding freshly baked key lime pie carelessly left within reach on a kitchen counter (and no, I’m not ticking away the precious hours looking at porn, as a commenter who will not be named so outrageously suggested—though, okay, maybe, after all that stuff about masturbation in the previous post, I had it coming) (no pun intended) (jeezus, getcher minds outta the gutter, people) (and of course I’m definitely not talking about any of the wonderful sites affiliated with the erudite, interesting and really, really good looking people who read this blog) (particularly not those of Lydia or Fancy Sweden, who’ve recently been kind enough to give me blog awards). (Listen, I check out important news, then hit links for less important news, then completely unimportant news, then stuff that really isn’t news at all, and then...basically, end up knowing way too much about Lindsay Lohan’s personal life, particularly since I’ve never even seen any of her movies) (oh wait...was she in Mean Girls? Okay, I saw that one...but my point stands). Anyway....

There’s this obscure Dylan song with even more obscure lyrics, each verse ending all I see are dark eyes...always seemed like one of those vague free association things with some good lines that didn’t really add up to anything...Dylan’s written a few of them...but then I read Chronicles: Volume 1 where he describes walking into a hotel lobby and seeing a call girl walking out with two black eyes...they tell me to be discreet, for all intended purposes, they tell me revenge is sweet, and from where they stand I’m sure it is, but I feel nothing for their game, where beauty goes unrecognized, all I feel is heat and flame, and all I see are dark eyes....

Did Beethoven write the 9th Symphony despite being deaf and lonely and old and washed up and all that? I’m inclined to think it was more because of it—not in some stupid romantic sense, fetishizing depression as a source of inspiration rather than something that deadens. No, more in the sense that, in such murky darkness, he had to find some amazing light if he was gonna live at all....

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, it is the wine of a new procreation, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for men and makes them drunk with the spirit.
Ludwig Van Beethoven

Thomas Jefferson famously cut up the New Testament to create what’s known as The Jefferson Bible or The Life and Morals of Jesus and Nazareth—essentially an Age of Reason holy book, portraying a moral philosopher, without all the miracles and such. I don’t think that was a bad idea, though it’s kinda like reading Moby Dick to learn about whaling. Then, I guess that’s how most people read it, anyway...seeing walking on the water as walking on the water, rather than a metaphor for hope—the impossible that sometimes isn’t....

Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

Rene Magritte, The Human Condition

Is it possible to plagiarize yourself? If so, we’re probably doing it constantly. I know I am...imitating myself, as well as being highly critical of what are often shoddy, dissolute, unconvincing performances. I am not, I’m afraid, anything like my own Tina Fey. Then, isn’t much of life little more than bad acting? And isn’t that understandable, with such nonsensical scripts? Like Liam Neeson playing a Jedi knight with a mullet more appropriate for a monster truck rally than inter-galactic combat, aren’t we simply working with what we’re given? People talk a lot about the importance of being yourself—from Polonius’ to thine own self be true to Mr. Rogers’ you’re special! to Monty Python’s “You’re all individuals!” “Yes! We’re all individuals!” to those lame-ass red and white Be You t-shirts for sale at the Boston University bookstore when I went there....so, whoever the hell you are, it’s obviously pretty damn important. I will not speak lightly of it. Trust me.

I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me. I know some people are terrified of the bomb. But then some people are terrified to be seen carrying a modern screen magazine. Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most.
Bob Dylan

A sudden death in the family is upsetting for lots of reasons, of course—a lot more than I’m about to go into here, and, anyway, to communicate any fraction of them effectively would be to tell the complete life stories of all involved, and even then there’d be countless unfillable holes in the plot...the conclusion in particular not making one lick of discernible sense...like if Moby Dick had ended while they were right in the midst of chasing the whale, or the closing credits started running on Gilligan’s Island while it still seemed like they might get off the island this week....All in all, it’s difficult to shake the idea that life isn’t a novel or sitcom, or anything else that might have any chance of obeying the narrative rules we try so hard to lay down....There are a lot of ends, but few satisfying conclusions, and more perfect comebacks are spoken in a single Oscar Wilde play than you’re likely to manage in your entire life....