Gwen ap None

 

Memento 3000

 

NYE RIP MF D00M

 Nothing is fiction. 

Amour, luxure, et louve à Londres

           

London- Sunday,Twentieth of September 1888 late evening. An electric haze pushes ahead of a storm and oppresses the grit and smog of industry. The residue of the day’s labours lingers in a thin grey slurry amid the humidity and calf of pedestrian Londoners out on their evening stroll. The cooler night air helped to disperse the phantom mist as one steps through the evening streets. Lithe misty fingers caress the bare feet and ankle of a black beauty as she loiters outside the front door of a shabby wood and brick apartment building. Across the way, a dark silhouette protrudes from a wooden door frame and ushers in a small group of huddled women; the poorhouse was collecting the last of the damned for the evening, before locking their doors and barring their windows against the new evils of the night.

Louve pull herself from her leaning post against an alleyway brick wall and pushed her thick curly hair from her shoulder. She let the rough brick scrape against her bare shoulder and drew the most cowardly amount of blood. Smarting falsely overy her abrasion she pull her burgundy shawl over her shoulder and play with one of the tassel on her way across the slick cobblestone and through the spiked wrought iron fence that surrounded the Red Dragon Pub. The garden was overgrown and the path becoming muddy as the heavens, brought in on a north Atlantic wind began to spill forth from the coal fueled clouds. Louve pulled her shawl over her hair.The dirty drops of rain shone red with the light of the gaslight torches posted along the walk.

She had been in London for two nights and had accommodation with her cousins and a troupe of acrobatic performers. Romani were beginning to take blame for the political and  horrors that has begun to plague Whitechapel and the greater London. Ripping sexual murders and leaping demons that spit Bleu flame had begun to plague Britons outside of their Sunday morning declarations of impiety. She couldn’t deny a certain fascination with the idea of a human hunting other humans’ and wondered at the artistic exploits of the serial murder. Louve’s decision to come to England was made by her own will before her father asked after reading correspondence from his brother asking for an undisclosed family heirloom. She delivered the parcel and dare not peek, for risk of ruining a perfect mystery. Her father’s brother; Claudio, her aunts’ and cousins, would escape the unrest in the Kingdom and take refuge across the Atlantic with famille ancestral, Maicoh.  

Louve had been to London ages ago. She held no love for the English, but their cities that seemed to churn and sprawl out from within their municipal navels always interested her. In childhood visits to London she had imagined that she might have been able to slip and turn her way through those streets until at last she came upon the center of the city, a Mobius twist of brick and iron that might have served as the back of Alice’s mirror to Wonderland in her favorite book. She’d untie that knot and unite civilization.

    Earlier the day had been cool and as her family loaded their belongings onto their wagon and cart Louve could smell the change in atmosphere that accompanies the end of Summer. Autumn would be here in the morning and the less time she spent this far north in the autumn the better. Parisian fall held its own chill but, also its own charm. A few weeks from now Louve would be enjoying the warmth of the country as the chill of the season was much more tolerable tucked away in estate at L’Eau Morte.

    Louve had thought to entertain herself at the Red Dragon and might catch a bite to eat if she felt a hunger. As she had an evening to kill before her voyage home and her Uncle and family left for their ship to America leaving her a furnished den if she so wanted an apartment for the night. The remaining acrobats left for east Wales the night Louve arrived. The thought of indulging herself with a hotel never crossed her mind. She was off any familial leash and would indulge herself until her dawn treadding departure.

    Instinct and infrasound guided Louve as she pranced through the dark, slick streets. Large black umbrellas coupled lovers as they walked briskly towards their destinations and away from the looming storm. Thunder chuffed and quietly thrashed as dark clouds lit internally with violet and white hearts. The last heat of summer rolled through the city square. Louve felt some internal indecisiveness she hadn’t noticed earlier, patter itself away with the light touch of her feet to the wet concrete and cobblestone. Ozone filled her nostrils and prickled her arms and neck. She inhaled deeply and forgave herself any illusion of shame about her appetites.

Her prance broke into a dance as she allowed her senses to be overcome by the smell of London in the rain. She smirked at her quick thinking and tied her red shawl as a sash around her waist before losing it as she lost herself. A peal of thunder shook windows as lighting spread from somewhere and everywhere at once. The streets emptied of inhabitants. Beneath the smell of coal and summer came the sweet scent of grapes and mint wafting for a moment from behind a wooden fence. Louve allowed herself to slowly linger on the scent. She could imagine a woman's lips, wet with rain and sweat, biting into a full grape and rolling the seeds between her teeth. Not a woman, a man. The slight scent of moustache wax and the sickly sweet scent of aftershave and antiseptic infused the sweet aroma of the grape and caused a slight roll in her stomach.

A woman’s laugh slightly muffled by the rain although Louve could hear it just fine. On her laugh the fresh scent of mint. Louve felt a flush of warmth in her pelvis. She had a change of clothes with her luggage at her cousin’s apartment, she wasn’t concerned with soiling or otherwise ruining her cloths. A swell of heat rose up her neck and into her jaw, cramping there for a moment before reddining her cheeks and forehead. Her dark eyes became pools of blackwater in the wet orange gaslight. She had her father’s eyes and they burned with a dark fire as his did. Louve inhaled deeply and allowed her jaw to relax into her chest and her chest into her stomach and her stomach into her pelvis and legs. She drew herself up and quickly turned, gripping the gate pulling the wet rope handle the rotting wood squeaked and creaked just as a mint flavored cry was muffled by leather gloves. The wind picked up and lifted the scent of wet iron to Louve’s tongue. Blood. She had guessed correctly, the Ripper, it must be. She pulled back the gate violently and allowed her eyes to focus past the heavy rain. The filthy rain blurred her vision and she could only barely make out the grey silhouette that slunk from the shadows and through an adjacent wooden gate and into an alley.

Louve moved quickly to the mint and iron lying face down in a puddle of rain and bright red blood. The scent of blood and sweat and metallic taste of adrenaline filled her sinus. For a moment Louve felt the intoxication of murder and still found irony in her not being responsible for. Another creaking gate and an inquiring shadow leans towards the courtyard from the safety of the shadows. Must have heard the struggle and the woman’s yipe. Louve vaults towards her entrance and doubled back around the courtyard in the direction of her mystery hunter. Louve headed south-west from Berner Street towards the City of London.

The disgusting rain was making the scent of the grapes and adrenaline hard to follow. Louve had begin to feel the soot and sediment on her skin and in her hair. She began to silently curse her indifference towards renting a hotel. Forgetting herself in her tortured imaginings about a hot bath, Louve took a moment to press herself into a stone archway to collect her bearings. Three miles south and across the river, Big Ben chimed the half hour. Louve closed her eyes and let the tinny resonance reverberate in her. She inhaled deeply and let go of all impulse to run, catch and … there! Grapes. Louve thought of a hilarious joke about Dionysus and threw herself into a sprint towards he faint scent.  

The rain fell in great sheets. Louve ran and barely suppressed a laugh as running in the rain had always been a joy for her, but she cared more for the filthy rainwater that she might swallow. Still her eyes flashed with the wild joy that knows both hatred and loves as one emotion. The streets flew by her as she closed in on the source of the scent. George Street. Jewry Street. Bank, Church and King. Louve slowly made her way past St James and into Mitre Square. There to the south west. Her hunter had corralled another of his prey. Lovue could not hide herself any longer. The scent of grapes and blood overwhelmed her. Her ears beat with the rhythm of a heavy drum and her vision began to blur and sting as her eyes adjusted to the low light of infra red. She could see much more clearly into the depth of the rain. Her mystery gentleman was no longer a shade but a robust gentleman with a fine jaw, thick curly black hair and a well groomed moustache. He was smiling at what appeared, to Louve, to be a whore. She felt a sting of anger to think of such a worthy human lowering himself to smile at such a woman, But, she realized he was not smiling, but rather snarling. Her love. Her Adamant.

She opened her stride and allowed her limbs to shake off their human weakness. Her chest heaved and flushed bright red. The Ripper lunged at his prey and grabbed her mouth with a gloved hand before punching her in the stomach. Louve jutted her chin forward and sighed loudly. The woman doubled over and dropped to the ground. Louve could smell her urine. The Ripper caught the shape of Louve moving towards him in the pouring rain. He could hear her whimper as he turned he could see her more clearly. Steam rose off her thigh as her wet legs slipped from her clothing. Her delicate hands stretched out towards him with hungry arms. With a wet sigh the furrow of concentration fell from her brow as her jaw unhinged and thick black hair sprouted from her chest and neck.

The Ripper shrieked and fell backwards over his intended prey. He scrambled like a bug across the courtyard his lips moving of their own accord and the sound he made was so foreign he wondered if he was even hearing it. His blade scraped the concrete. Louve stopped and watched him with a mixture of confusion and amusement. She wouldn’t think him a coward for this. She knew that they would laugh about this later. Of course she would apologise. Maybe. She felt inspired and knew that she must make a display of affection. Louve turned her shoulder forward and felt her hip pop, snap, crunch into place. A searing flush of blood and spinal fluid filled her brain with sensation. She could smell fear and urine and blood and grapes. Louve reached down and delicately lifted the woman by the neck.

The woman squirmed and thrashed with a strength that she might not have possessed against a human assailant. Louve quickly slashed her throat from left to right and gave her a moment to struggle and bleed before flicking off a cheek here and a nose there in an attempt to influence her lover. The wildfire eyes of the werewolf searched the Ripper for any impression. To her disappointment she found only the gaping fear of a terrorized child. Louve felt a burning shame and thought of the phantom jib and mockery she would endure if any of her sisters were to ever hear of this.

Louve burned with rage and humiliation. She snarled at the Ripper. Her mouth washed with adrenaline and saliva. Six inch claws drew deeply across the abdomen of the woman. Her intestines began to fall as Louve advanced quickly on the Ripper and thrust the woman towards him as an older sibling might builly a younger one with a rag doll. Louve snarled into the face that she had once wanted to kiss between all night conversations. She began to draw out the woman’s intestines and drape them over her shoulder. The Ripper shuddered in horror and began to whine loudly in a maddening way that made Louve feel both pity and disgust for him. He was crying now. Sniveling and moments from begging for his life. As if looking past the clouds of hate that stormed in her mind, the Ripper blubbered for a moment before losing himself and wailing aloud; “Mother!”

She had had enough. She reached inside the woman and with deft precision clipped away with her claws and seized thick layers of flesh and pulled. A wet snap and a geyser of thick blood filled the Ripper’s senses a moment before the beast was pushing something into his mouth. He gagged and cried and screamed a long muffled cry against the night and the storm and the horrors he wrought for himself. Collapsed into a slobbering heap. Gagging on flesh and apologizing to phantoms. Louve plucked a kidney from the rag doll and tossed the corpse onto the Ripper. The kidney grunched in her terrible teeth as she allowed herself one last disappointed look before turning towards the night.

Suddenly from behind her the Ripper made a gasping sound that built into a scream. Loud gasping screams turned into flat panels of sonic resistance. It was as if he meant to repel her with only his voice. She could hear the shaky courage of a fool too late to his own salvation. As she turned to lift his head, a shrill whistle split the night and the clang and clamor of police brambled their way. The Ripper scrambled north. Louve thought to follow and end him but knew she had already done herself too much trouble for the night. She slipped away into the night allowing the storm to envelope her as she deftly darted through streets and alleys until she was safely back in the dry den her family had left her.

Louve slept beside the fire and after a few hours rose, dressed and was on her way to the docks via the carriage she had arranged the afternoon before. Before the pink light of dawn has reddened and began its’ shift to orange, the boat was already steaming its way past the Strait of Dover and towards St. Nazarene. From there the carriage home and dinner with her father. After formalities she would excuse herself to the country and maybe even write her cousin in Rome about visiting later in the season. Maybe next season. It mattered not. Through the voyage Louve stayed below deck, in her room, in bed and sulked at the sting lust had left when masquerading as love.  

                   

Fin. 2019

Vajra Douglass

                 

“Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself,” qualifies as a slave narrative. More So it qualifies as a testament to the only force capable of liberating an individual from bondage, an education. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, details the courageous journey of; Frederick Douglass, a man born a slave in 1818 and before his death in 1895 he would educate himself and work tirelessly for the abolition of slavery in America. Seeing slavery end in 1865 Douglass wrote for the liberation of women and the standard of freedom and liberty for all individuals.

Douglass was relocated from a plantation to the urban center of Baltimore where he lived as a slave in a house. In his new home young Douglass was taught the basics of reading by the mistress of the house, a woman named Sophia, which lucky for young Douglass, means Wisdom. In his first book Douglass recounts meeting Sophia for the first time. “My new mistress to prove to be all she appeared when I first met her at the door, a woman of the kindest heart and finest feelings should never have a sleeve under her control previously to myself, and prior to her marriage she had been dependent on her own industry for a living. She was by trade a weaver; and buy a constant application of her business, she had been in a good degree preserved from the dehumanizing effect of slavery… her face was made of heavenly smile’s, and her voice of tranquil music.” (Works in an Anthology 1185)

    Sophia was scolded by her husband for attempting to educate young Douglass. The point was made clear that if Douglass was educated it would forever ruin his ability to be enslaved. Sophia had been poisoned against him and the sting of that loss burned young Douglass. From then on Sophia had turned against the boy and would admonish him cruelly for attempting to read or educate himself. “But alas! This kind heart had a short time to remain such. The fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, in soon commenced it’s infernal work. “(Works in an Anthology 1185) Douglass knew that there would never again be the kind offering of education in his home. He had had a moments fleeting glimpse into the freedom that education provided. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I least expected it.” (Works in an Anthology 1186) Showing uncanny resolve for a child, Douglass set himself to following the crumbs fortune and fate were graciously leaving him.

    Educating himself could be his only concern. It was his mind that needed to grow wings not his body if he was to ever be free and able to pursue a life of liberty and success. It is this which shows the most important of the journey Douglass made from slave to freeman and what accounts most to qualify his narrative as a great American epic of liberation and as a literary slave epic. If Douglass were emancipated by luck or by simply being liberated from bondage by the success of the abolitionist movement. Frederick Douglass wrought an education out of any instance or source he could. His education is the qualifying aspect of his successful liberation from slavery. “From that moment I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom..Will stay I was saddened by the thought of losing my kind mistress, I was gladden by the invaluable instructions which... I had gained from my master. So conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I said I was high hopes, and a fix purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read.(Works in an Anthology 1186) Reading, the ability to decipher one of man’s oldest and best guarded technologies. Technology has always been used against the underclass and the minoritized peoples throughout history. The pocket watch was used by foremen during the industrial revolution to steal hours away from workers lives, simply because they didn’t have the technology to establish time themselves. Douglass treated reading as proper technology and changed the history of a nation with it.

Ironically it was the fearful manner in which Mr. Hughs, the master of Douglass’ house, spoke to Sophia that alerted young Douglass to the importance of learning to read and write. “The very decided manner with which he spoke, and she drove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, serve to convince me....It gave me the best assurance that I may rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read.” (Works in an Anthology 1186) Had Mr. Hughes been a bit more cool and coy he might have not ignited the flame of learning in the heart of America’s greatest student. “What he dreaded most, that I most desired.  What he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, was to me a great good, to be diligently sought, any argument which he so warmly urged, against my learning to read, only serve to inspire me with the desire and determination to learn. And learning to read, I owe almost as much to the better opposition of my master, as to the kindly eight of my mistress. I acknowledge the benefit of both.” (Works in an Anthology 1186) Here Douglass shows the true depth of his genius. Frederick Douglass made teachers out of everyone he met, not just those that might be kindly towards him.

Showing a balance of mind that many simply don’t possess, Douglass forgave Sophia and in doing so further detailed his time and life living in the Hugh residence. This time spent there would ultimately culminate in his self administered education. “I lived ...Hughes family about seven years. During this time...I was compelled to resort to very stratagems. I had no regular teacher. My mistress...had, in compliance...had set her face against my being instructed by anyone else... however to my mistress to save her, that she did not adopt this course of treatment immediately. She at first laugh of the depravity and indispensable to shutting me into mental darkness.” (Works in an Anthology 1187) Douglass gives a critical insight into the life of developing cruelty and evil as he spares Sophia the shame of being a mindless wife in the thrall of her husband and allows her the time and temperament to develop into someone who would deprive a child of an education.  It was at least necessary for her to have some training in the exercise of irresponsible power, to make her equal to the task of treating me as though I were a brute.” (Works in an Anthology 1187) Douglass was very aware of the processes and transformations that affected Sophia. He showed amazing compassion for his fall from grace.

In this warning to those that would indulge evil and enslave the will of another, Douglass wrote about the physical and emotional changes that plagued Sophia. He watched those evils and ills return to her once kindly and beautiful self. “Slavery proved his injuries to her as it did to me. When I went there, she was at pious, warm, and tender hearted woman. There was no sorrow or suffering for which she had not a tear. She had bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every little mortal that came within her reach. Slavery soon prove its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities.… The first step in her downward course was in her ceasing to instruct me. She...commence to practice her husbands precepts. She finally became even more violent and her opposition that her husband himself… Nothing seem to make her more angry than seeing me with a newspaper… I have had her rush at me with a face made all of fury, and snatch from me a newspaper, in a manner that revealed her apprehension.“(Works in an Anthology 1187) Sophia, once beauty and wisdom had been twisted and perverted into a cruel mistress, full of fear and illness. Without a teacher and with limited and brief access to reading materials Douglass could not practice the technology and would not be able to master it and drive his liberty to freedom.

Despite their attempts at quelling the fire within Douglass’ heart, his will proved too great and in turn illuminated his mind to newer and much more clever plots to obtain his education. “ ...all this, however was too late. The first step had been taken. Mistress, and teaching me the alphabet, hey give me the inch in a precaution could prevent me from taking the ell. The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, what is that of making friends with all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers and with their kindly aid obtain a different times in different places, I finally succeeded in learning to read. “ (Works in an Anthology 1187-1188) These unsupervised childhood ramblings became culture and classroom to young Douglass. Here he was able to finally obtain the skills he needed, but he still needed some bait if he was going to be a successful fisher of men.

Douglass knew that the days of starvation were at least temporarily suspended. “ I used to also carry bread with me, enough of which was always in the house, and to which I was always welcome; if I was much better off in this regard than many of the poor white children in our neighborhood...the hungry little urchins, who, in return, would give me the more valuable bread of knowledge.” (Works in an Anthology 1188) Feeding these children gave him both knowledge and  friendship. He was paying for his education himself, but he was also developing relationships with children of other races and social classes. An important fact that Douglass reflected on. “I used to talk this matter of slavery over with them. You will get to be free as soon as you are twenty-one, but I am a slave for life! Have no I has good a right to be free as you have? These words use the trouble of them; they would express for me the liveliest sympathy, and consoled me with the hope that something would occur by which I might be free.” ( Works in an Anthology 1188) Douglass stops short of naming the children, who would by then be adults, but might expose them or their families to violence.

Frederick Douglass and his novel; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, deserves to be regarded as a slavery epic because it not only fulfills the plot requirements of those great tales, but more importantly gives the key element required for anyone to be truly free, and education and the will to use it.  

Emerson - Self Reliance

Ralph Waldo Emerson lived for his search of himself in the archetypical reflection he saw in Nature. Emerson knee that in order for the Individual to manifest themselves against the static background of the Group? They must attune their heart string to the proper chord. “To believe your own thought, to believe that is what is true for you and your private heart, is true for all men, that is genius...for always the innermost becomes the outmost-and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpet of the last judgment.“(Works in an Anthology 236) Genius is presented here as a by product of individual tuning of the heart. Recognizing the genius within ourselves requires our recognition of genius and individuality of all others.

How does one recon use when they’ve been illuminated by divine inspiration? The inspiration of genius should both thrill and chill the individual. Genius will take away the quiet life of resignation and desperation that were very apt to grow not only comfortable with l, but protective of. The illusion of the world requires one to be asleep, to Dream. Easy vigilance is required to capture lighting in a bottle. “A man should learn to detect and watch the gleam of light which flash to the cross his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he didn’t dismiss is without notice this thought, because it is his. And every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts, they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.” (Works in an Anthology 236) This flash of light across the mind is of course inspiration. The Jeffersonian adage about inspiration and perspiration still holds court. Genius requires inspiration but also the fires of action, doing something with inspiration lest it become so many awe inspiring, but forgotten dazzle of invisible lighting.

This evaluation of inspiration must adhere to the logic that your internal compass is as valuable as the laws and regulation of the world at large. So long as you aren’t causing undue suffering, your hearts logic is sound.  “Trust I self: every heartbreak every heart vibrates to the iron string. Except the place the divine providence is found for you; the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so and confide in themselves childlike to the genius of their age, which ring the perception that the eternal was staring in their heart, working through their hands, we’re dominating in all they’re being. And we are now man, and must except in the highest mine the same transcendent destiny; and not pinch in the corner that cowards fling before revolution, but redeemers and benefactors, piois “Trust I self: every heartbreak every heart vibrates to that iron string. Except the place the divine providence is found for you; the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so and confide in themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying the perception that the eternal was stirring in their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all they’re being. And we are now men, and must except in the highest mine the same transcendent destiny; and not pinch in the corner that cowards fling before revolution, but redeemers and benefactors, pious aspirants to be noble clay plastic under the Almighty effort, let us advance and advance and Chaos and the Dark.” (Works in an Anthology 237) Emerson illuminates the individuals position as a star in a sea of darkness. The efforts of the inspired and enlightened individual must be anchored in the human responsibility to shine the way for others. This responsibility and the efforts towards maintaining the tension of responsibility is the lynchpin of Emerson’s American Individual.

The American, the individual amongst groups, must be able to stand alone against the tide of popular opinion. “Who so would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather in mortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is it last a secret but the integrity of our own buying. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have to suf whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather in mortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is that last sacred but the integrity our own buying. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.” (Works in an Anthology 238) To quote South American poet Fernando Pessoa, an acolyte of Whitman; Abdicate and become King of yourself.” The American Individual is culpable to society and their groups, but the individual knows in their heart that they ultimately answer to themselves regardless of the acclaim or distain leveled by society. Often the individual must take refuge within nature to feel internally for oneself without the distraction of the urbane & profane to distract them. Refuge from civilization. Refuge from the harsh successes of society.

Society though was the greatest obstacle to Emerson. Man too refuge from himself in the burrows of society. They, social man, are able to criticise and label based on the perceived virtue of their tenuous grip on civility and civics. Emerson would gladly play antiChrist to these false pious.  “they do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the devil child, I will live then from the devil. No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature good and bad I butt name is very readily transferred to this or that; the only right is what is after by constitution, really wrong is what it is against it a man is to carry him himself in the presence of all opposition as if everything were titular and ephemeral but he.” (Works in an Anthology 238) Emerson knew that God dwelt in the center of the individual, not the center of the town nor the center of the Church. Emerson understood that all the symbols of society would attempt to cow and shame the Individual into bowing out of their marathon towards individual freedom. “I am a shame to think how easily we are capitulate to badges and names to large societies and dead institutions. “(Works in an Anthology 238) Society would use the various groups that a once virtuous society accumulated and organized to protect itself. Those protection would now serve the dead in spirit that reside in the chambers of power.

To deal with these living dead, Emerson tackled the problem of being good and dealing with relative evil; “Your goodness must have some edge to it else it is not the doctrine of hate must be preached as a counterence of the doctrine of love when it pules and wines.” (Works in an Anthology 239) Hate as a weapon against poisoned love. The alchemical balance still is not settled and the good have to wield the icy flame of hate to cut through the vulgar masses once they encroach on goodness and the virtue of individuality. But, how does one know if they are, as they believe they are. How is this idea of individuality not insanity, as the Old World, the orthodox world, would have us believe? Emerson again sought that refuge within himself and not without. If he was not harming himself or others then his judgment was sound enough to make logic out of. “... I actually am, and do not needed for my own insurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.  “ (Works in an Anthology 239) Am I? Emerson felt that answer could only be found within. To find that undeniable aspect of individuality is to find it within everyone you meet. For Emerson this wasn’t identity, which could be exchanged as commodity, but the intrinsic value of individual existence. It is this internalized ideal that we ought to strive towards. Becoming that ideal we become our true self, free of the hang ups of identity and liberated from the profane compromises required of society.

Levine, Robert S. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. W. W. Norton & Company., 2017.

Aporia Suit; Blackstar- Gatsby84

Blackstar- Gatsby84

Jay Gatz developed the persona Gatsby in 1907, the same year the Chicago Cubs first won the World Series., while living with Dany Cody and Cody’s woman. Not much is known about the arrangements between those individuals or couplets, except that after Dan Cody, the wealthy financier and philanthropist, had intended an inheritance for Gatsby that was duplicity acquired by a romantic liaison in Cody’s life. Gatsby learned the Marxist-Thoreau-ean lessons about taking care of your economic and physical realities before success and freedom can be attempted. There after he had to rebuild his lost fortune and resorted to working with a criminal underground that was so expansive and powerful that they managed to fix the 1919 World Series. With his economic success satisfied he was again free to pursue his search for a salve for his Romantic loss.

Winston Smith of 1984, had no choice in his conversion in ideology. The world had already moved onto franchised Marxism as a means of sustaining the massive global war that raged ( or didn’t ) during Winston’s lifetime. Marx was famously resistant to the rapid success that Marxism was accumulating during the 19th century in Europe. He felt that it was happening too quickly and without the consent of the proletariat which would spell its’ political and social doom. In much the same way the Inner Party, the ruling caste in the novel 1984 forced their ascetic way of living onto others under the threat of violence. This was accomplished with political inquisition rather than through natural social conversion, which Marx had warned against.

Educated in the economics of his material situation Winston had accumulated enough free time and capital to purchase his journal, which acted as a catalyst for his ideological rebirth and simultaneously his act of rebellion against his masters. The act of writing and his strong emotions towards his Juliet, was the birth of Winston’s Negative Green ideology, his birth of individuality. Winston often dreamed of his late mother. Lacan would surely see that Winston is yearning to be merged again with the Illusionary Order. Having met his economic needs Winston begins to rebuild his lost ideologies. Having memories of life before the war, Winston was undoubtedly influenced by European Transcendentalists and behaves as he does towards his society because of these forgotten beliefs. Using these fragments of memory and following his intuition and creativity, Winston listens to the tone of his heart string and wanders into the prole section where he finds the journal in a junk shop that he will use to pen his rebellion and manifest his Platonic Ideal of himself.

Jay Gatsby and Winston Smith, two individuals struggling between ideology that has been imposed upon them and the one rooted deep within their hearts. The tension between the two lends strength to each of their struggles and forms the etheric membrane that the dream; Ahlam, manifest from. Winston is eventually able to comprehend how truth is less tangible than he once believed and was allowed a glimpse into the gaping maw of reality. Although Winston loses his sense of Individuality during his ideological conversion therapy, he is allowed to see the hand of Power as it drew back the veil of illusion and gave Winston a glimpse of a world without the boundaries placed by ideology. 2=2+5, pure magic, belief and dream. It is ideology that makes anything in life seemingly concrete. Winston began his dream amongst the Delphic vapors of Big Brotherly love.

Gatsby was stripped of his ahlam as was shown when, having arrived on the event horizon of his wildest dreams, he wore his pink suit. Pink is the hue of left after Green light has been removed from White light. In physics this is known as Negative Green. Negative Green, or pink, or even grey, represents all the other types of radiation beyond the visible spectrum of light. In this ideological grey area, Gatsby’s suit was his fiction suit, his apparatus for surfacing from his extended stay in the depths of lucidity and dream. The pink light emanating from Daisy’s bedroom completed the cyclical lock that forever bade Gatsby from reentering his dream world. The thrill is gone, the thrill has gone away.

Winston and Gatsby struggle with and against ideological powers beyond their comprehension. Not to say that their ultimate ends would be much different than what they would be, but if they had a deeper understanding of their conflicting ideologies they may have been able to save themselves from the tragic circumstances surrounding their demise. Both men set out to separate themselves from their circumstances, but without the proper ideological economy that would support and guide them. Instead each individual dissolves in the solvent of love and forever lose themselves.

Aporia & Ahlam

Late to the Party

Rest in Peace Stan the Man. I'd heard they were stealing your blood to be mixed with ink and stamped on comics for profit. In the end you showed us that monsters were real, and some looked like people and some tried to be human. Say hi to Jack for us.
Excelsior!