Daily Batman: Every one is a moon

via.

Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

(Mark Twain.)

Burroughs Month: Man is designed for space travel

Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.

Postulate that there is no privacy and no deceit possible in space: Your innermost thoughts, feelings and intentions are immediately apparent to those around you. So you want to be careful who is around you.

(William S. Burroughs. The Adding Machine: Selected Essays. New York: Arcade, 1993. p. 85.)

I did a lot of Burroughs reading in October to get all primed for the take-two of Burroughs month this November, and one of my favorite pieces from The Adding Machine was this little gem. I plan to share more later this week, about shit-spotting. But as far as this excerpt goes, I drew a lonely and ugly conclusion from the parameters of Burroughs’ postulate in this passage: if there is no privacy in space, I would not want to go.

Astronomy Domine by pequeñísimo ser on the flickr.

If that’s part of the rules, that I can be in space but people can read my thoughts and my feelings? My first instinct in the face of that stricture would be to reject the chance of space travel, which is something that I have wanted to do my whole life, to the point that I mist up when I think about how I’m getting too old to ever be approved to colonize the moon, which means giving up on my dream of making love on the lawn in my terraformed backyard by Earthlight (the most beautiful thing possible — just think about it), yet here I am saying “no-go” to space travel if it means tipping my hand about all my secret romantic notions. That is crazy. I need to work on tearing down some of my walls.

PSA: Talking politics socially

PSA: It was actually once considered rude to hound people about political issues instead of letting them make private, independent, informed voter choices and not descend in to pointless partisan debate (which often eclipses the issues entirely, creating ever-greater time-and-breath-waste) even and especially with people you claim to call friends. A high level of closeness was required before sailing in to such conversational and public discursive waters, once upon a time. We did not post bulletins and douchey status updates about it, even. Did You Know? Oh, the bygone era of manners.

Via comicallyvintage on the tumblr.

Damn, gorilla! You ain’t got to get punchy. A simple “I disagree” would’ve probably sufficed. But that’s how it is today. Keep your elbows out and your powder dry, kids.

Yeah

I’m aware of the significance of the date and all, I just think it’s really jacked up to write about it and make it about yourself. Some stuff is private. I have things scheduled for today that will go up as planned, and that’s that. It is classless to publically air a grief that is still resonant and personal to so many people in their most secret and deeply affected private hearts. Put out an emotional flag to the people who remember every single day when they look at an empty chair at the table, and let’s not make a poor-tasting production of this, okay?