-Goethe
Part 1 A hearty breakfast
If it cannot break its egg’s shell, a chick will die without being born. We are the chick. The world is our egg. If we don’t crack the world’s shell, we will die without being born. Smash the world’s shell! For the revolution of the world!
Part 2 East vs West
Followers of Shinto, unlike Judeo-Christian monotheists and the Greeks before them, do not believe that humans are particularly “special.” Instead, there are spirits in everything, rather like the Force in Star Wars. Nature doesn’t belong to us, we belong to Nature, and spirits live in everything, including rocks, tools, homes, and even empty spaces.
The West, the professor contended, has a problem with the idea of things having spirits and feels that anthropomorphism, the attribution of human-like attributes to things or animals, is childish, primitive, or even bad. He argued that the Luddites who smashed the automated looms that were eliminating their jobs in the 19th century were an example of that, and for contrast he showed an image of a Japanese robot in a factory wearing a cap, having a name and being treated like a colleague rather than a creepy enemy.
The general idea that Japanese accept robots far more easily than Westerners is fairly common these days.
Part 3 Sex, but there’s a winner
I cut Mr. Leeds’s throat as he lay asleep beside his wife. I shoot Mrs. Leeds. The bullet enters to the right of her navel and lodges in her lumbar spine. But she will die of strangulation. Mr. Leeds rises, with his throat cut, and tries to protect the children. I shoot one of the two boys in bed. The other boy I drag out from under his bed and shoot him on the floor. All of them are dead, except possibly Mrs. Leeds. The smashing of mirrors begins.
I moved the family after they were dead and then put them back the way they were when I killed them. I wanted them to watch. Talcum powder on the body… but there was none in the house… I have to touch her.
This is my design.
Part 4 World enough and time
The word psychogeography, suggested by an illiterate Kabyle as a general term for the phenomena a few of us were investigating around the summer of 1953, is not too inappropriate. It does not contradict the materialist perspective of the conditioning of life and thought by objective nature. Geography, for example, deals with the determinant action of general natural forces, such as soil composition or climatic conditions, on the economic structures of a society, and thus on the corresponding conception that such a society can have of the world. Psychogeography could set for itself the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals. The adjective psychogeographical, retaining a rather pleasing vagueness, can thus be applied to the findings arrived at by this type of investigation, to their influence on human feelings, and even more generally to any situation or conduct that seems to reflect the same spirit of discovery.
Part 5 Parker’s life was so much darker than the book I read.
Ever since I've ever heard music, I thought it should be very clean, very precise - as clean as possible, anyway, and more or less tuned to people. Something they could understand, something that was beautiful, you know?
I became bitter, hard, cold. I was always on a panic - couldn't buy clothes or a good place to live.
They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.
Music is basically melody, harmony, and rhythm. But people can do much more with music than that. It can be very descriptive in all kinds of ways, all walks of life.
I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn't play it. I'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used. I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing.
Part 6 How much is that doggy in the window?
Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark!
Part 7 And miracles happen.
The dream I had yesterday and today.
The happy and mundane world will vent their anger.
The dreams will grow and grow. Let's grow the tree that blooms money.
It's most valuable while it's still a bud.
That's right, so we shall preserve the memory forever.
If there is no flower, there will be no fruit.
If there's nothing, then I won't do anything.
If you're unhappy, please put a vote in this eyeball.
Who would give up this throne?
I am the emperor, chosen by the lord himself!
I didn't choose you! I didn't choose you!
God and Buddha will change religions.
The happy and mundane world will vent their anger.
Part 8 Gliding all over
Now, now! Let's keep it together! Our memories of Rose can't be tainted by some overgrown brambles! *chuckles* Look at them. They're a mess without her guidance. Directionless, pathetic, clinging things. It's going to be okay, Garnet!
Part 9 My name is Earl
This is exactly what my luck is like! No choice—no traction—no control! When I really try my best—I win! If I don’t try at all, I still win! I’m carefree? Haha! Sure! Nothing I do matters—so why should I care?! Hahaha! I never have my feet on the ground? What else do you expect… when I’m in free fall!
I love my luck! I don’t have to work, it keeps me safe and rested and well fed… It’s just that, in the long run—people don’t see me, they only see my luck. I’m not a person, I’m a resource. You were right… Uncle Scrooge sent you and Fethry here ‘cause he trusts you. He sent me ‘cause he trusts my luck. But- I don’t tell it what to do: it just happens all the same… an’ I don’t mind that. I don’t mind, but… sometimes I just wonder… what’s the point of me? Everybody wants my luck… but nobody want-
Part 10 The fun will never end.
Man, don’t you know? Laws ain’t made to help earthy cats like us. Listen, here on our planet, back in the old days, back in the real old days, it was just every man for his self. Screwnlin and scratch-scrobling for the good stuff, the greenest valleys and scrat scroblin. And the strongest, meanest men got the best stuff. They got the greenest valleys and they were like “The rest of you, y’all scrats gets sand.” And that’s when they made the laws, you see. Once the strong guys got it how they liked, they said “This is fair now, this is the law.” Once they were winnin’, they changed the rules up.
Part 11 I pity the fool
Know naught!
All ways are lawful to innocence.
Pure folly is the key to initiation.
Silence breaks into rapture.
Be neither man nor woman, but both in one.
Be silent, babe in the egg of blue, that thou
Mayest grow to bear lance and graal!
Wander alone, and sing! In the king’s palace
His daughter awaits thee.
Part 12 This is a true story
At the time of this writing, I am owed $200 by 2Leaf Press for editorial work I did. While the majority of work done for 2Leaf Press was done on the understanding that I would not be paid due to it being an internship, the book “Substance of Fire” received an uncredited edit by me in exchange for the payment of $200. I signed no NDA in regards to this work, not even a verbal one. By the time you have read this, it will have been roughly two years since I’ve been owed that money and it remains unpaid. Should the money be paid in between now (11/1/19) and when I presume this will be posted, I will update this section to indicate that the money has been paid for.
Part 13 Heartbreaker
“Comics will break your heart.”
Does anyone here know who said that? It was Jack Kirby. Does anyone know who Jack Kirby was?
Ah, good. I see some hands. That’s good. Heartwarming, almost. Why did Jack Kirby say such a thing? Why would the man who believed that his chosen art form was a perfect way to both entertain and bring worthy journalism to the masses, the man who fought in the second world war and came back, the man whose creative ethic still stands unrivaled…Denounce the very art form he worshiped for decades?
Business. That’s why.
When art and business intersect in an accelerated—and still accelerating—world, the victims are many and the attention to their suffering is brief, because, as the key lie of the past century goes, “Time is money.” We built whole centuries, whole civilizations… on a tired premise posited by Benjamin Franklin proclaiming that time can be measured, that human activity can be measured…imposes an overwhelming sense of false order on all that is human. Of course, we don’t stop there. We also try to impose order on nature, and look—it is not yielding to us! Chaos does not bow to anyone! Be it our own, or the nature’s Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow! Crack nature’s moulds, an Germens spill at once, that make ingrateful man!
The business grows and as it grows it needs factories. Cities are factories now. For example—New York attracts the young energy that the cities require by maintaining the illusion of its still existing (but really dead) dream of the 1960s and 1970s. In reality it’s a dead, fuckless city! The future is fuckless. Like Steve Jobs.
The future doesn’t pay attention and doesn’t give time to its victims, because time and attention are money. Like Steve Jobs. And, by extension, like Apple, and most, if not all, other corporations, the future is fatal. At least the future they want for us, because they can only be sustained by our own time and energy. Art—be it comics, film, video games, painting, sports, anything—won’t break your heart. Instead, the corporations, the business of it all, the parasitical thing handing on to the thing you love… will do their worst to enslave your spirit. Kill you’re atemporal self. Bind you to a way of life that fears change. All to benefit… One fuckless minute at a time.
Part 14 Empathy for the Devil
Prosecutor: Good morning, Worm your honor. The crown will plainly show the prisoner who now stands before you was caught red-handed showing feelings! Showing feelings of an almost human nature! This will not do! Call the schoolmaster!!
Schoolmaster: I always said he'd come to no good in the end your honor. If they'd let me have my way, I could have flayed him into shape! But my hands were tied! The bleeding hearts and artists let him get away with murder! Let me hammer him today?
Defendant: Crazy! Toys in the attic, I am crazy! Truly gone fishing. They must have taken my marbles away!
Jury: Crazy, toys in the attic he is crazy.
Wife: You little shit you're in it now! I hope they throw away the key! You should have talked to me more often than you did, but no! You had to go your own way, have you broken any homes up lately? Just five minutes, Worm your honor! Him and me, alone!
Mother: Babe! Come to mother baby, let me hold you in my arms. M'lud, I never wanted him to get in any trouble. Why'd he ever have to leave me? Worm, your honor, let me take him home.
Defendant: Crazy, over the rainbow, I am crazy. Bars in the window. There must have been a door there in the wall when I came in—
Jury: Crazy, over the rainbow, he is crazy.
Judge: The evidence before the court is incontrovertible, there's no need for the jury to retire. In all my years of judging, I have never heard before of someone more deserving of the full penalty of law! The way you made them suffer, your exquisite wife and mother, fills me with the urge to defecate! Since, my friend, you have revealed your deepest fear, I sentence you to be exposed before your peers. Tear down the wall!
Part 15 Ode to Joy
If you take that into consideration, then perhaps this world isn't that bad.
Still, the reality itself might not be bad, but I could still hate myself.
But it's your mind which takes reality and separates it into what's bad and hateful. It's only the mind which separates reality from truth. Any new position from which you view your reality will change your perception of its nature. It's all literally a matter of perspective. There are as many truths as there are people. But there is only one truth that is your truth. That's the one that's formed by whatever point of view that you chose to view it from. It's a revised perception that protects you. That's true. And one can have a perspective that's far too small. However, a person can only see things from the perspective that they chose to see them from. One must learn to judge things via the perceived truths that one receives from others. For example, sunny days make you feel good. Rainy days make you feel gloomy. If you are told this is so, then that is what you believe is so. But you can have fun on a rainy day as well! Your truth can be changed simply by the way you accept it. That's how fragile the truth for a human is. A person's truth is so simple, that most ignore it to concentrate on what they think are deeper truths. You, for example, are simply unused to what it is to be liked by others. You've never learned how to deal with fearing what others feel about you and so you avoid it.
But, don't the others hate me?
What are you, stupid? Haven't you realized it's all in your imagination, you megadork!
But, I hate myself.
One who truly hates himself cannot love, he cannot place his trust in another.
I'm a coward. I'm cowardly, sneaky and weak.
No, only if you think you are, but if you know yourself, you can take care of yourself.
I hate myself. But, maybe, maybe I could love myself. Maybe, my life can have a greater value. That's right!. I am no more or less than myself. I am me! I want to be myself! I want to continue existing in this world! My life is worth living here!
Part 16 The Last Waltz
When they were changing the army paybooks I was the only person who had “Duration of the War” on my paybook. I had to step forward, and when I stepped forward the whole bloody company was standing behind me. I was the only one with “Duration of the War” – meaning I was a volunteer. All my mates are standing behind me and everyone’s going “You bloody mug you!” That was the kind of thing that showed me nobody wanted to volunteer. It’s as blunt as that. Why did the saying “You, you and you!” come up? Because Britain’s the greatest propaganda merchants in the world. I still think they are. They attack themselves and laugh at themselves, but it’s done in a way as a cover up, to cover our faults. The reason they went “You, you and you!” was because they knew there were no volunteers around.
If this country was a nation of sacrificers it was because they were forced to do something that they obviously didnae want to do, and they done it with a great deal of reluctance, and I would say, without going any further, that’s the myth chopped. I don’t think there’s any answer to that. The answer could be, and I’ve heard it said, that people could have kicked against it, despite the fact they were forced – that it was open for them to object. But they didn’t do it. They were too old in the head! It just doesnae work.
People are afraid when a guy says to you “Mr Morrison, we’ve got a war here, and you’re a person we want to fight for us – will you please come and fight for us? If you don’t come, you’ll get a fine, or you’ll be put in prison. You’ll maybe get ten years. We might even shoot you.” I think it’s easier without the Emergency Powers, like they had during the war, to protest, but in this country, despite all the talk, we don’t protest easy. We allow a £10 fine to deter us. But with a ten years prison sentence, or a prison sentence that’s indefinite, like some of the COs got – a year in prison, ready to come out, give them another year – that kind of thing, and pile it on, I would suggest that’s more of a deterrent than the fear of possibly dying. It was the threat that they knew, rather than the one they didn’t. Take it from me, if Churchill instead of his Blood, Sweat and Tears thing had said “Any man or woman in the forces who would like to give it all up and go home, can” – he wouldnae have got the microphone out his mouth before he’d been trampled to death in the rush. That’s a fact.
I was listening to the Armistice Service on the television, particularly the big ceremony in the Albert Hall – the Queen there and all the rest of them, marching about with their medals on.
I appreciate the feelings in some of their hearts. Maybe a longing to relive their lives. Maybe a lot of them in the parade, particularly the old-timers, would be half-wishing the war never finished, for the comradeship. When ever I watch the dropping of the poppies on the young soldiers below I often imagine myself and my mates in that position. I think the bloody last thing you’d be thinking about would be all they poor buggers killed in the war. Wouldn’t be thinking about them. Probably be singing different words to the songs they were singing.
But I couldn’t help feeling a wee bit sad about a lot of mates and people that had been killed. It seemed like a sort of a bloodbath with the poppies floating down on top of them, with the poppies in their hair, and all over their clothes, like blood dripping from them. The real ironic ending is – they’re going to all get up and go out, brushing it all off themselves, and all the Churchies and Dukes, on their way out, march the poppies under their feet, into the ground.
Part 17 New Gods
All right, everyone knows that Descartes doubted everything. The world’s existence, truth, everything. Until he finally figured out, the only thing he couldn’t doubt was doubting. Because you can’t doubt you’re doubting, because you’re doubting. So that’s “I think therefore I am” and all that. What people forget is that there’s a second part. He’s still stuck. I mean, just because you are doesn’t mean anything else is. He could be a brain in a jar, or in a dream or controlled by a demon. Whatever.
So he has to get out of that, so he uses this other argument. About God. He says, some things are better than other things. And God is the… what you’d call the thing that is all the better things. So good is better than bad, God is good. Strong is better than weak, God is strong. Kind is better than cruel, God is kind.
If there are two choices, God is the better choice. He has the better quality. And then he said, to exist is better than not exist. So God exists. To be is better than not to be. So then God is.
And then if God exists, and he’s good, he wouldn’t put his in a jar. Or in a dream or with a demon. And that’s how he crawls out of the doubt. I think therefore I am. God exists. The world is… whatever the world is. Later, people like Kant and stuff, came on and attacked the God thing. Saying basically the argument didn’t work because… Basically, the setup presumed the conclusion
Once you say “God,” if your definition of “God” is that God exists… then saying “God exists because I said ‘God.’” That’s just a stupid tautology. Word play. Not a proof. But what bothers me is that if that’s true, the word play thing. Then it’s true of all of it, of the first thing. “I think therefore I am.” I mean you’re presuming an “I.” And you’re saying that “I” contains the existence, the thinking. It’s just another tautology. I am therefore I am.
So if you throw out God, then you throw out you. You’re back to doubting, all of the doubting. Without God, I don’t exist. And if I exist, God exists. We look to find ourselves, to see our own face. And we find the face of God.
Part 18 The case for Mary Jane Watson
The story of Spider-Man is one of performativity. It’s, among other things, a story that focuses on the different ways in which we act in different circles. When he’s in school, Peter’s a quiet, if snarky fellow who can often be a jerk. As Spider-Man, Peter’s boisterous and, dare I say it, camp. Around Aunt May, he’s nervous and loving. At the Bugle, he’s put upon, but also suave. These are all aspects of Peter Parker, but they are not the whole of Peter Parker. When he’s alone, we see a guy who’s not completely sure who he is or what he wants. He just has a memory of trauma that won’t let him go.
The same could be said of Mary Jane Watson. On the surface, she’s a party girl who’s always up for a good time. And yet, she always deflects attempts at getting beneath the surface of her character. She’s fun to be around, but she doesn’t seem to have anything going on underneath. This is by design. In truth, Mary Jane has a history of trauma and running away from any and all complications in life. She performs as a party girl. And when that layer of performance is shattered, she can either lash out at those who try to pierce it or run away and curl up into a ball rather than deal with it.
Her arc, over various runs with a sliding scale of writers who can actually write women, is about coming to grips with herself as a person, beneath all the artifice and fictions she tells herself and those around her. In turn, Mary Jane becomes her truest self: a performance artist whose act is living a life as Mary Jane Watson. In other words, Mary Jane Watson is very much like Peter Parker. Where he copes with his childhood trauma through acting as a superhero, Mary Jane copes with hers through acting. To understand one, then, is to understand the other.
Part 19 The secret song of Spike Spiegel
It would be easy to say Cowboy Bebop is a show that works like Jazz. And yet, that is perhaps the best way to describe its approach. Each episode feels like it’s being made on the fly based on a mood rather than an actual design. For some episodes (like Mushroom Samba, Jupiter Jazz, and Brain Scratch), this can work wonders, highlighting a bizarre, misshapen universe that doesn’t fully coalesce, yet fits together perfectly. Whereas with other stories (like Boogie Woogie Feng Shui, Wild Horses, and Bohemian Rhapsody), the tales end up langued and dull like someone who thinks all it takes to make good jazz is randomness and incoherence. Then again, those songs tend to also be quite dull. At times, I feel the same way about this project of mine. Some of the stories told are, shall we say, not that good. Rush jobs that could have been done better if I gave myself more than a day to write them.
Part 20 Tears of a clown
The first time I watched Cowboy Bebop was in high school. I had seen a top 10 list done by a YouTuber by the name of JesuOtaku (before he transitioned) going in-depth into the best episodes of the series. One episode that caught my eye for its standalone nature was Perrot Le Fou, a story about a clown who kills people. It was Halloween and I was in for a good spooky story about a killer clown. But when the titular Perrot breaks down in tears, my stomach leapt the way it does when I feel miserable. I had a tendency to align myself with the positionality of monsters because I felt like one due to my autism. I would see myself as a sociopath who thought a lot of the things sociopaths apparently do. Even when talked about with people who knew more than I did that my horror at the implications of my thoughts indicated their falseness, I still had a part of me that thought I was one of them. So when I saw Perrot break down and cry for his mother because of a minor injury, my stomach flipped in the sickness of empathy. I tried to watch the rest of the series from the beginning, but it got taken off of YouTube shortly after watching episode 5. I wouldn’t get into the whole of the series until 2018, a whole seven years later. I decided to do a blog project about it to justify the expense of buying the series.
Part 21 Dance Magic
I know something is very wrong. The pulse returns for prodigal songs with blackout hearts, with flowered news, with skull designs upon my shoes. I can't give everything… I can't give everything away! I can't give everything… away! Seeing more and feeling less; saying no but meaning yes. This is all I ever meant. That's the message that I sent:
Part 22 What is it good for?
Oh, Yupa! I don’t want to go to war! There’s a terrible hatred hiding inside of me. I won’t be able to control it anymore… I can understand now how Ohmu feels… the hate takes over and makes him kill, and then he cries. The… the sky’s getting light… I have to go.
Part 23 I am Gotham
Am I blue?
Am I blue?
Ain’t these tears in my eyes
Telling you?
Am I blue?
You’d be to
You’d be to
If each plan that you had
Done fell through.
There was a time
I was your only one.
But now I’m
The sad and lonely one.
I’m a fool.
I’m the only one.
Come what may,
I should say…
Part 24 Goodbyeee
THIS IS NOT THE END.
YOU WILL SEE THE REAL
“COWBOY BEBOP”
SOMEDAY!
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