24.
Woman agrees with Darwin’s assertion that humanity belongs with other animals and also with John Gray’s assertion in Straw Dogs that we are only assemblies of genes interacting at random with each other though she prefers Lewis Thomas’s assertion in The Lives of a Cell that the urge to make music is a dominant characteristic of biology and further that music is the ordered dance of living forms.
25.
Woman discovers through clandestine reading that recipe for martini called Vesper Cocktail appeared in Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel Casino Royale with instructions by character James Bond that it be shaken not stirred.
26.
Woman spends much time with works of poet Russell Edson who writes of melting old people and dreams of hunger.
27.
Woman understands there are other ways to be in life than think own thoughts filled with landmines or crawl exhausted each night into day’s stack of emotions for example there’s loving one another, there’s nosing around for another laugh, there’s joie de vivre, there’s the many hymns to beauty.
28.
Woman is charmed by 1936 book Burke’s Complete Cocktail and Tastybite Recipes by Harman Burney Burke which says cocktail is king in America and every hour is cocktail hour.
29.
1984 author George Orwell enters waking mind of woman causing irksome obsession with cameras though woman is impressed original name Eric Arthur Blair was used on Orwell’s headstone presuming decision was his and not that of overriding executor.
30.
In considering that cameras will record the future and play it back to us for our viewing pleasure woman understands that future will actually be experienced as present time and that we may or may not regard it with pleasure.
31.
The first and last chapters of The Drunkard’s Walk by Leonard Mlodinow give woman much pleasure and insight but she fails final test to explain Measurement and the Law of Errors found on page 140 of book.
32.
As a result of reading Heathcote Williams’s long poem Autogedden woman looks out city window and watches as cars slice through own thoughts taking them away for nothing.
33.
Woman waits with Fernando Pessoa at roadside inn for coach from abyss to pull up.
34.
Woman spends brief time with poems of Anna Swir who writes of love as abundant as reign of royal Negro couple seated on two thrones cast in gold and wonders if Cape Cod chairs in story should likewise have been cast in gold.
35.
Woman compares frank portrayal of sexually engaged people in and around egg-shaped structures in The Garden of Earthly Delights with Telus print ad of egg-shaped structure emitting Mickey Mouse hand in absent garden finding latter cold asexual symbol.
36.
Woman feels hopeful about continuance of art into far future after reading Gertrude Stein’s 1926 essay “Composition as Explanation” in which she states that everything is the same except composition meaning that created work is what makes one generation different and singular from another assuming of course generations will continue.
37.
Newspaper article about intelligent design by astronomer John Gribbin gives woman further hope until suspicion of astronomers aping God enters woman’s mind.
38.
Along with fellow citizens woman spends 22.25 hours a day inhabiting mythological universe in which gods are replaced by celebrities and scientists form the foundation of civilization leaving only 1.75 hours a day for escape into clarity whatever that might look like.
39.
Woman understands living in fool’s paradise means to be beguiled by illusionary happiness but nonetheless wishes she could reside there more often.
40.
Woman becomes imprisoned in nightmare cartoon involving nest of mean-spirited surveillance cameras.
41.
Woman enjoys cartoon of St. Peter telling hopeful man at entrance that he prefers not to think of Pearly Gates as gated community.
42.
In researching technologies for mass surveillance woman discovers official seal of U.S. Information Awareness Office established in January 2002 by Defence Advance Research Projects Agency is pyramid topped by single blue eye trained on planet Earth an example woman supposes of science non-fiction.
43.
Woman’s affair with Oxford English Dictionary continues despite ongoing reading of Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet in which he claims there is nothing to know.
44.
Woman fondly remembers Robin Hood as medieval folk hero played by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in late-night movies during which time as child woman longed to be Maid Marian.
45.
The existence of trade shows catering to security fencing and featuring sales of concertina razor wire fabricated with steel blades meant to inflict serious cuts and also rapid deployment barriers of barbed coil that can be deployed in seconds is something woman is saddened to read about in online websites.
46.
As further example of science non-fiction woman views diagram of transnational threats in Total Information Awareness bulletin which also includes instructions for keeping track of individuals and understanding how they fit into models such as Plausible Future, Automated Virtual Data Repository, Corporate Memory, and Discovery Tools.
47.
As a result of living forward while understanding backward woman suffers from cultural fragmentation disease but suspects condition may partly result from hearing canned music of birds played at intersections reminding her of culture’s deep hostility to nature.
48.
Woman enjoys Kliban cartoon of skinny guru with thought balloon containing precise dimensions of nothingness drawn as empty box measuring 57mm by 51mm.
49.
Woman has stubborn wish to imagine book of sayings from future time even though The future’s uncertain and the end is always near according to singer Jim Morrison of The Doors.
50.
Woman charges self with carrying urgent message about future shape of world to ten thousand experts who are deaf but is confounded by perpetually vanishing present.
51.
Woman learns Oxford English Dictionary was begun in mid-1800 by Philological Society in Great Britain with first volume of the ten-year project published by Oxford University Press in 1879 meanwhile noting her own copy is fifth concise edition published in 1964 and also noting that full edition contains more than three hundred thousand main entries and fifty-nine million words—enough words for several lifetimes.
52.
Woman is astounded to discover ancient Greek word eudaimonia meant both good spirit and moth but now means the good life which is life that is good but temporal like that of a moth.
53.
Woman who loses way must rely on automated taped messages for guidance which constitutes another nightmare because guiding wisdom is not usually found in taped messages but then woman imagines automated messages being made of best poems which strikes her as salutary such as poem by Kenneth Rexroth:
A long lifetime
People and places
And the crisis of mankind—
What survives is the crystal—
Infinitely small—
Infinitely large—
54.
Film Dr. Strangelove by Stanley Kubrick in which planet is inhabited by race of eccentrics who unlike all other animals take no notice of anything going on outside their own heads is film woman finds timeless.
55.
Woman who once wrote story about old hippie in youth reading Camus on acid then dancing alone for rest of life to stave off mortality wonders how her life would be different if she had done same.
56.
Woman returns thankfully to Russell Edson’s dark uncomfortable metaphors finding imaginative solace therein.
57.
The line In the night a woman disguised as a river flows beyond her wildest dreams f
rom poem “The Intuitive Journey” by Russell Edson is something woman aspires to in waking life.
58.
Trust a crowd to be on the wrong end of a miracle is something Kurt Vonnegut said in Palm Sunday which woman concurs with having witnessed same each night on TV news.
59.
Woman also concurs with statement by Eduardo Galeano in Upside Down that culture has been reduced to brilliant global entertainment enterprise and further with Hans Moravec writing in Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind that core industrial tasks will be completed by machines in near future when almost all humans will work to amuse other humans many of which do so now.
60.
Woman wonders if what philosopher Bertrand Russell said in early twentieth century is still true namely that average man would rather face death or torture than think.
61.
We are a doomsday sect with membership in the millions woman reads in Charles Simic’s poem “Worriers Anonymous” and further that we are inmates of invisible prisons, hospitals, and madhouses, a notion causing woman to feel elated because in the doomsday sect we don’t need nametags to know each other.
62.
Reading John Gray quoting from Chapter 13 of Thomas Hobbe’s Leviathan in Gray’s own book Black Mass that a state of nature lacks commodious living—no art, letters, or society but continual fear and danger of violent death—woman feels tenderness for present time and society conflicted as they both are.
63.
Remembering “Side by Side” tune from earlier age woman attempts to sing song through all kinds of weather even though sky may fall despite current bad truth about weather ...
64.
Another volume in Big Ideas/Small Books series that captures woman’s mind is Violence by Slavoj Zizek though woman struggles violently but not always successfully to keep own mind capture-free.
65.
Asking computer I Ching to forecast joie de vivre for coming times woman is told ridgepole sags to breaking point, town may be changed but well never changes, perseverance furthers.
66.
Woman who ponders Leonardo da Vinci’s claim that “vows begin when hope dies” decides to find fun in dark places like filmmaker René Clément did with Che Gioia Vivere (The Joy of Living) during fascism.
67.
Unaccountably woman is still capable of staying on task even while having bizarre thoughts about latest cancer statement namely that use of multiple-imaging scans with low-dose radiation results in link to cancer as if cancer was mysterious source of all being and linking to it was something to strive towards like enlightenment.
68.
Asking computer I Ching to forecast state of love for coming times woman is told to be not sad, be like sun at midday.
69.
Woman notes Peter Handke wrote screenplay for Wim Wender’s film Wings of Desire which is about ultimate things as is Handke’s play Prophecy from which remixed quote opens woman’s own book.
70.
Woman hides synopsis of imaginary novel in title using phrase fleeting warmth between two glaciers by Eduardo Galeano as follows:
Strange—One’s Own Wonder
Truth—The Oblique Familiar
About—In the Midst of Ourselves
Us—This Fleeting Warmth Between Two Glaciers recognizing definite article the of title means specific strange truth etc. of story but perhaps also specific strange truth etc. of woman and also perhaps specific strange truth etc. of you who may be reading this.
71.
Woman spends regular time with works of James Howard Kunstler who writes in blog Clusterfuck Nation and book The Long Emergency of mutant evangelists, angels with bat wings, America with its head up its electronic ass, and general blindness regarding coming doom the result of oil dependence and global debt.
72.
Woman is delighted to find library book she remembers as having number 45 in title and which contains many fine quotes by punk rockers and literary rebels including Allen Ginsberg but now cannot locate book and did not cite book’s name and publisher while copying quotes so must continue search.
73.
Woman occasionally bolts from bed in dead of night to transcribe dream definitions not all of which stand up to thankless light of day.
74.
Thanks to Oxford English Dictionary woman learns using word ditto with reference to work of James Howard Kunstler is technically incorrect since image of desolated landscape is now in public domain.
75.
Woman does not feel strange transcribing definition of word strange from Oxford English Dictionary into story even though it could be said How strange that you should do that.
76.
Woman considers ways in which telling is what we do such as telling stories, telling lies, telling time (that it is passing too quickly, moving too slowly, has become lost or is standing still), or telling secrets, or against all odds telling the truth, or telling someone off, or telling on someone like informants, or telling each other it’s not so easy when the strain begins to tell, or saying tell me your name, tell me what you want, tell me you love me, tell me you’re glad to see me, tell it like it is and don’t forget to tell me goodnight, or we ask bank tellers and fortune tellers to tell us the truth about our money and our lives, or we look for telltale signs about the future, hoping it’ll turn out all right, or we leave behind a tell, an archaeological mound the result of having abandoned our cities over millennia though surprisingly we have lived through the long groaning history of millennia to tell about it, or we hold our breath very late at night then ask a stranger So tell me, are you here all alone? only to have the stranger reply Well, there’s nothing much to tell.
77.
Woman reads unacknowledged quote saying nuclear waste will still be six times as lethal far into the future as all of recorded history goes into the present time in David Markson’s novel Vanishing Point a semi-non-fictional, semi-fictional, non-linear, discontinuous, collage-like assemblage he said.
78.
Woman believes quotes are like found objects useful for distilling and making indelible the isolated moment and further that all minds quote to make the warp and woof of every moment as Emerson once suggested.
79.
Asking computer I Ching to comment on fact of nightly news woman is told superior man renews weapons to meet unforeseen and also that misfortune will come in eighth month.
80.
Woman becomes bored waiting with Fernando Pessoa at roadside inn for coach from abyss to pull up and longs to hear nineteenth-century operetta with laughing song and merriment instead.
81.
Spending hours bent over writing work while day outside is bright, windy, blue, green, and yellow is practice woman does not find abnormal.
82.
Woman has trouble considering herself absent from world yet knows the inevitable waits which Annie Dillard in admirable book For the Time Being elucidates further by stating the dead outnumber the living possibly twenty to one while the number of persons who have ever lived is close to one hundred billion and also asking Will we even care about these numbers once we’re spinning inside the planet with our heels in the air to which woman can only answer Probably not.
83.
The sentence Two johns pull up; they’re stopping to see if she’s one of them spoken about worried blonde mother in pink sweater on TV news replays repeatedly in woman’s mind along with picture of her twelve-year-old daughter riding pink bike in suburb driveway.
84.
Friend who is climate-change authority tells woman term creeping normalcy refers to changes that happen in small increments over time and as such go unnoticed as portrayed for example in R. Crumb’s cartoon drawing A Short History of America or experienced for example as personal aging whereby old person image appears through mirror as nasty revelation to one still believing they are thirty-two.
85.
Woman admires practice of creating manifes
tos (meaning public declarations of policy or ideas such as U.S. Declaration of Independence signed in 1776 or Declaration of Sentiments signed in 1848 concerning women’s rights) so is drawn to literary manifestos at times for guidance such as Oulipo Compendium edited by Harry Mathews in which reinvention of formal constraints in creating literature is promoted and members once dead are considered active thereby enabling them to manoeuvre for the rest of eternity though there are times woman regards club membership as protective foliage while other times she longs for inclusion in one.
86.
Woman who understands Buddhist notion of being present finds state difficult to achieve on sustained basis but nonetheless is able to do so occasionally through writing work or hanging wash or hearing certain music or while engaged in love reminding her of Kurt Vonnegut’s statement in Slaughterhouse-Five that every thing was beautiful and nothing hurt.
87.
Woman acknowledges wisdom of suspending definitive judgment on any matter at all and further that no expert can assure with certainty that any particular wisdom is better than another.
88.
Woman reads in Oxford English Dictionary that word familiar besides meaning intimate and of one’s family also means common and no longer novel the implication being that dwelling in a state of unfamiliarity doesn’t always make us feel good.
89.
Woman born in year 1947 when doomsday clock was created measuring terminal risk to planet and set at seven minutes to midnight because of nuclear threat and now set at six minutes to midnight because of climate change wonders if midnight will occur before universe’s remaining five billion years run out.
90.
Woman wonders if business of searching for life on Mars or for longevity gene or building complicated shaft to rescue trapped miners or looking for breakthroughs to cure diseases are some of the places we now put hope that thing with feathers that perches in the soul as Emily Dickinson once called it.
91.
Woman further wonders if it is normal to experience brief excitement after reading definition of art as anything that pushes thought in important yet neglected directions as stated by Alain de Botton in The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work.
92.
The Strange Truth About Us Page 4