Transparent spots on the black keys Sucked down the marrow of my life Through code I forget, poems I lost, Long drunk snake-winding essays Fallen prey to quote-sniffing interns, Rimbaud days on the nineties Usenet— I remember nothing. Text is a drug.
I consider it simultaneously both something of a "duty" and a pleasure to read Gray Mirror. Not only for the original content, of which this is an prime example, but the sheer glut of thinkers of all flavors & their ideas that this site alone has exposed me to has enriched my life in ways that I cannot even begin to appreciate the value of, nor adequately thank the author(s) for. If the unexamined life truly is not worth living, then I feel it is a duty to myself to keep challenging & reassessing my own views, and have found that this process of self-enrichment becomes enjoyable and truly nourishing & satisfying in its own right (which, hopefully, enriches others in your life by proxy). While the challenge of digesting this stuff can be considerable, and I certainly don't connect all the ideas right away (and sometimes even not at all (although there is something great about the "slow background connection" where you read something, and then two months later have that "oh shit!" moment in the shower or something (there is a great Nicholson Baker essay on this called "Changes of Mind"))), like anyone else, all I can do is keep trying.
I keep coming back to this. I think I just might make a large print of this and frame it, and hang it by my bed - it would be good to wake up to in the morning, remind me of what I'm here for. Get my head in the right place.
Curtis, your substack readers are probably your strongest fans, we are paying to read your stuff. If we are not all paying, turn off the freebie readers, make it mandatory for payment. You will still have as many paying readers, maybe knock away some free hecklers. I also pay to read the substack of Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club author), and Glenn Greenwood (exposes news that the fake legacy news censors).
As for me, I don't expect perfection from substack writers, I may even disagree at times, but substack writers often come up with some clever ideas that force me to think about why I agree or disagree, hadn't thought of that angle before, good mental exercise.
Solid. True. Good. Thank you.
What drudgery to
Comment encouragingly
Get back to work, dude
I consider it simultaneously both something of a "duty" and a pleasure to read Gray Mirror. Not only for the original content, of which this is an prime example, but the sheer glut of thinkers of all flavors & their ideas that this site alone has exposed me to has enriched my life in ways that I cannot even begin to appreciate the value of, nor adequately thank the author(s) for. If the unexamined life truly is not worth living, then I feel it is a duty to myself to keep challenging & reassessing my own views, and have found that this process of self-enrichment becomes enjoyable and truly nourishing & satisfying in its own right (which, hopefully, enriches others in your life by proxy). While the challenge of digesting this stuff can be considerable, and I certainly don't connect all the ideas right away (and sometimes even not at all (although there is something great about the "slow background connection" where you read something, and then two months later have that "oh shit!" moment in the shower or something (there is a great Nicholson Baker essay on this called "Changes of Mind"))), like anyone else, all I can do is keep trying.
I really liked this one. Probably because I'm some kind of midwit.
Remember when we paid this guy to write about politics and ultimately deliver a signed physical volume? Good times
shit that hit hard
Morituri te salutant.
The language of primordial code
and the cognitive redundancies to maintain their form,
cause even the monks and their mantras to wince;
wince more still,
at the low stationed warden who emerged
to govern this bureaucracy.
Now that the red guard has come;
stomping on the warden as an invisible ant hill,
it finds among its papers an endowment.
The curse imbued in its acolytes
bearing the mark of nonegoic repetition,
offer their new master an entropic advantage,
in its harvest.
Acolytes inscribing,
in their grey mirror'd holodecks
feebly representing nature,
the invisible mark of the *variable*,
and its unholy reliability.
As the red surveys its new surfs,
it finds rather easy contracts,
that it believes can sneak beneath
the hand of consent.
Their reliable self reverberations,
make available truths to its interrogations
normally guarded by dignity's compassion,
in its final throes of confusion;
primordial goo at the bottom of the lake
reflecting the true form of its violations,
now sprinkled with variable mirrors of its vanity.
Ever urged forward.
But in offering its master its spoils;
The whip in the background,
The line of uncanny dolls,
The EULAs imbued with hidden fears;
do not impress the master's crows squawking at the corpses he presents;
let alone the master.
I love this piece.
I keep coming back to this. I think I just might make a large print of this and frame it, and hang it by my bed - it would be good to wake up to in the morning, remind me of what I'm here for. Get my head in the right place.
When are you coming to LA again?
“If I don’t work I’ll starve. If I don’t write I’ll die.”- Jim Goad.
love this
I enjoy your poetry so much more now than I did back at UR
Curtis, your substack readers are probably your strongest fans, we are paying to read your stuff. If we are not all paying, turn off the freebie readers, make it mandatory for payment. You will still have as many paying readers, maybe knock away some free hecklers. I also pay to read the substack of Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club author), and Glenn Greenwood (exposes news that the fake legacy news censors).
As for me, I don't expect perfection from substack writers, I may even disagree at times, but substack writers often come up with some clever ideas that force me to think about why I agree or disagree, hadn't thought of that angle before, good mental exercise.
"Caught! Exposed as fake!"
"I just don't get their standard?!"
Not perfect, just fun.