Friday, February 5, 2021

Cthulu is Original Sin

Lovecraft was exactly correct. He was American so there's a narcissism correction to make, but this made he was precise and accurate.

The truth about America drives Americans mad. Seemingly impossible powers can be had by reading into it, but, always, it drives the American to their gibbering death. In Lovecraft's mind, there is nothing to be done but to look away, and hope to be eaten last.

I have a different take. America is over. You can wait for everyone else to notice, or you can start the new country early. America is gibbering too much to stop it. That's up to you, though. Whichever you prefer. 



One key to an exceptional memory is to quit lying to yourself. If accurate recall would harpoon your self-image, you cannot allow yourself to remember. The more you lie, the more you must confabulate. If the memory must be vandalized anyway, why bother making it in the first place? Thus the past becomes misty. History repeats because humans cannot tell themselves about the present.

Recalibrate: saints are real. They are not saints. They're basically decent people. They merely appear saint-like compared to the rancid trash that calls itself human on average.

In the past, it was accepted that humans are trash. Original Sin etc. But, Jesus was merciful - or rather, we can't punish everyone for all their sins, because there would be no one left. We would punish only the worst criminals, the most heinous crimes, and gradually improve. By degrees. The Aztecs were correct - Gnon demands blood sacrifice. (The Aztecs sacrificed the wrong blood, and Gnon had words with them about it.)

Because humans are trash, Christianity became cope. They decided being [basically decent] wasn't restricted to so-called saints. The egos of the trash got flattered. "At least you're not a murderer." Meanwhile nobody got sainted, because the standard, staying at a fixed distance from [normal], rose well beyond any achievable level. It wouldn't do for saints to realize they are saints. That's the sound of Envy getting tired of winning. Europe gave up their blood sacrifices.

Then they caught the wrong end of philosophy. Philosophy revealed the cope to be lies. The virtue signalling was always transparent, and now someone bothered to look through it.

Some said: we must punish all the sinners. Why are we letting some go? These had committed aposiopesis.

Some said: we cannot punish all the sinners. Punishing any sinners must be pointless. Their faith suffered a mortal wound. These committed the Christian sin of Despair. This was long before WWII but if you study WWII you can see the secular humanists' faith in humanity getting crushed.

"We need X but X is impossible.
"Fuck."

Fascism is a perfect compromise. If you legally defend criminals, the criminals are punished by having to live with a criminal, while the non-criminals are punished by having to live with criminals. It is at once a paean to the imposibility of punishment while simultaneously punishing everyone. And indeed if you go full Communist, all are punished with death. Turns out it is possible not to forgive anyone.

Some even said: since everyone is doing it, it can't be bad. Vae victus.

Yvain said that if it looks like anyone in ingroup sins, they must have been part of the always-sinning outgroup all along. First they came for the outgroup, but I did not speak up because I wasn't part of the outgroup. Look guys, all you can do is hope to be eaten last.



Americans live in a country where it's considered wrong to give your children so much as a room's full of privacy, and wonder why they can't maintain rule of law.

Your daughter's room is "her" room except it isn't her room. This isn't a child, this is a slave. Even if you're merely renting and the landlord is very explicitly the real owner, the landlord has to give 24 hours notice. I suppose I now understand why basic decency needs to be written into law. (This sort of works - even if you can't yourself execute decency, it's not impossible to recognize it from the outside.)

But how would we demonstrate children are low-status scum if we had to give them any genuine respect? On the contrary Americans say gaslighting your children about whether their room is theirs is considered 'respect' and then they wonder why Americans grow up holding an obsession with having the whip hand. In other words, a power addiction.

Some said: adults (who can fight back) must not be the sinners, it must be the children (who can't). How did America end up with a bullying problem. It is a mystery.

Those who gaslight their children as a moral imperative can't complain when it turns out they live under a gaslighting regime. "Where did you learn that?"

Sure everyone's tortured as children but that sort of thing doesn't just happen. I've looked for innocent victims but have been unable to find any. Americans allowed an industrial child-torture system to be installed in their country. They were already okay with it. Some are so enamoured of child torture they prefer not to have strangers do it where they don't have to watch - they prefer to apply it personally.

The American father, like all tyrants, is incapable of telling the difference between a right to privacy or owning your own territory, and the right to the territory of others' e.g. having you and your bank account pay for my treats. The tyrant genuinely consider all territory to be theirs.
He genuinely cannot conceive of what a libertarian tries to propose. Or any true rightist - the idea of personal responsibility simply isn't in his vocabulary. This is what it means to be a Fascist.

Ironically, under Fascism, there are no equals. Only victors and victims. (Reinforcement: the victims deserve it because weakness is a sin.) Talk about inhabiting the stereotypes of your enemies: the American father must either be licentious or tyrannical. "Respect" means a victim acknowledging their victor. Double ironically, this is more beastial than literal beasts. Lion prides respect the territory of their neighbours. Even literal chimps manage it better than Fascists do.

Lies are brain cancer.

Lies spread. Everything is connected, which means once a lie becomes a fixed point, everything else must be progressively distorted to flatter that lie. There's a technique called compartmentalization or the magisteria of expertise where truths are forcibly disconnected, but the smarter brain has difficulty failing to see similarities as similar.

The American inoculates themselves with brain cancer when they submit to the child-torture regime. When they become accomplices. For the American to acknowledge responsibility or respect, he would have to acknowledge he was not treated responsibly or with respect. Fatally, he would have to acknowledge he has not acted responsibly or respectably to his own children. This lie becomes a fixed point, and everything must twist around it to avoid the genuinely lethal ego damage. They become irrevocably stupid. (Exploitably so.)

America has sinned. The sin is so painful it's impossible to repent. This is why the only alternative is to be not-American. Gnon lets Fascists be Fascist, and if you don't reject it utterly, He will allow the Fascists to Fascism you. 


Fascism makes women hate their children. It's impossible not to realize, at some level, you're wronging them. This feels like children are exposing your sins, which means you start hating those children. (Which makes torturing them easier.) Fascism is thus doing one great service to the world: it is causing women who are susceptible to Fascism to gracefully exit the gene pool via abortion, transsexualism, &c.

19 comments:

Parisian said...

You are more insular than ever, but I just tune most of it out when it goes so over the top it's impossible to make sense of any of it. What is of interest is: Are there any other countries/nations that are not 'as fucked up' as America? That's probably too mundane for you (meaning, if normies don't know, it won't help them to know, and anyway, it doesn't matter if normies are told anything, they're too stupid to be trusted even with geographical or geopolitical tropes), except it's noteworthy that you don't ever talk about other countries, maybe a mention of China. What: Finland, Norway, Denmark? New Zealand, Australia? Iceland? Bhutan? Switzerland, Germany--past masters of Prussian oppression/torture?

There are a lot of things you write about that I do understand, but it's useless to talk about them, you are not open to anything--although you now have no choice but to be open to the fact that normies do not venerate autists the way you demand they do. You either think I'm inherently stupid, or the things I'm knowledgeable about don't matter--and recently I began to understand that I don't care that you make wrong judgments. That I was just mesmerized with the seemingly singular way do things, even if I knew some of them were incorrect. Which wrong conclusions you do, although I doubt you think you do. I do not consider autists to be superior to normies by definition. You can have a high I.Q. and do the scientific and mathematical things that only that kind of intelligence can do and are superior in that way, but that does not mean any other kind of excellence is lesser because it requires a different sort of genius, and you consider it 'leftist' and hat it has always been 'elitist'. As if elitism were a greater American problem than totally illiterate, uneducated assholes. That is definitely truer of America than it is of all Western European countries (at least.)

But nevermind that. I just want to know why you're always going on about the 'America is over' business. So what country isn't "over"?

Alrenous said...

It's interesting. You've graduated from snide remarks to saying them straight out, which is certainly good, but it comes across exactly the same.

You're insulting me to my face. Hooray!
You're incorrect and full of shit still, but hey, baby steps. "You can't listen - but let me go on about it for two paragraphs, some 90% of this comment. Anyway, never mind that."

Oh I get it. The game is: one is supposed to pretend sly insults don't exist. Here, you say, "nevermind that." I'm still supposed to pretend they don't exist. Bzzt. I decline. Are you here to read my stuff or are you here to be a scold? Hey idiot, this was written for you. "I used to take advice regularly. [...] Unfortunately all the advice was bad. Haha, joke's on me." Yeah, thanks. I've heard that one before. It's fascinating that it's the folk who can't quite grasp reading comprehension who are the ones who like to critique my character.

It's unfortunate that I was able to successfully predict your reactions. My model of your psychology is...disappointing. I've never been wrong about this sort of thing before, but I can never quite drop the hope that there's a first time for everything. Right? Right.

I don't really think the problem is reading comprehension. I think the problem is I'm seeing you accurately and you don't like it and can't handle it. I'm not going blind any time soon, so good luck with that dilemma.

I really like the On Advice piece. I'm glad you brought the issue up for me. I appreciate it.

It is true I don't answer all your questions. This is because I can tell the difference between curiosity and a veiled attack, and I don't like wasting my time.



There aren't any other countries. There's America and then there's a couple places cowering in a fetal position and hoping America doesn't notice. Maybe Hungary and a few other fringe places think they can get away with not quite toeing the line, everywhere else is only not-America to the extent they can't quite manage to copy them, no matter how frantically they try.

Alrenous said...

"I obviously wanted to be friends" https://alrenous.blogspot.com/2021/01/commies-and-serfs-friends-4lyfe.html

Yeah. Sure you did. We'll just test this empirically, shall we? When you critique my character, I'm going to critique yours. Reciprocity!

Hmm, you seem upset. Again. It's almost like your behaviour isn't friendly or something, and you don't like it when others treat you the same way. Weird!

This didn't work on me when I was five. It's certainly not going to work now.

Parisian said...

There aren't any other countries. There's America and then there's a couple places cowering in a fetal position and hoping America doesn't notice. Maybe Hungary and a few other fringe places think they can get away with not quite toeing the line, everywhere else is only not-America to the extent they can't quite manage to copy them, no matter how frantically they try.

I thought it was likely you meant this (wannabe 'lesser Americas'), and also that you might name Hungary, but I wasn't sure. It just all of a sudden came to me that I don't remember any mention of any others but China, but you may have. Thanks for answering--it was very precise, but simple enough for me to know I knew what you meant. Probably the same reason a number of others know about America in great detail--personalities, etc.--and say nothing (or almost nothing) about their own or other countries, and Americans by and largely know nothing about any others. I even talked to somebody smart the other day who didn't know 'Crete' was pronounced 'Cree'-tee', but I think almost nobody pronounces that correctly anyway. I did know a Slovenian girl who said "Cret-ta" with the short 'e', which is the only reason I looked it up.

Whatever about the rest. I only found it strange in your polemics that you thought Elon Musk was a 'lesser lord', whereas he's the only contemporary figure I find to be creative and potent so it's impossible to miss. He's even very characterful and colorful in this thoroughly dun, drab period. But you'd have your reasons for what you think about him, of course.

Alrenous said...

@Dividualist:
It's my blog and you should be grateful for the opportunity to have your comments deleted. Accept it as it is.

Parisian said...

Did you see this? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/world/europe/france-threat-american-universities.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

I was surprised to see this, but only because I thought things had changed even more in France, what with joining in with #MeToo and George Floyd protests (I never could believe that was happening this past summer in Europe, although it was predictable enough to anybody that it would here).

Not that this takes away from your description of "America and then there's everybody else, some of which are trying not to toe the line", etc., but in some local cultural ways it's important, much as was the French resistance to GATT (in Bill Clinton's first time, I think): That's a long time ago, but film directors like Eric Rohmer were very outspoken and won the day, despite infuriating Clinton and all Americans. In the years since then, I've noticed the continued high quality of French films as American ones have definitely declined into inanity and complaining that the Oscars don't nominate and award enough black female directors. All the Deneuve/Auteuil/Depardieu films made by André Téchiné were superb, although even the Deneuve movies in the 00's and 10's have been very good, sometimes superior (as A Christmas Tale, which was pretty great.

As I said, this doesn't change your main thrust, but it does have something to do with culture within the nation, whether Bardot's fury about Muslims, Deneuve's annoyance with #MeToo, or Michel Houellebecq's Soumission. I know France doesn't go the route of Hungary, but I found this heartening (and both surprising and unsurprising--the French really are hard to push around on some things.)

BTW, I reread what you said about Musk, and had already, but I wouldn't know such business things like companies going public being irresponsible so as to understand it myself. He does seem refreshing among billionaires like Peter Thiel and the Gateses, at least superficially.

Def. surprised to see it in rotten NYTimes, where Don MacNeil, science editor, had to resign because of 'racial slur within context of discussion on racism'--it's as if they didn't even know they were explaining why he was guilty of nothing. I've been trying to find out if even expression 'n-word' is going to be outlawed within a week or two.

TheDividualist said...

I don't feel particularly grateful, but I don't feel particularly upset either. Accept is a accurate enough word. Another accurate enough one is meh. If I really cared, I could reply on my blog, but I don't really care that much.

Alrenous said...

@Parisian:
NYT occasionally publishes stuff that looks vaguely like dissidence. I assume it's some inside baseball I don't know about. This may also be a way of scolding France from the back hand.

@Dividualist:
I will then care about your words exactly as much as you do.

TheDividualist said...

Yes. I somehow found myself playing a stupid game, I have no idea even how it started, so I'll just stop. Let's talk in 2022 or 2023. So long and thanks for all the fish!

Parisian said...

I didn't know Original Sin didn't have much to do with the Bible. I think most people thought it was something Adam and Eve participated in. Well, they did do some kind of sin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Eden_with_the_Fall_of_Man with this magnificently gorgeous early 17th c. painting by Brueghel the Elder (flora and fauna) and Rubens (figures)--who apparently collaborated frequently. And they're not even obese like so many of Rubens's are. So, the concept is Christian doctrine that humans inherit a tainted nature and a proclivity to sin through the fact of birth, and started in 3rd c. and first formed as a term by St. Augustine, from a mistranslation from Paul's Epistle to the Romans. I even read The Confessions of St. Augustine, and like all such theories, it stuck very briefly. Almost all religions have that in them--which may be why the Greeks and Romans were so much better off, since Christ, whatever else, hardly saved us from our sins--although I don't know if they've gotten worse. I do remember wondering what the hell 'saving us from sin' meant first time I heard it. I don't know if that's the basis of humans being 'trash'. But with your high bar for 'saintliness', you might be one. Sometimes you seem to have some of the attributes of a saint. I then looked up Cthulhu and quickly turned away, maybe I thought I'd be tainted despite being already a member of the 'always-sinning outgroup'. I think I read that anyone who's read Lovecraft isn't the same thereafter. But I'm not going to do it, even if Houellebecq did, and won't read his book about Lovecraft. I didn't even know about HPL till the net, then everybody here seems to have read him, and it seemed increasingly dangerous. I saw the execrable movie The Dunwich Horror, but I'm sure that had little to do with HPL, and I was only watching it for one of the cast members, who had started slippery slope, and I'd been crazy about her throughout my childhood.

Of course it's just wiki, but I find it extraordinary that just 'the fact of birth' is enough to infect you with at least a little sin. I wonder if that means Jesus was slightly sinful too (religious folk always say he was 'the only perfect human', others say he was 'gay' LOL), since he did have a physical mother even if you believe in the Immaculate Conception (who does?) and had a physical body himself, no matter what else is claimed, given the Crucifixion. Maybe it's part of evolutionary process that had to be done just because everything had to be done somewhere by someone or some thing or is being done or will be done (even if it remains nothing), but you're talking, maybe, about people continuing to prove their desire to outsin each other, and that it's worse now. It seems worse; we can't even imagine a peaceful period like Knossos had, fully 3000 B.C.-1450 B.C. (only time I've heard of that.) I heard about 'degrees of sin' in the 8th grade. This was some vile teacher telling us this while sinning herself right in front of us. She sinned against me all the time. Practically speaking, we all think there are these 'degrees of sin', because we have to know who to put in prison or not, and so forth. But you're likely talking about something much higher, and I guess I'd have to read Lovecraft. At least we know that you think there is 'joy in having a physical body'. I rather doubt Mother-Saint Teresa ever had that thought. I agree it is truly wonderful, but it's a pain to have to give such bliss up eventually. Although if we do it right, maybe one life is enough. Someone said that, it sounded as right as anything could. But Peter Thiel and Kurzweil want to do further evolution, but if all they got was Methusaleh longevity, they wouldn't be satisfied, and they also wouldn't think of anything else.

Parisian said...

Just read all of Nick's links to Scott Alexander, NYT article, enormous numbers of contents under AstralCodexTen's Substack, but there are thousands, so not all of them. Lots of smart people. I saw one that said 'outgroup usually thought of as Trump and the Republicans', so I guess I've never cared enough to understand what 'ingroup' and 'outgroup' mean...I just looked up some more stuff and still don't know what it means, except that I must not be much of either, or only half-interested in any case. Nevertheless, 'always-sinning', and Nick links to Yarvin's new piece on Alexander, and he's quoted Gobineau, so I don't have to feel guilty about not worrying about further incarnations and reversing the most pleasurable perversions: “And no one will replace you when your degeneration is completed. That thirst for material pleasures now tormenting you is a positive symptom. It is a sure symptom, like the rosy cheeks of those who suffer from maladies of the chest. All civilizations in decline before you had it and, like you, they seem to have enjoyed it.”

Oh, don't I love that! My appetites get more obscene every day, and thus better. So, I don't even have to worry that I would have left the convent had I been a woman and tried being a nun till I couldn't stand it, just like in The Nun's Story. I remember when the old bitch mother superior left the door ajar and made Audrey Hepburn push it open, as she left in normal chic clothes, and smiled back uncaring at the chastity-frown of the old bag, and knew where the fuck she was headed. Nor would she have to 'climb ev'ry mountain' like that other drab nun did...

I shall now complete this Moldbug piece, which seems more interesting than usual. But no, if 'outgroup' means 'Trump and the Republicans', I'm certainly not in it. There were many varying and interesting assessments of Trump by some of the cleverest ones under the ACT article about Ezra Klein. But I didn't see people talking about the election being stolen, and I'm not going to read 2000 comments, some very long.

Love, love, love Moldbug's title "Scott Alexander, the Disappointed Lover". Moldbug says he now prefers 'nihilism' more than NRx.

I have now copied this and my other long comment, since you won't quit sucking off my rococo verbiage.

Alrenous said...

In this case Cthulu primarily refers to the line, "Cthulhu may swim slowly. But he only swims left." https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2009/01/gentle-introduction-to-unqualified/

I find Lovecraft originals to be tedious. The most horrifying part is his diction, not the subject matter, and I've never even tried to finish one. His mythology only truly comes alive under the pens of others. Nevertheless, it's his idea and he deserves the credit.

Christian Sin was cope and as such got all twisted up. There's only one thing that genuinely matters, which is the distinction between cooperation and defection. The fundamental theorem of "morality" is the prisoner's dilemma. If this doesn't feel complete, note also the constant tension between the long term and the short term.

Moldbug wouldn't know nihilism if it bit his arm off. His lack of mental discipline renders the idea microscopic.

Parisian said...

If this doesn't feel complete, note also the constant tension between the long term and the short term.

Ohhhh yes, it's a daily battle with me. And I'm never certain until completion (or near-completion) of whatever, be it long or short term, whether I've made the right decision. And they can either one be of devious length.

Thank you for your assessment of Lovecraft. As often, you're able to clarify certain things for me so I can be sure of the direction. I did remember you said Cthulu swims left, but maybe now I'll read the Moldbug piece you linked, and do some other reading about Lovecraft. But this feels like a wonderful freedom granted me to not to think I ought read those books. I am not sure why I never would do it--sometimes I'd even get them from the library, but I'd never start one, or even open one. This one I was talking about did sound as though it might also be after one whole quart of brandy.

Here's part of my favourite scene in all movies. I started to send it to you the other day, but thought you might not like it. Of course, you still might not. It's Brian De Palma's movie Dressed to Kill that pays homage to Hitchcock's Psycho, but this first 1/4 of the movie with Angie Dickinson and Ken Baker (this is the most complete I could find without the whole movie) is all I ever watch, and do watch it frequently. Psycho also had the masterful 1/4 opening 'movie-in-itself' with Janet Leigh, but even with the Shower Scene, this is better. The last 3/4 of both films are totally prosaic, and were never worth watching but once so you'd know it. The casting for this "silent-movie" scene is uncanny, incomparable. It was her greatest moment in a long career, and he never made a movie before or after this one. Likely a model. Amidst all those magnificent paintings.

But first, here is the mournful opening credits music. Youtube goes all the way through, but the part worth hearing is up through about 4:04. It tries to sound like just hackneyed Hollywood movie-music, but somehow can't--it can't keep from existing. It is not heard in the Met Museum scene I'm also linking, until the taxi he pulls her into starts moving, and a beautiful short-term moment is born. Although the music in the Museum Scene is also perfect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eF7keHg8Xk
Here's the scene itself, although I wish it hadn't been truncated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO0Cf9CUEu4

Parisian said...

I knew something was off. The Museum Scene is supposed to be at the Met, because the movie is set in NYC, but only the exteriors are (this clip doesn't have the opening exterior shot, or maybe a millisecond of it.) I knew the interior galleries and pictures were not familiar to me as having seen them 'live', having spent hours at the Met scores of times. Interiors are in Philadelphia Museum of Art, where I've never been. The final exterior in this clip is at the Met definitely (the front steps; the back goes directly into Central Park), taxi is parked on 5th Ave.

Parisian said...

Nick had links to Wilkinson, of whom I'd never heard. Moldbug said it was *long*, which it was, and it was also very boring. But Moldbug wrote one a few weeks back that was surely twice as long--although I'm not going to say that he's quite as boring as W., just deafening style. He said it was well-written, but Wilkinson has total absence of style, so you look for something else. I thought Moldbug was write about the 'paean to the NYTimes', it's bizarre. It reads like some gerbil-talk, and Moldbug sounds even more in a rage than usual. I haven't read way back yet (I will get to the one on Lovecraft), but has he always had this tone. You often sound very ferocious, and often from another, or other planets, but somehow you can't really write uglily--the strange planets are often 'tourist destination' sorts of things (at least for me--places I 'want to go to', as are certain things I devotedly attend to in my offline life; I hardly talk to anyone else on the net right now), although I don't know how many read them here, and you may write elsewhere, of course. So often (if not always) very true that *style is character.* Since some of the stuff is so difficult and outside my purview, I still always enjoy reading it. That's what I lied to you about, but I couldn't say so at the time, and it certainly was just 'keeping something on hold' for later, and...it was also true, because I didn't think it was so for awhile. It's not different from the rest of my prime attractions in life--primarily aesthetic, although I can be serious eventually. But, yes, given the kind of person I am, of course it was a relief. I don't think I was lying to you the two times you said I was, but if I was, I didn't know it. I told someone I didn't care if you could see right through me as you sometimes suggest you can--that doesn't seem strange somehow, it's even sort of a buzz: I may even write here as forms of physical evidence that you've gotten (most of) it right, and then, verbally or silently, let me know something. You know, the frequent association of beauty and severity is quite salutary when it is beautiful enough. I hadn't thought that often so-called 'cruel beauty' actually means that it was "resistibly beautiful".

I reread your Scott Alexander piece and the most recent one of Moldbug today, had read the Wilkinson and Moldbug mentioned above last night.


Parisian said...


I was struck by different snippets from what they were:

It ought to go without saying, but maybe it helps to say it anyway: Cade Metz is a human being whose life, subjectivity and safety are every bit as important as Scott Siskind’s.

Well, I guess it's wearying to think of their 'lives and safeties' being important or not, but I don't think their 'subjectivities' are either one that important, certainly not as important as mine, which is much more evolved than theirs is.

I don't think Moldbug has an editor, does he?

If reason was Wilkinson’s wife, this would be his explanation for letting power suck his dick. If Moldbug wants to get racy, he might as well get the positioning right. It's Wilkinson who suck's power's dick, not the other way around.No matter how vile the NYT is, it's certainly sadistic in the normal way when it decides it is going to be, and even Wilkinson admits that, in this 'monarchy of Sulzberger and whoever' [from Moldbug, although probably not exact] "nearly everyone is motivated to conceal, bend or shade the truth to their advantage, especially to the New York Times — because it is extraordinarily reliable and, therefore, widely trusted." The 'top' can be in whatever 'position' (the NYT doesn't even have a body on which to pin it), it can even seem like the 'bottom', but it always calls the shots. NYT is not worried about whether Wilkinson loves them, just that he obey them. So--Moldbug is 'into bad sex'.
But god knows, Wilkinson and Alexander both 'suck'. Alexander just sounds so delicate, almost cosseted. I wonder if he grew up in Riverdale.

Parisian said...

I just read a big clump of your 2009-2010 posts. Lots of them were interesting, and had unfamiliar commenters except, I think, Szabo in some of the 2009 ones. And I'd only heard the name.

I referred to that 'relief' yesterday, but that fact (although you didn't have to tell me, one must notes--and you often or usually don't) also evened out all the voices, which I've mentioned before, but without articulating them well. Not that I would have actually objected to your being a baobab tree, but maybe you were just 'being creative' in a moment of ennui since, unlike any other form of humanity, the tree has no imaginable voice, a child-voice science prodigy would), and I noticed the Bing showing a big one in Hawaii just after that, something that always made me think of Kenya. It just made it easier, although I wonder how my perceptions of the writing were coloured by the fact that, before that discreet disclosure, I was imagining I heard some science-genius who wouldn't be exactly what I'd call strapping--so I guess timbre and pitch must be very important at all times to me, even if it may be an impediment to what someone is trying to say, and that I should work against it, if possible.It must surely be ordinary, meaning almost everybody (?) who hears some sound in the mind's ear or maybe there's a 'virtual ear'. I was noticing that yesterday when, no matter what the tone of the content is, I now imagine I'm hearing the same timbre, register (not high, somewhat low, but not very low), but don't think I have ever gotten them right once I've talked on the phone or met in person. Maybe once, but probably not if I can't remember who it was.

The writing is seemingly recognizably yours (if primarily because I knew it was), but I instantly imagined another timbre and pitch of voice in the old posts. I'd necessarily see the similarities in the writing, but that has changed greatly, I think anyway. It sounds more clipped by comparison to what I've read in the last couple of years, and especially recently, when it is much more extravagant (not a matter of the length of the posts.) I had read some posts long before I ever commented here, but although I'm not sure, I think they would have been in maybe 2015 or 2016 (I imagined those as darker and slightly scary sometimes, so stopped for awhile.)

And while I usually imagine you as young (but not that young), the earlier writing sounded (even without the 'internal voice') younger. That would probably happen with anyone. The old ones all had their individual 'timbre' like the recent ones do, and they didn't change, as these have until recently.

Parisian said...

Again, I wonder if this makes me misinterpret lots of writers whose real voices I have not heard, and judge them as much on that as I do people on their looks in real life, although not entirely except for certain kinds of situations (I know that is not necessarily considered a good quality, but I am unconcerned with what people think about that.)

In fact, one of the worst misperceptions was Nick--whom I talked to for some years before happening on a video where he's interviewed. I always thought he would sound as some deep authoritative timbre, some 'Elder' speaking smart, if not always wise, things--some Indian Chief type. The video proved that none of that was the case--he has a high voice, much much higher than most men I have heard. I know that means nothing, but one of your old pieces about 'communication' must extend to the misperceptions on the net of things that register and things that don't, as in all vocal production.
I keep telling myself not to write anything else, but something else will then strike me that I'll want to put here, but if I'm being too boring to you, you can always say so (as I said at the beginning of this series), and I'll stop, since I've annoyed you several times, although I think people just annoy each other all the time, but it's your call (including saying nothing, of course.) I'm not interested in seeming like a simp any more than a scold to you, just because I'm attracted to your various forms of work and presence, and I've got alligator-thick skin anyway (I don't think you'd take that into consideration anyway, which is good.) But just because you're the only one on the net (at least regularly, except emails sometimes instead of phone calls), I think I've been clear enough that I wouldn't be as aggressive as things can sometimes get on the net, because it's both unsatisfying itself, and also because I really am deeply invested in several others off the net, too, which should make me seem less aggravating hopefully--the net is convenient, but the lack of fleshliness usually automatically drives me off most places,and I never think of 'those things' when it comes to 'cyber'. It's more comfortable now that you are still inspiring, but don't inspire fear as you once did (in 2015 or 2016), and also the writing is so much more voluptuous and recklessly exciting than it was in 2009 and 2010, even if you don't feel that way. But it probably is true that NOT hearing these sounds would be better in your terms, because it may 'bend truth' just like the NYT makes its writers do, and wrongly colour anything I read whose intent is to be serious. I didn't expect to write this one either, but I thought it only reasonable that I look back at your archives, or I was only doing or writing many things that you'd already finished with (and still may.)

Alrenous said...

Come to think, even though I've seen a couple Land interviews, I still read his posts in an entirely unrelated voice.