Caveat: Psycho

Psycho.


What I'm listening to right now.

MC 900ft Jesus, "The City Sleeps." This is basically a song from the point of view of a psychopathic arsonist. I'm not endorsing that, but it's an interesting piece, from early 90's.

Lyrics

Stealing down an alley on a cold dark night
I see a halo in the rain 'round the street light
I stop and look, and listen to the sound
As the raindrops penetrate the silence all around

Alone, I gaze into the glistening street
The distant thunder echoing my heartbeat
Urging me on to a secret goal
Away from the light from this lamp on a pole

So I turn, slip away into the rain
Drifting like a spirit through the shadows in the lane
Clutching the tools of my trade in my hand
An old box of matches and a gasoline can

Darkness envelops the scene like a shroud
A veil of emptiness hangs from the clouds
Filling up the cracks in this desolate place
Cradled by the night in an icy embrace

Moving to the town like a ghost in the rain
A dim reflection in a dark window pane
Blackness beckons from every side
Creeping all around like an incoming tide

A broken window in an empty house
I slip inside and begin to douse
The whole place with the fuel that will feed the fire
And push back the night, taking me higher

On out of the darkness in a defeaning roar
The match in my hand is the key to the door
A simple turn of the wrist will suffice
To open a passage to paradise

I pause, I think about the past and the gloom
The smell of gasoline permeates the room
Everyone has a little secret he keeps
I light the fires while the city sleeps

(Like the 4th of July)

The match makes a graceful ark to the floor
And time stands still as I turn for the door
Which expoldes in a fireball and throws me to the street
I hit the ground running with the flames at my feet

Reaching for the night which recoils from the fire
The raindrops hiss like a devilish choir
Dying in the flames with a terrible sound
Calling all the names of the sleepers all around

But then in the arms of the night, they lay
Their dreams sprout wings and fly away
Out of the houses in a gathering flock
Swarming overhead as I hurry down the block

I make my escape with the greatest of ease
And safe in the darkness, drop to my knees
And the lightless window, my hand on the latch
I reach in my pocket, and pull out a match

(Like the 4th of July)

[daily log (11 pm): walking, 5 km]]

Caveat: Cuil

Someone tried to develop a (pseudo-)scientific unit for the measurement of absurdity, or the degree of surrealism in a given situation.

In and of itself, it has a certain absurdity to it. It began, apparently, on reddit (a website dedicated to absurdity, under some analyses), but now a separate "wiki" is being built to expound the notion: cuil theory.

Moving forward, let's assume you have read some of the materials on that linked website. Then consider that the idea of cuil theory, in itself, has a cuil value greater than one.

I think cuil would be useful for classifying the content of dreams, not to meantion academic work in comparative literature, or philosophy? How about Žižek? I had intended to write more about this, but what I wrote before seemed absurd (go figure) so I deleted it, and now I'm not doing well at recapturing the tone of my original conception.

The one observation that struck me when I first ran across it: the reason why Cervantes' last work, Persiles, stands at least equal to – if not superior to – the Quijote novels, is because the Persiles has a higher cuil number. Elaborate….

[daily log: walking, 1 km]

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