Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part LI

If the “sexy” attached (attached meaning similar to “referred to”) to the “erogenous zones” and if the “beautiful” attached to “subliminitous” zones (either type of zone being of the body or the body of the earth or of the body of the cosmos, or of a Hoover vacuum cleaner) and if, (though these two zones never intersect in an equivalence relation,) we will call sexy and beautiful different concepts.

If...blah, blah, blah. Itwethey had a funny joke with the “subliminitous zones” thing, she thought, but it was about to stop being funny as it expanded into a set theoretical method for examining candidate answers to the question of whether or not sexy was another word for beautiful. This was going to veer us off course, when for now, what suffices is to voice the suspicion: beauty is “in front of” the sexy as a fakery hiding being turned on, for disowning, disavowing, or being untrue or inauthentic to, impulses from the body. “Beauty” is “sexy” which is unopened to its own vitality, power, creative capacity, joy, dancing involvement with life.

Itwethey will focus on the change, the social change-- the lifeworld change-- manifesting between “beautiful” and “sexy”.

Part of the fun will be to mock and cast aspersions on Immanuel Kant’s sex life. Itwethey might get really wild and crazy and start mocking Nietzsche’s, too. Itwethey can hardly wait to throw ad hominem attacks onto frail, boring, “stuck in a rut” old Manny. Let it be known from the outset,however, the other idea is to recapture some sense of the intensity, dedication, sincerity, adventure, intrepid spirit, courage, impeccable integrity, and audacity lost or lowered or betrayed, between the “beautiful” and the “sexy.” We want both. (Itwethey would say, “We must (as necessity)have both. We need a better concept of both.”)

Monday, May 30, 2011

Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part L

“Whereof one cannot think casually, thereof is one invited to think ecstatically.”- AoA, Cactatus Lego Philosophicus, (Santa Fe & Frisco, 1967).

Is sexy another word for beautiful? Is there anything beautiful which isn’t sexy? Is there anything sexy which isn’t beautiful? “Does spontaneity have use of the sexy?” Itwethey wonders. "There must be some quality, not really of the sex act, intercourse, of foreplay, or whatever else is pre-, post-, or concurrent to sex, nor directly attached in one or several ways to perception of the genitalia or “erogenous” zones (though in the mentioning of “erogenous” zones, an ambiguity begins to enter into this line of questioning because where erogenous zones begin and end has none of the anatomical certainty of where, for example, a penis or testicles begin and end.) “Sexy” is a kind of global quality (though it can attach to localized or specific areas)—it’s amorphous as beauty is,(though of course beauty attaches to specific forms, some forms are beautiful and others aren’t, but it is amorphous in terms of which are and aren’t beautiful: the form “beauty” is amorphous.) No one would call judgments of “sexy” disinterested, as Kant called judgments of beauty (though Kant calling judgments of beauty so may have been an early warning of systematic mishap. Kant couldn't have considered that his response to the beautiful was sex-charged); “sexy” is interested in doing something, too…

" 'Sexy' can’t be detached from the bodily as judgment of beauty can, it even has much less the feeling of being a judgment—it’s not being handed down from on high, but is coming up, from below, in a pleasant sensation. It’s a nascent lusting, and there might be more a feeling that we are subject to 'sexiness', not we judge or judge it not. In other words, it is involving (which may be another way of saying it is not disinterested.) It seems less likely that we would contemplate sexy (though maybe that’s what Itwethey is doing now.) We would fantasize about the sexy." Itwethey does not have that much confidence in the distinction between these two mental states, contemplation and fantasizing, to know whether and to what extent the difference is significant. We are emotionally involved in a fantasy, while contemplating we use the intellect? And what does that mean?

" 'Sexy' is more natural-inclining than beauty; as it does not involve (in the same way and to the same extent) comparison, reflection, and abstraction (though it does involve abstraction to a great extent, as mentioned above, and this is important) as beauty, it feels more immediate; those inclining to spontaneity might speak more freely and readily in terms of sexiness than beauty. Does the sexy get more contemporary attention and consideration than the beautiful? Is the beautiful more embarrassing now than the sexy? "

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part XLIX

Guest isn’t very matronly. Guest doesn’t even suggest the matronly. Arms filled with firewood, naked, legs akimbo—some of this might be thought to suggest the matronly (Especially the gathering of the firewood. Though most matrons would gather firewood if asked, none would do so naked…But where’s the line? Itwethey can picture naked matrons gathering firewood, walking along with firewood, and yet the picture resembles IN NO WAY Guest doing so.) Gathering of firewood is awkward and ugly and “utilitarian” (NB: “utilitarian” always works against the “sexy” and all us workers who worship at the shrine of a good fuck should be asking ourselves why,) twigs can’t be gathered or well managed by the arms, strategies of arm filling are worthless—any idea of gracefulness and much more important than that, of efficiency, must be abandoned. Yet Guest stands there, naked, unmatronly, arms filled with firewood, exemplary.

Guest with legs akimbo. Itwethey probably does imagine a baby popping out. Maybe not with the legs akimbo and straight, but with the legs akimbo and squatting, yes. And yet this isn’t the first thing coming to Itwethey’s mind. Itwethey only considers it now due to Itwethey thinking about the matronly, which Itwethey is thinking of now only due to thinking of human warmth. Why Itwethey would be thinking of human warmth now, Itwethey doesn’t know. Itwethey had been musing on metaphors of containment—openness and closure—and as a hopeful alternative to that mess (metaphors of metaphor) Itwethey’s thought had drifted on to warmth.

Guest is posed outside, in a yard, utilitarian in aspect (you’ve got to wonder, though, just how much Frank Gehry, that postmodern fuck, has had to do with this set up, even though Itwethey has studiously avoided, contrary to all evidence to the…contrary?, anything to do with the postmodern, especially its architectural conceits…Itwethey is focused on the “Enlightenment” and reactions to it ( though Itwethey knows the Department of Homeland Security (not a phantasm of Itwethey’s various sick imaginationings) might swoop down with felony charges of irony-ambiguoisity-postmodernity due to Itwethey being willing to put the word, the title, the entitlement, the common property, ENLIGHTENMENT, in quotations—a good universal, same as a good fuck, doesn’t belong in quotations.)

Guest, matronly and warm, and yet exceedingly fashionable and modern. This adds up to Guest not at all matronly or warm but entirely fashionable and modern. Naked, this can only mean Guest at the pelvis (where Itwethey immediately directs his attention, a camera, a camera on a track, with a most sophisticated lens, capable of this most wonderful of desire operations: “zooming in”. The pelvis is thrusted forward and this is warm, warmth, HOT, welcoming, zealous, wishful, plentiful, photogenic.) Camera.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part XLVIII

“It is not necessarily that the acolytes and apostles of “openness” (AoA) have resorted to a form of mysticism, or regressed to a primitive form of thinking,” Itwethey says. “It could be the older ‘rationalistic’ notions of concept, which made concepts metaphorically be something similar to containers, eschewing metaphors of openness as imprecise and hazy, were misguided.”

“The concept of God is that God passes beyond all conceptualization. Our concept of God is that God surpasses our own concepts of God… God is a being whose being exceeds and will always exceed human powers of conceptualization,” Itwethey is saying, hoping this concept of God which she has just called “our concept” truly is widespread enough to be comprehensible.

“However, if a concept is not a container, God going beyond the concept is not exceptional—God isn’t specified this way. Every conceptualized object might be discovered to be going beyond its conception, since any conception wouldn’t hold the object—wouldn’t need to, shouldn’t be expected to. It would have to do neither with the power and capacity of God specifically, nor the limitations of the human intellect. It’s a matter of a different model of the concept.”

“The new open model or way of thinking could and probably would extend the range of what’s experienced as ecstatic (as more experiences would have this characteristic of surpassing their own conception, what was reserved for God, and experienced as ecstatic. The traditional defining power of God as conceived by humans, vis the human understanding, would be shared by many, many things,)” says Itwethey. “We aren’t even beginning to consider if there might be non-conceptual ways of thinking. Do we need to consider 'non-conceptual' thinking if we've expanded and opened our concept of concept, as above?"

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part XLVII

“If you have a concept, for example of God, and yet you for one reason or another cannot or will not or must not give it any definite form, how do you know you even have a concept?” Itwethey muses. Itwethey's musing is related to the thoughts about “openness.”

“Or is it that you do have a concept, with content and form, a subject with a predicate, and all the rest, but that you refuse, because of dishonesty or self-delusion, or perhaps fear, to say what the form of the concept is, and just say it, for example of God, ‘it cannot be given any definite form’, as a device for protecting yourself, for disguising your lie?” Itwethey asks. “If we can say the word God, we have something in mind, we have something definite in mind. We could force ourselves to say what that is rather than being coy about it.” Why would we be coy, and for whom? It must be for ourselves, because there is something frightening in revealing to ourselves what we definitely think about God—any definite thing we think about God is tawdry, petty, inferior, impoverished in relationship to the power and majesty we must trust God possesses...To limit God and sincerely believe God could be so limited,would be frightening--a frightening reduction—it’s a castration of God (it takes guts (and even with, there’s a feeling this is in very poor taste) to write the very words.)

Itwethey shares a desire with many others (Jews, Christians, or perhaps all theistic religions?) to leave as “open” in understanding and feeling any definite characteristic, trait, quality, or other conceivable feature of God and this “leaving as open” is primary within Itwethey’s religious feeling. That this is so had led Itwethey to view his beliefs in God as “undogmatic.” (“Undogmatic”—it’s a way for Itwethey to deny what he’d learned had been taught to him...That teachings were teachings…To deny the history arriving at the notion of “leaving as open” of God. The extremely peculiar and circuitous hidden network of thoughts behind this seemingly unproblematic connection of ideas lived and bled over in history and congealing here as some natural,plain, and simple thing—this is what Itwethey must get after (getting after the acolytes and apostles of “openness” is merely a part of it.))

Earlier, Itwethey had said, “God is a confined space.” Now Itwethey is telling us something about a “leaving as open” of God. There’s a contradiction, and probably also a paradox: it could be the “leaving as open” of God which results in or contributes to God being lived as a confined space, but Itwethey does not believe pushing or pursuing either the contradiction or the paradox will be fruitful. It is worthy of remark, however, that we would reach this moment or place where God would in any way be discussed in relationship to either open or closed.

Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part XLVI

Come to think of it, insofar as Itwethey believes equating “achieving” spontaneity with the ability to or the act of creating or producing beauty, (as a side note: why is it that creation is a word we might artsy-fartsily embrace, while production, which might be very similar in meaning, has that metallic, industrial, mass “produced” ring to it which we artsy-fartsily reject? What if we tried to inject into discourse phrases such as “these widgets were mass-created at Dink-a-Dink, Inc.’s Tokyo plant” would we help to eliminate some measure of an unreasonable exclusion of human “creative-productive” worth?) and insofar as Itwethey was saying this equation led to desexualization, Itwethey was accusing the acolytes and apostles of “openness” (AoA) of being desexualized.

Nudity and all. Pride to the point of arrogance at having achieved, “being, like totally, unrepressed,” and all. The nudity of the AoA has this feeling of being unsexy, and what’s even more, of being “preachy.” Itwethey thinks so, anyway.

Itwethey says, “Listen sometime, if you get the chance, to some naked AoA sweeties singing some pretty songs, chanting, or lyrically reciting recitations of lyrics, and tell me if you do not notice—the words, the lyrics, the libretto—is it not ‘preachy’?” Itwethey further remarks, “If it is religiously inclined, it will be the religious inclination to judge, and it will be hard to avoid feeling it as being judgmental, condemning.” (If something is being judged, it is being condemned. Let us be very clear about that.)

This is a little philosophical problem the AoA have (and of which they do not wish to become aware.) Their ecstasy, spontaneity, nudity and “naturalness” is anti-social. It is explicitly amoral (amoral understood as not caring a damn about whatever it is the social cares about) and individual (individual understood as the opposite of the social or the collective.) However, the AoA do not wish to be, and in fact are not, anti-social. They are as informed, as connected, as engaged, as involved, participating in the social and the political (and the ethical) as any other group, if not more so. This does not change the quality of their ecstasy, spontaneity, nudity, and “naturalness” from anti-social to social. That it does not isn’t very fair. If things were fair, reality should be more than glad to change the quality. It shouldn’t even need to be asked. This is so glaringly obviously deserved by the AoA. They really are good. Their bodies really are superior, (if you ask Itwethey, who favors toned, tanned, abundantly hairy bodies, no silicone, no cosmetic surgery, little makeup, etc.) If the way they manifest is anti-social and yet we know (we do know!) they are exemplary in their sociality, that ought to be good enough for reality, and in reality we would, without qualms, accept them as social!

Monday, May 23, 2011

Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part XLV

“We thought the representative or imitative in art as being about thinking clearly, while spontaneity in art was about feeling vividly. The spontaneously-produced art couldn’t have been beautiful at first—what the word beauty meant did not apply to this dripping mass-- this mutant birth. Perhaps the spontaneously-produced art never should have become designated as beautiful—for it became so through the formation of new sets of conventions, of conventionality” said Itwethey. “I find it disturbing, really. It may have had to do with reception of these works in the marketplace, and if reception in the marketplace had not been a consideration, the ugliness of these works remaining foremost, our experience of them would have remained vivid. Their monstrosity and their vividness were linked, and when the beast became the beautiful, this was a cerebral event, a desexualization, a diminishment and a loss, not a gain. It didn’t happen within the work itself, obviously. It was a process acting on the reception of the work, on the way the work was received.”

“As a receiver of these works, I have to be surprised by them, by their spontaneity—I can’t be expecting it. If I come upon them expecting spontaneity, it really is a neutralized spontaneity—it is spontaneity as “method.” Methodical spontaneity is denatured spontaneity. Unfortunately, all of the great modernist abstract or other art which I have seen since childhood I expect to be spontaneous, I have learned for it to be beautiful, and it is usually spoiled for me, except in those wonderful moments when…Um, I don’t know what it is, but let me say in this context that it feels as if I spontaneously feel the spontaneous and it is returned to its hideous meconium-smeared, vaginal mucus soaked, membrane-still-adhering, skull-still-malformed and fontanelles gaping and only covered by thin skin, showing palpating activity underneath—fragility and monstrosity,” said Itwethey, with a momentary awe, very uncommon for her.

“I may be wrong, but I believe the acolytes and apostles of “openness” (AoA) see the relationship between spontaneity and beauty differently,” continued Itwethey. “For them, the spontaneity is assumed to be beautiful, the beauty is the given of a spontaneity authentically achieved. I may be wrong about this too, but I believe this way of looking at the relationship between spontaneity and beauty could account for their narcissistic vibe,” said Itwethey, self-conscious because the word “vibe” she’d just used comes straight out of the AoA lexicon.

“If my reasoning above about the relationship of the marketplace to the beauty factor of the spontaneous holds, what I may be willing to conclude…And I need to think about this some more…Is that what the AoA affirm, probably unwittingly, is the importance of the marketplace as it mediates in the reception (sensible reception Itwethey means here) of works of art,” Itwethey says, looking upwards and to the right, as if hypnotized, at a corner of the cabin, and then he nods off to sleep.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part XLIV

“Does spontaneity have use of beauty?” Itwethey wonders. “Any preoccupation or consideration for beauty would imply premeditation contrary to spontaneity,” Itwethey thinks. But it may be more difficult and subtle than this. “Beauty cannot be volunteered…Is spontaneity volunteered? Can one volunteer one’s self for spontaneity? If so, spontaneity does not exclude some kind or measure of preparation, and that included preparation might just have something to do with beauty.”

Unless the spontaneity volunteered for is a denatured spontaneity...It might be. Denatured because cultured and cultivated, with the processes of culture and cultivation carefully concealed by the acolytes and apostles of “openness” (AoA) in order to make spontaneity (and “openness” (but why and how the openness we are far away from explaining)) the false token they pay at the toll booth of the Gate at the fence of the Garden of Eden, when they are returning there, naked.

However that may be, the spontaneity sought by the AoA is situated historically, with certain political and perhaps ethical features which can, and must, be sketched.

In general, AoA spontaneity signals a rejection of rationality. It signals an alliance with the arts against the sciences which are conceived of as arts of control and confinement. The scientific arts are dogmatic, authoritarian, and hierarchical—all obviously (?) the opposite of the spontaneous and therefore to be opposed. And avoided. Spontaneity is against the state—it is in some intellectual alliance with anarchism (but it is not anarchism or any other explicitly political stance, all of which would be considered, in their very nature as political stances, political ideologies, and therefore constrained (NOT spontaneous.) The spontaneity is a reaction to the entire political spectrum, left side, right side,( but maybe not the infinitesimally-small space (which is also as large as the universe) where right and left meet and are perfectly, mystically balanced—but this remains to be examined.) For example, socialist planning would be rejected on the basis of spontaneity in a reaction against the “left.” As capitalism is considered to be unplanned and spontaneous production and exchange, capitalism would be affirmed if not for the stifling and inhibiting effects of capitalism the AoA believe they have experienced directly (though they do not theorize why these occur, and Itwethey does not see how they could, having rejected rationality (and thus the power of theorization, as Itwethey herself conceives this.)

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part XLIII

“We can’t exactly volunteer to make the world, or ourselves, beautiful,” says Itwethey. “We are now either beautiful or not-- We become beautiful, or we don’t.” Beauty, Itwethey believes, is inviting. Itwethey wishes to be inviting: Itwethey may therefore have an interest in beauty…. In inviting beauty and being inviting by being beautiful.

To become attractive—this is not Itwethey’s ambition. It has only just occurred to Itwethey that his acts of preparation could be interpreted in that way. Hospitality is not seduction. Itwethey does not wish and will not rely on lure or allure. Itwethey will not hook Guest, nor be for Guest a hooker (gigolo?) “It isn’t about hooking LOVE,” Itwethey says. “It isn’t about using beauty (or anything else) as bait.” Itwethey pauses, “We’ll leave that to God.” Itwethey pauses, further, grimaces slightly, and adds, “His priests have not hesitated to use charity as bait, nor to make His house of worship into giant fish traps.” (Itwethey has not yet spoken of charity in relation to consideration for the moment of encounter, but this is on the agenda—it is upcoming.)

Itwethey’s own Hope has been fished up by Guest’s beauty—has been invited by it (but not quite welcomed by it, at least so far.) Itwethey has used the forest’s beauty all along. The humble stoop, ugly and hunched, serves its purpose and amidst the foliage and flowers of the forest is the last thing to draw attention to itself (unless it should collapse.) Itwethey admits, however, "It isn’t entirely pleasurable when Hope is fished up…It is bittersweet, there is the tang of hurt mixed in with the anticipation." Itwethey would say, “If you LOVE me let me know, if you don’t then just say so—so I can go kill myself.” But really, Itwethey already knows the expectation of something in return for hospitality is a blemish in advance of the hospitality.

The beautiful as a consideration in preparation for the moment of encounter thus has a downright peculiar status, and perhaps no role to play at all.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part XLII

The acolytes and apostles of “openness” (AoA) are not only happy, happy, happy…They are ecstatic. (If you haven’t been thinking of AoA who are ecstatic and widely broadcasting their ecstasy, you haven’t been thinking of the same ones as Itwethey.)

Itwethey is irritated by AoA ecstasy, but is the irritation justified? Itwethey needs to know. Itwethey’s irritation is based on some feeling of AoA ecstasy being fake. If AoA ecstasy is fake, Itwethey’s irritation is justified, because more than anything, AoA ecstasy is presented as the token of authenticity. AoA ecstasy is presented as the token of authenticity and self-sufficient joy—unconditioned and unconditional joy--completeness. As completeness, ecstasy lacks for nothing (the AoA, as ecstatic, would by implication also lack for nothing) The ecstasy is complete spiritually, physically, and materially (or in any other category Itwethey may, through Itwetheyian incompleteness, have omitted.) If this ecstasy rings hollow, its incompleteness is for Itwethey an aggravation (insufficient self-sufficiency? "Which is it," asks Itwethey.)

About AoA ecstasy Itwethey has this to say,

AoA openness means open to experience. (This isn’t as obvious as it may seem.) The idea of being open to experience might seem to mean openness to any and all experience. It doesn’t, though. It means being open to ecstatic experience. Ecstasy is the experience. This ecstatic experience is thought to be the token of the experience of the experience of all and any and every experience. It is thought if you were to open to every experience, all the experiences of time and space, the experience you’d experience would be ecstasy. It is as if the sum of all experience finitely experienced, is ecstasy. Note that as the sum of all experience, the ecstasy is a complete experience—obviously a kind of peak experience, a summit, the apex of a pyramid. (Why is it so natural to make a peak or summit symbolic of completeness? Because the peak is atop all of the rest? Like a crown, a monarch, a King or Queen? This doesn’t make much sense outside the nonsensical conventions arising in human history.)

Saturday, May 07, 2011

Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part XLI

Little openness, let us be proud both of little and of open. Big open probably isn’t open. Little open, in its squealched nature (it would be big, iffen “things been different”; being little is victimization however not the case being big be superior or noteworthy or remarkable) is a tiny crack, a crack if you pass into be making you VERY BIG. You might think a tiny crack would welcome a tiny passing, but you’d be wrong. A tiny crack wants to be split wide by an enormous passing, in both time and space (it can barely get in, and once in, it “spends” a lot of time in.)

Within the context of “enlightenment” we’ve spent an enormous, humungous, geez such size can’t be real gigamungohumoguneous amount of time on the immature versus the mature, but now’ze the time we gonna say to the world: we must evaluate the premature versus the “overstayedthewelcome.” This arises because at least in part, Itwethey’s “bid welcome” demands it arise.

Little openness, clothed as Venus Fly Trap is clothed, in mysterious appendages, hairs, lubricants, toothed enclosures, lips, tongues, digestive enzymes, salivas, sativas, cannibas sativas, sat-on-faces, faces-ambitioning-to-sit-on-worlds, English teachers in cubicle classromms happing into daffodil striations, little firewood and the still supple blossom of fresh water from the womb of the earth, siren English teacher signaling the omnipresence of desire, passion, wordscoldignited.

Little openness, with your Venus Fly Trap hairs sensitive to Beelezebub intrusion, Nightmare Xenon Flow, Radon “down below” size-tightening fire, aglow, when lips snap to make Beelzebub lips’ own, premature, immature, mature, Victor Mature, and Victor amateur, doesn’t matter. Sat down on bottom matters. Itwethey has discovered a solution “bottom matters.”

Friday, May 06, 2011

Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part XL

Itwethey’s pedagogy of encounter requires saying something more specific about what the acolytes and apostles of “openness” (AoA) believe.

The AoA reject established institutions and values and seek spontaneity.

As an institution is any structure or mechanism of social order, and as spontaneity is somehow or other not mechanized, structured, or ordered, it can’t be surprising for AoA , seeking spontaneity as they do, to reject institutions, established or otherwise. (But are there “unestablished” institutions? No.) We could say, if we wanted to be more accurate: the AoA reject established things, institutions, and values. Institutions and values are always established, so, to be even more succinct, we could say the AoA reject “established things.” Institutions and values are elements, among a large number of other elements, of the set of established things. The question which must now be asked and answered is this: are there any elements of human language, culture, society, or human ways of being which are not elements of the set of “established things”? The question then is: if there are not, are the AoA nihilists, as they reject everything? (Or at least everything humans have established.)

The AoA seek spontaneity. They do not reject spontaneity. Spontaneity such as it exists in the life of humans is affirmed over and against what humans have established. Spontaneity and the affirmation of spontaneity thus distinguishes the AoA from nihilists. Spontaneity thus bears a heavy weight load for the AoA: it is the positive seed, or egg, or energy potentiatus from which a humanity unidentified and undefined by what it establishes, (whether what it establishes is understood as culture in its broadest sense, or as institutions, or values, art or science or religion or art-science-religion (the greatest possible dream of those who affirm “Establishment.”)

Thursday, May 05, 2011

Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part XXXIX

“Don’t remember any victims who weren’t chaste.” Were the victims chaste because chastened? If they weren’t chastened, were they victims? Victims is chaste is chastened. Does this not lead us to believe Itwethey resents the luxury of “open” nudity? That Itwethey demands its punishment? Resents the luxury of “open” nudity because to Itwethey the luxury of “open” nudity has been denied. (Which it more or less has been. As righteous, holy, beautiful nudity of justice. There’s no doubt Itwethey can become naked, can shed clothing, can parade around in birthday suit, can be “au naturel”, can promenade “in the raw”: what is in doubt is if Itwethey can promenade “in the raw” righteously, holily, homily, unhomely, unheimlich-heimlichly, beautifully as Adam, Eve, and Great God himself, in the cool of the evening, in the garden of Eden.) Itwethey, chastened and chaste, resents the unchastened? Egads!

Were the unchastened victims (there had to have been a time when they had not been chastened, even the most repressive and oppressive modern ideology grants a privilege of innocence to childhood, warranted or not—this is the only viable threshold distinguishing sanity from insanity in any modern ideology—it is tissue thin, regardless) happy and free in their nudity (the nudity of childhood often is voluntary—this isn’t in doubt—and that’s very good, strong evidence of the comfort and joy of nudity over against being clothed) but expelled from that happy privilege by a finger-pointing Jehovah of authority who wanted them shamed from their joy, their privilege, their happiness, their power? Which side is Itwethey really on? If the victims prefer nudity until the finger is pointed at them even if and always ever after they know “we were wrong and guilty then” Itwethey could conclude to honor and sympathize with the victims without, nevertheless, identifying with their chastening. (“You have been made victims with such force as is the force of irreversibility. Your chastity is the chastity of inevitability, of necessity. It will stand and it must stand. And next to it, “open” nudity doesn’t stand up. Worse than that, “open” nudity’s fake standing up relies on the irreversible, inevitable and necessary chastity of the victim. What is this?)

A few preparatory remarks. Itwethey sits in a wilderness (or a reasonable facsimile thereof—probably as good as can be done in the modern (if there is a natural period of the modern and not an ideology of a natural period of the modern) and relies on gusts of randomness, chance, airs of accident, of turbulence at 20,000 feet, error, oopsie-daisie, of delightful privilege to goof, to be dumb, the right to be wrong, and as the trees, the foliage, the sticks, the windfall, the loam, the sand, the lichens, the unlikelihood, the paupers, the Poplars, the injustice, the migraines, the accumulations of all this improbable, (which Itwethey’s probiliscope has, in a remarkable series of images to be exhibited at the Whitney gallery in Manhattan, resolirresolveprobprobprobbbed, next to Richard Avedon’s black and white photos of Itwethey’s home state of BwOaska) Itwethey has nevertheless not resorted to contracts of and for the path, the stoop, anyone’s hope, Love, desire, tomorrow, the sun not setting “in itself”, or prismatics of rainbows, for Hitler.

Institutions are similarly anathema to Itwethey’s conception of wilderness and "bid welcome". Next, we will consider whether Itwethey can, in greeting Guest, eliminate ALL projection, identification, and idealization ( whether Itwethey can or cannot will be used to support the transcendence of nature, or its being thrown out, with the egg shells and coffee grounds.)

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part XXXVIII

Itwethey had never met an apostle or acolyte of “openness” who was what Itwethey would consider disadvantaged, either materially through poverty or materially through suffering of some kind, for example through illness or accident disabled. Itwethey had met apostles and acolytes who had messed up very, very badly the hand they’d been dealt at birth, but this is different, Itwethey thinks. Itwethey notes the frequency with which the apostles and acolytes identify with the disadvantaged ( and here Itwethey will re-emphasize that “to identify” is red-flagged as severest hazard—and will be doubled back on to examine more closely, and with a little luck, to be critiqued, in the context in which it arises, fully.) Itwethey suspicions a desire for victimization and sees this as further evidence of “openness” being a very mysterious or misguided strategy for guilt.

The apostles and acolytes of “openness” suspicion their material advantages are not earned or deserved; the material disadvantage of the world’s multitude of victims is not earned or deserved; importantly, the apostles and acolytes of “openness” ruthlessly reject the ideological justifications of those with material advantage who thereby affirm the advantage as earned and deserved while also affirming the world’s multitude of victims earn and deserve that, too. (Except for the kids: there’s a new crop each year, and some are growing older; innocence is shed at puberty and that’s the moment also of earning and deserving one’s disadvantage. Also a deep suspicion puberty is much better, “down there.”)

Apostles and acolytes of “openness” can join the disadvantaged, can leave the world of advantage, as a tourist in the world of disadvantage, for the enriching experience. This is what they are “open” to. What annoys Itwethey so much is that after that taste of disadvantage, they can call it off and then retreat to comfort, there to recount the richness and wisdom, or write a poem, or perhaps rhapsodize about the resourcefulness, creativity and humanity of the poor, or whatever, but what makes suffering suffering and much worse than a “change of pace” or a kind of palate refresher between courses, or a more somber shade for the palette, is precisely when it can’t be called off, when one can’t get a “break” from it, a little time off to collect oneself; it isn’t voluntary. The face is smashed down into it, down into the mud and the shit, and that hurts and does the complexion not the slightest bit of good, let alone the nose and front teeth. You don’t slip into it and out of it, and you suspicion you’ll maybe never slip out of it, though maybe you can’t lose hope you will. “Wait while I-I-I slip into something a little more comfortable,” funny when that means the borders of the USA.

It also seems to Itwethey that in this sense, the nudity, along with the “openness” is a luxury commodity. Don’t remember any victims who weren’t chaste.

Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part XXXVII

Rebellious and uncompromising: the question was what Guest being nude contributed to this, if anything; and whether, ultimately, the question itself was rebellious and uncompromising or led back into the false dichotomy of freedom OR determinism. (Please note: the framing of the question in this way, this form, is deliberate: it has been eating at Itwethey’s conscience that he had placed “openness” in a direct relationship to “hypersensitivity to hypocrisy”, understood as a process of making thought very slippery, without being able to remove the slipperiness enough to elucidate what was meant—Itwethey still won’t, but take the form of this first sentence as illustrative.)

Rebellious and uncompromising: the fluidity of “openness” tended to give Itwethey the feeling it was entirely compromised, an endless compromise. Rebellious? Only if an annoying indirectness can be so called . Itwethey is keenly aware wafer thin closeness of his sympathetic greeting of Guest is to this, too.

People protest by getting nude; people have been humiliated by a command to be nude. 1 “In the year that the supreme commander, sent by Sargon king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and attacked and captured it— 2 at that time the LORD spoke through Isaiah son of Amoz. He said to him, “Take off the sackcloth from your body and the sandals from your feet.” And he did so, going around stripped and barefoot. 3 Then the LORD said, “Just as my servant Isaiah has gone stripped and barefoot for three years, as a sign and portent against Egypt and Cush, 4 so the king of Assyria will lead away stripped and barefoot the Egyptian captives and Cushite exiles, young and old, with buttocks bared—to Egypt’s shame. 5 Those who trusted in Cush and boasted in Egypt will be dismayed and put to shame. 6 In that day the people who live on this coast will say, ‘See what has happened to those we relied on, those we fled to for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria! How then can we escape?’” (Isaiah 20)

Guest will remain nude for three years? In preparation, Itwethey will need to stock up on Nivea skin cream. Wouldn’t want Guest to take on a weathered look; the supreme softness and excellence of Guest’s skin and hair must be preserved, on even the lowest standard of hospitality—and of course, Itwethey is attempting for the highest. Itwethey loves to look and what Itwethey wants (and perhaps this is what Guest demands, but so far Itwethey can’t guess this) and must find, is a loving look. We don’t yet know--Itwethey doesn’t know—whether Guest’s nudity is voluntary, based on some decision or assessment—or is cruel and cold Itwethey’s flinching away from, retreat from, the “bid welcome” intended. (In other words, forced on Guest by Itwethey and typical of Itwethey's inconsideration for the feelings of others.) We do know Guest’s arrival is fortuitous, involuntary, unintended, probably a mistake, not a destination determined by Guest, or wanted by Guest. (Arrival by Guest in such manner is intended and determined by Itwethey.) In some strange way, Guest’s present nudity either doubles, or reverses, or is symmetrical to, or affirms, or loves, or through effort of will accepts, Guest’s strange arrival.

Monday, May 02, 2011

Umbrellas Unopent in Tempests, Part XXXVI

Itwethey notices a tendency to idealization in wanting to call Guest a Venus, and it is worrisome. (So is the marked tendency to spell out more and more clearly Itwethey’s masculinity and Guest’s feminity—this is undercutting the entire reason for Itwethey being named Itwethey—If the censor I-I-I had known this was going to happen, Itwethey could have been and would have been called “Fred” or something similar, from the beginning. IT-WE-THEY has had the serious intention of forcing under the carpet of “universalism” these gender differences which are crusty and resistant to being swept there—though whether it is a significant observation to note how much more effectively these gender differences are swept under the carpet of “anonymousalism” (the postmodern equivalent or morphing of “universalism”?) remains to be seen, said and evaluated.)

Guest’s appearance is odd in that he-she (we will continue to use various devices until the strain is too great, if ever) is strikingly beautiful (would we have to also say “handsome” as well, to continue consistently with the inconsistent gender ambiguity?) and a professional model of some success, and yet also in some inexpressible way a bit mousy? Maybe because she’s not only naked, but not wearing make-up or dyes of any kind. (Marilyn Monroe might have been mousy, too, you know, if she hadn’t dyed hair platinum blonde.) Plausibly, beautiful women become “mousy” simply by being in a natural setting. Emboldened naked but disarmed mousy as well—there’s that paradox again. There is something timid or hesitant in Guest, but precisely where that’s emanating is going to require reflection from Itwethey—it doesn’t come from Guest’s posture, and as Itwethey has indicated, Guest is not frail—Guest, Itwethey would go so far to say, is muscular, especially in the legs.

Itwethey can be transfixed by these beauties—Itwethey’s projections, identifications, idealizations, run wild on the mirror of these beautiful features—while Itwethey becomes inactive, stationary, drooling, staring. In some ways it is simply fortunate for Itwethey that something about Guest is mousy, for this gives Itwethey some anchorage “in Itwethey’s interior living space” to brake projections, identifications, and idealizations, to make it possible to respond to Guest (in real time.) Itwethey’s excessively bold and audacious projections, identifications, and idealizations may also be apparent in Itwethey’s preparations for Guest.

On the other hand, Itwethey has also called Guest a Venus Flytrap. Or, Itwethey has called herself a Venus Flytrap. Itwethey had imagined “her” as being somewhat masculine (due to the muscularity of the body, of the quadriceps in particular.) Somewhat aggressive in being “open” to Itwethey? (Willingly being Guest?) Itwethey had noticed her anus is extruding, (an “outtie” anus?) and it is a faint bit ugly? (But is it?) Itwethey had read too much into her eyes. And Itwethey’s own reserve—(here on the threshold)--what to make of it? Is it cowardice, effeminacy? The great worry. Or is it intelligence about not getting trapped? Does she offer a trap? Or pleasure? Or is the pleasure merely the bait of the trap?