Author Archive for Fritz Bogott

I don’t wish to know that.

Published on March 13, 2010 in research. 0 Comments

I was hunting for heartbeat samples for a notional musique concrète project, and under that rock I discovered a subculture of heart-sound, breath-sound and stomach-sound fetishists1. (This is what I ran into. I wasn’t curious enough to dig deeper.) I suppose intestinal pornography is more intimate than epidermal pornography?

Their interests appear to extend to EKG readouts, so for fictional purposes we can assume that they also extend to EEG’s and FMRI’s. Your hippocampal activity is TURNING ME ON!

1You’ll recall that Frank Zappa was arrested in San Bernardino for producing a pornographic audiotape. (link)

Image CC-BY by Vintage Collective

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Um momento da graça

Published on March 11, 2010 in music. 0 Comments

I sat down just now to pull some images for a review of Werneck – Wretchmond, a recent curatorial conspiracy between Danger Poeira and Yeovillain made of sprung clockwork and quantum-mechanical malfunctions, and I happened upon the image above. The image itself is quotidian, but the description silenced me. It reads:

God, if I speak my love to you in fear of hell, incinerate me in it;
if I speak my love to you in hope of heaven, close it in my face.
But if I speak to you simply because you exist, cease withholding from me your neverending beauty.
—Rabi’a al-Adawiyya

Image CC-BY-NC-SA by benben

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T-Minus

Published on March 11, 2010 in stories. 0 Comments

Marcus emptied food scraps into the composter and raised his eyes. “Master,” he asked, “why do we make the soil?”

The old man nodded patiently. “The soil outside is not natural. It is made of the dust and smoke of humanity. Lead, mercury, arsenic: these are the spoor of humanity. To us this is unclean. Making soil is a ritual of devotion in the service of nature.”

…

Marcus scowled as he filled a pail from the condenser. “Master, why do we make the water?”

The old man absently cracked a knuckle. “The water outside is not natural. It is full of the piss of humanity, and carries the drugs and poisons from which humanity is made. Every animal, every plant that drinks this water cannot fail to take on the smell of humanity. To us this is unclean. Making water is a ritual of devotion in the service of nature.”

…

Marcus’s voice was muffled because he was bent low breaking leaves from a bush. “Master, why do we grow the tea?”

The old man held out a basket to catch the leaves. “The tea outside is not natural. Bees carry pollen from engineered plants and spread it promiscuously. The children carry the signature of the maker, as if the engineer had mated with the plant. To us this is unclean. Growing tea is a ritual of devotion in the service of nature.”

…

Marcus stretched his weary muscles and peered around at the walls of the cave. “Master, why do we fear the sky?”

The old man made a vague gesture of blessing toward the lights overhead. “The sky outside is not natural. The light of the sun is bent by the farts and exhalations of humanity. Every sight, every sound is twisted and rendered unclean. Making air, making light: These are rituals of devotion in the service of nature.”

…

Marcus poured boiling water over dried leaves in the pot and placed the kettle into the autoclave. “Master,” he asked, “why do we drink tea?”

Their hands full of pots and cups, master and disciple walked together toward the meditation hall. After a moment’s thought the old man said, “We drink tea to make ourselves mindful. Only within ourselves can we find wilderness. Drinking tea is a ritual of devotion in remembrance of this.”

Marcus held out a hand and forced the old man to pause. “But master,” he said. “Is it not true that by speaking to you I alter the wilderness within? Is it then not the case that this wilderness also bears the imprint of humanity?”

The old man grinned broadly and resumed his walk. “That, my son, is the essence of faith.”

Image CC-BY-NC by nchenga

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Untold Tales: The Singular Affair of the Aluminum Crutch

Published on February 7, 2010 in stories. 0 Comments

Let’s talk about this. I was born in New York City on December 7, 1924. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on my seventeenth birthday. I joined the Army when I turned eighteen. I lost the bottom half of my left leg when I was nineteen, in the Battle of Anzio. I was back in Rome two years later, after the liberation. I wore my pants leg pinned up. I would no more wear a false foot than I would a false mustache or a false nose. People can take me as I am.

Continue reading ‘Untold Tales: The Singular Affair of the Aluminum Crutch’

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Long Story

Published on January 18, 2010 in research. 0 Comments

I have always viewed Gravity’s Rainbow as a big stack of comic books on a rainy afternoon: Buncha good stories in there.

You can view the Bible the same way: Buncha good stories about dozens of generations (43 according to luke 3:23:38, but there are lots of different canonical counts) of interrelated families, all the way back to jump.

That would be a decent way to compile a book of stories: Start 43 or so generations BCE, follow a matrilineal or patrilineal line, and tell one story per generation all the way up to the present: 150-ish stories, related by birth.

I haven’t ever cared much about writing stories set before 1200 CE, but maybe I should keep my eyes open for a way in.

Image CC-BY-NC-ND by Shemer.

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U.S. Bank FlexPerks Security Hole

Published on January 15, 2010 in daybook. 0 Comments

Way off topic, but I want to get this logged someplace public:

Two weeks ago, some fraudster with a Pasadena address added himself to our U.S. Bank FlexPerks Visa account. The card’s fraud department noticed this and froze our account without notifying us. When our card started being rejected by everyone we phoned up, closed the old cards and got new cards.

This morning, we phoned up the card’s automated system and it rejected our ZIP code and phone numbers. Ugh, fraud on the new cards as well?

After fifteen or twenty minutes on hold, this is how the U.S. Bank fraud people explained our new problem:

When we reported the previous fraud, they fixed it in the card system but not in the main back-end system. When the two systems reconciled, the main system added the fraudster back to our card account—onto our new cards!

Thanks for your honesty, U.S. Bank, but we still closed our accounts. If you like, we can recommend some security ninjas who can close those holes for you.

Image CC-BY-NC-SA by Vicky TGAW

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Old Nick

Published on November 20, 2009 in stories. 0 Comments

Saint Nicholas

Every year, just after midnight on December 6th, Saint Nicholas visits every home on earth.1 Every child receives three small chocolate candies.2 Every adult receives punishment for the sins he or she has committed during the year. That is why we call Saint Nicholas Day “The Day of Atonement.”

In January, Mike Anderson bought a chicken-processing plant and continued to pay his mostly-Mexican workforce minimum wage. He thought this was more than fair. On December 6th Nicholas turned the factory into a worker-owned cooperative and hired Mike as janitor. He sold Mike’s home and used the proceeds to buy one-speed bicycles for the workers’ children.

In April, Jenny Evans’ neighbor bought an enormous new truck. In June Jenny bought one to match. On December 6th Nicholas sold both trucks and used the proceeds to buy 79,997 packets of kohlrabi seeds and two Matchbox cars. He gave the seeds to Jenny and her neighbor and the Matchbox cars to some kids on the next block.

In July, Chris Green ate beef every day all month. On December 6th Nicholas placed him and his family in a one-year indenture to a strict but kind farmer outside Belur in Karnataka. The children don’t seem to mind the work, or the lentils.

In October, Mandy Johnson got drunk and slept with her best friend’s husband. On December 6th Nicholas sat that one out. He figured it was basically self-punishing.

On December 6th, Nicholas impaled Dave Williams on a spit, and placed the spit over a charcoal fire. We will not speak of the reason why. Neither the spit nor the fire has proved fatal. We imagine Dave will hang onto life until next Saint Nicholas Day. Perhaps he will behave differently next year.

1Nicholas is one of the largest landowners in Zurich. It is speculated that he may store his vast currency reserves under a mountain there.

2These candies are manufactured using chocolate raised on Nicholas’ plantations in Côte D’ivoire by freed child-slaves and processed in factories fueled by the burning souls of the slavemasters.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

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Untold Tales: The Dundas Separation Case

Published on November 3, 2009 in stories. 0 Comments

Our whole family moved from St. Paul to Dundas in 2007 in an effort to get out into the country. It ended up (and we should have known this) that we were moving to the “recent country” rather than “current country,” since our house was new construction, part of a development built on what fifteen minutes earlier had been a not-bad soybean field producing beans that were shipped two hundred miles to be turned into hormone- and drug-amended kibble that was shipped the same two hundred miles back to some bioengineered hog-alikes that live within smelling distance of our new two-and-a-half story. Mmm, bionic bacon.

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Joy in a Can

Published on October 23, 2009 in music. 0 Comments

sweet_alphonso_mango_pulp

My friend Nathan and I went to see Keller Williams at the Varsity last night. I like Keller’s music, but the main draw is that he always looks like the world’s happiest eleven-year-old. It’s worth the price of admission to see him take such joy in his craft. Thanks, man!

Image ganked from someplace

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Leeches in Creation Mythology

Published on October 21, 2009 in research. 0 Comments

My next Untold Tale is “The Red Leech.” Cursory leech-research turned up this astonishing post: Leeches in Creation Mythology

One of the post’s citations is this:

“then did he become a leech-like clot; then did (Allah) make and fashion (him) in due proportion. And of him He made two sexes, male and female.” (Quran 75: 37-39)

We commit his body to the ground; earth to earth; leeches to leeches, clots to clots.

Image CC-BY-NC-SA by Dave ®

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