Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Disco Mushrooms

Dear mankind,

It has come to my notice, some time ago, that I was required to submit certain documents in order for me to get an offer letter. Due to an acute shortage of the certain documents, which would be very suspicious to you, especially if you would compare it to the fake information I gave in the interviews to pass so easily. I am ashamed of my behavior, and hope that, you shall consider the following attachments, as adequate documents to prove the certain claims in the interview



“Hmm… ever shift+f7ned about the word “phoenix”? Or googled it? Or wikied it? Or read up blogs about it? Its an interesting concept isn’t it? Ever seen it plain old fashioned literature? Why didn’t we think about that first? Or… yeah, seen it in films? Yeah, the “phoenix” is a nice healthy little ripe meme isn’t it now? But what is it? A plant? A city? An idea? An implant? An actor? A comic? An X-Woman? A currency? A place? Are you bored of the idea of the phoenix yet? Are you instead hung up on the ideas surrounding the word “x-woman”?”

[Arnold Storm was brewing. He was concocting. He was wondering where he was and what he was doing.]

“A really hot chick. A bird you know… it is neither an eagle nor a vulture…. Neither a turkey nor a buzzard… it is neither a crow nor a fowl, neither a cuckoo nor an owl… it is a dead bird! A forgotten bird! Go back… try harder… fly higher… it is no solitaire, no auk, no dodo, no no moa no archeopterix. Archeotperix. No pachyderm. No dinosaur. No try harder… it is a bird… a great bird… a bird that flies true and fast, a bird of ideas, a bird of wisdom, a bird of great benevolence… a powerful and mighty flier. No, it is no dragonfly no flutterby, no augrey, no x-woman… it is the phoenix, the bird is the phoenix, and phoenix is a bird. State this understanding: The phoenix is a bird. It is a bird, that typically dies in a burst of flame and then rises from the ashes. Pretty much like sex really. Two weird pre-phoenix memebirds collided into each other, giving rise to this little immortal phoenix that cannot die… either it is alive, or you await the time when it will be reborn from the ashes. Now, we all know what the phoenix is, let us not think too much about it, we do not want to get into unprotected sex you know, who knows what our thoughts will propagate tomorrow on its own violation? No, we shall not indulge in decoding the word phoenix, no we shall not venture into the thoughts surrounding the phoenix, because the idea is in the ashes phase right now. We shall however, closely consider these two (or, if you are lucky, more) phoenix-parents. Lets play a game of charades, on a plane of existence, that you shall now be transported to for interrogation.”

[Arnold Storm did not react. He was still and defenseless]

“They are, obviously birds. Think about which bird defines the word “bird” in your head, yes, hold it in your head. Now imagine, what you think when you say the word “red” in your head, and “gold” in your head… then imagine the ideas around… mythical and fire and rebirth and ashes… and places and ufos and actors and… you get the idea. You know what you have to do to trace the influence of not only the idea of the phoenix, but any idea that you might have. But there is a flaw, a fatal flaw in this framework… the idea of the phoenix that you had five minutes ago, is totally different from the idea of the phoenix you have now. Woah… wait… you know where this is going… therefore, whatever happened between five minutes ago and now has changed your phoenix… your phoenix is now slightly different because of something that happened. If you figure out exactly what happened, you might be able to figure out why your phoenix was changed a little bit. Therefore, now you can, with each single word that you read, experience the growth and maturation of the word “phoenix” in your head… please, take a moment to recollect, that this is why phoenixes are fucking immortal. Now hold all these cards up together, against the image of a bird… and there you have your phoenix. A nice phoenix isn’t it… it represents everything that influenced you into creating it… can you see the phoenix? What do you see in the phoenix? What does the phoenix look like?”

[A Storm was surprised to see his own face. He looked carefully. It was his id. It was his way out of the torture]

Now how many new ideas with have you come across this short comprehension? 5? 7? 50? Have you come across these ideas because of a collision of two or more ideas? Do you understand now, where the slightest of distortions of information, the slightest mutation in process, the slightest mutation, would become a malignant entity indeed! You will be ended up polluted with unnecessary information. Which of your ideas are useful in the real world? Which fatal bit of an idea will you ignore, letting you make that one fatal mistake in your life? Which idea will you adopt? Which idea will you pass on without even knowing it? Imagine a world populated with the children of anonymous phone sex… a world populated by children of whores and… er… well… men. Imagine a cancer in whichever world you are imagining. Imagine anything you please really, whatever you do end up imagine, is exactly the kind of bullshit the world has made you think. Because no idea is an original… it is either alive, or waiting to be reborn. Every idea is a phoenix.

[A Storm understood what was to be done. He was to be revived. The reader will recollect, from the previous chapter, that he had died after his Butterfly had killed him for trying to control the Butterfly too much. There was a long history behind it, and contestants of the reality show found out later that the winner was a paid actor and basically started a riot. They were really dismayed, when the next morning, instead of publicity stills of the young protestors coming in the major newspapers, they were all surprised when A Storm had heeded to the dire predictions in many of the placards of the protestors, and had actually died in a mysterious lab accident. He was at the point of the peak of his experience, all the ideas in his brain were transported together in a packet of information. He understood who had assassinated him, and he had uttered the words “oh fuck.” And then he died. He dropped to the floor, and his brain burst into activity… its dying throes, but it was at a basic level, a basic need of the body, so well hidden, that it was never satisfied… the need for the heart to beat, the need for the neurons to work, the need for the ears to always keep us balanced… these were things the body needed to be, to be associated with the idea of “life”. Which is why they were such basic necessities. His brain cells were fighting with each other, to keep these functions active… the very subconscious was involved in the protest, the id, the ego, and the superego all came together and birthed the idea of survival, but the idea of extinction turned out to be fitter, and life withdrew to death, slowly, flickering out, giving up, gone dead, nothing but a morsel left now… the morsel in control of the ears… and it heard something… it heard… it heard the faint, but resonating set of words… it struggled to comprehend it, thank god it was so easy… the words were “oh fuck” and that small figment heard it. No really heard it… it heard its pitch and its tone, it heard its stress and its accent, it heard its meanings and its implications, it heard everything that had anything to do with the words “oh fuck”, and then it heard everything that had anything to do with the words that it got… and with a jerk, up rose A Storm… he was alive, he was reborn, he was now more than a man… the man that was him was dead, he was drowned in the meme river, and he was dead. But A River was born because he heard the resonance of his own dying utterances… let us Introduce him. This is Arnold Storm. He was birthed of “oh fuck”. He has done short courses in genetics, statistics, economics, psychology, physics, semiotics and language. He once died, and is now reborn from the ashes, qualifying him for the honorable position for him to ascend to. There was one more God added to the Gods of the Omehera Pantheon. He was placed in the league of unique phoenix memes. He was the guardian phoenix. He was the monster phoenix. He was the dumb phoenix. He was the sad phoenix. He was the weepy phoenix.]



Hello, I am Arnold Storm. I am a man, not a phoenix. Yes, the accident did happen, and I did come back, but the return to consciousness was merely a result of the resonance of my own dying utterance of “oh fuck”, but that really had nothing to do with actually dying you know. I am no Phoenix, I was never reduced to ashes. Pity I wasn’t though, I would have loved it. Loved it because I wouldn’t have to be answerable to all those angry contestants at the reality show. I shot a magic bullet at the paid actor, and he died. Now if he would come back, I would call him a phoenix, but I am not a phoenix. No really. I am a humble man. I am a man who answers to things I am not answerable to. I am… I hate to call myself a man, I am a mean man, a meager man, a man of little courtesy, I am a man who feels there is a need for a confession. It is always good to declare, the worst one can about oneself. That way, people who want to stay away, can stay, and people who can tolerate you, can be tolerated. Therefore, I feel, when asked to be introduced to you, that I need to be as honest as I can be. Let us retrieve an honest confession from an old log, and I shall show it to you:



date Aug 14, 2006 8:38 PM

subject [104E] Me

mailed-by gmail.com

-------------------start--------------------

1) I am fucking repetetive... keep going back to the same set of things over and over and over again. No idea why, but I find pleasure in reinforcing a point for some reason.



2) I am too picky and choosy and moody for no apparent reason. I realise what I am doing half way into it and then suddenly I realise and am fucked in the head.



3) I am scared of weird things. No insane phobias or anything, but for example, I am scared to take a bath in hot water in case I forget to turn the geaser off and my mom screams at me for wasting electricity. Basically I take a lot of tension over absolutely petty things.



4) I am horribly underweight... and dont take any steps to correct it. Infact, I dont take any steps to correct anything about myself.



5) I ALWAYS, and this is VERY irritating... want to make an impression. Form the stupid tapri wallah to Vishal Bharadwaj (see what I am talking about)... always always out to make some kind of an impression... have been doing this all my life and this is a very irritating part of my own nature... but I like sticking to it for some weird reason.



6) I used to lie a lot. This involves copying from post secret, but really, people thought I stopped, but I just got better at it. Although I did take efforts to cease, and it has come down. The reason I used to lie a lot was point number 5.



7) Have no ambition. Zero. Want to sit someplace alone - like a hut in a european villiage with unlimited supply of water, electricity, stimulants and food, in that order, would be ideal - for the rest of my life.


8) I have a feeling that I am a sociopath, but saying this may just be a display point number 5 or 6.


9) [-----------censored------------]


10) I don't stick to anything, get bored really quickly and change tracks at the blink of an eye. No idea what I want to do in life, except maybe point 6.


11) I don't worry about some things I really need to worry about.


12) I am not self critical enough when the need comes.

-------------------end--------------------

Pretend that is my resume and give me a job. I am currently not dead, and unemployed, and I have the aforementioned qualifications.



Thank you very much, for your patience, your time and your courage,

Your sincerely,

Omubulasa

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