The negative effects of reading

man must take up arms
be it the pen, the piston or the sword
to drive forward the power of his mind

sorry
i've
been a little lost
feeling a little literary
reading does that
makes people think they're smarter than they are

Telemarketing blurb turned eloquent verse

This man
In all dreams
Who, is he?
The ego that commands me?

Mustached
From the pit snatched
To aid the devil's hand
In my end

Why I Love the Park

New York City, for all it's reputation as a mecca of spontaneous adventure, can feel like a highly claustrophobic and rigid place. Surveying the island of Manhattan from across the East River, it looks more like a hive than anything else, shiny, massive and machine-efficient, envy of ants everywhere. Once inside, you're trapped on the grid; x,y and z, all of us locked into the same current with one another. With few exceptions, you can follow the streets in a strict basic compass formation within a comparatively tiny strip of sidewalk, then choose to go up or down to a predetermined space on the z axis. This space (you or your friend's apartment) is probably depressingly small and stepping outside it's limits would result in instant spacial displacement and probably death. So few ways to go.

This is why I love the parks. They are our City's great emerald jewels, from Central Park's gleaming 770 acres to the the tiny community parks, the specs of flora on the map poking through the concrete shell. In there you can move any which way you want. In the open fields and little knolls, people move in a whole new directions. No more right angles. People sit in circles and tight clusters. They drape themselves over one another in in displays of affection and friendship. They run on green fields and signal their bodies: “Awaken, Mighty Muscles of mine! Carry me forward!” Inside green walls, the techno-lord loosens his grip and people look up from there whiz-bang iDoodles (my grandpa calls them “fuck-screens,” after the affection he's see us youngsters lavish on such devices).

I frequent Tompkins Square Park as much as time allows. It's a modest 10.5 acres, but it provides all the freedoms I consider necessary to maintaining the will to live. It has a field for loafers to stretch out like beached sea lions, basket ball courts and an enclosure where dogs and their owners can run and play together. The people often look just as happy as their canine companions. Space is the key. Want a real rush? Gear up and tough out a torrential rainstorm in the middle of the knoll. An empty park is simultaneously unnerving and cathartic as you feel for the first time in months that you are actually alone in the city. There is no one on the other side of the wall, no one sleeping ten feet below you. Breath deep.

The park even has it's own long term inhabitants to brighten the scenery, tribes staking their claim over the verdant land. By the southwest corner, the bums, derelicts from all walks of life, cluster by the concrete chess tables. They trade incomprehensible and irreverent stories about the harm done unto them by society and give advice on how to improve each other's chess game. Then there's crusty punks, young anarchists hermits whose facial tattoos make them look like a post-apocalyptic tribe of scavengers, who've staked out their own territory along one of the pathways. No pedestrians venture between the two rows of benches, afraid of either their fearsome appearance or the scent of 30 unwashed bodies.

My favorite place is always the monkey bars. Children and adults alike climb and swing up, down, under and around, shaking the slumber from their pale bodies. From the top of the iron structure you can look out and take in all the life around you, all the people remembering bits and pieces of a life we once had, when we could go anywhere. Just like old times. Humans can be humans here.

Hasidim Vs. Hipsters

My friend posed this questions to me which I felt compelled to answer: Who would win in large scale conflic, Hasidim or Hipsters?

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When considering who might be victorious, Hasidim or Hipsters, in a large scale conflict, you must first look at the history of these two, largely peaceful, cultures and determine from there who might have the primary advantage.

In this case, favor goes to the Hasidim. Despite their appearance and docile behavior during the last century or so, the Jews have a wealth of historical war experiences to draw upon. They possess unity through persecution and even at their most cosmopolitan, are prone to fierce tribal regressions. Under the right conditions, these people can re-learn the ways of war.

Hipsters on the other hand, as far as they are commonly defined anyhow, have no unifying factor or ancestry from which to draw power. Their culture is ethereal, based on no concrete doctrine, and promotes the aggressive development of individual identity. While this in itself is no great wrong, it weakens the Whole and saps the will to fight. Hipsters, like a delicate moss, also grew in the soft confines of highly developed urban cultures under the protection of wealth and law. They have faced comparatively little persecution and hardship. For these reasons, I believe that the Hasidim would eventually dominate the forces of Hip.
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I think I went pretty easy on those weak, directionless consumer vessels.

Question,

Who but the Men of Science will master the Universe?

He who parts the Atom, can part the Ocean, and the Stars themselves!

reading is good for your brain

We never change and all that grows is the power to destroy ourselves. This is doom for humanity.

Last part

I met a woman today who I knew was crazy. I watched her eyes and I listened to her words. She said a lot but very little of it meant anything at all.