i don't usually do this but....

when i'm home alone and the house is very quiet i sneak around and put on music.  lately the only thing i've been listening to is the crystal stilts.  it feels like they are singing directly to this dog.  here are some lyrics to one of my favs:

been building my life out of distorted fragments
absorbing light through a prismatic tomb
my mind imbibes the city's madness
projecting worlds on the walls of this magic room

this magic room
my prismatic tomb
this prismatic room
my magic tomb
when I conjure memories
they feel like someone else's
mere unconscious currency
i adhere to my reflections

been building my life out of distorted fragments
absorbing light through a kaleidoscopic tomb
my mind imbibes the city's madness
projecting worlds on the walls of this cosmic room


if only i could write like that.....

rude pundit

the rude pundit:

he talks about dogs today. he is so right on. he is my two legged hero.

they are all dogs

the other morning i was in need of some rawhide for the mind.  sometimes just chewing on the plastic nylabone isn't enough.  most of the time it does just fine.  but, i think it was last wednesday, i was in need of something more.  the chewing wasn't doing the trick.  so as usual once the big ones left, i opened up the cage and purused the book shelf.  i'm not going to bore you with the details of what i read, suffice it to say that i picked up the classics.  none of that crappy post modern, elitist garbage full of grammatical acrobatics that the big one likes to read.  i wanted a story.  i wanted a well written story.  i wanted narrative that i could sink my teeth into.  i didn't want to think about how the narrative was conveyed.  i didn't want the words on the page to call attention to themselves.  i wanted the words to be invisible.  i wanted the pages to be non-existent.  i just wanted to inhale.  i wanted to fill my lungs and nourish my self with the hueristic oxygen of a well told story.

so i did.  i didn't read any book from start to finish.  i skimmed multiple books, by multiple authors.  i breathed deeply.  i could feel life returning.  i was the characters and the characters were me.
so since last wednesday i've been chewing on all that i read.  and of course, despite my intentions and desires, i am a post modern dog.  the stories disappeared from my mind.  what was left in their place was the mode of narrative delivery, in marxist terms, the means of production.  i kept thinking about the sentences.  i kept thinking about the paragraphs.  i think about the word choices of the authors.  i think about their superior technique.  i see how their supposedly invisible prose, is actually very deliberate and in your face. 

i've been thinking about this a lot.  i keep thinking about how their simplist sentiment or sentence has to describe perfectly the here and now, or at least the here and now of the diegesis. the author must notice/create the details of a world.  he/she must constantly be in the present.  much like a dog.  i've writen before about how we, the dogs of the world, live here in the present.  at least from a narrative perspective.  the authors, the truly great ones, are all dogs.  maybe not dogs in the real world.  but they must be dogs in the world of their creation.

and in that very small way, i can safely say that i wish i was more of a dog and a little less human.

dream

i had another dream in which everything was good. the world was right and everyone was happy. i awoke to find myself back in the nightmare of everyday existence.

i had a dream

i had a dream last night. it wasn't a magnanimous, save humanity, teach a lesson, oh look how bright the future is going to be, dream. it was mundane. or i should say it was mundane if it had been the dream of a human. it wasn't. it was my fucked up dream. in the dream i was a human, but not just any human. i was john boy walton.

i know, what the fuck.

let me tell you a bit about the dream. because if you had had this dream you probably would have forgotten it already. but for me it was unique. i've never been a human in any of my dreams. usually my dreams are of long walks on the beach, of rolling in grass, of smelling another dogs ass. but in this one i was human. i had two legs, i had two arms, and i had a mole on my face.

now in this dream there was someone trying to kill me. he was a faceless enemy. actually he wasn't faceless, i just couldn't see it. in fact this is what makes the dream so interesting to this dog. the guy had a face, just like he had two feet. but i was lacking the autonomy of vision to look where i wanted to. i could only see what the dream maker (director, author, my subconcious, etc.) would let me see. i kept trying to look up at the face, but it wouldn't happen. my gaze was out of my control. is that what it is like to be human? do you have the ability to move at your will, but not see what it is that you need to see?

the other thing that was interesting to me was that in most of my dreams, as in my life, smell is the prevalent sense. in this dream sight was. even though it was an impotent sight. a sight that was out of my control. or at least out of the control of john boy.

freud tells us that each of the characters in our dreams are really us. and in the dream i was obviously john boy. i was wearing his clothes, running through his house, knowing exactly where to hide from the enemy. but if freud is to be believed the enemy was also me, kafka. so let me get this straight....i'm running from myself, because i'm trying to kill myself with a homemade gun type thingy. i know i'm being chased. i know i'm in danger, and yet i'm handicapped because my sense of smell isn't working, and my sight is out of my control. i'm a funny dog. and i'm not talking funny haha, i'm talking funny hoho.

i'm trying to think of anything that might have spurred on this dream. maybe the nightly visits of the bear on my porch. the smell of that thing wakes me up, and i immediately start to bark, and bark, and bark. much to the chagrin of the big ones. christ, i'm just trying to protect the household, they don't need to yell at me. "quiet, kafka" well fuck you. first of all i can't help myself. the bark just comes when i smell that big bear. second of all, there is a big bear on the porch. even if it wasn't automatic, i'd be barking and growling. that is my job. i'm the protector. i sound the alarm. that is who i am. that is almost all that i am. that is kafka. and yet the big one yells at me nightly about my bark.

ok, i think this might be the dream trigger. it always helps to write these things down. you should try it sometime.

shout out

just wanted to give a belated thanks to skippy the bush kangaroo for giving me a shout out. this is the second time that i've been mentioned on his blog. everytime he does my visits go way up. so thanks mr. kangaroo. show him some love and go read his blog.

a lesson in cycles

it was snowing this morning, as you can see from the picture of your's truly. "but it is may," you say. "yes it is," i say. but this is springtime in the rocky mountains, it rains, it snows, it hails, and it is mostly sunny. but today it is a mix of rain and snow.

"kafka, my canine buddy, why the weather report?" you ask. well, even though it is snowing it still is spring. the majority of the snow has melted and the grass is starting to turn green. flowers are pushing up through the fetid soil, and living in that brown muck are earth worms. earth worms, the spring time's best friend. aerating the soil, eating the shit and pooping out compost. love those guys. they are on the side of everything good in this world. so i was distressed to see the genocide right outside my driveway this morning.

"genocide," you exclaim. "yes," I answer in the affirmative. all the way down the street were the dead carcasses of earth worms. the creepy crawlers were rinsed from their homes in the grass on the edge of the road and laid to rest right on the concrete where they were vulnerable to the earthworm flattening bottom of human shoes and car tires. it was like walking through a nightmare.

everywhere i turned there were the flattened bodies of the soil's buddies. most were smushed. some were still alive. wriggling and struggling to get back to a soft ground where they could burrow, eat, and poop in peace. but the curb is too high for an earthworm to climb. a few lucky earthworms were saved by the little one. when he would find one still vital and moving, he would pick it up and throw it back onto the grass. just think how many generations of earthworms he saved with each toss. but one six year only makes a difference to individuals. in the big picture, his kind actions don't mean diddly.

i continued walking through the apocalyptic landscape, careful not to do any damage to a night crawler that might be in my path. i was depressed and distressed. where is the sense in all of this loss of life? how could any deity allow this holocaust? i was feeling especially down and godless. we dropped off the little one at his school bus stop. i was a little proud of his life saving gestures. but it wasn't enough.

we turned to walk home. the snow coming down in those late spring gigantic flakes. my black fur completely covered in white. the smell of death everywhere. i will never forget that smell. even now it is wedged deep into my consciousness.

we were almost home. walking up the hill, head down, to keep the snowflakes out of my eyes. i noticed some movement up ahead. i raised my head to see what was going on. there were maybe 10 robins hanging out beside the road. they were eating the carcasses of the worms. they were having a great day. this is what they live for. they were singing in the snow. bouncing up and down. swoop down into the road. pick up breakfast and then back to the safe tree. sing some more, and then repeat. the worm's nightmare is the robin's gift.

i still felt bad for the dead earthworms. but i also felt joy for the robin's easy meal. and happiness for all the young robins who were going to get a huge breakfast this morning.

nothing except for my snow covered fur is black and white.

a little sad

i'm generally not sad. i'm generally angry. today i'm a little sad. the, full of life, young labradoodle from down the street is no longer. i'm just a dog, so i don't really understand the concepts of life and death. these are ideas that are so far advanced i have no way of putting my paws around these. i can't grasp what life is and i certainly can't feel death. but i can smell an absence. and there is something missing on my street. i smelled it when i went out yesterday for a walk. something vital was missing. i could almost feel it, but there is nothing to feel. how can you feel nothing? and the smell was one of a hole. the melange of my street was missing an ingredient. maybe that is a way to get a handle on this. we are all ingredients in the other's overall sense of the world. we make up a few molecules in the air that wafts through the dog down the street's nose. and that dog, while smelling our scent, adds his own to the mix. and now there is one less dog adding scent.
i don't want to go into the details. they aren't important. his family grieves. i grieve even though we didn't have much of a relationship. the occasional hump, but not much more. but his scent was everpresent in my nose, and it went away yesterday.
today i'm a little sad.