The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

July 14, 2007


It's July 13 going on July 14 2007. Today I did absolutely nothing. I ate
some grapes and played harmonica terribly. Last night I had a panic
attack, that was a mess; I checked out the symptoms on the net and that
was good enough for me. My heartrate was only 80 but my chest was tight
and pounding. Today I found out my triglycerides are down to 220 and
cholesterol at 199 which is okay. I read two versions of the Hevajra-
tantra, Sanskrit and Chinese, in translation and answered an inquiry from
Christie's who wanted me to redo the jpegs of the Koran under 600k and
they couldn't open any of them with the URL until I sent them under 600k
as attachments. I watched too much soccer, Bolivia beaten by Brazil in
1997 Copa Americas - Brazil was playing dirty but with a final score of
3-1 no one could argue. This is already badly written. Maybe it's Copa
America. I finally understand football (soccer) offsides. Went with Azure
and a friend back to the Tibetan shop for two more tantric works. Slept on
and off all day because the panic attacked basically wrecked me; I haven't
been able to do much else. I've had these attacks rather frequently in the
past couple of weeks as I try to figure out my futureless future. The lock
broke on our inner door in the building and I traded four bags of books
for $56 as well as the Encyclopedia of New York, an Erle Stanley Gardner
novel, and yet another book on things cyberspatial. Albert Ayler was on
the radio and I heard a rumor that he was murdered back then. It would
have been his 71st birth- day. I took a photograph with my Canon and the
24mm lens - the inside of a cafe. Found out that Flatbush meant a wooded
plain in the original or something like that. I've been thinking about
intentional language but doing nothing about it. The net said, well some-
thing I read said that panic attacks can be accompanied by overwhelming
feelings of devastation and doom. I'm waiting for the arrival of a Canon
8.1 megapixel A630 camera which might bring me needed resolution over my
Sony FSC-717 which has only 5.1. The Canon doesn't have image stabiliza-
tion. I've been using the Sony with full manual, including ISO. I'm
thinking more about Thomas Ward, who wrote in 1842 under Flaccus. The
place is far too humid and I looked at a brochure of Pocono homes. I had
Turkish coffee at lunch with Azure and my friend; we talked about reincar-
nation and ontological shifts. I've wanted to do something creative, and
you might think this is it, writing through the back door, so to speak,
but it's not. This morning I had to turn Bush's voice off the radio. I
think it might be a different model name than FSC-717. I realized I like
Roxy Music and traded a book on the evolution of invertebrates into the
second-hand bookstore, as well as a book on nuthatches. I gave the cat a
long pet; we've been worried about her after her third operation. I don't
understand the excitement over Beckham; it didn't work with Pele, or
rather worked for a little while, that's all. More soldiers and some Iraqi
policemen died today; it was on the radio. I also don't understand the
Regency period. I've got to work on our dance performance stuff - Foofwa's
publicity materials arrived two days ago. The mail today brought abso-
lutely nothing. I don't understand Will Ferrell or that kind of slapstick.
I was able to write something more for Sue on cyberstuff and the wilder-
ness and answered another interview question about the music I did in the
60s. The cat's trying to drink my coffee. Feeling guilty about not working
enough on Leonardo; I'm having a hard time concentrating. I'm sad about
trading or selling off books but we're heavily in debt. My new HIP doctor
called today about the sleep clinic; she seems terrific. The old one lit-
erally disappeared. I read some more in Delacroix' journals. Coffee is
great. I kept waking up in the middle of the night; it was miserable.
There was a dream of connectors coming apart and together on the side of
something. I weigh 162 again, far too much, it's depression or stress or
lack of sleep. Soccer is my meditation savior. I'd work for a while and
then sleep and then wake up unbelievably frightened with my chest cold and
tight, my heart pounding, my arms trembling. I think this is why I did
nothing today, and my harmonica playing was awful; I'm in no shape for
doing anything. We're trying to get the cat to eat more.

sut

i wish to make obeisance to the four realms and ten directions
on my own time in my own way and not to make obeisance

i wish to make mistakes and errors on my own only reading from
the texts and writing in and out of others

i confuse hells and heavens and bodhisattvas and arhats and wish
to confuse them with sakyamuni and manjusri with others

i do not wish to listen to others speaking or teaching or others
proclaiming enlightenment or cessation of suffering

there is no cessation of suffering no path no bliss i do not wish
to attempt the impossible inhabit the inconceivable

i wish to comprehend my own way of dependent origination without
reincarnation or epistemic shifts leading to ontological error

i shall understand my truth as the truth which is the void and
i will not study the voice of the other and her proclamation

i will comprehend the twilight the coded the intentional
languaging of hevajratantra on my own in the midst of craving

i wish to celebrate ties to feces or urine or menses or dead
flesh glory in them with five yoginis on my own furious determination

i wish to hear no teacher see no teacher pay obeisance to no
teacher in this realm or in my furious rebirths i shall stay behind

i shall not adopt a walking meditation sitting meditation shall
not adopt bardo whispers dead men and women hearing

i will not sit and concentrate and not concentrate on point or no
point or no thing or void nor shall i concentrate on no void

nor shall i not concentrate nor shall i sit i will embrace hells
on my own furious terms vajra cutting lotus cutting through hells

i will discover everything and nothing on my own and that will be
an innovation and not be an innovation but quickly and thoughtless

i will not learn from any living being nor will i learn within a
room garnered or occupied by any living being nor will i learn

i will not say mantra there is no mantra no sound nothing to say
but what one would say in all day talk among sentient beings

i do not for a moment believe in spirit or reincarnation i do not
need nor do i want miracle i am fearful of death i embrace fear

there is no soul no self i will make mistakes i will congregate in
error i will whisper and write error error shall not be mine

of error it may be said there is no concourse there is permanence
and annihilation and my middle way veers between them i will say that

of life there are no beginnings and births and deaths of matter and
fecundity of animals and plants there are none

i will say there is no time to be reborn and no rebearing and nothing
of matter to be reborn and matter is of no bearing

i will smear my skin and hair with error smear my mouth and eyes with
mistake upon mistake and they will not be my own but not others

i will fuck furiously others and others semen flowing rivers streams
and speeds of meditation and conjoining

there will be no grace here and no falling and no sins or wages of
such that are paid and no moment of leaving and arriving

i admit no emanations

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