1477.
Beth: Maybe you could get a haircut before Thanksgiving?
Me: Sure. I’ll just . . . risk my life to get a haircut.
Beth: Don’t they wear masks there?
Me: They’ve closed all indoor eating in the entire state!
Beth: If you loved me . . .
1478.
A state employee out in Utah found a 12-foot high metal monolith in the middle of the red rock desert. It could be an artist’s prank, some space junk, or a message from ancient aliens who seeded our planet with life.
1479.
Clearly the work of some prankster-artist, the metal plinth soon disappeared. There isn’t enough mystery in the world.
1480.
Or maybe there’s too much.
1481.
Researching my new book, I came across a strange factoid. Thomas Dixon, the author of Birth of a Nation, made a sequel to the smash film adaptation of his book and play. It’s titled, The Fall of a Nation. The film follows a German invasion of America. Dixon adapted it from his own novel. It’s lost. There are no existing prints.
1482.
Shit like this makes me wonder. About what is saved and what is lost. Only about a tenth of silent cinema was saved.
1483.
Things Beth and I have argued about the past two weeks:
How to pronounce Hegel (I was wrong)
The colors on the Italian flag (I was wrong)
When I first started making my own bed as a child (I was right)
1484.
We get a Christmas tree. I water it.
Beth: Is the tree taking up any water?
Me: Yep.
Beth: Are you sure?
Me: Um, yeah. . . . Why would I lie?
Beth: Because you’re a liar. You love to lie.
1485.
“Writing being the spectacularly powerful form of the word, contains at one and the same time, thanks to a lovely ambiguity, the being and appearance of power, what it is and what it would like you to believe it is.” — Roland Barthes
1486.
I discuss with a student the gnostic Gospels. He wanted to do it. It’s a strange world to peer into, the castoff Bible verses informed by mostly forgotten mystery religions in the ancient world. They are very strange texts to interact with. They feel important, and full of wisdom, but it all seems just out of reach.
1487.
From The Gospel of Thomas: “Jesus said, ‘Become passers-by.’”
1488.
From The Gospel of Thomas: “Jesus said, ‘Whoever has come to understand the world has found (only) a corpse, and whoever has found a corpse is superior to the world.’”
1489.
From The Gospel of Thomas: “Jesus said, ‘Show me the stone which the builders have rejected. That one is the cornerstone.’”
1490.
I started a novel with the monks who hid these scrolls. The book is a hot mess, all over the place, kind of terrible, a crime novel and a supernatural thriller, with absurd occult symbols and borrowed mythology of the Nation of Islam. The title: Sons of the First Man. Here’s the first couple of lines:
1491.
“Thus it came to pass that in the scriptorium, where the holy books were writ. Before the plague years, before the new religion unleashed a purge upon the lands, before the new royal dynasties and the nation states, this in the old years, the waning days of the Roman Empire, when the citizens lived about the Mediterranean chubby from the spoils of war but knowing, knowing, knowing that things could not last and that the high times were nearing their end.”
1492.
I always choke up when I listen to “Puff the Magic Dragon.” There’s a line: “Dragons live forever, but not so little boys.” God. That line gets tougher and tougher as I watch my daughters get older. I’ve never admitted this to anyone.
1493.
I’ve never made it through Harry and the Hendersons without crying. That’s another thing I’ve never told anyone. (I’ve only watched it once.)
1494.
I’ve dipped into Gnosticism for the last two decades, stemming from a friend’s throw-away comment (about the comic Preacher): “That’s so Gnostic.”
1495.
I read Elaine Pagels. I read Hans Jonas. But the greatest distillation of Gnosticism is Philip K. Dick’s last couple of novels: Valis, The Divine Invasion, and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. These are slightly fictionalized accounts of his interaction with a pink beam of sunlight—a delivery woman wearing a Christian fish necklace reflected sunlight into Philip’s eyes; he later realized it was a divine being communicating with him, through raw cosmic information—the defining event of his adult life.
1496.
(He was also a hardcore amphetamines addict, with a history of hallucinations.)
1497.
I buy into some of the basic concepts. That good and evil are equal forces, locked into eternal conflict. That existence is a mistake, or if not a mistake, a flawed construction. (I’m not fully onboard with the Demi-urge.) There’s some kind of spiritual realm. Wisdom is attainable. But there are strands of false and dark knowledge. The material world cannot be fully trusted.
1498.
Or put another way: reality is so much weirder than most of us think.
1499.
It comes back to writing in a way, that being and appearance of power. Writing is an alchemical act. So is reading. When you read a novel by a person long dead, you are interacting with a mind that no longer exists. Only, it obviously still does.
1500.
I challenge anyone to read Caesar’s The Gallic Wars and not feel the spark of necromancy.
1501.
I used Hans Jonas a character in a novel, tentatively titled Crow and the Stone Machines. It follows Joseph Cambpell, Hannah Arendt, and Jonas through their professional and personal travails in the 20th Century. It’s my take on the intellectual novel. I think it’s great. Here’s the first line:
1502.
“Prague, 1939, and Max is fleeing.”
1503.
My hallucinations are exclusively auditory. They can be disturbing or haunting, but I feel fortunate to have something like this in my life, despite how troubling it can feel. It’s my own little corner of the hard to explain, a reminder that the brain isn’t the ultimate arbiter of reality, and often can’t be trusted.
1504.
Beth would agree. About my brain, anyway.
1505.
I embrace the irrational.
simoneandthesilversurfer 