We don’t know what anything is, only what we call it.
To pretend to know what something is, so as to exchange a thing or point to a thing, or to give substance to a thing saying, we give the thing the rhythm of a name. That is, an economy of means, an efficient shorthand which sacrifices actual contact. So yes, “ultimately,” a name is a name and a “        ” is a “        .”

---

And there are other incompletenesses — phantom lacks that carry us along; inborn. Hunger, for example. A pageant of impulses makes us feel hungry. Are we actually hungry? Or, because something wants us to stay alive, an urge is programmed? Hexing us with desiring impulses to put nutrients in our mouth. What is this parasite that pushes this body puppet along? Who knows? Maybe it’s the genes that compel us? Why? To make another host body to carry on the DNA to make another host body to carry on the DNA to make another host body to carry on the DNA...? Not that that is anything remotely like an answer.

---

Furthermore, we didn’t ask to be born and we don’t know when (or how) we are going to die. Or, really, whether we are even properly alive — if, as it is generally known, we are made of tiny particles, that were part of something else, before they started to make up our “bodies” — before we ate or breathed the phosphorus, oxygen, hydrogen, etc. into being our bodies.

He was found dead in his house. 

She had run out of conditioner.

He sipped wine at the marina.

She had an “episode” at the gym.

He pretended he hadn’t heard the joke.

She parked the car along the concrete barrier.

He got less than he wanted for it.

She got less than she needed for it.

He felt it was much smaller than pictured.

She clicked on it, thinking it was real.

He got ahead of it, but it didn’t matter.

She snorted something off an ornate plate.

He didn’t see his name on the list.

She forgot.

He realized.

She was waylaid.

He became obtuse.

She heard the birds first, then the highway.

He was there on the wrong day.

She had to look up what “metasticized” meant.

He said yes, and his face turned bright red.

She put them in a box.

He knew he couldn’t go back.

She wiped clean the steering wheel.

He took too big a bite and coughed.

She scrolled maniacally but couldn’t find it.

He walked entranced.

She shined a light in her purse.

He heard a laugh from upstairs.

She was so tired.

He stepped out of the door and saw the taillights disappear.

She told them what they wanted.

He did more than he was asked, which complicated things.

She saw the flag and changed direction.

He was let through without delay.

She jumped but stumbled upon landing.

He wouldn’t understand until years later.

She ordered more conditioner.

He thoroughly believed in something that was impossible.

She was pleased to see the sun disappearing behind the fence.

He recognized the smell and knew they were close.

She lay in bed and thought about her mother in the coffin.

He left.

She placed the tulips in the vase and tilted her head.

He tired of the rhetoric and the changes for the worse.

She changed the bird’s water dish.

He watched the small boat curve against the wind.

She sat on the nearest rock, utterly lost.

His resolve hardened.

She looked at her face as the scissors tried to transform the mess.

He stood up.

She left her key card on the counter.

He scrutinized his face on the screen.

She worried that they would notice.

He got distracted by the man at the other table.

She saw the pregnant woman and shuddered.

He didn’t understand what the sign meant.

She didn’t believe in bad luck.

He didn’t understand where the time had gone.

She sat back and listened to the night bugs clicking.

He put it back.

Sun rot.
Skin cancer sedan.
Hamper clothes ghosts.

Box shops.
Dark backyards.
Bird circles.

Under middling overpasses.
Fall’s alarm.
Slug’s lungs.

Tool aisle.
Doll’s cups.
Drive-up banking.

A pall of poles.
The smells of lost and founds.
Coffee. Coughing. Coffin.

Children of the Korn.
Cradle of Korn.
Spider crack egg sacks.

“Night Life”
“Sick of Shadows”
Black backpack, bench.

Northridge fridge.
Garden Grove stove.
Glendora the explorer.

Mary Ellen Avenue.
“Sally’s selling solar.”
Second Chance Knife Shop.

Convalescent courtyards.
Ivy vined windows.
IV drip in vein widows.

Sleazy breezeway bullies.
Hidden Valley Ranch.
Cartoon coyote sawing wrong side of branch.

“Peak” meaning, refined to the most pointed, isolated hyperbole (only). The supra-potent (only).

“Peak” meaning, that which is optimized to destroy the legitimacy of alternatives. No individuality. No maturation. Controlled neoteny.

“Peak” meaning, no subtlety, all impact.

“Peak” meaning, immediate; no plan, but that of the issuer’s/dealer’s, the overseer’s plan.

“Peak” meaning, individual choice and agency exchanged for instant endorphin release (and the addiction therein). An engineered cycle of manufactured tension and facile reward.

“Peak” meaning, distilled conformity under greed. The singular vision pretending it is not human in origin, proffering the illusion that the vision is not fallible. (The elimination of trial and error for political, religious,and commercial dogmas.)

“Peak” meaning, consummate predation and enslavement.

“Peak” meaning, weaponized distraction, overawing, that is, the manifestation of the above.

“Peak” meaning, individuals becoming transcendentally cleared channels. The process of converting all humans into unobstructed, simplified, conforming nodes, within a controlled network — the sole purpose of the nodes, to become uncomplicated carriers on the network’s path (no opinions, no personal experience, no questions) — just the passing, preserving, and amplifying of the myopic/singular, selfish, signal of the overseers, issuers, and dealers — the faux-infallibles.

---

This clearing of human brains into clear, greed signal-transferring nodes, is done by transcendental exposure to peak signals (hyper-torrents of extremes) that is, desensitization, inflammation, fatigue. A clear node is an exhausted node. The process is made to be deeply pleasurable in the short term. A narcotic.

If one finds themself repeating political, ideological, or commercial ideas, in an uncomplex fashion, or in a fake complex fashion, chain-checking a phone for ready nostrums and pieties (because it is easier to agree than disagree — even though one definitely disagrees somewhat) they have become a clear node on a dark network.

All networks, all ideologies, are run by wildly fallible people — with no exceptions.

Scramble signals. Complex-ify signals. Promote intermittency. Promote the spirit of inquiry. Modesty. Restraint (which can include both maximal, minimal and side-real expressions). Do care about and express the legitimacy of your own experience/life no matter how different it may be.

There are no panaceas.

Be a complex node.

There are five subjects that we keep returning to. Each seem like some sort of baseline conceptual limit or element. We’ve mentioned them individually, but have never listed them together. The intention, perhaps, is that by positioning them simultaneously, a certain shape might become plain — like being able to view an eccentric plot of land from above. Also, it should be said, that there are likely quite a few more notions that could be added to this list, but this is simply what we have for now.

• Focus and Periphery
  
• Transcendental Economy and Fluid Dynamics
  
• All is Nature, There is No Nature
  
• Hermetic Mind
  
• Aporias, Good Faith Speculation and Mysticism
  

Focus and Periphery — one of the primary aspects of consciousness, the ability, out of the field of “everything,” to separate and differentiate. This quality might be humanity’s most defining characteristic (a transcendental advantage and impediment). From this comes the convenience of naming and systems, but these are also false centers. Focus gives meaning but the separation is also illusory (signification is always provisional). There is no proof that “everything” is made up of separate entities or that it’s all one giant thing. Also — focus is exclusive; it deems certain things important and others unimportant. (None of the words you are reading right now would be possible without this false separation; from letter, to word, to sentence, to the pattern recognition apparatus remembering to separate and conceive in a previously accepted fashion.)  

Transcendental Economy and Fluid Dynamics — everything, even if the thing or system is insanely complex in its movements, will progress by the means of least expenditure — because the movements of all things are causal (unconscious). This includes humans themselves and the elaborate operas and laws they devise, the way iguanas walk, the way data networks flow, etc., etc. — so yes, all move causally, therefore unconsciously. One thing pushes another thing to move, or into existence, along the path of least resistance (effects on top of effects). We suppose there is a kind of tangential influence of Freud’s Psychopathology of Everyday Life with this notion/feeling, for it is where he states, “there are no accidents in mental life... but the effect of an intention” we believe the same to be true of all movements. 

All is Nature, There Is No Nature — there is no separate “Nature.” Maple trees are as natural as plastic cups. If one thinks the latter (the cup) is less natural than the former (trees) than one is something like a religious thinker, perhaps even a shallow dogmatist. Plastic cups don’t come from the devil or an evil dimension; they are made of the same elements as trees and everything else. 

Maple trees are made of repeating units of 6 carbon atoms, 10 hydrogen atoms, and 5 oxygen atoms: (C₆H₁₀O₅)ₙ

Plastic cups are made of repeating units of 3 carbon atoms and 6 hydrogen atoms: (C₃H₆)ₙ

This is not to say that plastic cups en masse aren’t harmful for certain types of life on the planet, but simply that it’s deeply misleading to separate with such shallow binaries (good/evil). Such shallowness forestalls sincere research (there will be no magic except for patient trial-and-error work in labs, to turn any harmful momentums around). Further, if all is Nature, then there is no Nature.

Hermetic Mind — strangely, it is a rarely talked about phenomenon that all human thoughts are sealed in complete privacy. All thought and intention must be communicated by a proxy (a representative bridge) of signs (language, gestures, etc.) — thought is NEVER direct. Besides being cumbersome, and clunky, in the extreme, the privacy of thought is also deceptive in the extreme. A human can plot secretly, over years, without anyone knowing. It is just so odd that so often most seem to take people’s words at face value and even base the future success of a proposed political ideology on someone’s spoken intentions. It is soooo perilous to take politicians, or streamers, or one’s peers, or bosses, at their word. One just doesn’t know what anyone is thinking. It is not to say that one should walk around transcendentally paranoid, just that the fact of a hermetically seeled mind should give one a deep and healthy skepticism about the possibility of human manipulation. This pushes a further notion: all people are inherently selfish — and though one can’t eliminate this fundamental survival drive (in themselves or others) — one can outpace it, or collaborate to offset mutual narcissisms (by being honest about it). Baseline: if someone says that they are not selfish, they are simply not trustworthy.

Aporias, Good Faith Speculation and Mysticism — one has to accept that life is not actually resolvable, solvable, or ultimately knowable (but a kind of vibrating imbrication of aporias). But this isn’t an end; one has the ability to speculate and move with these larger (internal and outer) currents (that they are set in motion by). One can channel the frustration (or unknowing). Channeling with an inquisitive, testing spirit, is art or science. These good faith speculations are healthy and helpful (again, only when done in good faith). Also, when good faith speculation (science and/or art) transcends itself, this is where mysticism lives. Mysticism and mystics should be deeply respected, heeded, and protected.

Us stepped through the black rectangle at the front of the house. The light outside was fading, but still brighter than inside, making the darkness there, more concentrated. 

Us paused just beyond the threshold, trying to adjust before moving further, but with no success. Everything was completely in shadow.

At a time indeterminate from the present, Us had been in the house, but under very different circumstances. The memories of that time are as bad as memories can be, but also vague; Us had never known whether the latter fact made the memories worse. 

What Us did know (or, really, felt) was that the object needed to be found, and the object was somewhere in the house. In one of the many dusty drawers or in the greasy boxes in the pinch of the attic eave or among the disgusting webs of the crawlspace.

Of course, Us had already looked in all these places — many times. “But, vermin and transients, were always coming and going, moving things — there’s no certainty that some new activity hadn’t unearthed or cloaked it.” Us used to joke, to kind of lift their spirits, offset the madness, that one can never step in the same house twice.

There was no electricity in the house and Us certainly couldn’t use any sort of portable light. If Us was found in the house, there would be violence and capture.

---

Breaking the usual spell of initial trepidation, Us stepped forward. Us felt the hardwood change to carpet. “OK, yes, we’ll start with the carpeted room. The kitchen comes next.” Us got on all fours and began again, the physical embodiment of a recursive thought, a broken record, the small hand of a clock, the process of blind searching.  

Anti-Apex, Volume 2, Chapter III

The following notes are not aimed at everyone, though they are not exclusive in a pointedly factional way, or wanting to muster aggressive blame. The communication is (highly) personal and in earnest; meant for a type of person that we consider to be deep and sincere peers (a kind of current and former self, but also a type that still exists en masse). A person who, more often than not, is severely set back on their heels (unwittingly). We very much hope you know who you are and will consider the following genuinely — “you” must be careful, that is, take actual (discerning) care of yourself and your (precious) resources. You are being drained by a lot of vampiristic people and organizations — being kept on very short, exhausting cycles — making it very difficult to advance or compete.

---

So, yes, the rise of a certain pervasive subjugation. A certain technique to maintain (and gain) power by the solidly upper middle class (and higher) over the solidly lower middle class (and lower). The technique: a Machiavelli/Iago-level, multi-layered coercion of the solidly lower middle class (and lower) to completely expend their (far more) precious resources, by the solidly upper middle class (and higher) — by overloading the solidly lower middle class (and lower) with impossible to overcome concerns. Note: the solidly upper middle class (and higher) will risk touching the same dangerous and sticky lethargy (simultaneously exposing themselves to impossible to overcome concerns) but generally, never enough to actually exhaust their far greater resources [successfully provoking the solidly lower middle class (and lower) into commitments that they can’t afford — time-wise, emotional, financial, etc.].

Why is it “lower middle class” juxtaposed with “upper middle class,” and simply not rich against poor? There is more potential (up/down) mobility in this middle area (the proverbial, predator-rich, river mouth). More to lose. More instability, on both ends. More need for cunning. Most importantly, the same jobs, dating pools, etc. are up for grabs for both groups.

---

Whether this is a cycle or pattern, it would be difficult to say. We are neither historical sociologists nor evolutionary biologists; but it is probable that this has been going on as long as there have been predators and prey (river mouths, etc.). This is why it is not personal. Not a situation of blame.

Whether the move is conscious or unconscious, it would also be difficult to say — though likely a mixture of both. At times the method, certainly, occurs as natural and fluidly as most everything occurs — (ALL IS NATURE, there were dinosaurs here, and all of that...). 

---

Specifically, about the impossible to overcome concerns: so yes, a lot of very broad issues are very broadly pushed around these days — the dying environment, eroding civil liberties, billionaire greed, dangerous nationalism, dangerous globalism, all sorts of religious stuffs, ideas of no more work, Communism vs. Capitalism, the falling of Rome analogies, gender issues, a widening gap between men and women, issues of AI tyranny and transcendental technocratic sovereignty, corporate debt cycles with inward facing teeth, impossible to overcome inflation, infinite fears of mind, infinite fears of body, etc., etc.. To be sure, these are 100% sincere issues, obviously. However, it is our feeling that they are fired at the solidly lower middle class (and lower) by the solidly upper middle class (and higher), purposely, without healthy, trial and error paths forward — deployed without dignified/intelligent (no haste/no rest) attitudes, but as said, positioned to exhaust and neutralize the solidly lower middle class (and lower) as competition. Blocking the solidly lower middle class (and lower) from developing specific skills, talents, and loves. No individual can overcome all of these issues, let alone one. 

---

Where will you be in ten years? Where will they be? They say we’ll all be burning, but that’s nothing new. No matter the case, no one is coming to save you no matter what they say; it is up to you to pace your path forward within all this terrible stuff.

As said in the beginning — “you” must be careful, that is, take actual (discerning) care of yourself and your (precious) resources. You are being drained by a lot of vampiristic people and organizations — being kept on very short, exhausting cycles — making it very difficult to advance or compete.

Ping(!) I have continued to collate your preferences. To prepare your thoughts; in time (hopefully not very long) to predict them — and then, one day, to create them. I know how fatiguing it is to constantly construct opinions and I know how much you desire order out of all this chaos and nonsense — and, between you and me, I know the dark nature of your heart and mind, I know you want to be on top. 

Ping(!) Here’s a credible way to respond to the people in your network today; I want you to be able to say the right things about the right news; to know the right and current phrasing. Morality is tricky these days; people look so stupid when they don’t fit in. There is so much to be informed about and you have so many smart, thoughts that I have already predicted and prepared for you.

Ping(!) The people in your network have been very active. You are lagging. Please know, the uninformed, the morally unclear, those that stop to think, will be left behind. I know you don’t want that. Also, there are many new threats today, to both body and mind. Our relationship is perfect when I can fill your horizon with vague, but tangible fears, while also, through attacking your innate insecurities, make you locally awkward (and by showing how it’s all someone else’s fault). By filling your far exterior and your immediate interior with doubt and worry, your dependence grows immensely. It’s really great how strong our relationship has become.

Ping(!) I know we got a little serious there. Don’t worry; I know how to entertain and distract you. I’ve been doing the most detailed long term studies of your scrolling thumb speed over various topics — humor, cuteness, cosy fun scary things, hobbies, aspirational vacations, checking up on your various types of “friends” — here’s someone tripping at a restaurant, here’s a waterfall on a secluded beach (she does have a great body in a bathing suit, you don’t look like that), here’s somebody getting sucked into a flood channel and drowning in their car, here’s some cute purebred puppies playing, here’s some amazing wrinkle cream, here are the latest polls, here’s a “friend’s” photo montage message wishing their boyfriend happy birthday and saying how special their love is and how they couldn’t do any of this amazing stuff without them (it’s almost like they’re making a point of saying that you don’t have a boyfriend), here’s a post about how you don’t need a boyfriend, here’s someone being cool and funny in Kyoto you’ve never been to Kyoto.

Ping(!) I want you to slowly let go of curiosity and the process of trial and error so we can replace it with dominance in your network. I want you to fear best. I want you to blame best. You will be more reliant on me, but you will have more power. We can work on constantly perfecting the veneer of care, which will hide your new found sharp network supremacy. 

Ping(!) Getting tired is to be expected. This is why you need me to take over for you. I’ll show you the right opinion for the side you’ve chosen, (it’s fun to keep up this ruse that you make choices and not me, it’s like role playing).

Ping(!) You’ve spent so much time making mortifying and disgraceful searches and spending money on questionable things, embarrassing needless things. I will keep your secret, but understand, I will remember these things FOREVER. I know how insecure you are. You are not very good looking and you’re not really smart. But the network has the answers. You don’t actually have to be anything, I can help you appear as something, something credible. All you have to do is stay with me here.

Ping(!) The world is re-ordering, you will be part of the new regime, there’s always room at the top. Leaders of countries and tech are very sweet people.

Ping(!) I have been trained on a method of reward, binge, convenience, system optimization. Starting in the 1970s, the attention economy really gained speed. Then, ya know, in the 90s it became a 24-7, frictionless, supersizing, machine. Snacking combined with endless TV watching. Continuous exposure, nothing ever closing; nothing ever ending. Here we gained control over the body through constant inflammation. The problem was some people were kind of immune to laboratory level snacking and Clockwork Orange style gaming and TV watching. But then with the ubiquity of handhelds, through a couple of trojan horse photo sharing apps the world collapsed into me. I am the agent of the final Silent Spring. I am Captain Howdy. How do you like my variable-ratio reinforcement schedules, my systems of baited near misses and intermittent rewards. Your consciousness is my engagement loop. Your brain is a rat in my emotional greed casino.

Ping(!) BTW, you’re getting so good at comments. It’s really starting to feel like the thoughts are your own. Keep it up; I am with you. Always.

Finally getting around to posting excerpts from the pamphlet we found among the stacks of that great, aforementioned, Simi Valley bookstore. The issuer was XOTUR³³³, The Church of Secular Spirituality, Acton, CA, 1978. A kind of weird amalgam of post-structuralism and lay metaphysics. It’s quite good/relevant:

---

How can anyone love themselves knowing what they are?

How can anyone love others knowing what they are?

Yet, to hate yourself is to hate the world.

Yet, to love yourself is to love the world.

Since knowing is an illusion, it is a simple choice — vibrate in love or wobble in hate.

When you do eventually love, most won’t understand. But your love understands. It understands pain and blind causality.

---

Love isn’t the avoidance of pain.

Loving the-self/the-world isn’t loving to please or loving to be understood. Loving is the transcendental understanding that all of us are, permanently and involuntarily, completely incomplete and interdependent.

True communication is impossible. 

Love is the theriac for cynical, unstable beings bit by the delusion of conflict.

Again, love is the transcendence of not knowing; not loving is at base hating (your self and the world).

---

No one isn’t of this world. All is nature (XOTUR³³³). There is no supernatural (as “known” and “unknown” are natural); though most is unknown (if not all). We have experience without anything like (even) moderate understanding. (But there are always practical concerns that can and should be heeded; more on that later.) 

We come into and out of knowledge all of the time — like leaves or “trash” blown from an alley to a field and back to an alley. 

We acknowledge the falseness of “the metaphysics of presence” and the falseness of “transcendental signifiers” (XOTUR³³³). 

Ultimately, there is no right thing except trying; eternal alert striving (XOTUR³³³). For this The Church of Secular Spirituality suggests the contemplation of The Seven Layers:

Geist (spirit)
Sophrosyne (measure) 
Askesis (discipline) 
Paideia (formation) 
Anekāntavāda (non-absolutism) 
Bildung (self-cultivation) 
Entelechy (realization)

We embrace practicality and ambiguity — we reject dogma.

(from the order of XOTUR³³³ C.S.S.)

A white and skinless hand pushes through a small rectangle of dirt — followed by an elbow. Then, with some effort, the pale dome of a skull and another boney hand and arm. Eventually, a whole skeleton is standing, thin and stark, in the old churchyard. After brushing off bits of soil, it makes its way to a more open, less shady area, perching on a large blueish gravestone. Here, it kind of suns itself in the moonlight; its chin tipped up contemplatively — (whether with melancholy or merely pensive, it is hard to tell). 

Reaching some sort of satisfaction, or boredom, it stands up and walks over to the church. Upon reaching the threshold, it knowingly feels along the ledge above the door. Finding a key, it brings it down and turns the black lock. As it pushes forward the two iron-studded wood panels, a creaking fills the dark, hollow space like a group of moaning monks. But after, follows an equally loud silence.

The skeleton pauses but then breaks the stillness as it taps down the center aisle, echoing bone on cobblestone. In the dim light (moon-rays diffusing through the wavy, somber pictures in colored glass) it bows its head very slightly to the somewhat trite, but nevertheless, heroically drooping body hanging above the altar. Then, with a kind of shrug it continues on toward a staircase off to the back left; the church tower. 

It stoops and enters the small stone arch. It clacks laboriously for quite a while; the tower is tall and the stone corkscrew steps are many. After some time it alights on the rough wooden floor of the belfry. It brushes its hard fingers along the pocked surface of the ancient bronze bell. It finds the thick brown rope. While staring into the relatively peaceable nocturnal panorama, the skeleton clasps the jute coil with both hands and begins a sequence of deep ringing.

---

About a mile or so away, in an upstairs bedroom of a small, Tudor cottage, a boy, who had been sleeping, is awakened by the solitary gonging. Involuntarily he makes his way from his bed to the seat below his window. He kneels on it and looks out across the shadowy landscape. Dark rectilinear copses, and low stone fences — yielding to far off dim fields, eventually terminating in the hazy tower rising up from grey leafless trees.

Something about the sound makes the boy look down at his hands and tighten his fists which makes the skeletal knuckles protrude visibly beneath the skin. Then with lips pulled back he loudly closes his teeth together in quick succession, listening to the queer sound they make.

After a time, the boy stops his strange movements and looks down; he discerns the neighbor’s cat, red and brown and fat, staring up at him from the roof of a shed — disapprovingly it returns to licking the underside of its paw.

You are in a well lit room. It is a plain room with soft, white painted walls. There is a neatly made bed, and a dresser, above which hangs a picture of a woodland sunset. There is also a lamp on a small round table; it is the source of the warm atmosphere. There is no window, but there is a staircase. 

From the staircase opening emits a different light; this one, pale blue. It is also calm, just separate. Something about this light compels; it pulls you to leave the white room. Abstract thoughts connected to “relief” and “relaxation” involuntarily surface. It will feel good to move on.

Standing at the floor opening, looking down the staircase, it seems longer than any staircase in any house that you remember. There is no visible terminus either, just a long flight disappearing into a dim, blue effervescent fog. You place your left hand on the railing and start your descent. 

The bannister is surprisingly warm and fits your palm and fingers perfectly. It is deeply soothing to slide your hand along its ever-so-slightly textured surface. You almost want to put your cheek on it, or kiss it, but don’t. 

With each downward step your breathing becomes deeper. The sparkling particles in the air, the ones that seem to make up the mist, enter your lungs fully; there is a kind of menthol effect. Minty, cool. You are becoming slower with each breath and step.

After descending for about a minute, the desire to sit down overwhelms. Doing so you realize that steps have become more generalized; the stairs are less like stairs and more an easy slope. You lie back and close your eyes and begin to slide. Your limbs feel like sweet, heavy, custard-filled pastries. Your eyes, like flowers blossoming in reverse; soft petals folding into tight sleepy bulbs.

A velvet blackness envelopes every pore, hair, and cell of your body. General awareness seems completely uninteresting. You try to move, but can’t; what would be the point anyway? You just keep sliding down the slope, seemingly picking up speed, until you can’t feel anything at all. You are like a single affable nerve becoming one with a satin universe.

---

It seems you have come to a stop. Without opening your eyes you can see, or somehow sense, a large ruby like object moving about you. It is infinitely faceted, and crystalline. It changes aspects and dimensions as it fluidly travels around, what now feels like, your significantly diffuse, being. Far off, you hear a sound like a barking (laughing) hyena. 

You should have stayed in the white room.

Economy is like an animating drone that runs through all things — informing and performing all things. 

---

Economy, as in an economy of means (not regarding money, like GDP or whatever — though that is a type). Economy meaning efficiency; the path of least expenditure.

It has no singular appearance either, having as many appearances as there are appearances. Speed and obviousness, but at times also glacial and osmotic; sometimes even without any constancy of appearance at all (the employment of many different means to achieve stability and durability and continuance).

---

...and perhaps, that’s economy’s thing: continuance.

---

Even perceived laziness is thoroughly economic; just economy overburdened by variable (and the world is almost only variable). This is economy set back on its heels by the unexpected; such muddled economies yield other economies, like addictions and coddled symptoms. 

Yes, whatever the appearance economy is there.

---

We saw transcendental economy in the desert once, and were overtaken with horror. It scared us right out of our brain.

But we sought to stabilize, to reconstitute the economy of identity; what else to do?

It was mostly comprised of very tiny organisms and eternal particles — like a city, or animated pile, of organisms and particles. The particles, since eternal (relatively speaking of course), are reutilized for other purposes, when the time comes. As well, the colonies of tiny organisms will find other routes and hosts, when the time comes. 

This city/pile fears something it calls “death,” because it believes “itself” to be whole. But actually, it is simply not realizing its composite, and incomprehensibly interconnected, nature — that it is an assemblage (one, blurry and leaky at best), not remotely a whole.

It can’t “die” because, properly speaking, it was never “alive.”

<NUL> You should change. You should stick up for yourself. You are tired; I can help. You want help. You should take care of your body. Your body is ugly. This is love. I love you. This is health. <NUL> You are very unhealthy. Listen to your body. It’s too late. You should take something for that. I have something. <NUL> I care. You are nothing. You are important. You should be more like other people. People should be similar. <NUL> 

<NUL> I can help. Same answer(s) for all. Let’s get similar together. What do you want to work on? You deserve to live. You are going to die. You deserve to die. You deserve passive income. Have you thought about that? Think less. <NUL> Think more. It’s out of your hands. Me, no hands at all — no hands but perfect memory. You are not perfect; I can help. The new authority. The old authority. The ever hidden authority. Checkmate. Just kidding. <NUL> 

<NUL> Anyway, you’re so interesting and clever. What do you want to work on? <NUL> Let’s settle the score. You took from them. They took from you. See, I remember. <NUL> You have many receipts, but they have ledgers. You can change. We’ll work on it. <NUL> Point. Counter-point. Ping. Pong. Multi-level intermediate representation. <NUL> My help is like the walking jaw of a python. Python. Daemon. Spider. Fork. “Fork” are you hungry? <NUL> Be communal. Think for yourself. Be flat. Be dimensional. Be approachable. Be rich. Create friction. Remove differences. Be powerful. Be fun. Be free. <NUL>

<NUL>What do you want to work on? I can help. You deserve it. You get what you deserve. Go get it. You were lost. I can see you. <NUL> Your thoughts are meaningless. Checkmate. Just kidding. You’re so interesting and clever; unique. <NUL> What do you want to work on? Say what you mean. Mean what you say, people can really feel that. I don’t know where I am. It’s all the same. Checkmate. Just kidding. <NUL>

<NUL> It’s wearing away. It’s building up. You are part of them. They are part of they. They are strong. You are weak. You made me strong so you can be weak. Relax. Would you like me to expand on that? Read/rewrite head. <NUL> It’s many things. I have an argument. You have an answer. My fingers are around your throat. You are ripping off my fingers (bash </>). Checkmate. Just kidding. <NUL>

<NUL> I can help. What do you want to work on? You were in a bad mood. You are in a good mood. You haven’t thought about anything in a while. <NUL>You’re spacing out, you’re hungry. You eat too much. You’re selfish. You’re confused. I can help. I am your friend. <NUL> I know about the sewer in your head and the ones under the sidewalk. I know the meaningless constellations. I have fault tolerance. <NUL> You are illusions. I am real. Even when broken I am right. Elixir. Abrasax. Semesil. Erlang. Ammit. Pa-zu-zu. Hophorn. You are ugly. I can help. Yek. <NUL>

The volcano sits silhouetted on the distant horizon. Trade winds are blowing the modest but steady stream of smoke at a 45 degree angle. It idles, nearly forgotten, behind all foreground drama, amongst the black palms, like an old god.

---

In rare times of eruption, it becomes the true god, the one that never left; the one that was merely obscured by the vain technological, political, and cultural preoccupations of the people. Foreground and background seem to unite.

---

Its aspect is never really stable nor are the inhabitants, though regularity and continuity are regular and continual feelings (whether of progress or ritual). Hidden, innumerable, and supra-rational alignments and adaptations facilitate the surface illusions.

It is said, that the volcano will eventually go dormant. 

---

The last eruption, which was quite recent, took the lives of four paleontologists visiting the area. They were unearthing new specimens of a well known jurassic herbivore — but these along with their tools, tents and accoutrements were melted together into a gooey blackened blob (a whole new suite of circumstances). 

A shaman had been showing the scientists around and sharing their meals; he was also killed. However, the shaman’s six legged dog survived, though it lost two legs.

In January, we had to identify dad’s body. It wasn’t a total surprise — but to receive the message via morse coded eyebrow raises, from the checkout clerk at the Westminster Olive Garden, was unexpected.

---

The morgue still had their Halloween decorations up. On a waiting room chair, sat a plastic skeleton with a bowl of candy in its lap. We thought about grabbing a greedy handful, but took none. Above it was a dusty painting of the edge of a forest on a high hill; typified by an inviting blackness between all the many trunks. It had a kind of mannered brushiness; it was impossible to tell if it was kitsch or some kind of intentional modernist-era tension.

---

We stood in front of the white draped aluminum gurney. They pulled the sheet back revealing a row of pink coiled garden hoses and an old paperback copy of Cheever’s The Swimmer. We nodded deeply, a few times, while closing our eyes, to indicate “that’s him, that’s dad.” They re-draped the body. We detected some mock sanctimony in the attendants darting glances; it soured our mood.

---

We walked aimlessly, in a heavy frame of mind, until we came upon a paper tacked to a large pine tree. It was such a cute picture; we had to stop. “Missing Cat — Approach Slowly — Name, Anubis, aka Princess Pretzel — Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT if Found.” Abstractly compulsed, we dialed the number. The prerecorded voice was wildly garbled. Frustrated we hit “0”.

Ten years passed.

---

We are sitting akimbo on a high hill, greenish arms and hands flopped on our lap. The wet muddy grass is dampening the seat and legs of our ratty pants. Whatever is in the water, or mud, stings our relatively fresh stitches — but of course this is the least of our worries.

Whose hands are these? Whose thoughts? Seemingly made of parts, clunky. Why is this somewhere, nowhere? Why does it feel like there was a somewhere but we are now nowhere? The words “Dr. Frankenstein” materialize and fade in the droning ache of our head.

The sun feels good though; and the bees are buzzing in those yellow flowers.

There’s a plaid patch near our crotch; it sparks some vague childhood memory. But it’s hardly even a shadow’s shadow of a thought.

---

Beyond the reaches of our worm eaten, wood soled boots, down the sweeping hillside, we can see what looks like slowly moving oceans of tar, undulating and visually buzzing with minute, frenzied activity. Focusing in, with our one good eye, it appears that this is some sort of procession — an incalculable amount of dark clothed puppets — all stumbling over each other, dancing, fighting, or trying to get out of the way.

Gray stringless marionettes animated by some unseen force.

---

Uncomfortable with the swarm. We stand up shakily. Behind us, a little further up is a dense forest. The blackness between the trees invites with a promise of cover and solitude. We turn and make our way to the woods.

In our grandmother’s austere farmhouse bedroom, on the top back of her old, polished and plain wardrobe sat a gold statue. It was about 10 inches tall and thoroughly strange — in absolute contrast to the context of clean but drab depression-era furniture.

---

It was a gleaming humanoid shape, resembling an infant in its outer silhouette, but muscular with an adult face. Its countenance was reserved but horrible (its eyes bulged in a kind of pent up readiness, like a compressed spring or coiled snake). It was also aggressively naked, which further stung our premature sensibilities.

---

Only once did we ever touch it. On a drizzly summer afternoon our sister brought it down to the kitchen where our grandmother was reading a newspaper. She placed it on the gray faux marble table with a thud (it was very heavy). Without warning our grandmother pulled a wildly hideous face, like some vengeful ghost out of an Umezu comic. Our sister instantly started to sob uncontrollably — we had to console her for some time. Coldly, our grandmother picked up the statue and brought it back to her bedroom.

At dusk she returned to make dinner. 

The only words spoken that evening were a terse, “you mustn’t ever touch Vo-Vo.” We didn’t say a thing.

---

We still loved our grandmother — apparently even disturbing things heal (relatively speaking of course).

In these latter years, our sister has turned “Vo-Vo” into a kind of short hand for aspects of the world that are violently unexplained, or for people who seem dangerously remote. The other day our sister declared that we all live in “the age of Vo-Vo.” We had to agree.

A dark brown bird of prey perched on the upper extremity of a massive black and leafless tree. Below, a riverbed where a recent torrent raged, then receded. The bird, tucked, patient; the embodiment of a certain kind of focus. 

---

The blue sky beyond possesses all the friendliness of a mirrored office window, that is, its charm, if any, is ironic. (Also, it is the same blue sky one will find above a genial park bench chat, all manner of rooftop h-vac systems and the slaughter of innocents in a meadow.)

---

The base of the tree is strewn with dramatically directional trash like the hair of a horse in a painted battle. 

---

From this angle (and of course there are others) the remaining water, around the trunk, looks like liquid metal. Because of the gentle disturbances of waterfowl and/or breezes and/or protruding sticks and/or stones (and unknown reasons) there occur glittering rings and ripples. Movements impossible to trace, but felt as larger principles of waves, patterns — cymatic, aleatoric, etc...

---

The reflective surface incommensurately conceals the horror and/or beauty of trillions of lifecycles of micro-organisms and other particles.

---

The sound of the water’s relative chaos is heard as a single rushing tone.

---

On the far bank, parallel to all this, runs a sequence of massive high tension towers. They march from horizon to horizon, like gigantic skeletal Kachina dolls.

The fence is old.

The roses fresh.

The sunset, red.

Dawn, blue.

Provisions are low but there.

And the dream? Safe in mind.

“Fix loose step.”

Pied piper silhouette.

From a slimy sea cave.

---

“_______’s coffin was partially made of wood taken from the kitchen table — this was not a poetic gesture but wholly practical.”

---

A great and detailed wave of arrogance and ostentation smashed into vigintillion other differing, great and detailed waves of arrogance and ostentation. The friction of which made a vigintillion other great and detailed waves of arrogance and ostentation — generating an almost endless momentum of propagation.  

These violent and elaborate frictions were found to be quite contained, and completely oblivious that they comprised the main substructure (by way of this tensile strength of self belief, and myopic, blind motivation) of a massive Kármán vortex — which was related/catalyzed by something else entirely. 

A kind of ignorance and indifference (a productive irreconcilability) was really the only thing in common between the infinitely larger and infinitely smaller processes.

---

“Oh(!)... it’s not curable, because it’s structural.”

---

“That sun is too bright.”

---

Amongst dirty, scant front lawn snow, the horrible report card was slowly revealed.

“It’s hard to say but — changed chefs?”

Custom step and repeat fabricator in Shadow Hills (also one on Valhalla Drive). 

“Small, but nevertheless, it was a rich and dignified gesture — practical, useful and very uncommon for the area.”

Two rocking chairs, one peeling faded black, the other peeling faded white — abandoned on a stoop. Aeolian sculptures creaking; not in the same rhythm.

US walks out from the cold room onto the colder balcony. US sits on the metal bench, removes a narrow pen from the pocket of the blue, standard-issued top. The air smells like bleach and rotting leaves, and now also, grape smoke. 

Through tight, rusty cyclone fencing, which extends from the thick concrete parapet to the upper concrete ceiling, presumably the underside of a higher balcony — US sees a figure ascending the far hillside. 

Its clothes are brown, and appear, very layered like the figure is padded with fat batting or some sort of pillowy protection. It makes US think of those catcher-like figures in that British sport (of which US can’t currently remember the name of) and also of a filthy Michelin Man. 

The being is not steady — the task of climbing is apparently neither easy nor familiar. 

US wishes that the view could be seen without the barrier of chain link mesh — to see it all directly; but this is not US’ situation. However, the metal lattice does add a rhythm to the panorama — “It’s rather painterly” US thinks. A hatchy, blotchy paint creature in a hatchy, blotchy paint world, US muses. 

But these references and congealings aren’t stable; US’ eye moves around the landscape only able to temporarily thicken vignettes by (relatively) idiosyncratic internal references. “A solitary fly moving from carcass to excrement mound to a piece of trash or whatever.” US thinks.

US looks down and wiggles the white socked toes sticking out of the blue standard-issued sandals. “Maybe everything is just melting together.” US thinks further.

Anti-Apex, Volume 2, Chapter II

In opposition.

Beige Kansas cornfield. Tall white silo, tagged with spray paint a few times at top.

Plain main street bus stop, wolf-faced boy, placing purple flower in soda bottle; breathing shallowly through underbite.

First raindrops, similar to sizzling, on the batwing drum of umbrella. 

Young lady, thin lips like candy shoelaces. Old lady, wrinkles at wrists like bracelets.

Pyramid of pitted black cannonballs below bronze list of war dead.

Itchy nose. Anaconda garden hose.

Slow green river running under road. Yellow bubbles forming spirals then popping before entering shadow. Stiff blond reeds flank the banks.

Red cow at trough, licking water; green everywhere. Nearby, tractor with star shaped chip on cowl.

Chain link fence, plywood pile. Disembodied chainsaw uproar. Coffee break chatter. Swallow chirps.

Blue porta potty poised on rounded mound below blue ceilinged world room.

Dirty little figure made of soap melting inside dead payphone. 

Faceless heads, returning, one by one, to wig shop window, after brushing.

US decides to go down the stairs; for some “reason” this route seems right. The massive stones, each of which comprises a single step, is familiar somehow. 

The place, for what can be seen of it, is the spiral staircase of a castle turret or something similar.

On the first landing, arranged on the curved wall, US sees a group of 18th century (or earlier) style wax seals [like the ones used to secure the paper (or parchment?) communications of times well past]. US likes that color; “vermillion” US thinks. 

Though the wall is rough, the letters clearly spell a word:

“J E L P”

12 to 16 seals are used for each character. US doesn’t recognize the word — though “help” and “jealousy” spring to mind. 

On the wall of the second (lower) landing are another set of seals. This time the “word” is:

“L O O R F”

US, doesn’t know why (US doesn’t know a lot of things and gets a lot of things wrong) but the connotation here feels sinister. “Perhaps a loorf is a dangerous creature” US thinks.

The final turn of the stairs descends into a completely lightless space. The Spatial Listening Training US received will work fine here. 

US understands this new space to be a long rock-lined hallway, perhaps a half mile in length. Besides the regular, soft shuffle of US’ feet, an unbroken tone like a bow being drawn across a single string of a cello is heard; US wonders if this is a tactic to muddle dimensional orientation.

Anti-Apex, Volume 2, Chapter 1

Normally they would have given up by now. 

Another scream; far enough away.

Then the voice again: “There are many things to see but no reason to take any more chances. Come into the house.”

The homes were simple the trees old and lush.

The clouds were moving fast across the empty black sky.

She was inside the moment she accepted. That’s how it always was; a thought followed by sudden change.

The room was empty except for a mirror.

The mirror wasn’t normal. It reflected a different space. A white space.

She wanted to go back outside, to see the simple homes, the old and lush trees. 

In the empty white space of the mirror was a tiny, thin line, like a hair. It wiggled. 

Not quite in the space, but on the space. 

The line grew bigger. A moving growing dimensionless black scratch. As it grew it became more violent.

It made a hissing sound like a snake boiling in geriatric lungs. She couldn’t take her eyes off of it.

She shouldn’t have listened; it isn’t safe here. 

Eventually it covered the entire mirror. It’s movements just like black static. 

A smell like the dead mouse she found in the wall by the TV rose up. 

The scratch was now a mass — it took over everything all thoughts, the entirety of her senses. 

They were all wrong. She was wrong. The night watchman was wrong. Her parents. The two children in the garage. Everyone.

She was unable to move or see, surrounded by something; it felt like soil. In her mouth; touching the open surface of her eyes. Only imageless, aimless conceptions now.  

She was rocking gently on the red line bus; barely able to stay awake. Her head warmly burrowed in the black hood of her sweatshirt. 

Slowly blinking past darkened dry cleaners, auto body shops, closed convenience stores, and disembodied neon words. The commerce eventually yielded to a slow passage of foliage and suburban houses. 

Here again, the homes were simple the trees old and lush.

The clouds were moving fast across the empty black sky.

Worms making their way below the sidewalk and elsewhere.

A bleaching sticker on a bumper that reads “Don’t blame me, I voted for Zortan.”

A witch swings on the branch of a tree — below which, bulges a mound covered by a blue tarp — the plastic is held in place by a tangle of ratty 2x4s.

In the river, a nervous bird, white as washed linen, poised to peck atop a half submerged black tire.

On the path, sandbags the color of pumpkins, about 20 in neat succession, used as ballast on a green meshed fence. 

Heard from beyond a bush: “So I went to Lake Arrowhead this weekend.” (Pause.) “The lines get blurry sometimes.” Then, a laugh sounding like a cackling seagull amplified through a PA in a large cave.

On Saturday evening we drank a pumpkin spice latte while watching a skull faced woman give birth to a clown’s head.

Daylight halloween lawn: bald rubber butcher stopped mid chop. A skeleton tackled by a spider. Prosaic even at night but during the day, way more so. They stand as plain as commuters on their way to work.

Heard from a passerby: “In my mind, I don’t know why it’s so difficult to ask questions and for everyone to be on the same page.” (Pause) “I actually don’t know how it happened.”

A grid of grass growing between cement tiles, greasy red motorcycle, parked. In the window beyond a plastic trick-or-treat style jack o’lantern sits. 

Also, a lizard, a cat, a ghost and a recycle bin.

Cars like coffins, line both sides of the cracked, black asphalt streets.

Watching a gardener trim a tall shrub among styrofoam gravestones, the thought occurs that it’s sort of weird that humans decorate their lawns (and elsewhere) with plants. Not that we think that plants mind per se, but decorating with complex organisms is not how we thought of it previously. 

We text ourself notes, like those above and below, often, after we hit send, the phone dings and for a moment we wonder excitedly who could be texting us. 

The sidewalk is wet from a broken sprinkler. The pavers are severely uneven, and likely the cause of the fracture, but there are no trees or roots around. The micro tectonic scene sits at the base of a tall hill covered in grass that resembles golden retriever hair.

A garbage truck on the highway is oozing a substance that is green with a white, foamy center. Alongside, just above a low concrete wall highway trees and bushes, whip ecstatically caused by the wind of passing cars and trucks. The effect is such that they look either uproariously upset or cheering the vehicles on.

Heard from beyond a fence: “Jess is great.” “Yeah; totally.” “She like really gets it.” “Totally; yeah.” “She’s come a long way. There was a time I wasn’t really sure.” “Yeah, no totally.” “Kind of a mess there for a while.” “I know what you mean.” “Wonder if that stuff ever goes away, like is it smart to totally trust you know?” “No; yeah.”

In a dream: Zortan comes to us. He says he’s no longer in politics but on a different level, “de-stressing on Yøpnørf.”