love

The minute I heard my first love story

I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,
they're in each other all along.

- Rumi

love is linked to life. the longer we live, the more deeply we understand love. the love that a teenager insists that she feels is a legitimate love. it is different from that experienced by a twenty-five year-old or a sixty-five year-old, but it is love nonetheless. how do we know when we are in love? we feel it. we know with certainty when we are not in love, but we are unsure of everything when we are in love. the love between two people is an intimation of universal love, love in the abstract - the love one experiences when one effaces one's ego, one's self. when one gives love unselfishly to everyone, then one is divine. when one is united with love, one realises that loving truly is to recognise the universe within oneself, to recognise that the lover and the beloved are one.

the inextricable linking of messrs wilde and fry

one of my most persistent memories, brief as static but with all of nostalgia's pleasantness, is of a movie called 'wilde'. i sat on the floor of the living room of the london flat where i had spent about a dozen summers, half of which followed the formula of watching videos rented from the blockbuster downstairs while eating a small cup of haagen-dazs vanilla ice cream, purchased there. i sat on the blue carpet and watched the dramatised biography of a man about whom i knew nothing except his name. but that name would change my perception of the world, as the things he did with language were, to me, unimaginable. i never knew one was allowed to play, to manipulate, to wit, as he did. to be sure, my own skill wanes in comparison, but what i know now, i owe in some great degree to oscar wilde, and also in some great degree to the man who played him in that film, mr stephen fry. i believe it was the first time i'd heard of him, but he became then inextricably linked with mr wilde, and they were thenceforth fixtures of my fascination with language, a permanent benchmark, a zenith towards which to strive. many years passed after that initial initiation, and i began to investigate wilde's work, for the first time, and my mind's barriers were shattered, one more time. some more years passed, and i investigated mr fry again. his wit is unparalleled, his insight is remarkable, and his lexical dexterity is so magnificent that it is tearfully enviable.

wonderful and insightful: "america's place in the world"

brilliant and hilarious: the subject of language, on a bit of fry and laurie.

nice. fry on wilde: http://www.stephenfry.com/media/video/102/trailer--oscar-wilde-s-short-stories

linda goodman's promise of immortality

i was beaten by the strange stick when i picked up linda goodman's star signs. it is occult to the max. she was the foremost in astrology, she brought it to the fore. her sun signs is amazing and insightful, and everyone should read it - those who study the astrological sciences will relish it, those who are unaware will become aware. to be sure, linda goodman is brilliant. she taps into the ancient gnosis, the ancient wisdom, the idea of becoming one with oneself, when one's "I"-ness is effaced to the point that there is no Me and there is no You, there is only the Ultimate. when one diminishes one's self, one recognises the Unity of Being - the wahdat al-wujud of ibn al-arabi - the blissful peace of unified reality.

but star signs is so strange ... it's occult to the hilt. i picked it up before leaving mtl and opened it to the chapter on achieving physical immortality and was visibly struck by its brazenness. i put it in my suitcase and read it two nights ago. it was eye-opening. the idea, the steps she provided, of/to physical immortality were galilean, though the book was published thirty years ago. believe in immortality! she chides. you can do it if you KNOW it to be true. recognise the truth of cell regeneration and train your mind to youthen your body, your cells. you will look like any age you want to. follow the steps - become vegetarian, do not kill, do not be promiscuous, be kind.

eleven steps to immortality. nice if you can get it, and you can get it if you try.

breakdown of the book:
http://horoscopes.lovetoknow.com/Linda_Goodman_Star_Signs

NEW! Reviews of EIE (courtesy of Ja'red)

Everything in Excess Reviews:

"Soap box ramblings of a madman."

-New York Times

"The internet has ruined the art of writing. I quit."

-Thomas Wolfe

"I wish, in addition to Spell Check, there was such a thing as Suck Check."

- Chicago Sun Times

"Genius! Brilliant! One of today's greatest minds!"

- North Korea State Controlled Sun Times

"It scared me."

- Stephen King

"Great piece on cookies."

- Cookie Monster

Πάνθεον

it is a paragon of pluralism, created as a house for `every god`, the pantheon was designed to welcome and include all the people of the realm and the variety of gods they worshipped. it is one of rome`s oldest buildings, built by marcus agrippa in his third consulship after actium in 31 bce, and has been in continuous use for over 2000 years. (the xtians usurped it in the seventh c and its used by them still.) its walls are six feet thick, to support its huge dome.

it is a massive structure that, like the moon, remains stationery as you move beneath it. it is breathtaking every time. its columns are gigantic and its awe is wonderful to experience, every single time. it comes into the corner of the eye, through the small streets that hide its fullness. but in the openness of its piazza, it is awesome and thrilling, every time, even when looking away for a moment and turning back.

rome is empty at night, all the piazzas are clear, making way for lovers and other strangers. the pantheon`s majesty is clear in the daytime, despite all the people, but it`s solemnity is clearest at night.

quaker chewy chocolate chip granola bars

i eat these all the time. i have them after other food. i have them as food. i even have them as dessert. i think it's the chocolate chip part that gets me. i'm sure that's all i like about them.

3AMGOKARTING

it's still exciting. was exhilarating, really. want to go back. was chilling with az and some at lemeac, then some places like baldwin distillerie cafeteria, then in my driveway ran into some people, were chatting then decided to go go-karting around 3 o'clock. was wicked fun zoom zoom round round fast fast.

for tas 1 [m:brgr]

the choc chip cookie with vanilla ice cream at m:brgr got betr. it was always a good idea, but recently they started making it with larger choc chips, and now it is actually really good, and i think about it from time to time.

m:brgr is just generally nice, it's a very chill atmosphere (though sometimes the music is really loud), and the place itself is very cool and trendy, the crowd too, and jeff the owner is great, very nice always friendly. one always bumps into someone one knows. i've spent a quite bit of time there recently. was fun with s-man that one time, and even he liked the place and the beer.

i really like chilling there (though it is too expensive). the drinks are high-quality, top-notch. i'm sure josh silver would be really happy i said that, he's always promoting m:brgr cuz he's got them to stock stewart's. he's all over asw, always promoting mbrgr, trinity, l'original, all the places that stock stewart's. m:brgr also has coke in the bottle. that's always nice, isn't it t ;). and the other day i had a kobe burger with portobello mush, monterey jack cheese, and caramelised onions...it was really good. i like m:brgr now.
[this is a very un-triumphant return. i hope i'll be more inspired soon than i have been over the last month.]

the finite timelessness of youth.

We get lost in our youth. We don’t know anything else. Youth is invincible and impervious. And beautiful. And wasteful.

george lucas is effing brilliant.

what genius, to come up with such epic stories: star wars and indiana jones. both are full of adventure and comedy, heart and soul, metaphor and symmetry. star wars is spiritual and meaningful, its depth is belied by its science fiction setting and high-flying adventure, but the notion of the force, of the spiritual master, of the green man, of the perceived duality between good and evil, as well as that duality's essential complementarity, all have firm grounding in the study of gnosis.

the star wars movies famously take their cue from joseph campbell's study of the 'hero myth', and indiana jones is wonderfully comic and non-stop adventure. he's the american james bond (fleming's bond, not connery's), in a way: supremely knowledgable, supremely capable, and supremely brash. harrison ford really is quite wonderful, he's both han solo and indiana jones, a thrill-seeking and brazenly cocksure adventurer, motivated by self-interest, but ever-ready to don the mantle of reluctant hero.

the opening scene of 'temple of doom' mixes east and west with an american girl singing an english song in chinese, then brings in mystery as we see indy's body moving down stairs, given a passing warning as he sits down to confront a table of mobsters, as connery did in dr no, dashing in a white tuxedo; the adventure just begins as he barters for the prize which he collected the night before, which, as we learn from a bandaged hand, one of the chinese had attempted to steal. the details make it exciting and fun, delivered slowly and subtly, as we see the barter taking place over a revolving tray, the artefact and the money being exchanged round and round, when indy finally imbibes a poison, and the club goes wild, the diamond and the antidote both rolling around on the floor, being chased by the girl and indy, both of whom want one of those items. the excitement level is maintained as they jump out a window and fall directly into indy's white car, given chase by the chinese, until indy escapes them by jumping into a freight plane, which he doesn't know is owned by the mobster himself!

what a brilliant storyteller he is, a master of vernacular adventure, mr lucas - inventor of some of the most enduring, popular, and relevant american characters, and reviver of inspired and innately exciting stories.