Bamboo??

So here's my problem. I've ariticulated this to a lot of you, but I'm stuck by my own form. During one of my many successful internet searches performed while "working," I came accross a little thing called the "Black Panther Mechanism." Brief history of the mechanism: L. Ron hypothesized hilariously in Dianetics that all human action can be explained by a man named Gus (first problem: the human Gus will explicate human action?). Gus is sitting in his living room, in his futon, or perhaps his ottoman. Gus has had a long day of selling George Foreman Grills to poverty-level school districts, and just wants to lie down in his bed and relax the night away. But there's a huge black panther (as in the animal) on the steps to his bedroom. And, as L. Ron and Scientology make pains to point out, this is an angry panther. As he would be if he was stolen from the jungle and transplanted into a Miami Beach nursing home. So our Gus (his real name. That part I'm not making up.) has five options, Hubbard says. He can attack (which means strangle the panther, because Gus can't use tools for some reason) the beast, he can flee the panther, he can avoid the panther (which apparently means sneaking to the bedroom via some undisclosed route, but really, if Gus has a separate set of stairs, why are we having this conversation? Gus would go up to bed and call animal control or something, which incidentally is something Gus can't do [get help from others]), he can neglect the panther (don't understand this one. Maybe the panther dies from loss of love.), or he can succumb to the panther (which unless he's dramatic about it, is not a solution, unless Hubbard is being incredibly fatalistic about humanity).

So problem & five incredibly restrictive ways to approach it. I love the sound of it. I can conjure up infinite computations of it, working in formal elements and possibly even my crack addiction to oulipo. But I find myself in a place where I literally cannot write a word, because I feel this oppressing need to reckon with the fact that this is from Scientology and I don't necessarily have to believe in it to use it. Granted I am interested (cue backing track of Alice and Rima singing "exoticism! Exoticism! in ducet harmony) in eastern forms and in dialects, but usually I can make use of these without too much reference to the fact that I am using them. I'm having an unbelievably hard time even getting through the first stanza before being sucked under by a dragging current of L. Ron mockouts, like a seventh grader.

I'm sure this problem will be solved soon, naturally, and I'll get the hang of it, but I'm thinking that it's a matter of opportunity. To be honest, I've had too many friends lose their families, money, and good name by the Church of Scientology to be a-okay with it. So to use a form without doing some meaningful work with the original subject within in this case feels like a grave disservice. I'm in a PICKLE. What Would Alice Do? (WWAD, in case you want to make braclets)

I'm currently listening to Menomena, the new Foo Fighters video (what can I say? Ice rinks and explosions of blood are just a part of who I am [http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/page/forkcast/45032-foo-fighters-the-pretender]), and thirty seconds of new MIA songs, excepting "Jimmy" because it makes me cringe in a big way.

-jon

(next blog to feature a discussion of gender, mother-hatred in soofyan's music, and the incredible sexuality-myopia of fantasy writer Robert Jordan's the Wheel of Time series, because if I'm going to read shitty beach fantasy novels, you BET! I'll try and make a case for its worth when Waffles starts laughing at me. I will also attempt to mirror Butler's mellifluous prosaic style.)

{and I think it'd be fun for everyone to be admins and just go ape-shit on this blog, so email Alesia, who's name is bigpurplebroccoli or something. and adminit}.