The Voice at 3 AM

1,000 Words

2010-01-18T21:39:41Z

While the nature of contemporary reality and the status of religious fundamentalism cannot solely be laid at the feet of the camera, which winks sheepishly atop its tripod, it is culpable enough that, perhaps, we could all stop snapping photos with our cellphones every time we drink the same thing in the same bar with the same people.

"Don't beat sleeping monks"

2009-08-28T20:12:27Z

The Unborn is a kind of Zen that's rarely discussed and not well known. I first encountered it in an article (attached) by Alan Watts. This is an excerpt from a book, Bankei Zen. The text is worth a read, and the title is one of the most hilarious (out of context) and meaningful (in context) lines I've ever read.

Blasphemy

2009-07-24T04:20:34Z

Normally I'd just post a quick comment on this wonderful blog, but being the brave souls that they are Paul and Liz don't allow comments on their blog. So, I'm linking to it and posting a comment here. Firstly, I know this particular article is a couple of years old. Secondly, if you do check out their blog, try not to read the banner.

It will unfairly bias your reading of the content. It'll do so much the same way that a bright pink, "Hello Kitty!" tank top on a twenty-seven year old man will unfairly bias your opinion of his sexuality. I'm asking you to judge this article by its actual writing, and all things considered (its being posted on a blog, the blog's being written by uber Christians, etc.) it's not that bad. Had Paul (probably maybe Liz) simply slashed at Dawkins and defended Intelligent Design, I'd never have found the article. And, even if I'd found it, I wouldn't bother with it.

But, Paul (probably maybe Liz) had to go and bring Oolong Colluphid into things. This particular article is titled "Where Oolong Colluphid went wrong." For those of you who may not be immediately familiar with Colluphid, he is the author of several controversial works on theology: Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes, Who Is This God Person Anyway?, and, of course, Well That About Wraps It Up for God.

I could point out the weaknesses of Paul (probably maybe Liz)'s arguments. I could draw a dividing line between myself and atheists like Dawkins, but really and truly I just needed to publicly state my support for Colluphid. For anyone desiring a brief audio-visual introduction to Colluphid's work, please click here.

Source: Where Oolon Colluphid Went Wrong (http://exilefromgroggs.blogspot.com/2007/07/where-oolon-colluphid-went-wrong.html) by Paul (probably maybe Liz)

"the absurd courts the vulgar"

2009-07-16T06:11:22Z

If only Baudrillard were alive. He really should have lived long enough to encounter this. I remember reading in one of his books about how we add "noise" into digitally created audio to make it sound more real. I can only imagine where he'd take the new iPhone apps. The iPhone vibrates. Vibration can cause pleasure. Enter MyVibe. It's a free app that turns one's phone into a vibrator.

OK, so what's the big deal you ask? There are multiple apps that promise to transform your phone/camera/music player into a sex toy. The big deal is that some of the apps offer sound effects. Which sounds are being added to improve the app's performance? The iPhone offers applications that will make it sound like a traditional vibrator. It simulates a sex toy's sound. If only Baudrillard were alive, I would kill to read his analysis of this, not for where he'd take it so much as for the way he'd get there.

Araki Continued

2009-07-08T22:06:14Z

What's the difference between Araki's shot of a naked woman and someone else's? I don't want to broaden this too far. I'm not trying to draw a line between pornography and art (a good friend of mine already has: it comes down to shoes). I've never before been convinced that the way a person views a subject can truly be conveyed through a photograph. But, there's a signature to Araki's work. He accomplishes something with it that I can't deny.

"the taxicabs were driving me around"

2009-07-06T19:08:57Z

So apparently marijuana is a gateway drug, a gateway the goes in both directions. The best way to kick a heroin addiction is with weed. To be fair, the article specifies that they've only tested injecting rats with high levels of THC, but it seems to minimize the effects of opiate withdraw. No showy analysis here. No legalization rant. Just some info.

Araki Introduction

2009-07-04T03:42:19Z

There's something compelling about Araki's work.

Nearly Vulnerable

2009-07-03T18:12:24Z

While I'm getting things up and running and writing new content, I thought I'd post an old short story I wrote. I've got to spend some time writing fiction for school, and I'd appreciate feedback.

New Name

2009-07-01T22:35:45Z

Due to a miscommunication with my hosting company, I lost www.rabidrabbits.com, so I've changed the name to www.3amvoice.com. The name's from the title of a book of poems by Charles Simic. I reccomend you check out the book. Everything should be up and running properly in a day or so. Until then if you want to view the site, click here. I've also added a section. I'm doing an independent study on 20th Century American lit. I've added a link to the posts I'm writing about that topic. Also, there should be some new content coming soon.

--Zak

2:00 am in Dokki

2009-02-23T08:07:24Z

There's something about white space, about an empty screen, that drives every thought from my head. If I don't come to the keyboard with a line or two ready to lay down, I just end up staring at the screen with the fond, impotent desperation familiar to all of us who were once twelve year old boys looking up at seventeen year old blonds. The challenge of any empty page is that, more than any reader, it judges what we write. Rilke, Baudrillard, Ginsberg, Wilde, Adams, Broun - they all had no more and no less to work with than do I or any other writer. No color, no harmony, no texture or voice to support, to disguise, the process through which we create meaning. Our only tools are the alphabet and the page's emptiness through which we form the letters that strive to conceal the seductively intimidating presence of the absence of any absolute meaning.

The blank page forces an incredible burden on an honest writer. For as long as we can hold our reader's attention, we create meaning in a world that has none. I write so rarely and always with the comforting distance of irony because it seems to me that if a person is going to create, he ought to have something, some insight, some vision to offer his reader. And, I haven't. I've traveled and read. I've lived a bit. Never loved fully. Never held onto a dream for more than a moment. Still, it might be enough to start writing except that one must be certain - even if it's only of his questions - in order to write well, and I haven't been certain of anything since I was a boy.

My certainty then, came from an intuitive understanding that only the innocent can have. We tend to forget those understandings as we live through the experiences we need to make them meaningful. Now, as I try to find somewhere to begin, I remember something I knew from an early age. Morning is the mother none of us has ever had. Hers is a smile that doesn't age. A smile that doesn't age us. Hers is a hand that comforts without touching. She speaks of nothing but the day's promise. And, she loves not unconditionally but indiscriminately. She does not love us for who we are. She doesn't know who we are. And so, every morning we begin again, new. Loved anonymously and pulled gently toward an open world.

I've always hated mornings. It's the night I've loved since I was young. Night's true charm is the valiance it displays in trying to keep its promise to hold off the morning. Years after I'd forgotten why I slept until morning moved on to care for another part of the world, I left home for Cairo. And, every night at about 2:00 am on my way home from smoking and fumbling for a free thought at my friend's apartment, I passed a woman.

She saw me, and I saw her. She never held her hand out, and I never offered her a thing. She was wrapped in black fabric with only her face visible. Her eyes were harder and her face more worn than the stone of the smudged and stained bridge she sat under. The pieces of cardboard beneath and around her seemed to mark that space her home as clearly as did the walls of any place I've lived. I knew she needed money, but I couldn't give her enough to change her life. I knew that, and I wasn't sure what I'd be taking from her by giving her the little cash I had in my pocket. For all she lacked, she had presence. And, perhaps it was the shadows, but I swear she had dignity as well. I couldn't go into her home and hand her my leftovers. In the morning, she would be a homeless beggar on the streets of Egypt, and I would be a rich, white American. But, every night for the few seconds that we looked at each other as I walked passed, we were equals. Strangers. Equally alive. Both wishing morning wouldn't come and return us to living as the people the world insists we are.