The thread about Cat Person reminded me I wrote my own (very) short story about a Cat Person a few years ago. Figured I'd share it here

Cat Story

At noon, I paused. I turned and took a picture of my cat. I let the cat out, then uploaded the picture to my laptop. My desktop wallpaper was an older picture, of a different cat. I opened up the new picture and changed the tone to sepia. It made the picture feel old-timey. I imagined my cat as a gunslinger in the wild west and laughed.


From next door came the muffled sound of a classic rock station. All the hits, I thought. Gifts from our fathers, I thought.


Cold light came through the kitchen window. There was still frost on the ground. A million frosted blades of grass. I imagined that I was the size of a bug and that I was walking through the lawn.


I coughed once, held my breath, then coughed twice more in quick succession.


The world is getting old, I thought. The temples have all crumbled. I imagined my cat as a scavenger and myself as a wizened druid, forgotten, squatting among toppled masonry. I imagined that my cat felt guilty because he was a scavenger. I imagined myself rising slowly, from behind a great stone block, and walking to him, offering him absolution.


I poured some coffee and sat at the kitchen table, staring out the window. I could hear the neighbors arguing. After a while, the neighbors’ kids appeared in the lawn and began playing a halfhearted game of catch.


I imagined that the neighbors’ kids were old eskimos and that my cat had put them on an ice floe and pushed them out to sea. The air would be cold and salty all at once. I imagined the salt clinging to their eyelashes as their bodies grew cold and their minds slowly evaporated into the icy air. Maybe, in their senility, they would imagine that they were their parents and begin arguing. I imagined them dying that way, arguing, as my cat stoically mushed his sleddogs back inland.


I began to leaf through the pile of unopened mail on the kitchen table. A bill, a bill, some coupons, a letter from my brother. A postcard. The neon nightscape of Reno on one side, my brother’s sprawling handwriting on the other. He was getting married, he said. I know it’s weird to tell you in a postcard, he said, but I thought you would like the picture. She’s thirty-five, he said, and she’s been married once before. She says everyone has two great loves in them, he said, and that the second one is the truest. She studied theology, he said, but she is not a priest.


I imagined that my brother was in AA and that my cat was his sponsor. I imagined them playing scrabble in a diner at night, drinking coffee and talking about how you have to take it one day a time.


The neighbors kids had stopped playing catch and appeared to be trying to pick the lock of the apartment next door. By now the frost had melted. The older one, the girl, appeared to be frustrated with her brother. Her eyes were big and she was gesturing violently. I watched with satisfaction as my cat appeared from around the corner of the building and walked coolly past them.

The vessels have all broken, I imagined my cat saying, and I alone persist.

Needs a bit of an edit here and there in my view, but it's a lot better than "Cat Person" :) . I interpret it as the cat being the narrators' "magic" or free self that can roam outside while he is one of the "broken vessels", "the wizened old man", stuck inside. The magic self, the scavenger, can still get something from society whereas to him there is nothing of substance left out there "the temples have crumbled". The magic self is able to "stoically" handle the problems of the cold social world, such as the fact that kids lose their identity and turn into their frustrated parents. The cat/magic self alone persists as everything else false falls apart. The narrator then gets to have his cake and eat it; he can stay locked away from the world and remain morally suitably perturbed by it whereas his magic self can explore it unperturbed, and heroically (like a "gunslinger in the wild west" ) traverse its painful landscape.

Needs a bit of an edit here and there in my view, but it's a lot better than "Cat Person"

Well, the first draft ended with him texting the cat 'ur a sult' but I've grown a lot in the past four years. Now it's just implied that he thinks the cat is a sult (which he is.) Thanks for the feedback, and interpretation. It's funny - I wrote story about 4 years ago on a lazy day off work, drinking coffee and scrolling facebook. I've always been kind of fascinated by the 'flatness' of older's people facebook presence. Of course that's probably just attributable to their lack of familiarity with social media, but I thought it would be fun to do a story in the voice of someone who really was that flat (" 'all the hits,' i thought'' etc.) But then as I kept writing, it became a little stream of conscious-y and ---- I think your interpretation is dead on. It's basically a unintentional 'schizoid' self-portrait.

https://nobledust.wordpress.com/2018/07/27/untitled-6/

Revisiting this weird piece; I made the music.

https://vimeo.com/187837105

That's pretty cool :up: . Did you make the video too?

Nice one.

Thanks; no, just the music. The dancers improvised their movements within a short space on the walkway when no one else was walking; slowed down, I like how it makes the pedestrians almost part of the choreography, so I tried to accent those moments with the music. I could watch that footage over and over again indefinitely, regardless of any music. What's cool is that I think this collab highlights differences of philosophical perspective; the filmmaker is a self-proclaimed "Duchampist", which comes through in his approach to setting and direction of the dancers. But I'm not a follower of Duchamp at all, and what I saw in the movements was Kairos, as opposed to Chronos (Greek words for time; Kairos being the opportune moment when the divine "timelessness" cuts through into finite "timeness", etc). So, conflicting viewpoints working together to create something that creates the opportunity for yet more viewpoints.

Edit: I love the guy's embarrassed smile around 2:10. A hardened New Yorker finally shaken out of his shell.

Ehhhh

I "co-produced" this track, which means my dear friend Charlene wrote and partially arranged it, and then sent it to me for completion. I changed some song structure stuff, removed some stuff, and then added some of my own stuff. My only problem is that I did a rough mix, but was late on delivering a final (my fault), and so she had her other mix guy do a mix. The mix is not that great. Nuances are lost. Dynamics, especially. But I love her melody and lyrics enough that I can look past it (I guess). The emotion still mostly comes through. [headphones recommended, to pick up the nuances that are barely there...anyway...]

Sounds good to me. :_)

Get's awesomely close to spiritual singing in some Arabic fashion at the halfway point.

Thanks! Isn't she great? I can listen to her sing all day; I'm lucky enough to have her singing on some tracks of mine as well, forthcoming.

Thanks! Isn't she great? — Noble Dust

Superb, I would say.

Right? I had nothing to do with that section (vocally); her friend originally did it, singing a Mahmoud Darwish poem, but she decided to do it herself, and totally killed it; hearing both versions, her updated version elevated it to something totally different.

Oof. Thanks! Sadly I had more to do with the moments where the drones are broken by actual chord progressions; not because that's my thing; just because that's what the track needed, occasionally.

Still listening to the Bass Communion shit I posted, because I'm a stickler. Will check out the Darwish poem asap. :up:

I like the poem. I mean this in the worst possible way, but the rhythm reminds me of the sort of stuff I write. This person seems to have a better sense of community, though. Translation is always awkward, but it's good.

You mean stuff like the ones that are heard between 1:47 and 2:25? — Πετροκότσυφας

Exactly; those chord changes are mine. I was so inspired by this song though, because her melody so strongly suggests a chord progression; It's so rare to work with a vocalist so intuitive that he/she can just sing melodies that basically create their own chord progressions. So, with this track, I had the luxury of deciding how and in which context, if any, I wanted to highlight the chordal structure that she was suggesting, intuitively, with her voice. Thankfully, the way I did it ended up working for her; she agreed with how I heard it.

The backbone seems to be the drones (not even sure if the term applies, but that's how I categorise it), so by drones I mostly meant the instrumental part (as opposed to vocals). — Πετροκότσυφας

Oh totally, the backbone of the track, in terms of emotion, is the "drones". But I think that the melody, especially the chorus, is what carries the track from point to point.

I like the rythm too, although, I'm pretty sure it would be different in my head had I read it first and not listened to the recitation. — Πετροκότσυφας

Same; I don't know. Hearing the translation sounds really nice. I don't know what that means.

The Bass Communion tracks is nice too. I had only listened to "Ghost on Magnetic Tape" before. — Πετροκότσυφας

Word. That's his big piece, for whatever that means. Molotov And Haze is waaaay better.

Debut ambient album; more to come very shortly:

https://matthewanderson.bandcamp.com/album/sixty-ton-angel-2

Damn, it sucks that this thread is part of the lounge, which means no one sees it.

I saw it! :up:

I saw it too! :flower:

I write utterly fascinating deeply penetrating philosophical posts about the most important subjects. This is my latest work, which will very soon be published on a leading group philosophy, um, journal kinda thingy.

See? I told you. There it is!

:starstruck:

[definitely not for everyone]

Did you "get [un]creative"? What happened?

Let them eat words... A me'afisicll poem.

I want you (I don't want much).

I want you
To feel the heart beneath my skin
And honour flesh and blood within;
To let me be as rich or poor
As Nature, and to give me more.

I want you
To know me more and tell me less,
Forgive what I do not confess,
And take the pain I cruelly give
With joy, and let my cruelty live.

I want you
To be whatever I should choose,
To be yourself for me to use,
To let me win and never lose,
To be the fool that I abuse.

I want you
To leave me free and hold me tight,
Make love in ecstasy all night,
But let me sleep till morning light
And make my wrongs to you all right

I want you
To let me know that I am wise
And always do as I advise.
Love honour and obey, and I
Will want you till the day I die.

You were the sugar in my Lipton tea,
You were my exaltation and delight
Like April blossoms on a cherry tree
You made new life from water and sun's light.

I came to you and played inside your shade
And in your soft and gentle aura bathed
I sang to you a starlight serenade
And underneath your leaves my soul misplaced.

I left it there, and it is there still
But I got lost and can find you no more,
Was it the inspiration? Was it will?
I'm shorn of everything that I adore.

I saw in you the energy of love
And everything that's holy and divine,
And I can't say "my darling one" enough:
You were more tasty than the vintage wine.

Now I will never hold your hands again
Or press my lips to you or touch your heart,
I'll write you many poems, all in vain,
And we are many, many miles apart,

My soul is lost - where will it reappear?
I cannot find it - will you help me please?
Will you remember me or shed a tear
As I am calling you among the trees?

You lift, alight, become airborne and fly
And lift my soul where it would never go,
And as I look at you and ask you why
You only answer me, I told you so.

But what, alas? I'm gazing from afar
And maybe it is better off this way
For you, by now, have become a star
And I now dream of every yesterday.

The Poet's Wish

Always sew irony into the ends of a procreative wish.

The poet spoke (trembling with desire for an epidemic resurrection of a classic order) into the netted abyss. Another sent a probe.

What came back first was a trickle, then a flow, then a torrential mixture of brutalizing elements: the globe itself came in force, shattering to the poet's call.

Waves of liquefied clay poured through the valleys carrying forth the macerated bodies of post-postmodern poets and other mediocre indiscernibles, plastic bags, foam, tires, bottles, broken bits of lumber, swirling in untidy currents around the poet's life boat.

Vast collections of unread poetry, soaked, churned and remade, rendered back to him his wishes in a mass slurry of a newly naturalized and fluid gibberish.

And there were no walls to stop the floods of babble.

There were boats to float above the floods of babble.


_________________

Rub-a-dub-dub,
Three bodies in a tub,
And who do you think they be?
Anyone and everyone
And all of them out to sea.

"Abyss has opened, full of stars" - Lomonosov

Abyss has opened full of stars.
Pluto to Venus, Moon to Mars -
We see the universal force
Charting the cosmos from its source.

Abyss of stars; in stars, abyss -
From depths to heights - from ague to bliss -
The life is manifest in all -
In every part, key to the whole -

In whole, key to every part.
The mind to soul, the breath to heart -
All of life's pieces intertwined
And through the synthesis refined.

The void in me, the stars in you -
The will to be, the sight that's true -
Will intermingle and imbue
The world with light of every hue,

That will commingle into white
And frame and sanctify the night
Shining throughout the day with sun -
And in the night, when course is run,

Return again to their source
And be the parcels. And of course
Inside each star, its own piece
Of wisdom, ecstasy and bliss.

Abyss has opened, full of stars.
Come with me darling, let us parse
The code contained within the whole
Into the knowledge of the soul.

We are the stars; we are the void -
The burning passion is employed
To light the path, to guide the way
And let the cosmic forces play

Within the whole, as holes within
Are by the interplay worn thin
And disappear in the night
To reabsorb into the light.

Galactic wisdom knows it all;
Spacetime collapsed in a black hole
As world around it rushes by
And man asks what, and how, and why;

The incongruity within -
The passions torn, the mind worn thin -
Reflect the daylight and the night
In endless love; in endless fight.

Through all abysses in the space -
Through all that in abysses plays -
Through quasars, galaxies, red shift -
Through truth, invention and deceit -

Through spirit's longing and heart's pain -
Through reasoned words and speech insane -
Through passion, terror and delight -
Through day and twilight and the night -

In all that lives; in all that's here
In ocean, island, atmosphere
In jungle, desert, tundra, steppe
In every place on which I step -

In atom cracked, its core undone -
In colors blending into one -
In forces crumbling on themselves -
In the commingling of the selves -

In space collapsed and rearranged -
In mind extended and deranged -
In lyre of life, in drum of death -
In Keats, Neruda, Rumi, Plath -

In senses shattered to the core
Till Present touches Evermore -
In every minute flung ajar -
I be abyss; you be the star.

Sing to me, my sweet angel,
My elegant angel of love,
Past all destruction and danger
You soar just like a dove -

Over the lapping ocean
And past the mountains green,
Tenderness, warmth, devotion
And softness - like a dream

Soothing, caressing, inviting,
Making soul live and bloom,
In all that's sweet delighting -
Dispelling all the gloom -

Spirit so warm, so tender,
Heart delicate and sweet
In all your paintings rendered
And in your life complete -

Sing to me, my delightful!
Let your delicious voice
Carry the truth, inspire all,
And let the life rejoice

In your delicious beauty,
Your kindness, softness, grace -
You, that the wrong refuted!
You, that despair erased!

Speak to me, my sweet angel!
Speak all you know and see,
Let me be your avenger
Let me set your heart free

Be inspiration, darling!
Be my delight and joy!
Beauty and light imparting -
Shackles of mind destroy!

Carry the truth, and kindness,
And all that's good and true -
With light of soul, end blindness!
With love, dark souls imbue!

Be what love is, angelic,
Tender, impassioned, warm -
Powerful, psychedelic,
Like sunlight - like a storm -

Out of which come flowers
And bring the world to life:
All of the truth, empower!
Make world with passion rife!

You! That they claim unreal -
You are the truth sublime!
All that is good, congealed in
Personhood of you! Shine,

Bring light to those who need it
And others still, caress -
See what is tortured? Heal it.
See what is tender? Bless:

Take the mind through derangement
And make it true - enough!
My angel! My darling angel!
My exquisite angel of love!