Matthew Conrad

May 15, 1986 - Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski
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well, if i'm going to visit Prague this year

well, if i'm going to visit Prague this year...
i might as welll learn some Czech... first things first,
before i start translating english phrases into
Czech, i'd better look how closely approximated
Polish is to Czech...
beginning with primary words... testing etymological
waters:

(red) czerwony - červená,
(tree) drzewo - strom (no etymology to see here,
of a shared origin)
(road) ulica - pouliční...
(sun) słońce - slunce,
(black) czarny - černá
(fun fact... czarny is a he...
černá is a she)...
(key) klucz - klíč (caron on the c hides the z
of the grapheme -cz- / ch-atter)...
(spoon) łyżka - lžíce,
(life) życie - život (yes, there's an alt. in polish
that is closely aligned: żywot)...
(i'm sorry) przepraszam - livotat,
(how much does this cost?)
ile to kosztuje? - kolik to náklady
(nakład)...
(a beautiful day, isn't it?)
piękny dzień, nie? - krásný den, ne?
(i'm sorry, i'm just a stupid tourist,
but do you speak the lingua inglese by any chance?)
this will be crucial...
przepraszam, jestem tylko głupim turystom,
ale czy ty mówisz tą mową turystów
zwaną: lingua inglese, przez przypadek?

an orthographic nota bene: personally?
i don't know how the natives (the english) ended up dealing
with the cipher of h'american acronym short-speak...
i'm tired of it... this whole "in group" preference for
anything associated with: u.s.a. -
what's that? up the scythe up the asshole?
besides the point...
an orthographic nota bene?
in some languages... notably polish and czech?
the pronoun disappears... it's incorporated into verbs...
as if "binary" sexuality incorporated into nouns...
e.g.? ą "vs" ę comparisons...
added hyphen to show italics exfoliations...
lecę (i'm flying) - not lec-ę... the diacritical mark
is actually omitted: no point breaking your tongue on
such a simple word... alternatively, though?
pi-ę-kno: beauty... that's when it's stressed...
pi-ę-ta: heel...
so much languages have pronoun and article encompassing words...
the quasi- laissez faire approach,
bohemia, bohemia...
sure: english has the indefinite (a) article...
as it has the definite (the) article: a-the-ism...
fertile ground to play the wordsmith... the poet...
słowianin: where did these english speakers
"think" to derive their etymological sources as to imply:
Slav = slav(e)? blacks stopped playing the fucking
jazz quartet for y'ah? słowo = word...
słowianin = wordsmith...
and whenever i go to from now on,
Prague... i have one motivational vector approach...
rely on a scene from Bulgakov's the Master and Margarita...
when Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz meets up
with Ivan Nikolayich Poniryov
to later meet up with "the foreigner"...
my cat? not keen on the vodka...
more bound to liking eating olives and fish eyes...
i do the drinking, he does the "thinking"...
mind you... if all your touristy affairs begin and end
like the opening from Bulgakov's book?
there's no reason to concern yourself
with what other details might: fall from the tree...
back to orthography...
terribly missing in the english language...
and what fun you can have... once you know some of
this "metaphysics"...
right or left... idle fuckers who never bother
to learn the first rule of globalism:
standard requirement is bilingualism...
anything else is just plain lazy and not the sort
of nostalgia you might feed off
of being once part of it... nietzsche and ancient greece
type of nostalgia... me?
1990s...
pami-ę-tam - i remember...
czuje - not czuj-ę (i feel)...
pieni-ą-dze - money...
that's how the 'ogonek' diacritical mark differs
between the A and the E...
sometimes the E 'ogonek' is "omitted" - well...
made into a diacritical "surd": replaced by a simple E...
in english? gnostic...
the G is silent... but? diaGnostics of medicine?
certainly pronounced, protruding...
(g)nome... baczą sie...
(they are concerned, derived from
baczyć sie - ę ę - to be reserved / concerned -
an elevated circumstance of timidity)...

ę can simply disappear when used at the end
of a word... but the ą diacritical marker?
not so easy, whether at the end of the word
or in-between...
so much of english conjunction, pronouns,
adjectives, articles: sharpnel... disappear in other languages...
e.g.? prozą: by prose...
ą hides: by...
prostą: by a straight- line:
prostą (fem.) indicates that there's nothing more straight
than a line: linją...

but of course you don't have to know this...
after all... finnegans wake was anything but the fact
that orthography wasn't explored...
just more excuses for dyslexic spelling of circus english...
giggles... dough topped double and tough
to too (a) obliterated momentum
striptease blockage: that, that was the closure pivot...

bycie ją: to be her...
bycie nim: to be him...
i don't even understand gender neutral pronouns,
as either theory or practice...
prostym (m.) indicates that there's no other simpler
explanation or route to be taken other than
a masculine roll of the dice...

here's to revising visiting Prague:

i'm sorry, i'm just a stupid tourist,
but do you speak the lingua inglese by any chance?)
this will be crucial...
przepraszam, jestem tylko głupim turystom,
ale czy ty mówisz tą mową turystów
zwaną: lingua inglese, przez przypadek?

litovat, já pouze hloupý turisté,
ale nebo vy říkáš toto řeč turisté volal:
lingua inglese, podle pouzdro?

mind you: there's a third article in the english language,
the possessive article: in slavic it's ą...
in anglo-ßaß? the hammer's ('s)
settling gravity in ratio to its weight...
hence missing in the plural wording:
esp. if a word already ends with a plural
indicator: phrases' ses-zez
worth of maxim / categorical imperative...

and all this the result of?
i sometimes need to throw myself into a completely
foreign environment...
now... much respect for the english people
who learn a foreign language and ex-patriate:
technically i'm both an immigrant and an ex-pat...
after all... i have integrated into english culture
(oh fuck me... the cricket world cup final?
i will not support the english football team...
or the rugby team... the cricket team?
i was "praying" silently for them to win...
i'm odd like that... i will integrate, as i have...
but to just give away my nativspreschen?
oi! cunt! oi! boyo! learn some fucking continental
you fuzzy one-step away from a scottish
deep fried mars bar!
everyone is learning something...
obviously the natives are... "distraught"...
what once was the lingua franca has become
the lingua inglese...
tourists in their own country... or sleepwalkers...
either way... a break from england...
and the english: doing some bonkers gymanstics
equivalent to an ostrich when shoving their
heads and attention spans into the ass-holes
of the h'americans... perhaps among the czechs i'll
be able to somehow... recuperate...
i'm just tired of looking at h'america,
playing the english imitation game from some bog-shite
script mash-up of mary poppins meets guy ritchie
quick talk prize funded schlang und shit's-worth-of-tier...
satire... blazing sandles and:
first they burdned the bras... second the dildos...
another c'est la vie brand of reactionary bollocks... (

what else would have changed...
back in school my fwends would go on holiday together...
i was the only one to travel alone...
the english travel and when they do travel they
need fellow countrymen to travel with them,
for the bubble sensation...
ugh... Mallorca... and whatever that Greek island was...
when i was integrating and my language was what it was...
my father stated an insult as if i were a native born...
against the english...
'you're not the bellybutton of the world!'
what else... faming holidays to southern france,
the alps, italy or greece...
just because you were part of the roman empire
implies jack-shit...
even the italians decided that diacritical marks
were necessary... no wonder the death
of metaphysics grown from the lack of orthographic
reminders...
darwin is big, yes, big in the english speaking world...
outside? a post scriptum...
sorry... but darwin is big among
the english speaking people...
the italians care more for food and music...
the french care more for food and thought...
the germans... whatever the germans care for...
efficiency... fuck, whatever...
the english are such a people as to
be such people as to be concerned in being vocal...
to them speaking = breathing,
and thinking comes second last...
english pragmatism...
i hate english pragmatism...
english pragmatism & egalitarianism...
only the english could juggle this façade...
shove in the vector of meritocracy and
you have... the most satisfying shit-show to date!

oh don't get me wrong... cricket? ++
rugby? ++
football? ++
wait... maybe i should change já pouze hloupý turisté
into: já pouze blöd ausländer? bohemia, after all...
the full british breakfast? ++
sausage rolls? ++...
integration policies to craft a mini-world
post British Empire why enforcing foreigners to
forget their mother tongue but not teaching the natives
the no. 1 rule of a global environment: i.e. bilingualism?
-- (minus minus)...

now for something from the archive...

rekindling a reading of heidegger:

.the west has become its worst own enemy, sure... by the time "they" figured out how to tear down the iron curtain, another theatre arrived; some value calling "it" a valley, to me... i cam from under the iron curtain, and went right under the silicon curtain... polack political sensibilities... whatever that might mean these days; if it was ever the iron curtain, now it's the silicon curtain; problem being: the sought after antagonists are loitering in the disguise of one's own people, and now, whatever the grand Ben Hur plan is... i'll be doing my best to perform a Pontius Pilate ritual, not out of cowadrice, simply, quiet simply, out of nausea... i'm tired, i'm tired of all these nuances, these conspiracy theories, these anarchistic pointers of investigation; i'm tired, i'm exhausted, i'm done with all these intrigues... but i am, living, under a silicon curtain... and the current globalist agenda... where to? the moon?! wow... so many choices! so what is copernican west? what is copernican east? south or north? hey... that's a pretty big playground outside of the "flat earth" zoo... of course i believe in the "flat earth"... ever read a map, manually, with some insight into imagination? without relying on G.P.S.?! i know of only one city where i could tell you where the N.E.W.S. was allocated, i'd even point you in the right direction... Edinburgh, thanks to the Firth of Forth: north up ahead, past new town, south behind me, east to my left, west to my right, while standing mime-like on nicolson street,
or atop arthur's seat... edinburgh... fuck me... a mountain in the middle of a city!

there's a death that escapes
the clarified excuse
for what becomes
the composed extract
of the humbled
who is who: & soul,
& whithers of a jeff buckley
along the lines of the crow
movie... &... i am...
somehow entangled
with a bevering that
leaves me without an entranched
well-trodden path...

what was the draft...
but then something awoke in
me...
wasn't i in the middle
of reading heidegger's ponderings
VII - XI,
having paused, relieved myself
with my own thinking
at aphorism VII (133)?

i just picked up the book out,
i found that i didn't merely
stash a bookmarker in
the book,
there was also an x-ray
of my grandfather's skull...

as there was... also...
a surprise...
a 100zł banknote...
with the face
of the effigy of
władysław II jagiełło
on it...
100 złoty?
roughly three
bottles of vodka...

i sometimes put a snippet
of a flower,
use the book to mummify it...

and then it dawns on me,
in the middle of the night...
the brain drain of Poland...
home, "home"...
"mindfulness"...
you want to known
the easiest test for "mindfulness"?
listening to a prog rock album,
a concept album,
or any album in general...

say... buldog: płyta (pwyt'ah)
shit, that almost looks like Cymru...
if you can listen to an entire
album, stop yourself from
the grand orchestra of the fidget...
you're mindful...
or whatever -ness is to be ascribed
to that, "desired", state of mind...

because what heidegger is talking
about in aphorism (133) of ponderings
VII...

the basic cartesian model is still
in play...
well... in England,
i'm a bilingual but also considered
a schizophrenic:
this joke has been on a leash
for the worth of the entire day...
past cooking from button mushroom
and chicken risotto
and praying for Liverpool
to win the crown of the football
team to win the premier league...
while Leicester lost to Manchester City
by a whimsical miracle
on the receiving end of
Kompany taking a shot from
outside the box...

there's hope...
it took Tottenham 87 minutes
to break the defence of Brighton...
eh, football...

there are other, compelling needs
to address...
the disparity of thought,
from being:
one can suppose
a thinking surrounding ontology,
but then: ontology can hide
inside its cul de sac of per se...
as also thought can,
you can think about thinking,
never teasing a moral vector:
the whole: 'ought i? basic question...
but then ontology has a per se dynamic...

it can explain itself without
a necessity bound to, merely thinking,
there are plenty of explanations
to attend the Carnaval of Venice...
biology will always replace
thought: when ontology is being
gagged to give an answer...

mindfulness...
if you can listen to an entire
album,
and not turn yourself into
a spam amphetamine crazed d.j.,
with only songs, pop,
ranged into a song time limit
very shy of 4 minutes...
a song spins into circa 6 minutes
or beyond?
if you can't listen to music
where each track is of that length?
why are you, even,
bothering the grand nothing of
meditation with:
exchanging the concept of
an asshole smeared with honey
having to sit on an ant-hill
with the, now, apparent,
impossibility to put a condom
on thinking, per se: i.e. thought?

what i have learned...
thinking rarely translates into being...
itself (thought) sooner orientates
itself around the per se,
of se per:
thought is a crucial ontological
crux / component,
but instead of a cartesian
dualism, there's a post-cartesian
dichotomy...
a simple ergo libra of the "equation"
is not a point of a congregation,
whereby thought translates itself into
being,
and whereby being translates
itself into thinking...

thought translates itself, itself,
into thinking, or not thinking,
as does the translation of being
itself, translating itself into either:
non-being,
existence of a particular
instsance, or the universal strand
of culminating in either
fulfilled needs,
or unspectacular / unfulfilled
circumstance met, or not met...

now i remember what reading the genre
of philosophy is actually about...
a well established
and a rigorous extraction of
a predictable vocabulary...

philosophy is much akin
to a rigid vocab.,
let it entertain
the chaotic pass of poetry...
yet there needs to be
a rigid: logic juggle...
certain words,
and their natural cul de sac -

rarely though...
rarely though does ever translate
itself into being...
with a simple: ergo...
now is probably the right time
to mingle the works of philosophers
with the works of 20th century
psychiatrists,
namely: to read what
the psychiatric reading digest was,
since the philosophers
are not going to do you any
favours: persisting, on the forefront,
that question of "reality"...

it seems right to read the works
of psychiatrists of the 20th century,
who read the works of philosophers...
you could read some thomas mann...
but the only short-cut into
reading philosophy,
esp. the existentialists,
is through the psychiatric literature...

i can't help it...
to think about thinking is to make
the fundamental decision
concerning: thought...
it is always the most abstract
moral "it"...
'ought i...
the grounding in
a presupposition akin to: i think...
has not base for: 'ought i?

'ought i? therefore i am.

otherwise? haywire...
the whole world goes
to shit!
i think therefore i am...
well: i think i can get away with
murder,
therefore i will murder,
i am a murderer...

there was always something
wrong with the simplicity
of the cartesian modern:
crux - the base of how easily
thinking could ever precipitate
into being...
thought never truly
translates itself into a direct
correlative posit of thought itself...
daydreaming...
the blocking membrane
of thinking becoming thought per se,
and never being...

this is what philosophy looks
like... a rigidity to a particular
vocab.,
it is not a universal vocab.,
for philosophy to work...
it requires the blunting of the knife,
how many times i have attempted
to write like a philosopher,
i end up with the same conclusion:
akin to this one...
when language becomes akin
to a labyrinth and also a cage...
just to make a trivial point...
never bound to the freedoms
of poetics,
these, horrid, sobering thoughts...
no music,
no poetics...
just ogling up another man's
asshole for any new idea,
technological advance...
turns out...
modern day philosophers?
nothing more than fan-boys of
scientists, engineers and mathematicians,
philosophers have become
fan-boys of the people
who spew out 5G technology or
the wah-wah peddle for jimi 'endrix
to have done his shit.
__________

i can tell you the most, most,
perfect alternative to coleslaw,
to eat with fresh baby potatoes
and a pork schnitzel...

half of a red cabbage...
one carrot,
one red onion,
three chillies...
a decent grap of
fresh coriander,
a zest of one lime,
juice of one lime,
one tablespoon of olive oil...
her presto! no mayo!

but i'm not writing this because
of that...
that's the problem with
reading the philosophy genre...
i'm still working my way
around heidegger's aphorism 133
from meditations VII...

it's day two...
i will not finish it...
and unlike some philosophy
professor...
i will not tell you:
i'm rereading it,
no... i need time to think,
after all: thought is the other,
dynamic marker of the two dimensions
that really matter: time, and space...

this is the part where i tell you:
what heidegger was thinking
circa the 1930s...
feelings...
how we can derive pleasure
from being subjects -
very much so, subjects of our own
selves...

but in the current climate,
"something" is clearly wrong,
these people with their: "hurt" feelings
are roaming the cognitive-sphere
like cockroaches,
or leeches...
their, "hurt" feelings are
only causes for concern...
for they have been dragging apathy:
without pathology is the source
of all pathology...
denial of pathology
is to create false idols out of authenticity
of said pathologies...
fakers...
when someone says:
you've hurt my feelings,
you say...
i didn't hurt your feelings,
i gave you feelings,
feelings you never had before...

feelings are more recreational
in nature than thoughts,
although i agree:
thinking can become a pleasure,
a recreational bypass to crafting
concrete solutions from concrete problems...

i will not over-word (due the verbiage)
of a philosopher,
i don't want to entertain
the luxury of a claustrophobic
paragraph...
plus, i have a bottle of whiskey
to drink...

but i'm also bothered by the antithesis...
this, perpetuated obligation
for objectivity:
who the fuck would ever enjoy
feeling, or thinking, for that matter,
if we all lived an objective reality
of: self?

no one!
even the stone, the mountain,
being static, enjoys the subjectivity
of being part of the earth,
and the earth moves...
the mountain, as we,
are in a fine finito (finite end) of cause
and subsequent effect...
the mountain is part of the earth,
the earth rotates around the sun,
and... cul de sac the god(s)...

i've lost faith in christianity
when i learned of
the unearthing of the nag hammadi
library in egypt in 1945...
hardly a compensation
literature for what was kept
in the alexandian library...
but...
if only nietzsche,
this that and the other...
christened people in the year
966...
islam was around
for over 300 years...
before christianity came
to my elongated body of
past and currently: present...
and will i deny it?

well... i'm a sucker for music...
anything pagan, folkish,
northern...
but i can't deny the potent effect
of a templar chant,
akin to salve regina...
music... that's all it is...
i'm a sucker for music...

to feel, is to be relieved from
any ownership of the ego,
or at least that's the idea,
yet these "people",
with their "hurt" (formerly unearthed
feelings) do not take pleasure
from feeling,
as much as they do not take
pleasure from feeling,
they do not take pleasure from:
thinking!

these are not "hurt" feelings...
they were undiscovered feelings,
feelings, akin to thoughts,
they can not enjoy,
whether in the form of self-gratification:
if god,
or in the form of a gratification from
overcoming (them).
______
well, it's as simple as going to the supermarket
at night, for a bottle of ms. amber
and some gods' piss,
namely beer...

and then you experience a solipsistic
blind-spot...
you see the dog tail moving
in an excited fashion
like some devilish metronome
going berserker...
you then encounter the dog,
but you miss the leash...
and the person walking the dog...
while?

oh, you know...
beer... i like heavily hopped...
a beer with a body worth of goryczka...
gentian...
but then...
will h'american bourbon work
with ginger ale as a ms. amber might?
i mean: scotch, proper scotch
is neutral territory between
sweet bourbon
and the "profanity" of laphroaig
(as an extreme example,
smoked salmon, yes,
smoky amber? no no).

so, i figured: i need a new beer...
oh the praise of amber being stashed
in oak barrels, for years upon years
in oaken barrels...
20 minutes to the supermarket,
20 minutes back: time to improvize...
plenty of time...

base? dutch... heineken...
a good balance of hops and barley...
not the pussy juice of
the h'americans...
rice... fermentation from rice...
that was the supposed "big" innovation?
piss water?
mixing rice with hops and
barley... that's beer?
o.k. o.k. (leo getz style):
you managed the bourbon...
beer though?
not so much...

point in question...
how could you turn a bottle
of beer, into a "cocktail"?
well... you have the mojito...
don't you?
lime and mint leaves, right?

here's one: i managed it,
i was oblivious to the dog walker
in this daft night,
i did see him in the end,
but, again,
i only saw the waggling tail
of the dog first,
and that massive canine grin
of entertained curiosity...

what did i shove down
the bottle of my heineken?
a bunch of, fresh, pristine,
supper oak leaves...
gently rubbed to release the leaf juices...
and...
a bunch of laurustinus
(viburnum tinus) flowers...
and then came the laughter:
i managed it...
i could turn a bottle of beer
into a cocktail...
i always wanted a nutty beer...
to arouse the whole palette shin-dig
and compete with wine tasting
sessions form Calironia...
i made myself a nutty beer...

oh joy and having to
come from so little...
i guess that's what revising
the genre of philosophy does to you...
you learn some variant of
ingenuity...
a piece of writing that profits
from you taking baby steps,
reading, pausing, taking a walk,
and arriving at the gates
of the spontaneity of thought,
a sort of thinking,
completely detached from being...
given, after all...
what manner of being
is ever attached to thought per se,
ah... the modern example...
a.i., what the people are confronting...
clearly philosophy,
with its "claustrophobic" verbiose
narratives has, the ultimate use...
to allow you to peacock,
in the realm of poetry...
which is why i respect heidegger...
if not all poets,
he at least respected Hölderlin...
and for me?
that's plenty.
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