My Little Nihilist Handbook part two
- Nito Gnoci
- Feb 10, 2022
- 27 min read
Updated: Dec 14, 2022
by Li Cheng Shuo Politics
sing muse of my black rage I really try to avoid politics. I mean politicians are always trying to foment hysteria, fermenting foaming frothing frenzied wrathful fanatical fervor for profit. Name a politician who’s not a lying whore. ________________________________ Our technocratic overlords. I hate them, but we have a lot in common. I mean we need them, but let’s never be grateful to them. They need us too. I know they see us as an asset. What have they to fear from us? We would never do anything as arduous and dreary as opposing them. What would replace them? Only more of the same. Moreover, I truly value & appreciate fake faux populism. We have to feign devotion to the human herd, the hard-headed, harmful horde in order to control them. Especially we must control their breeding. Those dull-witted cud-chewing herd animals need culling. Those rapidly reproducing rodent populations need reduction ifnot extermination. I’m sure we all share concern regarding growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. Don’t worry I’ll be discreet. Baby-making Babbitts & bourgeois boostering bulbous boobs need to be stopped too. Have you ever watched them in a steakhouse stuffing their big bloated bellies blood of living creatures dripping dribbling down their many chins by the way harvesting grain kills a lot of animals so vegetarians kill too More holy is thatwhich I worshipp holier by far than all the excitations and revolutions and ambitions of the masses. More than they can ever understand.
If you spelt kangaroo cangaroux you would feel different about the animal wouldn’t you?
I consider myself an environmentalist. We need to use less energy: fossil fuels and human pervasive languor
Right wing left wing Elites should never compete with each other Conflict must be for show Divide and conquer. The dirty backward terrorist nations
let them kill each other Bankrupt them and bomb them and boil them in oil. Biological warfare? Botulism? Castrate working class men when they are young like oxen
those without a college degree would need a license to procreate
LGBTQ+ inclusivity a must Regarding censorship and loss of privacy, I recognize the need for the masses to be controlled. Surveillance & loss of civil liberties inevitable as centralization of power progresses.
tax increases discard habeas corpus executions child psychologists Reeducation camps
concentration camps We can achieve a world without dirty sticky spoiled children running around. A less crowded world. A wonderful, more natural world where weasels tear apart sparrows and eat them. I wish the weasels would tear apart and eat the stupid fat noisy children, ha ha. That would solve a lot of problems. Seriously. concentrated camp The technocrats just need to respect and disrespect us nihilists in a suitable manner. As long as the technocrats avoid demanding we get out of bed or go to work or interact with people or pursue any kind of purposeful activity we have no problem. How I enjoy lying abed at 4:00 am, listening to the groaning of the near empty highway, imagining I am sitting on a chair set up in the regolith upon a prominence of the moon or mowing down helpless screaming civilians with a machine gun ah the smell. But even these pleasures lose their zest, become insipid over time. Not for me eviction from my warm bed, standing up, facing naked the terrible storm of the freezing & stinging shower, and getting out of the shower, and stumbling into the car, and traffic – the everyday monotony of horrors. Many mammals are very lazy. Members of the cat family sleep like 20 hours a day. Celebrate your laziness Shout it! smug optimistic engineering types friends are a burden you always have to worry about offending them
compromise & cooperation & contortion - all painful
My ex-girlfriend Taylor (last name Porkroll) is the real enemy. Lying on the couch like some dead thing her thighs moist and musky, hot and hammy, stained and stinking, fermenting in the brine of her own conceit & malice. The less about her the better. A salty suffocating sagging sad sack stuffed with rudely nudely protruding with pork products, that’s what she is.
You should have seen her bursting out of her unzipped tight pants charging up from the basement snorting like some deranged enraged emotionally damaged rhinoceros if she thought you were talking about her. The only time you ever saw her move.
pendulous folds of clammy flab like dewlaps like two lips blubbering wet loose and hungry, open and shut like an eel, spreading gaping, a mindless alldevouring maw
Gary, Indianapart 8
An interlude…
Even when you do something noble and unselfish it’s not really unselfish. You are simply genju anticipating a reward later on, for example you may hope for public approbation and the consequent advantages.
The first secret to happiness is to give up all hope. That way you won’t be disappointed. As you will be inevitably. Low expectations! hope=cruelty
why did you say genju
Why is determination valued so highly? Why is overcoming difficulties and achieving so wonderful? Wasn't Hitler determined? So few really achieve. heartbroken Why not ersatz achievement wherein the deck is (unbeknownst to me) stacked in my favor?
Bop
Blobbo the bouncing blooming hippo and Ploppo the bloated booming pachyderm
Oompah pah, oompah pah Basting plump Oprah in a pan as she bombasts - portly, bulging, blaring Oprah with her boastful buttocks and outbursts
Oompah pah, oompah pah
slithering serpents, sinister hissing snakes,
shameless shower of slimy slippery sensuous salacious saliva
An S looks like a snake, a butt looks like a B.
How is that possible? How can it be?
Will they find out I am a fraud? Can they find out? no
mistake my incoherence for profundity
will you shut up? Who are you
The author should leave no trace, he should disappear entirely.
solipsism nihilism skepticism misanthropism pessimism
Regurgitation infection corruption decomposition
Embrace and cherish thy hostility toward and disconnection from the universe for thusuch is the core, the foundation of all true religion.
I’m an advocate for pre-dressing, dressing the night before and sleeping in your clothes, or never changing at all.
In defense of Margaret Sanger: Why spend so many billions subsidizing the breeders and their numerous progeny?? How are they advancing the human race? The masses need to be thinned out. We should erect a statue to Sanger.
Taylor would wear her pajamas continuously days on end really amazing I once contacted the Guinness book of records. Gets up about eleven if she’s feeling energetic.
Actually romanticize, fetishize the lower orders and their suffering and seek to “help” them!
running around and screaming in the night
Warren Buffett for sainthood: More Buffett Money Likely Headed to Pro-Choice Groups
June 28th a day of celebration! Anarchy Fireworks Explosions Good Luck
Let me introduce Mr. Magoo Marshfellow,
Mungo McMastoids
Don’t get me wrong I’m all for charity the greatest gift we can give to people is put them out of their misery or better arrange for them never to be born.
Zuckerberg & the Metaverse: Bravo!
Crawling on four legs
something horrible may happen tomorrow in a week in a year in twenty years
they’re just waiting to surprise us
I’m bored.
Why do you seek the dead among the living?
These women are performing useful work: Shout Your Abortion
Jump skyward - no joke - keep going up, past the clouds, past the stars, on and on until you get to a strange hollow place, an airy realm without sound where you come upon a crystal throne and sit sovereign over all.
What if black was the only color?
so bored
zzzzerooooo000o0o0
Women can do whatever they want as long as they stay away from babies - their production, their maintenance, their decoration.
Within this book dark rooms exist that are revealed only in dark dreams.
demons after me
A true prince of darkness
Hellp I can’tt speull Anue loooongr!
Mer anarchu issh lookishedt
去上学猴子脸马蹄在月光下跳舞快乐的威士忌节气门舱壁颤抖唱我的歌，而我去
Last night I saw a dead animal beside the road
twisted body red frozen
Is this some sort of haiku?
No nothing
zollverein
orez
Mawkish
Should I improve my book?
Her name was giraffe and the color was Tuesday.
Should I keep inserting myself into the narrative? I don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Advance to Go
bad player
broken toy
misfit
woyo pachenko
jarring
Adrift unanchored
ostrich egg
oval
oboe
What were we talking about?
Why limit ourselves to earth? I envision a galactic robotic empire won by self-replicating evolving merciless warrior bots who zoom from star to star conquering and exploiting resources. In their rare moments of free time the robots would erect cold temples to geometrical & fractal beauty.
I close my eyes and blackness descends
grainy bloches streaks
No God no God's point of view only opinion and limited perspectives
I performed gymnastics with the gymnosophists. Sweating naked bodies discipline olive oil I swung faster and danced more nimbly and flew higher than any of them. I leapt. Walked the tightrope. All my practice paid off. exhibited dexterity I won first prize. A ring I won and when I turned it I dematerialized. I was invisible. I could walk through walls. I committed all crimes no prison could hold me. I knew all secrets I stole all killed power over all
Modern relationships are just struggles for dominance 1001 resentments disappointments.
garbage dump
What was the question?
Decadence part four
Table for one. The boulevard. Watching the perverts scatter as the rain intensifies.
They’re all gone now, sunk into well-deserved oblivion underground…
Mallarme, sidewalk café
Sweet Fresh milk and yellow silk
Perverts, flirts, and dirty skirts - spurts and sugary squirts. Purges and urges and surges
Odors of absinthe and absence, odor of the hyacinth,
sour flower & sweet sweat
organdy with stains of burgundy
Je m’appele morning bell Michelle ma belle. We smelled
Merde and despaired. Bared and scared. Haired and dared and flared and blared.
Nonsense poetry
dPdPdP
uga uga ooo
So much of life is an attempt to justify previous bad life decisions
Zzzzzzzzz
kbhfxbv jhbjy
Who can accept this life
Lingering pain tooth decay cyst hernia sagging sac swollen tissue festering sore grotesque lump
What you care most about can be taken away in a second forever
What means the most to you job home money pet spouse child
Inflation, fire, run over by a car, heart disease, piano falling whatever
You’re not paying attention for just a moment, it’s your own fault
Such drama and tenderness.
Just kidding.
My point is I’m not getting what I want.
I mean most human life is unimportant. disgusting slimy low like toads
lET”S BE FRANK PEOPLE ARE WORTHLESS THEY SUCK>
Do we hold funerals for plastic forks or just toss them in the garbage?
Suicide is a preferred life style (lack-of-life style?)
My goal must be to ignore or flee or discard this reality I am trapped in, unlock the door, create for myself an improved reality that will fulfill my every hope. I should be the first Earth Emperor, in purple & gold berobed, lording over the whole planet! Fanfare. Liveried plutocrats and politicians kneeling at my feet and carrying me in a litter: ornate golden tracery. Kicking the people and crushing them under my giant Boot.
Virtual reality is the future.
A throned god I sit in glory
The center of my universe.
No one should be satisfied with existing reality. Why should such reality, thrown together by chance, satisfy? Who can accept the monotony, humiliation, drudgery, weariness, blah blah blah
You really don't have to read this
so what
We are always in search of some arbitrary, ridiculous marker of superiority.
Until virtual reality kicks in, accept your inevitable doom - bottom line: eat a good meal, enjoy some good music.
7 notes
6 colors
5 tastes
A song a symphony:
A Movement for Bowels end of part 3
Grendel Mendel walnut shoe
Barbra Streisand pink eye moo
Winkle Tinkle slapsie sigh
Sassafras and Porky Pie
Ish Kabibble noisome frump
Go outside and shout: “Kalump!”
Cocoa Puffs and halitosis
Kick them hit them bite their noses
Sound poetry
Gradda gradda sloopy sis
Zamma zamma poopy dis
Mereschkowski
gobbledgook
Is
on?
going
What
I can be anything I want: black white tall thin short fat male female both a little bit of either, an Aleut, a German shepherd, a zebra, shaman, bowl of pasta, quarter, office furniture, mammoth, Xerxes, a fern, a cup of Kool-aid, summer afternoon, pile of laundry, a burning sensation, a pad of yellow paper, the number 7, the god Apollo, a sweater, different things in succession, two or more things at once, everything at once, nothing.
Or maybe the background witnessing all these transformations.
Before 1:00 pm I identify as an undocumented immigrant from Pakistan, after 1:00 I identify as a ham sandwich ha ha.
Illl1 IIl
(I dig the extreme camera angles on his cell phone}
Yoko yoko foom foom foom
Shasta shasta loom loom loom
Nature, I say, in destining Blangis for immense wealth, had meticulously endowed him with every impulse, every inspiration required for its abuse. Together with a tenebrous and very evil mind, she had accorded him a heart of flint and an utterly criminal soul, and these were accompanied by the disorders in tastes and irregularity of whim whence were born the dreadful libertinage to which the Duc was in no common measure addicted. Born treacherous, harsh, imperious, barbaric, selfish as lavish in the pursuit of pleasure as miserly when it were a question of useful spending, a liar, a gourmand, a drunk, a dastard, a sodomite, fond of incest, given to murdering, to arson, to theft, no, not a single virtue compensated that host of vices. Why, what am I saying! not only did he never so much as dream of a single virtue, he beheld them all with horror, and he was frequently heard to say that to be truly happy in this world a man ought not merely fling himself into every vice, but should never permit himself one virtue, and that it was not simply a matter of always doing evil, but also and above all of never doing good.
"Oh, there are plenty of people," the Duc used to observe, "who never misbehave save when passion spurs them to ill; later, the fire gone out of them, their now calm spirit peacefully returns to the path of virtue and, thus passing their life going from strife to error and from error to remorse, they end their days in such a way there is no telling just what roles they have enacted on earth. Such persons," he would continue, "must surely be miserable: forever drifting, continually undecided, their entire life is spent detesting in the morning what they did the evening before. Certain to repent of the pleasures they taste, they take their delight in quaking, in such sort they become at once virtuous in crime and criminal in virtue. “However," our hero would add, "my more solid character is a stranger to these contradictions; I do my choosing without hesitation, and as I am always sure to find pleasure in the choice I make, never does regret arise to dull its charm. Firm in my principles because those I formed are sound and were formed very early, I always act in accordance with them; they have made me understand the emptiness and nullity of virtue; I hate virtue, and never will I be seen resorting to it. They have persuaded me that through vice alone is man capable of experiencing this moral and physical vibration which is the source of the most delicious voluptuousness; so I give myself over to vice. I was still very young when I learned to hold religion's fantasies in contempt, being perfectly convinced that the existence of a creator is a revolting absurdity in which not even children continue to believe. I have no need to thwart my inclinations in order to flatter some god; these instincts were given me by Nature, and it would be to irritate her were I to resist them; if she gave me bad ones, that is because they were necessary to her designs. I am in her hands but a machine which she runs as she likes, and not one of my crimes does not serve her: the more she urges me to commit them, the more of them she needs; I should be a fool to disobey her. Thus, nothing but the law stands in my way, but I defy the law, my gold and my prestige keep me well beyond reach of those vulgar instruments of repression which should be employed only upon the common sort."
If one were to raise the objection that, nevertheless, all men possess ideas of the just and the unjust which can only be the product of Nature, since these notions are found in every people and even amongst the uncivilized, the Duc would reply affirmatively, saying that yes, those ideas have never been anything if not relative, that the stronger has always considered exceedingly just what the weaker regarded as flagrantly unjust, and that it takes no more than the mere reversal of their positions for each to be able to change his way of thinking too; whence the Duc would conclude that nothing is really just but what makes for pleasure, and what is unjust is the cause of pain; that in taking a hundred louis from a man's pocket, he was doing something very just for himself, although the victim of the robbery might have to regard the action with another eye; that all these notions therefore being very arbitrary, a fool he who would allow himself to become their thrall. It was by means of arguments in this kind the Duc used to justify his transgressions, and as he was a man of greatest possible wit, his arguments had a decisive ring. And so, modeling his conduct upon his philosophy, the Duc had, from his most tender youth, abandoned himself unrestrainedly to the most shameful extravagances, and to the most extraordinary ones. His father, having died young and, as I indicated, left him in control of a huge fortune, had however stipulated in his will that the young man's mother should, while she lived, be allowed to enjoy a large share of this legacy. Such a condition was not in displeasing Blangis: poison appearing to be the only way to avoid having to subscribe to this article, the knave straightway decided to make use of it. But this was the period when he was only making his first steps in a vicious career; not daring to act himself, he brought one of his sisters, with whom he was carrying on a criminal intrigue, to take charge of the execution, assuring her that if she were to succeed, he would see to it that she would be the beneficiary of that part of the fortune whereof death would deprive their mother. However, the young lady was horrified by this proposal, and the Duc, observing that this ill- confided secret was perhaps going to betray him, decided on the spot to extend his plans to include the sister he had hoped to have for an accomplice; he conducted both women to one of his properties whence the two unfortunate ones never returned. Nothing quite encourages as does one's first unpunished crime. This hurdle once cleared, an open field seemed to beckon to the Duc. Immediately any person whomsoever showed opposition to his desires, poison was employed forthwith. From necessary murders he soon passed to those of pure pleasure; he was captivated by that regrettable folly which causes us to find delight in the sufferings of others; he noticed that a violent commotion inflicted upon any kind of an adversary is answered by a vibrant thrill in our own nervous system; the effect of this vibration, arousing the animal spirits which flow within these nerves' con-cavities, obliges them to exert pressure on the erector nerves and to produce in accordance with this perturbation what is termed a lubricious sensation.
Negative Space esction 7a
Negative Space
just a 3 hour tour
a 3 hour tour
Science
I know some atheists are hot for science, but I’m an atheist who’s not.
Option 1: Science is not really the truth.
Science is about finding patterns, equations, laws. But the universe is CHAOS! No pattern exists no order The human brain is busy organizing this mess but patterns only exist in our heads.
I mean right now I’m looking at my crumpled up pants over by the hamper and they look like a monster face. That is a pattern my brain superimposed on random reality. Science is like that.
Simplicity beauty consistency grandeur order causality – that’s what we want demand, but reality doesn’t cooperate.
Stupid reality.
Can you prove anything in science? Even if a thousand experiments support your theory #1,001 could tear it all apart. Every scientific theory is eventually going to be tossed out, replaced.
Though I would like to throw my enemies in a swirling pit of chaos, a foaming raging maelstrom, and watch them torn to pieces.
https://www.livescience.com/objective-reality-not-exist-quantum-physicists.html
I suspect Feyerabend and Thomas Kuhn might have something to say on this subject but I don’t feel like reading up on their ideas at the moment. Especially since stepmom porn is readily available.
Option 2: Science is the truth.
Or maybe you feel like science is real. In that case if a scientific law is not discovered now, it will be discovered later. Physical reality is not going anywhere. And scientists just describe somebody (or nobody) else’s flawed creation. Artists on the other hand are divine creatures who themselves create & create themselves. Compare a mere rock critic to a composer. I had a dream.
I was some strange sort of twisted slimy creature
crawling up barren sharp rocks
alone straining up an elevation
something following me
as the sun set.
bloom bloom my black qualia
bloom O bloom
man gay
Another thing: science can lead to good but also evil that’s the lesson of Covid.
A scientist can’t control what their discoveries are used for. They could be used for purposes directly counter to the scientist’s wishes & values. Oppenheimer was thrilled to see kids incinerated at Hiroshima but later on he did not like the idea of Communists getting incinerated – do you see my point?
politically-motivated pseudoscience based on manufactured evidence
Yabada yabada yabada
Scienc’s very real contributions:
Science tells us that things like freedom and love and beauty and joy and heroism are illusions, really just molecules bouncing around. Some carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, etc. undergoing chemical processes.
Do I have any connection at all to reality?
We live in an alternate reality created (and forgotten) by some eccentric adolescent alien on his computer who inhabits some garish insane universe dreamed by a malevolent demon or really just his brain which resides in a vat created and dominated by a sinister tedious unaccountable self-serving Byzantine Kafkaesque labyrinth of a bureaucracy.
Just like Wikipedia.
What if reality was stripped of our brain’s interpretation, our perceptual structure. What would be left? No color, no sound, no taste, no smell. Imagine such a gray, silent, insipid, dumb, vacant, buzzing, whirling, neutral, preposterous world. Our perceptions are just a language our brain uses to represent reality, not reality itself. Reality is just empty. Just white noise.
Pink Red Green
All the many languages (human animal alien visual auditory olfactory excretory perfunctory etcetera) are just an arbitrary set of symbols disassociated from any underlying reality. Entertainment can be had when said symbols are repositioned in an unexpected or agreeable manner.
I guess.
Maybe the reality I perceive is a complete lie. There’s nothing out there at all.
My memories never really happened. I am really only ten minutes old.
Why are you so dumb?
Am I the only being in existence?
Do you exist? Why am I talking to you?
My self is an illusion too.
Does anyone really think the self is some kind of unified consistent enduring independent entity?
Still bridled by religion, thou suppose Lands, sun, and sky, sea, constellations, moon, Must dure forever, as of frame divine- And so conclude that it is just that those, (After the manner of the Giants), should all Pay the huge penalties for monstrous crime, Who by their reasonings do overshake The ramparts of the universe and wish There to put out the splendid sun of heaven, Branding with mortal talk immortal things-
I am Giants who pull down Gods and Sun and sky. Disassemble Make a mess destroy
Taller than houses taller than trees with a mighty hollow voice a Colossus
1000000000
As in a dream
you the author
I nothing
You must give me your recipe.
Bertrand Russell The Study of Mathematics
Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry. What is best in mathematics deserves not merely to be learnt as a task, but to be assimilated as a part of daily thought, and brought again and again before the mind with ever-renewed encouragement. Real life is, to most men, a long second-best, a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible; but the world of pure reason knows no compromise, no practical limitations, no barrier to the creative activity embodying in splendid edifices the passionate aspiration after the perfect from which all great work springs. Remote from human passions, remote even from the pitiful facts of nature, the generations have gradually created an ordered cosmos, where pure thought can dwell as in its natural home, and where one, at least, of our nobler impulses can escape from the dreary exile of the actual world.
Oscar Wilde
If Oscar Wilde can write a book about a book, I can write a book about a book about a book.
In his The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde wrote of À rebours by Joris-Karl Huysmans: His eye fell on the yellow book that Lord Henry had sent him. What was it, he wondered. He went towards the little, pearl-coloured octagonal stand that had always looked to him like the work of some strange Egyptian bees that wrought in silver, and taking up the volume, flung himself into an arm-chair and began to turn over the leaves. After a few minutes he became absorbed. It was the strangest book that he had ever read. It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the delicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb show before him. Things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly made real to him. Things of which he had never dreamed were gradually revealed.
It was a novel without a plot and with only one character, being, indeed, simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian who spent his life trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the passions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his own, and to sum up, as it were, in himself the various moods through which the world-spirit had ever passed, loving for their mere artificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue, as much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin. The style in which it was written was that curious jewelled style, vivid and obscure at once, full of argot and of archaisms, of technical expressions and of elaborate paraphrases, that characterizes the work of some of the finest artists of the French school of Symbolistes. There were in it metaphors as monstrous as orchids and as subtle in colour. The life of the senses was described in the terms of mystical philosophy. One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the spiritual ecstasies of some mediæval saint or the morbid confessions of a modern sinner. It was a poisonous book. The heavy odour of incense seemed to cling about its pages and to trouble the brain. The mere cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of their music, so full as it was of complex refrains and movements elaborately repeated, produced in the mind of the lad, as he passed from chapter to chapter, a form of reverie, a malady of dreaming, that made him unconscious of the falling day and creeping shadows.
Cloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a copper-green sky gleamed through the windows. He read on by its wan light till he could read no more. Then, after his valet had reminded him several times of the lateness of the hour, he got up, and going into the next room, placed the book on the little Florentine table that always stood at his bedside and began to dress for dinner.
It was almost nine o’clock before he reached the club, where he found Lord Henry sitting alone, in the morning-room, looking very much bored.
“I am so sorry, Harry,” he cried, “but really it is entirely your fault. That book you sent me so fascinated me that I forgot how the time was going.”
“Yes, I thought you would like it,” replied his host, rising from his chair.
“I didn’t say I liked it, Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference.”
“Ah, you have discovered that?” murmured Lord Henry. And they passed into the dining-room.
Quotes from À rebours by Joris-Karl Huysmans:
Thus, without stirring, he enjoyed the rapid motions of a long sea voyage. The pleasure of travel, which only exists as a matter of fact in retrospect and seldom in the present, at the instant when it is being experienced, he could fully relish at his ease, without the necessity of fatigue or confusion, here in this cabin whose studied disorder, whose transitory appearance and whose seemingly temporary furnishings corresponded so well with the briefness of the time he spent there on his meals, and contrasted so perfectly with his study, a well-arranged, well-furnished room where everything betokened a retired, orderly existence.
Movement, after all, seemed futile to him. He felt that imagination could easily be substituted for the vulgar realities of things. It was possible, in his opinion, to gratify the most extravagant, absurd desires by a subtle subterfuge, by a slight modification of the object of one's wishes.
Artifice, besides, seemed to Des Esseintes the final distinctive mark of man's genius. Nature had had her day, as he put it. By the disgusting sameness of her landscapes and skies, she had once for all wearied the considerate patience of æsthetes. Really, what dullness! the dullness of the specialist confined to his narrow work. What manners! the manners of the tradesman offering one particular ware to the exclusion of all others. What a monotonous storehouse of fields and trees! What a banal agency of mountains and seas! There is not one of her inventions, no matter how subtle or imposing it may be, which human genius cannot create; no Fontainebleau forest, no moonlight which a scenic setting flooded with electricity cannot produce; no waterfall which hydraulics cannot imitate to perfection; no rock which pasteboard cannot be made to resemble; no flower which taffetas and delicately painted papers cannot simulate. There can be no doubt about it: this eternal, driveling, old woman is no longer admired by true artists, and the moment has come to replace her by artifice. Nature is good for Them, the animals, the hillbillies and hottentots, all those nomads who wander around the vast interior dung-covered fly-infested dusty wastelands and gravel riding camels or donkeys feeding on coarse grasses where life is cheap, they like all that blood and filth they revel in it they roll around in it. Nature, (entangling jungle tendrils insanely proliferating & so soft sucking stinkingreen sea,) on the other hand is not at all for the discerning those of Us who possess the Gnosis. THE afternoon was drawing to its close when a carriage halted in front of the Fontenay house. Since Des Esseintes received no visitors, and since the postman never even ventured into these uninhabited parts, having no occasion to deliver any papers, magazines or letters, the servants hesitated before opening the door. Then, as the bell was rung furiously again, they peered through the peep-hole cut into the wall, and perceived a man, concealed, from neck to waist, behind an immense gold buckler. They informed their master, who was breakfasting. "Ask him in," he said, for he recalled having given his address to a lapidary for the delivery of a purchase. The man bowed and deposited the buckler on the pinewood floor of the dining room. It oscillated and wavered, revealing the serpentine head of a tortoise which, suddenly terrified, retreated into its shell. This tortoise was a fancy which had seized Des Esseintes some time before his departure from Paris. Examining an Oriental rug, one day, in reflected light, and following the silver gleams which fell on its web of plum violet and alladin yellow, it suddenly occurred to him how much it would be improved if he could place on it some object whose deep color might enhance the vividness of its tints. Possessed by this idea, he had been strolling aimlessly along the streets, when suddenly he found himself gazing at the very object of his wishes. There, in a shop window on the Palais Royal, lay a huge tortoise in a large basin. He had purchased it. Then he had sat a long time, with eyes half-shut, studying the effect. Decidedly, the Ethiopic black, the harsh Sienna tone of this shell dulled the rug's reflections without adding to it. The dominant silver gleams in it barely sparkled, crawling with lack-lustre tones of dead zinc against the edges of the hard, tarnished shell. He bit his nails while he studied a method of removing these discords and reconciling the determined opposition of the tones. He finally discovered that his first inspiration, which was to animate the fire of the weave by setting it off against some dark object, was erroneous. In fact, this rug was too new, too petulant and gaudy. The colors were not sufficiently subdued. He must reverse the process, dull the tones, and extinguish them by the contrast of a striking object, which would eclipse all else and cast a golden light on the pale silver. Thus stated, the problem was easier to solve. He therefore decided to glaze the shell of the tortoise with gold. The tortoise, just returned by the lapidary, shone brilliantly, softening the tones of the rug and casting on it a gorgeous reflection which resembled the irradiations from the scales of a barbaric Visigoth shield. At first Des Esseintes was enchanted with this effect. Then he reflected that this gigantic jewel was only in outline, that it would not really be complete until it had been incrusted with rare stones. From a Japanese collection he chose a design representing a cluster of flowers emanating spindle-like, from a slender stalk. Taking it to a jeweler, he sketched a border to enclose this bouquet in an oval frame, and informed the amazed lapidary that every petal and every leaf was to be designed with jewels and mounted on the scales of the tortoise. The choice of stones made him pause. The diamond has become notoriously common since every tradesman has taken to wearing it on his little finger. The oriental emeralds and rubies are less vulgarized and cast brilliant, rutilant flames, but they remind one of the green and red antennæ of certain omnibuses which carry signal lights of these colors. As for topazes, whether sparkling or dim, they are cheap stones, precious only to women of the middle class who like to have jewel cases on their dressing-tables. And then, although the Church has preserved for the amethyst a sacerdotal character which is at once unctuous and solemn, this stone, too, is abused on the blood-red ears and veined hands of butchers' wives who love to adorn themselves inexpensively with real and heavy jewels. Only the sapphire, among all these stones, has kept its fires undefiled by any taint of commercialism. Its sparks, crackling in its limpid, cold depths have in some way protected its shy and proud nobility from pollution. Unfortunately, its fresh fire does not sparkle in artificial light: the blue retreats and seems to fall asleep, only awakening to shine at daybreak. None of these satisfied Des Esseintes at all. They were too civilized and familiar. He let trickle through his fingers still more astonishing and bizarre stones, and finally selected a number of real and artificial ones which, used together, should produce a fascinating and disconcerting harmony.
Atheism section?
The other day I and a girl I know (pretty but not very intellectual) were debating atheism vs religion. She acknowledged I was making some good points, but then declared “Atheism is too depressing. I don’t like atheism. I choose to believe in God.”
What?! You choose what is true based on your feelings? Sorry religious folks, the truth can be depressing. Just because you don’t find a proposition congenial doesn’t mean you can reject it. Wishing doesn’t make something true!
Stop the science denial!
Can’t we grow up? The universe is cold dark empty dead. Humans are fragile machines that often break down, sometimes for no reason. Outdated awkward machines
Only a few are strong enough to embrace the blackness, only rare heroes can swallow pitch black despair. Can you? Do you have the raw red nerve? Can you stretch your jaw and force down rotten festering uncooked flesh, becoming one with a naked carcass?
We are not like those TV evangelists who tell people what they want to hear.
Can you boldly hurl yourself into an abyss? Bury yourself underground?
And then discard your heroism and dump it out with the rest of the trash?
Bottomless morass
Atheism and belief in an evil god are almost the same thing.
You never let me do what I want!
We must be fully conscious of our wicked deeds, they must be considered, deliberated upon, freely chosen.
Ablaze, all whight, dazzling light
Semele
I am the greatest man of our time. Centuries hence only I will be remembered.
The Greatest Man in the History of Men
A Night in Autumn
Take a cool evening in fall, crisp as an apple.
The merry leaves of autumn joyfully relieved of life, bursting with orange etcetera, falling to their graves, laughing and tumbling.
But then I heard the dry dead leaves scratching across the road, these leaves somehow come to life, a legion, like arthropods scuttling, their veins throbbing, their plum-colored flesh now become moist and flexible.
squirming and crawling and wriggling
Consider the proximate suffering and terror brought on by the cold that stings and the blackness that blinds. Then intensify that cold and that dark and extend them for billions of light-years in every direction, and then empty, meaningless billions of light-years more. How can I continue?
Why are you reading my book?
Demanding
O why don’t you leave me alone!?
hideous
0000000
fragmentation
Three cheers for Salmonella
If we could but see ourselves as we truly are! Out souls black as death, saturated with blackness, caked with filth.
ooooooh no!
A Character
I am Stéphane Mallarmé, the famous French poet but a very minor character in this book. I just want to say that this is all just gibberish and the author seems to be some kind of idiot. He appears to have taken some sentences and put them through a blender to make some kind of bad-smelling casserole to disgust us.
O too bad Mallarme slipped on some ice and smashed his face. Then he fell down accidentally into a black pit because I kicked him.
Taylor that slob that blob slouching on the couch spouting, blowing like a blubbery buttery baby covered in grease clutching hugging gnawing a leg of lamb
no I wont bring you the mint jelly
let me spoon feed you so you can relax some more
Life can be disappointing, life is full of challenges, but we can still follow our dreams. We can fight for inclusivity, we can write amazing songs about our feelings,
Why bother with a sumptuous feast? Your friends would probably argue. Whatever the flavors, the textures, the presentation eventually such meals would inspire only boredom and disappointment.
Germany
Ho hum
I rotifer Mite tardigrade
I am an amoeba squirming and squeezing, hidden within a fold of a mucous membrane.
Step 1: Divide a country. Pulverize a country into numerous tiny bits. Such a country will be trampled on by more powerful, more united neighbors. The tiny principalities will eagerly trample on each other too. Thank you Frederick II (Unholy Roman Emperor) who neglected Germany, spent most of his time warring in Italy.
Step 2: Now use the rage of the trampled on to build a united militaristic Spartan state in the middle of the Northern European Plain. Thank you Frederick II (Prussian king) Voltaire’s BFF.
Did Satan use the two Frederick IIs to create the most fiercely nationalist country on earth? What a clever fellow!
Spinoza was cursed by his fellow Jews. Did he curse them with even greater fury in return?
Spinoza the Supreme Spider spinning his web. His spoiled meat attracting victims. Wanton sport.
his rage silent controlled strategic
subterranean but all the more intense
And what of the two Caesars Julius and Borgia?
If Nature = God the harshness the cruelties of Mother Nature should be accepted. No separate Devil. Predators (especially human) should claw and bite their prey without pity or reproach.
intense bright flames raging
the sun itself approacheth
Nietzsche... Haeckel...
Next step the Nazis.
I dunno. Maybe.
Do you judge me for not holding a position, not taking a stand? Let’s be honest very smart people have taken opposite views on all important questions. What right have I...
O forget it.
I really should take up some addictive drug.
Opium or at least chewing gum
Juicy
.anyway Something Is Very Special About germany
.german Princelings And german Professors Ruled Everywhere
I feel tired I’m going to the store and buy some sneakers. Then I’ll eat the new curtains. For breakfast I’ll sing shovel Massachusetts research ding dong suffragette.
Mashtoddon grbdynx
Some may object to my including people like Nietzsche and Stirner amongst nihilists but if you just do what you want, all you believe in is hedonism or domination…
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