Small excerpt of "Player Piano" by Vonnegut

It's not what the novel revolves around. It is only a piece that is short enough for me to share and that I really like. I also have not posted in a while. (not like anyone cares much - I've been busy with school.)

"Anyway," said the girl, "my husband's book was rejected by the Council."
"Badly written," said Halyard primly. "The standards are high." [...]
"And," the girl continued, "it had an antimachine theme." [...]
"He didn't care. He had to write it, so he wrote it."
"Why doesn't he write about clipper ships, or something like that? This book about the old days on the Erie Canal-the man who wrote that is cleaning up. Big demand for that barechested stuff." [he said]
She shrugged helplessly. "Because he never got mad at the clipper ships or the Erie Canal, I guess."
"He sounds very maladjusted," said Halyard distastefully. "If you ask me, my dear, he needs the help of a competent psychiatrist. They do wonderful things in psychiatry these days. Take perfectly hopeless cases, and turn them into grade A citizens. Doesn't he believe in psychiatry?"
"Yes, indeed. He watched his brother find peace of mind through psychiatry. That's why he won't have anything to do with it."
"I don't follow. Isn't his brother happy?"
"Utterly and always happy. And my husband says somebody's just got to be maladjusted; that somebody's got to be uncomfortable enough to wonder where people are, where they're going, and why they're going there. That was the trouble with his book. It raised those questions, and was rejected. [...]"

self-destruction

Two videos and my youtube account.

http://www.youtube.com/user/gabbitr0n

More, an Academy-Award nominated short-film

The Academy-Award nominated animated short-film tells the story of a lonely inventor, whose colorless existence is brightened only by dreams of the carefree bliss of his youth.
By day, he is trapped in a dehumanizing job in a joyless world. But by night, he tinkers away on a visionary invention, desperate to translate his inspiration into something meaningful.
When his invention is complete, it will change the way people see the world. But he will find that success comes at a high price, as it changes himself, as well.

The film is much deeper than remarks I've witnessed. The main character is engulfed with dullness and ordinary days. He seemingly loathes his job and life. Striving for happiness, he invents goggles that converts a melancholy reality into something surreal and ideal to him. He begins to commercialize it for others. Soon enough, "Bliss" just turns into another "Be Happy" product that doesn't acquire true happiness. The "happiness" it gives is delusional and temporary when one realizes that it is falsehood.
The moral is materials are not life which is why materialism is silly.

socrates, the gadfly of the b.c’s

because the wisest know nothing at all.
Socrates is quite respectable and admirable. His willingness to himself and what he stood for surpass the evils of the republic of Rome. He did not prefer to be exiled and coward away. He defended his reasoning and died with his reasoning. Of course, his philosophy was not killed along with him. It carries on. Point being.

"Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good; for one of two things, either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but the greatest king will not find many such days or nights, when compared to the others. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead abide, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world, and finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there . . . that pilgrimage will be worth taking. What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again! . . . Above all, I shall then be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in the next; and I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. . . . In another world they do not put a man to death for asking questions: assuredly not. For besides being happier than we are, they will also be immortal, if what is said is true."

raison d'etre
"The unexamined life is not worth living. Doing what is right is the only path to goodness, and introspection and self-awareness are the ways to learn what is right."

The meaning behind blog title...

CP: Dead Can Dance - Persephone (The Gathering of Flowers)

senor bIinky: does the monsters under the bed mean
senor bIinky: like the bed is a symbol of your life being young and "safe"
senor bIinky: and the monsters are symbolic of the dark truths and stuff?
senor bIinky: or am i way off
makefishyfaces: haha bingo
senor bIinky: fuck yea!
senor bIinky: and like as your mind grows you look deeper under your "bed" and you see the monsters for what they are
senor bIinky: that is so you fishy
makefishyfaces: : D
makefishyfaces: glad you are
makefishyfaces: familiar with me

Bonjour!

CP: A Place to Bury Strangers - Ocean

After signing-up for various blogging networks, I think have made a permanent sojourn in cyberland. A few things you will need to know about my postings: I am human, if you catch any mistakes, feel free to note them down for me and "CP" is an acronym for "currently playing". I am no professional writer, nor claim to be; this is for me and for the occasional interested person.

Will post later, au revoir.

But. I shall leave you with this picture.