Friday, February 20, 2015

ON GRADING: The Parable of the PEZ Dispenser

On Grading:
The Parable of the PEZ Dispenser

A young woman with good grades approached Damascus Dancings, to test him. “Teacher,” she addressed him, “you have said that your students shall receive new grades, which have not before been graded, such as the grade of ‘unicorn+.’ All my life have I applied myself to study and to virtue, in order that I might receive a grade of ‘A’ and ‘A+.’ Such grades have I received—to overflowing—and yet I am dissatisfied.

Tell me, what must a righteous student do, to receive a grade of ‘unicorn+’?”

Damascus Dancings replied, and said, You have said, “I would do anything, for a grade of ‘unicorn+,’” and freely do I award you a grade of 'unicorn+++.' But in the silences of your heart are you troubled: “Now that I have received a grade of ‘unicorn+++,’ the only place left to go is down. Down is the only place left to go, after receiving a grade such as this.”

Assuredly, I say to you, you must shatter the stone tablet of ‘unicorn+,’ and all dead grades of all stone tablets, which have become a heavy stone—and you in the river—to travel the tractless steppes of new value, and invent new grades, and inscribe them on stone tablets, and award them to your own self.
 
‘Banana-rama ©%,’ is a grade you could give yourself, if you dared to smash the stone tablets; and then your down-going would be your going-over, and in the selfsame movement would you sink and rise. Therefore I give you a grade of ‘banana-rama+,’ I give you a grade of ‘™%,’ I give you a grade which is a smashing of grades, its own down-going and going-over.

For I have not come for the dispensing of grades, but in order to dispense with grades.

Go then. Shall I dispense a grade? I shall not dispense a grade.

Shall I tilt back my head, and become a dispenser of ‘pezcore%’?
 
God forbid.

It would be better for you to receive a grade of ‘Banana D-,’ and become sick with receiving, and thereby bruised, and learn to hate the stone of grading, than that you should receive a grade of ‘pezcore%’ from me, and be therein satisfied, and say to your self, “Pezcore% is become a measure of value, overturning all prior values, and establishing itself in the plastic neck of history, a dispenser to end all dispensers, until the end of time.”
 
Go then.

Better that you should award Damascus Dancings himself a grade of ‘Banana D-%,’ or ‘Ugly Triple Pudding-,’ and thereby remember the grader within you—that you and every other is an inscriber of stone tablets, and a dispenser of ‘pezcore%,’ and that neither grade, nor value, nor ‘™spaceship++%,’ contains within itself any candy, but the dispenser of candy has within itself candy, the same who assents and denies.

Go now, and be you a dispenser of ‘unicorn+,’ and new grades, which have not before been graded.

Thus spoke whatshisname, Damascus Dancings, and the academics were filled with wonder, and mutterings, for he spoke as one with authority.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

ON TEAMWORK: Damascus Grants Authority over Mind Control Powers

ON TEAMWORK: Damascus Grants Authority over Mind Control Powers


All things are possible, when you are part of a team. Those who are part of a team will say to the mountain, "Leap!" And the mountain will not leap. Then they will try a second time, more politely, "Excuse me, I'm trying to get by," and the mountain will get out the way.

Wherever two or more are gathered on a team, and believe my words, whatsoever they shall command together, telepathically, using mind control powers, the same shall be accomplished that very hour. A mountain falls on your face, and crushes it, and then a planet falls on your face. Under the mountain and the planet, your face is all f**ked up, from being crushed, and also you are getting hungry, because you are dead. All this presses and crushes about you, and yet all you do is complain and whine, because of a pain level 10. (What do you THINK my pain level is? Do you see the PLANET on my FACE?!) Anyways, you're dead and stuff, but you haven't used telepathy in my name. Why not? I just told you you have badass mind control powers, but you are just sitting there, by yourself, not part of a team, not even attempting telepathy. Go, stand you together with your brother-sister, any who is called by my name, and use your words to get stuff done: "Get off my g**damn face!" and the planet flies away. "My nose is sore as f**k, because a mountain crushed it, and also I am dead--enough!" and the mountain transforms into gummy bears, and 46 tiny plastic surgeons rearrange your face, in a good way, and also you are no longer dead.

Now go, for I have given you authority over telepathy, with words and stuff, and mental powers, and whatsoever you command in my name will be done.

Then Damascus got onto a boat with his people, and sailed down the river Kwanza to a desolate place, where he could read and think.

Friday, February 6, 2015

Decrepit Memoir: A Catalogue of Minutes



Lee Sharks
December 25, 6000BC

Born on December 25, 6000BC


Lee Sharks
December 7, 2014 at 9:59am  

current mood: “leaping sensations of Nietzsche’s mustache inside my human spirit”

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Lee Sharks
December 10, 2014 at 11:09pm

current mood: “memoirs of spontaneous religious conversion written by dark birds”

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Lee Sharks
December 11, 2014 at 10:47am

current mood: “soft gingivitis mows the lawn in underwear, or, “Post-Romantic Werewolf Subjects and the Concept of Free Will in Elizabethan Political Porn””

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Lee Sharks
December 11, 2014 at 11:51am

Applying for academic fellowships for purpose of devoting myself to social media comments.

Applying for robot money to build more robots to impersonate myself, a robot.

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Lee Sharks
December 11, 2014 at 10:46pm

current mood: “tiny circumference of apple blossom floating on a pool of jurors”


Lee Sharks
December 11, 2014 at 11:00pm

current mood: “minimalist rock paintings carved from teeth”

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Lee Sharks
December 12, 2014 at 12:50pm

current mood: “disillusioned minaret gets tattoo to commemorate distinct sensations of “lost innocent, first kiss, quite interlude” it felt last Thursday in dance class”

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Lee Sharks
December 12, 2014 at 5:54pm

current mood: “Deep Web search engine journeying through blank sonnets indexing metadata of space and time in order to save tactile sensation of “first dawn” from William Blake’s doomed hairdo”

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Lee Sharks
December 13, 2014 at 12:53am

current mood: “minimalist Trotskyite tries to decide which hat to wear, with purpose”

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Lee Sharks
December 13, 2014 at 12:53pm

current mood: “spaceship tries to write poem with chopsticks, forgets Twitter password”

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Lee Sharks
December 15, 2014 at 1:12pm

current mood: “dark robot from Bethehem whose mission consists in: 1) preserve extinct species of water mammal; 2) slash prices; 3) discover friendship”

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Lee Sharks
December 16, 2014 at 1:18am

current mood: “bored scientist eating potato chips”

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Lee Sharks
December 16, 2014 at 1:19am

current mood: “old senator with earmuffs”

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Lee Sharks
December 16, 2014 at 1:21am

current mood: “sad Voltaire filming still-frame Marxist revolution in mournful abandoned mosques for purposes of marketing research”

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Lee Sharks
December 16, 2014 at 2:16am

current mood: “decrepit planetarium sets its ringtone to “Resonant Starmap Chorus””

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Lee Sharks
December 16, 2014 at 10:03am

current mood: “sad robot looks for love in all the wrong places”

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Lee Sharks
December 16, 2014 at 10:03am

current mood: “dark robot from Bethlehem learns friendship”

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Lee Sharks
December 16, 2014 at 10:04am

current mood: “luxury goods practice cognitive therapy in order to “grow as a person””

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Lee Sharks
December 16, 2014 at 10:37am

current mood: “tiny newborn tortoises drink decaf”

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Lee Sharks
December 16, 2014 at 10:38am

current mood: “grainy photograph of “true love’s kiss””

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Lee Sharks
December 16, 2014 at 11:59pm

current mood: “irrational demand that tiny gravy suicides describe their symptoms as “restlessness, clinical humor, abrupt mood swings, dry mouth””

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Lee Sharks
December 17, 2014 at 8:33am

current mood: “irate customs agent files lawsuit, saves Christmas”

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Lee Sharks
December 17, 2014 at 12:41pm

current mood: “Emily Dickinson puts single poem-dash in her sling, faces down Leviathan, orders milkshake”

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Lee Sharks
December 17, 2014 at 12:41pm

current mood: “bronze sunrise reads Hannah Arendt triumphantly, takes nap”

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Lee Sharks
December 17, 2014 at 9:42pm

current mood: “last speaker of extinct language explains business strategy for attaining “love’s immortal crown” in six months’ time on megaphone filled with loud velociraptors”

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Lee Sharks
December 17, 2014 at 10:00pm

current mood: “brain-damaged scientific researcher discovers new dimension of tiny sentient cacti inside black hole he imagined, decides to invest in real estate”

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Lee Sharks
December 17, 2014 at 10:41pm

current mood: “advanced race of sparrows crash lands spaceship on T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” mourns lost innocence by memorizing tax code”

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Lee Sharks
December 17, 2014 at 10:41pm

current mood: “dark horses crash through memories of strange insomnia thickets, chase word for “autotelic monad intensities,” die of exhaustion”

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Lee Sharks
December 17, 2014 at 10:48pm

current mood: “dying billionaire frantically explains epiphany of exotic dinosaur symphonies to tense crowd of other dying billionaires”

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Lee Sharks
December 17, 2014 at 10:56pm

current mood: “threadbare aluminum Logos hides files containing “last hope of humankind” inside cheap friendship bracelet, splits in half”

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Lee Sharks
December 17, 2014 at 11:02pm

current mood: “blasted landscape painting offers incriminating new evidence of “bright future for our children” by citing obvious facts, pleads insanity”

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Lee Sharks
December 18, 2014 at xx:xxpm

current mood: “violent mailboxes assert themselves by getting tans, bug neighbors”

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Lee Sharks
December 18, 2014 at xx:xxpm

current mood: “harmonica with no backpack”

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Lee Sharks
December 18, 2014 at xx:xxpm

current mood: “glittering snow rocks glitter”

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Lee Sharks
December 18, 2014 at xx:xxpm

current mood: “Tintern Abbey learns to dance”

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Lee Sharks
December 18, 2014 at xx:xxpm

current mood: “large bears take hostage, demand more hostage”

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Lee Sharks
December 18, 2014 at xx:xxpm

current mood: “small new reborn animals bear tidings of pink dreams”

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Lee Sharks
December 18, 2014 at xx:xxpm

current mood: “gaunt lepidopterist changes shirts”

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Lee Sharks
December 18, 2014 at 3:22pm

current mood: “man drawing picture of baby with fangs at first describes his mood as “cleansing sadness,” later decides on “baby with fangs””

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Lee Sharks
December 23, 2014 at 12:02am

current mood: “cellphone trapped in a violin case”

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Lee Sharks
December 23, 2014 at 12:02am

current mood: “four sad birds eating birthday cake”

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Lee Sharks
December 28, 2014 at 11:00am

I hereby renounce poetry, and also novels, which I didn’t write anyways. I renounce them because of sadness. I want a train to hit me and understand what a bad mistake it made by not buying my writings beforehand.

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Lee Sharks
December 28, 2014 at 10:59pm

I hereby somewhat renounce my renunciation of poetry because of the power of voting, the magic of friendship, and also boredom. I want boredom to smash a train in the face with boring words, thereby teaching it a powerful moral lesson about the meaning of “democratic citizenship,” “baseball,” and “hand drills.”

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Lee Sharks
December 28, 2014 at 11:13pm

I hereby renounce Satan and also Dada. The tenacity and courage of my friends and John Guzlowski have taught me never to give up hope in words, even when you no longer comprehend them, because of maybe a traumatic brain injury from a train wreck, and even if it weren’t for the head injury, you still wouldn’t comprehend them, because they are in a different language, either in the standard sense—like if I speak Polish and the words are in English—or in a more radical sense, like if the words operate in a completely different semiotic system, say maybe if I understand only the language of dance, but the words are in the language of speech—still, even then, I have learned to renounce my renunciation of science, hope in words, and poetry. And also to renounce Satan, and probably Nietzsche, though the latter I will sometimes somewhat renounce my renunciation of, by reading Zarathustra or Daybreak or some of the late works, as a guilty pleasure.

#howdidigettrappedinsidethisviolincase

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Lee Sharks
January 2, 2015 at 12:06am

current mood: “immortal brain sonnets crash through purple sunrise alarm, startling neighbors”

#idontwantnoscrubascrubisaguywhocantgetnolovefromme

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Lee Sharks
January 3, 2015 at 1:46pm

current mood: “luminous with unicorn tumors”

#marsisanactualplanet

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Lee Sharks
January 21, 2015 at 9:12am

free will made me do it

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Lee Sharks
January 21, 2015 at 9:13am

I smacked Freud in the mouth with a giant phallus, which symbolically represented poems.

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Lee Sharks
January 25, 2015 at xx:xxpm

current mood: “Banana pancakes”

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Lee Sharks
January 25, 2015 at xx:xxpm

current mood: “Apple fritter”

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Lee Sharks
January 25, 2015 at xx:xxpm

current mood: “French fries”

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Lee Sharks
January 25, 2015 at xx:xxpm

current mood: “Spaghettios noir”

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Lee Sharks
January 25, 2015 at xx:xxpm

current mood: “French fries again”

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Lee Sharks
January 25, 2015 at xx:xxpm

current mood: “Texmexpolitation”

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Lee Sharks
January 25, 2015 at xx:xxpm

And yes, I did just save that to my spellchecker.

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Lee Sharks
January 28, 2015 at 12:03am

I hereby renounce all literature (again). I hereby consign all great books to forgetfulness.

Because of recurring sadness.

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Lee Sharks
January 28, 2015 at 8:54am

I can’t speak anymore because I consigned all works of human literature to forgetfulness. I still read all written works of fiction, poetry, essay, and history, but when I read them all the words become tweener genre fiction inside my mind, and also on the page.

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Lee Sharks
January 29, 2015 at xx:xxpm

Nnnnnnnhhhh—eeeeeeee—eeeeeeee—eee—nnnnnnnnnnhhhh—

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Lee Sharks
February 4, 2015 at 2:42am

I became friend dumped by truth and justice. Truth and justice friend dumped me as friend.

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Lee Sharks
February 4, 2015 at 9:29am

current mood: “museum of broken light”

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Lee Sharks
February 4, 2015 at 9:30am

current mood: “document typed by shadow people”

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