395. Poem / Song Called "Emergent Forcings"

My housemate Kyle challenged me to blogging about "forcings." The word is used commonly by geologists and climatologists (more particularly), but Kyle also extrapolated the meaning of the word into social settings--positive and negative feedbacks of certain assemblages of behaviors (like some aggressive guy's drunkard activities in a bar). I told Kyle that I don't know much about the word "forcing," but my immediate associative word was "driver." Kyle said I was dead on the T--to my surprise--because that was my "lay" interpretation of forcing. I then proclaimed to Kyle that his intepretive use of the word has now advanced and expanded the diverse vocabulary and fundamental theories of English Literature (okay, well, maybe not that far). Talk about cross-disciplinary! I was so inspired that I just invented a new poem/song in the car called "Emergent Forcings."

Emergent Forcings

So we have fallen hard.
So we have fallen fast.
From the very start,
I knew somethin' would last.

No great space and time
Could quite ever divide
The meeting of the minds
Inevitable Intertwine--

Emergent Forcings
Two worlds could bring
Unfathomed Creations
Of a Spectrum of Dreams.

Emergent Forcings
Two worlds can bring
Unfathomed Creations
Of Infinite Dreams.

394. Generic Question Reality / Stokastika Banners for Anything in Particular

I am so energized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Conference in Chicago, Illinois that I am huffing and puffing out some generic internet relativistic identity artwork for all potentially future purposes.

393. Poem/Song Budding Called "Complexified Simplicity"

Complexified Simplicity.
Jengazified Af-aligning.
Simplicity Complexified.
Jengazified Af-aligning.
It's happening again.
It's happening again.
It's happening again.
It's happening again.

392. The Thank You Poem

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Your welcome. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

[times infinity]

I-don't mean to be repetitious
And you so provocatious!
But I'm covering all my bases--
To the thankyous of the past
And-all potential future cases!

391. Poem "Unlatched, and In Isolation"

Yesterday, I met an enthusiastic Uklan environmental science-sociology student by the name of Chris Meehan, who is currently taking a class called "How to Change the World." We randomly met at the overpacked Starbucks in Westwood, Los Angeles. There was this other guy there who said--how random, what perfect timing you come to find a spot to sit down. The resource of "Study Space and Electrical Outlet" was indeed quite limited. Since I was deliriously lacking sleep, in addition to still wearing my "nice clothes" from the fisheries stakeholder meeting at Four Points (by the Los Angeles Airport)--in DOUBLE addition to still wearing my sticker saying "Hello, my name is... Victoria" with a cartoon fish next to my inking, I was very open and excited to random people right next to me, and fortunately it was Chris and this other random guy. We ended up talking about the cool How to Change the World Class--which I might be able to crash sometime this quarter--and we also discussed the dynamics of human interactions in big cities versus small towns. It's all about frequency of encounter and the familiarity effect. Small towns can be a bit too small and confining--"cabin feveresque" and large cities are by default constructing isolation and alienation. Chris said "I don't even know my neighbors," and for me, I know close to everyone at the "Hello-how-are-you" level on the lower side of my block by the park in Goleta. One day, when I make my own Starbucks-coffee-and-cigarettes movie, the conversation I had with Chris and Random guy was epic. I told Chris that if I took his Change the World course and had a project, it would be a project on "how to make the big city a small town" in a figurative sense of constructing a microcosmos of humanity in a cesspool of human flesh--live and dead. There is a massive graveyard conveniently right next to the school, afterall. Sicco.

I told Chris I would write a poem about the propensities of human relationships, the diffusion of human relationships in cities, and the closeness of relationships in smaller towns--which in some occassions, can be to a point of strangling. So... here goes the poem:

Unlatched, and In Isolation

It's hard to latch onto the humans
I pass by a million-and-one times
but don't even notice
or bother to notice
or have the capacity to notice
because I pass a million-and-one of them
All at once, all the same time
and I wished my wits could grasp
hold, maintain--care--

But the city mows my neurons down
and let the potential of colorful layers
slip through the gaps
between the mental mesh
to a cycled circle of isolation
the prison of meaningless bonds
and the question "why"
hides behind both my tonsils
only to make my voice
perpetually
stuttery
scratchy
hoarse.
And if only the frequency of encounter
resounding familiarity of warmth and safety
and microcosmal trust
could breed within myself
through others
and through others
within my self.

390. Poem / Rant "Ideals Have Rubber Hitting the Road of Reality"

Today was ironic.

I saw my old teaching assistant Hannah in the morning
in Kostello's gathering hub
and I saw *oriel at a distance
as I entered my dose of environmental institutions

as if the day after my mind's heart was rejuvinated with hope,
I was then haunted by the re-exposure to the previous experiment
in which *oriel, Hannah, and I converged and aligned
on Decker's Deck the previous April.

And I realized I wore the same clothes I wore today
of that day of that past alignment.
Not that the probability of wearing different clothes
was very high.

Hannah analyzed me up and down
as if I had never changed in any surfacial dimension
and *oriel glanced his eyes around the room
in glossy sporadic-ness
only to prevent any form of meeting an locking of stares.

He wore an oversized, dark coat, suit, and tie.
I missed his "defense" presentation for the project
he was "over with" ever since last summer
and resisted to pursue the internship granted to him.

And then to my distaste of recollection
I still have a bag of $130 worth of clothes
affiliated with his institutions,
as he dragged me to Ross dress-for-less
and stated that real-world survival required an Image Show
as if we regressed to high school cliques
from the initial premises
of higher dimensions of shen minds.

I had to "look good."
For whom? For what purpose?
Those dxmn clothes are too late to return
and I refuse to wear them.

Dxmmit.

Lost godxm $130-something dollars.

And I have a tumor bag rotting in moisture of rain in my car trunk.

That boy--despite his lengthy age--had no sense of Reality.
And today, after opening the vulnerability of my mind's heart the day before,
this new day I felt anger all over on the way how he treated me--
and how he dropped me like a contaminated hot potato.

One day I was a human being
and the next I was a high-maintenance bacterium.
One day my mind was fascinating
and the next I was a Touch Toy.
And the next and the next and the next...
I was a Touch Toy.

And then the Touch Toy was no longer worth playing with
because he got bored with exclusivity
and exclusively tended to his project of Overwithedness
because it cost $40,000 to do it.

And so today, I felt anger, and I still feel angry.
And I have a right to feel angry.

Because I am NOT a Contaminated Hot Potato
and no one should EVER treat me like one.
And I cannot ALLOW anyone to treat me like one.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Dxmmit.

I have a right to feel anger.
I have a right to be angry.
I have a right to report to Johnny of my lessons learned.

I mean *oriel was a most fascinating spirit, full of ideal principles,
but over time of interaction,
as the onion peeled, as all onions do peel
the principles marginally-to-never seemed to match reality...
in practice...
in life pursuits....

In the end, his *orielian spirit of seeming boundlessness was worth it
but the rest of imprisoned physicality can be tossed in the trash.

He is an orphan
because he chose to be an orphan.

When I am foraging for inspiration,
I need everything aligned--everything--
I need to be surrounded by people
who's ideals have rubber hitting the road of reality.

And I need a track record of it.

But as with all else,
*oriel was a first experiment
and you extract all positive, pragmatic gadgets
amidst the City Dump of Stench.

Johnny?

389. A Clever Poem on Psychologists, Shared with Dr. Barry Spacks

Earlier this morning I was quite sleep deprived. It is a dangerous condition because I am socially desensitized and when I encounter someone I know I tend to ramble forever. As if I had undergone a drunken stupor.

I am sorry Barry Spacks had to be the victim. I even warned him, and he scoffed, "Don't worry! I don't mind rambling at all!" Man, my housemates' Kyle and Karl got me down pat. They know when to politely avoid me and shut me down and tell me to go sleep. I feel so bad--we went overtime in office hours. Hopefully I didn't seem like too much of an out of control, non-self-contained idiot. *Sigh*

What came out of it though is that I recited the beginning of a poem and Dr. Spacks just liked it the way how it was, so I'll just ditto the first lines here and call it a poem.

When you enter the room happy
And leave the room depressed,
That's when you end your relationship
With your psychologist!

388. Poem/Song Called "Inspiration"

we need the fuel
of inspiration
--w'need the spark
of advocation
--t'continue
our perspiration
--t'world's drowning
in information
desp'rate words (terms)
for our salvation--

so the battle of the blood's
now the battle of the brain--

so t'welfare o'mind's warfare
is the final sole string--

for us weave?

387. Poem / Song Called "Stepped off the Planet" (For My Grandfather Ray)

I stepped off the planet
W' my lungs full of fluids
Of my very own ocean
My petri of potion.

I stepped off the planet
My bones brittle broken
Of my very own mountain
Quite rigid of tendons.

I stepped off the planet
My wiring still firing
But my form just gave in
Yet circuits worth keeping--

So I stepped off the planet
With one more thing
On my to-do list--

But what's the point?
What's the point?

Life ran out of time
T'make all rhythms rhyme.


So I made a trip to hxll
To-meet Mark Twain o'er beer
Conversing, waiting for my son,
And my granddaughter.

So I made a trip to hxll
To-meet Mark Twain o'er beer
Conversing, waiting for my son,
And my granddaughter.

So my wiring kept firing
My wiring keeps firing
However do I please
Whatever my musings

My wiring kept firing
My wiring still firing
Is the very only thing
That was worth any-ah dxmn.

[For my grandfather, Ray]

386. Pandora Knows My Musical Tastes Better Than I Do... / "Mad World" by Gary Jules

An Appreciation for Some Music Lyrics--Mad World
Dr. Spacks and I had a conversation about the relationships between poetry and song-writing. Song-writing and vocal performance can very easily drown out and compromise the lyrics. Which means, more times than not, the lyrics do not stand as a very strong, naked (music-absent) poem, simply because implicit meanings are added through the layers of music performance. I think "Mad World" by Gary Jules might be able to stand uniquely as a poem, independent of the ghostly beautiful music performance. We also discussed the notions of "cycles" and "flipping hamburgers." The Flipping Hamburger University is just doing it in test-tubes, and it's kind of sad you need some big shot credential to do that. I emphasized though, that life is full of cycles, it's just a matter of some cycles hardly changing, slowly evolving, and other cycles are open to innovation--small baby steps and huge leaps of innovation. I think in poetry there can be several baby steps made. But Dr. Spacks also made this wonderful analogy that "a poem is a living organism. You are to foster it, build it, let it evolve. You never know where the poem will take you." I followed it up with "No wonder why I write most of my poetry in the car--because that is the only time I have free space and time to let something just spontaneously evolve!" Chryss Yost (prominent poet in Santa Barbara) emphasized that "poetry is a craft. You are building a system," which made me think why poems don't start at the bottom of the pages, since you are building something bottom-up. Hmmm. Good idea!

"Mad World" by Gary Jules

All around me are familiar faces

Worn out places, worn out faces

Bright and early for their daily races

Going nowhere, going nowhere

Their tears are filling up their glasses

No expression, no expression

Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow

No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad

The dreams in which I'm dying

Are the best I've ever had

I find it hard to tell you

I find it hard to take

When people run in circles

It's a very, very mad world mad world

Children waiting for the day they feel good

Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday

And I feel the way that every child should

Sit and listen, sit and listen

Went to school and I was very nervous

No one knew me, no one knew me

Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson

Look right through me, look right through me

And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad

The dreams in which I'm dying

Are the best I've ever had

I find it hard to tell you

I find it hard to take

When people run in circles

It's a very, very mad world ... mad world

Enlarging your world

Mad world

After listening to Pandora for about two or three days, only subscribed to two streams--one being Daftpunk and the other being Gorillaz (though I should add Bjork and Regina Spektor and Nick Drake, for sure)--I have come to realize that my tastes in music are very idea-based music with VERY pure melodies. Nick Drake-esque. And if it becomes layered, then it becomes tribal, classical symphonic Rite of Spring Bjorkesque. For example, here are some songs that have given me pricked ears and teary eyes: the song above "Mad World" by Gary Jules, "We're Going to be Friends" by White Stripes, "Fall Line" by Jack Johnson, "In the Waiting Line" By Zero 7, "I'm Happy / Feeling Glad / Got Sunshine in a Bag" by Gorillaz, "Crazy" by Gnarles Barkeley. I am becoming even more musically predictable to myself!

My housemate Kyle converted me... got me addicted to Pandora.... It's scary to think that Pandora perhaps knows my musical tastes better than I know my own!

385. "Mindfield" Procrastination Project and "The Bower of Santa Barbara" for Coastal Fund Photography Contest / Spectrum / Wind-Teeth Submissions

Sunset Wave of Curiosity. Submitted to the Coastal Fund Photography Contest. "At the brink of sunset, the waves of curiosity overpower the ocean's waves as two students probe in the nooks and crannies of ephemeral tidepools during a low tide near by Coal Oil Point."

Mindfield. Also submitted to the Coastal Fund Photography Contest. "This image sequence entitled 'Mindfield' is the coupling of a distinctive, fog-riddled sunset along the bluffs of Del Playa and the outline of an 'eye' that is intensely watching this spectacle. We, as students and members of the UCSB community, are very fortunate to be immersed in an environment that awakens curiosity, beckons open-mindedness, and asks us to call attention to the details, within our surroundings, as well as inside ourselves--such fundamental elements of life that can be easily bypassed and shoved aside in the hustle and bustle of most California communities."

PDF to the Mindfield Poem:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/mindfield1.pdf

PDF to the Mindfield Lyrics / Chords / Song:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/mindfield2.pdf

MP3 Sample to the Mindfield Song:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/mindfieldfragmentpresentable.mp3

"Mindfield" is a small-scale multi-media project I had undertaken under the guidance and encouragement of Dr. Barry Spacks (poetry and art guru, among other things) through a College of Creative Studies (CCS) Poetry Course. "Mindfield" has essentially become my "procrastination project" when I do not want to directly face my "major projects" that typically require more emotionally-stunted non-artistic endeavors. *Sigh* I will soon be submitting this multi-media work into a photography contest for Coastal Fund, a poetry contest for CCS' Spectrum literary magazine, and/or a submission to "Into the Teeth of the Wind"--also a literary journal formalized in CCS.



"Under your nose. Beneath your feet. Through the scopes. What can you see?" Lucky lucky me. I wear a beautiful bower. A beautiful mental coat called Santa Barbara--and more specifically, UC Santa Barbara. I am immersed in such splendor of an ecosystem 24-7 that I can dive in close to full-time into the ecosystem of my head, knowing that when I attempt to escape, All Things Beautiful await me. I had been considering in making such a photography collection for quite a while, but UCSB's Coastal Fund has a deadline this week for a photography contest, so I decided to gather a baseline of imagery that embodied the Distinct Details of Santa Barbara. (Several photographs I took in this series were from my undergraduate days, 2002-2003, with my first primitive Olympus Camedia digital camera).

Hmmm, I even had some promising photographs way back then!

Small projects can become very large... very fast. I just finished a fish presentation. Then evolving to just a poem. Then went to song lyrics. Then into a demo of the song with simple voice and piano. Now seeking a guitar player. And I won't jinx myself ahead of that!

384. "Woven Atom" Logos for SciArtS Group at UC Santa Barbara: Lydia LeClair is a Spontaneous Genius!

In the name of the borders of chaos and order....

Below is an excerpt I wrote alongside the logos I downloaded onto http://www.picasaweb.com/stokastika.

"Winter Quarter of 2009 has become a very interesting, exciting venture, ever since the creation of a small SciArtS group, consisting of very creative, enthusiastic scientists (with very high energy budgets) who have a knack for art and care about the larger picture--the role of science in society. Last week we discussed the creation of a logo, and within a few seconds the Spontaneously Creative Lydia LeClair belched out an abstract etch that embodied "Woven Atom." It was brilliant! I fell in love with it at first sight! I worked up the logo in photoshop, experimented with different colors and lighting. Geez, I LOVE working with other people! You never know what may happen, and it can turn out SOOO GOOD! I attempted to create a logo but it's a bit too "planned" and perhaps too cluttery (I had no scanner, boohoo!). Excuses, excuses, excuses! Anyhow, I think as a whole it may not work, but the "parts" of the logo I made are infested with great ideas!"

I was scrutinizing my attempted logo and I think if I "hierarchize" the lines, then a more organize appearance may emerge. I think I better lay the dxmn demon to rest right now!

383. Poem Called "Preaching to the Choir" (Inspired by My Mother) What "Testy Love"!

My mother is a genius
for calling me
at the right time
at the right place
in the right mood
to tell me everything
she ever told me
and raised me upon
and I already knew
and knew that I knew
and I knew so well
that I wrote it into
a short story
two hours ago.
And I will rip my hair out
for another round
of this preaching to the choir.

The Fundamental Theory of Human Behavior by Mama:
(1). Null Hypothesis: The only person you have the ability to know and control and change is yourself. You have no ability to change other people.
(2). Alternate Hypothesis: Through your presence and actions, you have changed other people's behaviors and perceptions. But this change is fundamentally INDIRECT. You are present and tell a story, but the person who receives the story must be OPEN and willing to listen, and willing to change. Increased frequency of encounter of an idea will increase the likelihood that the idea will catch. For example, Brittney Spears is chronically in everyone's faces. So, by default, we think about Brittney Spears.

Another point. I have the ability to change people's behaviors in very slight ways. For example, me and my car occupy space on the freeway. All individuals proximal to my spatial-temporal postition will behave such as to avoid crashing into my car and maintaining a level of dynamic co-existence with all fast-paced elements on the freeway. Simple as that!

This morning was a very intriguing poetry reading by students in Dr. Barry Spacks' College of Creative Studies Course. I get little tingles down my spine when the students make "insights" or new ways of looking at things in our everyday life that we may just take for granted. For example, a student mentioned how her grandmothers hunched back "made a cave for her heart" or another student described the antipastoral climb to Mount Whitney with a bunch of hikers carrying their own sewage in bags. That was a classic! I want to experience that! Wow! Such an anecdote can feed into the "Tragedy of Nature in a Box" essay I have stewing in my computer. But some other day. You have to put one foot in front of the other, and one word behind the next. It is a slow climb out of a rabbit hole to discover the true, evolving structure of yourself.

As for "details" in my life, I had a "timely" phone call incident with my mother that just amplified my frustrations--for I had not jogged and released any energy at that point of the day--and the only way I could vent the incident was through a poem. I read it to my father, who could sympathize immediately, but I think he was making sure that my mother was not around to listen to the conversation. And when she was, my father's response were very "stunted."

I think poetry is a form of fundamental building block that to longer pieces. The accumulation of little "absurd details" in everyday life can lead to the formulation of a whole new world!

Dr. Spacks mentioned how these poetry readings allow us to pick apart our experiences and then even incorporate these experiences into our own poetry.

382. Poem on the Tradeoff of Physical and Mental Consumption

stress overate
to a dulled brain
no neurons raced
in the world
outside--
they all tended fate
of sacrifice
to my tummy.

Physical and mental consumption unfortunately has a trade-off effect.

Last night I was so stressed that I overate. I gave my neurons away not to a heightened sensation to the world outside, but to the selfish, visceral operations of my tummy. It is frustrating, because I walk around the UCSB campus and I perceive things, but have no ability to emotionally grasp them, as I am so attentive when I am operating like a hungry lion on an empty stomach.

So interesting people have morphed into passing, dulled humans. Supersensory white blossoms of these apricot-like trees have shifted into a backdrop nuissance of smell that I tend to repel when strolling through a Macy's or Nordstroms. Everything is flattened and ungraspable, as slowly, the food I consumed--not out of hunger, but out of impulsive self-infliction--slowly, ever so slowly, mechanically, chemically digests.

And so I wait for the restoration of the full capacities of my senses.

ASIDE: The world is changing all around me and you are trying to cling onto something stable amidst all this change. And the only vessel I can seem to hold onto maintain is my own self.