http://allworkandnoplay.net Makes Jack Better Than You Mon, 26 May 2008 20:30:25 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I want all the people I have ever known to appear in a room where I am, and I want them all to be terribly confused as to how they arrived there and deep in thought about what cosmic forces are at work and how this casts their entire existence ... http://allworkandnoplay.net/38/what-i-most-want-in-the-world-today/ This morning an old black woman say in front of me on the train. She smelled wretched; she had what my friend Mark had once called "a geriatric smell." I did not move from my seat, mostly because there was nowhere to move to. I felt short of breath, as ... http://allworkandnoplay.net/37/regional-rail-ride/ This is an excerpt from the first draft of a book I am writing. I am publishing it here, side notes and all, only at Pat's insistence that he could not stand to be bored. As I left I could see, between the tops of the brownstone canyon that was 43rd ... http://allworkandnoplay.net/36/leaving-new-york/ One day is not enough to see all there is to see in one day's worth of me. How could I ever be so bold to think that one day should be told when it is only one day old? A diary is a private place where one can a single day face, one's every moment to trace. A ... http://allworkandnoplay.net/35/do-not-read-this-poem/ A lonely man in a lonely room, considering all that he looks at; but all we can see is all that we are, and he wonders what starts if you stop it. The cherry-topped table, round and oblong, makes scurrilous reference to time long gone when every woman and every drink was a sign to his inner ... http://allworkandnoplay.net/33/dust-bunnies/ Like any substance that directly alters your brain chemistry, caffeine is a drug, and as such, it has the same essential drawback; namely, it favors some brains states over others, and is addictive. Thus, the chronic caffeine user has a limited set of mental states available to him, a set ... http://allworkandnoplay.net/32/on-the-utility-of-psychoreactive-drugs/ It is possible for a dream to drive you insane. To see that this is true, you must understand three things. Your emotions are not under your direct control. You may be able to redirect your emotions, make it so that you will not feel in a few moments what you ... http://allworkandnoplay.net/31/what-reality-may-come/ A river was coming from the sky over Baltimore, and all I could do about it was stand arm bent with my thumb out, hold in my other hand a cardboard sign that was being rapidly devoured, and hunch against the downfall with my face twisted into a constant wince. ... http://allworkandnoplay.net/29/mercy-means-stopping/ There once was a boy who looked like a bird, when he dressed, when he spoke, when he picked at his teeth; when he sat up, and when he lay down, when he put up his Christmas wreath; when he looked out the window, to see something he heard; when he opened up Webster's, to ... http://allworkandnoplay.net/28/the-boy-in-the-clocktower-part-1/ Today, a quote from the Found Book of Truths: Pride is the poison of our present society. Think you of the power one can gain by a show of submission. Allow the enemy to indulge his pride, and you shift his focus onto his own reflection, and away from the reality ... http://allworkandnoplay.net/27/27/