I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Edgar Allen Poe

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
- H. L. Mencken

Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
-Bertrand Russell

What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
-James Branch Cabell

April 10, 2016 - 11:23 a.m.

Like a Dream within a Dream

I went to sleep at 4 AM last night. I woke up at 7:30 AM this morning and couldn't fall back asleep. It's now 9:10 and as soon as I started writing this I got sleepy. Weird things going on with my sleep, maybe I'll write about this at the end of this entry. I was supposed to do that yesterday and but had to run out.

After four days of not leaving the house I'm now on a music run. Last night I was off to fairly shallow and light New Jersey to see the The Kennedys and The Lords of Liechtenstein and The Kennedys at Ethical Brew. Even though I never went there before and it was in The Seventh Circle of Hell New Jersey this counts as a home game. It's the Kennedys, it's the Lords, I know the people that run Ethical Brew Perry and Beth well. When I walk in and everybody knows me it's a home game. But as sometimes happens it was a home game in a distant venue which meant traveling there. I went with the Brothers Rauchwerk aka Dan and Noah aka The Lords of Liechtenstein. We met at Penn station and took NJ Transit to Secaucus where their parents picked us up.

We got there and the Lords did sound check and I looked to the merch. OK I ate and schmoozed first. Beth made delicious Moroccan chicken. Hey it's me, I have to talk about food and commuting. There will be more food later. More commuting to. I had to say that so you'd sit through all the boring talk about music. I know what My Gentle Readers care about.

I am way behind in pictures. OK I'm two days behind but that represents hundreds of pictures I need to edit. So this will once again not be an illustrated edition of Wise Madness.

When they opened the doors I was delighted to find that it was a full house. I don't see that enough at coffee houses. It meant I had to stand but that's a fine tradeoff. I had a little area around the merch table to myself. One thing I love about being in the back and standing is I get to dance and nobody sees me. I can dance like nobody is watching because nobody is watching. I was joined by Maura during the Lords set. She danced too. They were funny and did my request, Mothman. I told Noah I think it's one of the archetypal Lords songs. It's about a strange incident that happened long before they were born, before I was born, but somehow Noah found out about it and thought it worthy of singing about. It pairs so nicely with Gorilla which is about the sad love life of movie monsters. The best thing is that as soon as they were done Maura comes over to me and says, "They are adorable!" Just about every female of every age from teen to septuagenarian has used the same word to describe them. It's time for the fans of the Lords to start acting like Beatles fans and throwing themselves at them, and more importantly their merch guy. No, I didn't actually say that, you're imagining things. Dan's gonna kill me.

It's been two whole days since I saw the Kennedys so that's enough time to think of new things to write about them, right? Actually it is. Even though they are two of the nicest people I know I don't think it's possible for them to be nice people singing nice songs nicely. It was them singing my request Namaste that made me think of this. It's the sort of upbeat anthrophilic song that other people turning into a saccharine New Age jingle about puppies and rainbows. The Kennedys make it swing. It isn't sweet it's dynamic. That's what I wish Pete and Maura would teach people at songwriting classes.

There were a few people there that I knew, Peter and Paula arrived earlier. I just saw them last weekend at Abbie's swing dance. Both the Lords and the Kennedys have played their house so it wasn't too surprising.

Oh there's more food. Dan and Noah's mother Star made a tin, ok it was made of plastic so what do you call it? A plastic tin of chocolate chip cookies. I kept going back for more. They were vegan so Dan said "see you can be a vegan?" Can I survive on just cookies? Would that make me a cookieterian? A cookan? Fat?

After the show I was bad and instead of helping the Lords gather their stuff I talked to people. There was this one young volunteer. I had caught a glimpse of her t-shirt and thought I saw David Tennant on it. She was wearing a jacket over it by the time the show was over so I asked her if it were a Doctor Who shirt. She got all excited and took off her jacket and showed it to me. We then did a mutual Doctor Who Geekout. I told her about the Way Station in Brooklyn and to find the video "Doctorin' the Tardis." You should too. Hey Perry her name was Rachel, if you see her tell her she can read about herself.

Then I talked to Pete and Maura. I pretty much always have a lot to talk about with them and I'd be going home with the Lords. They finally dragged me away and I was good and carried stuff to the card. Then Michael and Star drove us back to Secaucus where after twice going to the wrong platform we ended up at the right one. We didn't go to the entrance usually use so I couldn't find it without thinking and followed Dan. It's all his fault. Hey he's gonna kill me anyway; I might as well be honest.

At Penn station we parted ways with Noah who had to head back to his dorm on the Lower East Side. He lives directly around the corner from where my father was born. Dan was nice and took the with me to the . It would have been easier for him to take the eighth avenue line. I got off at 14th street too as I had to take the . Both waits for the train were short but I still didn't get home till 1:20 or so. My parents would call me a dirty stay out late.

Then as I said I didn't get to sleep till 4 AM. When I awoke at 7:30 I was oddly not tired. That's why I bet I crash after I eat. My sleep has been odd the last few days. The night before I got home late and went to sleep late too. But Friday night I slept over nine hours and didn't awake till after noon. I never do that. But what I want to write about is the process of waking. I have been dreaming rapid fire recently. It feels like I am always awakening from a dream. This morning it was a series of Dan driving me to gigs, Dan has never driving me to a gig in real life. But we aren't even driving in the dreams, we are always in the lot parking. He kept finding spots he could pull straight into. In the last one things changed after we were in the spot. There was now a lower level behind us and I told him that if he tries to back out we'd fall into it. It then struck me that how can that have been there when we pulled right into the spot. That discrepancy is what woke me up. Something similar happened the night before and that's the part I want to write about. I don't remember the dream but I woke up thinking about the how I noticed the discrepancy and instead of perhaps switching to a lucid dream I awoke. But here's the thing the day before I didn't quite awake. I never opened my eyes. I was in the hypnopompic state, between sleep and awakening. I love being in the hypnopompic state. I immediately starting thinking of the last episode of Doctor Who I watched, The Last Christmas. In it parasitic crabs attack the Doctor and Clara and induce a dream state. They keep thinking they are waking up to find that no, they are still dreaming. I realized that like so many stories that use this device they learn things through the successive dreams that help them overcome the thing causing them. But if they are in induced dreams there's no reason to believe anything that happened. Because I was in the hypnopompic state I didn't just think about this I saw scenes from the episode in my head. I was experiencing it. I wasn't quite asleep and I wasn't quite dreaming but it was pretty close. So guess what. I was experiencing pretty much what I was dreaming about, awaking from a dream into a dream. That revelation is what fully awoke me. I opened my eyes and realized that I felt so well rested that it must be late.

OK now to make breakfast. More music tonight I'm going to the release show for Honor Finnegan's Roses and Victory. It's at Rockwood Music Hall Stages 3 at 7 PM. Come join me. I'd check the website to see if there are still tickets available.


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please hold me accountable.





Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018



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Horvendile April 10, 2016
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