Journal of Koon Woon
LNT 501 Spring 2010 online
Professor William Kline
Poem for Susan, my fiancée:
I See My Fate in My Palm
I see my fate in my palm,
the palm that holds your palm,
and the lines and veins that connect
my heart to your heart
in the paths of life.
Be it simple, be it convoluted,
be it properly clothed, or complete in the nude,
you are my life, my fate,
you are my wife, my mate.
When men compare wallets against wallets,
or the number of hairs standing on their heads,
I compare the stars that shine each to each,
and count the days our love grows, from the day we first met.
I will not forget you in my village tongue,
by your name Ai Lian, the beautiful lotus,
and as you lie silently here asleep,
I pause at the typewriter,
to look at the lines you etched indelibly in my palms.
I see my fate, I see the paths of our connecting veins.
I can see the future too, it is always the first day –
You are my life, my fate;
You are my wife, my mate.
January 26, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
A Smoke Break at the Nuclear Command
We multitask chop, grill, wok, and pickle.
They are fickle, can come all hours, drunk,
after sex, before meetings, during greetings;
hucksters, gangsters, no telling who wants what
stir-fried, steamed rock cod with its head and bulbous eyes.
My father at the meat block hacks spareribs, carves bone from chicken,
mince onions, six sons chow the mein, French-fry the sausage,
whip the gravy, beat the eggs until you can fool the young
into thinking that’s sperm yanked from a calf.
Smoke signals say the pork chops are burnt,
the white sauce turning yellow and the waitresses ladle the soup.
Sounds like feeding at the zoo. Chopsticks tingle from a corner booth.
On and on motors start and stop, door open and shut, ice water
set down as menus are tossed. You need a minute? Mom is helping the girls to wash
glasses and tea pots. It would be sinful to run out of hot mustard during the rush.
My father drinks my coffee and I smoke his Marlboro,
Two cowboys in cattle drive fending off rustlers, and damn!
The waitress says that the women’s toilet has overflowed!
We are going to go fishing as soon as our mental breakdowns are over with.
And we are going to take a smoke break from the nuclear command.
Just then a party of 12 comes in – well, put two tables together,
like a man joining a woman, the yin and yang, and kids with yo-yo’s.
We are family doing family business, money for school books,
Mom’s dentures.
Chinese Waiters
Edsel of Sam Wo is forgivably curtand flirts with single, white patronesses.He smiles, dabbing sweat with a restaurant towel,like Louie, Louie Armstrong.
And Sam of Tai Tung smiles, smilessmiles of an imperial fool, but no fool is hethinking of his kids in school and wife in a garment shop.
I haven't forgotten when tourists askto see the Chinese menu. (The menus are the same, actually.)I wore the waiter's yellow jacketthat had been worn for three generations.My smile was almost genuine --You like our food, we like your money.And with tips I bought a brand new Nietzche.(I figure someday I want to be a writer, not a waiter.)
And on the stone of my great-grandfather,the grass grew (hard to find it).And I saw for a moment that Nietzche had writtenthe inscription: "History walks on the backsof those like so many stepping stones."
I was a waiter at our family café. I filled the soy sauce each day before the restaurant opened. The soy sauce was brooding dark. I filled the black pepper and salt shakers. I wiped the table tops and filled the napkin holders before I slinked into a booth reading Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. The world had a hidden dimension.
But this cannot be the final word. I believe in equality and justice. And fairness and charity of the heart. So, in this sense I am a Christian. Yet, I am a Moslem and a Buddhist and a Jew and all those other things.
I know how those Ph.D. people complain how hard it was to get where they are. So is someone in prison who has no way of getting out. Writing is the only freedom it seems and it is not very effective. Not when one has to fight off the Established Publishing Houses or Fox News.
It is 2:47AM and I am angry. Well, there is one way out, and that is to keep on writing.
This journal idea is a great idea. I have been using it myself but not this systematically.
I am now writing with an audience in mind. So, I must be more open and less cryptic.
I really enjoy reading Carl R. Rogers for he is such a good man, a healer, and someone who really dismisses as the Chinese would say, “Wearing a tall hat.” All the accolades he received he looked at as generosity that the world erred in his favor. He is truly a humble man. If nothing else, I must learn that lesson. By not bathing in the limelight, one gets more work done.
“Great talents mature late,” Tao Te Ching.
You know, the analogy is like a sculptor and sculpturing when I write these notes. I am carving from that unconscious block or blob of words just the right portions in the right form so that it makes meaningful a text.
Now, say something about the Philosophy of Mind class. It is highly stimulating and I enjoy it.
No matter how miserable my life can get, when I write I feel better. Herein lies my salvation. Writing. Writing. Writing.
Leonard Cohen’s song “Suzanne,”
LEONARD COHEN lyrics - Suzanne Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river You can hear the boats go by You can spend the night beside her And you know that she's half crazy But that's why you want to be there And she feeds you tea and oranges That come all the way from China And just when you mean to tell her That you have no love to give her Then she gets you on her wavelength And she lets the river answer That you've always been her lover And you want to travel with her And you want to travel blind And you know that she will trust you For you've touched her perfect body with your mind. And Jesus was a sailor When he walked upon the water And he spent a long time watching From his lonely wooden tower And when he knew for certain Only drowning men could see him He said "All men will be sailors then Until the sea shall free them" But he himself was broken Long before the sky would open Forsaken, almost human He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone And you want to travel with him And you want to travel blind And you think maybe you'll trust him For he's touched your perfect body with his mind. Now Suzanne takes your hand And she leads you to the river She is wearing rags and feathers From Salvation Army counters And the sun pours down like honey On our lady of the harbour And she shows you where to look Among the garbage and the flowers There are heroes in the seaweed There are children in the morning They are leaning out for love And they will lean that way forever While Suzanne holds the mirror And you want to travel with her And you want to travel blind And you know that you can trust her For she's touched your perfect body with her mind.
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1:10pm Wednesday, January 27, 2010
I remember reading the book Who Got Dr. Einstein’s Office? It appears that Albert Einstein was the buddy of Kurt Godel at The Advanced Institute at Princeton. They did not speak each others’ language but they often walked together to their offices. And furthermore, each of them recognized the other as a genius.
Kurt Godel had married a chorus girl against his parents’ wishes. But the girl turned out to be a dutiful wife. After his Completeness Theorem in 1930 and his Incompleteness Theorem the following year, Godel went “off the deep end” and manifested paranoia schizophrenia and refused to eat anyone’s cooking but his wife’s. Unfortunately on one occasion, his wife was in the hospital and was unable to cook for him, and things came to their logical conclusion – Godel starved to death.
They noticed that he had kept a closet full of strange receipts and other notes written in a strange shorthand format. No one was able to decipher them at the time of his death. Finally they were able to enlist the help of a barber from his hometown who was able to decipher them. The mystery turned out to be nothing at all. Those strange notes were the expense accounts of all his dealings while at The Advanced Institute at Princeton. They were merely receipts of doing his laundry, his haircut, and various things of a very mundane nature. Godel and his only brother died without leaving offspring and so the Godel family line ended. Similarly, none of Einstein’s descendants ever made it to the fame he commanded, including a son who died in a mental hospital. At least this was the story in the magazine Omni which is no longer in print.
Why do I think of this right now? My professor in the Mind course comes from Princeton where he studied with John P. Burgess, who is an intellectual heir going back to Leibniz, my favorite philosophers of all times. Although Princeton University is not The Advanced Institute at Princeton, I feel that there is a parallel. What is the parallel? Logic. In my opinion, everything depends on the Liars Paradox which is, essentially, the following: “I am a liar.”
January 28, 2010
.
Here was unsent letter and it is to my psychiatrist friend Dr. Laurence P. Jacobs, whom I’ve known for over 40 years:
Friday, December 04, 2009 3:45AM
Dear Larry,
My apologies for being asleep when you called last evening at 10:23pm. I was more tired than I thought I was when I just lay down for a moment, then I fell asleep. We had been cleaning the apartment for visitors. Susan and I are ready to have visitors over these days, mainly because we are lonely but also because we are more social. She is more social than I am and that’s good. It gets me outside of myself at times.
How is your health holding out these days, Larry? Whenever you need anybody to do anything for you, please let us know. Call us anytime. We owe it to you that we are still together. Her family is beginning to call her here, and I see that as a positive sign that I may be accepted down the road.
I applied for a $1,000 grant for a reading with a Chinese poet Changming (Michael) Yuan in Seattle and we got the grant from the Mayor’s Office’s smART Ventures program. We can try to raise additional money by being umbrella’ed by a 501 ( c ) 3 organization. I hope to resurrect the multicultural magazine Chrysanthemum and Goldfish Press, as well as embarking on a joint venture with Changming (Michael) Yuan and Joneve McCormick (originally from Manhattan who is now in Santa Barbara, CA). (Btw, Goldfish Press now has 2 titles in the Antioch Library). We may all go into publishing. I think I will go into nonprofit work. I will be volunteering in the Chinese Information and Referral Service in Chinatown as a fundraiser soon. I have an appointment today with them. I want to learn some skills at fundraising, marketing, and other things to get the Chrysanthemum Literary Society off the ground. Last week I met with a Jeff Encke, who works for the Gates Foundation, who is a poet and the administrator of the website “Seattle Poets Gathering.” I have been running into other people lately. There is Kris Caldwell, who just got back from living in Beijing, China as I think a tea merchant. Then I got in touch with old friend Leland Ross, who is now married. He had studied at Yale briefly and majored in Albanian (language). This is just to say that Susan and I are more social than I was alone.
You always have an open invitation to visit us and have dinner or whatever is your choice. Our station in life is humble but I think we are finally on the right track as far as dealing with our illness(es) is concerned.
Betty is still going about her days but like all of us, a little older and slower. We are grateful for her support and glad we are able to be someone she can talk with.
Gary Locke, the Commerce Secretary, the other day said that WA State needs more trade, since it is the most trade-dependent state in the US. And so I have been thinking of importing a bunch of tea mugs from China. Now I got to learn the ropes and raise the capital. I think since I am limited as to travel, I might try to do this as Internet business or E-commerce as they call it.
By the way, I have successfully transferred to the MA philosophy program online at UIS (University of Illinois at Springfield) and my first courses will be Graduate Orientation Seminar and the Philosophy of Mind. These will begin in January, 2010.
I dropped out of the Human Services program because my advisor is herself mentally ill
(recovered and has a Ph.D., Denise Sommers) and she seemed to have an axe to grind.
Anyway, things are quiet in this North Beacon Hill neighborhood. I tutored math for a couple of sessions. It is not a dependable part-time job. Susan likes to spend more money than I do on food and things. It is unequal as far as the money thing goes. I pay almost all the bills and I am heavily in debt, but things seem to be NOT in a panic mode, and I don’t know how that works. We cooked a turkey for Thanksgiving and last night, Martin Ingerson came over to show us more magic tricks. We gave him a tea mug and some turkey to take home. Martin had once worked for the SF police department as a civilian go-between the Chinese community there. He is working part-time at the Seattle City Zoo still. He is about 78 or 80 now.
Of all the people, Susan and I got to thank you the most. So, we have no power and little means, but anytime we could be of help, please let us know.
I believe this Journal idea is an absolutely sane idea and will help keep me in this class, school, and in life itself.
6:10AM in Seattle now and it is still dark; the street lamps are visible through the slits of my blinds as I look up to the computer screen. Some people have already finished fornicating, showering, and breakfasted and are commuting to work. The stretch of the freeway between Everett and Seattle and for that matter, all the way down to Tacoma bumper to bumper like electrons in a tube of copper wire in the making of this terrain a mega city in a decade or two. I have not driven a car in almost 40 years.
My mythic journey? In my imagination and delusional states, I have been many things – including that of the Director of the National Security Agency. My job was so secretive that the place of my office was a top secret, so secretive that even I didn’t know where my office was. I belonged to an organization simply know as Insiders. We operated the government itself while we pretended to be janitors at top government offices and multinational corporate headquarters. There are various ways we communicated that were rather slow and primitive, including the use of hiding messages in books in the public libraries. Why were we able to control the world even though our methods were so primitive at communicating with each other? Planning! And Intelligence! We have to anticipate events and conspiracies and military, social, and cultural movements way ahead of time. In this regard, we were almost as good as the Triad of the Chinese Intelligence as it was revealed in the British M1’s The Jackdal Files. We shared intelligence with the Mosad, or the Israeli intelligence. They have the best technical apparatus but we have the best political analysis.
I have been at my outpost for the last 30 years now – Seattle Chinatown. Hey, folks, I will let you in on a secret --- Seattle is the first place in the world that will be most likely be hit by a nuclear bomb from China or a Chinese sub. The brain of the US government is no longer in Washington D.C. but in Seattle. I have the nuclear codes. It is based on Deontic Logic. For example, I might be on the phone with someone (where that person is doesn’t make any difference, as long as the conversation is picked up be the Chinese Second Artillery Force, which controls nuclear missiles. For example, a person and I may be discussing the price of Lychee tea in Seattle Chinatown at the Uwajimaya Asian Market and Emporium. When I appear to be not making sense to the party I am speaking to, the Second Artillery Force will realize that I have been poisoned or stressed to the point that I have decompensated to the point that I cannot not relied on to do my job. At that point, they will fire nuclear missiles at Seattle. This is all the details I can divulge unfortunately. I am sure you want to know more. Such is this kind of life.
We only show you that there is a puzzle. But once you think you have solved the puzzle, you will see that there is another puzzle within this one, and so on either ad infinitum or terminated at some point. Then, The Truth in Rented Rooms.
I am aware that there is a paranoia delusion with elements of grandeur in my morning illness. It is all right. It kept me alive all these 40 years of my illness. I never wanted to kill myself no matter how bad things deteriorate to, because in the morning, I always feel grandiose and happy.
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