richiki's New Writeups

an update: (poetry)

2013-04-11T23:35:07Z

an update:

the two fucks i looked around and around for

so that I could give to you

I could not find.

exhausted, i dry-heaved myself to sleep on my pillow.

June 14, 2012 (personal)

2012-06-14T23:23:17Z

What's going to happen next?

(It's been a while since the below happening, and in order to move forward from the below, I've editted the below to de-personalize it.)

A small preface.

This was originally titled "please help," and I published it yesterday evening as a Facebook note. I've so far received no responses. I now publish this on everything2.com to see if I get a different response. At least, downvoted or up, I know somebody read this.Â

Regards,

Hassan

--------------------------

Dear everyone,Â Â

It may be a while since you last knew what I was up to, but I've been working in New York City as a web developer, at companies like Thrillist, NBC, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and most recently, Time Inc. It's been no news that we're unhappy with the "system", vis-a-vis Occupy Wall Street and similar movements, but until aforementioned system booted me out on my ass this Monday, I never knew I was the fortunate 1%.…

On having holy cows as an essential part of your musical breakfast (review)

2012-01-02T17:35:17Z

Something interesting happens to you as you become a better and better musician. Somehow, it's like the musicians become as real as their music, and you don't really feel like you need to meet them in person at all. You already are, in a song. Who they are is completely laid bare - you know, just because you now can, that the song you're listening to has been fiddled with so many times in so many different ways; dodged so many a bullet to become or stay the song you're listening to right now and none other. Such that the thinking process that left the song as it is completely bare. Whatever they left out is a clear oversight, intentional, or unintentional.

For example, take a musical "geniusmiracle", like the Beatles' "Yesterday".

While, I didn't like the Beatles, nor felt like I had to, "Dear Prudence" is like, kinda perfect to me. So I'm somewhat forgiving if a similar musical experience in their catalogue is what happened to everyone else, and then it became widespread belief that…

The absurdity considered in an act of charity (essay)

2011-12-14T05:01:18Z

In a deli this afternoon, I saw a donation box for a charity for autism beside the register. ItÂ read something like,Â "Donate today, and help a child with autism," with a picture of a bald kid on the side.

And then I thought - supposing this was the most efficient charity in the world, and I was slipping a dollar bill through that hole right into the child's hand,

Then I looked back at the picture of the bald kid, and started laughing.Â

In fact, the employee getting me my coffee thought I was laughing at her, and she was a little brisk and hostile giving me back my change.

But let's think of it. Am I /really/ doing something "selfless" if the absolute most efficient the act of putting a dollar into a jar could be is moving the dollar undiverted into the hands of a kid? Otherwise, what sort of amplification effect could a plastic box with a slot on it have? How should I believe so much in human beings, that as a matter of ordinary reality, the best you could hope for -…

A Commentary on Hakuin's letter to a Nun (essay)

2011-11-21T12:57:56Z

A commentary I wrote this morning on Hakuin's Letter in Answer to an Old Nun Of the Nichiren Sect (f.y.i. which talks a lot about the Law of the Lotus)

If you haven't seen the Law of the Lotus yet, have faith in it until you do. Water doesn't run up the side of mountain, neither will consciousness move that way, even though it could try to. For the frictionless glide doesn't have an agenda when it is spot on accurate each time it follows along the path of least resistance, which is always the auspicious direction.

Tao is said to be close to water for a reason, because fundamentally, the flow of your consciousness and the flow of water are not constructed out of two materials - the whole universe is the same thing. The laws of physics, if you like, pervade space evenly.

So as it is, consciousness flows rivers of motion through my limbs, with nothing to fundamentally differentiate my…

"Bass Players": From the life of the composer as a young man. (fiction)

2011-10-30T02:08:45Z

...You know the type of guy who will sit obsessing over the bassline to some obscure piece of psychedelic pop. The pipe 'o Missus Jane is with you, finally, and you're feeling generous, like giving whatever he's saying as much as a shot as possible, including liking this song of his. It's ok, you acknowledge to him.

And he's there on his bed, wafting in the breeze of the music, pointing at the notes in the bassline, while nodding his head. Eyes open or closed: optional, depending upon the particulars of his gentle mood. You're smiling outwardly, but a little part of you is going fuck, this is the kind of thing that could go for a while. And then you're also like, "fucking bass payers, with their whole Parliament / Earth, Wind & FireÂ vibe." The whole fucking lot. Quit obsessing over some obscure detail of groove, you fucking hippie, and get on with the rest of the song. You know!?