When it became apparent I wasn't going to finish the fifteen facebook messages and emails I'd started or play piano or anything like that I went on a three and a half hour walk in the forest. I listened to
1. Radiolab - REBROADCAST: Emergence
2. Radiolab SHORTS: The Distance to the Moon (Short story by Italo Calvino, read by Liev Schreiber)
3. All Songs Considered - New music from the Polyphonic Spree, Jon Hopkins, and more
4. Flaming Lips - At War with the Mystics
It was an interesting time to hear the first Radiolab episode, because the same topic (the concept of Emergence) is discussed in the Ant Fugue (and throughout) in the book I am simultaneously reading, Escher, Godel, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter, using the same analogy. Emergence is the opposite concept of reductionism (which says that the understanding of an organism or phenomenon can be deduced from looking at its smallest constituent parts) and as I understand without looking it up on wikipedia, also a reaction to it. It says that many independent agents acting on their own limited knowledge and for their own benefit create very wise and functional systems. This is wonderful. I knew this concept already but did not know the name, and now a cohesiveness between many expressions of it emerge.
Expressions of Emergence
1. Capitalism (Laissez Faire)
2. Ant Colonies (Ants following pheromones toward food or other signals, which one ant stumbled across stupidly and by chance)
3. Consciousness (From neurons with no understanding of wonderful complete things like coffee -> the example used in radio lab)
4. The Internet (Google organizes large masses of information on a spectrum of usefulness and correctness and the most popular hits are rewarded by being listed first - thus the mean of human internet wisdom contribution is also the most accurate (if studies regarding the wisdom of crowds to find the count of a jar of jelly beans are reliable.)
5. Symphony (I heard this as an example - but I argue it is not since the contributors are conscious of the overall effect)
The next was the moon story. It's lovely, you should probably just read or listen to it. The forest was quite rainy off and on and as I walked in and out of under cover I met swells and decrescendos of rain and brightness which sometimes fit very well with the narrative; pangs of lust, the moon retreating forever, somersaults with moon cheese et cetera. Fiction is the most supreme form of creative expression, that is my opinion. Because it is relatable but not about anyone real (explicitly), so you don't have to compare yourself to it or remain entirely accurate - you can vary to make a point. Also, it is more memorable than nonfiction and in most peoples primary language. I envy people who have a great musical understanding in this way but I do not.
At this point in the forest, about an hour and a half in, was when my energy started to not be so frenetic and I was winning my brain back. (Starting to feel like a regular normal human being.) I started thinking about the journalistic fiction I want to write (being as fiction is the most supreme form of expression and I am uniquely enabled for the form being as I read so many author biographies in prefaces and have modeled my life after them by reading between the lines) and it became very clear that the things that have already happened in the last two and a half years of living in arcata are a very solid foundation for falling in love with a place and having a lot to say about it. I love Arcata.
I remember the reasons I hated the place when I moved here: people smile at you on the streets, people who don't even know you. There is no privacy, you see people you know everywhere. There is nowhere to escape, nothing open 24 hours, no endless streets to wander. Most of these reasons are exactly what I love most about Arcata now, though I do often wish there were more streets to wander. I'm sure I've seen every street.
I spent a year cloistered in an austere house on D street, the Mansion on the second floor, with austere homebodied women who were diligent in their studies and religions. I ran a lot and devoted myself to my own religion, learning piano in the most ascetic way. (I know people who have not progressed past asceticism study of their instrument, which I find much more hindering than being distracted from boys and jobs i.e., well-roundedness). I began to unhinge all this by dating and going to shows late at night and interacting in organic ways. It's evolved into walking around town and talking to a lot of people who I know and don't, being brazenly hedonistic in long stretches, and hanging out with people without an itinerary, just prodding the situation for some spontaneous awesomeness. This type of living in unprecedented except by my childhood which included a lot of bullshitting and wandering and biking around until the sun set, with whoever lived in my neighborhood. It demands shutting down the analytical portion of my brain which has until recently been dominant, and being more presently responsive. It's easier at night when you are drunk, for instance, since your brain is exhausted and doesn't want to be used anyway, but a life that does not forsake intelligence. In fact, the loosest and happiest friendly and flowing savages in this town have a great reserve of instant wit, probably aided by the fact that they are so relaxed. I have many lovely anecdotes -
(running into dave one million times, him knocking on my window asking to be let in; climbing the highest hill above twinkling arcata with JT to reflect on what just happened ( in the very next anecdote) and also Jason's dream (the view from a very high point looking down on all of california at once, holding hands and singing); a six hour jam session which got very heavy on the synth and t sax and me belting out some crazy song stuff...) - all of this in 24 hours ish - so much more engaging than non-fiction.
Since I am a daywalker between both (generalized) worlds and believe in the virtue of all these conflicting things-
(-Religious zealots with minds of their own and and also atheists with values
-classical musicians who play the ink and also jazz jam dudes who can't read the ink
-people who make plans to do exciting things and also people who make no plans in faith that exciting things will be stumbled upon and said yes to
-early risers and also night birds
-productiveness reigns supreme and also "the intent of productivity just to manufacture finished things" is abhorrent
-Grateful Dead is stupid, and also Grateful Dead had some good studio cuts, and also remember Europe '76 in Sugaree wasn't that the most supreme music of all history
-Relationship traditionalism (dating, loyalty) and also acting irreverently and passionately
-Shows that start at 8pm and also shows that say 8pm on the poster and mean 11
-Alcohol is indulgent and also alcohol is a superb social tool
-Text messages should be replied to and also text messages don't need to be replied to
-Science is the key to solving worldly mysteries, spirituality is the key to solving worldly mysteries, and worldly mysteries don't need to be solved)
-I have trouble remembering between all of my friends who will be very offended if I show up ten minutes late and who will show up twenty-five minutes late. It's occurred to me since first writing this that I am mainly talking about the differences between drummers/surfers/locals or soCalis/growers/gigging musicians and everyone else who represents the real world: scientists/east coasters/classical musicians/homeschooled friends/friends over 30..
Something I was recently having difficultly with, regarding the size of the town, is the exoskeletal waste of previous mini-lives in this town. Ex-relationships, friends based on GE classes which have since ended, people I had a great back and forth thing at a party with but it turns out we're not going to get that close.. Previous scarcity of human contact in my life has made me reluctant to cut-off the input into any relationship, but the truth is that a relationship feebly maintained by text messages with <3hearts<3 is more of a liability than anything else. Basically, you go on a walk in this short little town, and you see houses where you used to party and sleep in and love in, and people from these activities all the time. I greet ex-friends and ex-lovers and wish very badly I could still hold them all in my hands.
I have had a series of conversations with JT about this, who says you have to just be careful about not doing anything permanently embarassing. He used as an example three charismatic local characters who've had strings of dramatic inidents with lovers and jealousy that have rendered them socially impotent. They flirt with everyone at parties and they're gorgeous, but they have had too many flings with too many overlapping strings, and they 'wonder why their lives suck.' (I want to call attention to his limited truth - I know many assholes that I love who call each other assholes.)
Actually what he said is something like you have to be okay with the idiotic things you've done. After two years many people who know me now know the ways in which I am alternately flaky, erratic, obsessive, and isolated still like me or know how to deal with me at least.
Removing yourself from this culture or actively deciding to not participate also seems to be an common option. Most people who go to Humboldt State are temporary residents, naturally. Some people maintain this attitude for their duration and ignore the culture. They have friends and relationships strictly their age and through the college, and keep the political and street attitudes of bakersfield or LA or whatever. A few of my friends adopted this when it hit them they were graduating- already people who kept to themselves, they cut ties in January and failed to invest in anything new. (The opposite occurs - musicians who graduate and hang around for a few years to fill spots in Calypso)
I've heard stories in the last few days about legendary houses from a few years ago - The bakery, the c-spot, the brewery, the jungle, the tower - which could be bounced between on a little chunk of 9th street at D. This community consisted mainly of drummers and there seems to be forty of them, who all are on very publicly intimate terms. Of course the last of everyone who lived in arcata at the height of this has finally had their senior percussion recitals and graduated. I was at the liquidation of the last fortress, the Bakery, on Hippie Christmas, ie., May 31st when leases end and free piles are put on the curb. (June second: the curbs of this city are littered with the bones: coat hangers, useless plastic kitchen crap) From the Bakery I scored a pre 1989 world globe, a brass ring someone found in the garage, a silk sarong, and a bathroom rug which we ended up throwing out because it smelled like pee, and witnessed the administration of the crap by a slew of former residents of the bakery. There was a lot of "oh, this was mine. I totally forgot this existed."
I want so badly to ask a million questions about the community there, to build it up in my imagination. From two accounts I can only gather there was a lot of hanging out. Like, you are tired of being alone so you go to another house where there are nineteen people like hanging out or drumming. Many people I know have lived here for six years or four, and I walk with them and kind of trail behind, since they greet everyone with bear hugs (let me be clear, I am again talking about JT) and who am I but this girl who doesn't even play drums. In comparison to this kind of personality I am inward and shy, but compared to people who are inward and shy I am extremely social and have an enormous network. I have to remember that. And at the same time, I am efforting to establish community of my own. I believe in gathering like-minded friends for activities and living with musicians. Sounds great.
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