Cycle 20: Life Expectancy

Against the Grain

1. Spread out an old newspaper on the floor.

2. Place a mirror – it should be at least as big as your head – on the newspaper.

3. Squat on the floor, tipping your head forward till you can see it squarely in the mirror.

4. For a close shave, set the clipper to the lowest (0) setting.

5. Hold the base of the clipper with one hand and guide the blade with the other following the contours of your skull. Watch the ears!

6. Go over the entire scalp first longitudinally then latitudinally to catch hair with different grains.

7. Brush the hair from the clippers, then oil the blades to keep them clean and sharp.

Maskmaker, Maskmaker

1. Wash your face with an exfoliating cleanser morning and evening.

2. Take daily antioxidant supplements of ascorbyl palmitate, tocotrienol, alpha lipoic acid, and DMAE.

3. Protect your skin with an SPF 15 or higher sunscreen before venturing outdoors.

4. Apply a face moisturizer with alpha and beta hydroxy acids at bedtime.

5. Scrub your face with a deep pore cleanser once a week.

6. Get a monthly facial with extractions. For problem skin, see a dermatologist.

7. Sell your soul to Mephistopheles. (The devil’s in the genes. Besides, how are you gonna pay for all this shit?)

Three-Minute Proust (or Giants in Time)


Swann’s Way

Don’t fall in love with a whore.

Under the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower

Let love multiply you.

The Guermantes Way

Do not squander precious solitude in pursuit of the specious fancies of the capricious multitude.

Sodom and Gomorrah

Observe the marvelous compositions of desire. Leave the judging to jealous gods.

The Captive

Don’t expect truth from love.

The Fugitive

Let flow.

Time Regained

Don’t wait until tomorrow – Life comes unexpectedly.















In the Teeth of Time


Let my flesh nourish wiggling maggots, worms, and chirruping birds.

Let my penis fertilize a male ginkgo tree.

Let my carpals, metacarpals, and phalanges be assembled and disassembled by giggling schoolchildren.

Let my pelvis be sculpted and painted by a brilliant anatomartist.

Let my glands be dried and ground into love medicine.

Let my intestines string singing violins and whistling tennis rackets, my skin stretch over twinkling tambourines, let my ribs – struck with a yarn-covered radius or ulna – array a marimba, a resonating ossiphone.

Let my skull hold daisies, carnations, and baby’s breaths bursting out of gay noseholes and flowering eyesockets.















Chronomania/Chronophobia


Time is running out – stop running! / Time is running – ride it out.

Be extravagant when you’re wasting time – spend it like there’s no tomorrow. / Make art – save time.

Breathe. As long as you’re breathing there’s still time. / Believe in eternity if you must, you can even die for it - but don’t live for it.

Man is the only animal that wastes time. (Time is an old habit of the mind we don’t know how to live without yet.)








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