mal de coucou
n. a phenomenon in which you have an active social life but very few close friends—people who you can trust, who you can be yourself with, who can help flush out the weird psychological toxins that tend to accumulate over time—which is a form of acute social malnutrition in which even if you devour an entire buffet of chitchat, you’ll still feel pangs of hunger.
June 2013
41 posts
astrophe
n. a hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head—a crisp analysis, a cathartic dialogue, a devastating comeback—which serves as a kind of psychological batting cage where you can connect more deeply with people than in the small ball of everyday life, which is a frustratingly cautious game of change-up pitches, sacrifice bunts, and intentional walks.
“🎶 Oh no sir
I must say you’re wrong
I must disagree
Oh no sir
I must say you’re wrong
Won’t you listen to me? 🎶” —Goodbye Horses
I must say you’re wrong
I must disagree
Oh no sir
I must say you’re wrong
Won’t you listen to me? 🎶” —Goodbye Horses
“Kesey’s explicit teachings were all cryptic, metaphorical; parables, aphorisms: “You’re either on the bus or off the bus.” “Feed the hungry bee,” “Nothing lasts,” “See with your ears and hear with your eyes,” “Put your good where it will do the most,” “What did the mirror say? It’s done with people.”
—Tom Wolfe — The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test
“Foster was a tall, curly-headed guy in his late twenties with a terrible stutter. He was a mathematician and had been working in Palo Alto as a computer programmer, making a lot of money, apparently. Then he started hanging out with some musicians and they turned him on to a few … mind-expanders, and now Foster’s life seemed to alternate between stretches of good straight computer programming, during which he wore a necktie and an iridescent teal-green suit of Zirconpolyesterethylene and was a formidable fellow in the straight world, and stretches of life with … Speed, the Great God Rotor, during which he wore his Importancy Coat. This was a jacket he had turned into a collage. It had layers and layers of ribbons and slogan buttons and reflectors and Cracker Jack favors all over it, piled up and flapping in the breeze until it looked like a lunatic billowsleeve coat from out of the court of Louis XV.”
—Tom Wolfe — The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test
“
One day Paul Foster cranked up the great God Rotor and sat down and worked on a very intricate illuminated billhead. When he got through, there was an ornate black border, and in the middle the words
IN MEMORIAM
in florid Old English lettering, and at the bottom: January 23, 1966, the day Kesey disappeared. Nothing else, just In Memoriam and the date. He hung it up on the wall.
” —Tom Wolfe — The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test
“I’m stuck in the front waiting for vampire Weekend to get on stage, surrounded by Apple fans, with an empty PBR. And an uncharged pebble on my wrist. Saddesthipsterintheworld.tumblr.com”
—Me, via iMessage
Today was what?. That’s what today was. What?
