?...! & !...?

Divining the demonic spirit of Socrates, i offer a quasi-genuine apology: advanced warning of incoherence and irrelevance. Enticing, isn't it? [Today is the last day of Reading Period, mind you. Or: this is being written in an agonizing moment of delusion, 4:30 in the a.m.]

In this precious space, campus forum, personal identity campaign, you will find none of the following: inspiring commentary on the pressing political events of the day (i don't know what they are; where the hell is that newspaper anyway?), amusing ridicule of our hapless student government (self-parody speaks volumes, oops), or even entertaining analysis of quirky personalities (unless autobiography counts, i generously surmise.

Today happens to be the deadline for the fourth paper i managed to craft during these High Holy days of intellectual skullduggery. Seven pages, 10 pages, 10 pages, 10 pages plus. Nevermind the fait accompli! i've communed with the Great Ones (Plato, Thomas Mann, Nietzsche, etc.) and i (fortunately?) live to tell the tale. Ad nauseum? No, perchance the limits of space conspire with time (consider us both lucky.)

These last two weeks have been a hazy existence narrated by caffeine-induced hyper-consciousness. And i concede an addiction to foreign substances: 'grade a ultra-pasteurized homogenized light cream and pure cane granu lated sugar.' Voltaire supposedly consumed many a cup--did he also die to life?

Fellow students wander about like decorative apparitions as i begin to wonder if i've overcome that embarrassing signpost of human frailty: the need for 'sleep' I admit that the lack of depth perception and a gnawing irritability follow me like demons form term paper hell (the seventh layer?), but the streaks of blood in my eyes are rather quite captivating, And as i peer beyond conventional punctuation (lazy enough to be a pioneer), i feel i've live many months in the last few days--years by the hour?

My inability to formulate even seemingly coherent self-important self-referential self-same (you could/couldn't care less, i'm sure), leads me to a desperate measure. I now share selected tidbits of curious treasure excavated during my reflective expedition.

Attempting to ascertain Eugene Delacroix's theory of painting as 'life,' i might've learned more than intended. An unsettling detail form his published journal (translated from the French, courtesy of the Fogg): "Last Tuesday morning, a little baggage named Marie--19 years old--came to pose. I took a big chance of a disease with her." (Now that's romantic.)

And one night (epiphany not too long ago, was it?) i reconciled the false world-historical contradiction between ethics and aesthetics. (irony: the resurgent dawn of nihilism.) I probably should've written it down, but i plead 'catnap': coerion by my spiteful and neglected excuse for a body: the revenge of R.E.M. Or was that a dream? Is not this a dream? Of course, isn't 'sleep' still a prerequiste for 'dreams'?

And there is more (though i still couldn't guarantee the quailty), but 'alas' the bottom of the page menacingly nears. Tomorrow is the beginning of the End (or so i'm told). I've shrouded my exhausted PowerBook in a dark place and consider perusing those scrawling captured in colorful notebooks. So now I selflessly wish good fortune for all in the coming days. But remember to kill yourself in style: i recommend Hawaiian Kona.