Rome > Abu Dhabi—Jan 31, 2015

Dear Inurnet ..

.. 1 day in Rome .. in jetlagged stupor walking round under threat of rain looking for sumplace to live for time bean .. walked all the way along spine of Monteverde then back up along Gianicolo ..

past ghostly busts

Roman jaguar meme

view from 47 hotel

ponte sisto (for now staying just on the other side)

.. still unsure about our living situation .. getting a lease + ponying up deposit for such a short 4-6 month time a pain .. might just do the airbnb thing + float around various quarters of Rome ..

.. sometimes the best decision = not to make 1 ..

.. 2 nights to eat at our 2 favorite places w/ old friends .. 1° night at Osteria Gensola .. had linguini w/ sea urchin + artichokes .. 2° night at Da Teo .. had cacio e pepe w/ shrimp + lime + puntarelle (had for lunch too) ..

.. on the plane now .. our mind warped by Bataille's Inner Experience .. + also watching Whiplash .. both about how to achieve perfection .. bliss .. which is absence (in Inner Experience anyway .. in Whiplash u get pushed to limit by asshole teacher til a rupturing occurs) .. absence of thawt or knowledge achieved by excessive excess ..

«This is the work of discourse within us: And this difficulty is expressed in this way: the word silence is still a sound, to speak is in itself to imagine knowing, and to no longer know, it would be necessary to no longer speak.»

.. + then later he says: «I will only give one example of a slipping word. I say word: it could also be the phrase in which one inserts the word, but I limit myself to the word silence.»

.. from the getgo Bataille self-aware of the hypocrisy of writing such a book as Inner Experience .. a rambling self-contradiction .. drafty + full of holes .. comes sum fucked zen koan making u dizzy w/ despair .. trying in vain to answer questions w/ no answers .. the text nullifies itself as it becomes writ .. as it rolls off the tongue ..

.. a book not to read .. but for eyes to glaze over as if in sum other language .. language on 1 hand the most limited medium in the art world .. on the other the most direct (in regards to accessing inner workings of mind .. empirically bypassing senses) .. for what else matters? .. movement of eye (± I) across the page inducing thawt as in REM .. reading in motion .. encapsulated ions 35,000 feet in the sky .. not as in distance up but appendages used for mobility ..

Abu Dhabi from the air

.. now Abu Dhabi > Delhi ..

.. tout merde mais tout merde to begin .. verbal masturbation begging for beginning or 7^th inning stretch .. just an exercise for something else .. OK perhaps intresting as a blog but as a book not sure it holds H₂O .. the 1^st Bataille wrote .. as in 1^st pancake .. a bit overwhelming in such an environ .. mind wandering on how to tune out distraction (which in travel bombard from all sides + senses .. even putting Swans on volume 10 cant drown out the background chatter ..) how to keep singing yur song w/o getting off tune .. w/o letting it into your head .. how to embrace the chaos + discomfort + petty annoyances .. how to read (or travel) + process w/o rehashing (½ the book Bataille quotes others mainly Nietzsche + Blanchot (whose Thomas Obscure he delves into in great depth as did Derrida)) but turn it into sumthing productive + new .. to add to the body of literature ..

.. at 1^st we thawt it strange to read Bataille on way to India but in talking of religion (which he annoyingly does a lot) he seems to reference Hinduism most .. «Strange coincidence between the naive philosophy of sacrifice (in ancient India) and the philosophy of supplicating nonknowledge...» + later he says «nonknowledge communicates ecstasy» just an awkward rehashing of ignorance is bliss ..

.. even if to criticize (Bataille religion + us Bataille) .. critical judgment the only response that matters .. as Whiplash implies .. no point in saying «good job» .. no pain no gain .. nothing ventured ....

Delhi—Feb 1

Only so much we cd take of Bataille's pretentious navel-gazing dribble so switched to The Internet's Own Boy .. that documentary about Aaron Swartz .. sad story (talk about dying for our sins) but we've gone on enough about Swartz before dear Inurnet ..

.. arrived Delhi (or New Delhi never know which) around 2:30 AM .. so smoggy cd see smog inside the airport .. a thick haze .. eyes + throat burning w/in minutes .. our pineal pinged .. confused w/ time zones + room #s .. probly stayed in a dozen different hotels in ½ a dozen different time zones so far in 2015 .. went to sleep w/ curtains drawn + slept til 10:30 AM (rare for us) .. got up to get breakfast that ended at 10:30 .. told them room 104 + ordered some food for our better ½ still sleeping .. got up to 104 still in a fog + figured it the right room cuz had the «My Time» thing hanging from doorknob (why does every hotel have to have their own clever way of saying do not disturb?) .. but card dont work so back down to the lobby + they fix it but when i open 104 some strange dude sitting there at his computer .. cd've been worse but he cool about it since British .. go down find out correct room # = 102 change key + quickly re-route breakfast delivery ..

.. exercise sum then tuk-tuked to India Gate .. + walked along that wide mall thing to Parliament bldg .. wake of debris leftover from Obama's visit a few days ago ..

remnants of sum sort of display made out of styrofoam + marigolds

pile after pile of chairs

India Gate

normally dont like to take pics of people but this guy in blue kept smacking (hard) the kid in purple (while rest of family including man holding kid looked away in complete apathy) so held the camera on them to at least make them uncomfortable or conscious of it

.. G+T's + murg chicken + dosas + dahl then slept an hour but woke up wide awake .... writing this in dark .. drunk people stumbling thru halls of hotel .. perpetually smells of smog/smoke .. smog seems to be worse at night maybe cuz using wood for cooking fuel? .. 3:15 AM (MON) .. 4:45 PM (SUN) in NYC (why India confuses things even more by ±0:30 beyond us .. + to get even more convoluted in Nepal) .. Superbowl starts in 1 hour but we cant see it here even if we tried ..