.diminished discords (x)

this week, on Laeth's mind

you can't step into the same river twice.
you don't know me.

.

an old arab was taken to mecca by plane. when he got there he was unimpressed. when asked why he said his spirit was still walking.

.

lately i feel like Thomas Paine, of all people, and wish to reduce all my theology to:
i believe in God and hope for happiness in the next life.

.

who cares. who dares.
a self in flesh
fleshing out the self.
.

what is being saved from whom seems much more fundamental a question than just who will be saved. the fundamental problem to be solved is the permanence of embodied memory. if death has a meaning it's the loss of embodied memory. if what is saved from everybody is the same, then there is no meaning to this life.

.

nostalgia is our privilege as moderns.

.

if the eastern orthodox motto is Death to the World, the western mormon motto is Life to the Worlds Without End.

.

if i was in charge of my country, the first thing i'd change is the flag. i’m not a monarchist, but our colors are and always will be white (the lusitanian sky) and blue (the atlantic, and the three rivers flowing into it). the current colors are an absurd monstrosity. symbolic acts are powerful and this one would start an unfolding of glory and progress ending with the establishment of the long expected fifth empire, the one of culture and enchantment and romanticism, not of political and economic and bureaucratic domination.

.

picked Tomberg because of birthday tarot card (mine is the wheel) and read some highlighted passages. turns out it probably influenced me more than i remembered. it reads as very anti-esoteric.

.

a Jesus book of proverbs (like Thomas) should have obviously been in the bible. the godman was, if nothing else, one of the best aphorists ever.

.

you can see that many of the questions the churches have fought over are only political because Jesus, the God they supposedly exist to serve, answered them clearly, but in ways that don't bode well for the institutions.

example. where is the true church. it's wherever two or three are gathered in Jesus name. the man said so. but obviously this is bad for the church stores. hence the endless and meaningless debates.

or. how to be saved. love God and neighbor. how to define it. don't worry, the church stores have all the answers. oh wait. it's with your heart, and as your self. you hav to figure it out for yourself. that's too bad. let's ignore that part. it's actually funny that Matt, the biggest church salesman, let this one through.

Matt and Luke sell a religion. John sells what could be called an esoteric path. Mark sells nothing. these metanarratives (or in the case of Mark, lack of one) cannot be true simultaneously. you read the four through one lens alone. Mark is almost chinese in his composition. it could have been Chuang Tzu. impressionistic. no lesson neatly digested for you. no clear timeline or map. you figure it out.

in John i accept the eyewitness, and because of that add a grain of salt. i mean, could you be objective if God resurrected you, and before he himself did. i get it. but the real Jesus was also very human, and in John this comes through especially with the Magdalene. we know why of course, and when you read John with this fundamental key, it’s so absurdly obvious, but it’s still today almost forbidden to say.

.

a bit unjust, perhaps, but a people is their best and their worst. the middle doesn't really matter except in how it contributes and tends to the other two.

.

ethically modified memes are next level metanarrative. amazing.

https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2026/06/ethically-modified-schematic.html

it's the reader who supplies the content. the meme suggests a structure only. neat trick with lots of possibilities. i use this all the time in my fiction, but memes of course go harder because they're so immediate and simple. no nuance, and it's all in your head.

trying one out with only letters:

unpopular opinion: [unpopular opinion].
[picture of man standing in town hall meeting]

.

if i got insanely rich i'd probably try to open a weird school of some sort. jazz mormon school. courses will include happiness, smoking, polytonality appreciation, swing feel and improvisation. what would you teach at the jazz mormon school.

.

i was lost and sought a guide, asked for directions. big mistake, in retrospect. God sometimes tells you to get lost.

.

we were better off when scientists were called 'natural philosophers'. they knew their place better.

.

ever since God said, Fiat Lux
everything has been in flux.
maybe that's the crux.

.

when i connect the dots
i see that God
put everything on the line

.

if the historical approach to sacred texts (whether critical or traditional) is central, then it means they have no enduring relevance. no new lessons now, only the same old lessons from then. (in the case of Jesus, the metafictional element is already present, and thus the more subjective the history). obviously it is a choice to reduce any text to historicity, but i refuse to believe this, especially for important texts. yet this approach is more or less dogma for most churches. but i doubt any member really believes it.

.

to be yourself today you have to be different from what you were yesterday.

.

there are many reasons why machine text is and always will be terrible. but i think one of the most fundamental ones is that machines have no ears.

.

you know who likes microwaves. tiny surfers.

.

the reason printers have never worked well and continue not to is that they fear the second printing revolution.

.

fiction and personal essays are more like biology. speculative nonfiction is more like physics.

.

if you break the rules, do it because you know them, or else to learn them.

.

only humanism can oppose transhumanism. but the trads really like the trans part.

.

that which has been is not what will be
that which is done is not what will be done
and there is always new after the Son.

.

weeping willow
in the wind
whipping willow

.

sentences that start with: I'm sorry but. that's apologetics.

.

thinking and doing are both cool and hot. that machine stuff is lukewarmness defined.

.

i want to do with prose what Wayne Shorter did with harmony. heavily layered narrative simplicity.

.

adversity builds character. that's why it's so useful in fiction.

.

metaphysically, i'm a grovian kingfolletist

.

that omnipresent god is all over the place.
that omniscient god is such a know it all.
i don't have a joke for omnipotence yet.

.

knowing how to be in the right place at the right time is better than omnipresence.

.

the theology and metaphysics stuff is just a side gig. my main focus is writing romantic stories. the latter hits me way harder when i find it and work on it. the sense of ecstasy and discovery in fiction is really incomparable to just thinking in quiet (that is, in writing). it just is. so obviously i think it's truer and more meaningful.

.

what the ancients heard speaking to them from the skies was a modern voice.

.

i tried reading several books at the same time, now i'm cross eyed.

.

whatever the opposite of a sense of humor is, the orthodox of all religions have it. yet all the senses of God have humor.

.

we can't help being cynics. we've seen too much. consequently, we know there's so much more to see, and we can't help being romantics. now imagine how God feels.

.

tradition is not the worship of the ashes, but the smoking of the cigarette. progress is the lighting of another, and cleaning the ashtray.

.

believe to understand gave way to dare to understand which must lead to love to understand.

.

marriedhandedly

.

"doesn' it say in your books that you're gods... so shut up" is still a very relevant and timely reaction from Jesus.

.

the space age was cool because it was about exporting humanity, not about importing alien slop.

.

the ancients always insisted the sphere was the most perfect, but moderns have found the egg is more so. what moderns found was God's demonstrated preference as shown in the workings of nature, rather than the half unconscious delusions of ancient nerds.

.

things americans originated and should rediscover from europe: smoking, jazz.
things europeans originated and should rediscover from america: individualism, pride.

.

thrift store find. a 70s portuguese teenager's celebrity scrapbook. we could tell the store owner was a little sad to see it go.

also found the exact book i was looking for at the thrift store. this is very rare. in fact, i think it's a first. this is the one:

it had a major influence on chapter eight of my last book. but i didn't know about it when i wrote it.

i had a book by this author for twenty years. thought many times of reading it, but never did. in the end i picked it up not even six months after the author died, a fact i was unaware of at the time. she is now a household name.

and it turns out i could have easily met her. i trust it's all for a good reason, but it’s still striking. she was a weird catholic, which is the type of person who goes straight to exaltation, no questions asked. so no doubt we can still talk plenty. which probably explains the chapter influence from a book i hadn’t read yet.

.

accidental Jesus fish.

.

the day i write a screed against non fiction the stack shows me this:

In Tel-Aviv everyone is Jewish, even the crackheads.

it’s very funny and has heart, and also very, very, very well written. i actually read it out loud to my wife and the rhythm is perfect. every single sentence. really amazing.

.

places that influenced settings in my last book (Powerless).

and new reviews of it:

“If in sketches of Alice Laeth began to stretch his wings, in powerless Laeth has begun to fly. This book was a breeze to read, immersive and rhythmic and flowing…

Laeth is a Woody Allen fan, and he has done something of what Allen has done for NY, for Lisbon…

This book is the most accessible introduction to Laeth’s work, but also the most artistically complete. A beautiful book. I loved it.”

i would like to note in this review the first instance ever recorded of the term ‘laethian dialogue’. for future scholarship. and also the first comparison to Woody Allen, which is probably the best compliment on my writing i will ever receive.

read the whole thing here:

powerless (Laeth)

.

“A Masterful Mosaic of Humanity… Laeth writes with a rare combination of emotional precision, philosophical depth, and quiet lyricism… truly original and immersive.”
~ Susana Imaginário

read the whole thing here.

.

today’s musical portion is not jazz. or is it.

my favorite JS Bach is the stuff people considered as academic, exercises good for teaching, but not real music. i must have student ears. The Art of the Fugue is at the top for me. the more involved it gets, the more i like it. i prefer the versions with organ, but couldn’t find this specific one, so string quartet it is (rather than piano, which doesn’t do it justice).

it sounds to me half Wayne Shorter half Villa Lobos. Bach really invented everything.

.