Your Desk is Your Head: The Inner Sanctum {Loren Goodman}

SEOUL, Korea, October 19 —

From time to time these words from Sonny Mishra come to
mind.

“The nature of prose is to perish…”

Looking for these words of Paul Valery, I find others:

“Man's great
misfortune is that he has no organ, no kind of eyelid or brake, to mask or
block a thought, or all thought, when he wants to”

and others:

“At times I think and at times I am.”

Pirooz says something
that strikes home: strike out and there’s no home run. Then he says
this: “Your desk is your head.” Or “Your room is your mind.” I forget. We spend
the majority of baseball practice stealing home.

Which suits you best?

A desk of one’s own.

A desk with a view.

This desk enwraps me; love requited, passion attained. But I
am conscious of a desk more mysterious than this.

When you ask me to speak about women and poetry I sit down
on the banks of a river and begin to wonder what words mean. If my desk is my
head, what are my feet? This room has a mind of its own.

What is this?

“Shah + oo + uh + tah + or” = Shower Towel.

I’m proud of my modest Korean
language skills.

And so begins Jongno Fall Cleaning, 2009: EVERYTHING MUST GO!

Flight to Japan is delayed an hour, so I eat grilled
mackerel and get a foot massage. Good combo. Note to self: next time try the
grilled feet & mackerel massage. Feels nice to get the legs all lubed up,
lying back, towel over eyes (tall Texan next to me: “don’t y’all have any woman
massagers?”). Masseuse stabs toes and soles, scraping down the arches. “Too
hard!” Masseuse responds: “It is painful for everyone. No pain, no gain.”
Masseuse jabs tip of big toe, other foot-parts in succession: “This is your
brain… your brain is ok… this is your stomach… your stomach is not so good… this
is your liver… this is your right shoulder—a little stiff… this is your right
neck… are you under stress?” It makes sense. As he pinpoints body parts through
the other foot, I ask for the map: “What’s that? What’s that? What’s that?”

Here’s to Feng Shui Reflexology!

If
a desk is a mind, then I’ve come to mine. Time to start dig-drillin’!

Let’s see
what we uncover:

Stack
Cross-Section (projected from seismic & geothermal readings)

Even the crust is rich: an essay from graduate student Gu Jaun, awaiting
comments, accompanied by the following note: “Recently I read Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde, and I got a better understanding on how original short story and two
"Fly" films partly come from Stevenson's novel (Especially on the
notion of body as a suit of clothes: "fleshly vestment" and "the
veil of flesh").”

Anyone know of any other literary antecedents?

Black gold: Tao's book. Thar she
blows! It’s a literal geyser.

Map of Suidobashi in Tokyo. Paleontologists take note: there's a Uni-Qlo in La Qua, but no fresh fruit.

Just past the upper mantle–a remarkable find! Lovin' it. Thanks to "The Razor" (Stuart), ten signed copies of Dead Cars in Managua have made their way to Seoul; we'll be using them in class soon.