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ununoriginalmore and more i believe in each book in its own time. i bought 'villa incognito' by tom robbins at least half a year ago, but never felt like reading it until recently, and days after that, i was in cambodia, not far from the region where the novel is set. so here's a bit from the quirky little book for me to remember it by:
---
meet me in Cognito, baby,
in Cognito we'll have nothing to hide.
let's go incognito, honey,
and let the world believe that we've died.
meet me in Cognito, baby,
of course we'll have to color our hair.
the best thing about life in Cognito
is that everybody's nobody there.
meet me in Cognito, darling,
sure, some may think that it's rash.
but you'll look chic incognito
with your fake nose and groucho moustache.
meet me in Cognito, baby.
we'll soon leave our pasts behind us.
the present is always a mystery,
as the future never fails to remind us.
once we're alone in Cognito,
we'll remove all of our clothes very fast,
but though we be as naked as jaybirds,
at no time will we take off our masks.
cinderella went incognito,
and it's said that she had a ball.
it's always midnight in Cognito
by the black clock at the end of the hall.
we're destined to be clandestine,
incognito is our very last hope.
i'll meet you where the sun don't shine,
with a fake i.d. and some dope.
so do join me in Cognito,
you know that i'll never tell.
we'll sneak in the back door of heaven
and stroll unnoticed through hell.
incognito
incognito
there, every day's a surprise.
incognito
incognito
where truth tells all the best lies.
(those who travel in Cognito
-- their very lives can depend on a hunch.
they eat intuition for breakfast
and sip cold paranoia at lunch.)
if you won't meet me in Cognito,
baby, i'm apt to go out of my head.
but if you can't really handle incognito,
meet me in Absentia, instead.
the One Who is Missing is missing,
He can't run but He certainly can hide.
His ghost car is parked in Cognito,
do you think He might give us a ride?
you play the game incognito,
you risk paying a very stiff price.
you'll bet the ranch on number 13,
though that number is not on the dice.
no news is good news in Cognito.
addresses are damn hard to find.
the queen of spades runs the mailroom,
and all the postmen are legally blind.
just because you're naked
doesn't mean you're sexy,
just because you're cynical
doesn't mean you're cool.
you may tell the greatest lies
and wear a brilliant disguise
but you can't escape the eyes
of the one who sees right through you.
in the end what will prevail
is your passion not your tale,
for love is the holy grail,
even in Cognito.
so better listen to me, sister,
and pay close attention, mister:
it's very good to play the game,
amuse the god, avoid the pain,
but don't trust fortune, don't trust fame,
your real self doesn't know your name
and in that we're all the same:
we're all incognito.
in Cognito we'll have nothing to hide.
let's go incognito, honey,
and let the world believe that we've died.
meet me in Cognito, baby,
of course we'll have to color our hair.
the best thing about life in Cognito
is that everybody's nobody there.
meet me in Cognito, darling,
sure, some may think that it's rash.
but you'll look chic incognito
with your fake nose and groucho moustache.
meet me in Cognito, baby.
we'll soon leave our pasts behind us.
the present is always a mystery,
as the future never fails to remind us.
once we're alone in Cognito,
we'll remove all of our clothes very fast,
but though we be as naked as jaybirds,
at no time will we take off our masks.
cinderella went incognito,
and it's said that she had a ball.
it's always midnight in Cognito
by the black clock at the end of the hall.
we're destined to be clandestine,
incognito is our very last hope.
i'll meet you where the sun don't shine,
with a fake i.d. and some dope.
so do join me in Cognito,
you know that i'll never tell.
we'll sneak in the back door of heaven
and stroll unnoticed through hell.
incognito
incognito
there, every day's a surprise.
incognito
incognito
where truth tells all the best lies.
(those who travel in Cognito
-- their very lives can depend on a hunch.
they eat intuition for breakfast
and sip cold paranoia at lunch.)
if you won't meet me in Cognito,
baby, i'm apt to go out of my head.
but if you can't really handle incognito,
meet me in Absentia, instead.
the One Who is Missing is missing,
He can't run but He certainly can hide.
His ghost car is parked in Cognito,
do you think He might give us a ride?
you play the game incognito,
you risk paying a very stiff price.
you'll bet the ranch on number 13,
though that number is not on the dice.
no news is good news in Cognito.
addresses are damn hard to find.
the queen of spades runs the mailroom,
and all the postmen are legally blind.
just because you're naked
doesn't mean you're sexy,
just because you're cynical
doesn't mean you're cool.
you may tell the greatest lies
and wear a brilliant disguise
but you can't escape the eyes
of the one who sees right through you.
in the end what will prevail
is your passion not your tale,
for love is the holy grail,
even in Cognito.
so better listen to me, sister,
and pay close attention, mister:
it's very good to play the game,
amuse the god, avoid the pain,
but don't trust fortune, don't trust fame,
your real self doesn't know your name
and in that we're all the same:
we're all incognito.
---
"what are we talking about when we are talking about the soul? well, pop culture to the contrary, the soul is not an overweight nightclub singer having an unhappy love affair in detroit. the soul doesn't hang out at a memphis barbershop, fry catfish for supper, and keep a thirty-eight special in its underwear drawer. hard times and funky living can season the soul, true enough, but joy is the yeast that makes it rise.
on the other hand, the soul is definitely not some pale vapor wafting off a bucket of metaphysical dry ice. for all of its ectoplasmic associations, it steadfastly contradicts all those who imagine it to be a billow of sacred flatulence or a shimmer of personal swamp gas.
soul is not even that crackerjack prize that god and satan scuffle over when the worms have all licked our bones. that's why, when we ponder -- as sooner or later each of us must -- exactly what we ought to be doing about our soul, religion is the wrong, if conventional, place to turn. religion is little more than a transaction in which troubled people trade their souls for temporary and wholly illusionary psychological comfort -- the old give-it-up-in-order-to-save-it routine. religion leads us to believe that the soul is the ultimate family jewel and that in return for our mindless obedience, they can secure it for us in their vaults, or least insure it against fire and theft. they are mistaken.
if you need to visualise the soul... think of it as a kind of train. yes, a long, lonesome freight train rumbling from generation to generation on an eternally rainy morning, its boxcars are loaded with sighs and laughter, its hobos are angels, its engineer is the queen of spades, and the queen of spades is wild!... the train's destination is the godhead, but it stops at the Big Bang, at the orgasm, and at that hole in the fence that the red fox sneaks through down behind the barn. it's simultaneously a local and an express, but it doesn't transport weaponry, and it certainly ain't no milk run.
...the soul is nothing more, probably, than the authentic vibration of the biosphere, registered and amplified within the human sensorium. think of it as that somewhat lumpy cloud of indefinable energy that is generated when human emotion and human intelligence inferface with the larger body of nature.
how then does soul differ from spirit?... well, soul is darker of colour, denser of volume, saltier of flavor, rougher of texture, and tends to be more maternalistic than paternalistic: soul is connected to Mother Earth jus as spirit is connected to Father Sky. of course, mothers and fathers are prone to copulation, and in their commingled state, soul ana spirit often can be difficult to distinguish the one from the other. generally, if spirit is the fresh air vent and ambient lighting in the house of consciousness, if spirit is the electrical system that illuminates that house, then soul is the smoky fireplace, the fragrant oven, the dusty wine cellar, the strange creaks we hear in the floorboards late at night.
it's a bit of a cliche to say this, but when you think of a soul, you should think of things that are authentic and things that are deep. anything superficial is not soulful. anything artificial, imitative, or overly refined is not soulful. wood has a stronger connection to soul than does plastic, although, paradoxically, thanks to human interface, a funky wooden table or chair, can sometimes exceed in soulfulness the soul that may be invoked by a living tree.
...in the end, perhaps we should simply imagine a joke.; a long joke that's being continually retold in an accent too thick and too strange to ever be completely understood. life is that joke, my friends. the soul is its punch line.'
on the other hand, the soul is definitely not some pale vapor wafting off a bucket of metaphysical dry ice. for all of its ectoplasmic associations, it steadfastly contradicts all those who imagine it to be a billow of sacred flatulence or a shimmer of personal swamp gas.
soul is not even that crackerjack prize that god and satan scuffle over when the worms have all licked our bones. that's why, when we ponder -- as sooner or later each of us must -- exactly what we ought to be doing about our soul, religion is the wrong, if conventional, place to turn. religion is little more than a transaction in which troubled people trade their souls for temporary and wholly illusionary psychological comfort -- the old give-it-up-in-order-to-save-it routine. religion leads us to believe that the soul is the ultimate family jewel and that in return for our mindless obedience, they can secure it for us in their vaults, or least insure it against fire and theft. they are mistaken.
if you need to visualise the soul... think of it as a kind of train. yes, a long, lonesome freight train rumbling from generation to generation on an eternally rainy morning, its boxcars are loaded with sighs and laughter, its hobos are angels, its engineer is the queen of spades, and the queen of spades is wild!... the train's destination is the godhead, but it stops at the Big Bang, at the orgasm, and at that hole in the fence that the red fox sneaks through down behind the barn. it's simultaneously a local and an express, but it doesn't transport weaponry, and it certainly ain't no milk run.
...the soul is nothing more, probably, than the authentic vibration of the biosphere, registered and amplified within the human sensorium. think of it as that somewhat lumpy cloud of indefinable energy that is generated when human emotion and human intelligence inferface with the larger body of nature.
how then does soul differ from spirit?... well, soul is darker of colour, denser of volume, saltier of flavor, rougher of texture, and tends to be more maternalistic than paternalistic: soul is connected to Mother Earth jus as spirit is connected to Father Sky. of course, mothers and fathers are prone to copulation, and in their commingled state, soul ana spirit often can be difficult to distinguish the one from the other. generally, if spirit is the fresh air vent and ambient lighting in the house of consciousness, if spirit is the electrical system that illuminates that house, then soul is the smoky fireplace, the fragrant oven, the dusty wine cellar, the strange creaks we hear in the floorboards late at night.
it's a bit of a cliche to say this, but when you think of a soul, you should think of things that are authentic and things that are deep. anything superficial is not soulful. anything artificial, imitative, or overly refined is not soulful. wood has a stronger connection to soul than does plastic, although, paradoxically, thanks to human interface, a funky wooden table or chair, can sometimes exceed in soulfulness the soul that may be invoked by a living tree.
...in the end, perhaps we should simply imagine a joke.; a long joke that's being continually retold in an accent too thick and too strange to ever be completely understood. life is that joke, my friends. the soul is its punch line.'
