When We Were Children, Staying at the Archduke's

These twins both independently thought of the same cheesecake at the same time.

The actual ability of anyone to simultaneously come to the same conclusion as another without outside communication is commonly relegated to the realm of urban myth and Robert Stack’s steely narration of the episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” where those identical twins predict each other’s car wrecks. Or something like that. However, the phenomenon is considerably more normal and only goes to show that the reality of instructive structure and its limiting effects on the cultural boundaries of man’s natural inclinations make us much more alike than anyone would care to admit. Frequently the end result is the forced dissimulation of our congruence through the concussive interference of fists.

Fully two weeks of my childhood were spent solely in watching this program.

A historical example of this phenomenon (although it probably doesn’t even deserve that title) was frequently imparted to me by my favorite college professor; namely, the discovery of the calculus by Leibniz and Newton concordantly. If we can forgive the fact that it is supremely annoying when someone refers to it as “the Calculus” when “Calculus” would certainly suffice, we find evidence that shows (supposedly) that although the two were in frequent contact both Newton and Leibniz were so overwhelmed with paranoia that they refused to discuss with one another the enormous mathematical discovery they were both in the process of stumbling upon. When both published their findings within a year of one another their worst fears appeared to have been realized and they immediately hated each other with such a fervent ferocity it’s surprising Newton didn’t just stab Liebniz in the heart and throw him out a window. Although he may have, my historical knowledge is spotty.

Newton to Leibniz: Checkmate, bitch.

In any case, during my usual research on the continuing impotence with which modern medicine addresses sleep-eating (they call it “parasomnia” – HA!) I stumbled upon a passage that may encourage Death Mask to pursue a Newton v. Leibniz strategy with the author of Talkaboutsleep.com:

Sleep eating is more common in younger women. Symptoms typically begin in the late 20s. Episodes may reoccur, in combination with a stressful situation, or an episode may occur only once or twice. Additionally, many parasomnias seem to run in families, which may indicate that sleep eating is genetically linked. (From www.talkaboutsleep.com)

The interchangeable nature of genetic inheritance (i.e. a priori medicinal pseudo-physiological physical scientific anthrobiological deoxyribonucleic-acidic anatomical reproduction) and psychological inheritance (i.e. Freudian Elektral and Oedipal residual bricolage of inheritable and free-repeating trauma) will be further discussed at a later date. Succinct preview: contagion is ontologically and physically permeable.

Leftovers Pt. 2: Art = Nutrigrain

If there is a connection between butyric acid which stinks and the best perfumes, could we on that account put "the best perfume" in quotes? Could we therefore say: "the 'best' scent is really all sulphuric acid?"

- Wittgenstein

LEFTOVERS Pt. 1: Smaller courses and the residue of hunger

My colleague is correct. Sleep eating did "strike back", but in a subdued form. From first glance I perceived the return of sleep eating as mere sloppiness on my behalf.

Why wasn't I using the trash can in my room?

Why are there little wrappers everywhere?

The truth hit me when I found the casing to a snack bar I don't even like in between my bed frame and the wall. Only in my sleep do I eat food I barely enjoy! Sleep eating had entered my life again! This time, however, my subconscious knows the evidence has to be less direct, less incriminating. Previously my affliction felt free to sprawl itself throughout my slumber (I'd eat entire, messy meals), now it knows to curl and conceal itself from me in the form of convenient snack food. Why has my ailment (cure?) chosen to scurry away from me? As discussed before, I believe it is due to my consciousness' reciprocity for my unconsious' desire to sleep eat. This blog's acknowledgement of sleep eating comes too near to consummating the Real desire- to eat while awake, and interrupts the direct relationship between sleep eating and the unconscious mind. The ruptures result in this new subdesire, or subdued desire, and culminates into what Freud would call "residue".

For Freud the residue is the cause of art. Art becomes a storage place for the excess desires the conscious minds has learned is unrewarding to pursue. I am not an artist. I only eat. Therefore the ruptures or short circuits in my psyche make themselves present through my eating habits. For instance, the other day I was close to skipping my volunteer job and after realizing how awful that instinct was, I ate enough Taco Bell, became so sick I should have skipped the volunteer gig and forced myself to go anyway as punishment for the evilness in me inclined to skip.


(LEFTOVERS PT.II is in the works. I plan on tying these theories together with the help of a graph which blames my parents. I just had a birthday and I've found myself less able to use scanners than I was last year. Therefore, the graph will be posted under my partner's name.)

Slouching Towards Bethlehem to be Born

Alas, his lifelong desire for the number two was undone by its fulfillment.

Whatever thing we may not lightly have,
Thereafter will we cry all day and crave.
—Chaucer


It’s coming.

But like a parent with an overly curious child, I can’t tell you how I know or why I am so steadfastly convinced of it. All I can tell you is that if you really want to get that first communion wafer you have to believe with all your heart that it really is the body of Christ. Then you have to sleepwalk to the altar and take it.

Death Mask got me thinking when she brought up an excellent point about reciprocal desire; that in her courting sleep-eating she felt she was pushing it away. And she was right. Sleep-eating chose her (as it once chose me), yet as soon as she chose it back it thought a lot about it and decided it might be making a mistake and the only way to know for sure was to spend some time apart to just gather all the feelings you know? Just take a moment to breathe and analyze and sort through all of this shit it’s going through right now.

The mistake is not the desire, but the courting. Specially preparing meals for sleep-eating and going out of one’s way to open doors for it makes sleep-eating feel coddled. Sleep-eating needs its independence.

Except when it doesn’t. Like, for instance, when it comes back to me and I start treating sleep-eating like shit.

I would like a pound of that honey-cured ham eek half a pound of provolone.

See, the thing is, like the Wife of Bath in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, sleep-eating loves he who “was of his love so dangerous to [it].” And in case you have trouble with the Middle English, maybe I’d better explain that the Wife of Bath is saying her favorite husband is the one who “had beaten [her] on every bone.” And if that’s too difficult to understand still, I recommend you go re-read Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” And if you’re still lost, I guess just go write a paper on “Cathedral.”

Teacher says, every time a freshman writes a paper on "Cathedral" Carver makes this face and rolls around in his grave.

The point is, sleep-eating will come back to me because I want it. And because I won’t respect it.

In that Sleep of Death What Treats May Come

Alas, poor Yorrick. I ate him, Horatio.

We’ve already discussed the desire for sleep in a blog previously posted titled “The Sleep-Lust Parabasis.” If anyone needs a refresher I suggest you go ahead and click on that in order that you may marvel at the proscribed role sleep-lust plays in our society. Furthermore, if you think I made up the word “Parabasis” just because your Mozilla browser doesn’t recognize it, I suggest you go find a copy of the fucking OED and educate yourself as to the viability of that particular word. As for you, Mozilla spell-check dictionary: You’re on my list.

The original plan was that I would post a “Food-Lust Denouement” in order that the two could be inexorably linked and their oblique concurrences illuminated for all to see. Unfortunately, I found the subject far too embarrassing and personal. Food-lust is not just a phenomenon; it is the defining phenomenon of my American generation. As much as we like to believe we relate to one another through our ridiculously arbitrary musical tastes and director preferences, it’s all so disgustingly similar it gets to the point it makes me want to throw up in your face. I get it, you really like Wilco but you didn’t like the latest Wes Anderson film. GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELF.

Memo to everyone: Go fuck yourselves.

The truth is it is through our relation to food that we learn and discriminate the most. Those with a hatred for a specific race are antiquated mummies when compared to the growing fascination with body size and food intake. As fast as people are growing to despise the hefties among us these selfsame hefties are circumscribing their food-lust in the language of disease (!!!). Food-lust is not looked upon with the inauspicious gaze of those who glance on sleep-lust so inertly. The hateful gaze directed towards food-lust is as active and baleful as punching a hefty right in his/her jiggling fat-pouch.

It is interesting, then, that in the case of a clinical diagnosis of sleep-eating a doctor would so openly accept that food- and sleep-lust are intimately connected, claiming, “I think two instinctual behaviors become intertwined.”

But my case for the separation between the two lusts (and the holy post our relation to food maintains) is in the fact that those afflicted with Ambien-caused sleep-eating “realize they have an eating problem but do not associate it with…sleeping.” The lust for food is a “problem,” yet the lust for sleep is so benign they march their swollen ankles dutifully to the pharmacy to refill their tranquilizers in order that they may further clog their gullets with the silky-smooth embrace of JIF and Skippy as their horrified teenage sons look on. In horror.

This leads us to perhaps the most telling revelation of the article, that “abnormal behaviors [read: sleep-eating] like those could be unmasked in a small minority of patients taking any [sleep] medications.” In other words, perhaps those who are insomniacs are by nature the most likely to sleep eat.

When I began my foray into the realm of sleepy-time munching, I was in fact suffering from insomnia. I spent (spend) the nights consumed in worry until my lower-right eyelid twitched (twitches) uncontrollably. Then I would count the twitches until I fell (fall) asleep. Then I would wander about my childhood house and snack in complete ignorance of my own actions.

The point is, perhaps the same worries that keep us up at night are the transubstantiated forms of our repressed and hated sleep- and food-lust. Maybe the muted muffled voice of our animal past manifests itself in our concerns over our jobs, schooling, and haircuts. Maybe our whole societal structure is intended to limit how our true instincts are expressed. Yes, Derrida, I am plagiarizing your corpse. But in a context you may not have dreamed of and certainly would not approve.

This is why all old men should smoke pipes.

More to come next week, including a discussion of the following:

The first night her son was there, he found her standing in the kitchen, body cast and all, frying bacon and eggs. The next night he found her eating a sandwich, Ms. Evans said, and sent her back to bed. Later that same night, her son arose to find her standing in the kitchen again. "I had turned the oven on," she recalled. "I store pots and pans in the oven and I had turned it to 500 degrees."

Ah, the recognition of my youth…

What a difference a day makes

It's been a while since I posted and that is because I HAVEN'T SLEPT-ATE IN ALMOST A WEEK.

I just finished my Wong Kar-Wai midterm and wrote on the mastery of desire through abandoning it (mainly in Chungking Express). After the test I was so sad the teacher didn't talk to me, I cried in the school parking garage and kicked a cardboard box until I was laughing. The reason I bring this up is because I feel like sleep-eating has abandoned me because I reciprocated my desire for the sickness. Furthermore, I'm scared the object behind the reason I sleep-eat has shifted forms into sheer madness. The other example I'm willing to give up is the case of my bawling into the laundry basket, unprovoked. I know I spit a lot of shit about not wanting to become fat, but I'd rather be a big, fat fatty than a psychopath almost any day.

Back to what I was saying about reciprocation: I've started making extra dinner in consideration of sleep-eating. I box up the dinner and instead of hiding it like before, I place it in center-stage of the fridge. It's goes untouched until the next morning. Maybe my recognition of sleep-eating, this blog included, has created a mutual (waking) desire for it and therefore it has retreated back into my psyche and devolved into a typical mental-breakdown. B-O-R-I-N-G.