If I were a dog in the mid-17th century...
What demon elixir, what cheer. Before bed I swallowed "nite time" cold medicine because it was the closest thing I had to sinus meds to tame racing sinus fluids. Also, I wanted to be knocked out. At 3:30 pm the next day I continue to experience sleep inertia* and fuzz-brain. Who is the alchemist who conjured this poison?
Christopher Wren, who is remembered today as a great architect, was known in the mid-1600s as an astronomer who could remove the spleen from a dog. His next experiment: inject poison into the dog’s bloodstream to understand circulation.**
This morning I woke up one minute before the alarm sounded, a Tom Waits song (from Real Gone, paraphrasing "Everybody wants to know the same thing, how’s it going to end…") swaggering a loop in my head. The air was red and dry and fuzz-muted like a photograph.
A footnote must sound like something, a map, a chart in sonic motion. Here (via Bookslut) is what David Foster Wallace has to say about recording the audio version of Consider the Lobster, muted footnotes and all:
"Most poetry is written to ride on the breath, and getting to hear the poet read it is kind of a revelation and makes the poetry more alive. But with certain literary narrative writers like me, we want the writing to sound like a brain voice, like the sound of the voice inside of the head, and the brain voice is faster, is absent any breath, and it holds together grammatically rather than sonically."
*(words in blood are mine) Sleep inertia is the feeling of grogginess after awakening and temporarily reduces your ability to perform even simple tasks. (like a double back-flip with a twist)
Sleep inertia can last from 1 minute to 4 hours, but typically lasts 15-30 minutes. (or 6 hours, 33 minutes, and 10 seconds)
The severity of sleep inertia is dependent on how long you have been asleep and the stage of sleep at awakening.3 Effects can be severe if a person is very sleep deprived or has been woken from a deep sleep stage. However, sleep inertia can usually be reversed within 15 minutes by activity and noise. (such as being pinned to the ground by an army of clowns bearing bells on their limbs at sunrise)
Sleep inertia can cause impairment of motor and cognitive functions and can affect a person's ability to drive safely. Sleep inertia can be very dangerous for people who drive in the early morning hours and shortly after waking up from a sleep. (Christopher Wren's belly was a map of a dog's innard island chain in a room where the lava lamp was too dim and the tires on the car too wide to make turns.)
**I’m reading Soul Made Flesh by Carl Zimmer. See inside.
Christopher Wren, who is remembered today as a great architect, was known in the mid-1600s as an astronomer who could remove the spleen from a dog. His next experiment: inject poison into the dog’s bloodstream to understand circulation.**
This morning I woke up one minute before the alarm sounded, a Tom Waits song (from Real Gone, paraphrasing "Everybody wants to know the same thing, how’s it going to end…") swaggering a loop in my head. The air was red and dry and fuzz-muted like a photograph.
A footnote must sound like something, a map, a chart in sonic motion. Here (via Bookslut) is what David Foster Wallace has to say about recording the audio version of Consider the Lobster, muted footnotes and all:
"Most poetry is written to ride on the breath, and getting to hear the poet read it is kind of a revelation and makes the poetry more alive. But with certain literary narrative writers like me, we want the writing to sound like a brain voice, like the sound of the voice inside of the head, and the brain voice is faster, is absent any breath, and it holds together grammatically rather than sonically."
*(words in blood are mine) Sleep inertia is the feeling of grogginess after awakening and temporarily reduces your ability to perform even simple tasks. (like a double back-flip with a twist)
Sleep inertia can last from 1 minute to 4 hours, but typically lasts 15-30 minutes. (or 6 hours, 33 minutes, and 10 seconds)
The severity of sleep inertia is dependent on how long you have been asleep and the stage of sleep at awakening.3 Effects can be severe if a person is very sleep deprived or has been woken from a deep sleep stage. However, sleep inertia can usually be reversed within 15 minutes by activity and noise. (such as being pinned to the ground by an army of clowns bearing bells on their limbs at sunrise)
Sleep inertia can cause impairment of motor and cognitive functions and can affect a person's ability to drive safely. Sleep inertia can be very dangerous for people who drive in the early morning hours and shortly after waking up from a sleep. (Christopher Wren's belly was a map of a dog's innard island chain in a room where the lava lamp was too dim and the tires on the car too wide to make turns.)
**I’m reading Soul Made Flesh by Carl Zimmer. See inside.
3 Comments:
i think mine lasts the whole day. on repeat.
sleep inertia? no more demon elixir for you then. i want to be the bjork in that picture for just one day.
Hello sweet friends of mine. Last bottle of demon elixir, sleep debt totting up very nicely, blogging again. I guess either the alcohol, the circadian rhythms or the online journal has got to go. Hmm...
Oh, but this is lovely, exquisitely put together and interesting. From afar your work is adored. Ta. Better living through chemistry? Doubtful.
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