Wise King Taken by the Foolish One

home page, a.k.a. essay no. 0, a.k.a. essay no. 13
The title Wise King Taken by the Foolish One refers to many, if not all, of the following situations, which one might call:
A List of Wise King/Foolish One collaborative efforts:
An Informal Clue-List
Dan Plonsey
Summer, 2001

Keywords: music, opposites, wisdom, foolishness, dream, reality, kingliness.

Go to:
Wise King essays, home page, or one of the Wise King essays: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, or Plonsey's "Kingdoms Diptych" home page, or Dan Plonsey home page.

The process by which we gain information.
1. The Attack.
The process by which we decompose.
The difference between, say, red and blue.
The process whereby we sneeze.
2. Miscreants and Hypothobes: Case studies in real and fictitious - but equally threatening - evils.
The consequences of a spent youth.
The cost of spending.
The entrapment and imprisonment of children, especially.
The making of an agreement which satisfies both parties.
3. The Scene on the Chess board: The kings' wisdoms are of no consequence to the outcome, that being determined by the players, who observe the battle scene entirely from the outside.
The finding of evidence of a symbiotic relationship.
Peeing.
The expression of anger at an old enemy, who we thought we'd forgiven.
4. The realization which follows a finite series of unsuccessful assaults by the Foolish One upon the Wise King, (each upon a different defense and each somewhat surprising), that ultimately, inevitably, the Foolish One will catch up with and overwhelm the Wise King in a single battle. Someday. Even if the Wise King wins 99.999% of the time.
The faith that there will always be moments of pleasure, no matter what the surrounding circumstances.
Arguments against buying a new car expressed belittlingly.
A new version of some software with bug fixes.
Concern, such as I have now, that something horrible will happen - before I'm ready - or interrupting something - as it inevitably must - maybe even in the next moment! (As I sit here: writing, eating pasta and pesto and zuchinni-type squashes, everyone else being asleep.) Well, maybe I'll be somewhere where people will be ready to be looking out for me, positioning myself as my parents have just done for themselves, in a setting in which care may be administered with a minimum of fuss.
Regrets for offers I've turned down.
5. Trying to reassure my son, to still his fear.
6. Ecstatic Writing - or Being - which, being less than infinitely prolonged, must ultimately die down to a single glowing ember, which can't help but... wink out. (Winking being the thing to do.)
Writing home.
Fighting.
Going to sleep slowly, with lurches big and small.
Having taken a series of pictures of things in the dark in the living room from a single point of view.
7. We're going to get it, deserve it or not, because getting it is random, and must happen to every one of us sooner or later...
Asking for something, and recognizing in the asking one's fear of rejection - that pain which resembles pain of sudden loss, or fear thereof, as from sickness.
I talked with her and gave her a composition lesson, not yet.
8. On Being Betrayed and Abandoned - by your friends, of course, and the real possibility of Deus Ex Machina.
Knowing that there's both pie and ice cream in the next room - but that I'm overweight, and suck in my stomach through the day, except when I'm holding a baby, at which time a shelf comes in handy. Can they tell I'm fat?
Writing an opera with a new friend.
Do they really think you're a genius?
Watching one's friends age, recognizing that they're still attractive, maybe even more so.
9. The Way it Really Was, and, because too painful to want to remember, especially the naming of names, the way it was purposefully that I put off official recognition of "Reality" and opted instead for the reading and writing of light fiction as a child. (To whom, admittedly, fiction does naturally appeal more.)
Betting on a horse who is downright imaginary - not even pretending that it isn't.
The violence that most people are supposed to not want to commit, and the extremely small number of people who take negation of values seriously.
10. The Wise King being His Own Foolish One...
The supplier of goods which are flawed, in such a manner as to bring down the house, like termites: very small and with little noticeable effect as individual entities, but tremendously powerful in multitudes of millions...
A girl of around twenty who was working as a cashier in a coffee place in a wealthy suburb.
An even younger, slimmer, girl, in the same place, wearing a black leather jacket with (mostly punky) band names painted on, certainly too young to have "been there," who quite possibly could confuse music by The Clash with that of The Beatles - and also, the attractiveness of this girl.
A lack of urgency in "the war to improve precision."
The quick attack, which immediately tails off, in the clonking together of two pieces of wood; not useful in the "war to present further information upon you, no matter who."
A plane's Doppler-shifted sound turned into a series of dulled, microtonally descending chimes, which I imagined were emanating from within my own house, for perhaps ten panicky seconds - which did feel like much longer than ten, and still do, when I replay the incident.
We are still a minority.
11. On William Byrd and... Oops! Interrupted by a crying child, just as the moment of revelation arrived!
Dear Lark in the Morning: 12. I am entirely devoted to the glorification of the raw, instrumental sound...
13. A List of Wise King/Foolish One Collaborative Efforts
Dear New Yorker: 14. What shall we do about the American madmen?
Now for that pie!
Question: would worldwide disaster be a more friendly, companionable, and less lonely way of easing off of the planet than a purely personal disaster?
In the end, no matter how hard you've worked, how clever you've been, how much and how many you have - you will lose it all before you are allowed to leave, and you will have to know that you're losing it all (like clinging fingers being pried one by one off a ledge), and then you will have to know that you have lost it all (and perhaps that will be a relief?) - unless such thing as a soul exists, in which case there's probably also a continuity between this world and your next, so you had better do what is good for your soul! If you've done well by it, then there is nothing to fear in anticipating those moments of contemplation of loss which shall comprise your final thoughts, whether or not you get to keep your soul beyond death, it will be with you, keeping you company, up to the end.
15. Promoting my Own Works, plus a Fun Poem and Hopes for the Best...
Is there a reason to make preparations for even two years from now? or is this just barely the beginning of a new, vast, era? I ask, because we don't understand each other at all well, and we'll need a lot more time to fix that up!
What is permissible, and what role does relative ancient history play in determining what I do after 10:30 PM on a night in which I had hoped to be in bed before twelve?
16. When it comes...
17. The Twin Kings of Fiction: My Audience
The twin kings of fact.
18. Shuttling Back and Forth Between Kingdoms
Gotta go.
19. Wise King Taken: Who's the Big Ape?
Preferences for one color over another.
20. New Translation Out Soon, in 3 Parts
A clinical study: The way that people behave when they think they're being watched, and how it turns out not to dissuade them from misbehavior, for everyone is a closet exhibitionist!
21. Eggplant Traffic: Noting the Mineral Kingdom
Is it... football season again?
22. Letter to Sharon and Arafat: Although you are foolish men who happen to both be leaders of wise and honorable peoples...
23. Performance Notes (and the danger of dangerousness)
Doing my job diligently.
24. Poetry
25. Preposterousness and the History of Creativity.
26. The Music Itself

-- Dan Plonsey, October-November 2001,
El Cerrito, California
Go to:
Wise King essays: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, or Plonsey's "Kingdoms Diptych" home page, or Dan Plonsey home page.

Wise King Taken by the Foolish One

-- Dan Plonsey, October-November 2001, El Cerrito, California Go to: Wise King essays: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, or Plonsey's "Kingdoms Diptych" home page, or Dan Plonsey home page.

-- Dan Plonsey, October-November 2001,
El Cerrito, California
Go to:
Wise King essays: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, or Plonsey's "Kingdoms Diptych" home page, or Dan Plonsey home page.