Conversation with Richard May (“May-Tzu”/”MayTzu”/”Mayzi”) on “No Mirrors” and “Sunrise”: Co-Editor, “Noesis: The Journal of the Mega Society” (8)
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2022/03/08
Abstract
Richard May (“May-Tzu”/“MayTzu”/“Mayzi”) is a Member of the Mega Society based on a qualifying score on the Mega Test (before 1995) prior to the compromise of the Mega Test and Co-Editor of Noesis: The Journal of the Mega Society. In self-description, May states: “Not even forgotten in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), I’m an Amish yuppie, born near the rarified regions of Laputa, then and often, above suburban Boston. I’ve done occasional consulting and frequent Sisyphean shlepping. Kafka and Munch have been my therapists and allies. Occasionally I’ve strived to descend from the mists to attain the mythic orientation known as having one’s feet upon the Earth. An ailurophile and a cerebrotonic ectomorph, I write for beings which do not, and never will, exist — writings for no one. I’ve been awarded an M.A. degree, mirabile dictu, in the humanities/philosophy, and U.S. patent for a board game of possible interest to extraterrestrials. I’m a member of the Mega Society, the Omega Society and formerly of Mensa. I’m the founder of the Exa Society, the transfinite Aleph-3 Society and of the renowned Laputans Manqué. I’m a biographee in Who’s Who in the Brane World. My interests include the realization of the idea of humans as incomplete beings with the capacity to complete their own evolution by effecting a change in their being and consciousness. In a moment of presence to myself in inner silence, when I see Richard May’s non-being, ‘I’ am. You can meet me if you go to an empty room.” Some other resources include Stains Upon the Silence: something for no one, McGinnis Genealogy of Crown Point, New York: Hiram Porter McGinnis, Swines List, Solipsist Soliloquies, Board Game, Lulu blog, Memoir of a Non-Irish Non-Jew, and May-Tzu’s posterous. He discusses: “No Mirrors”; and “Sunrise.”
Keywords: Buddhas, Capgras, Finnegan’s Wake, G. I. Gurdjieff, Goethe, I Ching, indeterminacy, James Joyce, Jiddu Krishnamurti Man of Tao, May-Tzu, mirrors, Noesis, recursion, Richard May.
Conversation with Richard May (“May-Tzu”/”MayTzu”/”Mayzi”) on “No Mirrors” and “Sunrise”: Co-Editor, “Noesis: The Journal of the Mega Society” (8)
*Please see the references, footnotes, and citations, after the interview, respectively.*
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: “No Mirrors” – ahem – reflects the same pattern as before in this comedic philosophical work. Are there no mirrors, or are there no people to be reflected by the mirrors, or nothing to be reflected and nothing to reflect at all? I ask on behalf of nobody.
Richard May: There are no mirrors that work, i.e., allow one to actually see oneself and there are no individuals to be reflected by the mirrors, only fictional narratives in our brains from which we construct our identities, always playing our favorite character in fiction. See Valentines Moment: https://megasociety.org/noesis/176#29 “ … two opposing mirrors each reflected, and even mirrored, each other with perfect, but depthless, fidelity; empty mirrors looking into each other eternally, or until someone turned off the lights.” and Dr. Capgras Before the Mirrors. “Am ‘I’ actually strobing moment to moment among the shadows of shadows . . . of shadows of uncountable Buddhas in a quantized stream of time or recurring endlessly in some fragmented eternity? Will these replacements of myself happen in the past or have they already happened in the future?” “But who or what is the observer, here before the mirrors, and who or what is the observed?” (Noesis The Journal of the Mega Society Issue #200, January 2016, page 44) https://megasociety.org/noesis/200.pdf Nobody, the Man of Tao, will see what I mean.
Jacobsen: The opening two lines state: Sitting in a room observing myself, sitting in a room observing myself, I ask the prior question within that context. As the point of view of no one is in itself paradoxically formulated when ‘confronted’ with a mirror, it’s the recursion of the system, which continually strikes me in the head like an Acme Co. anvil. So, as if a recursive crash test dummy, why is recursion or a cyclical quality sopopular with you?
May: It a recursion and an indeterminate nested regress. Observing myself — observing myself — observing myself —
Jacobsen: At 16 or some such age, maybe younger actually, I read Finnegan’s Wake,
May: I should be interviewing you or you should be interviewing yourself! \
Jacobsen: painfully. I should have read the preface,
May: I would probably have read only the preface.
Jacobsen: which stipulated, more or less, in the first sentence, ‘The first thing to understand about this text is that it is essentially unreadable.’ (Thanks.)
May: That may also be the 2nd and 3rd thing to understand about the text.
Jacobsen: Yet, I see a similar cyclical quality in this work and in the works of James Joyce. The themes are presented as jokes,
May: “Some subjects are so serious that one can only joke about them.” — Niels Bohr
Jacobsen: as in a Wittgenstein quote. It, definitely, is a philosophical work; it is, certainly, a comedic work; and, it’s, obviously, recursive in character. Did you ever read any Joyce?
May: Any? Oh, yes, the titles of a few of his works, maybe a few pages here and there, the philosophically important parts. I recall one of his characters was fascinated by the farting of his girl friend, undoubtedly as contributing to Gynecogenic Global Warming versus the issue of the suppression of women’s flatus by the Patriarchy, and perhaps another character was very interested in the stains on women’s panties. Divination by panty stains may be an Irish form of divination, perhaps equivalent in subtlety to the I Ching. I go for the quintessence when I read, because of a tendency to subvocalize, attention deficit disorder and a bit of OCD. (Will this be on the ‘test’?)
Jacobsen: The line, “slumped, chin in hand,” brings to immediate mind the posing philosopher stance, the famous sculpture stance of a thinker. A stance supporting a “concatenation of jokes in a black cap…”
May: “a concatenation of jokes in a black cap” is a bit of self mockery.
with “no Buddhas,” which goes to some prior points about there being nobody home to show ‘The Way’ or some such master-slave relation.
May: Eh? Truth is a pathless land. — Jiddu Krishnamurti.
Yet, at the same time, it’s even worse than that… there’s no one home in the stance! This is a headache to think about(!), but for no one. The part seeming ambiguous to me: “black cap.” What is “a black cap” referencing? Do you wear black hats, too? And how so?
May: A cap is a form of headgear or clothing that you wear on your head. I would have thought that some Canadians would have seen caps. Black is the absence of light. Sometimes I have worn black hats or other colors, mostly on my head. “Alles Vergaengliche ist nur ein Gleichnis.” — Goethe. Everything transitory is only an allegory or metaphor (of the eternal). So I suppose that a hat is not actually a hat. But I thought it was a hat.
I used to dwell in what I generously referred to as the Nigerian sewer system, a city often mistakenly thought to be in New York State. It was cold during the winter, which was eternal. Hence, I often wore a hat, even indoors.
Jacobsen: The lines about stealing truth, in some manner, have been explained before. Then, back to recursive text, the closing lines remark on observing yourself sitting in a room. In this manner, the process of thought creates a ‘you’ or a little i. How do you cross the ts and dot the ‘i’s on the “little i,” as in awaken?
May: G. I. Gurdjieff taught a certain process of self-observation. One could observe oneself in various “centers” or minds, somewhat analogous to the Hindu chakras or the centers in Taoist alchemical philosophy. One could strive to be present to oneself in the moment, simultaneously aware of the sensations of the body, the solar plexus or the emotions and the ordinary intellectual mind.
Slumped simply refers to my bad posture.
Jacobsen: “Sunrise” is more of a synesthetic reading experience. We see “no one” referenced who is “listening,” or not, with the “taste of Braille shadows.” I am reminded of the “taste of vagueness,” etc., referenced in other works within the text. You’re a poet, No One, not a politician. You lure others into a world rather than lead them there with a gun.
How was the meal by the way, the “Braille shadows”?
“Sunrise
No one
— listening
— the taste of Braille shadows”
May-Tzu
May: Braille shadows taste somewhat like koans. — Umami Mama, it’s all Dada!
Footnotes
[1] Co-Editor, “Noesis: The Journal of the Mega Society.”
[2] Individual Publication Date: March 8, 2022: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/may-8; Full Issue Publication Date: May 1, 2022: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.
*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.
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