My Big Black Book of Sins (official Medium preview, vol. 1)
My Big Black Book of Sins
(or, Hope, volume 1)
By Alessio Ian Zed
A preview of a better Book to come…
This book is dedicated to: my Mother and my Father, who walked their own 28 year paths, too.
She…is a hero of mine.
He….helped me tremendously, even if he doesn’t know about this little book, yet.
And now, it is dedicated to: love, loyalty, and you…too.
Thank you for reading
Chapter 01:
Never Forget (NF)
This was my first tattoo, which I got shortly after my 18th birthday.
Here is the story of how I got this first piece of permanent ink on my body:
I was a freshman in University, in a small city just north of Chicago, Illinois. I had been studying there for about 3 months, when Christmas/Holiday vacations rolled around.
As part of my vacation, I went on a volunteer work trip to Denver, Colorado, in the United States. Two student leaders, both Seniors, brought a group of about 6 or 7 other students to a program where we could try and help with other people’s charity work.
That work, which others had been doing long before us, and with far greater competence, was indeed Good Work, in my opinion. But those details are best left for another story, at another time.
We had to drive from Chicago to Denver, which took two full days on the US Federal Highway system. That is, it was a long journey there and back.
We drove miles of country, where we saw tumbleweeds in Nebraska, the flat lands in Kansas, and a few beautiful things in between.
The work was easy, but the travel was intense.
When we got back home, we all convened in one of the Student Leader’s apartment. That apartment was on Clark Street, with a big green door on front. Anyone who went to the same University as me, might know what building I’m talking about already…
To make a long story short: we were all exhausted, sweaty, and on edge from two days of driving.
Naturally, there was a lot of tension in that apartment — people were drinking, yelling, and making up (though not necessarily in that order).
Right then, at the peak of the tension, I had an almost-irresistible urge: to walk to the train and find the closest tattoo parlor.
I told my friends and colleagues that I’d be going outside for a moment, and did exactly that: walked to the closest Chicago metro stop, boarded the first train, and rode south towards downtown.
While I was on the train, I did a Google search for the closest tattoo parlor with a good reputation. I found one, called the Tattoo Factory, and decided I trusted them enough to let them use my body for art.
The rest, as they say, was already written.
This tattoo is about an important event that happened between me and my father figure. It stands for the phrase “Never Forget”.
Elephants never forget Love.
Chapter 02:
Unity (The Head and the Heart)
My favorite haiku comes from Japan:
“My house has burned down /
Now, I own a better view /
Of the rising moon.”
-Mizuta Masahide, a samurai and a poet (1657–1723)
There is a growing trend in the modern world towards a philosophy known as Rationalism.
Rationalism says that the universe follows clear, predictable logic — and that we as human beings have a unique ability and responsibility to learn that logic.
The Greeks called that Logos.
I call it just a tad bit silly, or perhaps just one or two steps removed from the main idea.
Some of the best advice I ever received came from a man and his son, in a Mosque. That man told me something very simple, yet profoundly wise: “Remember: there are always two.”
He did not elaborate at the time, because he didn’t need to.
There are always two perspectives on the same thing. Has your house burned down? You’re now the proud owner of a pile of ash — and what could you use ash for?
Mix it up with water, and you can turn it into charcoal-colored paint; sprinkle it on soil, and the plants will grow stronger; or, ponder it, and consider that even Phoenixes can rise from the rubble, when they’re ready.
Out of all of my tattoos, this was the one that I thought about the least. I simply followed a strong urge, ten years after my first tattoo, to walk into the first tattoo studio that would accept a walk-in, and have two intersecting rings drawn on my left arm.
I couldn’t explain the urge, then. And now, I can only attempt to describe my interpretation of it.
We are all One in the brotherhood of Life. We are all living under one roof — the glorious sky above our heads. We are all walking the same circled story, as the earth spins round and round below our feet.
But there are always two. Perhaps they touch, perhaps they even intersect.
Were they intersecting? Or was one circle splitting into two, like a cell?
Is this a tattoo dedicated to Unity, Division, or somewhere in between?
And what does the center space — the overlap in the Venn Diagram, if you will — what does that represent?
¿Where does the riddle start, again?
Was the point actually just two circles?
Are these two circles, or one thick black line that takes some sharp turns here and there?
My body is ink /
A book full of Sins for You /
My mind is now clear.
Chapter 03:
A Better View (No Water; No Moon)
Depending on how you look at them, Total Solar Eclipses are either Miracles or miraculous coincidences.
It’s a coincidence of math through the heavens’ gate:
The sun and the moon are clearly different objects in the celestial sky — we can see that any day of the year, simply by looking up towards the clouds.
So, why does no other planet, no other star, and no other celestial body create a perfect Total Eclipse from our earthly perspective?
It’s because of perspective, a mathematical and artistic concept. The sun is almost exactly 400 times larger than the moon. In theory, the moon would have to be….almost exactly 400 times closer to us than the sun, for those two Stars to Align.
I’m not a physicist, but I’ll try and explain as best as I can.
Hold a penny in your hand, between your thumb and your pointer finger. Hold it so that the flat side, the round side, is facing towards you, and you can see the full circle of the coin.
Now, hold that coin up to the clouds, holding it in the same position.
That coin, even though it’s the same shape as the sun, probably isn’t the same size as the sun from your perspective, right?
There’s an easy way to fix that: adjust the placement of your hand, and of the coin, so that it looks like it’s the same size as the sun in the sky.
You just created a Total Solar Eclipse with a penny, and with your own eyes.
Depending on how you look at it, you just created a Miracle or a miraculous coincidence.
The same basic idea is happening with the Moon and the Sun, except no person can move the moon like you moved your coin.
So, who put the Sun where it is? Who made the Moon the size it is? And who aligned their orbits for us, so we could see the Majesty of Heaven’s Gate with our very own eyes?
That is a cosmic question, best left to other Books and other thinkers, ones that are far wiser than me.
But you: you already know who created the miracle with the penny. It was you, me, the coin, the sun, and this big ol’ metaphor in this tiny lil’ book.
If that isn’t a miracle — an entire universe of expectations, hopes, desires, and lessons — then I sincerely don’t know what could be.
Still think your life is a coincidence? Or, maybe, a living Miracle, rendered in the flesh?
Chapter 04:
The Fruits of Our Labor (‘Not a Marxist’)
The most peaceful nations on earth follow the doctrine of Socialism.
In fact, this book itself was written from inside a socialist hospital, in the Netherlands.
The government here, in the Netherlands, provides healthcare and basic needs to all of its citizens, as part of the social contract.
Why?
Because it’s the right thing to do.
Please, I’ll explain: every one of us is in this struggle called Life, together. We are all brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons. We are already together on this rock called the Spaceship Earth.
You have already had money, food, and housing shared with you: that’s what we call Childhood.
You have already borrowed money: they call it Banking.
You have already stolen food: we call that Harvesting.
You have already housed yourself: we call that “Home is where the Heart is”.
So, why don’t you share with those who have less than you? Is it because you’re scared to do so, because you think you’ll never get those things back?
But didn’t you already have, borrow, and steal?
Wasn’t your creation already a Miracle?
And wouldn’t a real miracle be….everyone on earth sharing their resources plentifully, so every person can live in peace and happiness and abundance?
Economists are wrong about one key idea: scarcity.
They say that economics is the study of scarcity, how to manage the fierce battle over the limited resources on Earth.
That is false: the only limited resource is our own time here. We borrowed that, too, from the heavens and the earth herself.
Instead, socialist economics offers an alternative: an economy based on abundance, a New Economy based on every creature, big and small, having anything they might need.
Once our needs are met — for all of us — we can then seek for what we want.
That is the basic principle of socialism. It is the basic principle of life itself. It is, perhaps, one of the chief sources of balance in nature, at least from our limited perspective here.
The fruits of our labor deserve to be shared, because the Giving Tree already shared all of itself with us.
Did you know that all fruits are actually a womb, an ovary for plants? We stole their children from them — just as we steal from the children of cows to make milk — before we ever had the chance to eat our first meal.
As long as one creature starves, we all go hungry.
Still want to have too much? Or do you already have Enough?
Chapter 05:
The Stinky Onion (Ceres, as Seen in Chicago)
Chicago, a city founded by a Haitian immigrant/trader, was once called “Porkopolis”.
It earned the title by being the center of pork trading — farmers in the Midwest region of the United States would buy, sell, and trade swine in Chicago, for distribution along the Great Lakes to other parts of the country.
Nowadays, Chicago trades in futures, stocks, and derivatives. Many of those are structured around foodstuffs, sometimes called “agricultural commodities”.
The heart of that trading in Chicago now takes place in a building called the CBT (short for Chicago Board of Trade).
At the top of that building is a monument, in the Bauhaus style, to the Roman Goddess of Agriculture.
Her name is Ceres.
In this specific monument, she is shown with a crown of laurels, while she holds an onion in one hand and a bundle of wheat stalks in the other.
The wheat is a clear and vivid reference to Rome, once the breadbasket of all of Europe. (And the Board of Trade for the ancient European world, if you will)
The onion? Well, that’s a funny story…
Many places in the United States have Native American names. The white men purchased, stole, or coerced the land out of native hands; but sometimes they kept the native name.
In Chicago’s case, the name stayed, even when the natives were forced off the land by industry.
The original name of Chicago apparently, and supposedly, meant “stinky onion” in the local tongue. The name came from wild onions which grew plentifully, and apparently also smelled plentifully, too.
Economists like the saying, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
That’s funny — because many bankers and economists get a “free” lunch by using a corporate credit card, instead of their own money.
That’s also funny — because many people think they’re paying for their food when they go to the grocery store. Instead, they paid for it at work, with their time and their hard work.
That’s also funny — because they could have gotten the food for zero dollars, if they first planted a seed and then used their hard work to turn that into food.
But the economists are still right, technically: even the seed isn’t free, because we stole it from the tree. And even then, we still need to pay the seed with soil, water, air, and time.
Now, what will you do with your seeds? Will you plant them, sow them, and reap them?
Will you share your seeds? Will you share food, like Ceres?
Chapter 06:
Disco Space Cowboy (Socialismo)
There are two kinds of people in this world: fans of Star Trek, and people who haven’t watched Star Trek, yet.
I’ll be honest here, because that’s the best policy in a book like this: I avoided watching Star Trek for years, because I assumed I wouldn’t like it.
If you asked me now, I would say it’s one of the greatest Heroic Tales of Humanity ever told — including the entire canon of Trek material, taken in collectively as one body of work.
Within that tradition, my personal favorite is the Star Trek Enterprise, with Captain Jean-Luc Picard. To me, he is like the father I wished I had growing up, in a sometimes-lonely and often-complex universe.
In the Star Trek universe, there is a governmental body called The United Federation of Planets.
Before describing the Federation, it’s important to describe the universe that Captain Picard and his crew are exploring: it is a large, intimidating, and dangerous place. The majority, if not all, of the other powers in space (from the Ferengi, to the Cardassians, to the Klingons) are violent empires that expand their territory through force.
The Federation, however, is on a different kind of mission. There are only three conditions for entry into The United Federation of Planets, which include:
- The planet must have its own advanced level of technology already. (i.e. no cutting in line, folks!)
- The planet must have a stable, unified government, with respect for the individual and rule of law. (i.e. major social, political, and economic differences have been healed)
- There can be no caste system, be it based on race, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, or history. (i.e. no slaves, folks!)
The Federation’s goal is not to conquer other planets. The Enterprise, which is the “flagship” of the Federation, is on a specific quest: to trek through the Stars while looking for friends and allies, defending them from enemies as needed.
Humanity, the same one we have here on Earth, was a founding member of the Federation, along with perhaps the most famous race in Star Trek (the Vulcans, the same people as Spock).
Would humanity today earn entry into the Federation? Perhaps not…
But tomorrow is a new day. Could we Live Long & Prosper, too? Perhaps, indeed…
We are not alone in this universe. We have our friends, our allies, and our enemies.
Day by day, step by step, breath by breath, humanity reaches upwards to the Stars. And the stars wait, too, for the day We are ready.
Live. Long. Prosper.
Chapter 07:
Portal Gun (An Open Book)
All stories are a circle, according to the writer Dan Harmon.
First, we begin as men, simple men in a simple place.
Then, we be begin to move, clockwise, along the outer rim of the story’s circle.
This is the beginning of our tribulations: the trial has yet to come.
Perhaps we meet a guide — even a poet, perhaps named Virgil, if that’s who you want to guide you.
Then, we descend — not just as the Son of Man, but as a hero emerging downwards into the darkness of their own story.
It is at the bottom of the circle, at the lowest point, where heroes are tested, bred, and born.
As the story continues, the hero ascends upwards along the circle, bringing together different themes into one unified Hero’s Tale.
And towards the end of the story, perhaps near the Climax, the newly crowned hero is able to lead their own way Home, back to where they began.
Though the circle may have led them back to the same starting point, the Hero can never be the same again. (At least, according to Mr. Harmon’s theory of storytelling, and what I remember of it)
This construction, this framework for understanding the hero’s journey, is effective precisely because it’s true. Every great story has that pattern within it, somewhere, or uses it (even non-use is a kind of use, after all).
The circle represents the story of mankind itself, too.
Where on the circle’s edge do we reside? Are we there together? Are we both moving clockwise, returning Home as Changed heroes in the tale of our own heart?
Which raises, for me, an interesting question: what lies inside that circle? Who drew the circle to begin with? Did the villagers — those who stayed behind — know what the hero went through, at his or her personal nadir, their private low point?
These are questions that many great writers, artists, and thinkers have addressed before.
We see Dante struggle with it: “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura / Perché la diritta via fu smarrita”. (“In the middle of the walk of our lives / I found myself in a darkened woods / Because the straight path was obscured”)
We see Gawain, Achilles, and others walk their circle, too.
Even the Gods of the ancient pantheons had to walk their own heavenly circles, to earn the title of Gods among Men.
What is your circle? What is your story? And just please: always remember to come back home.
Chapter 08:
I swear it’s a real Tattoo (Not just Black-Head Pimples)
First, allow me to make a promise: this is a real tattoo.
It is a stick-and-poke, which I learned how to do from a friend.
Clearly, I didn’t listen to that friend closely enough, because I poked, but only part of the tattoo stuck.
Now, please allow me to explain how that happened: the good folks in the tattoo community gave me professional-grade ink. Real thick, real black. Ink so good it burns through a journal — that kind of ink.
So, I used my skills as a chef to create as sanitary an environment as I could, inside of my own apartment. I had yellow gloves, a sanitized worktop, and all the tools of the game at my disposal.
Once I was ready — and it took quite some time to set that all up — I started sticking, started poking, kept hoping it would work.
Slowly but surely, my desired tattoo emerged: a circle, with a line running through it. I hoped it would represent something like infinity; a circle with one straight line cleaved at an angle through the side.
However, what I saw on my leg was just a drawing, not a tattoo.
Had I used “regular” ink from a stationery shop, I would have noticed as soon as I showered, as soon as that ink washed away, circling down the drain back into the water supply of Utrecht.
Fortunately/unfortunately, depending on which perspective you take here, the professional-grade ink didn’t wash away for multiple days. I thought I had done a very successful job, even if it looked a bit bluer in color than I expected!
Slowly but surely, it became clear to me that I am not a tattoo artist.
How do I know that? Well, the proof is in the pudding, as they say: and this pudding is only about 0.01% visible on my left leg.
The good news is that it’s the most privately-placed tattoo on my body. Even if I was in a swimsuit, it remains covered.
The bad news is that everytime I see it, I have to remind myself that it is, in fact, not just a series of blackhead pimples on the inside of my left thigh.
Thus, this tattoo is a symbol for me: of perseverance, patience, and learning. Next time, I’ll let the professionals do their work, no matter how much I wanted that stick-and-poke back then.
It’s also a reminder that if I ever need a real stick-and-poke, I should ask someone else to do it, instead.
Chapter 09:
The Enemy’s Gate is Always Down (Game On)
This tattoo, for me, is a Miracle.
Of my seventeen tattoos, only one truly hurt, only one rendered genuine physical pain: this small pyramid on the outside of my right ankle.
Perhaps it was because I have a collection of nerves on that spot, and those nerves were inflamed.
Perhaps it was because I wasn’t used to getting tattooed on such a delicate spot.
Perhaps it was part of the Miracle?
The tattoo explicitly references a book by Orson Scott Card, called ‘Ender’s Game’.
I have never identified with a fictional character more than I identified with Ender Wiggin, the young boy stolen from his home at the age of 6 to fight in a war he had never started.
In Card’s book, Ender is taken to a space station, which serves as a “battle school” for child soldiers. These children are all bred specifically to be soldiers — and much more than that. They are trained to be Napoleons, Caesars, or Eisenhowers.
In the book, there is a special place called the “Battle Room”. In that room, children compete against each other in teams, as part of mock battles or mock wars.
The objective of that game, in the Battle Room, is to win. Victory, in that battle room, is achieved by “passing” through your enemy’s gate. It is very similar to football: pass through the goal, and you have scored. One point wins the game.
Because there are no soccer balls in the Battle Room, the children must pass their own bodies through the Enemy’s Gate.
When Ender arrives at the Battle Room, he realizes something important: there is zero gravity. But the rest of the students continue to orient themselves like there’s a North/South, an Up/Down, a Left/Right.
Ender realizes quickly: in zero gravity, he can define his own orientation, carve out his own directions towards the Gate.
He advises his friends to follow him, by saying “The enemy’s gate is always down.”
By that, he means to say: orient yourself to nothing but your objective. And once you have it in your sights, move towards it with total speed and purpose.
This allows him to see the game with new eyes, to start fighting in his own style there in that battle room.
You, too, can move towards your objective like Ender. Move towards it so consistently, it feels like you’re falling towards it.
Accept no distraction. Accept no compromise for your ultimate goal. Accept yourself, and bring some friends to the Gate if you can, too.
Chapter 10:
Butcher in the Morning (Beggar in the Nacht)
Karl Marx once said: “All I know is that I am not a Marxist.”
I am now saying: “All I know is that I am not a chef.”
My dream, once, was to finish both culinary school and law school — a representation of my broad interests.
Because compromise is key to living a good life, I split the difference: and minored in Legal Studies at University, before finishing a full culinary program at the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York City.
What lessons did I learn at Northwestern University? I learned that the authority figures at the school did not respect all of their students equally. I learned that rules can be bent, but they can’t be broken. And I learned that Northwestern would abandon its commitment to their students, if and when they were sent to a mental hospital.
What lessons did I learn at culinary school? I learned how to cook, how to cooperate, and how to show respect for the earth, its food, and those who help prepare it for others.
Culinary school taught me the importance of a moment of silence, before and after eating.
University taught me the importance of peaceful protest against any violent authority on this earth.
I have far more respect, institutionally, for the Natural Gourmet Institute (a for-profit school, mind you…) than I did for Northwestern University (a non-profit, supposedly).
I have far more respect for my peers from culinary school, who work like indentured servants for very little money in very hot kitchens.
Those people work hard, so that my peers from Northwestern University can eat at very expensive restaurants and enjoy themselves.
Who has the real wealth? Who has the real bounty of food? Is it the bankers, the chefs — or the Earth herself?
This tattoo is a reference to both Karl Marx, and my time working in professional kitchens.
Because: anyone who has worked in the “back of house,” has seen how fundamentally unfair labor economics can become, if the “front of house” isn’t mindful.
Why is it that the people who work the longest hours, with the hardest jobs, earn the least money?
And why is it that the “owners” of restaurants don’t know how to cook? Or even operate their own dishwashing machines?
Is it because they spend their time at the front of the restaurant, sipping wine and laughing with customers? While their employees are stuck behind, doing the hard work on their behalf?
Who owns who and what, again? And where does the real wealth lie?
Chapter 11:
Stalks of Steel (The City of Wheat)
I was once an urban farmer.
To be more specific: I was a white boy with a beard growing lettuce for overpriced restaurants.
That was my honest, real, line of work. I was paid money to do it — but the real payment was my sweat under the sun, the till in the field, the flowers I picked on the rooftops of those restaurants.
Every restaurant in the world, at least those with physical locations, have a rooftop.
Why does every rooftop not have a farm on it?
Urban communities now compose more than half of the world’s population.
Cities are small — but roofs and homes are abundant.
Why are the roofs not used to farm? And why are the empty homes not used for the homeless?
Do you want to turn your roof into a farm? All it takes is one seed.
Do you want to turn a homeless man homed? All it takes is one roof.
I have farmed many different crops, in my time as an urban farmer: potatoes, hops, grapes (white and red), lettuces, wildflowers, tomatoes, cucumbers, snap peas, bees and their honey, carrots, garlic, onions, juniper, coriander, nasturtium, herbs, turnips, beets, kohlrabi, kale, cabbage, apples, eggplant, olives, and tomatoes, to name just a few.
I have farmed in many different environments, in my time as an urban farmer: rooftops, indoor grow-spaces, closed loop vertical farms, vertical farms, classic field farming, hoop houses, greenhouses, hydroponics, and personal home farms.
I have met many good people while farming.
Everyone is a farmer — we all reap, though not all will sow first.
Why did I change my career, if it was such rewarding work?
First and foremost: farmers don’t get paid enough. Do you think food comes from the grocery store? No: it comes from the field, from a person’s hard work through the soil, sun, and water.
Secondly: urban farming, where and when I participated in it, was “vanity farming.”
I had to ask myself the question: does the world need another white man with a beard growing microgreens for Michelin-recommended restaurants? Probably not.
So, I chose to enroll in a Master in Organic Agriculture program, at the world’s #1 university for agriculture, Wageningen University.
I completed six months of my studies, before a new question emerged for me:
Why do I need a Masters degree to farm?
I don’t recall if the farmers of Mesopotamia had universities. All I know is what they knew: seed + soil + water + light + work + time = food.
Everyone should consider urban farming, some time.
Chapter 12:
No Water, No Moon (The Only View?)
In the Zen Buddhist tradition, a common form of poetry is called a ‘Koan’.
Koans are meant to be unsolvable riddles.
In the Zen world, these riddles force or invite the reader to think in a new way. The riddle remains unsolvable on its face — but in its heart, there is one answer from Zen.
Perhaps the best-known of these Koans come from a collection of poems called The Gateless Gate.
This tattoo is a reference to a Koan within that book of Gates.
I will do my best to paraphrase that poem, here, from my own memory of it:
An elder woman served as a Zen nun for many decades. She had joined the monastery as a young girl, and had performed her duties diligently for all her time there.
Now, as an older woman, she still knew she was not yet Enlightened. Her masters knew this, her colleagues knew this, and her pupils knew this. Because even she knew, despite how often she meditated, she had not yet seen the light of the Buddha-head.
As part of her duties, she had to walk from the monastery to a faraway well, to collect water. She did that trip at least once a day — ten miles there, and ten miles back, every day of her time there in the monastery.
One evening, she was returning from the well with a heavy load. She carried an old, but firm, bucket of wood. In that bucket, she had collected as much water as she could carry from the well.
She intended for that water to be drank by the fellow monks, nuns, and students. Perhaps even a drop or two for herself, if she was fortunate.
This particular evening happened to have a full moon, bright and clear and blue in the sky above her.
As a nun, she was already highly attuned to her surroundings. As she walked, not a drop spilled from the bucket — even as she watched that moon, and considered it.
Suddenly: splash!
The bucket has broken, and now the water runs through the bottom, creating a puddle by her feet.
The nun looks at the “broken” bucket. She looks at the puddle of water. She looks back up to the moon.
“No water, no moon,” she thinks.
And then? She was enlightened.
There is another brief Zen poem, which is related to the nun and her bucket:
“Before Enlightenment? Chop wood, carry water. After Enlightenment? Chop wood, carry water.”
I don’t know if she drank from the puddle.
Chapter 13:
Number 13 (Nien!)
None. One. Nine?
Number: 9. Or, depending on your perspective, 6.
How many numbers? How many nines? Nine?
How many riddles? How many questions? Nine lives for cats — nine questions for this tat?
Or, perhaps 9 is too odd a number. Let’s even things out.
Two questions? Or is that too many? None? Is that too few?
¿9?
Numbers. Nine of them before we start counting double digits.
Base ten, mathematically speaking. Number nine, literally speaking. Infinity, poetically and metaphorically speaking.
What here is concrete? What here is fluid? What is round, and what is square?
Nine. None. Nine.
Nien! It can be what you need it to be.
The logo, after all, came from a clothing store.
The song, in the first place, came from a group named after Monstrous Vermin.
They made their song abstract: yeah!
This entry, perhaps, is an abstraction of their song: nien?
In één moment (that is Dutch for in “one” moment), their song was placed on my body, through a clothing store’s logo here in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Personally speaking, I had a friend there during my tattoo appointment. She watched, she listened, but did she learn?
I do not know if that woman is still my friend. I do know, for that moment in time, we were soul-mates.
Are we still together, then? If our souls mated?
If she was there, watching the ink on my body…was she part of the Beatles song, too?
Would she be proud of the man I became here, the one you read in this Book?
How
Many
Lines
And breaks do we need?
Before we accept that poetry is poetry, and metaphor is metaphor, all a Fibonacci sequence spiraling to a central point?
How many questions? How many answers? Nine?
Number Nine.
Number Nine.
Number Nine.
The thirteenth tattoo.
Ten and three. Ten. Time.
Base ten: base three: base nine.
All just basics, in a mathematician’s log.
Where, then, does complexity emerge from?
Why, then, do we write poetry?
How, then, do we love a soul-mate?
Is Fibonacci’s shell simply one curved question mark?
Is this the mark of the Beatles, the mark of a poet, the mark of a tattoo artist?
I loved that woman who watched. I still love the woman who watches. I hope she is reading here, now.
Because I already know I love her, as I know I love you.
But first, I had to learn how to love myself.
Nine…and in nine ways: ¿Nine? !Nine! (nine) NINE nInE.
Four. Two. Four.
Chapter 14:
This Tattoo is Trouble (www.alessiomanti.com/status)
To the barcodes of the future: when will QR Codes become obsolete?
Is the Code already obsolete, if the QR scanner can’t read my tattoo?
Did it ever matter whether the QR Code worked?
Perhaps the destination was more important than the code. In this case, this QR Code was meant to go to a page on my personal website, which would be a live “status” update.
My hope was that I could update that page frequently, and use my tattoo as the only “official” way of accessing it. That way, I could invite people to private parties, share my favorite musicians’ albums, or post and share trivial things onto the Internet, accessible only through this one piece of art on my left arm.
For full disclosure: the tattoo artist who painted this, Lasha, did not want to make the tattoo. In fact, he tried to persuade me away from it, arguing that it might not work as a fully-functional QR code.
With tattoos, you have only one chance to get it right.
Unfortunately, we ran out of time during our two hour session, and he had to take another client. That is the main reason the QR doesn’t work — the tattoo itself is unfinished.
(A word to the wise: tattoo artists will often reject work, if they think it’s inappropriate, unwise, or simply outside of their preference zone. Always listen to your tattoo artist — they have your best interests at heart!)
Because I accepted, upfront, that the QR code might never work, the artist allowed himself to paint it on me.
So, this raises a new riddle: if I had wanted the QR code to work, would the artist still have participated?
Did I need to accept the tattoo as broken, to get it in the first place?
All tattoos are consensual, between the artist and the subject. I am confident that Lasha is very good at his job, which is why I trusted his judgment. He was confident that I meant what I said, which is why he trusted my judgment, too.
I will raise another question, for myself: if I had made it a barcode instead of a QR code, would that have turned my arm into a product?
Where does the man end, and the product begin? Where do the tattoos end, and this book begin? Where do Lasha’s art and my body part ways?
Perhaps Lasha knew he was leaving a piece of himself with me.
For him, and all those before him, I am forever grateful.
Chapter 15:
Family Don’t Matter (My Name is Zedekiah.)
My family is part of the impoverished aristocracy.
For some reason, they cling to this symbol: a shield, given by the Royal Society of Italy.
The shield shows one man’s arm, extended over an Ocean, or a sea, or a very large lake. That arm is holding a globe — not the earth, but simply a representation of it in physical form.
In the background of that symbol, there are beautiful clouds. I do not know whose arm it is, nor do I know if they bothered to look at the clouds, while clutching that globe tight.
The family crest comes with other flourishes: a knight’s helmet, abundant frills, and a five-point crown.
Apparently, we were fortunate to not be sent into exile, when the Italian Royal Family was voted out of office in a democratic election shortly after World War 2.
If the family stays together, and stays in their country of origin, who needs the shield anymore? Who needs the crown? And who needed all those frills, anyway?
Please, allow me to explain the first sentence of this entry: in Europe, many families cling to their shields, to their names, and to their history. They do this, even after the “aristocrats” lose all their money.
Is it the symbolism that counts, then? Or the Blue Blood of royalty?
If I prick them, will they not bleed, too? And what color would that blood be? I know mine to be dark, crimson red. Perhaps the Manti family thinks their blood is blue; I’ve never seen them bleed, so I can’t say for sure.
After my brother passes, I am the next Male Heir to inherit this shield.
I have no interest in waiting for that, to seize my own heritage. So I took the shield, removed the crown, and laid the Knight’s helmet down to rest. I kept only the symbol — of an arm holding a symbol of the earth.
Does that mean I love my family, no matter what? Does it mean the Royal Society becomes irrelevant?
Hardly.
It means, instead, that I’ve got my own back. Even if I come from the impoverished aristocracy, I know what true Wealth means.
That wealth can never be passed from brother to brother, or even from father to son. Instead, it’s discovered in the heart. It is a wealth that never expires, a richness that never recedes.
So, a question: where were the shores in that symbolic ocean? What people lived and loved there? Did they have that eternal Wealth we all share?
Chapter 16:
Words of Wisdom (Vicious words, Still…)
This tattoo could easily be dedicated to my family of origin, my blood relatives in Rome.
However, I chose not to dedicate it to them. Because that family is part of my story, as written in this book, and as written on my arms, in this tattoo.
My aunt, who for privacy I will not name, but will call instead “Maria,” is an awe-inspiring woman. She has survived enough for one lifetime — surrounded by self-described fascists, in the city of Angels, she found her own home, well within the closed walls of her own heart.
Many years ago, I renounced the political philosophy of fascism in my own heart. She, however, does not see things in the same way. She has chosen to describe herself as a fascist.
Fascists have a habit: they love telling others how to live their lives, regardless of consent.
So, this brings us back to this tattoo: how, exactly, is Maria related to Rome related to Fascism related to Figlio viziato?
Please, allow me the chance to explain: I renounced fascism in public, because my own grandfather was a Fascist Prefect, from the region of L’Aquila.
Despite being a wanted War Criminal by the Allied Forces, he lived a long and successful life as a lawyer, long after World War 2 was finished.
At least he stood by his convictions publicly, too. For Maria’s part, she lacks the clarity to renounce fascism, so I asked her personally what she thought of it, in a private message between just her and myself.
In response, she called me a “figlio viziato”. It’s a wonderful insult, with many shades of meaning between its literal definition of “vicious child”.
Reading her message — from a woman I believed genuinely cared about me, at least enough to insult me — I felt there was only one adequate response.
Instead of responding to her message, I absorbed it. Quite literally and concretely: I went directly to my tattoo artist, asked if he was free, and then invited him to write the phrase on me in any style he preferred.
The choice the artist made that day is now tattooed on my body, publicly. ¿Does that neutralize the insult, if it was first given in private?
Or, perhaps this neutralizes it: I am proud to be called a vicious child.
Please, allow this fool to explain:
I had to be vicious. To live with wolves, I had to earn my fangs. Even if it means brother against brother, under the teat of one loving Wolf-Mother.
Chapter 17:
? (❤)
It begins: with a Question.
Who wrote the question? Was it me, the subject? Was it Antonio, the artist? Or, it could have been the object — the flesh itself raising a question for both of us.
In some cultures, questions begin on the right hand side of the page; for others, the question begins on the left. ¿And if I recall correctly, do some other languages use question marks on both sides, to emphasize the nature of what they’re saying?
All words, all questions, and all answers — they all count. They are all valid. They are all, in my mind’s eye, a Miracle.
How many questions do you count here? Just one? Perhaps a few more?
Questions are the hygiene of the mind.
Final answers are for fools, and fools are always alone in their stupidity.
The wise will always keep their questions, from the beginning, to the end, and through the path in between.
Thus, the wise are never lonely. No matter how stupid their decisions may be along the way.
I consider myself a fool.
¿What do you consider yourself? I hope you are a Miracle, too.
Welcome to the Brotherhood in this Book. If you started on this page, I hope the rest of the pages encourage you to keep reading. If you are only just now finishing this book, I invite you to consider: why did you start on the left?
This is the first full entry. This was the tattoo, for me, that raised questions about all the rest. It was the tattoo, for me, that convinced me I needed no more ink to write this book, than the ink I already had written on my own body.
The ‘word count tool’ tells me I have 131 words remaining. Now? Fewer.
This tattoo was designed, and essentially chosen by, my tattoo artist. The original plan was for me to get one black dot, just below my sternum.
That would have been a point — a representation of the traumas I’ve lived, the fears I’ve felt, the friends who’ve helped.
Instead, I asked him a question: where and how do you want to draw a question mark on my body?
He responded in his way: with art, with thought, with care.
¿Do you still care where the question begins, and where the answers end?
¿Do you still remember the Riddle?
¿Do you still love the Book?
I do.
I hope you do, too.
Thank you for your time.
Now, I have ten words left…4…3…2…done?