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I just realized I never posted a poem to Hotsuma!



Ok, kids, here you go....




Unused condom

Lying

In the gutter, on a frigid morning.

Hermetic wrapper intact, grime encrusted,
Gleaming in the first rays of a bitter dawn.


A tightly wrapped parcel of promise
Wasting away in filth

Like a pimped-out teenage hooker
Or
A junkie professor without tenure.

[shit]

 Welcome to Eris' House of Meat!  How may I help you?

"One personal human tragedy, please."

What?  You again?  What are you doing back here so soon?

"I don't have to tell you.  I just need my order."

Why are you so desperate for this?  Have you been drinking cheap red wine again?

"Well, yes.  What does that have to do with anything?"

Look.  We have cheerfully given you everything you asked for.  Intelligence, an education, creativity, curiosity — Hell, Eris Herself re-designed your face after that car crash.  We gave you desire, a touch of mysticism, we even gave you a glimpse of what love could be like.  Then, a couple of years ago, you wandered in here, looking like a little puppy, and said you wanted your life to be Interesting.

"I never said that."

Bullshit you didn't.  I got your ticket right here, buddy: 'My life is getting pretty boring, what can you do about it?'  That is your signature, isn't it?

"Well, yeah, but — "

Well yeah, nothing!  We pointed you to the door, we gave you the map, we even gave you the keys to the building!  You can't lay the blame at our feet because you're too much of wimp to walk out of there.

"I wasn't looking to lay blame."

The hell you weren't.  Your tragedy is your own, buddy.  We're all sold out.  You can't come in here, looking to escape your problems by blaming a mythic anthropomorphic personification of chaos.  Even if She is cute.  Hush.  Let me finish.  Yes, you are trying to escape your personal Drama, the one you created, the one you live in, the one you feel is so unfair. See, we've been watching you.  We see how you long for change, but constantly fall short.  Always looking for handouts, aren't you?  You plead & whine about how unfair the situation you're in is, and then you wait around until someone reaches down & drags you out of there.  And still you drag your feet!

"Hey, now, wait a minute — "

Shut up!  How many times, in how many ways, do we have to tell you to get the fuck out of your pigsty of personal bullshit & fuckin LIVE YOUR GODDAMN LIFE already?  If you recall, we even buckled under and sent three messengers, and we got word this morning that you tried throwing the third one away already.  Already!  Not even a week after we gave her the order!  Eris must really care about you.  Anyone else who tried pulling this crap on Her would have gotten an anvil dropped on their head years ago.  So just turn around, and walk on out of here, buddy.  Your money ain't no good here.

"So you're not gonna help me?"

Help you?  We don't help people.  We never have.  Here at Eris' House of Meat, we give the domesticated apes what they think they need to survive & move on.  We're not here to make things easy.  Does no one ever read the fine print?  You got what you asked for, and we gave you what you need.  Now stop shooting yourself in the foot, & go & make things right.  And try to have some fun while you're at it.

"Fine.  Thanks for nothing."

Fuck you.  And lay off the cheap wine, already.

The bones of Gurdjieff remain buried;
But not from lack of trying.

Rather, it is the digging itself that drives the bones deeper.

We claim to have the legends to the maps, we proclaim that we know how many miles are contained in an inch,Äîwe add our own shades, we fold down the corners of our favorite passages;
But many have only read the guide books, and have not walked the territory.

But just as the Ten Thousand Things need the Fool, the Keepers of the No-Gate need the Ivory-Tower Free Prisoners

(The apostles of enforced freedom);

And they will exist forevermore, as the Many orbit the One, learning but not knowing, watching but not learning, hearing but not watching, feeling but not hearing.

Through the offering of food, the tongue tastes, the mind interprets, the belly fills;
But is the soul freed?

Through the offering of violence, the fist raises, the mind rages, the belly clenches;
But is the soul freed?

The only escape is varied, and innumerable, the narrow path is wide and dusty;
All roads but an infinity leading back to the Tower of Horn.

There is no self-correcting ship, hands on the rudder at all times, Entropy, the Sister of Chaos, holds hands with Destruction;
But both lift their eyes towards Creation.

We draw our lines, we play with colors, we set fire to the legend, we play with monsters;
But we drive the bones deeper as we cavort.

There are those who have glimpsed the gleaming skeleton, Ten skulls, and Twenty-Two ligatures, but only for a moment;
For some, that is enough.

Others see not what they saw, and draw Mercator Projections, enlarging the small, contracting the large;
And they say they can navigate the oceans.






We cannot hold these truths to be self-evident;
For Truth of the self lacks evidence.

To arms! To arms!  A cry is raised.  A hue soon follows, and many are caught up in its wake.  The wave crashes over the temporal landscape, as the washed masses throw wrenches into everything they find.

Crash!  Crash!  sound the gears of society.  The cogs pause, hem, haw, and move on.  The meters are fixed, the tire is patched, and the tear in the social stocking is patched with nail polish.  Frustrated the masses slump, moan, and mutter, for what they see around them has not change it has adapted, it has overwhelmed, overcome.  The gray existence bleaches out the color of those who leave their hands in too long, searching for the lynchpin, the lever that pulls it apart.

Hold!  Hold!  For like the synchroweb that  binds the cosmos into an Erisian orgy of energy, the social fishing net which catches the souls of the unwary has no middle.  There is nothing to pull, there is nothing to burn.  Its very intangibility is the briar rabbit that lures rebels into its midst, down a cul-de-sac, and then bores them into submission with taxes and political speeches.

Go back!  Go back!  Heed the call of your mind!  What is in front of you is not in front of you,Äîit is inside you.  The grey wash that seals your eyes like a cataract comes from within!  The Man that holds you down and forces you to submit is your own Monkey of Mediocrity.  The prison has no door, because it has no walls, because it does not exist!  The sun is out, the moon is brilliant, the trees call to you from the plains.  You do not hear, for your ears are filled with the burning of your Will, a Will that runs hot but has no vent.  You consume, but you do not turn.  You spin, but you do not spiral.  You burn, but you do not bleed.

Rise up!  Rise up!  and step sideways into the antechamber.  The mirrors are different here, and your choice is now.  The bland, the ordinary, is only as far away as your next thought, and the prisms beckon you from just behind your eyes.  You fight others, thinking them to be oppressors, but we are you, and you are us, and you only fight your conceptions of us, as we you.  But the self-destructive is ultimately self-defeating, as we cannot win in a battle with ourselves.  

Create!  Create!  We think ourselves to be creative, yet we destroy in the name of freedom more often that we admit.  The non-prophet said that Destruction is not the same as Chaos; we remember that Chaos is All, anything else are subjective rationalizations made in an attempt to function.  And if All is Chaos, then the first distinction is that of creation and destruction.  Move towards the completion of the Great Work, sidestepping the petty 4D squabbles surrounding you.

To Bliss!  To Bliss!  St Campbell had it right.  When one is capable of choosing one,Äôs life, that includes the maps s/he uses.  It is not hiding to refuse the hold the Grey world attempts to impose.  It is not escapism to steal the powers of guilt an obligation back from the overlords.  Because You are the only Overlord.

Free Your Mind, and Your Ass Will Follow.

Brothers and Sisters,

It has been years (months, weeks, days) since Our Goddess Eris first blessed me with her holy spirit; even longer since I first learned my habits of the Natural Philosopher (whatever that means).  Such that the two entwine, I hasten to add my eternal doubt that either of the two shall meet; or that they even exist; or that, existing, they are of separate natures.

A conflict has arisen, my brethren, and so it is with heavy heart I abandon my meaningful pursuits into the nature of the 5-7-5 form, and the benefits of pie (pi-po-phi-pho), and address you as a man of the (tattered) cloth.  

Of late, my pineal gland has remained silent.  This has been borne out by the stirring of the other bodily humors that pervade my corporal form.  In an attempt to revive said awakenings, it can be plainly obvious that the snake of Kundalini has been awoken in my base charkas (known fully well by the Scorpios in our midst), and has reared its hooded head to advance along my spine.  I tell you now, sisters and brothers, the forked tongue of Qetzlquatl has teased the seat of Eris, and I may begin the epistle I bring to you.  That, and I,Äôm pretty sure the open bottle of wine sitting next to me has something to do with it.

It has been written in the false books (for all books are false; for they are made of words, which imply the arbitrary aspect of linearity and of single-mindedness) that there existed in the 23rd revolution, a Legion of Dynamic Discord, and an Erisian Liberation Front.  These groups existed in the minds of those who never existed, and they live in my mind now.  The delineations are random, fluid, and arbitrary,Äîlike most things, they exist in the mind of the operator, and that operator is me.  Suffice to say, these groups do not exist.  And yet, if not in name, they exist in mutating categories residing within my mind, hastening judgment without more exacting deliberations: which make them a possible liability and hazard, if I trust in them too much.  So I better not.  But I have to say, they do help when writing Epistles.

The LDD, as it was (falsely) written, tended toward the chaos of the everyday,Äîthat is, the inhibiting force that was the body politik, the social order that imposed arbitrary rules through the barrel of a gun,Äîthis was their enemy, a solid, if shifting, body of authority figures that stood in the way of the student of Eris and Hir maxims.  To this end the LDD worked inside the common reality (perceived) to bring about chaos, usually violent chaos, with the hopes of liberating those who never knew they were trapped inside the chains of Social Order, and further liberating themselves, who saw the chains first-hand, in the restrictions of their liberty and their rights as sentient beings, capable of their own destiny.

Their mirror were the ELF: mystics, dreamers, and philosophers, who traveled the path inwards, finding barriers within their own minds and souls, encountering impediments of thought, of convenience, of habit,Ķ their path was strewn with seemingly impossible obstacles, for how can one do battle with their own minds, who was seemingly both attacker and defender?  But they found that, for them, the chains were self-imposed, the rigors and rules of social order were impregnated upon their waking selves by their sleeping selves (in the Gurdjieff sense of sleep).  To the ELF, the Social order was an outside occurrence; they had adopted the TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone per Hakim Bey) as a mobile system that can surround the individual and enable an individual to nominally live above social games; and then, in the instances where spheres collide, adopt the meta-awareness state of non-emotional-involvement.  For when economics becomes a game of paper tickets, why should bio-survival become involved?

Such is the perceived divide between these two camps of Eris that conflict would inevitably arise.  Even in the False (falsely called) books, Hagbard and the Dealy Lama argued about their roles in the war of (possible) apocalypse.  The LDD looks at the ELF and wonders:  ,ÄúHow can such proselytizers of the faith be so placid about the happenings of our society?  I stab you!,Äù  The ELF turns to the LDD and says, ,ÄúHow can you be so concerned?  Have a cookie.,Äù

The LDD thinks globally; The ELF acts locally.  For one,Äôs immediate surroundings are far more malleable than the intangibles of human consciousness and the Machiavellian fantasias of the Global Body Politik (or even the National Body Politik).  Wouldn,Äôt one rather live in a well-constructed TAZ, a stronghold of independence with which to gradually influence the otherkind, than live in a constant struggle against impersonal forces which are ,Äújust following orders,Äù, and use violence and oppression to suppress, with the individual living a day-to-day battle to strike a blow to the heart of a perceived ,Äúempire,Äù, that does not even exist in any physical sense?

To be true; the ELF needs the LDD to ground them in the realities of the physical world.  As a non-prophet said, ,ÄúI can debate about the existence of that chair, but you can hit me over the head with it.,Äù  Most Homo Sapiens cannot easily conceive of the semantic nature of their minds when they have no food, clothes, education, sleep; but it seems that many of the LDD seem to be fighting perceived inaction wherever they find it, and not allowing the mental, philosophical, and spiritual element of revolution to be planted through subversive and occult (in its original meaning) means.

In the same vein, one may say that the ELF is shutting out the temporal needs of revolution; that spreading a concept is best served with a physical demonstration of said concept.  Many of the domesticated apes on this planet seem to be unable to adopt new methods of viewing the world without drastic shocks to the nervous system.  But once there, and the mind opens, philosophic ideas are allowed a two-way gate in and out.

The conflicts I have seen of late have been distressing, not just because abstract concepts of people I have come to regard as real have been offended, but because once again, the ELF and the LDD have come to blows, albeit virtual.  As the unelected and nonofficial, not to mention completely arrogant and self-serving attention whore of the entirely fictional and unreal ELF (which does not exist), I would like to extend my hand to the equally unreal head of the LDD, (who also does not exist) and begin some unreal form of cooperation, blending the physical and the esoteric, to bring about the true OM of the populous.

But now, the bottle is empty, and the arms of mother night call me.  In the mornin, I may not post this,Ķ. Ah, who am I kidding?  I spent all this time writing the damn thing.

She said she was going to send RAW's historical Illumanati trilogy, and so she did.  

Now I owe her a mix CD or two of German and german-inspired music.



Praise be unto Eldora!

And the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe
all mimsy were the borogoves,
and the mome raths outgrabe.



Happy Birthday Lewis, you possible paedophile, you!

You decide which one has been altered:


Washington, DC -- Citing concerns over the rising prevalence of pornography, the FCC recently launched a nationwide crackdown against Internet smut sites and pornography peddlers using new media outlets such as cellphone text messaging.
 
But the action, which authorities describe as a defense of social values, is essentially political and is being used to camouflage increasing strictures on the general media, critics of the government's actions say.

"Things have been steadily getting worse [for the media] over the last two years," said John Smith, a journalist once associated with The New Yorker, a newsweekly in the Blue-Stated Northeast. When the publication's critiques of the government got too punchy, its Web forum was closed and its two main editors fired.

Like many other publications that have been closed, Smith says he and his colleagues didn't think their work was so controversial. He said the government has become "completely arbitrary" in dealing with the press.

"Now there is not even a line to toe," he said. An article "might go unnoticed one day but a similar or even milder article may get into trouble the next day. This makes people stay as close to the official position as possible, a kind of self-censorship."

The precise number of newspapers and websites being forced to shut down or change their editorial stance is hard to estimate but is perhaps in the hundreds, said Janet Hubbins, a political activist in South Carolina. While authorities here routinely report the closure of porn and gambling websites -- last month about 1,000 such sites were shut down according to official reports -- they are tightlipped about the increasing actions taken against the political media, Hubbins said.

Indirect pressure on mainstream media outlets also appears to be rising. Last month, Chris Maxwell, a research assistant for The New York Times, was arrested and charged with revealing state secrets, which carries a maximum sentence of death if he is convicted.

Such actions, along with increasing human rights abuses, indicate the US is "moving backward" from the progress it made in previous years toward developing a more open system, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said during his visit to China last month.

     ***     ***      ***

OR

     ***     ***      ***

BEIJING -- Citing concerns over the rising prevalence of pornography, the Chinese government recently launched a nationwide crackdown against Internet smut sites and pornography peddlers using new media outlets such as cellphone text messaging.
 
But the action, which authorities describe as a defense of social values, is essentially political and is being used to camouflage increasing strictures on the general media, critics of the government's actions say.

"Things have been steadily getting worse [for the media] over the last two years," said Chu Tian, a journalist once associated with Southern Weekend, a newsweekly in southern Guangzhou province. When the publication's critiques of the government got too punchy, its Web forum was closed and its two main editors fired.

Like many other publications that have been closed, Chu says he and his colleagues didn't think their work was so controversial. He said the government has become "completely arbitrary" in dealing with the press.

"Now there is not even a line to toe," he said. An article "might go unnoticed one day but a similar or even milder article may get into trouble the next day. This makes people stay as close to the official position as possible, a kind of self-censorship."

The precise number of newspapers and websites being forced to shut down or change their editorial stance is hard to estimate but is perhaps in the hundreds, said Hou Wenzhuo, a political activist in Beijing. While authorities here routinely report the closure of porn and gambling websites -- last month about 1,000 such sites were shut down according to official reports -- they are tightlipped about the increasing actions taken against the political media, Hou said.

Indirect pressure on foreign media outlets also appears to be rising. Last month, Zhao Yan, a research assistant for The New York Times, was arrested and charged with revealing state secrets, which carries a maximum sentence of death if he is convicted.

Such actions, along with increasing human rights abuses, indicate China is "moving backward" from the progress it made in previous years toward developing a more open system, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said during his visit to China last month.

Do ya think that when Eris worked out the "no hot dog buns" clause, She was on the Atkins diet?