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I'm curious about something.

I never really grew up a Christian.  My grandfather used to take us to an Episcopal church when I was little, but I never paid attention, and we stopped going when I was 8.  Plus, my dad was a physicist, and my mom just didn't care, so it just wasn't discussed much.

I only got into comparative religion during High School, so my Bible knowledge is much more 3rd person removed than being in it, and I never really heard any of the abstract reasoning regarding some questions about the Bible.  Not to mention, I doubt an Episcopal church would have bothered with some of the thornier things mentioned.

So anyway, I know a few of you are ex-"hardcore" Christian literalists; y'all would have some insight into the ways of church reasoning.  The reason I bring all this up is because of a few points in The God Delusion I read last night, and I'd like to hear how a devoted person would respond.

NOTE:  This is not necessarily a Xtian-bashing thread, or at least it is not intended to be.  I am honestly interested in the ways SRS Xtians handle these issues.

Essentially, it's about the birth of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, and how the two just don't line up with each other regarding the circumstances of how they got to Bethlehem, and how the lineages documented in each gospel differ widely.

I know, these are trivial points, and not crucial to Christ's "let's be nice to each other" message, but I was just interested how a literalist would handle something like that.

Again, this is pure curiosity, and not yet another LOL XTIAN thread.

So, I wrote a piano piece a while back.  It was based on a canon at the 5th, but then I monkeyed around with it.  I liked it, so I sent it to my aunt, who is a piano teacher, so vet it for me, check if I got the voiceings right, or if I wrote it as if you'd need 6 fingers on each hand to play it.

Well, she freaked out on it.  Was absolutely floored.  So much so that she sent the score to a music professor at Hood College named Noel Lester, who (so she says) is constantly looking for contemporary composers.

We're waiting to hear back from him, but I just wanted to boast and posture for a minute.

It has been frequently observed that the Law of Fives is an insightful commentary on the ability for a human to make connections amongst disparate, discreet points.

However, what has not been pointed out (recently) is the connection (hah!) between creativity, inspiration, and the joining of conflicting elements.

The Law of Fives is not just a means of explaining cognitive bias, or underlining the correlation = causation fallacy.

It is also a game that can be played to kick your brain in its ass, and start thinking about things in a new way.  It is a method not for revealing external truth, but for revealing hidden paths within your own consciousness.

The connections revealed when applying the Lo5 mean nothing, except that everything is connected to everything else (order + disorder = chaos).  But the process of figuring out what the connection is reveals much about the user making the connection.

Thank you for your time, and please excuse the esoteric intrusion.

LMNO
-Occasional SSOOKN figurehead.

So, I was thinking about the first time I read I3!, and the guy who gave it to me (who was slightly impressionable), was going on and on about how you could actually look the stuff up! Fernando Poo actually exists! etc etc etc.

Well, RAW later expanded on the conspiracy stuff with Everthing is Under Control, and he did his best to cross reference different conspiracies, many which he first wrote about in I3!.

Next, I3! contains a lot of 60's/70's pop cultural references, plus a lot of poorly explained/understood occultism, science, and religion, much of which a casual reader won't understand.

Lastly, I was thinking about the searchable text version of I3! that... seems to be giving me a 404 error... ah, crap.  Maybe it moved.

Anyway, this morning, in my usual hypnagogic state, I thought that it might be an interesting idea to take I3! and hotlink the fuck out of it, so a reader can go through the book and be re-directed to explanations and clarifications.  And in the interests of the Parable of the Golden Bull, certain links could be fabricated of entirely false or Law-of-Five'd information, to increase the sense of paranoia/mystery.

I3!, if nothing else, makes hundreds, if not thousands of side references.  It wouldn't be a quick task, maybe not even an interesting one, but maybe the publisher of I3! would be interested in releasing an edition like that... or paying some deperate Discordian to do the work...

But would anyone be interested in reading something like that?

THE BACON EXPLOSION.

Well, Mrs LMNO and I have decided to get healthy(er).* To that end, I have to start making things that are low in fat and starches.  Sadly, this is where a lot of good flavor lives.


So:  This thread is where Healthy™ recipes go.  Sock it to me.










*This said after finishing a pot of Red Beans and Rice.

My friend, heaven cast praises upon her, has blessed my household with magnificence.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you BACON VODKA.

No shit.  Home made, no less.

Cook up bacon, add to vodka (she used Skyy because it's supposed to have the least amount of impurities, it's relatively cheap, and you don't want to be doing this with extra-fine quality vodka).

Put in the freezer, and skim off the fat. 

Remove the bacon, and pass through coffee filters several times.  This will take a while.

The end result is oddly amazing.  I made a martini with it, and the results were stunning.

Also kicks ass in bloody mary's.

Some people are still going around spouting off that we all need to "surf the wave of chaos", and "embrace disorder" and "don't try to order things so much."

But you know, all that's gonna get you is a clever way not to get pissed when you can't find your car keys.

You see, all Disorder is not equivalent.  Some stuff is just the inevitable, I-didn't-see-it-coming-ness that the Universe finds funny to throw in your face.  Other stuff is just you being a slob.

You can get the kind of Disorder where the girl you bump into on the bus turns out to be the love of your life, or you can get the kind of Disorder where you bang your shin on the edge of the nightstand, causing your grandmother's urn to shatter on the floor and slice the shit out of your foot, sending you to the hospital with a dead woman's ashes on your legs.

Just because Order and Disorder are both Illusions doesn't mean that all experiences have the same results.  Don't waste your time with the small, petty Disorders.  Get those out of the way.  Order them.  That's right, get your shit organized.  Make sure that when that Big Disorder comes down the pike, all the little Disorders are stowed away, and won't pop a hole in your tire.

I don't have the time or resources to do the Editor's job, but I had an Idea for IM#6, or whatever.

The issue.  Rumors, half-truths, wild claims, conspiracy theories, brags, boasts.

Jack felt his knees pop as he knelt by the window. He figured he could jimmy the lock from the outside and they could make their way to the inner sections through the net of underground connections connecting the buildings together.  As he eased the wire picks into the mechanism, he wondered if it were this easy to pick into someone's brain.

It could be easy.  All you needed was to find a weak or fragile frame, and then just apply the right pressure in just the right place.  Now that doesn't mean you can just shove it in; that's a direct way to a brain collapse; plus, if there's any kind of security, they'll come running in quick, and then you're fucked.  No, what you wanted was a subtle slip, a knife's edge into the space.  Something simple.  Something they'll agree with.  That's how you do it.  Then, once you get inside, you can start to move around.  Find other agreeable things.  But the magic was, you didn't even have to find things they agreed with.  Once you were inside, no one ever noticed the damage you could do.

It was like people had this heavy security wall that only looked out.  They were incredibly skeptical about what was on the outside; that was part of the inertia; it just kept on going, blasting down the outside ideas.  Criticizing and shooting them down for any number of reasons, real or imagined.  But if something got in, then it was like they had a backstage pass at the Republican National Convention: Never questioned, never accused, never doubted.  You were home free.  So, first thing, get in.  From there, you can start spreading, like some horrifically welcomed cancer.  And oh, the things you can do.

See, most people aren't aware of how fragile their own ideas really are.  They flit about inside the compound, only bumping into their own kind, agreeing with themselves constantly, and when this goes on long enough, they think they're strong, and assured, and righteous.  But what happens when someone gets inside without their noticing?  Yeah.  Those pretty butterflies of ideas can get clipped so easily. Just... turn them a little.  One dark idea can be like a reverse lamp, all the pretty flitting things don't get drawn to it, they turn away, they turn themselves, they turn into, they begin to become like that dark idea.  They reflect.  Once the dark idea is in there, they start to push a little.  And all the flitting ideas agree with each other, so somehow, they have to agree with the dark idea, no? 

And here's where the dark rationalization comes in.  The immense power of those damn frontal lobes can turn piss into wine.  Anything can become anything else, if you just give it a little time and a push.  That little idea, that tiny, fragile thing, it so wants to be included in the greater picture, it wants to be part of the whole. But it sees that strong, dark thought and idea, and that idea is nudging.  Why not? Why not become part of a larger idea?  There's some sense in what they're saying, after all, no reason you shouldn't go along with it. 

And all the while, the perimeter guards stand silent.  After all, their job is to fight off outside concepts.  All the difficult "mental" stuff happens on the inside, their job is just to keep stuff out.  There's not upper level thinking going on here.  They can't tell the difference between an idea that they started with and one that was snuck in.  So when all the beautiful Moon Moth thoughts become flopping vultures, they start giving orders.  To the guards.  Of course, the guards don't question anything coming from the inside, they only question what's on the outside, yeah?  So, slowly but surely, the guards start guarding against what used to be on the inside, and they keep safe what they used to repel.  And that's all there is to it.  The outside comes in.

But that doesn't account for the subversion through immersion that happens so often.  You take a person who thinks one thing, and then you put them in an environment where every other person they talk to thinks the opposite.  All day long, they're inundated with the same message; but not confrontational.  A confrontation sets those guards up, and protects the flitting thoughts.  No, the conversion by immersion happens when it's not even discussed.  The constant opinion without rebuttal.  It just lives in the environment.  The guards, ordered to keep watch over differing opinions, eventually just accept it as part of the background noise.  It becomes accepted as normal, and then it gets inside.  And without even knowing it, you've become something other than you ever thought you could be.

So, with all of this, all of this mechanical, insidious, unthinking, unfeeling process, where so called "free thinking" people are forced to obey decades old rules they didn't even know they were signing up for, and don't even know how to change it, how the hell do you compete with something like that?  By turning the guards around, and by pointing them inside your own head.

Instead of questioning every outside thought that you encountered, you need to question every thought you've ever had.  Become a butterfly collector.  Nail those fuckers to a board and study them.  Where did your thoughts come from?  What did you experience that caused you to think like that?  And lastly, do you really agree with it, or after breaking it down, does it just not add up?  When you start thinking like this, that what you are is a combination of your environment and the feedback loop you have with your environment.

The whole damn human race, all of society, those stinking, dirty, human monkeys with their chattering!  Prattling on about insignificant bullshit that wasn't anything more than a noise that they made to keep themselves company.  It was worse than a herd of parrots, because at least those dumb beasts ("other dumb beasts," he corrected himself) didn't understand the meaning behind the sounds.

Then again, maybe the chattering monkeys didn't understand what was being understood, either.  Jack was sure they could probably break down the words into a sort of cheap, illegible dictionary. Maybe they could actually connect the sounds to the base meaning of each step of the sentence.  But could they connect the words together?  Could they form some sort of deeper meaning behind the sounds?  At what point did they perform a kind of self-lobotomy that rewired their brains, bypassing any sort of analysis, and linking what they've heard directly to the vocal cords?

Maybe it was simply a case of self-doubt.  There's a lot of doubt in the world, Jack thought, and that's to be expected.  But for generations, the monkeys deceived themselves.  No, that's not right.  They've always been deceiving themselves.  It was only natural to make first impressions, and jump to conclusions.  Hell, no one would ever get anything done without being able to do that.  But there seemed to be something that happened from that point.  The monkeys just... stopped.  "Good enough" was, well, good enough.  They built a wall up, keeping out anything that might tell them they were wrong the first time around.  That's where the re-wiring starts, he thought.  When they don't want to admit they're wrong.

So it's not self-doubt then.  It's pride.  The inability to admit mistakes.  Maybe that was the original sin.  The Sin of Pride wasn't about taking credit for your actions, or about feeling good when you've done well.  To be fair, it was true that bragging about it kind of sucks, because it's already happened.  You start living in the past; you figure you've got some sort of pass for inaction.  But that's not pride.  That's what some people wanted Pride to be, because, of, well, Pride.  Pride is what keeps you from admitting you're wrong.  So, someone twisted it around.  Someone fell into a deep pit of Pride, and decided that not only weren't they wrong, they couldn't be wrong.  Pride had to be something other than that.  So Pride became admitting you were actually good at something, not that you didn't know what was actually going on.

But without the fear of self-doubt, there'd be no Pride.  But who isn't afraid of being wrong?  If you admit you're wrong about one thing, then maybe no one will ever believe you again.  Then again, why should anyone believe anything they haven't already experienced for themselves?  Is this where faith came from?  Let's say I tell you that just around the corner, a gorilla is waiting to give you a sack full of dead roses and toaster ovens.  Whether you believe me or not depends on how often flora-and-house appliance-wielding primates have skulked around corners.  Experience, yeah?  Both faith and trust come from experience.  So, he'll believe you if you tell him something he already knows.  That's not trust, that's buying into Pride.  That's running head on into your own fear of self doubt.   

Jack's head started to spin with the whiskey and coffee. He tried to get his mind around the whole thing.  If you can't admit you're wrong, if you won't admit you're wrong, then you simply aren't.  You believe anything someone tells you that you agree with, and reject anything different.  Until experience comes along again, and kicks the chair out.  So, what's the answer?  Make everyone experience everything until no one needs to trust anyone anymore? Not enough years in a lifetime.  Trust was just as necessary as jumping to conclusions.

Jack took his cup of coffee-flavored whiskey to the ratty, beat-up couch and propped up his foot.  "Damn lying monkeys," he thought to himself.  When did the lie begin?  It could be said that the lie always existed.  We've been lying to ourselves since we began to receive information into our brains.  Because we naturally forget that what we see isn't all that's really out there, and we tell ourselves that what we see is Really Real Reality.  Even barring things like hallucinations and optical illusions, we're not really getting the big picture.  Take gamma rays for example.  Have you ever seen a gamma ray?  No.  You might have seen a machine that supposedly clicks when it gets hit by a gamma ray, but all that's really telling you is that "something" happened.

Jack closed his eyes, and squeezed hard on his lids.  Behind his eyes, the demon's face appeared again.  It was happening more often now.  He couldn't escape it when he was awake, either.  It used to just be part of his par for the course nightmares, but that one face started appearing more often.  It wasn't that unique a demon, either.  Typical red eyes, pointed ears, big horns, toothy grin.  It wasn't frightening, it was... annoying.  Like when your 6-year-old cousin tries scaring you, but does it over, and over, and over again.  Jack was pretty sure it was going to get creepy eventually.  The 6-year-old thing can get creepy too, if they keep at it long enough.  The fright moves behind the action, into the motivation: Why does he keep doing that?  What's the hell is wrong with him?

In the case of the demon, it was more the insistence of Jack's own head that was bothering him.  Why that image, why so... cliché?  It bothered Jack that his brain was being so trite and unoriginal.  "I mean, even if space aliens were beaming their mind-control lasers into my head, I doubt they'd resort to cheap tricks like that," he muttered to himself.  "I liked it better when it was images of impossible perverted sex acts.  At least then it was somewhat interesting."  He thought back, trying to remember when the dime-store horror image replaced the contorted writhing.  All he could come up with was sometime before That Weekend.  Not a "lost" weekend, as much as a "found" one.  It was one of those handfuls of days that seem to pop out of nowhere.

But that was a lie, as well.  Days don't just pop up, they happen, over an over again.  And even grouping them into 7-piece sections, setting up expectations for certain days over others, that's just a lie that's been engraved into the brain so much that the stupid monkeys have made it into a fact.  They walk though their lie day, looking at lie things, thinking their lie thoughts.  Because when you have deceived yourself with Pride, lying becomes the easiest thing in the world.  But wait—doesn't the lying come first?  The deeper lie, perhaps.  Somehow, certain people (monkeys) were able to convince other monkeys (people) that what they didn't experience was true.  Then they convinced them that what they couldn't experience was true.  Big whoppers, too.  Big enough to blanket the self-doubt, and then Pride comes along and seals the deal.

Jack scratched his head.  It was starting to come together now.  He put down his coffee cup on the floor and stared out the window.  The stupid monkeys.  Their lies.  Their Pride.  Where was he going with this?  The whiskey had gotten to him again, making him slow.  Jack was sure he was getting somewhere, something to do with why he always felt an impending weight on his shoulders, the imposition of some sort of "almost".  That "almost" was trapping him, holding him back, and keeping him in a holding pattern.  He waited. 

CHAPTER 1: He Woke Up In Prison.



OH HOLY FUCK I'M FALLI-

Hitting the hardwood floor jolted him fully awake.  Bedclothes were strewn around him, constricting his legs, and his left arm was twisted around his back.  Jack squinted at the light coming through the slatted blinds.  He tried to remember what the hell he had been dreaming of, but couldn't.  He didn't remember any of his dreams (nightmares) anymore, just flashes of images: mouths; teeth; feathers; glass splinters; spiders.  Skies falling in.  Houses, and absences. 

"Doesn't matter," he thought to himself.  "That shit doesn't apply in this world.  I got better things to do."

Jack took inventory of himself.  He worked his arm out of the sheets, rubbed the sleep from his eyes.  There was a thin crust beneath his right eye he scraped away with a jagged fingernail.  Out of the corner of his mind, he caught the first glimmer of an old, familiar pain.  His left ankle.  Again.  "Fuck."  Pushing up against the uneven hardwood, the bedclothes dropped away.  No one else was in the room, but if they were, they'd get the idea that Jack had things on his mind other than, say, hygiene.  Or general respect for property.  You could expect that his hair would a mess, nightmare-tossed and all.  But it really didn't have to be that greasy.  Raven-black once, it was now flecked with silver, underlining the proof that the creased skin at the corners of his eyes and mouth weren't just from smiling too much.  Truth is, he hardly ever smiled anymore.  Anymore? Jack couldn't remember the last time he really cracked a grin.  Right now, this ankle bullshit wasn't helping.  He took a step, and a hammer crashed down on his ankle.  That's the thing about pain.  You can pretend it's managable, you can tough your way through it, you can even ignore it for a while, but it always comes through in the end.  It fucks with you.  It turns any day into a nails-on-the-blackboard experience. You can pretend that it doesn't affect you, that your head is your own, but your body fights hard.  Jack knew, from far too much experience, that pain isn't exhausting.  Pain is easy.  What's exhausting is the battle.  The battle to move.  The battle to communicate.  The battle to get out of your own head, to push back the solipsistic pain, to overcome the spin pain puts on everything that comes at you.  Just like everything else in the world, pain has inertia.  Once it gets going, and really gets a good head of steam, you can't just turn it aside.  It just soldiers on, punching you in the face, dropping a dark hood on everything you do.  Always.

Jack could never understand how his ankle couldn't support him anymore.  The right ankle was just the same, right?  It could support him.  It wasn't like there was much to support him, anyway.  He limped his way into the dank bathroom off the north side of his bedroom, grimacing with each alternating step.  He slapped at the lightswitch, and heard the distinctive "pop" of a blown filiament.   Some of the light from the bedroom window made it into the bathroom, and Jack could see himself in the mirror, bifurcated by the jagged crack running down the middle.  In the dim light, he could see his ribs jutting against his skin, the rough stubble of several days, and he could just make out the faint tracery of old scars mapped out on his skin.  He ran his gnarled fingers across his scalp, and leaned forward to peer in the mirror.  He could make out one bloodshot eye.  That was another thing about pain- it kept you up at night.  Jack was one of those who tossed in his sleep, and every movement brought his old, bad friend back.  He looked down, and pawed through the various bottles of meds on this sink.  Nothing serious, just the over-the counter stuff.  The more serious shit was next to the bed.  Jack hated going that far though.  It killed the pain for a while, but it wasn't relief.  There was no sleep, only the void.  And even if there wasn't pain, there wasn't anything else, either.  He still woke up every day jittery, not rested.  He felt incomplete.  Jack swallowed a couple of pills dry, and made his way back into the sunlight.

Jack limped into the kitchen, which was in itself a testament to clutter.  He had learned years ago that the less you had, the less you needed to clean, but that really didn't make a difference if you didn't give a shit about food sanitation.  The sink held on to both pots, bottoms crusted and blackened from constant use and inconstant cleaning.  He knocked those around to make some room, and grabbed the stained metal coffee pot.  The tap sputtered a few times as he turned it on.  After a quick rinse, he filled it and put it on the stove, then dumped a handful of coffee grounds into it from an open bag lying on the buckled formica counter.  He turned the electric burner to high, and watched as a thin trail of smoke drifted up, the charred carbon smell blending into the general funk of stale air, overloaded ashtrays, and old beer.

A battered pair of black pants were slung over the back of a chair in the next room, frayed cuffs and washed thin.  Jack pulled them on, and saw his shoes, one overturned, next to a bottle of cheap bourbon.  He grabbed the bottle, and went back into the kitchen.  He found a chipped cup, and tipped it over the sink.  A thin dribble seeped out, and then Jack filled it halfway with the whiskey.  The black liquid was bubbling in the coffee pot, spitting hot coffee onto the stove.  He killed the heat, and counted to twenty.  The grounds had settled by that time, so he tipped some of the coffee into the cup.  The heat from the coffee sent up whiskey fumes into Jack's face, and he breathed deep.  Anything to take the edge off.  Anything to make the day more tolerable.

The trouble was, it wasn't working so well any more. The first hour or so brought a slight comfort, but then it would fade into another dark place.  It started to strip down his defenses against the pain.  The pain didn't get any worse, but his attitude sure did.  People became intolerable.  Noises got harsher, colors became vicious and mean.  The whole damn human race, all of society, those stinking, dirty, human monkeys with their chattering!  Prattling on about insignificant bullshit that wasn't anything more than a noise that they made to keep them company.  It was worse than a herd of parrots, because at least those dumb beasts ("other dumb beasts," he corrected) didn't understand the meaning behind the sounds.

Then again, maybe the chattering monkeys didn't understand what was being understood, either.  Jack was sure they could probably break down the words into a sort of cheap, illegible dictionary. He was sure  they could actually connect the sounds to the base meaning of each step of the sentence.  But can they connect the words together?  Can they form some sort of deeper meaning behind the sounds?  At what point did they perform some sort of self-lobotomy that rewired their brains, bypassing any sort of analysis, and linking what they've heard directly to the vocal cords?

Maybe it was simply a case of self-doubt.  There's a lot of doubt in the world, Jack thought, and that's to be expected.  But for generations, the monkeys deceived themselves.  No, that's not right.  They've always been deceiving themselves.  It was only natural to make first impressions, and jump to conclusions.  Hell, no one would every get anything done without being able to do that.  But there seemed to be something that happened then.  The monkeys just... stopped.  Good enough was, well, good enough.  They built a wall up, keeping out anything that might tell them they were wrong the first time around.  That's where the re-wiring starts, he thought.  When they don't want to admit they're wrong.

So it's not self-doubt then.  It's pride.  The inability to admit mistakes.  Maybe that was the original sin.  The Sin of Pride wasn't about taking credit for your actions, or about feeling good when you've done well.  Bragging about it kind of sucks, because it's already happened.  You start living in the past, you figure you've got some sort of pass to inaction.  But that's not pride.  That's what some people wanted Pride to be, because, of, well, Pride.  Pride is what keeps you from admitting you're wrong.  So, someone twisted it around.  Someone fell into a deep pit of Pride, and decided that not only weren't they wrong, they couldn't be wrong.  Pride had to be something else.  So Pride became admitting you were actually good at something, not that you didn't know what was actually going on.

But without the fear of self-doubt, there'd be no Pride.  But who isn't afraid of being wrong?  If you admit  you're wrong about one thing, then maybe no one will ever believe you again.  Then again, why should anyone believe anything something they haven't already experienced for themselves?  Is this where faith came from?  Let's say I tell you that just around the corner, a gorilla is waiting to give you a sack full of dead roses and toaster ovens.  Whether you believe me or not depends on how often flora-and-house appliance-wielding primates have skulked around corners.  Experience, yeah?  Both faith and trust come from experience.  So, he'll believe you if you tell him something he already knows.  That's not trust, that's buying into Pride.  That's running head on into your own fear of self doubt.   

Jack's head started to spin with the whiskey and coffee. He tried to get his mind around the whole thing.  If you can't admit you're wrong, if you won't admit you're wrong, then you simply aren't.  You believe anything someone tells you that you agree with, and reject anything different.  Until experience comes along again.  So, what's the answer?  Make everyone experience everything until no one needs to trust anyone anymore? Not enough years in a lifetime.  Trust was just as necessary as jumping to conclusions.

Jack took his cup of coffee-flavored whiskey to the ratty, beat-up couch and propped up his foot.  "Damn lying monkeys," he thought to himself.  When did the lie begin?  It could be said that the lie always existed.  We've been lying to ourselves since we began to receive information into our brains.  Because we naturally forget that what we see isn't all that's really out there, and we tell ourselves that what we see is Really Real Reality.  Even barring things like hallucinations and optical illusions, we're not really getting the big picture.  Take gamma rays for example.  Have you ever seen a gamma ray?  No.  You might have seen a machine that supposedly clicks when it gets hit by a gamma ray, but all that's really telling you is that "something" happened.

Jack closed his eyes, and squeezed hard on his lids.  Behind his eyes, the demon's face appeared again.  It was happening more often now.  He couldn't escape it when he was awake, either.  It used to just be part of his par for the course nightmares, but that one face started appearing more often.  It wasn't that unique a demon, either.  Typical red eyes, pointed ears, big horns, toothy grin.  It wasn't frightening, it was... annoying.  Like when your 6-year-old cousin tries scaring you, but does it over, and over, and over again.  Jack was pretty sure it was going to get creepy eventually.  The 6-year-old thing can get creepy too, if they keep at it long enough.  The fright moves behind the action, into the motivation: Why does he keep doing that?  What's the hell is wrong with him?

In the case of the demon, it was more the insistence of Jack's own head that was bothering him.  Why that image, why so... cliché?  It bothered Jack that his brain was being so trite and unoriginal.  "I mean, even if space aliens were beaming their mind-control lasers into my head, I doubt they'd resort to cheap tricks like that," he muttered to himself.  "I liked it better when it was images of impossible perverted sex acts.  At least then it was somewhat interesting."  He thought back, trying to remember when the dime-store horror image replaced the contorted writhing.  All he could come up with was sometime before That Weekend.  Not a "lost" weekend, as much as a "found" one.  It was one of those handfuls of days that seem to pop out of nowhere.

But that was a lie, as well.  Days don't just pop up, they happen, over an over again.  And even grouping them into 7-piece sections, setting up expectations for certain days over others, that's just a lie that's been engraved into the brain so much that the stupid monkeys have made it into a fact.  They walk though their lie day, looking at lie things, thinking their lie thoughts.  Because when you have deceived yourself with Pride, lying becomes the easiest thing in the world.  But wait—doesn't the lying come first?  The deeper lie, perhaps.  Somehow, certain people (monkeys) were able to convince other monkeys (people) that what they didn't experience was true.  Then they convinced them that what they couldn't experience was true.  Big whoppers, too.  Big enough to blanket the self-doubt, and then Pride comes along and seals the deal.

Jack scratched his head.  It was starting to come together now.  He put down his coffee cup on the floor and stared out the window.  The stupid monkeys.  Their lies.  Their Pride.  Where was he going with this?  The whiskey had gotten to him again, making him slow.  Jack was sure he was getting somewhere, something to do with why he always felt an impending weight on his shoulders, the imposition of some sort of "almost".  That "almost" was trapping him, holding him back, and keeping him in a holding pattern.  He waited.  He was patient.  He felt like he had been waiting for years, maybe his whole life.  No, not his whole life, he dimly recalled when he was in school, and thought he had purpose.  He couldn't remember what exactly it was, other than studying, getting grades, making his parents happy...  Pretty simple goals, really.  And now that Jack thought about it, he didn't really mind the studying, not in any sort of meaningful negative way.  He flashed on something one of his English teachers scribbled in the margins of an essay Jack had written.  Narcissistic garbage, mostly: fairly average output for a high-school sophomore.  It was some trite piece about the perils of the future, about how the futility of life plays itself out, the absurd hopelessness of it all... very pre-Camus crap.  In the margins was scrawled, "If you take care of today, tomorrow will take care of itself."  A trite platitude for a trite sob story piece.

"Looks like that didn't really work out too well," thought Jack as he looked around.  He remembered how he took that advice all those years ago, and strived to "live in the moment": He didn't look farther ahead than the following week, if that.  He took things as they came.  He re-acted rather than pro-acted.  Any wants or desires gave way to the immediate moment; to whatever happened to get in the way.  The ambitions were minimized to getting along, getting through, getting by, getting away with it.  Motivations: to keep the status quo, to keep the Now being the Now, watching it slip into the Then, waiting for the next Eventually to become the new Now.  Now to Then, and back to Now.

And where did that lead?  To a life of Settling.  When things are Good Enough, and working too hard at something is not really appreciated.  Scraping up enough dough for rent, and maybe some food, and of course, your daily supply of booze.  And somewhere along the line, Jack thought, you turned around a corner and ended up with a beat up body and a mind the dredged up thoughts about monkey minds.  And nightmares.  God, he was so tired.  He closed his eyes, and tried not to think about them.

Through the trees came a crashing, cackling, moaning snicker, whirling like stainless steel dancing goats, with razors for hooves, and AK-47s for horns.  The screaming of 10,000 lost souls in a terribly self-conscious HP Lovecraft reference but didn't self-edit due to all the terror from spurting jets of liquid flame and molten iron.  At the heart stood the tophet, the ultimate primate of death and conformity, the one great metal beast that stops thought, stops tears, stops laughter, ends pain with the finality of the axe on the neck, the Marred and Merry Scots spinning away, gouts of blood from stumpy necks and troubled words, gaping mouths on missing heads used as toilets and orifices to horse-headed and horse-cocked beasts with 7 fingers to a hand to grabbing a skull and thrusting upon, knocking out teeth against trees in the blood-red moonlight of howling allowance.  The lights, the lights, the lights in the sky spinning with flames and with fire, heating the rods and the vices and the visors and the pokers and the bellows and the reeds and the flames the fires the rattails and the cotontails and the Peters and the Pauls and the Paupers and the pawprints of wolves in the distance, keeping their time and biding their own counsel as they wait to tear the remains from the decadence feast of negligence where the monsters of the borders move in as boarders to the blind who rip out the throats of the blind and prevent the cool waters of silence from intruding on the noise orgy as the so-called saints burn the presumptive sinners from the inside  of the lizard brain, a reverse lobotomy  of silver-tongued manacles linking the past to the future and skull-fucking the present like whored out pre-pubescent lost children snatched up by unfeeling machine spiders on two legs, spindly steel talons and mandibles ripping off tattered shifts and relying on the kindness of the very steel-stick strangers now offering them to the horrors of the night clutching at them with the pudgy manipulants like greasy sausages sewn onto palms of hearts blackened by the father-fuckers and the fucked by fathers from days of yore and yards of gore and good god, what sort of black metal wanna be fucking dream--

"--IS THIS!?"  Jack sat bolt upright, sweating and clutching his throat.

Ideas, ITT.

1) describe how a person discovers their BIP.
2) map your plot as a process of moving from Malkuth to Ain Soph Aur.
3) graphic killing spree.
4) your life, only better.
5) goldfish can talk.

Oh, look.  My cameraphone uploads to photobucket.

Tonight, it's roast chicken with garlic beets.

Oven at 500.

Salt and pepper bird.

Wrap beets in foil.

Bird in roasting pan, beets on baking sheet.

Into oven

Wait 45 minutes.

Remove beets.  There they are!



Peel beets (you might want to let them cool).



Chop beets into large chunks.  Oooh, pretty.



Smash and rough chop some garlic (wine cork included in picture for perspective).



Ok, it's been about 15 minutes.  Get that bird out.



What's that, you say?  You want gravy?

Remove bird from roasting pan.  That's flavor country, right there.



Take out the chicken fat until about 2 Tb remain.  Then add 2Tb flour, with the burner on low heat.



Stir, dammit!



Ok, keep your eye on that, and add some olive oil to the skillet, low heat.



Add the garlic.  Hey, that smells good.



It's been a few minutes, looks like the roux has browned up nicely.  Add some stock slowly.  Keep stirring.  Get the bits of fond worked in there.



Looks like the garlic has just begun to sizzle.  Throw in the beets to warm through. Salt/pepper to taste.  Add a pat of butter.



Wow, look how that gravy has thickened up.  We're just about ready.



Looks like we're ready to go!

so, for the scribblers- questions about nanowrimo itt.

Mine... Including descriptions of personal relationships; too much hassle to include?

First, I'll edit it for layout, and add verse numbers.

Actually, I think I'm going to be honest and tell you how this trip started.

I was sitting in a train, tripping on a combination of LSA, weed, kanna, kratom, a rose petal and a good amount of salvia. On my way to a lecture about philosophical anthropology, I wrote the entire diabolical scheme down...

Virtues
1. It is time to restore them.

2. Virtues are that which brings men to glory, fame and wealth, if that is what the virtuous one desires.

3. Do not make the mistake of assuming virtues are absolute. They are only absolute in the sense that they represent a higher Truth, or Good, or God, if you will.

4. But to the common creature, these virtues may well seem strange or even immoral. The virtuous one shouldn't fret if his assumed virtues aren't commonly accepted, it is a great tool to determine who is chaff and who isn't.

5. You can only truly follow virtues if they are an honest reflection of your being.

6. If you made it this far and still understand what I'm talking about, have a virtue.

7. If a man's conviction in his virtues is firm, it is an easy task to lead a virtuous life.

8. O men of virtue, I salute you, but don't forget the game we're playing, and don't forget the gift you're
giving, to the hapless and unwilling masses...

9. Excercise care when assigning virtues, for you are manipulating the very fabric of social reality. When you have selected your virtues, and held them up to the light long enough for them to glow on their own, it's time to turn on, tune in, drop out?

10. You'll find you'll see virtue in all those you choose worthy. Which means you should choose wisely...

You've written a drug-addled, self-recursive rant about an undifined, mutable thing you are Noun-ing "virtue".

1. Why, and where did they go?
2. What do they bring if one does not desire that?
3. Do they always?  Why are they not absolute, except when representing those?  Can they represent something else?
4. Why should someone be chaff if the virtue is admittedly not an absolute?
5. Why?
6. No comment.
7. Convictions cause convicts.  Again, why should someone have a conviction in something that is not absolute?
8. No comment.
9. How do virtues change the fabric of social reality, and why are you referencing Leary?
10. Your own virtues, or some other kind?

http://www.reverbnation.com/earfatigueproductions

The band's called Gerund.  Click on the above link, then click on one of the two Gerund tracks.  Available for stream or download.  More to come.

Note:  These aren't the final mixes, but they're pretty close, so I decided to go for it.  I will update when appropriate.

Lyrics:

"The Jailor"

Woke up trapped in the life I was pretending
Machine(tm) in front of me, never ending
I said a prayer to the god I believed in
Then took my place in the Government system

Sat in the place where I was taught good behavior
Five o'clock on Friday was to be my only savior
Leave behind all the things that had happened
Forget the past that I abandoned

They tried to tell me, I just wouldn't listen
They tried to show me the bars of my Prison
My cell was something I had created
Offered no key, but still I waited

The Warden said that I shouldn't try to fight it
"No one escapes, but many suckers try it"
I knew that voice, it was all becoming clearer
It was like staring right into the mirror

They tried to tell me, I just wouldn't listen
They tried to show me the bars of my Prison
My cell was something I had created
Offered no key, but still I waited

Freedom is something that can't be given
They say that it comes from the way that you're living
You can't make a move, you're afraid of failure
You're the best at being your own jailor

Jailbreak.......



"Circular Reasoning"

Said the man
From the Government man
Said he got a plan
That you should understand

He trusts your attention span
Fear of the other man
Fire from the frying pan
Bringing back the Ku Klux Klan;
That's the American plan.

Circular reasoning works because...

Said the man
With his God by his side
Said he got nothing to hide
And he's here to provide

He orders you to comply
Don't bother asking why
That's the sin of foolish pride
Don't be misguided.

But even he knows he lies.

Circular reasoning works because...

I've come up with another track for Tardive Dyskinesia, which is my "Let's Mock the Goths" side project (the last tune was "Too Many Goddamn Vampires").

Anyway, I'm thinking the name of the track is "I'm So Goth I Shit Bats"; the general sound of the track rips off KMFDM and Skinny Puppy.

So, if anyone has any lyrics that more or less makes fun of goths, bring 'em on.

Eventually, when the Tardive project is done, I hope to get the tracks in heavy rotation at the monthly Goth/Industrial night here.  Could be lulzy.

One of the things some of us agree on is that the Universe is chaotic, and that order and disorder are illusions.

-One of things the illusion of order offers is the ability to predict things.

However,  another thing that some of us agree on is that human behavior on a large scale is essentially predictable; that humans are mostly running on old programs they mostly aren't aware of.

I haven't come up with a clever way to resolve these two things, so I'm offering it up to y'all.

Needs editing and clarification, most likely.
____________________________________________





Shrapnel.  Something exploded, and a piece of it embedded in your flesh.  Now you have to carry that around with you for the rest of your life.

It affects you.  In changes the way that you behave, you take the experience of being hit by that shrapnel with you in every decision that you make.  Even if you remove it, the scar remains.  Even in its absence, it informs your decisions.

For the most part, the explosions are essentially random, when taken from a subjective view.  Someone else planted these things, and you walk right into it.  These things may have exploded centuries ago, but the shrapnel is still in the air.  Still able to pierce into the heart of you. 

Often, they tell you where to go.  They push you onto new paths, or keep you going down the one you're on.  They can blind you, they can cripple you, they can make you afraid to continue.  They can accumulate, like scales, like armor, like a lead weight.  Given enough time, they can even render you impervious to other bits of shrapnel.  But not forever.

Shrapnel is not subtle.  It's just that we don't recognize it for what it is.  We get hit full in the face, and we don't even realize what just happened.  We know something just went down, but what? 

You heard a symphony.
You read a story.
You went to school.
You got a job.
You fell in love.
You got into a fight.
You fell out of a tree.
You were mugged.
You got an erection.
You listened to a preacher.
You took drugs.
You got lost in the woods for 3 days.

You lived your life.  And you carry that with you.  Each thing that got the limbic system pumping, every "aha!", all the moments of simmering rage, each instant of bliss... They all left their bits of shrapnel in you.  They all push and prod you in directions you might not even have intended to go.

But you don't have to be one of the walking wounded.  The choice is yours.  Self-surgery is messy, but it's possible.  Search out the bits that got stuck into you, see if they're worth keeping.  Then get a pair of pliers and an exacto knife, and get to it. 

Would you happen to have a pdf of Tristram Shandy?

Just wondering.

Empties this Friday, 5/2/08, at PA's in Somerville.


http://www.paslounge.com/

Finally was able to get the hibatchi rolling this weeked.

2 game hens
cumin seed
coriander seed
curry powder
cayanne pepepr
garlic, grated

Toast 1/2 tsp cumin & coriander in a skillet, then grind to powder.

In a bowl mix cumin, coriander, 1/2 tsp curry powder, and 1/4 tsp cayenne.  Mix with garlic to form a paste.

Split game hens, remove backbone, crack breastbone so hens will lay flat.

Separate skin from flesh, and smear paste in between.

Season skin w/ salt.

Grill, skin side down, over medium coals for 15 minutes.  Turn, grill another 15.

Oh, so awesome.

1 whole duck
1 stock pot
1 roasting pan
salt
pepper

Preheat oven to 500.

Bring water in stock pot to boil, then down to a simmer.  Clean out cavity of duck, then prick the skin of the duck with a knife. all over, paying attention to the fatty bits.  Prick parallel to the body, so you are only making small cuts in the fatty skin, not the red meat underneath.

Immerse in stock pot and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes.  Do not let boil.

Remove, and let rest for 25 minutes, patting skin dry with a paper towel.

Season skin liberally with salt and pepper.

Place in oven for 15 minutes, then turn pan 180 degrees and roat for 15 more minutes.

Remove, let stand for 10 minutes, and carve.

Ok, spags.  You wanted a weekend, I give you.... Sunday night 


This time out, we're playing with Delicious [members of Adrian Belew band, Project Object (Zappa alumni band) & Crescent Moon (dave from Ween)], and Pfefftiffuff [Psychedelic, Experimental].

Plus, you'll get to beat up on the underage punks from the all-ages show that afternoon!

It's at the Midway again.  Yeah, I know.  Shut up.

Represent, bitches!

Today, I think I discovered I'm mildly prejudiced.

We're auditioning bassists, and I get an email from this 21-year old kid, who sounds just about perfect: Learned to play bass listening to the Minutemen, Gang of Four, etc.

So, his email address is enc.edu; being curious, I entered it as a URL: http://enc.edu/ .

It's a Christian college.  Not like Boston College, which is Christian in name only.  Christian like, "WE BEIEVE IN CHRIST THE SAVIOR" Christian.

As soon as I saw that, I was thinking, "No way is this kid gonna play Subhumans' 'Religious Wars'.  No way do I want to be in a band with one of those.

Yeah, I pre-judged him without even knowing him, just because of where he goes to college. 

We are not as noble and free-thinking as we seem.

http://rapidshare.com/files/104017910/Repeat_The_Question_Repeated.mp3.html

It's a remix of "Repeat the Question."  It's slightly more laid back.

Been re-reading GEB, and had some thoughts about it.  I'm in the section about chunking, levels, grouping, and chess. 

First thought:  Hofstadter says that when chess masters look at a chess board, they have trained themselves to look only at possible moves.  Further than that, they look only at beneficial possible moves.  I was considering this, and came up with an alternate chess rule:

-After every seven pieces taken from your opponent, you may move one piece any way you wish, only once, with the exception that you can't checkmate the king.  You may do that at any time after collecting the seven pieces

That way you do have to play by the rules, but up to a point: There is always the possibility of a random action.  This way, you are forced to think about all the impossible moves, as well as the possible ones.

That was more of a side thought, though.  The idea I wanted to bring up was from the section on "The Trade off between Chunking and Determinism" (pp 306 of the 1980 edition):

There is, however, perhaps one significant negative feature of a chunked model: it usually does not have exact predictive power. That is, we save ourselves from the impossible task of seeing people as a collection of quarks (or whatever is the lowest level) by using chunked models; but of course such models only give us probabilistic estimates of how other people feel, will react to what we say and do, and so on. In short, in using chunked high-level models, we sacrifice determinism for simplicity. Despite not being sure how people will react to a joke, we tell it with the expectation that they will do something such as laugh, or not laugh – rather than, say, climb the nearest flagpole (Zen masters might well do the latter!).  A chunked model defines a "space" within which behavior is expected to fall, and specifies probabilities of its falling in different parts of that space.

What I was thinking is that it works both ways... That is, in a certain situation, we have "chunked" the possible behavior of others, eliminating the "impossible" or the "highly improbable".  In some instances, we may even eliminate the "unlikely" or the "probably not"!  In most cases, this happens unconsciously, the lower levels of experience and expectation simply taking over.  Unless we really pay attention, we don't even see it happening.

But this same "chunking" also lurks in our own behavior in situations.  We have unconsciously eliminated certain behaviors and reactions from our possible choices, without even noticing.     Through whatever ways our mind sets up (call it 8-Circuit, or Monkey Mind, or Jungian, or Dianetics, et al), we have radically limited our behavior in how we react to certain situations, the limitations becoming less and less obvious the older the structures of our mind get.  It takes a lot of effort to notice these "chunks," and to act outside of them.  Some people never do.

Please keep in mind that "outlandish" behavior can be chunked, too!  That's why some of these pinealists are so predictable, because even though their behavior might be outside the standard observer's expectations, they are often fairly consistent in their outlandishness.

I'm sure you can easily see the BIP looming on the horizon, so I'll leave that to y'all to draw connections.  I would like to say, however, that in light of the above, one of the things that has drawn me to Erisianism is the way it attempts to avoid high-level chunking of models, if even just in a minor way.  It seems to not only teach us to accept experiences that occur outside our "chunks" of others' expected behavior (thus expanding the possibilities in our brain), but it also can teach us to examine our own behaviors, and how we have automatically eliminated certain responses... Which again expands possibilities in our brain.

http://mihd.net/4khs7ad




(still no vocoders)

The Empties play the Midway Monday, 3/31/08, 9:00 at the Midway Cafe in JP.
www.midwaycafe.com/
Wanna help the universe implode?

[Matt.16:18-19:]

This was originally written for TCC, but due to the strike, I'll post it here.  Yes, it deals with the POEE and the Original PD.  You don't like it, don't read it.

______________________________




As some of you may know, one of the things the POEE (Paratheo-Anametamystikhood Of Eris Esoteric) came up with was the True and Holy Fact that every man, woman and child is a pope ("so please treat them right").

Some people wonder what's up with that.  Well, I'll tell you what that means to me.*

1.  It pisses off the Catholics (not that hard, but fun anyway).
2.  It causes mild confusion in cabbages that can't get their head around the idea of multiple, non-Catholic popes.
3.  It is a fairly precise and concise slice of what it means to be Discordian. 

Perhaps I should expand/expound on that third one.  To wit: The Christian Catholic Path teaches that Jesus gave unto Peter the earthly access of heaven's kingdom (Matt.16:18-19: "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."). 

Stemming from this tradition, the Pope has become the singular conduit of God's will on earth, having final say on moral, ethical, and spiritual matters.  Their will in such matters is not to be denied.

Well, Discordians aren't down with that.  They are typically skeptical of any dogmatic authority (or, for that matter, any authority assumed rather than requested).  To a Discordian, the self is the final arbiter of moral, ethical, and spiritual behavior.  It would simply not do to have some old guy in a funny hat ordering me not to have fun, "just because".  I, Myself, am the key to Heaven, and the Gate; I am the Jailor; I am the Prisoner; and I am Free.

But you see, this applies to everyone.  My papal edicts do not affect you, if you so choose, because you are the Pope, as well.  Of course, you all know what happens when two popes disagree: SCHISM!  And in that chasm awaits the One True Goddess, Eris.



And there's nothing better than looking into the Eris' Crack.



















*It should be pointed out that, of course, I speak for myself, the One True Pope of the First Church of Last Exit Before Toll.  Other popes can damn well speak for themselves, if they so choose.

Due to a myriad of reasons, TGRR has not been posting here.

However, he's got a fire under his ass.

Check it:

http://dolphin.esosoft.net/erisbarandgrill.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=8592
http://dolphin.esosoft.net/erisbarandgrill.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=8593

He asked for it not to be x-posted, so you'll have to read it there, or at POEE.

Mrs. LMNO has a family recipe for "Spanish Rice" that I'ev been tweaking.


In actuality, there's nothing very "Spanish" about it, so I suppose it should be called "Inappropriate Cultural Touchstone Rice".

Anyway, I don't really have amounts for it, I'm doing it by feel (Mrs. LMNO calls it my "alchemy".  I lurves dat woman).

In a lagre pot/duch oven, Brown some ground meat (about a pound) in bacon fat over medium heat.  Remove.

Over low heat, add more bacon fat and sweat chopped onions, garlic, and hot pepper (jalepeno, serrano, habanero, whatever you like). 

add salt, cumin, chili powder, cajun seasonings... you get the idea.  sweat until soft, and the spices have sort of crusted on the bottom of the pan.

Deglaze the fond with red wine.  cook almost all of the liquid out.  what you should be looking at is a goopy dark mess of vegetables.

Add about a cup of uncooked rice, and cook for about 5 minutes.  return meat to pot.

Add 2.5 cups of stock, turn heat up. 

Add a bay leaf, oregano, and approx 2 lb of canned fire-roasted tomatoes.

Add worcestershire (sp) sauce.  bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for an hour.

add green beans chopped 1" long, and lime juice.  Cover and cook another 10 minutes.

serve with cilantro, and any additional hot sauce.

Ok, this is part of the multi-pamphlet/lollercaust project.

basically, post your parables, stories, jokes, and assorted bits about cabbages and Greface here.  When we reach critical mass, someone will messily compile them into a word document, which will then be highly criticized until someone else makes a slightly better PDF file out of it.


Go!

[the gunman was a sociology major]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080215/ts_nm/usa_shooting_school1_dc_7

DEKALB, Illinois (Reuters) - A black-clad man fired into a lecture hall packed with students at an Illinois university on Thursday, killing five people and wounding 18 before shooting himself dead, police and college officials said.

[Police] said the gunman was a sociology major who last attended classes as a graduate student in the spring of 2007 and who may have since enrolled at a different college. He said he had no police record or previous contact with police.







You fuckers have totally corrupted my brain.  When I first heard the story, I was like, "oh, fuck, another Virginia Tech wannbe."  Then I heard he was a sociology major, and I just started giggling.  It was highly inappropriate.


Many thanks.

So, I was looking at that snazzy chao up top there, and I was thinking that perhaps the Taoism reference is a bit much nowadays.  I appreciate the sentiment, with order and disorder complementing each other in Chaos, but maybe one of you designers could try something else...

Re-inventing the wheel, I know, but maybe the questions could be "what is that" rather than "Why are you ripping off taoism?"

2 center-cut porkchops
6-8 kumquats
cumin
white wine
Olive oil
salt & pepper


Season chops with cumin, salt & pepper.  heat skillet to medium high, add some oil, and sear chops, about 6-8 minutes on a side, depending on the thickness.  Remove.

Slice the kumquats into discs, removing seeds.  Add to pan, and quickly sautee for about 2 minutes.  Add some wine, season to taste, and reduce until almost evaporated.  Spoon over chops.

Apparently, Multiply.com doesn't let you download other people's tracks anymore, it's just streaming.

Looks like i'm gonna have to find another free MP3 hosting site.

Any Ideas?

So, I was thinking about what kind of person I was when I heard about the PD, and the kind of person I was now.

The person I was then was idealistic, optimistic, and always looking for a buzz or a good laugh.

The person I am now is more jaded, more "realpolitik", optimistic but cautious, borderline alcoholic with a gallows humor. 

The former seems to be the kind of person ripe for recruiting.  So, how do we present ourselves in order to appeal to these people?  Maybe the idea is to lure the ground troops in with Lulz, and then slowly reveal to them the Hideous Truths.

That is to say, we start by getting them laughing, and only over time show them the laughter that sounds like screaming.

So, how to do that without resorting to Pinealism?

Hey, I need some help with lyrics here.

"They tried to tell me, I just wouldn't listen
Tried to show me the bars of my prison
My cell was something I had created
_______________________"



End the couplet with a rhyme that works best for me, and I'll include your name on the credits.

What the subject sed.

Thought: the BIP is inherently a post-technology idea.

The concept that there is stuff outside our means of perception can only be verified if there is a way to prove there is stuff out outside our perception.

Sure, there has always been gurus who have said it, but you have to trust them first.  And you know where that leads*.

So it's only after developing technology that lets us perceive things our physical body can't, that the BIP can be thought about with any sort of "truth".

Granted, a telescope, or a parabolic microphone can give us clues, but that's still things we can see or hear normally, just not close by.

So our current understanding of Discordia, or BIP, or whatever the hell you call it, couldn't possibly have existed 1000 years ago, because some might have talked about sights you can't see, or sounds you can't hear, but there was no way of proving it.


Just a thought.













































*Doom, or idiocy.  Usually both.

Monday, Oct 8.

9:00

21+

Empties, Tristan da Cunha, and Heltoro (they apparently sound like Jesus Lizard).

O'Brian's, 3 Harvard Avenue, Allston MA 02134 - Phone (617) 782-6245

http://www.myspace.com/emptiesmusic

Here's one of my solo projects.  Lyrics for The Brokedowns are inspired and stolen from the Meme Bomb thread.

For example: "Circular Reasoning"
http://mihd.net/cqyd8t

Tentative Fur Purse show October 19 at the Milky Way in Jamaica Plain to support the Derby Dames.


Punk rock covers and roller derby, ftw!



More news as it develops.

http://mihd.net/mnhv3o

Please to enjoy.

Everything outside ourselves (ourselves too, but let's keep it simple) is represented in quantum theory by a wave function that gives the probability that an incident of sensation will lead to a certain specified result. Everything we know about the world consists of discrete incidents of sensation, flashes of nervous impulse triggered by a messenger carrying energy and momentum from the outside world. We experience these incidents as a continuum because our crude instruments of perception (eyes, ears, ...) smooth over the myriad individual detection events.

Each such event ,Äì I like to call them clicks; Bohr called them registrations ,Äì has a definite outcome. There is no uncertainty regarding the world we actually see. It is a network of sensory clicks. Each conscious being possesses a unique memory of a world of clicks. When we compare our very definite world with another's, we are not surprised that their pattern of clicks is not exactly the same as ours, but statistically speaking they are sufficiently close. In the world of large things, the deviations in the pattern of sensory events between two observers is small. We can speak to one another of what we experience, and expect to be understood.

In the world of the small, however, human perception lacks the necessary resolu-tion. Observers must objectify experience by capturing clicks in some macroscopic ex-ternal medium, such as a photographic emulsion, that any observer can then peruse. Bohr's word registration conveys the flavor. The objectifiable experience is one in which a microscopic event has been magnified and registered irreversibly in apparatus resembling a mousetrap.

All detectors have this property, including our own senses. A tiny transfer of energy by a message from the system we are observing provokes an irreversible avalanche of events in the detector that creates a sort of phenomenal lump ponderous enough to resist destruction by further gentle probing. What is real to you and me is these lumps, these registrations of microscopic events that comprise the macroscopic world. Any phenomenon large enough to measure serves as a detector of some prior interaction with the microscopic domain. In this way the frustrating elusiveness of objects too small to pin down is translated into a series of well-defined features of a universe that anyone can examine.

Reality, as I understand the word, is ultimately a social phenomenon. If other witnesses cannot see it for themselves ,Äì or reproduce the experience of seeing it, or imagine a way that it might have been reproduced or seen by others ,Äì then it is not physically real. I admit this criterion is vague and needs to be refined for personal phenomena like pain and other unshareable sensations (modern medical imaging seems capable of rendering even these in a shareable way).

Bohr would say more definitely that if the phenomenon is not registered it is not real. Only registered phenomena can be shared. Clearly "reality" is a term that makes most sense for macroscopic things. Perhaps we should call it "experiential reality" or even "existential reality." Quantum theory causes headaches because we cannot help using our macroscopic language ,Äì whose underlying world-view may even be hardwired into our brains ,Äì to speculate about the microscopic world. The macroscopic laws of motion, the laws of Newton and Einstein, track the movement of "big atoms" with well-defined positions in the course of time.

The macroscopic picture of the world is one of a tapestry of continuous big-atom world-lines in space-time. The microscopic picture, however ,Äì well, there is no microscopic picture. There is a discrete set of registrations, each of which is a marker that may together with other markers suggest a track approximating the world-line of a macroscopically observable object in space-time. But there are no world-lines in our experience corresponding to the microscopic elements themselves prior to registration. The tapestry breaks up into a pointillist scattering of isolated clicks.

I've come to realize that I've studied in the art of apologetics and that I've been a great, big follower of such movements as "keeping the peace" and "taking one for the team."  But when it comes to groupthink, this notion is so flawed it smells of raw, stewing sewage.

You can NOT look at a movement like Discordia, Erisianism or the Subgenius Religion and expect to get comfortable with it.  And if you are, you're doing it wrong.  They're all designed to make you sit up and take notice of where the fuck you are and what the fuck you are doing.  And if it don't look right, you're expected to fix it.  Yeah, YOU, FIX IT!

So, when some asshole comes in and whines about all this chaos and how he just wants his life back where his fluffy ass was hopping along so nicely, well, he needs to be told to SHUTTHEFUCKUP and listen already!  It's not just the patience and the learning of the thing--it's the understanding, the gut-feeling, the reaching into your inner foul stench and bleaching the whole anus.

Don't expect me, ever, to be a "hand across the divide," again.  It don't work.  It won't work.  And only the foolish ever try.  NO ONE LIKES TO BE SCAMMED.  Go with the horrible tr00f--it may catch you some blowback, but in the end, it's worth it.

Cuz spending your time spreading doves only wastes energy.  Instead, give an analysis of the poo that oozes, and show them how YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO EAT IT, DUMBASS.  Just accept it's there and do what comes naturally afterwards.

Which would you rather be known for, anyway?  Those who put the tree-scented freshener on the rear-view mirror of the shit-filled car?
 
Or the driver of said car?  Who is driving car?

Further Explorations of the Black Iron Prison:

We,Äôre mostly blind.  But this isn,Äôt really your fault; it,Äôs because of the shell of meat we happening to live in right now.  Think, for just a moment, at the nearly infinite amount of things happening right now all around us.  I,Äôm sure you can think of quite a few things.  Now, let,Äôs talk about them.

You can,Äôt see any of the infrared or ultraviolet light spectrum.  Unfortunately, this cuts out quite a lot of things your eyes were built to see.  Sorry about that.

You can,Äôt hear anything below 20 Hz, or above 20 KHz . You can definitely feel about 12 Hz, if you play it really loudly.  Go on, give it a try.

With just those two examples, if you hadn,Äôt before, now you can really start to understand all the stuff you simply can,Äôt perceive.  I,Äôm sure you can think of five more examples of an immense class of Things that you can,Äôt notice are right in front of you.

But it gets worse.

Stop for a moment, and try to notice as many possible things in your environment that you can, simultaneously.  Notice that, as you start to identify more and more objects, sounds, smells, and tactile sensations, you can,Äôt keep them in your head all at once.  When you notice, for example, the pressure of your shoe against the ball of your foot, that distant bird chirping seems to fade from your attention.

And let,Äôs not forget about how much stuff you weren,Äôt paying attention to when you started reading this.  Let,Äôs face it: We all live our lives with blinders on.  We only allow ourselves to pay attention to 1% of what we physically can perceive, which is an infinitesimally small percentage of all the stuff in the Universe.

And that fraction of a fraction of a percent is what we usually call ,ÄúReality,Äù.  We call it ,ÄúReal,Äù, as if it,Äôs an unshaking firmament of solid Truth, that what we see is all that,Äôs really ,Äúout there,Äù.  But you,Äôre not even paying attention to the 99% of stuff that you can even sense. 

And this ,ÄúReality,Äù is what we base our judgments on how the Universe ,Äúworks,Äù and what ,Äúshould,Äù be Out There.  We construct our actions and reaction to this 1% of available information, and reject everything else in the Universe.  And then some Authority comes along, and tells you that they know what,Äôs really real, and that you should do as they do.  Talk about the blind being led by the blind,Ķ or in this case, the blind being led by the incredibly stupid.

So, what,Äôs the answer?  Would it be best to try our best to see everything, all at once?  Is the solution to try and tear down all the filters, to let your brain accept, acknowledge, and perceive every bit of information that comes your way?  Would that help?

Are you kidding?  It would completely shut down your brain.  Trying to identify, recognize, and notice every single thing happening, all at once, all the time, would completely incapacitate you.  And let,Äôs not forget that, due to physiology, it,Äôs still impossible to perceive a great deal of the Universe, anyway.  And because it,Äôs totally impractical to try and simultaneously perceive what little bits of the Universe our senses can pick up, in order for us to function in our lives, we are forced to shut out certain things.  But who, or what, is choosing the things we do perceive at any given moment?  That, my friends, is the question.

Was it your parents?  Was it the years you spent in school? Was it the TV?  Was it a band?  Was it a book you read?  Was it a preacher you heard?  Was it the kid who pushed you down when you were five?  All of the above.  The way you see the world, my friend, is a patchwork quilt of individual experiences, shaping the way your mind works.  ,ÄòRound these parts, we call these things the ,Äúbars and walls of your Black Iron Prison,Äù. 

Now, before you go on with the idea that all this is somehow Negative and Depressing, let,Äôs break down the phrase.  We,Äôre not saying it,Äôs an Iron Prison that is Black (Bleak) that you,Äôre in because you,Äôre being punished for some sort of Karmic wrongdoing. 

Rather, what,Äôs being said is that in order to function in your day-to-day life, there are necessary limitations your body and mind impose on your perceptions.  That,Äôs the Prison.  The phrase ,ÄúBlack Iron,Äù refers to cold wrought iron, which is strong, usually shaped by hand, and often beautiful.*

But back to the main question, then, and the issue of who chooses your perceptions.  Of course, the Large Answer is, ,Äúyour entire life up to this point,,Äù the patchwork quilt referred to above, stitched panels of the things you have learned, whether they were imprinted, conditioned, or learned, either consciously or subconsciously.  But that,Äôs a bit too large.  What it comes down to, is that you are the one in charge of your Prison.  It,Äôs you that have shaped the Black Iron bars that let you see the small parts of the Universe that you base your decisions upon.  Sure, you can say that it,Äôs not your fault that your parents raised you as a racist redneck (for example).  But it is your fault if you take that as a given, as if that bar in your cell is a permanent thing, something that,Äôs been there since before you were born.

But wait.  There,Äôs more.  The guy sitting next to you, they,Äôre focusing on completely different things than you are.  Their entire upbringing has pretty much determined what they,Äôre going to pay attention to, just as your entire life up to this point has shaped what you,Äôre looking at right now.  You know what this means, right?  This means that everyone is living in a different Idea of the Universe than everyone else.  It,Äôs a miracle that we can agree on anything.  Just imagine, billions of people, all looking out at a different Universe from between the bars of their own personal Prison.

,ÄúOkay, big guy,,Äù you say, ,ÄúSo what,Äôs really out there, if you,Äôre so smart?,Äù  I have to tell you,Ķ

I don,Äôt know.  I have the same blinders that you do.  I live in the same kind of box.

But I will say one thing.  My saying ,ÄúI don,Äôt know,Äù doesn,Äôt mean, ,ÄúI don,Äôt know, and I don,Äôt care, because there,Äôs no way to escape the biology of my sense.,Äù  I say, ,ÄúI don,Äôt know, but I want to find out. I want to try and see and feel as much as I can, I don,Äôt want to take somebody,Äôs word for it, I want to keep exploring, and figuring shit out.  I want to walk out of my Prison Cell, even if I just end up in another one.  I,Äôm not content only seeing a fraction of what,Äôs out there.

Because hey, who knows what kind of fun I,Äôm missing?








*There are other connotations of wrought iron one may find in a book of folklore, but we shall leave such things for another time.