A small dose of sweet sorrow….

Ffolkes,

“Grain grows best in shit.”

~~ Ursula K. LeGuin ~~

day2 London 012

The market on Portobello Road, London, England, April 2013…

All the various parts of today’s Pearl have been present for nearly a week, without having been posted, thanks to my latest uncomfortable realization, to wit; I am becoming unable to write, no matter how willing I may or may not be. This is for two primary reasons, each of which has brought its’ own realizations of a need to make changes in my lifestyle. Since I may not have many more opportunities to do so, I’ll try to relate these epiphanies accurately, and as completely as I can….

The first reason I am becoming unable to write is a quite simple one; I am growing increasingly blind. Though not yet nearly disabled, the macular degeneration taking place in both my retinas is growing increasingly more extensive, & the vision in both eyes, especially the left one (oculus sinister), is becoming blurrier by the day. The difference between them affects my entire visual acumen, making both reading and driving problematic, if not entirely impossible. The blurriness causes me to have to squint hard just to make out normal type and/or fonts, and reading street signs & traffic signs very difficult, as well as visually tiring…. SIGH…. I know I should be getting used to age-related conditions and changes made necessary by physical degeneration, but, it still manages to cause a bit of self-pity, to go along with the eye-twitching & headaches….

Second, I finally realized why I’ve had an unbearably painful stiff neck for more than a full month, affecting both my waking physical comfort, and my ability to sleep, at all, not merely comfortably. Essentially, I find the more time I spend at the computer, the worse it gets, often shooting knife-like sharp shooting pains from neck to mid-back, merely on the act of typing for a few moments. As I am now typing this introduction, I can feel my shoulder stiffening against the pain, and spasms starting to ripple up & down the right side of my back, indicating I need to go walk it off, which, yesterday, took me about three miles before the muscles started to relax, probably because they got tired…. That would warrant another ‘SIGH’, but, I hate repeating myself too often….

The realization I’ve been compelled to come to, & begin to accept, is this…. I can’t do this any more. I cannot read fast enough, or long enough, to gather an adequate number of pearls to fulfill my own requirements; hell, I can’t even read for pleasure as much as I like, as I get tired & frustrated after struggling to read only a few pages. Typing this intro, though not too long for one of my outbursts, has left me gasping against the pain, & I still need to get it posted, after adding an ending section…. Before that becomes impossible, & this gets put off another day, I’m going to deliver my sorrowful apologies now, & warn y’all I may not be back very often, as it will take some extraordinarily compelling thoughts & feelings to get me to sit through this process…. Heck, a couple of haiku is the best I’ve been able to do in weeks.

I will miss being here, and miss all of my Gentle Readers, especially those who have demonstrated such loyal readership for many years…. Willow, chuq, Ashi Akira, Lou, Nadia, the jazz gang at swo8, with love dot I/O, PD, Katiemia (Fred & Katrina), maggiemae, Marie, megaeggs, Soochie, Carolyn the Light Worker, Wolfie of Europa, and numerous others I am sure I am forgetting to mention. They all have maintained their place in my heart, even when I had to stop going by & commenting almost a year ago, for they’ve continued to show up here to let me know they appreciate my work…. and that is a treasure I shall miss experiencing as often, to be sure….

My eyes are about done for the week, I think; this has been hard. I will miss y’all, severely, but, shall try to post now & again, as the impulse occurs, in what little time I can afford to spend at the computer. I cannot do so until I get this posted, so, let’s do that, with some of the most excellent dispatch I have learned of late, to wit:

Shall we Pearl?

“If folks don’t want to do it, it’s hard to keep them from it.”

~~ Yogi Berra ~~

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royalty-free-clip-art-vector-logos-of-black-and-orange-floral-acoustic-guitars-by-seamartini-graphics-6573

In keeping with my newly realized need for shortcuts, I’ve chosen a collection of classical music, a default position for me. Here is someone’s idea of some of the greatest works by famous composers, beginning with Beethoven, & moving on to various others, all of which have stood the test of time. I hope you enjoy it as I do, for the perfect background music to go with study, work, or mere listening pleasure…. Abondanza!….

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Comedy_Tragedy

Accentuated Lessons

Bold statements of calculated intent
Become common rule of the malcontent.
Avarice assumes such attractive wear
Beguiling deception, illusory and fair.

Grasping and pulling with ghostly hands
Legally proper in all the signatory lands.
Seeking and finding each vulnerable soul
Anguish as payment for exacting the toll.

Wraiths of commerce’s invisible dead guards
Still haunt the dreams left in sad empty yards.
While absentee nobles sit in stiffly elegant splendor
Served by sad-faced detainees in abject surrender.

Escape from reality is illusory at best
Often we falter and fail its daily test.
Only when focused on inner strength
Does peace stay with us for any length.

Peace lies within, always…..

~~ gigoid ~~

12/6/2013

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pearls_3

Naked Pearls

Known and Unknown….

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“H=R-E
Happiness equals Reality minus Expectations”

~~ unknown Smart Bee ~~

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“What use is magic if it can’t save a unicorn?”

~~ Peter S. Beagle, “The Last Unicorn” ~~

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“I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it
by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect….
I do not want to belong to any organization of a spiritual kind; please understand this …
If an organization be created for this purpose,
it becomes a crutch, a weakness, a bondage,
and must cripple the individual,
and prevent him from growing, from establishing his uniqueness,
which lies in the discovery for himself of that absolute, unconditioned Truth….”

~~ J. Krishnamurti ~~

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“My friend Data, you see things with the wonder of a child.
And that makes you more human than any of us.”

~~ Yar, “Skin of Evil”, stardate 41601.3 ~~

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“Once we truly know that life is difficult –
once we truly understand and accept it –
then life is no longer difficult.
Because once it is accepted, it no longer matters.”

~~ M. Scott Peck, “The Road Less Traveled” ~~

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“A lizard ran out on a rock and looked up, listening
no doubt to the sounding of the spheres.
And what a dandy fellow! the right toss of a chin for you
and swirl of a tail!
If men were as much men as lizards are lizards
they’d be worth looking at”
.
~~ D. H. Lawrence (1928) ~~

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“Art thou an artist, or art thou art?”

~~ unknown Smart Bee ~~

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Th…th…th…. that’s all, ffolkes. My eyes are done, as is my neck & shoulder. I’m gonna go walkabout for a while, until it all eases off…. I can’t say when I shall see y’all again; it won’t be forever, but, it probably won’t be real soon. In the meantime, be well, be happy as you may be, and maintain a level of strangeness with which you can be content…. I love you all….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes,
I just sits.

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

Featured Image -- 8118

À bientôt, mon cherí….

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Pontificating for fun and profit….

Ffolkes,

“The secret of Happiness is Freedom, and the secret of Freedom, Courage.”

~~ Thucydides ~~

impatient

Super Pom, on a mission from god….

Hajime…. If the science of meteorology has advanced to a point of reliability, today’s heat, again up into the mid-nineties (Fahrenheit, thankfully; if it were 90º C, we’d all be in serious trouble), will fade tomorrow, retreating for the next week into the low-to-mid-80’s. Since weather is one of those things we all pay attention to, but, have trouble accepting, I’d like to be the first to acknowledge, there isn’t much that we can actually DO about it, but, learn to enjoy it, no matter how it may otherwise feel about it. Feelings, after all, will not alter anything but our own attitudes….

Now we’ve cleared that up, with just a smidgen of smarmy curmudgeonry at the end, let’s move on to items of interest which may prove to be more amenable. It can’t be any less so, can it? No, didn’t think so. I realize it’s poor technique to retreat into such triteness so early in the day, but, try as I might, I couldn’t think of anything better. Some days ya got it, some days ya don’t. Since which of those we’ve seen thus far today is patently clear, I think it best if we just move on, pretending we’ve never seen that, and it didn’t happen.

Gosh, look at this! Three paragraphs in, & we haven’t actually said ANYTHING. Neither have I, for that matter. To avoid the conundrums which would otherwise naturally occur in such instances, I shall employ a heavy degree of pontification, combined with some sly misdirection, to get us out of what is turning, rapidly, into an unrecognizable pile of rubbish. Well, unrecognizable by any relevant authority, anyway. For us, it’s just the way it is, and, we’re pretty good at letting reality enforce its own policy standards. We have to be; one doesn’t reach such tender years without learning THAT one….

But, such frankness, in this situation, is indulgent, and could conceivably be actionable, under the proper conditions. Rather than test the truth of that, le’s do this, instead….

Shall we Pearl?….

“The old patterns of the hero’s quest still hold true.
The latest incarnation of Oedipus
is standing at the corner of 5th Avenue and 42nd Street
waiting for the lights to change.”

~~ Joseph Campbell ~~

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loreena

Since discovering this artist some months ago, I’ve become rather attached to her music. I find myself listening to this concert a couple times a week, just for the joy of hearing her ensemble, and her voice, both of which attained near-perfection on this occasion. I hope it provides y’all with some of what I find in it, for it is a grand feeling, I can attest…..

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Loreena McKennitt
Nights from the Alhambra

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Comedy_Tragedy

After the odyssey….

Portraits of iconic symbols, crashing, singing, forgotten;
evolving into mature innovation, as yet pale, and rotten.
Still water justly breeds, impenetrable primal verses resound;
unholy moments tarry, emotion swirls in passion unbound

Spiritual ovulation precedes each pregnant pause;
gravid, time moves on, following destiny’s cause.
Cast adrift on waves of confusion, to a final, damp landing;
salvation beckons sweetly, fed well on understanding.

Dreams directly fall, in night’s grey bower, unbidden;
lingering flavors in simple taste, lovingly, cleverly hidden.
Childish laughter sounds, joyful, bright, and clear;
no need ever to hide, no more monsters to fear.

Temper most foul arrives under unregistered mail;
forgotten taunts live on, lashed by an ancient flail.
Plain dealing delivers such lasting specks of honest hate;
savage in retrospect, never hasty, always running late.

Forever, cries an ambient lover of the pending night;
his pale, weak issue forms its own failing light.
Still, fortune favors such as those who apprehend;
Sweet love of Gaia, let it never end.

~~ gigoid ~~

3/10/2013

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pearls_3

Naked Pearls

Pathways are not always clearly marked….

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“Remember what the dormouse said…
FEED YOUR HEAD…”

~~ Grace Slick ~~

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“One’s action ought to come out of an achieved stillness;
not to be a mere rushing on.”

~~ D. H. Lawrence ~~

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“An it harms none, do what thou will.”

~~ Wiccan Credo ~~

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“A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King.”

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

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“Virtues are acquired through endeavor,
Which rests wholly upon yourself.
So, to praise others for their virtues
Can but encourage one’s own efforts.”

~~ Nagarjuna (c. 100-200 AD) ~~

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“He bids fair to grow wise who has discovered that he is not so.”

~~ Publius Syrus — Maxim 598 ~~

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“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

~~ Philip K. Dick ~~

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Hmm…. All things considered, that went pretty well. It’s done, anyway, so, I’ll refrain from getting into the same sort of amorphous wandering we found in the intro, & end this before it can get away again. I will, if my efficiency at dealing with the heat allows, be back tomorrow, to try, once more to get this just right…. I don’t know what I’d do if it ever does, but, I’m willing to find out…. See ya, ffolkes; stay strange. If naught else, it FEELS really good….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes,
I just sits.

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

dozer3

À bientôt, mon cherí….


					

As the threads unravel….

Ffolkes,

“We have art that we do not die of the truth.”

~~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~~

rustic charm

Rustic charm in urban shoes….

Hajime…. A satisfactory number of the elements for today’s Pearl are in place, so, logically, I can get started. To do so, however, would generally call for a modicum of intelligent words to fill in the intro section with some competence. Words, themselves, are not an issue; I’ve always got some hanging about I can put to use. No, it’s the ‘intelligent’ part that may suffer today; I’m awake, and reasonably alert, but, don’t find a lot of the power of reason in my pocket. Oh, well, I suppose that just means it will turn out weird, again. To that, all I can say is, oh, well. Such is life….

I’ll take just a moment to acknowledge the day, as May Day has long been one of humanity’s days of celebration, welcoming full spring after the dark of winter. Oh, we’re not going to get into a lot of historical reminiscence, or maudlin capering about some random pole. No, I’ll just say, happy spring, & get ready for what promises to be an ‘interesting’ summer here on Earth, as the naked apes who kill continue to pursue their program of paroxysms of violence & insanity, ultimately leading to our own rapid demise, rushing headlong & blind into history, joining the auk, the dodo, and a long list of other failed experiments in life forms.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but, it’s definitely an ‘interesting’ scenario we’ve created, isn’t it? Crazy as loons, we are, with no restraint, and very little to point to of which we can claim to be proud. Ah, well, it’s been a fun ride, for some of us. “One must have some faith…. that the universe is proceeding as it should.” — Spock to Valeris, STVI, “The Undiscovered Country” I guess it all goes to show, you never know….

Oh, heck. I meant to be uplifting, & turned dark again. Hmm…. That can only mean my brain’s current status, as possessing the wit of a two-by-four piece o’pine, is beginning to show too much for comfort. Rather than continue to beat the poor equine, we’ll bury it, here & now, by employing our most radical method of disconnecting, which is fast, & could cause some dizziness, if you’re not ready. Ready?….

Shall we Pearl?

“Death is every man’s final critic. To die well you must live bravely.”

~~ Edward Abbey ~~

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alanis-m

For years, I’ve listened to this artist’s music on the radio, without ever exploring her recorded works, or seeing her live. I feel like a dose of newness, with some witty lyrics. Everything I’ve heard of hers fits that paradigm, so, let’s explore some of her live music to see how it turns out, shall we? Enjoy, ffolkes…. Her lyrics make me think; always a good sign….

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Alanis Morrisette Live

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Comedy_Tragedy

A dream, weeping….

“Never a dull moment to spare”, he said
with a crooked grin, and a broad wink.
“Can’t keep Reality hanging by a thread….
what would Chaos, or Entropy think?”

So, we plucked up our dreams of old,
to carry us on, in dutiful, strong arms,
stuffed a candle in the remaining fold,
for luck, and perfect proof against charms.

Storms follow the sun, but, never stay;
lessons round every corner, all free.
Past fleeting doubts, in a sad disarray,
the journey becomes the reason to be.

Simple kindness manifests untold riches,
in defiance of common cause’s demise.
Bold courage, hanging in stitches,
mends wounds that come as no surprise.

Still, waters run deep, ’tis said by many.
Too much pain cannot apprehend
the salient, sharp points of epiphany,
nor, plainly, to wisdom aspire to pretend.

Folly dogs even the simplest truth,
fumes of toxic ignorance and bile,
alienated as a loose rotten tooth;
it often hides itself, for a long while.

Sought after eons ago, we cried out,
to believe, to suffer no more doubt.
But found instead good reason,
for love, and truth, from season, to season.

~~ gigoid ~~

— 8/30/2014 —

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pearls_3

Naked Pearls

Tied with a festive ribbon….

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“We are changing, we have got to change,
and we can no more help it
than leaves can help going yellow and coming loose in autumn.”

~~ D. H. Lawrence ~~

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“The sunlights differ, but there is only one darkness.”

~~ Ursula K. LeGuin, “The Dispossessed ~~

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“The fastest draw is when the sword never leaves the scabbard.
The strongest way to block is never to provoke a blow.
And the cleanest cut is the one withheld.”

~~ “Kensho”, by Dennis Schmidt ~~

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“Every extension of knowledge arises from making the conscious the unconscious.”

~~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~~

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“One must become aware of one’s legs in order to become more stable.”

~~ Deng Ming-Dao ~~

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[Freedom is] the power to live as you will. Who then lives as he wills?

~~ Marcus Tullius Cicero ~~

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“…. don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.”

~~ last words of Pancho Villa (d. 1923) ~~

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I have received notice from the universe to cease and desist. Actually, it’s only my own sense of propriety urging me to get myself the hell out of this mess, before I do anything regrettable. Of course, that makes the assumption we haven’t already done so, but, hey, we do try to maintain SOME contact with reality. It’s only right we do, since we tend to twist it into such odd shapes most of the time. So be it. It’s done, so, I’m gonna go do something else now; what that might be remains to be seen, but, that’s my story, & I’m sticking to it. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, if I can dodge fast enough….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes,
I just sits.

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

Featured Image -- 12850

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Adrift on a sea of sorrow….

Ffolkes,

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

~~ Marcus Tullius Cicero ~~

Leelu at leisure

Leelu at leisure….

Hajime…. I am in a position where it is becoming difficult to remain confident of ultimate success; since the article of contemplation under consideration is my life, this translates to some slight degree of danger, in that preserving life requires, at minimum, a confident interest in expending the effort to do so. Maintaining that attitude of interest can, I may now attest, become questionable, or, perhaps, questioned as to whether the effort is worth the result. In short, and, more clearly, there develops a decision to be made, as to whether maintaining the effort to live is worth the result….

I guess that’s a long winded way to say I’m tired of making the effort, only to encounter more, and yet more, obstacles or conditions which make that life less than pleasurable. I’ve just spent two days, and more, trying to assuage my body’s symptoms, only to arise today & find them unchanged to any appreciable degree. I’m still susceptible to extreme fatigue, lethargy, & pain, with the added fillip of occasional loss of blood to provide extra interest to an already too-interesting process. It’s disconcerting to spend a night sleeping hard, only to awaken tired, and still ‘out of balance.’ More than just a little disheartening, to be sure….

Ah, well, such is life for those of us who have lived fully, I suppose; there’s a price to be paid for continually going past the limits observed by those who cruise through life avoiding risks, in order to avoid injury, or emotional hurt, or other activities less than comfortable. Life lets us know very early there is a price for going beyond the normal; some of us are willing to pay it more readily than others, and who is to say who has the better way? Not me, though I have to say, I’d rather be scared and in pain, than bored, any day…..

There…. not too bad. I’ve related how unsettled I am, without going into tedious or graphic details sure to offend someone’s sensibilities. Perhaps it will suffice to explain how choppy the following Pearl turned out (well, it seems so to me, but, that’s probably because I’m seeing it from the inside…); then again, when have Pearls ever been easily explained? Never, I’d say. So, rather than belabor a non-point, I’ll just get on with it, before it gets any more maudlin, or incomprehensible altogether. I had hoped to finish the new poem, but, those pesky symptoms have kept me from any such comforting completion of a task, so, we’ll have to make do with what I’ve got so far, & be content with that. Or, not, as you wish….

As for me, I’m getting it done, as quickly as possible, so as to, once again, go deal with the aforementioned symptoms, which shall remain obscure, to save everyone’s breakfast. Rather than explore that notion, we’ll resort to one of our emergency techniques for getting us down the page…. It’s one you know well, as I’ve used it many times… it works like this….

Shall we Pearl?

“Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure.
We get very little wisdom from success, you know.”

~~ William Saroyan ~~

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zydeco at mardi gras

Picture from http://blog.agaxtur.com.br via Google Images

A few days ago, in a re-blogged Pearl, I made mention of Cajuns, whereupon a friend asked me, “What about that lovely Cajun music?” She’s right, so, here is a mix of some pretty damn good Zydeco, as their music is so aptly named…. Enjoy, but, only if you really like to party….

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Cajun Music Mix

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Comedy_Tragedy

Since I am battling my body, here is a poem I wrote a while back, while battling other internal demons. Different causes, but, similar battles, and the poem gives the correct flavor for today’s experience…. So be it….

Banishing demons….

Endless nights lead inexorably into endless days
while the battle for peace rages.
Lost arts find new meaning used in new ways;
to burn, yearn, and turn all the new pages.

Darkness falls heavily on bowed shoulders, contrite;
fireworks travel fast in nervous tissue.
The pace is kept, clean, but, never erudite;
such a pale tale of ancient issue.

Peering in terror down long, long halls of night
brings only confusion, destitute in sorrow.
Cannot time become our enemy, eager to fight
on the side which may never see tomorrow?

The longing gaze of passion, for reason to live,
must fall ever more faithfully into sedition,
else the clinging visions we claim to give,
shall not prevent reaching inevitable perdition.

Rising up, clarity of purpose shines the light of day
upon such a desolate landscape of absent release.
There is no escape, no furthering of the way.
Time never knows how to grant peace.

~~ gigoid ~~

11/23/2015

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pearls_3

Naked Pearls

To be, or….

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“A lizard ran out on a rock and looked up,
listening no doubt to the sounding of the spheres.
And what a dandy fellow! the right toss of a chin for you
and swirl of a tail!
If men were as much men as lizards are lizards
they’d be worth looking at.”

~~ D. H. Lawrence (1928) ~~

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“Where pain predominates, agony can be a valued teacher.”

~~ Frank Herbert ~~

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“If you want to build a ship,
don’t drum up people together to collect wood
and don’t assign them tasks and work,
but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

~~ Antoine de Saint Exupery ~~

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“How do the geese know when to fly to the sun?
Who tells them the seasons?
How do we, humans, know when it is time to move on?
As with the migrant birds, so surely with us,
there is a voice within, if only we would listen to it,
that tells us so certainly when to go forth into the unknown.”

~~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross ~~

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“If you are distressed by anything external,
the pain is not due to the thing itself,
but to your own estimate of it;
and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”

~~ Marcus Aurelius ~~

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“The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates
the mysteries of eternity,
of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.
It is enough if one tries merely
to comprehend a little of this mystery every day.
Never lose a holy curiosity.”

~~ Albert Einstein ~~

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“All is flux, nothing stays still.”

~~ Heraclitus (540?-480? B.C.) ~~

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Having already sat longer than is wise, I’ll truncate this closing without mercy. That looks like this. See ya, ffolkes. Can’t say exactly when, for I’ve sat too much today already. I’ll be back when I can…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes,
I just sits.

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

Featured Image -- 12301

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Paradoxical dreams of reality….

Ffolkes,

“Man is most nearly himself
when he achieves the seriousness
of a child at play.”

~~ Heraclitus ~~

famine-rock

In memoriam; Irish Famine Evacuation, Galway Bay

Hajime…. If any of the following seems a bit rough, you may chalk it up to anything you like; the truth is, though I had a productive day yesterday, not much of that effort went into today’s Pearl, until this morning. Hence my sense of mild panic, for I take my own deadline seriously, more’s the pity. Since I rarely look back at any of it while creating it, I can feel today’s frantic sense of a need to hurry, in order to get it done at all. Hopefully, most of that didn’t come through, & make itself a part of the whole. Y’all may feel free to let me know, or, not, as suits you. Me, I’m just going to go on, as if I hadn’t said a word about it.

I suppose it isn’t uncommon to witness a human being wishy-washy, which is the best I can come up with to describe this class of Pearl; it may not be exactly accurate, but, it gives the “look and feel” of it, just fine. Moreover, it supplies the proper tone of disapproval, for having allowed such a high degree of angst-driven blather, as well as failing to find enough inner balance to counteract any of reality’s insistence upon randomness as a form of worship. Hmm….

I see I’ve retreated into true blather, which, while it may be considered a healthy sign, for some, tells me I probably need to abandon any hope of coherent rationality, at least until we’re done here for the morning. The question, naturally, arises, “What the hell do I do now?”, but, I refuse to answer such a leading query, especially from my own mind; it’s too early to allow schizophrenic impulses any play. Instead, I’ll dig deep into my sense of fair play, to find, and authorize, the use of literary license to get us the hell out of here, and on to what follows. In case you aren’t aware of how that works, allow me to demonstrate….

Shall we Pearl?

“Beware of that person who is slow to anger.
For when it is long in coming,
it stays longer and is warmer and dies not so easily.
Abused patience is a very strong fuel
for a fire not easily put out by any known means.”

~~ Wise Bee ~~

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tommy_adelaide_festival_banner-620x372

Image is the Adelaide Film Festival banner, via Google Free Images

Today, we have a double entry for music. I’ve included a live concert version of “Tommy”, the Rock Opera composed by The Who. As a bonus round, I’ve also included a live concert from the Who, recorded in 2000….. I don’t believe there are many ffolkes who need to be introduced to either, so, just enjoy!….

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The Who
Tommy ~ A Rock Opera

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Comedy_Tragedy

Savory

Blown across steppes of imagination, a spore
finds a niche, takes root,
tries to live longer than now, before
chaos/peace descends, and desire is moot.

Feathered into fecundity, another possibility
builds a nest, hatches kin,
aims at immortality, sans responsibility,
chance manifests, as it does, again.

Leading toward peril, entropy saves creativity,
making tools, and lazy time;
solid signs imply such simple nativity,
as another snitch drops his dime.

Subtle compassion billows, passion to unfold,
covering hearts bloodied by time,
burning flesh made valid, unwaveringly bold,
turning love to brilliant rhyme.

Years weigh lightly, supported by youth,
gaining weight with each year,
only the old men know the actual truth,
peace comes only when we lose our fear.

~~ gigoid ~~

4/9/2013

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pearls_3

Naked Pearls

Wise bits….

*******

“One kind word can warm three winter months.”

~~ Japanese proverb ~~

*******

“If you would know a man, observe how your cat treats him.”

~~ Leelu Bee ~~

*******

“Many a man’s tongue broke his nose.”

~~ Seamus MacManus ~~

*******

“I want to live my life so that my nights are not full of regrets.”

~~ D. H. Lawrence ~~

*******

“If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.”

~~ Things We Can Learn From Dogs ~~

*******

“Some people march to the beat of a different drummer.
And some people tango!”

~~ Anonymous Bee ~~

“If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.”

~~ Clarence Darrow ~~

*******

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Well!… That was fun, sort of. The process, fortunately, is sound, & got us here, with all parts intact, in spite of my lack of mindfulness. Since that’s the case, undeserved or not, I’ll take the money, and run. Today’s Pearl has, of course, been brought to you through the auspices of internal psychic anomaly, which, though entirely human, remains a matter of national personal security; as such, the details are classified. Don’t worry, it isn’t permanent. In fact, I should be able to completely deny it by later today, which improves the already good odds of doing it again tomorrow. Let’s just trust the whims of fate, & let it go at that, okay? Okay…. See ya, ffolkes, if I can’t think of anything better to do…. I’ve already quoted the odds on that, so, we’re good to go….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes,
I just sits.

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

Kowabunga!

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Intricately crafted examples of metaphoric paradox….

Ffolkes,

“Ignorance doesn’t kill you, but it makes you sweat a lot.”

~~ Haitian proverb ~~

what now

Did you say ‘chase paper’?….

Hajime…. I’m posting very late again today, but, not for any bad reason. On the contrary, it’s been a fine morning. I would share it, but, it’s still too intimate an experience to do so; I’m greedy sometimes, & want to savor it for a time. The time I spent will, eventually, be a big part of my personal cache of memories, in the folder simply labeled “joy”. Can’t say exactly why ’tis so, but, gift horse, right? Don’t want to examine it too closely….

Rather than torture all of us by trying to create some grandiose, compelling intro today, I’ll make these two paragraphs do as a sublimation for the real thing. I doubt seriously y’all will miss it, any more than will I. We also will not be discussing any of the personal quirks, and/or mental issues which would tend to complicate matters in the normal course of events. Of course, around here, there is no such thing as a normal course of events, but, we won’t talk about that, either. Instead, we’ll just do this….

Shall we pearl?….

“Get thee down. Be thou funky.”

~~ Retro Bee ~~

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fiddler celtic woman mairead nezbitt

Máiréad Nesbitt

Image from http://www.celticwoman.com via Google Images

Today’s musical selection features an Irish artist, a fiddler, who currently plays with the Celtic Woman group. I’ve seen the group on stage a couple of times; each time, this woman’s performance, for me, made the show as special as it was. Quite simply, her performance is infectiously joyous, sharing her own pleasure at playing her music to such a degree it is tangible…. I hope you enjoy it….

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Celtic Woman

Máiréad – Granuaile’s Dance

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Plato-Aristotle

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”

~~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ~~

*******

“No slave is ever freed, save he freeth himself.”

~~ Bob Marley, paraphrased ~~

Today’s rant is self-directed, as it should be, given the opening quotes…. Enjoy! Oh, and, keep an open mind on this one; you’ll need it….

From 5/6/2015:

Dubiousity, Redux

In the virtual world, I call myself gigoid, the dubious, for specific reasons…. Rather than use my own words to delineate/describe those reasons, here are some of them, in the form of pearls, (naturally….), as collected by Smart Bee, just as an exercise…. It turned out to be a nice, eleven-star pearl, all centered around the concept of doubt as a function of wisdom…. It seems I’m not the only person in history to put my faith in doubt, rather than the other way around, so to speak…. There are a lot of big names here, and, I only went through the first half of the collection….

Pay particular heed today, ffolkes; these little bits of shiny stuff are more subtly important, to you, than you may realize…. Oh, and, ALL of this will be on your final Quiz…. Don’t blame me, I didn’t make it up….

Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.
They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Brahma ~~

“Philosophy, means, first, doubt; and afterwards the consciousness of what knowledge means, the consciousness of uncertainty and of ignorance, the consciousness of limit, shade, degree, possibility. The ordinary man doubts nothing and suspects nothing.” — Henri Frederick Amiel

“A lizard ran out on a rock and looked up, listening no doubt to the sounding of the spheres. And what a dandy fellow! the right toss of a chin for you and swirl of a tail! If men were as much men as lizards are lizards they’d be worth looking at.” — D. H. Lawrence (1928)

“Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic, for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt.” — Robert Lindner

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one.” — Voltaire

Modest doubt is call’d
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
To the bottom of the worst.

~~ William Shakespeare ~~

~~ Troilus and Cressida — Act ii, Sc. 2 ~~

Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom. — Smart Bee

“Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.” — Bergen Evans, The Natural History of Nonsense (1946)

“If you understand, or if you don’t. If you believe, or if you doubt. There is a universal justice and the eyes of truth are always watching.” — Enigma

“Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt.” — H. L. Mencken

My guard stood hard when abstract threats too noble to neglect
deceived me into thinking I had something to protect.
Good and bad I defined these terms, quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then;
I’m younger than that now.

~~ Bob Dylan ~~

Ah, yes, indeed…. I AM younger than that now….. so, there will be more on this subject later…. Ta, then….

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Comedy_Tragedy

Retrospective, defined in folly….

Yesterday
I wrote a poem.

It bled out of my head,
like I’d been struck with
an axe,
right through the artery,
in the neck,
spraying blood around
everywhere,
like a pulsing garden hose….

It hurt, at first,
then came the feeling,

of quick relief,
of timeless beauty,

of pain avenged,
of lust aroused,

of outrage aflame,
of deep compassion,

of endless empathy,
of truest love….

Now it’s gone, cast away
like pearls before twine.

(Grin…)

You thought
I was going to call you
a pig,
didn’t you?

Hah!

Well, you’re not.
You’re a person.

I know, because
you’re reading this poem…
if that’s what it is.
I think it is,
so,
maybe it is.

Or, maybe,
it will be,
someday, when it
grows up,
and learns to rhyme.
Whew…
Just in time…..

That’s all.
Reality often sucks wind,
y’know?

S’okay, though….
It keeps us busy,
and out of some of the
mischief,
so much part
of our
nature.

We all can do
only what we
do.

Or, don’t.

Two sides, one coin.

~~ gigoid ~~

9/1/2014

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pearls_3

Naked Pearls

Not so obvious truths….

*********

“I think, therefore I am… dangerous, that is…”

~~ Master Bee ~~

*********

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

~~ Anais Nin ~~

*********

“Do what you love.
Know your own bone;
gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.”

~~ Thoreau ~~

*********

“A man cannot speak but he judges himself…
no man thoroughly understands a truth
until he has contended against it.”

~~ Emerson ~~

*********

“In walking, just walk.
In sitting, just sit.
Above all, don’t wobble.”

~~ Yun-Men ~~

*********

“Really to see the sun rise or go down every day…
would preserve us sane forever.”

~~ Thoreau ~~

*********

“… as sight is in the body, so is reason in the soul…”

~~ Aristotle — Nicomachean Ethics, Bl. I, Ch. 6, 10966, lines 29-30 ~~

*********

“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions,
that they exist in the present,
which is what there is and all there is.”

~~ Alan Watts ~~

*********

“If it had been a bear it would have bit you.”

~~ Jonathan Swift — Polite Conversation, Dialogue i”

*********

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Did it. Down, dirty, done. Moreover, got nothin’ left to say, so, I’ll just say, see y’all tomorrow. I’m as certain of that as I am of anything in the world…. Fair warning, I’d say….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes,
I just sits.

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

Kowabunga!

À bientôt, mon cherí….

Illusion is a deck with 51 cards….

Ffolkes,

“To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.”

~~ John Ruskin ~~

Galway commhair

Urban Garden, Galway

Tá sé i foscadh a chéile go gcónaíonn daoine.

It is in the shelter of each other that people live.

~~ Irish Proverb ~~


Hajime…. El Niño has come to California, bringing copious amounts of rain, sufficient to pound the windows hard enough to wake the dead; since I’m not quite there, it woke me, too. Nice to hear, actually, as we are, rain notwithstanding, deep into a serious drought in this neck of the North American woods. While welcome, the rain, as usual, will be trumpeted as disaster in the making, and people will wander around to their work and play, as if they’d never had to deal with rain in their lives….. Every time an event of almost any nature, whether caused by man, society, or nature, it seems to come as a complete surprise to everyone who is, shall we be nice, and say, less than perfectly mindful?….

‘S okay; hearing the crap people say about the weather, at my age, is no longer a surprise, so much as it is more proof of the pudding which society has been cooking for far too long. Stupidity is not merely the province of the average, or less than average person, any longer. The condition, and attitudes, of our entire culture is imbued with stupid; at every level of society, from the poorest, to the wealthiest, there is so little intelligence evident in what is said, what is done, and, in the end, what we have become, it saddens  and frightens me, for there is only ONE end to that journey, and it isn’t called Utopia…. Most of the folks (note spelling) on this planet will call it Hell on Earth….

We’re not far off from that, now, today. There is still some small hope that rationality can win the day, but, the chances of that are growing slimmer with each new birth, on a planet already bursting at the seams from the depredations which follow such a degree of over-crowding….. There is, simply, not enough resources available on the whole planet to continue to feed and succor this many people. The mathematics of that has been known, and proved, since the middle of the nineteenth century, and there has been no disproof found which could cause any hope it might be wrong. We are all going to be put into the fire, and, how many will come out the other side is unclear; it is entirely possible there will not be ANY survivors, and we will join the dinosaurs, and the Dodo, in eternity’s club of failed experiments….

There, I think that’s depressing enough for one day…. I finished this Pearl yesterday, & after the mini-rant with which we started, I think we’ll just get this done, and try to throw off the cloud with what is below…. It can’t be any worse than this, right? Right…. Let do this, before I lose my nerve….

Shall we Pearl?….

Some men must be too spiritual, some must be too sensual.
Some must be too sympathetic, and some must be too proud.
We have no desire to say what men *ought* to be.
We only wish to say there are all kinds of ways of being,
and there is no such thing as human perfection.

~~ D.H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, 1922 ~~


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supersession

Image from forumspain.net via Google Images


Upon seeing/hearing yesterday’s classic music, one of our commenters reminded me of this album, from another three greats, back in our day…. If you haven’t heard it, you’re in for a treat…. This one’s for chuq…. Enjoy, ffolkes…. gaironteed (think Cajun accent… l’Acadian, oui, cheri?….)


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~~ Super Session ~~
Bloomfield, Stills and Kooper

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holstee-manifesto

SIGH…. Sometimes, the internet can make us feel foolish and small, in the face of so much data to process and apprehend. Yesterday I received, from a friend, via email, the link to the post you see above, just below the manifesto.  The picture, with its text, was above the article, which mentioned that the above statement was already viewed by AT LEAST 50,000,000  people, at the website of the company whose ad department created it to sell clothing…. Fifty million people, and I never knew it existed…. Goes to show how easily we can miss what may be important to us, merely from a lack of time, or, serendipity….

That said, who can argue with any of it? It speaks to everyone, no matter where they are on their Life Journey, with advice to help us smooth our way, and enjoy the journey itself. Ironic that such a complete statement of what it means to be Human should come from the minds of people trying to improve their bottom line…. Very ironic, in my mind….

So much so, this is it, for today. The poster, and link, above says plenty, for a rant, or for a pearl of any length, and will do for this section of today’s post, as well….

See? I can be nice…..

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Comedy_Tragedy

Early Observations

Until I knew there was more,
I wanted to know God.
They said he was a nice guy,
and would let me live forever.

All I had to do, they said,
was live my life for Him,
always living by scripture
cleaving only to his Way.

But, everyone I saw in church,
acted different at home.
Living wild, cussin’ and fussin’,
nobody lived like they said.

Still, I tried to be like Jesus,
he was sort of cool.
He never hurt nobody
and walked on the right path.

‘Course they killed him for that,
they couldn’t stand his example.
Turned him into a martyr,
 hid his real words among their own.

Then I found the Buddha,
and met Lao Tzu at the gate.
They saw things real different,
showed me how to see straight.

Right thought, and right action
replace blind obedience and faith.
Reality becomes manageable,
fear retreats, the universe expands.

Brother John said it pretty well,
“Imagine there’s no heaven,
it’s easy if you try.”
Sounds like he knew why.

Day to day, life is grand,
we walk in eternal beauty.
Open your eyes and hearts,
find yourself already immortal.

~~ gigoid ~~

4/12/2013


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pearls_3

Naked Pearls

Further comments on Life @ Large

*************

Unblemish’d let me live, or die unknown;
O grant an honest fame, or grant me none!

~~ Alexander Pope ~~

 ~~ The Temple of Fame, Last line ~~

*************

“Reading is thinking with someone else’s head instead of your own.”

~~ Literate Bee ~~

*************

“Anyone can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend,
but it requires a very fine nature
to sympathize with a friend’s success.”

~~ Oscar Wilde ~~

*************

“I regret that I cannot do my duty as a true modern,
by cursing everybody who made me whatever I am.”

~~ G.K. Chesterton ~~

*************

“For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.”

~~ Lewis Carroll ~~

*************

“A life without cause is a life without effect.”

~~ Barbarella ~~

*************

“You don’t fuck around with the infinite.”

~~ Mean Streets ~~

*************

He sees that this great roundabout
The world, with all its motley rout,
  Church, army, physic, law,
Its customs and its businesses,
Is no concern at all of his,
  And says–what says he?–Caw.

~~ William Cowper ~~

~~ The Jackdaw, (Translation from Vincent Bourne) ~~


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Well, there you go. It ain’t Ibsen, but it’s the best I’ve got today. I’ll go now, & leave y’all to your own devices, with, hopefully, a bit more comfort & joy than what was present when you began reading today’s mess. I’ll make no apologies for any of it; I will say I hope you enjoyed it, or, it pissed you off royally…. We shoot for both ends of the scale around here. Tomorrow, we’ll try again, so, fair warning, eh? See y’all then, if my house doesn’t float into the Bay….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

Sometimes I sits and thinks,
   and sometimes,
I just sits.

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

Kowabunga!


À bientôt, mon cherí….


					

Sneering in bafflement, he punted….

Ffolkes,

“The cat would eate fish, and would not wet her feete.”

~~ John Heywood (c. 1565) ~~

~~ Proverbes, Part i, Chap. xi ~~

Leelu the berzerker

Leelu in Berserker Mode


Hajime…. Life sure can be funny. Since I’m a complex sorta guy, that’s actually a complex statement, as the word ‘funny’ can be construed to mean a lot of different sorts of things about life, not all of which are at all funny, or fun. It’s also why English is such a powerful tool for communicating, as well as a barrier to the same communication. Two people with a different understanding of, and, skill in using the language, may very well not be able to understand each other, at all, though they both share intimate knowledge of it, having grown up using it. Environment, background, education, intelligence, imagination, all can play a part in how the language is used by anyone, and, no two people share the exact same degree of similarity in ANY of those categories.

All of which being said, I am compelled by my own nature to wonder, how the fuck we ever wandered this far out of the trees? C.S. Lewis, I believe, once made the lament,

“Five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than minority of them – never become conscious of them all.  How much of total reality can such an apparatus let through?” — C. S. Lewis

Add in this most-accurate assessment of the human mind’s ability to perceive the universe, and one has to feel a sense of astonished surprise, not only that we have created a world-wide society, but, have done so without ever achieving any sort of world-wide understanding of our own nature….. To observe the antics of the naked apes who infest the surface of this planet, is very similar, in “look and feel”, to watching an old Roadrunner cartoon on Saturday morning. In fact, watching the Roadrunner makes much more sense than much of what I see passing as socio-political activity around the world….

Did y’all ever wonder, as I did, about the two most puzzling things to me about Wile E. Coyote? First, why, when he was obviously the stupidest creature on the planet, was he called “wily”, a word which, even at age four, I understood couldn’t possibly apply to the stupid beast….. I mean, even if he WAS indestructible, (our first lesson in the fiction vs. reality issue…. How many of US could live through a 5000 foot fall, followed by the arrival of a five ton rock on our head? Hell, it would give Superman a moment of pain, if he couldn’t fly….

Second… Why didn’t the idiot ever just start ordering FOOD from the Acme Co.? It seemed to me, as a young, already half-trained consumer, if the company made that many different products, of such amazing variety and complexity, how easy would it be for them to deliver some fried chicken, or even fried rattlesnake, which, I am told, tastes like chicken… But, then, doesn’t everything but beef and lamb taste like chicken?….

But, NOOOO…. Mr. Smart Guy Coyote keeps ordering weapon after weapon, none of which ever worked the way he expected. Which comprised our second lesson in reality vs. fiction, though, as it turns out, that’s pretty much how ANY corporation operates….. S’trewth, swear to god….

SIGH…. I’m doing it again, aren’t I? Ranting in the intro, when I tried to start out looking for ironic humor…. See where good intentions will get you? Oh, well, next I’d have to move on to more lamentations about human nature, and how virtue has all but disappeared from the public arena… Hell, I even found the perfect pearl to go with such a discussion, showing EXACTLY what happened, at least, here in the US…. It is also from C.S. Lewis, one of the more flexible-minded, and, honest Christians to ever pick up a pen… He said, regarding virtue, this:

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful until it became risky.” — C.S. Lewis  _The Screwtape Letters_

But, that’s a rant for another day, unless, of course, we pick this up in the third section. Who knows at this point? If I did, well, I’d say so; that means simply that I haven’t decided yet. Nonetheless, and, notwithstanding, such is now moot, as Guido has entered the cockpit (don’t even think it….), and we’ll be taking off any moment…. Let’s just do so quietly, and calmly, just as if we knew what we were doing here, okay?….

Shall we Pearl?….

“A gentleman is one who doesn’t demand a lady prove that she is.”

~~ Solomon Short ~~


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royalty-free-clip-art-vector-logos-of-black-and-orange-floral-acoustic-guitars-by-seamartini-graphics-6573

    Though I have plenty of energy, I’m lazy. Since that is true, I’m going with my own default choice of music, which, if you’ve been reading here for any time, you’ll know what that means; you’re gonna hear some classical music…. It was about twenty or more years ago I got fed up with the current crop of music bombarding the airwaves and musical venues. I began to listen to classical music, and have felt the rightness of the decision ever since. Rather than listening to the last 65-plus years of what has been produced (some of which is good, but, mostly, it’s crap…. see Sturgeon’s Law….), I now have several centuries worth of music to explore, from all over the world….. Sturgeon’s law still applies, but, the statistical universe of available music has been filtered for quality for a LONG time; what’s left is a much higher percentage of the good stuff….

Bonus!….. Enjoy, ffolkes…. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt, even if you have perfect pitch…… As is my habit, the compilation I picked simply had the most attractive picture, for my taste….

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gigoid’s Musical Default

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Dont keep calm

What do we do? We have lost our way.
From afar, the Demon cries out,
He is leading us astray.

Skyward soar the whirling demons,
Shrouded by the falling snow,
And then the plaintive, awful howling
Fills my heart with dread and woe.

~~ Alexander Pushkin ~~


Gee…. I wonder if that means more ranting about the present state of world affairs? What do you think? Should we continue in the vein in which I began today’s Pearl, or veer off in another direction? Hmm… Let’s see what the magic 8-ball says….

Oops. Forgot; broke my 8-ball a long time ago. Oh, well. I think I’m not in a mood to rant at the moment. Hang on, & I’ll go see if I can find something to tip the scale in one direction, or another… Don’t worry, I’ve got a Tardis, and this isn’t real…. so, it’s like, you’ll never notice I was gone….

Okay, got it. That actually didn’t take long at all…. Of course, I COULD be lying, but, we wouldn’t want to pick up any bad habits…. It took only a moment, to find this:

“The land of the free!  This is the land of the free!  Why, if I say anything that displeases them, the free mob will lynch me, and that’s my freedom. Free? Why I have never been in any country where the individual has such an abject fear of his fellow countrymen.  Because, as I say, they are free to lynch him the moment he shows he is not one of them.” — D. H. Lawrence

Now, if THAT isn’t a great start to pick up where we left off above, I don’t know an oyster from a mussel. And, I do. Know the difference, I mean. In fact, I also know, being a chef, while mussels, steamed in white wine, fish stock, garlic, and a bit of butter, lemon juice, & parsley, is as close as people ever really get to heaven, only oysters, those ugly, yet somehow noble bivalves, can make pearls. Besides, the only way the oysters themselves are REALLY edible, is breaded, deep fried, and smothered with a LOT of Tartar, or seafood cocktail sauce. Otherwise they’re a lot like eating old shoe leather, unless eaten at ONE specific moment upon cooking. Before, or after that moment, they are virtually inedible… Even for those with ALL their teeth…

But, hey, pearls, you know? Which brings us back to the completion of this section today. I’ll quit fooling around, amusing as it may be, (or not; not my call….), and get to the meat of today’s piece.  I’ll start with an old graphic pearl from one of my most consistent sources for wise, witty comments, to wit:

Albert E & true sin


This statement is possibly the clearest I know, to describe WHY our world is the way it is today. Albert put his finger on the root cause of every problem we face today, i.e., courage in the face of evil. Personally, I have given up any hope of making enough changes in society to protect us from ourselves…. Hope, as Emily D. pointed out, is something that, being human, never goes away…. But, my hope is about gone, for I don’t see us humans finding the understanding which can save us before the planet itself kills us for our effrontery……

Rather than expose y’all to any more of my own negative conclusions, I’d like y’all to read the following article, which my news reader provided to me, and with which I can only agree wholeheartedly. It’s brilliant, to be honest, and, if there is any justice in the world, will go viral quite soon…… It’s by an author named Elizabeth West, and she has hit upon some strong truths…. Don’t try to decide from reading the title; just trust me, & go read it. You won’t regret it…. Not even if I close out the section with my own take/interpretation, (though voiced with a power of expression I can only dream of achieving some day….) of the most probable, ultimately final decision Reality is going to make about the human race… Ms. West might convince you otherwise…..

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/04/abandon-all-hope/

This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang but with a whimper.

~~ T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men” ~~


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Comedy_Tragedy

Choosing a Theme

Powerful words playing hide and seek in my mind,
teasing with subtle cruelty, pretending to be kind.
Grand visions and flowery verses of beauty and truth
evaded my inner eye all through the days of my youth.

Affable interludes interspersed with allegorical wit
softened the crimes, against all reason, to finally acquit.
Time became at once an enemy, and an ally
Never once compelled to provide an answer why.

Giving gifts of simple kindness are their own pay,
spreading ripples of compassion are felt far and away.
Love given freely is precious, we are ever told,
increasing love received, more than a hundred fold.

Living long and with passion has centered my soul,
allowing me room, and time, to choose my own goal.
Now I’ve gone past any need to pretend
I love everything in life, even knowing it will end.

~~ gigoid ~~

10/21/2012


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ankh

Naked Pearls IV

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“Everything you know is wrong.”

~~ The Firesign Theater ~~

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“Every action in our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.”

~~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin ~~

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“Virtue is beauty.”

~~ Shakespeare ~~

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“There are two kinds of egotists: 1) Those who admit it;  2) The rest of us.”

~~ Psyche Bee ~~

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“Half the failures in life arise from pulling in one’s horse as it is leaping.”

~~ Julius Hare ~~

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“In war and life, either fight to win or don’t fight.”

~~ Warrior Bee ~~

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“She [virtue] requires a rough and stormy passage; she will have either outward difficulties to wrestle with, …. or, internal difficulties.”

~~ Michel de Montaigne — Essays, Book ii, Chap. xi, Of Cruelty ~~

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“A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.”

~~ Joseph Addison ~~

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“A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.”

~~ Hugh Downs ~~

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“Don’t worry about a thing because every little thing is gonna be alright.”

~~ Bob Marley ~~

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However many holy words you read,
However many you speak,
What good will they do you
If you do not act on upon them?

~~ Buddha ~~


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Well, it’s done. All that remains is to go post it, which will be harder than usual today…. I put a lot into this one, even though the poem isn’t new, and the major rant belongs to another author. Nonetheless, I don’t believe I can do this any better than this turned out, so, I hope y’all enjoyed consuming it as much as I enjoyed putting it together…. I’ll be back tomorrow, to see if I can do it this well one more time….Why not? That would make a total of at least four, over four years…. Not bad, for an amateur…

Spoiler alert: Things ’round here may change some in the near future…. Y’all stay alert, y’hear?…. It could mean your sanity, and mine…. Oops. Maybe not yours…. really. I mean that, or, rather, I didn’t mean that…. Well, never mind, you’ll see….. Just, be careful, okay?…. C Ya.

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

Sometimes I sits and thinks,
   and sometimes,
I just sits.

gigoid, the dubious

The *only* duly authorized Computer Curmudgeon.

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

Featured Image -- 5012


À bientôt, mon cherí….


					

Hearken to the Call of the Mild….

Ffolkes,

“In the vacant places, we will build with new bricks.”

~~ T.S. Eliot ~~

April 4 2016 002

Pastoral Urbanity


All euphemisms aside, I feel like crap. Nothing particularly vile going on; pain is a constant, of course, but, it’s not bad today. No, I believe it’s another of my physical ailments giving me its usual fits, which, though infrequent, are rather debilitating. Such being the case, this will have to go quickly, as I just don’t have a lot of energy…. SIGH…. I HATE starting the day tired & grumpy…. well, I don’t mind the grump so much, but, trying to get going when fatigued is a pain in yet another anatomical area of great renown….

Ah, well, such is life, as we say on the streets… Well, I say it a lot; other folks, not so much. Regardless, I’m losing my train of thought here, trying to decide whether to continue this farce, or throw it out & start over…. Instead, I think I’ll give up altogether. It worked so well yesterday, what the hell, eh? Let’ give it another shot….

I’m done. Go read the rest, such as it is….

Shall we Pearl?

“Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you’ve got to say, and say it hot.” — D.H. Lawrence

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fred neil

Image from You Tube via Google Images


This man wrote two of the best songs ever written in the English language, yet not many know his name, aside from every musician in the recording business…. For years he was what is termed a “studio” performer, only playing with others as a musician, and allowing others to record his songs…. Then, someone heard him sing; he eventually cut a couple of albums, before he became too uncomfortable in the limelight, which he never sought at all… Among musicians, he is a legend; to the general public he is a minor footnote…. Whatever he is, I consider him one of the best…. Enjoy, ffolkes….


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Fred Neil

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About Hopi Indian Symbols

    Those who have been here a while will understand why Kokopelli graces the ranting section today. I’m incredibly late, besides struggling with debilitating physical issues; naturally, this means we go to the archives…. Here is an excellent rant, if a bit long….

From 12/21/2013:

Below, you will find the rant to which I referred above…. it’s another long one, thanks to the support I again found in the archives, but, it’s worth the read, for it will all point toward the rant I’m planning for tomorrow, one that will be a culmination, and a summarization, of all the rants I’ve done up to this point…. For today, please read, and pay attention to this, as it will end up being important for all of us…. a point which I hope to make clear tomorrow….

In order to achieve the proper understanding of this issue, and the following discussion, aka a ‘politirant’ of first magnitude, the article attached to the following link should be read first…. It contains some interesting information that is critical to the dialogue that may ensue, or, in any case, for a full data set to use for analyzing the issue at large…. Go ahead, we’ll wait here….

http://www.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/Judge-NSA-program-is-likely-unconstitutional-5068946.php

It isn’t often this happens twice in a row, but, since I’m always attuned to the possibility of serendipity, it did…. happen twice, that is…. Below, you will find a rant I posted back in early March of this year, which, given the information contained in the article attached to the above link, is astoundingly accurate as a response to the actions demonstrated by the administration in this entire scenario….

First, let me say that I’m very, very happy that a federal judge had the courage and integrity to stand up against the tide of administrative pressure, which, as we all should realize by now, originates from the dens of the shadowy corporate masters, and special interest groups who dictate society’s course to suit themselves…. If you haven’t noted this from what you see happening everywhere in the public sector, well, I can’t convince you, but, it remains, nonetheless, the truth, well-documented in the news….

The government, of this country, and just about every other in the world, is in the control of the corporate special interests who control virtually ALL the money, and, along with that, ALL the resources needed to keep society working. It has been this way for millennia, and they are only getting better at the controls they possess over the happenings in the world around us, honed by centuries of practice and deception…. They are so good at it, virtually nobody even realizes the true nature of their control, or the extent of it…. and, that is just how they like it….

But, there are moments when a bit of progress is made in keeping at least a minimum of mankind free of much of their influence, and this ruling in a federal court is one of those moments in history…. It still remains to be seen whether the rest of the federal courts, up to and including the Supremes, will continue to see the actual truth, or whether they’ll begin to color it, too, with the paint provided by the special interest groups, in whose best interests lie the abrogation of the amendments…. For the moment, though, we can be encouraged, at least a little bit…

I was especially heartened by two parts of this report…. First, the judge acknowledged James Madison, as one of the framers of the Bill of Rights, speaking of his obvious and well-placed mistrust of just this scenario, of corporate interests dictating the abrogation of civil rights, such as in this case, the Fourth Amendment, by those in power, and how Mr. Madison would be “aghast” at how far it has come true today….

Second, I was encouraged to see the steadfast dismissal of the reasoning by the administration’s lawyers on the basis of constitutionality, as it goes to prove the contention by Eric Snowden, that the laws and policies being perpetrated by the NSA would be found to be such, to wit: illegal according to the Constitution of the United States…. which would, in turn, prove his innocence under the laws of our country, which, theoretically, rewards those who speak the truth in defense of their fellows….

Good to know SOMEONE is paying attention in the judiciary system…. even if one of the Shrubs appointed him… That, apparently, didn’t turn him away from the Constitution, unlike the POTUS who gave him the job, who was on record as thinking some of the Bill of Rights went too far in giving people certain rights….

Further than that, the arguments presented below are the correct response to the above, which also goes to prove one small point, to wit: even nine months ago, I knew something was wrong in the pictures I was seeing out in the real world…. Enjoy!….

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From 3/2/13:

He who imitates evil always goes beyond the limits of the example, whereas he who imitates what is good, always falls short.” — Confucius

Perfect! If ever a quote could be applied to fit one group of people, this one would; it fits the folks who occupy elected office in this country like the proverbial glove. Ooh! Ooh! Here’s another one….

“Ignorance: When you don’t know something and somebody finds it out.” — Jethro Burns

Okay, that’s a good start…. Now, we all know that politicians lie to us…. It’s what we’ve taught them to do, by our calm acceptance of all the other lies they’ve told, from the very beginning. We expect them to lie…. then, when we catch them at it, there is this huge public outcry, as if it had never happened before….. (Shakes head, sighs….)

Sometimes, the behavior of the American public toward the political beast reminds me of a shark…. to wit: no memory of the past to slow down their willingness to rush into dangerous situations…. For millions of years, sharks and dolphins have lived together in the oceans. For just about all that time, whenever a shark attacks a dolphin, it gets killed, unless the dolphin is injured in some way, or, it is a baby inadvertently left alone. Always, if things are even, the shark dies, because the dolphins are smarter, and faster swimmers.

After millions of years, you would think the sharks might learn to let them alone, but, they don’t, which is evidence of their lack of ability to learn. The American voting public has the same problem…. they never learn to expect to be lied to, and always seem surprised to learn that their elected officials are, shall we say, less than perfectly honest? It, quite frankly, drives me nuts…. What is it about people that does that to them? Why are they so unwilling to use the mind that sits between their ears, rather than just carrying it around from toilet to toilet, which is all most folks seem to do with it?  I wish I knew….

“There is one way to find out if a man is honest – ask him. If he says yes, you know he is crooked.” — Groucho Marx

I’m starting to feel a bit of anger, actually, and I have a hard time not letting it out on the voting public, the idiots. But, it really isn’t all their fault, as the people who run for office are the ones who are actively imitating evil, and, obviously, exceeding the limits of their example. And the voting public can’t help never being able to quite reach the good for which they reach. This is why I get angry about it…. The folks who run for office tell the public they are going to work for the people when they are elected; we all know they are lying, but we elect them anyway. Now, how stupid is that? Pretty stupid, in my book….

On the one hand, the stupidity displayed by the politicians is deliberate, in its adherence to principles of theft and prevarication; on the other hand, the stupidity displayed by the voting public is, perhaps, not deliberate, but at minimum, misguided, and, ultimately, just as evil, in placing its trust in evil people. In the dispassionate view held by the universe, stupid is as stupid does, and the sentence of death is the same for both types of stupidity, deliberate and unconscious. It doesn’t care about why, it only looks at results….

What can be done about this? Not a damn thing…. Not only do I find that most people are unconsciously stupid, but they are stubborn about it, even when it is clear how being stupid is hurting them. Rather than use their minds to find a new way of dealing with these issues, they retreat into platitudes and dogma, and run right back out to vote for another idiot who promises them manna from heaven, or, more accurately, from Washington D.C. If confronted with their idiocy, they become even more stubborn, as they are unwilling to accept they might be wrong, and refuse to either examine any evidence of being wrong, or, will deny its existence altogether. (See quote # 4 in section one, above… Plato knew this about people, hundreds of years before Jesus was born….)

The politicians, who choose to live in stupidity, by lying and cheating and stealing from their own people, don’t even WANT to choose otherwise. Why should they? They’ve got it easy, with a ready supply of host bodies on which to practice their symbiotic parasitism, a body that not only accepts all their lies, but encourages them to even further depredations with their complete acquiescence with whatever the politicos want. All the politicians have to say is that the public is in danger, from this, that, or the other, and the public will allow them to do whatever they choose, as long as they feel safe from whatever fictional fantasy they have been told is dangerous….

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift; the rational mind is faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” — Albert Einstein

It’s an interesting spectacle to observe from the sidelines, but it arouses in me a strong feeling of sadness, with the anger underlying, as I watch, day after day, as so many millions of foolish people get taken advantage of by a few assholes. It definitely makes me want to buy a gun, even though I would only use it if pressed; I have a feeling I may get pressed some day, if I continue to make noise about all this.

I’m fairly well protected thus far by a lack of notoriety; the BRC and the PTB aren’t going to worry about me until I have an audience a lot larger than a couple of hundred folks, of which perhaps fifty regularly read my work. If what I am saying began to gain popularity, and was being read by millions, I’d be in danger; until then, I’m as safe as I can make myself with the tools at hand; which, if I say so myself, are not entirely inconsequential….. If I said any more, I’d be giving away my precautions, and that wouldn’t do, so, just rest assured…. I am ready to deal with anything short of assault weapons, with what I have on hand….

“Many, if not all, of my presidential opponents are certifiable idiots.” — Miriam Defensor Santiago — The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1993

See? I’m not completely alone! Actually, if you pay close attention, you will note this was uttered by a politician, about their peers, so it really doesn’t count as support of what I’m saying here. What, exactly am I saying here? Hmm, okay, since I’ve already written about 1200 words or so on this, it’s a good place to wind it up…. so, here goes….

Ffolkes, you are being lied to, daily…. hell, more like hourly, by those who have been elected to office to look out for your interests. I hate to tell you, but those folks never intended to do anything of the sort. So, it would be a good thing if everybody in this country would OPEN THEIR FUCKING EYES AND GET A DAMN CLUE!!!!!….. I don’t think I can say it any clearer than that…. That’s all, for now….

“Ignorance kills daily. “– Smart Bee

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Comedy_Tragedy

Roses for Noses

I have a bozoid personality, of the first degree;
 nobody, I mean nobody, knows that better than me.
I often wonder, as the world goes around, and around
 how many others have realized just what I’ve found….

I know for a fact, I’m not the only bozoid one;
 too many people laughing out there, having fun.
Is their laughter, though, at themselves first?
 Or is it some other impulse, like purple liverwurst”….

I’ve always loved to make others laugh and giggle,
 since my tender youth, when my ears began to wiggle.
 The world is full of humor,  but not always easy to find
  so laughing at myself I learned never to mind….

We bozos know each other, here, there, and everywhere
 there’s no hiding such joy, it just wouldn’t be fair.
We all have one feature, our great bulbous nose,
 and there’s no doubt at all, cuz it just grows….

There’s nothing like a good, big mistake, a disaster,
 to show us the folly of living life faster and faster.
Nothing in the world can ever take the place,
 of seeing in the mirror, a happy, smiling face….

Don’t be shy, just let it all hang out;
 we bozos have more fun, there’s no doubt.
Life’s too somber and gray if we let it get on top
 if we don’t stay loose, the pain won’t ever stop….

My advice to all of you, out there in the world,
 let noses grow round & red, keep hair tightly curled.
Find a way to let your spirit out often to play,
 you’ll never once regret any price you pay.

~~ gigoid ~~


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buddah-out-to-lunch_s

    I’m not sure about this old-school pearl; the parameters weren’t set solidly before beginning to search. It seems my subconscious had something to say, but, it sure escapes me what that might be. The only thing I can figure is, all of them would produce the reaction you see in the above picture of the laughing monk, even if each one were told to Buddha himself…..

“All time in all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all bugs in amber.” — Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughter-House 5

“Cato said the best way to keep good acts in memory was to refresh them with new.” — Francis Bacon (1561-1626) — Apothegms, No, 247

“Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.” — Sigmund Freud

“I have a grip on reality, just not this particular one.” — Liberated directly from the subconscious mind of gigoid, the dubious, articulated by Smart Bee, in Telepathic Mode

“It is important to do what you don’t know how to do. It is important to see your skills as keeping you from learning what is deepest and most mysterious. If you know how to focus, unfocus. If your tendency is to make sense out of chaos, start chaos.” — Carlos Casteñeda

“How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!” — Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — The Odyssey of Homer, Book xiii, Line 375

“When the fox gnaws — smile.’ — Lazarus Long in Robert A. Heinlein’s Time Enough For Love

31. Read between the lines. — Instructions for life

“All mimsy were the borogoves.” — Lewis Carroll

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Don’t ask me where I’m going,
Just listen when I’m gone
And far away you’ll hear me singing softly to the dawn

~~ Pippin ~~


Well, it’s done, thankfully…. Rather than dwell on whether it was worthwhile, I’m going to go…. elsewhere, to do something else. I will, most surely, see y’all tomorrow, ffolkes….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

Sometimes I sits and thinks,
   and sometimes,
I just sits.

gigoid, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

dozer3


À bientôt, mon cherí….

Damn! The rabbit didn’t die, it ran away!…

Ffolkes,

“He bids fair to grow wise who has discovered that he is not so.”

~~ Publius Syrus (42 BC) — Maxim 598 ~~

four days old with mama  Fabrice GuerinBarcroft Media

Four-day old calf with Mama

Image by  Fabrice Guerin – Barcroft Media

National Geographic Award Winner

It seems my new routine includes more sleep; this is certainly welcome, but, complicates the routine, to fit it into a schedule two hours later than previously used. Ah, well, so much for consistency; it isn’t good to maintain TOO much of it, lest one become hidebound, and lose the flexibility of mind which leads to a more successful approach to living, than confining oneself to a single frame of reference…

There, is that esoteric enough for y’all? I thought I’d try something a bit different, but, I’m  not sure it’ll work more than once. Oh, well, such is life in the blogging world. Events in the BBR kept me busy yesterday, right up to this morning’s late starting time, so, I didn’t get much of this done ahead of time. That’s okay, I’m getting pretty good at cheating, sad to say. It certainly is handy, though. I wonder why I never thought of it before? Probably something to do with how my dad would fry my butt if I made a habit of it. He’d allow such abrogation of duty once, for good reason, but, twice, to him, indicated a burgeoning pattern, and he’d soon inform us of the error of our ways….

Nonetheless, it will get us to where we want to be, and leave me with clean hands, for the most part. You may want to tighten your shoelaces, and your safety belts. The new, ruthless methods I’ve decided to adopt here in the intro have been causing a bit of consternation amongst the guests, so I’m giving fair warning…. In fact, y’all should do it NOW, because we going in, NOW….

Shall we Pearl?

“The high-spirited man may indeed die, but he will not stoop to meanness. Fire, though it may be quenched, will not become cool.” — The Hitopadesa (600?-1100? A.D.)

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Morning muse

    For this morning, a little blues, I think…. Here is a joint studio session with two of the very best blues guitarists who ever lived. Stevie is gone, but, Albert remains…. Enjoy, ffolkes…..


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Albert King & Stevie Ray Vaughan — In Session 2010 1983

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Dont keep calm

Image stolen from Talesfromtheconspiratum.com

He won’t mind…


“Nothing’s ever really changed.  What difference does it make whether it’s the Corporate state or the Nation state?  In our struggle for  freedom we still find ourselves fighting the state.” — Jay Terpstra

I think this is a great pearl upon which to base a rant. Unfortunately, I have neither the time, nor, currently, the inclination to create a fresh one. So, here’s one that should fit from the archives…. Enjoy!….

From 3/12/2012, amended 3/28/2013:

“I don’t make jokes.  I just watch the government and report the facts.” — Will Rogers

I was going to use this as a springboard for another rant on our beloved ruling class….. But, the more I thought about it, the longer it percolated in my brain, the sadder I grew….

I used to feel a lot of love for my country, if for nothing else, because of the dream of liberty and human empowerment that our system of government was envisioned, and intended, to create, and maintain. The founding fathers had a vision, of a country where every man and woman had the same opportunities, to live their lives as they chose, as every other person, without censure, and without the fear of being persecuted for their beliefs, no matter how different they were from everyone else’s. A dream of a place where children could grow up without the fear of hunger, or abuse, or death from the skies. A place where a man, or a woman, was respected for just being human, without having to prove their worth to some ignorant asshole who is afraid of any color skin but their own.

Instead, we live in a society whose diverse segments have an extreme, and sadly justified, mistrust of each other, where the rich and powerful, instead of uplifting their fellow man, use their influence and wealth to divide and discriminate, always with the intention of keeping the less fortunate in a powerless state, too downtrodden to even hope for better.

We live in a society that ignores its elderly, and abuses its children; a society where people are starving amidst mountains of food.  We have a produced a culture that glorifies war, and sees peaceful coexistence as weakness; a culture where it is a crime for a man to kill another for honor, but is praised for being part of an army of professional killers. This country has reached the sad point in its history where the twin concepts of honor and duty have been supplanted as the basis of our national character, replaced by the glaring presence of avarice, false entitlement, and expediency.

Yes, I am saddened by Will’s joke, because it cuts far too close to reality, and home…..

From today, 3/28/2014:

“They scream into my ears,
But what they say will only make me deaf.”

— Claus Larsen
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“It’s hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” — Calvin, Bill Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes

Jimmy Swaggert, and the other 5 or  6 televangelists who regularly get caught literally with their pants down come immediately to mind for a list of potential recipients of divine extermination intervention…….

Newt Gingrich, along with a large number of his cohorts in Congress, obviously, for congenital lying, and excessive sliminess….

Rick Santorum, because I can’t imagine an entity as smart as God is reputed to be to let this ….. person…. (I believe using the word “person” is being kind, but, we’ll give the benefit of doubt for the time being, for expedience… See, even I fall prey to that failure of ethics…), well, I don’t think He will let him speak in his Name for long, not without exacting some price….. (I’ve heard that divine price-tag can be a bit heavy….)….

Twitt Romney, that elitist asshole…..

…. and, finally, as Yul Brynner stated so beautifully in his only attempt to sing on film: “Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera…..” to which I would add, “and a cast of thousands, ad nauseam infinitum…..”

I suppose it also says something less than admirable about the media to note, much, even MOST of the crap to which we are exposed, by the members of the (supposed) fifth column, consists, in the main, of reports on the activities of the LEAST admirable examples of our species, who, unfortunately, are the ones who make for salable news…. These newsworthy individuals provide the material that will pay for the advertising costs, so the shadowy corporate masters are satisfied that we will hear about the latest, greatest new products, each of which fills some previously unknown manufactured need.

The most lucrative subject matter, the stories that sell the most papers, or comprises the material for the most successful TV shows, as it turns out, is an endless variety of dramatic fantasy, describing in intimate detail, all of the stupidest, most egregious examples of the insane antics of a seemingly limitless number of the WORST of humanity…. Loud, perverted, fanatic religious zealots (aka preachers….), unprosecuted criminals wearing power suits and ties, (aka politicians….), and a parade of sports and entertainment figures with an average IQ of 77 (actors, actresses, ball players, and police myrmidons)…. These are the current examples of “famous celebrities” we are supposed to fawn over, to use as our idols for emulation…. at least, if we are to believe what we see on the TV (total vacuum)….

I often feel a sense of despair after reading the news…. fortunately, I have WordPress to alleviate any dangerous build-up of bile….. but, all-too-often, it sure makes me wish for a few well-placed bolts of lightning to provide some comic relief, at least…..

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From today, 3/28/2014:

“Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.” — Plato (428-348? B.C.)

Well, that was certainly confusing, eh? Maybe, just maybe, evolution is a good thing…. ya think?….

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From today, 4/1/2015: Well, that was fun. I think. Let’s go on, shall we?….

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Comedy_Tragedy

    I’ve taken the time, late as I am, to find a poem by someone else, appropriate to the day, just cuz I’m a nice guy….

A Caution To Everybody

Consider the auk;

Becoming extinct because he forgot how to fly, and could only walk.

Consider man, who may well become extinct

Because he forgot how to walk and learned how to fly before he thinked.

~~ Ogden Nash ~~

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lao

Lao Tzu


Today’s old-school pearl is one I like to call an advice pearl. It speaks in general ways about how we can live, if we wish to live in peace, in connection to the world, and others, and, how to look at the world with eyes that see clearly…. In short, how to live a life well-lived…. by anyone’s standards….

“It is by not always thinking of yourself, if you can manage it, that you might somehow be happy. Until you make room in your life for someone as important to you as yourself, you will always be searching and lost …” — Spoken by Leslie Parrish, The Bridge Across Forever, by Richard Bach

“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.” — Mark Twain

“If you can see a thing whole… it seems that it’s always beautiful. Planets, lives…But close up, a world’s all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life’s a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. You need distance, interval. The way to see how beautiful the earth is, is to see it as the moon. The way to see how beautiful a life is, is to see it from the vantage point of death.” — Ursula K. Le Guin, Dispossessed

“Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward.” — William E. Davidsen

“And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.” — Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

“Nobody can have the soul of me.  My mother has had if, and nobody can have it again.  Nobody can come into my very self again, and breathe me like an atmosphere.” — D. H. Lawrence

“Be not diverted from your duty by any idle reflections the silly world may make upon you, for their censures are not in your power, and consequently should not be any part of your concern.” — Epictetus

“Go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows.” — Rainer Maria Rilke in Letters to a Young Poet

“As for courage and will – we cannot measure how much of each lies within us, we can only trust there will be sufficient to carry through trials which may lie ahead.” — Andre Norton

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You may see me tonight with an illegal smile.
It don’t cost very much, but it lasts a long while.
Won’t you please tell the man I didn’t hurt anyone.
No, I’m just trying to have me some fun.

~~ John Prine ~~


Well, there you have it. Another fine Pearl of Virtual Wisdom, brought to you today by the number 61, and the letter Q. Don’t ask. Now that I’ve fulfilled the regulations set upon us by the gods of blogging, such as they are, I’m outta here. See y’all tomorrow, ffolkes, as long as nobody catches me…

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest Carole, Mark,Theresa, & Richy
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

Sometimes I sits and thinks,
   and sometimes,
I just sits.

gigoid, the dubious

PLEASE STOP READING THIS MESSAGE NOW.

“SCRAM!!!!!!!!!!”- Oscar the Grouch

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À bientôt, mon cherí….