You can join the looters AFTER church, Billy….

Posted on May 5, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
I didn’t wake up today; Murphy kicked my bed covers to the floor and made me get up early. He wanted to make sure I saw how thoroughly he fucked me over today…. He has done something to Smart Bee, and it is crashing and burning on me…. Well, not burning, exactly…. It just won’t come off the task bar…. This has happened previously, and usually, an uninstall, followed by a fresh re-install will take care of the problem….. Not today, though. I’ve downloaded a new copy and re-installed three times now, and nothing doing. It still won’t open up on the desktop in a window; it just sits there on the taskbar, laughing at me….. Murphy is such an ASSHOLE!…..

This is a disaster of major proportion around here. I depend on Smart Bee for my quotes, fresh on a daily basis. With over 110,000 quotes in the program’s database, it has never failed to give me what I needed, to supply me with appropriate or stimulating quotes with no fuss. Now, I will have to use my books, and copy them down by hand, or go to a website that has quotes, and look around there. All in all, it’s a huge pain in my ass to have to do without SB, and I am thoroughly pissed now, at that asshole Murphy…. I don’t know what makes this program go wonky like this, and the fact that he does, well, it’s a pisser of major degree.

Since I won’t have the time I generally have, thanks to the convenience of SB, I’d best leave this morning whine in the bottle, and get on with the pearls for today. It’s going to take a while, and I’m really, really pissed, and will need to take a few moments to compose myself, so we’ll let this die a quick death today, and get on with it….. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

The thorns which I have reap’d are of the tree
I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed.
I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

— Lord Byron (1788-1824) — Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv, Stanza 10

Here, in a three line verse, Lord Byron has explained the flaw that exists in human nature, a flaw that will one day drive the species to extinction, if we don’t find a way to alter its effect on us, as a species. This flaw doesn’t manifest in every human, only in a certain percentage, not particularly large, but full of the people who affect society the most, i.e., the leaders, the politicians, the aristocracy (the rich, or as I call them, the bankers….), and the preachers, all of whom are supposed to be ordering society to benefit ALL of its members.

Instead, these individuals, who have this fatal flaw, have ordered events to suit themselves, hoarding the largest part of the available resources, showing absolutely no compassion or willingness to share, and dismissing as unimportant all of the pain and suffering their actions cause to other people….

This selfishness gene will eventually kill us all, because the BRC, or Beloved Ruling Class, are so focused on their goals, and so unwilling to entertain the idea that their actions are wrong, they cannot comprehend the danger they have created by their pathology, to themselves as well as to the rest of us….

That is the unfortunate thing about any mental aberration; it’s very presence tends to limit what the victim can understand, because they are unwilling to look at the evidence….. No one wants to believe they are mentally off; it doesn’t fit in with our self-image as a competent human being. These folks never understand at all that the way they are leading their lives is a threat to the rest of us; they will only accept evidence that supports their unrealistic view of reality.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, these people are also the ones who are the most willing to use violence, and weapons, to enforce their will, and they already have control of more force than the rest of the public can possibly contend with to force a change. It is a very complex, delicate problem, with no solution that I can see as practical, or with any large chance for success….

The time we have to make the necessary changes to society is growing shorter every hour, as more and more millions of tons of CO (carbon monoxide) is pumped into the air, along with other particulate pollutants. This material in our atmosphere has almost completely destroyed the ozone layer, and the amount of heat reaching the planet from the Sun has raised the ambient temperature of the planet a full two degrees…

Two degrees may not seem like much, but, the fact that the change has taken place in less than a hundred years is a clear indicator that it is quite enough, as it continues to change the climate of the planet drastically. The polar ice is melting more rapidly than ever before, and at a geometrically increasing rate. The amount of oxygen in the air is decreasing in relation to other substances; if it changes two percentage points, there won’t be enough of it for our lungs to breathe; we will suffocate ourselves if it continues. The weather is changing all over the world, as the water from the polar ice melts, and changes the chemical balance of the air everywhere…. As plants die, the process will accelerate, and it will be a toss-up to see what will kill us first….

“Whenever I see a photograph of some sportsman grinning over his kill, I am always impressed by the striking moral and aesthetic superiority of the dead animal to the live one.” — Edward Abbey

Not a pretty picture, is it? Unless, of course, you are one of the power elite, the BRC; then, you’re the one with the gun…. I’m sorry to have to bring doom and gloom into the morning, but, this is a subject that won’t go away, so I pound on it whenever I can…. The quote above, from Lord Byron, stimulated my sense of outrage at the sheer selfishness of the 1% (yet another name for those with the flaw of extreme self-interest….), so I ranted, if mildly. What bothers me the most is that what I’m saying here is absolute truth, and the people who read it are NOT the ones who need to change…. Of course, those folks wouldn’t believe it if they did read it, so it’s rather a thankless task, and relatively futile, to boot…..

“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are good.” — Anne Frank

I think Anne was a better person than I am, because I have lost my belief in what she says here…. I do believe that the majority of mankind is good, or at least tries to be good; I just don’t believe that those ffolkes are the ones that matter to our future, as much as the folks who are NOT basically good, for as long as the innocents allow the harm their leaders continue to cause to the environment in which we all have to live. I don’t know of a solution, other than the obvious one of becoming violent myself, and doing to them what they want to do to me, but doing it first….. But, then I become like them, and I’d have to kill myself, because I’d never be able to look in a mirror again….. I guess there’s only one thing left to do…..

Petition me no petitions, sir, to-day;
Let other hours be set apart for business.
To-day it is our pleasure to be drunk;
And this our queen shall be as drunk as we.

— Henry Fielding (1707-1754) — Tom Thumb the Great, Act i, Sc. 2
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Last month was great, in terms of writing poetry, but I missed reading it…. That probably sounds contradictory, but what I mean is that I missed reading other people’s poems, as I haven’t been able to read other blogs as much as I’d like in the last couple of months…. I’m busier out in the BBR, and can’t sit very long anyway. Now, however, the challenge to write a poem is over, and I get to find my old favorites and find new stuff from them…. Call me odd, I don’t care, because I am… Most poets are….

A Song About Myself

I.
There was a naughty boy,
A naughty boy was he,
He would not stop at home,
He could not quiet be-
He took
In his knapsack
A book
Full of vowels
And a shirt
With some towels,
A slight cap
For night cap,
A hair brush,
Comb ditto,
New stockings
For old ones
Would split O!
This knapsack
Tight at’s back
He rivetted close
And followed his nose
To the north,
To the north,
And follow’d his nose
To the north.

II.
There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
For nothing would he do
But scribble poetry-
He took
An ink stand
In his hand
And a pen
Big as ten
In the other,
And away
In a pother
He ran
To the mountains
And fountains
And ghostes
And postes
And witches
And ditches
And wrote
In his coat
When the weather
Was cool,
Fear of gout,
And without
When the weather
Was warm-
Och the charm
When we choose
To follow one’s nose
To the north,
To the north,
To follow one’s nose
To the north!

III.
There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
He kept little fishes
In washing tubs three
In spite
Of the might
Of the maid
Nor afraid
Of his Granny-good-
He often would
Hurly burly
Get up early
And go
By hook or crook
To the brook
And bring home
Miller’s thumb,
Tittlebat
Not over fat,
Minnows small
As the stall
Of a glove,
Not above
The size
Of a nice
Little baby’s
Little fingers-
O he made
‘Twas his trade
Of fish a pretty kettle
A kettle-
A kettle
Of fish a pretty kettle
A kettle!

IV.
There was a naughty boy,
And a naughty boy was he,
He ran away to Scotland
The people for to see-
There he found
That the ground
Was as hard,
That a yard
Was as long,
That a song
Was as merry,
That a cherry
Was as red,
That lead
Was as weighty,
That fourscore
Was as eighty,
That a door
Was as wooden
As in England-
So he stood in his shoes
And he wonder’d,
He wonder’d,
He stood in his
Shoes and he wonder’d.

~~ John Keats ~~

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Today has turned into a traditional Pearl… though the intro is shorter than usual, the rest of it follows format perfectly, with a rant in section one, a classic poet, and poem, in section two, and a third section, which obviously is supposed to be an old-school grouping of pearls…. I confess that I keep a stash of quotes from Smart be, to the tune of about eighty-seven pages of a document, so I’m not as short of quotes as I’d thought to be. I’m going to use it for a couple days, & let the real Smart Bee have a vacation, to see if that will fix the corruption in the file….

I know, wishful thinking, but, it’s worth a shot… If it works, it will piss Murphy off, so I’d do it that way anyway, for just that reason…. Any who, today’s group will be VERY random, so bear with me…. Buckle up, please, we can’t proceed until all seat-belts are fastened securely…. insurance rules…

“A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.” — Robert Heinlein

“Life is a long lesson in humility.” — James M. Barrie

“Ridicule is the best test of truth. — Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773)

“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.” — Hermann Hesse, _Damian_, 1919

But the sunshine aye shall light the sky,
As round and round we run;
And the truth shall ever come uppermost,
And justice shall be done.

— Charles Mackay (1814-1889) — Eternal Justice, Stanza 4

“There are two sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usages of man’s life: “Know thyself”, and “Nothing too much”; and upon these all other precepts depend.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Consolation to Apollonius

“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” — Smart Bee

Now, that’s not bad at all…. a very cogent grouping, I think…. Let yourself flow with it, and you’ll end up in a place you will like, I guarantee… If not, well, that’s okay too…. some of us need to let things stir around a while before consuming it… or something…. Ah hell, just listen to the last one, and all will be well….
__________________________________

Things are just all at sixes and sevens, and I don’t know what I shall do…. I guess I’ll proof it first, then see if I need to kill myself…. It will have to do, as I’d say it meets minimum requirements, and it’s time to go out into the BBR, if the bus is on time….. Enough, she said….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Assign three spinsters to snipe patrol….

Posted on May 4, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
And then I woke up….. What do you think? Will it work as a template? I think it works well, so let’s use it as intended, okay? Okay…..

And then I woke up…. I didn’t want to, but, I did, anyway. The clock was apparently stuck on “too early”, plus my lady wishes to go somewhere today, before the heat gets too bad. We’ve been having a preview of mid-summer the last few days, with temps in the 80’s and low 90’s…. thank goodness for air conditioning. I used to love the heat, but, over time, I’ve grown less tolerant of how it makes me sweat so badly…. plus, I no longer have the physical outlets, like swimming or playing ball, that can take one’s mind off the heat, or get the body working so it doesn’t mind it so much…. We humans are easily distracted, for sure….

Since I have so much to accomplish today, this Pearl will be what I call a hit or miss type, where each section is done between trips to get stuff done. It will, no doubt, end up being posted rather late in the day, compared to most of the Pearls I create, and will thus be a good preview of how to get this done while on the road. Who knows, it may just work out better than it does now, as it will give me a fresh look each time I complete a section. Wow, I just realized it may also make it impossible to get done, but, hey, that’s the risk I take when changing formats…. Being a stubborn sort, that won’t stop me….

In keeping with the new format, we will now take the first break, bringing this intro to a close, before it gets away from me again, and I start blathering more BS, until both of us are sick of it….. Rather than have that happen, we will now go grab equipment, and dive right in…. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

Ranting may or may not be on the agenda today; hard to tell what will happen out in the BBR to stimulate outrage, but, it’s a good bet I’ll see something to jerk me around…. In the meantime, I’ve got a bit of time, so we’ll go see what kind of trouble Smart Bee has up its sleeve today…..

— Bother! said Pooh, as he fell into the toilet.

“I take a simple view of life: keep your eyes open and get on with it.” — Laurence Olivier

“Always forgive your enemies– nothing annoys them so much.” — Oscar Wilde

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” — John Kenneth Galbraith

“If you don’t like yourself, you can’t like other people.” — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“If you are patient in a moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.” — Chinese Proverb

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it–even if I have said it–unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” — The Buddha

Not too shabby, I’d say…. all good words on how to live; taken together, you have a recipe for peace on Earth…..
__________________________________

I’m off to the store with my lady, and will decide what kind of poetry to pursue while I’m out…. Be right back….. Ah, perfect; we’ll go with an old favorite of mine…..

A bird came down the walk…

A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,–
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~

__________________________________

The trip to the store turned into an ordeal, again, thanks to the miserable bus system here in Vallejo… What should have taken 1 hour took 3 hours, and exhausted both me and my lady; I have yet to see a single bus get to the stop on time, in two years…. amazing. Any who, it got me the outrage I needed to ran, but, I’m too tired to write more than this paragraph, to introduce a pearl from March of 2012, a good one, about modern life, and how to live in a world gone mad…. It also takes the pearl in Section One to a different level, as the Buddha’s words on the subject indicate…..

“Believe nothing merely because you have been told it… Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But, whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings — that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.” — Buddha

This idea is almost unknown in Western society, and if you require evidence, just look at the TV Guide for this week. Every minute of every day the airwaves are filled with blatant attempts to influence what people think about, what they buy, or should want to buy, how to relate to other people, or who they should vote for in the next election. I don’t think there are more than one person out of a thousand who has an original thought in their head, one not generated by some excited announcer giving them the latest way to waste their time and money.

In addition to the wasteland that is TV, we have religion, always prepared to jump into people’s lives and tell them how they are doing it wrong, and how the only way to get to heaven is to buy into the product they are selling, thereby handing over the keys to their own minds, and checkbooks. If one looks at it objectively, it’s a pretty good gig, this preacher business. All you have to do is be able to tell people what you think is true with a straight face, and stand back and watch the money pour in. Hell, anybody with the chutzpah can become a preacher; it doesn’t even require a license, though it does help to file the certificates and forms that make it so your church doesn’t have to pay taxes; that’s always a bonus item in favor among the truly religious.

“Writing science fiction for about a penny a word is no way to make a living, If you really want to make a million, the quickest way is to start your own religion.” — L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron was as good as his word…. He was talking to Robert Heinlein one day (they were old friends, having attended Annapolis together in their youth….), and complaining about how his science fiction wasn’t selling as well as Bob’s. He made Bob a bet, that he could start a religion, one that had no basis in reality outside his head, and could become richer than Croesus without having to lift a finger…. Bob took the bet, and L. Ron wrote “Dianetics”, the book that is now the basis for the Church of Scientology.

This “religion” has become a reality, with millions of members worldwide, all of whom are firmly convinced of the truth of what is in their bible; in reality, their bible was a load of crap nonsense that came straight out of L. Ron’s head, and has no actual relation to anything in the real world….. I find it to be one of history’s finest jokes, and the shenanigans of the constituents of the “church” provide me with endless entertainment…. Brilliant!…. And, of course, just desserts for those who have adopted such an asinine philosophy, all based on a joke bet….

“It’s hard to decide if T.V. makes morons out of everyone or if it mirrors Americans who really are morons to begin with.” — Martin Mull
__________________________________

All in all, it came out well, I think, even though I had to dip into the archives again….. C’est la vie! I’m beat, and I can hear my pillow calling me…. Tt,th, th, that’s all ffolkes!…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Twice around the neck should do nicely….

Posted on May 3, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,

“And then I woke up.” — Smart Bee

That, I think, is better….. I’ve searched and struggled, and tried a hundred different ways to open up these Pearls, and nothing works more than once. But, I’ve decided. if I use an ending for my beginning, it could work as a template…. I just write that first line, and follow it up with some of my favorite nonsense, or maybe a poetic quatrain…. or just some oatmeal, figuratively speaking. I may never speak in the literal sense again; things always seem to get serious when I do, so why should I put myself through that? And figurative oatmeal is a piece o’cake, so to speak, without frosting, so that works, too…. Let the Metaphorse be with us!….

I would be very appreciative if anyone can tell me what I said above, literally….. I don’t think it can be done, but I wanted to check with the experts. I wrote it with as few contact points with reality as I could, without it starting to look fake, or as if I was just putting in the time, without any real effort. If there isn’t anyone who knows what I meant by the above, I’ve accomplished my task; if it makes any sense, I’ve screwed it up, again, and we’ll have to start over….. You don’t really want me to have to do that, do you? I didn’t think so…. once through is plenty, when it comes to my intro sections, so it seems…..

Perhaps I should do this more often…. ‘this’ being a very early up, call and jump into cab, zip to hospital lab, and back again, all before starting in on this Pearl. The intro section is sort of writing itself, even though all my eyes want to do is close up shop, & go back to bed….. which could yet happen. In fact, I think that’s a good idea, and goodness knows it won’t hurt anything, as nobody is currently reading my blog anyway…. got a total of five “Likes” yesterday, matching the previous 24 hours, and making it three days now with virtually no visits from anyone, not just regulars…. Is there a WordPress vacation going on, or something?…. Ah well, since I write for me, not for anyone else, it doesn’t matter anyway…. Therefore….. NAP TIME!…. I’ll be back….

“Life eludes logic.” — Smart Bee

Aha! That explains all of it! Now we can get on with the normally scheduled activities of the day, since Smart Bee has taken over the creative process completely. I suppose I could chalk all of it up to getting up so early, but, that’s never been acceptable before, and I doubt it would fly now. Though I’m a firm believer that the worm should have stayed in bed, being the bird is usually a better bet, at least for breakfast. And, yes, we are already lost again, somewhere in the vast fields of illogic…. which, as we all know, is right next door to chaos. Rather than fall over into that realm, I think we should just rip off our clothes, and dive in….. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

It turns out that my inclination to rant is connected to my overall feeling of security….. For over two years, I took shot after shot at the BRC, organized religion, the sex slavery trade, global warming, overpopulation, and whatever else came under my scrutiny that caused even the slightest degree of outrage.

During all that time, I was struggling mightily to survive in the real world, living on a small fixed income, “depending on the kindness of strangers”, and more importantly, friends, to help me get through each month. The outrage at the issues that concern me seem to have been driven, emotionally, by my economic status, and my anger at the slowness of the federal bureaucracy…..

Now that I’ve been awarded my Social Security benefits, I am no longer in danger of starving, and can look forward to retirement with a bit more positive outlook, since I’ve doubled my monthly income, into a bracket that, while I can’t be labeled as affluent, it does give me the wherewithal to be comfortable. Since that happened, my outrage is harder to find, and I am having a hard time getting worked up too much over the stuff that was bothering me for so long…. I’d hate to think that I’m so shallow as to lose my radical position to bribery…. Money, while it won’t buy happiness, certainly keeps one more comfortable while looking for it…. and, since I was relatively happy when I didn’t have it, there is no reason not to be happy now.

Since I’m not inclined to rant, Smart Bee has been quite cooperative in pulling out acceptable groups of pearls, including the seven-star harlequin variety below…. This one has a message, but, the message is more non-verbal than spoken wisdom…. You’ve got to just close your eyes, (AFTER reading them, of course….), and let them percolate in your mind…. the message will float to the surface after a moment or two…. if not, well, you’ve had a nice little nap, and we can go on….. Enjoy!….

“Remember what the dormouse said… FEED YOUR HEAD…” — Grace Slick

“I don’t ask questions, I just have fun!” — Bugs Bunny

“He can’t be a man cause he does not smoke the same cigarettes as me.” — Mick Jagger

“As you believe, so it is for you.” — Richard Bach

“The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom.” — Michael de Montaigne (1533-1592) — Essays, Book i, Chap. xxii, Of Custom

“And the people bowed and prayed, to the neon Gods they’d made.” — Paul Simon

“His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools: the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans – and summed up all three of them in his famous phrase, ‘You can’t trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so let’s have a drink.'” — Terry Pratchett, ‘Small Gods’

I keep telling you, it’s all in the wrist, see?…..
__________________________________

A poem leaked out this morning, so, here ’tis, such as it is…. I hope you like it…..

Funny Bones

Dreaming the way home, lost, unseen,
from the dance, where
he felt so free, and clean.
Sorrow couldn’t find him there.

Waiting, filling up the hours, hoping,
some connection can be found
keeping busy as bees, coping.
Love creeps in, without a sound.

Fat days, skinny nights, passionate
visions of semi-conscious entities,
cannot seem to fully illuminate
or hide our innermost frailties.

Resolute, find the perfect sense, codify
simple rules with every breath
never waiting, anxious to modify.
fear nothing in life, not even Death.

~~ gigoid ~~

__________________________________

Since I don’t have a rant in me today, I’m going to cheat, and go with a really old Pearl, from October of 2011, before changing to the format we see today…. I like it, and so will you…. (that’s a pre-hypnotic suggestion of a subliminal nature, so you may as well just go with the flow, and enjoy it…. Resistance is futile…..)

Ffolkes,
It’s really too bad that we can’t just shoot somebody when they deserve it; I’ve got a long list of folks who do, as do all of you, I’m sure. But the cops get real upset about it, and then the neighbors will talk behind your back, even the dog probably won’t like you anymore. Plus, later on, when you’re feeling all regretful and stuff, it’s just a pain, and all in all, not worth the bother. Insulting them to their face, or sending them into financial ruin, will just have to satisfy that urge for blood; hell, make it good and nasty, & maybe they’ll go shoot themselves! That’s the ticket…..

In case you couldn’t tell, I woke up with crankypants already on, and I’ve been looking for something or somebody to let it out on for the last hour or so. Feeling this way, and not having an acceptable outlet, is extremely frustrating, and as a former psych tech, I know it’s not good for me to keep all this bottled up inside. I suppose I could go out and find some unarmed idiot to get into an argument with, so I can let it all out on them.

But that isn’t kosher, (kosher means anything not touched by pig blood), nor is it a good policy for improving one’s karmic burden. But then I’d feel like dirt, because one of my own pet peeves is when someone dumps crap on me that I don’t deserve. In the final analysis, that is a lose-lose situation, with both parties walking away feeling worse than when they started.

Ah, the hell with it. I’m just going to go out the way I am, and the world can just deal with me the best it can. I’m outnumbered, so at least it’s a level playing field to start…..I guarantee it won’t end that way……let you know tomorrow how it went……if I survive. The world at large has some pretty good crankypants, too…..

Euripides was wont to say, “Silence is an answer to a wise man.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Of Bashfulness

“He is the best of men who dislikes power.” — Mohammed

“As long as there have been humans we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Where are we? Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.” — Carl Sagan

Life must go on;
I forget just why.
— Edna St. Vincent Millay, ‘Lament’, Second April (1921)

“And the vision that was planted in my brain still remains.” — Paul Simon

So ends the bloody business of the day.
— Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
— The Odyssey of Homer, Book xxii, Line 516

A fitting end to another gem….. y’all take care out there…..
__________________________________

All things considered, this went well…. It certainly stood up to the proofing, only needing on letter change, and one line of the poem that needed to be smoother. If I were still working for the government, I could say it was good enough for that, but, since I don’t work for them anymore, standards have to be a bit higher…. Fortunately, it does meet those standards, insofar as they exist around here at all, so…. I think if you use some oxygenated cleaning solution on that, it will come out okay….. 😀 Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Never curl your lip at Art Deco…..

Posted on May 2, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Bashing myself repeatedly in the forehead probably isn’t the most productive way to begin the day, even if I am using the old paddle instead of the new one…. The available alternatives, however, seem to leave something to be desired, consisting of a choice between self-flagellation with a cat-o-nine tails, or suicide by immolation….

Neither of those choices gives me a warm fuzzy, and forehead bashing gets old quickly, so I should most likely try to avoid that, too, I guess. It’s hard to know what to do when I’m still half-asleep, but I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t like any of the choices I seem to have this morning…. more’s the pity……

I can see your furrowed brow, there, wondering about why on earth these nasty events are even part of today’s agenda…. Before your face gets stuck like that, I’ll tell you that all three of the described activities are fictional…. That’s right, I made it up, in a blatant attempt for sympathy, first thing…. Why, you ask?

Well, I don’t know, it just seemed like the right thing to do. I don’t have any real introductory remarks, and the template I’ve been using seems to be losing me readers by the bucket full…. Well, maybe it’s that, or it could be something else, but my readership seems to be dwindling, while the number of followers keeps rising…. Statistics drive me crazy, which is why I don’t often pay attention to them….

I have noted, though, some puzzling aspects to the numbers that are shown, and can’t figure out, for the life of me, how to view the numbers I see for this blog. It’s all good, though, as I figured out some time ago, it doesn’t matter to me at all if nobody ever reads what I write. It’s nice to have ffolkes read it, and if it stimulates thought, or a comment, I’m happy….

But, the main reason I write is to clean out my head each day, of all the stuff that otherwise would sit in there and go bad, and end up giving me indigestion, or, worse, mental constipation, a fate worse than death, to me…. Come to think of it, it’s not pretty, so you’d most likely not enjoy it either….

I see that I’ve whined and complained my way through to another legal-sized introductory section, even though the content has little or nothing to do with proper literature….. It’s all just filler…. A sack of sand, as it were, put here to bolster the false image being projected, of a caring, erudite old fart who loves to paint pictures with words…. Well, I guess it’s not a false image, so much as a wishful one…. and, regardless of which kind it is, we’ve gotten far enough to give it a shove into the deep end….. In other words….. Shall we Pearl?…..
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I had originally intended to rant a while this morning, but Smart Bee had other ideas. This seven star pearl is presented at the behest of SB, who shoved each of them under my nose, without bothering to tell me why it should be included. As I look the group over, though, it came out pretty well, as some good advice on how to live, and how not to live…. or, as we are fond of saying down at the club, “Just the fax, ma’am”….. enjoy! Memorization of the quotes is encouraged, but, please, no flash pictures; it frightens the Ooompa Loompas……

Those who know others are intelligent
Those who know themselves have insight
Those who master others have force
Those who master themselves have strength.

Those who know what is enough are wealthy
Those who persevere have direction
Those who maintain their position endure
And those who die and yet do not perish, live on.

— Lao Tze

“Often when he was looking on at auctions he would say, “How many things there are which I do not need!”
— Diogenes Laertius (c. 200 AD) — Socrates, x

Thou, silent form, doth tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

— John Keats (1795-1821) — Ode on a Grecian Urn

“I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true.” — Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, — The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87

“The faster you go, the shorter you are” — Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

— Tao Te Ching

“If you don’t like yourself, you can’t like other people.” — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
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It’s been a whole month of not reading very much of other people’s poetry, and I’m glad to be able to get back to whatever I want in this section… I think I strained my brain writing poems on a deadline, and I missed the daily dose of genius…. So, here is today’s pick, from another of my favorite poets…..

The Little Boy and the Old Man

Said the little boy, “Sometimes I drop my spoon.”
Said the old man, “I do that too.”
The little boy whispered, “I wet my pants.”
“I do that too,” laughed the little old man.
Said the little boy, “I often cry.”
The old man nodded, “So do I.”
“But worst of all,” said the boy, “it seems
Grown-ups don’t pay attention to me.”
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
“I know what you mean,” said the little old man.

~~ Shel Silverstein ~~

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“Don’t hit me!! I’m in the Twilight Zone!!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

I don’t know why Zippy so often is able to pinpoint the way I’m feeling, or what I’ve been thinking about, and give it expression in a way that anyone can understand. I’m very much feeling like I’m in the Zone these days, as I try to fill up the hours with productive things, hopefully, with a dual effect…. One, it will help me check another item off the list for my upcoming trip, and two, it will take my mind off the number of days until I leave….

“Yow! I’m having a quadraphonic sensation of two winos alone in a steel mill!” — Zippy the Pinhead

I am both excited, and a bit anxious, about the trip. It will be a fulfillment of a life-long dream, and is coming at a time that is at once convenient, and at the same time, inconvenient. The inconvenient part has to do with the lady I asked to go with me, who has another commitment next month, and still needs to get her passport, as well. She’s already started that process, so she’ll be able to go next trip, which I am planning for later this year…..

“I’m using my X-RAY VISION to obtain a rare glimpse of the INNER WORKINGS of this POTATO!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

So, this time, I’m scouting out the territory, and getting an overview, to mark down the sights I’d like to see when I will have more time for sightseeing in Ireland… This trip will give me several days in London, then the rest on a cruise ship, with day excursions in the port cities we’ll stop to visit…. Since I am also interested in the countryside in Eire, I’ll have to go back to see more of it than I will on this cruise…. But, on this cruise, I should be able to get a lot of good pictures of the sights in the cities we’ll be touring, which include Le Havre/Paris, Dublin, Cobh, Liverpool,Glasgow, Belfast, and a couple others…

“Why is it that when you DIE, you can’t take your HOME ENTERTAINMENT CENTER with you??” — Zippy the Pinhead

I just LOVE the way Zippy brings us right back to reality, by asking the tough questions, those thorny philosophical queries that wake us up in the middle of the night, like this one…. Why CAN’T we take our video boxes with us? What’s up with that?….

It’s stuff like this that keeps me from buying into the whole Heaven/Hell controversy….. none of what either side has to say really makes any sense, so what’s the point? It’s like Bob Heinlein had one of his characters say…. “There is no real, compelling evidence that there is life after death. There is also no compelling evidence there is not. Soon enough, you will know, so why fret about it?”

It is this kind of practical, sensible reasoning that will help me get through this agonizing period until I get to hit the road…. Well, that and my lady’s sweet kiss….. 🙂

“.. ich bin in einem dusenjet ins jahr 53 vor chr… ich lande im antiken Rom… einige gladiatoren spielen scrabble… ich rieche PIZZA…” — Zippy the Pinhead

Translation: “I’m in a (jet plane?) in 53 BC… I’ve landed in ancient Rome… Some gladiators are playing scrabble… I’m ordering Pizza….” Zippy the Pinhead

I guess, what I’m trying to say here is…. Ooooh, shiny! I’ll be going now, out into the Big Blue Room, to pass some more time, however I can….
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“.. I’m IMAGINING a sensuous GIRAFFE, CAVORTING in the BACK ROOM of a KOSHER DELI –” — Zippy the Pinhead

If you are still with me, I commend you for your patience, and your willingness to undergo extreme hardship to reach the end of today’s effort, which it was…. effortful, that is…. Any who, I’m done, so let’s see if it floats…. Hmm…. I guess I’ve seen worse…. It’s all spelled right, anyway….. It will have to do, because I’m NOT doing it over…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Lots of flavor left in that carburetor….

Posted on May 1, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Four or five years ago, if anyone had told me that the scariest thing I’d ever seen in my life would manifest itself every morning, in the guise of a blank sheet of paper, I’d have laughed, quite a lot….. Now, I see exactly that frightening sight, every day when I sit down to write this nonsense, experiencing waves of panic and anxiety, over whether or not I’ll find anything worthwhile to say. Much of the time I end up discussing my fear, or lamenting the dearth of ideas with which my early morning brain has to offer; this fear often leads to some pretty deep BS, and occasionally, a decent piece of fictional meandering…. Most of the time, however, is spent composing paragraphs like this one, full of personal, useless information, good only for those keeping score, i.e., nobody…. not even me….

I don’t know why we’ve never been raided; I’d have thought that, by now, one of the neighbors would have complained about the moaning and screams that often escape during the stunt portion of the show. But, nope, the authorities have, thus far, ignored our little operation, in spite of the frequently seditious material that gets written and displayed here. I suppose the correctly constructed sentences, with relatively correct grammar and punctuation throws them off a bit…. As we all know, if a message is presented in a certain way, or offered by certain parties on TV, it doesn’t have to be true for people to buy into it, no matter how outrageous, or untruthful it may be….. In fact, they (the BRC…. you know, politicians…..) count on this very fact to ensure their continued profit as the keeper of the keys to the treasury.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to rant now…. I’m not sure I’ve got one in me today. Even this James Joyce-style stream of consciousness stuff isn’t going very smoothly, at least not from this end….. I couldn’t say how it’s coming across to y’all….. which is a problem for us bloggers. It would be nice to be able to watch people’s faces as they read my work; it would tell me a lot about how well, or, conversely, how badly, it was constructed, and whether or not it is having any effect at all, in terms of stimulating cogitation and/or conversation…. Garnering comments is always a good sign that what I wrote affected someone, and I love the dialogue with other bloggers from around the world…..

I’ve blathered and meandered long enough, I guess. Three paragraphs, chock full of nothing much. but for immaterial comments, and space-filling pomposity, are all I care to write, and more than I should make ffolkes read so early in the day… But, perhaps they won’t see it until later, so, that won’t wash either…. Shoot, I can’t seem to get anything right today; it might be best for all of us if I just crawl back into bed, and not take any more chances today….. I have a feeling that things could get quite sticky….. If nothing else, I’ll be walking on eggshells all day, waiting for the other shoe to drop…. I’m going to dive now, as I think it might be safer in the water….. Shall we Pearl?…..
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Often, I feel confused….. then, I open my eyes and take aim. But, that’s just me…. Here is a seven-star old-school pearl, with a point worth exploring. It’s a little obscure, but, not too much so…. and, it has the added advantage of being correct, to about six places….. Well, my calculator says so, anyway, and that’s all that matters….. Enjoy!

25. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer. — Instructions for life

“Now, more than ever, it is evident that `good taste’ only refers to that which reinforces the status quo.” — Andre Peret

“In the beginning, God created the Earth and he said, “Let there be mud.” And there was mud. And God said, “Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what we have done.” And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud-as-man alone could speak. “What is the purpose of all this?” man asked politely. “Everything must have a purpose?” asked God. “Certainly,” said man. “Then I leave it to you to think of one for all of this,” said God. And He went away.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Between Time and Timbuktu”

“At the doctor’s office, I noticed, there are two castes of people, those with cancer — the patients – and those without – the doctors, nurses, secretaries, and receptionists. The latter gossip among themselves and treat the patients with the mild contempt reserved for those on the other side of the glass, the diseased ones. What they don’t realize is that the glass partition separating us is an illusion. They don’t know they are not safe either; that human life is a space shuttle full of Krista McAuliffes. This is what cancer patients know. It is our little secret.” — Judith Hooper, “Beauty Tips for the Dead”

“Once when Phocion had delivered an opinion which pleased the people,…he turned to his friend and said, “Have I not unawares spoken some mischievous thing or other?” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Phocion

“…and remember you’re a Man, not just god, and for you there aren’t and never will be any easy answers, only questions, and no reasons, only causes, and no meaning, only intelligence, and no destination and no kindly magic smiling down from above, and no fires to goad you from below, only Yourself and the Universe and what you make out of the interface between the two equals.” — Keith Laumer, _Night of Delusions_

“Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others.” — Jonathan Winters in “The Twilight Zone”
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All last month, I tried to post my own poetry each day, to meet the April Challenge of the National Poetry Writing Month…. With the (extensive) help of my archives, I managed to do so, even coming up with 18 new haiku…. but, now, I’m in the mood for somebody else’s poetry…. So, we’ll go with an old favorite of mine…. enjoy!…..

Columbus

Once upon a time there was an Italian,
And some people thought he was a rapscallion,
But he wasn’t offended,
Because other people thought he was splendid,
And he said the world was round,
And everybody made an uncomplimentary sound,
But he went and tried to borrow some money from Ferdinand
But Ferdinand said America was a bird in the bush and he’d rather have a berdinand,
But Columbus’ brain was fertile, it wasn’t arid,
And he remembered that Ferdinand was married,
And he thought, there is no wife like a misunderstood one,
Because if her husband thinks something is a terrible idea she is bound to think it a good one,
So he perfumed his handkerchief with bay rum and citronella,
And he went to see Isabella,
And he looked wonderful but he had never felt sillier,
And she said, I can’t place the face but the aroma is familiar,
And Columbus didn’t say a word,
All he said was, I am Columbus, the fifteenth-century Admiral Byrd,
And, just as he thought, her disposition was very malleable,
And she said, Here are my jewels, and she wasn’t penurious like Cornelia the mother of the Gracchi,
she wasn’t referring to her children,
no, she was referring to her jewels, which were very very valuable,
So Columbus said, Somebody show me the sunset and somebody did and he set sail for it,
And he discovered America and they put him in jail for it,
And the fetters gave him welts,
And they named America after somebody else,
So the sad fate of Columbus ought to be pointed out to every child and every voter,
Because it has a very important moral, which is, Don’t be a discoverer, be a promoter.~~ Ogden Nash ~~

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When I leave for Europe, one of my plans for this blog is to post pictures of wherever I’ve been that day, in London, Paris, Dublin, wherever. I got a new camera, and have been experimenting, and think I’ve got it set up so the pictures I take can be worked with on the computer easily, after adjusting the size of the pictures the camera is set to take… The first batch I took were HUGE, taking up several pages of space, so I had to figure out what the correct setting was; I think I’ve got it right now. The picture below should stand as proof…..
So, in the future, look for more pictures from gigoid’s camera, as I aim it at everything I see out in the Big Blue Room…..

😆
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As I hinted yesterday, this blog is evolving…. and today is the first new version, I think. Let me see how it works….. Well, it works for me…. and since all I can think about is going back to bed, it will have to do…. after all, all you can do, is all you can do, and I’ve done all I can do…. huh? Never mind…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Save that lanolin, we’ll use it on the new busboy….

Posted on April 30, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
I know, now, how the White Rabbit felt, as he hurried down the rabbit hole to Wonderland, “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date…” Even though the only thing I’m late for is posting this Pearl, I feel the same sense of panic and hurry as did he….. No reason, really. I did sleep a bit late, and had to spend the first twenty minutes repairing and reloading Smart Bee…. it pulled its bi-monthly corrupted file trick, which requires a quick delete and re-load of the entire program, plus a re-start of the computer…. No big deal, but time consuming…. which brings us to the present moment….

Egad, what a mess…. I’ve managed to completely screw up my transaction record, so I have no idea of exactly how much is in my account, and it’s time to pay bills for the month. I’m going to have to pay everything, then stop using the cards at all until it all catches up, and I can reconcile the record with reality…. SIGH…. I never was very good with money; it comes from never having much of it to deal with, along with a hearty disregard for the concept itself… “If you want a life of trouble, fill your house with treasures.” I first heard this, and took it to heart, when I was about 11 years old, and made a conscious decision at that time to never try to get rich…. I’ve done that, quite well, actually…..

That’s all Big Blue Room stuff, though, and has no place here in ECR…. though it IS reality, I question the relevance for anyone reading this missive, so we’ll leave that behind, and find some other way to lead into today’s post…. That will be quite a trick, as I haven’t a clue as to what will happen today. I left the entire template blank, other than the usual suspects, intending to let myself go into an artistic trance, just typing away until my fingers wore out, and then seeing what was worth keeping…. much like I write a poem, in truth. But, my left wrist hurts from too much typing anyway, and I can’t seem to find a trance-state anywhere, in my head, or out. So much for that idea….

But, look, we’ve got three paragraphs again, just chock full of irrelevant BS, about rabbits, corrupted files, checkbooks, and mysticism colored by whimsy. Perhaps it isn’t exactly Hemingway-esque, but it’s certainly better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, and it does allow us to move on to something that MIGHT be instructive, if not entertaining. We often blur the two around here, so it’s best not to ask which it is supposed to be…. we don’t always know, and hate to be embarrassed…… Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

“I can’t keep from fooling around with our irrefutable certainties. It is, for example, a pleasure knowingly to mix up two and three dimensionalities, flat and spatial, and to make fun of gravity.” — M. C. Escher

If you’ve seen Escher’s work, you’ll know that what he says here is truth, a truth graphically demonstrated by the visions he transfers to each canvas. Though I doubt I’ll ever be hailed as such a genius as he, I like to think that what I write attempts to do the same, but rather than with dimensions of space, I play with the elements of belief that we humans hold, regarding certain aspects of society. In other words, it is a pleasure to knowingly point out the lies and the truths that people hold as certainties, and to make fun of how seriously the lies are taken, which we can equate to the force of gravity…. believing these lies is what holds us back from our potential, just as gravity holds us bound to the surface of the Earth…..

Just as Escher’s paintings release us from the laws of space and time, and of how to perceive them, our imaginations can release us from the repression heaped on us by the BRC and the 1%. When we stop believing the lies we are told, we can stop being puppets of the power of custom. Just because a lot of people believe something doesn’t make it true; only the facts of the matter can do that. In the act of accepting the lies we are told by those in authority, we become party to their chicanery, accessories, before and after the fact, to the crimes being perpetrated on society, and on the Earth as a whole….

“It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was just a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid general applause from all the wits, who believe that it is a joke.” — Smart Bee

I think Smart Bee might have a point here….. Most people don’t look past the surface of what they perceive; they accept whatever they are told, as long as the one delivering the message is in the appropriate costume, or setting. Put a moderately good looking man in a suit, have him sit at a desk looking studious and concerned, and people will pretty much take whatever he says as gospel, even if it has absolutely no truth in it, or any connection to reality whatsoever….. The public’s reaction to the possibility of global warming resembles the above statement quite a lot. Same with the question of overpopulation, either of which issue will certainly lead to war and misery, as a minimum, or extinction as a species, eventually, as a maximum result….

Whenever I bring this up, though, I am met with a silence that is deafening, and which serves as proof of exactly what I am saying…. This is the kind of message that no one wants, to hear, or to believe is real…. So, they don’t. Or, they just ignore it, thinking it will go away if they look at it again in a few days…. Guess what, ffolkes….. It”s real, it’s not going away, and that is a FACT, not a supposition, or speculation, or misread data, or conspiracy, or anything else…. it’s a fact…. And the only way to change it, is for EVERYONE to decide to turn 180 degrees from the path we are on, even if it means getting rid of those among us who don’t want to go that way… because that way means DEATH…. for all of us, without exception…. Deal with it…..

“I used to be an idealist, but I got mugged by reality.” — Smart Bee
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Okay, no cheating today…. It’s the last day of the National Poetry Writing Month, so I’m going to do my best to come up with a fresh haiku, and a fresh poem…. We’ll see how it goes, eh?….. As every day this month, these are being included as part of the April National Poetry Writing Month Challenge, with the updates to be found here: http://www.napowrimo.net/ I hope you enjoy them…..

Haiku XVIII

More beautiful days,
the weather is amazing.
Soaking up the sun.

Off the proverbial cuff…

I never meant to kill that period of time,
it didn’t give me any choice.
It tried to hem me in without reason, or rhyme,
refused me any vote, or any voice.

You have to admit, I buried it deep and fast,
just as if I cared.
I knew, though, it would never last,
or ever be fully repaired.

No news, no pictures can bring it back,
once is all we get.
No pleas of public good, or even public lack;
in stone the past is set.

Futuristic visions now occupy my dreams,
I’m ready to go on.
Look! It fills up the screen, and it gleams!
Where’s the moment I’m sitting on?

Now, I remembered, at long, long last,
is all we really can hold.
Every moment goes by so bloody fast,
we’d best fill them all with beauty, warm and bold.

~~ gigoid ~~

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Though today’s first section cannot be strictly considered as a rant, it was an indictment, so we’ll count it as one…. That gives me the excuse to go with an old-school pearl. Today we’ll go completely random, with Smart Bee as the only one deciding what should be included…. Let’s see what comes up from the depths today, shall we?…..

“The earth hath skin, and the skin hath diseases. One of these…is called man.” — Nietzsche

“Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire,–conscience.” — George Washington (1732-1799) — Rule from the Copy-book of Washington when a schoolboy

When asked, “If you find so much that is unworthy of reverence in the United States, then why do you live here?” Mencken replied, “Why do men go to zoos?”

“Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. (Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.)” — William of Occam, Occam’s Razor

“It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.” — W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)

“UH-OH!! We’re out of AUTOMOBILE PARTS and RUBBER GOODS!” — Zippy the Pinhead

Perhaps going TOTALLY random was a mistake; this is pretty inscrutable. So inscrutable, even I am not sure what the point is, other than to point a finger at Man, for….. something…. Maybe the finger should go up the nose, to remove any foreign bodies that may have been inadvertently ingested through the proboscis….. Oh, well, it isn’t bad, so just enjoy them individually, and I’ll leave them off the Quiz….
__________________________________

Aye, very late indeed…. let’s see how it proofs….. Hmm…. it’s not responding; it may be dead…. Oh well, it’s done, so I’m not going to fuss with it any further…. Besides, I’m hungry…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Use the flammable artichokes first….

Posted on April 29, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Today’s Pearl will be brought to you by the letters E and Q, and by the number six (6)….. Even though I’m now getting my SS, I figured out a way to earn some income, by selling off this intro space for advertising purposes…. I thought to myself, “hey, if Kermit can do it, why can’t I?”….. Hence the corporate disclaimer and beginning information blurb, indicating today’s sponsors…. If you could spread the word for me, to let folks know that the space here is for rent to anyone who wishes to have the exposure…. Of course, it’s not exactly NBC in terms of how many folks will see it, but, hey, it’ll get SOME hits…. five or six, maybe, so that’s a start….

For close to two years now, the creation of this blog has been the focus of my day. I arise at 0600 or so and spend the first three to four hours of the day putting together the Pearls of Virtual Wisdom that you see every morning, wherever you are….. Then, for most of that two years, the remainder of the day was spent on activities at home, like reading, cooking, reading, washing clothes, reading, surfing or reading blogs, and generally, stuff I can do around here, as I had only enough money coming in to pay the rent, the phone and other bills, and buy a couple hundred bucks worth of food, to last an entire month… that was it. Without the help of my friends, especially TC and S, I would have been hard pressed to survive without extreme hardship…. As it was, it was not an experience I care to repeat, but, it didn’t crush my spirit, so I’m good with it….

During this period, creating the Pearls went a long way toward maintaining my sanity, as well as improving my typing speed, and keeping me from the worst enemy of the recluse, boredom. It had to be that way, because I didn’t have the strength to walk everywhere, or the money to ride buses and/or cabs…. I can do stuff, I just can’t stand or walk for long periods, so I was limited to what I could do close to where I live.

That has all changed, now that I have been awarded my Social Security benefits, and I find myself in the midst of a small conundrum…. How do I keep writing my blog while doing stuff out in the Big Blue Room?…. Trying to do both isn’t working so well, as I don’t feel I’m giving either one my absolute best, due to time constraints……

Making Pearls has been my focus for quite a while now, and it’s hard to give it up altogether; besides, I really don’t want to stop writing, nor do I think I could…. It’s become an important outlet for me, and I enjoy it a lot…. Plus, just thinking about NOT writing gives me the heebie-jeebies; I get the shakes, and can’t catch my breath, all the while feeling waves of anxiety, and a failure of hope for the future…. Not exactly the way I want to feel for long, so have no fear, I won’t be stopping altogether…. I will, however, be making some changes, and I’m not certain at this point what they may be…..

Since I’ll be traveling, and given the lessons of my first trip (to Texas last week) while trying to post a Pearl each day, I have a feeling that the overall length of what I write myself will go down a bit…. many might say that’s a good thing…. In any case, I would like to start writing more about what I see when I’m traveling, as well as post some of the pictures I’ll be taking with my new camera… It will be great if for no other reason that I won’t have to give any attribution for the pix, since they’ll all be mine….

There may also be fewer rants, as it is hard to maintain outrage when one is not suffering as much from the effects of the BRC and the 1%. Money cannot buy happiness, but it can sure make life nicer while you’re looking for it. Since I don’t think so much about where the next meal is coming from, I find myself less angry, less focused on what is wrong with our world….

Oh, don’t worry, it will still hit me, as it does almost every day, how rapidly our freedoms are disappearing, and how many lies are told every day by the people in charge, and how near the end may be…. I’m sure that as I travel, I will see things that cause me to think, and to realize how things are…. but, I’ll also be looking for the beauty that I know is out there to be seen, and intend to spend a lot of time watching people in other countries. People watching is the pinnacle of entertainment, for me, and I’m looking forward to doing it a lot, wherever I go…..

So, be aware, ffolkes, “the times, they are a-changin'”, and will never be quite the same…. I see that I’ve rambled and blathered quite enough for two or three intros, so we’ll just get on with today’s dive….. Shall we Pearl?…..
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I forgot to mention, this will also mean a return to using old-school pearls more frequently, as they can have the same impact as a rant, but take far less time, and less energy, to put together…. So, we’ll start today with a randomly chosen group, all on one theme, leading to one particular bus stop, where you will find shelter from the rain…..

“There is nothing so simple that it cannot be made difficult.” — Merle P. Martin

“If you want to get the plain truth,
Be not concerned with right and wrong.
The conflict between right and wrong
Is the sickness of the mind.

— Seng-Ts’an

“Everyone has a photographic memory. Not everyone has developer.” — Smart Bee

“The fire you kindle for your enemy often burns your self more than him.” — Chinese proverb

“Walking in a forest between two hedges of ferns transfigured by autumn – that is a triumph. What are ovations and applause beside it?” — E.M. Cioran

“If you love the sacred and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing in the ocean of delusion.” — Lin-Chi

“Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. (The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are.)” — Mark Twain

Don’t strain yourselves trying to figure out the point of this one, ffolkes; it came out just a little bit obscure…. and it won’t be on the Quiz anyway, so, just enjoy it for its strong sense of odd, and the insight provided….
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Okay, so here’s another freshly made haiku, and another old poem…. This one, though, is on of my favorites, from fall of last year…. It’s still a valid vision today….. As every day this month, these are being included as part of the April National Poetry Writing Month Challenge, with the updates to be found here: http://www.napowrimo.net/ I hope you enjoy them…..

Haiku XVI

Beautiful morning.
Passionate life bursting out
surrounding us all.

~~ gigoid ~~

Raging at Aging

As old as you feel, we are told, is old as you are,
custom assures such vision will carry us far.
Reality begs to differ, may it be so bold
it is really quite painful, and very, very cold.

The power and strength felt in our halcyon youth
desert us with age, yet another unwelcome truth.
Irony rules our time here on this bountiful earth
as we reflect the changes over time since our birth.

As physical powers fade from this fragile shell,
we learn our mind can serve us quite as well.
The strength that once filled our bones and hearts
now is applied by our will, to more arcane arts.

Life’s greatest gift is our freedom of choice
no matter how often we forget, we still get a voice.
Energy, or apathy, by our will we may choose,
failing to do so, our only way to lose.

Each of us lives in the grip of time and space,
always seeking our balance, our own chosen place.
One must accept reality, for it is true at the core,
all we can do, is all we can do, and nothing more.

~~ gigoid ~~

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In my no doubt too-lengthy dissertation in the intro section earlier, I mentioned how my outrage is less active, since my total amount of stress has been reduced. I haven’t been able to find a quote in Smart Bee today to tickle that sense in me, and I’m running short on time (merely a self-made deadline, but still compelling….)… Any who, here is another harlequin pearl of the old-school variety. This one will hopefully be a bit clearer, but if not, there is some Windex in the pocket on the side of your chair, and paper towels right there in the dispenser…..

“I was making donuts and now I’m on a bus!” — Zippy the Pinhead

“It is far easier to be wise for others than to be so for oneself.” — La Rochefoucauld

“If you expect something free to live up to your expectations, you had better be prepared to see your expectations shattered, since there is no such thing as a free lunch.” — Smart Bee

“Do not seek death; death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.” — Dag Hammarskjold

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

“As near as I can tell you’re not any crazier than the average asshole on the street,” — Ken Kesey via R. P. McMurphy “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”

“Only fools are quoted.” — Anonymous Fool

See? I told you it would be easy…..
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I’m a bit worried about this one…. but, again, I’m too lazy to do it over, so…. Let’s see how it proofs…. Better than I’d thought it would be, so, definitely a go…. and without further hesitation, as well…. See ya….. 😀 Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

That particular radiologist has a toggle switch…..

Posted on April 28, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Forget the rest…. blessed are the coffee drinkers, for they shall see the day clearly….. before they bite anybody. It’s always a bonus when you can start the day without biting anyone…. Then, of course, there are the days when I WANT to bite somebody, even after coffee. I guess, if I slowed down long enough to look at it, those would be the days when I end up ranting on something or other, to sublimate the urge to bite. But, I never slow down that much, so we’ll never know….

Not that it would make any difference in how this intro got done. I think I’ll just start using up my emergency stash of intro tricks; if nothing else, that will force me to replenish those supplies, which always puts me in a better mood. It must be the part when I stick it to Murphy, the best I can, in order to get them put away where he can’t find them…. Well, actually, it’s a matter of distracting him, and hiding them while he’s busy, thus, he never knows I have them at all. It could be called cheating, but when it comes to Murphy, all bets are off; plus, in my opinion there is no such thing as cheating, not with him. He has no compunctions against cheating on me, so why shouldn’t I return that favor?

So, I guess we’ll use an emergency opening today….. Hmm… let’s see, which one of these won’t leave a mess? Maybe this one…..

Morning, ffolkes! It’s gigoid the exuberant, coming to you from the wilds of Northern California, where the girls are pretty, and the boys are strange. We’ll be spinning a lot of great music for ya today, so settle back in those easy chairs, tighten up them earphones, and let’s spin some licorice pizza for breakfast….. Here’s a little number from Paul Revere and the Raiders, coming at ya from gigoid-land…..

What do you think? Will it float? Will it get me through to another day’s dive? Is there anyone out there? Hello!!!!!…. Hmm. This is worse than I thought…. Well, I guess I’ll just have to go on to the morning dive, and hope that someone shows up along the way….. As usual, this nonsense got me far enough along so that I can legally call it an introduction, so we’ll take it and run with it, at least as far as the corner store…. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.” — Vince Lombardi

I have spoken previously on this subject, of human will, and will no doubt do so again, as I believe it to be one of the key elements of finding the Truth in Life. It takes practice to be able to use it to full potential, practice that many people never take time for, to their regret. Without it, Life can be extremely difficult, as it will toss us about just like a small boat in a big storm at sea. But, when it is honed to a sharp edge, and tempered to a great strength, it can become one of our most powerful tools. It can help to bring peace and serenity into our lives, if used with intelligence, guided by strong ethical intent. I mention the latter because it is equally important to the proper use of the will; it is an unfortunate truth that the will can also be used to pursue results that are NOT beneficial for everyone, but only for the one who uses it without ethical direction, i.e. to benefit themselves, only.

“One sits down first, one thinks afterwards.” — Smart Bee

A long time ago, I found out something about society, and those who are ostensibly in charge of running it, that has had a distinct influence on my thinking. I discovered that what I heard in school, from books, did not match what I observed in society, and that the people who were in the positions of authority were, for the most part, not telling the whole truth, or, often, telling bare-faced lies. This had a profound effect on me, because I had always been inspired by the idea of a democracy, a system, and a place, where the people decided among themselves what was best for all; their collective will was to be carried out by the individuals elected to office…. At least, I’m pretty certain that is what our founding fathers envisioned when they cut loose from the monarchical rule of England….

Unfortunately, soon after beginning this experimental Utopia, the bankers started their campaign to pervert the system, buying control of key officials to make laws that favored them. At the same time, the preachers started their campaign to make sure the government was composed of men and/or women who were under their control, ethically and morally, using the time-honored tools of divine entitlement and guilt so that their interests could be monitored and controlled.

Today, well over 90% of all elected officials in this country are of one major religion, and the lobbyists who represent the money-lenders are more influential in making laws than the electorates who elect those officials. The campaigns to control the government have been quite effective, especially since nobody even notices most of the time, or says anything about it….

“To see the light at the end of the tunnel, you first have to be in a tunnel, then the correct tunnel and last, facing in the right direction…. What the heck are we doing in a tunnel anyway?” — Larry G. Smith

This is a pretty good description of modern society, I think. What the heck are we doing here, on the brink of extinction? The BRC, the 1%, whatever you choose to call them, have brought us to this dead-end tunnel, with no light at the end, because it is our own end we see. They, those in control, don’t choose to believe in the damage they have wrought to the environment, nor in the terminal nature of that damage, so, nothing is being done to counteract the suicidal policies our species continues to follow. And it’s all because of the people who have turned their will to the selfish pursuit of their own desires, with no thought to either the effect on others, or the potential danger of doing so. They don’t care, and the rest of us, because of our own lack of will, are going to pay the price right along with them, unless we wake up to the danger, now….

I could rant about this all day, and have seemingly done so in the past…. but, I’ve made my point for today, and rather than bore you to death with more logical, but time-consuming evidence or argument, I’ll leave it at that…. Well, almost….. We are all in danger of species extinction, this is a FACT, not a supposition. We have the means to save ourselves, IF we can find it within ourselves to rise up and throw out the people who are causing the problem. They are NOT going to stop themselves; if we want to live, we, the people, will have to MAKE them do it, or we will all die. It’s that simple, and that urgent…. If it doesn’t happen in this next decade, it will be far too late, because the ice is already melting, ffolkes, and it isn’t going to stop or slow down… It will only get faster with time….

gigoid has spoken…..

“If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize yourself as part of the problem.” — Ducharm’s Axiom
__________________________________

Today’s haiku was prompted by the mild, yet, important rant in section one of today’s Pearl. I don’t have a poem ready to come out, again, so I’ll use an old one, and take the consequences, whatever they may be….. I guess I’m not a real poet, just a hobbyist…. Oh well, c’est la vie….. As every day this month, these are being included as part of the April National Poetry Writing Month Challenge, with the updates to be found here: http://www.napowrimo.net/ I hope you enjoy them…..

Haiku XVII

Time will tell the tale,
of Man’s fast rise, and long fall.
Soon, just memory.

A Seasonal Approach

Absolute stillness grips a frozen field,
anticipating dawn with such patient yield
morning burgeoning in dark winter’s hold
brings promise of tales yet to be told.

Lengthening days of pale sun unto night
slowly tell of time’s subversive flight
bringing such original songs of natural fire
with melodies complex in casual attire.

The months are certain they will always win
it is just the way it has always been.
None may argue, nor yet slow life down
Nor dim the eternal beauty of nature’s gown.

Winter evolves from fall into spring,
sending flocks and hearts ever awing.
Summer follows suit, t’other way ’round
Spring into fall, often without a sound.

Life is meant to be lived, beginning to end
choices abound, and change can be a friend.
Yielding with grace to reality’s compelling ploy
fills our plain existence with clean, honest joy.

~~ gigoid

__________________________________

Time now for a return to the days of yore, or fore, whichever comes first in Smart Bee. Having ranted above, if only mildly, I shan’t attempt to keep your interest with yet another foray into critical essay. Besides, it’s time to lighten up a little, so let’s have some fun…. That will be my directing thought today, in picking out today’s old-school group of pearls for your perusal and delectation. I intend to have fun, and so must you…. You simply MUST, or I’ll die…. Well, no I won’t die, but, I’ll be disappointed, and who wants that? Not me….. Enjoy!….

Birth, n.: The first and direst of all disasters. — Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

“Don’t worry about your heart. It will last you as long as you live.” — W. C. Fields

“Faith in immortality, like belief in Satan, leaves unanswered the ancient question: is God unable to prevent suffering and thus not omnipotent? or is he able but not willing to prevent it and thus not merciful? And is he just?” — Smart Bee

An it harm none,
Do what ye will.

— The basis of Wiccan philosophy

(1) You can’t win.
(2) You can’t break even.
(3) You can’t even quit the game.

— Ginsberg’s Theorem

Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg’s Theorem. To wit:

(1) Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win.
(2) Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even.
(3) Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the game.

— Freeman’s Commentary on Ginsberg’s theorem

“Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both yes and no.” — J. R. R. Tolkien

“He was the nearest thing I’d seen to a human being without actually being one.” — Spike Milligan
(A number of recent Presidents come to mind….)

Hmm…. a very eclectic group; no so much funny ha-ha, as funny strange…. They all have something good to say, though, so, it’s kind of like oatmeal…. not always the most thrilling breakfast item to find on your table, but it sure makes ya feel better all day….
__________________________________

I’m not sure what to think of this one; I’ll have to reserve judgment until I proof it….. I have to say, I think I do better when I’m not paying close attention, like today. My head doesn’t feel as coherent as most of this seems to be… As it is, I have to say, well done, young paduan…. Or, maybe just, not bad, bozo…. Either way, I’m outta here…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Will cut hair for food…..

Posted on April 27, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Oh. My. Gosh…… Hmm…. somehow, that fails to quite reach the degree of passionate expression for which I was hoping. I guess it really isn’t a curse unless one uses blasphemy; using a replacement word for God just doesn’t carry the same power, or panache, as OMG does when God is used…. I guess that is why ‘God damn it’ is so much more of a release than just ‘Damn it’…. either of which is bound to come out, given the correct stimulus, such as a rapidly moving hammer to the thumbnail. Any old way you look at it, I needed to curse, as the sight of an entirely blank screen scared the crap out of me….. again.

Oh, I’ve got plenty in my head to write about; the issue is still the intro section, where I continually struggle with a good way to start these missives. I need something to pull ffolkes in to read, something to grab the attention, and leave the reader wanting to read more….. I almost started into one of the fictional beginnings I like to use, but, the one that came to the forefront was too graphic for the early morning…. I didn’t want to put anyone off their breakfast, or cause them to lose it….. So far, I’ve been unable to come up with what I need, and as a result, y’all are subjected to these idiotic ramblings every day, as I wend my way toward the pearls….. SIGH….

Oh well, such is life, and we can’t have everything…. though SOMETHING would be nice….. Maybe I could…… no, that wouldn’t work; it’s illegal, as well as immoral. Hmm, how about…. Nah, too simple, too easy….. well, what about…. stop already, we’ve discussed all this before, and none of that crap will do….. Sorry about the internal dialogue there, but, you can see what I’m up against, as I fight with my own head over different styles of openings. I don’t know exactly how it comes up with some of these ideas, but, none of them are practical, from a realistic point of view. Radical, yes, practical, no….. Sometimes I’m not sure it’s MY head at all, what with all the strange stuff it comes up with….

If it wasn’t my head, maybe it would be a bit easier to come up with stuff…. Of course, if it wasn’t my head, then I’d be in a world of hurt, metaphysically speaking, as I would have to ask myself, “Well, whose head is it?” Not that the answer would make a lot of difference in how I deal with it….. I’d still abuse it horribly, just as I do my own…. It deserves it, believe me…. If it weren’t my own head, I’d have traded it in long ago for a new model, one without all of the extras, but loaded with better software….. Maybe we could find a real intro template then….

Oh well, I may as well just go with what I’ve got…. I always end up there anyway. And, look! We’ve done it again….. Four plus paragraphs, full of practically nothing but fluff, but, in place, and ready to rumble. Once again, I’m giving in to the temptation, and going with it the way it is, as I’m too lazy to go back and do it over. I guess I’ll try again tomorrow to come up with something new. In the meantime, I suppose I’d best get on with the dive for today…. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.” — Plato

Uh oh….. I suppose, because this is Plato, one must accept the veracity of the concept; besides, it’s just plain true, and obviously so. It does, however, bring up a point that may not be the most comfortable for me, or for any blogger, to wit: Am I writing because I have something to say, or am I one of Plato’s fools? It’s a question that I think we, or more specifically, I, need to consider every day, when I go about putting these Pearls together….. It is very easy to fall into the latter category, and I think all of us can truthfully say that there are times when we all are fools, at least for a short time…

I write because, if I didn’t, all of the stuff that goes on inside my head has nowhere to go, to release all of the power behind it, which, given the degree of my emotional instability, can be considerable, not to mention nasty smelling. In short, I write because I must, to maintain my own sanity. Does that mean that I am a fool, because I HAVE to say something? Or, does the fact that what I end up saying is, fairly often. something worth hearing, save me from becoming just another bozo on the bus? I suppose that I must make those judgments myself, though I’d prefer to have someone else do it. But, I suppose, only the one who is writing can decide which side of the coin they fall on, as they are the only ones who know the motivation for what is written, no matter what the subject matter includes.

“I was once walking through the forest alone. A tree fell right in front of me – and I didn’t hear it.” — Smart Bee

Also, I know the answer to another old philosophical inquiry, i.e., “If a man speaks, and there is no woman nearby to hear, is he still wrong?” The answer, of course, is “yes”; just ask any woman…. 🙂 Okay, sorry, didn’t mean to get silly on you…. here, let me wipe that off before it causes a stain….
There, that’s better…. Okay, where was I? Oh, yeah, fools vs. wise men…. So, what I’m getting at here is this….. only the author may judge whether or not something is necessary, as whatever it is originates in their mind. Others may also judge, but their judgment is lacking in personal knowledge of the thought, or feeling, behind the statement, and thus, is invalid for the purpose of deciding its relevance. We have to be our own Pilate in this business; otherwise we’ll get crucified on the cross of public sentiment (or lack thereof….).

“Be what you is,’cause if you is what you ain’t, then you ain’t what you is.” — Satchel Paige

Wise words, indeed, from a great modern social philosopher…. I love Satchel’s take on life, and not just because it is funky and cool; it is also quite insightful, and correct, which is a distinct advantage for a philosophy. (Thanks to G. Santayana….) In this case, the words he says are exactly what are needed to become an authentic writer, to wit: a personal style…. If you try to write as good as Hemingway, or anyone else, then you are destined to fail. You must only write to become yourself, or you will never succeed at either writing, or life, for that matter, as the two tend to overlap in this particular instance. Only by finding and using our own voice will we be able to say what we wish to say, and not just say anything, because we feel we have to…. Believe me, the reading public will thank you for knowing the difference, and faithfully observing it as a standard…..

“The art of being yourself at your best is the art of unfolding your personality into the person you want to be… . Be gentle with yourself, learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself, for only as we have the right attitude toward ourselves can we have the right attitude toward others.” — Wilfred Peterson, This Week (Oct. 1, 1961)

“And that’s the truth…. thppppt!” — Ruth Anne (Lily Tomlin)
__________________________________

I’ve written a haiku for today, but, once more, no fresh poem is ready to leak out, so I have to pull again from the archives…. I’m sure glad I had that period of creativity last year, and wrote enough poems to get through this month…. Any who, I think it’s a decent poem, and I hope you do, too….. As every day in April, these are being included as part of the April National Poetry Writing Month Challenge, with the updates to be found here: http://www.napowrimo.net/ I hope you enjoy them…..

Haiku XV

Eleven days here,
and off to Europe I go.
I can barely wait.

~~ gigoid ~~

Beyond Agapé

Passion burns and shines like iridescent paint
yet solitude stands mocking such mundane complaint.
Schemes and dreams promise to tempt attraction
never ending effort spends wit in perverse reaction.

Hale and hearty reports of honor and love
draft recruits to collect manna from above,
while searching each soul for that which will serve
to bring pure sensation to each expectant nerve.

How simple to fall into complete helpless hope
of two hearts bound in tradition, with cultural rope,
living a simple life, shared, in joy and in grief
promises consummated, in consensual belief.

Reality dictates our degree of control over its state
insisting on changing whether or not we can wait.
Love will be present when we are completely at peace,
allowing ourselves, to give of ourselves, effortless surcease.

~~ gigoid

__________________________________

The first section is as close to a rant as I’ll get today, I think, so we’ll go old-school for this last section. Here is a random harlequin pearl, either five-, or seven-star variety, for your delectation….. Abondanza!….

“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.” — Frank Herbert, Dune, Manual of MuadDib by Princess Irulan

“It’s not what I think or you think about me that counts, it’s what I think you think about me.” — Smart Bee

“When people tell you who they are, believe them the first time.” — Maya Angelou

“The broad mass of a nation… will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.” — Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), “Mein Kampf”

“If change is — inevitable — predictable — beneficial — doesn’t logic demand that you be a part of it?” “One man cannot summon the future.” “But one man can change the present!” — Kirk and the Alternate Spock, “Mirror, Mirror,” stardate unknown

“I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle.” — Arthur, in Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

I had not realized, on beginning this pearl, just how odd it could end up, given it’s randomness, and that obviously was a mistake, but, in a good way…. The point to the above six quotes may not be immediately apparent, but, it’s there, believe me. And, if that isn’t enough, here is the final pearl for this section, which should give some idea of where the exit door sits….

“This writing business. Pencils and whatnot. Overrated, if you ask me.” — Winnie the Pooh
__________________________________

Well, this has been….. interesting. I’m not sure just what to think about it, so let’s see how it holds up as a whole pie…. Okay, well, that works for me…. You will have to judge whether or not it works for you…. of course. I had fun today, and so did you…. I hope. 😀 Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

All dryads squirt a little bit…..

Posted on April 26, 2013 by gigoid

Ffolkes,
Alright, so here’s the deal…. I write the stuff, you read it. If you don’t like it, tough; you’re welcome to take your chances by leaving a comment below. Be warned, I do not suffer fools gladly, or any other way, so be prepared to defend yourself, should you become overly enthusiastic in your criticisms, because I’m not going to worry overmuch about hurting feelings when it comes to idiots. If you do like it, that’s wonderful, and I’ll look forward to any discussion, on any subject you choose. Also, please be aware, any and all displays of outright stupidity will be handled appropriately, and I won’t be worrying about carrying on a battle of wits with an unarmed person. Here on ECR, we have ~~very little~~ no patience at all with deliberate, outright stupidity, and believe in rewarding the guilty party with great piles of doo doo, placed carefully upon their head…..

At this point, you may be asking yourself, “just what the hell is he babbling about now?” And, if I had a clue as to what prompted the above, I’d tell you, believe me…. No, when I sat down, that just started pouring out, as it is, all macho and aggressive. It was weird, too…… while writing it, I felt as if I was Robert Mitchum, when he made the statement about being a tough guy that went something like “if they sent in an order for a box car full of sons of bitches, and opened the door to find just me, they knew they’d got what they ordered…” I even felt like I was wearing the cheap suit and battered old fedora he usually was seen in….

“In a cruel and evil world, being cynical can allow you to get some entertainment out of it.” — Daniel Waters, screenwriter of HEATHERS

In reality, or approximately in reality, I don’t feel like a son of a bitch this morning; I actually got 8+ hours of good solid sleep, without having to get up even once, and awoke when the coffee made itself, in a pretty good mood…. But, when I sat down to write, that sort-of-a-disclaimer in the first paragraph jumped onto the page before I even thought to stop it. So, please, don’t take it too personally, or seriously, for that matter….. It IS true, however, that we (that’s the royal ‘we’, meaning ‘I’….) do have a thing for stupid, and really, really hate dealing with it….

But, for the most part, I haven’t had any problems with that sort of foolishness…. Every one of my readers seems to be quite well-mannered and intelligent, and even if they aren’t, or are just pretending, I would give some slack, because I know that even the dull and stupid have their story, and can’t always help being the way they are…. It’s the deliberately stupid ones I object to, strenuously, but, I guess those folks don’t often make it to the end of one of my epic posts; they probably give up halfway through, with a vague feeling they’ve been insulted somehow…. which they were. In all the time I’ve been blogging, I’ve only had one comment that tried to be mean to me, and it went to Spam, where I found, and deleted it, before it got on my page and sullied the rest of y’all with the splashing muck….

Any who, I guess that initial outpouring of vitriol cleared out my head, and prompted the above four paragraphs of pure, unadulterated blather. Four paragraphs, however, is the legal limit for an intro section, so I’m going to take it and run while I can…. Shall we Pearl?…..
__________________________________

I had intended to rant here…. Smart Bee had other ideas, and it rules the search process, so here we have a nice little pearl of virtual wisdom, in the old school style. Let your mind flow from one quote to the next, and when you reach the end, you will find a valuable piece of insight staring you in the face… It may be a bit obscure, but that usually means it is a subtle point, and all that much more powerful for it….. Or, it may be obvious, which can also be very interesting…. Whichever it turns out to be, take notes, because it is growing ever nearer to Quiz time, and this one WILL be on there, you can count on it….

“This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.” — Douglas Adams — The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“I never knew whether to pity or congratulate a man coming to his senses.” — William Makepeace Thakeray

“A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, “You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk dancing.”” — Sir Arnold Bax

“There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.” — Soren Kierkegaard

“Anacharsis said a man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible favors and blessings of Fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, 11

Ooh, perfect ending! I hope you enjoyed today’s tickler, which is what I call pearls when they tickle the imagination so it laughs, or cries, or just lets itself wander through the universe in my head….. You can too, if you wish…. it’s a big universe….
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Once again, there’s no poem ready, and it’s not going to get forced out today; I’d just hurt myself. I’ll write a haiku, but the poem for today is an older one, from 2012….. As every day this month, these are being included as part of the April National Poetry Writing Month Challenge, with the updates to be found here: http://www.napowrimo.net/ I hope you enjoy them…..

Haiku XIV

No perilous dreams
dared troubled my sleep last night.
Beautiful morning.

Honorable Request

Days, filled to a brim with fluff and time, pass
dimly into memory, bit by combative bit,
ever mournful, yet loud with life and sass,
only in dream do we meet, and dance, and flit.

Souls, spinning ’round in gleeful wonder, comply
as they must, never given a reason,
somberly proper, yet limber and quite spry,
dancing on to greet each bright new season.

Storms, angered by apathetic care, rage
proceeding into ministerial glare, unknown,
clothed in colors, purified solely with sage,
past an infinite future, already flown.

Life, plumbed to its depths and secrets, keeps
flowing with currents, strong and fairly found,
love stands, asking release, as it slowly weeps,
seeking refuge unasked, to stay honor bound.

~~ gigoid

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I was going to rant again in this section, but I kept finding pearls that effectively said what I had in mind better, or, at least, more succinctly, so I’m going to use them in place of a rant, because, taken together, they cover all that I would have ranted upon…. Please forgive the use of noun as a verb…. Any who, this one is pretty obvious in its direction, so I’ll let it speak for itself…. This one is NOT going to be on the Quiz, should that mythical event ever truly take place…..

“What interests me is whether God had a choice when he created the world.” — Albert Einstein

“When one studies the biographies of the founders and leaders of the various religions, one cannot help but be struck by the psychotic — or at least extremely abnormal — behavior that has characterized so many of them. Luther, Wesley, and Loyola had hallucinations (“visions”). St. Theresa almost certainly was a hysteric. The book _The Psychotic Personality_, by Leon J. Saul and Silas L. Warner, devotes considerable space to the psychotic personalities of Mary Baker Eddy (founder of Christian Science), Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism), Mohammed, and the Rev. Jim Jones… It seems significant that the founder of Christianity itself, St. Paul, also suffered from epilepsy.” — Frank Zindler, “Religiosity as a Mental Disorder,” American Atheist — magazine, April 1988, p. 27

“Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.” — H.L. Mencken

“Once blasphemy against God was the greatest blasphemy; but God died…” — Friedrich Nietzsche, Zarathustra’s Prologue

Ever eating, never cloying,
All-devouring, all-destroying,
Never finding full repast,
Till I eat the world at last.

— Swift (1667-1745)

And there you have it….. pretty slick, eh?…..
__________________________________

Well, another day of my egotistical blathering comes to an end, just in time to save any permanent damage to anyone’s karma… Let’s see if it can float….. I think I hurt myself….. Okay, so they can’t ALL be wonderful…. some are just…. there. So is this one, and no matter how odd or strange it may be, I’m not doing it over; I could hurt myself even worse. We’ll all just have to take our chances today…. I think, if you wear your warmest coat, it will be alright…. Maybe…. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

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

Ned Moore, aka gigoid, is a 70 year-old, (!!!… When did that happen?….), retired dilettante, who would rather read than eat, most days. His first blog, "gigoid’s folly", has been emailed out to folks he knows for about 18 years now. He still considers it his best defense against angst, and the ever-present specter of sheer insanity..... Due to rigorous curmudgeon training requirements, he has discontinued his Facebook presence, but still indulges in the occasional Twitter session... In essence, he's socialized, but, not overly sociable; all labels and stereotypes are forbidden in his presence... and he doesn't care what anyone thinks about that..... In fact, he doesn't want to talk anymore.... If you feel you MUST contact gigoid, his email address is: alphagigoid@gmail.com You can go read now.... Go on, beat it.... gigoid, the dubious

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gigoid

Exploring Consensual Reality

Tag Archives: Poetry

You can join the looters AFTER church, Billy….

Assign three spinsters to snipe patrol….

Twice around the neck should do nicely….

Never curl your lip at Art Deco…..

Lots of flavor left in that carburetor….

Save that lanolin, we’ll use it on the new busboy….

Use the flammable artichokes first….

That particular radiologist has a toggle switch…..

Will cut hair for food…..

All dryads squirt a little bit…..

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