Monday, December 21, 2015

“Just curing despondency, mam”


Our little Christmas tree sits in an empty room. It's tiny lights shine peacefully for no one. Our Vicky sits in a hospital room. Her uncomprehending propensity wishes to be with her Christmas tree, to gaze at it's peaceful tiny lights, to be at home where the familiar offers an anchor for the mind.

So us being somewhat impulsive, we pack up that little Christmas tree in a wimpy green garbage bag and head off across the street, that avenue which divides the scourge of Winterpeg from the upper class elites who perambulate the halls of the elixirs of the gods. Down through the maze of snaking tunnels who entangle a labyrinth of vents and pipes and cables which amazingly find their way to a destination where their usefulness is appreciated we saunter, ever wary of those security guys in their speedy little go carts who roam these subterranes, ever on the watch for infidels carrying wimpy green garbage bags.

We artfully circumvent capture to reach the fountainhead of elevator clamour and are whisked up to the fourth floor of one of the towers of respite where our Vicky desponds. Luckily the nursing station is deserted as we sneak down the long hall to the end room. Safely in the room our Vicky sees us and grins from ear to ear. She would think something was terribly wrong if we weren't up to some sort of misadventure, so it is no surprise as we unveil her little Christmas tree, setting it nobly on her window ledge and of course, we have to plug it in.

Now let us consider a generalized impulse control model for controlling a process governed by a stochastic state of affairs. The controller can only choose a parameter of the probability distribution of the consequence of his control action which is therefor random. There may be undesired results relating to the input scenarios of quasi-variational inequalities. These results will be a viscosity solution of the quasi-variational inequalities which could lead to unforeseen developments.

So, we plugged in that little Christmas tree and for a moment it shone so peacefully lighting up our Vicky's smiling face. The room grew peaceful as the angels of heaven all smiled their love down from above. But there began a wee murmur from the bed beside us. It grew, horribly. Panic and fear gripped the environs. It is said the screams were heard through the concrete floors far up above. Ever heard of christougenniatiko dentrophobia, that ghastly fear of misshapen Christmas tree branches casting long twisted shadows and clutching at you with prickly needle-like fingers: pine pitch, bone-white dried fir, and spruce tar with opoponax and blackened tobacco, who knew?

Well. Some quasi form of virtual reality must not be adhered to when life takes such a turn. We must grasp that impulse control model by the horns and create a rock solid scenario of face saving developments a little less viscid. To be loaded on board along with our peaceful little Christmas tree on a speedy little go cart and hauled off to the remotest corner of the subterranes to be thrown nonchalantly into the dungeons sealed from media and artful lawyers was not our cup of tea. Yes, we opened that window wide and dropped that peaceful little Christmas tree four stories to it's demise before you could blink your eye. When the matrons arrived we were calmly seated beside our Vicky comforting her anxious outpourings with a hug. Impetuousness jilted we went discerningly back to curing despondency one little smile at a time.

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Of waifs and sanctimonious socialists

Conniving waifs. Them pointy little ears. Always adorning that sweet coif covering a brilliantly tufty coiffure. Wicked beady little eyes smirking out from hilariously bushy wrens nest eyebrows. Mystery of mysteries, how can mouths outwit themselves with lies heaped upon lies, deceit drooling from lips parched with the thirst for who knows what? Attention, scorn, ridicule, rapture? To crawl into bed at night knowing full well everyone you encumbered upon thought the less of you, my what a trip.

Must have been the upbringing we surmise. Negligent caregivers no doubt, allowed their five year old to roam the streets till the wee hours of morning, never a loaf of bread in the cupboard, supper only if someone was sober enough to cook. Created a spot of independence early on it did, that knack for shirking the grasp of child agencies in a land overflowing with sanctimonious socialists. Slipped through the cracks we sigh in hindsight, pass a few new laws and all will be well.

Is it freedom that is yearned for? To blatantly lie about everything in a legalitarianly correct society, heaping scorn and ridicule on oneself for posthumous amusement. That feeling that you screwed up totally everything in your life, leaving that empty feeling inside, no friends, no one caring the less at your burial. All in pursuit of that self image, unattainable dreams of a hardened compulsive. And then to laugh at it all. What masochists.

We create, us gods of human virtue. We create the valued and the admonished and the somewhere in between. We wheedle our unconscious pecking order loosed upon us by our hairy ancestors, we undermine the mesmerics of equality. Our esteemed values, ethical undulations of our kinky civilized thought, hiding in closets those obsessions which are too flagrant for social media, we are the perfect judges of our fellows. Speak not, and no one will hear. Use sticky notes.

Does Mr. Sun shine on you? Does he roast your skin with barbaric tan lines? Open up your lives to the gods of plenty, let the deceit drool from your lips that you may value the full encumbrance of freedom, the freedom to express the naughtiness of that five year old roaming the streets at 2 am. Piss in the gutter once or twice, then crawl into bed unencumbered by your deceit. Show up for work at noon, and just smile, willfully. Touch base with the nations downtrodden. Just smile away.

Express yourselves. Delve into the world of symbolism. Let those lies pour out their potency. Adorn that sweet coif covering a brilliantly tufty coiffure. Hum away your national anthem. Enjoy life. Those waifs will enjoin your presence in the park at midnight, although they may be somewhat underhanded in the expression. Catch a falling star. Be a waif.

We may sort of wonder what on earth we just esoterically obscured in the above conundrum. To make things perfectly clear, in our search for moral bedrock, when Mount Olympus erodes into the seas and the gods search for a new universe to call home, the waifs and sanctimonious socialists of yesteryear will be wandering the great halls of heavenly tablets searching and searching and forever searching.

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

I don't know anymore

I don't know anymore. She wakes me up. She wakes me up anytime she wakes up. In the middle of the night I hear “Len, Len, Len”. “Yes Vicky” I venture in my sleep. I know if I don't get up and give her a hug and rub her back and fix her black TV (I don't know why those damned networks can't show their pics on the whole screen instead of half the screen in the middle which makes it all black around the outside which my Vicky can't comprehend, I don't know), I know she'll keep calling “Len, Len”.

She wakes me up in the morning, at five and thirty. “Len, Len” I hear. “Are you getting up?” If I don't answer, which is most of the time because consciousness does not stir that quickly, she comes shuffling to my bed. Poke, poke, “Len, are you getting up? Len, it's time to get up!” poke, poke. Then it's the old pull the blankets off Len trick. That's just plain irritating when your cozy warm and half asleep. I don't know anymore. So we get to the kitchen, we set her down in her chair. “Len, Len” she says, scared as I venture off to get her morning meds. “I'll be right back” I mumble, mumble mumble to myself mostly. I don't know anymore.

We sit here, us personas, trying to type a few words between “Len, Len” and getting up to give some much needed assurance with a hug and a little back rub in her increasingly confusing world. “Len”. “Yes”, as she points towards us. “It's your ear”, or “It's your glasses”, or “It's your knee”. “Yes we say” as we tweak our mentioned body part. That need for acknowledgement, a mind bent on attention. I don't know anymore. Time for some distraction by manufacturing some breakfast. “Are you having some too?” she asks worriedly as I give her an orange neatly sliced into six chunks in a little bowl. “Yes, yes” we say as we point to ours on the other side of the table.

The cats are better at this than we are, us personas. Shucks, she can chuck them off the bed and two seconds latter they're cuddled back up beside her, all forgiven and forgotten. That's just their mom, they've adapted to her ways.

Her leg swells up. It's happened before. They ran a million tests, nothing showed up, it mended on it's own. We take her to her doc, does ultrasound, shows baker's cyst, leg improves. Her arm swells up, bad, lots of ouches. What shall we do? I don't know. We phone her docs, no one can see her for three days. In three days her arm improves, a doc gives her water pills. Next day she's quarterbacking for the Blue Bombers. I don't know anymore.

We tried Home Care, mostly we needed a break. They did their assessment. We were doing just fine they surmised. Recommended a senior's day care, half a day a week, bus would pick her up, had to take her meds on her own though, good luck, better hide your garbage cans. She refused to go anyway, wasn't going to no old folks day care, she wasn't. I don't know anymore.

Grocery shopping day is a joy. We can't push a wheelie chair and a grocery cart at the same time so she uses the grocery cart as a walker and off we trot. She gets a tad tired now and then so we find some convenient cases of straying commodities to settle her down upon for a minute. Take her to the back of the store and make our way to the front, leaving her at the main artery to await our plucking from the cross aisles. So long as she can see us, no panic. You got to watch out for those roving family groupies though, grandparents with hordes of moms and kids and shopping carts can certainly fog the view. Employees with those towering dollies of Cherry Coke can do the same. It's the chance you take, not? Lose a wife much? Found her wandering the parking lot once, never used the checkout, she didn't, cart full of groceries. I don't know anymore.

How long can someone look after a person like this? I just don't know anymore. We asked our doc. Somewhat of a fuzzy answer he forthcame with, an answer bordering on vagueness articulating ambiguity and generality with an emphasis on many-valued logic, supervaluationism and contextualism. Seems like there is no cut and dry time line to the disposition of dementia. In the end it makes little consequence to the inductees as to who feeds and shelters them, so long as they feel well disposed of. So we asked our Vicky “Do you feel well disposed of?” “Yes” says she quietly with that all knowing grin. Well. I just don't know anymore.

Does anyone know? Who knows. I know I don't know.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

An update on our ice box
















Yesterday morning at 9 am sharp there was a knock at our door, and there stood the undertakers of Dunogremesh to haul away our ailing little fridge. Please feel free to join us in mourning our loss. Any donations can be made to either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

Now we are in shock. Not at the loss of our white and pure icebox so much, our time of bereavement will pass. No, we are in shock that artfulness overcame adversity. Our lives have not been highly successful by way of social mobility, us personas. We are not prone to winning anything much at all, not lottery tickets, nor bingo, nor the good will of employers in our working years. Authority in any make and model had a disdain for our temperament, so to speak. It may not be a far stretch to say we were considering terrorism as a means of achieving some vindication in our senectitude.

But we decided to attempt diplomacy in one final throw of misadventure in a callous and unjust world before we deployed our vintage pressure cooker (it leaks a tad). The pen being said to be mightier than the pressure cooker we unleashed our bridled tongue in the form of eloquent chimera with "Beestis clepid chymeres, that han a part of ech beest, and suche ben not, no but oonly in opynyoun." It seems our personification hath thusly paid off. Those fools at Dunogremesh Property Management Corporation fell for diplomacy when they could have awaited our pressure cooker, cooking up a stew of cabbage and onions and rancid pork rinds next to their fresh air intake whilst we toked our medical marijuana. They could have filed inordinate writs against us for decimating their air quality, ruining the remaining years of our retirement and gaining the fruits of long years of our Canada Pension Plan premiums.

Yes they lost face, and now we revel with a somewhat new and robust refrigerator. It really is hard to be humble in times like this. One wee note sent forth from the dark and lowly crevices of Dunogremesh's vast domain moved mortals if not the gods themselves. We are the invincible, the champions of pen and ink. They caved in to literary philandering, those one percenters, the wizards of cooked accountancy and demonic rent collection strategy, with legal short pants bent on undermining the precepts of rent control. Eruditeness won out over impenitent profiteering.

It cost them a used fridge, it did. Twenty-five bucks they could have donated to a mercantile think tank. Our allusion to sophistication paid off. Their evil nature was wont to feel complicit in cultural befuddlement encompassing that shade of intrigue in parting with a few greenbacks. May the gods laugh and have mercy upon us all.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

A short history of our refrigerator












Our refrigerator is located in the scullery of suite 307 in Deathrock Apartments, in the vast realms of Dunogremesh, in the thriving metropolis of Winterpeg, on the sandy loam of former glacier Lake Agassiz, the flood plain of present Lake Winnipeg, on the banks of the mighty River Red where our Lord Musum presides. He installed his resplendency within the ziggurat of the newly established Canadian Museum for Human Rights and has apparently taken a dislike to our scullery's ice boxes, perchance because we do not come crawling with burnt offerings and lewd dance up the ramparts of his ziggurat to bestow blessings upon his magnanimity.

Anyhow, in the warm summer months of 2014, our old clunker of an ice box which weighed in at 323.7 pounds packed it in. Yes it died, and the kind undertakers of Dunogremesh who carried it off to be buried in sweet honour of forty three years of steadfast service were sore amused at the collection of dead mice which had mummified themselves in it's underpilings over the years as this ice box revelled in the tasks put before it, to cool and freeze the perishables of various tenants, while anchored as if a pyramid, its sharp feet buried in the linoleum and vinyl and floor boards with a grasp which defied even a crow bar.

Born unto us, in wake of this tragedy, was a sprightly little model, white and pure, which in it's glory years undoubtedly behaved itself quite outstandingly. But alas, that Lord Musum, he saw the happiness bestowed upon his subjects and he became jealous. He sent forth spirits, really naughty spirits, who revealed in the joys of disrupting the flowing of electrons, those little beasties who keep modern society in pulchritudinous harmony. They orchestrated a malady in our little white and pure ice box, so her noodle froze to minus 30 C while her tummy languished at the tepid warmth of plus 35 C. Clever magicians were sent forth from the vast auspices of Dunogremesh and they tempted those itty-bitty electrons with spells and bribery, and our little fridge's equanimity was restored to an somewhat even keel.

But woe unto us, Lord Musum is a very powerful lord, and he became furious at these magical jokers who attempted to thwart his magnanimity. He badgered and heckled our little white and pure ice box till she broke down sobbing and has given up all hope of ever being a good little fridge. His plan seems to be to entrap those magicians with their own spells, sending a chill of the ages along with a humongous Colorado low throughout the capacious Dunogremesh Empire, so the mighty River Red will overflow it's banks and submerge all the vast holdings which Dunogremesh has in it's domain with mud and slime.

We would be overjoyed if Dunogremesh would tempt fate and send forth it's magicians once more into the dark and lowly crevices of it's vast domain. After many attempts at coaxing our little white and pure ice box to regain her composure with frozen ice cream pails of ice tucked into her tummy, we may even be willing to perform some lewd dance and song on the ramparts of the ziggurat of our esteemed Lord Musum, if this is deemed as the only solution. We submit this charitably, let those magicians have one more go. We wait with baited breath, knowing full well the power of his resplendency, our Lord Musum. May the magicians of Dunogremesh reign supreme.

Submitted to the Dunogremesh Property Management Corporation, November 17, in the year of our Lorde 2015

Saturday, November 14, 2015

The unveiling of Gloria Rubenstein















The creaking wooden staircase which zigzags it's away up and up through the main vestibule, through the relics of mutilated fridges and rusted out ovens and abandoned cupboardery, overstrewn with old sneakers and ornamented by used undergarments in varying degrees of wear and fashionability, this staircase ascending to our heavenly abode, it is far from an undistracted climb for our distractable wife with dementia. Our Deathrock Apartments arises grimly amidst a side street of fashionable 19th century vintage homes, now much the worse for their wear. The front lawns are kept neatly flattened by the plenitude of young gang men who cut willy nilly through every available breach in the infrastructure on their missions of expediency. Cats and dogs vanish into the potholes of our narrow 'break my window' parking zone while the odd car careens by overhead. The kiddies found tadpoles halfway down the block.

Free enterprise certainly boasts it's proficiency in the spurned beats of this, our constabulary. The other night as we returned from an outing, low and behold our local entrepreneurs had borrowed the scaffolding from a nearby construction site and were busily painting our Deathrock Apartment building. Twenty foot high pics exalting the virtues of our local ladies of the day and night with readily available phone numbers in bold form. There was excellent artistic talent in the ranks of these merchandisers as most of the portraits were quite recognizable, or perhaps the savvy involved some local virtuosi paying off a debt or two. Next morning our building looked quite resplendent with it's new revitalization. Our next door neighbour who is studying law is rather pleased with the response so far, says it pays much better than having three kids, even after the protection. And the billionaire brothers who own our Deathrock Apartments will no doubt be rather pleased that their building got all spiffed up not costing them a dime.

We were sitting in the parking lot of our homely depot while we hashed out our plans for a brand new heat gun to do justice to the hoards of lowly beddy bye bugs who ceaselessly circle the perimeter of our heavily caulked baseboards and weather stripped fortress on the top floor to find that one little opening where to they can call forth their comrades to meander aimlessly exploring the shiny tin cans on the bed feet which thwart their efforts at finding cozy warmth under our blankets. “Gloria Rubenstein” she said, she did, my wife, “Did you know my name was Gloria Rubenstein?” That took us for a loop, it did. Had no idea on her lineage, here we'd thought for the last thirty years she was French and Cree. Dementia brings out the truth on so many relevant subjects. Kept our mind busy musing as we toured the aisles in search of our weaponry.

Sat that heat gun down on the table in it's shiny cardboard box when we arrived home. “Is that thing loaded?” asked our Gloria Rubenstein. One doesn't always have an answer at ready so we just smiled from ear to ear. “Oh” says she, so we guess we're learning dementia speak. Sat her bare naked in the middle of the floor we did, that night. Roasted a whole mountain of the little buggers, we did. Did you know some of them go 'pop' when you roast them? Our Gloria Rubenstein was sore amazed. As we tucked her in nighty night night in her securely fortified bed we ventured to beseech on the origins of one Gloria Rubenstein. She bequested unto us her virtues, “Oh that's me, Gloria Rubenstein, in the nice picture by our front door outside.” Taken somewhat aback we asked “But that's not your phone number, is it?” She just smiled from ear to ear and fell sound asleep.

Seasons will come and seasons will go. The artistry will fade, the phone numbers will be defaced, but the ephemeral unveiling of Gloria Rubenstein will bring a smile from ear to ear in our memories.

Sunday, November 8, 2015

How to indulge in an entrepreneurial chicanery

Method
Place a bunch of fist size rocks in a circle. Sit inside the circle with a tin cup.















The concept
A foole and his monie be soone at debate, which after with sorrow repents him too late. Thomas Tusser

Social justice, in a world of credit appraisement as the sole means of one's establishment in the hierarchy of material man, seems lacking for those who rest their morals on the virtues of fairie dust. It is a stroke of good fortune that human nature is wont to feel good in benevolent undertakings so long as there remains a shade of intrigue in parting with a few coins. The feelings of being had are much diminished when that rationalizing brain is skewed by the possibility that a fling at altruism was keen on cultural au courant.

For those au courant challenged folk, a we bit of inveigling may allude to the possession of sophistication, that much needed ingredient in the the deployment of chicanery. A circle of rocks is no fools' play. It avows purpose, brilliance, introspection, all those much needed values to entice the altruistic at heart. Chicanery is any man's game, we may all play for free. To win or lose at it is but fairie dust.

Criticism
Do you have a degree in stone sitting, where is your business proposal, your environmental impact statement? Have you considered the workplace safety issues involved here? Are you just making fun of the mankind's most profound efforts at chicanery? You will likely be arrested for terrorizing little old ladies with your arsenal of missiles. You with that tin cup proffering solace to the charitable, consider your impact on the impressionable young ones.

The notion of "chicanery" is typical of human dearth, which has found its way into romantic fools' hearts via farcical influences. The notion of "chicanery" introduces a false notion of duality between "chicaneror" and "chicanerousness", whereas the essence of trickery is the realization of the "non-duality" of observer and observed. "Pure chicanerousness" does not exist; all chicanery is mediated by intellectual and cognitive activity. The specific teachings and practices of a specific tradition may even determine what "chicanerousness" someone has, which means that this "chicanery" is not the proof of the teaching, but a result of the teaching. A pure chicanery without deceit, reached by "cleaning the doors of perception", would be an overwhelming chaos of trickery without coherence.

The privatization of chicanery – that is, the increasing tendency to locate chicanerousness in the psychological realm of personal experiences – serves to exclude it from political issues as social justice. Chicanery thus becomes seen as a personal matter of cultivating inner states of tranquility and equanimity, which, rather than seeking to transform the world, serves to accommodate the individual to the status quo through the alleviation of anxiety and stress.

Practical implications
The investment of remunerations can be cause of some consternation. The neophyte entrepreneur may well invest in a flute or simple recorder and learn one or two pleasant tunes to augment their revenue. An outfit of eccentric duds may be beneficial, although if you have a hankering to sit in a circle of stones this may not be necessary. The pleasant approach to salutation is viewed as the most productive scheme by sufferable diehards, chiding augmented by profanity seen as less forthcoming. A big smile and a helpful hand may oft get you a free quarter pounder from the establishment next door. For the distraught and resentful types this may not be elementary and a good course in etiquette may be an advantageous investment here.

When you arrive home at night to your warm and cozy bed under the eight lane overpass or in the local forest, you may consternate over your opulence. Oft, the best protection against theft and muggery is to simply spend it all on perishables, consuming them quickly or even sharing with scavengers. If you luck out and find an impregnable hoarding spot, you may amass your revenue to the point of establishing yourself in a townhouse or just a cozy flat depending on your social appeal. It is best to find a charitable bank teller who will convert your copper and silver into greenbacks of appropriate denominations as landlords have a tendency to shy away from bags of loose change. Once so established, you my find life a tad more tolerable, having a dry blanket on those drizzly wet days.

Philosophical insights
If we negate the false notion of duality between "chicaneror" and "chicanerousness", with the realization of the non-duality of observer and observed, we can move on with our livelihood knowledgeable in the fact that one is all and all is one. We can be one with our circle of stones and any trickery involved. Chicanery incarnates us and we incarnate chicanery. Avowing to a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world, we can transform our world into a medley of challenging, day by day societal impacts, wilfully existing while entertaining our essence. We can be jarred out of our habits, the meaninglessness and absurdity creating a behaviour pattern that is not consistent with that which is considered normal. We can rest assured at night knowing there is no meaning in the world beyond what meaning we give it. Our authentic existence has been created and we can live in accordance with the dust of our edification.

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Sapience or evolvability?












This piece of authorship looks to be rather tedious as we approach it, so if'n yer in the midst of a crisis go on and find yer resolution, this will be ignored by so many, one more won't matter. For background it would be helpful to enlighten yer mind with the complete works of one George Mobus PhD, but for now his piece on “How did Mammals and Birds Survive the End-Cretaceous Event?” at http://questioneverything.typepad.com/question_everything/2013/02/how-did-mammals-and-birds-survive-the-end-cretaceous-event.html will do if'n yer having a hankering.

Put into terms that a normal hoser can decipher, why us humans are here as mammals and not dinosaurs has to do with junk DNA. Seems like evolution has been evolving to make evolving more evolutionary. At risk of oversimplifying, birds and mammals had more junk DNA in their gnome and mutations using this junk is easier than mutating fixed coding genes with less built in 'junk,' so they were quicker to adapt to the End-Cretaceous Event with it's nuclear winter. Seems like us humans have more junk DNA than most other creatures ever had.

Now we're on a roll here, us humans, 7.2 billion and growing. DNA is about 500 atomic mass units per base pair. One human has about three billion base pairs per cell and about 100 trillion cells. That means about 1026 base pairs of DNA or about 250 grams. According to a group of genetic scientists led by Dr Gerton Lunter of the University of Oxford’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, only 8.2 percent of human genome is likely to be doing something important. This means that 91.8% of the 250 grams or 229.5 grams is junk. That's 1652.4 billion grams (1.82145921 billion tons) of junk humans are toting around on earth. Talk about hoarding!

So what does this mean for the up and coming global events mankind is programming into mother nature's ways amidst shifting continents and volcanic episodes and asteroidal impacts? Has her a wee bit on edge, it does, this experimentation with splitting the atom and altering the biosphere and attempting to release most of the sequestered carbon in one wee century. Time to put some of that junk DNA to some use, she may be thinking, our mother nature. If global warming continues unabated, raising the Earth's temperature by 4.3C compared with its pre-industrial level the extinction risk rises to 8.5%. If we follow our current, business-as-usual trajectory, climate change threatens one in six species (16%).

Evolvability is a property of a species to generate variations that are, in a sense, potentially pre-adaptive. That is, they can increase the rate of mutations, especially in selective genes, that increases the possibilities of advantageous results. This math works best for large population sizes or populations that are growing rapidly. There have to be many more individuals being conceived so that the increased mutation rate doesn't swamp the fitness of the species. This is because, as most people know, mutations are more often deleterious than helpful. There has to be an ability to “waste” individuals that end up with destructive mutations.” Ibid

So, 7.2 billion, we can waste a few mother nature reasons. We have genetically predisposed about 90% of these humans to holding strong intransigent values. Makes no matter what those values may be, yer economists, yer tea party cohorts, yer religious extremists, yer platitudinous socialists, let them bring forth their bit of atomic weaponry, induce a wee bit of global tepefaction and just wipe this slate clean, the modern flood of Noah. There. Now we can play around with mutations. What can survive the radioactive fallout, the chaotic weather, the hoards of gun toting scavengers? Why simple, she says, mother nature, we've got in that junk DNA somewhere a predisposition for psychic abilities. A bit of apportation, a pinch of psychokinesis, a dash of telepathy, a wisp of teleportation, that should do the trick.

Unto us one will be born. She will have children. They will have children. A clan amongst the remaining remnants of earth's human dregs will proliferate. By magick shall they overcome the riggers of survival. Their powers will increase through the generations, those most able to dodge the bullets by vaporizing, avoiding the clouds of nuclear fallout by jumping to the sunny hills, mind reading the trickery of the maniacal starving, munching on a juicy apple plucked from afar, those with these magicks will survive, and reproduce.

Glory be to the normal hoser. We carry within us the junk of salvation. We are the champions, my friends, and we'll keep on fighting 'til the end. We are the champions. No time for losers 'cause we are the champions of the world. It'll be no bed of roses my friends, no pleasure cruise, a challenge before the whole human race. But we ain't gonna lose.

Poosh


Glossary

Apportation is the ability to teleport inanimate objects or beings from one location to another.

Psychokinesis is the process of using only the mind, with no physical intervention, to manipulate physical objects. When the manipulation involves moving an object by mental effort, it is referred to as telekinesis.

Telepathy is the purported transmission of information from one person to another without using any of our known sensory channels or physical interaction.

Teleportation is the transfer of matter or energy, including oneself, from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them.

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

The flu shot

We're off to get our flu shot, in the magical land of Oz
We hear it's a whiz of a wiz, if ever a wiz there was
If ever, oh ever a wiz there is, in the magical land of Oz it is because
Because, because, because, because, because
Because of the wonderful things it does
We're off to get our flu shot, in the magical land of Oz
We are, we are, we are, we are
And there's nothin you can do, so there

Oh me, oh my, and now we're sick
Our arm is sore, our stomach churns, the nausea overwhelms
Our body aches, the earth it quakes, our head's convoluted in pain
Our nose it runs, our throat is sore, the tongue is contorted with cramps
But me, oh my, it was a whiz, a whiz it was, in the magical land of Oz
Because of the wonderful things it does
Because, because, because, because, because
And there's nothin we can do, so there

We called our doc, he said “Take stock, you've only one day to survive”
And then he laughed and laughed and laughed that miserable sob
Because of the wonderful things it does he laughed and laughed and laughed
Our body aches, the earth it quakes, our head's convoluted in pain
Because, because, because, because, because
Because of the wonderful things it does
It was a whiz, a whiz it was, in the magical land of Oz
And there's nothin he can do, so there

The river flowed along it's green banks, the cows they munched their cud
They had us in a coffin nailed, because of the wonderful things it does, it does
We sat up straight and bumped our head, they heard the clamber inside
The eulogies halted, the lid it was vaulted
The doc, he laughed and laughed and laughed, because, because, because
Of the wonderful things it does, it does, in the magical land of Oz
Our aches are gone, the earth is still, (so is this damnable funeral parlour)
And there's nothin the gods can do, so there

Because of the wonderful things it does, it does
In the magical land of Oz

Saturday, October 24, 2015

The Magnanimous Party of Canada









It is an interesting aspect of introspection, the business of political illusion. One's mind a small atom of universal consciousness, it's separateness the mere force of psychic charges keeping that mass of raw primordial energy in tight focus. The transitory blip of a human life span, popping in and out of existence in search of the big answer to “Why did she make us aware, our creator, could have saved us from all this illusive introspection by just by keeping it all to herself.” Really no need for any of us to see the light of day, can't much see it as but a hoax.

Asked our cat on the epitome of human achievements and he come up with greasy chicken using a matrix of wishful versus vital possibilities in his version of this universal consciousness thingy. “Interesting” we reassured him after putting him through this torturous introspection. He usually pretends to sleep when we use him for a sounding board.

Are you hungry tonight,
Do you miss your chicken delight?
Are you sorry you ate it all for lunch?

'Tis but nonsense, this mind of ours. We thinks our recent election has did us in. We were all ready for a coalition, yes we were:

The Magnanimous Party of Canada (French: Parti Magnanime du Canada), colloquially known as the Coalition, is the newest federal political party in Canada. The party espouses the principles of altruism, and generally sits at the left of centre of the Canadian political spectrum. Historically the Magnanimous Party will been positioned to the left of the Conservative Party of Canada and to the right of the Green Party. At the head of the party will be our virtual Primed Minister, Skippy the Beaver, who will be an encyclopedia of information, the epitome of transparency, and at everyone's fingertips on every platform of the internet with his own mainframe and personal server. Skippy will be held to account by 30 cabinet ministers, elected by the party's Members of Parliament, each in charge of their own ministry. Skippy will not be allowed to make any decisions without a vote from the cabinet, and it is felt he will be an effective ambassador for Canada needing only a screen big enough for his two front teeth at international events.

Shall we write a ditty, our kitty, to the power of the positive approach? Oh diddly dum, what have we done. Include a line from a motivational seminar. Surrounding ourselves with driven folk. Add a wee bit of legitimization from the fables of old. Please all, and you will please none. Then liven it up with a sense of antiquity. Spread your cheer to the earth's foursquare. And a speck of humour. To find your Lorde hath made it round.

Yes we voted, all us personas, even took our wife along. We couldn't leave her at home, alone, with her dementia. Came out of that booth with the biggest smile, really likes to fill in boxes, she does. They did send her a voters card, they did. Then we went to the ducky pond. Just exercising our constitutional rights, you know.

So we await our Primed Minister in waiting. The transitory blip of his human life span, popping in and out of existence in search of how to lead a country of hosers. Take off eh.

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Cakes of anthropocentrism




Our world is veritably a fascinating place. Our reveries really just poke their fun at it from different perspectives. A single word pinpoints one tiny bent in an infinity of dispositions. A picture captures one angle of an infinity of the slants of a kaleidoscope of scapes. A composition of music isolates one wee moment from the infinite reverberations pulsing our cosmos. Our supreme courts rule on the outcome of such a myriad of possible outcomes of an evolutionary ladder of biological and philosophical possibilities, those poor souls must wet their knickers when they mull the perplexities. It is rumoured that even Sarah Palin once had this fleeting moment of awe at the languor of capitalism from amidst an astonishing variety of egalitarian vistas.

It becomes a burning question in our fascinating world. Shall we simply let the poor starve and the terrorists terrorize, building walls around our neighbourhoods and countries? A few well placed bombs will frustrate those dens of hackers, working so hard to circumvent our superiority. And let them keep those hallucinogens to themselves, we will live in utterly sane complacency. We can fence ourselves off from the primordial escapades of the ignorant outlanders caught up in the ravages of sex and killing and illegal philanthropy while we languish in peaceful oblivion, our hand guns the ultimate tool of a harmonic society. What a brave new version of anthropocentrism it will be!

But, but you may say, you with your flagitious sarcasm. Those terrorists are hell bent on destroying us, they wish to rule the earth with their thwarted conceptualizations of utopia, and those vile drug lords care naught for our sweet children. It is rather us who should rule the world with our omniscient version of utopia and let their sweet children scavenge the dumpsters for crumbs. We have every right to seduce our malls with titillating garments so those ravishing dark eyes of modest immigrants can peek forth and behold the sweet undulations of freedom. We fought our wars of confederacy years ago so our whites and blacks and native Americans could live side by side in unmitigated harmony, and those fanatical lowlifes should have fought their wars years ago too. So now we're just going to bomb the bejeezus out of them all so we can have some peace and quiet on our side of the pond.

The symphonies play on. Tchaikovsky dissolves the curtains between east and west. Mendelssohn crumbles the walls of division. The Archies open barriers of trade and commerce with the Orient. All those undulating reverberations, puissant waves transcending the background rumble of canon fire as capitalism builds the bridge to new worlds, chow mein topped with cherry pie for dessert. The rudiments of fine fiction inspiring religions in a sea of multicultural plurality. The precise legality of a single word in our courts of law empowered by the txtspk of social media, ZOMG. Selfies epitomizing the instant gratification of our modern Rembrandts, those masterful undulations! Politicians carving up our earth with ever more outrageous ways to stifle dissidence by inciting divisiveness. The proof of evolution, this compulsion towards divagation.

But we divagate here. We must stay on our topic by considering in closing the cake. If have it we must then have it we will. It's not all that innocuous for your teeth anyway. I personally propound the many tiered Tower of Babel varieties built on those tiny pier poles so the ants can keep climbing as they purview the pantry. What a veritably fascinating world it is.

(We had 13 hits on the last blog. Got to slow things down a bit.)

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

The shadows of evening



















Like grey wolves lurking in the shadows of evening, just out of sight you sense them, but they wait quietly. There is no rush. They will get the chickens no matter what fences you build with love and and planning and determination. The chickens are toast. Night after night they will come for more, the wolves. The hen house will persevere for years sometimes, the squawking alerting passersby of the angst. But those grey beasts, they have cunning. Into the darkness they will vanish their prey, the few remaining of the roost ever more timid to crow their glory. We may shelter the chickens in homes of benevolence, but the spirit of the wolf knows no walls thick enough to deter it's hunger. The last of the flock will be taken. Only then will the wolf den move on to a another conquest.

That is one flitting perception of dementia. As my wife smiles the biggest heart felt smile imaginable at the littlest wee bit of attention, I bring her a morning tea, my heart breaks. I wish to run away, to hide from the knowledge that she will never again put down my idiotic rantings with one small word of wisdom. She will only smile, the introspection of her soul growing ever deeper as her eyes concentrate on that inner world, her place of refuge it seems, till I break the spell once more with that wee bit of attention, “Madam, would you mind some scrambled eggs and toast for your breakfast?” And she smiles, somewhere deep inside knowing that I jest, and answers with a soft “Yes,” and I wish to cry.

This morning she brought to her place where she sits near by me, three pairs of 'dry' jeans we purchased at the 'Valued Village' just yesterday. I had hung them on the line in our cats bedroom to air a bit, the smells of used clothing, even though new looking, being overpowering. The meds for dementia have helped her memory, but the facilities to make cognizant sense of those memories often need a helping hand. We will launder those jeans later, and she will be so proud of them. It is for those meaningful episodes in our routine for which we live. The outside world has lost it's significance. She asked me for the longest time what day and month it was, and we would find it on the calender, and five minutes latter she would ask again, a compulsion of sorts. But no longer. The day of the week is irrelevant. The season is noted by the amount of sweaters and jackets she puts on when she gets outdoors, since it is not 'cold' enough inside the house to dress. I'm not an arguer, I just put lots of stuff in a bag and let her adjust her temperature as she sees fit. So far it works. Tomorrow probably not.

The need to think for two people, my dilemma. I spent my whole life avoiding my own better judgment, and now I'm thrown into this awesome duty our civilization imposes on caregivers not to screw up. “Did you go #2 today my deary?” “I know you don't like bathing, but it's been two weeks my deary!” “Just one spoonful of peas my deary, please, no not in the garbage!” “Did you take all your meds?” as we rummage through her purse to find the ones she doesn't like which she sneaked there when I turned away one second. One second! And as I sit for a moment to try to remember what the agenda is for today, I look up and meet her eyes which break into the great big smile which makes all worthwhile. “How did you know my name was Vicky?” she quietly asks. “Well my deary, we've been married for over thirty years, I'm guessing you let it slip once upon a time,” and she gives me that look of incomprehension, thirty years being a time frame much to vast to fathom.

I used to walk the neighbourhood every evening, that masochistic adventure of an arthritic sojourner exercising those squeaky painful joints. She would watch the tele, lost in her world of déjà vu. That was ok for several years with only minor problems to face when I returned. But then I started to come home to destruction, my desk and bookshelf contents on the floor. She did not wish to be left alone so I began taking her with me wherever I went. We took the car because she can't walk very far. My exercising dwindled as I used to walk everywhere putting in miles a day. So now we play 'a game' as she puts it. She sits in her chair and I walk back and forth, wearing a path in the flooring from the far bedroom window to the kitchen window at the other end of our abode. She meditates upon this adventure, uttering a single quiet word as I pass by. Sticks out her tongue at me, she does, in her more lively moments, so she shyly tells me, us laughing at the treachery. When the lack of attention from my introspective thoughts overwhelms her she quietly says “Holler,” and I know it is time to sit her up straight and give her a big hug and some much needed attention before I continue on my journey.

The wolves will come for yet more chickens. They just wait in the shadows biding their time. Makes an old fool mature a tad. But an old fool can dream. Bicycles built for two, riding off into adventures in reckless irresponsibility, her spirit riding in glory on the seat in front. Perhaps I will someday have that freedom once more. I will take her with me on journeys to the far ends of our country and laugh at the wolves lurking in the bushes. Old fool I am.

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Adventures of a neurotic soul












In a creamy dreamy world we are in an enclave, an old fashioned manufactory of sorts, tables and benches with odd spindly looking machines and wares of some unknowable variety scattered in rough piles here and there. No one seems to be working, they're standing in an unkempt group discussing something or other. So we wander on through the shop and out a rear door onto a path, a dirt path in a neighbourhood of dwellings, tin and tile roofs divided by narrow yards cluttered with fences and gates and pathways between the homes. Our path is higher than the roofs on a bit of built up dike of sorts, odd in a rather dry region, the path as the major thoroughfare to the world at large.

We take a slight venture through a narrow walkway between some houses, through the open gates where cats and small dogs play with children who treat us as part of their domain with little acknowledgement. We find our way back to the built up path trimmed with unmown grasses, being detoured by a myriad of fences and miscellany of no drastic significance, finding ourselves dealing with a less than well healed individual who would wish to trounce us of some cash for a pile of corrugated tin, us finding a hole just large enough to squeeze through to our freedom. We wander further along to come to a more suburban locality, with streets wide enough for vehicles of the four wheeled sort although there are none to be seen, and we wander along from one intriguing district to the next, the roads becoming ever more wide to allow for two lanes of motored four wheel vehicles although there are none to be seen, and the homes become much more 20th century in their construction with concrete sidewalks leading to locked doors.

We wander on, finally arriving at a cul-de-sac on the edge of a vast prairie, endless fields of grasses, tousled heads to go to seed for a new generation. We wander that cul-de-sac searching for that little home where something of a familiar nature might impinge on our awareness, but it is in vain. That home does not happen in this local. Into the grass fields we wander, coming upon a set of stairs which lead to, in their stairwell, a floor of hotel rooms, and a bellhop who turns out to be a modest unnameable fling from our remotest past who leads us to our room, number 306, but we are distracted by some fascinating reflection in the window at the end of the hallway, and we gaze in lost oblivion at the miles of grasses below, blowing in the breeze.

We venture back down the stairway and embark on a journey to a distant city where we once abode, in disoriented younger times when life played itself out in episodes ill guided by hormones and insurrection. Our spirit glides along by default, sometimes on foot, other times on a bicycle, following the roads built by civilization often leading to impasses in squared miles of dirt trails in bush with no thoroughfare ever forthcoming, and back to the main arteries we must detour in this flight across the continent.

We arrive in that distant city through some perplexing perseverance, and ascend a stairwell in a dormitory where we once sought escapades of enlightenment in the unhinged past. It is with some confusion as to which floor to venture into, the residents seeming polite enough, but in a very different plight of consciousness than that which we possess. We head on through a hallway and into the halls and chambers of discourse, to be smitten by the confusion regarding issues of religion and edification. So off into the big city we adventure, investigating a lowly apartment complex with doors which no longer close squarely to hide the ravages of poverty caused by life's complexities. Our room is entranced through the rooms of other residents who hide their modesty under quilts and ragged blankets and who try in vain to ignore our passage.

We morph along, out into the squalor and five way intersections of convoluted traffic snarls, who shielded in their motor cars in their journeys between work and play, bypass the scumbaggy downtown folk. Weaving through the cluttered sidewalks we hit upon the loneliest drag imaginable, a decrepit nauseating stretch of filth enlivened by dark and foul smelling doorways with the odd lurking character. We enter one, an oriental couple's eatery of sorts within which we have never seen another customer, and they emerge from their rear dwellings to fry up hamburger on toasted bun with few fixings. Next, into a hotel we navigate, a hostel with interior balconies reeking of stale spilt and regurgitated liquors of unknown qualities. We take a room, paid in advance by ill gained credit and enter the elevator. The door opens to a spacious conclave, with college students between classes enjoying the freedoms of expression lounging in brightly coloured chairs.

We walk the long hallway to the far end where a set of wide stairs takes us down to the entrance, a confusing revolving door with mirrors in place of clear pains within and without and by the time we navigate our way out the world is lost of it's purview. Onto the sidewalks we continue, finding the rear entrance to an enticing huge underground mall. Down the escalator we descend to pass the kiosks and thriving stores which fulfill the dreams of the realms of ear pierced, nose pierced, belly button pierced, tattooed from head to toe, almost stark naked with hair the colour of the rainbows on a mystical planet, the descendants of Adam and Eve masticating on the apple of sinful idolatrous obsessions, but jealousy gets us naught. We continue along, the halls becoming more and more barren as we approach offices with ten foot high clouded glass doors with embedded black lettered signage, obscuring their secrets to the outside world.

It is here we find a back stairwell which leads down to a tunnel, the mother of all tunnels. It starts at roughly eight feet wide and eight feet high, nicely tiled floor, soothing cinder block walls, park benches to rest upon. Mile after mile it snakes along, heavy metal doors appearing every quarter mile or so to open to another identical section. We walk along for the better part of a day, occasionally passing a seated stranger lost in thought and often wearing a brightly coloured hat. A section with small venues selling trinkets and fast foods seems not out of place as we journey on. Through another set of steel doors and the tunnel begins to adorn itself with roughly carved walls through clay and rock, the path becoming ever narrower strewn with boulders and debris. The steel doors seem replaced by narrow cavities, smallish holes in rock which one must crawl through into the next even narrower section.

On and on we venture, squeezing by strangers as they approach from the distance. Then looming in the distance we begin to sense some fresh air and our expectations heighten as we approach a circular chamber carved from the earth, rough walls reaching stories high to the light above. Rope ladders with rungs cut from dead boughs hang from above, never reaching the conclave. Souls clamber up and down, some dropping to their fate on the cold rock floor beneath. In the conclave is a bottomless cavity to the bowels of the earth, a modern elevator taking us down, stopping at every subterranean level, doors opening to an ever more challenging array of pillars and beams supporting the structures above. The elevator finally thuds to a stop on the bottom level, seems no one has come this low in millenniums, and the door opens to a rocky den, a steel doored crypt the subject of our supplication. It is locked.

Mystery upon mystery, it is now open, our crypt, the brightly lit the interior holding a key, a gem of great significance to no one in particular. Into the vault we climb, gem in hand and emerge from a wooden attic through a trap door into a closet where we stealthfully make our way down a narrow wooden staircase to the main floors of an oldish wooden mansion where we can blend in with others, never divulging our good fortunes.

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

da

The wizened mind, it performs miracles when it comes to formulating coherency. Now take 'time' for instance, that tempo of an hour glass pouring out our life's seconds into the shades of Hades, it is but mere delusion that there is a present in which we live. We live in a continuum as luck may have it, the present being an aberration of human arrogance as our twiddling brains robustly seek gratification in and for the moment. Take the ancient gnarled peduncle of a tree. It lives not for today, but for the millions of generations in it's past as it stands and as a continuum to it's future generations, not once wincing at the human peeing on it's roots.

And take even truth for that matter, 'the truth' is merely an accident of inference. The human mind espouses to infer from it's lifelong vigilante on the savvying of it's surroundings that there is an ounce or two of limpidity to the universe. The universe is what it is, truth be damned. High five to the 'truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth' we lament, yet we infer the truth, as much as our wee minds can grasp, whilst all is really relegated to the sins of commission. There is but commission, and all judgment is based on the inference thereof, disdaining human nature.

Our wizened soul must quixotically assert that there is nothing beyond the senses, consciousness is an emergent property, and that it is foolish to seek what cannot be seen. Life is what it is, yon masses, let a man live happily, let him feed on saffron even though he run into debt, debt relinquishing it's stature to that of truth, that mere accident of inference. Yet we rally forth in our utilitarian social dilemma, our debtor's prisons and bill collectors holding the key to the mysteries of our human hornswoggle. I am in debt, therefore I am, the only postulate of 21st century acumen.

Wisdom lays in the denuded enjoining of pleasure and avoiding pain as far as possible, pain's rhapsodies only useful in providing livelihood to priests. Pristine pleasure requires relinquishment of the moment to live the past and future as one, amusing the omnipresent component to our theosophy, and relinquishing the moment to it's just place in a kaleidoscopic holographic universe where time portrays itself as none other than an aggravant of human awareness. Let one's eyes roll back then in blissful cantatas, abandoning all to the thrill of iniquitous illusion.

Every day we encounter our self awareness, sucking in our egos a tad to envelop humanity as a somewhat supercilious playground for our boffo. But we can relax, our sentience is also but illusion. Evolution has merely played it's cards out teasing us with it's shenanigans. We are but star dust, ad hoc critters in the fecundation of the grand scheme of merrymaking. Self awareness's only purpose is to make us hump, to proliferate the jocularity we refer to as life. The moment is but illusion, consciousness that much more so. The id, the ego, the superego all cherish nothing but the sack, our consciousness nothing more than the callous gnarled bark of human parturience.

We must, to embrace fully our unity with the dust of our stars, take out our mats and meditate upon the verisimilitudes which deceive us. Ohmmm, ohmmm, this moment has been and shall forever be, ohmmm, ohmmm, all is but commission, ohmmm, ohmmm, light of the universe engulf my being. Ohmm, ohmmm, this moment has been and shall forever be, ohmmm, ohmmm, all is but commission, ohmmm, ohmmm, light of the universe engulf my being. When we awake one fine morning unaware of day month or year, when we awake one fine morning oblivious to human truth, that mutilation of the obvious, when we awake one fine morning enraptured by the stardust which pervades all, viewing humanity from the azureous beyond, we will have completed the circle of our universe's epic cycle. Out of nothingness to return to nothingness. So be it.

We, us personas, who inhabit this piece of human real estate as these enlivened jesting possessors, vow that we believe, belief being here inferred, this to be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help us our human coherency, as we create in enthralled rapture, our mystical staircase to the heavens of contentment unto which death shall depart us to, or has departed us to, or is departing us to... oh well. Yes, and you thought you had problems.