I was a manualist...

Sorry that blog PS's go upwards, but I noticed in the tongue twister the name Ramo Samee. That's not all nonsense verse: being a juggler and conjuror I recognised the name - he was very well known in the UK (A David Blaine of the day) in the early Nineteenth Century.

You can find material about him in the juggling archive here

Where I first saw him mentioned was in Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor, a huge book, of several volumes, which my dad turned me onto. It is the most extraordinary snapshot of street life of the period. Roughly contemporary with Dickens, Mayhew was a journalist rather than a novelist, and went out to interview all the street workers. He then published the interviews as monologues (eliminating the questioner). I looked up the relevant street performers when I was starting out. Here's the juggler, just for a sample of these treasures.

I remember seeing the strong man's monologue done straight, in a London Bubble theatre show many years ago. It was a powerful piece. This is a rich resource for writers and performers.

This one's for Keili (who loves a bit of language)

While checking out Toby Jugs (see The Great Man, above) I came across this gem, a tongue-twister game dating back to 1824 (you had to make your own amusement's then!) The site explains it, here's the text:

TOBY PHILPOT sat tippling with UMPO, VUMPO, and WILLY WIDEMOUTH of Wolverhampton, when X and Y, two officers, brought in the culprit, while Saccharum Sweet Tooth said nothing, while Ramo Samee really swollowed a sword, while Sly Kia cried Quack! quack! quack! And turned into a duck, to escape from Poniatowsky, who said, To jail with the Juggler and Jade, as Mother Bunch on her broomstick cried, here's a to-do! as Nicholas Hotch-potch said, Never were such times, as Muley Hassan, Mufti of Moldavia, put on his Barnacles, to see little Tweedle gobble them up, when Kia Khan Kreuse transmogrofied them into Pippins, because Snip's wife cried, Illikipilliky! lass a-day! 'tis too bad to titter at a body, when Hamet el Mammet, the bottlenosed Barber of Balasora, laughed ha! ha! ha! on beholding the elephant spout mud over the 'Prentice, who pricked his trunk with a needle, as Dicky Snip, the tailor, read the proclamation of Chrononhotonthologos, offering a thousand sequins for taking Bombardinian, Bashaw of three tails, who killed Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos.

This is what passes for an advertising budget around Splott

spotted today

Refugee

Wandering around in my skin, I realise other people extend into their environment further than I do. Sure I have clothes and a Walkman (poor man's iPod) but I never really extended physically any further than that, no bricks and mortar, no fences, no furniture. The planet all 'belongs' to someone else.

That's fine, I can wander around most of it without much hassle, although I mustn't loiter anywhere too long, apparently.

So, I find conversations about mortgages, and gardens and cars and stuff quite distressing because I literally don't really understand. Apparently this big old free world I always took for granted can be 'bought' from me for a string of beads, and as I don't really understand what they intend to do with it when they 'own' it I agree - I take the beads, the smallpox blankets, and the bottle of whiskey I can't digest, and let them have it. hmm. (my usual romantic twaddle)

Anyway - today I was walking along, and in my head I could hear Tom Petty singing "Refugee", but it was coming out "No you don't have to live like the bourgeoisie, don't have to live like the bourgeoisieee..."

Just one of those things in my head. It ain't nothing important. And it's pretty stupid, coming from a man who now has a regular job.

We got some thin' we both know it,
We don't talk too much about it
Ain't no real big secret, all the same,
Somehow we get around it
Listen, it don't really matter to me
Baby, you believe what you wanna believe
You see, you don't have to live like a refugee

Somewhere, somehow, somebody must have
Kicked you around some
Tell me why you wanna lay there,
Revel in your abandon

Honey, it don't make no difference to me
Baby, everybody's had to fight to be free
You see, you don't have to live like a refugee
No baby, you don't have to live like a refugee

Honk if you're stupid

Outside the office window is a bedlam of noise - lorry drivers and car drivers complaining about the cost of petrol/diesel. Admittedly a lot of the cost in the UK is tax (but that does pay to fix the roads and bridges) - but the Green's have been telling us to reduce our dependency for many years now (I know, I wrote a paper about it in 1994 - ten years ago, and I certainly was not ahead of the game).

And, of course, the oil producers have us over a barrel (heh) - and the oil millionaires (Bush, Bin Laden, etc) have little motivation to reduce the price - they've cunningly run it up in the first place, with artificial shortages, and other alarums and excursions.

Sorry, guys - get the canal boats going again - change the railways back to freight, instead of yuppies with laptops and mobile phones - get those airships going - complain about something else.

You don't get the junkies running around with froghorns, complaining that heroin went up in price...dilute it, find a substitute, change your habits - do something active.

I moved from London to Cardiff, and got a job where I could walk to work. Regular walking is the poor man's gym; poor man's treadmill with weights is carrying the shopping home; etc.

I think we should give priority to taxis (rented car, always on the move, no parking); professionals (ambulances, circuses, deliveries, etc) and old people, oh, and maybe single parents.

Young fit people should be the last in line for a car - drinkers should be given an either/or option. Yeh, cars turn me into a grumpy old man....

The water is in, and the pond is taking on a life of its own

Outside the back door....

The smell of death (barbecue season)

Nice to have a day off - and sleep until I wanna get up. I still love that. If I am a little queasy today it was not last night's drinking, but today's kitchen smells.

Part of the problem with being a vegetarian is staying where the air is clean and sweet. It's not easy. I have often had to settle for restaurant smells in cheap lodgings in (say) Spain. Indeed, I often have to put up with restaurant smells when eating out with people (unavoidable) like the "best restaurant in Paris" that I was taken to last year, which had trouble coming up with anything that didn't have meat in it (and I am not even a vegan, so I think I am pretty flexible). It was a pretty smelly place, to me, though.

And I am not one of those veggies out to convert anybody. I am no more judgemental about meat-eating humans than I am of cats for catching birds. It's how they are. I am a veggie the way a sheep is a veggie, it's not a choice.

Recently my home changed. "Atkin's rules" means the kitchen smells of fish and chicken (as often as not).

The lodger eats mammals, too, so all in all there are a lot of pervasive smells. I try not to care. I remind myself that when I had a dog, or cats, I got used to these smells, and even braced myself to go into a butcher's a couple of times. I'm tougher than I was. It's just the smell I can't get over. I guess other people don't smell death.

Bless'em - it seems to make them happy - so it's my problem.
I just can't help feeling queasy, at the moment.

And when I look at The Meatrix I know I should really give up the cheese, too....

Lomography - and circus for the children of Iraq

Well, I strolled out for a late lunch, and stopped into Ozone - the organic snack place on Charles Street (highly recommended). On their wall was a montage of photos of Cardiff. What caught my eye was a picture of DevilStick Peat (jugglers know him) - who has been working on circus for kids in Iraq. All power to him - please visit the site, and see if there is anything you can contribute to help them out. Years ago some friends of mine did Jugglers for Peace tours of Nicaragua, and several of these sort of expeditions have emerged from the joyful and generous juggling subculture. It's great to hear it continues. How about a good news station?

On closer examination I realised that this display was from a lomography group in Cardiff. No, I hadn't heard of this before, but as a snap-happy world phenomenon it suits me better than some sort of perfectionist approach to photography.

So, I'll be logging on there, and joining in, maybe. Be Seeing You....

Pekar to Crumb

Wanting to check out Harvey Pekar more, I ended up on the Crumb Family site - which was a fun place. I came across this weird photo of Uncle Bill Burroughs which I liked, but then I liked the drawing of Burroughs that Jesse did (second picture down).... as well as his Lenny Bruce.

I'm a Monkey!

I recently enjoyed "Mean Genes" - a popularist digestion of the sociobiological field. Deliberately written in bite-size chunks, and without all the academic notes/proof/citations for their assertions (which can be found on their website) it was funny and enlightening. I think you will find some new stuff here, even if you have read similar things and are familiar with a certain number of the examples, as I was.

Recommended for people who don't think we were designed by a god, but just kind of grew...

Note for Keili

Hi K (I think I finally managed to be the tiresome, uncool dad when I misunderstood Childe Gideon - progress!)

I came across this interview with Richard Bandler, in which he makes it clear he has little to do with the misapplication of NLP, the phoney certification, the misuse of the technologies he invented. It's a good read. However, if you want to spend some one-to-one time with him it'll still cost you $10,000.
Perhaps it is just like the Treasure of the Sierra Madre - and a battle of the alpha magicians, trying to out-influence each other with their magical words, sigils and secret hand signals, to get all the gold.

Amazing, the amount of money sloshing around in the system.

Anyone else, looking in, I do find this stuff interesting, but have always been too poor to train. Or have been unwilling or unable to show my 'committment to change' by finding the money (as if it was just a matter of effort). I have real guru resistance - which they could cure if only I would let them....fnord

heh

PS: If I was going to succeed and influence people I'd prefer to do it the way Douglas Adams did, by writing something really funny....

American Splendor

Just watched the movie, and enjoyed it a lot.

Harvey Pekar's comic books never summed up my own life, but the depression is familiar. Anyone who lives around me knows that I may appear jolly and lovable when I am out and about, but that's my act (that was my act - but I still find it useful).

Let's face it more people live that way. Not the truthfulness, but the small and helpless life. I don't have any desire to save the world, I don't kid myself I (or anyone) could. All anyone can do is contribute in some small way. My friend Mick always dreamed of writing his way out of the corner, but (sadly) it never happened. He contributed in so many ways, but that next level of recognition escaped him. We can't all be a Bukowski. Macho, sensitive, alcoholic, violent - this stuff can still sell, even if it isn't politically correct.

It's harder to make art out of timid, hopeless losers and nerds. So it was nice to see it can be done.

And the truth is that under the gruff attitude there is a nice enough guy. (I'll leave you to decide if I mean him or me...)

Most bodacious indeed

When I went into Blogger today I found they were now offering free picture hosting with software called Hello - courtesy of Picasa (who have picture sorting software that I may well invest in - once I am happy with the trial run). I haven't had pictures in my blog since 2001, when my ISP (ntlworld) decided that they didn't like having my blog on their server (with the website) so I reverted to a blog on Blogspot (but sadly without pictures).

Excellent stuff, after a few minutes fumbling around.

Thanks people - what a rest from typing....

Mr Jules is doing a reconnaissance run to an 'exotic' location for a juggling convention in 2005 - watch this space for further details

All my own work....

Be aware that large water features can take over your garden... 

15 Merdre 132 E.P. (Saints Serpents d'Airain) 1 June 2004 A.D.

I spend a lot of time wondering about other people's beliefs. I never claim to be that well-informed, as the stuff I find interesting is mostly fairly obscure. I talk to people who have sports statistics down; others who know all the gossip about stars and/or fictional characters in movies and soaps; but there are also people who actually appear to understand what is going on in politics; or to understand how money works.

So, I know my little area of specialist knowledge and interest may seem as trivial to the serious folks as soaps and football results seem to me (and don't get me wrong, I love a good game - ask my long suffering partner - it's just that I don't have any particular allegiance to a team or country). I am a classic 'neutral'.

I do rather badly on trivia quizzes - what's the capital of Norway, who's the president of France, etc. The problem for me is that people who are fully informed about the latest events in the news are also being focussed by that intense beam of media interest - as if there is only one war on, for instance.

So I am not really surprised to hear from the USA that:

"64% of the people interviewed believed that Osoma
Bin Laden came from Iraq and was in Iraq"
"A British professor at the University here in Springfield really couldn't believe that percentage was true so he surveyed his students and found 57% of them believed the same,some even believed the 9/11 terrorists were trained in Iraq."

It would be great if the public was properly informed, but most of us aren't. The only edge that a distracted person like me (who prefers reading books about the past than watching the news) is knowing that I don't know, and so reserving judgement. However, not having an opinion seems to be considered to be negligent, thoughtless and indecisive - which is why the people with simple, clear, unambiguous views often bully their way to the position of power.

Hmmm.

Back to the Tao - the only useful guidance I ever found for living under warlords.

Ars longa, vita brevis (insurance man's panic)

In amongst all the war and stuff, you may have missed the tragedy of the Saatchi art collection being trashed (sic). It's weird, really, here I am a fan of Duchamp and Jarry, Joyce and Dali, etc and Modern Art, generally (although the original meaning of modern - contemporary - has gone now) - but I can't stand most post-modern art.

If I had been one of the guys named on Tracy Emin's tent "Everyone I Ever Slept With" I would definitely be asking to have my name taken off. But is that the point? Is she bragging? Getting her own back? What? And why so twee? "slept with!" Are we talking fucking here, or aren't we? I've slept with people I didn't have sex with, just as many of us must had sex without staying to sleep over. So is this brave art, or stupid euphemistic twaddle? [OK, did my research, it included teddy bears, grannies and unborn foetuses, so that's OK then]

I admit that is the first time I have let rude language out in my blog, but it's crucial sometimes. W.C. Fields gets quoted as not drinking water because "fish make love in it" - which completely loses the phrasing of the gag - what he originally said was apparently "I never drink water. Fish fuck in it!" Now that's funny...
And British TV doesn't bleep after 9pm, and The Guardian newspaper (the only one, I think) uses that word where appropriate) I think I have to go that way, too - even out here in hypersensitive cyberspace.

C'est la vie (14 Merdre 132 E.P. St Sphincter - profès)

I was on a countdown to Mr Wilson's latest book - with an apparent publishing date of June 1st - but just came across a reference to this not being available until 2005. I hope that's not because Uncle Bob is ill.

Just played through Murray Roman's "A Blind Man's Movie" - but it does sound dated, and doesn't grab me quite as much as "You Can't Beat People Up and Have Them Say I Love You" - but it comes from the days when rude words were bleeped, and is sort of pre-hippie, more like the jazz beats - who thought that being black was the essence of cool - Mailer's "White Negro". Part of the 60s shift was that white boys started scoring their own dope, and playing their own take on the music (so white boy blues got re-exported from the UK to the USA). Hey ho, so it's a period piece, but I was researching the Snow White bit - (see previous posting on 16th May).

need to know basis

Anyone who has met me in person knows that I think the world is made up of greater and smaller conspiracies. I am deliberately picking that unfashionable term because I think it is accurate.

It isn't by chance that 'conspiracy theory' has become linked with the lunatic fringe. There can't be any better place to put it if you are part of the British Establishment (running the City, the Tory Party and the Security services). That way, any hint of insider trading, disinformation, masonic involvement in large contracts, 'jobs for the boys', etc can be dismissed as left-wing paranoia. Magic! They are just conspiracy theorists...

I am reading "Smear" at the moment, which is precisely about this subject in relation to Harold Wilson's Labour government of the 60s - and what a battle he had at the time with the old money and embedded power (and how he has been portrayed as a failure ever since).

Of course, I am fascinated by the lunatic fringe, too. I particularly enjoyed the crop circle nonsense -(try "Round in Circles" by Jim Schnabel for a good chuckle about that). This mostly comes from my interest in how people are capable of believing just about anything (even a Creator god) - and my real interest is whether we can usefully distinguish between these kinds of special interest groups and belief systems - or even say anything useful about 'reality'.

It's still the Dark Ages as far as I am concerned, with tiny pockets of people hanging onto the civilised possibilities of humans - I remember being naive enough to think religion was withering away (!) - when that was just the Church of England.

I still live in hope of an integrated humanity, somewhere out there in the future, with a real grasp of our position as crew of Spaceship Earth, this fragile jewel hanging in space (and equally, the fierce old mother Gaia, quite capable of eating her own young), and our place/role in these complex systems.

But I am getting old, so I know it is probably just the remnant of my youthful 'hippie' dream.

People are crazy.

But if you don't have a lot of time, and want a quick, rational overview try the pocket essentials "Conspiracy Theories" by Robin Ramsay. Short and thorough, and to the point. Or, for the most up-to-date picture, check out his website Lobster.

13 Merdre 132 E.P. Sainte Lunette - solitaire

A little break from work, now, and time to think.

I am currently brooding about Derren Brown's magic of the mind show - so much more interesting to me than David Blaine veering from card tricks to 'hard man' stunts. Derren's show has caused me to rummage back through my brain and books - looking again at NLP (Frogs Into Princes, etc) - mental magic (book tests, billet reading, etc) - Gellerism - etc.

I found sound samples online, of Joseph Dunninger doing radio mentalism back in the 40s. I decided to buy Ian Rowland's book on Cold Reading, as it is supposed to be state-of-the-art. I came across a bit of Chan Canasta in my video archives....

And if I am talking in jargon, you may have to do a little research of your own, because this is a public place, and a lot of people don't want to know how things are done (fair enough). Also this is almost totally theoretical for me, it's not an act I was planning to do - unless I lose this steady little job of course, and find myself back on the street.....

PS: if you wonder what all this calendar stuff is about read this

Amnesty International's 'birthday'

Apparently, Amnesty International was founded on May 28th, 1961.

good work, people - against this ever-rising tide.....

This can't be right! I'm only smart, not a genius....

A few weeks ago I did an online IQ test which I didn't have a lot of faith in - they are dubious enough at the best of times - as it only took a maximum of 13 minutes. I think I took about 10 (and I get credits for being old, too).

It says I am a genius. Normally IQ tests mark me out in the 135 range, but this one gave me 162. I don't believe a word of it (it's too simple a test) but of course I am telling you all about it! I decided to go and look at their breakdown (for a few dollars). Perhaps they just set it on the flattering side to make their bucks.

I am not bragging so much (heh), as asking other people (especially people who have been measured before) to go try, and tell me whether it is hard or not. Perhaps one or two of the questions were similar to things I have seen before, or something...

It's free (unless you want the detailed report) and it takes a maximum of 13 minutes...so try it, and come back and use 'comments' to let me know....

And no, I didn't cheat on the time.....in fact it says I am a slow old thing....I probably shouldn't have gone back for a quick double check of my responses before posting it...

Welcome to the Pentaphiles

I just dropped in on the pentablog and came across a link to this blog, so in case you arrived from there I will give you this link to get back (will this throw the internet into an endless loop?)

The 'Nazi coca-cola' link was in my posting on the 26th May. Mark Thomas is a British equivalent to Michael Moore (kinda) but much funnier, and slimmer, and ruder. But then again, he started off as an alternative stand-up comic.

I don't know if the exhibition is still open to new contributions, but it is certainly already open in London....

This was the invitation
Check out this modern robot toy advert with swastikas(!)
And here is a bit more background about it all - from The Independent
Or check out this book, reviewed at The Edge

I did have a link to Mark Thomas's article in the New Statesman that woke me up to this, but since then the link has changed and takes you to a page which demands a subscription payment. So you'll have to put "coca cola nazi" in Google, scroll down a little to find the New Statesman, and then look at the cached version (if you don't want to pay that is). - and you can enjoy his conversation with the man from McDonald's, talking about corporate responsibility: "I found this conversation incredible. Coca-Cola was being criticised on ethical issues by McDonald's!"

Fighting all over the world

I caught most of a programme last night which sums up the best of what the BBC does. A calmly told story of 16 people around the planet, and what they were doing on 22nd March 2004.

The twist being that they were all involved with wars. Short term, long term, high profile and low profile - if you want details (and to see video clips, etc) go to the BBC's webpage here.

Watch it and weep.

I have managed to stay out of the frontline most of my life - but I fully understand why 'freedom fighters/terrorists' try to draw our attention to the plight of so many other people on the planet. I don't like their means, but I understand their motivations.

Here we all are, complaining about obesity, or traffic jams, or not being paid enough - unaware that we are top of the heap on this planet, living a life of (relative)luxury and (relative) security.

These people can't talk about 'early retirement' or 'unlocking wealth from their mortgage' or 'holidays' - they aren't worried that there is a shortfall in their pension plan. They are lucky to live one more day and get one more meal. I guess it was my realisation about, and identification with, that kind of life (far more common on this planet than middle-class office workers) which forced me to live as humbly as possible. I just felt really uncomfortable with any kind of privilege.

I know it doesn't help them much, to simply 'identify' with people living hand-to-mouth - but I have always felt like a landless serf; I lost (well, mislaid) my dad when I was 5 and my mum when I was 12; hated the religious education (indoctrination); hated the assumption of superiority (white, British); felt completely helpless when confronted by the weight of the opinions of the majority who surrounded me. Although I grew up in a home which my grandad had bought, by the time I was 19 I was homeless, and it has been rented rooms and borrowed sofas, tents and sleeping bags ever since.

It's hard to get a job without an address. It's hard to keep belongings when always on the move. And yet I have had it pretty easy. Look at me, 58 years old, fairly healthy (for my age), reasonably happy (all things considered), relatively secure (now that I work for society rather than myself), and with more happy memories than bad ones.

I shouldn't complain about anything, ever.

11 Merdre St Memnon - vidangeur (cess-pool cleaner)

I have a soft spot for Alfred Jarry - not only was he so far ahead of the game that it is silly (Ubu Roi was published in 1896!) - but he always sounded like a man after my own heart. This is from Barbara Wright's intro in the Gaberbocchus Press edition. "He was a brilliant and original boy, indepependent, curious, eager to live; obstinate, fierce, sarcastic, shy. In 1883 he entered the Lycee at Rennes where he learned with extraordinary ease but would take orders from no-one. He worked when he liked and not otherwise, he was a superb wrecker of classes when he felt inclined; he applied himself to sabotage with wit and intelligence."

I'd bettter go and start on that bottle of absinthe immediately....

10 Merdre St Barbapoux - lover

OK, I'll change calendars again, soon. It's just the insanity that surrounds me that tends to push me back off into absurdist realms. Just as I find it hard to talk to people about money (if they think it's real), I am finding it very hard to talk to people about what is going on in Iraq.

Have you seen that Major General Geoffrey Miller! Makes General Jack D. Ripper look almost human. He doesn't need dogs to scare prisoners, surely. Even military dogs must run away with their tails between their legs, whimpering, if he gives them a 'look'. I mean, that's not just the school bully, that's surely a psychopath.

And no, I am not qualified to assess people, especially not just by their looks and their voice, and sure, it's just my opinion...but did you also see Donald Rumsfeld saying "I've stopped reading the papers - I'm a survivor" and doing that smug shit-eating grin, hoping the soldiers will see him as "well hard". What an asshole - no class at all. If it wasn't for the fact that they would jump on me, hack my computer, do a character assassination and bust me with no human rights I would hint that those are the kind of politicians that need assassinating. (Is that incitement to crime? I dunno). I never felt that way about anyone before, except perhaps Mrs Thatcher who messed this country up completely (and we still are suffering the consequences, even now).

I don't think ranting or radical politics is the right approach, but I have no game-plan for geting rid of such entrenched stupidity/arrogance/greed. I am just a humble peasant, mumbling under my breath as the Sheriff of Nottingham rides by.

Oh,and PS to the rant below

I am currently getting a daily Theosophical quote. No, I don't belong, yes my dad did for a bit when he was young, no I don't think they are right about everything, yes I am glad they brought Eastern religious insights to the West, no I don't think everything they believe is true, yes I know the Nazis used some of their ideas (but they used Darwin as well) - I could do this all night - anyway, today's quote seemed right, when I realise I may be seriously upsetting family and friends with my ranting:

There is more courage in facing the world with undisguised truth,
than in descending into a wild beast's den.

Farewell to Arms....

I went for a farewell drink with a library staff member who has given up on our neglected and underfunded service, and gone to get a proper job.

I enjoyed it, even if this was the second night this week, of drinking too much.

When home, I always sober up before going to sleep (my only good tip for not having hangovers). Unfortunately I ended up watching yet another programme about US torture. I can't be surprised at this particular stuff - appalled, yes. Soldiers have to learn to do horrific stuff.

I am a bit startled to hear soldier's attorney's using the "they were only following orders" defence - as over here in the UK we have always used that line as a sick comedy line about certain Germans during the second world war (sic) who tried to deny any human moral responsibility with that defence. Like, you shouldn't defy bad orders...

And I understand what kind of personal threat THEY were under if they didn't follow orders, of course. The British have been shooting or humiliating deserters and conscientious objecters for centuries. It isn't just Israeli Intelligence inventing torture methods - a lot of them were honed by the British while building an empire, and some were (closer to home) really polished up in Ireland (which I take a bit more personally). And the religious aspect can't be left out. Christians have famously tortured anyone who got in their way for centuries. As an atheist with witchy tendencies I would have been burned at the stake anywhere in the last few hundred years "to save my soul". Check out the Spanish Inquisition.

When the Cathars quietly pointed out that this 'God' seemed to be a minor, arrogant, bullying demiurge (a local planetary ruler) in this great unknown universe, (really just a demon or fallen angel) they found themselves in a Hell of eternal torment staffed by Christians....When they said this life was a fall of spirit into matter, and that this life was the low point, a purgatory, they found themselves condemned to live through the Christian's own image of hell STAGED by Christians. What is that description of hell (demons with hot pokers, etc)? Where did you end up in this life, if you didn't believe that was where you ended up after death? Right. A torture chamber. Magic, huh? You don't believe in our Hell? We'll show you....

You may wonder why I quote surrealists and 'pataphysicians, but it's because (to me) most of the debates are avoiding the obvious, denying any straight human thinking, so basically absurd and completely evasive. And they always have been. I didn't want that 'British Empire' training (Church and State joined), which is why I dropped out in The Sixties. I am not claiming to have done a lot of good since then, but (Hippocratic Oath) at least I tried to minimize the harm I did, while being (unavoidably) a white English-speaking male.

And although I am glad this stuff is coming to light, I am really shocked both at the prurient 'reality tv' aspect, and at the hypocrisy of the people who funded it all - in denying that they knew the kind of tactics being employed.

'Rules of war' always made me laugh (I come from the first sick joke generation) - surely if you can agree on rules you could agree on an alternative to fighting - once you are fighting there can't be any rules "Rules?In a knife fight? No rules!".

When I was growing up we were told the Germans and the Japanese ignored the Geneva Convention - sure, and the British aren't famous as possibly the best at dirty tricks....we won fair and square. Sure.

Sick to my stomach - and now sober - I am going to bed.

Fanta for Nazis

yay for Mark Thomas, who is putting on an exhibition of art with the theme of Coca Cola's connection to the Nazis.

Now on in London

9 Merdre - Vidange

I have been playing my old game of look for my friends in the library. It's the old-fashioned version of putting your name in Google.

When I first started working here I found one of my dad's books in The Stacks; I found my friend Mick on the last page of Coincidences, by Brian Inglis, and in the Encyclopedia of Social Inventions; then I found a picture of me performing in "The Masterpiece:Award-Winning Fishknife" with Bruce McLean and Michael Nyman (don't ask); I found Caroline Noh in the Local Studies dept - when she worked with Moving Being; I know I am in the New Statesman (Covent Garden Hat Fair article) but I have no idea what date; a couple of days ago I found John Trigger on a video.

Of course, show business is like that. If I looked for people I have known or worked with I would find dozens (Jim Henson, David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg etc et name-dropping cetera....) So I restrict this kind of stuff to my personal friends and other minor show biz folks....

8 MERDRE 132 E.P. COCUAGE DE M. LE P. UBU

I am using the 'Pataphysical calendar, just to confuse the issue. (The world seems to have gone mad).

Went drinking last night with Jules - ended up in a subCULTure of which I was unaware here in Cardiff. Short film makers. Now I know the Star Wars fans do 'fan films', and I was only recently filmed for a low budget vampire movie called "Dornröschen" being made by some German friends, but I didn't realise it was thriving so close to home.

Always surprised afresh by humans.

Late British comedian Spike Milligan, the creator of landmark radio series The Goon Show, has finally been given his choice of inscription on his gravestone -

"I told you I was ill".

Two years after Milligans's death at the age of 83, the epitaph has been added to a Celtic cross above his grave at St Thomas's Church in Winchelsea, southeast England, it was announced on Monday.

The headstone carries the sentence in Gaelic - Milligan's family originated in Ireland - which the comedian had always joked was his chosen final message to the world.

Music of the spheres (and listening to Keili)

I was ducking out of a party tonight, and downloading some bits of music from Keili's site. (look under Audio)
I am really enjoying Settingrine (got it on a loop).

Go listen.

Elephants limp free at last

I have been involved with non-animal circuses, and I am a lifelong vegetarian, so I have never really enjoyed zoos or animal circuses ever since I became conscious of other beings....although, when I was young,it was fascinating to be taken backstage at the London Zoo, and handle snakes and baby alligators and stuff.

I just always felt real empathy for fellow mammals. It's the eyes. I wasn't brought up to think humans were a 'special creation'. We're mammals.

So it was excellent to hear from Crissie that a couple of middle-age elephants are going to walk free. Detroit Zoo is letting 45-year-old Wanda and 51-year-old Winky go to a more spacious sanctuary, with other elephants for company. It's like hearing Nelson Mandela was getting out. No-one could ever apologise enough - the thing was to go forward, and use what time is left. Mr Mandela's ability to forgive was what was so impressive.

I hope the elephants can forgive us, even if they can't forget...

And it reminds me that the very first show that made me want to be a performer was Le Grand Magic Circus (no animals), who had on their poster the subtitle "et ses animaux tristes" - or, in English, "with it's sad-eyed animals" - who were the human performers, of course.

mammals, all... "I miss my mammary!"....."Thanks for the mammaries..."

KINKS

Ray Davis was on the box the other night, he's making a solo album. A fellow Muswell Hillbilly, I have always had a certain affection for the band that didn't break into America. Hard enough for the Beatles (more famous than Jesus) or The Stones (attitude), but to get banned just because your name sounded 'kinky' (sigh)

Anyway, he kept that English music-hall feel, and I loved it. Of course, I realise how old I am, and how overlooked they are when they played Waterloo Sunset and Julie (quite a lot younger) said that she always thought that was a Beatle song...

The one real flash for me was Celluloid Heroes - I forgot what an utterly brilliant song it was, and how I sang it (off and on) through the 70s when I was trying to get into show biz.

Everybody's a dreamer and everybody's a star,
And everybody's in movies, it doesn't matter who you are.
There are stars in every city,
In every house and on every street,
And if you walk down Hollywood Boulevard
Their names are written in concrete!

Lots of wonderful rueful gags about stars being walked all over by tourists...ending in:

I wish my life was a non-stop Hollywood movie show,
A fantasy world of celluloid villains and heroes,
Because celluloid heroes never feel any pain
And celluloid heroes never really die.

Now I remember why I don't want a mobile phone...

Crissie sent me a photo in that old-school Auguste clown outfit I was given as my role in The Raree Show back in 1973 - a costume which alternated with Gloria, the friendly Gorilla, (and that character costume, with 4 inches of padding ALL OVER was a great persona/outfit for learning acrobatics and pratfalls). In the photo we are grabbing a sandwich and a beer after a show, and she is 'taking a call' on my mobile phone. It was an old-style phone (we are talking 30 years ago) and it was pinned into the 'magician' back pocket of my tail-coats.

It was a gag about being interrupted when you are concentrating...I've enjoyed the same gag in Father Ted, when the people he rings are skiing, or driving fast, or whatever, and totally, disastrously, distracted from what they were doing when the phone goes...

At 'wrong' moments in my street show my mobile would ring, and give me the chance to take a call from anyone on the planet; or even turn to the crowd and ask "If there is a John here?" - Yeh? - It's for you....and then stand, phone coming out of jacket on short wire, while some poor guy would try to improvise a phone conversation. Hey. some of them were great - and it gave me breathing space, too. It's hard work doing a solo street show, especially on your own.

Walking unwillingly into work on a bright blue day

It reminded me of the joys of self-employment (I would have given myself the day off).

It also reminded me of the story about George Santayana (adjusted for May, and no inheritance!)

The philosopher had received a sizable legacy and decided to retire from the faculty. The room was packed for his final appearance and the lecture went very well. During his concluding remarks, he glanced through the window at a forsythia that was beginning to blossom in a patch of muddy snow. He stopped abruptly, picked up his hat, gloves and walking stick, and made for the door. Then he turned and softly said,

"Gentlemen, I shall not be able to finish that sentence. I have just discovered that I have an appointment with April."

Ah, sorry, yes - Old hippies only will remember this

I mentioned Murray Roman, without thinking how obscure that reference might be. He was a comic in the 60's. We were easily pleased - a comedy record with great music riffs, stereo sound effects, subversive jokes - it seemed great to me at the time.

More like Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In than Lenny Bruce, and yes, I guess a touch of George Carlin. I tracked down a worn old vinyl album of "You Can't Beat People Up and Have Them Say I Love You", but I can't fully get the stereo sound out yet - it was made to play on Mono or Stereo record needles (!)

Anyway - I thought it was funny, even the 60's bits that sound sexist today...non-PC though they are. Here's a reference if you care, and here's a little quote from that site:

Murray Roman's masterpiece of sick comedy was to title an album "Blind Man's Movie" and issue it with a completely black front and back cover, and a black gatefold.
His albums are more hip than dark, as he tried unsuccessfully to be the Lenny Bruce of the late 60's. But the late Mr. Roman often had a dark, telling line or two. From his first switched-on comedy album (he liked to collage rock music between the bits) there's this little gem: "Hey, why doncha call the police department at three o'clock in the morning and speak to them in German. If they answer in German, you got 'em, babe..."
It was Roman, by the way, not Carlin, who first thought up the idea of a drugged out version of Snow White: "Get high one day and read it. Sleepy would be a downer freak, into Seconals, droppin' up all day. Dopey would be a grass smoker...Sneezy was a coke sniffer. Grumpy was a speed freak. Happy was an acid head: "I love you, I love you." Bashful was a juicer. And Doc was the connection. Dig where that is. And Snow White...was their fantasy!"

Oil prices up? No surprise there, then

Steve Grad and his buddies were shocked at the price of petrol (gasoline) here in the UK. Of course, they got a bad exchange rate (weak dollar against the pound) - but we are not subsidised in the same way that the Americans have always been. I am not saying we pay the 'real cost' of course (the real cost to the planet is something much bigger).

The papers are full of how, if the war in Iraq was about oil resources, then it has backfired, with the prices soaring.

I think that's crazy. What makes you think George Bush and Bin Laden and the other oil billionaires are fighting to reduce prices at the pumps, for the ordinary consumer?

The price of oil going up might well be exactly the desired outcome, if you are invested in oil.

Or am I missing something? Perhaps they want to save the planet by reducing our dependency on cars and planes?

Remembered this quote, and tracked it down....

"It's easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting."

– Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity
If more Christians were like this, I would have a lot more respect for organised religion.

Applying Jesus’ Economics

Habitat’s economic philosophy is based upon what Fuller calls the “economics of Jesus.” The no-profit, no-interest components of the program come from a passage in the Bible (Exodus 22:25) that says those lending money to the poor should not act as a creditor and charge interest.

PS to Bob's thang (or is that thong?) - see previous post, below

I guess I am just similarly ambiguous about women and relationships, and moving towards 60 myself...

Run this by me again. Victoria's Secret is pornographic? It's a lingerie catalogue for f sake. That used to be jerk-off material back in the 50s when there was nothing else, but nowadays I see sexier women advertised as accessories to a car (by implication).

Sorry? It's the guys who are sad is it? Not the women who want "a man of wealth and taste"? Not the women who wax and paint and dress and act and simper and fake orgasms to get what they want? See, I can do boring old pig-bloke, no problem.

Personally, I think women mostly dress up for other women, but I could be wrong. After all, blokeish 'blokes' don't even notice a new hairstyle or new shoes. It sometimes seems to me that most women want a 'real man' except when they are grooming, in which case they are more 'fag-hag' and just wish guys cared about clothes and hair and perfume, and cleaning house, and relating, etc. Male models have designer stubble (a bit of rough), husbands have to be clean-shaven.

I am just writing to annoy, of course (which doesn't mean I don't think this stuff). It triggered a memory of "You Can't Beat People Up and Have Them Say I Love You" by Murray Roman [a 60s comedy album). He had a bit about the difference between the magazines men look at, and the magazines women look at. To paraphrase him "All the women we dig have tits!" You look at Vogue, or something, with (as it was then) Twiggy, and you can see "that it's a dyke thing", no tits. Weird.

A woman gardener in the UK doesn't wear a bra, and all the women viewers are up in arms - didn't we sort this out 30-40 years ago? (and at least their men folk now join them in watching the gardening programme!) Then I tune into "Sex and The City" and topless jiggling and nipple outline is apparently OK in these particular role models.

I'll never claim to understand.

Bob gets people's knickers in a twist

I came across a thing yesterday, that Bob was not just selling one of his tunes to advertising, but actually appearing in a Victoria's Secret ad!

Well weird, but quite funny. Why people are shocked, I don't know. Perhaps because they still describe him as Bob Dylan the protest singer (!) which is only a 40 year out of date description...and they forget he has a sense of humour, or might just fancy hanging out in Venice with a load of models (could do worse).

This is it. And here's a slightly saner comment on the uproar...emphasising that there are more important things to be getting upset about...as for the real hysterics, hinting that it is a paedophile ad - ah come on people, not all paedophiles are over-60, and those models are certainly not under 16 (Adriana Lima is 23) so what ARE you on about? Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones together in a movie? (even bigger age gap than Michael Douglas the husband...) These are grown-ups for goodness sake...and Bob ain't claiming to be wiser (that was the arrogant speed freak adolescent) - he seems to be having fun. Is that so bad?

And it could be as simple as this:

"Behind it all, this is a very funny joke, and those who would criticize Dylan for what he's done should lighten up. At a December 3, 1965 press conference in San Francisco, Dylan was asked: "If you were going to sell out to a commercial interest, which one would you choose?" After a brief pause, the 24-year-old Dylan replied, "Ladies garments." It was funny then, and it's even funnier now, nearly 40 years later, in light of the Victoria's Secret commercial. Dylan is an immortal artist of Shakespearean stature who has always walked to his own drummer, and anyone who expects him to nurse a guilty conscience over something so inconsequential and amusing will be disappointed."
Brantley Brock

And here's the track list of the CD you can buy at VS shops....

And advertising is getting people talking. it worked, didn't it? I hope Bill Hicks would allow Bob to be an honorary Willie Nelson.....for the gag...or is that for the gaga?

The Masters of Wisdom

I have been getting a Theosophy quote of the day email for a bit. I liked this, today:

Like signal-fires of the olden times, which, lighted and
extinguished by turns upon one hill-top after another, conveyed
intelligence along a whole stretch of country, so we see a long line
of "wise" men from the beginning of history down to our own times
communicating the word of wisdom to their direct successors.

- Isis Unveiled, II, 571 HPB

I realise that there is a certain chauvinism in this, but the same thing could be said about women's 'mysteries' being passed down the generations, too. It's just the major religions which seem to have become dominated by men. Is that typical? Not the skills of midwifery and cooking and interpersonal skills, etc. No, men are out there doing useful stuff like speculating about whether the universe is finite or infinite, and whether there is a creator or not. The important things in life. fnord

All good stuff

Great connections...Jay signed into the Guest Book (for lack of a published email address); Crissie sent me a couple of pictures of Raree Show days (I'll stick them up when I get a chance), which took me back to 1973; Keili added a comment, so I know he is alive and kicking out there, working on his album and on his website, etc.

Julie finished her old job today, is taking a bit of leave, and then will start her new job - more flexible hours, standby mode (sleeping) a lot of the time...

Brand new Blogger

I am at work today, so I will not be able to play with this - but Blogger seems to have launched a brand new version, and my templates and all that stuff may soon change.

There is a comments option, and all sorts of new stuff like that.

More about the blog's title

Here's an online encyclopedia on memes - language as a virus, etc

Well, well, well...

Anyone who knows me knows that I spend a lot of time thinking - hacking the biocomputer - and also thinking about thinking, learning how to learn, etc. What else is there to do? They can take away my stuff, or I can abandon it, or lose it, but even in solitary you have your biocomputer. That's probably why they torture people, I guess. If you are not torturing people to extract specific information, then you are doing it (maybe) just for kicks, or to demoralise the person (stop them thinking clearly).

There's not a lot you can do about being captured by sadists, of course, but I am startled at the response to (possibly fake) photos of soldiers tormenting prisoners. I know about the so-called 'discipline' of armies, but since when did you send a lot of testosterone filled young men into an adrenaline situation which they might not survive, and not expect them to do a bit of 'raping and pillaging'. I don't approve, of course, but I am hardly surprised.

[update 14th] Here's someone putting that point better.... "To attribute the scandal at Abu Ghraib to "a few bad apples" or to "individual failures" is poor psychology and self-serving pseudomorality. "

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

Anyway - I riffled through a book called software for the brain, and I liked this quote:

I believe you can get everything you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want." Zig Ziglar (whoever, or whatever that is - sounds like someone from H2G2).

Star Wars pilgrimage

It was great to talk to Steve Grad and the guys last night - they've travelled a long way to meet up with us all, and I am still very honoured that people should go out of their way to come and meet me.

Thanks guys - it was a great evening - hope to meet you again sometime.

Dylan was very funny last night

As Julie doesn't like Bob Dylan, I bought her tickets to Dylan Moran instead...(I'll go see Bob with someone who appreciates him).

He was excellent, very funny. Touches of Bill Hicks (onstage drinking and smoking in front of an audience who can't, general misanthropy), and (the rambling approach) Eddie Izzard...but I don't really like comparisons.

He is hilarious in Black Books, anyway, and a lot of the crowd had come because of that television show...but we had both seen him do ten minutes of stand-up on tv, before...so a whole evening was a real treat. Only problem, I drank too much wine (in honour of the occasion) so it's a little hard this morning.

Coen Brothers' dialogue

'I'm not Mr Lebowski, you're Mr. Lebowski. I'm The Dude. So that's what you call me. That, or His Dudeness, or Duder, or, you know, El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing.'

Oz Tentacles -

A bit of random browsing led me to notice that "Oz: a rock and roll road movie" is finally being issued on DVD.

This was the movie made by friends of mine in London (the people who let me live in the shed at the bottom of their garden) which I thought was very funny indeed, but it got a bit overshadowed by the release of The Wiz (!)

In this version the Cowardly Lion is a timid Hell's Angel, the Scarecrow is a spaced-out surfer, the Tin Man is a greasy mechanic, the Wizard is a Bowie-like rock star, the Wicked Witch of the North is a sinister truck/truck driver......I leave the rest to your imagination....

I even tracked down a copy in an OZ video store a while ago, but couldn't talk them into selling it to me. So FINALLY I can get to see it again. It's a pre-order for May 19th

Recommended!

Big hello to Chris Lofven and Lyne Helms!

Beta Testing Gmail

Because everyone seems to be worried about the ads tied to free email in Gmail, I thought I'd put in a few buzz words to find out, and guess what? It picked up my address from the sig file. This is what I put in, and I got tourist information for Cardiff...

Amazon books

William Burroughs

Neurolinguistic programming

movies

Lord of the Rings

owls

laughter

What will Google make of that?

Toby Philpott

Cardiff Libraries CMT

Living, working and sleeping in the library...

I was much amused by the story of the guy who lived in the library at NYU, as a way to economize and get to stay in school.

They found his blog so the truth is out, but they have been very civilized about it and re-housed him for free.

And talking of change...

Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: One. But only if, deep down, the light bulb is willing to change.

How Real is Real?

On my ebay ID page I have a picture of me reading a book with this title, back in 1986 (when I was 40!) It is a great book about communication and reality - not dry, but funny and thought-provoking.

I also recommend The Situation is Hopeless, but Not Serious (The Pursuit of Unhappiness)
It was from this book (and various texts of R.D.Laing) that I developed my resistance to the Catch-22 of the 'Be Spontaneous' command, i.e.

'The author finally unsheathes the most powerful weapon of all in his armamentarium, the "Be Spontaneous" Paradox. It's use is demonstrated below by two unhappiness experts: "Do you love me?"
"Yes."
"If you really loved me, you'd say so without my asking you."

Any request or command for a spontaneous act will cause other persons to be unable to perform the act spontaneously. Whether it's to: "Go to sleep", "Show me you love me", "Be happy", or even "Do a good job", the mere gracing of their ears with the request will make it difficult or impossible for them to perform as requested. This is the reason why actors before a stage performance are told to "Break a leg". Since breaking a leg can only happen spontaneously, it will not happen on command, and the actors are not stuck in the exquisite "Be Spontaneous" paradox of being wished to "Perform well tonight". Even the simple request by a photographer to "Smile" will evoke a faked or posed smile in place of a genuine one. True unhappiness enthusiasts are experts at the "Be Spontaneous" paradox. '


Paul Watzlawick doesn't seem to be around in his website much, but there is one page still active.

Happy Landings...

good to hear that Rachel and Keili have arrived safely back - and good to hear about all the news.

And who knew that Mr Copeland might now be into bellydancing.... I guess it's the 'coming thing'...it's always good to be on the wave...

R.H.Blyth and the Zen Classics

When I lived in London, I used to go to the Camden Library a lot. It was very well stocked, and at the Holborn branch they had a complete set of R.H.Blyth's Haiku books (the four seasons) as well as his Zen in English Literature book. Wonderful, dry witty stuff - not the new age approach to oriental culture.

On the Web, this seems to be the quote from him which is most often remembered:

"Thus we see that the all important thing is not killing or giving life, drinking or not drinking, living in the town or the country, being unlucky or lucky, winning or losing. It is how we win, how we lose, how we live or die, finally, how we choose."

So I'll stick in a bit of his translation, too:

THE HSIN HSIN MING

There is nothing difficult about the Great Way,
But, avoid choosing!
Only when you neither love nor hate,
Does it appear in all clarity.

A hair's breadth of deviation from it,
And deep gulf is set between heaven and earth.
If you want to get hold of what it looks like,
Do not be anti- or pro- anything.

The conflict of longing and loathing, --
This is the disease of the mind.
Not knowing the profound meaning of things,
We disturb our peace of mind to no purpose.

John Lilly crossed my mind today

I was much interested in Lilly's work. I have never swum with dolphins, but his books about dolphin research (done as if they were at least as smart as us, if not more so - rather than 'dumb animals') kept my spirits up throughoout the 1970s.

That such a smart brain might believe that something could be learned from taking LSD, rather than just lost, was helpful, too. Although I must admit his experiments with 'Vitamin K' (what he shyly called ketamine at the time) did seem to have taken him into some far out places. And he was putting implants into monkey brains when he started out, having survived a Catholic upbringing, and was into a high protein (meat) diet - so he wasn't entirely a 'nice man' or hippie guru....

"In the province of connected minds, what the network believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the network's mind there are no limits."

The Times they are a'changing

Cardiff Library has added an electronic newspaper search (for members only) to the website. There are various papers in digital form for the last ten years, but there is also The Times archive, going back a couple of hundred years. As a test I checked my family out. I found a tv listing for me working with Justin Case and Peter Wear in 1980; I found three theatre reviews which mentioned my mum favourably from the 50s; I found the actual listing for my dad's tv puppets in 1932. That was in the radio listings, and actually says that between 11-11.30 there will be a "Television broadcast by the Baird process (vision); A.R.Philpott;Rosemary Reynolds (dancer);Jack Crosbie (cartoons);Cyril Smith (accompanist) (Sound on 395.9m)"

Virus theme perpetuates itself

Following the theme of the blog I have actually left out one obvious link, and that is to Richard Dawkins' comment that religion is (or resembles) a virus. I hasten to point out that this is not to do with denying a sense of mystery at the root of universe, or even of mystical experiences - more to do with the passing on (unchanged) of arbitrary beliefs and rituals by society's institutions.

Memes - viruses of the mind

More on the Blog's title

These are Laurie Anderson's words to 'Language is a Virus' on Home of the Brave.

"Paradise Is exactly like
Where you are right now
Only much much
Better.
I saw this guy on the train
And he seemed to gave gotten stuck
In one of those abstract trances.
And he was going: "Ugh...Ugh...Ugh..."
And Fred said: "I think he's in some kind of pain.
I think it's a pain cry." And I said:
"Pain cry? Then language is a virus."
Language! It's a virus!
Language! It's a virus!
Well I was talking to a friend
And I was saying: I wanted you.
And I was looking for you.
But I couldn't find you.
I couldn't find you.
And he said: Hey!
Are you talking to me? Or are you just practicing
For one of those performances of yours?
Huh?
Language! It's a virus!
Language! It's a virus!
He said: I had to write that letter to your mother.
And I had to tell the judge that it was you.
And I had to sell the car and go to Florida.
Because that's just my way of saying (It's a charm.)
That I love you.
And I (It's a job.) Had to call you at the crack of dawn (Why?)
And list the times that I've been wrong.
Cause that's just my way of saying
That I'm sorry. (It's a job.)
Language! It's a virus!
Language! It's a virus!
Paradise Is exactly like
Where you are right now
Only much much (It's a shipwreck,)
Better. (It's a job.)
You know? I don't believe there's such a thing as TV.
I mean - They just keep showing you The same pictures over and over.
And when they talk they just make sounds
That more or less synch up With their lips.
That's what I think!
Language! It's a virus!
Language! It's a virus!
Language! It's a virus!
Well I dreamed there was an island
That rose up from the sea.
And everybody on the island
Was somebody from TV.
And there was a beautiful view
But nobody could see.
Cause everybody on the island
Was saying: Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!
Because they all lived on an island
That rose up from the sea.
And everybody on the island
Was somebody from TV.
And there was a beautiful view
But nobody could see.
Cause everybody on the island
Was saying: Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Why? Paradise is exactly like
Where you are right now
Only much much better. "

Does that help?

Here's a neat spin-off

I mentioned Gmail (Google's new webmail concept) on April 5th. Now, as a regular blogger, I have been invited to test Google's new email concept in beta.

Far out!

If you want to help me test it you can write to me at toby.philpott@gmail.com

A lot more words to go with what is below

I have grabbed a larger chunk from RAW's book, from the section on language as a conspiracy:

Language as a mind-control device has been discussed by such philosophers as Vico (18th century), Stirner and Nietzsche (19th century), and Wittgenstein (lOth century). The most radical scientific critics of language in our time include Count Alfred Korzybski and Dr. Richard Bandler.

Korzybski, who grew up in a house where four languages were spoken (Polish, Russian, French, German) and learned English much later, observed that the words we use influence our perceptions and conceptions of the world-e.g., even in the same language, a book may be called "realistic" by one reader and "pornographic" by another, and each will tend to perceive/conceive the book that way more and more automatically if they repeat their label ( "realistic" or "pornographic") over and over. This underlies the mechanism of hypnosis, as Dr. Bandler discovered later. It also explains why you won't make much progress preaching radical equality to somebody who continually uses the word "nigger," or defending the first amendment to somebody who keeps saying "smut" (or "sexism").

But Korzybski made a more radical discovery, namely, that our perceptions/conceptions (reality-tunnels) are also shaped the structure of the language we use. A Native American, African, a Chinese, etc. - anyone using a non-Indo-Europe, language structure - will live in a different universe than those who only know Indo-European. Considering mathematics a language, Korzybski also claimed that the mathematically literate live in a different semantic system than those who only know verbal structures.
From these starting points, Korzybski arrived at a devastating diagnosis of most of our culture's habitual linguistic structures (which he called neurolinguistic structures because they act as the software with which our nervous systems, including our brains, process data). Our worst habit, he thought, lay in the constant assumption of identity implied in most uses of the verb "is. " Such sentences as "The photon is a wave," "The photon is a particle," "Beethoven is better than Mozart," "The thing I saw was a spaceship," would become, in Korzybski's system, "The photon behaved like a wave when measured with this experimental apparatus," "The photon behaved like a particle when measured with this different apparatus," "Beethoven seems better than Mozart to me," "The thing I saw seemed like a spaceship to me. "
English including "is" and its cognates ("was," "be," "will be," etc.) appears as E in the writing of some of Korzybski's students, and English without "is" and its cognates appears as E' (pronounced E-prime.)

I keep forgetting how shocking this blog's title might seem...

Here's a quote from "Everything is Under Control" by Robert Anton Wilson

Novelist William S. Burroughs, who studied general semantics with Korzybski, has developed these notions into the surrealist theme of language as an invading virus, found in most of his novels. This virus, according to Burroughs, creates our thoughts, feelings, and sense impressions. Without the virus metaphor, Korzybski would agree, and so would Dr. Richard Bandler.
Dr. Bandler, out of the study of Korzybski and the verbal structures used by Dr. Milton Erickson (often considered the hypnotist of his time), developed Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), which shows how verbal structures create the world we think we live in…….

Magic Words

I came across a paper copy of Magic Words by Nalungiaq - a poem both Mick and I loved a lot - we found it in "Shaking the Pumpkin" Ed:Jerome Rothenburg (Doubleday/Anchor) but I see it has escaped to the Web:

Follow your Bliss!

I was always a great fan of Joseph Campbell. I read the Hero with a Thousand Faces in Crete; I worked my way through all four volumes of Masks of God; I have read smaller works like Myths To Live By. He suffered poverty and unemployment and simply retreated into studying all the great myths and legends, which he said were sufficient to pull him through. I remember an interview with a Macrobiotic magazine, who wanted to steer him towards diet, and he said his diet of books was his only yoga.

I mention this because I am digging back through old notes about the four elements, which originally led me to study astrology for a couple of years. Nothing to do with predictions, and cosmic influences, I hasten to add! I was fascinated by such a complex and ancient system of description of cycles - life cycles, planetary cycles - the measure of time, and the qualities of different times and seasons; and of psychological types, as well as phases of life. It was a rich source of myth - and it was story-telling that I was investigating.

I find it sad that people do not understand how myths can be 'truer' and more resonant than simple historical events.

It's worth looking at the 2003 Blavatsky Lecture if you are interested in myths and mystical experience (rather than dogma, whether religious or New Age).

"Every occultist worth his or her salt is a romantic, be they aware of this or not. Whether they be called William Blake, Eliphas Levi, or Mme. Blavatsky, and before them Valentinus, Basilides, and Ammonius Saccus, all such persons were primarily concerned not with passing on factual information but with engendering that majestic sense of wonder that one glimpses to a minor degree in sunsets, grand landscapes, fairy tales, and hoary legends, and to a major degree in great art and in the experience of the 'wholly other' in ecstasies of the spirit.
Mystics and Gnostics speak the language of myth, not of cold logic or scientific fact. Yet it must be remembered that some such persons have the misfortune to live in an age that has an inadequate appreciation of myth. The author of The Secret Doctrine belonged in this category. There was no word in the dictionary of nineteenth century intellectuals for 'psychological model of the cosmos'; C. G. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and their fellows had not come upon the scene yet to rehabilitate myth and symbol. What was H.P. Blavatsky to do?"

"Myth was the favourite and universal method of teaching in archaic times. [3]
Fairy tales do not exclusively belong to nurseries; all mankind - except those few who in all ages have comprehended their hidden meaning, and tried to open the eyes of the superstitious - have listened to such tales in one shape or other, and after transforming them into sacred symbols, called the product Religion. [4]
There are few myths in any religious system but have an historical as well as a scientific foundation. Myths ... are now found to be fables just in proportion as we misunderstand them; truths, in proportion as they were once understood. [5]" Isis Unveiled HPB

And in Joseph Campbell's last interview, with Bill Moyers, you'll find the Star Wars link which brings it all full circle:

"Moyers also finds the perfect hook for a global audience, examining Campbell's admiration of George Lucas's Star Wars saga as a popular tapestry of ancient myths, and Lucas himself is interviewed in a DVD bonus segment ("I'm not creating a new myth," he says, "but telling old myths in a new way"). Campbell's seemingly endless well of knowledge reaches a simple conclusion: we need myths to survive like we need oxygen to breathe, as a life force with which to understand our existence--past, present, and future."

It makes you wonder...

I just watched some martial arts demos on Eurosport. It's strange - I love physical prowess, but this weird mixture just puzzles me. If Bruce Lee wasn't just special effects then why does the grand final involve the bigger guy kicking the smaller guy around and winning on 'points'?

All the Wu Shu guys come on in Las Vegas glitter and fanny around with 'real swords' and other weapons (only one drop) - and it IS astounding (like good circus) but it's just show biz. And the 'breaking skills of Karate'? Well, at Oval House circus workshops in the 1970s people showed me how to break a slab of concrete on my chest while lying on a bed of nails (and hey, I ain't spiritual, it's physics) - hell, back in the early 60s (at my magic club) I broke a pole hanging on paper loops hanging off open razors (it's physics). We did walking on broken glass (not my kind of macho act) and all that jazz.

I am sure these guys are sincere, and they certainly are extremely fit, but as a show it has uneasy echoes of sado-masochistic stuff that appealed to Yukio Mishima. Isn't this Marine life entertainment (setting your balls on fire in the shower)?

So, I am not denying the skill, just the spiritual bullshit. Some people do fire-walking and get religion. Others do fire-walking and get a living. The first guy (in Mexico) who taught me to eat fire said I just needed to believe him it was going to be OK the FIRST TIME. I did, I did it, and it fed me for the following decade.

Like that dare that made me run my finger through a candle flame when I was a kid.

I've seen strong men acts you wouldn't believe. Bending 6" nails with hands; tearing a telephone directory in half (I managed it a couple of times after I was shown a few tricks); tearing a pack of cards in half (same principles, but I couldn't do it). I've seen a guy bend a long strip of metal stuck into his larynx...(nice physics and a lot of chutzpah).

I'm not putting it down - it's dangerous (don't try this at home) but not a lot of it is 'spiritual' unless I misunderstood.

And then the Shaolin Monks came on. They're good. I mean, they are astounding. Same quibbles hold as all of the above, but they are REALLY good at it. But so are a lot of my circus friends and freaks.

TA-DAH!

Here's Bob again:

Too much of nothing
Can turn a man into a liar,
It can cause one man to sleep on nails
And another man to eat fire.
Ev'rybody's doin' somethin',
I heard it in a dream,
But when there's too much of nothing,
It just makes a fella mean.

Or, in terms of - passing our time down here - should it be:

Ev'rybody's building the big ships and the boats,
Some are building monuments,
Others, jotting down notes,
Ev'rybody's in despair,
Ev'ry girl and boy
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here,
Ev'rybody's gonna jump for joy.

Waving to Keili

Hi - found your posts in 'Spooking The Herd' and gave brief reply. Sorry to hear the back is still bad, and glad you have been updating your corrupted models - I keep on working on that stuff, too.

I also feel better about the surprising copy of Word Virus, with Masonic bookmarks, that just appeared on my desktop in a puff of yellow smoke.

Ah, spring!

Lovely sunny day, and a day when it would be better working for a circus than a library. I could be out there, drinking coffee in the sun, tightening the rigging with my shirt off, doing a bit of warming up and practising.

Hey ho, instead I will go into a sealed, air-conditioned room with permanent background hum, and fluorescent lights. Today it may feel like a prison.

Conflicting impressions

I have a lot of trouble matching up my sensibilities to the world. I can end up in an all-nighter arguing about the best way to manipulate your resources within the UK, so as to be able to retire to a country cottage with roses around the door - (I doubt it is easy, or even possible for me) - and at the same time defending what I might do if I ever get to be 'old' without a 'pension' - and then I go read a book like "A Mathematician Plays the Market" (which shows a rational maths person getting drawn into the feeding frenzy and irrational beliefs about easy money) - and finally open my email from the Open Democracy site about the appalling plight of people in Falluja - right this moment in present time - which makes even a dribbling retirement in a bed-sit on an inadequate pension sound like luxury. Because we are not living in a war zone.

To tell people they shouldn't make plans because the world is a random and terrible place, that humans are unpredictable and (often) untrustworthy is seen as talking down the future - as though just trying to be accurate creates a negative self-fulfilling prophecy...

There's a grain of truth in it, of course, but as our modern market is all about confidence and faith I suppose people really do believe they can 'wish' it into an upward spiralling self-fulfilling prophecy. That's the wonderful illusion for the innumerate that is the basis of chain letters, pyramid schemes, Ponzi schemes

PS (added later): the cover story for New Scientist this week turns out to be about how the human belief factor is more important in the stock market than rational decision making.... spooky.

Beautiful Thoughts

Sorry about the irascible rant (cor, look at dem fancy words...) anyway, I thought I would pass on this nicer piece - found chalked up on the Wall Newspaper outside Shakespeare and Co in Paris - a message from Sylvia Beach:

Rainer Maria Rilke wrote about the little shops of the Latin Quarter 'with their shop windows filled with old books and etchings where nobody seemed to enter and the proprietor could be seen reading peacefully, indifferent to worldly success. Beside him lies a dog, or perhaps a cat. I wish sometimes to buy such a shop window for myself and sit beside it with a dog for twenty years.'
Rilke's statement was echoed by Anäis Nin when she told me she would like to lead the life I lead in a bookstore on the banks of the Seine River in Paris.

Oh dear - more late night rants

I do wish people wouldn't project their own fear of poverty, old age, sickness, loneliness and death onto me. (I have enough fears of my own, but I deal with them my own way). After all, Buddha left quite a few tips, after his encounter with these inevitable aspects of life. Check it out, seriously.. Or just try the cartoon version, for the Self in a hurry.

"What'll you do when you get old with no pension?" 'Probably die in humiliating circumstances'

"How can you joke about dying?" 'It gets easier when you turn 50 and lose a few friends.'

"How can you live without money?" 'How can you live with it?'

"I wish you'd stop claiming to be old" (say people almost 20 years younger) - being old isn't even an excuse for having less energy and enthusiasm these days - I suppose I should be dyeing my hair, and going down to the gym every day to 'keep in trim'.

How ghastly - even old age is no longer an acceptable reason to let yourself go, and to stop caring what other people think. Boy, do I envy those old guys sitting around in a taverna in some Greek village, playing backgammon without an ambition in the world; with no sense of adventures left undone; no sense of opportunities missed; feeling no need to compete with the next generation of Adonis's.

So, I will be cutting my hair short (boyish) and shaving off my grey beard for the Spring (pre-puberty look) and rushing around chivvying the hungover youth to 'get up and DO something' (and that's just this morning, when we were supposed to go rowing at 10 a.m. apparently... It's 9.06 right now, and these young things - in their 40s - don't look ready for it yet, after a night of drinking....)

And some young thing in a pub, the other day, told me my beard looked 'distinguished', and asked if I was a 'lecturer'.

'More like a lecherer' chuckled my drinking companion.

Wayang Golek - Javanese puppets

Vonny and Lance answered in no time to my query about a puppet someone I know is in the process of restoring.

I found them with a little searching in Google - and my previous knowledge of puppets - and my Dad's Dictionary of Puppets, etc. Their site looked the best informed, and displayed the highest quality of work, so I am very grateful to them for taking the time to enlighten me.

For future reference, if you have similar enquiries, they run a forum, which is probably the better way to approach a puzzle like this.

This particular character is one of the monkeys - an Anggada. Go look at the pictures of the other characters, too, and video clips, etc.

Took these off the front page...

but I'll park them here...these are a few other pages which don't link in yet - like My Heroes; the start of an index page for the site; a page for my favourite photos; also hanging around are my defunct Lyric of the Day page; a hoax UFO site that Keili and I whipped up; a picture of a decade of earth time bodged up for my birthday, from one of the cards I made to remind myself of the 8-circuit Leary Theory of the brain; a start on Belief Systems,

W.C.Fields and the Martian Brothers

I found this obituary about The Great Man, by J.B.Priestley in 1947 - fits many clowns:

I saw him long before he found his way to Hollywood, before 1914, when he was touring the halls in England with his juggling and trick billiard table act. He was very funny even then, and I seem to remember him balancing a number of cigar boxes and staring with horror at a peculiar box, in the middle of the pile, that wobbled strangely, as if some evil influence were at work. All his confidence, which you guessed from the first to be a desperate bluff, vanished at the sight of this one diabolical box, which began to threaten him with the nightmare of hostile and rebellious things.
And this, I fancy, was the secret of his huge and enchanting drollery though, oddly enough, it seems to have been missed - that he moved, warily in spite of a hastily assumed air of nonchalant confidence, through a world in which even inanimate objects were hostile, rebellious, menacing, never to be trusted. He had to be able to juggle with things, to be infinitely more dexterous than you or I need be, to find it possible to handle them at all. They were not, you see, his things, these commonplace objects of ours. He did not belong to this world, but had arrived from some other and easier planet.
All the truly great clowns - and Fields was undoubtedly one of them have the same transient look. They are not men of this world being funny. They are serious personages - perhaps musicians like Grock, ambassadors with attendants like the Fratellini, or hopeful inventor-promoters like Fields - who have, through some blunder on the part of a celestial Thomas Cook, landed from the other side of Arcturus on the wrong planet. They make the best of a bad business, but what is easy for us - merely picking up a bag of golf clubs or moving a chair - is horribly difficult for them. Things, that give us no trouble offer them obstacles and traps, for nothing here is on their side.

Backgammon - and other wonderful stuff

14 of us got together and played today. The Cardiff contingent came and went, and Alf won again.

Luke came in second, as a late entry from Somerset, and Tim came third.

I guess I am happy at 5th out of 14.....

And thanks for everything, Sephton - who knew that "It's been through a hippie" would become a guarantee of quality....

Pandaemonium

Ah well - Julien Temple's movie about Coleridge and Wordsworth was on the tv, and I have video'd it, although I only got to watch a little. Spring is in the air, and love and delirium hold sway.

For those of you who don't know the immediate connection, Coleridge spent some time in the Somerset village where I have spent some of my happiest hours. I still visit there, I have lived there.

My friend Mick had some delirious times writing there, when we lived in the same house. We always had a soft spot for Sam Coleridge, even though I can't honestly say I could quote him much.
"Here's Julien Temple in an interview: "Coleridge was exploring the territory of the mind a hundred years before Freud. He took amazing leaps. He was much more than just the first junky of letters, he was a very modern thinker. And a lot of the concepts that are key to our world were his concepts. Psychosomatic is his word, the suspension of disbelief is his phrase, for example."
The best I could say is that he feels like a real person - and the gap between the 18th Century and the 20th Century seemed to disappear...so seeing Julien portraying Coleridge having flash-forwards (to Hinckley Point power station and oil-slicked seabirds) as Mick and I then had flashes backwards seems completely appropriate to me.

Perhaps it's time to break out a new molecule - what have you got? Salvia Divinorum? Somewhere I have the quote to show that Coleridge wasn't just into exotic Opium - I'll dig it out for you - meanwhile - to lovers everywhere - peace and passion - reason is not everything - being sensible isn't all it's cracked up to be....Sam also used to take hemp for his rheumatism.....(medicinal uses in the 18th Century)

And men who feel things too much, and get emotional and crazy, like the Romantic Poets, may appear to be just self-indulgent, self-pitying 'pillocks' to our brisk, hard, present sensibility, but I wouldn't trade my inner self for anyone else's:

People tell me it's a sin
To know and feel too much within.
I still believe she was my twin, but I lost the ring.
She was born in spring, but I was born too late
Blame it on a simple twist of fate.

Simple Twist of Fate Bob Dylan

Copyright © 1974 Ram's Horn Music

More head-banging with Norton Security

I really don't know why I stick to this product, unless it's 'better the devil you know, than McAfee's slowing down your internet connection'.

I should have just subscribed for new virus definitions, and stayed with the 2003 version which worked fine... started playing with the 2004 upgrade, and the reviews (most of them) from Amazon.co.uk suddenly seem all too true. Grrrr!

Anyway - just like last year, I am going to have to uninstall/reinstall, and I remember what a pain that was to do cleanly. Surely I shouldn't be fiddling around in the registry in this day and age?

Why am I telling you this? Well, I have to tell someone, as I get reduced to tears of frustration by this kind of design. As for the Help Pages at Symantec, they have to have been designed by Kafka - the tree diagram behind it all must look hilarious. To install this you have to first uninstall that, to uninstall that you will need to check out these pages, these pages say you will need to do this, then this, then this, then this - now after those four things I have completely forgotten why I was doing them ah yes, you had to do them before doing that, what was that again? ah yes, tell you what, as I am getting lost here I will print out the pages as I go - now I have a bunch of cross-referenced paper, all I have to do is remember the order in which these things MUST be done OR ELSE. Or else, what? Back to the loop.....

It should go up as an example 'help site' of how NOT to treat people when they are already confused.....as one of the less literate reviewers said (although whether he was just young, dyslexic or simply apoplectic with rage and unable to type is hard to tell) - while you are unplugged from the Internet trying to figure this out, you are certainly safe.....

Well, well, well....

Paul and I were talking just the other day about why Google didn't offer an email service, and - guess what? - it's in Beta.

It's free (relevant ad-based) and they are going to offer 1Gb of storage (!) and allow 10Mb messages - serious competition to Yahoo and Hotmail.

For details - go look at www.gmail.com

Who are your parents, really?

Well, anyone who has spoken to me knows how proud I am of my parents, even though they didn't apparently do much of what is expected of parents in our culture...

My dad's theosophical interests are the most obviously unusual - and led me to being a vegetarian from birth, and (rather than an atheist/agnostic) never contaminated by odd religious beliefs - just because they were traditional, simply encouraged in that natural pantheism/animism of the child - I still apologise to snails if I step on them, I say good morning to all the sparrows who sing me to work - yup, I am crazy.

Anyway - when I talk about my humanist/agnostic mum I usually explain about how her most valued beliefs came from her deep study of Shakepeare and The Greeks. She wasn't wrong in pointing out that (say) Freud was just interpreting their insights, more a literary critic than a scientist, and that there was 'nothing new under the sun'. (Think Oedipius, Dionysus, Hamlet, etc). And Jung mined astrology and alchemy and such for his insights. Of course, Sheila (being a Stoic) was a bit disappointed when she found out I was from the Cynic school, and Diogenes was my hero, but hey...

I remembered a book I'd inherited (lost in the great flood) and despaired of tracking it down - it was one she had received as a prize when at school. It suggested that Shakespeare's "The Tempest" was a model of Initiation. I had told someone about it the other day. I put the Tempest and Initiation in Google and was ASTOUNDED that it found a review of it in one go! Even better, there is a copy in the library I work in!

You may find other relevant material about the Perennial Philosophy in this ebook.

G'night.

Reminder to self

I have spent more than I earn this month, so I am leaving this reminder to go back to visit the Impermanent Press after payday, to pick up a copy of MFU, a couple of Robert Anton Wilson tapes, and maybe the Philip K Dick book (doesn't that wet your appetite for a visit?)

No?

Ah well, I said it was a note to myself.....

And don't forget this warning from the Guns & Dope party

Warning: All email may now be read by law enforcement agencies,
as NONE is PRIVATE since the passage of the USA/Patriot Act.
Remember the Miranda warnings:
You do not have to send email.
Anything you email may be used against you in a military tribunal.
You have the right to have an attorney present while composing email.
If you cannot afford a full-time attorney, you're fucked.

Guns&Dope website

Huh!

Although I tinker with my front page, rather than leave it as a familiar welcome, there are bits I obviously never look at. When adding a link to Douglas Harding's Headless Way I noticed that I had got Tranquility Base spelled with two 'l's. I have no idea how long it has been like that - and apologies to anyone else (like me) with a proof-reader's eye, to whom misprints and misspellings are physically uncomfortable.

In my own defence, I can only say that Front Page (a template of which is what I am using for this lazy website) spell checks in US English, and I can only assume I believed it one day, instead of sticking to my guns. (We argue a lot -- about traveling, and modeling, and organising, etc)...I almost accept the z for s these days, but I hate those double 'l's.

hey ho so it goes.

And I guess all my dyslexic friends really don't care....nor my US friends, come to that.

The Beauty of Indifference

I have been reading a lot about Marcel Duchamp recently, which is fascinating stuff. He seems to have had a wonderful detached attitude which I recognise (I am not claiming to be as talented, intelligent, attractive, or intriguing). He seems to have kept his life to a bare minimum - considering property and belongings as encumbrances - it's possible he saw close relationships that way, too.

Of course, nowadays, when we think we know what 'normal' human beings are (or should be) we have a definition for everyone, so perhaps he had a tendency to Aspergers Syndrome (high functioning autism - one distinguishing characteristic -feeling like an alien on this planet....) Who can tell, certainly not me.

When I first came across Marchand du Sel (salt seller) I was delighted. And he often reminded me of my dad, too, with that enigmatic, knowing smile - and the chess.

Hey Phew Wow

I have stumbled through these few days rather....didn't really recover from the cold before coming back into work...but it has been kind of fun doing end-of-the-year statistics....even though it is easy to end up cross-eyed with spreadsheets and data and draft notes and reports.

It's also quite easy to get in a logic tangle while defining parameters for queries (We need a total for items which were added to stock between 1 April 2003 and 31 March 2004 which ARE books but ARE NOT children's books, have been borrowed at least five times AND are currently available....)

Ah, the dogsbody work backstage at the library, but it's worth it:

Even the most misfitting child
Who's chanced upon the library's worth
Sits with the genius of the Earth
And turns the key to the whole world. Ted Hughes July 1997

Notes for an autobiography - still thinking 'book'

Well, I know this is a great sprawling mess of a website, but it just grew.

I like books - I like skimming through, going to the Index at the back, the Contents at the front, chapter listings, etc. Speed reading and browsing non-fiction is a skill (and a pleasure) in itself, and I guess I haven't really adapted to the new medium entirely...

Julie has a new job (Hooray!) but has something quite seriously wrong with one of her feet (Boo!)

I am having a crash course in Excel, while Paul M shows me how to gather and display end of year statistics for the library...