Summer's Song Is Sung

Summer is nearly at its farthest reach, about to topple over....

The Bard has been standing on ladders, reaching far with a paint brush, thus the thoughts of over reaching and toppling.

The Bard likes to label each summer with a song for the season. Last year it was "Summertime" sung by Sam Cooke. This year it is "Airstream Driver" by Gomez.

The Bard also believes it is proper to finish the summer with an excursion to see a live band. It must be a very warm evening and the performance must be energetic, otherwise the money is wasted and the drinks are pointless. Last year the Bard saw the Young Dubliners on a perfect evening.

It was highly entertaining, although the tall and underweight blonde with bleached and butched hair jabbing me in the back with her bony knees was a bit annoying. Otherwise, everyone was very kind and generous to the Bard. As everyone knows the Bard can get a bit outgoing on a perfect evening, but this did not seem to be off-putting to anyone, and even got him invited back up to socialize with the band afterwards, which didn't really work out because he was ping-ponging around, talking to a rodeo queen, the bartender and a girl ordering one of those sickening sweet inventions that they like to ask the bartender to make, then sip and say, "See, didn't I tell you it was good?" Then point the straw at you as they tell you to taste it, which you don't want to do because you don't even know them or their germs.

The Bard either grimaces, saying "No more for me," or if brave enough hopes that there is sufficient alcohol in the drink to sterilize anything that once was alive.

As of yet the Bard has not had the perfect end of summer. The Bard is getting old age and is painting before the first snow flies.

The Bard thinks that if he could be reincarnated, made young again, he would come back as a Los Lonely Boy. He can think of nothing better than having long black hair, a guitar, a voice, and of all of the Jeans, Agnesses, Jennies, and Marias magnetized by him and his brothers. Ahhh, croon.

Now, if one wanted to curse the Bard to eternal hell they would reincarnate him as The Prince of Wales, or Michael Jackson, or Bono, or that Beckham footballer, or Madonna. But we'll not dwell upon these things.

Hurry, make hay while the sun shines!

image: Billie Holiday

The New Folk Music Movement

Rap is dying. Country is dying. Folk music will rise. The pendulum swings.

The Bard doesn't often make predictions about pop culture, but this is barely a prediction. I am only observing obvious fact.

At this time rap is sooo old, so worn out, so repetitious, so overwhelmed with electronic call and answer, so numbing. It's hanging on, but like country music it began dying about the same time and for the same reasons: Boobs, bling, beer bashes, and blondes belting out boyfriend songs for "tweens." And like a 15 year old girl getting drunk on wine coolers, too much of a sickly sweet drink can cause a horrific reaction. Rap and country are pink and blue drinks with minty and sugary flavors sucked through a skinny straw. There's only so much one can take before they decide to go back to the beer and whiskey, no straw.

The time is here, upon us. I can smell it in the air like unbathed pits and stinky feet in leather sandals. The time will strike, calling the unwashed masses to the socialist preacher with the guitar and plaid shirt. The masses will feel enlightened, enervated, intelligent, and ready to create a global utopia. They will attempt sustainable living, and try to halt time's rapidly increasing speed. They will use their weight to hold the pendulum back, strum-strumming, hum-humming slower.

Yes, Rap and Country will survive, but as arms of the folk music movement. They will adopt a bohemian flair.

There will be folk music everywhere, beckoning, beckoning to battle. Unlike the folk music of the past, which was mainly Marxist, this time we will see anti-Marxist folk music as well.

Warning! Stop your ears! Remember Odysseus and his crew when they had to pass by the sirens. He had his crew mates stop their ears with wax, and securely tie him to the mast so that he could not give into temptation when he heard the sirens singing the folk music. Unlike rap and country, folk music's goal is to seduce one into action through emotion and preaching.

Rap was good before electronic and materialistic influences strangled it, making it into a tool for numbing and dumbing club goers and kids hooked on cigarettes, I mean cell phones (same difference). It served the pop culture controller's purposes for a time, as did country, music, which from a Marxist point of view would be ideologically identical to rap.

But now, is the time to activate the mind-numbed ones, and the switch that will do the trick is folk music. Stop your ears, unless you like being preached at and told what to believe by a sweet voice. Don't jump in after the sirens, or death will waste you. Time can't be stopped, it's not sustainable.

Oh, yeah, and folk music is "green" because it doesn't generally require electricity to play the instruments. It's eco-friendly music! Man, I love sustainability.

image: Whistler

NASA To Bomb Osama's Moon Bunker

NASA plans to bomb the moon in October of this year, having launched the mission on the 18th of June. They claim that they are bombing for water particles, but we all know the truth.

Osama bin Laden has been hiding out in one of the craters of the moon, colonising it with terrorist cells. He has a proven ability for surviving in barren, desolate, and remote areas. But NASA's hot on the trail and will blow him out even if it means destroying heaven and earth to accomplish the task.

"Disturbing the Moon's orbit may cause tidal waves and quite possibly Earthquakes in many zones around the Earth where the edges of tectonic plates are already at or near the breaking point of sliding" (Ted Twietmeyer, "NASA Moon Bombing Is Cause For Worry," 22 June 2009, rense.com)

But nevermind that. And even if bin Laden escapes again, at least, the moon will have a nice five-mile wide gash for "science" to study, and NASA will prove that bombing is a great way to create life just as it is here on earth.

I know that around here, we aim missiles at our property to find water all the time. It works like a charm.

My mind hearkens back to an old John Wayne movie in which he arrives at Terrapin Springs, dying of thirst along with two fugitive friends, only to discover that the idiot green horn pioneers have dynamited the spring, closing it forever.

If "science" claims as fact that humans can cause climate change, then why is it that in this situation we won't cause harmful change?

Won't Come Back From Dead Man's Curve!

The Bard remembers the good old days--the days when there were still a few deafening engines mowing down the stop lights, and there were some who thought it cool to drive hoodless. I don't know, perhaps, driving hoodless was due to laziness, or improper latching, or some other malfunction, but it was cool. Those that chose to leave the hood back in the trailer court really had nothing to show off, since the hoodless vehicles were also the ones that needed the most paint and looked as if they had been run into signposts, and deer, and old ladies, and other obstructions. But it didn't matter because they made the most noise.

Ah, the good old days when the good old cars were still on the road. One acquaintance had a particularly special car. Oh, my! It was in mint condition with perfect white vinyl covered seats. And they were bench seats, which means that everyone gets to sit in the front. A hundred miles an hour down Main St. once, was what the officer said! But that was nothing.

Now, there is an automobile euthanasia program called the Car Allowance Rebate System aka "Cash for Clunkers," which seeks to rid the streets of these old reliables because they are now considered liabilities and wasteful burdens.

Really, the car must not be a clunker if it is still registered and drivable. A real clunker, one that has been sitting in the back forty is not eligible for the government voucher upon trade in.

Somehow, this program strikes me as disturbing. When the old vehicle is turned in to the dealer the engine must be destroyed before the car can be sold for scrap. This is how it is to be done: "Drain the oil, then run several quarts of sodium silicate through the engine. As engine heat evaporates the solution, deposits of dehydrated sodium silicate line the engine's lubrication system, abrading all the moving parts and causing the engine to seize" ("'Cash for Clunkers' starts Monday" msn.com).

"Scrap facilities can sell any part of the car except the engine block or whole drive train, but ultimately the car must be taken off the road" ("Cash").

This seems incredibly wasteful and disrespectful of a healthy and strong, although old vehicle. And where will the scrap parts be sold to? If I were to guess, China, which has quite a trade in scrap parts and bodies of all sorts. If it bleeds blood or oil they'll profit from the parts and sell it back to us in a repackaged form.

Image: 1986 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS

Jean, Jean, Dressed In Green

This Bard doesn't much feel up to writing the history of the American Lawgiver, Tekanawita, at the moment. Great Laws of Peace only work for a time, disappearing under the heaps of laws piled upon them stinking up the air, causing false religious practices and legalism to spring up like noxious weeds.

Look at the most famous man of the Law, Moses. He brought down 10 very basic laws to live by (plus a few more), but as is the way with people, this was not enough. Over the years there were many more laws and rituals added on until it became a competition to see who could complete the most rituals, tithe the most, and know the law the best.

Now, we are living in the most religious time of all. We are quite medieval in our superstitious fear of the earth, in our belief that we can save it with tithes/indulgences/carbon credits/whatever. We are quite Hitlerian in our obsession with eradicating cancer, smoking, meat, and undesirables. And we are much like East Berlin before the fall of the wall, in our self-censoring. We are very Roman Catholic in our favoring the community over the individual. We are very Roman Catholic in our belief that those who do not want to worship the earth religion, pay indulgences, or participate in its sacred rites are called heretics.

Who are the priests making the tons of money off our ignorance? Who are the ones pushing those toxic fluorescent time bombs called light bulbs on us? If they really cared, if they really wanted what was best for the serfs, the High Priests of Mother Earth and Global Consciousness would not allow mercury-filled toxins in our homes and into the landfills. The Green People don't care about this wonderful land, and they hate all of the pernicious people who continue the multiply in spite of their laws. They only care about Green Money and "sustainability."

And so, the Bard would like to conclude with a sweet song of Jean. Here, the Bard has it all figured out. Our relationship with the earth is one of images which are to remind us of something better. No river, no flower, no bird compares with Bonny Jean. If the Bard had written of how Jean did not compare with the hills, the flowers, the birds or the air, he would not have been a poet, but an unmentionable dupe. Jean wins. The beautiful earth and its creatures remind us of her, and should also remind us of their Creator.

"I Love My Jean"

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw,
I dearly like the west,
For there the bony Lassie lives,
The Lassie I lo'e the best:
There's wild-woods grow, and rivers row,
And mony a hill between;
But day and night my fancy's flight
Is ever wi' my Jean.

I see her in the dewy flowers,
I see her sweet and fair;
I hear her in the tunefu' birds,
I hear her charm the air:
There's not a bony flower, that springs
By fountain, shaw, or green,
There's not a bony bird that sings,
But minds me o' my Jean

Image: Praire by Ken Furrow

The Law of the Land

Why did the participants in the Boston Tea Party dress themselves as Indians?

The answer to this question has been hidden away by the history books, and what does remain has been heisted by for-profit shamans and twisted into wispy nothings for gatherings of utopians waiting for the return of the Star People from outerspace to reappear in Area 51 to save them from their stupidity.

There is a great law of the land, which we call the U.S. Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and before these, the Declaration of Independence. And before these documents was The Great Law of Peace of the Longhouse People. It is this constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy that unleashed the spirit of freedom and independence amongst the colonists, and this is why those of the Boston Tea Party chose to identify with their Iroquois brethren. This is the law of the land, not of a mystical Star People, but given by a man named Tekanawita and his follower Hiawatha.

From the 1740's on, the Iroquois had encouraged the colonists to unite into a confederacy like their own and declare independence from Britain.

Finally, in 1776, the Continental Congress planned to meet in Philadelphia. The Continental Congress sent an invitation, signed by John Hancock, to the Iroquois leaders, requesting that they would be present at the Congress.

In June of 1776 there were 21 Iroquois leaders camped outside of the State House in Philadelphia. They were there as "brothers" of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. They oversaw the debates, approving them, and expressed their desire to be "as one people, and have but one heart" with the colonists.

What was this Great Law of Peace that so inspired the signers of the Declaration of Independence? And why is it that when we speak of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution we speak of them as new creations, as revolutionary, or based upon new enlightenment thought, but never as laws that were written upon this land even before the Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock? The Great Law of Peace is irrefutable, and all that have forgotten it or ignored it have fallen into weakened and scattered states.

The Great Law of Peace was given to those that accepted it, the nations of the Iroquois, by Tekanawita who was sent by The Great Creator to save the miserable people from themselves and the blood they were spilling upon the earth. This is not a New Age history, but one that makes one question what we think we know about this earth and how God works in it.

When one knows the history of this land and of Tekanawita, it seems that we are idolizing our "Founding Fathers," giving them credit for a documents that predate them, and were originally handed down by The Great Creator and protected by the Iroquois nations. This Constitution, like the Ten Commandments was handed down by God via an intermediary and if we toss it out or break its laws we will have no peace and be separated from each other as the Iroquois eventually were.

And so, I conclude here with high hopes of proceeding on to the the amazing history of Tekanawita, perhaps The Founding Father of this nation --- and of all nations that follow shepherds and fishermen.

Socially Solitary, Free Range, and Feral

"There are two components to human nature, the social and the solitary. The solitary is definitely the more highly evolved, and humanity has surged forward through the efforts of brilliant loners and eccentrics. Their names live on forever precisely because society was unable to extinguish their brilliance or thwart their initiative" (Dmitry Orlov, "Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation," The New Emergency Conference, Dublin, 11 June 2009)

"We have a huge surplus of 'factory-farmed humans and a shortage of free-range humans'" (Dmitry Orlov, "Definancialisation")

Image: Marc Averette, Free-range feral chickens in Key West

The Bard In the Forest Primeval, Across the Plains, In the Swamps.....

"This is the forest primeval," and "Still stands the forest primeval." What an old, dark, mossy green sound these lines of Longfellow's "Evangeline" have.

Evangeline is separated from her Gabriel on what was to be her wedding day. Forced out of their homes by British troops and placed upon boats, they like so many of the Accadian diaspora are split apart from family and loved ones. Many of those that survived the journey and were allowed entry into the United States settled in the deep south, becoming what we call Cajuns.

But Evangeline devotes her life, traversing this country in search of Gabriel, always missing him, never finding him, until returning to the place she began; Philadelphia. And there, old and gray, ministering to those dying of a plague, she finally finds him.

When reading this beautiful piece of North American history it must be wondered who or what Evangeline is. She is more than a person. She, as her name indicates, is an evangelist. But even more than that, she is this country. She is the land, she is the people. I wonder if she is a prophet or only a forgotten memory.

"Thus did the long sad years glide on, and in seasons and places
Divers and distant far was seen the wandering maiden;-
Now in the Tents of Grace of the meek Moravian Missions,
Now in the noisy camps and the battle-fields of the army,
Now in the secluded hamlets, in towns and populous cities.
Like a phantom she came, and passed away unremembered.
Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long journey;
Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it ended.
Each succeeding year stole something from her beauty,
Leaving behind it, broader and deeper, the gloom and the shadow.
Then there appeared and spread faint streaks of gray o'er her
forehead,
Dawn of another life, that broke o'er her earthly horizon,
As in the eastern sky the first faint streaks of the morning." (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Evangeline," Part 2, IV)

"Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of wonder,
Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, while a shudder
Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowerets dropped from
her fingers,
And from her eyes and cheeks the light and bloom of the morning.
Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terrible anguish,
That the dying heard it, and started up from their pillows.
On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an old man.
Long, and thin, and gray were the locks that shaded his temples;
But, as he lay in the morning light, his face for a moment
Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier manhood;
So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are dying,
Hot and red on is lips still burned the flush of the fever,
As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had besprinkled its portals,
That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass over.
Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and his spirit exhausted
Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths in the dark-
ness,
Darkness of slumber and death, forever sinking and sinking.
Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied reverberations,
Heard he the cry of pain, and through the hush that succeeded
Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saint-like,
"Gabriel! O my beloved!"........" ("Evangeline," Part 2, V)

A Fascinating Read

This Bard has been perusing the jaw-dropping, eye-popping Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto, an award winning educator. It is highly recommended summer reading, and nearly impossible to stop reading.

"Once you trust yourself to go mind-to-mind with the great intellects, artists, scientists, warriors, and philosophers, you are finally free. In America, before we had forced schooling, an astonishing range of unlikely people knew reading was like Samson's locks--something that could help make them formidable, that could teach them their rights and how to defend those rights, could lead them towards self-determination, free from intimidation by experts. Those same unlikely people knew that the power bestowed through reading could give them insight into the ways of the human heart, so they would not be cheated or fooled so easily, and that it could provide an inexhaustible store of useful knowledge--advice on how to do just about anything" (John Taylor Gatto, Underground History of American Education)

Scales are dropping from these eyes, and my heart breaking, and thankfulness abounding at the bravery of my mother.

Learning To Be An Actor

"His fellow educators was local farmers that immigrated in from Germany after they tried to make Germany an republic. In Germany they were some of the most greates and smartest educators with the same belief as Harris" (Wikipedia entry on American educator William Torrey Harris)

I couldn't stop laughing! Sometimes, Wikipedia entries are spiced with wandering crudity and stray fouls of mouth, but the entry on William Torrey Harris was tops.

William Torrey Harris (1835-1909) was the United States Commissioner of Education from 1889-1906. Harris, along with a few others helped create the country as it is now, compulsory, segregated, and extending into young adulthood, i.e. high school. When the copper barons, petroleum people, and big guys on Wall Street grew tired of mining and sapping the earth, they decided to mine people. Harris helped them implement their progressive plan of growing German-style potatoes--I mean, people to consume more, think less, and be useless.

Now, before I proceed, I must put this next quote forth. This also was in the William Torrey Harris article on Wikipedia:

"He was responsible for introducing reindeer into Alaska so that the native whalers and trappers would have another livelihood, before they brought other species to extinction."

It makes me laugh so much I nearly snort snot. Personally, I believe, that the person writing the entry knew exactly what they were doing, and must have spent quite awhile trapped in the system Harris created, becoming quite bitter. Or this is proof positive of the successful outcome the philanthropic misanthropes sought for.

But it gets better, or worse. These are quotes from William Torrey Harris, US Commissioner of Education (1889-1906), Editor in Chief of Webster's Dictionary, Simplified Speller, receiver of the Carnegie's Advancement of Teaching award, etc, etc.

"Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual" (William Torrey Harris, The Philosophy of Education, qtd. in John Taylor Gatto's Underground History of American Education)

"The great purpose of school can be realized better in dark, airless, ugly places....It is to master the physical self, to transcend the beauty of nature. School should develop the power to withdraw from the external world" (Harris qtd. in Gatto)

"[Education] must make the individual obedient to the requirements of the social institutions under which he lives" (William Torrey Harris The History and Philosophy of Education)

Does Shakespeare Exist As Himself?

<<-This is how that other Bard appeared according to Martin Droeshout.

This is how he appeared after the economic crash of 1610, and had been hobnobbing with the Puritans. ->>

Last, but not least, the following portrait is how he appears in 2009, after a long vacation amongst the members of the Cobbe family. Perhaps, it is him, perhaps not, but as is usual with this particular Bard, there are always arguments about him being himself or another being him. It depends upon which side of the bed one wakes up on, the weather, and other factors, as to whether one is themself on any given day.

The great argument as to the other Bard's identity is surely the greatest achievement a man can attain to, for it is akin to being God. No other creator, other than God Himself, has achieved this height of disbelief and argument from the mortals in regard to identity. How do we know that Shakespeare really wrote what he wrote, and not another more educated? How do we know that God wrote what He wrote and not another more educated? How do we know?

How does anyone know greatness when they see it? One sign is when others won't believe it, or must subvert it, or steal it, or hate it for the despicable truth that knows exactly who and what their identity is. I believe in Shakespeare and that he is who he is and no other.

Suspending Belief

"The problem............is that once a novelist invites reality into his story, he can't tell it when to leave. On every page, he has to tacitly ask the reader to suspend not disbelief but belief, belief in what we know about the world" (Malcolm Jones "Charlie's Company," a review of Glen David Gold's Sunnyside, Newsweek, 18 May 2009)

This is one of the best observations I have found recently, for it seems that it sums up how we are trained to live life these days--suspending belief in what we know to be the truth and reality of Nature's law.

We use to believe, which made suspending it difficult. Now, we willingly choose to suspend belief, for the world of disbelief. And somehow, it is easier to believe in disbelief than in belief. The Bard thinks that he must stop here, for this is quite the circular and difficult subject for him.

Hellfire and Brimstone From An American Prophet

"When God Almighty commences his battle on the continent of America, for the oppression of his people, tyrants will wish they never were born." (David Walker's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World)

"For if the free are allowed to stay among the slaves, they will learn the slaves bad habits, by teaching them that they are MEN, as well as other people, and certainly ought and must be FREE." (David Walker)

"....God blessed them with all the comforts of life--He gave them a plenty of every thing calculated to do them good--not satisfied with this, however, they wanted slaves, and wanted us for their slaves, who belong to the Holy Ghost, and no other, who we shall have to serve instead of tyrants." (David Walker)

"To be plain and candid with you, Americans! I say that the day is fast approaching, when there will be a greater time on the continent of America, than ever was witnessed upon this earth, since it came from the hand of its Creator....Your cup must be filled."(David Walker)

"I will give here a very imperfect list of the cruelties inflicted upon us by the enlightened Christians of America.--First, no trifling portion of them will beat us nearly to death, if they find us on our knees praying to God,--They hinder us from going to hear the word of God--they keep us sunk in ignorance, and will not let us learn to read the word of God, nor write--If they find us with a book of any description in our hand, they will beat us nearly to death--they are so afraid we will learn to read, and enlighten our dark and benighted minds--They will not suffer us to meet together to worship the God who made us--they brand us with hot iron--they cram bolts of fire down our throats...." (David Walker)

"They keep us in the most death-like ignorance by keeping us from all source of information, and call us, who are free men and next to the Angels of God, their property!!!!!!" (David Walker)

David Walker was born in 1785, published his "Appeal" in 1829. Walker predicted that he would pay the price with his life. A year later he was dead. And what must he be writing this time around? I wouldn't doubt that he's a pretty good shot at tossing fire balls.

The Singularity of The Storyteller

This is an old post that never was posted (but is now!), and often contradicts itself:

"Homer shows that, as genius ebbs, it is the love of storytelling that characterizes old age" (Longinus)

Does this indicate that genius is only youthful emotion and passion? And if storytelling is a sign of the aged genius, then does that mean a population that does not age or respect age does not have stories or listen to stories? Does this mean that fishermen (those that tell tall tales) are old men at heart?

When old men tell stories they usually recount events of their youth, the stories of their actions and genius. Perhaps, old age is the reliving of the events without the physical aspect.

Could we say that our modern culture is old because it wants to live in its virtual memory, rather than participate physically? Is it possible to begin backwards without first having physically made the story? Is this why we have few stories these days, because we have not lived a story, which makes our virtual reality a nowhere and a never been?

And where are the youthful geniuses? Does a time see its genius, or does it require the old men to look back and see them, remember them?

Ah, but did Homer live the stories he told? Does the teller live the story or only tell it?

And furthermore, if our genius is stored in technological databases who will tell the tale? A computer, a robot, an avatar does not tell stories no matter how advanced. For what does a computer have to overcome if they are not flesh? Even technology, is not above the human desire to overcome the flesh, even it is ruled by this compulsion, for this is the achievement that preeminent "singularity" preachers hope to attain.

Those that desire to twine technology into the human body desire to overcome the earthly rules of flesh, to resurrect frozen fathers, and live forever. They are not so much conquerors, but fearful of the end of the story, afraid of the great Bema in the Sky. Afraid of the moment when they must stand before the witnesses who tell their story for them. At that moment all technology will malfunction, and be overcome by the flesh. The story will win, while the wires wither.

"Everywhere I go I see people poking away at their little mental support units" (Dmitry Orlov, "Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation")

Epitaph of the Amused

"A Bard's Epitaph" by Robert Burns

Is there a whim-inspired fool,
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,

Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,

Let him draw near;
And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
And drap a tear.

Is there a bard of rustic song,
Who noteless, steals the crowds among,

That weekly this area throng,
O, pass not by!
But, with a frater-feeling strong,
Here, heave a sigh.

Is there a man, whose judgment clear
Can others teach the course to steer,
Yet runs, himself, life's mad career,
Wild as the wave,
Here pause-and, thro' the starting tear,
Survey this grave.

The poor inhabitant below
Was quick to learn the wise to know,
And keenly felt the friendly glow,
And softer flame;
But thoughtless follies laid him low,
And stain'd his name!

Reader, attend! whether thy soul
Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole,
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole,
In low pursuit:
Know, prudent, cautious, self-control
Is wisdom's root.

Prudent, cautious, self-control, wisdom's root. But Rabbie never had any of this and none of this makes the Bard what he is, and it is those enrapt in my thoughtless follies, those laid low by them that stop to drap a tear.

While I toast the haggis, and drink the wine, make the fellows laugh; across the countryside bonnie lasses cry in the dark. Were it not for them, the secret and not-so-secret muses, thinking they are getting while I am taking there would not even be a Bard.

Were it not for the Nellies, Peggies, Alisons and all the rest there would not be a Bard at all. There would be only a sad, overworked, and poor man named Robert Burness. For the love of a woman, the chase of the muse that amused me, there would be no verse and no epitaph. And so, I must ask, is it I that am the Bard, or only the voice of the bonnie lasses once young, once loved, always loved and always forever in my song? I have an epitaph, they live on--even if I broke their hearts.

And as I wax on I must advise, find a muse and she will educate you more than all the universities in the world, for she can inspire even a lowly farm laborer to sing the song of a country and of time. "O, Once I Lov'd a Bonnie Lass...."

Math, Memory, and Medes

"All the talks about nationalities, etcetera, well, the new age has very little patience for history. History is becoming more and more irrelevant" ( President Shimon Peres of Israel, interviewed by David Shankbone of Wikinews, 9 Jan. 2008)

Or is history becoming more and more relevant?

"Why should I bother my child with memory when he can buy a computer that will remember everything you asked him to remember?" (Shimon Peres, Wikinews)

Yeah, but can your child's memory be hacked, unplugged and stolen? Hmm, I suppose so, although it takes several years of "education" to achieve the hacked, unplugged, and stolen memory.

"Forget memory. Look, the new age is unprecedented. When something is unprecedented, it means it doesn't have a past, doesn't have a history. It's totally oriented on the future. And whoever dwells in the past, doesn't understand the future because the past is full of prejudices, of commitments. It arrests us. And then you say you won't commit a mistake, so you'll commit new mistakes." (Shimon Peres)

The Bard, bites his lip, wishes he could find a haggis to plug up the unprecedented arrogance of these words.

"The modern economy is based on global companies that don't have armies, don't have police; that don't have laws. They are based on good will, on inventions." (Shimon Peres)

And here, the Bard snorts. He would like to say, it better, truthfully, but the only words that come out are the ones written on the wall during a wild party many years ago, the number of what mankind has become: "MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN"

MENE can mean "numbered," "mina," which is an old measure of money. TEKEL, "shekel," (schmekle!) also a measure of money, can mean "weighed." UPHARSIN "Parsin" and "Peres" in the singular (also punning on "Persian," since they're about to crash the party and invade the kingdom any moment). Parsin means "to divide into many," while in the singular, Peres, it means to divide one time.

And so, we can see, through money, math, and weights what happens when one forgets their history and forgets to use their memory. If darling Belshazzar had remembered the story of his grandpa's grass grazing days, perhaps, his empire would not have been overrun with Persians and Medes. But alas, he was weighed in the balances and fell short. Perhaps, if he'd had his electronic memory gadgets on him he would have been able to Google, or find the file with the story. Thank goodness, that Daniel could still remember to refresh Belshazzar before he was killed that night.

The Bard Reads Nab

My favorite chapter of Vladimir Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading is chapter 8. It's superb.

"As far back as I can remember myself--and I remember myself with lawless lucidity, I have been my own accomplice, who knows too much, and therefore is dangerous."

"But then I have long since grown accustomed to the thought that what we call dreams is semi-reality, the promise of reality, a foreglimpse and a whiff of it; that is they contain, in a very vague, diluted state, more genuine reality than our vaunted waking life which, in its turn, is semi-sleep, an evil drowsiness into which penetrate in grotesque disguise the sounds and sights of the real world, flowing beyond the periphery of the mind--as when you hear during sleep a dreadful insidious tale because a branch is scraping on the pane, or see yourself sinking into snow because your blanket is sliding off."

"It exists, my dream world, it must exist, since, surely there must be an original of the clumsy copy."

"When still a child, living still in a canary-yellow, large, cold house where they were preparing me and hundreds of other children for secure nonexistence as adult dummies, into which all my coevals turned without effort or pain; already then, in those accursed days, amid rag books and brightly painted school materials and soul-chilling drafts, I knew without knowing, I knew without wonder, I knew as one knows oneself, I knew it even more clearly than I do now."

White Rose

As usual, I've been researching and note-taking across the globe, gazing in at people, places and events through my little window. I'm not sure how a research into the Tower of Babel brought me to the White Rose Leaflets, dispersed by freedom loving students at the university of Munich.

And as Sophie Scholl let one of the leaflets drop from a balcony, like a fall leaf to the floor, unbeknownst to her, a sweeper of lies, a gatherer of refuse saw. Not long after, she and her brother, Hans, along with their fellow student Christoph Probst were guillotined by their Nazi countrymen.

"Nothing is unworthy of a civilized nation allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct" White Rose leaflet 1

"it is high time to root out this brown horde" White Rose leaflet 2

"for every new day that you hesitate, failing to oppose this offspring of Hell, your guilt, as in a parabolic curve, grows higher and higher" White Rose leaflet 3

"'and further, it is part [of the nature of tyranny] to strive to see to it that nothing is kept hidden of that which any subject says or does, but that everywhere he will be spied upon,....and further, to set man against man and friend against friend, and common people against the privileged and the wealthy. Also it is part of these tyrannical measures to keep the subjects poor, in order to pay the guards and the soldiers, and so that they will be occupied with earning their livelihood and with neither leisure nor opportunity to engage in conspirational acts...Further, [to levy] such taxes on income as were imposed in Syracuse, for under Dionysius the citizens gladly paid out their whole fortunes in taxes withing five years. Also, the tyrant is inclined constantly to foment wars'"Aristotle qtd. in White Rose leaflet

"We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace!" White Rose leaflet 4

no-mind

"The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind" (Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now)

I haven't had such a good belly laugh since reading this and other quotes from the first chapter of The Power of Now, by the mindless Master Tolle. Evidently, he has a massive following, selling his religion of mind erasure.

"So the single most vital step in your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind." (The Power of Now)

And this really made me laugh, because it's truly so amazingly ridiculous:

"The predominance of mind is no more than a stage in the evolution of consciousness. We need to go on to the next stage now as a matter of urgency; otherwise, we will be destroyed by the mind, which has grown into a monster." (The Power of Now)

Someone needs to tell Eckhart this, that his mind has "grown into a monster," and that the average person doesn't feel quite so tortured about having one, or needing to lobotomize. Perhaps, he is threatened by the monstrous minds of others and all of their annoying thoughts.

He does say that the voices in the head are annoying and that thought is an addiction. I'm not sure why he assumes the rest of us hear voices in our head. For some reason my mind is now thinking of Jan Brady in the Brady Bunch Movie....

And when are they going to make a rehab treatment program for thinking addicts?

I guess, I'm so un evolved that I haven't even gotten enlightened enough to hear my "inner voice."

More "Kindness to Authors," or, how to expand the universe

"We should always remember that the work of art is invariably the creation of a new world, so that the first thing we should do is study that new world as closely as possible, approaching it as something brand new, having no obvious connection with the worlds we already know. When this new world has been closely studied, then and only then let us examine its links with other worlds, other branches of knowledge." (Vladimir Nabokov, "How to be a Good Reader or Kindness to Authors")

My first instinct is to argue with this opinion, but then, I remember that this could skew an entire work. It's entirely limiting to believe that everything is about us--it's "geocentric" and medieval. I didn't create the work, the universe of the creator's mind and so why should it revolve around me? The earth revolves around the sun, and the sun gives warmth to me, not I to it.

I also know that when a work can be examined objectively, as if from above, or from a distance; it allows a fuller appreciation of an author's talent. Every great work is personal and evokes a personal reaction in the reader, but the truth of an author's meaning cannot be known until the reader is objective. I cannot remember how T.S. Eliot put this objective reading, but he too, observed that this made for a better reader and even author.

I remember that it made one of my professors, "The Black Hole," very angry to agree with Eliot. It upset her that it made the world bigger and awe-inspiring. Being objective, actually draws the reader nearer the new world, and evokes empathy for others, rather than judgment based upon personal bitterness and bias. Modern readers are supposed to carry with them through the pages, a bucket of their personal waste, scattering it amongst the text, contaminating the green grass. Modern readers must base everything upon the socio-economic, pretending to be scientific and advanced, and benevolent, stomping uninvited like Mrs. Pardiggle into the brickmaker's home, leaving their meaningless tracts, while ignoring the human soul in the corner cradling her dead child.

If Mrs. Pardiggle had been more objective, had stood back and looked at this new world which she did not understand, did not write the rules for, perhaps, she would not have made the dark residence darker, perhaps, she would have noticed the mother and her baby. Perhaps, she would have been pierced in the heart. But Mrs. Pardiggle, like many readers is geocentric, thinks only of her own world, her own rules, her own ideas, and as a limited reader, she makes judgements based upon her small universe. Mrs. Pardiggle believes that she is advanced and benevolent, and must impose her limited knowledge upon others. Where she goes, the world contracts. Where she goes, divides and bias spring up.

And if we are limited and un objective readers, we may miss out on some important events. We may miss out on saviors, and springs, Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy. We may look at literature as only dark rooms in decay in which it is our duty to leave our own meaningless words, but not as a place where a soul may touch us and improve ours. Does the reader improve literature or does literature improve the reader?

And this is my thought/argument/defence of the day. Enough.