- Theodore Roosevelt

"Pain is the greatest teacher, but no one ever wants to go to the class".

- Unknown.

clockwork picking mincing at the memories of a shit-strewn field where a child walks home

nothing again nothing

a long low stone wall bus money lunch and billable hours and
things buffet; the trees drink their fill in the cold night air

and phlebas whips his head round to catch the whispers of the dry leaves that leave the branches that starving hysterical naked pentheus is trying to strangle the light out of choking swallowing lungs filling with endless blue wine

the splines sing

interpolants lagrange and hermite cubic polynomials dancing pinging high and brittle like lightbulbs or the masts of ships

patching memories along with functions, perturbations rippling down intervals no longer canonical ready to head off into terra incognito etchings in the margin

do not attempt to follow them they are cold distant angels have sharp teeth are vicious like children

stay instead and wander streets torn apart by jump discontinuities vomiting the homeless and drug crazed from between the cracks searching for the serendipity element

which can be proved to exist but not on this interval

nothing is ever where you look for it.

Don't mind the ads at the beginning. This is worth listening to.

Once upon a time, I was a good catholic boy and God was sacred to me. Forever ago in another world I still had the smell of incense in my nostrils. The faint chime of the eucharistic bell as the monstrance was raised still rang familiar to my ears when I was struggling with the seatbelt in the back of Saathi Rajan's car, waiting to pick up another member of our posse on a freezing cold Saturday night in January. It was so fucking cold, and Saathi's leather seats seemed smooth and rejecting as I huddled there and discussed music with this man who was far too familiar to me who I didn't want to trust.

And he really wanted to play for me this one song. He knew I'd "get it" straight away. To him, it was the greatest of songs. Paul Simon's new album had only just been released, back then, and he was excited about it and wanted me to hear it. I wish I could say I enjoyed the song at the time, but all I could think of was the cold and that I hated drums and the intro was thus way too long and annoying.

Ironically - when you hear it, you'll understand - I faked my enjoyment. We might even have been parked next to the basketball courts at Kits High School as well. It's impossible to be sure.

I'd only been in Canada for three months and I could lead a rosary but I didn't recognize symbols - maybe they were too close, then - and so the meaning of the words escaped me. My life was still compartments, and the real reason I distrusted Saathi (I understand now) was that he wanted to know too much about me too soon, and I wasn't ready for someone else to understand me better than I understood myself. I hadn't even noticed the comma in the title, thought the cross was some kind of baseball reference. All I knew was that the drums in the intro went on for way too long and were annoying.

There's something I'm trying to say, but I can't. I want to tell you why this song speaks to me in a way that it didn't when I was lying about my own reactions to a stranger and believed in the sacredness of things. I listen and I feel admonished and comforted at the same time and I want to make you understand and yet at the same time I don't.

Because there's really nothing to explain. It's obvious.

A very dear Friend of mine once gave me a copy of The Artist's Way. It suggests that anyone who wants to nurture their artistic side write something called "the morning pages", that is, three pages of text written pretty much as soon as you get up. For the third time since I got the book, tomorrow I'm going to try and follow that advice. I may let you know how it goes; this seems like the place to talk about process, even if I'm getting no results.

One other thing: This day is bittersweet to me. Although it could change in literally in the time it takes to make a penstroke, as I write I'm still not recognized here. People confuse facts with truth when often they are mere details; I love this land, I love the people in this land, I care about their future and I share their values as I understand them. And in that spirit I wish anyone reading this today that same love in their own lives and in the people and places they turn to to remind them who they are.

Happy Canada Day.

For reasons I won't go into, I don't feel able to write anything creative write now, yet, but I still have a huge emotional urge to write. So I've been kicking arguments and ideas around in my head; stuff about biofuels, the connection with Dawkins and the atheist delusion, etc. Mostly, stuff I'm really pissed about, although thankfully that anger is dissipating at last. (I'm still hoping to share a little bit of redirected vitriol with you, though. It'll probably be aimed at the atheists, but you never know).

This has nothing to do with my theory.

One of the things I've been thinking about is integrity, and what we mean by integrity, and what I mean by integrity, because it's been a while since I thought hard about it. So to that end I was sitting on the can just now with my copy of John Ralston Saul's On Equilibrium, my bible of rational humanism. I was reading the section about common sense. And that's when it hit me.

People tend to say that our politics has grown cynical, that our society has grown colder, that we care more about how much money we make than we do about how we relate to each other, that our sense of community is evaporating in the face of credit card statements and mortgage payments and plasma TV's. Let's take this observation as being true.

The Question here is "what went so wrong"?

And I'm reading about market forces and shared knowledge and shared values and it hits me that we are not Barren Buffet or Bill Gates or whoever and that the base assumption is false: Our values are not shared. This sounds banal, but run with me a minute.

You read about media executives and their drive and desire for success all the time in Forbes, in the Economist, in whatever the fuck publication on business you picked up last week. Glowing reviews about work ethic. Or, put another way, and some psychological journals have kicked at this from time to time, deeply flawed human beings. George Soros does not work so hard and (make Billions) because he's somehow more disciplined and hard working and just such an awesome person that he can drag himself out of bed at 4am to make a trade; NO. George Soros gets out of bed at 4am to make a trade because he's as addicted to work as a street junkie is addicted to morphine: he can't NOT get out of bed at 4am, and if you took the economy away from him he'd have a breakdown.

This is what JRS does not get. He assumes that no sensible person would place a monetary system over human beings. But he does not share the valules of the people who run the economy, who are addicted to it. To them, the "market process" is somewhere between crack cocaine and mom. Of course it's their primary value; they don't really know what human beings are. Look up profiles for any of them.

Which leads us on to the effect these people have.

I've been around people in charge of big things before. It's interesting to observe that power conveys a mantle of authority, that people in power sway other people's opinions simply because of the power they hold. Quite often, being a leader does not seem to require leadership at all, it merely requires puissance. If you're the best you are at what you do, people tend to follow you and they tend to adopt your ideals.

Hmm.

I'm gonna end up talking about Enron here, and I know I'm gonna need to watch the smartest guys in the room again. That movie deeply affected me the first time I saw it, and I'm definitely ready for another viewing.

But my essential idea - and it may be an old idea, or it may be stupid, but I don't think I've seen a variant of it out there recently - is that "what is wrong" boils down to the fact that our society takes its values from people who are in some sense dysfunctional and don't have any sense of empathy or humanism or connection to people. And that the reason we do this is because only those people will ever be good enough to beat all the other dysfunctional people that you need to beat to make enough money to get to the top of the pile.

As I say, I had this idea while squeezing out my morning offering. It's far from complete, and I can tell that to round off the edges some research will be involved. But I can't shake the core concept from my mind. There's this kernel of wrongness.

Hmm.

More later.

Here's the blog. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but based on a very preliminary skimming of the material they seem to be my kind of people.

This is a pretty lame post and I probably shouldn't be writing anything at 4:30 am, but I just finished work and when I wake up I have to go right back to it and the strip-a-thon for Breast Cancer happens tomorrow. I don't pretend that anyone's gonna read this and suddenly change their Friday night plans, but it's a symbolic thing.

Why am I (ahem) pimping this right now after being silent on this blog for more than a year?

Last year the group raised $8,000, which was divided between Rethink Breast Cancer and a Kelowna mother, and former stripper, struggling to survive financially during cancer treatments. The dancers initially wanted to donate partial proceeds from the 2007 event to the Breast Cancer Society of Canada, but were turned down because the donation was deemed too controversial. After the story broke in the Courier, the dancers came to the attention of both the national and international media.

The dancers then decided on Rethink Breast Cancer, which will once again receive partial proceeds. The second recipient of this year's fundraising efforts is the family of a two-year-old boy from Victoria. Ricketts said the boy has completed treatments for a germ cell tumour, but now suffers from hearing loss and speech problems. The boy's family was devastated financially while he underwent treatment for the tumour.

It angers me when people pass judgement in this way. I don't know who decided that strippers are not qualified to donate to good causes, but I find the decision completely lacking in empathy, and it pisses me off more than I can say.

I'd say more, but as I said it's nearly 5am and I'm so tired I'm feeling an urge to retch. I have to try and sleep for a bit before the next work session. If anyone out there stumbles upon this, I hope it finds you well.

tappping out staccato motes picoseconds apart he wonders how the neon spill from the buildings will taste

this is not the right data

moving below like ants with angel voices hears the street in the room armies marching border patrols the fan is soft insistent weaving through the burnt out husks of old conversations about Stephen Jay Gould gossip and idle chatter a score of bad conspiracy theories like attar between the toes of words

like surf traffic tide receding leaving behind the singsong driftwood of dinner dates and girls just back from graduation parties voices raised

and something is cracking behind the night sky that infests his eyelids like wasps

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. In the original text they did not come in that order but

the feel of a nipple brushing softly against parted lips aching

frayed at the edges but holding out for the rain

"Please be careful where you step, Gerald" Dr. Morbier intoned softly over a pale shoulder. "one of the big wheeled towers came on by itself yesterday and Nisby got sucked inside. We're still trying to get him out. Now, this is what we brought you here to see."

They stopped in front of a small group of researchers. Between them Gerald could make out the..... device. Most of the objects were several times larger than any of the research team - and there were giants in those days, he thought fleetingly - but this was almost smaller than Gerald. And curiously inert; no moving parts, nothing that clicked or whirred or flashed. Just three interlinked pieces of simple metal. True, they looked alien and strange; bizzarre indentations and grooves marked every surface, and one side was completely jagged. He studied them carefully.

"We think they have something to do with the portal" said the doctor. "We know that the race that used to live here before us used the portal often, and that one day they left and simply did not return. Maybe these artifacts were some kind of recall device and they were simply unable to get back."

Gerald was shocked. "Do you think that if we could get these to them in some way we could help them back? Or do you want to try and use the portal yourself? What do you know about the world beyond the portal? Anything could be out there."

"All I know is, Mr.Frisky's getting hungry again, and we're running out of tuna".

There was an uncomfortable pause as the huddled mice considered briefly the awesome terror of the devourer. Then, still shuddering, Gerald and the reasearch team went back to work.

If anyone is still reading at all, I've gone back to my old format (and blog name) for two reasons: things are a bit desperate, and If I'm gonna go out, then I want to go the same way I came in, 'cause I'm a sucker for poetic symmetry like that. The second reason is that I have an editrix who might be reading (Hi Annene! Enjoy the frudity!) and if she is, then the last desperate attempts I make with this blog are deditated to her and her gracious offer to exploit the hell out of me.

I'll put this all in the "about me" box in a few days, I just want to get back into the practice of writing entries. As the man says, "I been gone a long time".

I didn't have sense to save the good template. This one's full of fuck ups; the bottom containers aren't aligned properly, there are issues with justification and border space. If I manage to keep this going this time, I'm gonna have to fix that, but let's start small.

Hi.

That is all.

Through a crack in the door you can see the sun's just past setting and the sky is still flushed with afterglow, dogs chase each other up and down the shoreline and probably some of them are barking. The clink of glasses reminds you of the clink of masts against the fading light. There's a rugby team pouring in from old Jerry Keenan's field, coming this way it looks like.

"jaysus I could murder a curry. Paul would y'ever take this couple of punts across the road for me and get me a curry fish an chips wouldya now? It'll be very quick, sure" says Fiona, alluringly slipping two large heavy coins into the pale nervous hands of the young lad next to her. He flushes and stands to go an is assaulted by a wall of voices; John's head disengages almost mechanically from his conversation with a bricklayer named Eugene who just dropped in.

"oi oi! heading to the chippie? Mine's a bag of chips, then, Paul, cheers mate."
"ah, Paul, that's grand of yours, now. Sure would'y'ever get me the same John?"
"No worries, Eugene. Here, there's two Punts, I'll get us both"
"fifteen fucking lemons! I ask you!"
"do you need more money?"

As paul is leaving, the rugby team comes in, still flushed with the heat of battle and the smell of blood and grass and leather. Young Martin looks big enough to be Cuchulain in his prime, bristling and freal and smashing the heads of the ulstermen with the spokes of his chariot, until he spots Tom sitting back in the corner with his half empty glencinchie and sunlight bursts across his face as it opens in recognition.

"Tom! Ah jaysus, Tom, is it really yourself and all?"
Tom smiles conspiratorially. "flew in from London yesterday, Martin. Feels great to be back already. Did you do well today?"
"Ah, it was close, it was close. Diarmuid got himslef a fuckin' try with fifteen minutes to go at the end of the game and it pushed them over. I swear to Jayus Tom he's a fuckin' greased eel. But how's yourself? did you see your man?"
"ah no Martin, no I've hardly even opened my suitcase y'know? But sure I'll get him now in the mornin when I pop down to Lakers, sure."
"Lakers?" Martin's eyebrows storm the upside of his skull, dislodinging grass and dried mud as they go. "I didn't know he was a betting man, now".
"Ah sure but aren't we all? No, and and he's hardly there at all most of the week sure but on a Sunday mornin' he'll put down a punt or two on the horses, y'know? Sure I have to do bridget and seamus' anyway so I might as well"
"ah now that's grand then"

....(slight changes b/c I'm not really in the mood. More this afternoon? tomorrow? maybe. There's about 1000 words to go.)

It's still dark when the noise starts. Rockall, Malin, Hebrides. Southwest gale 8 to storm 10, veering west, severe gale 9 to violent storm 11. Rain, then squally showers. Poor, becoming moderate. To Cully's ears the sound is familiar but wrong, muffled, and the high keening and the sudden crackle set his ears back and a growl starts up in his belly, though he hasn't made a sound since he was a puppy.

There are echoes of water splashing into a basin, coughing, a low phlegmy hack; creaking boards and banging of pots, the heavy tread of boots on stairs. Unlike the radio, Cully's master's voice is old gravel and moss; neitehr man nor dog have many years left, but still their eyes are bright and sharp in the light of the oil lamps. "come on, then" He says.

No chain, collar, nothing to leash cully or reign him in. Nothing is needed, here at the end of the world; you can't get any further than the sky, nothing runs faster than the wind. Salt sprays their faces and the air crackles with ozone and smoky peat and waves crash down with the force of years and drag half the earth back with them, roaring. Nothing runs faster than the wind and Cully feels no need to run, feels content to stay close to the old man, to draw warmth against the arc and fury of the storm from companionship and understanding that comes with years.

The stinging of the rain is a baptism; the old damp creaking of their failing bodies an afterthought. The sound of the sea fills the ears of man and dog alike somewhere between the tolling of a bell and a benediction.

The ground shakes and trembles and isn't ground anymore. I don't know where I'm running. I don't know why I'm running. I can't remember that there ever was a point to this and even if there was it's almost certainly buried back there in the rubble.

And they keep coming for me and they want to feed

I wake up and my mouth is full of dirt and ichor. I can't bring myself to spit. I hear chittering and there's nothing left. So tired. I tried everything. I tried so hard, so very hard. There's nothing left

(get up)
nowhere to go if I make it no more home
(get up)
close yr eys nd leggo let go ther will be pain
(get up stand you little shit do it now)
just a little pinprick ha that song again and probably more than a pinprick but then over

(GET YOUR FAT ASS OFF THE GROUND RIGHT NOW YOU FUCKING COWARD)

What if I'm wrong and there is a hell?

.....please get up.

Belief is a choice.