Musing on muses

I contracted a muse today, or possibly earlier this year. This in an effort to propel my writing through the National Novel Writer's Month. We shall see if I have the ability or the energy.

Being who I am, I cannot avoid analyzing words and phrases for their full meaning.

Consider "contracting a muse."

Taking the last sub-phrase "a muse" first, this is simple. To wit:

• (in Greek and Roman mythology) each of nine goddesses, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who preside over the arts and sciences.
• a woman, or a force personified as a woman, who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist.

I think that is pretty clear. Of course, I could compress the sub-phrase "a muse" into "amuse", but that would take us down unnecessary tangents.

The first word "contract" is altogether more tricksy though:

noun

• 1. a written or spoken agreement, especially one concerning employment, sales, or tenancy, that is intended to be enforceable by law.
• informal: an arrangement for someone to be killed by a hired assassin.
• BRIDGE: the declarer's undertaking to win the number of tricks bid with a stated suit as trumps.
• dated: a formal agreement to  marry.

verb

• 1. decrease in size, number, or range
• 2. enter into a formal and legally binding agreement.
• 3. catch or develop (a disease or infectious agent).
• 4. become liable to pay (a debt).

Such a plethora of meaning wrapped into a single word.

Of course one could argue from a modern romantic sense that all the above are meant to apply to modern relationship, but I would disagree.

The point I was trying to make though is that I have now contracted (entered into an agreement with) a muse that I am fortunate enough to have previously contracted (been infected by).

Hopefully I will not be contracted [liable to pay (emotionally  or otherwise)] to, or contracted  [decreased in size, number, or range] by, said muse. I doubt it, I have heard she is lazy with the karmic paperwork.

So go the thoughts that hum through my head on a Tuesday evening.

Quick thoughts: Honey and 1066

Hammering out long complex philosophical thoughts is something I do as well as beavers build freeways.

So let me try something simple.

I was "helping" my daughter with her project on bees this evening (due tomorrow, some things never change) when I came across this wonderfully familiar fact:

Origins of words:

Bee: Old English bēo, of Germanic origin

Hive: Old English hȳf, of Germanic origin.

Honey: Old English hunig, of Germanic origin

What does this have to do with 1066?
For hundreds of years, England was conquered by Celts, Franks, Romans, Vikings, and, most importantly for this story, German speaking Anglo-Saxons in 450 AD. Then they stopped being conquered for a bit and a language called Old English was created, mostly from German with some words from the languages of the previous conquerors.
In 1066 a French guy called William conquered England and gave all the important positions in the kingdom to his French buddies.
Over the centuries these foreigners introduced all of their fancy foreign words into English to create a new language called middle English. Being fancy folk with foreign ways, those words only described the kind of things they bothered with.

This eventually developed into modern English which was created by everyone being really lazy with pronunciation. Then about 100 years ago someone created a language called American which was even lazier, if you can believe it.
Eventually my children's generation created something which is allegedly language which I can't even.

So now we have an English language where most of the hard working bits come from German and all the fancy stuff comes from French. The really dumb bits come from Miley Cyrus and Stephen Hawking.

For example:
Work: from the German "Werk"
Managing Director: from Latin "manage" & [Anglo-Norman] French "directour"
Sheep: from the German "Schaf"
Civilian (Human sheep): from Old French "civilien"
Football: German
Tennis: French
Boss: from Dutch "baas" [via South Africa]
Apartheid: from Afrikaans [via South Africa]

BFF: Origin unknown

String theory: Two words that each make sense but taken together start talking about "one dimension[al] objects"... OK, boy bands and I really, really can't even.

So I am writing in a language that has three parts.

A German part which I use if I want to get work done.

A French part which one should certainly use to seduce the mademoiselles.

And a modern part which make you hip to the jive of the new lingo, y'all.

Comprende?

On Truth Diggers and Trolls

A few interesting ideas in my head today made me want to write about the truth-diggers and trolls in our world.
For the sake of convenience and so as not to refer to them specifically again, trolls are everything from hate posters to ISIS decapitators to colonial war mongers to Nazis. The difference between them is merely a question of degrees, after all. Shitty shit shits.

Let me define more carefully what I mean by truth-diggers. These are people who believe that THE TRUTH is important.
Yes, I know: about 93.2% of you are already adding qualifications to that statement in your minds. All those ifs and buts just mean you are not the people I am referring to. You, like me, fit into that interstitial group of "normals."

Truth-diggers are not "truthers" or conspiracy theorists. A truth-digger will call you out for factual inaccuracies, logical fallacies and grammatical errors even when you are trying to support them.

Truth-diggers are not attention whores. They will write an essay in defense of a simple point of decency and then ignore an ad hominem attack as if it never happened.

Truth-diggers are batshit crazy. Hope that you are never ruled by one.

BUT

Truth diggers are the conscience of our society. And they are winning.

Before I get into that winning, let me first list some of the ideas that provoked these thoughts:

• A heart-rending post from Kathy Sierra (aka SeriousPony) about trolls and women. Read it. Seriously, forget the rest of this post and read it. It is thoughtful, honest, shocking. For me it was emphasized by the hosts of This Week in Google talking about their, and their families, suffering from harassment. The life of an even nominally well known woman on the internet is so much different and more awful to mine. This was complicated for me because Kathy's main antagonist wrote an empathetic post that I 100% agreed with about a hero of mine, Richard Stallman. Life is complicated.
• Jennifer Lawrence "refusing to apologize" for the naked selfies, instead saying: "'you should cower with shame' for viewing my nudes." I haven't viewed your nudes Jennifer, tempted as I may be. (Hat-tip to Georgie) 
• An instructive twitter conversation with two of my favorite tweeps about the solution to trolls. I, of course, am in favor of a Roman solution. Let's force everyone to share everything they ever write with their mothers. They questioned me. Yeah it creeps me out too, but it's the only way.
• A fleeting fancy of creating a female social media persona for myself (40-something soccer mom, married [sorry guys], into yoga and blogging) so as to experience the hatred first hand.
• A private conversation with a truth-digger (a hat-tip to you too) and
• As always, a discussion with my wife. Touching on Ada Lovelace, Jean Jennings-Bartik and Frances Bilas et al; my eldest daughter; trolls; said private conversation; and psychology. [Is the oxford semi-colon a thing?]

So why do I think think the truth-diggers are winning?

Stephen Pinker wrote a book called "The bettter angels of our nature: Why violence has declined."  showing that we are living in the most peaceful era of human history. He measures this by the decline in pro-rata violent deaths over the centuries. He does not declare victory for peace or suggest that we should stop peacing for final victory. But he does say that the numbers are in.

WWI, II, Korea, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, Vietnam, Congo,  Ethiopia, Lebbanon, Rwanda, Liberia, Sudan, Iraq 1 & 2, Afghanistan 103, 104 & 105, Syria, killer cops, Marikana, drone strikes, etc, etc, etc aside, we are living in the most peaceful era of human history.

How can that be? It sure doesn't feel like it. How do we reconcile our immediate experience with that idea.

Let me propose some possibilities.

• Most cynically, people have found better ways of killing each other. I am not sure if Biafra, Somalia, the Chinese famines, the Western Sarhara and other acts of starvation-as-genocide feature in Mr Pinker's calculations of violent death. I would hope so. [I really should read that book before basing an entire blogpost on it, shouldn't I?]
• Inequality of excess. The nastiness of this world is not distributed as evenly as it was in the past. The European savages could wipe out more of the world [pro-rata] in a decade that ISIS could manage in a century but ISIS is operating in a smaller area. Deaths from the Israeli occupation of Gaza is small potatoes compared to the Irish famine of the 19th century perpetrated on a similarly sized area. (Godawful and nasty pun, I know.)
• Good fun as war. As uncomfortable as this may be, we have to acknowledge that many of the young men who would have served in the Roman legions, Sassanid cataphracts or Turkish bombardiers are now shuttered in their parents basements. The evil they sometimes do is still evil, but we do not count it as "spoils of war." Is it impossible to imagine that the young male still calls out for blood, be he ever so far from the rape and pillage of the battlefield?
• Better communications. The world is in my face like an anteaters tongue in an ant's antechamber right now. From St. Louis shenanigans to Hong Kong Gung Ho [it didn't mean what you think it meant], I cannot turn on Twitter without learning of some terrible tragedy or lamentable last stand. Where are the walls that should protect me from the horror? They are gone, shelled and shattered in the wastelands of the Somme, Verdun, Auschwitz, Stalingrad, Srebrenitsa, Somaliland, St Louis. Peepholes have been pried in the ruins with Facebook and Google. We are too much with the world. "We are the world," is an ominous threat.
• More wealth equals more caring. Compassion is a luxury. Telling a homeless man about the travails in the Ukraine or Syrian refugees is callous. His personal concerns about the next 24 hours are far more important than anything, anywhere, ever. You have to have a certain amount of security and possibly insouciance to really care. Of course there are those of you who don't and still do and that is why you hurt yourselves so bad.
• Because capitalism or communism. Nah, just kidding. Those tired old ideas mean nothing.

So the world may be less violent and deadly than it was in the past but there is still much evil around. The trolls are not only still with us, but they are now unionized. They have their fellowship of the interrupt-ring. Terrible things, personal and public, still happen every day.

This is because the war is not won and may never be. But the truth-diggers, the bleeding hearts and artists, the decent folk, are on the ascent. One battle at a time. One word at a time. One hug, one cent, one cure, one peace deal at a time.

It will not be yours to see a final victory, but only to know that you stood your ground.

Melancholy happiness really.

Belief in a time of saneness

"To the student, a plea for philosophy" - First year philosophy preface

To disabuse a person of a belief is a an act of violence. It is a violation of the soul, a rape of the heart. However stupid, bigoted, irrational or illogical that belief is does not matter. To destroy belief is to destroy a part of a being.
Sometimes that violence is appropriate and necessary. Paul, the apostle, said "... when I became a man, I put away childish things..." (1 Corinthians 13:11) What he really meant was "my mother explained that fairies weren't real (on this planet in this universe)" or, possibly, "my daddy told me what he had to do to mommy to get me." We hope that when we can do this violence gently and with compassion, tearing the plaster of protection from the wounds of reality with the minimum pain. Of course we all know that the best way to do this is by allowing the patient to remove the plaster themselves. More on that later, maybe.

It would be useful here to discern between true beliefs and meta-belief or, as Mark Twain called the latter, "believing what you know ain't so." We all profess beliefs that are really the funereal suits of social cohesion. It may be a meta-belief in honesty, or the equality of all men and women, etc, etc, etc, ad nausium. Modernity has equipped us with a full wardrobe of these fripperies. We can dismiss them easily and walk through the rest of this narrative intellectually naked.

I am talking about true belief, embedded belief. The kind of belief that makes us inviolable to a world of counter-factuals .Our belief in rightness and wrongness, in the sanctity of hard work Your belief in an omniscient and omnipotent G-d. A belief in a cause or country. Belief in ourselves. In  short, the beliefs, the truths, that raise us up and press us down in a visceral way.

They are all bullshit too, obviously, but we must believe them. Not to do so would be to walk the short urban garden path to insanity.
Therein lies the paradox. How does one, knowing the true arbitrary nature of existence, construct something on which to believe? How does one proceed through life without destroying the beliefs of others while still living an honest existence? No. That is too complex. How does one exist with any meaning?

Shall we trust in the cult of science? Can 1 in 1000 the putative readers reliably identify (without Google) to the nearest 1000 TeV what energy the Higgs-boson was discovered at? Or what it is? Can you explain what science has done to eliminate the trade in women in Western Africa? Can the reader kindly define euclidean geometry and why the two additions (an negative sign for time and sqrt -1) make it useful for general relativity?
Can anyone explain why that last paragraph was inane trickery?

If you cannot answer at least one of these questions and still believe in science, your faith is as childlike as Carthaginian faith in child sacrifice.

Can the engineers tell us what they have done while humane civilization burns? Those mechanical men (and a few women) with their mega-brains are MIA.

Can anyone give this correspondent something on which to believe?

And now for something completely (in)different.
The successful therapist is the consummate seductress. She will cut away the clothing of your soul, inch by inch. All you will experience is the malleable comfort of the session room until the moment you stand spiritually naked in front of the existential mirror. And then you will do it again. It is not enough to see the corpse of psyche. You will dig down until you find the skeleton. Then you will shred it and suck on the very marrow of your existence. And, having fed to satiety, you will do it again.
And again.
We used to call them priests. Shamans, druids, sangomas.
We used to trust them.

mi morte, mia maxima morte (My death is the greatest reward of death)

I came across this title though serendipity. Through screwing around with Latin, basically. I have a passion for dead languages and peoples.


Living people? Not so much.
So first I must offer an apology. Last weekend I was a total dick to some people. I cannot argue my cause on this. I offer you each 5 karma coins from my diminishing reserves. (Please wash hands after handling.)

Next I should offer condolences to my fellow living dead. #Soz and #whatevs you guys. #luvs ;)

Okay, admin taken care of, let us progress to the meat of the matter:

A poem (first in a while)
by a [former, not quite] [buffalo] soldier
(trying to rip off Elliot)

"We'll no longer yearn
To be brothers in arms" -Dire Straits

"Repent" he said,
"Transform" said she
These sallow wraiths of real world
Trying to cluster-fuck me
into normality

I saw my dead comrade
and crying captain
un-men in impotence
in the bush,

This is my time of crisis, blood!
I see the band of brethren distant,
my nostrils flare in an instant
Blood. Blood, blud.

He is perfect, perfectly still
He is dead, so be thy will
I reach behind his head
matted hair and blood, be still


Drag the corpse towards the vehicle
Horror! Do you think he will?
"Inside", I say.
On top, they pray. Voices shrill.

His last ride is atop a Ratel
So off to the awful morgue we go
Where body bag entombs friend-foe
Exposed, inured, immortal

Metallic blood, I taste you.

Relationship status

Abraham, Ebrahim, father of nations, friend of G-d
Father of two first-borns
Took his child to Moriah and said
“God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my [daughter].”

The world waits until we are ready,
Until we embrace the unknown unknown
Until we befriend the void that is with us
And is us.

Look to the mirror, friend
Look to the scars and lines of your time.
Look to the face and the place of the known unknown,
Look to your kindred kind,
Ken ye?

Ken ye?
Doest thou know the known?
Canst thou embrace the unknown?
Ken ye?

Sit with me in sadness, stranger
We have walked this short mile together
We have eaten salt together
We have supped and visited the graves of our ancestors, together

To the Sanhedrin and Pharisees, I say:
"Who is thy neighbour?"
Who walks the road to Jericho?
Who is mugged on the highway of life?

And now to the topic
To the current muse and views of the temporal I
Focus, draw in the moment and the read words that stirred
this un-rhyme

Relationship status?
Almost!
Exegesis attempted a slip from my fingers
Actuarial disinterest nearly existed

The lead pressed ceiling of a darkened room
Counting the patterns of nothing
I am not of this world
The angel[']s sang[froid]

Sallow wraith of me
Crept out of bed
Clutching at corners to define a time and place
for my vapid soul to inhabit

Horror stalked me, shadows found me
Brushing my hair in the autumn dark
Clean-shaven legs or clean-cut face
The mirror reflects a hollow space

I, this I, will go forth
Pretence shall prevail
This I is I
It has been foreseen, foreshadowed

...

She destroys me perfectly
Sarah, wife of Ebrahim
She whose name means "princess"
or "commander" of the horde

Who will love my monsters?
Who will breed and feed
and kill them in turn
Who will transmute the ram to the lamb?

My questions about MH370: A visit to Occam's barbershop

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's Razor
 
This is not my normal blog post. It may be moot at any time, but it is a relevant question anyway.

The disappearance of Flight MH370 has led to wild speculation by the media based on little or no evidence. I believe there are some basic questions that have not been answered:

• Why did the ELT fail to activate? Why were there no distress calls from the aircraft?
• What happened to the pings to Inmarsat between 1:07  and 08:11?
• Why is the arc for the location of MH370 truncated between Vietnam and Indonesia? What makes this area exceptional?
• What is the time it takes a 777 flying at normal cruising speed to turn 300°?
• Was the "unknown aircraft" that we assume to be MH370 really it? Were there any other "unknown aircraft" in the sky that night?
• What is the maximum limits of the radar observations of the "unknown aircraft?" Does it terminate in the Malacca straits? On the Andaman islands? Beyond?
• In the court of Occam's razor, do eyewitnesses count for anything?
• Do eyewitness accounts tie in with the known facts?
• What would cause radar echoes to be intermittent?

I ask these questions as a layman, I have no special knowledge or skills. In doing so I am going to apply Occam's razor (i.e. Make no more assumptions than is necessary).
I will use the word "allegedly" a few times in this post. This word means 'I have no corroboration' for the facts stated. It does not mean "I am suspicious."

Here are the sequence of known, relevant events:

• On 8 March at 00:30, MH370, a Boeing 777,  departed Kuala Lampur with 227 passengers and 12 staff on board. The weather was normal.
• Two of the passengers on board were travelling under false passports. They have allegedly since been cleared.
• At 1:07 the last ACARS transmission is made. The next transmission is expected in either 30 minutes or 1 hour. It is unclear from the reporting whether the satellite or plane initiates this request.
• At 01:19 MH370 sent it's last transmission to Malaysia Air traffic control saying "All right, good night." This is the last intelligible vocal communication.
• At 01:21 MH370 disappeared from radar. This is the last known radar contact with MH370.
• At 01:28 Thai radar picked up an unknown aircraft flying in the opposite direction to MH370 in the same vicinity as MH370. This aircraft's signal was intermittent.
• Malaysian radar also picked up an unidentified aircraft in the same vicinity, although times are not given.
• This aircraft is assumed to be MH370.
• At "just after 01:30" the pilot of another aircraft makes contact with MH370. He hears static and "mumbles". This is the last known verbal contact with MH370.
• While on this course, the unidentified aircraft allegedly makes a series of erratic altitude changes. It goes up to 45000ft (above the safe operating limit for MH370) down to 23000ft (below normal cruising altitude for MH370) and then down to 5000ft.
• This aircraft travels south west into the Malacca Strait. Based on some reporting the aircraft followed commercial airline waypoints.
• The narratives now diverge:
• According to Malaysian authorities the aircraft follows a complex set of navigation points to eventually take a route that would lead it to Europe, crossing the Andaman Islands.
• According to Thai reports the aircraft turns left into the Malacca strait and then makes a right turn towards Butterworth, Malaysia.
• At 08:11, Inmarsat reports a "ping" response from MH370, response times indicate a possible arc of the current location. No intervening pings are given. The centre of the arc defined by this ping is excluded as possible locations, even though it intersects the original flight path of MH370. Reports differ as to whether the plane needed to be in the air for this ping to occur.
• The Emergency Location Transmitter (ELT) did not activate. At 01:19, 08:11 or at any time in between. 
• No mayday signal was sent by the crew.

Corroborating eyewitness accounts:
The most convincing eyewitness account I have seen is from Mike McKay. His observations are detailed in every way except that he did not quote a time. Other than that, Mike would be my primary source. His account was early, precise and detailed. Tie that to an aircraft flying at 45000ft instead of 30000ft and the numbers start to add up.

Other eyewitness accounts:

• Fishermen in the Malacca straits find a life raft with the word "boarding" on it.
• Fishermen report seeing an aircraft fall in the Malacca straits. Wrong date, wrong time. However, the description is seems to mesh with a catastrophic failure.
• Fishermen off the coast of Andhra Pradesh report "bits of something." I admire the reserve.
• Reported sighting over the Maldives, flying North to South East at 06:15 local time. These guys were definitely hungover (or the US guys at Deigo Garcia were messing with them.) The numbers do not compute.

Occcam's barbershop:
Theory 1: MH370 suffered a catastrophic failure between 01:21 and 01:28. To purport that a commercial aircraft can lose all signal in 7 minutes due to human intervention is reaching.

Theory 2: MH370 crashed somewhere off the coast of Vietnam due to theory 1. If the Inmarsat beacon somehow stayed alive, it would explain the ongoing responses.

Theory 3: MH 370 crashed somewhere between the Andaman Straits and the Indian coast. This would assume that the Anmarsat responses were not absolute, but would explain three of the eyewitness accounts. I dedicate this theory to Courtney Love with no irony whatsoever.

Theory 4: The aircraft crashed somewhere between the Malacca straits and the Indian coast. This would explain two eyewitness accounts and match the last assumed direction of the unidentified aircraft. It would question the Inmarsat locations.

Theory 5: The aircraft continued flying and crashed or landed somewhere else on the Inmarsat arc or 30 minutes beyond. This calls into question all of the known facts except the Inmarsat pings.

Theory 6: Whatever the truth is discovered to be.

As much as this is a curious mental exercise, I do acknowledge that real people are involved. The missing, their families, the bleeding hearts and artists. Ordinary people. I do care, in my way.

Lastly I want to say to all the media: Your ugliness has been noted.

Show me the place: A random diatribe

[An attempt at surrealism. Some very obscure references which are often incredibly dirty, you may want to google them :) Beer with me or wine away (sic).]


Her lipstick is red, cloven on the upper lip; an indication of possible assignations consummated. Dark red, indicating satiation. Throbbing red, satisfied red.

I would have preferred pink or possibly puce. Potential. Possibility. Not fait accompli.

She moves awkwardly, a young starling; a freshly birthed buck. A hex torn from the storm too early.
A grief imposed.
A gnarly nose.
A shadow without shape.
A season unseasoned.
Somewhere or something else.

And if she is not present, how shall I consume her? How? Shall I suck the essence of lemon from my keyboard. Shall I cast my burger patty from a wraith's womb?
Shall I....?
Shall.. ow.
Sallow.

Elliot, it is said, spent minutes, hours and days on a single word.
"Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

... I'm no prophet - and here's no great matter."

Haha, yes, no great matter.  E = MC². Is the energy of an un-whispered whisper  =  the mass of an un-enervated option x light of hindsight²?

The iris of a distant galaxy turns to look at you, looming in infinitesimal space. The event horizon has no upcoming events. The mind's 'I' inverts and stares into itself. Introverted, obsessive, unnamed, undirected object.

See the eight limbed flailing cephalopod of sensuality spread out on the satin. Thrashing, grasping, finally scuttling out of view, into the shadows. Unresolved Janus hunkers again in his dark doorway, back to back. "Halt! Who goes there?"

"It is the sun of  midsummer's dawn, come to shine a light through your splayed archway and enumerate the names and days of your ways."

"Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?"
Elliot again, an unwanted assignation in the middle of a mud bath.

And then another alliterative aside to an author of apposite autobiographical ardour for analogy.
"Show me the place where the suffering began
...
there were chains, so I loved you like a slave."
Cohen and Elliot. Kissing in the abyss. Senex and puer. Puer become senex. Senex sans sex. Puer profligate.
Nietzsche giggles.
"Your teeth are stuffed with underwear, suspenders torn asunder there, and buttocks in your paws." All the while Betjeman watches; writing rhymes on the skin of first year innocents, erasing errors with spaniels ears and the erstwhile tears of crushing humiliation from the then nine year old.
Yes. I remember now. The horror. Let's put that in the lower right corner. A tear-drop masked as a dacrocyte, symbol of the lasting anaemia of that moment.

So let us spiral inwards to the pseudo centre of the self. Let me let you in the antechamber of the other abyss, inside.

Yes, it is empty as a good abyss ought to be, no overwhelming questions please.

Be quiet. Close your vacant eyes for a moment and stare into your abyss.


...

...


Now open your virtual eyes and see, turn your head around and see the abyss smiling at you.

This is your perfect moment.

Identifying a phoenix

Phoenix 1.

(in classical mythology) a unique bird that lived for five or six centuries in the Arabian desert, after this time burning itself on a funeral pyre and rising from the ashes with renewed youth to live through another cycle.

(Ignore this definition as it is not what I mean at all)
Phoenix (mine). And idea or emotion that comes from the outside and changes you suddenly and intensely.

I had the pleasure recently of messaging with Ms A who brought a phoenix into my life many years ago. Tonight I had the pleasure of another phoenix.

These birds have been visting me more often of late, so I thought it would would be good to describe what I mean.

A phoenix is not a person; it is an idea, created by a person in your head.
It could be someone long dead or someone intimately alive that evokes a feeling so powerful as to make you believe you are in love or lust. A poem, a look, a conversation. A kiss. But confusing the person with the spark they have ignited in you is the cause of much strife. You mythologise the individual when it is the idea you should appreciate.

A phoenix is ephemeral
Sure, the phoenix may live for 600 years, but you will see it only briefly, in the moment of it's rebirth in your mind. I never knew what semiotics meant until last week. Now I know there is a word for what happens in my head when I see genius art or read a thrilling book. A word that has existed for 60+ years descended to earth in a fiery blaze of neurons. 45 years of my existence were transformed in a moment. A phoenix was born and ascended to the rather tatty heaven of my mind.

A phoenix means fire
Whether it is the hearth fire that brings warmth or the forest fire that destroys all before it, there will be fire. A phoenix does not come quietly. A phoenix does not wait at the door. Ready or not the phoenix descends from the heavens and blazes through your mind. Expect it.

The phoenix is fascinating
Fascinate: from Latin fascinat- ‘bewitched’, from the verb fascinare, from fascinum ‘spell, witchcraft’.
Yes! The greatest ventures and greatest heartbreaks come from fascination. The phoenix seduces you, burns you, changes you. If I were a reasonable man, perhaps I could analyse this for you. I cannot. I am enamoured of the seduction.

Whether it is cresting the mound of Venus or trudging the wastelands of Hades. Whether I am Persephone picking flowers or Demeter denuding the earth. Drag queen or dungeon master; earl or indentured man; sultan or slave; I am bewitched when the phoenix touches me with it's flames.

The phoenix does not obey the 10 commandments
(Yeah, whatevs. Nor do I.)
Or any other law for that matter. Phoenix don't care.

You can keep the phoenix out, but you cannot make it come in
An obstinate mind will block the phoenix every time. A receptive mind creates the space for the phoenix to land. Then you wait. That is all you can do.


16 years ago MS A put me in her car and drove me to a doctor. Without that act of kindness I would not be writing tonight. There were many other moments on the road that brought me here, but that was one of them.

A phoenix. A rebirth. A moment.

What to listen to in oneself

[Authors note: The slightly constipated language of this is post is intentional and is meant to mimic the language of my betters. Specifically the platonic style still apparently favoured by some universities. I choose to use the first person singular instead of plural to individualise the style. Ho ho]

There are words the hover around the edges of my mind. Half defined or undefined, they linger there, surfacing every now and again in an article or podcast.

Two of these words arose this week as I was contemplating a way to approach this topic:

Exegesis: 1. critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially of scripture.
Semiotics: 1. the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation.

So let us examine and interpret this phrase:
"what to listen to in oneself"
First I note the lack of punctuation. Is this a question? Is it a phrase picked out of a text? Possibly "One will learn what to listen to in oneself as one becomes still," or some such sagacity. Is it something written in haste? Something trivial or something trivialised?
 
What about it's context. On social networks everything is contextual and this phrase was indeed passed to me on a social network, in response to my request for subjects for this blog.

So it is the potential subject of a blog post, it's potential now realised.

I move now to the content of the phrase. It has two parts.
The first "what to listen to" seems at first glance to be simple enough. It is "what" which indicates multiple things that can be enumerated; and "listen" which would seem in the fuller context to indicate things which make a (possibly intelligible) sound or create a resonance. Whether that sound is metaphorical or not is moot for now.

The second part is "in oneself." This is the more immediately difficult part. Without knowledge of the questioner, with false ignorance as it were, I cannot know what they mean by this. Let me assume for now that they are not referring to external sounds that are actuated within the hearing system. This would seem to defeat the inclusion of this clause.
I will also note the use of "oneself." The neutral term means that the questioner is not asking me to examine generics. They did not say "in myself" or "in yourself." They are asking for a treatment that is at least nominally neutral.

So what is "oneself" that contains these things to be listened to? The biological self? Does it include the rumbling and trickling of the bowels? The creak of the neck after too many hours sat typing? Or should I confine myself to the inner dialogue of the one's mental self? Are they talking about isolating different parts of the one's psyche, or about competing drives that the one could either listen to or resist?

Again I come back to context. There is a clear and definite road along which I could carelessly storm with the context inside my mind. And you, my long-suffering reader, could as easily careen down a different path given this phrase. Thus we would not only arrive at different answers but start from different questions.
Without an understanding of the author of the phrase it is difficult to arrive at an acceptable meaning for the phrase.

[Here I need to step outside the narrative and say that I am not going to describe said author to you, which would be required by the process, but I am going offer my best guess at their intent given what I know. Let's pretend I have given you the juicy details and led you down some logical alleyway to the next sentence]

With this knowledge of the author, I can rephrase the question as follows:
"Which aspects of one's drives and motivations, or body and soul if you prefer, should one readily express and which should be managed more carefully or shut down completely."

This is a question to which there is no clear answer. To answer it intellectually is a fool's errand or, given the style of this post, an academic's errand.

Since I am neither an academic nor a student playing at being one, I will quickly and jarringly switch to a mode in which I feel I can answer.

To the self and the myriad selves I say "we are at war with ourselves."
'We', and not 'I', for how could a unitary 'I' have such conflicts.
'War' because I can feel the wounds and I can see the dead selves lying on the road to now.
To the surviving selves I say "there will be no peace until the last of us dies."
'No peace' because I do not seek peace. Peace stinks of stagnation.
'Until the last of us dies' since in the pine box at the end of our road there will be peace.
To the questioner I say "listen to everything inside."
"Listen" because that requires focus. Let the selves speak. Do not silence their voices nor their weapons.
"Everything inside" because the world can be too much with one.
To the reader I say "This writing like a student lark is bloody hard."
"This writing..."
Ah, screw it. I am no good a Gibran either...

Fighting with my wife

If we are fortunate, most of our lives consist of evolution. If you are a Syrian refugee or child pop star, this may not be true, but most of us deal with the everyday annoyances of time, money and relationships as they come along. This may improve us or turn us into hollow husks, whatever.

Every now and then, though, we have a revolution. This may be a good or bad revolution. I was going to list some of each, getting married or divorced; getting or losing a job; then I realised that any of those could be good or bad.

I would like to talk about a specific kind of revolution - fights with my wife.

Those of you who know my beautiful, caring and all round wonderful wife would doubt that any man could ever fight with such a blessed creature. I am sad to report that this does happen on occasion.

By fight I do not mean argue, or display signs of irritation. That happens and it is part of the evolution. Every now and again we fight. The causes are varied, it could be a something someone has said or failed to say; some disagreement about how something was handled; or just general boredom because we haven't had a fight for a few months.

There are some ground rules to a fight that we have refined over the years:

• Not in public.
• Not in front of the kids (Not the bloody parts anyway).
• Not while drinking. Bar-room brawling has no place for us.
• No character assassination (character commentary is fine though).

The fight itself has four steps:

1. One of us will say A flippantly.
2. The other will respond aggressively and say B.
3. Soon C-Z and more has also been said.
4. Then one of us - usually me, I'm a sulker - will saunter off nonchalantly.

Some sniping may occur after this, but only light sniping. Flesh wounds. Something to make the other realise they are in no-man's land. And dawn is coming.

This is usually followed by a day or so of silence. Not an armistice exactly, more a regrouping of the forces.

Then comes the peace. This is normally the calm reasoned discussion that real adults are supposed to have in the first place.

And then... a funny thing happens. One of us, or maybe both, will change. "Yes, you have a point. And not just that arrow-point aimed at my jugular."
Yes, I am too involved in my internal world.
No, it's not useful when I keep avoiding talking about [...].
Yes, we do have to sort our finances out.
No, I don't have to give you a solution to every problem, sometimes a hug or commiseration will do.

Those changes, year by year, have made our relationship stronger. We have not slain all our monsters. We are not the perfect couple. But every fight makes us that little bit better, together.

Vampires and other beasts

"She only comes out at night"

(Hat tip to Anton Hochleutner for the subject "Teenage girls obsession with vampires"; to my wife for the drawing and to a very special semi-adolescent girlfriend who gave me the vampire scene)

So what is this thing that teenage girls (and boys and adults) have with vampires. Why would anyone be drawn to a creature that inflicts pain and fear on others? Why would we walk towards an undead being that would see one as a piece of meat more than anything else.

Of course when said vampire (or werewolf) is played by a very good looking boy with a certain androgyny or a Monster High doll for the younger kids, we can understand, but there is a darker side to the fascination. Being called 'dark' or 'evil' is far better than being called 'creepy' or 'weird'. Serial killers get nude pics and marriage proposals.

I have never been a teenage girl and my last personal interaction with a teenage girl was 15 years ago. (Relax, she was 18 and I was... a bit older.)

Fortunately for us, I believe in the universal subconscious and have almost immediate access to every emotion felt and every thought thunk by anyone ever.

The teenage mind is readily accessible with the right preparation. A mixture of raging hormones, peer pressure, great expectations and parents in their psyche will reduce the casual observer to a quivering wreck in seconds.
Thankfully wine, cigarettes, age and too many swift ones off the wrist have made me impervious to these distractions. I shall go there shortly.

Vampires are a bit more difficult, since they don't exist. So let us look at the best known foundational myth of vampires. For this we can turn to my great, great X 27 uncle, Vlad the Impaler. You see, my family's name was originally von Schwarzenburg. We came from a region of southern Germany adjacent to Wallachia and Vlad's brother, Radu, was the duke of Schwarzenburg.

Uncle Vlad was known for his cruel but effective methods in war. It can be argued that he played a decisive part in saving Europe from the Ottomans in 1462. He achieved this by destroying vast border areas and killing every man, woman, child and beast in that place; by filling the battlefield with the impaled captives (impaled anus to aorta on wooden poles) from previous battles and raids, some still crying out as they bled to death from internal wounds. By being, in short, the nastiest man in town.

And for that he was cursed by the pope and by the people. He and his family and all their descendants to the end of time were excommunicated and damned. As a final insult, many hundreds of years after his death, a drunk Irishman took his story and turned it into a caricature which persists to this day. Vlad III, Dracul, Prince of Wallachia became Dracula of Transylvania, a blood sucking demon that did not die. He has not died.

There is a legend in my family that any son born with a birthmark on the neck will die a violent death before his fiftieth year, an interesting twist on the bite marks of vampires.  It is a silly superstition, but my uncle Clive had a birthmark on the back of his neck and he died in a car accident when he was 52.

The myth of vampires transforms historical facts into a farce for the entertainment of the masses. Families take the story of a long dead descendant and turn it into a curse, a 'raison de se cacher'; a reason to hide from the world. 

This does not explain the teenage girls attraction to this figure, though. Vlad is a better as a role model for hedge fund managers than as the object of teenage affections. 

I have put off that access to the teenage mind long enough. Let me see...

---

im fat no one will ever want to marry me i have a test on monday i should have studied tonight clint is quite a caring guy everyone will laugh at me if i speak to him i told sandy that james is sooo cute he's ok whats moms problem i know she has issues but shit she should just sort them out i don't know why she and mike are still together i bet she is doing it for me and sandy thats so fucking i mean bloody messed up does she think she is doing us a favour by staying with that arsehole they fight every night the way he looks at me the creep...

 i frigged myself last night its wrong but what about how steve said he was a vampire the idiot but what if vampires really existed...

He stands at the top of the marble staircase. He is dressed all in black with a cape. The inside of the cape is dark red satin.

I stand at the bottom of the stairs. I am scared, but I can't move. There are people all around me. Everyone is looking up at him, but he is only looking at me.

He slowly walks down the stairs. He smiles at me. I can see his incisors are long. Jesus, he is handsome. No, not Jesus, I will scare him away if I think that.

He walks straight to me. He reaches out and takes my hand, "Shall we dance?" The band starts playing and we dance. I don't know how to dance but he looks into my eyes and it just happens. He is so strong.

He dances with me the whole night. He takes me to his table on the stage. There are some very important people at the table, he is talking to them and they are laughing. I understand everything that is happening. The whole night his hand is on my leg.

Then the band stops playing and the people at our table disappear. There are still people below us at other tables around the dance floor.

He looks at me, he stares straight into my soul. "I want you to stay the night. Do you understand what that means?"

I am not sure, is he going to drink my blood? Am I going to die? I nod yes. He is so beautiful. I will do anything he asks.

"Say it." He commands.

"You want to drink my blood."

"NO! I do not want your blood, I want you."

I'm confused. I just stare at him.
"You are going to be mine. Forever. We will drink the blood of others together."
"But why me?"
"Don't you understand? You are beautiful, I want you to be my bride. You will have everything you ever wanted. You will lack for nothing. But you must understand the cost. Your life as you know it will be gone forever. You will be tutored here, you will grow to a woman. Your family will be taken care of but you will never be able to return to them. I love you, Belle. You are such a beauty and I know I am a beast..."
---

Ooookay...

Beauty and the Beast = Vampires? Did we give our daughters a monster to play with when they were young and it grew up with them? A monster that offers them escape from the mundane. Who offers everything and demands everything. Who may yet be saved from his curse by a working class girl.

Do our sons fantasise about being a beast? Do they sometimes look in the mirror and realise that they will never be prince charming, but Dracula, the Hulk or Al Pacino? Maybe.

I have had some flirtations with the darkness, here is one:

"What would you believe
To relieve
The insane
Pain
Of nothing?

I cut myself
As the blood flowed freely
I took it as ink and wrote
Above my bed
"I AM"
Ultimate insult to the god of my fathers
Final acknowledgement of the blood of my mothers (Blest be ye)"

Perhaps I should look inside myself for these answers. Why do I love the darkness? Why am I drawn to be Dracul? Why is it that a girlfriend expressed the fantasy above in relation to me?

The void. We all know the void. It is with us every day. Some use it as a canvas, some mock it, most ignore it. A few look into it.

I quite enjoy the void. It is calm. No one comes looking for me there. There are no bills there, no chakras to clear, no relationships to rescue, no dogs to walk and no cats to feed. It is the grave animated. It is infinity and eternity. I can sit there and be insignificant in peace.

At the high table of count Dracul there are no parents, no exams, no questions about what you are going to do with your life. There is no prince charming to sweep you off your feet before you have even found them. He is dark, he is dangerous, he is powerful. He is all or nothing. He is the final grave and the temporary pleasure.

Come, drink.

(DISCLAIMER: The true story of Vlad III is even more awesome than my version. My father's male line come from a stone mason in Pomerania who came to SA in 1839. However my mother's paternal line does come from the brother of a man killed in a cathedral Robert the cunt Bruce around the same time as Vlad was doing his thing. So fair's fair)

A snowflake and the 10 commandments

Snowflake responds to the law.

You shall have no other Gods before me
"I am glad this came up. But it's OK. As long as you keep me there or thereabouts."

You shall not make for yourselves an idol
"My ironic photo of the Jesus painting is fine but whoever painted it is most probably going to hell."

You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God
"Um, who is my God again? I feel I should know this."

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy
"Remember to breathe. No, seriously, just chill the fuck out sometimes, dude."

Honor your father and your mother
"Awkies. Um..."

You shall not murder
"In my mind is fine though. I think. As long as I have the violence in the video game of my mind set to 'low'. Blood spatter is definitely not cool."

You shall not commit adultery
"OK, this one is for you, not me. Get your hands of my ass."

You shall not steal
"Yeah, whatever."

You shall not give false testimony
"But social lying is fine. Really, I should try it sometime. Truth is one thing, my brutal honesty is quite another."

You shall not covet
"That shit doesn't mean anything anyway. Rings on their fingers and smells in their toes."

Suli Breaks vs Bruce Springsteen: A review

Suli Breaks and a white guy

I have been to see two events this month: Bruce Springsteen (~40 000 attendance) and Suli Breaks (~50 attendance).

I have been a Boss fan since 1984 (June, Dancing in the dark, Pop-Shop). Before 2013 I had never heard of Suli.

Synopses: Suli ripped The Boss a new one.

Bruce Springsteen was a disappointment. Not personally, you understand, but those tepid, vacuous fans of his. Too much for me. Shouting at people for dancing in the stands? Seriously? Go home, white boy. Take your heart meds or Viagra and go home.

Tonight it was Suli. Short set. Meeting and greeting. His girlfriend taking photos (gotta be his girlfriend, cause ain't no woman gonna have time for this unless she loves the man.)

He starts with a humorous piece about social media and how screwed up we are. Just to let us know that he is not all serious.

Then RIP. It doesn't have to mean what you think it means. It won't mean what it meant to me until now and that means a lot to me.

He tells us about his life. Highschool: passed. Law degree: passed.
Then took a job as a cleaner instead of following the path more travelled.

Then he gets serious. A poem about a Muslim girl. Inspired by his sister who wears a niqab. Not a hijab, the real deal niqab. Its raw. It hurts.

He finishes off with his first hit, "Why I love education, but hate school." You gotta hear it to understand. It's about choosing your path.

Enough with the facts. Let's get into the ebullient praise.

 This man is a future. Most probably not the future we are going to follow, cause humans are pretty messed up, but a future nonetheless.

His words drag our 18 year old selves out of their graves and kicks them until the rise up. He doesn't shout, he hardly swears. He tears us apart gently, like damp origami. "Remember, repent, renew." This is not "born to run", this is born to remain. We know who we are and we aren't go'in nowhere.

He gives a shout out to his "unemployed graduates... cleaners... tellers", he has done all of those jobs and more.

He does photo's with his fans, before and after. He is here. Not here in a phalanx of bodyguards, not here on stage. He is present. He is undeterred by the tiny crowd, he thanks them for taking the time to be here.

We meet Sizwe and Lindi. He has dragged her along because she's his girlfriend and she has to see this. After the show we see them again. She is a fan too. If you are not a fan after seeing the man you have no soul.

Suli should be in every school. He should have a chance to speak to the nation. He really is that good at speaking the truth.

Just Leonard Cohen this time

[Fade in mobile screen]
"... no fucking way dude am I even discussing Leonard Cohen."
[Cut to sleeping mother and child]
Ah, yes. Definitely the sisters of mercy. Hint of Suzanne in the mother? Definitely. She gets you on her wavelength, time after time.
[Cut to shot of this screen. Empty wine bottles in the background. Dirty dishes. Some signs of clealing. Wineglass, some wine. "Closing time" plays.]
"The chain's too tight, the moon's too bright. The beast won't go to sleep."
[Fade to black]
Well, we shall discuss Leonard Cohen here then.
Green Day "St. Jimmy" is thumping in the background. Sweet catharsis. "I don't care if you don't care..."

Let us begin...
So who is this Leonard Cohen?
Everyman?
No.
The people's bard?
Nope.
Barbie whatsit and the vagina of doom?
Uh-uh.
The demon from the everlasting hell of unrequited love?
Close, but no cigar.

Look inside, look deep. See the worm? Feel the worm? That dissatisfaction with perfection? The search for never never heaven?
How the worm turns.

Leonard Cohen. Jew. Buddhist monk. Singer of songs and talker of truths.
How the turn twists.

We are not happy, we are not satiated. Sitting at the feast of love or begging at the wells of disappointment. There is never enough. We are the harlots in the night, we cry out for more. We humble ourselves with our beggars bowls and our scarlet souls. Oh, how we beg for that which cannot be and is not advised.

"... and something on the side." As if one would hope to be the salad, or possibly an entrée to her feast.

The Cohenim is strong with this one. Shallow us, we drown in his words. He sees us by seeing himself. He strips away our faux morality. He breathes the fire of life into our loins. This one is strong in us.

"I like to see you naked over there, especially from the back, oh take this longing from my tongue..."

She comes to me. Nude, naked, unclothed, natural. She is muse and fate. Myth and woman. She is lying naked on his bed in the Chelsea hotel. She is smoking a cigarette. She is...
She is not here.

Leonard Cohen knew her. Mother, lover, daughter, he knew her every aspect. He never passed her by in the street without knowing her.

"... and all these useless things my hand has done. Let me see your beauty broken down."

Yes, yes, yes and a thousand times YES!" let me see you beauty broken down. Let me see it's composite parts. Let me see the nails that bind you to your cross. Let me see the inner curtains of your sanctum sanctorum.
"Like your would do, for one you love."

Write he said

(A guest post from my wife)
Write he said. Three words, very simple.
Do you have any idea what those three words are hiding? No you don't. Me neither. The longer I wax questioning about the comment, the longer I can skirt its meaning. It's like the cockroach in the middle of the room that I keep walking around, hoping that at some point it'll blend into the wood.

Okay, I'll stop. Let's start here. Writing is a form of communication - usually putting thoughts down in words. So let's talk about the plug in my throat.
It's a perfect fit, I can feel it now. It's not altogether comfortable. My throat feels constricted, but at least that saves me from feeling free or being able to swallow or breathe properly. Yes okay, at least I don't have to feel exposed. Exposed to all the vultures who'd like to peck through my ribcage into my flesh.That's too raw.

As an aside, my therapist supported the astrologer. Your whole perspective of me has changed now - hasn't it? Mine too. White, middle-aged, middle class woman who's stuck in the middle sampling possibility of an experience that'll make me thrum. The point is this - I'm sitting here writing but I am not thrumming. Actually I think it is an arbitrary thing to be doing on a Friday morning. My therapist warned me this would happen too. He told me I would sabotage the process. Don't you love these self deflating bootstraps!

Sex, Leonard Cohen And Jesus: How I met my wife

It started with a bang.
And a whimper.

It all started about a week before it started. On or about Saturday, the 4th of December 1999 at 21:30 I was hanging out at Cool Runnings with my posse of perennial bachelors. When I say "my" posse, I really mean Darrel's posse, but he wasn't there that night.

A trucker, three programmers and a man with no visible means of support. They were serious, honest men, I was the scoundrel. My last relationship had fallen apart some time before, must have been at least a week.

Amidst the philosophical discussion that all decent bachelor guys indulge in: "why do women prefer bastards"; "what is wrong with us?" Yada, yada, yada... I espied two lasses with no place to seat themselves. With the confidence borne of not giving a shit, I stood up, walked over and invited them to join our table. They agreed. I sat back and watched.

(Now, it is important to say again at this point that I had recently felt the comfort of consensual love making. There is a certain sans souci that a man feels when he is not desperate for a woman's love. This is an important point to the narrative arc.)

The evening passed amiably enough. None of my friends where arseholes and the (Potchefstroom) ladies were indeed perfect ladies. There was talk, of what I know not. There was wine and there was beer. We parted on good terms with hugs all round.

As we were leaving, the alpha lady pressed a piece of paper into my hand as she hugged me, "call me."

I called her. How was I to know the sweet agony that was to emanate from that call.

The next Saturday I drove to Potch. I wish that words could express the delight of being drawn into another's planned fantasy.
My car and bags went to a flat that she had borrowed from a friend for the night. We went for dinner. I met some of her friends. We went back to the flat. Until 2am she tortured me with the lust and the love and the passion of words; of a broken heart splayed wide open.
Then we made love. We made something. Eye to eye, no compromise, no let up, no surrender.
It was detailed, precise, exquisite.

"I have to go home," she apologised.
"I understand," I begged.
"My parents will be suspicious if I stay out all night."
"OK..." my somniloquy.
"And I have to go to church in the morning..."
"I'll come with you if you want," I confessed.
"Really?" she orgasmed.

And so it was that on Sunday 12 December 1999, the first day of the rest of my life, for the first time in seven years I found myself in a church on a Sunday morning with about 3 hours of sleep under my belt and a pastor trying my resolve.

She slid her hand into mine during a prayer. I bravely closed my eyes. Oh what miracles that hand had wrought not 7 hours before. I swear I smiled AMEN!, or Hallelujah!

We had lunch with her folks; a slightly stilted but generally pleasant affair. Her mother seemed to take to me and her dad was not obviously revolted. I am certain that they saw my sallow eyes and their dearest daughter's freshly fundamentalised joie de vivre, but se la vie...

As she walked me to my car, she gave me two gift's:
1) Her copy of the NG churches catechism.
2) Her CD of Leonard Cohen's greatest hits. With a request that I listen to 'Take this Longing'.
So the fantasy was completed with a book of faith and the music of the faithless. We kissed, we hugged, we said goodbye. I drove back to Johannesburg.

I went back to Cool Runnings to meet the herd. One of them showed up and we chatted for a while. It was a lazy Sunday and I was at peace. He had to leave. I SMS'd another member to find out if he and his cohort were coming.

I laid my phone down and closed my eyes. Bliss? Peace? Simple satiation? Exhaustion?
I opened my eyes and saw her. I felt the shock of recognising someone I had never seen before.
"I know you." I saw her for the first time and her surname was Cohen.
A short while later I walked inside and met my wife.
I can no longer recall the name of the lady of Potchefstroom.