A Kïadic Pilgrimage

Watching yourself die via video (Peeping Tom)

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 01:00:44 GMT

I was researching a few films, (in particular, the films of Satyajit Ray, The Apu Trilogy) and I happened upon a webpage about La Cité des Enfants Perdus that had an interesting mention of "where the cyclops plugs his view into a dying victim, so they could watch their own death, a cyberpunk updating of Powell's Peeping Tom." I haven't yet seen Peeping Tom, (although it appears to have been recently released by Criterion Collection) this reference reminded me even more so of another film from the same year- Strange Days. I cannot wait to see Peeping Tom for myself.

The Aztec Xocoatl, the Spanish Chocolatl, the English Chocolate.

Sun, 06 Jun 2004 03:07:33 GMT

Recent archæological evidence proves cocoa beans were made into the drink Xocoatl (cacahuaquchtl) and consumed as a normal part of the daily Mayan diet as early as 600BC. The name xocoatl in the Aztec language Nahuatl means "bitter water", "xoco" meaning "bitter", and "atl" or for "water". A related Nahuatl word, cacao (the source of the english word, cocoa) refers to the bean itself, and is also used today to designate the powdered hot drink made from chocolate powder. The botanical name, Theobroma cacao, literally means "food of the Gods".

The Olmecs and Mayans were the first users of the cacao plant, and used the cacao beans as a currency. Xocoatl was actually a way of "drinking your wealth." Because cocoa beans were valuable, they were given as gifts on occasions such as a child's coming of age and at religious ceremonies. Early explorers to the region found that four cocoa beans could get you a pumpkin, 10 a rabbit, and 100 would buy you a slave. Decendents of the Mayans, the Aztecs were an ancient nomadic people who founded a great city in the Valley of Mexico in 1325: Tenochtitlán. Columbus did not understand the value of cacao when he brought the first cocoa beans to Spain in 1502. He missed the importance of xocolatl, and "had not enjoyed drinking the spicy, scummy liquid, which contained cocoa, cinnamon, aniseed and cornmeal, and therefore probably was not surprised when Ferdinand and Isabella dismissed chocolate as a bizarre tribal concoction."

Xocolatl Recipe:
from a translation of "Physitian General for the Kingdome of Spaine"</i>, by Melchor de Lara, published by Antonio Colmenero in 1631 who attributes it to a Marchena physician and then adapted by me

Original:
Of Cacaos, 700
of white Sugar, one pound and a halfe
Cinnamon, 2. ounces
of long red pepper, 14 (Chilparlagua)
of Cloves, halfe an ounce
Three Cods of the Logwood or Campeche tree;
or in steade of that, the weight of 2 Reals, or a shilling of Anniseeds (Vinacaxlidos)
as much of Agiote, as will give it the colour, which is about the quantity of a Hasellnut.
Some put in Almons, kernells of Nuts, and Orenge-flower-water.
The flower of Maiz

Mine:
2 Disks of Ibarra Chocolate (or Nestlé Abuelita)
½ cup of food-grade Cocoa butter
¼ cup of honey (or to taste)
1-6 Serrano peppers (halved and seeds removed while wearing gloves)
¼ tbsp annatto (for colour)
¼ tsp cloves
¼ cup of cornmeal

Special Equipment needed: Blender, two 2 qt. pitchers,

Method:

In a dry skillet on medium-high heat, toast the cornmeal until it is a pleasant brown, then soak in 1 cup of water overnight. In a blender, grind the soaked corn for a full minute to make a loose, smooth paste. Strain, then grind the remaining corn in the blender with an additional ½ cup of water. Strain. Discard the corn mush.

Boil 2 cups of water to boil, then add the peppers. Allow to boil until only only one cup remains. Remove the peppers, and set the liquid aside.

In a large saucepan, add the broken-up the disks of chocolate, the Cocoa Butter, and one cup of water on medium-high heat. Whisk continuously until the chocolate mixture has melted.

Slowly add in the corn mixture which will act as emulsifier.

When the corn and chocolate are combined, add the cloves, honey, and annatto.

Slowly add in small dribbles of the pepper-liquid, tasting the chocolate every few dribbles to test hotness.

Simmer entire mixture for 10 minutes, whisking constantly.

Take entire mixture into one of the pitchers and pass from one pitcher to the next to cool and create froth. Serve cold.

Yield: 8 ounces to serve 6 people.

The voyage which led Don Cortés to discover Mexico, the Aztec civilisation, and chocolate, began in 1517 when he set sail from Cuba with 11 ships and 600 men, all seeking fame and fortune in the 'New World'. Landing on the Mexican coast near Veracruz, he decided to make his way to Tenochtitlánto see for himself the famed riches of Emperor Moctezuma and the Aztec empire. It was Moctezuma who introduced Don Cortés to his favourite drink, 'chocolatl' - served cold in a golden goblet. Moctezuma is said to have consumed several goblets of 'chocolatl' before entering his harem, leading to the mythical belief that it had aphrodisiac properties.

From time to time they brought him in cup shaped vessels of pure gold, a certain drink made from cacao which he took when he was going to visit his wives, and at the time he took no heed of it, but what I did see was that they brought over 50 great jugs of good cacao frothed up, and he drank of that, and the women served this drink with great reverence". - Hakluyt's translation of Bernal Diaz del Castillo's account of an Aztec feast of Moctezuma in the 16th century

They brought some in cups of fine gold, with a certain drink made of the cacao itself, which they said was effectual to provoke lustful desires towards women (as they told us in their language) " - Stubbe's translation in 1662 "Indian Nectar" of del Castillo's account of Montezuma's banquet not so timorous as Hakluyt's

In 1519 Cortés tasted chocolate provided by Quetzcoatl at an Aztec banquet. He found the chocolate bitter but chocolate was claimed to have aphrodisiac powers and provide strength. He later wrote a letter to Charles V of Spain calling chocolate "The divine drink which builds up resistance & fights fatigue. A cup of this precious drink permits man to walk for a whole day without food".

During the time of the Aztecs, cocoa was mainly used as a beverage. Wines and drinks were made from white pulp around the seeds of the cocoa pod. The beans themselves were used to make hot or cold chocolate drinks. Both the Maya and the Aztec secular drinks used roasted cocoa beans, a foaming agent (sugar), toasted corn and water. Vanilla and/or chilli were also used as an ingredient in the drinks. The oily layer floating in the chocolate drink (Cocoa butter) was used to protect the skin against the sun.

In May 1520 the Spanish attacked a peaceful Aztec festival and Moctezuma was killed: by July the Aztecs had forced the Spanish out of the city of Tenochtitlán. But after regaining their strength, the Spanish and their allies held the city siege for 75 days, and its fall marked the end of the Aztec civilisation. Today, the great city of Tenochtitlán is known as Mexico City- and the location of human sacrifices that upset Cortés so much is now a cathedral. Cortés was made Captain General and Governor of Mexico. Cortés sailed home to Spain in 1528, after having loaded his galleons with cocoa beans and equipment for making the chocolate drink. Once Don Cortés had provided the Spanish with a supply of cocoa beans and the equipment to make the chocolate drink, a Spanish version of the recipe was devised. Monks in monasteries, known for their pharmaceutical skills, were chosen to process the beans and perfect the drink to Spanish tastes. Cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar were added, the chilli pepper was omitted and it was discovered that chocolate tasted even better served hot.

Chocolate continued to be a controversial subject- while the Aztec version was scorned, the European version was considered sinful. Benzoni said in 1575 "chocolate seemed more a drink for pigs", but was the most expensive merchandise according to the Indians. Johan Franciscus Rauch of Vienna condemned chocolate as an inflamer of passions and in 1624, urged monks not to drink it. The religious conflict continued, when in 1648 Thomas Gage tried to intervene with the Bishop of Chiapas over the congregation drinking chocolate during services. The Bishop was unmoved, preferring the honour of God to his own life, and the congregation went to another church where the friars were not bothered by cocoa drinking. The friars received the stipend that formerly went to the Bishop and the Bishop threatened excommunication. Poisoned chocolate was sent to the Bishop and Gage fled Chiapas.

When chocolate finally reached England in the 1650s, the high import duties on cocoa beans meant it was a drink only for the wealthy. Chocolate cost the equivalent of 50-75 pence a pound (approximately 400g), when pound sterling was worth considerably more than it is today. Gradually chocolate became more freely available. In 1657, London's first
Chocolate House was opened by a Frenchman, who produced the first advertisement for the chocolate drink to be seen in London:

In Bishopgate St, in Queen's Head Alley,
at a Frenchman's house,
is an excellent West Indian drink
called Chocolate to be sold,
where you may have it ready at any time
and also unmade at reasonable rates.

Fashionable chocolate houses were soon opened where the people could meet friends and enjoy various rich chocolate drinks, many of which were rather bitter to taste, while discussing the serious political, social and business affairs of the day or gossiping. Samuel Pepys, the famous diarist, wrote of his visits to chocolate houses: "Went to Mr Bland's and there drank my morning draft of chocollatte." The most famous one was White's Chocolate House in the fashionable St James Street, opened in 1693 by Frances White, an Italian immigrant. By the end of the 18th century, London's chocolate houses began to disappear, many of the more fashionable ones becoming smart gentlemen's clubs. White's Chocolate House is to this day an exclusive gentlemen's club in St James', London.

The curative aspects of Chocolate seemed to replace the sinful ones byt the beginning of the Eighteenth century. In 1724 Dr Richard Brookes claimed that chocolate "prolonged life and cured ringworm and ulcers". He also suggested cocoa butter for "skin treatment, piles and gout". In 1796 Lavedan described chocolate as "divine, celestial drink... panacea & universal medicine".

Chocolat De Velours
A new recipe that I perfected yesterday

2 cups whole milk
½ cup cocoa
3 egg whites
1 tbsp Vanilla
¼ cup of Chocolate shavings
¼ finely crushed Hazelnuts

Method:

Break up the chocolate, add to the milk and place in a medium saucepan on high heat.

Bring to a gentle boil, using a wire whisk to blend until fully melted.

In a seperate bowl, beat the egg whites until standing in stiff peaks, then fold ¼ of the chocolate mixture into the eggs.

Return the blended mixture to the saucepan.

Cook 2-3 more minutes on low heat.

Top with Chocolate shavings and a sprinkle of Hazelnuts.

Yield: Two 8oz servings.

This post updates a previous Xocoatl post.

May you live in interesting times

Wed, 02 Jun 2004 15:05:59 GMT

Please, take the poll before reading the rest of the post.

View Poll: May you live in interesting times

In a speech in Cape Town, South Africa, on 7 June, 1966, Robert F Kennedy said:

There is a Chinese curse which says, 'May he live in interesting times'. Like it or not, we live in interesting times...

I have heard the ancient chinese proverb, "May you live in interesting times," a great number of times, and I always thought it was something to aspire to. Who wants to be bored, or live in a live of mundane reality, or a neverending litany of habits? Whenever I heard this sayingg, I thought about the movies, and my favourite novels, where something happens. What is so interesting about a story in which nothing at all happens? that is.. unless it is a John Crowley novel, in which case, all is forgiven. But seriously- I always thought this was a blessing of sorts.

I was told that "interesting" in the context of this particular ancient chinese proverb meant 'dangerous' or 'turbulent'; therefore, the entire phrase is a curse. But, if one analyses the 'curse' in its original context (which I will disclose later), "The ancient Chinese curse, May you live in interesting times." is not a curse, as no harm or evil is explicitly intended for the recipient of the curse. It is, however, a proverb, a condensed but memorable saying embodying some important fact of experience that is taken as true by many people.

The phrase was written to be ironic, when most people read this phrase, "interesting times" seem like the right times to be living in- as I said- who wants to live a boring and methodical life? By prefacing that this sort of existance is a curse only adds to the irony. It could also be understood that interesting is equal to drama, and the neverending wars, terror, fear mongering culture that we all seem to live in worldwide is fulfillment of these 'interesting' times we now 'cursed' to live in.

The most interesting thing about this proverb, however, is that it is not Chinese. According to ever source I've examined, the phrase "May you live in interesting times" does not exist in any Chinese reference. It has been determined that it was paraphrased from the Chinese proverb 'It's better to be a dog in a peaceful time than be a man in a chaotic period,' but this has been determined by most scholars to be highly unlikely. However, it appears in powerpoint presentations, book prefaces, commonly appears in many newspapers including the New York Times, as the title of numerous books, and presidential speeches.

It is assumed that the phrase was attributed to Chinese antiquity in order to lend a sense of mystique or authority to a modern curse. Even this lends itself to the ironic core of the phrase; Confucius, endeavoring to give his opinions and teachings greater gravity and acceptance, once stated, "I do not create; I merely pass on the wisdom of those who have gone before." The same device of attribution is at work here: the "curse of interesting times" is much more interesting itself if the Chinese created it.

The earliest found reference to this phrase was in the short story, "U-Turn" by Duncan H. Munro, a pseudonym for Eric Frank Russell. The curse can be found on page 137 of the April 1950 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. The main character of "U-Turn", Mason, complains about the order, regulation, and control under which everyone is forced to live:

For centuries the Chinese used an ancient curse: "May you live in interesting times!" It isn't a curse any more. It's a blessing. We're scientific and civilized. We've got so many rights and liberties and freedoms that one can yearn for chains for the sheer pleasure of busting them and shaking them off. Reckon life would be more livable if there were any chains left to
bust.

The author Terry Prachett also based the basic premise of his book around the proverb in his novel, Interesting Times. According to the story, this curse was accompianied by two others:
1. May you live in interesting times.
2. May the authorities take an interest in you.
3. May the gods give you everything that you desire.

A researcher of this saying, Stephen E. DeLong, was contacted by someone with a spanish translation of Carl Jung's 1931 book, The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life. DeLong was told that in the foreword to that book, which is about Chinese alchemy, Mr. Jung quotes the same curse and makes some interesting reflections about it. However, there is no mention of the curse in the english translation that DeLong read. At this point, the Jung reference would be the earliest, but at this point it is unverifiable.

In the meantime, it will continue to grow as a meme in our popular culture, perhaps ironicly attributed to some long dead wise chinaman, and hopefully will continue to inspire artists, politicians, and to act as a warning to all those that would dare to live anything but a mundane life.

Нόвая Земля, Novaya Zemlya - Pale Fire, Northern Lights

Tue, 23 Mar 2004 05:33:46 GMT

When I am lost like this, I turn to my touchstone, my north, my orion, my hope.
I am north, Arkhangel'sk, the gate to the north, Svalbard, I have made her mine own.

"Ask where's the North? At York, 'tis on the Tweed;
In Scotland, at the Orcades; and there,
At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where." -Pope, An Essay on Man

"Zembla, a distant northern land." -Nabokov, Pale Fire

"The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;
The sea's a thief whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears." -Shakespeare, Timon of Athens

'The manuscript fell into the hands of a person who
is known to have a deranged mind' -Nabokov, Pale Fire

"Oh had I rather unadmired remained
In some lone isle, or distant Northern land." -Pope, Rape of the Lock

'That crystal land'
'my dear country'
'Stilettos of a frozen stillicide'
'that the poet and his commentator first met on a winter day' -Nabokov, Pale Fire

"All I have with me is a tiny vest pocket edition of Timon of Athens-in Zemblan!" -Nabokov, Pale Fire

'I felt sure at last that he would recreate in a poem the dazzling Zembla burning in my brain'
'he was reassembling my Zembla!'
'how stupidly I believed that Shade was composing a poem, a kind of romaunt about the King of Zembla-
Oh, but I cannot express the agony!'
'everything connected with the magnificent Zemblan theme with which I kept furnishing him' -Nabokov, Pale Fire

"There motley Images her fancy strike,
Figures ill-pair'd, and Similes unlike.
She sees a mob of metaphors advance,...
Here gay Description AEgypt glads with showers;
Or gives Zembla fruits, to Barca flowers;
Glitt'ring with ice here hoary hills are seen,
There painted valleys of eternal green,
On cold December fragrant chaplets blow,
And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow." -Pope, The Dunciad

"... and now I plough
Old Zembla's fields where my gray stubble grows." Nabokov, Pale Fire

"So this is all treacherous old Shade could say about Zembla-my Zembla?" Nabokov,Pale Fire

"When I was traveling north to Bolvangar with the gyptians, the child Lyra told me about something that happened in the college she used to live in, back in Oxford. Lord Asriel had shown the other scholars the severed head of a man called Stanislaus Grumman, and that kinda persuaded them to give him some money to come north and find out what had happened.

"Now, the child was so sure of what she'd seen that I didn't like to question her too much. But what she said made a kind of memory come to my mind, except that I couldn't reach it clearly. I knew something about this Dr. Grumman. And it was only on the flight here from Svalbard that I remembered what it was. It was an old hunter from Tungusk who told me. It seems that Grumman knew the whereabouts of some kind of object that gives protection to whoever holds it. I don't want to belittle the magic that you witches can command, but this thing, whatever it is, has a kind of power that outclasses anything I've ever heard of.

"And I thought I might postpone my retirement to Texas because of my concern for that child, and search for Dr. Grumman. You see, I don't think he's dead. I think Lord Asriel was fooling those scholars.

"So I'm going to Nova Zembla, where I last heard of him alive, and I'm going to search for him. I cain't see the future, but I can see the present clear enough. And I'm with you in this war, for what my bullets are worth. But that's the task I'm going to take on, ma'am," he concluded, turning back to Serafina Pekkala. "I'm going to seek out Stanislaus Grumman and find out what he knows, and if I can find that object he knows of, I'll take it to Lyra." -Pullman, The Subtle Knife

and none of them knew they were robots

Sun, 25 Jan 2004 05:23:19 GMT

Robot Mix CD

[Rot]Front - The Robots (Kraftwerk Cover)

The Sick Lipstick - Teenage Robots

Mr. Bungle - None Of Them Knew They Were Robots

Jimmy Eat World - Robot Factory

They Might Be Giants - Robot Parade

Daemontia - Robot Love

Robotiko Rejekto - Cyper Space

t.A.T.u. - Robot

Kompressor - Red Robot Theme Song

Tommi Stumpff - Robots Kill The Japanese

Bruce Haack - School for Robots

Beborn Beton - Lost Little Robot

Future Bible Heroes - The Lonely Robot

From Bubblegum To Sky - My Thousand Years With Robots

Cosmo Vitelli - Robot Soul

The Flaming Lips - One More Robot (Sympathy 3000-21)

Balanescu Quartet - The Robots (Kraftwerk Cover)

Calla - Truth About Robots

Pictures from 東京 (Tokyo)

Mon, 08 Dec 2003 07:17:53 GMT

in case anyone hasn't seen them yet
I redid my Japan photos
http://kiad.net/livejournal/2002/12/Japan/

A Raveling

Sat, 06 Dec 2003 17:41:24 GMT

After joking in someone else's journal about a character in a short film using "irregardless" and defining it as being "without lack of regard," I decided to look up irregardless and try to figure out why people use it. I am fairly sure I used it as a child, but it is hard to say. I'll be on the lookout. A friend of mine here at the college said he had never even heard it being used, but then again, he lives in Del Mar, so we can understand why. Anyway, lets's get this show on the road. The American Heritage Dictionary spoke thus about irregardless:

"Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir– prefix and –less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so."

But this didn't help; how was unravel as redundant as irregardless? As far as I understood, unravel meant to unwind, to undo a knitted thing, to undo something that was ordered and stiched. I don't use the word "ravel," but it seems to be to... well... To not ravel? Now I am beginning to see the problem. Actually, what the heck could "ravel" or "unravel" mean, and why don't we use it? Again, to the dictionary.

The seemingly contradictory senses of this word (ravel and unravel are both synonyms and antonyms) are reconciled by its roots in weaving and sewing: as threads become unwoven, they get tangled.

Are you started to begin to see complex infinite forms, or is it just me? Dizzying, eh? Sometimes I forget the astounding mysteries my dictionary holds in store.

ravel\Rav"el\, v. i.
1. To become untwisted or unwoven; to be disentangled; to be relieved of intricacy.
2. To fall into perplexity and confusion. [Obs.]
Till, by their own perplexities involved, They ravel more, still less resolved. --Milton.
3. To make investigation or search, as by picking out the threads of a woven pattern. [Obs.]
The humor of raveling into all these mystical or entangled matters. --Sir W. Temple.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

So, A Ravelling?

Philip Pullman, Joel-Peter Witkin, John Dee, Carnival, 緣份 and Ouija Dancing,

Sat, 01 Nov 2003 02:22:53 GMT

All Hallows Eve; Halloween; Samhain; Day of the Dead; All Souls Day; October 31. Whatever it is. I hope it is good for you.

I've been reading Mindware and Mindmatters. I have so much to learn about the Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Science and AI before I go to NSI in January. Yes, it looks like that is where I'll be. I hope La Jolla isn't too hot- I hate the heat. I study and read and write as much as I can, and it doesn't seem to make a dent. Learning is like quicksand, the more you read the more you realise how little you know.

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but when I attended the first contact improvisation class, we did this excercise where you touch your partner only with the tip of the index finger on one hand. One person leads and the other follows, and you dance. Twirling, rolling on the floor etc ensued. It was very fun because we weren't in full physical contact, which I would have hated, and yet we were able to really 'play.' After about 10 minutes of occasionally switching whom was leading and whom was following, we were pretty good at reading one another. At the beginning of the class, my partner had actually walked directly over to me and said, "I want to work with you." So, I was feeling pretty good about our interactions. Then the professor started saying 'switch' over and over so that the person that as 'leading' was constantly changing about every 10 seconds. About 2 minutes after the last switch, my partner started to get very aggressive in leading- we were getting very energetic about the dance. We were rolling on the ground and spinning and twirling and just flying across the studio space, and at one point my partner said to me, "You're leading, right?" And of course I had just been following her lead the entire time, it never occured to me that we lost track of who was leading during the rapid 'switch' aspect. Who was leading all that time? Ouija Dancing- dancing with the dead.

Thank you, bride, for 緣份: is a noun that refers to a predestined relationship between two people. It's an attraction of souls.

The familiar word, carnival, has an interesting Latin etymology meaning “putting away the flesh,” or “farewell to the flesh.” It seems to have originated in connection with the custom of Lent (from the Old English, lang, or the “lengthening” days of spring), the forty-day period of renunciation of fleshly indulgence just prior to Easter. However, the period before Lent, culminating in Mardi Gras (or “fat Tuesday”), is now known as “carnival” in many countries—a period of excessive fleshly indulgence, rather than renunciation.

Funny angelology stuff in someone else's journal:

a transcription of Dee’s tabula bonorum angelorum invocationes from Sloane MS. 3191, and in the section nomina sedecim bonorum angelorum qui in metallorum inventione, collectione, usu et virtute &c., There are also angels in this libellum called “Taco,” “Diary” and “Oopz”—so sometimes I find it a bit hard to take seriously, really. o uos quatuor angeli lucis, fideles, dei nostri creatoris ministri, o uos, brap, taco, diari et oopz

Woman once a bird by Joel-Peter Witkin (at left). I think I've seen a few of this man's prints, but I never knew his name. Thank you for the reminder from a former bennington student and 'college chum' of mine, couriernew.

jgambrell pointed me to an op-ed piece by Philip Pullman in today's nyt:

Why I Don't Believe in Ghosts
By PHILIP PULLMAN</b>
Published: October 31, 2003

OXFORD, England

Tonight is Halloween, All Hallows' Eve, a time of ghosts and spirits walking by night . . . which leads me naturally to think about literary realism, and about politics. How can you write in a truthful and realistic way about something that doesn't exist?

I don't take much notice of critics, except when they praise me extravagantly. But one of the remarks they sometimes make about my work does coincide with a mild puzzlement I feel about it myself: in common with some other writers whose work is read by children, I am chided for writing fantasy, because fantasy is a lesser form than realism, and everyone knows that there are no such things as elves or hobbits or, for that matter, ghosts and disembodied spirits, so nothing interesting or truthful can be said about them.

My usual response to that is to deny that I'm writing fantasy at all, and to maintain that all my work is stark realism. But that implicitly accepts the basic stance of the critic: that fantasy is a lesser kind of thing, and that realism is the highest form of literary art.

And there may be something in that. For example, take ghost stories. I don't believe in ghosts and disembodied spirits. I used to believe in them, and I can remember how thrilling it was, when I was a child, to read ghost stories with the thought, "This could be true, this could really happen. . . ." But that was a long time ago. I don't enjoy ghost stories in quite the same way these days. The trouble is that such tales have to convince you on the supernatural level as well as on the mundane. Part of your mind has to believe that there could be a disembodied spirit full of malice haunting this old house, there could be a nameless evil presence lurking in the crypt — and there just couldn't. Disbelief, at that point, is just too heavy to suspend.

The ghost stories I still enjoy, like "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James, work because of their ambiguity. We're never really sure whether the evil presences are being imagined by the protagonist, so we can read the story as if it's a tale of psychological disturbance, and it makes enough sense that way.

I do believe, however, in disturbing places: there are houses that feel as if they're haunted. Three years ago I slept (or tried to) in a hotel room in Glasgow that was one of the most creepy places I've ever been in. But I am also persuaded by an explanation that has nothing to do with ghosts. Certain subliminal sounds or visual stimuli — the hum of an air-conditioner, the flicker of a fluorescent light — can resonate at the exact frequency that causes hallucinatory images to appear in the brain, or that induces feelings of panic or unease. Replace the neon tube, tighten the screws on the housing, and the haunting ceases as if by exorcism.

So there ain't no ghosts. The trouble is. . . .

The trouble is that for a writer of fiction (well, for me, anyway) expunging the uncanny isn't always a good thing. The rational, daylight, functional, get-about-and-do-things part of my mind welcomes the broom of reason as it sweeps away the cobwebs of spookery. But I don't write with that part of my mind, and the part that does the writing doesn't like the place cleaned up and freshly painted and brightly lit.

My daylight mind, the conscious and responsible me, might want to write stories about people who seem entirely real in situations that seem utterly plausible. I might want to explore family relationships or moral dilemmas or social problems or political questions that are entirely free of the fantastic, the ghostly, the uncanny. As a matter of fact, I do want to. Books like that are the sort I like to read; things like that are the things I think important. So I want to write stories about subjects like that.

That is to say, my will wants to. But my imagination doesn't.

When I try, it's like trying to light a fire with damp wood. Nothing catches. Making the will do the work of the imagination is a wearisome and melancholy task, and it would drive you mad with despair in no time if you let it. And there's no need to, after all; when there is dry tinder nearby, and when the spark of your imagination leaps toward it like a lover, you can have a fine blaze roaring in a moment, if a blaze is what you want.

So I came to the conclusion some time ago that imagination and reason were two powers that didn't always agree, and that the one who had sovereignty was the imagination. There's nothing democratic about what goes on in this business. Everything about the act of writing fiction is an exercise of absolute and despotic power. There's no point in deploring this, or wishing it were all nicer and kinder, or gentle and caring and inclusive. It's a tyranny, and that's that.

However, none of this is to say that we have to abandon every other faculty just because we've ceded dominance to one. In fact, we mustn't. If we don't bring everything we have to the task of writing a story, there's a psychological cost: we feel that it's a fundamentally trivial and worthless occupation, and we despise ourselves for wasting our efforts on something so contemptible.

Reason, memory, emotional experience, whatever we know of social and political truth, the craftsmanship we have slowly and laboriously acquired — all these things must come into play. Only then is the task worth doing. But these faculties must work under direction; there's no discussion, and there are no votes. They must behave like the devoted subjects of a tyrant, and dedicate their utmost efforts to serving their ruler.

For example, "The Turn of the Screw." Reading James's notebooks, we learn that the origin of that story was a supposedly true tale told him by the archbishop of Canterbury, in which the disturbing presences were definitely ghosts, with no ambiguity about them at all. But something in it caught fire in his mind. Once his imagination was engaged, his profound intelligence played over the situation and introduced the doubt, the mystery, and transformed a dinner-table anecdote into a work of art.

In my own case (and although I'm making no comparisons of quality, I think the process is similar) when I was playing with the opening of my story "His Dark Materials," I came on the idea of a personal daemon: an aspect of a character's personality that has animal form and is visible. It was the vivid pictorial craziness that caught my mind at first. But I very soon realized that unless I made that notion serve whatever I know of psychological realism, it would merely distract from the story; so I tried to find a way of making it say something about the characters that was both truthful and interesting. The notion comes first, and is sovereign and capricious. The conscious working-out plods along afterwards, obedient, diligent and, if it has the sense, modest.

I don't know if there's a lesson in this, except for those of us who write fiction. If you want to write anything that works, you have to go with the grain of your talent, not against it. If your imagination is inert and sullen in the face of business or politics or adultery among the artists or the perils threatening the environment, but takes fire at the thought of ghosts and vampires and witches and demons, then feed the flames, feed the flames.

So that's why I welcome Halloween, and it's why, although I revere the great realists and read their work with devoted admiration, I know I'm not one of them. My imagination comes to life only in the presence of the uncanny; the despot I serve is the part of my mind that feels a thrill as fierce and sudden as lust when it encounters a deserted graveyard, or comes on the idea of personal daemons, or hears those old familiar words: "Once upon a midnight dreary. . . ."

But isn't there something a little politically dubious about all this emphasis on despotism and absolute power and so on? Isn't there any room for democracy in this vision of literature?

Well, yes. Democracy comes in at a later stage, when we start reading. Reading is democratic all the way through. But that's another story.

Philip Pullman is author of the series "His Dark Materials,'' whose most recent volume is "The Amber Spyglass.''

"Platonic Love"

Sat, 18 Oct 2003 17:25:21 GMT

I never wondered about the etymology of "Platonic" until I saw naturalborn's comment and I couldn't figure out if it was a reference to platonic forms or platonic love. How weird.

Plato did not invent the term or the concept that bears his name, but he did see sexual desire as the germ for higher loves. Marsilio Ficino, a Renaissance follower of Plato, used the terms amor socraticus and amor platonicus interchangeably for a love between two humans that was preparatory for the love of God. From Ficino's usage, Platonic (already present in English as an adjective to describe what related to Plato and first recorded in 1533) came to be used for a spiritual love between persons of opposite sexes. In our own century Platonic has been used of relationships between members of the same sex. Though the concept is an elevated one, the term has perhaps more often been applied in ways that led Samuel Richardson to have one of his characters in Pamela say, "I am convinced, and always was, that Platonic love is Platonic nonsense."

Both images are of Cader Idris, a mountain in Snowdonia, Wales. The english translation is "The Seat of Arthur." The Grey King, also known as the Brenin Llwyd or Monarch of the Mist is said to inhabit the peak, manifest as whispy clouds seen from below. It is said that if one sleeps overnight on the mountain, he will come down either a madman or a poet. I've only been there once.

A complete braindump on Swarm Intelligence and Complexity

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 01:30:28 GMT

A great many sundry events have transpired since I’ve last committed anything to this place. My Descartes paper still isn’t done, and I feel guilty and insufficient. Hume rocks my socks though and we had a discussion in my class about "could Hume love Kiad? Is Kiad’s crush on hume real even though it only exists in her mind?" Yeah. We even discussed whether or not porn was real enough for hume to get him off. We got a little off track.

My complexity class is difficult. The Taylor book, The Moment of Complexity (probably much to whatifoundthere’s chagrin) is completely bunk and I hate it. Unfortunately, my professor is extensively quoted throughout, so I feel rather guilty making fun of choice quotes like this:

What Darwin needed to complete his theory was Smith’s account of the division of labor. Darwin, Depew and Weber point out, 'rids the organic world of Aristotelian essences altogether by generalizing the individualist ontology of political economy.'

Bleh. The entire book, The Moment of Complexity is just a wankfest of everything that is potentially construed as complex and then iterated. He also quotes extensively from Hofstadter but doesn’t seem to understand what he is explaining, otherwise, wouldn’t his summeries serve to illuminate the reader instead of requiring the reader to read the source in order to make sense of the summary of purpose? Gah.

I’ve been obsessed with swarm intelligence, and I think I’ve found some fantastic references. I thought I’d share them here in case people like pbrane, evan or daemonv had comments or suggestions on other resources.

So far my favourite book is Swarm Intelligence by James Kennedy and Russell C. Eberhart. The author’s concept of ‘emergence’ is sophisticated and I feel quite philosophically sound. The presentation is very clear and easy to understand- some of my favourite parts of the book so far are their section on flocks, herds, schools and swarms, social behaviour as optimisation. The discussion of the mathematical models developed by the Santa Fe Institute and the Los Alamos National Laboratory that describe the dynamics of swarms and collective intelligences is quite lively and exciting.

Like Hofstadter, Millonas (The author of the above mathematical models) compares the communications network within a swarm of ants to the highly interconnected architecture of neurons in a brain. Research on live ants has shown that when food is placed at some distance from the nest, with two paths of unequal length leading to it, they will end up with the swarm following the shorter path. If a shorter path is introduced, though, for instance, if an obstacle is removed, they are unable to switch to it. If both paths are of equal length, the ants will choose one or the other. If two food sources are offered, with one being a richer source than the other, a swarm of ants will choose the richer source; if a richer source is offered after the choice has been made, most species are unable to switch, but some species are able to change their pattern to the better source. If two equal sources are offered, an ant will choose one or the other arbitrarily. Both cases can be described in terms of three characteristics:

Their structure comprises a set of nodes and their interconnections

The states of node variables change dynamically over time.

There is learning-changes in the strengths of the connections among the nodes.

(This argument is based on a famous paper by Doyne Farmer(1991)- another Sanfe Fe Institute habitué-depicting "The Rosetta Stone of Connectionism." Millonas argues that the intelligence of an ant swarm arises during phase transitions-the same transitions that Langton described as defining "the edge of chaos." The movements of ants are essentially random as long as there is no systematic pheromone pattern; activity is a function of two parameters, which are the strength of pheromones and the attractiveness of the pheromone to the ants.

Another book that is mainly useful for me because it is a complilation of technical essays with a CD of example code is Evolutionary Design by Computers edited by Peter J. Bentley. The collection includes several theoretical essays that discuss the relationship of computer-driven design to human innovation. A section on evolutionary designs furnishes several case studies on real applications of these techniques--specifically, engineering problems for designing satellite booms, flywheels, and a reliability measurement for networks.
From Chapter 12: Evolving Three-Dimensional Morphology and Behaviour by Karl Sims

A classic trade-off in the fields of artificial life and computer animation is that of complexity vs. control. It is often difficult to build interesting or realistic virtual entities and still maintain control over them.

I rather like that. When creating virtual representations of cellular automata, complexity occurs even when we apply understood rules. Just as we cannot control or always predict the evolution of nature, when modelling artificial life as closely to nature, it seems that we again lose control of it. The metaphor seems to be self-reflexive.

Evolutionary Robotics: The Biology, Intelligence, and Technology of Self-Organizing Machines (Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents)by Stefano Nolfi and Dario Floreano

Some of my notes relevant to swarms:

A key feature of intelligent systems is generality, i.e., the ability to carry out a certain task in different enviromental conditions or the ability to carry out different tasks. In the context of predators and prey, for example, predators should be able to catch different types of prey.

Most established systems are interesting because they can solve non trivial tasks in simple wayss. However, they are strongly dependent on the current state of the enviroment.
If the environment changes (e.g., the strategy of the competitor changes) they may become unable to solve their task.
These two askpects (i.e., simplicity and lack of generality) are two sides of the same coin. The former systems are able to solve non trivial tasks with simple strategies because they exploit the reularities available in the environment (including the physical characteristics of their own sensory-motor sytems).
In order to be general, systems should be as autonomous as possible from their environment; intelligent systems should rely less on the regulairies available in the enviroment and more on their internal 'neverous mechanisms.

Artificial Life VII: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Artificial Life (Complex Adaptive Systems) by Mark Bedau, John S. McCaskill (Editor), Norman H. Packard (Editor), Steen Rasmussen (Editor), John McCaskill, Norman Packard

There are four distinct collective behaviors of prey, that are only modified by the equation of motion, e:
- Marching
  The lements form a regular triangular crystal, moving at a constant velocity. The formation is stable against disturbance.
- Oscillation
  Several group motions exhibit regular oscillations:
  (i)Wavy motion of the cluster along a linear trajectory. (ii)A cluster circling a center outside the cluster. (iii) A cluster circling a center inside the cluster.
- Wandering
  Although the lattice-like order inside the cluster persists, the center of thecluster can wander quite irregularly. Chaotic intermittency of motion is found.
- Swarming
  The most irregular motions are found in swarming. although the cluster persists, lattice-like order is broken completely. The veolocity of the elements has a large distribution, and the mobility of the cluster is small.
more later

Automata, Herbs, Math, and Some Fuck Dub

Sat, 19 Apr 2003 04:55:49 GMT

ART met her sister NATURE late,
And seeing her at ease,
Inviting her to take a seat
At her Androides;

Dame NATURE went—was pleas’d at first,
And warmly praised her sister;
Then laughing, till she nearly burst,
In seeming rapture kiss’d her.

But as the wond’rous figures work’d
She look’d a little serious,
Whilst envy in her bosom lurk’d—
Her brow became imperious.

“How’s this!” to ART she loudly said,
“How’s this! ungrateful creature!
Profanely thou hast dar’d to tread
Thus in the walks of NATURE.

“I prithee, base, usurping wench,
No more these freedoms take;
If thus my province thou intrench
Thou’lt men and women make.”

Anonymous poem published in the Bath Herald, Saturday, 28 January 1797, on the occasion of “Mr. Haddock’s Exhibition of Androides.”

In the study of automatons, I found a clockwork monk that was designed as a votive for a young prince that nearly died and was saved when he touched the Monk’s still-sweet-smelling remains. System theory has been helping me understand what it is specifically that makes me love mathematics so.

On suspicion of demonic possession, the Spanish Inquisition briefly imprisoned Pierre Jacquet-Droz and his automaton son that wrote the following phrase, "I don't think, therefore I am not?", parodying "Cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am)" by Rene Descartes.

“The Turing Machine, a simple mathematical model of a computer. Despite its simplicity, the Turing machine models the cimputing capability of a general purpose computer. The Turing machine is studied both foe the class of language it defines (called the recursively enumerable sets) and the class of integer fuctions it computes (called the partial recursive functions). A variety of other models of computation are introduced and shown to be equivalent to the Turing machine in computing power.” (Introduction to automata theory, languages and computation, Hopcroft, Ullman; 1979, p. 146)

I sat on a porch the other day and watched the sun set while I sang. I gathered a great many books of 16th century writing samples and practiced my hand, and I’ve taken to writing nearly exclusively with ink and quill. A friend was rather sick with pneumonia last month, and I brewed her a few droughts using my herbs from the last gathering season:
Internal:
If the ailment is due to overeating, use of alcohol, exposure to wet, damp, cold or excessive activity, use sweating therapy. For this a tea is made with equal parts of:

Elder flowers

Burdock seed

Mugwort

Vervain

Simmer for 20 minutes, drink as hot as possible.

Take one of more cups of the infusion and follow immediately with a hot bath. Then go to bed with several covers to provoke perspiration. If ailment is caused by blocked food in the stomach, a lobelia emetic might be beneficial to clear the stomach through vomiting. If the ailment is accompanied by weakness, emaciation, paleness, low fever, clear or white discharge or is occurring in a person who has a deficient diet, low in protein, use a tea of equal parts:

Dandelion root

Burdock root

Chicory root

Today is the third day of Pesach I believe. It seems like a lifetime ago that I observed such a day, it is now a strange sort of event that seems to be something I did not experience myself but only read about.

Unfortunately, I don’t yet understand how Plato’s dialogue Theætetus offers the discovery that the square root of 2 is irrational.

Bohemians, Cybernetics, History, Prodigies

Fri, 04 Apr 2003 01:29:38 GMT

I recently read Seigel's Bohemian Paris, and as I read it, I alternately wished I was Bohemian and another part of me raged that the entire "Life as Art" idea is a cop out and I just wanted to yell "poser" in my best seventh grader whine. What is ‘hip’ anyway, and what is art, and what did it matter. In so many ways, it was all devastatingly romantic to starve and be artistic and intellectual and Dadaist. In other ways, the inner capitalist in me wanted to scream, "Get a real job!" I was terribly disappointed in myself.

Then I read Norbert Wiener’s God & Golem, Inc. last night, and I wish I could articulate the revelations I had. Yes, I have been familiar with the "cyborg’s right to life" movement, and the age of spiritual machines etc. But to hear it from Wiener’s perspective from 1948 through 1964 was very exciting for me. He was speaking from a time when it was discovered that just as God created the Devil, and could actually lose to his own creation, so had man in making of the machine. Perhaps a simplistic realisation, but for me, it was still exciting. I remember at pop!tech when a speaker was discussing "at what point is a person no longer human, but more machine than human?" I was especially interested in the distinctions at that time.

I grew so terribly interested in Wiener that I just checked out one of his autobiographies, Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth. In the first chapter (Which is as far as I’ve gotten) he discusses how he finished high school when he was 12 and received his Ph.D. when he was 19 from Harvard. He is most interested in the moral difficulties that any prodigy has in integration into society, and fulfilment of expectations of society, and how easy it is for a prodigy to assume failure for himself after society has moved their ever-fickle interest onto the next prodigy. While I was never a genius in that sense, I was always rather smart and I always had high expectations for myself, and in a lot of ways, I’ve let myself down. My rising wasn’t as dramatic by any means to Dr.Wiener’s, but I do sympathise deeply

In addition, I have been keeping a post-it in Foucault’s Pendulum for two days for this quote:

And Diotallevi kept interjecting, sententiously: "Historia magistra vitae." To which Belbo responded: "Come on, cabalists don’t believe in history." And Diotallevi invariably answered: "That’s just the point. Everything is repeated, in a circle. History is a master because it teaches us that it doesn’t exist. It’s the permutations that matter."

And then, From "What is Cybernetics" by G.T. Guilbaud:

The word is derived from the Greek kybernētikē, which means, literally, the art of steersmanship. It belongs to a big family of words for the arts, crafts and sciences (all embraced by the single Greek term technai) which incliude medicine, education, poetry, mathematics, and mechanics. The word occurs fairly often in Plato, both in this literal sense and in the metaphorical sense of the art of guiding men in society, i.e. the art of government.
From this root were derived such Latin words as gubernaculum, a helm, and gubernator, a helmsman. These too, frequently carried the metaphorical meaning, a polotical helmsman steering the ship of state, which in some cases, indeed, became the predominant significance of the word.

The Burial of Euclid

Sat, 22 Mar 2003 01:52:43 GMT

I recently stumbled upon this reference in my History of Mathematics textbook and hunted it out of Jstor and typed it in for your express enjoyment.

...For the many campus customs at Yale in those times none appears to have been entered into with so much gusto and zest as the annual farcical pageant >of the Burial of Euclid, with which the sophomore class was wont to celebrate its mathematical emancipation.

There are many records of this ceremonial in the Yale archives, and though in its details it naturally varied with the genius of the class, it maintained its identity in form over a period of generations. The sophomore class having been summoned to gloat over Euclid's death, assembled in some college hall which was bedecked suitable to the occasion.The scene was dominated by a large and lurid cartoon which bristled in detail with fire and fury, and depicted how in the presence of Jupiter demon stokers were assisting at the consumption of Euclid's remains in a sea of blazing tar. A Dismal forest with embattled demons dilled the remoted parts of the scene, while in the foreground a student visibly filled with despair lent company to a weeping crocodile. Under this aspect Euclid's volume was perforated with a glowing poker, each man of the class thrusting the iron through in turn to signify that he had gone through Euclid. Following this the book was held for a moment ove each man to betoken that he had understood Euclid, and finaly each man passed the pages under goot that he might say thereafter that he had gone over Euclid.

These preliminaries accomplished, the funeral cortege was formed, and proceeded lugubriously, with grotesque garb and blazing torchlights to the chosen place of interment. At times Euclid himself was impersonated, dressed in classic raiment and pressinghis beloved volume to his breast, and at others the book alone was borne suitably shrouded at the head of the procession. At the pyre the celebration waxed in boisterousness and assumed more the aspects of revelry. There was elaborate mock lamentation, a funeral oration was held, and dirges more or less derisive were sung.

"No more we gaze upon that board
Where oft our knowledge failed,
As we its mystic lines ignored,
On cruel points impaled."
* * * *
"We're free! Hurrah! We've got him fast
Old Euk is nicely caged at last."
* * * *
"Black curls the smoke above the pile
and snaps the crackling fire:
The joyful shouts of Merry Sophs
With wails and groans conspire.
May yells more fiendish greet thy ears,
And flames yet hotter glow;
May fiercer torments rack thy soul
In Pluto's realms below."

R. E. Langer. "Josiah Willard Gibbs." American Mathematical Monthly, 46:75-84, 1939.
For more information about Euclid and why anyone would begrudge him his "Elements," click here for an online edition of Euclid's Elements with Sir Thomas L. Heath's translation with diagrams done as Java applets.

Giordano Bruno’s system of signification interpreted through the Chemical Marriage

Wed, 18 Dec 2002 05:11:52 GMT

It is the close of the sixteenth century; Giordano Bruno travels from city to city all over Europe, hunted by the Inquisition for his heretical system of memory and signification. In less than one year, the inquisition will burn him alive for his Ideas.

"You, Egypt, brought forth as sacred the hidden signs,
Famed before in song and story, of gods and people;
With them, with nature as our guide, what we perceive can be more scrupulously noted
Than by our shifting sense, experiences, and ordering of these same things.
Through these very sins the ancient mysteries remain in plain view,
While Nature unfolds herself in her numbers; through signs, oracles of the gods have come before mens’ eyes.
Therefore, when a thing stands signified by its own figure
A chariot is admitted for a chariot, a fire for a fire,
But when an image not invisible in itself is signed,
Let a better sense, a better skill step forth."

Alchemy is the most divine art, given to mankind by God as the ability to create gold from lead, as God created the world by naming it. God has ordained that only the most pure of heart, mind, body and soul can complete this work. We call this divine work the “idea.” The idea is God; the idea is a divine act of mind and of divine will commanded. It is a holy work that alchemists do, but in our time, when old widows are burned at the stake as witches for their petty neighbours, they must work in secret unless they are friendly with the crown.

Therefore, a work of signification is useful. When using images or words, one must keep in mind the audience. Images do not receive their names from the explanations of the things they signify, but rather from the condition of those things that do the signifying. When communicating Alchemy to the wider audience, the imagery and wording chosen will make two separate impressions. One will see a series illustrating the evolution of a strange marriage, filled with hermaphrodites and wild animals. The Alchemist, however, will see the metallic elements joined and the divine work completed.

When contemplating the creation of an alchemical allegory in order to hide its true meaning, one begins to have the trace [vestigium] of the idea of the chemical marriage. A trace is given to us only a subtle form, only the hint of an idea. The trace is something that hints at us that there is some form of substance, but will not allow it to be made manifest. The trace the way we see God, we see nature and contemplate god through its traces. We cannot truly understand God, but we can begin to contemplate him as we contemplate his trace through nature.

When one is given the divine will of god to begin to commit to the chemical marriage in his name, he has been communicated the divine will of God, and must accept the Idea.
The theory of the documentation of the chemical marriage begins to be understood, now. How could one possibly corrupt the divine will of God to paper, or through furtive discussion in alleyways? They only way we have found to communicate the divine alchemical ideals to one another is through the creation of a species, a shadow [umbra] of the Idea. The shadow is all art, being only a shadow of the trace. It is only the most crude manifestation of the form or the Idea. For this reason, we must always contemplate all early acts as mere shadow of the inspired divine. This world we live in, outside heaven, is the artificial world, where men strive to understand earth and heaven through rationalisation. The rational world is an artificial world, only a construct, a shadow of the idea, a mutant of the form. Therefore, when creating a way of communicating on this earthly plane, one must accept it will be a shadow of the Idea, and not as the Idea itself.

I believe that ideas, concepts and objects are all symbols, and if they can be remembered, they can be understood. One cannot understand anything when still contemplating oneself. Signs are understood by composition, combination, plurality of terms, by means of discourse and reflection. So those different words, that when seen by the grammarian’s eye are synonymous, for us signify one thing at one time and another at another. For example, "Luna," "Sol" and "Mercury" are not the same things as "our Silver," "our Gold" and "our Mercury." The chemical marriage, however, could not and should not be represented differently. The Analogy of the Idea of the chemical marriage is required in understanding- these are not mere Indications of a Sign or a Shadow, but are a way of understanding the Divine embodied in chemical change that must be first established in the mind before it will occur within the Philosopher’s Egg.

There are three principles that must be understood in order to contemplate Signification. This trinity is a natural system seen everywhere in nature, and so we follow nature’s form.

The first is the concept of the initial composition of all things as being God, nature, or art. Nothing can be more than one of these. The divine, the natural and the artificial can be applied to all things. The Trace is always a natural thing, a distillation of the Divine into something Natural. It becomes a trace of the Idea. The Shadow, or the rational world is the place of the Shadow of Ideas. The only purity is the Idea, which man cannot wholly contemplate without revelations. The Shadows are divided into primary, secondary etc. These Ideas are the cause of things before the things exist, the vestiges of the idea are the things themselves or what vestiges are in things, the shadows of the things are from the things themselves, or exist after the things which are said to exist. Beings are distinguished into those which are things, and into those things which are their signs or indications. The Image of a thing is separate and different from its substance.

One must also not forget the inherent limitations of the senses. In order to understand the divine Idea, one should use the sense of sight, as it is the most spiritual. I will explain more about this later. Touch conceives only those things that linger, surrendering themselves to our skin. We can only perceive the sense of smell from the body of things conspicuously placed near us, in time or distance. We can hear those things from near through distance places within our time, but the quality of hearing is such that it is only in the now.

Only sight comprehends the most remotes things and associates them with other things apprehended by that sense, and also retain them more effectively than by the other senses. Therefore, it is wise to signify the objects of all the appetites and the cognitive facilities in the same way that we describe and reveal all things by means of visible letters and shapes, the Mark.

Alchemical symbols follow historical fact or precedent. The most common method of communicating the chemical marriage is the “marriage” Signification. Based on these Signs from the historical precedent, we infer "Sol" with copper, "Luna" with silver and the character Hermes or “Mercury” with the metallic element, mercury. When something is composed sensibly, this nonsensical division arises. Certain allusion we intuit to which allusion is made; denotations of the roles of the various characters are signified in other ways via Shadow. From the tool, we perceive the skill, as for example the astrologer by the astrolabe or sphere in his hand.

When the chemical marriage is committed to a painting, to a concrete image, it becomes a sign [nota]. When a Form or an Idea is committed as a Shadow into the shape of a Sign, it does not receive its name from the explanation of the things it signifies, but rather from the condition of those things that do the signifying. The only reason a man would have to commit an Idea to a Shadow is to communicate it, and in this commitment, perhaps he would allow other men that have not received the Idea from God, to contemplate his great work. The Sign therefore has many meanings beyond the primary Idea; it denotes everything which in any way displays or indicates another thing either its primary, secondary proximate or remote, immediate or mediate reason or meaning. The alchemical painting becomes a way to communicate a trace of the Idea through a shadow.

The painting therefore is a Sign, signifying the elements of the Idea of the chemical marriage. It signifies through a fixed drawing of lines committed to paper, or the stroke of a brush- this is called the Character. The Character denotes a signification through the fixed lines, or a setting of points in order to intentionally point at one thing. However, the art of the Alchemist must be hidden, as not all men are worthy of the Idea. Therefore, the Sign’s primary, and secondary meanings shall have a Character that signifies on levels other than the intended primary. When considering the imagery of the chemical marriage, there are many different forms of imagery that are generally used to communicate the Idea, while leading the uninitiated to believe this is a story involving the actual players depicted. In the rosarium philosophorum (Rosary of the Philosophers), we see a story that to those only able to see the Shadow, therefore the secondary Sign, and therefore, a completely different character of a king and a queen marrying and indulging on sexual acts that modern scholarship doesn’t appreciate being educated about. The man in possession of the Idea, however, sees beyond the Shadow and to the primary Sign as the chemical marriage of Mercury being added as a solvent for gold and silver; thereby creating the Elixir of Life, as God has granted, and with the second part of the process, the Philosopher’s Stone, the realisation of the Idea of the Form.

The Mark [signum] of the chemical marriage is then understood as a part of its genus, the common attribute portrayed that has signification, either as an Idea or Trace or Shadow or otherwise. The person that understands the secondary or proximate Sign of the Character would then have a different interpretation of the Mark of the image. Someone recognising the primary Sign would understand the Mark as the recipe of the chemical marriage; the Mark understood by one with only a proximate Sign would see the chemical marriage as a record of actual people and events.

The Seal [sigillum] is the diminutive of Mark, and signifies the more notable part of the sign or the sign as it is generally accepted, as for example, when we signify a person or his action by his head alone or only by his hand. In the chemical marriage, a Seal is from the primary Sign could be a specific act, such as the act of copulation signifying the combining of mercury and gold together. In the Seal of copulation, the Seal signifies the diminutive of just the practise of alchemy, but distils something specific from the whole enterprise. The Seal is a specificity of the essence of images, and the power they have to effect change. Change and movement are a sign of life, and nothing in the world, least of all the world itself is inanimate.

The Indication [indicium], like Mark and Seal, of the chemical marriage is extant in the image’s existence and elicits internal or external contemplation of what it signifies. Just as one who points does not pre se signify the thing that is being indicated, but rather he invites or summons it to his inner or outer contemplation. The Indication of the chemical marriage is the understanding of the Sign via the Shadow, a fable of sexuality, death and resurrection for one man is the Philosopher’s Stone for another.

Different from all preceding terms, Figure [figura] are composed of Ideas, Traces and Shadows, as much related to the intrinsic as to the extrinsic aspect of things; “Figure” however pertains only to the extrinsic. The Figure of the alchemical imagery exists only of the initial impression, of the basic form without any inner contemplation of the deeper meaning; the Figure of a thing is only the superficial. Those that only see the secondary or tertiary meanings of the Sign related would only be sensing a Figure, and not the deeper meaning.

With the chemical marriage, the Analogy [similitudo] is well utilised. When a person is signified in letters and characters as well as in marks, indications and signs, less will be signified than with a simile or a likeness, as in a painting or a statue or its appearance as received by the senses and presented in the imagination. The analogy is a translation from one’s Idea into a kind of Shadow Sign. The quality of the Analogy is determined by the kind of Signification used. While in some cases, as in a philosophy, the message is best served with letters and characters in order to relate the message as fully as possible. With the alchemical Analogy, the exact likeness of the work is not related with intention, and images are made so that they can be synthesised and understood only by the initiated. The analogy presents the solemn and serious Godly work that Alchemists do, and clearly state the method of the science, while those that can see only the Figure will see only gross copulation and death.

The Proportion [proportio] is father from the Idea than the trace, and is the understanding of Proportion between more than two terminal points. Where a simple connection of Sign and the Trace, Idea or Shadow would be a connection between two terminal points, the Proportion is the connection between three or more. Just as Aleph is for the Hebrews, so is Alpha to the Greeks. Here we have four terminal points of Proportion, 1. Aleph, 2. Hebrew, 3. Alpha, 4. Greeks. Just as Sol is to Luna, so too is Luna to Mercury, which is three terminal points, Sol, Luna, Mercury. This is the understanding of the Proportion of an Idea’s being.

The Image [imago] embraces a greater energy, emphasis and universality, for there is more being for Image than for Analogy. Image tends more to unequivocally than does Analogy, and it is the same for things not only when they are in the same genus, but also when they are outside their own genus. Just as one artifice is said to be similar to a certain artifice, nonetheless it is not called an Analogy in relation to its Image or in its Image unless it is in a very close genus or the same species. The Image of the King swimming in the ocean for his bath is not an Image, but an Analogy. An Image is a visual representation that is almost an exact likeness

Tue, 26 Nov 2002 14:39:22 GMT

Yearning, longing
distance
to infinity
overcome by these memories of future.

London, Oxford, Machynlleth, London

Wed, 05 Jun 2002 11:32:01 GMT

After the Cybercafe in Oxford, we began our trip to Northwestern Wales. After some phone calls and confusion, we made our way through the English countryside to Machynlleth. This is an amazing town with a lot of Welsh character. At the local coffeeshop everyone speaks and orders in Welsh. Our first night here, we had a dinner of Indian food which took about one hour to prepare, 10 minutes to eat, and an hour to give up on waiting for the check. After dinner, we went to the local working man's pub that our taxi driver warned us to avoid. Inside we found very drunk and normal locals, mostly quietly chatting or loading a drunken friend into a cab. I tried to fit in by ordering a half pint of Guiness, but was unable to even finish half. I had to leave the rest, assuring that we'd never be served in this town again. The next day found us exhausted, as we looked for a new place to stay. We got a B&B in Machynlleth for the niht, and got tickets on the train to Tywyn in order to look for a B&B. While waiting for a train out of town, we went to the local Celtic Heritage museum, Celtica. It was said to be acvisual delight and wonderment, we thought it was a total bore. Plastic models arguing with each other, terrible acting, and unbelievable (literally) special effects.

In Tywyn, we first went to the TIC and got some information about hotels, and reserved one. Then we went to the Church of St. Cadfan, which was mentioned in The Grey King. Then we saw the Cinema call the Assembley Rooms. A little further down, we treated ourselves to Honey Icecream from Halo dipped in Amoretti. Instead of taking the train back to Machynlleth from Tywyn, we walked along the ocean to the next town of Aberdyfi. There were these amazing black clay square pools along the beach that we walked on near Tywyn. It was a beautiful secluded beach for almost all of the 4 miles. The waves were crashing as the tide moved out, leaving tidepools filled with jellyfish and hermit crabs behind. Once we arrived in Aberdyfi, we got some fish and chips, chicken and chips, and some mushed peas, as part of the Queen's Jubilee Celebration. We realised we were very late for the last train of the night, and ran for it. We then discovered that it wasn't that far, and that the train was very late. Geneva had to urinated quite badly. After eating my Haddock, chips and peas so quickly, and running, I really had to burp. So... I did. It was one of those rolling burps that starts in your belly and leisurely works its way up to your mouth. After the burp, Geneva started laughing terribly at me, and making me laugh, so I started laughing, and then she starting crying because this was making her have to urinated even more, so I started laughing and crying and squeaking my breaths. This made Geneva laugh/cry even more and nearly made her pee her pants. After about 20 minutes of nothing but nonstop laughter, pants holding on Geneva's end, squeaking and crying on mine, the giggle-fit ended.

I then started eating my mushed peas, and Geneva HAD to mention my squeaking. I then went into hysterics again and the peas went flying out of my mouth, and that was it. We were lost to the giggle-gods for another 20 minutes. In fact, while writing this, I had 2 entire giggle fits.

After the train, I spoke to the conductor about refunding our tickets, and he spent about 30 minutes helping us make our new ticket reservations for Machynlleth to London. We found our his name was Alwyn, and he was terribly cute. Very welsh and nice and gentile. He was having trouble printing one of the tickets, and had to hand-write part of it, and he was very upset about this. We left on our way back to Melin-y-wig, our B&B, when we heard behind us, "Girls! Girls!" It was Alwyn. He had finally gotten the ticket machine to work and was running down the street after us to give us the new ticket. He was terribly sweet. Walking past some bars, we got cat calls from out of towners, having a pint while watching the World Cup. They called from behind us, "Helo chickens, come have a pint!" Weirdos.

The next morning, Monday, we woke up, ate breakfast, and then headed to Tywyn. We cancelled a B&B that we had reserved there, and then headed to the Monday market in the field. We saw at least 20 people wearing Slipknot Iowa shirts. Is Iowa the name of a new album or is Wales just insane? I got a paid of British Socks, and Geneva got a few thongs of the British Flag. She looks hot in them, let me tell you. Then we rushed back to the train just in time to go to Aberdyfi. There we visited a few shops, and then had tea at a tearoom. We then had to hurriedly pay our bill and rush off again to the las train of the afternoon to Machylleth. We then toured the town looking for a phone card and failing. It was still Bank Holiday because of the Queen's Golden Jubilee, and we were quite annoyed. We spent about an hour at the payphones cancelling our appointment to stay with Quakers in Cardiff, cancelling our train tickets to Cardiff, and trying to reach friends.

After all this, we went to Aberdyfi for the Jubilee party. Music, lights, barbeque on the beach. There were people wearing the British flag and everyone was having a great time. Soon, they lit a huge bonfire on one of the mountains called a beacon, and then we had a fuse blown. The crowd struck up a british song to the tune of America the Beautiful. We laughed way too hard.

Then, we went to go get our train and after about an hour, realised that it was a friday only train, so we were stranded. We went to the only open building, a pub called the dovey inn, and asked them to call us a cab. we waited for 2 hours for a cab, and no one wanted to go all the way to Machynlleth. So, we started to walk the 12 miles there....

More to come later! I have to go catch a train to take me near Cader Idris!
At long last! Pictures!

Rightous Indignation & The Unobserved Ethiopical Marvels

Thu, 09 May 2002 03:56:30 GMT

I am including my notes from the five hours I have spent working on my Ge`ez studies today. I grew increasingly angry as I worked because the majority of scholarly works regarding this ancient Ethiopic language are blatently racist- even recent works from this century.

There was a refusal to see Africans as creators of original cultures which flowered and survived over the centuries in patterns of their own making and which historians are unable to grasp unless they forego their prejudices and rethink their approach.
-Amadou Mahtar M'Bow (Berkeria, Ayele. Ethiopic, An African Riting System: Its History & Principles - p.2)

The problem of the External Paradigm- There is an overwhelming academic opinion that syllographs and indeed most Ethiopian culture must have come from elsewhere (generally Kustic Arabia, of the ancient Arabian Peninsula). This places the origins of Ethiopian culture away from "black" Africa and into the "Asian" middle east. This racist belief reaffirms the idea that a darker skinned people could not have an enduring literate intelligent culture while Phoenician culture was just beginning. Even today, this Eurocentric assumption places the Ge`ez system in the linguistic category of a Semitic instead of an African language.

The South Arabian immirants into Ethiopia introduced a superior civilization; they brought with them knowledge of the use of metals, the cultivation of the soil; the sheep, the horse, the camel, manedible and other useful plants, a better type of arms, such as the large pointed head of the lance, and probably the round leather shield borne by the Ethiopian warrior until recent times. They introduced also houses built of stone, styles of architecture and methods of construction, the art of writing, and a beautiful script of Ethiopia to-day, though the vowel indications may have been have been invented many centuries after their early settlements had been established in Africa. For the progress of civilization posession of a script was the most essential of the arts of the Arabian immigrants brought with them.
-Sylvia Pankhurst, Ethiopia: A Cultural History

It is much more likely, if established racist opinions are abandoned, that the Ge`ez system finds its origins purely in Egyptian Heiroglyphs, as does the well documented Roman system, however far removed the latter may be. It seems impractical to assume that a writing system in an area so geographically close to ancient Egypt should begin its journey by traveling first east to South Arabia, become suffiiently "caucasianized," and then return south to Ethiopia to evolve into its final forms. There is no evidence to suggest that Egyptian merchants, scribes and consequently the hieroglyphic system did not disseminate equally in every direction from its' centers in Egypt. Contrary to what much of popular history suggests, the mysterious magnetic force by which intelligent ideas and societal progress is drawn successively towards Western Europe does not exist.

Images are of the Church of St.George, Lalibela, Ethiopia.
Notice the scale of the structure to the person on the right hand side of the picture below.

I also studied a other aspects of Ethiopia today:

The 11 rock churches in Lalibela that were carved out of solid rock in the 12th century. The buildings are 40 feet in height, and not one stone was laid, they are made entirely of one solid volcanic liviing stone.

The history of Ethiopia, known to many as Abyssinia, is rich, ancient, and still in part unknown. Anthropologists believe that East Africa's Great Rift Valley is the site of the origin of humankind. The first recorded account of the region dates back to almost 5,000 years ago during the time of the Egyptian pharaohs, when the ancient Egyptians sent expeditions down the Red Sea in quest of gold, ivory, incense, and slaves.

The country's rich history is woven with legends of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba; the Ark of the Covenant that is said to rest in Axum; the great Axumite kingdom and the birth of Christianity; the rise of Islam; and the story of King Lalibela, who is believed to have constructed the eleven rock-hewn churches, still standing today and considered the eighth wonder of the world.

Ethiopia is the only African nation that was not colonized by European colonial forces. It was briefly occupied by the Italians between 1936 and 1941..

It is in the Afar region of Ethiopia where scientists discovered the remains of "Lucy" or Dinkenesh, meaning "thou art wonderful," as she is known to the Ethiopians. "Lucy" lived more than three million years ago, and her bones now rest in the Ethiopian National Museum.

Ethiopia has amazing wonders worthy of global attention and admiration, yet modern opinion remains that Ethiopians are "primitive." Pervasive eurocentric thinking anything of worth must have been derived from caucasian or asian culture. It should be evident that I have such open admiration for the accomplishments of the Ethiopian people; for all their accomplishments to be considered mere intellectual and behavioural "hand-me-downs" of caucasian or asiatic peoples speaks quite badly of our respect for rational thought and honesty.

Syberia

Tue, 23 Apr 2002 15:23:03 GMT

It is not often that I happen upon a game that thrills me. I've just found another one. This seems to be an atomospheric game in the spirit of adventures such as Ico or Obsidian.

I seem to enjoy a well designed atomosphere with emotion; in movies as well as games. The trailer for Syber reminds me of Griffin and Sabine, similar to the emotions I get while reading the Earthsea Trilogy. I wish I knew the name for how it makes me feel

The video is amazing... unfortunately, it is only in .wmv format:

Enjoy video in .WMV

Visit the Official Syberia site

oh Svalbard...

Fri, 19 Apr 2002 16:12:51 GMT

I miss Svalbard, my whole soul longs for it. Below is the live webcam from Store Norske Spitsbergen in Longyearbyen, Svalbard: 78 ° N, 16 ° E... For the next few months they will be experiencing constant dawn.

The Sunset and the dawn last for months here. Just as the complete darkness is from Oct-Feb, dawn is Feb-April, brightest light is from May-July, and sunset is Aug - Sept.

It has become nearly impossible for me to believe that I once rode horses, dog sledded and watched the aurorae from the valleys and fjords. It has been so long, it seems like a dream.

One day, I must go back.

Inspired by acadiabaird, I present my breakfast & fromage shopping pictures:

Sun, 07 Apr 2002 19:43:09 GMT

The genius gormand at Amano presented me with Eggs Florentine with Hollandaise and Creamed Spinach. With relish they disappeared, leaving only a grin on my face. Perusing the cheese shoppe, quite thrilling! I strolled around, tasting the cheeses with a Penguin Eiswine in hand. Oh decadence! This afternoon was in the shape of an epicure's delight.

Mennell identifies three distinct periods of 'food evolution'. Famine and feast is characterized as the first epoch, where the nobility displayed its status through over- consumption. With increases in the food supply, the bourgeoisie adopted a 'discriminating palate', where high status and culture was connoted through etiquette, restraint and the art of cooking (the development of haute cuisine and the professional chef). The third period involved the process of industrialisation which led to the mass production and distribution of food. According to Mennell, the increasing availability and standardization of food has resulted in a trend to 'diminishing contrasts and increasing varieties'. Therefore, the civilizing process in the history of cuisine has seen the decline of class dictating food culture.

-Stephen Mennell, All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present

My food fetish moves beyond the mere act of physical satiation; An appreciation for the sensuousness of good food - the quality, the colour, aroma, texture and harmony of flavours.

Small Town Girl Excited by Plastination and Anatomie

Wed, 20 Mar 2002 14:42:00 GMT

While watching the movie Anatomie, I found myself mesmerised by a featured medical museum exhibit. The premise of the movie was a secret society of anti-hippocratic doctors that plasticised dying patients by injecting them with a chemical that supposedly gives blood a rubberlike consistancy, removes fat and water, thereby perfectly preserving the body.

One memorable scene features the medical students walking with wonder through this huge exhibit of perfectly preserved human forms in various states of dismemberment, their bodies flayed open in an artistic manner, each with a different theme of position and implied presentation. In one, the ribcage opened like a door, to expose the perfectly intact heart and ventricles. The entire presentation was just... beautifully perverse... Deliciously disturbing...

Then I found out it was real:

Prof. Dr. med. Gunther von Hagens invented plastination at the Institute for Anatomy at Heidelberg University in 1978 and has developed it further ever since.

The Three Points of View (An Essay)

Fri, 01 Mar 2002 23:48:28 GMT

I spent the day in the coffee shop, with headphones on listening to snej's shoegazer ambrosia (¡ Forward in all Directions !) and wrote. I sat in my chair, occasionally sipping my double espresso double hazelnut latte as I wrote, mostly with my eyes closed, listening to the overwhelming honey in my ears. Here is the result of coffee-love, shoegazing, and clacking keys:
No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen?
--Henry David Thoreau

THE THREE POINTS OF VIEW

POV 1: The Object of Focus

Once, when I was newly forged, still red and fiery, I was untainted by the world around me, and it made me very proud and arrogant. I was created in the beginning of the last century, and my design was full of queer angles and shapes, to complement the new world I was to inhabit.

I remember being conscious of myself, and how I fit into myself. Tools were used against my flesh to further craft and design me for some then-indeterminable purpose. I didn't know then what sort of use I would have to myself or others. I would not learn this for a very long time, even after being placed into service for many years.

I was transported and moved. I changed hands many times. I was aware that I had some worth, that people found value in me; by the way they handled me, and caressed my admittedly fine craftsmanship.

When I arrived in the hands of my new master, I did not know if I would adorn his person, or if I would continue to grace the confines of the cube I'd lived in until now. It soon was clear that I was intended to grace a former shrub. We didn't have much in common; he was born in the wilderness, and had been indentured and enslaved, parts of him ripped off for other purposes, he was a conscious amputation. I scorned and pitied him then, and for a long time, there weren't many words between us.

I noticed that we shared many similarities, in our design and purpose, for indeed, I had been made with a specific purpose.
I was fitted into my amputated friend, inside of him, like some sort of tribal adornment of flesh, a functional piercing, and I was polished, and my work began soon after. For only the first few weeks of my indenture, I was held and gazed upon fondly by my owners. I enjoyed the attention, then. Soon, it was discovered that my life was not meant to always be so kind and gentle.
I was pushed, prodded, thrown, slapped, and during the dark silences in-between, I was totally ignored and abandoned, left to lick my wounds. My pride soon gave way to indignation, anger, hurt, shame and then finally, acceptance. I remember this going on for years, and each day seeming to be a fresh and new insult. No matter how solicitous I was, no matter how careful and helpful I was, the treatment I received from my customers never changed.

Only once a year was I treated to kindness. A lover would seek me out, caress me, dress my wounds, apply a salve, and coddle me like none other. I grew to love this man.

And in loving him, I also grew to understand my partner, the Amputation. I hadn't been able to previous, because I had no understanding of his humility and slow modesty. He never spoke of his past, where he came from, although I know he'd have dreams of it. Sometimes I could see his moist, green dreams. They came to me at night, when the world was quiet. They were quiet, cool, and tasted sweet. The smell was fresh and spicy. It wasn't anything I would choose for myself, but I grew to understand him more through these silent conversations. He would also have nightmares of the events of the amputation, of which there were several. The initial amputation cut him away from his home, another into "usable" sections, and a last to craft and mold him. It was strange to me to see that he did not see his crafting as a birth, but as a kind of death. I grew to love him for our differences, and always tried to understand more.

I was still prideful at that time, still given to fits of anger and feelings of betrayal after a cruel treatment. Slowly, I gave in to resentment, and I was unthankful for any kindnesses I was given. When my lover came that year, I ignored him, and did not respond to his ministrations. I was surly, and professed no need for him through my silence and efficient manner. For the first time, he left me unsatisfied, and I was left with only my own anger to fight against.

That was the beginning of my lesson in humility.

After a particularly abusive day, a few months later, I sat in the still darkness, exploring myself. I discovered something was amiss, that I was broken in some way. As the days passed, I began to experience perpetual pain. No one noticed, except to punish me more for my slow performance, and my obvious inability to perform what was once a simple task.

Finally, I broke, in my soul as well as my flesh itself. I broke apart, my insides coming loose and disjointed. I fell from my placement inside the Amputation. I crashed onto the floor, which was cold, unforgiving and violent. I was picked up, and put back into place, only to crash again to the floor. Again and again I was destroyed, and I was crying in pain, humility, crying for mercy, but unable to communicate to my torturers.

I finally ended up on the cruel ground for the rest of the day, kicked across the floor, mishandled, cruelty and injustice with every physical contact. I sat in abject humility, looking at my pride smashed into thousands of bits of shame around me. Now I understood what The Amputation felt, how the change in oneself wasn't always a joyous feeling of birth. I felt only pain and humiliation at my situation.

Finally, I was addressed, my scorned lover came to me, and took me in his hands, to his home, and focused his kind attentions to my wounds. He said to me that my forged beauty was gone, and that my previously aesthetic and refined features were barely discernable, but that I had somehow managed to find a beauty of my own, in my handling. He pointed out where pieces of me had been worn away, leaving their own designs. I was happy to listen to him, but I mainly concerned myself with his kind touch, soothing words and soulfulness.

He pieced be back together, lovingly. Pieces of my insides had been destroyed in my trauma, and he had to fashion new bits of flesh to replace those that had left me forever. I remember his fingertips inside of places that had never been touched before, virgin no longer. These new sections of me were put into place, and I was left to understand my new self.

I was placed back into my friend the Amputation, and then left to recover as night came. The Amputation said nothing, but I could tell he understood me, had always understood these new feelings that I was having. Nothing needed to be said, his silent acceptance communicated everything.

Now, when their hands grip me and pull me, I don't resist, and I use their energy to remember my forsaken pride, and I find gladness inside of me; of the loving kindness of my past, of another day survived, hopefully with grace and kindness.

POV 2: A Magical Influence

My mother would take me to the coffee shop with her, where she would always order me some hot chocolate, and we would sit close to the door. While she sat and drank her own black juice, I would watch as people came in through the door and would leave within moments, with a cup of hot stuff in their hands. I loved watching the door, and seeing the doorknob move back and forth while someone turned it from the other side. I would stare at it for minutes at a time, trying to use my magical powers to make it turn and open, with no one on the other side. I tried to make the knob turn for a very long time, without success. I decided that I had to understand its mechanisms, and understand how it works, in order to just work it with my mind powers.

I would turn away from the table, and just watch the knob, see how it's little piece of metal that would stick into the wall when it was closed, I would watch how that worked, how it moved in and out of it's pocket inside the door. The doorjamb accepted it into a specially molded pocket that looked like a mouth. The little piece of metal that stuck out was shaped like a slice of cake, and always made me hungry for my birthday. The doorknob had a bunch of circles on it, in a knotted design, like mommy's lace. I would follow the lines with my eyes, moving them with the tangle, like a maze.

I would stand in front of the door, turning the knob and opening the door over and over, to teach it what I wanted it to do. I decided this doorknob was like my puppy, and needed to be told and shown how to "sit" over and over, before it could be expected to sit on command. I would turn the knob and say "turn, turn, turn, turn," over and again. Every now and then, someone would open the door, and I would get ploughed backward, but I learned to quickly jump out of the way. My mother would call to me and tell me to stay out of people's way. There would be a group of people waiting behind me to leave through the door, they must have been waiting for me to turn the knob for them, and I did this with my new expert and almost super-human abilities. My mother would watch me over her steaming cup of black juice, and was probably proud, that she had such a talented magician for a daughter. I would look at her and say, "Mom, watch the magic, the knob, it is turning, and I'd push on the little piece of cake metal, and the knob would turn on both sides, as if by magic. She would feign surprise and astonishment, but I knew she just didn't understand how I was teaching the door to open. Soon it was time to go.

A few days later, I had my chocolate and she had her black juice, and I decided to test my door. "Door, open," I said loudly. It stood still. My mother said, "Just wait, it might be slow, like grandma." She might have been right. I always talk to grandma, and she doesn't seem to even hear me, and then an hour later, she'll respond. Papa calls that "Grandma's conversational grenades." He said, "You throw the conversation out there, and you have to wait some time before you get a reaction." Maybe the door was like that. I waited. Sure enough, it opened, but a person was behind it. I frowned at that. I couldn't decide how to prove if the door opened because I had asked it to, or if the person opened it. I asked the door for its opinion, I looked into its metal face, and said, "Did you open for me or did he make you open?" The doorknob turned its head back and forth, rattled in its hold, making a loud squeal, and then opened, showing another person in.

I was about to decide then that perhaps I wasn't magical enough for this door, or it was just too tired out, when at that moment, the doorknob just fell to the floor with a loud clatter, like my brother's cap gun. I jumped back, alarmed, dropping my hot chocolate in my fright. "Mommy!" I yelled, pointing at the doorknob on the floor. She was already on her feet. "Beca, you are covered in hot chocolate! Did you pull on the doorknob?" She asked, not expecting an answer. I looked at the doorknob and started crying, "I killed it! I killed it! I kept asking it to do things with my magical powers, and it just died and fell apart!" I rushed to the door, and picked up the head of the door's knob, and tried to attach its neck back into its body. It hung there, in the middle of the door for a moment, and then clattered back to the ground with a CLANK! I jumped back, and my mother was still scolding me.

"Beca, leave that thing alone or you'll break it even more! Come, sit next to me and I'll get you a new hot chocolate."

"No, no. I want you to fix the door! Mommy, Mommy, fix the door! I killed it! I killed it! I didn't mean it!"

My mother went over to the door, and tried to fit the doorknob back into its home, but she had less luck than I, and it just fell out of her hand and back onto the floor. Its twin knob on the other side of the door fell out too, clattering onto the wooden porch and then rolling to the concrete steps. I started screaming, trying to make my mother understand how serious this was. She needed to fix the door, and soon, or its death might steal my magic powers from me forever. Apparently my mother didn't care, because she picked me up, and forced my jacket onto first one arm and then the other, while I was kicking and screaming. A coffee-shop guy came out from behind the counter, and took hold of the doorknob out of my mother's hand, and got the one that had fallen down the stairs, and started to try to fix it. He fit both ends into the door, and twisted and turned the sides, trying to mend the door. He stepped away from the door for a moment, and the knobs fell violently to the ground again. My screams became louder, and I was barely able to breathe. Apparently my mother didn't understand that the poor door was my responsibility, and if it died, it was my fault. She carried me out the door kicking and screaming.

I was crying most of the trip home, thinking about my poor hurt knob. I was worried that my magical powers would be taken away from me for leaving it alone like that, but when I tested it on a traffic light on the way home, it changed from red to green when I asked it to, so I knew I still had a chance to make things right. It was a few days until we returned to the Coffee Shoppe, and when I got there, the door was repaired, and the knob was shiny and bright. As we went through the door, I looked at it and stroked it, telling it I was sorry, and it slid smoothly back against the wall, and told me it forgave me.

My mother wouldn't let me touch the doorknob anymore for its training lessons, no matter how often I asked. So, I just sat there, and spoke to it, asking it to move, to please move. I did this while my mother read her newspaper and drank her black-juice. She looked up at me and asked what it was that I was looking at.

"I am talking to the doorknob, mother."

"Oh. Ok, just don't get out of your chair; I am sure it can hear you fine from there."

I focused even more on the doorknob, trying to make it listen as the traffic light had listened. A few minutes later, my mother got out of her chair, and started to put her jacket on.

"Honey, get your jacket on, we have to go to be home to meet the babysitter in ten minutes, if you don't hurry, we are going to be late."

"Give me three minutes mommy, I am almost done."

"No, now; I don't want to keep her waiting."

I knew that tone, so, I slowly got my coat on, furiously focusing on the knob, threatening it, begging it to move. Then, a twitch!! Movement! I saw it! I had asked it to move, and it finally had! It was finally listening to me! I began to smile madly at my accomplishment. This was quite impressive for a girl of only four.

My mother asked what I was smiling about. "Oh nothing. The doorknob finally decided to listen to me," I said as if this was no big deal. She made a reply absentmindedly, and then told me to make sure my coat was zippered. I was a little upset that she hadn't heard me, but I decided that it would be my little secret.

The entire drive home, I made every traffic light red. Boy was Mommy mad.

POV 3: A Loving Embrace

I picked up the pieces of the knob and lock assembly from the kid behind the counter. They weren't all there: the tumbler was missing. I could also see that the knob's housing was bent. "I'll have to take this back to my shop. I can fix it by this afternoon." I looked about the floor and collected the pins and tumbler casing that had been abandoned and ignored behind the door, and took the remains out to my truck. I kept most of my tools in my truck, but not the fine tools needed to repair this. I had kept this lock working since I was a child; my father had cared for it before me. We were a legacy of handymen, carrying for this authentic and quaint tourist town, clinging to its Victorian designs. I caressed the finely designed doorknob. I knew from experience that it was a valuable antique, and it gave me pride to restore it to its earlier grandeur.

I had my miniature tools in my workshop at home. They were used for repairing small pieces of clockwork, and were perfect for delicate toys and fine mechanical pieces. I took a cloth out of my rag pile, and laid it flat on my workbench. I put all the pieces on the cloth, and set out the polish. As I worked with the pieces, I could see that the piece had a brass core, adorned with a thin filigree of copper and bronze wires that had been laid in an intricate pattern along the head and neck of the knob, and then soldered on. As it had been used, all the filigree along the sides had been worn into the sides, and pressed flat, and mingling together unintended, but smudging itself in the pattern of the hands that used it. As I closed my eyes, I could almost feel the fingerprints of everyone that had held it firmly with purpose.

I polished all the pieces carefully, wiping away the grime and wear, leaving only its bright youth to gleam. I then attended to its hurt insides. The brass tumbler had taken a hard knock at some point, bending the pins inside. As it was yanked and pushed, the pins inside has not yielded entry, but instead, suffered their integrity. I took my magnifying lens and fit it to a band around my head, so that I could see every detail.

I began to dissect the piece of art, and I got to see its history. This style of lock and tumbler had been popular in the late eighteenth century, but had fallen into disuse because it was inefficient for mass-production. I withdrew the bent pins carefully, and one fell out onto the rag, broken in two. I placed the pieces end to end, and measured them, trying to estimate their original size. I would not be able to mend this piece, so it would lose its authenticity, but would regain purpose, which was a calculated compromise.
I went into my scrap pile, and found a similar, but longer piece, of the exact width. I measured out an approximate length, and carefully cut it off, and then I proceeded to sand it to the correct length for proper operation.

I began to fit everything back together, only focusing on each step, and verifying perfect working order before moving to the next step. When the tumbler was in place, the pins waiting expectantly for action, and the knob attached and in place, waiting for housing, then I knew I had restored the piece to a prideful state.

I sat back and held it in my hands, admiring my own craftsmanship, as well as that of the original creators, observing how our craft mingled together to maintain beauty. I wrapped the piece in the rag, and put it into a box, on my way back to the coffee shop.
When I arrived, I took it apart for the last time, and placed it gently into the door, giving it a last oiling. When all the pieces were in place, I screwed and snapped its cover together, locking it into its home. I looked at it with pride for a moment, and then turned around to leave my bill. As I turned, I saw a small child and her mother take their drinks to a table closest to the door, and the child turned her chair to face the door, and sat staring at the doorknob in expectation. I turned to the counter and handed the clerk the slip itemising my work, and left the shop.

As I closed the door behind me, I turned around and grasped the handle, feeling the design and fine lines against my palm and fingers. I carefully twisted the handle, feeling the imprinted history of those before me, leaving my own print against its flesh for those that will come after. I released the handle, and walked to my truck, on my way to my next customer.

The Art of Gameplaying & The Cosmology of Kyoto

Thu, 08 Nov 2001 13:07:47 GMT

I generally hate video games. I once beat F-Zero before anyone else, and made mention in Nintendo Power, but, that was a fluke. I think I am very good at fighting games and racing games, but I despise them.. I generally never lose a game on pure skill. I am too competative I suppose. Either way, the last game I played was probably Final Fantasy at Brad's house. Before that, probably Obsidian (wonderful beautiful game). Before that? F-Zero probably. I am just not into games.

http://www.theunderdogs.org/game.php?name=Cosmology+of+Kyoto

However.

nomi's post about a game called "The Cosmology of Kyoto" has piqued my interest. This is the sort of game I'd buy and play with, mainly for it's beauty and history. I am downloading it now, but I wonder if it will work on XP.

I always meant to try Myst, but never did. Obsidian is probably the best game I've ever played, only because it's stayed with me so long, and has shaped a lot of my thoughts. It was a truly amazing masterpiece.

Are there other games like these? (That will work on XP?)

Update: This game does run under XP, just a hint. When you get it, go the properties control, and choose Compatibility, and run it Windows 95, in 256 colours, 640 x 480 and disable visual themes.

Here is a link with more information:

http://www.theunderdogs.org/game.php?name=Cosmology+of+Kyoto

and you can download it here:

http://www.theunderdogs.org/downloadfile.php?file=games%2Fc%2Fcoskyoto%2Ffiles%2Fcoskyoto.zip&id=1906

Religious Symbolism

Thu, 30 Aug 2001 12:58:34 GMT

"I enjoy analyzing the contemplative metaphors and discussing them with my book club, where we sit around and bitch about our husbands. We sometimes also have tea."

The scapular has a long history, originally a hood and woolen "shield" to remind the wearer of a higher power, namely God, Jesus, Mary or a Saint.. It reminds me a great deal of the judaic kippah or Tzitzit. I don't have enough familiararity to the ritualistic nature of religion and spirituality, but I am attempting to learn. I have taken to wearing a rosary ring, and I'd like to wear some sort of scapular, but this requires me to learn more about creating sigils, and really contemplating my will. I might read some A.A.Spare, I haven't decided yet. I am also in the midst of understanding more about Anchoresses in the 16th century, and what it meant at that time to be chaste. This is quite confusing for me. I wonder if I can achieve a chastity of spirit and mind.. not only against sexual thoughts and feelings, but against destruction. I don't understand how to fix all of this. One of the people I loved to destroy has begun to show up in my world. I've helped him in little ways he will never know, am I working toward redemption? I don't know. Maybe I need to stop fighting against others. I am not sure. I was studying a decent amount about 16th century women's religion in Europe. Some aspects of their faith are interesting, but I don't think that withdrawing yourself from the temptation is stronger than resisting in the midst of the temptation. A Path with Heart also taught me that with Buddhism. In my situation, should I put myself into challenging positions and choose not to fight and destroy people? Won't I get taken advantage of emotionally? I don't understand.

I've been trying to write, and failing. I am now doubting myself and my work. I wonder if I am some sort of misguided Satanist on a intelligencia power trip. I can't even tell you. I do know that I try to learn every day. I write every day. I think and feel every day. I do not know the purpose, for it only serves to separate me. I almost wish I had someone around to talk about this with. About religion and philosophy. Phone calls and instant messaging is losing it's shine. I find myself explaining my own views about Lucifer, and teaching what I know about the book of Enoch and other Apocryphal texts, instead of talking to people that are already familiar with the material and could teach me something. I don't know how to fix this.

Should I withdraw from lust as well? Does it serve? Does destruction serve? I am so excellent at these things. If I love someone enough, I will happily turn their will to self-destruction in my honour. I used to think that eventually I'd meet someone that would be stronger than I was, and not let things be destroyed. I no longer believe this. Perhaps it will change again, and I'll know something else to be true. This is what I know for now.

I am very tired.

Independence Day

Thu, 05 Jul 2001 01:59:43 GMT

went outside and lay down on the wet grass in the dark, and I saw all these flashing lights and I saw bright sparks. The lightning bugs were dancing to the firecracker's music, and the entire sky flashed red and gold with the memory of the light flashing miles away, but the little dancing bugs were content to give me a show of my own.