How It Works

I live in a crazy old farmhouse full of books but, when I was a kid, I lived in a crazy old farmhouse full of books.  This book belonged to my dad. He had ridden in cars like the one on the cover when he was a kid. He was 40 when I was born. Mom was 5 years younger than he and I was the youngest child.  Like many women, she stopped having kids at 35. 

 35 kids is more than enough for any family.

The book contains everything mechanical that a kid of any century ought to know.  Here is a diagram of how music is made in a piano.  It is a complex coordinated activity of whippen flanges, cantilevers, dampeners and felted hammers. From it I learned that rubber bands could be stretched from one's front teeth and played pizzicato.  However, the astute autodidact soon found higher notes wanted more stretching than rubber bands could manage.  

They would snap and whack me in the chops. This, rather like picking up a cat by the wrong end, taught generations of kids something they could learn in no other way. We learned to make music within the limits of our materials, and grant upon ourselves the kindly wish that old misfortunes be reversed.  We were curious, happy children.

We were customarily sent outside after breakfast and called in to supper several years later.  As a result,  most of our activities would necessarily fall in the category of  outdoor pursuits. The book helped there too.  It diagrammed the dynamics of kite ascension.

We learned, in the words of another kid (Benjamin Franklin), "a kite flies highest against the wind", and aimed tens of thousands of them eastward.  String being unreliable in those days and kites being constructed of available materials --bamboo, newspaper and snot-- caused a century of the things to snap free and drift aloft to raise the elevation of the high Sierras.

This forced auto makers to add a lower gear to transmissions so people could safely traverse the grades and all us kids were ordered indoors to watch television, which by then was mostly bad horror films --you know, the ones with blood dripping from their titles-- then get up at like a million o'clock in the morning to go to church. There, we sat and debulliated --relieved only by the dream that we might grow up to own cool cars.

Möbius And Finding One's Self Oneself

Norma's blackboard invited me to reflect and decide if, after a day of medical tests, I was having fun yet. A simple question if you ignore the virgule --a left-hanging slash mark that is actually a chive. In all languages, including French, grammarians and gardeners can distinguish between virgules and chives because chives cast a shadow and virgules do not . This is elementary punctuation to my generation but is no longer taught and bears repeating. By such details one finds one's self.

The phrase "one’s self" is used in spiritual, philosophical and psychological description. Otherwise, "one’s self" can be replaced with the pronoun "oneself" except in possessive reference to a small mythical being --in which case, it's probably better not to mention "one's elf", especially loudly on a cell phone in public. Why? Because it doesn't really compete with public cell-phone broadcasts like, "Where you at? No, where YOU at? I'm at the checkout line, buying  stuff FOR MY CONTAGIOUS BRAIN-EATING DISEASE!"

Where this leaves one's self in relation to oneself is debatable.

People who shout publicly on cell-phones are the biological equivalent of a geometrical enigma, the Möbius strip.

The Möbius strip is a 3-d surface with only one side. It was discovered independently by German mathematicians August Ferdinand Möbius and Johann Benedict Listing in the same year, 1858. This was a great coincidence, diverging only in subsequent disagreement between the two mathematicians over which side had been isolated. Möbius claimed the outside and Listing argued for the inside. They finally agreed it was neither but the model was named after the mathematician with the best left hook (however, Mobius's umlaut was stolen that night and the grammatical case was never solved!).

Cell-phone shouters seem only to have an outside, but their effectiveness in driving the rest of us inside suggests both planes coexist in emotional opposition.

Two-sided people can use cell-phones too. Norma uses hers to converse very quietly with our children, who have grown up and scattered over the world, in the same gentle voice she used to hush them to sleep with when they were little. She does this in the evening while painting things blue.



While Norma was murmuring soporific phrases to our offspring, lots of friends were questing off to India to find themselves. They would come back after a year or two, full of strange enthusiasms --meditation, ego-abolition, gravity bathing (ok, I just made up gravity bathing)-- back to find their little ones had found other parents and their spouses reassigned. But they had found themselves in search of themselves --and, to their credit, they found a lot of Indians.

My personal search for myself is as it has always been. The sun sets. I set out. On the way, I notice the elf is not an elf but a purple caret-capped gnome at the foot of Norma's slate. A caret, I should mention, is a pointy grammatic symbol suggesting insertion (caret ^) and should not be sat on by accident. As for myself (this one's self) or whatever I was looking for, I probably forgot and left it in the van. I'll go look.

Buffalo Faustus

When this country was only 200 years old, I was illustrating small press publications. Above is a cover from the July 1976 number of Poetry Humor Magazine.
 
40 years ago I could draw a pretty good horse for a one-color run. These were not fancy publications. They served much the same purpose as blogging serves now, except they were paper and had to be subscribed to and sent out by regular post. The issue above was thematized by waste. My rider was a recurring character who, on this cover, is shown heroically tossing a toaster onto a rubbish heap. I named him Buffalo Faustus --a commentitious frontiersman who recycled things in the wild west in exchange for spiritual redemption. He had big adventures. I wrote this for that issue:

Sign on the glass door said:
            INQUIRE WITHIN.
Inside, it said the same thing backwards, which
frightened me. 
Outside, the boulevard was jammed in a wink with
hundreds after the same puzzle and the sweat they worked up
Sloshed hugely with skidding cars.

I put my back to the door and held it against the crowd.

Owner walked up --mean-looking woman wth a long curved nose and a long curved
chin, ends of which met in front of her thin cruel lips. She said, "YEEEEESSSSS?"

"Just browsing," I grunted, holding off a wall of shoppers. A car burst through the big window and rolled over. She left to attend to it. Driver came to, spat out some upholstery and asked,

"'S okay t'park here?"

She mumbled something into the wreckage and got back to me, pointed at the sign and asked if I had any inquiries to make.

I said,"Yes, is there a back door to this place?"

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

This is an abbreviated version of my contribution  to Poetry Humor Magazine but it adequately fixes Buffalo Faustus's position in an increasingly chaotic universe. I have no idea what its spacial-temporal coordinates might be after 40 years of inattention, but imagine they are not so very distant from my own. I do, however, have now --as I had in 1976-- high hopes for our country's resourcefulness and ability to stabilize under duress. I have no doubt Buffalo found the back door to political upheavals of his time and will reappear with inquiries useful to our current remove.

To all, a happy fourth!

California Dream Revisited

Because we went out to lunch today with longtime friends to an excellent restaurant in Galt, I decided bring an old post forward into the present and enjoy the sort of confabulation that has characterized our relationship from the '60s and '70s. Long friendships are full of delightful semantic distortions and, rather than tease specimens out of today's encounter, I found this 4-year-old post would easily serve, and so trotted it out. Let's return, for a pleasant while, to another summer:

August 9, 2012:
Norma told me Friend Dan had a magnum bottle of 2004 Sterling Cabernet that I didn't know about. Suddenly, the 103 degree temperature outside was unimportant and we headed over there to make sure it was genuine. Sterling Vineyards is a winery near Calistoga, a central coast region well-known for its waters. They are geyserous and curative and I was hoping the same benefits were imparted to its wine but I am not an optimist and was prepared for pleasurable disappointment.

Dan and I are in our 60s and therefore knew enough to ask our dates to this function some 40 years in advance. They immediately tired of our silent oenophilic appreciation and began discussing "charmeuse" as they wandered away. We didn't know whether they were talking about charmeuse silk or qui exerce un pouvoir de séduction. Being longtime Californians, Dan and I thought they were saying "Shamu", which is the name of a whale at Marine World who became famous for something and whose name was associated with whales ever after.

We decided "charmeuse" is a French word for whale.

Then conversation would drift back as our wives passed though with their heads together and we learned of warp and weft.  All who have taken folding chairs and hot cocoa to Reyes Point in January know the whales are passing by on their way to...something. As we consumed more geyserous  fermentation we mentated upon this migratory imperative. The destination must be where the whales spin their cocoons and emerge as butterflies weighing 3 to 9 tons.

We learned "Shamuese(?)" whale silk(?) is used in bridal gowns, hankies and boxer shorts. It was at this point I looked at Dan and wondered why he stopped aging at 45 while I look every minute of my age. When I recover from the effect of these rejuvenating waters, I fully intend to investigate it. Meanwhile, I'll have what he's having.

A Panpsychist's Fathers Day Sermon

It's been a rough week for America. Its mind is folded five ways and stuck where the sun don't shine --or maybe it just has the jumps. When I get the jumps, I go see somebody about it but it's Sunday and I settle for a beer --Guinness Extra Stout-- or two, and think about panpsychism.

Panpsychism is a philosophical term for the idea that mind, thought, is a fundamental feature of reality. It suggests mind --every mind-- exploits some quantum coherence to the irreducible as well as  tremendous operations of the sidereal universe. Where is this astonishing thing, this mind?

Tap your noggin. There it is.

There is, in this plenum, this vast assembly of all possibilities, a mechanism for generating thought. Getting its parts to think together rationally, benevolently and constructively is a more difficult proposition --including, as it does, every life-form in existence that has a brain in it. Of course, it's my brain telling me this and I suspect that organ of bias in favor of itself.

There is, however, a special concert of mind that shows us something even specialler, realization. When we realize we can't be in the universe without it being in us, there is a moment of unity, of reality. The universe becomes apparent --our parent, and we are one family, a family very much in need of counseling for the jumps but still...

[Richie Havens, Open Our Eyes]

...a family.  When we finally realize.
Your regular pastor will be back when he finds out why he isn't here. Until then,
Go in peace.

Uncle Eyeball Returns!

"Good heavens, it's Uncle Eyeball, and he's grown a rocket butt!"

(You wouldn't know about Uncle Eyeball unless you've read a couple posts from two years back. Click on his name in the previous sentence and they'll bring you up to date.)

"Remember yourself, nephew, and calm down. I know you've had trouble with that lately."

"Dear Uncle..." I began.

"No, no, this is an election year. Let's relieve ourselves from formality and pleonastic rhetoric."

"Agreed, Uncle! Now how'd you get a jet-propelled butt?"

"Oh, the usual way, wrong bottle in a border town."

"You've been traveling, then..."

"Yes, Geo., conducting a survey of politics and religion."

"And doubtless found each lining up with the other."

"I saw some churches boiling over with heat and hatred but true religion doesn't debulliate so readily. Some churches skill themselves in arresting human thought long enough to make a fortune and move on to broader markets, but they're the lesser temples. The real temples, the important ones, are much more compact,  protected by cranial vaults and number above seven billion now."

"You mean human heads, Uncle?"

"Mmm...yes those. You see, the holiest temples are occupied with the propagation of reason and compassion, a future with love in it. But there's resistance to that future, too."

"So what's the future like, Uncle Eyeball?"

"It's a lot like the past only less predictable, which is why memories come true oftener than dreams. Each of these billions of temples subtly affects billions of others and, in combination, can produce a paradise --a future full of energy and kindness, minds engaged in pursuit of knowledge, inquiry, harmony and the belief that misery is not desirable--- otherwise..."

"What otherwise?"

"Otherwise you just get exhaust from a burning butt. Be careful, nephew, what bottle you drink from."

There was a flash, a sonic boom and he was gone,  continuing his survey, but I love Uncle Eyeball and he loves me. He'll be back.  

 

Future Of Law Enforcement Revisited

Phone (automated voice of neutral but strangely cheerful inflection): Hello! Thank you for calling the Law And Equity Public Intoxication Hotline. If you are reporting a Drunk, please press 1. If you are a victim of Drunken Disturbance, press 2. If you are  DRUNK, press 3.

Caller:  Beep...uh...beep...oops!

Phone: I'm...sorry, I didn't quite get that. Please try again.

Caller:  Beep!

Phone: Public Intoxication is a serious offense and I'm glad you are reporting it. Please repeat your entry.

Caller: Beep beep?

Phone: Alright, I understand you are reporting a crime that you have committed. If this is correct, press 1. If not, press 2.

Caller: BEEP BEEP!

Phone:  I'm...sorry. That's what they all say. If you wish to misrepresent the severity of your offense,  you will need an attorney. Select from the following menu....

Caller: Beep?

Phone: Thank you for choosing the first attorney on our list. He is experienced and well-qualified, but he drinks. Misrepresentation in Law and Equity equates to fraud. Thank you for confessing to conspiracy to commit FRAUD. You may now lock yourself up. If you believe this judgement has been reached in error, please stay on the line. All our representatives are busy right now but your call will be answered in the order it was received and monitored to insure quality. Months spent on hold will be applied toward your sentence (muzak). Thank you for calling Law And Equity Hotline. Goodbye.