Harmonies of baked liverwurst

The faint tinkling of fairy music
evaporating on the sparkly misty meadow
fleeing the Blade of Intention
fearing cold nakedness
its verisimilitude stillborn, sometimes rebirthed:
Harmonies of Baked Liverwurst.

Encircling that which won’t
or that witch will
shorn of etymological linguini
equilibria egregiously punctuated
its verisimilitude quiver-cursed:
Harmonies of Baked Liverwurst.

Arrowshot, debarked and deboned
so very like the river
burst its bank, the peoples’ bank
sea-stark, unthroned
its verisimilitude to health renursed:
...

the zillion names of god

There are no disagreements, there is only confusion about labels. There are no arguments about meaning, there is only a failure to understand the difference between the signified and the signifier. This confusion is especially relevant and important in relation to so-called disagreements about god or gods, and the nature and meaning thereof.

Both the pantheistic position and the panentheistic position are unassailable, logically, because they are constructed on the bedrock of axiomatic definition, and the truth of any axiom is as agreed in advance of its application. (Although if Godel is right then all positions are unassailable from within but may be assailable from without).

The laziest man in history

Once upon a time there was a lazy man, the laziest man in history. His name was Henry Peter Gaines.

He was so lazy that he couldn’t even do the things he enjoyed doing like eating and watching television, because it was just too much effort. He was so lazy that he found it an ordeal to do nothing but mooch around the house all day in his dirty underpants munching pistachio nuts and quaffing fizzy drinks.

As well as being lazy (some would say because of being lazy) he was also very bored — so bored that on weekends and holidays he could think of nothing better to do than to sleep.

Every Friday night, for instance, Henry would go to bed around nine, nine thirty. He would wake up around eight on Saturday morning, doze in bed for an hour or two, then get up and shuffle to the toilet. After that, he would either go back to bed, or make himself a cup of tea then try and decide how to spend the day.

The taste of anger

Anger is an acquired taste, like the taste for blue cheese or witchetty grubs. When you first drink at the Well of Anger, you’re not sure you like it. In fact, you don't like it at all. But you soon learn. And the deeper you drink, the quicker you learn.

Many times have I been drunk on Anger. Many times have I chased that oh-so-delectable feeling of being out of control, of being authorised -- even empowered -- to transgress boundaries I wouldn't even dream of transgressing under calmer, gentler circumstances.

Rage is an even headier brew -- the bitter toxicity of it burns your throat as you gulp it down. Rage makes you feel... fine and hot!

Technique for managing anger

As a person who has carried a heavy burden of anger for most of his life, I have found the following three-stage technique for controlling anger effective and useful. The technique (thought, word, deed) is based on the yoga of visualisation and affirmation.

Stage 1, Thought. Take a long, slow, deep breath and while you are doing that visualise these words scrolling across a screen in front of your mind's eye:

Thank you XYZ* for helping me understand that there is no requirement for me to feel anger, and that if I wish I can extinguish my anger. I reach deep into myself. I gently and lovingly take hold of my red, boiling ball of anger, bitterness, resentment, frustration...

Visualise the hot, red, glowing ball of anger deep inside yourself. Inside the ball is your angry self, your mouth wide open, shouting, screaming in rage, fists beating furiously against the inside of the ball. Visualise your hands gently taking hold of the ball. Now start exhaling, long and slow, while you continue visualising the words and the images described by the words.)

Eating the Apple

Now listen very closely and I'll explain the nature of reality and the meaning and purpose of life.

But before I do, let me ask you one question: "Why do you want to know?"

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More than 180 memes in Manic Memes & Other Mindspace Invaders for kindle, tablet, smartphone or e-reader.

Older men and long white beards

Do you believe in God?" is a stupid question. It invites confusion between the name of the thing, the thing itself, and the qualities/attributes of the thing (the sign, the signified and the signifier, if you want to get technical).

For the ancient Greeks, Poseidon (left) was the god of the sea. For the ancient Romans, Neptune (below) was the god of the sea. Generally speaking, Greeks and Romans accepted Neptune and Poseidon to be different names for the same god. The same qualities were attributed to Neptune as to Poseidon (e.g. both were believed to be the god of horses as well as of the sea, and both were believed to wield tridents.

tell me who do i gotta kill today

Available at iTunes (99c), CD Baby (99c) and YouTube. Composed, performed and mixed by me some six or seven years ago. Sales to date: zero. ("And I wonder why... Why, why, why..."!)

Once I went walking but I lost my way
Then right up ahead was a little cafe
I walked right in, said "what's the special today?"
The waiter was a man of many years
He said "all you'll get is blood, sweat and tears."
I laughed as I shot that man in the face
Then I turned and I ran right out of that place.

Malicious Damage

At 01:45 hours plain-clothed Transit Officers from the Asset Protection Taskforce patrolling Run 5990 observed two male juveniles applying graffiti to the vestibule interior of Carriage 858. Officers detained the offenders and de-trained at South Dowling Station requesting police attendance.

The older juvenile, T. requested that his parents be contacted. The younger juvenile, D. stated he could not provide an address and would be unwilling to accompany his parents.

Police attended and cautioned the offenders re Malicious Damage and Draw/Write/Affix Character on Crown Property.

The parents of both offenders arrived on the scene.

Police advised that both offenders due to their age would not be issued with an Infringement Notice. Police issued both offenders an Official Caution. Upon receiving the Caution T. was released into the custody of his parents. However D. took flight from the scene and egressed through an unlocked security gate onto the track.

The driver of the late-running 04:25 applied the emergency brake but was unable to draw to a halt in a period of time of sufficient duration. Details were recorded in the Incident Ledger according to Protocol 23 s. 1-2.

The parents were assisted by Officers and Police at the Scene.

The Shortest Sentence

What is the shortest (grammatically, semantically and syntactically) "proper" sentence in English ? I think it's "Be.", which is the same length as "Do." but comes before "Do." in alphabetical order of the initial letter. The sentence "I." lacks an object not to mention a verb, as do the exclamatories "O!", "Ah!", "Mm!", "La!" etc. So it would seem that "Be." is the winner, unless anyone can come up with another candidate?.

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The Riddler

Audio composed and performed by SRS

The Riddlee asked the Riddler,
"Oh won't you riddle me?
that I may pass from hence to thence
upon the Count of Three?"

"Just one riddle," the Riddlee said,
"no less nor even more
that I may move along the groove
that leads to the Earl of Four."

Quoth the Riddler to the Riddlee
“A riddle I’ll contrive
that you may travel across this gravel
towards the Duke of Five.”

“For Fuck’s sake,” quoth the Riddlee
“Quit your stupid tricks
time is fleeting; I’m late for my meeting
with the Marquis at Six!”

The Riddler grinned an evil grin
and counted to eleven
but all four nought: he stopped three short
upon Viscount of Seven.

The Riddlee pondered for a while
then said “I’ll tell you straight:
just add one, now I must run
to meet the Baron Eight.”

the illusion of difference

People argue a lot, very often about a thing called "god". We fight and kill for reasons to do with a thing called "god".

There are many different fights about god, including but not limited to fights about the existence of god (whether ze exists), the nature of god (what ze is), how we should interact with god, and whether there is one god or many gods or many aspects of the one god. There are fights between people called “believers” and people called “atheists”. There are fights between those who believe they believe in a different god to the god or gods in which others believe they believe. There are fights between people who believe that god is “X” versus people who believe “Y” is god. There are fights between people who believe the name of god is Poseidon and people who believe the name of god is Neptune.

Of course, god is not the only thing we kill each other about. We kill each other for political reasons (to do with power), economic (wealth, resources), cultural, racial and more: you name it, we’ll kill in the name of it.)

the amulet of ouroboros

Secrets imprison knowledge, constrain understanding, obscure true pathways. Some secrets throb with power, sparkle with the colours of alchemy. Such is the secret known as the Elixir of Eternal Life. Such is the secret known as the Philosopher’s Stone.

Some secrets are tucked away at the back of your mind never to be known on pain of death… secrets carried to the grave and beyond… secrets that curl in on themselves like frightened creatures, furtive and small… hidden in places where the foul miasma of corruption marks the presence of horrors beyond imagining.

Dark knowledge lies pooled in stagnant ponds, where the stench of decay hangs heavy and close. Such is the nature of the Secret that lies forgotten and inert inside the bottom drawer of a dust-covered cabinet concealed behind the cobwebs at the back of a dark benighted chamber behind a heavy bronze-studded oaken doorway at the end of a twisted passage in the Mansion of Unremembered Things.

where consciousness lives

A process is a frozen pattern. Consciousness is a process and cannot be found at any material address in this or any other universe or reality. Patterns, on the other hand, can be found at many material addresses, including wool, cotton, polyester and many others in the fabric of reality.

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many mansions

What do we mean by "real"? Is matter more real than energy? Is a tree more real than the idea of a tree? Is the idea of a tree real? Are ideas real? Is a sound more real than a thought? Is actuality more real than possibility?

What is an action? Is an action real? An action is not a physical thing. It is not a thought. Or is it?

Is the idea that there is (are) a god (gods) less real than the fact (assuming it is a fact) of there being a god or gods?

In my father's house (the multiverse/reality) are many mansions: the Mansion of Matter, the Mansion of Mind, the Mansion of Memory, the Mansion of Mystery, to name but a few.

You can find roast chicken in the Mansion of Matter. You can find a recipe for roasting chicken in the Mansion of Mind. You can find molecules in the Mansion of Matter. You can find ways to understand what a molecule is in the Mansion of Mind.

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no vacancies: the universe is fully stuffed

The shortest way between two points may not always be a straight line. Sci-Fi spaceship engines warp, fold or curve space so folk can get from A to B without going through all the space between.

And likewise, in the real world (whatever that is) a host of physicists, mathematicians, cosmologists, geometers and other horse-thieves are firmly of the belief that space has shape. They say it can be flat, curved, even foamy!

They may be right, but I just can't get my head around curved space: I can't visualise it. What happens to the matter, the material, the stuff that's occupying that curved space? Does the stuff get curved too? They say that gravity warps space: I can't visualise that either.

the pact

Once upon a Frosty Friday
In the merry month of May
Seven sisters swore a secret pact
To bind them night and day

They packed the pact up tight and good
Within a pact-box made of wood
Seven sisters thought that that was that
Or so they thought they understood

Each went about her daily life
In which misogyny was rife
Forgotten was the deadly pact
Until the first became a wife

Their tragic story must be told
Six sisters bought but one was sold ...

hags to haggis

The Scottish war-chief McMac and his war-bud Lord Mildew were heading home after a long, hard day of slaughter and mayhem.

Behind them was the whiskey-soaked battlefield upon which their foul-breathed minions had totally vomited upon the enemy — the cowardly, beef-eating English — had thrown them crying into their warm beer back to their moustachioed mothers and pink-cheeked fathers.

Mounted upon their champing war-nags, bollocks bruised and battered, the noble haggis-lovers clip-clopped their weary way up and down a lonely stretch of heather-cursed witch-land, as mountainous and boring as this very tale itself.

in defense of pantheism

This post responds to the issues raised in the post, "Pantheism: it's like Atheism by James Cameron" at Mitch Sullivan's blog, "the big A Word".

The main monotheistic religions hold that deity is transcendent, stands outside of time and space, separate and distinct from creation and the various parts of creation, material, immaterial and otherwise. How can God be outside the world, and omnipresent in it? Beats me! Please let me know if you find out.

There are many versions of pantheism. Crudely and simplistically it's a belief structure in which deity is believed to be "immanent" in time and space; "indwelling" zir own creation including all parts, so that deity is believed to be present in me, you, that rock over there, the planet, etc. But more than present, more than being inside or within, deity comprises creation, is you, me etc. And vice versa: that you are, I am, the girl next door is deity. So that deity is not merely inside or within, deity identifies as creation. Deity is creation and creation is deity. The two are one.

end of the assholes

Once upon a planet named Zurb was a species of lifeform with a complex culture and sophisticated civilisation based on advanced technology.

The Zurbs, as they called themselves, were proud of their culture and civilisation and especially proud of their technology. They had devices and contraptions of every shape and size and nature; inventions and innovations of awe-inspiring cleverness. Their civilisation was so sophisticated and required so much energy to keep it going that they constructed a gigantic Kardashev Device* around their entire home galaxy, to capture every last pulse and flicker of energy from all the stars and black holes and comets and oilfields in the Galaxy.

“Growth at all costs,” their politicians and economists would say, “it’s a fundamental Zurbian right, the Great and Sacred Zurbian Dream”. ...

the ogre of broken hill

In the foothills of the badlands
northwest of Broken Hill
lived an ugly hairy Ogre
he probably lives there still.

And in the early evening
Or the middle of the morn
They’d find the bloody corpses
With their throats all ripped and torn.

Some said he was an ogre
Others disagreed
“he’s just a sicko bastard,”
Was all they would concede.

The police could never find him
Nor the soldiers, nor the spies ...