Hide in Your Shell, Ch. 3

The dinner was opulent as you might expect from a castle underneath the sea.  Ivan appeared to have invited everyone in the city and they were all drunk by the time Susie arrived.  When Susie walked in the dining room a hush spread over the audience and she was uncomfortable as everyone was staring at here.

"Ladies and Gentleman, Fish and Reptiles," said Ivan from his throne above the diners, "Please welcome back my voluptuous bride Svetlana who has returned from an unexpected and unwelcomed sojourn in the land of the air breathers."

The crowd erupted in applause.  Susie did a quick courtsey and her maids escorted her to a seat next to Ivan. 

"I trust our staff has been taking care of your needs?", asked Ivan.

"Yes, quite.  But they wouldn't let me keep my animal."

"Don't worry about the Cat, my dear, I think you are going to enjoy this."

With that Ivan clapped and the lights dimmed.  A huge view screen appeared behind the throne.  Ivan continued, 

"My lovely bride seems to have a case of amnesia brought about by my wicked sister.  I put together a presentation to jog her memory.   Please share this special moment with us as I present to you:  Svetlana--a retrospective.

What followed was a video that struck Susie as something akin to a home movie.  There were various scenes with her and Ivan swimming under the water, frolicking with dolphins, and vacationing in exotic underwater locations.  There were also wedding photos.   None of the photos were even vaguely familiar.  Indeed, Susie had the impression the videos may have been Photoshopped  with her face inserted.   Moreover, as the video began to drag on, she sensed that the previously racious crowd was growing board. She turned to Ivan:

"Dear, it's a very thoughtful video, but I believe the guests may be getting bored. Perhaps we should change the station."

"Don't worry about the guests my dear, they will like anything that is put in front of them. But if you want to change the channel, maybe we could put on something different."

Ivan clapped his hands again and the video channel changed to what looked like a commercial for a Ramen noodle Company in which two Elderly Japanese man were conversing at a counter of a noodle bar in Tokyo:

"Aren't the noodles here heavenly?  I know the chef must be divinely inspired."

You are shitting me my friend--the cook looks like an ordinary bloke to me.

"Amigo, you should not judge a book by its cover--would you like to hear the chef's story my friend?"

Do I have a choice?

"Our cook, Norio, has had a pretty amazing life. He was born to homeless parents.  His mother was something of a sex symbol among the homeless. She hooked up with many homeless men. Of course, back then, most homeless men were former CEOs of Japanese start up companies experiencing hard times.  After their companies tanked, these former CEOs did the honorable thing and disappeared to a life on the streets.   Norio's mother died early and Norio was raised by 10 homeless men, all of them extremely intelligent, any of which whom could have been his father.

Norio's early years were marked by much happiness. His playground became the vast fish market in Tokyo.  One of his fathers found a used soccer ball and gave it to him as a birthday present.  Day in and day out, Norio could be seen dribbling the soccer ball in and out of every alley and road in the market. 

Norio became quite proficient at soccer. He was discovered by a soccer coach and recruited to play for a team with the children of rich merchants.  Soon, his star begin to rise and he became a nationally famous soccer star.  However, his fame was short lived after the Japanese paparazzi disclosed his homeless background which had previously been concealed.  A huge scandal ensued and Norio was kicked off the team.     

Norio was heartbroken that his soccer dreams had been taken away from him.  To relieve his frustrations, he took up boxing and quickly became proficient. He progressed rapidly in competition. However, on the evening before his championship fight, he was confronted by a paparazzi about his past and lost his temper.   Norio punched the photographer and knocked him out.  The photographer pressed charges for battery and Norio spent the next two years in prison.   

While in prison, Norio met Kanjita, a social worker.  The two fell madly in love and were soon married.  Kanjita's ambition was to become an actress. Norio encouraged Kanjita's acting ambitions and after he was released from prison he became her business agent.   

Kanjita's acting career took off and she and Norio were soon seen on red carpets   everywhere from Cannes to Hollywood.  During the Cannes film festival one year, the couple chartered a Mediterranean yacht to Gibraltar.  On the cruise, the yacht stuck what was believed to be a massive turtle and capsized.  Kanjita drowned.  Heartbroken, Norio returned to Japan and opened this noodle business. 

I may never eat American food again. I miss being wined and dined as a dignitary.  I'm learning to sleep with one eye open.  My middle eye.  I may read everything that Gene Wolff has ever written. I could do worse.   There is a secret code there.  I'm going to experience it. 

Hide in Your Shell, Ch. 2

Susie Vector had been scuba diving before. But never like this. As she clutched the back of the old man's fin, she zoomed across the sea floor at a dizzying speed.   Moreover, even though the sun had set long ago, the underwater terrain was illuminated for her for miles in all directions.  It was almost as if a protective shell surrounded her and endowed her with incredible underwater vision.  As she reached the deepest part of the Mediterranean, she saw in the distance a giant bubble enclosing a vast golden city.  She wondered if it was the lost city of Atlantis.   She supposed she would find out soon enough because the old man was clearly taking her there.   

As they approached the gate to the underwater city, the old man performed an elaborate hand gesture and a portal to the bubble opened up.  Susie stepped inside .   The city was immaculate and dominated by a structure at the top of a rise that looked something like a medieval castle.

"Come Ms. Vector," said the old man.  We will go directly to the castle throne room.  My master awaits your arrival.

She was hurried up to the castle and through the corridors into a giant room where a handsome man wearing a crown was seated on a green throne shaped like the protective shell of a turtle.

 "I'm so glad that you have returned to me," said the man on throne.  "But as you may not remember me because of the curse, I am Ivan.   And you are my long lost queen, Svetlana."

"I'm sorry Sir,"  said Susie, "but I don't believe I've ever met you before."

"We'll that's of no consequence," cried the man, "what's important is that you have returned to me.   Isn't that so, royal jester?"

Susie's growing sense of unease at this encounter lessened slightly when she saw a familiar figure, namely the Talking Cat bound into view.   The Cat wore a red jester's hat with a bell at the end.  The cat wasted no time in running down the carpet and leaping into Susie's arms.  As she looked at the Cat's face, she could see that he was quickly shaking his head back and forth as if pleading with her against something.  However, for some strange reason, it appeared that the Cat was unable to talk.

"Yea, don't worry about him," said King Ivan, "he's not very funny for a jester.  You heard of the phrase "cat got your tongue"?  We'll lets just say that I got the Cat's tongue.   And I think I need a new royal jester.   Guards?"

Two henchman ripped the Cat from her arms and put him inside a cage.   "I don't know why my aunt gave me the Cat in the first place.   But she say the Cat was connected to you somehow and that the Cat would lead me back to you.  So I guess its got that going for it.  But that's about all.   Its beginning to tire me.  Now Svetlana, back to important matters, I will have my servants show you to your room so that you can slip into something more comfortable and prepare for the royal buffet tonight.   Today is a happy day for me and all the Kingdom now that you have returned."

And with that Ivan clapped twice and a group of young women scurried into view and escorted Susie down a side hall and into a room that looked like something like a 17th Century French boudoir.  Susie's long body was bathed in a strong smelling water that left her slightly intoxicated and smelling like lavender and hyacinth.  She started getting groggy, but she shook her head and told the maids over and over to bring the Cat to her.   Eventually the maids brought in the cage with the Talking Cat.

"What the fuck is going on here?  What did you get me into now!," said Susie, shaking the bars on the cage door.   The Cat gestured to her that he still could not talk--motioning her with his paws to get something to write with.  One good thing about the maids, Susie discovered was that they brought you stuff you asked for.   It was kinda cool.

In no time the Talking Cat was furiously scribbling on a note card.  Susie picked it up and read it:

Susie, you are in my nightmare.  This King Ivan is crazy. He thinks you are his wife.

"Yea, no shit Sherlock," said Susie,   "But he is kinda cute.  And why do you always insist that this is your dream?  This is my life.  I'm not in your dream!"

"Whatever, but you need to get me out of this cage first.   Ivan's Aunt put a spell on me so that I can't speak and I can't get out of this nightmare."

"Yea, I was wondering about that.  What were you doing with the Aunt?"

"Like I said, this is nightmare."

"Yea, I bet it was.  What did you do to piss her off?"

"Its not what I did to piss her off.  From what I can tell its what Ivan did.   The Aunt put a spell on him that every time it rains in the holy land he turns into a turtle and it forced remain on dry land until he is rescued by a woman with a pure heart or something like that."

"So what about his belief that I am his wife?  

"I don't know anything about that," wrote the Cat.

"Well my feline friend.  Look at the portrait over there on the wall, doesn't that kind of look like me?  Maybe the King is right.  Maybe I am the queen and the Aunt or something put a curse on me so I don't remember it."

"Good luck with that.  You really want to stay here?"

"Well I don't know.  I could get used to staying here with all the maids and all.  But you are probably right.  The King is a tad bit creepy."

Their conversation was interrupted by a loud gong which the servants told Susie was the dinner bell. Susie was quickly dressed and escorted out of the room.

"See you later Cat, don't wait up for me."

The Cat replied by extending the middle finger of his paw to Susie.

"Keep up that attitude and you may stay in that cage a long time my friend," said Susie.  "But don't worry, I'll think of something to get you out of this 

mess." 

Hide in Your Shell, Ch. 1

Susie Vector was having a glorious time on the sparkling beach outside Tel Aviv.  During the day, she sold raw cacaofolic-X,--for her employer had exclusive distribution rights to the naturally derived psycheuphora in Israel.  Her hut, where the line of beachcombers waited patiently for the drug, was shaded by a giant palm tree within a stone's throw from the beach.  Business was excellent.

At night she didn't have to walk far to watch the locals, high on cac-X,  play volleyball late into the night on the beach.  Night after night, she would sit on the sand, favorite Cabernet in hand, and watch the games.   And so it went for her first two weeks in Israel.  It had been perfect weather--indeed, she was glad she had taken this posting from her employer.  She imagined vacationing here when she was finished with her assignment.

She had just finished her Cabernet when she noticed that it started to rain.  Not a heavy rain, but just enough to spoil her mood.  The rain didn't stop the volleyball game though.  However, rather than a volleyball it appeared that the players were tossing a dark object back and forth over the net.  When Susie got up to look at the object it became apparent that it was not a ball at all, but a round turtle who frantically wiggled his legs in pain and fear.

"They always come out in the rain, isn't it hilarious?  We wedge their heads with a block so they can't go back into their shell---wanna play?,"asked one of the men throwing the turtle across the net.

Susie felt sorry for the reptile.  And enraged.   In a voice she didn't know she had, she chastised the players for injuring the poor animal.  Then, further surprising herself, as if on autopilot, she picked with the animal and carried it to the beach.  She watched the evening tide carry the frightened animal away.

Still shaking with excitement for what she did, when she got back to her hotel room, it dawned on her that she had been crazy to pick up the turtle. What if it had bitten her?  Reptiles had always scared her.  Why did she pick it up?   Why did she put it in the surf?  Did she drown it?  Then again, with further reflection, a voice inside her whispered that she had done the right thing.  

The weeks went by.  She no longer watched the volleyball games.  Susie became more introspective and spent more time in her room.   One cloudless night, however, when the stars were bright in the sky she walked out again on the beach--pointedly ignoring the volleyball players.  

Susie walked down to a remote area of the beach where she saw an old man fishing with a bamboo pole. Maintaining a respectful distance, she watched the old man cast an empty hook him into the night surf over and over without effect. After she watched quietly for a number of minutes, she moved in closer to speak.
  

"Pardon me sir," she said quietly, "what do you hope to catch with an empty hook?"

"I have already caught when I sought to catch," grinned the toothless old man, smiling in her direction.

Susie's initial feeling of fear quickly vanished as the old man's eyes glittered like sapphires in the evening sky.

"Come," he said,  "I am but a servant. And my master would like to speak with you."

And with that, the old man unclasped his robe and ran briskly into the surf, motioning for Susie to follow.  As his body submerged in the water, she noticed that his hands and feet metamorphosed into fins and gills.  Quickly, and strangely unafraid,  she caught up with the man, grabbed on to his back fin, and they both disappeared under the water.

END CHAPTER ONE

Fibonacci was Lithuanian; this Blog is a Fibonacci spiral, ergo....

Life is kinda like a Fibonacci spiral.  You start off slow, and then spiral into ever widening arcs.  Life speeds up, years fly by.  

By definition, the first two numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are either 1 and 1, or 0 and 1, and each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two.  To wit:



Life is nothing but circular.  Not only in the sense that what goes around comes around.  But more like, I remember this feeling, many years ago or I have been in this state before, many years ago.   When I was just small.  I feel so much more expansive now.

Applying the Fibonacci sequence to a circular spiral becomes a logarithmic spiral whose growth factor is  φ,  the golden spiral.   The golden spiral gets wider by a factor of φ for every quarter turn it makes.   It looks something like this:

The spirals widen ever outward.  One county, Lithuania, even made the Fibonacci spiral into a national coin.   How cool is that?  How cool is a country that can honor a mathematician?

I want to go there and live out my retirement doing something useful.  Good luck on that flyboy!

This country, by contrast, honors those in the media spotlight.   The Donald Trumps and the Kardashian people.  Now how fucked up is that? But I digress.

What your probably didn't know is that this entire blog is one big Fibonacci spiral.  Seriously.   You can trust me.  After all, Sri Pseudopumkin is rumored to be an attorney.   Would he lie to you?   This blog actually starts off from zero or one and then spirals out of control. Where does it start?  Hmmm.   Actually there is sort of a funky algorithm involved.     Its so funky that I'm not sure what its properties are.  Its certainly much more sophisticated than the algorithm at facebook or google--because this one can actually read my mind.   Those algorithms can only tell me what I want.

Where this blog starts off is at a zero.  What is a zero if not the absence of life?  What is the absence of life but missing the boat?  How do you miss the boat?  You start off at zero.  Right here.  Seriously, clicking there may lead you to further proof of Fibonacci's nationality and conclusive proof that you are on the spiral.

Next you take baby steps.  Move a little out on the spiral will you?  Take two and then three steps out.   When you are ready to take three steps out, click here.

Now you're getting going.  Starting to hit your stride. Let go a little.  Go with the flow.  Start to drift along the ever widening arcs of the spiral.   Let go and click here.

Soon, you find yourself in space.   Aboard a spaceship.  When you find the spaceship, click here.

After that, more adventures ensue.  Many drugs are taken.  And the aliens come.   And then, ineluctably, we have to click here.

And then it all ends and we find that the spiral was just all an illusion.  And all we are left with is a pocketful of golden Lithuanian coins.   And things could be much much worse.  But of course, they are not.

Employee Dilligent a is Rick Ranger

Why did you start at the end?  Most people tend to start at the beginning and proceed linearly to the end.

This is the last line of the story

And that's why Ranger Rick is a diligent employee.

Ranger Rick brought a smile to many a camper's face.  Many attended the park just to be around him.   Some, however, came to the park to buy drugs from the other employees.   These were called "bad" campers.   The people that came to the park to see Ranger Rick, were the "good" campers.   If you go to the park, you too should be a "good" camper.

Ranger Rick always told the campers his philosophy on life.   He would say things like:   "You life is a gift and is precious--appreciate every moment."  Ranger Rick would also construct shrines around the campground to honor nature and help the campers appreciate the sacredness of life.

While other employees failed to collect the campsite fees from campers, Ranger Rick always collected all fees to support his organization.

While the other park employees took drugs on their lunch break, Ranger Rick ate his organic tomato, sprouts and cheese sandwich in silence.  He wanted to always be alert, in the event that any natural resource came under attack from an external source.

Ranger Rick's passion was his job.  He was a park ranger with the Department of Resources of Natural Things.

I am now going to start the end part of the story.  Its about Ranger Rick.  By the way, the title to this blog is actually reversed.   It helps to read it backwards, just like this story.

You are now at the middle of the story.   In the end of the middle part of the story, I must tell you that I am not sure what the band name Passion Pit means.  Although, as you can tell, I like to think about it.  

Of course, if you are into punk rock, there is always the mosh pit where all the slam dancers bounce and contact each other with great fervor and enthusiasm.  The pit could be the location where all the passion from all entities commingles into a giant orgiastic frenzy.

Then again, a pit could be the end of passion.  The chasm where all passion falls off the ledge and disappears forever into the bottomless abyss.   I don't like this interpretation.

Can a pit have passion?  I thought passion, like an emotion, is fluid and not solid.

One thought I had was that the name Passion Pit implies that the music represents the essence of passion.  Its very pit.  An apricot has a pit.   It's at the center.  Its the seed that causes it to grow.   In this idea, Passion Pit implies the pit, center, or essence of passion.

Passion Pit is the juxtaposition of two seemingly the dissimilar words: passion and pit.

I've been intrigued by the name Passion Pit.  What does it signify?

Passion Pit is the name of a band. 

If all goes well, I may see Passion Pit in a couple of weeks.

This is the first line of the story.

The Pope should visit Iran

 I don't have a problem with the Pope visiting America. However, its like fishing in a barrel. If the pope wanted to do something truly earth shattering--or rather Earth conjoining, he would visit Iran.  Why not attempt to heal the thousand year gaping wounds that exist between Christianity and Islam? And why stop there?  The Pope could visit Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on the way back from Tehran.   I know the Catholic church has enough difficulties ministering to its own flock, but reach out a little bit will ya?

Pope Francis is getting to be something of a rock star.  When he dies, there will undoubtedly be calls for him to be canonized.   All you have to do is tour America a couple of times and set a vaguely moderate and modern tone like John Paul II and you are in.   Talk to some of the ancestors of indigenous American's about the Pope's choice of Junipero Serra to see how easy it is to join the club.

Not that my vote counts, but if the Pope goes to Iran, I think he should be canonized.   While he is still alive. no less.  With his current burgeoning popularity, a trip to Tehran would be such a dramatic gesture that it would inspire countless citizens of this planet, not just Catholics, for years to come.  It could change the entire psychic ecosystem of the planet.

Reality runs like water, the mind is like stone and steel in its path.   Unlock your mind Mr. Pope! Take a chance on brand new things.  Twist away the gates of steel.   Harmonize the new psychic ecosystem with the rushing flow of reality.   Go to Tehran.   Anything is possible.   There are no limits in this new psychic ecosystem.

I just have to keep saying  psychic ecosystem psychic ecosystem  psychic ecosystem  psychic ecosystem

And in my new psychic ecosystem, David Foster Wallace replaces William Shatner on Star Trek. He never dies. The five year voyage continues indefinitely, even to this day.   And the world would be a much better place.

When you are on a jailbreak in Cincinnati because you don't speak Russian, and that is your only saving grace because if you did understand it, you would probably go crazy, and you go to a bar called the Cock and Bull, and the bartender tells you that they have no Imperial Stout, but he knows a great brewery that has some, and you go there and they don't have any, moreover the beer they do have sucks, but you are on the phone narrating your adventure so its not all that bad from that perspective just keep in mind that it is important to always nourish your psychic ecosystem.