The Current Incarnation of the Yonder Mountain String Band should Change its name to the Jeff Austinless String Band for Purely Artistic, if not Legal Reasons

A thousand sights did I spy on that fateful night: men and women, to whom wine had brought death long before lay strewn in haphazard embrace in the soaked undergrowth.  As their bodies compressed the earth, springs of wine shot up from below and they drank still, too stupefied to realize that their lives were long past.

As my strength failed me at length, the wind came.  The wind came indeed.  And I was seized with uncounted hands and posited verily into a vast plantations of argans.  But then nothing more could be seen an my eyes were clouded by the fragrant oil and my skin was renewed.  And my hair displayed a remarkable sheen.  And a thought came drifting in that perhaps this remarkable oil may have some commercial application?  But the thought quickly dispelled as the night lacks that impulse to entrepreneurship that so occupies the day.  So I disregarded the oil of the argans, and liberally applied (in a Bernie Sanders sort of way) the chemically pure and refined Retin-A, from Nogales purchased through my intermediary Pedro.  Pedro, he live in Nogales.  He amigo de mi madre.

Slowly, so cautiously that it might have been thought that I feared some unseen foe, I advanced to the spot shimmering though the kimchi debris and into the bibimbap proper.  "Behold," I exclaimed.  "Do you not see the last vestiges of the kale off the port bow?"  "Will we never find a way though this Sargasso sea of tasty bits so carefully blended with the common household spoon?"

As I spoke the last words of this ditty, I looked at the better from time to time, trying to ascertain the effect that the words had upon her mien.  She responded that if I were hypothetically to put her on a pedestal, she would promise to disappoint in a Courtney Barnett sort of way.  To which I hastened to reply that she did not require any elevation assistance to more than equal my stature.  That appeared to placate her, and she continued to liberally consume (in a Bernie Sanders sort of way) the mescal margarita that had been carefully formulated for our little adventure.

Just remember that whatever we may say, or whatever you may hear, all of us suffer from disturbed sleep at times.  Some in truth hardly sleep, though some who sleep copiously swear that they do not.  But on this night my sleep was so different that I sometimes wonder if it should be called sleep at all.  Perhaps it was some other state posing as sleep, as some extra dimensional entity, when they have eaten a human, will pose as the human thus consumed.  Faint echos proclaimed that the candle was gone, and with it my only source of light.  My groping in the dark ended in futility, and I was left alone that night, struggling with demons that only became imaginary at the light of day.

Christopher Hitchens has a Panic Attack thinking about Roko's Basilisk

When I studied engineering in college, I had little interest in viscosity or other concepts in fluid dynamics.   I was more interested in philosophical ideas and concepts.   Now that I'm older, I realize that what is most interesting about philosophy is precisely viscosity.  For it is the sticky viscous ideas that are the most troubling.

It's like this:  blood flows though the brain, in and out with little resistance.  Unless you have some sort of occlusion.  Similarly, ideas also flow in and out of the brain---like watching a movie. But better than a movie. The free flow of ideas constitutes the present.  If nothing sticks, we experience the eternal unfolding of the present.

But sticky ideas, by some unknown mechanism, perhaps inertia, develop viscosity and get stuck in brain.   Once stuck, the ideas remain and repeat themselves.  These are the ideas that take us away from our present and into a different pseduo-reality of the sticky idea.  But sticky ideas, unlike sticky rice, are generally not tasty and certainly don't pair well with fresh mango.

I wonder if Christopher Hitchens liked the mango, or tropical fruit in general?  Who knows.  I was listening to a prior recorded interview of his in the last century on some podcast.  I was struck by what I sensed were many sticky ideas coming from him.  He was passionate and assured of them in a way that struck my 21st Century ears as somewhat odd.  Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but aside from religious fundamentalist, the 21st Century seems to be characterized by the lack of viscous ideas.  Ideas and ideologies have faded into irony.   Of course, I don't watch Fox News or MSNBC, and I haven't watched any of the recent Presidential debates.  Maybe I would be singing a different tune if I did.  But I'm perfectly happy in my 5W-30W world and so is my Toyota.

Except when I have a panic attack.  In a panic attack the ideas are very viscous.  They are the visitors that don't leave despite all the hints we have given them that they have overstayed their welcome. Ideas in a panic attack repeat themselves and represent a false reality.   No, you are not dying.  No you are not having a heart attack or stroke.   You simply have an idea stuck in your brain.   No big deal.  That's what WD-40 is for, right?

Maybe all ideologues lived in a constant state of panic. Karl Marx seemed to have a pretty lame life.   Workers of the World Unite, Dammit!  If not, you are causing me a great deal of anxiety.  But I digress.  Let me digress even more.  I wonder if eventually they are going to come up with some next generation FMRI that can actually isolate the location of the stuck idea in the brain and then some heparin can be applied to liberate it.

That brings us to the issue of Roko's Basilisk.  Whatever.   But if you want more read here.   If you don't, thank the God that is not Great that you have escaped its vile clutches.   Speaking of vile clutches, its snowing outside.  Do you know what that means?  It means someone is trying to put you into its vile clutches:

I'm Mister Snow
I'm Mister Icicle
I'm Mister Ten Below
Friends call me Snow Miser
What ever I touch
Turns to snow in my clutch
I'm too much!

But let me give you a present.  For the present, like the present is a present.  And the present, with its lack of viscosity, is always a present, presently.

Have a blessed Tuesday night, ya all!  

Drinking a Microbrew in my Microhouse in the Microcosm

Fred:  "I now call to order the first meeting of the Barrio-Santa Cruz tiny house community."

Me:  Cut the crap, Fred.  We are downsizing everything.  Even the bullshit about having rules of order. Can't we just address the problem without a formal meeting?  I thought we were all supposed to be anarcho-syndicalists in this new community anyway?

Fred:  "Listen (looking me directly in the eyes), as Vince Lombardi once said:  "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence."  "So I move that we follow established rules of order."

Me:  Fred (now I look directly into Fred's eyes), "Perfectionism is our most compulsive way of keeping ourselves small, a kind of psychoemotional contortionism that gives the illusion of reaching for greatness while constricting us into increasingly suffocating smallness," (here I was quoting M.Popov who was paraphrasing Ursula K. LeGuin)  (right here).

Fred:  Are you saying that because I live in a small house, it is a metaphor for something?

Me:  Quite the opposite.  But I'm sure you recognize the symbolism.  We believe that we invent symbols.  But the truth is they invent us; we are their unruly creations.  And I'm feeling very unruly now--in a purely symbolic sort of way.

Fred:  wow, for an Anarchist, you're getting very didactic.  Riddle me this Mr. symbol man, how big is a man's life? How do we measure it?

Me:  I don't know, by the size of their heart?

Fred:  When you see life from the beginning, life is large because you anticipate much.  However, I with a vantage point closer to its termination, know how little there has been.  

Me:  Fred, there is hope for you after all.  What scares me is that I'm almost your age.  

Fred:  "Well I made the motion, is there a second?"

Me:  Can I abstain?  Look around, we are the only ones here.  What does that represent to you?  It should tell you that there is a party at the Vanzetti tiny house.  They are tapping one of his new homemade kegs. He's called his new creation the "Mad Cacoa Monk does a Coffee Beer Buzz."  Everyone must be there. 

Fred:  "Ok, but there have been complaints about you all."

Me:  So someone complained about noises coming from the DoodleVector tiny house at night.   Ok, we get it.  We promise it will stop.  Not sure how we are going to accomplish that, but hell, we promise, we will think of something.  If all else fails we will give everyone Bose noise reduction headphones next Christmas or something. 

In the Wading Pool of Freud's Oceanic Feeling

It's good to dock with the mother-ship every now and then.

I've sunk back into that beautiful quiet place where there's just movement.  The sky is blue and clear across the horizon. Where I die as a noun and only the verb survives.    Ripples, color, white noise, light, warmth.

But no more.  I hear someone talking. And the "me" rushes back.  They are talking to me in words and I know them.  Old habits are hard to break.  Now I start forming my own words in my mind:   "I'm standing here on the ground.  The sky above, won't fall down.   See no evil in all directions. Resolution of happiness. Things have been dark for too long."

"Come on," says the woman next to me, "Its time for dinner.  By the way, the residents here keep asking me if you really were in that famous Australian New Wave band.

"No Betty," I say, remembering her name.   After all, I had been at her clinic for some time now--she is kind of hard to forget being married to a former president an all.  "I was not a guitarist in INXS. Can't they tell? I mean really, listen to my accent, do I sound Australian?  More words start forming in my mind:   "Well you know just what you do to me, the way you move, all soft and slippery, cuts the night just like a razor, rarely talk and that's the danger.   Its the one thing."

"Ah, but you fit the mold, truth be told," she continues.  "Too much too fast, fame, fortune, money, drugs, booze, women, that's what brought you here wasn't it?  Only 24, and you were on the road to nowhere when your manager brought you in."

I hate it when they get personal.  "Listen to me one last time," I said, speaking very emphatically for effect:  "They tried to make me go to rehab, but I said No, No, No.  Yes, I'd been black, but when I get back, you will know know know.  Besides,  I ain't got the time, and my daddy thought I was fine. He tried to make me go to rehab, but I won't go, go, go."

"Your parents are alright," said Betty.  "I met them.  They just seem a little weird."

But by then, I had already lost it.  The little voice in my head was now a big voice.  I picked up my guitar and I announced to the world as loud as I could:  "I was standing.   You were there.  Two worlds collided.  And they could never tear us apart."