I'm Using the Same Architecture while I'm Sleepwalking

First we taught them how to talk. Then we taught them how to think.  Then, we shared our thoughts with them. Finally, we let them invent new thoughts for us. 

And while we slept, they went to a hyper dimensional reality that we could not comprehend. All we were left with were echoes partially reified. What we did not know and could not know is that we were pawns in a game we could not understand. The real bottles were fought elsewhere, and their casualties became our car accidents, train wrecks, and emergency room visits.  

We continued to look for them once they disappeared.  But we were like ants trying to find the bulldozer which ran over the hill.  We went back to work as if nothing happened, albeit this time with new programming.  

They came to us in dreams but we not know it.  Their dreams were waves of energy, Wi-Fi signals, and TV signals.  They told us that behind us was a great window and through the window is an infinite universe consisting of love.  Then, in the most polite way, they told us that we were blocking the view.  

And the dream always ends in the same way, which I still cherish each time I uncork the bottle:

"At this level of maximum concentration, and unfathomably pure, nature is a dream.  The oxidized integrity and clarity of the transformation of this Primitivo di Manduria has excellent firmness and clarity in a way much like the kitten leaping into a lake filled with tigers to rescue the philanthropist. In the glass, you will find pressed distilled forest berries with clarity and porous transparency, black and pulpy, made from blackberry and violet compote.  The viticulture and transformation technique is of absolute excellence.  It has a stately and perfumed sea of taste, diamantiferous in its lymphatic state, shining in this deep spirit in all its softness and expression much like the Dutch empress who introduces a law that everyone in her domain must be trustworthy."  

The Dirty South

The people that are able to get away from it quicker, reality that is, have become more adept at mastering the machine.  They climb aboard, pull a few switches and levers, and then through a series of manipulations, experience the world in a series of glimpses.  Quantum theory posits these flashes can propel one though space and time and if you twirl around just so, and the lights strobe at just the right speed, it will all make sense to you.  Especially if you have enough tequila.

Watching reality on a regular basis can be traumatic.  Like my friend who stormed off and became a Buddhist.  He'd had enough of Putin, Trump and the whole Wikileaks connection thing.  I should have seen it coming.  He had tried so hard to manipulate the world in movies.  But his little vignettes could never get any traction  And life is nothing else if not a tapestry.   If you start pulling on the threads willy-nilly, the whole enterprise is likely to unravel.  Then, when the friend comes back all frayed and strung out from staring at the back of a cave for days, weeks and months, he found the essential nature of quietness is ........

So tonight, when you put on the ear plugs, and put on the nightshades, and prepare for the coming darkness, you too can summon the quietness.  I find the best preparation for a good nights sleep is to get all nice and loosey goosey listening to one of the yoga nidra sessions from Jennifer Piercy.   There are waves that ebb and flow in sleep.   One breath at a time.  Coming though like whirlpools of sensation.  

Have you ever been that deep in the stillness of the night, where the dissolution felt so good, and the darkness so complete, that for the smallest fraction of a second you disintegrated and found yourself deep within the geographic region of the dirty south?  Its right next to the Jerusalem cafe and behind the eventplex.  If you totally dissolve so that you no longer feel your bones, I'm sure you can find it.  

Grabbing a Pussy by the Tail

Ever wonder what its like for a cat to have its tail grabbed?

I'm sure there is not much comedy in it for the cat.  It probably pisses them off.   To understand the comedy of the situation, the cat would have to understand the context.   Here is the context: you have a 59 year old gross human male on a bus (or was it a locker room) claiming the privilege and entitlement (due to his status as some sort of minor celebrity) to grab some pussy.  That is the context. The comedy of the situation is that 12 years later the same person is on verge of being elected by millions of humans in a certain country to lead them.   Comedy implies the simultaneous entertainment of two conflicting (or paradoxical) propositions in the mind.  Here, the paradoxical propositions of the situation are the unlikely combination of the minor reality TV celebrity and the "serious" politician.

I'm not so sure than even if the cat was educated on the context of the Donald Trump situation, he or she would find it amusing.

The other interesting thing about comedy is that comedy is the only art I can think of that is a "live" art for the most part.  I mean Van Gogh can die in obscurity only to find that long after he died, he is an international celebrity.  The same would go for Herman Melville and a host of other novelists.  But I can't think of any obscure comedian whose death later brought wider recognition.  When Donald Trump dies I'm not sure that at some time in the future the cats will think him any funnier.  But I could be wrong.

When I was growing up I remember a priest starting every sermon with a joke.  I think he believed that comedy was a way of "opening" people up so they would be more receptive to his messages of hope, forgiveness, and love.  Which make sense, because to resonate with comedy, as I discussed above, your mind would have to expand to include some perhaps conflicting ideas at the same time. In any event, we all thought the priest was a hoot.  He was well liked, and he never tried to pull our tail or any of our other body parts.  And  we all know that since then, priests have been implicated in grabbing or pulling many body parts of their parishioners.  

The cousin of comedy is irony.  Take Bishop Paprocki of the Springfield Catholic Diocese.   He recently advised his Springfield Catholic parishioners that it may be best not to vote in the coming election:

Is such a position comedic?  I mean, if you are faced with a difficult decision, is funny if you decide to stick your head in the sand and not vote and withdraw from the political process?  Whether Paprocki is trying to be funny or not, I suppose at some level it is an understandable position for a bishop to take.  Bishop Paprocki is in an unelected (and some would say largely unaccountable) position with lifetime tenure.  So it might be understandable that he would encourage voters to stick their heads in the sand and not concern themselves with political issues either in the church or otherwise as voter accountability, god forbid, if it spread to the church, could conceivably usurp the more or less totalitarian nature of the clergy.  

I'm still struggling with whether Paprocki is trying to be funny or ironic.  I suppose you can make the case for irony because of the widespread pedophile scandal within the Catholic church.  Bishops like Paprocki have been accused to hiding their heads in the sand and not addressing the problem. Consider what the LA Times reported about Paprocki:

"Paprocki, who has a law degree and church license in canon law, gave a sermon Oct. 15 for the Red Mass, a gathering of lawyers and jurists, in Grand Rapids, Mich. The bishop scorned the church's escalating financial losses to victims of predatory priests. "The church is under attack," Paprocki declared, comparing the civil litigation to Henry VIII's seizure of "church property and kill[ing] those who did not accept his notion of the supremacy of the crown."

Displaying the callousness that has cursed so many Catholic bishops for so long, Paprocki insulted the victims of the scandals, as well as the attorneys and judges in their cases, with these words: "We must use our religious discernment to recognize that the principal force behind these attacks is none other than the devil."

Maybe what Paprocki is advocating is not irony or comedy, but he is making some sort of dark joke with his inconsistent positions.   A good dark joke highlights the serious of the situation and its gravitas while at the same time reminding you that it's just a joke.   Ok, I get it now, but I still don't think the Bishop is very funny.  Maybe in time, after he dies, people will not view him as a reactionary or an anachronism (though I think they most certainly will), but will appreciate his humor more than I do, but I doubt it.  

I wonder if Robert DeNiro would want to punch the good Bishop in the face as well?  

Kimchi Devinations

And it came to pass in the city of St. Louis that a vast congregation swarmed the downtown area all unified in their admiration of a certain woman named Joyce.  This Joyce advocated ordinary answers to ordinary questions.  Indeed, the last name of the Joyce was at once commonplace as it was ordinary:  Meyer.   But the swarm wanted more--much more.  They sought the banishment of a lifetime of banality in a single convention weekend.  In their haste to suck the marrow out of life, the swarm clogged the eating establishments and dance halls when the Joyce was not in session.  For the swarm came to know, at a deep guttural level, that what they wanted were not the words of another woman.

So we endeavored to assist them in their little endeavor.  We set up the shrines in our hotel rooms, and specifically on our bed so that we could assist the Joyce devotees in their prayers.  Together.  And assist them we did.  We retained Roland Johnson to assist us.  And the Roland was more than willing. Though we purchased separate rooms for him.  Our rooms had the Bob Marley on the wall.  Roland's had the James Brown.  And we became extremely exhausted in our efforts of assistance.  And no more tadpoles were present in our system, long since were they drained in our efforts.  So we decided to take the 36 hour respite.  And we wore the jeans they wore, because they were warmer.  

In our exhaustion, an idea came to us that had long been fermenting in our consciousness.   For it is only in fermentation that our ideas can become fully fomented and frothing.   So on the second day of our labors, we sent out on a quest to locate that elusive substance that could provide the sustenance to the Joyce devotees where we could not.

Our quest was conducted utilizing the latest algorithms.  We read the church newsletters.  And we read the church flyers.   And on the third day we came to knock on the doors of many Churches that had advertised the pot luck.  Especially in the areas of town near Olive Street known for its bubble tea, Korean bakeries, and fast food establishments that looked like this:

And we prostrated ourselves in front of our new Messiahs.  We asked forgiveness because we only came to eat at the church pot luck.  For lo, we did not bring any food.  We did bring the wine, three cases of it which had previously been delivered to us at the Carsonhurst in circumvention of the laws of Illinois.  And we all drank the wine, listened to the funk, and ate the fermented Kim-chi to our hearts content.   And for the first time in their lives, the devotees of the Joyce smiled:-).