two(more)500ths (... yes, and MC HAMMERSTEIN) ... ( ... (...alas))

dear reader, i do not really have one thousand (formerly) blank white cards, but i have quite a few (and there must be hundreds more lovingly cached in drawers or storage units by those i've played against).  i post these in salute of the marking of another orbit of the sun achieved by that dear distant benefactor or benefactress who sent those blank white cards last month.

The 4 Ds: disrupted deceptions degrading denial (and the 180 Gs*)

Magick - "the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will."
 - Crowley

Magic - a World War II cryptanalysis program.

Magic Techniques and Experiment Effects - "Using online techniques to make something happen in the real or cyber world."
 - Name of Serious
Crime Effects chief [redacted]
to protect [not you].

GCHQ, a 
presumptive expert on harm
to reputation.

Discredit target:
vandalize social network;
set honey-trap.

Discredit business:
leak confidential info
to competitors.

information ops
and technical disruption
covertly, online.

legend building and
alias management were
not part of training.

biological
and social compassion cues:
how can i game these?

*

the honeypot here
is now Anonymous may
ape and escalate

*

...how is Booz Allen
Hamilton's reputation
holding up these days?

*



whatever else you
do today, don't forget to
Conform and Obey

(*the 180 Gs)

a mordant mordent

"Why make things more tense than they already are?"

she said and then
she threw back her head
and laughed like everybody
was doing it

and suddenly, uncomfortably
everybody was

something something i ching*

56:wanderer

if once you believe
each beneficent event
becomes evidence

each tribulation
ev'ry obstacle makes you
believe yet fiercer

64:guess

mountain over fire
it furthers he who works now
in might and power

64:grace

mountain over fire
thus does the superior
in small things further

ungnostic syncreedo?

i have spoken shahada.
i have confessed the Nicene Creed.
i have sought refuge
in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.

i have eaten the transsubstantial host;
held the sword facing the corners
naked amid a cathedral of trees
at the solstice
invoking Ra, Jah, Gaia, Kali,
Panpersephone Tetragrammaton
Michael-Samael-Goddesses!

i have initiated novices,
and audited (or thought I did),
paced twelve or more steps
in processions of processes.

i've taken guided meditations:
with americans and asians
sat through faddish imitations with
transcendental intimations.

i have followed psychoanalyses
through their logical fallacies,
chased wishes into abysses
to emerge washed clean.

i have soared from shore to tor
to bower to shore again,
in eyries of the sun
as camel, lion, snake, child.

yea

ask and ye shall get,
but first, be quiet.

determine necessity
without willing then
will concisely, or

do not ask: ye shall
take what ye get.

A Spy on the Street Where You Live, pt. 3

But what can I say . . . to make it clear? How can I say that to her, when the groveling started sixteen years ago—or thirty two, if my stars really do point at her—was ineffective then, and has, it would seem, continued, to resurface now? How can I say that, which every brokenhearted singer has ever sung, that every adult has recognized for the screen-kiss kitsch it is, as a vehicle for commercial culture and greater need, to this stranger whose company I crave with a thirst I’d say anything to slake? Never trust a junkie or a crooner: My mama done told me, they’ll both do anything for another hit.

And, how, after all, if she won’t return my calls, who gave up writing weeks ago, who won’t be getting in touch, nor speak to me at all? If the sun refused to shine, perhaps she would return my calls; or if the moon plunged into the sea, perhaps she would call me. Of course, if that happened, phone service would likely be adversely impacted, not to mention low-lying coastal areas, and we, refugees, going nowhere.

If it were but a matter of faith,
if it were measured in petitions and prayer . . .
but it is not, nor do I care.

Barring the fools’ unforgivable sin of rushing in and talking out loud; even choosing not to tell her about it, how can I even think I crave such things, and continue to think of myself as a person? No: Must struggle, must ramble on; must . . . resist . . . compulsive . . . romantic . . . hyperbole.

A Spy on the Street Where You Live, pt. 2

And there’s Lerner and Lowe’s Fair Lady, herself also a figment from Ovid as Pygmalion’s Galatea, but, back then, she didn’t have a street, just the pedestal.

The audience of the modern musical, for dramatic development, had to be shown that Eliza Doolittle was not only sophisticated in ladylike civilized artifice, but also filled with the feminine graces known to prompt poets’ odes and lovers’ praises, through the introduction of a rival suitor to the Professor’s as yet unspoken devotion.

Rival suitor sues to see her, and succeeding, has found a reason to sing of enchantment pouring out of every door, has cause for singin’ in the rain, and dancing in the street.

People stop and stare; they don’t bother me,
For there’s no where else on Earth that I would rather be.
Let the time go by, I won’t care if I can be here on the street where you live!

This is before the rain, of course. Properly validated, Liza falls for the Prof.

Excised from the arc of plot, this recorded and rerecorded song is simply everyman’s love song. Again, the lyric is not about the beloved, whose presence merely imbues the setting, but a report on the state of mind and heart of, or simply part and parcel of the art of, the singer. As always, at first, I’ve just seen a face and can’t forget the time or place of that first sight. Then, with or without overtures or encouragement, merely because I want to hold your hand and can’t stop my brain, or maybe because I’ve been watching . . . every breath you take, the residence of the beloved is discovered. Then the wooing, the suiting starts, or the stalking—the difference lies in her consent—with the overpowering feeling that any second you may suddenly appear.

A Spy on the Street Where You Live, pt.1

A Spy in the House of Love, or Stalker on the Street Where You Live

It is only a woman that can make a man become the parody of himself.
--French Proverb, the Rev. T.F. Thistleton-Dyer

Under . . .

I cannot step out of my home without asking myself whether I’m only going out in the hope of seeing her, here on the street, and knowing that if I do or do not see her, I’ll be looking for her anyway, and judging and chiding myself for it. Let me tell you a little about what I know of me and this fervent furtive infatuation.

Conditioned by love songs to be the perfect American romantic id, in addition to being the paranoid monomaniac ego of me, I am attuned to poignant phrases pertaining to the street where she lives, or some synonymous heterologue, distinct as a singular wandering star in the collective romantic meme-pool of popular music, an ersatz zodiac of coupling if not graveyard of the language and dreams of modernity.

This has been powerful imagery for me since before she moved onto my street.

There ought to be a lot of love songs dealing with this theme, but I can only think of two, and another scenario, to which I add this, my words and tone, my own inept tune.

But soft! What light in yonder window breaks? It is the East!

Not even a love song, but some higher-art embodiment, in perhaps its most perfected form, this is certainly the archetype, the articulation of romantic love that has most imbued the cultural discourse; has so imbued this discourse, that Romeus and Juliet are commonly invoked as exemplary lovers, despite their tragic non-consummation. As if they’d got hitched, bought land, and made it fruitful across the long gloss of their bliss.

Yonder window, wherever it is, irresistibly attracts the romantic speaker’s attention, displacing the governor of the dome of the sky, the prime indicator of direction and time throughout human history. That window becomes the East, and Juliet is the sun. Wither she goest, so the speaker’s heliotropic heart and attention, perpetually dawning.

three more voicemail haiku, for male voice

o! magic 8 ball, connect me to deadpan gulch 5502

this connection is
cloudy, indistinct; you should
call again later

. . .

all signs point to the
line is currently engaged:
speak or call again.

. . .

circuit unlikely:
please record secondary
transmission at tone.

one good line

until recently, the only terry pratchett book i had read was one i had thought of as a neil gaiman book. in fact, Good Omens is credited to the two together.

in general, as a science fiction reader, i have tended to disfavor fantasy, and have understood pratchett to produce works principally in that genre. (admittedly, from time to time i have read a fantasy series here and there on the rave or recommendation of one or another literate friend - pullman's is one of those, as is much of jordan's Wheel of Time).

recently, i've become increasingly aware of being exposed both to pratchett's works -- generally through film -- and to the breadth of his influence, from fanboy discussion and articles around the 'net to references embedded in the texts of science fiction novels by admired authors.

so i got a bunch of Discworld novels and have been chewing them like bubblegum. each has a few lines, or a thought experiment, or a sequence of paragraphs that is very interesting and for which it is worth skimming over those explanatory paragraphs about, e.g., light moving slower through a magical field, again.

destructive writing iteration exercise

with found marketing jargon & machine metatranslation, circa 2004


1.

Sony® classify excellent hearing person
of monitor of studio's ear-phone
Supra-Ohren conception for comfort,
30 leading the section for deep stick,
magnets of ferrite of high energy, commutable
ear-cups for the unilateral supervision,
regulator of desired volume, broad volume
of face that for comfort are formed and Stereouni Match®
long-lived plug for tel.
versions of commitment and mini jackets minimise.


for the outstanding comfortable hearing,
30 millimeters conducts the diameter is the deep pole,
the high energy ferrite magnet may
exchange earcups was the unilateral surveillance,
the regulative convenience capacity,
the face broad capacity has formed comfortably
is the telephone pours out the establishment
and minijacks for the long life with StereouniMatch.plug.


Sony. classifies studio the s earphone in
on Ohren devised monitor outstanding
hearing artificial comfortable
30 leads partially is the deep stick,
the high energy ferrite magnet, for
comfortably is formed earcups which
may exchange is the unilateral surveillance,
longed for the capacity,
the face broad capacity superintendent has formed
comfortably is the telephone pours out the establishment
and miniature clamps
for the long life with the pledge tel. edition is smallest.

bibliomantic branks

In that part of my home where I entertain guests, or lounge on my own, books tend to accumulate. There is always, of course, the dictionary, probably the most frequently handled tome in my home, recourse to which is common in the course of just hanging out conversing. In addition to that are some of those books loaned by friends, and whatever reference books or citation sources may have recently been consulted. Lately, these have included the Viking "The Portable Nietzsche" and an edition of the Hagakure, and, for a couple weeks, Aleister Crowley's Book of Lies.

I mention the Nietzsche and Hagakure, particularly, because they have been my touchstones for the occasional rite of bibliomancy.

Have I intimated my interest in numinous lore before? (I have, Dear Reader, but ask that more or less rhetorically). Bibliomancy is the practice of divination by the chance-mediated selection of a passage of a text. (It is, to some degree, an influence on the author's notions of destructive writing). The classic (and classical?) example is the I Ching, oft' described as "the Chinese Book of Changes," and a principal text of Confucian culture, which may (but needn't) be consulted for divination by "casting the yarrow stalks" or throwing coins to determine the relevant passage.

As the word denoting the practice might imply, the Bible is another not-uncommon source text.

A pithy passage or aphorism from either of those books on my floor might spawn hours of fascinating conversation, contemplation, or the sequence of associations leading to a novel insight on some heretofore-insoluble issue; Nietzsche and the Hagakure (it is attributed to Yamamoto Tsunetomo) offer the would-be bibliomancer writings characterized by frequent brief aphoristic structure, yielding the chance of lots of meaning with little time spent actually reading.

sweet equity

This past weekend, Dear Reader, I traveled down south for the wedding of dear friends.

Someone told me that it sounded odd to hear me describe it as "lovely," so here I'll call it beautiful. (I think both words similarly apply, and similarly are rarely among that set of words I typically use to describe things).

I have been to three or four beautiful weddings -- weddings at which the rite actually conjures palpable magic among the principals and congregants, rather than remaining the dry series of formal gestures many weddings rush stuffily through to get to the staged photo ops and the slightly-less-stuffy dinner. This was one of the former, one of the best of them: Everybody involved was so sincerely happy about the event and his or her involvement and the community sanctification of the principals' marriage.

A highlight of this wedding were the vows, which the nuptial couple have allowed me to post here.

Through building a partnership with you, I have begun to understand my heart's desires for a life companion.
In honor of our shared past, present and future, these vows signify both my offering to you and what I ask of you in return.
My mind, body, and spirit wish to communicate honestly with you, and intentionally -- in ways we know now and will learn.
I will actively engage in this process of discovery.
Responsibility is important to me: please expect me to be accountable to you and our community. I promise to turn my attention especially to the work of cultivating sweet equity in our encounters with each other. I vow to revisit this with you again, and again, always with an eye to the importance of balance and compromise.
Wildness and sense of place have been formative in our individual lives and have been cornerstones in our relations with each other.
Let us explore this foundation and welcome its teachings: humility, connectedness, beauty, as well as risk and its rewards.
I will continue building a healthy home and community with you.
I will engage in the practices of gratitude and forgiveness -- every day.
I vow to love you and be loved by you.
I will join you in these ways to build a marriage.

caroline says

Caroline Casey didn't know she was legally blind until she was seventeen, and pretended she wasn't for another decade or so. In this moving and inspiring presentation, she explains how she stopped pretending and became just what she, as a child, had wanted to be when she grew up, and why we might want to do the same. (another from TED)

the cargo

Each time the words come.
Each time they come, carrying insight, inspiration, revelation,
they come to transmute the toxic linguistic particle.

Each time, this precious provocative cargo,
the article and the words, are lost
in the act of flattening them to the page.

everything is void

avenues of limitless night

Read as much H.P. Lovecraft as you like but the apex of his style (or should that be "nadir"?) appears in two paragraphs from "The Horror at Red Hook." Luckily,

astrologorrhea ii, the place to start is the natal chart

i am interested in such bodies of incredible and debunked lore

(not aether, phrenology and phlogiston so much as i ching, tarot, bibliomancies and allegedly diagnostic panels and batteries of psychological tests . . . just kidding, those panels and tests probably go with the phlogiston).

my standard more-or-less-real-science comparison for the potential insight of astrology (specifically the birth chart) is the myers briggs personality type indicator, or kiersey temperament sorter, which you have likely encountered as part of some team-building program somewhere (total quality managers and their ilk believe learning about the MBTI encourages more personalized management, and fosters collegial sympathy), and which purports to classify personalities according to four descriptive axes into one of sixteen types. (there too, the serious literature reveals a dynamic rather than static system, but still: four axes, sixteen types).

um. the place to start is with a natal chart. this will be an image, most likely a circle with a cross through it and lots of symbols and probably lines everywhere.

astrologorrhea i, the sincere horoscopist

[this is a kind of long email for an idle comment over happy hour with two ladies from the office whom i have observed, separately, to favor modes of textual communication that tend toward somewhat greater brevity, with the concomitant implicit expectation that it be read; (we join it now in progress) . . . knowing the imposition such an uninvited dissertation may be, i welcome your response, lack thereof, or whatever in between, as, acknowledging that expectation, i'll also admit other expectations sympathetic with any point on that spectrum. so.]

(having invited no response, he got none; live and learn! -ed.) that said,
welcome, Dear Reader, to ruminations on how one might learn about astrology.