A clear manifestation of God's glory, or just a nuisance? Lord forbid I was ever so disconnected from nature!  I was on the porch before daylight listen to light mist of rainfall.  It was pleasant, and soft wind, in my area, at the halfway point between Myrtle Beach SC and Charlotte NC, and also equally so between Columbia, SC and Fayetteville NC. Such clear manifestations seem, at once, neither good nor evil, seeming to stymie mankind's notions of good and evil, and here, the corn just coming up around the 12 inch mark: in some respects, the storm did our area a world of good.  I've also got potted Marigolds that needed some of that natural moisture. In the War of 1812, as British troops assaulted the capitol and set fire to some of the most important buildings in the land, including the White House, they were met with overnight hurricane force winds, and then they just left, missing so much of their invasion force thanks to the storm. Its almost God whispering, and at His

triptych , noun. A painting or carving on three adjacent panels, esp, such a representation of a religious subject often used as an altarpeice;\ a writing tablet, used in ancient times, having three hinged or folding leaves. From the Greek, tri + ptyche.  

The more a man hath unity and simplicity in himself, the more things and the deeper things he understandeth; and that without labour, because he receiveth the light of understanding from above. The spirit which is pure, sincere, and steadfast, is not distracted though it hath many works to do, because it doth all things to the honour of God, and striveth to be free from all thoughts of self-seeking. Who is so full of hindrance and annoyance to thee as thine own undisciplined heart? A man who is good and devout arrangeth beforehand within his own heart the works which he hath to do abroad; and so is not drawn away by the desires of his evil will, but subjecteth everything to the judgment of right reason. Who hath a harder battle to fight than he who striveth for self-mastery? And this should be our endeavour, even to master self, and thus daily to grow stronger than self, and go on unto perfection.    -Thomas Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

Crepuscule , noun Twilight; dusk also crepuscular, pertaining to twilight; glimmering, flying or appearing in twilight or evening, or before sunrise, as certain insects. from the Latin: crepusculum , twilight.

In a bit of a tussle in mind, I began the day, having difficulties selecting my priorities.  I put myself into the hands of my others, always good for a bit of "automation".  I combined my tussle with theirs, and together we had a good tussle of it, and where did well by the combination. They were talking about a "refresh cycle" or "check-in" in the schedule, an evaluation time set aside. I note I had such before I knew what to call it.  Well.  I called it a "look-in" where I go to my scheduling app periodically and decide new adventures, the subsequent habituations and other. A nice little evaluation and recompiling in the schedule, a chance "mid-stream" to check on everything. I had a planned a spreadsheet time log that wasn't laid out in calendar format, but to do list format, with checkmarks for completion and a time-in and time-out set of blocks for staking the time. Where it to track time, I would lay the time out evenly in th

  The greater and more complete thy knowledge, the more severely shalt thou be judged, unless thou hast lived holily. Therefore be not lifted up by any skill or knowledge that thou hast; but rather fear concerning the knowledge which is given to thee. If it seemeth to thee that thou knowest many things, and understandest them well, know also that there are many more things which thou knowest not. Be not high-minded, but rather confess thine ignorance. Why desirest thou to lift thyself above another, when there are found many more learned and more skilled in the Scripture than thou? If thou wilt know and learn anything with profit, love to be thyself unknown and to be counted for nothing. - Thomas Kempis , "The Imitation of Christ"

"These are the men who have shook the world..."  - Acts 17(paraphrase) Hit 'em with the ole Razzle Dazzle, this one says, no time to formulate a coherent argument against, no time do anything but bat their pretty little eyelashes, still perhaps half-ensnared of former daydreams of butterflies and lily pads. Life 'tis but a collection of these phenomena, arranged in no particular meaningful sequence; if it set a cogent pattern, we would perhaps then complain of its intention, pick holes in it, and find so many dialectics that befuddle the narrative: such as it is, "it is what it is", and begs not acceptance, for we had already taken it up, prior, and contributed to the random little geode. What just happened? Look what God did to us, man. We're gonna enhance productivity; find something for your hands to do. I woke up from a dream, surprised to find I was in the bathroom.  In my dream, I had my back to the road, peeing in the bushes.  In reality, it was l

"I know where you're going, Mike." I responded, indifferent, "we all go to the same place eventually, yes." And if I entered into a game of chance, its like random fate, and not determinism, my little plate of biscuits, the pan still warm, my hair the same color its been since 1999. And if I could tell the emerald that it is beautiful, would it care?  Would it matter?  Is the thing more or less superlative if I say it?  "But can you follow me where I'm going?" Such is the way, Christ himself on his way, at the beginning of his ministry, "at the appointed time" called the fisherman, good worker-bees, men of slight age and experience.  As recorded in Matthew, along the journey, for some seconds, Peter even walked on water, walking towards Jesus; such was the impetus, beyond thought, beyond imagining, even. You ever work in Utah? Or, more to the point, you ever go in the back room with Christine?  I was told of a bachanal, a kind of prolonge

Who do you think you are, Mike? It was late 96, in the fall, when the Clinton/Dole campaigns were fumbling and slushing through the republic.  I had a sticker on my main binder that said "Rush in 96", when I was one of the few rank and file Republican zealots that perversely lived like a fringe guy, but strove with the mainstream.  Hell, I'd even written school essays that defended progress. Such was the contradiction of a man, that in the interest of observing freedoms, we rub elbows sometimes with some strange company: not dangerous people mind, but such far-flung.  It was to preserve the cause of liberty--this and nothing more. They had asked about a 5 Year Plan, and I gave it some thought.  I found my own near future to be an obscurity, finishing high school with no prospects of much else, maybe getting a factory job around Cheraw.  My case for the universities was nil; no transportation, nor transportation funding.  I couldn't even get to the parking lot without

It was in the dark days of Consul Anneus Africanus Scipio, after the variances amd bloodlettings of the triumverate, elephants thunder along the palpatine, the capitoline amd even crowding the forum.  There were concerns over the grain supply; the capitol stood half-empty, the unfavorables straying away to their own courtyards to admire their own various fruit trees.  Cicero took pen to paper of course, treatises political, metaphysic, and moral.  There were chariots at the ready to storm the city and use their reach and devil-speartips to clear the way of their own control of the city proper. It was from the dull memories of extravagances such as that out of which the seeds of Kaiser Michelin's rise began, assisting at Vin Di Bona, in modern day Austria and sundry other locations: the edges of Spain, and just east of Damascus.  His own singular worries over policy and control quelled much, such was the very even mention in fact, of the Kaiser. Such figures walk the earth plainly,

 Uniball 207.  Wonderful plebian instrument.

So there I was... I was idly musing on my afternoon walk, going along the neighbor's farm acreage, giggling like a madman thinking of myself trying to sound like a knock-off Cher, doing my own version of Gypsies Tramps And Thieves("He was 16, I was 21, and Poppa woulda shot him if he knew what he'd done...")   So we have those two lovely old movie channels on the pay-tv.  I'm looking forward to the Harry Belafonte tribute on one of them, looking forward to another viewing of Carmen , and The World, The Flesh And The Devil .  With Carmen, its definitely DVR time, in the favorites directory, the movie that asks how I could bring a black woman home( "Louie was whiter than white..." ), dog will hunt, and that one just unrestrained ball lightning in her performance. Some botchagaloo named Gassman, but not the reason de'tre: that was young Elizabeth Taylor, sitting and waiting as he fiddled.  He'd went straight from the conservatory to headlining as a

She done come at me with this, "my love, thou art fair". I had to slow her rolls some.  "Youre not tricking me into another gallery show at the community center." "Thou lips are like finest rubies." "Thats mustard from my corndog.  French's.  Only the best, little gal, for this Alpha Dawg."

Cheever, the Senator from Glaucon, was downtrodden, and lost of an unction to kick against the pricks; they had cat-called and hissed during his oratory, pronouncing him so much un-name-able this-and-that, sundry other things. I reminded him that he didn't like most of those people anyway, and if his well-being hinged on their good report, he would forever be sad, no matter his own courses of action. If he didn't like them, even, why give them such control over his person?  He could take a stone face when they approached him, and he could ignore them on the Senate floor, lest business intervenes.  In fact, they are inaudible, the jeers, from the CSPAN feed. I told him that he had the full authority to decide what he should fret over, and with that pronouncement, he got up from the table and walked away. I said, he has purchased freedom by trading in his frustrations; there went a happier person. The rabble had scrawled crude drawings of Cheever before a prostrate Calpurnea.  Su

  Would you spurn something, anything which is uncommon to nature?  Dost thou not know they own life, even, occurs in the order of nature?  Would thou have Buck Whiskey or some other?  Would thou not nourish thine own person for the journey ahead, for the days are evil enough? Would that thou would get lost in thy evil thoughts and not return, or dost thou dream of puppies and kittens all day, and who's puppies and kittens?  Have you included nature in your mad thoughts? Thy highest service would could perform, the most energetic use of one's spittle, is to see to the perfect elapsing of nature; anything else is blunder and folly, wasting one's precious hours on workings of hubris and lack of reason. Does thou familiars know you by your love?  Or are you tyrannical with them?  Does thou hand brush the felicities, or do you curse at brittle cockle burrs?

"Broadly unworthy", pa told Kalen, after she hurt her little ankle jigging around at the gold mine: pa might have held more sympathy had he been there, how it was a 160 foot deep air shaft and she darn near fell forward snapping off the entirety of her delicate little foot. "Unworthy", that f*cker, full of enough piss and vinegar for his familiars, a regular little dose of Apple Cider Vinegar, aged just for them, the product of his years, the jaded jagged little spikenids, a kind of emotional sickle-cell, or something, a little bit of cyanide in the pudding or what-have-you; he could pride himself that he kept them real, kept starch in their sails and Gadsen flags, but he couldn't quite convince anyone it was done out of love. Kalen had Bitter Beer Face for days after, and rocked and contorted, something meningitis or a raw dental nerve, or something, some kind of something inside--her ankle sat regular, its only saving grace, tendrils, sharp sheepnuts of pain r

"... .You may have laid your line from one end to the other of the infinite.  But still there's plenty of hinterland.  I'll go.  Good-bye.  Ach, it will be so nice to be alone: not to hear you, not to see you, not to smell you, humanity.  I wish you no ill, but wisdom.  Good-bye! To be alone with one's own soul.  Not to be alone without my own soul, mind you.  But to be alone with one's own soul!  This, and the joy of it, is the real goal of love.  My own soul, and myself.  Not my ego, my conceit of myself.  But my very soul.  To be at one in my own self.  Not to be questing any more.  Not to be yearning, seeking, hoping, desiring, aspiring.  But to pause, and be alone."    --- "Once we really consider this modern process of life and the love-will, we could throw the pen away, and spit, and say three cheers for the inventors of poison-gas.  Is there not an American who is supposed to have invented a breath of heaven whereby, drop one pop-corn-ful in Hamps

I heard she sipped coffee on the beach, a fig leaf over her sex, and the natives began to suspect she were some sort of goddess, this woman in the metal bird: why, it deposited her like an egg, she exited like a flea, once the great beast belly-flopped. Life tis but a dream, and some would trade and barter both yesterdays and tomorrows for the graceful repose of sitting among the frogs.  Backstage I was demonstrating the basic arm bar and hammer lock, and a few others, I forget how many for hungry eyes and ears, this new thing, and like the old Greeks, always a new thing for the learning.  I always flubbed the punch-kick stuff; they said just make it look real, but after all the medical bills from my colleagues, the rule was somewhat hanging, suspended by its own weight. If life were a dream, a like a sleepdream, a feverdream that carries away on its own whims, or a nice daydream?  There were some to say that we were but the thoughts of God, and they paved that over saying we were just

So.  Dolans and Kalen went to the Hamptons.  Kalen kept on at him, "Come see the baby, come see the baby".  Finally Dolans is like, "Wut the Fak, Gooby?!" Caitlyn went toe-to-toe with Donald, but really, as Mr O said, she was almost trying to debate him rather than extract words from the former President.  These moral prevarications, these moral imperatives, yes/no questions when you want longer answers. She could high-five with her newsroom buddies after, having defended their moral imperatives, them in their bubble, but she seemed to fail Journalism 101. Where I was amazed, when the dead policeman from 1/6 was mentioned, which is popular on the left wing narrative, and should be basic middle-of-the-road narrative, Trump counters with the right-wing media line about Ashley Babbit.  I watched, feeling there was an important bridge of interpretation between, this basic discrepancy, lies agreed upon, as if they were speaking two different languages. Two different sets

"My therapist has these pills. Anyway. I wanted to pay you a compliment--its a real good one." This nigga was spittin', all over his baked crab, pink in the plate, a minute from smoking, and the home-cut and all. Perpetrators all. The point is, you don't do nothing, nothing changes.  If you're unhappy, here or there, you'll still be unhappy if you don't sully your hands.  I remember Kelly Ann on the coach with her shoes off, in the middle of meetings and policy things, and I thought: this is getting it done. A nice moment. I just frankly don't have enough hatred and vitriol in me to make this work today; I feel like I'm as happy with my familiars, as happy for and with my acquaintances, such that I don't need to be overly defensive or offensive in any particular regard.  Not triggered about this or that. Taking more of a utilitarian approach maybe, that I can bring about change, positive change, if I but make a sincere effort, and the world?  T

  Obnauticus, forgive; Obnauticus, deliver your servant. I have been unjust in my interactions with my friends: loud, overbearing, practically over-talking them, talking over them, and them just hoping to share with myself, paradoxically, acting as such, I am yet their friend and compatriot.  Some were unjust to Terrence, and I told Terrence, it was plain that he had built the reputation of being rough in his social interactions, they expected him to bite, where he only at the time really felt like giving a whimper. As the verse of the day talks about seasoning ones intercourse with salt, we need not add such a savor to our communications, I wot, but be softer, be kind to those who deserve kindness, and under my own beliefs, most of us, and the gentle blog reader, deserve good treatment. So many of them, they don't know--I never yet told them--that they are worthwhile, meaningful, decent people......  Obnauticus, why would I be built to be so stupid?  I ask for divine grace and und

"At whatever cost", they say, indignantly. I toss them a few pennies. In the lucid daydream that is the waking world, reality proper, how much a hullabaloo over a few smudge marks, how much a self-denigration for our own troubles; tis compounded, multiplicative, propagating, chaos become as it were the mode, the mean, so common, and formulas showing us whatever it is the system wants us to see. Behold. I was working on a car in one of my dreams....  I knew which fasteners and so on, and I was scampering for them, at the work, and doing, and busy with my own, wicked too, little hands, at my business and "doing my thing".  How is it so much nothing comes to profit, I sometimes wonder, and so much good sense is discarded in general.  As Seneca said, to follow the crowd is to be misled, and the funnel catches more people every year, consolidating, doing tax tricks, accounting tricks, debt and profit that is only on paper while the currency inflates, and indeed, our best

We were left with a prophecy. "Beware those that hate the moderates.  The immoderate either push legislation as solutions to basic quandries of life, or they want not a government, at all." There's a professional cadre of them; paid partisans, contributors to various things, bent to push an agenda, and untrustworthy in the real situation on the ground. I came from Parsimony Cove, after a few years on a mountaintop, a kind of Zarathrystra become real, or Rip Van Winkle, his American cousin.  I lived through the pograms of the Obama Administration, the wild accusation of W wanting to enact slavery regulations, and then Trump made the left's worst nightmares become real and illegally tried to keep power after his term was over, like the worst of dictators. A good program of legislation, or a role model.  This is the menu of choices they are pitching, some sinless plate-breaker, or a detestable man of winning legislative measures. I do not think of a President much as a r

  s We were steady moving product.   Whole crew, salty dogs: perpetrators.  "Destructors." I had got popped for running girls, and other girls were talking about, they were 1099 contractors, and such.  I was convenient, I guess, the available sort that they could point their finger at, not fearing as much reprisal from me as them other boys. People can be wrong about things, and not just wrong, but like 180 degrees off, a whole world off, and when they least suspect otherwise. I had heard from Williams late in the doldrum of the year, and he said he had a crop seeded for sometime in September, and at last word, before he went silent, it was a good report.  Always is the way, a good word, then its kaput. McCandless was roiling around doing C.I. work, and all, his candy bar money coming from the government, taking the odd donut from the cops sometimes, but generally working both sides of the streets, and then, just like Williams, his little supernova went silent, too. That one

*Crystal really was a fat bitch.  I would get her those weighted hamburgers and stuff, even Boo Boo Baskets and so forth from Yogi, and all.  She was pure hell on a Mexican Pizza, the old girl.  I shit you not, at my birthday party, I wanted a snapshot of her, and had to use Google Earth. *Most of this was reaction-to-response, mind it, a layer of reactionary b.s. that inspired a Legend, a reaction to a reaction, such as trying to dye carpet or something, something-response-reaction-response, like pouring caustics in the wrong bucket, that escaping and catching another chemical, making an even more impressive boo-boo. *McCandless and Williams will come later in the story, around the dark days in the beginning of the Financial Crisis circa 08 and 09 when we were half wondering what foolery the Democrats would throw at the state: we knew it was all stupid social-engineering, but how to befuddle the constantly confused, and do it with style and flair.  Pinache. *There really was a literal

  d  She was sort of big-boned, carried it well, the great big old son of a bitch. You had to bring her scratch-offs akd a wizzie guzzle every day, at least once a day, and it was the john lennon lyric, custard in a dead dogs eye: i am the ape man, and so forth, hell she was basically the windmills of old holland, the powderee chocolate mess we microwave in the mornings, and the only thing that warmed up up was the sight of my handprints on the fields, were she had her 1965 doublewide set up, porches and all that bullshit, and her, too stuck in the doorframe to take to the porch, but her hair was perfect pornographic broomstraw, and it never really degenerated that fair, beyond the devil himself whispering in our ears, and if you caught her changing clothes, more upholstery shop that charnal house, mote national geographic than carnal knowledge, and me Tarzan all over that, going full coconuts before she got her serape on, like she just wears a snuggie or something, loo

Purple anus hanging from your nose; what goes leipzig or tits-up one in the end knows-- would you could you ask my opinion? You know about opinions-- they're like-- --well-- --you know, and I'm sure you have your own, there, assymetrical matrices of diadems and runic positions --everybody has one, they say-- --and they smell all the same-- What is to be: in a word? what became cacchinnating, for those usurped? Leroy Princip-- his coconut changing colors. Purple little pucker of anus poised on her noise-- we rise to lacks of social graces,  as it were, besmirchments and corruptions of air, we spark, Cheever, What is to be: what have you heard? So much: the red wheelbarrow and the chickens, depend on but a word.

 Don't you just feel, since you pampered yourself, like you're a better person, "for others"?   But of course, Cheever. But there might be something to that bit about, if you feel good about yourself, you're good to others.

"He thought he was gay, but the pathology was much more complex." Indeed, if he says hes an entrepreneur, he's employed. Lives in a duplex?  Mother's basement. A foodie?  Has his parent's SNAP card. He was singing "I don't wanna miss a thing." I was reading the Miller's tale, and the naked "arses" and all, flatulence, the natural discourse as it were, of lover's in meeting, and the endless philibustering of workman hid in bathing tubs, suspended from ropes like butterfly decopage.  Yer know they were on pilgrimage, and all?  Flotsamming and jetsomming around the thoroughfare intercoursing, "capillary action" and all that, and I was still going on about the potato lighting the light bulb, and doing the trapeze stuff, Walmart wire for my radio and all, a "little project", and I remembered that Alex was born and raised in the projects on the southside of Bern. It was not entirely a discordant train of thought: gay,

The universe had a kind of dust-bowl twing-a-ling whisper-blight that gobsmacked against sensitive ears: how do you solve a problem like Hansel Fogg? Fibner and Locust was on the line, first thing Monday morning, in the black socks and all, not even bothering to book a tea time or anything, ahead of it, on the line scouring for Memphis Cawdor, the one in the houndstooth plait, the stupid Mississippi Governor straw hat, with the 1971 chic floral print band around the thing.  He just generated unease, smelled of hair gel, and generate unease, practically exhaled a kind of something on the edge of nausea, something that sat at the chest and worked at it, something that, if we knew what it was, it might not be so insipid, so foreboding, but such as it was, there was a problem; he was a solver, as of the proverbial lock and key. Fidgeting with the car, a grandma picking shells on the beach, maybe, and this hoo-hah working at the little hydraulic lines, where a little blanch of the stuff sto

 Be good to yourself; respect yourself and radiate light on others.

Me and that palooka, Jordan Kisswomen, was out evanglizing and spreading the message, the good news about the Lord Jesus Christ and hope for the whole world, baby Jesus himself as he lay in the cradle, a little diamond of all the compressed wishes and hopes of all the world. There are times when we go to a house and find a believer, one who is churched or baptized or whatever, and they are always so nice, like we're in the same club or something, we have that nugget of faith in common with ourselves. One such occasion, it was nice house, nice yard, tended frontage and all, and all the latest homeowner trends and all, like I expect it had outdoor kitchen and all, pergola and all that good stuff, wicker sofas and all.  There was a sign on the porch, "when you go, leave us some of the love you brought with you". We got the good treatment for an everyday kind of visitor; she had an apple pie in the fridge--one of those grocery store things.  Can't go wrong with that, and

How very striking it was---this--this--"floating repugnance", and Masha Oreck, the analyst at my dinner, I was trying to take a picture of but one of her eyes, behind the very doleful unflowered funerary paint job of her optical. She was telling me not to think in terms of success and failure, and I was thinking such a metric was usually proportional to the bottom line, but she was finding a new metric, a way to have a kind of sustainability even in times of failures, marketing mishaps and so forth, the blithely unapologetic American spirit of German beer. It was something about stringing together a program of good days, and those, properly quantified, defined appropriately, would be osmotic of a kind of electromagnetic pull of something on the order of success. I had talked to our chief shareholder, that's where the nomenclature came from: "floating repugnance" his label for our product line, and me thinking, were he so disinterested in the core business, he mu

Happiness, to some, elation; Is, to others, mere stagnation. Days of passive somnolence, At its wildest, indolence. Hours of empty quietness, No delight, and no distress. Happiness to me is wine, Effervescent, superfine. Full of tang and fiery pleasure, Far too hot to leave me leisure For a single thought beyond it. Drunk! Forgetful! This the bond: it Means to give one's soul to gain Life's quintessence. Even pain Pricks to livelier living, then Wakes the nerves to laugh again, Rapture's self is three parts sorrow. Although we must die to-morrow, Losing every thought but this; Torn, triumphant, drowned in bliss. Happiness: We rarely feel it. I would buy it, beg it, steal it, Pay in coins of dripping blood For this one transcendent good. - Amy Lowell , Happiness

 

Masters of the Universe, My Little Pony, Jem, and RockLords.  I wasn't quite ready for ninja-action Katie, and then there was Bill on Bold and the Beautiful, and the other dude, the poacher.  It causes a silence to mention poaching too, when dealing with My Little Pony.  Have Bookends, Will Travel.  Trying not to pinch their little arms off, but its fun, kind of half-holding the breath and moving their little appendages.  Precious moments, you know, a boy at play, a boy in his Big Boy pants, trying to behave like one. I had noted something of Ronna McDaniel's GOP, and I don't really vote in that; think its kind of Texas Chainsaw Massacre instead of McNeil-Lehrer, yer know. Gordon Lightfoot kicked the bucket yesterday, and this after I heard Carefree Highway over this past weekend on Classic AT40 rebroadcasts.  I got it stuck in my head, and I was going along, kind of a faster tempo than Arlo Guthrie, and with more of a Boz Scaggs vibe than anything else, and Cat Stevens, to

One of the old golf-types can only be certain of his social status in Ronna McDaniel's GOP if Kimberly Guilfoyle tries to marry his consigliere; they say success begets success, stars align, and the dog returns to its vomit.  The universe is an analog computer, they also say, and in that, such live fast and write their letter across the sands of posterity in such a way that it's difficult to look away: they bring us joy, they bring us fun, but in the end, its just a game to piss-off the other side, the East and West Davenport crowds, Greater Umbria and all, the Compagna and all the while we sing the familiar chorus wondering how we got to such a place of hatred and widespread contempt, when all we were earlier focused on was making a show. Only too late we find that we hate the show, and such was the prophecy of Hambali that there would be moral statutes that were not up for debate, and debate was crowned with a thorn-ring of the lunacy label, and the other side moved on.  Then

 

So I called it "The Lost Weekend", and instead of Ray Milland hiding booze, I'm sipping from a jug of iced coffee. April 29: Anniversary of the Death of Alfred Hitchcock. April 30: Anniversary of the Death of Sergio Leone. And no, it really wasn't a lost weekend.  There was plenty of light, plenty of happiness, and even some learnings.  I took in a seminar on Thomas Aquinas, and Friday, I was in a seminar on Total Wellness. I learned about a new business model Friday.