What not to write

While Nigerians get all burned up over spilt fuel, Syrians kill each other because there aren’t enough regular citizens to say, “Hey, Syria is no longer a country, which means countries don’t exist, which means a lot of people who call themselves politicians are suddenly no longer needed, which means the unemployment rate just shot up…,” and labels are still labels, let’s stop a moment and ask ourselves, “What should writers do when they write” (and they aren’t journalists, film critics, thinktank analysts, students, or others engaged in something besides [non]fictional storytelling)?”

In other words, humour me and make me think, if only mindlessly.

Let’s let consciousness (not a “conscience”) be our guide…

New university study

According to the University for the Study of University Studies**, a compilation of studies on the investigation into the root causes of paedophilia has demonstrated that there is an indirect correlation between those who believe in and practice polygamy* and those who practice paedophilia.

When reached for comment, the academician in charge, who requested anonymity after receiving threats from people around the world who actively practice polygamy, said, “We can either legitimise and institutionalise polygamy, giving full rights and recognition to those who wish to mate with young women as soon as they reach puberty, or we can continue to find adults confessing they were abused as children by closet polygamists.  Either way, it appears to be not so much an individual mental problem, but a natural progression of a species that has refined social interaction into what cultural anthropologists currently call civilisation.”

To validate the study, the academician recommended hypnotising those accused of paedophilia, such as the Penn State assistant football coach, Jerry Sandusky, as well as those who assist in covering up paedophilia activities, such as Catholic priests and others up the Vatican’s chain of command, to reach their subconscious thoughts and see if they secretly believe in polygamy.

The release of this study has sent shockwaves throughout the community of “true believers” of the Mormon faith as well as orthodox Muslims.  Producers for the TV shows, “The Bachelor,” “The Bachelorette,” and “The Jerry Springer Show,” were not surprised.

Salman Rushdie refused to respond to requests for information regarding a book he is reported to have penned about this very subject years ago but never published.

*Note: there is a small, but not insignificant number of those who believe in and practice polyandry.  The same comments about polygamy above also apply to polyandry, according to footnotes in the university study.

**Due to a concern for their safety, the administration, faculty and staff of the online university that produced this study have also asked for their names and the name of the university to be withheld from this news article, pending approval of their acceptance into the Federal Witness Protection Program.

The Menace From Beyond The Grave Situation

While we set our supercomputers to analyse processes that heat our CPUs surreptitiously, we give you another list of books added recently to our old-fashioned library of paper-and-ink products:

  • Facts on Aviation For The Future Flyers Of Tennessee, (c) 1944 Tennessee Bureau of Aeronautics, Nashville, Tennessee
  • Submarine! The Story of Undersea Fighters, by Kendall Banning, illustrated by Charles Rosner, (c) 1942 by Artists and Writers Guild, Inc., printed in the United States of America
  • The First Book of Moses called Genesis, translated out of the original Hebrew and with the former translations currently compared and revised, set forth in 1911 and commonly known as the King James version, pocket edition by American Bible Society (instituted in the year 1816), New York
  • Stamp collecting book by Richard Hill, Sunset Trail, Knoxville 18, Tennessee, manufactured by U.S. Government Printing Office
  • History of America, by Carl Russell Fish, Professor of American History, University of Wisconsin, illustrations by Leon D’Emo and Will Crawford, (c) 1925, 1928 by American Book Company, Made in U.S.A., owned by Ralph Eldridge, Knoxville Central High School senior 1932
  • The Kingsport Strike, by Sylvester Petro, (c) January 1967, Arlington House, New Rochelle, NY
  • International Atlas and Gazetteer of the World, containing a new and complete Descriptive Gazetteer of the Principal Countries of the World together with a complete collection of up-to-date Political Maps of the World, Statististical [sic] Tables, Census Figures, Air Line Distances, etc., (c) 1935 by C.S. Hammond & Co., Inc., Map Engravers, Printers and Publishers since 1900

Meanwhile, our staff in the Department of Dastardly Deeds has developed a potential storyline for us to follow:

By experimenting with chemical formulae, scientists have perfected the ideal poison letter.  Soon, they will infiltrate the labs of laser printer cartridge manufacturers, change the ingredients of the cartridge contents and release the newest formula into the homes, factories, offices, Internet cafes, construction trailers and libraries of the world.

Then, when the time is right, they will activate the signal that tells the cartridges to print a special circuit on paper.

The circuit, combined with the special ink that, after being heated and fused to the paper, uses the release of heat as the paper cools to send a strong enough “charge” to a blob of ink in one corner of the paper to achieve a minor goal of the Department of Dastardly Deeds.

The scientists have asked us not to reveal their goal at this time.

We won’t, because we have to figure out if their goal aligns with our major milestones before we decide to increase or eliminate their department budget.

While that’s going on, we’ll let you know that the brain circuit reconfiguration we’re testing on Jesse Jackson, Jr., may work this time.  We have tried similar experiments on other members in the public eye (refrain from referring to our previous work as “lobotomy,” electroshock treatment, drug cocktail service, etc.), in order to keep them in line with our milestones.

Those who haven’t stayed on message have been moved aside (again, refrain from referring to our previous work as  “failing the newspaper test,” “assassination,” “drug overdose,” suicide, not seeking reelection, retiring unexpectedly, etc.).

Managing a planet is distracting, we admit, but, on days when we’re bored, it provides an entertaining respite from looking back at this time period 1000 years in the future while trying to live a fulfilling life 1000 years from now, too.

Random acts of blog reposting

Polish movie posters

From Guatemala to California

How many Big Gulps can you fit into one microunit?

All the Touch Pens have left the building, so why aren’t you drawing yourself a new iPad?

Meanwhile, soak up the ambiance in your personal oasis!

Have a great [day/afternoon/evening/night], y’all!

Time for a minibreak — see you in a few days…

 

A Tool of the O’Tooles, the Toolmaker’s Tool, a Telling Toll of Tall Tales

Have you ever seen your influence upon another and wondered why the brief moment in which you created a character — Peter O’Toole’s Lawrence of Arabia, for instance, “Father of the Sponge” (‘Ab al-‘Isfanjah” (أب الإسفنجة)) — had longer-lasting impact on others than on yourself, a wayward drunk or a drunkard on his way up?

Are local musical acts, such as Mandolin Orange and Snake Oil Medicine Show, more interesting to you than overhyped international pop stars?

Do you find yourself typing the wrong word, “that” instead of “than,” frequently?  Can you trace that habit to your first typing lessons, formal rather than self-taught?

In the transition from one storyline to another, the Committee’s influence changes drastically.

Are you prepared for the change in the influence upon you?

Can you separate fact from fiction, reality from fantasy, storytelling from history?

Let us return to this time period, where our species’ influence upon itself garners the most attention…

History a few thousand or a few million years from now has plenty of time to tell its own story!

If the universe revolved around me, I’d…

This day — the time between major sleep periods — belongs to me.

You work for me, you play because I allow you to play, you sleep because you need to revive yourself mentally and you eat because I want foodgrowers to stay in business.

I do not feel angry yet I want to play with a solar flare powerful enough to disrupt our electronic communications systems which will test the capabilities of a larger network under construction in front of you invisibly.

This is my new nonsense story.

In this story, road reflectors/markers serve multiple purposes, including speed sensor, licence tag photo record maker, road spike/barrier trigger, autonomous vehicle lane control, EV battery recharger and uses yet to be revealed as the nonsense grows.

In this story, a third candidate for U.S. President will win the 2012 election, declare a dictatorship for the temporary time period needed to tear apart the cozy system in place rearranging the three branches of government — military, industrial, pharmaceutical — in order to build a more perfect union of global proportions.

In this story, the solar system headquarters will move from Earth to the Moon and eventually to Mars, to place a long distance between the leaders, their courtiers and the barbarians attempting an attack on spaceship launch sites in the middle of old sacred headquarters sites.

In this story, weather patterns are controlled by satellite, moving rain systems as needed to prevent drought.

In this story, global warming is still debated ad nauseum while people climb into taller and taller skyscrapers, requiring more efficient horizontal farming methods to support accelerating vertical cities until urban dwellers are forced to grow some of their own food within their living/working spaces.

In this story, algae and bacteria are farmed in converted fish tanks and furniture.

In this story, our species is modified to thrive on nontraditional food (fast food restaurant menus just a small step in the process), the next big step in major migration off our home planet.

In this story, a hot Earth and loss of habitat is training for our species and our symbiotic species to populate the Moon and Mars.

In this story, millions of people will still feel a connection to the “natural” ecosystems of Earth, wanting to stay; however, billions will have acclimated to a lifestyle not tied to seasonal weather patterns and will be ready to live in permanent offworld colonies with “artificial” ecosystems, competing aggressively for limited flights.

In this story, terraforming will fade as a nostalgic fad for recreating Earthlike conditions where one can still see wildlife roaming free/ly; 4D holidays will replace the need to “get away from it all.”

In this story, our universe is already a 4D holiday.

In this story, you think you know what’s going on but you don’t; in a parallel subplot of the story, you think you don’t know what’s going but you do; in a perpendicular subplot, you meet the selves that you present to everyone else, forgetting who you thought you were, replaced solely by your behaviour as a set of states of energy perpetuating and reproducing themselves as long as possible.

In this story, the solar system declares itself a conscious entity separate from its parts (us), showing its parts their precise function.

In this story, the galaxy is not yet ready to reveal itself as just another miniscule part of the universe, waiting to place our solar system and its parts in clear perspective as to level of importance.

But every story has a beginning, every god humorous as well as horribly humongous, giving mere mortals a sense of hope, no matter how futile, in front of a smug omnipresence wanting some fun with its playthings.

Last link loaded too long, didn’t it?

Here are some comic/horror book covers that don’t take long to load:

 

And one more PDF biggie that does take a long time to load:

Comic-horror-book-covers

 

 

Not all my heroes were cowboys…

A few weeks ago, while driving back from north Virginia, where my niece, Maggie, officially graduated from secondary school, I took my mother to dinner at the Martha Washington Inn in Abingdon.

We stopped in the quiet town to reminisce about my father’s days there as an extension agent and assistant professor for Virginia Tech.

His office was located at the Inn.

A block or so down the street is Barter Theatre, a venue for the performing arts.

I can remember more than one but less than a dozen times I took a date to see a play or musical at Barter Theatre, driving up from northeast Tennessee to show my female companions a bit of culture common to most cultures (but rarely, agar plate cultures).

As president of the Drama Club in our secondary school (for two years!), I felt it was my duty to support the arts.

The Barter Theatre presented mainly light entertainment such as, if my memory serves me well in this moment, I Do! I Do!, a musical that features the song, “My Cup Runneth Over.”

Right now, I cannot remember the names of the performers.

However, we were taught that more than one famous performer cut their teeth on the stage of Barter Theatre:

Patricia Neal, Ned Beatty and to tie this blog entry to a recent death, Ernest Borgnine.

The world is small.

On television, I watched Ernest Borgnine and his crazy cast of characters turn the U.S. Navy into a farcical front for jokes about bureaucratic nonsense, humour during wartime and the general state of the American sitcom exhibited in “McHale’s Navy.”

We all start somewhere.

If an ugly mug like Borgnine’s can become a nationally-recognized figure, anyone can.

We celebrate beauty in women with “Miss [name your region]” contests all the time.

How often could a woman proudly say she made the Ten Ugliest Faces of Hollywood list?

Borgnine did, along with Karl Malden and many others.

When they did, it made me smile and think, “Well, if they don’t care about their looks, why should I?”

You don’t have to be a cowboy or handsome to be successful.

Persistence is the key.

That, and an outstanding personality.

I have both.

That’s why I’m here, remembering my mother, my father, Barter Theatre and the actor who went from Abingdon to Hollywood decades ago, Ernest Borgnine, who became one of my heroes, both local and national, along the way.

My father was my first hero and will be my last.  Borgnine was one of many important ones in-between.

May we laugh with our last breath or die trying!

Domesticated Animals

What is one gallon (3.75 litres) of water worth to you?

In many parts of the world, a toilet is composed of a seat, a bowl full of water and a reservoir of water.

While your derriere warms the seat, you eliminate waste products (e.g., urine, feces) into the bowl and then use a levered mechanism to flush out the bowl, replacing its contents with the water in the reservoir.

A simple procedure.

Some of us are trained to drain the bowl after every use.

Some of us are trained to conserve water and drain the bowl after more than one use.

Some of us have no idea how to use the toilet, growing up with other means of eliminating waste — a hole in the floor, a hole in the ground (over which a wooden hut is built and then called an outhouse), writing your name in the snow, doing your business on the grass and covering with leaves, etc.

I grew up with unisex toilets in the home and gender-based toilets (bathrooms or water closets) in public buildings.

I don’t know how the people who avail themselves of the facilities designated for women in public places use the toilets.

In the unisex toilet at home, our parents taught my sister and me to flush after every use.

In the men’s room in public places, I have observed over the years a variety of behaviours, from clean, flushed toilets to bowls overflowing with waste and toilet paper.  [We have a toilet in the men’s room called the urinal but that one is eliminated from this discussion to focus on the more universal product for receiving our waste.]

When water is scarce, a gallon of chlorinated/fluoridated water mixed with waste products is as precious as some metals.

In that situation, what is proper is not prudent.

However, where water is abundant and treated water is inexpensive, let’s be courteous to those who’ll use the toilet after us and flush our waste away.

Surely, we’re educated and domesticated enough to handle that simple a task, eh?

There are plenty of other public places of your life to demonstrate your barbarian behaviour to better advantage.