Number 3...

There is a poem called "The Highwayman" by a fellow named Alfred Noyes, a narrative in point of fact.  I met the poem courtesy of Loreena McKinnet's most excellent song of the same name.  It's a bit of a sad story, really.  You see, the highwayman loved Bess, the innkeepers beautiful daughter, and in a midnight conversation at her window he confides to her he's after a major prize that night.  He tells her if the pursuit is hot to look for him the following night, I'm supposing (it doesn't really say in the poem) with the intent that they should elope and take his newly won treasure with them.  But... he is overheard by the ostler ( had to look that one up, the ostler was the stable hand) who also loves Bess, a hopeless love, bitter jealousy, and he betrays the highwayman.  A troop of King George's redcoats arrive, and set Bess to be the bait in their trap.  They bind her standing in front of her window, several are in the room with her waiting the chance to shoot the highwayman.  In point of fact, they lean a spare musket against the girl, wedge it under her breast where the muzzle points at her head!  But Bess loves the highwayman something dear, through the long hours of waiting she works, and in the end she manages to get one finger on the trigger of the spare musket.  Yes, when she sees the highwayman on the road she fires the musket, sacrifices her life to give him warning.  He flees, escapes the trap, but the following day when the full tale reaches his ears he is stricken mad with grief and guilt and charges back to be promptly gunned down in the road.  Not such a happy ending, in point of fact the poem speaks to how when the moon and the wind reprise that fateful night you can still hear the highwayman on the road, can still see Bess at her window. 

So much is in the poem, but somehow I don't think the story is full told.  Somehow I don't think Bess stays at that window, no, I don't.  I think Bess walks the night from time to time in anger, such anger that not only can she manifest at will she can manipulate the world of the living as well.  I'll leave it to you my reader to fill in the details of who she hunts, I'll leave it to you to speculate on how a spirit came by a long slide Colt .45, to guess if she can actually wield the weapon.  I will say I'd not like to be a soldier among the redcoats should she appear!  Certainly not one who misuses the innocent. 

Blown bigger than Dallas...

My front channel speakers, that is.  Old age got 'em.  I asked them to do what they did when they were young, and... they died trying.  They went together, both woofers and one mid-range, by looking the other mid wouldn't be far behind.  A mated pair if ever there was one.

For damn near twenty five years they served me well, one of my proudest possesions.  I'm not going to abandon them now.  The funny thing is I never meant to buy them, not really.  Things like that were for rich people, not folks like me.  I got juked into the whole deal.  Point of fact, they were part and parcel of the most expensive phonograph records ever bought.  The story goes like this.

Jonathan Swift, where are you now?

Today is a holiday here in the United States, Thanksgiving to be precise.  But more on that a bit later.  Today's post has been several days in the building, and it was inspired from several different directions that somehow converged.   Anyhow, a few days ago I took it into my head I wanted a new drafting board, the last one got sacrificed fixing a rent house I don't live in anymore.  So, down to the store I went, and came home with a new board, and some drafting tape.  These days I'm taking stock of my skills, and I wanted to see if I could still work a T-square.  Working either of my CADD programs is a given, but a T-square is a hand skill that demands more forethought than digital.    Of course, it sat there a day or two, I had no idea what needed drafting.  No biggy, mostly just boredom.

It was boredom sent me web surfing as well, looking in on pages I don't visit often.  One was Anne of Carversville, a fashion/feminist page where I'll check in occasionally just to see where that segment of the world seems to be heading.  Not my usual cup of tea mind you, but every now and then something interesting.  Another page I visited is a French fellow's offerings in the realms of artistic nudes gleaned from the web, and hey, he has good taste and the French do have a way with their postcards.  He also has some adds as well, and one of those in particular caught my eye and started me thinking.  So, now that all the pieces are in place I can get to the thought that emerged from such diverse beginnings, which is...

A Best Guess on Life's Biggest Question...

What follows is an excerpt from the "Wanderings" writings, my free writes while listening to PBS's most excellent musical program Hearts of Space.  These words are what fell off my fingers onto a keyboard, they were not written by deliberate thought, but rather were freed by a deliberate lack of deliberate thought.  They are about a decade old at this point, and are offered just as the title says... a best guess.

***   ***   ***

You only live twice.  How appropriate, to say that a man has two lives to his credit.  Strangely, only one life is ever seen,  the life of the waking hours.  The other life, the one which by far does greater justice to defining the man, that life is hidden and secret, often even from the first life.  To sleep, to dream, to journey in the inner life and landscapes, these are solitary journeys into an entire second universe created by the mixings and minglings of the man and the outer reality.

Concerning the Lords of LaMancha...

Some time back I made a quip in conversation, a self deprecating joke on my own attitudes about the world.  I said I rode with the Lords of LaMancha.  You know the land of LaMancha, that's where Don Quixote hailed from, the land of insanity, and romantic idealism.  Like I said, I was basically poking fun at myself.  I got a smile... warm and wise, soft and sincere... from the lady I was speaking to, I got what I wanted.  She understood my intent. 

In the days since I've used the phrase a time or two when I want to describe myself in only a few words.  Of course, the longer the idea has been with me the more I've had to realize just what it really means. By and large I don't like society, I call myself contra-social, and yet there I claim membership in a group, a society.  Dealing with individuals is no problem, each a unique human being and only a very few found truly offensive, and yet I really don't like the beast called society.  Somehow it seems all the good and noble things I find in the individuals gets suppressed when those individuals are gathered into the group called society.  It is a curiosity, it is.  Why when you look at the individuals is there so much goodness, but when you look at the society the greater majority of that goodness is not  to be seen?  What is it about collecting people into groups that suppresses what is there in the individuals?

I've about come to the conclusion a large part of the phenomenon is powered by an association I made in the first paragraph, the all to common assumption that only the insane will aspire to live their life guided by romantic idealism for a philosophy.  A true statement, and yet a very cynical one inspiring a deep concern for the fate of my world.  It is said, and I've found it true over the years, that the most you can expect from the world is the least you'll demand of yourself.  How is the world to ever improve if the majority of people consider such cynicism to be part of sanity, part of maturity?

I suppose I've found my windmill, now, just where did I park that lance?

Water filters, quick and dirty...

I'd recommend using the commercial, 20" size filter units... they last a lot longer than the 8" units commonly found at Lowes or Home Depot for whole house  service, and the elements aren't really that much more expensive and there is a much wider variety of cartridges available.  Hope this helps.

Blinded... in so many ways

Filters, that is.  Filters for water, and filters for things a lot worse than what's floating in the water.  Had to use up my last two cartridges for the water filters today, someone remind me to buy a couple more here in the next month or two. 

There at the end of her life my wife's skin got terribly sensitive, I did what I could to keep her bath water as clean as I could get it, installing a water softener between a pair of high capacity filters.  A bit of experimentation and it came clear you can go down to a five micron sediment filter without sacrificing to much water pressure.  Fair enough.  I've had the softener off-line since she died, no need to feed it, but of course the filters are still in line and they finally blinded out to the crud.  If you've ever seen what a five mic filter will pull out of a city water supply you'd go "yuuuuckkkk!" just like I do, and be glad it was there.  Ok, enough on trying to sell you on the idea of water filters, most generally you can live without them.  But there are other kinds of filters you really do need.

The Games Children Play...

You Never See the Assassin...
Until he Smiles.
by
CDM.MMXI

"Children, children play at the things they’ve seen their elders do, for sport, for livelihood.  But the children of the damned play at damnation, Jean Luc.  That is what has come forward, just that, a compulsion to play at damnation..."



The quote is the heroine SQ St. Marie, speaking to her husband Jean Luc on the fateful night she reclaims her past, the past hidden from her waking memory for survival's sake.  By Sun or Moon is a work of fiction, a story of love, the healing power of love in support of a courage that will not be denied, an erotic story as the erotic should be.  It is a story of love and courage matched against the evils of abuse and rape, it is a story of an inner victory over those evils restoring life in full to the victim.  It is a story of the inner justice which in the end is the only justice which sets such horrors to peace.  But sadly, it is only a work of fiction, not all victims find their victory. 



These last weeks keeping the company of the young folk has brought to ever sharper focus what SQ said to her man about the children of the damned playing at damnation.  Among those I've conversed with are several who are serious gamers, who spend a significant amount of their time involved with the worlds and characters they create in the complex structures of the modern games.  These are not games as their elders knew games, these are deep fantasy worlds that reflect the gamer's perception of the world they see in their day to day lives, a perception they set into a game in order to deal with what their perception has inflicted upon their lives.  In all fact, the gamers I've been in contact with were among the most intelligent and sensitive of all. 



It is a terrible and indefensible condemnation of our culture, the things I see echoed into their games from their perceptions, their imaginations, of what they have come to believe life must be on an emotional level (if not a literal level perhaps easier to deal with from a standpoint of maintaining full humanity) based on what their world showed them as they passed through childhood.  I have only guesses as to what they saw, what may have happened to them, but I am very sure of one thing: they never saw the assassin until the assassin smiled to see their innocence fall bleeding at their feet.  The modern world of instant communication, the media of the modern world catering to the damned of the generation before, the modern world provides the assassin plenty of cover.  You'll not see him, until he smiles.

Doodles and other stuff...

Sally in the City
CDM.MMXI

It's funny how habits come back to you.  It used to be I had to show up every day and do things for the company.  Now that I don't have a company I've had to invent things to take its' place.  Currently it is getting out of the house (so I actually see live and living people) once a day, and of course you really need some sort of an excuse for hanging where ever you hang (so the establishment doesn't come to the conclusion you're a Criminal Minds grade pervert out scouting for dinner or something) the art stuff rides with me for cover.  Well, if you're carrying it you might as well use it, good for the cover and all, and some of the things showing up from letting the world wash through me and onto the page are getting, well, interesting.  Figured it would just be courtesy to post a couple of them here, so if the damn dream police decide to hire an assassin to kill me (causing the 282 mega-ton thermonuclear warhead I keep in the bottom of the refrigerator to detonate when my bio-monitor goes flatline) at least it will happen here at the house and not disturb the gang down at my favorite coffee shop.  No need to ruin their day ;-]

The Consequences of Lunar Orgasm Revealed
CDM.MMXI

Or something like that.  But seriously, it has turned into a strange, strange world.  The things I hear going by just make me shake my head and wonder sometimes.  What a world.