“Attention. Attention,” the voice insisted…
- Aldous Huxley, Island
A man distracted is a man defeated.
- David Mamet, Red Belt
Yesterday at work, bike riders on the smoke deck were swapping horror stories. Cars can be dangerous machines, as can bikes, as can inattentive humans.
¡Cuídate!
As you know, Bob, today is the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the Gregorian Calendar year, Bachelors’ Day or Singles Day in China, Twins Day in Taiwan, Independence Day in Poland, Veterans Day here in God’s America, and Kierkegaard’s feast day in the Lutheran Church.
Happy Holidays!
Birthday shout-outs to Paracelsus, Bernardo Tasso, Martin Ruland the Younger (who died on April 23), Dostoevsky, Gaetano Bresci, George S. Patton, Alger Hiss, Vonnegut, Jonathan Winters, Marc Summers, and so forth.
Deathday shout-outs to Nat Turner, Kierkegaard, the Haymarket martyrs/fall guys, Typhoid Mary, Allman Brother Berry Oakley and all the rest of yinz swingin’ stiffs.
Adios, chochachos!
11/11 is also, or should also be, a feast day for freaks of all stripes.
Since John Ramses posted this back in ‘96, numerous fringe mystics, 2012 pundits, conspiracy researchers, 9/11 numerologists including Jake Kotze (who links it to K2/2K and thence to everything else) and/or self-styled light workers have been digging on its stargate synchronicity and tasty time loop/tesseract action.
SLIders recognize it, as do pop film and music. Free Sol and Queen Spook Regina Spektor both have 11:11 albums. Tracy Chapman and the Flaming Lips are hip to it, dropping Our Bright Future (which sucks) and Christmas on Mars (which rocks), respectively, hoy. 11:11 is also poised to go the way of the 23 enigma and instantiate its own, likely lame, feature.
Like every other freak and their apophenic twin brothers, I’ve noticed the double elevens for years at seemingly significant moments and taken it all in stride. One instance I’ll admit rattled me, though, was getting a check from the IRS for $11.11 on my birthday, 05/06/08. Take or leave my word for it, my tax math and the money masters’ are in alignment. For a half-assed mystic and amateur looker-into of such weirdness, that either ain’t bad at all or it’s really bad.
Either way, I’m optimistic.
To qualify this post for the Rust Belt Bloggers Neighborhood Walk, allow me to add that I walked to Crazy Mocha in Bloomfield this morning, and I’m going outside right now to walk around Bloomfield some more and encounter Other Beings. I’ll update tonight, if there be aught to add.
Enjoy the day, dudes, whatever you make of it.
Update 10:25 pm
I walked around Bloomfield some more this afternoon. I saw some photographs of Bush chilling with Obama and the First Holy Families hanging together, 11:11 style, in a P-G my pal Victor gave me.
I played music at my pal Jason’s across from the Waldorf School and hung out with pals at Crazy Mocha and Howler’s, where I predicted the Pens would beat the Red Wings and (you read it here first) face them again to win the Stanley Cup (any takers?). I learned about the nukes detonated at Thule Air Base in Greenland back in the day, and that AIG was given 29 (2+9) billion more imaginary dollars by the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Signing off at 11:11 pm to watch David Mamet’s Spartan.
Nighty night, Rust Belt!
David Byrne played in Pittsburgh two days ago. I missed it, but my pal Jae went and talked to a girl who was filming it for YouTube. One song up so far, added 32 minutes ago.
My pal Joe told me about this next one yesterday. If you’re nervous about an upcoming musical, public-speaking, dance, theatrical, sexual etc. performance, relax and be grateful you don’t have to perform during brain implantation surgery. Banjo virtuoso Eddie Adcock did just that recently, in a scenario putting me in mind of Westworld, which I watched last night to honor the late Michael Crichton.
Hopefully, nothing goes horribly wrong for the newly cybered-out Adcock.
Have a deeply stimulating day!
David Byrne and Brian Eno’s Everything That Happens Will Happen Today dropped on 8/18/08.
In the weeks following its release, everything that happens has happened consistently, with each successive day’s happenings following, as a matter of course, their own occurrences. The album’s insistence on daily happenstance has permeated the fabric of today’s hectic routine, to the point at which the aforementioned fabric could include a trip to the laundromat (to gently lift out the link between any and all which transpires), or to the Carnegie Music Hall, where Byrne will perform tunes new and old, as it happens, at 7 pm.
Michael Crichton was devoured by replicators yesterday, Nov. 5, the same day James Clerk Maxwell, Art Tatum, Jacques Tati and John Fowles met their respective demons/makers/creations, a year after China’s Chang’e 1 satellite arrived in Lunar orbit, and a day after the U.S.’s Changeling and Chosen One likewise ascended.
A hero of my childhood, I returned to Crichton last year, reading Prey and State of Fear in rapid succession, after I saw him sticking it to climate cultists on C-SPAN at my mom’s. Though aware, as I’d not been in adolescence, of Crichton’s literary shortcomings, I nonetheless took delight in these novels and in the waves Crichton made with his views on the politics of science. No other SF writer in recent memory has provoked such hilarious reactions from fear-mongering heads of state as Crichton did with State of Fear. As a struggling SF writer, I was greatly inspired.
With Obama poised to use the climate con in the service of predators more vicious and cunning than any cloned Velociraptor, we could use voices of caution like Crichton’s more than ever. Such voices, if they are to be heard and heeded now, must be ours. And they must be fun to hear.
Thanks for the inspiration, Michael.
Robert Woods Johnson Foundation-funded info-bottleneck PBS recently dropped an interview with fractal daddy Mandelbrot and his protegé Nassim Taleb.
According to these dudes and to my gut, the end is nigh for the global financial system. In a fractal, though, any apparent end is just the beginning of the next iteration.
Let’s make it a good ‘un.
Happy Bommy Night to all and sundry!
I would have neglected to remember this delightful conspiracy-based holiday and its wonderful macabre traditions if not for my pal Jason’s timely reminder. If you ask me, every conspiracy deserves commemoration in so elaborate a fashion as the Gunpowder Plot, but then I guess we’d do naught but perform bizarre rituals and go wild 24/7.
I finished Bradbury’s Death Is a Lonely Business today at work and, if not up to his early pulp standards, a damn sight better than his more recent efforts and lovely overall. The killer was who I thought it was (take my word for it, if you feel like it), but the act of seeing that name in print still came like an electric shock. As for our incumbent, I couldn’t bring myself to look at a newspaper, but heard His Holy Name spoken hundreds of times over the course of my 9 hour stint at the sushi counter. I finally read it, ineluctably, on a button, but what really did me in was hearing a person I greatly admire, and had pegged as some kind of uber-anarchist with a golden bullshit detector, declare, “We won,” and an acquaintance remark on the Democrats’ grip on the House and Senate to the effect that, “Checks and balances are important, but ultimately they slow things down. A lot more stuff will get done now.”
Yup.
For the record, I didn’t bring up the election to anyone today, except to vent to the Guatemalans upon arriving, and I didn’t tweak, though I admit to laughing maniacally in the restroom when that, “I’m so happy to be stuck with you” song came on.
Bommy Day at Whole Foods was a zombie fiesta, a nonstop conga line of willful naiveté, which presented numerous challenges to chat honestly and jocularly with folks deeply in thrall to the God Emperor without tweaking or upsetting them. Good practice for the coming months, at any rate. My only regret is that I refrained from gambling on a wide-margin win for our Lord and Savior, as I could have totally cleaned up and at least have had some fiat currency to show for my psychic trauma.
Knowing, as they say, is half the battle; putting your money where your mouth is would seem to be the other half.
This one’s for you, Guy.
It’s a clear night in Bloomfield, but clouds of genuine cataclysm loom this Samhain. I read something today portentous of this election and its aftermath in Ray Bradbury’s Death Is a Lonely Business.
“You look horrible.”
“I feel horrible. You ever think something awful is going to happen, but you don’t know what?”
“It’s called the heebie-jeebies.”
I swallowed more vodka and shivered.
“No, no. Something really terrible, closing in on you, is what I mean.”
The bartender looked over my shoulder as if he saw the ghost of the man on the train there.
“Did you bring it in with you?”
“No.”
“Then it’s not here.”
“But,” I said, “he spoke to me - one of the Furies.”
“Furies?”
“I didn’t see his face. God, I feel worse now. Good night.”
And good luck!
“I’ll believe in anyone or anything,” said Nikabrik, “that’ll batter these cursed Telmarine barbarians to pieces or drive them out of Narnia. Anyone or anything, Aslan or the White Witch, do you understand?”
“Silence, silence,” said Trufflehunter. “You do not know what you are saying. She was a worse enemy than Miraz and all his race.”
“Not to Dwarfs, she wasn’t,” said Nikabrik.
C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian
The Beeb blows the lid off of bigot-infested backwater Uniontown in their insightful exposé, “‘Race Question Mark’ over US town“. Ever and anon a hotbed of creepiness, Uniontown has been making hyperlocal headlines the past few months for everything from taser-toting rent-a-cops in schools to cattle mutilations. Now, it seems, on top of everything else, there are racist voters in Fayette County!
She was not well informed, but her views were clear.
“He’s from Africa or something. I don’t even know where he’s from. I know he grew up here, but he’s not from here. I think American presidents should be from America.”
This ignorant savage raises a number of good points. Is Obama, in fact, from Africa or something? Kenyan and Hawiian documents which could set the record straight have been lovingly sealed until after the election, but I’m sure the reasons for doing so are purely bureaucratic and the timing purely coincidental.
As for American presidents being from America, I recall reading something similar on some lousy piece of hate literature scrawled by slave-raping Freemasons back in the day, which is probably where this lady picked it up.
Todd Hackley, a registered Republican said he would vote for Mr McCain and had this to say on the race question:
“Race is an issue, it has to be, not that we want it to be. My thoughts are that Obama will get as many votes from the blacks, as he will not get from the whites.
“I do believe there are a lot of whites who won’t vote for him because of the colour of his skin, but I believe there are a lot of blacks who will vote for him because of his colour.”
The Beeb is not well informed, but its views are clear: if you live in rural PA (or, you know, somewhere else) and don’t vote for Obama, chances are you’re a racist. Leaving aside the how-many-grains-of-sand-constitute-a-pile-like question of how “black” Obama actually is, if the perceived race of a candidate influences your vote whatsoever, congrats on acting on your racist beliefs.
The black/white and red/blue dichotomies are tried and true divide-and-conquer tactics of the elite; combined, they are working with devastating effectiveness. Call me an anti-voter bigot, but if you caress the ol’ touchscreen this Nov. 4th, chances are you are not well informed and your views aren’t as clear as you think they are.
Sorry to be so harsh about it.
Yinz know I love yinz all!
Yesterday (10/24) afternoon at the sushi bar, I told my pal Danny to expect Ashley Todd’s tall (6′4″) tale to implode by the end of the day. Around 8 pm, a fellow on the smoke deck said his Republican pal called with the news that Todd had confessed and quipped, “Welcome to your Barack Obama presidency.” On 10/23, Fox News VP John Moody prophesied similarly in his blog post “Moment of Truth”.
That does not mean that he has erased the mutual distrust between black and white Americans, and this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election.
If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.
If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.
For Pittsburgh, a city that has done so much to shape American history over the centuries, another moment of truth is at hand.
The truth is clearly out there, and you don’t have to be Miss Marple or Fox Mulder to figure out cui bono from this “hoax” (hint: it ain’t McCain’s deliberately doomed campaign nor the good people of Bloomfield). Alas, the Todd case grows more familiar as it grows more bizarre.
Investigators asked Todd to return to the police station today for more questioning and to help them release a composite sketch of the suspect.
When she did, police say she admitted that she made the whole thing up and that it snowballed out of control.
Todd told investigators today that she “just wanted to tell the truth” – adding that she was neither robbed, nor attacked.
“She indicated that she has prior mental problems and that she does not remember how the backward letter B got on her face,” Richard told reporters today.
Todd told police that while she did not remember how the backward “B” got on her face, she may have done it herself since she was the only one in the car.
According to police, Todd said she thought of Barack Obama when she saw the “B” in her rearview mirror.
I’m willing to entertain the notion that Todd is just a messed-up kid (i.e. “lone nut”), creeped out (as am I) by the prospect of an Obama presidency, who made some stuff up in a demented attempt to help in an unhelpable situation. Her story was so transparently bogus that, in an uncharacteristic display of restraint, Pittsburgh police didn’t just nail some random dark-skinned fellow and call it a day. So, you know, props to the cops ‘n’at.
Most folks I spoke with today want to believe that Todd was “put up to it” by McCain’s campaign (have I mentioned I work at Whole Foods?), and perhaps she was. Considering the diaphanousness of her original tale and the rapidity of its high-profile collapse, however, I doubt it.
Let’s say Todd’s alleged amnesia concerning the “B” is not evidence of mind-control programming, but just more ad-libbed ass-covering. Let’s say her dissociated bewilderment is either feigned or attributable to her vague “history of mental problems” and set aside the many historical precedents of such folks’ employment as operatives. The Todd saga might not turn out to be a straight-up PSYOP (linked to ACORN, as has been whispered about, or agents provocateur in the McCain camp or whatever) but there are enough red flags here to make those possibilities worth exploring.
On the other hand, the P-G says Todd waved a Huckabee false flag for Ron Paul and got booted from his doomed campaign back in March.
In March, Ms. Todd was asked to leave a grass-roots group of Ron Paul supporters in Brazos County, Texas, group leader Dustan Costine said. He said Ms. Todd posed as a supporter of former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and called the local Republican committee seeking information about its campaign strategies.”She would call the opposing campaign and pretend she was on their campaign to get information,” Mr. Costine said last night. “We had to remove her because of the tactics she displayed. After that we had nothing to do with her.”
About a month earlier, he said, Ms. Todd sent an e-mail to the Ron Paul group saying her tires were slashed and that campaign paraphernalia had been stolen from her car because she supported Mr. Paul.
“She’s the type of person who wants to be recognized,” Mr. Costine said.
Sometimes a lone nut is just a lone nut, and that may well be the case with Todd. As pals never tire of reminding me, not everything is a conspiracy.
Conspiracies do abound, though, and as long as folks want to believe in something, they tend to do so. If you want to believe that backing one baloney-spouting shyster instead of another in a rigged election is doing your part, for instance, you’re not likely to ask if your part is a nonspeaking, nonpaying extra role in some megalomaniac’s apocalyptic blockbuster. For election season and ever after, we’d all do well to check our beliefs before they wreck something more valuable.
As for Bloomfield, it’s been my home and thus my favorite place on the planet for the past five years, so it irks me that something this lame drew the nation’s attention here. Aside from the occasional mugging and October Surprise (which you’ll get anywhere), Bloomfield is as peaceful and fun a community as you’re ever likely to find.
In any case, so I want to believe.
UPDATE 10-26
The Busman’s Holiday has compiled some fine stuff on the Todd case, for anyone still following it. Props to Bob Mayo and peace to yinz all.