Took a last walk down Lady King, just for old time's sake, and ...
(Read more ...)
... I said farewell.
LJ orig.: Nov 2, 2007
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
No, wait ... no, don't ... no, do ... no -- oh
It's
all in the timing, wouldn't you say?
If time worked backwards, why would it ever want to go forwards? Forward motion is not where it's at, at all! If it was, we would not spend half our time wishing for some halcyon past and the other half fearing some future apocalypse. (Actually, I like Jack Kirby's spelling: "Apokalips." Sort like somebody named Apoka had really nice lips. Maybe she did.)
You see, time is what we have as a gift, but it works backward -- because our world is upside down from the real world. So we move in opposite synchrony from the other end of the infinite ellipse (Elli's lips? OK, n-e-v-e-r m-i-n-d ... .) That's right, our world is fake -- a backwards and upside down imitation of the real one. So to move forward in time, we're actually moving backward (with respect to the real world), and to move backward (only in daydreams) we must move forward (in the same respect to reality).
This is so: when we move back in time in daydreams, we must extrapolate a fake future and impose it on the past to make it seem like a lost paradise. It never really happened (of course not -- nothing we do or remember ever does), so we impose in our minds an unreal set of assumptions about how good it was way back then compared to now (Now is a fraud, of course. Stay with me here. Or leave.). And we do the same for the future ("It's just going to be horrible!").
Sometimes reality rips into Fraudworld: chaos invades and (of course) looks like streamlined organization, disasters actually happen (instead of nonactuallynothappening) and are made much worse by our incompetence (which would be competence if our spacetimedimensionworld actually worked in true forwardfuturepastnonreversemotiontimespace). This can be seen from the doublereverse negations I just used -- those offer the potential for reality intrusion.
That's why we must follow our hearts but watch our steps. You never know for sure which direction you're moving in.
LJ orig.: Oct 23, 2007
If time worked backwards, why would it ever want to go forwards? Forward motion is not where it's at, at all! If it was, we would not spend half our time wishing for some halcyon past and the other half fearing some future apocalypse. (Actually, I like Jack Kirby's spelling: "Apokalips." Sort like somebody named Apoka had really nice lips. Maybe she did.)
You see, time is what we have as a gift, but it works backward -- because our world is upside down from the real world. So we move in opposite synchrony from the other end of the infinite ellipse (Elli's lips? OK, n-e-v-e-r m-i-n-d ... .) That's right, our world is fake -- a backwards and upside down imitation of the real one. So to move forward in time, we're actually moving backward (with respect to the real world), and to move backward (only in daydreams) we must move forward (in the same respect to reality).
This is so: when we move back in time in daydreams, we must extrapolate a fake future and impose it on the past to make it seem like a lost paradise. It never really happened (of course not -- nothing we do or remember ever does), so we impose in our minds an unreal set of assumptions about how good it was way back then compared to now (Now is a fraud, of course. Stay with me here. Or leave.). And we do the same for the future ("It's just going to be horrible!").
Sometimes reality rips into Fraudworld: chaos invades and (of course) looks like streamlined organization, disasters actually happen (instead of nonactuallynothappening) and are made much worse by our incompetence (which would be competence if our spacetimedimensionworld actually worked in true forwardfuturepastnonreversemotiontimespace). This can be seen from the doublereverse negations I just used -- those offer the potential for reality intrusion.
That's why we must follow our hearts but watch our steps. You never know for sure which direction you're moving in.
LJ orig.: Oct 23, 2007
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
"'T'aint Nobody's Business, But ... "
It's
dark when we meet, on the other side of town. Away from the street
lamps, we carefully take separate routes to our rendezvous.
It's in a downtown cafe, softly lit for "intimacy," near the corner of a well-worn street in the older part of town. Our eyes meet, we smile, and we think of the passion about to issue forth.
I bring my latest poems of love. She brings her baby and her husband. A bunch of other people are there waiting for us.
Say, wha'?
It's Open-Mic Night at the Gran Cru Cafe+! We join all our friends to share our scars and our stories in the language of verse. Our bag is a blend of many varieties, many experiences, many styles. We poets have our love of life, and we express our passion in words that make their own rules.
What's odd about all this is, that's about the only place we ever meet, she and I and this group of language-lovers. Our backgrounds are frequently in opposition to each other in a town filled with paradox. The crosscurrents and ironies of life are met in sharing verse -- nothing else like it in the world. ("What is the color of a peace conference?" a crayon-wielding Linus asks his dumbstruck sister, Lucy.)
What's really odd is that we get along so well, she and I. On another day of the week, we attend church -- in the same town! The same denomination! We have a lot in common, right?
Wrong. I probably would not set foot in her church, unless I had a really good reason. Hell might well freeze over before she might set foot in mine.
Her church endorses (I think "endorse" is apropos -- I could be wrong) a form of sacrament mine adamantly opposes. A form of the sacrament of marriage. More precisely, just who can marry whom. Even more precisely, what gender of who can marry what gender of whom. With the public side of the private life of the person doing the marrying mixed in.
When I started this live journal, I made myself a promise I would not use it as an editorial soapbox. I could express my opinion, but I would not try to convince anyone else of it.
I'm going to stick to that tonight. You have the right to your stance on these matters, and I have mine. The reason I'm going on about this is that the titular head of our denomination (called a "communion") met this week with members of its American wing to discuss the issue one-on-one. I don't know what came out of it. I do know this: I do not want a split. Our denomination -- regardless of its many disagreements -- has a certain "take" on Christianity, one that I found friendly to me from the first minutes of attending my first service at one of its churches. I've since then found friends within the traditional form of that denomination, and it has made all the difference in my life since that first day.
It seems to this layman that the current disagreement falls over some fairly fine points of theology (based on variants in certain forms of Biblical exegesis) -- but our two sides hold firm in their viewpoints over that, because both sides feel the issue involved is very important. I agree that it is. I just hope something can be worked out that we can all live with.
I would hate for the argument to one day ruin my rendezvous.
+name changed to protect the atmosphere of my post
LJ orig.: Sept. 21, 2007
It's in a downtown cafe, softly lit for "intimacy," near the corner of a well-worn street in the older part of town. Our eyes meet, we smile, and we think of the passion about to issue forth.
I bring my latest poems of love. She brings her baby and her husband. A bunch of other people are there waiting for us.
Say, wha'?
It's Open-Mic Night at the Gran Cru Cafe+! We join all our friends to share our scars and our stories in the language of verse. Our bag is a blend of many varieties, many experiences, many styles. We poets have our love of life, and we express our passion in words that make their own rules.
What's odd about all this is, that's about the only place we ever meet, she and I and this group of language-lovers. Our backgrounds are frequently in opposition to each other in a town filled with paradox. The crosscurrents and ironies of life are met in sharing verse -- nothing else like it in the world. ("What is the color of a peace conference?" a crayon-wielding Linus asks his dumbstruck sister, Lucy.)
What's really odd is that we get along so well, she and I. On another day of the week, we attend church -- in the same town! The same denomination! We have a lot in common, right?
Wrong. I probably would not set foot in her church, unless I had a really good reason. Hell might well freeze over before she might set foot in mine.
Her church endorses (I think "endorse" is apropos -- I could be wrong) a form of sacrament mine adamantly opposes. A form of the sacrament of marriage. More precisely, just who can marry whom. Even more precisely, what gender of who can marry what gender of whom. With the public side of the private life of the person doing the marrying mixed in.
When I started this live journal, I made myself a promise I would not use it as an editorial soapbox. I could express my opinion, but I would not try to convince anyone else of it.
I'm going to stick to that tonight. You have the right to your stance on these matters, and I have mine. The reason I'm going on about this is that the titular head of our denomination (called a "communion") met this week with members of its American wing to discuss the issue one-on-one. I don't know what came out of it. I do know this: I do not want a split. Our denomination -- regardless of its many disagreements -- has a certain "take" on Christianity, one that I found friendly to me from the first minutes of attending my first service at one of its churches. I've since then found friends within the traditional form of that denomination, and it has made all the difference in my life since that first day.
It seems to this layman that the current disagreement falls over some fairly fine points of theology (based on variants in certain forms of Biblical exegesis) -- but our two sides hold firm in their viewpoints over that, because both sides feel the issue involved is very important. I agree that it is. I just hope something can be worked out that we can all live with.
I would hate for the argument to one day ruin my rendezvous.
+name changed to protect the atmosphere of my post
LJ orig.: Sept. 21, 2007
Friday, March 2, 2012
BASIC Magic
I liked getting them every week. They were interesting, and they were a window on a world I wanted to know more about.
They were flyers that came on, I think, a Thursday. By Friday, most of them were littering the parking lots and sidewalks around our elementary school. I usually took mine home, but sometimes they were at least left in the appropriate trashcan.
They featured a cover story, maybe on a news topic, plus little blurbs for ordering classic literature, usually edited for childrens’ or pre-teens’ reading ability. I ordered a few books, I think, but mostly I just checked out the blurbs to give me some indication of whether or not to get the book out of the library. Sometimes, I did. I remember reading Fahrenheit 451 that way.
They were called the Weekly Reader, and they were published by Scholastic Book Services. Sometime in the early 1980s I recall reading a news story that Scholastic was in serious financial trouble. Book publishing was going through a period of “consolidation,” and Scholastic was getting squeezed out of the business.
Now, it’s worth millions.
It was 1999, maybe 2000. I was covering state news, and I was always hunting for new story ideas. One day, I bought a book (don’t remember what it was) and got charged the Canadian price by mistake. So, at the earliest opportunity, I headed back to the out-of-town bookstore for a “price adjustment.”
While standing at the register there, I noticed something that struck me. The list of bestsellers (I don’t recall if it was the NYT or what) was dominated by a series of books, all with “Harry Potter and ...” in the title. I’d never heard of this series, and I asked the clerk.
She told me some of the books were actually paperback versions of the hardback, published (and this was really strange) while the hardback was still on the bestseller list! Instead of getting my money back for the other book, I pulled out a dollar or two from my pocket to (with the refund) pay for the paperback of the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
I did not finish the book. I did not get the chance.
Someone I worked with saw me with the book as I was preparing my story. She insisted that I sell it to her on the spot, because her daughter just HAD to have one, and have it now! I finished my story, and, five dollars later, the book was hers.
I managed to read about 50 or so pages, plus skims of the rest. And something about this book struck me: its language.
It was written in BASIC English.
BASIC stands for British American Scientific Industrial Commercial.* It is an artificial version of English created by C.K. Odgen and I.A. Richards in the 1920s. I had (many years before that) read their book outlining the concepts behind BASIC. It allowed for proper nouns and new technical terms outside its “basic” vocabulary of 850 words. It also allowed for some British or American “idioms” in its very simple grammar, as well.
BASIC was championed by Winston Churchill as a viable “lingua franca” for world use, and Ogden was also involved in that effort. Beyond that, I’d all but forgotten BASIC. But here before me was a novel written in that language!
The author was no Jane Austen or George Eliot, that was clear. But the way this hitherto unknown “J.K. Rowling” built the narrative was based on the inner structure of BASIC! Each episode was built from smaller story elements very carefully, as if laying one brick on top of another.
While not masterful literature by any stretch, the Harry Potter book I (partially) read instead seemed to be masterful linguistics!
It’s no wonder those books broke records in sales and formed worldwide blockbuster movies. It was in their structure to begin with.
The American publisher who saw what these books could accomplish?
Scholastic.
LJ orig.: 09/12/07
They were flyers that came on, I think, a Thursday. By Friday, most of them were littering the parking lots and sidewalks around our elementary school. I usually took mine home, but sometimes they were at least left in the appropriate trashcan.
They featured a cover story, maybe on a news topic, plus little blurbs for ordering classic literature, usually edited for childrens’ or pre-teens’ reading ability. I ordered a few books, I think, but mostly I just checked out the blurbs to give me some indication of whether or not to get the book out of the library. Sometimes, I did. I remember reading Fahrenheit 451 that way.
They were called the Weekly Reader, and they were published by Scholastic Book Services. Sometime in the early 1980s I recall reading a news story that Scholastic was in serious financial trouble. Book publishing was going through a period of “consolidation,” and Scholastic was getting squeezed out of the business.
Now, it’s worth millions.
It was 1999, maybe 2000. I was covering state news, and I was always hunting for new story ideas. One day, I bought a book (don’t remember what it was) and got charged the Canadian price by mistake. So, at the earliest opportunity, I headed back to the out-of-town bookstore for a “price adjustment.”
While standing at the register there, I noticed something that struck me. The list of bestsellers (I don’t recall if it was the NYT or what) was dominated by a series of books, all with “Harry Potter and ...” in the title. I’d never heard of this series, and I asked the clerk.
She told me some of the books were actually paperback versions of the hardback, published (and this was really strange) while the hardback was still on the bestseller list! Instead of getting my money back for the other book, I pulled out a dollar or two from my pocket to (with the refund) pay for the paperback of the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
I did not finish the book. I did not get the chance.
Someone I worked with saw me with the book as I was preparing my story. She insisted that I sell it to her on the spot, because her daughter just HAD to have one, and have it now! I finished my story, and, five dollars later, the book was hers.
I managed to read about 50 or so pages, plus skims of the rest. And something about this book struck me: its language.
It was written in BASIC English.
BASIC stands for British American Scientific Industrial Commercial.* It is an artificial version of English created by C.K. Odgen and I.A. Richards in the 1920s. I had (many years before that) read their book outlining the concepts behind BASIC. It allowed for proper nouns and new technical terms outside its “basic” vocabulary of 850 words. It also allowed for some British or American “idioms” in its very simple grammar, as well.
BASIC was championed by Winston Churchill as a viable “lingua franca” for world use, and Ogden was also involved in that effort. Beyond that, I’d all but forgotten BASIC. But here before me was a novel written in that language!
The author was no Jane Austen or George Eliot, that was clear. But the way this hitherto unknown “J.K. Rowling” built the narrative was based on the inner structure of BASIC! Each episode was built from smaller story elements very carefully, as if laying one brick on top of another.
While not masterful literature by any stretch, the Harry Potter book I (partially) read instead seemed to be masterful linguistics!
It’s no wonder those books broke records in sales and formed worldwide blockbuster movies. It was in their structure to begin with.
The American publisher who saw what these books could accomplish?
Scholastic.
___
*This is one of the few posts I ever received an independent comment on. It came from "anonymous”, and here it is, title and all:
*This is one of the few posts I ever received an independent comment on. It came from "anonymous”, and here it is, title and all:
‘Basic English
quote “BASIC stands for British American Scientific Industrial Commercial.”
no it doesn’t, the “I” is for “international”, a word invented by Bentham,whose “Theory of Fictions’ provides the rationale for the simplification.’
I have no idea who wrote the comment. All I can do is express my appreciation for his or her correction and clarification.
Also, my judgment on Joanne Rowling's literary abilities were premature (obviously, I thought at the time) and based on a quick glance-over of one novel. Time, as in most things in literature, will tell the tale.
Also, my judgment on Joanne Rowling's literary abilities were premature (obviously, I thought at the time) and based on a quick glance-over of one novel. Time, as in most things in literature, will tell the tale.
LJ orig.: 09/12/07
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