Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in mistonmirror's LiveJournal:

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Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
5:36 pm	Blue Mirror I was looking for a blue mirror, but they’re hard to find online. I’m not sure what I’d do with one, or what I think it’d show.   Black mirrors are supposed to reveal angels, Silver ones the truth (what a depressing thought).   No, a blue one is what I’m looking for.   A little melancholy, a little sweet, A little love lost, some other things replete.   It seems so hard to find one any more.   I’m not sure if it’s me, you or everyone too.  (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 13th, 2008
10:24 am	Banks as spies It almost sounds like a conspiracy theory:  banks tracking the money you move, seeing if you're spending a little extra on kitty kibble, and if so reporting it to the government.  The Spitzer case though shows it's not a far fetched paranoid delusion about government power, but how far we have moved in the direction of Big Brother.   The institution you trust to hold your money, a relationship that should be based on trust and privacy, has been invaded to spy on citizens.  It's simply impossible to look at it any other way.  It's not just large sums of money, it's anything that a bank thinks could possibly be "supsicious activity".   All this was instituted in the name of catching terrorists, Spitzer I'm sure supported the idea.  The fact that this invasion of privacy is now used to catch petty criminals like him shows that there is no segregating the use of power by government.  Once a power is given, a government will use it for whatever purpose it desires.  It makes me want to go to all cash.  (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, September 28th, 2007
2:22 pm	Mama Cass Elliot & Julie Andrews (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 13th, 2007
10:49 am	Random thoughts Reading "China Mountain Zhang", a novel set in a time where socialists have overthrown most of the world, including US and the US has been eclipsed by China.  We have an equivalent of the Cultural Revolution, called the "Cleansing Winds Campaign".  One of the characters is talking about the need for ideological revolution after economic revolution.  The other character simply doesn't believe in ideology, "it's all about power."  Looking at our current system, I'm forced to agree largely.  It is all about power.  I've said before, the difference between the parties in practice is only about 5% in terms of policy outcomes.  So much of political debate, I'm convinced, is to give the illusion of choice.  To keep us frothing at the surface rather than looking at the venal corruption and personal ambition that is truly driving everything.  I don't believe this is conscious on the part of any particular politician; it's just the small compromises each makes to stay in power.  Eventually those compromises accumulate and all you have is a psychologically-displaced (there's a term for this but I can't remember it) person whose main objective is power for it's own sake.  You have Bob Dole referring to himself in the third person; you have Craig from Idaho cynically talking about how to spin the whole bathroom incident.  (The recording of his message on an unintended answering machine, identifying the mechanics of how he was going to survive the political fallout are very illustrative).  I saw the behavior myself first-hand with people like Alan Simpson and Zach Wamp.   In the first case, a lack of any kind of philosophical character (he actually asked me in a policy paper if I was into philosophy or something).  In the latter, I was in the ICU waiting room with him, his family and their cronies while his wife's life was threatened by an unexpected hemorrhage and she was in ICU herself.  Nevertheless, he had to maintain the fake polish, aplomb, detachment, whatever you would like to call it.  But the thirst for power and its translation into presentation and detachment didn't just affect him.  His wife's mother was there equally politicing, and keeping up appearances though her daughter's life was threatened.  (In her defense, she was ostensibly doing some good as well by helping a poor young Mexican girl whose husband was in ICU and she was alone).   The obsession with power and its creation of two-dimensional characters seems like a cartoon villian fantasy.  But from what I've seen it is real.  The Ring really does corrupt anyone who touches it.   Back to my original point with ideology and power.  Is ideology just another tool that cynical rulers use to manipulate the naive masses?  Have there been true ideologues who have gained and maintained power in a democratic system?  Could it be that a representative form of government is necessarily corrosive to the representative's beliefs because of the inherent compromises that must be made?   Was the American Revolution for example a struggle for freedom or, as the British like to portray it, a bunch of rebels who didn't like to pay taxes?   We (the liberal intelligentsia) have developed the habit of looking at all our (recent) wars as exercises in realpolitik.  Of course one dresses up the real motive in flowery speech and ideology, but it's all back to the old exercise of power.  But the masses are no longer buying that story.  I don't know if this is because of increasing cynicism, increasing education, or a generally increasing disinterest in ideas for their own sakes.  Abstractions like "rights" seem to increasingly be falling aside to the benefit of pragmatism.   Ultimately though, I think pragmatism unguided by an ideology, at least some tenets of which are inviolable results first in might is right, and eventually to decay.  (Comment on this)
Friday, May 11th, 2007
12:29 pm	David Bowie & Marianne Faithfull (Comment on this)
12:23 pm	Biographic fantasies One of my favorite, "If I were rich..." fantasies is to consider which people I would make biographic films about.   Two from my list are: Elmyr de Hory, the inspiration for Clifford Irving's lies in the current movie "The Hoax" starring Richard Gere, which is quite good.  I've been interested in his story for a while since I read "Fake!" by Irving.  Actually there's an earlier post here about it.   The second is Marianne Faithfull, one-time girlfriend of Mick Jagger, druggie, wonderful musician in her own right, "Broken English" is one of my favorite albums.  YouTube has a number of interviews and some of her songs.   One particularly funny one is a duet she sings with David Bowie of "I've Got You Babe" while she's dressed as a nun and Bowie is dressed, well, as a Glam Rocker.   Still learning how to do this... (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 1st, 2007
11:13 am	Truth and Anger What good friends you are, each following the other. Seen apart quite often, more rarely abreast. Sometimes wearing each other's clothes. Truth, shy and retiring, needs an introduction from his friend: Anger, well-known and liked by all.     Each unsure without the other.     (Comment on this)
Friday, February 23rd, 2007
2:24 pm	Prosper.com So, one of my new obsessions for the last two or three months has been Prosper.com.  It's a person-to-person lending site based on the same model as micro-lending.  Not so sure it's a direct comparison.  It IS interesting though to browse listings and place bids on people's loans.  I've loaned out $400 worth of $50 bids so far.  I expect some of them will default, but my average interest rate is 19%!   Yep!  Loaning money to strangers over the Internet! There's a whole cottage industry of sites now that have sprung up to support Prosper, think of paypal and ebay.  One of them is lendingstats.com.  My profile:  http://lendingstats.com/memberProfile?lenderId=TXpreneur Laugh.  It's kind of a fun hobby, though weirdly addictive.  Email me or post on here if you're interested in either lending or borrowing and I'll give you some pointers.  (Comment on this)
Friday, January 5th, 2007
6:03 pm	Barbara Allen This is an amazingly beautiful old ballad of either Scottish or Irish roots that's been passed down through Appalachia.  It is also still sung in Scotland/Ireland. This is the Emmylou Harris version.   Barbara Allen ‘Twas in the merry month of May When all gay flowers are blooming, Sweet William on his deathbed lay For the love of Barbara Allen.   He sent his servant to the town To the place where she was dwelling, Said, “you must come to my master’s house, If your name be Barbara Allen.”   So slowly, slowly she did come Unto his bedside goin’, She drew the curtains to one side And says, “young man, you’re dying.”   “I know I’m sick and very sick And sorrow dwells within me. No better, no better I never will be ‘til I have Barbara Allen.”   Don’t you remember last Saturday night When I was at the tavern? You gave your dreams to the ladies’ all, But you slighted Barbara Allen.   He reached up his pale white hands, intending for to touch her, She turned away from his bedside and says “Young man, I won’t have you.”   He turned his cheek unto the wall and bursted out a cryin’, “Adieu to thee, adieu to all and adieu to Barbara Allen.”   She had not more than reached the town, She heard the death bells ringing. And as they rung they seemed to say, “Hard-hearted Barbara Allen.”   “Oh mother, oh mother Come make my bed, Make it both long and narrow. Sweet William died for me today, I’ll die for him tomorrow”   Sweet William was buried in the old churchyard, And Barbara they laid nigh him. And out of his grave grew a red, red rose, And out of hers a briar.   They grew and grew to the old church eave, Where they could grow no higher, And there they tied in a true love knot, The rose wrapped round the briar. (Comment on this)
Monday, November 20th, 2006
4:38 pm	World Fantasy Con Weekend before last I spent at the World Fantasy Convention in Austin, TX.  The number of writers in attendance was amazing.  Out of about 800 attendees, I would guess 300 were writers, and not just aspiring writers with maybe a few short stories published, but virtually all the leading writers in the genre (with the exception of some epic fantasy writers).  The autograph hall had just row upon row of writers.  I probably received about 20 books free, and purchased another 10 (all of which I had signed, of course).   Probably another 200 attendees were involved with publishing in some way.  It was a true professional convention, rather than the fan conventions (ArmadilloCon, AggieCon) I had attended before.  The $150 attendance fee plus hotel, etc. had a lot to do with that, I'm sure (other cons are about $40).  Maybe some of the energy and excitement of the fan conventions was missing (these people were professionals there to network, introduce new books and impress editors).  That was a slight detraction, but overall it was something I am definitely glad I attended.  I sometimes aspire to write, so it was interesting to see what the professional world of writing looks like up close.   Probably half of what I would write would fall in the fantasy category, but though that was the focus, I think these professional Cons are very good for any aspiring writer to attend.  Two other big ones are for Science Fiction and Mystery/Horror.   Some of my favorite writers there: Lynn Flewelling (Nightrunner series) Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn) Kate Elliott (Crown of Stars, which I was just finishing at the convention) Carol Berg (Transformation, she's also a Rice grad) Charlaine Harris (Dead until Dark series; I absolutely love her, she's hilarious.  She was at ArmadilloCon and I spoke to her briefly then.  Since then her books have been optioned by HBO and they're going to do a series based on them.  The series will be directed by Alan Ball (the writer of American Beauty)).   I also met Lisa Tuttle who is a friend of a mutual acquaintance; she's one of the guests of honor next year at the WFC in Saratoga Springs (the focus is going to be on Ghosts and Revenants, Memory, History and Folklore; and what better place than upper NY?).  She wrote one book with George R.R. Martin and won the Nebula Award (though declined it on a point of honor).  A very nice lady, can't wait to start reading her stuff.  My friend Dianne who introduces me to all these new writers I need to read loves her stuff, so I'm sure it's great.    The membership of this convention also votes on the World Fantasy awards (not quite as big as Nebula and Hugo), but pretty darn important.  I didn't register early enough to vote (which is probably a good thing, because I would have had to read all the short list before I could have voted in good conscience). I don't know if I'll go to the one next year in NY, but I might.  I wish I had been able to persuade several of my friends that I had asked to go with me to Austin.  Unfortunately, it seems the idea of a fantasy convention strikes people as far out, or laughable, kinda like a Star Trek fan convention.  These writers' conventions are very different from that.  Oh well, I have at least 3 likely candidates to persuade for next year.   (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 10th, 2006
3:31 pm	Townes Van Zandt... My friend Dianne invited me to watch a movie about Townes Van Zandt several months ago. It was titled, "Be Here to Love Me". Quite good, much better than the usual movies about an artist's life... (Pollock, Walk the Line, etc.). My favorite song so far is this one, which was made famous when Emmy Lou Harris covered it. If I Needed You, Would You Come to Me? If I needed you, would you come to me? Would you come to me to ease my pain? If you needed me, I would come to you. I would swim the seas for to ease your pain. Well, in the night forlorn are the mornings born and the morning shines with the lights of love. And you will miss sunrise if you close your eyes, and that would break my heart in two . Well, lady's with me now since I showed her how  to lay her weary hand in mine. You can live a dream, she's a sight to see,  a treasure for the poor to find. Well, if I needed you, would you come to me? Would you come to me and ease my pain? If you needed me, I would come to you,  I would swim the seas for to ease your pain. I find the second stanza the most moving, at least in Townes' version of the song.  (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 19th, 2006
5:01 pm	I used to know every line to the musical, now I can't even remember all of Fantine's plea on behalf of Cosette, which was my favorite part! I'm Jean Valjean! (No, really.) Some people may see me as a little sanctimonious, but though I care deeply about doing right, I'm not above a little skulduggery in a good cause. Being in touch with my spiritual side doesn't make me an easy target... on the contrary, in fact. Which Les Miserables Character Are You? (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 4th, 2006
5:30 pm	A Romantic Encounter I was reading either "Angels in America" or "1984", I don't remember which, on the train from Florence to Rome. I was facing North, the landscape receding from my view. Normally, I like to sit facing the direction of travel, I feel more oriented and I'm prone to motion sickness, but that day, I'd decided to be adventurous. That semester was my spring in Italy, '95. I know I must have been reading one of those two books, because they were the only ones I read that semester (other than school books, and my one and only Grisham novel, The Pelican Brief, on a bus trip to Sicily). I'd decided to be self-indulgent as well as adventurous on this particular leg of the journey and had bought a first-class ticket, which cost about $20 more. The result was that I had a large seat adjancent to the aisle, facing another single seat. The train was not an express, but stopped at several towns along the route. At one of these stops, what, at the time, appeared to be a middle-aged man, but now I've realized was probably a man in his late twenties to mid-thirties, boarded and took the seat opposite me. I noticed as he was sitting down that he was carrying a violin case, which he placed in his lap, and a duffle bag, which he placed overhead. I looked up, made eye contact as he was sitting down, gave the ghost of a smile considered appropriate in Europe, Italy in particular, and returned to my book. Peripherally, I could see him open the violin case and take something out. The weather outside was somewhat overcast, so as I glanced in the shared window pane, it acted as a mirror. I wasn't sure what he planned to do, playing the violin on the train seeming to be a strange thing. Then I saw he had removed a book from the case. "Hmm, interesting traveling case," I thought to myself as I returned to my book. I sensed he was looking at me. As it happens, I have good peripheral vision, nature's compensation for my poor hearing, I suppose. I unfocused my eyes on the page; he appeared to be writing in his book, but his strokes were very large and he was glancing up and down at me as he wrote. I realized suddenly he was sketching me. I wish I could say I almost laughed at the melodrama, but I can't. I was flattered, then slightly flustered and self-conscious. Fortunately, the book was a handy cover and I pretended I was reacting to something I'd just read by turning the page. I tried to maintain a completely neutral expression to make his sketching job easier. Occasionally, I would smile or frown as if I had read something with which I agreed or disagreed, to give him "coloring" for the sketch. He appeared not to know that I was watching him. After about 10 minutes, I looked up quickly. As quickly, he slammed his book closed on the sketching pad hidden between the pages. I smiled at the air, a dreamer in a reverie, and returned to my book and watching him. After a few minutes, like a young animal coaxed to food from an unfamiliar hand, he cautiously opened his book again and began sketching, more rapidly this time. Of course, I wasn't going to take his food away, and kept my head fixed on the book. After a period of time, he finished the sketch, closed his book and returned it to the violin case. I looked up and closed my own book; we spent the next half hour or so gazing out the window in silence. We stopped again at some small town north of Rome and he got up to leave. I looked up and we made eye contact again; I gave him a slightly less ghostly smile which he returned with a nod and nervous smile and left. (Comment on this)
Monday, January 23rd, 2006
7:42 pm	A Cup of Salt A Cup of Salt I had just got home from class and thrown my books down on the daybed when I heard a knock on the door. A quick glance around the room and I knew I wasn’t letting anyone in to see the mess. I lived in a one room studio apartment that was part of an old Victorian in Somerville, Massachusetts. It had been quite a cold evening, no snow yet but I had walked quickly up the hill from the T-stop to get out of the cold. There were eight apartments total in the large old house. I paid $750, bills included, for my 250 square feet plus bathroom. A testament to the power of federally guaranteed student loans in a college town. The room did have its charms: bay windows and a metal frame emergency exit that doubled as a balcony whenever I was feeling adventurous enough to walk out on it. I had lived there for more than a year and never in that time had anyone living in the place spoken to me other than the landlord. Few people even knew where I lived. I was immediately alarmed, especially since the knock followed so closely on my arrival. I went to the door and looking through saw a middle-aged lady with a page boy haircut, she greatly resembled Anne Rice, whom I had the chance to meet at a book signing in Houston. This probably added to my hesitation, albeit subconsciously. “Um, hi, can I help you?” I asked through the door. “Hi, can I borrow a cup of sugar?” she replied. A quick glance over to my installed metal shelves. No, no sugar. Good. Relief. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any,” I replied. “Well, can I borrow a cup of flour?” she responded. Okay, weird. She was wanting sugar, now flour? What is she, some kind of mooch? I knew I had flour, but there was no way I was opening the door to expose the mess one person can make living in 250 sq ft while cleaning once a month. “Sorry, I don’t have any flour either.” “Well, can I borrow a cup of salt?” was her next question. This time with a slight note of exasperation. A cup of salt?!? Who borrows a cup of salt? Okay, so this woman just wants me to open the door for some reason. Considering how quickly she knocked on the door, she must have been waiting either for me or someone else to come home and moved as quickly as she could when I arrived. The thought of her sitting in her room down the hall, which of course was dark, with a cup in her hand, waiting from me or someone to come home freaked me out. A cup of salt! She’s crazy, like psycho-killer nuts crazy! And she’s just down the hall from me. I snuck another peek through the peephole to see if she was perhaps holding one hand behind her back, maybe to conceal a gun. But no, both of her hands were in sight. “I’m sorry, no I really don’t,” I answered in what I thought was smooth timing and tone considering the request. “Well, can I borrow a cup of anything?” This time the exasperation was clear as was the annoyance. Perhaps a bit of entreaty as well. The entreaty was drowned, however. All I could hear was “can I borrow a cup of salt?” “I’m sorry, but I really don’t cook anything. I’m sorry I can’t help you.” I couldn’t see her expression as she turned and walked back down the hallway. -- I parked my car, a true luxury in Boston, behind the house. There were only enough spots for three cars off-street and we had to align those perfectly. As I squeezed out the door I noticed several shards of glass on the asphalt. “That’s strange,” I thought. As I looked around I began seeing more, all over the parking area. “Hmm, I’ll have to tell Alex about it,” I thought as I walked around the corner of the house to go in the front entrance. Alexan Khachat was the Armenian landlord, a nice guy who always fixed things promptly. I believe he would have been nice even if he weren’t making a fortune off of us. I noticed the glass continued along the ground. I was looking down following the piles of glass when I came round the corned and bumped into Alex. “Oh, hi. I was just going to call you about this. What happened, where did all this come from?” I asked. Alex pointed up. There on the second story, where I hadn’t looked, I saw that all the glasses in the apartment had been broken out. The glass windows ran around three sides of this apartment. Way too damn cold for me, but very nice if you like light. “Jeez. Who did that? Vandals?” I asked. “No, the lady who lived there. She had a nervous breakdown. They took her to a hospital,” he said. It was clear that Alex didn’t want to go into the details of the destruction or how they took her away, whether for my sake or his I was uncertain. He picked up another piece of glass. I thought, “oh, of course she must have broken it from the inside, the glass is outside.” It had snowed in the three weeks since she had asked me to lend her a cup of salt. “She works for one of the art museums. She’d always lived with her father and he died a year or so ago, which is when she moved in here,” he said. Snow was beginning to fall again. Soon the clear glass would become invisible as the flecks gathered. They would become dangerous. “Here, let me help you with that Alex,” I said, as I picked up a small piece. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 28th, 2005
5:54 pm	Short update It's been a very long time since I've written on LiveJournal. A great deal has happened. The funding of my company, personal loss, the purchase of a house. Too much to try to update on. Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! (Comment on this)
Friday, June 3rd, 2005
12:00 pm	Sassafras Tea And so I go roaming through the trees searching for a few leaves a few leaves for me to make a fresh cup of sassafras tea I look around, all I see, a sea of spring nodding at me, and it's hard to find the right green I need, the green I need for sassafras tea And so I visit with the oak and I see bright lobes of three unfurling for me I thank the oak and wish him well but a cup of oak tea would be a bit too bitter, even for me And so on I go visiting with maple, poplar, birch and linden, but none of these to me are lending a few spring leaves to brew a cup resplendent Discouraged I be when finally I see, like a crest on a wave, but surrounded by holly and bay, the light leaves of green, a sassafras tree! I run and expiring say, "please oh Sassafras, a few leaves give to me!" -- "Foolish creature! Blinded by new green! Not my clothes, but the heart of me you seek! My root, my life, it is everything you want, to take and boil and sweeten with steam, just to exclaim, 'my that has a punch to it, wouldn't you agree?'" "I, I didn't know! I was born only three days ago with new spring I came into being" "Well, then you are forgiven. But if you see a full season more, you will learn young and tender passes away, old hearts, tightly-guarded, see many more days" "I hope this then is my only turn: green spring, gold summer and red fall for I do not have the heart to endure the fading of it all." (Comment on this)
Friday, May 27th, 2005
8:18 pm	Watch the eyes!! Well, I just saw Revenge of the Sith for the second time (yeah, I know, I've got a lot of time on my hands right now), it's really quite good. The love scenes are tender, the tension is real, etc. One thing I noticed on the second viewing is that Obi-Wan's eyes change colors! Look at them early in the film and they're brown, later they become blue and green, then brown again. Of course, Anakin's eyes change in a deliberately dramatic way, but it wasn't until the second viewing that I noticed that Obi-Wan's changed as well. (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 12th, 2005
5:37 pm	lyrics from LOTR one part of the soundtrack to the LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring that I really like is the boys' choir singing during the rolling of the credits. it's very ethereal and pre-modern. women sopranos almost always have a vibratto to their singing that, while pleasing in it's own right, is not crystalline. Unfortunately, considering our cultural obsession with pedophiles, boys' choir music and an appreciation for it will probably be looked at increasingly as suspect, which I find very sad, because it is uniquely beautiful. I know a few years ago when I told some acquaintances that I was going to hear the Vienna Boys Choir sing when they were in Houston, it seemed to make them uncomfortable. predators do exist, that's for sure, maybe they're even more prevalent than in previous generations, though I think it's just that we're less naive, but there's a price to be paid for this paranoia. Largely, I think it's the children who are paying this price. One of the members of the Quaker church that I attend said that a recent study found that the only group as socially isolated as the elderly were children. Children need multiple members of the community to take an interest in their lives and development. Perhaps I feel more strongly about this because I had an extended family very much involved in my upbringing, and I think it contributed to my mental and emotional stability, such as it is. But, in our present culture to be too openly smiling or talkative to children of strangers in public settings, is often looked at with skepticism and fear. Can it be healthy for kids to think that the only friendly adults in the world are their parents? I don't see how the chidren of nuclear families raised in cities CAN be mentally stable, honestly. Admittedly, maybe this is a gay paranoia and defensiveness, since we've so often been accused of being de facto predators/molestors. And I'm not a pollyanna, parents should be very cautious about trusting their child's solitary care to anyone. if i were a parent, there are very few people i would leave alone with my kids. evil is prosaic and commonplace, and one really doesn't know. As the current conventional wisdom likes to represent, evil wears a smiling face. but we shouldn't let the fact that there are some predators out turn the future generations of our kids into fearful and distrusting adults. people should feel at least as comfortable, and parents should be as happy for the interest, in smiling and being friendly towards children as they feel patting the head of a stranger's dog, and how many people are reserved about that? it sometimes just seems our whole culture is screwed up, but watching evening news, this topic seems to be the biggest perennial gatherer of ratings, so it's not surprising. But when I compare my experience of the way American adults interact with kids and the way I observed Italian adults interact with children when I lived there for six months, for example, the differences are stark. It's quite clear that Italian culture actively encourages the community's interest in the well-being of children and adults are often solicitious and kind to a stranger's children; no dark motive is automatically presumed. And frankly, I think they're a lot healthier mentally than we are. The children certainly seem happier. anyways, the lyrics, which are rather prosaic when read, but beautiful when heard (though they are seemingly what one adult would say to another rather than a child to anyone, perhaps the reason for their relegation to the credits, though if you listen to the soundtrack it's clear that they're the focus of the entire soundtrack, even more than the Enya song): -- when the cold of winter comes starless night will guide the day with the failing of the sun we will walk in peace on earth but in dreams i can hear your name but in dreams we will be together again when the seas and mountains fall and we count the end of days in the dark i hear your call calling me back, i will go there and back again -- of course, the last line is a reference to "The Hobbit" and is an alternate name for that book. Presumably, they're singing about the love between Aragorn and Arwen, but really they're singing about undying love, and the bonding of two spirits. (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 5th, 2005
10:09 am	$57 Pancakes, and thanks for all the Fish So, last night I went to see Hitchhiker's Guide. Like a friend, one of my favorite moments was the dolphins singing "So long and thanks for all the fish". Is anything cuter than a dolphin? Going to a nerd high school, I'd heard of the book many times but had never read it (like another book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance). However, I did know that 42 was the answer to life, the universe and everything. In fact, now that I think about it, I think that was the name of our high school sci fi club. One thing I considered was the note of sadness I felt when the Earth was blown up. I wonder if it would have had the same resonance before 9/11? Was perhaps more funny and less serious in the past. Of course, I also just watched "The Day the Earth Stood Still" from Netflix. It's a 1951 sci-fi classic where an alien comes from 250 MILLION!! miles away to give a message to Earth: stop your infighting now that you're nuclear or we'll destroy you. An earthling shoots the messenger and his robot, Gort, promptly starts vaporizing everything. (Oh, and one of the crucial moments in history in the "alternate universe" final Enterprise episodes now airing is the shooting of the first Vulcan visitor instead of peaceful greeting). So... I dreamt night before last that I had to go to Neiman Marcus' to buy some new face wash. I bought some Tea Tree face wash (which cost $20), then I wanted to have breakfast there as well, so I ordered pancakes. I knew somehow they were going to be $20 for the pancakes but I remember they were relatively good. Then across from me was a black woman and her two (or three?) children. They started with having a drink, then the kids wanted lunch and ordered some box lunches. She got up to go pay and her bill was more than $500 for the lunch, which she seemed annoyed at her kids for ordering, but somehow resigned to pay. Then I began to think my lunch bill was going to be outrageous also, and when I went to pay, the cashier presented me a bill for $57. And I responded, "I'm not going to pay $57 fucking dollars for some pancakes" and threw the ink pen at the stand behind her. At which point, she became quite solicitious, while the other customers standing in line with me were smiling in complicit agreement with my assessment. She said, "oh, but it's $20 for the face wash, and $20 for the pancakes, and the other charges are service fees..." At which point, I woke up. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2005
12:39 am	Dreams of mind control I dreamt last night that I was strapped to a an operating chair/table and a psychiatrist/doctor was attempting to break my will. One of the interesting parts of it was that my grandparents were there, and that this was something that they were encouraging, and that I wished to do. The "treatment" was quite painful, but after the normal regimen, both the doctor and myself knew it had not succeeded and that my will was intact. It was unclear whether the goal was to truly break my will or make me so strong that my will could not be broken. I knew we were going to have to escalate the "treatment" to the next level which involved smearing some kind of ointment on the inside lower eyelid (probably cause I had an eye infection a few weeks ago). At that point, with a feeling of dread, I woke up. One of my first thoughts when I woke up was I understand now the type of delusions people have who say they've been abducted by aliens and had their thoughts reprogrammed. It felt quite like a memory being recovered, though I'm obviously sure it's not. Maybe there's something Jungian to such dreams... after all it's the basic premise of Dianetics that L. Ron Hubbard drew on, the idea that we're all programmed while we're in "suggestive" and receptive states under anesthesia. Perhaps a type of primal fear. Now there were several things that probably contributed to the formation of this dream: I'd had a long conversation with a friend about "breaking out" of patterns and my willingness/unwillingness to change. We also talked about my feelings of having to "endure", which probably influences the ambiguity of the doctor's goals: strengthen or break the will? Also, right before I went to bed, I was reading "Murder for Profit" the first real psychological portrayal of serial killers, which was written by William Bolitho in 1926. I came upon this book, which was last printed in 1964, from a reference in "Jeb and Dash: A Diary of Gay Life, 1914-1945" which is a fascinating book. It's always interesting to read the words that someone else read a lifetime ago and compare one's own reaction to theirs 80 years ago. There are five profiles, and the one I read was of a gruesome murder (but which lacked in gorey details): a young killer of 20 years old kills an entire family, including 5 children. The name of this person was Troppmann, a Frenchman. I think more than the killing itself, is the final description of Troppmann's resistance and bucking as he's being led to the guillotine. Normally, I avoid these types of books. I don't like or watch Horror movies, by and large, unless they're psychological thrillers like Silence of the Lambs or Basic Instinct. I don't like the slash-and-hack, jump-out-of-the-shadows type movies, they disturb me and give me nightmares usually. I think I empathize too strongly with the victims. My mother is the same way; I recall when we were kids going to see "Gremlins" and her inability to go to sleep without double-checking under the beds for two weeks (in all fairness, her house is a horror book setting, out in the middle of dark woods with no one around). And I think the final bit of magic in the brew is that I have a pair of raccoons that have moved into my attic and I'm anxious about how to deal with them. The Bureau of Animal Control will loan cages, but when they pick them up, they kill them. I can't quite bring myself to have something killed that's lived under the same roof with me. So, now I'm trying to figure out how long and when to leave the cages out (because I don't want them to be caught in the middle of the night and have to suffer in a small cage). A friend has agreed to help me take and release them by putting the cages in the back of his truck. But I want to do this quickly, these raccoons are destructive! They've chewed a hole under the porch eave and I'm paranoid I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night and see a raccoon peering down into the bedroom! laugh, kinda silly actually. (5 Comments |Comment on this)