Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Eat Me!

Via my erudite colloquist, Santa Fe's and Las Vegas, NM's, most eloquent sarcast and talented filker, Jim Terr, the man in this "compelling" image is a cannibalistic, Hindu monk.

Jim wrote--and it sounds convincing, but you gotta also remember that he's also expert in "word games" (the one in which you invent meanings for real words--Izzat called "Wordsworth?"), so this COULD be entirely the production of his fevered imagination:
"Aghori: Human-Flesh Eating Monks The Aghori or Aghora are a Hindu sect believed to have split off from the Kapalika order (which dates from 1000 AD) in the fourteenth century AD. Mans. Because they believe that Shiva created everything they consider nothing to be bad. For this reason they engage in a variety of sexual practices (for example they perform a secret Tantric ritual involving sex with a lower caste, menstruating woman during which the Aghori becomes Shiva and his partner Shiva’s female energy), they drink alcohol, take drugs, and eat meat. Nothing is considered taboo. But the thing that makes their ancient traditions bizarre is that they are also practicing cannibals and their temples are cremation grounds.
He claims he just cut and pasted from the net; you decide...Me? If true, it seems to me to illustrate something I've long believed: "There's nothing of which humans are capable which at some time or another has NOT been both a sacrament and a sin."

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Apologies? Not Quite...

This earnest and intense message appeared the other day, on Fuckerberg's Folly, and in reply I wrote:
Awwwwww. Isn't that sweet? (Or is it? Actually, depending on your reading, that line "Sorry People of IslaM' sounds kind of ironic and dismissive.)
A pretty, blonde girl explains it all...and that ALWAYS makes EVERYTHING all right!
Muslims, mostly--like the rest of us--are simple folk.
When their countries are occupied, USer/christian drones are dropping bombs and missiles on 'em, their friends, relatives, children and elders are slaughtered , and they are vilified in media and the pulpit, and even assaulted just for BEING "Muslim" in the west, they might be excused if they're confused about what "real" 'America' and/or "real" 'christianity' DOES represent and/or intend...

It would confuse me, too; maybe enough for me to reply violently...

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Curiosity Lands On Mars

This is riveting. I couldn't look away.
Working frame-by-frame, it took me four weeks to produce this video. It was a painstaking labor of love. You can support my efforts with a donation or a message of support. Ultra-resolution, smooth-motion, detail-enhanced, color-corrected, interpolated from the original 4 frames per second to 30 frames per second. This video plays real-time at the speed that Curiosity descended to the surface of Mars on August 6, 2012. Share this video with your friends. I think it's wonderful that everyone on Earth has a chance to see this amazing footage from Mars :) Produced by Bard Canning.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Watts Up?


I'm 66. I started using cannabis recreationally, on a regular basis (every day, when I had it), since I got out of the Service (USAF) and went back to university in 1968. I still do (I just did!)...

 I met Alan Watts once; it was the fall of '70. Spent a week-end in a literature/philosophy retreat as part of a seminar, my first year on my first Masters (which I never completed), at which he was the featured guest.

Fot the class, we'd read Psychotherapy, East & West, and The Book (On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are). The gathering was held at someone's house, a sprawling place along the River, by the bosque, in the near North Valley. There were about a dozen or so of us, perhaps 15: faculty, students, and locals with connections with the profs or the hosts. It was informal, but serious, long-lasting, but good-natured discussions ensued.

This was the height of the '60s: Meals were prepared, cooperatively; everybody pitched in, washed dishes, emptied ashtrays, rebuilt the fire, whatever.  We students had sleeping bags and crashed wherever, whenever.

 The conversations occurred amid a gentle swirl of foods, snacks, wine, beer, and weed, over a Friday night, and all day (and night) Saturday, and then all day Sunday. I now wish, of course, that I'd had the ability to record those sessions.

Watts had to catch a plane Sunday evening, and I drove him to the airport. Upon delivering him, he shook my hand and remarked: "You're a remarkably clever young man." Which I took and still take, as a compliment.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Dog Day

This is utterly brilliant! I do not know what agency does VW's ads, but they're fuuking GENIUSES!